‘I don’t know,’ he says.
‘If it were there, we wouldn’t need to take anything. But if it’s not, that would fit with her going on holiday, wouldn’t it? She’d take her toothbrush and her hairbrush.’
‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘but maybe they’re just covering all the bases.’ He holds up a joke tiara, black and silver with feathers attached and pointy black ears. Part of a Hallowe’en outfit Lori wore a couple of times. I’ve a picture of her in my head, like some punk imp, rowdy with her friends, drinking cocktails before setting off to a party.
‘That,’ I say, ‘and this.’ I lift up her black beret. ‘She’s worn this for ever, there must be… well…’ I don’t need to spell it out.
Isaac comes in asking for a drink and sees the jumble. He picks up a scarf and Nick tells him to leave it alone.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘You can have a play as long as they all go back in these boxes after.’
‘And them?’ He points to the things I’m holding.
‘No, I need them,’ I say.
‘Why?’ he says.
‘I just do. Where’s Finn?’
He shrugs.
‘Isaac?’
‘On the trampoline. Why?’
‘He might like to dress up, too,’ I say.
Isaac drapes Lori’s scarf around his head and goes to peer in the hall mirror. I put the beret and the tiara in freezer bags and take them upstairs.
Nick follows me. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Undermine me. I just told Isaac to leave stuff alone and you say the opposite.’
‘But why should he leave it alone? What harm can it do?’
‘That’s not the point,’ he says.
‘So if you say something stupid and illogical I’ve got to agree to it?’ I sound like a bitch so I start to back-pedal. ‘Sorry, I just think we have to pick our battles.’
‘Don’t bother,’ he says, and walks away.
I stare at the suitcase I’ve started to pack and hear Finn’s voice drifting up from the garden, some little chant, and realize my hands are aching because I’m gripping the freezer bags so very tightly.
I have the address of the visa office. Tom and I walk up and down Mosley Street among the office buildings trying to find it. I check the street number again and we retrace our steps. The only sign that this building is the right one is the scrap of paper stuck next to the intercom button with Chinese Visa scribbled on it. When Tom presses the buzzer, a voice tells us to come to the first floor.
Through the double doors a receptionist is poised at a high desk. She asks our business, then gives us a ticket and tells us to wait our turn. All the twenty or so seats are full, and more people stand around the edges of the room. At the far end there is a row of booths behind glass screens. The room is stuffy, smells of too many people, and I feel queasy as we find a place to stand.
