Free One Plus One: A Novel by Jojo Moyes Page B

sure thing Marty had been promised. And the few people who did buy the appliances complained that they blew their electricity supply, and the rest of them rusted, even in the garage, so their meager savings turned into a pile of useless white goods that had to be loaded, fourteen a week, into Marty’s car and taken to the dump.
    And then came the Rolls-Royce. At least Jess could see the sense in that one: Marty would spray it metallic gray, then rent himself out as a chauffeur for weddings and funerals. He’d bought it off eBay from a man in the Midlands, and made it halfway down the M6 before it conked out. Something to do with the starter motor, the mechanic said, peering under the bonnet. But the more he looked at it, the more seemed wrong with it. The first winter it spent on the drive, mice got into the upholstery so they needed money to replace the backseats before he could rent it out. And then it turned out that replacement upholstered Rolls-Royce seats were about the only thing you couldn’t get on eBay. So it sat there in the garage, a daily reminder of how they never quite managed to get ahead.
    She’d taken over the money when Marty started to spend the better part of each day in bed. Depression was an illness, everyone said so. Although, from what his mates said, he didn’t seem to suffer it on the two evenings he still managed to drag himself to the pub.
    When Jess peeled all the bank statements from their envelopesand retrieved the savings book from its place in the hall desk, she had finally seen for herself the trouble they were in. She’d tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he’d just pulled the duvet over his head and said he couldn’t cope. It was around then that he’d suggested he might go home to his mum’s for a bit. If she was honest, Jess was relieved to see him go. It was hard enough coping with Nicky—who was still a silent, skinny wraith—Tanzie, and two jobs.
    “Go,” she’d said, stroking his hair. She remembered thinking how long it had been since she’d touched him. “Go for a couple of weeks. You’ll feel better for a bit of a break.” He had looked at her silently, his eyes red rimmed, and squeezed her hand.
    That had been two years ago. Neither of them had ever seriously raised the possibility of his coming back.
    —
    She tried to keep things normal until Tanzie went to bed, asking what she’d had to eat at Nathalie’s, telling her what Norman had done while she was out. She combed Tanzie’s hair, then sat on her bed and read her an old Harry Potter, as if she were a much younger child, and for once Tanzie didn’t tell her that actually she’d rather do some maths.
    When Jess was sure that Tanzie was asleep, she rang the hospital. The nurse said that Nicky was comfortable: X-rays had shown no evidence that his lung was punctured. The small facial fracture would have to heal by itself.
    She rang Marty, who listened in silence, then asked, “Does he still wear all that stuff on his face?”
    “He wears a bit of mascara, yes.”
    There was a long silence.
    “Don’t say it, Marty. Don’t you dare say it.” She put the phone down before he could.
    And then the police rang at a quarter to ten and said that Jason Fisher had denied all knowledge.
    “There were fourteen witnesses,” she said, her voice tight with theeffort of not shouting. “Including the man who runs the fish-and-chip shop. They jumped my son. There were four of them.”
    “Yes, but witnesses are only any use to us if they can identify the perpetrators, madam. And Mr. Brent says it wasn’t clear who was actually doing the fighting.” He let out a sigh as if she should know what teenage boys were like. “I have to tell you, madam, the Fishers claim your son started it.”
    “He’s about as likely to start a fight as the Dalai bloody Lama. We’re talking about a boy who can’t put a duvet in its cover without worrying it might hurt someone.”
    “We can only act on the evidence,