Some Rain Must Fall Read Free Page A

expect the place to leak, that’s all.’
    They looked up together at the droplets of rainwater gathering on the umbilicus of the light fitting. All the power in the house might blow any second.
    ‘I want a child with you, Nick,’ said Frances, hearing herself speak as if through the din of a rainstorm, though the brunt of it was actually over now, leaving the after-effects to carry on the harm.
    Nick stared at her uncomprehendingly, as if her comment might decode itself into being about buckets or laundromats.
    ‘We’ve talked about this before,’ he said, warningly.
    ‘I want it.’
    She wanted him to take her upstairs, smack her down on the sodden bedsheets, and start a little life that would grow up to walk under an umbrella with her one day.
    ‘I’ve told you,’ he reminded her. ‘You could maybe adopt one, as a single parent, and I could see how I feel. No guarantees.’
    ‘It’s not the shared responsibility I’m worried about, you bastard,’ she said. ‘I want your baby and mine. From the beginning. Nothing on the slate except our genetics. A clean start. Adopted children bring their damage with them from the womb, from the day they leave the womb. Already in the cradle they’re soaking up their parents’ fuck-ups.’
    ‘Oh! Well!’ he exclaimed, gesticulating aggressively. ‘What a pity the fucked-up human race has to keep bringing children into the world, instead of leaving it to experts like you!’
    Mesmerised by his violent display, she followed the sweep of his big hands, longing for him to hit her, batter her to the floor. But even in anger he was hopelessly, infuriatingly safe.
    ‘Damn right!’ she screamed in a misery of triumph.
    ‘You know what you are?’ he accused her, shoving his face right up to hers so she could see his lips forming the words with exaggerated clarity. ‘A – con trol – freak.’
    After they’d finished arguing, they stripped the bed, turned up the central heating and went out to Rotherey’s only restaurant, a combination hotel and snooker hall which also did Indian.
    Inevitably, the mother of one of the children from Jenny MacShane’s class was there too, buying a carry-out, and she stumbled straight to Frances and Nick’s table.
    ‘I just want to thank you for what you’re doing,’ she told Frances blushingly. ‘Last night, for the first time since …you know … this terrible MacShane business … our Tommy slept right through without having nightmares or wetting the bed.’
    ‘That’s good to hear,’ smiled Frances.
    ‘I just want to say that I don’t care how much you’re getting paid, you’re worth every penny.’
    ‘Thank you,’ smiled Frances. Warmth came harder to her when it was parents or other teachers wanting it.
    ‘I just wanted to know … Is there any chance of you staying on? As Tommy’s permanent teacher?’
    ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ smiled Frances. Her lamb korma, none too hot when it was served, had stopped steaming altogether. And she could tell that this woman was going to go away and tell the other mothers that Frances Strathairn wouldn’t stoop to work at a teacher’s wage.
    ‘Much as I’d love to,’ she sighed, making the effort. ‘The powers that be wouldn’t let me.’
    The mother went away then, walking with a peculiar shambling gait and a posture which suggested congenital inferiority. Frances stared at the door she had gone through, and picked at her food irritably. God, how she disliked herself for pleading impotence when that had nothing to do with why she must move on! This pretence of being the passive slave of higher authority – it was a deplorable lapse in dignity, an act of prostitution.
    And to top it all off, she was going to break up with her man.
    ‘I’ve seen you like this before,’ observed Nick quietly from the other side of the candles. ‘You always get like this just before the job’s over. Those kids that survived the bus crash in Exeter, remember? A few days before you