Outside,the air reeked of cigarettes. Coralie pulled her coat tighter. “Yuck.”
Dan nodded down toward the shop. “Just did an emergency dash.”
“Gross. What does Madonna think? Her lovely ringlets stinking.”
They looked down at the poodle, snuffling blindly around acouncil-maintained street tree. “Imagine if his dog was a boy-dog,” Daniel said. “And he let it be called Princess.”
There was no need to ask who the “he” was. He had beenhe, if not He with a capitalH, for the whole of both their childhoods.
“I can’t square that guy on the phone with the Roger we used to know. Anne thought he was charming. Maybe he wasn’t that bad?”
“He let me choose what he’d hit me with, a ruler or a belt,” Daniel said. “In Jakarta, he hit me with a badminton racquet. That was in front of the gardener, and Alan.” He must have realized Coralie didn’t know who Alan was. “My friend from school. Who didn’t come back, or talk to me, ever again. But didn’t he do it to you too?”
She remembered running away from smacks, but never actual smacks. Maybe she’d always been fast enough?
Daniel turned to blow smoke away from her. “Which was the house where we had the pool?”
“Brisbane?”
“I saw you get slapped with a rolled-up towel.”
“Oh, on my…” She laughed, embarrassed. “Face?”
“No, legs. I remember seeing you running.”
“If it was Brisbane, I would have been, what—eight? You would have been three and a bit.”
“Florence’s age.”
They stared at each other for a long time.
“I remember reading Boris Johnson’s sister once, in a column. She said they were smacked.” She swiped her phone open and searched. “Yes, look. When they filled the family Wellies with water, they got beaten with a stick. It’s in theDaily Mail.”
Daniel blew out a long stream of smoke. “Thefamily Wellies.”
“Like Wellington boots. Gumboots.”
“I know what they are. What do the commenters say?”
“ ‘Stop those three-year-old tantrums before they begin! First time. Then you never have to do it again,’ ” Coralie read out. “Wow, lots of all-caps: ‘It is necessary to prevent future problems,’ this person says. ‘Children are like dogs, they need discipline, and a spank does not have to be hard to get the message home.’ That sounds familiar.”
Daniel bent over and tickled Madonna’s tiny rib cage. She jumped into his hand. He stood up with her cuddled to his chest. “Search ‘Boris Johnson’ and ‘smacking.’ ”
“All right.” Coralie searched. “Also in theDaily Mail, from 2012: ‘Parents must have the right to smack their children to instill discipline, says Boris.’ Okay, then.”
“We’re the losers for not liking it. Maybe it was actuallygood. I wonder if Roger will hit us when he comes in March.”
“I wonder if we’ll hit him.”
“I FaceTimed Barbie,” Daniel said. “He was at lunch with his sons in Brooklyn.Theyhave a nice dad.”
“You didn’t want to go with him?”
“Ugh, I did, and it would have been fine, but I didn’t, for some reason. I couldn’t face it.”
“Stay here tonight,” Coralie said. “Anne and Sally are in the spare room. You can have the sofa.”
“I’ve got the keys for the Graham Road flat. It’s more my size when I’m on my own.”
