At the weekends, Marisa stayed in her room until late afternoon. Kate would knock on the door, wondering if she wanted a cup ofherbal tea and there would be no answer. When Marisa came out, she was uncommunicative, responding to questions with single word replies, eating her dinner without joining in the chat. They asked her if she was feeling OK, if she needed anything and what could they do.
‘I’m just tired,’ Marisa would say. ‘It’s fine, honestly.’
During the week, there was no way of checking up on her. Kate started ringing the house from her office in the middle of the day but Marisa never picked up the phone. She had never been good at answering her mobile, so there was no point trying. The buzzing of the wasp got nearer and louder. Marisa spent longer and longer in her room, and when Kate asked her why, Marisa told her she was working, trying to meet a flurry of deadlines.
‘I’d love to see some of your new paintings,’ Kate said, trying to start a conversation.
Marisa looked at her oddly.
‘I’m not painting as much. More writing at the moment,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ Kate continued brightly. ‘You’re so clever to be able to do both.’
It was true that she noticed Marisa writing more. When she was sitting in her usual place, on the far side of the kitchen sofa in front of the television as Kate or Jake cooked, Marisa would be scribbling rapidly in a notebook, the scratch of the pen providing an irregular rhythm to their conversation. Kate wanted to ask what she was writing but something about Marisa’s mood left her too scared to do so.
‘Am I being stupid?’ she asked Jake one Saturday when they had gone for a walk in Battersea Park.
‘No. I’ve definitely noticed the change in her.’ The sun came out in one of those unexpected bursts so familiar to London, and he fished out his Ray-Bans from his jacket pocket. ‘I’ve had a word with her about some of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, that business with the milk boiling over, and I didn’t know whether to tell you this but—’
He looked out towards the river, refusing to meet her eye.
‘What?’ Kate said. ‘Come on, spit it out.’
‘Um. My mother paid her an unscheduled visit.’
‘Annabelle?’
Jake smiled.
‘I do only have the one mother.’
‘Thank goodness,’ she said.
He told her then about how Annabelle had turned up on the doorstep and Marisa had invited her in for coffee and Kate didn’t know whether to be furious at the imposition or grateful that she’d taken an interest.
‘I think,’ Jake continued, as they walked past the pagoda, ‘that she found my mother a bit forceful.’
‘I bet. Poor Marisa. I guess it makes sense she’s been a bit jumpy since then.’
Jake took a sip from his disposable coffee cup and when he lowered it, there was a thin trail of cappuccino foam lining his upper lip like a moustache.
‘I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,’ he said. ‘It’s probably just hormonal, isn’t it?’
‘First trimester stuff,’ Kate replied.
‘Exactly. You’re meant to go a bit loopy, aren’t you? She’s probably feeling sick and exhausted and not wanting to bother us with it.’
‘You’re right.’ Kate was relieved to be reassured.
‘If anything,’ Jake said, putting his arm around her shoulders, ‘it’s agoodsign.’
But back at home, the unease lingered. Kate had hoped that, by inviting Marisa to live with them, it would quickly become a normalised arrangement. Instead, it had begun to feel like living with a teenage lodger who had unpredictable mood swings but had to be indulged in order to keep the peace. When she asked Marisa what she had thought of Annabelle, Marisa seemed shocked.
‘How did you know?’
