She nods. ‘Good,’ she says, but even she can hear the doubt in her own voice.
‘You look tired,’ says her mum. ‘Bad night?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘No. He slept well. Only one little wake-up and Zach did his baby whisperer on him, got him back to sleep.’
She sees her mum smile indulgently. She knows that her mum sees Zach living here as kind of an experiment and that she’s watching it with optimistic interest from the sidelines.
Tallulah feels a sudden longing to open her mouth and talk, to say everything that she’s been keeping locked up inside these past few weeks. She wants to tell her mum that she’s feeling suffocated, controlled, that Zach has suggested she switches to home learning, that Zach always gives her a strange look when she gets home: his head cocks slightly to one side; he narrows his eyes, as though he suspects her of something, as though there’s something he wants to ask her but he can’t. She wants to tell her mum that Zach doesn’t like her locking the bathroom door when she’shaving a bath, that he sits on the toilet by her side sometimes, playing with his phone, tapping his foot impatiently as though she’s taking too long. She wants to tell her mum that sometimes she feels like she can’t breathe, she simplycannot breathe.
But if she starts telling her mum these things, then what happens next? Her mum will take her side, the atmosphere in the house will curdle, the experiment will be a failure, Noah will grow up not living with his dad. It is only her mother’s belief in the experiment that is keeping it alive.
‘Why don’t you go and watch Zach playing football?’ her mother asks. ‘It’s a nice morning. I can take care of Noah. Go on,’ she says. ‘Think how happy it would make him if you showed up. Maybe you could even go and have a drink together after, at the Ducks?’
Tallulah smiles tightly and shakes her head. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘no. Thanks. I’m happy just hanging out here with you.’
Her mother gives her a questioning look. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ She smiles. ‘I miss just the two of us spending time together.’
‘Since Zach moved in, you mean?’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
‘You’re not …?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. No, it’s fine. He’s just a bit clingy, isn’t he?’
Her mother narrows her eyes at her. She says, ‘I suppose he is a bit. I guess with his family situation, it must be such a change for him to be here with you two, with so much love around. Maybe he’s just getting used to it?’
‘I guess,’ Tallulah says again, cutting another slice off the farmhouse loaf.
‘Do you need some space?’ her mother asks.
‘No,’ she says, dropping the bread into the toaster. ‘No. It’s fine. Just getting used to it, like you say. And he’s amazing with Noah.’ She turns to her baby and beams. ‘Isn’t he?’ she says in a high-pitched voice. ‘Isn’t your daddy amazing? Isn’t he just the best daddy in the world?’ And Noah smiles and bangs his hands down on the high-chair tray, and for a moment it is just the three of them, in the kitchen, smiling, as the sun shines on them through the window and, for a moment, Tallulah feels like all is well, all is good.
Zach is there when Tallulah walks out of college the following lunchtime. He’s waiting in the shadows of the small copse opposite the main entrance. Tallulah looks briefly at him and then at the time on her phone. It’s one fifteen. Zach should be at work now. He does midday to 8 p.m. shifts on Mondays at the building supplies yard just outside Manton.
He stands straight when he sees Tallulah approach and gestures at her with his head. As she walks she can see him casing the environment, his eyes behind her, around her, as if he’s expecting her to be with somebody else.
‘Surprise,’ he says as she crosses the street.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, briefly allowing him to pull her to him and hug her.
‘Pulled a sickie,’ he says. ‘Well, being honest, I did actually feel a bit ill. Thought I was coming down with something. But now I feel fine. Thought I’d come and escort you home.’ He smiles and Tallulah looks into his eyes, the same eyes she’s been looking into since she was virtually a child: the grey eyes withdark lashes, the soft skin, the small dimple just next to the left-hand corner of his mouth. He’s not the best-looking boy in the world, but he’s nice-looking, his face is good and kind. But there’s something there now, something that’s set in since they were apart last year, a hard, metallic glint in his eye. He looks like a soldier back from war, a prisoner back from solitary, as though he’s seen things he can’t talk about and they’re trapped inside his skull.
‘That’s nice,’ she says, ‘thanks.’
‘Thought I might see you coming out with friends,’ he says, his gaze going back to the college entrance, to the streams of students leaving for their lunch.
She shakes her head.
‘What about that girl?’ he says. ‘You know, the one in the picture with you?’
‘What girl?’ She knows what girl and hears her own voice catch slightly on the lie.
‘The one with her arm round you. At the Christmas disco.’
‘Oh, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘Yeah. She left.’