The First Time I Saw Your Face Read Free Page A

Phyllida was getting some packs of chocolate buttons out of her bag and twisting round to give them to the girls. He heard her tell Fran how proud she was of her for being brave at the dentist; how grownup Gabi had been staying with Uncle Mack. He saw the little hands extended and his mother’s smiles and felt a rush of compassion. After Tess had hugged Phyllida goodbye, he helped his mother from the car, but she insisted on walking up the garden path unaided.
    Tess wound down her window. ‘All that pirate stuff back there?’
    ‘A job offer. Nice of the guy really—’
    ‘It hasn’t come to that, surely? I mean, I know the freelance work’s been a bit slow recently.’
    ‘Slow as in none at all?’ He was trying to make light of it, but once he’d let that thought out, he couldn’t stop the other ones. ‘Never mind, still got my short stories … that’s if I could actually sell any of them. And then, hallelujah, there’s my ground-breaking novel. Any year now I’ll get off Chapter Five and move swiftly on to Chapter bloody Six.’ He heard the girls’ chocolatey giggle at the swearword and it made him pause. ‘Sorry, Tess, swearing and self-pity in one speech – you won’t let me have that “Star Patient” sticker now.’
    He turned to see if Phyllida had reached the front door and immediately felt his arm being tugged.
    ‘Listen, you,’ Tess said, giving his arm a real seeing to, ‘you’re allowed the odd bit of self-pity, but things are going to get better, I can feel it. No, don’t laugh at me.’
    Mack never would understand how Tess, despite the trials of Phyllida, had retained an optimistic outlook on the world.
    ‘And however bad it is now, it can’t be as terrible as when you were working for O’Dowd,’ Tess went on. ‘We got the “nice” you back when you lost that job. I’d rather have that one, even if he has to paint himself silver.’
    ‘Thanks, Pollyanna.’ He stepped back out of range of her hand and gurned at the girls to cover up the emotion he really felt.
    When they had driven off, Tess shouting that she’d give him a ring tomorrow, he walked back up the path. Tesswas right: working for O’Dowd had been the worst experience of his life and in the end he hadn’t been up to it, but at least he’d felt alive. Now the ‘nice’ Mack was bored out of his mind and drifting God knew where.
    He turned and looked at the row of Bath Villas opposite and the streetlights coming on. You could almost hear the sedate hum of Bath life and the solid assurance that tomorrow would be very much like today.
    There was no sign of Phyllida when he reached the front door, nor inside, and he went along the hallway and rang her bell. Nothing. He put his ear to the door. No sound. Looking through the ribbed glass of the door was useless: it made whoever was on the other side look distorted and wavering. Mind you, with Phyllida, that was often what she looked like after you opened the door.
    ‘Can I get you anything, Phyllida?’ he shouted.
    A faint, ‘No, thank you,’ drifted back and he wondered what she was up to. He suspected it would involve a bottle because getting up and out this morning, being charming to the dentist – it all told him that Phyllida had squirrelled some drink away in the flat again and had a good stiffener as soon as she’d woken up. She would be desperate for a top-up now. Tess would know that too, but that optimism of hers often allowed her heart to overrule her brain and she would be hoping that maybe, just maybe, Phyllida was showing iron self-will and keeping her promise to drink only in the pub. It was a promise they wrung out of her regularly, figuring that in the pub she’d get less alcohol for her money and at least they’d eventually turf her out.
    But … perhaps he was wrong to be so cynical about what she was up to right now. Perhaps the half-bottle of vodka gaffer-taped to the underside of Phyllida’s bed that they’d found last week was her last