The Night Watch ✓

5 / mother knows best

There was no better way to start a lazy Sunday than with buttered toast and a mug of coffee. The radio on at a low volume, easing her into the day, Bree sat at the kitchen table and flipped the pages of an old magazine while she munched her toast and waited for her coffee to cool down. Sundays were a magical day, when she could stretch out her limbs and head into town at her own leisurely pace and with no open house on her schedule for the weekend, she could really relax.

Sundays in the Cooper household had never been too peaceful. For as long as she could remember, Bree had been forced on long family walks while her brothers inevitably fought and her mother stoically walked ahead, leaving her husband to deal with the children. There had been many occasions when Bree wondered if her mother had ever intended to have children, if she and her siblings had been four mistakes or whether she was just fulfilling a checklist. Over the years, Liesbeth had never proved herself to be maternal in any way other than as a schoolmarm.

Since leaving home, Bree had found that she actually did enjoy going for long walks. Just not with her family, and not under duress. There were days when all she wanted was to plug in her earphones and escape from the world for a while as she ambled down the canal path. If she followed it for long enough, it would lead her into town, but she rarely had the commitment to continue more than a quarter of the way along the four mile route. Instead, she would walk until the next lock, where there was a greengrocer's, and she would buy a punnet of strawberries that she would eat on the way back.

This Sunday, she had no plan. There was a vulnerability in being planless, at the mercy of anyone who needed her for a favour: if she was caught on the spot, Bree struggled to tell a convincing lie, whereas with a little planning she could even fool herself. When she was around her family now, she fell into a character she had constructed. Good little Bree, who worked as a data processor and had never been in a relationship, and certainly hadn't ever been with a woman. Something told her her mother would have a heart attack if she knew even a tenth of the truth. Only three other people knew that much, and they all lived on the 21st floor.

At five to ten, Gaia dragged herself out of her bedroom and screwed her face up in a huge yawn. Despite being two years away from her thirtieth birthday, she looked like a child in her oversized pyjamas and her slippers that scuffed on the wooden floor. Without a scrap of make-up on her face, her hair scraggly, she could probably get ID'd for a certificate fifteen film.

"Hey," she said, the word distorted by another yawn that took over her face. "Why am I so tired?" She shuffled over to the table and dropped down on one of the hard seats. "I was asleep by eleven. I've been asleep for eleven hours and I feel like I hardly slept a wink."

"Maybe you overslept, and your body is rebelling," Bree said, finishing off the last crust of her toast. It was one of her vices. If she wasn't careful, she could easily eat four or five slices in the morning, and then for the rest of the day she would curse herself for the bloat that stopped her from wearing her favourite jeans. She stood, brushing her crumbs into the bin and dumping her plate in the sink. "Toast?"

"Mmm, perfect," Gaia said, a sleepy smile on her lips. Bree dropped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster and flicked on the kettle, adding a chamomile teabag to Gaia's favourite mug. "What're you doing today?"

"Fuck all, as far as I know," Bree said, handing over a steaming mug of tea that her friend took in both grateful hands. "Any plans?"

Gaia closed her eyes to inhale the sweet tea, and she shook her head. "This is just what the doctor ordered," she said, holding the mug so close to her face that she risked burning her chin. A moment later, the toast popped up and Bree added a scrape of butter and a dash of honey, the only way Gaia would eat it.