Sorrow Bound by David Mark

gives the baby-carrier a little rock. Lilah is sleeping soundly at last. The heat has been too much for her, and every time McAvoy opens her bedroom window, flies, moths and wasps begin to circle her cot. Her crying had been a torturous and heartbreaking thing and they had decided to all go for a drive. To get some fresh air. To head for the new house, and indulge in pleasant daydreaming about how their lives will be when they move their stuff in next weekend.
    ‘Mel says she’ll come,’ says Roisin, into his chest.
    ‘To what?’
    ‘The housewarming, Silly. Suzie too. And a couple of the mums.’
    McAvoy nods. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want a housewarming party. Doesn’t want strangers in his home. But he will have one, and smile as wide as he can muster, to please his wife.
    ‘The shop’s doing well, apparently. Slow, but it takes time, doesn’t it? And there are loads of shops closing down, so she’s doing well even to be in business, you know?’
    ‘Aye, it can’t be easy.’
    ‘She got a big order while I was there. Big bag of suits thatneeded taking in. I think the bloke had been on some sort of extreme diet. He looked thin but green, and his breath smelled like cat food.’
    ‘Lovely.’
    ‘Aye. She’ll be good. She doesn’t mind working hard. I just wish there was somebody to keep an eye on her. It’s rough up there, and she’s not really tough, is she? I might spend a bit more time up there until she’s a bit more settled. I don’t like thinking of her on her own.’
    Roisin met Mel a few months before at a salsa class and the two have quickly become close friends. McAvoy finds her pleasant enough company, though is never truly pleased when he comes home to find her in his living room, three-quarters of the way through a bottle of red wine and planning to spend the night on his sofa. Roisin always asks him whether he minds her friends staying over. He always tells her it’s fine. Tells her to do whatever she wants. Tells her to enjoy herself, and then he goes upstairs to read a book or fiddle with some new software on the computer in the bedroom. Lets her be. Lets her do whatever the hell she wants as long as she continues to love him.
    ‘I had a look in the hairdresser’s next to her shop,’ she says. ‘Nice people. They don’t do nails. I was thinking I might see about offering my services.’
    McAvoy has to force himself not to visibly react. In his mind, Roisin has already started work at the salon. She is chatting. Laughing. Living. A sales rep comes in to offer samples. Makes her giggle. Touches her bare shoulder as he leaves. Slips a business card into her hand. She looks at it, longingly. Weighs up her options. Pictures her daft, hulking husband and his big stupid face and picks up her phone.
    He feels his heart, disintegrating, in his chest.
    ‘That’s a good idea,’ he says, as brightly as he can muster. ‘Would do you good. Would you be able to do just a few hours, either side of school runs and stuff?’
    ‘It’s only a thought at the moment. We’ll see, eh? Anyway, they might want me to have all the certificates and stuff. I’m self-taught, aren’t I?’
    McAvoy squeezes her. ‘You’re naturally brilliant,’ he says.
    ‘You think?’
    ‘I think.’
    They sit in silence, just loving each other, and for a time, McAvoy manages not to picture anything dispiriting or gruesome. Manages not to fill his imagination with Philippa Longman, or the things he has seen being done to her corpse. Manages not to picture what was done to her in her dying moments, in the darkness, on a mattress of cracked stones and smashed glass.
    He lets his mind spin. Presses Roisin closer to him. Tries to be a better man. Suddenly sees himself outside the mortuary, leaning against bare brick, fringe plastered to his forehead, strong mints wedged between teeth and cheek, phone to his ear and telling Pharaoh the pathologist’s findings.
    ‘She had a heart attack while it was