First Aid by Janet Davey Read Free Book Online

He didn’t take his stuff with him. He took the van though. Mum thinks he won’t come back.’
    â€˜Get the locks changed. Your mum should have done that. Ray would have sorted it if you’d asked. Replaced the entire door and fixed a new tune for the bell. He did that when my brother borrowed his car without asking. Kept him busy for hours, whistling with screws between his teeth. I had a really nice day. It would have been a bit of excitement for him, locking out your mum’s boyfriend.’
    â€˜It wasn’t like that. We couldn’t talk to her. She trailed round indoors, picking things up and dropping them in bags. My brother started to join in. He’s that type – knows what he’s got to the last end of pencil. He wasn’t going to leave any of his precious possessions.’
    â€˜Sad,’ said Vince. ‘What about the neighbours?’
    â€˜We haven’t really got any. There are just the people downstairs.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with them?’
    â€˜Christian,’ she said.
    â€˜What about your dad?’
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go and stay with him. Can you lend me a fiver?’
    â€˜All right,’ he said. ‘But I need it back for Saturday.’
    â€˜Where is it?’
    â€˜In my room somewhere.’
    â€˜Go on then.’
    Vince got to his feet.
    â€˜And could I have some food, once your stepdad’s got himself off the washing-up bowl?’ she said.
    â€˜The fridge is full of crap, now he’s back, but I’ll try and find something,’ he said.
    Ella left the house as soon as Vince’s mother came home. Lauren didn’t smile or say hullo. Her hair was wet from swimming and she was carrying plastic bags full of shopping. Ray had turned up the volume of the sports results so it was hard to hear anyone speak. Vince looked ill after eating oven chips and apple sauce too quickly. He didn’t try to persuade Ella to stay on longer. He came down to the front door, though, and saw her out. On his instructions, she found the stile behind the recreation ground and walked along the footpaths that led to the sea.
    She sat down on the upper part of the beach where the pebbles were dry. It was an empty time of day. The sea was turning pale and opaque, paler now than the sky. The horizon was a white vacant line. Through narrowed eyes she saw the boats as silhouettes without depth, like dark paper cut-outs. It was possible to forget where she was. She pretended that she was somewhere on the other side of the world, not hemmed in by Calais and the northern coast of France. The little kids had gone back to eat and watch television and the late lot hadn’t arrived – the before-bed dog walkers and the teenage lovers with nowhere to go but the shadows of the breakwaters. Ella knew their habits. She spent a lot of evenings on her own wandering along the shore. She took off her shoes, picked them up and walked down to the water’s edge, then along, in the shallows, on the shingle. London seemed far away.
    The others would be there now. Gran and Grandad would be pleased to have them, but worried by the suddenness, failing to hide either the pleasedness or the worry, letting both come out in the wrong ways. She wasn’t with them, but she knew what it would be like. That back room where they ate so real, clear as a dream, the look and the smell of it, the dark green curtains with roses on, steamed limp by years of plain boiled vegetables. She knew what they would be talking about, not just the words, but the words behind the words.
    Lovely to have the family all together again, like Christmas, like the days when we made all the decisions and everyone was happy as Larry. We won’t ask, but we don’t have to, the question lives with us. Do you have any plans, any you-don’t-have-to-tell-us-now plans, we-wish-you-were-happy plans that will guarantee that we’ll never have to