Green knickers and pink sheets

The cake – banana – was soft and light when they poured it into the tin. They have used the proper sugar – caster – and sifted all of the flour. Nina closed the oven door, Ethan licked the spoon, they shared the bowl.

If there is a doorbell when they get to the house where Nina plans to deliver the cake, Nina will ask Ethan to ring it. Ding Dong, she will say when he presses it. She will remember to comb his hair before they leave and she will change his shirt, but not until they have put the icing on.

She begins the clearing up. She crunches the egg shells before she puts them in the bin, has one last lick of the bowl.

‘My name’s Nina,’ she will say, then smile. ‘I live two doors down.’

The girl will stay behind the security screen at first, but Nina will speak again.

‘We’ve heard the baby,’ she will say, and then, to reassure: ‘it’s nice. You don’t hear too many babies or kids. Not around here. Not during the day.’

The girl will open the security screen and hold it with her right arm. The baby will be cradled in her left and dressed in white. The girl’s eyes will be tired, but she will smile. A soft smile which doesn’t show her teeth.

Nina will not tell the girl about the view from upstairs in Ethan’s room. Green knickers and pink sheets on the line. Geraniums in pots. And every morning, the girl on the garden bench, a cigarette, a piece of toast and a cup of tea.

Up close, the girl will not look quite so young, but still she will be young enough to be Nina’s child. If not in years, then at least in generations.

The girl will use her hip against the door when she takes the cake and Nina will say ‘if you ever need anything, if you get lonely during the day’. Nina will have her arm around Ethan’s shoulder as she speaks. He is tall enough now for that.

Nina practices her smile and the speed of her blink, lets the water out of the sink. The house smells like cake.

But the cake, when she takes it out of the oven and slides it onto the bench, is brown and cracked on top and when she tries to take it out of the tin, too much of it stays behind.

‘Stupid oven,’ Nina says. ‘Bloody tin’. She bites at her lips, rubs at her forehead, pulls at her hair.

Nina hears the baby’s cries. They are hungry cries, she thinks. Nina wants to call out to the girl ‘you shouldn’t smoke, not with a baby, not even outside’.

She pulls the window down and she can’t hear the baby anymore.

‘We can’t take burnt cake,’ Nina says to Ethan. She needs to blow her nose, and the knot in her neck is back. ‘It isn’t neighbourly.’

Ethan wraps his arm around her legs and Nina strokes his hair.

Nina makes chocolate butter icing then she and Ethan sit on the floor and eat the cake in chunks until not quite all of it is gone.