I See You by Clare Mackintosh Read Free Book Online Page B

leave off the tie, in a concession to the
Telegraph’s
relaxed dress code, but he’s not a chinos kind of man. I check the time and lock myself in the bathroom, hoping the others have left me some hot water; cutting my shower short when I realise they haven’t.
    I’m drying myself when there’s a knock on the door.
    ‘Almost done!’
    ‘It’s only me. I’m off.’
    ‘Oh!’ I open the door, towel wrapped around my damp body. ‘I thought we were going in together.’
    Simon kisses me. ‘I said I’d be in a bit early today.’
    ‘We’ll be ready in ten minutes.’
    ‘Sorry, I really do need to go. I’ll give you a ring later.’
    He goes downstairs and I finish drying myself, cross with myself for being disappointed he doesn’t want to walk to the station with me; a teenage girl denied her crush’s football jumper.
    Simon used to work shifts, covering earlies and lates in the newsroom, and doing his share of the weekend rota. A few months ago – at the start of August – they changed things at work, putting him on permanent days, Monday to Friday. I thought he’d be pleased, but instead of enjoying more evenings together, he comes home grouchy and depressed.
    ‘I don’t like change,’ he explained.
    ‘Soask for your old shifts back.’
    ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he said, frustration making him short with me. ‘You don’t understand.’ He was right; I didn’t. Nor can I understand now why he won’t wait ten minutes for Katie and me to be ready.
    ‘Good luck!’ he calls to Katie, as he heads downstairs. ‘Knock ’em dead!’
    ‘Are you nervous?’ I ask her, as we walk towards the station. She doesn’t say anything, which is an answer in itself. Under one arm she’s clutching her portfolio, inside which are a dozen 7 × 5 photos that cost a small fortune. In each one Katie’s wearing something different; a new expression on her face. In all of them she’s beautiful. Simon paid for the photos as a surprise for her eighteenth birthday, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.
    ‘I’m not sure I can take another no,’ she says quietly.
    I sigh. ‘It’s a tough business, Katie. You’re going to get a lot of nos, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Thanks. Nice to know my own mother has faith in me.’ She tosses her hair as though she’d be flouncing off if we weren’t both walking in the same direction.
    ‘Don’t be like that, Katie. You know what I mean.’ I say hello to the dreadlocked busker standing by the entrance to Crystal Palace station and reach into my coat pocket for one of the coins I keep there. Her name’s Megan, and she’s only a little older than Katie. I know this, because I asked her one day, and she explained that her parents had thrown her out and that she spent her days sofa-surfing, and busking, and queuing up at the Norwood and Brixton food bank.
    ‘Cold today, isn’t it?’ I throw ten pence into her guitar case where it bounces on top of a handful of others, and she breaks off from her song to thank me, before seamlessly catching up with the lyrics on the next bar.
    ‘Tenpee isn’t going to get her far, Mum.’
    The strains of Megan’s song die away as we walk into the station.
    ‘Ten pence in the morning; ten on my way home. That’s a pound a week.’ I shrug. ‘Fifty-odd quid a year.’
    ‘Well, if you put it like that, it’s very generous.’ Katie’s silent for a moment. ‘Why not just chuck in a quid every Friday, though? Or give her a bundle of notes at Christmas?’
    We tap our Oysters and push through the barriers towards the Overground.
    ‘Because it doesn’t feel like I’m giving so much, this way,’ I tell Katie, even though that isn’t the reason. It isn’t the money that matters but the kindness. And this way I give a little kindness every day.
    At Waterloo we fight our way on to the platform, and join the thick procession making its way on to the Northern line.
    ‘Honestly, Mum, I don’t know how you do this every