‘Go,’ she’d said, stroking his hair. She remembered thinking how long it had been since she’d touched him. ‘Go for a couple of weeks. You’ll feel better for a bit of a break.’ He had looked at her silently, his eyes red-rimmed, and squeezed her hand.
That had been two years ago. Neither of them had ever seriously raised the possibility of him coming back.
She tried to keep things normal until Tanzie went to bed, asking what she’d had to eat at Nathalie’s, telling her what Norman had done while she was out. She combed Tanzie’s hair, then sat on her bed and read her a story, like she was a much younger child, and just for once Tanzie didn’t tell her that actually she’d rather do some maths.
When Jess was finally sure she was asleep she rang the hospital, who said that Nicky was comfortable, and that the consultant was coming around again first thing, after which they thought he could probably be discharged. The X-rays had thrown up no evidence that his lung was punctured, and the small facial fracture would have to heal by itself.
She rang Marty, who listened in silence, then asked, ‘Does he still wear all that stuff on his face?’
‘He wears a bit of mascara, yes.’
There was a long silence.
‘Don’t say it, Marty. Don’t you dare say it.’ She put the phone down before he could.
And then the police rang at a quarter to ten and said that Fisher had denied all knowledge.
‘There were fourteen witnesses,’ she said, her voice tight with the effort of not shouting. ‘Including the man who runs the fish-and-chip shop. They jumped my son. There were four of them.’
‘Yes, but witnesses are only any use to us if they can identify the perpetrators, madam. And Mr Brent says it wasn’t clear who was actually doing the fighting.’ He let out a sigh, as if these sorts of calls were an endless chore, as if she should know what teenage boys were like. ‘I have to tell you, madam, the Fishers claim your son started it.’
‘He’s about as likely to start a fight as the Dalai bloody Lama. We’re talking about a boy who can’t put a duvet in its cover without worrying it might hurt someone.’
‘We can only act on the evidence, madam.’ His flat tone said he had heard it all before.
The Fishers, she thought, as she slammed down the phone. With their reputation, she’d be lucky if a single person ‘remembered’ what they’d seen.
For a moment Jess let her head fall into her hands. They would never let up. And it would be Tanzie next, once she started secondary school. She would be a prime target with her maths and her oddness and her total lack of guile. The thought of it made her go cold. She thought about Marty’s sledgehammer in the garage. She thought about how it would feel to walk down to the Fishers’ house and –
The phone rang. She snatched it up. ‘What now? Are you going to tell me he beat himself up too? Is that it?’
‘Mrs Thomas?’
She blinked.
‘Mrs Thomas? It’s Mr Tsvangarai.’
‘Oh. Mr Tsvangarai, I’m sorry. It – it’s not a great time –’ She held out her hand in front of her. It was shaking.
‘I’m sorry to call you so late but it’s a matter of some urgency. I have discovered something of interest. It’s called a Maths Olympiad.’ He spoke the words carefully.
‘A what?’
‘It’s a new thing, in Scotland, for gifted students. A maths competition. And we still have time to enter Tanzie.’
‘A maths competition?’ Jess closed her eyes. ‘You know, that’s really nice, Mr Tsvangarai, but we have quite a lot going on here right now and I don’t think I –’
‘Mrs Thomas. Hear me out. The prizes are five hundred pounds, a thousand pounds and five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds. If she won, you’d have at least the first year of your St Anne’s school fees sorted out.’
‘Say that again?’
He repeated it. Jess sat down on the chair, as he explained in greater depth.
‘This is an actual thing?’
‘It is an actual thing.’
‘And you really think she could do it?’
‘There is a category especially for her age group. I cannot see how she could fail.’
Five thousand pounds, a voice sang in her head. Enough to get her through at least the first year.
‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch. Well, you have to do advanced maths, obviously. But I can’t see that this would be a problem for Tanzie.’
She stood up and sat down again.
‘And of course you would have to travel to Scotland.’
‘Details, Mr Tsvangarai. Details.’ Her head was spinning. ‘This is for real, right? This isn’t a joke?’
‘I am not a funny man, Mrs Thomas.’
‘Fuck. FUCK. Mr Tsvangarai, you are an absolute beauty.’
She could hear his embarrassed laugh. She thought he was less embarrassed by her swearing than that she was probably the first woman ever to have called him a beauty.
‘So … what do we do now?’
‘Well, they waived the qualifying test after I sent over some examples of Tanzie’s work. I understand they are very keen to have children from less advantaged schools. And, between you and me, it is, of course, an enormous benefit that she’s a girl. But we have to decide quickly. You see, this year’s Olympiad is only five days away.’
Five days. The deadline for registration at St Anne’s was tomorrow.
She stood in the middle of the room, thinking. Then she ran upstairs, pulled Mr Nicholls’s money from its nest among her tights, and before she could think she stuffed it into an envelope, scrawled a note, and wrote the address in careful letters on the front.
She would pay it back. Every penny.
But, right now, she didn’t have a choice.
That night, Jess sat at the kitchen table, studied the figures and worked out a rough plan. She paid off the minimum on her credit card, sent a holding letter to the gas company disputing her bill (that should buy her at least a month), and wrote cheques to the creditors whom she knew wouldn’t wait, like the housing association. She looked up the cost of three train tickets to Edinburgh, laughed a bit hysterically, then looked up coach tickets (£187, including the £13 it would cost to get to the coach station) and the cost of putting Norman in kennels for a week (£94). She put the palms of her hands into her eye sockets and let them stay there for a bit. And then, when the children were asleep, she dug out the keys to the Rolls-Royce, went outside, brushed the mouse droppings off the driver’s seat and tried the ignition.