He found it right at the back. A small plastic folder marked ‘RAC’ in Susan’s flowery handwriting, a bit bent and tucked in behind an old spare pair of glasses, an open packet of Polos and one of those things you use to check the pressure of the tyres. He hadn’t done that for a while either. But when he pulled out the papers inside, the thing had run out. Expired, just three weeks ago. Why on earth hadn’t they written to him, reminded him it was due? But then he remembered the pile of letters propped up by the clock, the bills and junk mail and suspiciously official looking brown envelopes that he hadn’t quite got around to tackling yet, and knew that they probably had.
What would have taken ten minutes by car was a forty minute bus ride, on a good day. They’d done it once, both ways, he and Susan, noting down the right bus number to catch, and the times it departed and arrived, then stop-watching themselves from door to door, just to show Agnes how easy it would be for her to come and visit, but she never had. Getting on and off buses was a struggle, she said, with their high steps and her bad knees, although he knew she could do it if she tried. But William was starting to feel that way himself these days. It was all a bit too much of a bother, and there’d probably be a much longer wait anyway, it being a Sunday. Buses never ran as frequently on a Sunday.
He opened up the bonnet and managed to disconnect the battery, getting great blobs of oil and muck all over his sleeves in the process, and then lugged it through into the garage. He knew he had a charger somewhere amongst all the cluttered detritus of his life. It must have been years since he’d had a good clear-out and even longer since he’d been able to actually park a car in there.
Eventually, he went back into the house and threw his oily jacket down on a chair already littered with discarded jumpers, crumpled sweatshirts and screwed-up socks. He’d put the kettle on and have some tea while he decided what to do. After all, it wasn’t as if his mother was expecting him, so not turning up wasn’t about to break any hearts. He flipped the TV on as he waited for the kettle to boil. There was an old film on. Something black and white, from the 1930s or 40s by the look of it. The kind of film his father used to watch on a Sunday, all dapper-looking men in evening suits and elegant women swishing their long satin skirts, cigarettes in long slim holders poised at their lips and a big band playing in the background.
He still missed his father. Donald Munro had been a force to be reckoned with. Upright, honest, an all-round good egg. An organiser too. Even at his funeral, it had been as if he was still there, taking charge, making sure everything ran like clockwork. He’d left strict instructions. Music, coffin, memorial, even where the after-party should be held and who should be invited. Left a special account too, with just the right amount of cash in it to see himself safely out of this world and into the next.
Now that Susan’s gone, perhaps I should make plans, William thought, pouring the hot water onto his teabag and flopping back down in front of the film. A new will. Decisions about what happens next. Who to leave it all to. But, of course, there was no one. Only his mother, who by the law of averages would go first. No brothers or sisters, the only cousin being a girl he’d not met since he was three and who now lived in Australia. He should have had children. He wished he’d had children. But it wasn’t going to happen now, was it? Maybe he should start investigating charities, leave it all to the NSPCC or a dogs’ home somewhere. Cats, even. His mother would approve of that.
On the screen, a man in a top hat was sweeping a woman off her feet, whirling her around in mid-air, his tap shoes tap-tapping away on an impossibly shiny over-polished floor. William looked down at his own feet. He’d kicked his shoes off at the door. Old habits. Susan never allowed shoes on inside the house. There was a hole in one of his socks, half a big toe peeping through, and a line of crumbs on the carpet around his armchair from too many late-night digestives. His toenails needed a trim too, by the look of the one escaping from his sock.
It was no good denying it. He missed having a woman around. Even a cold-hearted bitch like Susan. At least she was someone he could have left it all to. All his worldly goods. Clichéd though it sounded, there was a sodding great hole in his life these days, not just in his sock. And they both needed mending, but he had no idea how. Or even where the mending kit was kept.
*
The whiney noise kept coming from the phone near the front door. She didn’t know what it was, and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t the buzzy noise she’d heard before, when she’d tried to talk to Mummy. This was different. Scarier. Like the nee-naw noises the fire engines made. Loud, then quiet, then loud again. It kept coming out of the phone she’d put down on the table. Maybe the long curly wire really was a snake and it was trying to get her. Chase her. Eat her. She wasn’t going to go near it. Not until it stopped. Only, it didn’t.
Lily was naked from the waist down. Her yellow pyjamas were too wet to wear. They were in the laundry basket, where she’d put them last night, where Mummy always put the dirty things. But she couldn’t find any clean ones. Her other pairs were in there too, right at the bottom. She had seen them, one pair stripey, and one with little pink teddies, through a gap in the plastic, so there was nothing to wear. Only her jeans and tops and pretty dresses, but you weren’t supposed to wear proper clothes to go to sleep in.
She’d stood on the bed and pulled at the light cord, so the Winnie the Pooh light on the ceiling had been on all night. It was what Mummy called a night light, not too bright, and it made a soft pink circle on the ceiling that was supposed to stop her being scared when she was by herself, but it hadn’t worked. Now the daylight was streaming in too, through the still-open curtains, and the traffic was getting loud outside just like every morning. But this morning was different to other mornings.
She had tried to find some pull-ups last night but there weren’t any left in the packet. Mummy said they cost a lot of money and big girls could manage to use the proper toilet in the daytime now, couldn’t they? But she couldn’t go to bed without a nappy on. She always wore a nappy to go to bed. So she’d tried to put a proper one on, one with the sticky sides, but it hadn’t stuck properly and the knickers she had worn to try to make it stay there were now even wetter than the pyjamas. So was her bed. It smelled of stale warmth and wee, and so did she.
The smell didn’t go away. It seemed to follow her as she padded through the flat, room by room. There was no Mummy. Still no Mummy. She was thirsty. She wanted to cry again, but she was a big girl now. Mummy had said so. And big girls know how to get their own drink. She walked into the kitchen, her feet sticky as they reached the place where she’d made the puddle. It was nearly all dried up now, and the floor felt warm where the sun was coming in. She was glad. She didn’t want Mummy to see the puddle when she came back. Big girls didn’t make puddles on the floor. Big girls used the potty, or sat on the big toilet on the special seat Mummy had bought at the charity shop. The day they got the yellow pyjamas, and Mummy’s new shoes.
Lily went to the sink. She pulled the plastic step over – the one Mummy called the kiddie step – and climbed up so she could reach the taps, the way she did when they’d been baking cakes and Mummy said she had to wash her hands to get the last of the mixture off, even though she’d already licked them clean. Then she picked up the plug on the end of its metal chain and pushed it firmly into the plug hole, the way Mummy had shown her, so she could make the water stay and go all soapy without it running away down the drain.
The cold tap was the one nearest to the kitchen door. She was only allowed to touch the cold tap. Not the hot. Mummy had taught her about which tap was which. Left and right, but that was too hard to remember, even when they’d practised holding up both hands or picking out which shoe to put on which foot. It was much easier to just know that the cold tap was the one nearest to the door.
Her