I sag into myself when she has gone. I can’t believe she assaulted me!
An odd mixture of emotions swirls in my tummy. I can still feel the warm pressure of her touch and her coffee-edged breath on my cheek. She could have done anything.
As I stand there, gathering myself, something catches my eye. Whatever it was she put into her bin is poking out a little. Curious, despite how shaken I am, I open the lid and peer inside.
A scrumpled wodge of grubby yellow cloth sits on top of the bin bag. For a second I can’t work out where I’ve seen it before. And then I remember. Amber was carrying it.
Smiling a little, I whisk it out and study it. It’s soft and well-loved by small hands. I put it to my cheek and inhale the milky sweetness as I think things through.
That pestle isn’t going anywhere. I have plenty of time to go to the police. Maybe there are other ways to make Melissa pay for how she has treated me first. Maybe I should be a little more … inventive.
It’s fair to say I am not a woman with many skills.
But I can bake. I am very good with small children. And I have an excellent memory.
Flat 302, Burnside Estate, N9 2HJ
The address is a tube ride and then a bus journey away, but it could be in another city in some ways. I clutch my handbag a little tighter as the main road narrows, lined now with a cluttered mix of fast food shops with names like Chicken Licken and a host of foreign names (Turkish and Middle Eastern, I think) along with charity shops and a plethora of betting establishments. The people have changed too and the population is much more mixed than in my own neighbourhood. There are more coloured people generally, and a lot of women in scarves and burkas, trailing small children in Western dress.
I get off the bus in what I think is generally the right area, feeling very out of place. I’m not totally sure that I know where I’m going and wish I had remembered to bring my A to Z. A little flustered, I go into a newsagent to buy some tissues and ask directions. An old Indian man is serving. His eyes are rheumy and yellow-tinged; his beard grey and thin. I ask him if he knows the way to the Burnside Estate and he just shakes his head as he hands me the change. I am about to leave when a young man, possibly his son, pops up from behind the counter, where he must have been bending down to do something, out of sight. He is wearing a white robe sort of thing and has a beard.
He also has the most beautiful brown eyes, and he flashes a friendly smile at me. ‘Burnside you want, love?’ he says in perfect Cockney.
‘Yes,’ I say, surprised at his English. But I suspect he grew up here. It seems a shame he has to dress that way. Why can’t people like that integrate?
‘Easier to show you, come on,’ he says lightly and leads me out of the shop onto the busy pavement.
He gives me a series of simple directions and I thank him before going on my way. I am not completely sure about what I intend to say when I get to Amber’s flat. I don’t even know if they will be at home. But my feet carry me with a sense of purpose that comforts me after the sensation of floating, untethered, in space ever since Melissa betrayed me.
My nerves almost get the better of me when I approach the estate. There is a scrubby patch of wasteland and a path littered with fast food boxes and dog mess leading to it. The buildings are those 1960s brown and white ones that have long balconies. I can see some makeshift washing lines from here and am suddenly longing for my own private, quiet garden. A young man with aggressively gelled hair approaches with a dog on a metal chain. It’s one of those Staffordshire terriers, which I’m not fond of since one bit Bertie. The dog is muscled, powerful-looking, and strains against the lead as though it wants to eat me up.
Scanning the numbers of the flats I see that Amber’s is on the third floor of the first building and so, clamping my handbag even tighter to my side, I gamely head for the staircase located at the end of the building.
It smells of urine, and I blanch, holding my breath. I am picturing gangs of youths now, with Mohicans, taking drugs and clogging up the stairwell, and my nerve almost fails me. But I only pass a couple of giggling teenage girls clutching mobile phones and a tired-looking woman about my own age with a shopping basket, who surprises me by smiling and saying ‘good morning’. I suppose I shouldn’t assume everyone in this place would like to mug me.
The walkway along to Amber’s house has an array of rubbish along it, from broken children’s bikes to an old pram and uncared for pots choked with weeds. Really, I see no reason not to look after the place you live just because it isn’t in the most salubrious part of town. It really doesn’t seem like the right sort of place to bring up children, especially ones who have additional health challenges. There are a couple though, which look neat and tidy, with plant pots that contain actual flowers.
But when I get to flat number 302, I am not at all surprised to see that the front door could do with a lick of paint. My heart is thumping as I press my thumb to the doorbell, hearing the sharp ring inside the flat. I wait for a few moments, and, nothing happening, I try again. It’s no use. No one is in.
Feeling rather like the withered balloons that hang from the letterbox on the house next door, presumably detritus from a long passed party, I turn to trudge my way home again. And then I see two figures coming towards me and my insides jolt.
‘Bertie?’ says the little girl in her flat voice. It is in marked contrast to the beatific smile that almost splits her face in two.
The pinch-faced woman scans me up and down as she approaches, brandishing keys. ‘What are you doing here?’ she says.
I take a deep breath and try to hide the nervous wobble in my voice as I reach into my bag for the cloth. Amber squeals when she sees it.
‘Mummy! It’s my cuddly!’
‘You dropped it in my street,’ I say gently and then, to her mother. ‘Look, I’ve come to talk to you about Jamie. And, and … about Melissa.’
‘Oh, have you now.’ Her expression hardens further and her cheeks pink as she wordlessly gestures for me to go inside.
The flat is tidy but strangely cold. There’s an ugly black stain of damp behind the enormous television. I’ve never understood why people with very little money have the need for expensive electronics, but there we are.
I perch on a battered sofa so low my knees sag to the side and glance around at my surroundings. The sitting room is small, with a nylon carpet like something you might find in one of the more run-down doctor’s surgeries, and there are a couple of flowery prints in frames on the wall. Glancing around, I jolt at the large framed photograph of mother, child, and … father, all tumbling together and laughing in a photographer’s studio.
I won’t look at it.
The woman, who reluctantly told me her name is Kerry when I offered mine, would no doubt have simply interrogated me on the doorstep. But little Amber, mistress of her domain, almost dragged me into the flat before her mother could protest. She claimed she wanted to show me what sounded like ‘Doggie and Uncle Dave’. I think I may have misheard.
Kerry offers me tea in a flat tone, eyes as dead as a shark’s. I accept and try to concentrate on what I intend to say. This seemed like an excellent plan when I initially thought of it. I liked the idea of Melissa’s face encountering those false nails. Hell hath no fury, and all that. But I feel rather out of my element in this council flat.
Doggie turns out to be exactly that, a Hush Puppy toy that has been loved into a state of greasy, limp submission. The other toy thrust at me by an eager Amber appears to be, as I believed I’d heard, called ‘Uncle Dave’. It’s a strange sort of clown toy. Amber is telling me something in a garbled stream of consciousness that I can’t follow when Kerry comes into the room holding two mugs of tea. She places them none too gently on a low coffee table next to a couple of hair scrunchies and an ashtray with a single squashed butt.
She hasn’t brought milk separately. I only take the smallest splash in a cup (Earl Grey, preferably) brewed very strong. I stare a little queasily at the beige liquid in the chipped mug.
‘She calls it that because we once joked its hair was like our Dave’s,’ says Kerry now, jutting her chin at the ragged headed toy I’m pretending to admire. As if I’m meant to know who ‘Our Dave’ is without explanation.
‘Oh,’ I say with a polite smile. I can’t think of a suitable response and force myself to sip the tea. I think I may have grimaced involuntarily because, when I meet Kerry’s eye, she is looking at me with an expression of disapproval.
She takes a savage sip of her own tea and then bangs it down with a heavy sigh before fumbling in the pocket of her sweatshirt.
‘Hey, Amb. Go play in your room while Mummy has a cig.’
The little girl gets up and obediently carries the toys towards the small hallway. Honestly! Surely the adult should smoke outside! But I bite my tongue.
Kerry lights up and I force myself not to waft the sickly smell away with my hand.
‘Come on then,’ she says, blowing out a thin stream of smoke and closing one eye. Her accent makes me think of Coronation Street, pies, and fog. ‘Tell me the worst.’
‘Well …’ Being in control for once tastes cool and sweet on my tongue, like melting ice cream. ‘I happen to know that your chap stayed the night at her house. And that they were, I’m sorry dear, but they were, well … intimate.’
Kerry’s face folds inwards. ‘I knew it. Fucking bastard!’ she says. ‘Where’d he go then? After?’ She blinks hard, several times and I can see she is struggling not to cry in front of me. A shiver of sympathy passes through me, despite it all.
‘That I don’t know,’ I say and clear my throat. ‘Maybe you should go and see her again. Really have it out with her and clear the air? After that you can try and move on. For Amber’s sake?’
I think this is rather a good little speech, if I say so myself, so it’s a surprise when Kerry barks a bitter, contemptuous laugh.
‘Oh yeah?’ she says. ‘You do, do you, Mrs Helpful? You have no fucking idea.’
I don’t see any reason for her to be so rude when I am trying to help. ‘No idea about what?’
‘What it’s like!’ she says, ‘Living in this shithole. He told me he had something on that was going to change everything for us. We had big plans.’ Her voice skids at the end of the sentence and she swipes furiously at her face, as though trying to push away the weakness.
Amber saves me from finding something to say by bustling back into the room.
‘Mummy finish ciggie,’ she says and Kerry, to my surprise, stubs it out.
She is probably much younger than she looks, and I try to picture her at Tilly’s age. Did she have the dreams of any young person? Or had her upbringing prepared her for a different, more mundane life?
‘I come visit Bertie,’ says Amber, pressing her hot, compact body up against my left side and staring at me intently. I turn my face to look at her mother, and Amber grasps my chin and directs my eyes back to her own. It’s impossible not to laugh at this sweet, bossy gesture.
‘Who’s this Bertie, then?’ says Kerry, obviously trying to force a friendlier tone into her voice.
‘He’s my little dog,’ I say. ‘Amber played with him through the fence.’
‘Ah, right,’ says Kerry, ‘she’s mad about her nanna’s dog. And she told you the address too, right? She does that. I keep telling her.’
‘Yes,’ I smile kindly and then give Amber my attention once again.
‘You can come anytime you like,’ I say.
‘Come today,’ says Amber. ‘Come see Bertie now.’
I laugh, surprised, and Kerry gives an impatient shake of her head.
‘Amb, leave it,’ she says. ‘The lady’s too busy.’
I pause. ‘Actually, I’m not really busy. I’d be very happy to look after Amber for a few hours to give you a break.’
Kerry tuts. ‘I don’t even know you!’ But her voice betrays weakness.
I nod, trying not to let my excitement show. ‘That’s true. But I worked in a nursery for many years and I still have an up-to-date CRB certificate.’
This last part is a slight exaggeration. I don’t even think they call them that now. But maybe I can help to make things right for this little girl. ‘You know where I live. And you look to me like someone who deserves a bit of a break, if you don’t mind me saying.’
Have I gone too far?
But Kerry, fraught and exhausted as she clearly is, hesitates just long enough to leave a crack of doubt.
‘Pleeeeeeease, Mummy!’ whines Amber, almost shouting now and tugging on her mother’s sweatshirt so it gapes at the shoulder and reveals a grubby grey bra strap. ‘Let me go see Bertie!’
And so it is that, ten minutes later, I am escorting the little girl and her ‘cuddly’ down the dark stairwell and into the light.