The shops have petered out now. Esther stomps onwards, smoking and going over and over things in her head. By the time she looks up she realises she’s arrived at a run-down retail park. She’s never been here before. She didn’t even know it existed. There’s a pet superstore, an industrial bakery and a cheap clothing place. But she’s not interested in any of those. The wine and hunger have combined to make Esther quite light-headed, and at the sight of a fried chicken place at the other end of the retail park her heart starts to quicken.
Fried. Chicken.
The devil’s food, as far as Miles is concerned. It made Esther squirm, the way he’d say disparaging things about overweight people eating what he called ‘brown food from cartons’ in the street. ‘Look at them!’ he’d scoff, too loudly. ‘Is it any wonder they look like that?’ Well, his beloved delivered meals also came in cartons, but that was different of course. Getting closer now, Esther is actually salivating for fried brown food, in a crunchy coating, eaten from a carton – or, better still, a bucket. God, yes!
Minutes later she’s perched on the edge of a low wall, plunging her hand into the bucket and ramming fried chicken pieces into her face. The fact that Miles would view this as completely disgusting makes every fatty, salty mouthful even more delicious. Okay, it’s not healthy, but aren’t we all meant to strive for balance these days? It might look like she’s just gorging on battered chicken. But what she’s actually doing isoffsettingall those shredded vegetables and beansprouts she’s endured over the past two years.
It’s a yin-yang thing. Like a Bethani necklace, this fried chicken is balancing her chakras.
But actually, by the time she’s halfway down the bucket,the euphoria has begun to wear off, and Esther feels a bit queasy. She stops and rubs her greasy fingers on the front of her jeans, thinking,My first day at Dad’s and I’ve been to the pub on my own and smoked and eaten this horrible food.And she thinks of her dad coming round yesterday, bringing her that little bunch of pink carnations that Miles has probably thrown in the bin. How safe and cared-for her dad makes her feel, in his soft grey sweater and old faded jeans. He and Miles are pretty much the same age; she knows Miles’s real age, she’s checked his passport. But whereas one of those men is only concerned with hoovering up coke and sleeping with random women – ‘It was just a thing!’ – the other is always there when he’s needed, and never puts himself first.
The chicken has gone now. She’s been picking on it without realising and all that’s left are a few cold chips, which she polishes off quickly. Then she pulls out her cigarettes from her shoulder bag and lights one.
God, it feels good. She savours each inhalation, aware of it rushing to her lungs and her head, baffled now as to why she let a ravaged old has-been control her so much. All that stuff about wanting to direct her pictures for Bethani, getting her to lie on the rug like a corpse. Fury bubbles up in her now. She grinds out the cigarette in the chicken bucket and lights up another immediately, as if toreallyannoy him – although he’s not here to witness it unfortunately.
But someone’s watching, Esther realises now. At least, someone is standing there in the doorway of the pet superstore; a tall, athletic-looking man in black jeans and a leather jacket. At first she assumes he’s looking at his phone, then she realises with a jolt that it looks like he’s photographing her.
Apart from a few people wandering in and out of the pet superstore and the chicken place, the retail park is pretty quiet. Esther has only noticed this man because he seems to be entirely focused on her. Standing up now, she takes another draw on her cigarette and starts to walk over to him. She’s not sure why she feels so emboldened. Maybe it’s because of those boys who followed her out of the tube station – or maybe it’s Miles, and she’s not prepared to take any crap from anyone again.
‘’Scuse me?’ she calls out sharply.
He lowers his phone and slides it into a jacket pocket.
‘What were you doing there?’ Esther asks.
‘Nothing,’ he replies with a shrug.
‘Yes you were. You were photographing me, weren’t you?’
‘No I wasn’t,’ he protests.
‘You were! You were taking pictures of me!’ Filled with rage now, Esther is utterly unafraid. ‘Let me see. Give me your phone … hey!’
For a split second, as he sprints away, Esther considers tearing after him. But she knows there’s no way she’d be able to catch him and that, even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to wrangle his phone off him.
Bleakly, feeling helpless now, she watches him pelt around the corner and out of sight.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHARLIE
Right now Remy is in Liverpool to play a gig. He drove there, which seems as unfeasible to Charlie as his best friend flying a Boeing 757. But Remy passed his test a few months ago and even bought his own car.
He’s sent Charlie pictures of the snacks in the hotel minibar. Charlie is enjoying flicking through them because it means they still have a kind of connection. It might be a bit tenuous these days, but it’s still there. Charlie doesn’t like feeling needy, and thought he’d perfected the art of not needinganyone, since it dawned on him that his dad really is a useless arse. His mum’s different in that he’s tried to push her away, to show that he doesn’t need her either – like in Corsica when he hid under the dog towel and got stung by a wasp. But, somewhat infuriatingly, she won’t give up on him or leave him alone. Is it any wonder he feels smothered sometimes?
So, yes, the issue of needing people is tricky for Charlie, and he’s aware of the little flurries of gratitude he experiences whenever Remy deigns to get in touch.
The minibar snacks are, admittedly, impressive. We’re not talking Cheesy Doritos here, which they used to munch in gigantic quantities while watching movies together until their mouths were furred up with orange dust. Instead there are lime and chilli pistachios and a packet of what look like Wotsits but cost about ten times as much and the packet is tiny. Remy’s hand is in the photo for scale. There are also olives in a silvery pouch (Charlie doesn’t think Remy’s ever eaten an olive) and a bar of dark chocolate encrusted with sea salt.
Gonna eat that chocolate?Charlie messages.
It’s like £12!
Go on, treat yourself.
Rather have Dairy Milk!
They bat messages back and forth until Charlie hears Brenda’s flat-footed stomp approaching. He’s at the newsagent’s and is meant to be working. Here she comes, marching through from the back room where there’s a cracked sink, a bucket to catch roof drips and the Terrible Toilet, partitioned off only by a curtain made out of some kind of tapestry material. (When he started working here, Charlie took a picture of it and told Remy it was part of the Bayeux Tapestry.) By means of sheer willpower and denying himself fluids, Charlie has managed to never use the loo here. It’s a wonder he’s not entirely desiccated, like the coconut his mum keeps in a jar on the kitchen shelf.
