Chosen Read online

  Dodie thanks him, hangs up and sits blankly for a minute staring at her toes, then staggers up to look at the post. Among the junk are two actual letters, one in a solicitor’s thick envelope, one airmail, which she rips open immediately.

  Dear Dodie,

  I’m sorry that I left so suddenly without saying goodbye. Don’t worry about me I am fine. I know you won’t believe it, but I have been chosen. Don’t laugh. It’s true. Will you come and visit? Bring Jakey; it’s cool here.

  Yours in the Lord,

  Seth

  Dodie reads it standing up, then sits down and reads it again. Yours in the Lord? The letter had been printed out, but the signature is in Seth’s familiar spidery scrawl. The paper is stamped with a logo, like a mask with tiny letters spelling SOUL LIFE, and an address and phone number in New York State. She puts her head in her hands amid a scatter of muesli. The door opens and Jake sings out, ‘Mumma, Mumma,’ reaching from his buggy as Rod manoeuvres it into the kitchen. She unstraps him, lifts him up and rubs her face against his hair, but he struggles to get down and play.

  ‘So?’ Rod says, dumping bread and milk onto the table. ‘Did you ring?’

  ‘My head.’ Dodie puts her hand against her throbbing brow. The bread smells aggressively wholemeal. She moves away towards the sink where last night’s plates are still submerged in greasy water along with a floating teabag and a fag end. Two empty wine bottles and the whisky nearly finished too.

  ‘Read that.’ She indicates Seth’s letter, fills a mug from the tap and swigs it down.

  Rod reads the letter and snorts.

  ‘Yours in the Lord?’ Dodie says. ‘I have been chosen? That’s not Seth, is it? Yours in the Lord, for God’s sake?’

  ‘At least you know he’s safe.’ Rod flicks the kettle on. ‘Coffee?’

  Dodie winces. ‘Safe?’

  ‘He’s telling you he’s OK.’

  ‘But chosen? He never even went to Sunday school.’

  ‘The lawyer?’ Rod asks.

  ‘Haven’t you even got a hangover?’ She swallows a couple of paracetamol that stick like boulders in her throat.

  ‘A wee touch,’ he admits, but he looks fine. Mad deningly fine. He drank just as much. More. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It’s not mine, the house. She rented it.’

  He turns to stare at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she says. ‘I don’t even want it.’

  ‘How did you not know that?’

  Dodie shrugs.

  ‘You don’t want it? Three hundred grand’s worth of house?’ He gives the biscuit tin a deafening rattle.

  A surge of sick rises suddenly in Dodie’s throat; she clamps her hand to her mouth and rushes upstairs, making it to the bathroom just in time. Tears spurt from her eyes as she vomits into the toilet, the paracetamol choking out again, not even dissolved. She sinks to her knees, beside a sodden nappy, a feeder cup on its side in a pool of juice.

  Later, headache shrunken to manageable proportions, she goes out to the shed Rod calls his workshop. Jake’s sitting on the floor, banging with a little hammer at a piece of splintery wood. He looks up and grins. He’s got a cold and his face is shiny with snot; as he breathes a bubble inflates and deflates in one nostril.

  ‘Bam, bam, bam,’ he says.

  ‘Are you sure that’s safe?’ Her fingers itch to remove the hammer, the dagger-sharp splinters. Rod sands the curve of the arm of a chair, a lovely sweeping line, pale wood. Ash or lime, she guesses. Those tiny pink fingers so near the banging hammer-head. Even a tiny splinter can poison the blood.

  ‘He’s OK,’ Rod says, looking up. ‘Feeling better?’ He puts down his sandpaper, runs his finger over the smooth curve.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she says. ‘I’m going teetotal.’

  He gleams at her ironically.

  She groans, leans herself back against the workbench, eyeing Jake and the hammer. She reaches down and tries to wipe his nose, but he wriggles away from her and she gives up.

  ‘So, did you ring the airline?’

  He grins. ‘Aye. Result,’ he says. ‘They’ve offered me a flight end of next week, only another fifty quid.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she says, ‘because I’m going to see Seth.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just phoned. Didn’t speak to him but I told them I was coming. I don’t want to take Jake all that way, not with this cold. I’ll be back before you go.’

  ‘I’m staying here to support you and you’re going away?’ His voice rises. ‘Christ, Dodie!’

  ‘I can’t not go and see Seth, can I?’

  Rod’s mouth sets in a stubborn line that means yes, you certainly can.

  Dodie picks up a chisel: fine, sharp-edged, easy to hurt yourself on. The glitter of the blade makes her shudder.

  ‘All Stella’s stuff is mine, though, mine and Seth’s. You can get your hands on the table,’ she says. ‘And anything in the shed.’

  ‘I’ve just changed my fucking flight,’ he says, ‘to be with you. To be here for you.’

  ‘You will be,’ she says. ‘You’ll be here with Jake . . . for me.’

  He reaches for his Rizlas. ‘How much?’

  ‘We can afford a cheap return. You’ve got the chair commission. What if it’s a cult or something?’

  ‘Christ’s sake!’ Rod suddenly slams his fist down on the workbench, scattering tobacco amid the sawdust. ‘You make such a fucking mountain out of every fucking molehill!’

  She stares at him. Jake is staring too, open-mouthed, a clear trail of dribble running down his chin.

  ‘Molehill!’ she repeats, straining to keep her voice calm and pleasant. ‘It’s not a molehill! And it’s OK for you to go gallivanting off, but not for me? And I’m not even gallivanting,’ she adds.

  Rod picks up his sanding block and goes violently at the arm of the chair.

  ‘I’ve got to at least see him,’ Dodie pleads to Rod’s back. ‘He needs to know. I have to tell him about Stella, don’t I? I’ll go online for a cheap –’

  Jake gives a sudden screech and drops the hammer, holding up his index finger wonderingly, eyes hugely round. Dodie scoops him up, sucks the finger into her mouth, kisses and kisses him. See. She shoots Rod a filthy look as she carries Jake away.

  ‘Will you not mollycoddle him?’ Rod snaps after her.

  She turns in the doorway.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s not even crying, for Christ’s sake. Leave him be.’

  Dodie holds Jake close, almost crooning into his hair, but he wriggles, he’s seen his football. She sets him down and he staggers across, aims a kick, falls on his bottom and laughs. Her sweater is smeared with mucous. Mollycoddle?

  Rod leans against the doorframe of the shed.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ She dabs at her front with a tissue. ‘I won’t be able to do anything till I know he’s OK,’ she says. ‘You think I mollycoddle Seth as well?’

  ‘You said it.’

  ‘But he’s got no one else, has he? If I don’t look out for him, who will?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rod says. He goes back into the shed and slams the door.

  Dodie catches Jake and takes him inside. She wipes his face and tries to show him how to blow his nose, but he can’t get the idea at all. She gives him a cup of juice, sticks a DVD on and, once he’s happily gawping, creeps away. In the kitchen her eyes snag on the other letter. She has a sudden fit of violent shivers, puts the kettle on and drapes a sweater of Rod’s round her shoulders. She warms her hands on the belly of the kettle until it gets too hot, then, as if catching herself unawares, turns and tears open the solicitor’s envelope, and the one inside addressed to Dodie in Stella’s jerky hand:

  Dear Dodie,

  If you’re reading this, I’m gone but this is something I want you to know. Even to write it is hard, as if my hand is trying to stop me. I’m sorry I was so horrid. I don’t know why I was. I did love you but something would always come over me, li
ke a force field or glass or something to stop me being nice. It was easier with Seth, a boy; that is something different. After you left home I did try with him. When you left I was glad. It made it easier for me to look after Seth without you watching in that critical way you have.

  I have been horribly cold, I know.

  Though I don’t deserve it, please forgive me.

  Stella.

  Dodie reads it through twice then she turns to make herself a cup of Earl Grey. She puts two mugs out, but hangs one back on its hook. Let him make his own. Love is a tiny word with a taste like almonds and she holds it on her tongue.

  6

  The taxi stops outside a chain-link fence. It’s a wide flat street with wide flat buildings separated by acres of lawn. There’s no church or anything that looks the least bit like a church.

  ‘End of the ride, lady,’ the driver says. Dodie pays him, fumbling with the unfamiliar dollar bills. ‘Have a good day.’ It’s mid-afternoon. He screeches his car into a three-point turn and swerves away. The sun is warm with an autumnal edge. Fall, she thinks, a fall edge – but that doesn’t sound right. Sounds dangerous. Some things just don’t translate. Once the engine noise has evaporated, there’s silence. A black squirrel scrambles up the fence and leaps onto the branch of a tree. Blazing maple leaves.

  The gate is made of the same toughened wire mesh as the fence. On the gatepost the small mask logo with SOUL-LIFE in its mouth. OK. That’s something. No handle on the gate, no way of opening it, but there’s a button with a speaker. She presses and waits. Nothing. No one comes. No one passes in the street. The other buildings all look flat and closed and far away. She scrunches her legs together. A long taxi ride on top of cups and cups of coffee – the waitress kept filling her up for free – and her bladder is tight and tweaking. No bushes. It’s all so open. What if she squatted down on the grass verge? She presses the button again, fidgeting urgently from foot to foot.

  ‘Hello?’ A crackly voice emerges from the speaker.

  ‘It’s Dodie,’ she says. ‘Seth’s sister. I phoned and said I was coming.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  She holds on, resisting the urge to cross her legs. A stocky woman in a lilac dress comes scurrying across the expanse of grass, just as the gate glides open.

  ‘Hello there,’ she says, in an English accent. She’s fiftyish with cropped grey hair, pink cheeks, a warm smile. She opens her arms in an embrace and Dodie stiffens. Relax, she tells herself, it’s how they’ll be, touchy-feely, Jesus loves you. The gate slides shut behind her with a judder and a squeak. The woman steps back, looks with odd intensity into Dodie’s eyes. Hers are the colour of faded denim, surrounded by a comfortable mesh of lines. ‘I’m Martha,’ she says, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Hi, Martha,’ Dodie says, stepping back. ‘Sorry, but I’m bursting for the loo.’

  Martha laughs. ‘Easily remedied,’ she says. ‘Follow me.’ As they go back across the grass she says, ‘We thought you’d be bringing your little boy?’

  ‘Decided not to,’ Dodie says. ‘He’s got a cold.’

  They stop by the door of a small extension to the main building. Martha punches a number into the keypad and they go inside. ‘Bathroom through there,’ Martha says. ‘Take your time. Freshen up. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Dodie only just makes it, gets her jeans down, sits and pees, sighing with the sweet relief. Arrangements of plastic flowers sit on the high windowsill and on the cistern, and an artificial floral smell tickles her nose. She washes her hands and stares at herself in the mirror: a white face, dark shadows under her eyes – that Stella look again. She slaps a bit of colour into her cheeks, licks her teeth, scrabbles her fingers through her messy hair. In the hotel this morning she discovered her third white one and nipped it out. Is it normal to start going grey at thirty, or is it from all the shocks?

  The little sitting room’s decorated in an exaggeratedly homey style. The walls, carpet, curtains and upholstery add up to a flouncy, floral hell. Like your mum on acid, she’ll tell Rod. His mother’s bungalow in Inverness is almost psychotically flounced, pelmeted and valanced – but much more tastefully than this. Dodie feels a stab of loyalty, even though she doesn’t know her very well. Jake’s only met his Scottish granny once. Once she gets home they’ll put that right.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Martha says.

  Dodie sits on the sofa. The tea is set out on a tray with a milk jug, a sugar bowl, a cake tin. The cups are gold-edged, chintzy.

  ‘Pretty,’ Dodie says, eyeing the tin. ‘This isn’t at all what I expected!’

  ‘White? Sugar?’

  ‘Just milk, thanks.’

  Martha’s hands are indoor hands, very smooth and white, almost pampered-looking. She makes a peculiar little humming sound under her breath as she pours the tea.

  ‘Cake?’

  ‘Please . . . but where’s Seth?’

  The smile falters. ‘Ah, I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a glitch.’

  Dodie stares.

  ‘He was called to another centre, across the state.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I know,’ Martha says. ‘It’s very unfortunate. He’ll be back tomorrow.’

  Dodie forces her voice to stay even. ‘I did say I was coming.’ She picks up her teacup, lets her hair fall and cloak her face.

  ‘What a good sister,’ Martha says, ‘coming all this way.’

  ‘I miss him.’

  ‘And he misses you,’ Martha says, ‘and little Jake. I know he misses him.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have left then, should he?’

  Grimacing sympathetically, Martha reaches out to stroke her leg. Dodie’s muscles shrink from the touch.

  ‘He’ll be here tomorrow.’

  ‘Where is he, anyway?’

  ‘We have different centres,’ Martha says. ‘Now come on, this calls for cake.’ She opens the tin to reveal a carrot cake, thickly covered with cream-cheese icing. Despite everything, Dodie’s mouth floods with saliva. She feels like a Pavlovian dog as she watches Martha cut a slice so huge it overlaps the dainty plate. Maybe it’s true, they do eat more in America. But she has no objection. Not when it’s cake like this, with a nubbly texture, little walnut flecks and the icing deep and sweet and toothsome. Martha nibbles at a smaller slice.

  ‘OK now?’ Martha beams. ‘Not much that a slice of cake won’t put right, is there?’

  Dodie smiles, reluctantly cheered by the sweetness. They eat in silence and she licks the last of the icing from her fingers.

  Martha opens her mouth to speak but stops when the door opens and a woman enters. She’s about the same age as Martha, dressed identically but hectically pretty and thin.

  ‘Welcome,’ she says and leans down to hug Dodie.

  ‘This is Hannah,’ Martha says. Her voice has tightened. ‘We’re getting on quite well here, thank you very much.’

  Dodie catches a minute flicker in Hannah’s eyes. Irritation?

  ‘Cake?’ Hannah frowns at Martha, whose face has stiffened and flushed. She’s doing that humming thing again, a fixed smile on her face. Hannah switches on a smile for Dodie. ‘Have a good trip?’ Her teeth snaggle attractively at the front, giving her a slightly goofy look. She sounds Australian. ‘Where’s the nipper?’

  ‘Jake? I left him with his dad.’

  ‘Shame,’ Hannah says, raising her eyebrows at Martha.

  Why are they so bothered about Jake? ‘Well, if Seth won’t see me I’ll go,’ Dodie says, made uneasy by the staring of the two women and the tension that jangles the air between them. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’ She puts down her plate.

  Martha stands up and faces Hannah. She’s a head shorter but twice as wide. ‘Our Father needs you,’ she says to Hannah, nodding towards the door. ‘I can manage here.’

  Hannah raises her eyebrows, shrugs. ‘See you soon,’ she says to Dodie as she leaves the room.

  Once the door has closed, Martha relaxes, smiles at Dodie almost conspiratorially –
though why should she be expected to take sides in some unspecified dispute between strangers? The sugary cake has made her terribly sleepy and she blinks.

  ‘Can you call me a taxi?’

  ‘Why not stay?’ Martha says.

  ‘But all my stuff’s at the hotel.’

  ‘We can lend you everything you need. And what if Seth gets back tonight, after all? What if he gets back expecting to see you?’

  Dodie dabs her fingertip round her plate to pick up the last few crumbs. If she were alone she’d lick the plate. Frosting, in America they call it frosting. She sees Martha noticing her grass-green fingernails. It’s an expensive taxi journey and there’s nothing in her luggage she can’t do without for a night – and she is shattered. ‘OK then,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’ A great gaping yawn escapes her. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re jetlagged,’ Martha says, ‘poor baby.’ Baby? ‘What about forty winks?’

  ‘They say it’s best to stay awake till bedtime,’ Dodie says, her throat hollowing with the effort of suppressing another yawn. ‘To help the body clock adjust.’

  Martha shrugs. ‘If you’re tired, you’re tired.’ She yawns herself, hand patting against her mouth to make a wa-wawa sound. ‘Look, you’ve set me off now!’

  ‘This is all very normal,’ Dodie says. ‘I mean – I, I didn’t know what to expect –’

  ‘We are quite normal really!’ Martha’s eyes twinkle in their nets. Dodie blinks, reminded of something, fishing for stars or something, part of a lullaby? Wink and Blink and a Nod . . . God, she’s dropping off. How rude.

  She half smothers another yawn, shakes the gathering sand from her head. ‘It’s weird though. I mean, Seth never showed any interest in God or anything before, not that he let on.’

  ‘Not weird,’ Martha says. ‘It’s people who are lost.’

  Dodie bristles. ‘He wasn’t lost!’

  Martha says nothing but Dodie can hear the hum again, just the faintest sound, not a tune, just a continuous note. It could get on your nerves.

  ‘There’s something I have to tell him.’

  ‘About your mother?’ Martha asks.

  Dodie startles out of her tiredness. ‘How do you know?’