My aunt was away with my mum for the weekend on one of their retreats to help Mum and, as I always did then, I was sleeping over in their house. My uncle Billy was watching TV and Kevin and I were sitting in the back garden on the swing set, spilling our hearts out to one another. I was telling him about Mum being sick, and he was listening. He was doing a really good job of listening. And then he told me his secret: that he’d just discovered he was adopted. He said he felt betrayed, after all this time, but it suddenly made sense to him, all the feelings he’d been having. About me. He was in love with me. Next thing I knew, he was on me, hands everywhere, hot breath and slippery tongue in my mouth. Whenever I thought about him after that I’d wash my mouth out for as long as I could. He may not have been my cousin in blood, but he was my cousin. We’d played Lord of the Flies in the trees at the back of his garden, we’d tied his brother Michael up and roasted him on the spit, we’d played dress-up and put on shows standing on windowsills. We’d done family things together. Every memory of him I had was tied up in him being my cousin. I felt disgusted by him.
We didn’t speak after that. I never told my aunt, but I knew that she knew. I assumed my mum had told her, but she never discussed it with me. After that first year she went from being nervously apologetic about what had happened to being irritated by me. I think she felt that my forgiving him would be the one thing that would bring him back to her. He hadn’t left the country at that stage, but Kevin had never wanted to be a part of anything or anyone, not least his family, he’d always been troubled, he’d always been unsure of himself and everyone around him. I’d had enough to deal with at that time; his issues were too much for me. Maybe that’s cruel, but at seventeen there was no understanding of his problems; he was my gross adopted cousin with problems who’d kissed me, and I wanted him the hell away from me. But now he is back and one of these days I will have to face him. I don’t have an issue with him any more, I no longer have the need to wash my mouth out when I think of him. Nevertheless, even though I have nothing of importance to do, I can think of better ways to spend my days than engaging in an awkward conversation with a cousin who tried to French kiss me on a garden swing sixteen years ago.
It is while I’m watching out the window and waiting for Eddie to return that the house phone rings. Nobody has the number apart from Dad and Heather, and it is usually only Heather who calls, so I answer it.
‘Could I speak with Jasmine Butler, please?’
I pause, trying to place the voice. I don’t think it’s Kevin. I’m imagining he would have an Australian accent now, but maybe not. Either way, I don’t think it’s him. Aunt Jennifer would have to be incredibly cruel to give him the number. There’s an accent that I can’t quite place hiding behind a Dublin accent, somewhere outside of Dublin but inside Ireland. A gentle country lilt.
‘Who is speaking?’
‘Am I speaking to Jasmine Butler?’ he asks.
I smile and try to hide my amusement. ‘Could you tell me who’s speaking, please? I’m Ms Butler’s housekeeper.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry,’ he says, perfectly happy and charming. ‘And what is your name?’
Who is this? He called me and now he is trying to take control, but not in a rude way, he is utterly polite and has a lovely tone. I can’t place the accent. Not Dublin. Not Northern. Not Southern either. Midlands? No. Charming, though. Probably a salesman. And now I have to think of a name and get him off the phone. I look at the hall table beside me and see the pen beside the charging base for the phone.
‘Pen,’ I say, and try not to laugh. ‘Pen-ny. Penelope, but people call me Penny.’
‘And sometimes Pen?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ I smile.
‘Can I get your surname?’
‘Is this for a survey or something?’
‘Oh no, just in case I call you again and Ms Butler isn’t home. On the off chance that that happens.’
I laugh again at his sarcasm. ‘Ah.’ I look down at the table and see the notepad beside the pen. I roll my eyes. ‘Pad.’ I cough to conceal my laugh. ‘Paddington.’
‘Okay, Penelope Paddington,’ he repeats, and I’m sure he knows. If he has any sense, he knows. ‘Do you know when Ms Butler will be home?’
‘I couldn’t say.’ I sit down on the arm of the couch, still looking outside, and I see Dr Jameson at the front door of your house. ‘She comes and goes. With work.’ Dr Jameson is looking in through the broken glass. ‘What’s this about?’
‘It’s a private matter,’ he says politely, warmly. ‘I’d prefer to discuss it with her herself.’
‘Does she know you?’ I ask.
‘Not yet,’ he says, ‘But maybe you could tell her I called.’
‘Of course.’ I pick up the pen and paper to take his details.
‘I’ll try her on her mobile,’ he says.
‘You have her mobile?’
‘And her work number, but I called the office and she’s unavailable.’
That stops me. Somebody who knows me well enough to have all three numbers yet has no idea that I was fired. I am flummoxed.
‘Thanks, Penelope, you’ve been a great help. Have a good day.’ He hangs up and I’m left listening to the dial tone, confused.
‘Jasmine,’ I call to myself in a sing-song tone. ‘An absolute weirdo just called looking for you.’
Dr Jameson is walking across the road to me.
‘Hello, Dr Jameson,’ I greet him, seeing the white envelope in his hand and wondering what on earth the street is planning now and how much I need to contribute.
‘Hello, Jasmine.’
He is dressed perfectly as usual in a shirt and V-neck sweater, trousers with the perfect crease down the middle, polished shoes. He is smaller than me, and at five foot eight I feel like an exotic, unnatural creature beside him. My hair is bright red, fire-engine red, or booster scarlet power as L’Oréal calls it. Naturally I’m brown-haired, but neither me nor the rest of the world has seen that since I was fifteen, the only traces of it now are my eyebrows, as my scalp is increasingly sprouting grey hairs rather than brown. The red, I’m told, makes my eye colour stand out even more than usual; they’re a shade of turquoise that I’m used to most people commenting on. My eyes and my hair are the first things anybody ever sees of me. Whether I’m at work or at a party, I always, absolutely always go out with my ultra-jet-black eyeliner. I’m all eyes and hair. And boobs. They too are rather large, but I do nothing unnatural to accentuate them, they stick out and up all by themselves, clever things.
‘I’m sorry about the noise this morning,’ I say, genuinely meaning it. ‘I should have warned you in advance.’
‘Not at all …’ He waves his hand dismissively, as though in a rush to say something else. ‘I was across the way, looking for our friend, but it seems he’s otherwise detained,’ he says, as if our friend – meaning you – is out in the back garden making animal balloons for a group of kids and not passed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own vomit. Just guessing.
‘Amy gave this to me for Mr Marshall – we can call him Matt, can’t we?’ The way he looks at me conspiratorially makes me think that he knows I’ve been watching, a lot. But he can’t know that, unless he’s watching me, and I know that’s not true because I watch him.
‘Who’s Amy?’
‘Matt’s wife.’
‘Ah. Yes. Of course.’ Like