‘What do most people buy?’
‘Pocket spring is the more luxurious. It’s made from small individual springs each housed in a pocket of fabric. This means the springs move independently, providing more support so that when you roll over, you’re not disturbing your partner.’
‘That’s what I’ll have.’
‘Soft, medium or firm?’
Dear Mother of God!
‘Perhaps you’d like to try the difference,’ says Brad, pointing to the mattresses. ‘Don’t worry about your shoes – we have mattress protectors.’
I’m expected to lie down. I feel like a corpse in a coffin. Brad is still talking.
‘Feel how it supports your hips and shoulders and lower back. It’s particularly good when one partner is significantly heavier than the other.’
‘We’re not partners.’
‘Oh. I see. Perhaps you should bring her along – let her choose. We’re open seven days a week.’
‘I don’t collect her until Friday,’ I say.
Brad’s smile disappears like a light being switched off.
‘I’m getting her room ready,’ I say, trying to recover. ‘She’s getting out, I mean, she’s coming to live with me.’
‘I see,’ says Brad, although I don’t think he sees at all.
‘I’ll take a medium mattress. Can it be delivered?’
‘You haven’t asked the price.’
‘How much is it?’
‘Normally you’d pay well over a thousand pounds, but I can do it for six hundred and ninety-nine.’
The shock must register on my face.
‘It’s very good value, sir. People spend far more money on a sofa that gets used for a few hours a day, whereas a bed gives us a crucial eight hours.’
‘Fine.’
‘What about a mattress protector?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You’ll need linen. And a duvet.’
He takes me to another section of the showroom and begins to list the different cottons and thread counts. The information washes over me and I become aware of how many extra things I will have to buy before Evie arrives: soap and shower gel for her bathroom. Toilet paper. What about women’s things? She’ll need tampons or pads. I’ve never had to buy those. Will Evie bring some with her? I could ask someone; Caroline Fairfax perhaps. No, I’ve had enough embarrassment for one day.
I stop for takeaway on the drive home because I have nothing in the fridge except leftovers that are covered in a greenish fur. I’ll need to cook proper meals when Evie arrives. The extra responsibility will be good for me. I’ll make shopping lists and eat better food. Healthy shit. I’ll drink less and won’t put my feet on the furniture, or cut my toenails at the kitchen table. I’ll have to share the TV remote and listen to her music. What if Evie wants my favourite chair?
Maybe I haven’t thought this through. Then again, I’m too young to be set in my ways. I’ll learn things about myself. We’ll learn things together.
After rinsing my plate, I carry another beer to the library and search my desk drawer for a writing pad and a fountain pen. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a proper letter, on paper, with an envelope. I don’t know if this will ever reach Sacha Hopewell, but I have to try.
Dear Sacha,
I hope you don’t mind me using first names. I’m Cyrus, by the way. We haven’t met, but I asked your parents to pass this letter onto you. If you’re reading it, then I thank them.
I trust I didn’t frighten them when I visited. It wasn’t intended. Your parents tried to explain to me why you left home and keep moving from place to place. I still don’t fully understand what happened, but I saw the depth of their pain and how much they were missing you.
I’m a psychologist working in Nottinghamshire. Several weeks ago, I met a young woman in council care. I can’t tell you her name because it’s the subject of a court order, but you’ll know exactly who I mean when I say that she was found hiding in a secret room in a house in north London six years ago. She is a remarkable young woman, but also a very troubled one. You appear to be one of the few people she has ever learned to trust, which is why I’m reaching out to you. I’m hoping you might talk to me about those early days with Angel Face. Did she mention having a family? Did she hint at memories of her childhood – a place, or a favourite toy, brothers or sisters?
I know you’ve been asked these questions dozens of times before, but I’m hoping with the clarity of hindsight, you might have remembered something else.
I don’t have a phone number (it’s a long story), but I’m including my address and my pager number. I don’t need to know where you are, or what you’re doing, or why you’re staying away (unless you want to talk about those things).
Contact me. Please. I guarantee complete discretion.
Yours sincerely,
Cyrus Haven
25
Angel Face
‘When are you leaving?’ asks Davina, nudging my shoulder.
‘Friday.’
‘You excited?’
I don’t know what I am.
We’re setting up the tables for breakfast in the morning – one of my chores – putting out bowls and spoons and boxes of cereal; refilling sauce bottles and checking the salt and pepper shakers.
The dining room smells of chip fat, boiled cauliflower and, for some inexplicable reason, carpet shampoo, even though the floor is tiled.
‘Why him?’ asks Davina.
‘Who?’
‘Dr Haven. You ran away from all those other foster families, but this guy pops up and you say yes.’
‘It’s different.’
‘How?’
‘He understands,’ I say, which sounds lame. I don’t know the reason. Maybe I’ve grown up. Maybe I’m sick of this place. Maybe I’ll run the first chance I get.
‘We’re going to miss you,’ says Davina.
‘Liar.’
‘Don’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘People are allowed to tell lies, especially when they’re trying to be polite.’
I can see her point, but why change the habit of a lifetime?
I don’t mind doing kitchen duty. Whenever I get anxious, I get these bouts of OCD – although Guthrie calls them CDO, which is ‘just like OCD except in alphabetical order’. My compulsion is to clean and put things in order. I once broke into the pantry – not to steal food, but to check the use-by dates and arrange all the tins with their labels facing outwards. Nobody caught me. I did it again a few weeks later. I broke in, but the pantry was still so neat that I messed it up. I figured I could fix it the next night, but they caught me on the way out. Sod’s law.
Davina doesn’t mind my obsessions. She has a little boy at home. Oscar. He’s four. She talks about him a lot and has pictures on her phone. His dad looks after him when she’s working. I don’t think they’re rotten poor, but they don’t have much money. I keep telling Davina she should get her teeth straightened, but she says she can’t afford to look like a supermodel. That’s her idea of a joke.
Her partner is called Snowdon and he sometimes does odd jobs around Langford Hall because he’s good with his hands, particularly fixing motors, which is how he makes his living – doing up cars and flogging them. Every time they hire him, he makes sure the job last four hours, so he gets a full day rate.