First Aid (8 page)

WITHOUT A BED
to disentangle herself from, Ella came clean out of sleep before the alarm went off, cold and conscious of the floorboards. She checked the time. Five thirty. The moments that usually piled themselves up like bedclothes fell away. She switched off the clock. Her shoes, bag and keys were arranged beside her at eye level. She got up, put the shoes on and kicked the cushion to one side. Then, having picked up the bag and the keys, she opened the door of the shop, locked it behind her and was immediately out in the still air and grey light. The parked cars had a film of dew on them and the sky was hazy, though it wouldn't stay pale. Within an hour it would be blue and the sun would blaze down. She walked down the street to the sea front, moving quickly because she felt cold on the inner side of her skin from waking too early. When she got to the promenade everything was shut. The stalls and the shops were dead. The kiosks, which sold ice cream and cold drinks, looked like crates that were about to be hoisted up on to a container boat and taken across the Channel. The flowers in the middle of the mini roundabout were closed up, showing the dull side of their petals.

Then the pace changed. She had too much time. She waited for the first café to open so that she could get a cup of tea and a packet of crisps, waited for the woman to arrive by car and unlock the municipal toilets, waited for the bus to take her to Dover. She sensed, for the first time, that the beginning of the day was precarious. The woman with the key might roll over and fall asleep again.

She got off the bus and walked up the steep road that climbed out of Dover towards the castle. The houses rose in irregular steps to accommodate the hill, and the cars were forced into low gear. Peter and Tara lived near the top.

Amber, the previous owner of the house, had been a bed and breakfast landlady with exuberant taste. She had dressed up the porch with climbing greenery and tucked coloured lanterns and wind chimes into the leaves. Peter and Tara had borrowed a ladder and taken the decorations down, but the vegetable life remained lush and spiralled round the spaces where they had once fitted, a reminder of more festive times. Amber's personality had gradually been wiped out. The silver paint on the front door, the stripes on the barley-sugar banisters, the bubbling jet in the back garden – they had all had to go. Ella had told her mother about Amber, and Jo had drawn a picture of her – all wild hair and shiny boots. Jo had said that Peter and Tara had used up their only portion of waywardness in leaving their wife and husband, herself and the unknown Steve. Who was Steve? Since then, Jo said, they had gone back to being humdrum.

Ella stood outside the front door, now covered up with a safer paint. Today was Saturday, so her father would be at home. Shopping list, shopping, gym. He would only be at the first stage. His arrangements ran like a child's news written in a school exercise book. I woke up . . . then I . . . then I . . . He crossed off the day's activities as he went along. She didn't know whether, when no one was there to check up on him, the routine blew apart, but she hadn't caught him out yet. She wondered whether he had always been as predictable. She couldn't remember. She hadn't thought of him as abnormal when they had all been together. Once he'd gone, she had looked at him in a different way.

She had carried on seeing him once every two or three weeks, but her memories of him, muddled up, in the usual way, with family stories and photographs, stopped joining up with the present. Before, the slightly greyer, heavier dad-figure in the old black jersey had been easily swapped with the younger version, who had admired her balancing on the wall by the newsagents and lost her on Deal pier, but the conjuring trick had ended when he left.

She hesitated in the porch, and then knocked. The door opened straight away. Peter and Tara were both standing on the other side of it, dressed for the weekend in similar leisure wear. Tara was holding a clutch of car keys.

‘Sorry,' Ella said. ‘You're on your way out.'

‘Well, we were,' Tara said. ‘But not now.'

She smiled and gave Ella a kiss. The front door opened directly into the sitting room, so they were already there, with the sofa and chairs in an instant interior. Peter shut the door behind them.

‘How are you doing?' said Peter.

‘I'm all right,' said Ella.

The carpet on the floor was spotless and pale. She could never believe how spotless and pale.

‘Everything going fine?' said Peter. ‘What do you fancy doing?'

‘I don't mind,' Ella said. ‘I'll fit in with you. I might not stay long.'

Vince's fiver had already disintegrated into small change. She was hoping that Peter had some spare cash.

He switched on the Ceefax news pages. Airport holiday chaos. A child missing in Cumbria. The soundtrack, which had no connection with the written pages, was of splashes and excited screaming. He clicked on to the weather.

Ella looked past Tara's shoulder into the kitchen. It was like the inside of a bathtub, scrubbed, nothing visible.

‘I didn't have breakfast. Is there anything to eat?' Ella said.

‘Yes, of course,' he said. ‘Well, no, actually. There isn't. We were just on our way to do the weekly shop.' He patted his pocket to see if his wallet was still there.

‘There's half a melon,' said Tara. ‘One of those small pink ones.'

Peter switched off the television.

‘It's going to be another hot one,' he said.

‘A piece of toast?' asked Ella.

‘No, I don't think even that,' Peter said. ‘Ridiculous, isn't it? We don't really buy bread. I can make you a cup of coffee without milk, if you fancy that. I tell you what. I think there might be an oatcake.'

‘No, thank you,' she said.

‘Sorry,' said Peter. ‘It's stupid not having anything in. I mean, people do come round off the stick end.'

‘When?' asked Ella.

‘Well, since you mention it, it's true, they don't,' said Peter. ‘But basically it's a nice idea.'

‘We're always seeing people,' Tara said. ‘Ella will think we haven't got any friends.'

‘We have got friends, haven't we?' Peter said.

‘Don't worry, Dad,' Ella said. ‘It's not a big deal. Look, I'll come with you, shall I? I can stick some stuff in the trolley.'

Peter looked gratefully at her. ‘You sure?'

She nodded.

‘Have you got the towels for the gym, darling?' Tara said.

‘What for?' asked Peter.

‘I thought it was easier if we had the things in the car.'

‘We don't have to decide now,' he said.

‘You mean we might not go to the gym?'

‘I don't know,' Peter said. ‘We'll leave it open. Ella's here. We might go out for a bite to eat or something.'

‘It's all right, Dad,' Ella said. ‘I've got things to do. Let's just get in the car.'

Ella sat in the middle of the back seat to get a view. She didn't want to stare at either of their heads. Peter started the car and they drove up the hill.

‘Have you got the day off?' Tara said.

‘Sorry, Tara?' Ella said.

‘I thought you worked on Saturday morning,' Tara said, ‘at that shop.'

Tara didn't turn round to talk. As soon as they had begun to move she had pulled down the mirror flap above the windscreen and was now squashing her nose to one side with a finger, to look at an invisible blemish.

‘Not always,' Ella said.

‘How is everyone?' Peter said.

‘Usual.'

The road was curvy and Ella remembered how she used to feel when she was little and car-sick. It was just the edge of a feeling.

‘Are they doing anything special today?' Peter said.

‘Shouldn't have thought so,' Ella said. ‘Special doesn't often come into it.'

‘Did you remember the list, pet?' Tara said.

‘No, it doesn't matter does it?' asked Peter. ‘Ella wants things. We'll go up and down the rows.'

Tara snapped the mirror back shut and looked out. They were slowing down. Ella opened the windows on both sides to let in some air, then moved over behind Tara and let her hands trail out in the stream of air. Her fingernails were dirty arcs on the ends of her fingers.

‘We don't often get stuck here do we?' said Tara. ‘Do you think it's road-works?'

‘Could be,' Peter said.

They moved forward slowly. A wasp flew in and out again. Ella sat still. Tara and Peter didn't notice it.

‘What's Rob doing? We haven't seen him for a while,' Tara said.

‘Not sure,' Ella said.

‘He gets on well with your mum's boyfriend, doesn't he? He was telling me,' Tara said.

Ella said nothing.

‘They play beach football together,' Tara said.

‘Do they?' Ella said.

‘Is it true about the kinky van?'

‘Don't know,' Ella said.

‘Your mum's boyfriend's van. Rob was saying he's painted all angels and flowers over it. Sounds weird.'

‘I didn't hear him say that,' Peter said.

‘It's different now,' Ella said. ‘He's always changing it.'

‘So what's it like at the moment?' Tara said.

‘Just freaky colours. That time it said “Straight to Heaven with Felpo your Fully Independent Funeral Director”.'

‘That's a bit sick, isn't it? If you'd just lost someone,' said Tara. ‘Felpo, that's right. I wonder where he got that name from.'

They overtook a broken-down lorry. It took a couple of minutes to negotiate. Then the road straightened and they started to speed up. Ella's hair blew across her face. She let it float about.

‘Would you say he was creative, Ella? That might be the appeal for your mum. She's quite alternative, isn't she?' Tara said.

‘When I was young no one ever said creative,' Peter said. ‘They talked about imagination. Teachers used to say you had one if you could think of pictures to draw and stories to write when they couldn't be bothered to think up a title. I was never any good at that kind of thing.'

‘I couldn't have stood it,' Tara said. ‘You're the next generation, you and Rob, you don't want someone else breezing in and being original all over the place.'

‘Ella's always had an imagination,' Peter said. ‘I don't know who she gets it from. Not from me, that's for sure.'

They drove in silence for about ten minutes, then joined a line of cars that were waiting to turn right for the trading estate.

‘That bloke in the red Beemer, do we know him? He just smiled at me,' Tara said.

‘Shouldn't think so,' said Peter, looking straight ahead. ‘But he's got good taste.'

‘You sometimes see those photos, don't you?' Tara said. ‘Would you trust this man? And you always know. I do, anyway, it's instinctive.'

‘How do you check up?' Peter said.

They were edging round the store car park now.

‘Oh, I can't remember. They tell you. You turn the page upside down.'

‘How do they know? The people who devise the test? It doesn't sound very scientific,' Peter said.

‘Your dad's so literal-minded, Ella,' Tara said.

She paused and uncrossed her legs.

‘Try to find a space on top, Peter, I can't stand that ramp,' she said.

‘I'll do what I can.'

‘You just missed one.'

‘It wasn't big enough.'

‘Well, go round again.'

‘Look,' said Peter, ‘there isn't anywhere up here. Do you want to get out, Tara, and we'll meet you at the front, by the veg?'

Peter stopped the car just before the entrance to the underground car park. The driver behind hooted. Tara got out, walked to the trolley stack then turned round and waved. Ella looked away. She leant forward and wrapped her arms across the empty front passenger seat. Peter drove slowly down the ramp with his lights on. The bends were tight and each one was streaked with coloured car paint where people had missed.

‘
Is
it all right at home?' asked Peter, into the darkness.

‘Sort of,' she said.

The mental pictures she saw as she spoke were just that, pictures, framed and at a distance. There were two of them. Rob, Gran, Grandad and her mother, sitting round the table, the jug of water, the vegetable dishes with the green and gold rims, the curtains drawn, the lights on. The other was of their kitchen at home. Jo was lifting Annie up to the sink to wash her hands, saying silly things to her, making her laugh. Her mother's hair was tied back from her face. No one else was there.

‘I could do with getting out more,' she said. ‘Doing stuff with friends. But it always works out so expensive.'

‘What time of day are we talking about?'

‘Not late.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘‘Course.'

‘I sometimes think that your mother hasn't got her eye on the ball. I suppose it's no good asking you whether she has or hasn't.'

‘Not really.'

‘I never know why there are puddles down here,' said Peter. ‘It hasn't rained for weeks.'

He parked the car next to a concrete pillar, shuffled in his wallet and passed some notes to Ella.

‘Cheers, Dad,' she said and kissed his left cheek.

THE LIGHT WAS
bright, not early-morning light. Jo heard drilling in the road, shouts above the drilling and the outside voices of people properly awake. Where was Annie? The smell was familiar; furniture polish from a yellow tin, yesterday's cooking fat, trapped dust. She shifted out of sleep and her feet met the end of the sofa. So, she was at home; her first home, the place where the solution hadn't been found but where they still, the three of them, had managed to live.

The day was too far on. Jo was wide awake and anxious. She got up and went over to the window that looked out over the narrow back garden. She undid the catch and unscrewed the bolts. The sliding parts didn't want to move, so she hit both sides hard with her fists. The painted wood budged and she opened the window wide, top and bottom, and let in the London air. It was no different from what was inside – tepid and motionless. She knelt down and rested her arms on the sill.