Laying the Ghost Read Free Page A

to see a welcoming flash of orange lights to guide her to the Golf. There was no response.
    ‘Er … maybe it was, like row 5 or something?’ Mimi pointed vaguely across to the other side of the car park. ‘I think. I do remember it was a long walk.’
    ‘OK – we’ll go in that direction and I’ll keep pushing the button.’ Nell felt depressed. There was no one else around now. Everyone who’d been on that bus (all in cosy twosomes, not surprisingly as it was term-time; some of them had been hand-holding honeymoonish – well good luck, was her bitter thought) had claimed their cars and gone. They would be way out on the motorway by now, carloads of post-holiday relaxed pairs, telling each other what a wonderful time they’d had, how they couldn’t wait to pick up the dog from the kennels and how brilliant it had felt, escaping from the winter cold, but it was all right, spring would be here soon and the daffodils would be up in the garden. Bloody coupledom. How long would it be, Nell wondered, before she looked at lovers and didn’t seethe at Alex’s abandonment. Perhaps she shouldn’t go to the Mitchells’ party. She might end up snarling at any paired-up folk who dared to look even halfway happy together.
    There it was, at last. Nell flicked the switch again and along by the fence her Golf responded with a couple of little blinks of light. And that was when the boy swooped. As he wrenched Nell’s bag from her hands, time slowed to something that resembled television scenes of dancers caught moving like half-speed angels in strobe lighting. She heard Mimi shriek and swear and felt a rush of warm, cigarette-scented air as the boy shoved against her. Then he raced away. When safely distant but still in full flight, he ripped open the bag, frantically hurling the contents on to the ground. She watched as, just too far away to be worth the chase, he scrabbled among her possessions, grabbing what he wanted and racing off, leaving the rest strewn about like the contents of an upended rubbish bin.
    ‘Shit, Mum! Are you all right?’
    Was she? Or was this an almost triumphant final bloody straw that she could blame – one way or another – on Alex?
    ‘Yes. Well I think so, suppose so. That was a nice bag.’
    It was a mad thing to say; such a frivolous, irrelevant first thought when there was going to be the nightmare of the credit cards to sort. Her driving licence was in there, too, and several store cards. And the bag wasn’t at all nice, really. It was hardly a Chloe Paddington, or whatever the current two-thousand-pound must-have was. There was a stain underneath where she’d put it down in a puddle, and the zip was iffy. But you got fond of bags; their shapes became cosy, worn, softened and familiar. She tried not to think: like men.
    ‘Right. OK.’ Mimi looked, she realized, more nervous of this reaction than of the mugging. Nell leaned against the car, strangely comforted by the feel of its door handle against her hip, the familiar curve of the Golf’s door.
    ‘I’ve still got my passport – it’s in my pocket. My phone’s locked in the glove compartment, and I’ve got the car keys.’ Her mind whirled; having thought of what
hadn’t
gone, she tried mentally to list what she’d had in the bag. Not a lot of personal stuff, no irreplaceable photos, thank goodness. She’d stripped the contents down to the minimum for the trip … Mimi was stroking the back of her mum’s hand and it was going numb.
    ‘We’ll go then, shall we, Mum? I’ll go and pick up what he’s left? We’ll tell someone on the way out. Police and stuff?’ Mimi opened the car’s boot, carefully stashed both bags then opened the driver’s door, tenderly pushing Nell into the seat.
    Nell sat for a moment trying to remember how to drive, how to breathe. She was shaking but she wasn’t going to cry; not here, not yet. She would save that little treat for later when she’d added this one to Reasons for Tears. ‘Pick up