Critical Incidents by Lucie Whitehouse

Author:Lucie Whitehouse [Lucie Whitehouse]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Breakfast on the fly didn’t happen at Dunnington Road. As kids, she and Luke had come down every day to find the kitchen table laid, butter in a dish, the tea already brewing. In winter, Christine, messianic about hot food, had done them porridge or a boiled egg with buttered soldiers. Seeing the one she’d made for Lennie this morning caused Robin a stab of feeling, not all of whose strands she could identify. Guilt and frustration, obviously – yes, she should have made Len breakfast – but there was something painful, too: Lennie had Robin’s old egg cup, a stretch of china wall with Humpty’s two stripy legs dangling, the cup part formed by the top of his trousers.

Because of the late finish, Maggie had told her to come in at ten. ‘Great, so I’ll drop Len off,’ said Dennis. ‘You and your Mum can have a coffee before you go, Robin.’

She opened her mouth but was silenced by a look. For me.

Hard to know who was more uncomfortable. She assumed her mother would sit back down to finish her toast but after seeing Lennie and Dennis off, she chucked it in the bin and started clearing the table at warp speed, as if now her husband was gone, her own right to eat had expired. The milk was back in the fridge, jam in the cupboard, taps running before Robin could carry a pair of plates to the sink. ‘She makes me feel so lumbering,’ she remembered telling Rin. ‘Like some kind of … pachyderm.’

Christine washed and Robin dried, the draining board filling faster than she could clear it. On the windowsill was a vase of daffodils, new since yesterday. ‘Those are nice,’ she said to break the silence. ‘Bright.’

‘I thought we all needed something hopeful-looking.’

Robin turned, her hand reaching for the cupboard automatically, the order of the house so deeply ingrained in her that, even now, sixteen years later, she had a whole neural pathway for her parents’ toast rack.

Her mother carefully cleaned the egg cup, rinsed it then handed it to her.

‘Gran gave me this for Easter years ago. You had it all this time?’

‘You never said you wanted it, so …’

‘No, I mean, you kept it. You didn’t throw it away.’

‘I wouldn’t.’ Christine looked startled. ‘It’s yours.’

‘You don’t have to keep stuff if it’s cluttering up your house.’

Her mother gave her a strange look, as if she were being deliberately thick, then plunged a pan into the water. Puzzled, Robin turned and put Humpty back where he’d always lived, next to Luke’s egg cup, which was shaped like the bottom half of a chicken, a white cup supported by claw-like yellow feet. The strange, tender feeling still lingered, and to get rid of it, she thought of getting his cup out, asking Christine if it reminded her of Natalie. But then, she thought, even if it did, her mother wouldn’t be mean enough to say so. Unlike her.

Christine pulled the plug, rinsed the sponge and started cleaning the work surface in neat stripes.

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