Mum is still facing away, mumbling. ‘Where is it? – Nobody in this family ever puts anything in the right place.’
I mouth the word, ‘Why?’ but Dad shakes his head in warning, a single slow movement to one side and back. When I get him alone I will find out.
Although bonfire night isn’t until tomorrow, somebody in the village is already playing with fireworks. The first burst makes our mother whirl away from the cupboard clutching a grinder filled with black peppercorns. She huffs in irritation as she sits down. ‘Probably some truanting kids.’
‘Yes. Probably.’ Dad watches me lift my glass in the silent toast to absent loved ones that he and I always make. I am looking at your empty chair as I do this. Only Luke ever sits in your chair. Mum and Dad and I always take the places we have occupied for as long as I can remember.
‘You can’t have the box, Ella,’ our mother says. ‘How many times do I need to repeat myself?’
‘Why can’t she have it?’ Our father reaches out a hand but she leans out of reach. ‘Rosamund?’ He stretches farther, until his fingers brush hers.
‘It’s not the box,’ she says. ‘Ella is losing sight of her priorities.’
‘Excuse me, but I am in the room. You don’t need to talk about me in the third person. And I don’t need predictive analytics to see where our priorities lie.’
‘Reviving all of this will lead nowhere.’ She gives our father’s hand a brief squeeze before she slowly rises, her lunch barely touched.
‘Can you say what you mean please, for once, Mum, in plain English? It’s obvious that something’s bothering you but it’s not fair if you don’t tell me what it is.’
‘This isn’t good for Luke.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Talking about his mother stirs up his feelings. Don’t forget that he’s only ten years old. I realise he is mature for his age, but don’t treat him like a grown-up.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t treat him like a baby.’
‘How dare you speak to me like that, young lady?’
‘I dare because I’m not young and I’m certainly no lady, that’s how.’
There is another explosion. A plate slips from her hand and lands in the dishwasher with a clatter, but doesn’t break. ‘Damn,’ she says. Your mouth would fall open, to hear her swear. If you were here, the two of us would cackle and mockingly scold her and threaten to wash her mouth out with soap as she used to threaten us, though she never actually went through with it.
Dad holds his hands out to both of us. ‘Can we please start the afternoon over? I don’t usually get my two best girls on their own.’
Our mother looks like she is about to slap him. Or cry. ‘Three best girls. You have three.’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. That was careless but you know I never forget.’
She wipes her eyes. ‘I do, Jacob. Of course I do.’
‘We’re all on the same side here,’ he says.
I nod in agreement and say, ‘Yes.’ Then I say, ‘I’m very sorry, Mum. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I need to be more understanding and careful.’
‘Be careful of yourself and be careful of my grandson.’
‘I’m always careful of your grandson.’ I try to hand her Dad’s empty plate but she snatches it from me. ‘I thought we promised each other to be open. Always. To share worries and information. We agreed that would be safest. We agreed that sticking our heads in the sand was the dangerous thing. That it was emotionally dangerous to do that and very possibly physically dangerous too.’
‘Every new development needs to be evaluated. There is no single rule that can apply to all of it, Ella,’ she says.
‘I thought it was just a box of stuff that the police think is irrelevant.’
There is another explosion outside, which earns the window a death glare. ‘Why can’t they wait until tomorrow night?’ She is still terrified of fireworks. You and I were never allowed near them, and she finds reasons to keep Luke away too. I know this would make you furious. I know I need to change this. Don’t let her coddle him, Melanie. Don’t let her ruin him. That is what you would say.
I catch Dad’s eye. ‘Are you afraid of what I might find in the box, Mum?’
‘No. Because there’s nothing there. What I am afraid of is raising Luke’s expectations. Of churning up his feelings about all of this. Of frightening him.’
‘Your mother makes a good point.’
‘He’s ten now. The impetus is coming from him. We can’t ignore it.’
‘You make a good point, too,’ he says. Our father is still the family peacemaker.
‘Always the diplomat,’ I say.
‘I do my best. You and your mother don’t always make it easy.’ But he is smiling, as if this is how he likes it.
Our mother stands behind her empty chair. ‘It is not good for your soul, Ella. You’re already too churned up. Remember how you were when it first happened. I don’t want you falling apart again.’
‘I’m not going to. I haven’t come close to that for over seven years.’
‘More like six,’ she says.
‘I’m much, much tougher. I am not the person I was then.’
‘I liked that person,’ she says.
‘People need to change.’
‘Not as much as you have,’ she says.
‘I’ll tell you anything I uncover. We promised each other we’d do that and I will. I’ll share anything and everything. Even if it’s dangerous.’
‘Especially if it’s dangerous,’ Dad says.
‘What about Saturday morning?’ She picks up my plate, slots it into the dishwasher. ‘Do you really think someone was watching the two of you?’
‘Possibly. But do you see how I really do tell you everything? Even the stuff I know will come back and bite me? Most likely it was some random walker out early. It’s doubtful they could even see us through the trees.’
‘Whatever you said to Luke that morning obviously disturbed him.’
‘I don’t think that’s true. Or fair. And he was so happy about the doe. He keeps going on about it being magical.’
Dad looks solemn, which is not a look he readily does. ‘Ella checked the footage from the outside cameras before she left for Sadie’s party. There was nothing, Rosamund. But I did report it to the police.’
‘I’m sure that pushed us right to the top of their predictive analytics list,’ she says.
‘I think we’ve talked enough about this,’ Dad says. Mum glowers. It isn’t often he shuts her down. ‘Luke and I will bring the doll’s house and the box tomorrow night,’ he says. ‘His consolation prize for missing another bonfire night.’ I didn’t think anything could make Mum’s glower deepen, but this last comment does.
I am frightened of our father trying to move the doll’s house with only Luke to help. It is far too large and heavy. I think of the tiny satellite of malignancy in his spine, shrunk down and kept dormant by the injections they give him each month to suppress the male hormones that the prostate cancer cells love. Our father’s bones have weak points, but he refuses to act as if this is the case.