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  The Judge considered him, head on one side, wig awry, heaped up like suet.

  ‘No, I don’t think we’ll uncuff you, Mr Fleet.’

  Mick scratched his scalp and ran his fingers through his hair slowly; the policeman’s hand hovered useless above his own.

  ‘I suppose it might be prejudicial to the prosecution,’ said Mick. ‘For sure it’s prejudicial to the defence that I am handcuffed.’

  The Judge straightened up in his chair shaking his head and shuffled small hands among his papers.

  ‘No, Mr Fleet. I cannot allow that. You cannot talk like that in the courtroom.’

  I didn’t see why it mattered. The jury were always sent out when the Judge and Mick, interrupting his barrister, had this sort of conversation, and they had it often. Mick couldn’t help treating the Judge like someone he knew. He was always demanding reasons and explanations for the way things worked. The Judge allowed far more than I expected. He seemed to like Mick, even though Mick was fired up and emotional sometimes.

  ‘This is the rest of my life being debated, Your Honour. I need to know what you all think you’re doing with it in here.’

  The Judge was like a slap of water in his responses.

  ‘Yes, yes, but you cannot go against the legal structure,’ he explained time after time.

  Mick had a talent for making other people feel important. He gave me a role when all I really needed was to be there. But maybe he was right to. He sucked me into his trial so deep that I could not have got out if I had wanted to. I didn’t want to. I was his route to the outside world, and I was vital. Mr Sindall, Mick’s barrister, had a team of solicitors who darted around me nipping information from me before returning to their notes and files. Members of the public who came to watch the trial smiled at me; one or two spoke, just making conversation: ‘It’s a lovely day,’ ‘Traffic’s bad on the ring road, I hear,’ ‘Do you know when the canteen opens?’ I knew what they were doing. Each sentence came with a searching gaze, their ears flared when I responded and they tucked my words into their gloating minds and hoarded them to tell their friends later. ‘I spoke to his girlfriend. She was friendly, not like you’d expect one of them to be.’ I could hear them marvelling as if I was with them, back in their safe worlds where court was a source of excitement and glamour. I was a part of that glamour and it would have been a lie to say I didn’t love it.

  Maisie kept Tuesday evenings free for experimenting on Christy. It was a ritual that had evolved long before Maisie decided that hairdressing was her vocation and before Christy was old enough to understand the repercussions of acquiescence.

  Christy was three when Maisie first realised she was better than a doll.

  ‘Christy, of course, can walk and talk and wee very nicely. The only thing she can’t do is grow her hair fast,’ Maisie explained to their mother in a moment of pride.

  Christy basked in a sense of unity with her sister but was anxious. Her hair must grow faster. She tugged at it, she wove nests of wool in its split-ends and filled them with pebbles and buttons as ballast, and she screamed herself breathless blue if Jessica tried to trim it. The hair was a perfect tool for Maisie, a rope to knot, a sheet to drape, a mop to curl. Christy never minded how much Maisie pulled or pinched at her scalp; the habit of pleasing her was unassailable. By the time Christy was seventeen, the habit of pleasing Maisie had lost most of its charm, but she still found herself melting before her sister’s jaw-tight determination. She managed to strike a deal for Tuesday nights only and on the whole they had stuck to it.

  This Tuesday Maisie was doing hair extensions. Christy found the bottle of wine she had bought rolling like a nine-pin in the back of the fish van and rang Maisie’s door bell. Squinting up for the key, Christy stepped back to the edge of the pavement. Her reflection warped in the plate glass of the magic shop on the ground floor of Maisie’s building, and again in the distorting mirrors at the back of the shop. Christy bloated, Christy wide-hipped and fish-tailed, Christy long and narrow as a snake, stared back at Christy hot on the pavement.

  Danny appeared behind her, his shirt flapping open in the breathless still of the evening. He was back from college for the summer, quiet and etiolated from the months spent bending over his computer. Christy had tried to make him join a circus school she had seen a poster for, but Danny was only interested in computers and making money.

  Maisie’s key landed in the gutter behind them extravagantly wrapped in a knot of silver satin. She was in a good mood. When she was angry the key hurtled from her third-floor window bound to a lump of coal. She didn’t care if she hit anyone, didn’t care if she hurt anyone; when Maisie was angry everyone had to know and preferably suffer as well. Much thought accompanied her key in its arc to the pavement; on days of depression there was a damp sponge, on sad days just the key, naked and alone, and on tempestuous days the contents of her handbag showered down, papers and receipts twirling like woodshavings and landing out of reach on the ledge above the magic shop.

  ‘Why does Maisie have to be so affected? I wish she’d lay off.’

  Danny tried to throw the slither of ribbon into a dustbin but Christy took it from him.

  ‘She’s just like this. You know there’s no point in arguing. Anyway, at least she’s in a good mood this evening.’

  Maisie had laid the kitchen table for supper and pulled the coloured blinds so the room flickered pink and orange like the inside of a Chinese lantern. Her collection of car accessories and bumper stickers crowded the shelves by the cooker and stirring a pan she paused to run a wooden spoon across a row of plastic dogs, setting them nodding manically in time to the tune on the radio.

  Christy dropped her scarf on the back of a chair and opened the wine.

  ‘This is really nice, Maisie, what a treat, I didn’t expect supper.’

  Maisie giggled.

  ‘Look again at the table, Chris.’ Her eyes danced and she winked at Danny.

  Christy lit the candles and looked. Salad, bread, pots of mustard and relish dotted the table and the plates were prettily decorated with sauces.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Christy squinted nearer and squealed. The salad wasn’t lettuce, it was green hair, the very hair that Christy was supposed to be wearing later, viscous and apparently doused in dressing. The bread was a hairbrush wrapped in a napkin and the sauces were shampoos and conditioners drifting a sweet synthetic smell across the room. Christy suddenly felt very hungry.

  ‘God, this must have taken you ages.’ Walking around the table eyeing the feast, she was annoyed that she could ever have mistaken it for food. Maisie’s joke was revolting; Christy couldn’t laugh as Maisie and Danny were.

  Maisie was almost hysterical, clutching her stomach, knees together, back hunched, so she was a string of knots and curved corners enjoying her own joke with childlike abandon. She hadn’t meant it to be creepy. That was the trouble with Maisie: she was always upsetting people without meaning to, especially people close to her. Ben was lucky to live in the middle of the North Sea; on days when Maisie really lost control Christy liked to imagine her sailing off to join him, never coming back, but wreaking red-hot havoc on the oil rigs.

  Maisie didn’t give Christy hair extensions in the end.

  ‘Your hair is long enough and anyway, I don’t think green would really suit you.’

  She did it to Danny instead and Christy was her assistant. He looked like a fairground troll when his sisters had finished soldering seaweed strands on to his dark hair. He posed on the motor bike while Maisie darted round with her comb, flicking wisps of hair into ever more absurd peaks. Christy ached with laughter, wandering through the flat looking for the camera. She was halfway through Maisie’s wardrobe, throwing clothes out in a jigsaw swirl of colours, when the door bell rang.

  Maisie leaned out of the window dangling the key from a lock of green hair.

  ‘It’s Mick.’

  ‘What’s he doing here? I didn’t even say what I was doing this evening.’<
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  Christy crawled out from the scented folds of Maisie’s clothes and ran to look out of the window. The pavement was empty. Mick was already in the building.

  Danny scuttled in from the living room, his neck pushed down into his shoulders, trying to hide his head like a tortoise.

  ‘Get this crap off me. I’m not your doll, you know.’ Grabbing Maisie’s scissors he slammed himself inside the bathroom.

  Christy stared in astonishment at both the doors, the front one through which Mick was about to appear and the bathroom one echoing with Danny’s anger.

  ‘I don’t think he wants cool Mick to see him dressed up as My Little Troll,’ whispered Maisie.

  Mick was breathless and had running clothes on when he opened the door. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his eyes gazed blank and tired. Christy was disappointed: Mick should be equal to anything. And he shouldn’t wear tracksuits. No one should wear tracksuits.

  She stepped back from him.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  Mick ignored her and tried to open the bathroom door.

  ‘Danny’s in there, you’ll have to wait.’

  Christy followed him into the kitchen and gave him a tea towel to wipe his face on. His skin was pasty white and looked as if it would crumble like cheese if he rubbed it. She averted her eyes. He drank a pint glass of water in one slide and revived, wetting his hair under the kitchen tap so he looked like a boxer with the tea towel slung around his neck. It was better than looking like a jogger.

  ‘Your dad told me you were coming round here. I thought I’d drop by and make sure your sister wasn’t pulling out your teeth.’

  Maisie glared at him and Christy laughed, pleased he had come charging in to find her like a knight in shining armour.

  ‘Why would she be?’

  ‘Well, when your dad said she was doing some kind of experiments on you I wasn’t sure what he was meaning, so I thought I’d get myself here and find out.’ He grinned at Maisie who raised her chin and scowled disdain.

  ‘I’ve got a different victim tonight, actually,’ she said. ‘But he’s not very open-minded.’

  Danny came out of the bathroom with his hands concealed inside a nest of slithering green and his hair one jagged inch long.

  Maisie screamed and stamped her foot.

  ‘You little bastard. That took hours to do. That hair cost a fortune and you’ve just cut it all off because you didn’t think you looked cool enough.’ She slapped the wet hanks into the sink and burst into tears. Danny reached out a hand to her to say sorry but she pulled away, saliva a reptilian gleam on her lips. ‘Fuck off. I’ll never forgive you, so don’t even try to say sorry.’

  Another door slammed, this time Maisie’s bedroom. Mick whistled.

  ‘Well, she’s got a temper in her to stop rivers, hasn’t she?’

  Danny was by the sink, mute and defenceless as a shadow, looking down at Maisie’s hair extensions beached above the waterline on dirty pans and plates. He was almost crying. Christy put her arms round him.

  ‘Come on, Danny, you know she doesn’t mean it. Let’s go to the pub for a bit. When we come back she’ll have forgotten about it.’

  Mick didn’t want to let it go.

  ‘You shouldn’t be having her do that to you, Danny. Tell her to say sorry now, tell her to act up or she’ll be in a load of big trouble.’

  Christy noticed for the first time in a while how strong Mick’s accent was. Maybe he sounded more Irish because someone else was there. On her own with him Christy was not conscious of his voice at all. It was as if they communicated without talking much, but that couldn’t be right because Mick had to talk all the time; if he didn’t he would explode.

  They went to the pub at the bottom of Maisie’s road and Mick left them at a table and went to the bar. Danny rolled a cigarette thin as a pipe cleaner and lit it perched on a windowsill. Smoking with his chin tucked into the collar of his shirt and his hair dripping down his neck, he shivered and clenched his teeth. Christy squeezed his hand across the table.

  Mick returned with the drinks wedged in a lopsided triangle between his hands, and sat down next to Danny.

  ‘Do you want to come with me to meet some bikers on Thursday? I’m doing a kind of story on them and I heard there was a meeting going on near Wisenton. We could go and see what they’re all about.’

  Danny shed his gloom and sat up, his spirits lifting as confidence bolstered him and his gestures became emphatic.

  ‘Tell me more about what you do. Chris hasn’t said anything and it must be really interesting.’

  ‘I don’t know anything, he hasn’t told me.’ Christy glared at Mick.

  He took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘I got into the whole thing because I like taking pictures and I used to go all over to do it. You meet people, you get talking in bars and sometimes something comes of it, you know.’

  Christy went to get the next round of drinks, weaving though groups of people to the bar, taking her time so Mick and Danny could talk. It was easier to ask Mick questions with Danny asking too. Alone his intensity bore down on her, crushing her own thoughts until she had nothing to say.

  Mick wanted Danny to come back to the cottage with them. Christy felt guilty about Maisie.

  ‘I’ll go back and stay with her,’ she said when they reached Mick’s car, but Mick handed Danny the keys and opened the back door.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, I need you to hold my hand now while this speed freak takes us home.’

  Danny pulled a yellow note from the windscreen.

  ‘You’ve got a ticket. Bad luck.’ He stretched to pass it to Mick then pulled it back frowning. ‘Hang on, there aren’t any restrictions here after six, so how come they’ve given you this? Hey, it says four o’clock; you weren’t here then, were you?’ Danny slid into the driver’s seat muttering about traffic wardens.

  Mick shoved the ticket in his pocket.

  ‘Calm you down, Danny boy. I parked here earlier and left the car while I went around town a bit, that’s all.’

  In the back seat Christy lolled her head on Mick’s shoulder, warm and happy with his arm around her. She looked up at him.

  ‘Well, how did you see Dad then?’ Her voice was lazy as she twisted herself until she was comfortable resting against his side.

  Mick’s arm tensed and his frame was as unyielding as metal beside her. He sighed, pressing his fingers knuckle white on the back of the driver’s seat.

  ‘I never said I saw your dad, girl, I called him up. Is that OK with you? Now stop policing me. Turn right here, Danny. Right, I said. Jesus, will we be living after this journey is the question now.’ He hugged both arms around Christy, and the car spat dust on to the twilight road.

  Chapter 5

  Christy did not enhance her mother’s beauty like Maisie and Danny. Their colouring, their tall grace set off Jessica’s moon cool to perfection. Christy tagged along behind her mother, anxious to please her. It was like chasing a shadow: no matter how hard Christy tried, she could not make her mother turn to her with the easy affection of childhood.

  Christy was fifteen when she began to understand how her mother hated getting old and blamed her for it. There was a shopping trip Christy remembered. It began badly. Danny was away camping with a friend, so everything he needed for school had to be selected by his sisters. Maisie headed with unerring eye for the most expensive version of school trainers, sweatshirts and tracksuits, sneering and mocking her mother as she searched through the sale racks. Christy darted back and forth between them, trying to divert Maisie’s lashing scorn, glancing anxiously at her mother whose brow creased deep and then deeper when she saw Christy watching her.

  Jessica’s mood changed when they left the department store, Danny’s uniform parcelled and awaiting collection later. She linked arms with her daughters, and smiled, pulling them forward to giggle at a window where a youth blushed in his struggle to pull tights over the stiff legs of a naked mannequin
. Their heads together laughing, embracing in the street, the reflection in the shop window was of three girls. Jessica saw this when she threw back her head and her veins raced with triumph. Her daughters hovered on the brink of womanhood and she was forty and still as slight and graceful as they were.

  She hugged them both closer and said, ‘I’m going to do it. I want to buy you each a grown-up party dress. It’s my own money, left by my aunt, and it’s time you each had something special.’

  Maisie hardly waited for her to finish speaking.

  ‘God, thanks, Mum. I know what I want. Come in here, quick.’ She dragged her mother and sister into a small shop where music throbbed from the open door.

  Jessica was disconcerted. She had imagined they would go and drink coffee first, and talk about where they might go, what they might buy. A cloud of femininity and fashion talk would roll over them and the occasion would be marked with celebration. But that was not Maisie’s way. She smiled as her elder daughter came out of the changing room pirouetting, a skin of gold hardly covering her. It wasn’t possible for Maisie to wait and talk, she was too impulsive.

  ‘What do you think, Mum?’ Maisie snaked her spine high and tiptoed in front of the mirror, holding her hair up with both hands, twisting so she could see her back. The colour flowed down from her hair into her dress, shifting like scales in the light.

  Jessica blinked.

  ‘You look lovely, darling, but isn’t it a bit short?’

  Christy nudged her.

  ‘Don’t say that, Mum, she’ll just try and find a shorter one.’

  Maisie stalked back into the changing room, her voice shrill above the music.