Life Drawing for Beginners Read online

  Michael closed the door and folded his arms and eyed her bundle. “There better not be anything illegal in there,” he said.

  “D’you want to check it?” she asked.

  Her face was impassive. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to be smart, but he decided to ignore it. The thought of rummaging through whatever belongings she had didn’t appeal to him in the least—and the fact that she’d offered to let him probably meant she had nothing to hide.

  “If you brought any food, leave it in the kitchen,” he told her. “No food upstairs.”

  “Where’s the kitchen?” she asked.

  Michael led the way and indicated the table. “Leave it there.”

  She reached into the black bag, drew out a small white one, and placed it on the table. “You live in this big house on your own?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he retorted. “I don’t appreciate questions about my private life.” She wouldn’t last long if she didn’t remember her place.

  The color rose in her face, and for a second he thought she was going to cry. All he needed.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean nothin’, I was jus’ talkin’.”

  He turned for the stairs. “This way,” he said shortly, wondering what had possessed him. On the landing he took two towels from the airing cupboard and showed her the bathroom. “You will both have a bath,” he said, “tonight, before you go to bed.” He’d debated moving his toiletries out of sight, and then decided that she’d probably rummage and find them, so he’d left them where they were. He supposed he could bear the loss of some shower gel and toothpaste.

  “Have you got a hair dryer?” she asked.

  “No,” he said shortly. “Dry your hair with the towel.” Next thing she’d be looking for breakfast in bed.

  He brought them into the room that had been Valerie’s and watched her taking in the double bed, the twin lockers, the big wardrobe, the dressing table with its three-sided mirror. The maroon carpet with tiny beige flowers, the cream wallpaper with its paler rectangles above the bed where Valerie’s posters had hung. The heavy curtains on the two long, narrow windows.

  He saw her looking at the clothes he’d laid out on the bed.

  “You’ll both sleep in this room,” he told them. “You will put all your clothes in the laundry hamper in the bathroom, and wear what I have put out.”

  He’d gone through the few pieces Valerie had left behind, assuming his daughter wouldn’t look for them again, and he’d selected a skirt and blouse and cardigan. They wouldn’t be a perfect fit, far from it—Valerie was a good three or four inches taller than this girl, and a stone or so heavier, at least—but they’d do her while her own were in the wash.

  He hadn’t thought of nightwear, for either of them—or underwear, he suddenly realized. He’d bought no underwear. Not that he could have provided for the girl, of course, but he could have gotten something for the boy. They’d just have to wear something unwashed until he could find alternatives.

  She picked up the small trousers and sweatshirt. Michael had removed the price tags, but they were obviously brand-new.

  “You bought these for him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered curtly. What choice did he have, with the boy practically in rags?

  She pointed to Valerie’s clothing. “An’ they’re for me?”

  “Yes,” he repeated impatiently. Who did she think they were for? The next down-and-out he was planning to take in?

  “Can we keep them?” she asked. “Are you givin’ them to us for keeps?”

  Michael stared at her. Could she possibly imagine he would want them back? She blinked rapidly, and for the second time since they’d arrived he sensed imminent tears. He was no good with crying women, never had been.

  “They’re yours,” he said quickly, shifting his gaze away from her. “Do what you like with them. You will leave the house with me in the morning at half past eight, and you will stay away until seven o’clock tomorrow evening. I will give you a packed lunch and I will provide dinner when you get back here, so you won’t need to beg.”

  She blinked another few times as he spoke, pressed her fingers to her eyes.

  “Is that understood?”

  She nodded.

  “Tomorrow I’m sending off for a paternity test,” Michael went on. “It will show if Ethan is the father, as you claim. You can stay here until the results are known—provided you behave yourselves.”

  He paused. She was still holding the clothes, and the boy was hanging on to her leg. “I want no trouble here,” Michael went on slowly. “Nobody turning up here who shouldn’t. You understand what I’m talking about.”

  She laid the clothes on the bed. “You mean dealers.” No defiance, the words stated flatly.

  “I do—and any other of the undesirables you hang around with.”

  “I don’t hang around with nobody,” she said. “I don’t have no friends since I stopped dealin’. I got nothin’ to do with them people no more.”

  Michael decided not to comment on that. “It will probably take a week or ten days to get the test results,” he said. “Until then you will leave the house with me every morning at half past eight and stay away until seven. There will be no begging. If you need…​toiletries you will let me know.” He paused. “Any questions?”

  “Thank you,” she said, her face flushing again. “Really. You dunno what you done for us.”

  He looked at her. He took in the shabby clothing, the greasy hair, the whole undernourished, unkempt, neglected appearance of her. He regarded the small white-faced silent boy, nose running, dirty thumb plugged in his mouth, cowering beside her.

  He must be mad.

  “I’ll say good night then,” he said, turning for the door. “Don’t forget to have baths. I’ll call you at eight o’clock.”

  “I do have a question,” she said then.

  He stopped in the doorway.

  “Was this Ethan’s room?” she asked. “Can I jus’ ask that?”

  A beat passed.

  “No,” Michael said. “It wasn’t.”

  He closed the door behind him. Back in the kitchen he opened the plastic bag and found an almost empty liter bottle of Coke and half a packet of supermarket-brand Fig Rolls. He resisted the impulse to pour what remained of the Coke down the sink, and instead stowed the bag in a press.

  When he went upstairs again two hours later, the landing smelled of soap. Their bedroom door was closed, no sound from behind it.

  The bathroom mirror was steamy, the air warm and damp. Underlying the scent of soap—his, probably—was the unmistakable odor that had accompanied them into the house. He slid the window open and lifted the lid of the laundry hamper cautiously—and closed it quickly.

  The bath looked as if she’d attempted to clean it after them. No hairs, no suds, no soap scum. Michael spotted a grubby pink nylon toilet bag perched on top of the cistern, next to his can of air freshener.

  He peered inside and saw two toothbrushes and an almost new tube of toothpaste. The bristles on the child’s brush were splayed to an alarming degree, but at least it existed. Not that brushing the boy’s teeth would make much difference, if all she was feeding him was Coke and biscuits. A wonder he had a tooth left in his head.

  There was a small blue sponge in the bag too, and a thin bar of white soap wrapped in a grey facecloth, a pair of tweezers, and a sachet of shampoo. He remembered her asking if he had a hair dryer, and his lie in response. He supposed it wouldn’t have killed him to hand it over, but wasn’t it enough that he was putting a roof over their heads, was he expected to provide whatever gadgetry she demanded too?

  He should have though. He remembered the housekeeper he’d employed after Ruth’s death making sure that Valerie and Ethan never went to bed with wet hair. He’d leave the hair dryer outside their bedroom door tomorrow. He’d say nothing about it, and if she had any sense she wouldn’t comment either.

  He zipped the toilet bag c
losed. He brought the laundry basket downstairs and pulled on rubber gloves before dumping its contents into the washing machine, turning his face from the thick, cloying smell. After switching on the machine he warmed milk for his usual nightcap and made his way back upstairs.

  He cleaned his teeth and washed his face. He changed into pajamas and set his alarm, wondering as he did if he should lock his bedroom door. But the key was downstairs in the bottom drawer of his bureau with all the rest, and to get it he’d have to put his clothes on again or go down in pajamas and risk meeting her on her way to the bathroom.

  When he was asleep—if he fell asleep—she could do what she liked in his house. She could traipse around and open presses and poke into drawers. She could steal things, not that he’d left any valuables lying around. She could leaf through his books, help herself to his food. She could sneak into this room and smother him with a pillow, or stab him with one of his own kitchen knives.

  He caught sight of himself in his dressing table mirror and felt weary. He was fifty-one years old with a dead wife and son, and a daughter who avoided him. For forty-eight hours every week he stood alone behind a counter surrounded by pet food and rubber toys and nesting boxes and goldfish. He had few pleasures and fewer friends. Was it any wonder he was an irritable bastard?

  You’re the rudest man I ever met. Out of nowhere it popped into his head. Her usually smiling round face on fire with indignation—​and her subsequent visit to the shop to apologize. He remembered her in the park with her ice cream, and in the supermarket earlier this evening. He kept bumping into her.

  He wondered if she’d spotted the child’s clothes in his basket, and what she’d thought if she had. He’d probably looked like some class of a child catcher, buying clothes for one of his captives. She might have been tempted to call the police.

  He grinned at his reflection. For no reason that he could think of, he felt his mood lifting. He got into bed and switched off the lamp and closed his eyes.

  And for the first time in weeks, he slept soundly all night.

  The Third Week

  October 5–11

  —————

  A change in fortune, a mistaken assumption, and a confrontation.

  Friday

  My nose is itchy.”

  “Scratch it then.” James waited while Charlie rubbed at her nose.

  “I’m tired of sitting,” she said. “I want to go in.”

  “Nearly finished,” he promised. “Just another tiny bit.”

  Barely two minutes she’d lasted so far. Talk about a short attention span. He regarded his efforts to capture her on paper, and had to admit that it could have been any child, of either gender. Still, at least he was making the effort, doing his homework.

  “Can we go to Granny and Granddad’s tomorrow?” Charlie asked.

  “Not tomorrow, poppet,” he told her, “it’s a bit too far away. But we’ll go soon again, I promise.”

  “You always say that,” she grumbled. “And you never let Eoin come to our house to play. You never do anything I want, it’s not fair.”

  She looked so woebegone, sitting with her schoolbag trapped between her feet. James closed his sketch pad and reached across to open her door.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Tonight we’ll go to the movies after dinner, how’s that?”

  “Can we go to Horrid Henry again?” she asked immediately, and James’s heart sank. Horrid Henry had been horrid enough first time around, last Saturday afternoon in the company of what must surely have been the entire population of Carrickbawn’s under-sixes, each of them loaded up with sugar and firing on every one of their little cylinders.

  “We’ll go to whatever you want,” he said. He’d bring his iPod and try to tune the whole thing out, offer it up for the sake of his daughter. At least in the early evening the under-fours would be gone to bed—hopefully.

  He waited until Charlie had disappeared into the school before driving off.

  —————

  Michael locked the shop door and turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. In the small back room he perched on his step stool and unscrewed the cap from his bottle of milk and undid the tinfoil wrapping on his lunchtime sandwich. As he bit into it, he wondered if the other sandwiches he’d made this morning had been eaten yet.

  Probably the first brown bread the boy had ever seen, and possibly the first ham too. Maybe it would be new for her as well; God knows what kind of diet she’d grown up with. Bit of a change from Coke and biscuits, and whatever other junk they normally ate. Had the lad ever seen a piece of fruit, or a vegetable? Had he ever drunk a glass of milk?

  Or maybe they’d dumped Michael’s sandwiches in the first bin they’d come to. Maybe she was defying him right now, begging for enough to cover a bag of chips each, and a new bottle of Coke. He had no way of knowing, and he didn’t much care. He’d done his bit for them, his conscience was clear.

  At least they’d gotten a good breakfast into them—although the porridge hadn’t exactly been a roaring success. Michael had served it up to them as soon as they’d appeared in the kitchen. No alternative had been offered. Milk was in a jug on the table, along with a bowl containing a small amount of brown sugar. Without waiting for a reaction, Michael had left them to it and taken the basket of damp laundry out to the clothesline.

  When he’d come back in, her bowl was empty and she was attempting to coax the boy to eat from his. Michael had turned his attention to making the sandwiches, his back to them.

  “Come on,” he’d heard her whisper, “just another bit, for me. Good boy.”

  Porridge not sweet enough for him. Looking for a few Fig Rolls, presumably. At least she had the sense not to go looking for them. Michael had spread butter and ham and cheese on the brown bread and cut the sandwiches into triangles and wrapped them in tinfoil before turning to face them.

  The child’s expression was sullen but his porridge bowl was half empty, and the sugar Michael had put on the table had completely disappeared.

  Valerie’s clothes hung loosely on the girl’s thin frame, the skirt too long to look anything but dowdy. The boy’s trousers and top seemed a surprisingly good fit, seeing as how Michael hadn’t had much of a clue. Ruth had been in charge of all that when their children were small; Michael didn’t remember having to buy so much as a hair slide or pair of socks. And after Ruth, the housekeeper had taken over, and Michael had been relieved to let her.

  He’d sent his visitors packing at half past eight, along with her plastic bag of junk food, the sandwiches he’d made, and a pint of milk. After seeing them off he’d sprinted upstairs and opened the door to Valerie’s room, which smelled of sleep but nothing stronger. The bed was made, surprisingly neatly. Apart from the black plastic bag that lay in a crumpled heap in the corner of the room, the only sign that anyone had moved in was a dog-eared Winnie-the-Pooh book and a battered tin box sitting side by side on one of the bedside lockers. Otherwise it was pretty much exactly as Valerie had left it.

  Valerie. Should Michael tell her about all this, was she entitled to know that someone had come along claiming to be the mother of Ethan’s child—which, if true, would make the boy her nephew? How would she react if Michael admitted that he’d taken them in? Even to himself, it was hard to explain his actions.

  No, he’d wait. He’d do the test and wait for the result. Time enough to tell Valerie then, if it was as the girl claimed. Time enough for them all to come to terms with it then. He’d closed the bedroom door and left the house.

  He checked his watch and saw that the half hour he allowed himself for lunch was almost over. He took another bite of his sandwich and drank his milk.

  —————

  Irene pulled her key from the lock and walked into the hall. From the kitchen came the sound of Emily’s laughter. She smelled fried onions. Pilar had forgotten to use the extractor fan again.

  She went upstairs and stripped off her gym clothes and stepped into the large rain forest show
er in their en suite bathroom. She never used the showers at the gym, opting to wait until she got home to the greater comfort of her own. She scrubbed and lathered and massaged, inhaling scents of eucalyptus and rosemary and mint. For some reason, a session in the gym with Bob always made her feel in greater need of a thorough clean.

  Back in the bedroom she sprayed dry oil onto her warm, damp skin. She pulled on a pair of loose silk lilac-colored trousers and a pale pink cashmere wrap top, and slipped her feet into soft camel leather pumps. She brushed her hair and wound it into a loose twist and secured it with a long gold clip.

  She dabbed perfume on her wrists and made her way downstairs. In the kitchen Emily was doing a jigsaw at the table and Pilar was emptying the dishwasher.

  “Hi, Irene,” Emily said, looking up briefly.

  “Hello, sweetie.” Irene trailed a hand across Emily’s shoulders as she walked to the coffee machine. “Did you have a good day?”

  “Yeah.”

  Irene nodded at Pilar as she spooned coffee into the machine. “Everything all right?”

  Pilar returned plates to their shelves. “Yes, Mrs. Dillon. Everything fine.”

  Silence descended on the kitchen. Irene stood by the coffee machine as it bubbled and gurgled into action, and decided that there was little point in mentioning the extractor fan. The au pair would nod and promise to use it, and more than likely forget again.

  Pilar closed the empty dishwasher and began to clean the tiles behind the sink.

  “Pilar, I finish,” Emily announced.

  “It’s not ‘I finish,’ it’s ‘I’ve finished,’” Irene said.

  Emily looked at her mother. “Pilar says ‘I finish.’”