Читать книгу Watch Me - Angela Clarke, Angela Clarke - Страница 18

Freddie Venton stared at the ceiling of her childhood bedroom. A hairpin crack ran from the top of the rose-patterned wallpaper (her mum’s choice) and slithered across the ceiling. Mum had been at the doctors for her blood pressure, she was going into the school late today. Freddie could hear the sound of her work pumps moving across the hallway. She shut her eyes and slowed her breathing, like she used to when she was young, reading late under the covers.

‘Love?’ her mum whispered. ‘Are you awake?’

Yes, I’m awake! I’ve been awake since blood poured into my eyes. Since sleeping meant the dreams came. And they couldn’t come. She couldn’t relive it. She couldn’t sleep. So she pretended. Her mum had enough on her plate with her dad’s antics; she didn’t need any more worry.

There was a rattle as her mum put a tray down, not wanting to intrude, but not wanting her daughter to starve either. Freddie could sense her standing there. A broken husband and a broken child – life had not been kind to Mrs Venton. ‘Happy birthday, love,’ she whispered, pulling the door gently to.

Not long now. Freddie heard the gruff grunt of her father, his articulation lost to the alcohol.

‘Do you think we should try the doctor again?’ her mum stage-whispered.

Another grunt.

‘It’s been weeks. She’s barely eating. She hasn’t said more than a few words.’ Freddie heard the worry in her mum’s voice. She wanted to tell her it was all going to be all right. But she couldn’t. Instead, she began to count the roses on the wall again. ‘This can’t go on,’ her mum was saying. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one …

The front door opened and closed, and Freddie heard her mum’s Corsa start. She listened for the jingle of the keys. A whistle for the dog. The door opened – Dad was leaving for the pub. She waited in case he’d forgotten anything. One minute, two minutes, three minutes … Then she threw the duvet off, shuffling across to the tray. Sandwiches. Marmite and cucumber: her favourite when she was little. There were a couple of cards tucked under a present. Freddie picked up the small weighty rectangle, the wrapping paper covered in birds, and read the tag:

Thought I’d get this fixed for you.

Happy Birthday, love Mum and Dad xxx

She knew what it was. Placed it unopened on the tray.

She padded downstairs and into the room at the back of the house. Her father’s den: a boxy room, with a raised, jutting windowsill, as if the builder had forgotten to put the bottom part of the wall in. The blue curtains were drawn. Mum didn’t come in here. Freddie didn’t come in here. The small coffee table and the blue sofa bed were covered in used glasses. Dad slept in here sometimes, when Mum couldn’t take it anymore. It smelled stale. Sour. Sitting on the sofa, she stroked the grooves where her dad sat. Closed her eyes. Tried to remember what he was like before. The good memories were fainter now. Him swinging her round in the garden, her giggling uncontrollably. Her and Nas cycling up and down the path outside their house. A trip to Thorpe Park. She tried to remember what happiness felt like. But a heavy blanket had settled over Freddie the day she was attacked; she’d felt nothing but thrumming anxiety since.

The doorbell sounded. She froze, as if they could see what she was doing. The guilt of the emptiness.

The doorbell rang again. Longer. More insistent. ‘Hang on!’ she shouted. When did she last speak that loud? She ran to the door. The dark blur of the person standing behind it was fractured by the geometric glass pattern. She opened it. Fought the urge to dissolve into tears. There on the doorstep in her smart black trouser suit was Nasreen Cudmore.

‘Hello, Freddie.’