Kate Atkinson - Case Histories

Shirley was a member of the St. John Ambulance, but it didn't take medical training to see that there was nothing anyone could do for him. Michelle was on the floor, hugging herself as if she were in a straitjacket, rocking backward and forward, and she could hear a weird keening noise that she realized was coming from her, and Shirley said, "Don't do that," her voice cold, but she couldn't stop the noise so Shirley grabbed her and pulled her to her feet and shouted, "Shut up, Michelle, shut up!" but she couldn't so Shirley punched her in the face.

The shock was so great she thought she might have actually stopped breathing for a second, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and find oblivion. Shirley said, "You've just ruined both our fucking lives, not to mention Tanya's," and Michelle thought, Not to mention Keith's, but she knew Shirley was right because when it came right down to it, it was her fault.

So she got up from the floor – she felt as stiff as an old woman – and picked up the ax, which at least wasn't actually embedded in his head, which was something to be grateful for, and then she wiped the handle of the ax on her jeans and grasped it herself and said to Shirley, "You go."

Tanya was standing up, hanging on to the edges of her playpen, and she started screaming again, just as if she'd been stuck with a pin. Shirley picked her up and tried to quiet her, but that child didn't look like she would ever be quiet again. "Just go," Michelle said. "Please just go, Shirley." Shirley put the baby back on the floor and said, "I promise I'll look after her for you," and Michelle said, "I know you will. Take her away, give her a fresh start, be the mother to her that I can't be," because if there was one person in the world she could trust it was Shirley.

"Right," Shirley said, and you would think she'd done this before, she was so in control. "Right, I'm going to phone the police and I'm going to tell them that this was how I found you? Right? Right, Michelle?"

"Right."

And then Shirley picked up the receiver and dialed 999 and when the operator answered she started screaming hysterically, you would think she was the best actress in the world, and then finally she stopped and replaced the receiver and they waited in silence for the police to come. The bug had fallen asleep on the floor. It was very cold and Michelle would have liked to clean up a bit for the police coming, but she didn't have the energy. Finally, they heard the sound of a siren, and then another, and the noise of the police cars bumping their way along the farm track, and Michelle said to Shirley, "You never had any chocolate cake."

She had dyed her hair a startling pink color that made him think of flamingos. It suited her much better than the custard yellow. It made her look healthier, although she was healthier – she must have put on half a stone in a week, although that was hardly surprising, as Theo had been feeding her with the single-mindedness of a parent feeding a chick: beans on toast, Horlicks, macaroni and cheese, bacon rolls, sausages and mashed potatoes, bananas and cherries and peaches. She didn't like apples; neither did Theo. Laura had liked apples. Lily-Rose wasn't Laura, Theo was very clear about that in his own mind. Theo was sticking to his donkey food – he got more satisfaction from watching Lily-Rose eat. You would never think to look at her that she would have such an appetite. It was as if she were making up for years of starvation.

She slept in Laura's room, and her dog slept at the foot of the bed. Theo couldn't go near the dog and Lily-Rose worried that it would trigger another asthma attack in Theo. Theo worried too but he told her about Poppy and how he had got used to her and that he believed you could get used to anything in time, and she said, "Yeah, I think that too." They looked at photographs of Poppy, and of Laura, and Lily-Rose said, "She's lovely," and Theo was glad that she didn't use the past tense because it always hurt. He hadn't told Jenny about the girl living with him, he could just imagine what she would say.

He had Jackson's postcard, a picture of a pink flower, the same pink as Lily-Rose's hair. The postcard was propped up on the mantelpiece, next to a photograph of Poppy when she was a puppy. In some odd way Theo identified Poppy with Lily-Rose – little abandoned, mistreated creatures with their new, flowery names. Lily-Rose said she had given herself a new name so she could be a new person. A "fresh start," she said.

She was the product of a profoundly dysfunctional background and she almost certainly needed professional help. She had a history of running away from home, of drug abuse, petty theft, prostitution, although she seemed clean of everything for now. Her mother had murdered her father and she was brought up by her grandparents, who sounded just as bad as her own parents (he suspected abuse). Her life was unreal, like a television program – a documentary or a bad soap opera. Yet she seemed remarkably happy, playing with the dog in the garden, eating an ice cream, reading a magazine. She loved being woken in the morning by a cup of sugary tea and a slice of buttered toast. In the evenings they'd started (bizarrely) doing a jigsaw puzzle together.

"We're like a pair of fucking old-age pensioners," she said, but not unkindly. He didn't want to save her or keep her or change her, although he was doing all of those things and would continue to do them if she wanted. The one thing he didn't do was worry about her. So many bad things had happened to her that she was damage proofed. He was happy just to give her back a childhood. And when she was ready she would move on and he'd deal with that when it happened.

The thing that happened with Mr. Jessop was stupid. (He was always saying, "Call me Stan," but she just couldn't. It sounded wrong, he was a teacher.) It was funny because she hadn't felt particularly singled out or anything, he'd had Christina over a couple times, and Josh as well, and last year the whole biology A Level class went to his house for an end-of-term barbecue. That was the first time she was in his house, in fact. The barbecue was rained off and he'd rushed to the supermarket and bought stuff for sandwiches, which she had helped Kim to make. She always called her Kim, never Mrs. Jessop. Kim had seemed really pissed off at having them all in the house. She'd just had a baby a few weeks before, so maybe you couldn't blame her. Kim was the same age as Jenny and yet you couldn't have found two people on the whole planet who were more different from each other.

They made ham sandwiches with that cheap, shiny ham – Kraft processed slices for the vegetarians – Kim slapping margarine onto doughy white Sunblest bread, and Laura thought, Yuck, and then berated herself for being such a snob. Dad had always been obsessed with feeding them well – home-cooked meals, wholemeal bread, and loads of fruit and veg (although God knows what crap he ate himself when he got the chance). Of course, poor people couldn't afford all that good stuff, but then the Jessops weren't poor. Teachers moaned all the time about their pay but they weren't exactly paupers. Although, to be honest, Josh was right when he said Kim was white trash, and it did make you wonder how Mr. Jessop had ended up with her in that horrible little house that smelled of sour milk and baby shit.

She was wearing red high heels that somehow weren't what you expected new mothers (or teachers' wives) to wear. Her hair was dyed almost white, very Blonde Ambition, and made her skin look unhealthy. Mr. Jessop was completely in thrall to her, it was like she controlled him with one eyebrow, and he seemed quite a different person than the classroom Mr. Jessop (although not so different that you would want to call him Stan). When he was in the classroom he was funny and cynical and always saying mutinous things about the school. He was nothing like any of the other science teachers, more like an English teacher. When he was at home he was less interesting somehow, and you would have thought it would be the other way round really.