Free The Darkening Hour by Penny Hancock Page B

evenings, or on diets. Give me a slice of white bread and some processed cheese, and I’m in heaven.
    I go up to the bathroom. It’s clear Mona has done more than a superficial clean in here, as well; she’s polished the taps so they shine. She has even dealt with the limescale in the
toilet bowl. How? The limescale has been defeating me for years, a rough brown scum that looks as if I’ve given up caring, but that has resisted all my attempts to tackle it.
    Full of appreciation, I knock on her door.
    She’s at my bureau. Writing on a pad of Basildon Bond paper, with a Parker pen I recognise instantly as one of Daddy’s.
    ‘What are you writing?’
    ‘A letter home.’ Her hand cups the sheets of paper, as if she’s afraid I’ll try and read it. There’s no need, it’s in Arabic script, though I have to admit to
being a little taken aback that she can write at all. I’d assumed that if she was literate she wouldn’t have chosen domestic work.
    ‘Mona, if you want paper, you only have to ask. You don’t need to take from Daddy. He doesn’t understand.’
    She looks up at me through those big brown eyes. ‘I must write home.’
    This stirs compassion in me for the poor woman.
    ‘You just ask me, OK? I’m not going to bite. I didn’t think. You could have phoned.’
    ‘Yes. I no have credit.’
    ‘You should have said! You must tell your family you’re OK, that you’ve arrived safely. You can use the house phone, this once – until you get credit. Have you any change
from the ten pounds I gave you?’
    She glances at me with an expression that I can’t quite interpret. She hands me a few coins. It seems very little but then I remember Daddy mentioning chocolate and something else.
    ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘So you got Daddy fruit?’
    ‘And chocolate.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    She gazes at me, fixing me with her eyes.
    ‘No,’ she says, ‘nothing else.’
    ‘Well, look.’ I hand her a ten-pound note. ‘Take this and get yourself some credit. It was stupid of me not to think of it. Do you know where to buy top-up here?’
    She shakes her head.
    ‘I’ll get Leo to show you. I’ll pay you at the end of the week. You can’t go around with no money at all. And I’ll give you something for my shopping too,
I’ll write a list. You’re to go to a shop called Waitrose – I don’t use the shops on the High Street.’
    She smiles but doesn’t say anything, and I wonder again how good her English is.
    ‘Come on – Leo can take you to get credit now.’
    Leo looks up as I put my head round the door but he doesn’t move when I ask him to take Mona to the mini market up the road.
    ‘Can’t she go by herself?’
    ‘Leo, I’m asking you to put yourself out for once. It’s dark, and she’s not safe walking around on her own in a strange area. Now, please. You can buy yourself something
while you’re there. Here.’ I hand him another tenner, angry with myself for breaking my own resolution to stop indulging him. He’ll only spend it on cigarettes or beer or Red
Bull.
    At last he gets up slowly, not taking his eyes off the screen.
    I watch them walk out of the door together. I might have had to use bribery, but I’ve got Leo off his bottom for once.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    When I hear Leila’s sweet voice a wave of relief and love washes through me.
    ‘When are you coming home, Ummu?’ she asks. ‘It’s been a long time.’
    ‘Darling, it hasn’t been long at all. It’s Thursday today, so it’s only been a few days since I left.’
    I know it’s not to do with the number of days I’ve been away but how it feels to her. If I’d said I’d been gone just an hour it might feel like a year.
    ‘You’re fine without me,’ I say cheerfully. ‘I need you to be grown-up and look after Tetta. Are you feeding the chickens?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I can feel the pain in her chest in the ensuing silence.
    ‘Dora’s got a cat that sleeps in her house,’ I say. ‘She eats her dinner with the cat