I clear my throat. I’m not exactly sure what to do about this bedraggled visitor. On the one hand, she is ludicrously late, and I’ve every right to tell her to get lost. On the other, the weather is foul, and apart from her now drenched coat, she is completely underdressed.
‘Look, feel free to stay here for a bit,’ I say briskly. ‘But I can’t photograph you today, I’m afraid. I was actually just finishing off a few emails and then leaving. Sorry.’
The girl is still facing the wall. ‘The thing is, it needs to be today.’ She says it like it’s as much my problem as hers.
‘Like I said, I’m sorry.’
The girl bends down, reaches inside her bag and pulls out a bulging brown envelope. The lip is not sealed. It is full of fifty-pound notes.
‘I’ve got the cash with me. And I brought extra for the prints.’
She places the envelope next to the radiator, under her coat. The rain is still rattling the roof, but the thunder has faded to a low rumble. I clear my throat.
‘Sorry, what did you say your name was?’
Finally, the girl turns round. It takes me a moment to place it. Her strange, childlike face, her dimpled cheeks, her pointed teeth. She smiles.
‘You remember me, Serena, don’t you?’
33 WEEKS
HELEN
Daniel has been making an effort lately, I’ve noticed. Work seems to have eased up a bit. Tonight, he is home on time, bouncing in his shiny work shoes, a bulging bag of shopping dumped on the kitchen worktop.
‘I got that hot chocolate you like. I saw we were out,’ he is calling from the hallway, hanging up his coat. When I open the bag, I see there are other things I need, too: antacids, vitamin supplements, bath oil, the expensive granola I’ve been devouring bowls of in the middle of the night.
‘I thought I could cook, and the new series of Luther is on. Fancy it?’ He pulls off one shoe, then the other, and puts them neatly in the shoe rack, as I’ve asked him to.
I smile to myself. This is what I wanted it to be like. Nights in, on the sofa. No more eating alone. ‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ I say. ‘Luther sounds good. I’ll help you cook.’
The rain has stopped, for now. Yellow evening light is seeping through the kitchen window, casting little rainbows over the wooden worktop where it reflects through the oil and vinegar. Outside, birds in the garden are calling over the traffic. Soon, there is a hum of football commentary on the radio; Daniel’s team are playing. The roar of the crowd is far away, just a white noise, like the sizzle of the onions I am frying on the stove. I brush chopped garlic from the board into the pan.
‘How was your day?’ I ask Daniel, turning the radio down. As I turn to face him, though, I realise he is not listening to me anymore, or the football. He is pushing piles of paper this way and that on the kitchen table, opening and closing cupboards.
‘Where’s my laptop, Helen?’
His tone makes me stop what I’m doing.
‘I don’t know. Have you tried the study? By your bed?’
‘I’m sure it was here. On the table.’
He turns on his heel, marches upstairs, and I hear him stomping from room to room, the floorboards straining. Then he is back down again.
‘I’ve looked everywhere, Helen. It’s gone.’ The use of my name tells me that he suspects it is my fault.
‘Well, maybe you left it at the office.’
‘I didn’t.’
I toss the celery and risotto rice in with the onions, starting to turn the grains over with a wooden spoon.
‘I’ll help you look,’ I tell him. ‘After dinner, though. Did you grate that Parmesan?’
Daniel starts to hack at the cheese, inexpertly, grating it as if it were Cheddar for a child’s packed lunch, not in the nice flakes I prefer. ‘Bloody hell. How much did this cost, Helen?’ he asks, examining the wrapping.
I stare at him. ‘I can’t remember. It’s proper stuff, from Modena. Why?’
He rubs his eyes behind his glasses. ‘We spend so much money, Helen,’ he mutters. He takes his glasses off and rubs at the lenses.
I look at him. ‘What do you mean?’
He puts his glasses back on. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Forget it.’
The truth is, he is right. Shopping has become my therapy, my guilty secret. Sometimes, after my hospital appointment – briefly reassured that everything is, at least for that moment, all right – I will step off the Tube feeling lighter than usual. I will go to the gift shops on Turnpin Lane, telling myself I deserve it. That I have the right to celebrate. I will thumb through the tiny jumpers with knitted animals, the little boxed bonnets and bootees, the baby blankets in pale ice-cream colours, closing my eyes as I finger the softness of the cashmere. Then I watch them being wrapped up for me in tissue and ribbon, turning my credit card over in my hand. Wondering what else I am going to do for the rest of the day.