The Red House by Mark Haddon

perfectly on checks, and even now when he loses the car keys he finds himself looking in the places where he hid them from his mother thirty years ago, the washing machine, the sugar jar. He was nervous of inviting friends to his house and equally nervous at their houses, wondering what might be happening at home, so that school rapidly became the refuge where the tasks were straight-forward and the rewards immediate. Geometrical diagrams. The House of Hanover. He regularlycooked for his mother, put her to bed, bathed her sometimes and the more intimate the task, the more she resented the intrusion. At least when she lashed out she was drunk and uncoordinated and he was able to avoid the second blow.
    Melissa’s gone . It was Louisa, standing behind his shoulder.
    What do you mean, gone?
    She’s taken her bag with all her stuff. Alex thinks he saw her walking down the road .
    So she hasn’t been abducted .
    I’m being serious .
    So am I . Professional habit. Consider all possibilities. He stood up. Let’s go inside and gather some information .
    Alex came downstairs waving Louisa’s mobile as they stepped through the front door. You can get a couple of bars on Vodafone in our room when the wind’s in the right direction . He handed it back. I left a message .
    Everyone had gathered in the dining room. The scene struck Richard as a little overdramatic. She vanishes once a week at home .
    But we’re in the middle of nowhere , said Louisa.
    Which is a lot safer than a city center on a Friday night . Richard’s voice was noticeably slower and softer than usual. She’ll be sitting in a café somewhere, enjoying the fact that we’re panicking. If we ring the police they’ll laugh and tell us to call back tomorrow . Louisa seemed short of breath. He rubbed her arm. She’ll let us worry for a while, then she’ll get in touch .
    Angela was thinking, It’s your fault , and trying hard not to say so, but Dominic was impressed. How did Richard reassure everyone despite knowing nothing? Did all doctors do this?
    If we haven’t heard anything , said Richard, we’ll ring her from Raglan .
    OK , said Louisa, OK .
    Except that she wasn’t OK, thought Angela, she was simply obeying orders, like a dog with a stern owner.

    Benjy stood on the flagstones of the utility space between the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. It contained a chest freezer, a dishwasher and a deep china sink set into a long wooden draining board as thick as an old Bible. The chest freezer was made by Indesit. He picked up a battered octagonal tin from the windowsill. On the lid it said DISHWASHER TABLETS in Dymo tape and bore an orange sticker reading IF INGESTED SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION . The tin rattled as he turned it over. On the bottom the label said PRALINE CLUSTER and COFFEE CREAM and TURKISH DELIGHT .
    Angela announced that she’d skip the castle and take the bus into Hay. There’s a bus? Richard had said incredulously. Possibly pulled by cows , she’d replied, a little too tartly and there was a sudden chill in the room. Daisy said, softly, I’ll go with Mum , because she wasn’t any keener on Richard’s company than Mum was, which meant that Dominic had to go to Raglan to accompany Benjy who never knowingly turned down a castle.
    So Angela and Daisy found themselves walking down the hill to the little stone bridge, just the scuff of their boots and the rustle of their waterproofs. A dirty white horse observed them from behind a gate. Angela was angry with Daisy for hijacking her solitary expedition and simultaneously relieved that she wasn’t going on her own. So much of one’s self depended on the green vase and the rotary washing line that turned in the wind and she was slipping her moorings a little. Daisy liked silence but Angela was used to the clatter and echo of four hundred children in one building. Richard’s Mercedes passed them en route to Raglan, Dominic, Alex and Benjy waving like passengers on a steam train.
    Where do