‘Mum?’ Janine was switching things off downstairs when Eleanor came down sounding worried.
‘What?’
‘It’s Friday tomorrow.’
Janine groaned, ‘Domestic science.’
‘Food technology,’ Eleanor corrected her impatiently.
‘It’s a bit late now, Ellie. What are you making?’
‘Pineapple upside down cake…’
Yummy, thought Janine.
‘I’ve got the ingredients,’ she said. ‘Connie got them for me but my apron’s got all gunk on. I forgot.’
‘Gunk?’
‘I can’t wear it like that.’
‘Take another.’
‘No!’ Anguished. ‘I want the right one.’ Desperate to fit in, not to get laughed at. And when Janine thought about the aprons in the house, jokey cartoons on them, she could see her point.
Janine sighed. ‘If I hand wash it now…’
‘Can you? Oh, thank you Mum, you’re so kind.’ Eleanor effused.
‘Bring it here – and remember next time.’
‘I will, I promise.’
After she had washed and rinsed and wrung the apron out, she placed it over one of the central heating radiators in the hall to dry
Upstairs she looked in on Tom who was fast asleep and said goodnight to Michael who was still up, playing on his PS2. ‘Mum, I need some trainers.’
‘Your dad said. He can take you at the weekend.’ She looked at him: wrists and ankles sticking out of the chill-out suit he wore to sleep in. ‘You’re growing out of those,’ she told him, ‘you’d better get some new ones – in a bigger size – while you’re in town, and anything else that doesn’t fit. You’re going to be enormous.’
He grinned, ducked his head with pleasure. It was such a funny age, she thought, boyish one minute and struggling to be treated as an adult the next.
In her own room, she sorted out her clothes for the following day, not bothering about noise. If Charlotte woke now and had a feed then she might go through till morning. But the infant slumbered steadily on.
Janine’s mind was weaving around work: imagining Stone firing at his friend, Rosa bundled into the car boot, hearing Debbie Chinley weeping, wondering about Butchers’ brother. What age had he been? And was Butchers younger or older? Had Butchers witnessed the accident? She heard the front door, Connie coming in. Janine got into her bed, sighing in appreciation at the prospect of sleep. She turned off the light and drifted off within minutes. When Charlotte woke in the night, only the once thank God, Janine got up on auto-pilot, her limbs heavy her head thick with sleep. The baby went back down without much fuss and Janine crawled back to bed.
