Bruises on the Fruit

Chapter Three

February 20th, 1996

There's one great advantage, besides the obvious, to being suspended from school: having the house to myself. I was determined to break every rule Mum had put in place.

Rule One: no TV. I sat, flicking through the channels. Channel one, news. Channel two, something about house renovations. Channel three, the other news. Channel four, some talk show or other. It was about time Mum and Dick invested in a satellite dish. I turned the TV off.

Rule Two: no phone. I reached for the corded phone and lifted the receiver. But who to call? All my friends were at school. All two of them. I wondered what Nisha and Lex would talk about while I wasn't there.

I turned the TV back on and settled for the talk show on channel four. They were saying something about memories. Some bloke went snooping through his wife's things, found pictures of a younger version of her with all these different men. She said they were her memories. She kept them in a box. A memory box.

Mum has a memory box.

I rummaged through the bottom of the wardrobe in Mum and Dick's room. There was a lot of junk in there. Odd shoes, old magazines, that sort of thing. I finally found the Holy Grail, hidden right at the back of the wardrobe. Carefully, I lifted the lid of the box. It was crammed with envelopes full of photos, each one labelled with a word or two scrawled in black biro: 'Jasmine', 'Bobby', 'Wedding (Richard)', 'Wedding (Kevin)'. That's my dad. The less said about him the better. Right at the bottom was the one I was looking for: 'Zoe'. I pulled out the pile of photos and flicked through them. Mum and Zoe, about my age, wearing shift dresses, eyes sparkling. Mum and Zoe, Zoe in a huge white gown, looking like a princess. Mum and Zoe, holding babies. Each other's babies. Me. Terry. Me and Terry, chubby-cheeked and drooling, holding hands in the garden. Me, Terry and Nisha, holding party balloons. Butter wouldn't melt.

The final photo showed all of us and all our parents, except Kevin, who's presumably behind the camera, standing in our garden holding hot dogs. I remember that day, vaguely. It was Nisha's third birthday, or maybe it was mine. We were having a barbeque. Everyone was happy. Or that's how I remember it. The photo thinks differently. Kids at the front, all smiles. Grown-ups at the back. Left to right: Mum, Terry's dad, Zoe, Nisha's dad, Nisha's mum. Terry's dad is giving someone the side eye. Zoe. Or Nisha's dad. Or both. I squint as a look closer. Zoe is not looking at Terry's dad. She's looking at Nisha's. He's looking back. His hand is just visible on her waist. Terry's dad's lips are taught. His face is stone. His eyes are fixed on his wife and someone else's husband.

Underneath the photos is a selection of newspaper clippings with headlines like 'Search for missing woman continues'. One said, 'Man arrested in search for missing wife'.

'A 28 year old man has been arrested and held for questioning as part of the investigation into the disappearance of his wife. 25-year-old Zoe Jenkins has not been seen since April 25th. Police say her husband, Keith Jenkins, has been released without charge'.

We both know she won't keep quiet. Mum's words rang in my head. What does she know?

Rule three: no going out. Screw that.

Fifteen minutes later I was hanging around the school gate like a middle aged man in an anorak. Nisha was surprised to see me there at 3.30 when the bell rang.

"Thought you were grounded?" Silently, I presented her with the photograph from the barbeque. "Where did you get this? Did you go through your mum's stuff? You do realise she'll go mental when she finds out?" Of course I do. She's my mum: I know her. At least, I thought I did, until yesterday.