‘Can he hear us, Mum? Is he deaf? No one told me he was deaf,’ she says, feeling suddenly annoyed at her parents and this boy. Why was everyone acting different?
‘Don’t be rude, Sophie. He’s just taking it all in,’ her mum replies, her voice cheery, but Sophie hears a warning in her tone too. ‘Remember your promise?’
Sophie nods, feeling a lump in her throat. She was only asking a question. Her vision starts to blur but she doesn’t want to cry. Her dad will say she’s attention-seeking, like he always does anytime she gets upset.
Sophie flops on to her belly and pushes the colouring book closer to the fire. She moves the line of pens to within Matthew’s reach and then bends her head over the picture of the unicorn, forcing herself to concentrate on the rainbow pattern she’s beendoing for the mane. It’s taking ages but looks really good.
There’s a movement beside her but she keeps on colouring. From the kitchen, she hears the pop of a lager can and her dad’s long thirsty slurp.
Matthew shuffles his bottom backwards, easing himself slowly on to his belly like Sophie. His short, chubby fingers reach out and touch a pen, messing up the line.
A second later he picks up the orange and dabs the nib on to the page, making a tiny orange dot. He pauses, as though expecting someone to tell him to stop. Then he leans forward and drags the orange pen back and forth in long scribbles across the top of the picture where Sophie was planning to colour a blue sky.
‘Well done, Matthew,’ her mum says. ‘Great job. Isn’t that a great job, Sophie?’
Her picture is completely ruined but Sophie nods and pretends it’s OK. He’s only five after all. Her friend Charlotte’s little cousin is bad at colouring too.
‘Are they flames?’ Sophie asks him, tapping her pen on the orange scribble.
He doesn’t reply. His face is turned back to the fire, his eyes staring into the flames like it’s the best TV show in the whole world.
Chapter 10
Thursday, 13 June
Jenna
I slip out of the house early, before anyone wakes, before Stuart can ask me in a voice groggy with sleep if I’m in a fit state to work. I know the answer, but I also know that work is the only distraction from you. I might be jumpy, my nerves shot, I might have barely slept, but the hospital is the only place I want to be right now.
Westbury is eerily quiet as I drive through the streets, like the town itself is still tucked up in bed with the duvet pulled over its head. I pass the metal grilles of the shut-up arcades and the motionless rides of the funfair. There are a few runners and dog walkers on the pavements, a delivery van pulled up outside a kebab shop, and a man who is picking up litter dumped on the beach.
The town has a long pedestrianized high street – a mile-long strip of shops that cuts through the centre, all the way from the seaside and funfair at one end to the college and train station at the other.
It’s a Poundland-and-Primark kind of place rather than John Lewis and Boden. The kind of high street with empty stores that become pop-up shops at Christmas, selling garish festive jumpers and twinkling lights that will break after a day.
The hospital is another mile beyond the college on the way out of town. It’s set back from the road behind three huge car parks and gardens with a man-made lake. The buildings are a mix of old and new. The old – two tower blocks in pale-grey cement, built in the sixties and hideous; and the new – an entrance, an outpatients’ area and A&E, rebuilt just before I started here twelve years ago. The new parts are one-storey and built in sandy-yellow with large windows.
I’m at my locker, sweating and breathless, just before seven a.m. It’s not the heat that’s making my skin clammy, although the air outside is already insufferable; it’s you and the ‘What’s next?’ question I can’t shake from my mind.
I close my locker and tighten my ponytail.
‘Hi Jenna,’ Thomas smiles, stepping into the locker room. ‘I got you a coffee.’
‘Really? Thanks. You didn’t need to do that.’ I take the coffee and breathe in the earthy bitter smell I love so much.
‘I thought you might need it after yesterday.’
My mouth drops open a little and for a moment I think Thomas is talking about the doll in my kitchen. I want to ask him how he knows, but then I remember the car park last night and the way you whispered my name. What would’ve happened if Thomas hadn’t come along then?
‘Thanks for your help last night.’
‘Anytime.’ He smiles. ‘If you fancy getting a quick sandwich at lunchtime, you know I’m …’
‘I’d love to, but I’ve got to run into town quickly. Another time?’
‘Sure,’ he says, his smile fading a little. ‘Well, I’d better get in there.’
Thomas strides away and I sink down on to the chair for a moment and sip my coffee. ‘Game face on, Jenna,’ I say to myself, smiling a little as I think of Diya.
