The Woman Who Took a Chance by Fiona Gibson

Author:Fiona Gibson [Gibson, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-12-07T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

‘He was here again. Really helpful, he was,’ Mum says when I visit. As casually as I could manage, I’d asked if she’d heard from her friend again.

‘Helpful with what, Mum?’ I’m aware of anxiety knotting inside me, somewhere in my chest.

‘With various things we’re going to do,’ she says with a coy smile as if she’s seventeen and the boy she fancies at school has started paying her some attention.

‘What kind of things? D’you mean jobs you need doing around the house, or in the garden? Because I can always help with—’

‘Just some plans we’ve been talking about,’ she cuts in.

‘This is worrying me now, Mum.’

‘Why?’ she asks in surprise.

‘Because I don’t know this person.’

‘You don’t know everyone,’ she says with a half-scowl.

I breathe out slowly. ‘Okay, Mum. But what kind of plans d’you mean?’ The ones where he gets hold of your bank cards? Or accompanies you to the cashpoint so he can drain your accounts? I have started to picture this ‘friend’: sly eyes, a mean, thin-lipped mouth, twitchy long fingers ready to thieve her valuables. Refusing to discuss it further, she changes the subject. Clearly Mum’s old, steely determination is still very much there.

A few days later my work shift overlaps with Kirsten’s and she beetles over towards me. ‘I don’t want to make a big thing of this, Jen,’ she says.

Immediately, my heart seems to lurch.

‘It’s my fault,’ she adds quickly. ‘I shouldn’t have asked her. I know your mum’s not quite herself. But I was stuck yesterday. I’d been let down again—’

‘What’s happened, Kirsten?’

‘—asked her if she could look after Brad, just while I was at work. You know she’s done that for me sometimes?’ I nod. ‘It’s not like she needed to walk him. She could just pop him in her garden and I’d pick up his poops when I got back …’ She stops and her eyes fill with tears. ‘I know she’s been a bit funny with him lately but she seemed really pleased to be asked. Honestly, I thought it might be nice for her to have him for company, but when I got back yesterday he wasn’t there.’

‘Oh God! Where was he?’

‘Out. He’d either got out somehow, or your mum had let him out. I’ve no idea. She didn’t even seem to remember that she’d had him. Said she didn’t know what I was talking about—’

‘Did you find him?’ I ask, horrified. Kirsten nods and rubs at her eyes. She’s always fully done up with immaculately groomed brows and bronzer, even for work or when she’s just out walking Brad.

‘I went straight out to try and find him but then someone called me, a woman from a few streets away. He was in her garden, sniffing around. My number’s on his collar—’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘That’s just awful.’

‘I don’t want you to feel bad,’ she says firmly as she starts to restock the bakery section. ‘That’s not why I’m telling you. I just wanted you to know. I shouldn’t have asked her, I realise that now.

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