Free The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St John

agent coming in the morning?’
    ‘Nine o’clock.’
    ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Goodnight.’
    ‘Er—goodnight.’
    She put the flowers in water and went to bed. It had been a long three days, and underneath her defiance she was suffering what she could expect to be a long-enduring and horrifying pain.

29
    ‘Where have you been all this time?’
    ‘I’ve been fetching Henrietta.’
    ‘But you’ve been gone for ages.’
    ‘Well I stayed for a drink with Louisa.’
    ‘Yes, but still.’
    ‘It’s nice to be missed.’
    ‘I couldn’t find the whatsit.’
    ‘Poor you.’
    ‘You left here before teatime.’
    ‘Oh, yes, well, I popped in on Nicola.’
    ‘ Nicola? Why did you do that?’
    ‘I’ll explain later, I have to bathe Henrietta.’
    ‘Why isn’t Marie-Laure giving me my bath?’
    ‘See if you can guess.’
    ‘She’s got a pain.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘She’s lost.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘She’s gone to her English class.’
    ‘No, silly, not on Sunday. It’s her day off.’
    ‘When’s she coming back?’
    ‘After you’ve gone to bed.’
    ‘I’m going to wait up for her.’
    ‘No you’re not. She’ll be very late.’
    ‘Fergus is allowed to stay up late. Fergus stays up till midnight, every night.’
    ‘Oh, yes?’
    ‘He does, he told me.’
    ‘Good old Fergus. Come on, out you get.’
    ‘Mummy.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Why do I have to be good?’
    ‘We all have to be good.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘There is a reason, but I’ve forgotten it.’
    ‘Merember it.’
    ‘I’ll try. Daddy will remember it—you can ask him. Now quick, nightie on. Dressing gown. Slippers. Good girl.’
    Henrietta was eating her supper at the kitchen table.
    ‘Daddy.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Why do I have to be good?’
    ‘Ask Mummy.’
    ‘She’s forgotten. She said to ask you.’
    ‘Ah. Let me think. Ah, yes. Because…’
    ‘Because why?’
    ‘I don’t buy ice-creams for bad girls.’
    Henrietta thought for a moment. ‘When I grow up,’ she said, ‘I’m going to be bad, because then I’ll have my own money, and I can buy my own ice-cream. I’m going to be bad, and buy my own ice-cream.’
    ‘Well, that sounds reasonable enough,’ said Alfred. ‘But meanwhile, you’ll have to be good, is that understood?’
    ‘All right,’ said Henrietta reluctantly. ‘But only until I grow up.’
    Soon after this she went to bed, and Alfred read her some Winnie the Pooh, and she fell asleep just as Kanga…

30
    ‘Why did you go to see Nicola?’
    ‘Because she’s sad.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Don’t tell a soul. I probably shouldn’t tell even you.’
    ‘Fire ahead then.’
    ‘Well—’
    ‘Get on with it.’
    ‘Jonathan’s got cold feet.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Bloody Jonathan has handed Nicola her cards.’
    ‘He what?’
    ‘He’s offered to buy her out. The show’s over. He’s given her the elbow.’
    ‘Was he there?’
    ‘No, of course not. He delivered the blow and then more or less bashed off immediately to his parents’ for the weekend. She’s hoping to bring him round, but it doesn’t really look likely, does it?’
    ‘Bloody Jonathan. How very unfortunate.’
    ‘Yes, so say I.’
    ‘I thought they were a permanent fixture.’
    ‘Yes, naturally.’
    ‘Awkward, isn’t it?’
    ‘Very.’
    ‘I thought she was his salvation.’
    ‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to be saved.’
    ‘Or he doesn’t believe that she can save him.’
    ‘Perhaps she can’t, at that.’
    ‘Who knows?’
    ‘Only God; as usual. In any event, they won’t be coming with us to the cottage at Easter, so I thought we might take Fergus.’
    ‘Oh, God, must we?’
    ‘Yes, Louisa’s looking awfully peaky; she and Robert could probably use a break. Anyway, it’s nice for Harry to have another kid to play with.’
    ‘All right, let’s bite the bullet, then.’
    So that was what they did.

31
    Nicola lay under the bedclothes, hunched around her pain, despising herself.
    She despised herself