Free Annan Water by Kate Thompson Page B

you?’
    ‘Yeah,’ he spluttered. ‘Definitely’
    ‘Tonight? Until Saturday?’
    ‘Brilliant!’
    ‘Jimmy says he can drop me over in a while. He’ll mind my mum and drive her down tomorrow.’
    ‘Brilliant,’ he said again. ‘Come whenever you like.’
    He wandered out into the yard. Frank was in the hay shed, making doors for the new boxes.
    ‘Annie’s coming over,’ said Michael.
    ‘Now?’ said Frank.
    ‘For a couple of days.’
    ‘A couple of days?’
    ‘Her mum’s going away.’
    Frank examined a nail underneath the dangling bulb, then hammered it into the door. ‘How’ll you manage with school and all that?’
    Michael shrugged. ‘It’s only a couple of days.’
    Frank dug into the nail bucket again. ‘How are you doing, anyway?’
    ‘Oh, grand.’
    ‘Keeping up all right?’
    ‘Yeah. Fine.’
    Frank hammered again. ‘No, it’s just … I got a phone call the other day. We seem to have missed some meeting or other. Parent-teacher.’
    Michael nodded. ‘I gave you the letter.’
    ‘Did you?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway. Most of the parents didn’t bother.’
    ‘As long as you’re doing all right.’
    ‘I’m doing all right.’
    Michael went back to the house and retrieved the crumpled letter from the bottom of his bag. He smoothed it out as well as he could and pushed it into the middle of the paper stack at the end of the table. He sifted through it. There were bills with FINAL NOTICE plastered across them. A car tax renewal form. Catalogues for shows and sales. Entry forms, some half filled in. Registration documents from the BSJA. They had no filing system. This was it.
    He fingered the notes in his pocket uneasily. He took a share of the profits, but he also shared the liability. The unpaid bills made him anxious. It wouldn’t be the first time that he would see his money swallowed up by the running of the house and yard.
    There was a bag of baking potatoes on the counter. He turned on the oven and threw six of them in. Then, as a joyful afterthought, he threw in two more. He changed into his mucky jeans and went out to start on the yard, but the van was already there. Frank was leaning into the cab, talking to Jimmy and Ruth. Annie was walking towards him, carrying two bulging carrier bags.
    ‘Gross,’ said Annie, when she saw his room. ‘We’ll have to do something about this.’
    ‘Fine by me,’ said Michael. ‘When do we start?’
    ‘Got any paint?’
    ‘I can get some tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow, then,’ said Annie. ‘We start tomorrow.’
    He showed her to the spare bedroom next door and dredged though the unsorted chaos of clothes in the airing cupboard in search of clean sheets and blankets. When they’d made up the bed they clattered back down to the kitchen.
    Frank was sitting at the table. He looked up as they came in. ‘Everything all right?’
    ‘Brilliant,’ said Annie.
    Frank galloped his fingers on the table for a moment. ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize.’
    ‘She could be worse,’ said Annie. ‘She’s in remission.’
    Frank nodded, but Michael could see the recent shock still present in his eyes. It was more than Ruth’s condition, he was sure of that. They had told him something else as well.
    ‘I didn’t realize,’ he said again. ‘Be sure and make yourself at home.’

29
    T HEY WERE ALL DOWNSTAIRS before dawn; Annie pale and bewildered by the early start. But the prospect of a ride drove all else from her thoughts, and she was soon firing on all cylinders and eager to be off.
    ‘Do you sleep in all that chandlery?’ said Frank. ‘Doesn’t it get tangled up in the bedclothes?’
    Michael signed the hand-me-down skull cap over to her. ‘It’s yours,’ he said.
    ‘Class!’
    She turned it between her hands and Michael could see her mind working. It wouldn’t be long before that helmet bore Annie’s mark. A death’s head. A line of Japanese characters. A fresh coat of black paint with red