Critical Incidents. Lucie Whitehouse
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started churning, and by the time they’d reached Warwick Services, it had felt completely empty or at least gnawing in some other way that made eating fifteen quid’s worth of Burger King seem like a good idea. Whoppers, milkshakes, the works – no section of the menu overlooked. Now she had stomach ache and she felt sick.
Across the table, Lennie’s stomach was a toddler-style pot under her Blondie T-shirt. She put her hands on it and grimaced. ‘Ugh. I feel like I’ve swallowed a sofa cushion. Full of grease.’
‘It was a two-seater. I got the fluff and loose change from down the back, too.’
Lennie laughed and for a moment, everything seemed brighter. There was still a chance this would all be irrelevant in the grand scheme, wasn’t there? A blip. Once, on one of the long nights when Lennie was a baby, she’d whispered in her ear that together, they could do anything. She would do anything for her, of course; but also, because of her, she, Robin, could do anything. Right, said a snide voice.
She stood quickly and began piling their rubbish onto the trays, crushing her burger box with a savagery that startled Lennie from her texting. ‘Once more unto the breach?’
A thump, hard but fleshy, as if a large bird – a pheasant, even a swan – had dropped from the sky and landed deadweight on the roof. They both jumped but a second later a smirking face loomed at the passenger-side window. For the love of god. Robin took a long breath then pressed the button to lower the glass.
‘Luke.’
Her own eyes looked back from a face that was her own, too, but pale and more defined, the jaw made square by pads of muscle. ‘Shocked you, did I? What are you doing sitting back here? There’s a parking spot outside.’
‘Someone must have just gone.’
Her brother made the yeah, right expression he’d been giving her since he was six. ‘How are you, Lennie? Can’t be many people who’ve staked out their own grandparents. Old habits dying hard, Rob?’
She flung the door open and moved to get out, remembering at the last second that she’d undone her jeans. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Same as you – come to spend time with the rentals. Though just the afternoon in our case.’ He smirked again.
Robin came round to the pavement and stooped to look at the roof. She couldn’t see a dent, but still. ‘Why would you hit my car, you … fuckwit?’ she hissed.
‘Afraid it’ll affect the resale value? What?’ The injured innocence he did so well. ‘You’re going to have to sell it, aren’t you, if you’re as broke as Mum says? Can’t drive an Audi if you’re begging. Even if it was second-hand.’
‘We’re not begging.’ She glanced at Lennie, just getting out, then glared at him: Watch it.
‘Would you be back here if you weren’t?’
‘Hiya, Lennie. Robin.’ Natalie, Luke’s wife, lunged at them. She was like a newly hatched bird, Robin thought, all beak, eyes and pushy hunger, thrusting herself into the middle of every situation to ensure she wasn’t overlooked or slighted in some other unguessable way. Her fringe absorbed make-up from her forehead and hung in damp-looking, fresh-from-the-egg strands.
‘Right.’ Robin opened the boot. ‘Since you’re here, Luke, make yourself useful.’ She handed him a box. ‘It’s only light.’ She wasn’t going to give him an excuse to put his back out and malinger with his PlayStation for weeks. ‘Natalie, have you got a spare hand? It’s just a bag of—’
‘Sorry.’ She held up a set of lilac claws. ‘I’ve just had my nails done.’
On balance, Robin thought as she locked the car, Luke had done her a favour accosting her out here. Better to have the opening skirmish under her belt than walk into an ambush. And being pissed off was useful, armour of a sort. She’d thought she was over the worst but as she’d turned into Dunnington Road, she’d felt a moment of suffocating panic. Here it all was again, as if the sixteen years in between had just fallen away – collapsed: the pairs of Fifties semis facing off across the wide street, their bay windows netted prissily against anyone who could be bothered to peer over the rosebushes or the brace of mid-range saloons in the tiny front gardens. It was all so low-rise, so stunted: nothing reached higher than two storeys. The sky yawned overhead for bleak white acres, uninterrupted. She was seized by a sense of personal jeopardy, actual threat: if she was under it too long, exposed, it would suck out her soul.
As they rounded Terry Willett’s white Ford Transit – the bane of her mother’s existence, herself aside, for twenty-five years – she saw number 17 for the first time and waiting in the ground-floor bay, trapped like a bug between glass and net curtain, her dad. She watched him light up like he’d heard it was Christmas. In a whisk of nylon lace he was gone. ‘Chrissie,’ she imagined him bellowing, ‘they’re here!’
Seconds later, the outer porch door opened. Lennie ran to him, the bag bumping against her back. ‘Hello, sweetheart.’ He held her away to look at her. ‘You’ve grown again, haven’t you? Who said you could do that?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve got some Creme Eggs in for you – we’ll have one after lunch.’
Lunch.
Lennie turned, eyes wide. Robin shook her head: Say nothing.
They could smell it now, the scent wafting through the open door: roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, carrots, sprouts, peas and god knows what else. Shit. Why hadn’t her mother said something? No – why hadn’t she known? Of course she was going to cook the fatted calf. And that was why Luke and Natalie were here, wasn’t it? Luke wouldn’t drive five minutes to see her but he’d never miss a free lunch.
Over Natalie’s head, her dad winked. When the others had moved inside, he took her bags then pulled her into a hug, crushing her face into his sweater. His smell, it never changed: Ariel detergent, Camay soap and, faint but unmistakeable, the stealthy cigarettes that he disappeared off to smoke twice a day and still believed her mother knew nothing about. Her ribcage buckled as he gave her a final squeeze. ‘Good to have you back, love.’
‘I knew you’d be later than you said so I aimed for three o’clock and it’s a good job I did, isn’t it? Was there traffic?’ Christine slid the potatoes back into the oven, straightened up and retied the apron over her cream blouse and floral skirt. The pattern was yellow roses, not unlike the one on the oven gloves, the blinds and the covered stools. Robin felt like a biker crashing the Women’s Institute garden party.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Hello.’ Christine touched her cheek briefly to hers. ‘I’ll get the greens going now you’re here. So was there?’
‘What?’
‘Traffic.’
Robin glanced at Lennie. A couple of minutes ago, when she was bringing in her suitcase, Lennie had come racing out of the house to tell her there were starters – ‘Cheese soufflé!’ – and pudding, too. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Nothing. And not a word.’
‘But …’
‘We eat. Just do your best.’
The tea towels, Robin noticed, had the roses, too. ‘It was pretty busy,’ she said. ‘Especially round the Oxford turn.’ Before the epic Burger King, they’d had several goes at catching a stuffed pink alligator with a mechanical claw, and they’d lingered round the books in Smith’s so long they’d attracted the security guard.
‘It’s normally worse going into London, isn’t it?’ Christine said, sorting broccoli florets into portions. ‘How nice, to have Elena here.’ She turned and gave her a side-hug. ‘Now, the boys are having a beer, Robin, and there’s lemonade.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Natalie’s not drinking at the moment but don’t make a song and dance about it.’
‘Really?