LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TEN

      SHE could tell it was Tuesday the second she stepped inside. The slow cooker was on and the scent of beef stroganoff filled the house. Her heart was in her mouth as she waited for her mum to appear and say she’d been off sick and where the hell had she been all day, but the house was still and silent. Alison checked her mobile and the house phone and there were no messages, and starving Alison had some stroganoff between two slices of bread and butter then showered and headed straight to bed, to cram in a couple more hours’ sleep, which she managed amazingly well. She was woken at six-thirty by her mum’s knock on the door.

      ‘Did you sleep well?’

      ‘Really well,’ Alison said, hiding her guilty blush.

      ‘Good. I tried not to wake you when I came in. Dinner’s almost ready.’

      ‘How was work?’ Alison asked as they sat and ate dinner. It was a nice dinner and a nice conversation and they even had a laugh. Alison would miss this and did love her so, it was just the little things that added up, like Nick wanting the crossword and Paul’s garlic bread, that built and built until they became big things and change really was needed, because a row with her mother, hurting her mother, Alison would avoid at all costs.

      Little things like Rose insisting she take leftovers for her meal break.

      ‘I can put some in a container and you can have it on your break,’ Rose offered.

      ‘Put it in the freezer,’ Alison said. ‘I think I’ll get something from the canteen.’

      ‘From the vending machine?’ Rose said.

      ‘They do sandwiches and things and there are nice vol-au-vents.’

      ‘Why would you pay for something when you can take it in?’ Rose said, pulling out a container and filling it with Tuesday’s beef stroganoff.

      ‘I just fancy—’

      ‘You need to be more careful—you’ve got a mortgage to think of now.’

      She took the stroganoff.

      Still, it was appreciated.

      By Nick, who was sick of canteen sandwiches and mushroom vol-au-vents.

      To describe a busy week of night shifts as the best week of her life would have once been laughable, but for the first time since the tragedy Alison actually glimpsed normality in upside-down week.

      A gorgeous normality where work was busy, a happy normality where she ate dinner with her mum each night and packed leftover dinner for her evening break.

      An easy normality, where she didn’t have to lie, well, not outright, and she didn’t have to race home at midnight. All she had to do was be.

      Nick would drive her home. More often than not she’d see her mum at the bus stop or pop in just to check that she had gone, and, just to be sure, Alison would leave a little note on the kitchen bench that read something like, Gone shopping, or At dentist, which she’d tear up when she got home at four. Then she’d grab some clothes and race down the street to Nick’s car, to him, to a gorgeous normality, where they shut the blinds on the world and lay in bed and talked and laughed, and made lovely love, or rather, she corrected herself, had torrid, wild sex and slept.

      She knew from the start, though, that it couldn’t last.

      ‘Can I borrow you before you go, Nick?’ Amy clipped in for her day shift at the end of the week, all scented, suited and gorgeous, as an exhausted Alison subtly hung back for her lift.

      ‘I shouldn’t be long,’ Nick managed as he disappeared into his colleague’s office, but no matter how many times Alison checked the staff roster, and no matter how chatty her colleagues were, by eight-fifteen she was starting to look as if she had no home to go to.

      ‘Where is Amy?’ Sheila barked from a cubicle, then marched out to the intercom. ‘It’s all very well swapping her shifts, but the occasional appearance on the shop floor would be nice.’ Her voice was a lot sweeter when she pressed the button. ‘Amy, we need you out here.’

      ‘Is it urgent?’ came Nick’s voice, and Sheila rolled her eyes.

      ‘Pressing, not urgent.’

      ‘Let us know if that changes,’ came Nick’s firm reply.

      ‘Good luck!’ Alison smiled to Sheila as she heaved up her bag and headed for the bus stop, but despite a rapid run she missed it and despite the sun she shivered at the stop, tired and, as Nick’s car pulled up a full twenty minutes later, just a little fed up.

      ‘Sorry about that.’

      It would have been childish not to get in.

      ‘I was thinking…’ Nick negotiated the early-morning traffic easily, even laughed when she grumbled about rush-hour, telling her she should try driving where he lived in England if she wanted a real rush-hour, and then he got back to thinking. ‘How about we do the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb this weekend?’

      ‘I can’t even think about bridges and climbing at this hour.’

      ‘It will be fun.’

      Alison could think of other words to describe it and her eyes flicked to the clock on the dashboard—had she left on time and taken the bus, she’d already be in bed. ‘What did Amy want?’ It was a childish question to ask perhaps, or perhaps it was the edge to her voice, because Nick glanced over.

      ‘There was something she needed to discuss.’

      Which gave her no answer and the silence wasn’t comfortable as he stopped at the traffic lights and again he looked over at her.

      ‘Don’t ask me to betray a confidence, Alison, just because we’re…’ His eyes shuttered for a moment, perhaps ruing his near choice of words. ‘Work’s separate,’ Nick said. ‘We both agreed.’

      It wasn’t a row, it wasn’t anything she could pin down, yet stupidly she felt like crying, relieved almost when Nick stopped at a corner shop and got out. ‘I need milk.’

      And it was a tiny time out, a welcome time out, because by the time he came out of the shop, all gorgeous and yawning, Alison had convinced herself she was tired, that was all, not questioning and jealous, just ratty, premenstrual and coming off a full week of sex and nights.

      ‘Here.’ He handed her one of two newspapers he had bought, gave her a kiss and then smiled. ‘There’s always a simple solution.’

      There just wasn’t to this.

      And even if they were talking, even if there hadn’t been a row, things felt different this morning.

      Nick had a call from his boss in the UK then another from his mum, both reminding Alison there was a world that was

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