Truly Madly Guilty

Erika froze. She was close enough to the room to see their shadows. She stood back against the hallway wall, away from the door.

'She probably thought it involved all four of us,' said Sam.

'I guess,' said Clementine.

'Do you want to do it?' said Sam.

'No. I don't want to do it. I mean, that's my first instinctive response. Just, no. I don't want to do it. This sounds so awful but I just ... hate the thought of it. It's almost ... repulsive to me. Oh God, I don't mean that, I just really don't want to do it.'

Repulsive.

Erika closed her eyes. No amount of therapy or long hot showers would ever get her clean enough. She was still that dirty, flea-bitten kid.

'Well you don't have to do it,' said Sam. 'It's just something they're asking you to consider, you don't need to get all worked up about it.'

'But there's no one else in her life! There's only me. It's always only me. She hasn't got any other friends. It's like she always wants another piece of me.' Clementine's voice rose.

'Shh,' said Sam.

'They can't hear us.' But Clementine lowered her voice again and Erika had to strain to hear. 'I think I'd feel like it was my baby. I'd feel like they had my baby. What if it looked like Holly and Ruby?'

'That shouldn't worry you too much, seeing as you'd rather poke your eyes -'

'That was a joke. Erika shouldn't have passed that on, I didn't actually mean -' Clementine's voice rose again.

'Yes, I know, sure. Look, let's just get through this thing and we'll talk about it when we get home.'

'Daddy!' Ruby's little voice piped up. 'Play again! Right now. Now, now, now.'

'That's enough, Ruby, we need to go back downstairs,' said Clementine.

'We need to change her, that's what we need to do,' said Sam. 'Where's the nappy bag?'

'It's downstairs, of course, it's not attached to my wrist.'

'Jeez, don't get snippy on me, I'll get it.' Sam came out of the room and stopped short.

'Erika!' he said, and it was almost funny the way he took a step back, his eyes wide with fear, as if she were an intruder.

chapter twenty-five

Tiffany was searching through the bottom drawer of Dakota's chest of drawers for an Alannah Hill white cardigan with a scattering of tiny white pearls on the shoulders that suddenly seemed like exactly the right sort of thing for a private school mother to wear to a 'compulsory' Information Morning.

She was sure this was the cardigan she'd pulled from her bag and made Dakota wear when they'd gone to Vid's cousin's baby's christening a few weeks back and it had suddenly got cold. It had hung around Dakota's wrists but Dakota never cared much about what she was wearing. Knowing Dakota, she'd come home and jammed it in one of her drawers. It probably needed cleaning but Tiffany was obsessed with finding it, as if it were the only solution to a far more complex problem.

She pulled out everything from the bottom drawer and placed it on the floor next to her. There was a book jammed right at the back of the drawer. She went to put it on the floor and saw that it was only half a book. The cover was missing. It had been torn in half. Almost every page had been scribbled upon in angry, black marker, in some cases so violently there were holes through the paper.

She sat back on her haunches, staring at it, breathing rapidly. The title at the top of the page said, The Hunger Games. Wasn't that the book her sister Karen had told her was too grown-up for Dakota? 'You've got to take responsibility for what she reads,' Karen had said, bossily. 'Don't you know how violent that book is?' But Tiffany had believed she shouldn't censor Dakota's reading. It wasn't pornography after all. It was a young adult book. Tiffany knew what the book was about (she'd watched the movie trailer on YouTube) and even fairy tales were violent. What about Hansel and Gretel?! Dakota had always loved the most gruesome fairy tales.

Had the book had such a profoundly terrible impact on Dakota that she'd felt the need to destroy it? It was like it had been brutally vandalised. Tiffany pulled more clothes out and found the remainder of the book.

Dakota loved her books and she always took such care of them. Her bookshelf was in beautiful order. She didn't even freaking well dog-ear pages. She used a bookmark! And now she was tearing up a book and hiding it? It didn't make sense. Reading was her greatest pleasure.

Tiffany looked at the ceiling. Although, was Dakota reading as much as she once had? She had to read for homework, of course, and Dakota diligently sat down at her desk and did all her homework without ever being asked, without Tiffany having to monitor her at all. But what about reading for pleasure?

When was the last time Tiffany had come across her reading in bed or on the window seat? She couldn't remember. Jeez Louise, had this book distressed her so much that she couldn't even read anymore? Tiffany's negligence was breathtaking. Terrible mother. Terrible neighbour. Terrible woman.

'Have you finished polishing those shoes yet, Vid?' she called out. 'We don't want to leave late! The traffic will be bad in the rain!'