Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

Sienna claims the front passenger seat.

‘Sit with me in the back,’ begs Charlie.

‘Next time, loser.’

Charlie looks at me as though I’m to blame.

‘Maybe both of you should sit in the back,’ I say.

Sienna wrinkles her nose at me and shrugs dismissively but does as I ask. I can hear a mobile ringing. It’s coming from her schoolbag. She answers, frowns, whispers. The metallic-sounding voice leaks into the stillness.

‘You said ten minutes. No . . . OK . . . fifteen . . .’

She ends the call.

‘I don’t need a lift any more. My boyfriend is picking me up.’

‘Your boyfriend?’

‘You can drop me at Fullerton Road shops.’

‘I think you should ask your mother first.’

Sienna rolls her eyes and punches in a new number on her phone. I can only hear one side of the conversation.

‘Hi, Mum, I’m going to see Danny . . . OK . . . He’ll drop me back. I won’t be late. I will . . . yes . . . no . . . OK . . . see you in the morning.’

Sienna flips the mobile shut and begins rooting in her bag, pulling out her flapper dress, which is short, beaded and sparkling.

‘Eyes on the road, Mr O, I’m getting changed.’

I tilt the rear-view mirror so I can’t see behind me as I pull out of the parking area. Clothes are discarded, hips lifted and tights rolled down. By the time I reach the shops, Sienna is dressed and retouching her make-up.

‘How do I look?’ she asks Charlie.

‘Great.’

‘Where is he taking you?’ I ask.

‘We’re going to hang.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Hang, you know. Chill.’

Sienna leans between the seats and adjusts the mirror, checking her mascara. As she pushes the mirror back in place her eyes meet mine. Did I have a girlfriend at fourteen? I can’t remember. I probably wanted one.

We’ve reached Fullerton Road. I pull up behind a battered Peugeot with two different paint-jobs and an engine that rumbles through a broken muffler. Three young men are inside. One of them emerges. Sienna is out the door, skipping into his arms. Kisses his lips. Her low-waisted dress is fringed with tassels that sway back and forth with the swing of her hips.

It looks wrong. It feels wrong.

As the car pulls away and does a U-turn, Sienna waves. I don’t respond. I’m looking in the rear-view mirror unsuccessfully trying to read the number plate.

Julianne answers the door dressed in jeans and a checked shirt. Her dark hair is cut short in a new style, which makes her look younger. Sweet. Sexy. Her loose shirt shows hollows above her collarbones and the outline of her bra beneath.

She kisses Charlie’s cheek. It’s practised. Intimate. They are almost the same height. Another two inches and they’ll see eye to eye.

‘What took you so long?’

‘We stopped for pizza,’ answers Charlie.

‘But I’ve kept your dinner!’

Julianne looks at me accusingly. It’s my fault.

‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’

‘You always forget.’

Charlie steps between us. ‘Please don’t fight.’

Julianne stops herself. Softens her voice. ‘Upstairs. Have a shower. Don’t wake Emma. I just got her to bed.’

Emma is our youngest and has started school in the village, looking tiny in her blue tunic and grey socks. Every time I see her walking out the school gate with her friends, I think of Gulliver and the Lilliputians.

Charlie dumps her schoolbag into her mother’s arms and makes the stairs seem steep as she goes up to her room. Julianne unzips the schoolbag looking for school notes or reminders. She’s wearing the silver earrings I bought her in Marrakesh.

‘I like your hair,’ I say.

‘Charlie says I look like a lesbian.’

‘That’s not true.’

She smiles and arranges the coats on the coat rack in the passage.

This is what our conversations are like since we separated. Brief. Polite. No deeper than a puddle. We were married for twenty years. We’ve been separated for two. Not divorced. Julianne hasn’t asked me. That’s a good thing.

We no longer shop together, go to movies, pay bills, buy cars, book holidays or attend dinner parties as a couple, but we still talk and do parent-teacher nights and family birthday parties. We talked today. I made her laugh, which is always my fallback when I’ve got nothing else. Humour and anti-depressants are my antidotes to Mr Parkinson, who was the third person in our marriage, the other man, who stayed with me after the separation and now is like an unwelcome relative hanging around for the reading of the will.

‘How’s the trial going?’ I ask.

‘They haven’t needed me yet. They’re still choosing a jury.’

Nine months ago, Julianne quit her high-flying corporate job in London, to be closer to the girls. Now she’s working as an interpreter for the police and the courts, occasionally getting late-night calls because victims, suspects or witnesses have to be interviewed.

They’ve asked her to interpret at a murder trial in Bristol. Three men are accused of firebombing a boarding house, killing a family of asylum seekers. The newspapers have labelled it a ‘race-hate trial’ and politicians are calling for calm.

Julianne has finished tidying the hallway. I linger, rocking on my heels, hoping she might invite me to stay for a cup of tea and a chat. Occasionally, she does and we spend an hour talking about the girls, planning their weekends and itineraries. It’s not going to happen tonight.

‘I guess I’d better go.’

‘Are you going to sit outside again?’ She doesn’t make it sound like an accusation. ‘I saw you last night.’

‘I went for a walk.’

‘You were sitting out there for two hours, on the wall, beneath the tree.’

‘It was a nice evening.’

She gazes at me curiously. ‘You don’t have to guard us, Joe.’

‘I know. It was an odd day yesterday.’

‘Why?’

‘I missed the girls.’

‘You’re seeing them most days.’

‘I know, but I still missed them.’

She gives me a melancholy smile and holds the door. I lean close and she lets me kiss her. I hold my cheek against hers.

Stepping outside, I walk down the path and turn. Julianne is standing motionless in the doorway, the light framing her body and creating a halo around her head that disappears as the door closes.

Home now is a small two-storey terrace in Station Road, less than half a mile from my old life. Trains stopped running through Wellow in 1956 but there’s still an old station building at the end of the street, which someone has converted into a long narrow house with a covered verandah where the platform used to be.

The tracks were ripped up long ago but it’s possible to trace the route of the railway line to a red-brick viaduct with a grand arch, which is the signature photograph of the village.

My terrace is darker than a cave because the windows are so small and the rooms are full of faded oriental rugs, wobbly side tables and old-lady furniture. Charlie and Emma have to share a bedroom when they sleep over, but Emma often crawls into my bed with me, forcing me downstairs on to the sofa because her core body temperature is akin to nuclear fusion. I don’t mind the sofa. I can watch late-night movies or obscure sports that don’t seem to have any rules.

There are three messages on my answering machine. Message one is from Bruno Kaufman, my boss at the university.

Joseph, old boy, just reminding you about the staff meeting Thursday. Peter Tooley wants to cut the post-grad programme. We have to fight this. Call me.

Clunk!

Message two. Charlie:

Are you picking me up? Remember we have rehearsal. Hey, I got a joke. There’s this tray of muffins being baked in the oven and one muffin says to another, ‘Man, it’s getting hot in here.’ And the other muffin says, ‘Holy shit! A talking muffin.’