Free Hushabye by Celina Grace Page A

moment, breathing deeply, trembling, trying to keep herself together. Her mother was looking at her in an odd way, sympathy and spite mixed together.
    “Want a glass of something?” said Mary, after a moment.
    “No thanks,” said Kate, automatically. She looked out of the small kitchen window into the uninspiring garden: concrete paving slabs, a dying shrub in a pot, a handkerchief-sized, balding lawn. There was a white plastic table out there, with an empty whisky bottle on top of it, an inch of dirty water in the bottom of the bottle.
    “What did Courtney want?” she asked, after a moment.
    Mary sniffed. “Money. As usual. As if she don’t already get enough from her dad.”
    “But is she okay?”
    “’Course she is. Just being a teenager, that’s all. All she cares about is boys and Bacardi Breezers and getting her nails done.”
    Kate lifted her shoulders. “I cared about more than that, when I was her age.”
    Mary looked at her with her mouth quirked up at the corner.
    “Yes, love,” she said. “But you weren’t normal.”
     
    When Kate closed the door of her flat behind her a few hours later, she stood for a moment, drinking in the peace and serenity of her home. More so than usual, she could feel the calmness that its order inspired in her – the well-being that the neatness, the cleanliness, the carefully-chosen fixtures and ornaments and furniture evoked.
    Kate paid for a cleaner to come every week, and she cleaned the place herself, just a quick once-over, every day. It didn’t take long. She walked slowly through the small flat, relishing the peace and solitude, the joy of being surrounded by things that she’d chosen with care and attention. She moved about the living room, touching the back of the sofa, the well-filled bookcases, the silver framed photograph of herself on her graduation day from Hendon. She picked it up and regarded it closely, noting her beaming, proud smile, her younger, eager face. Top of the class, Kate. You couldn’t have done that if – if things had been different. You made the right decision – for both of you.
    She went into her small but sparkling bathroom and undressed, dropping her clothes into the wicker laundry basket in the corner. Her jeans and jumper had been clean, but they felt tainted by the hours spent in her mother’s house, smelling of smoke and whisky fumes and something else, something indefinable but awful. Kate checked that a clean, white towel hung from the hook by the shower door, ready for her when she stepped out of the cubicle and saw that the clean bathmat was laid on the shining tiles of the floor. She cleaned her teeth and cleaned her face. Before the bathroom mirror clouded over with steam, she regarded her naked body. You couldn’t tell. There was nothing on the surface that showed.
    For the thousandth time, she pushed away the memories. Shut them away, push them back into the dark. She stepped under the hot gush of water, closing her eyes against the spray. The hot water against her back and neck was so comforting. She watched the foam-laden water stream away from her and down the plughole, and imagined all the mistakes and regrets of the past being carried away with it.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Gemma Phillips lived in a very small townhouse. It was one of a recently-built estate so new that the lawn of the tiny front gardens was like a small, green patchwork quilt, the lines of earth showing between each strip of sod. The houses were what Kate would term “cheaply smart.” They looked fresh and desirable because the new paint gleamed, the tiles shone and the windows sparkled. Give it five years , thought Kate as she parked the car, and they’d look considerably less attractive, as the shoddy materials and second-rate design began to show .
    She’d phoned ahead to check that Gemma was at home, for once not at the Fullmans’ place. She did at least have a few days off now and then, it seemed. Kate rapped smartly with the new