Truly Madly Guilty

The rain was so loud right now Erika could only just distinguish Clementine's voice on the phone.

'Speak up,' she said.

'Sorry. It's Clementine. Good morning! How are you?'

'Yeah, hi, how are you?' Erika moved her mobile phone to the other ear and tucked it against her shoulder so she could continue taking things from the house through to the garage to pack in the car.

'I wondered if you wanted to meet up for a drink after work,' said Clementine. 'Today. Or another day.'

'I'm not going to work,' said Erika. 'I'm taking the day off. I have to go to my mother's house.'

When she'd called the office she had told her secretary to tell anyone who asked that she'd taken the day off because her mother was ill, which was technically true.

There was a pause. 'Oh,' said Clementine, and her tone changed as it always did when they talked about Erika's mother. She became tentative and gentle, as if she were talking to someone with a terminal disease. 'Mum did mention that she called you last night.'

'Yes,' said Erika. She felt a tiny eruption of fury at the thought of Clementine and her mother talking cosily about her, poor, poor Erika, as they must have done since she was a child.

She said to Clementine, 'How was dinner?'

'Great,' said Clementine, which meant that it wasn't, because otherwise she would have rhapsodised about the amazing flavours of the such-and-such.

Don't tell me about it then, Clementine. I don't care if your marriage is falling apart, if your perfect life is not so perfect these days. See how the rest of us live.

'So you're going to your mother's place,' said Clementine. 'To, uh, help her clean.'

'As much as I can.' Erika picked up the three-litre container of disinfectant and put it down again. It was too hard to carry while she tried to talk on the phone. She picked up the two mops instead and walked through the connecting door to the garage, switching on the light as she did. Their garage was spotless. Like a showroom for their spotless blue Statesman.

'Has Oliver taken the day off work too?' Clementine knew that Oliver always went with her. Erika remembered when she'd told Clementine about the first time Oliver had helped with her mother's house and how wonderful he'd been, just getting the job done, never a word of complaint, and how Clementine had got such a soft, teary look on her face when she heard this, and for some reason that soft, teary look made Erika feel angry, because she already knew how lucky she was to have Oliver's help, she already felt grateful and cherished, but Clementine's reaction made her feel ashamed, as if Erika didn't deserve it, as if he were doing more than anyone could expect of a husband.

'Oliver is home from work but he's sick,' said Erika. She opened the boot of her car and slid in the mops.

'Oh. Well, do you want me to come with you today?' said Clementine. 'I could come. I'm playing at a wedding this morning, but then I'm free until school pick-up time.'

Erika closed her eyes. She could hear notes of both hope and fear in Clementine's voice. She remembered Clementine as a child, the day she'd discovered the way Erika lived: sweet little Clementine, with her porcelain skin, her clear blue eyes and her clean, lov

ely life, standing at Erika's front door, her round eyes even rounder still.

'You'd get bitten,' Erika told her bluntly. 'There are fleas.' Clementine's porcelain skin always got the first mosquito bite. She looked so juicy.

'I'd wear repellent!' said Clementine enthusiastically. It was almost like she wanted to come.

'No,' said Erika. 'No. I'm fine. Thank you. You should be practising for your audition.'

'Yes,' said Clementine with a sound like a sigh. 'You're right, I guess.'

'Who has a wedding on a Wednesday morning?' said Erika, mostly to change the subject but also because part of her didn't want to hear what she could sense was coming. 'Don't all the guests have to take time off work?'

'People who want to save money,' said Clementine vaguely. 'And it's outdoors, and they didn't have a wet-weather plan, of course. Anyway, listen, I didn't want to do this over the phone, but ...'

Here it came. The offer. It had only been a matter of time. Erika walked back inside and studied the huge bottle of disinfectant.

'I know you probably haven't wanted to bring it up again since the barbeque,' said Clementine. 'I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come back to you.'

She sounded incongruously formal.

'But I didn't want you to think it was just because ...' Her voice wavered. 'And obviously, Sam and I, we haven't been thinking straight ...'

'Clementine,' said Erika. 'You don't have -'