They picked up the keys from Reception, he followed the path through the trees, they pulled up in front of the cabin and he unloaded Jess and the dog and saw them inside. She was limping badly by then. He remembered suddenly the ferocity with which she had kicked the car. In flip-flops.
‘Have a long bath,’ he said, flicking on all the lights and closing the curtains. It was too dark outside by now to see anything. ‘Go on. Try and relax. I’ll go and get us some food. And maybe an ice pack.’
She turned and nodded. The smile she raised in thanks was barely a smile at all.
The closest supermarket was a supermarket in name only: there were two baskets of tired vegetables, and shelves of long-life food with brand names he hadn’t heard of, sitting, as they might well have done for months, under flickering strip lights. He bought a couple of ready meals, some bread, coffee, milk, frozen peas and painkillers for her foot. As an afterthought he bought a couple of bottles of wine.
He was standing at the checkout when his phone beeped. He wrestled it out of his pocket, wondering if it was Jess. And then he remembered that her phone had run out of credit two days previously.
Hello darling. So sorry you can’t make tomorrow. We do hope to see you before too long. Love Mum. PS Dad sends his love. Bit poorly today.
‘Twenty-two pounds eighty.’
The girl had said it twice before he registered.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ He fished around for his card, and held it out to her.
‘Card machine’s not working. There’s a sign.’
Ed followed her gaze. ‘Cash or cheque only,’ it said, in laboriously outlined ballpoint letters. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Why would I be kidding you?’ She chewed, meditatively, at whatever was in her mouth.
‘I’m not sure I’ve got enough cash on me,’ Ed said.
She gazed at him impassively.
‘You don’t take cards?’
‘’S what the sign says.’
‘Well … do you not have a manual card machine?’
‘Most people round here pay cash,’ she said. Her expression said it was obvious that he was not from around here.
‘Okay. Where’s the nearest cash machine?’
‘Carlisle.’
He thought she was joking. She wasn’t.
‘If you haven’t got the money you’ll have to put the food back.’
‘I’ve got the money. Just give me a minute.’
He dug around in his pockets, ignoring the barely suppressed sighs and rolled eyes from those behind him and by some miracle from his inside jacket pocket and the bottom of his wallet he was able to scrape up cash for everything bar the onion bhajis. He counted it all out and she raised her eyebrows ostentatiously as she rang it up, and shoved the bhajis to one side, where they would doubtless be shoved back into a chiller cabinet some time later. Ed, in turn, shoved it all into a carrier bag that would give way even before he reached the car, and tried not to think about his mother.
He was cooking when Jess limped downstairs. At least, he had two plastic trays rotating noisily in the microwave, which was about as far as he had ever immersed himself in the culinary arts. She was wearing a towelling bathrobe and had her hair wrapped in a white bath-towel turban. He had never understood how women did that. His ex had done it too. He used to wonder if it was something women got taught, like periods and hand-washing. Her bare face was oddly beautiful.
‘Here.’ Ed held out a glass of wine.
She took it from him as if she barely noticed. He had started a fire, and she sat down in front of the flames, apparently still lost in her thoughts. He handed her the frozen peas for her foot, then busied himself with the rest of the microwave meals, following the instructions on the packaging.
‘I texted Nicky,’ he told her, as he stabbed the plastic film with a fork. ‘Just to tell him where we were staying.’
She took another sip of her wine. ‘Was he okay?’
‘He was fine. They were just about to eat.’ She flinched slightly as he said this, and Ed immediately regretted planting that little domestic tableau in her imagination. ‘How’s your foot?’
‘Hurts.’
She took a huge swig of her wine and he saw she’d downed a glass already. She got up, wincing, so that the peas fell onto the floor and poured herself another. Then, as if she’d just remembered something, she reached into the pocket of the robe, before holding up a little clear plastic bag.
‘Nicky’s stash,’ she said. ‘I decided this qualified as an appropriate moment for appropriating his drugs.’
She said it almost defiantly, waiting for him to contradict her. When he didn’t, she pulled out Nicky’s papers and dragged a tourist guide from the glass coffee-table onto her lap, where she proceeded to roll a haphazard joint. She lit it, and inhaled deeply. She tried to smother a cough, then inhaled again. Her towel turban had started to slide and, irritated, she tugged it off, so that it was just her wet hair around her shoulders. She inhaled again, closed her eyes, and held it out towards him.
‘Is that what I could smell when I came in?’
She opened one eye. ‘You think I’m a disgrace.’
‘No. I think one of us should be in a state to drive, just in case Tanzie wants picking up.’
Her eyes widened.
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Really. You go ahead. I think … you need …’
‘A new life? To pull myself together? A good seeing-to?’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Oh, no. I forgot. I can’t even do that right.’
‘Jess …’
She raised a hand. ‘Sorry. Okay. Let’s eat.’
They ate at the little laminated table beside the kitchen area. The curries were serviceable, but Jess barely touched hers, preferring to drink. She pushed the chicken biryani to and fro on her plate, until it was clear that she wasn’t going to eat more than a few mouthfuls, and he offered to clear it away.
As he put the plates on the side and prepared to wash up, she faced him. ‘I’ve been a total idiot, haven’t I?’
Ed leant back against the kitchen units, a plate in his hand. ‘I don’t see how –’
‘I worked it all out in the bath. I’ve been blathering to the kids all these years about how if you look out for people and do the right thing it will all be okay. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Do the right thing. Somehow the universe will see you right. Well, it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Nobody else thinks that way.’