A faint, muffled voice reaches me through the closed door.
“Adam?”
I stand up from the armchair, banging my head on the swinging bulb above as I grope toward the door.
My brother-in-law’s voice comes again. “Adam? Are you in there?”
I take a step toward the door, catching my shin on the edge of the dresser.
“Hang on a second.”
My fingers find the handle and I pull it open, squinting into the brighter light.
“Jess said I’d probably find you here.” Dom looms into the low doorway, his jeans speckled with white paint. “So this is whereyou’re spending half your time nowadays—what are you evendoingin there,with the door shut?”
“Just having another look at the wallet. And… I wanted to check if I could hear anything when the door was closed.”
He gives me a quizzical glance. “Obviously you couldn’t hear me shouting for you downstairs. Dinner’s ready. And I’m starving.” He turns to go.
I put the old wallet down on top of the dresser and pull the light cord, plunging the little room back into darkness.
Dean
He had enough fish and chips for the two of them.
It was the least he could do, after today. The lad didn’t have to help him carry his stuff in, didn’t have to wait while the key was sorted, didn’t have to hang around until he’d checked the water was on, the electrics worked, the radiator warmed up. The lad—Dean couldn’t remember his name—was a volunteer so it wasn’t as if he was even getting paid for his time.
But everyone liked fish and chips.
When things got bad, it was easy to forget there were still good people out there. People who wanted to help. The rehab lady, who’d persuaded him to open up about what he’d done, what had been done to him. This lad from the charity who had driven the Transit, helped him unload second-hand furniture for the little bedsit.
The new place was OK. The kitchen floor might be sticky but there was no black mold on the wall, no mouse droppings behind the fridge, not too many stains on the mattress. The little cupboard by the stove was empty apart from half a packet of sugar and a couple of sachets of instant coffee. But Dean still had two ten-pound notes nestling in his wallet, safe in the back pocket of his jeans. He would spend them on food to fill the cupboard, nothing else. And proper food, pasta and vegetables and stuff. No crap. No drugs. No more booze. A fresh start.
It was better than the halfway house, miles better than the last place—although that wasn’t difficult. The main thing was that she didn’t know where he was. That her new bloke didn’t know, that he didn’t have to do his psycho routine again just to prove he was the big man.
Dean retrieved the probation letter from one of his half-dozen plastic bags and laid it on the little side table to read later, when he’d had something to eat. That stuff had never come easy to him, the letters always shifting and jumping on the page. He could recognize the shape of his own name printed at the top of the page in black capitals—Dean Fullerton—but only by the angles and lines made by the letters rather than because he could see the order they were in.
He got two chipped plates out of the cupboard, hunted around until he found a knife and two forks that looked clean enough. A first meal to christen the new place. He put one of the paper-wrapped packages—cod and large chips with plenty of salt and vinegar—onto the bigger plate and then began to unwrap his own, grease from the chips already soaking through the plain paper onto his fingers.
“I got enough plates,” Dean said, mustering a hopeful smile. “You can stay and eat here, if you want.”
The lad checked his watch, looked back toward the door as if he was in two minds about something.
“Thanks,” he said finally. “I’m starving.”
“You’re welcome.”
The lad returned his smile.
“Actually,” he said, moving toward the front door. “I’ve just got to fetch something from the van first. Back in a sec.”
46
Dinner is toad-in-the-hole with mashed potatoes and carrots, followed by ice cream for pudding. When we’ve finished, Dom plays football outside with Callum while I clear up and run Daisy’s bath. When the temperature’s right, I call her but she doesn’t respond. She’s developed a reluctance to be the first to go to bed when her brother’s bedtime is half an hour later.
I’m about to go looking for her downstairs when her voice reaches me from her own room, soft and indistinct. I push open her door.
“Time for your bath, Daze.”
