“Of course I’m angry with him! How can anyone not be? How are you not angry? God, I do my best, every day I try, but he’s such a pain, he’s such hard work, and he doesn’t even love me back, not any more.”
“That’s not true! Joel worships you! He wants to make you happy, don’t you see? He doesn’t try in class because he’s terrified of disappointing you. Every time you yell at him about his grades or tell him he’s not working hard enough, he feels worse, and that’s how it’s spiralling, don’t you see? It’s you, John, I’m sorry but it’s you, it’s your… well, not your fault exactly, but you’re the one who can change it. You need to be kinder to him. John, please listen to me, this is important.”
“And I know you don’t mean to, but you and Joel, you collude against me. You’re like a little team all by yourselves. You don’t need me any more, not really. If I disappeared and left you and Joel to yourselves, you’d be happier.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. It is true. It never used to be. Do you remember? We used to have each other’s backs, always. We were on the same side. We knew that whatever happened, we’d always be okay, because we’d always have each other. Before Joel came we were fine, we were so happy. But since he came into our lives, everything’s been worse, year after year after year.”
“What are you saying?”
“God help me, Susannah, I’m saying sometimes I resent him. I resent my own bloody son. Because you love him more than me.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell him he’s wrong, because we’d both know I was lying. Besides, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Isn’t that how he feels too? Doesn’t he love Joel more than he loves me?
“It’s not my fault, Susannah,” John says. “I know you think that but it’s not true. Not entirely. Can’t you see that?”
And so strong is John’s will that for a treacherous moment I see myself and Joel through John’s eyes. I see a son who needs discipline and support, not well-meant smothering. I see a mother who does everything she can to thwart her husband. I see a flawed but unbreakable alliance that acts at every turn to keep him from making any changes or doing any good. I see a man who loves me despite everything I’ve done to lessen that love. I see that to John himself, John is the hero of the story, and he’s doing everything he can not to see me as the villain.
The sight terrifies me. John is wrong. But John is strong. And if we’re not all very, very careful, John could end up tearing our little family apart.
“Sometimes,” John whispers, “I wish—”
Oh God, no. Don’t say it. If you say it I’ll have to leave you. And I don’t want to do that. I can’t face it. I can’t.
“I wish I could be more like you,” John says, and lays his head against my breast and sobs.
I stroke his head and watch the river flow by and wonder if these are truly the words John meant to say.
Chapter Ten
Thursday 23rd November 2017
“So I was looking at your blog last night.”
Jackie’s eyes slide sideways at me over the top of her mug of hot chocolate. We’re Christmas shopping in town, in a café called Heaven, taking refuge from the breathtaking cold that’s sweeping down the country in one gargantuan Arctic sigh. I’ve never suited cold weather. It turns my nose pink and my skin dull, my hair frizzy and crisp and my eyes watery, and I do everything I can to avoid it. But Jackie comes alive in the cold, like a winter ermine.
“Must have taken ages to write.”
“I… yes, I suppose it did really.”
“The one about accepting that it’s okay to, you know, keep going. Do nice stuff.” As if her remaining child is a talisman, she lays one manicured hand on Georgie’s fat belly as she slouches frownily in her scarlet travel-system, transfixed by a twirling blue star that hangs precariously from the ceiling, blown by the warm gusts of air from the heater. “You know, with everyone you’ve got left. I’ve been thinking about Christmas.”
I stare steadily into my mug and breathe slowly and deeply. The lights that are everywhere now, blooming as if the cold has brought them into life, flash and flicker from every shiny surface, including the tears that tremble in the corners of my eyes. Christmas is the hardest, even harder than their birthdays.
“I mean, I’m hoping he might be back by then but—” In her face I see the shadow of what we both know is now the most likely outcome. “And it’s this one’s first as well. I had all these plans, you know? I wanted her first Christmas to be so special. And now… but I’m going to still do some nice things for Georgie. I decided last night. We’ll still have an advent calendar. And a tree. And some little things for her.”
I ruthlessly clamp down on the self-pitying whisper that tells me how lucky Jackie is to have someone to call forth the effort for. “That sounds really nice. I bet she’ll love it.”
“Ryan had this thing when I was pregnant with Georgie.” Jackie presses her hand to her mouth for a moment. “He was afraid I wouldn’t want him around any more cos I’d have this new life with Lee and the baby and he’d just be in the way. I think maybe that was why he was such a little shit all the last year, he was testing me, you know the way kids do, checking I’d still love him no matter what. So if there’s any chance he’s watching somehow, like if he comes back and looks at the house and he’s not sure whether to come back or not, I don’t want him thinking I’m making too much of a fuss, being all happy together without him. But at the same time—”
“I know.”
“Yeah.” Jackie gives me a wobbly smile. “I know you do. What are you going to do?”
“I think I’ll go to my sister’s. They usually ask me.”
“Will you decorate your house?”
I think of the way my street has looked for the last five years. A string of pretty lights in trees and windows, and the single black cavity. “I might do. I’ll see how I feel.”
Jackie tears the top off a stick of sugar and pours it into her coffee.
“Can I tell you something? It might sound a bit creepy but it’s not meant to.”
“Okay…”
“It’s like my Bible, that blog of yours. Whenever something happens to me and I get upset, I go online and have a look and there’ll be some advice from you and it gets me through. I don’t know what I’d have done without it. Talking to people that don’t know what to say to me, how to cope with Christmas, cleaning up the house, the lot. You’ve saved my life.”
I’m so pleased I can’t speak.
“So do you mind if I give you some advice in return? Just to say thank you? And you won’t get upset?”
I look at her warily.
“I just think you ought to start taking your own advice a bit more. I mean, you don’t really follow all what you write about, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. What was that thing you wrote, about needing to keep yourself strong and that means looking after yourself, letting yourself enjoy things?”
“I do, of course I do. Look at us right now, we’ve come out shopping, haven’t we?”
“Only cos I rang you up this morning and begged you. If I didn’t make you come out, you never would. Who else do you see besides me?”
I try not to show Jackie how much her words hurt. “I see my sister and her kids, I babysit for them at least once a week.” Although I’ve been slack recently, preferring to cocoon in my own house with Jackie and Georgie, rather than force myself to confront the uncomplicated happiness of my sister’s home.
“But that’s just staying in someone else’s house while they go out and have fun. What about something that’s just for you? Like clothes. We’ve just been right round town and you haven’t tried anything on. When did you last buy yourself something new?”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Look at your coat. The cuffs are fraying.” I resist the urge to fold my fingers over the ends of my sleeves. “Why not treat yourself a bit?”
“It was expensive. I like to get the wear.”
“Okay, so how about your hair?” Jackie tugs gently at the fronds around my face. “You could try a new style.”
“I like my hair this way, thank you very much.”
“Look, I get it, okay? I do. You’re trying to keep everything the same. So if, I mean, so when he comes back, he’ll just slip back into his old life.”
“It won’t be the same because John won’t be there.”
“And that’s another thing to think about. You’re older than me but you’re not exactly over the hill, are you? You’ve got a lot of life still to live.”
“My life is fine just the way it is.”
“No, it’s not. It’s lonely. You’re lonely. I’m not being funny but I don’t think you had a friend in the world before I turned up on your doorstep, did you?”
“Well, if you think I’m such a loser, what are you even doing with me?”
“Hey. Don’t be like that.” Jackie pats my arm. “I don’t think you’re a loser, when did I say that? I told you, that blog of yours, it helps me all the time, every day. I just want to pay that back, that’s all.”
“Anyway, who are you to tell me what to do? What have you done with your life that’s so bloody marvellous? Had four kids with two different men. Or is it three different men? And lived off the state for years.”
A dull red flush creeps up Jackie’s neck.
“And you’ve got no idea what my life is like, okay? No idea at all. You’ve barely even started. Your boy’s not been gone six months. Just you wait until it’s been a year, and then two years, and then three years, and then five years, and Lee’s left you and Georgie’s growing up and you know that whatever you do, your life’s only going to get worse from now on, okay? Just you wait until you’ve done that! And then you can tell me how I need to buy a new coat and get my hair done!”
Jackie’s saying something but I’m too angry to listen. I stumble out of the café, indifferent to the avid stares of the other patrons. The wind slaps me around the face with a cold so intense I think my tears will freeze on my cheeks. I’ve left my gloves on the table but I can’t go back for them.
Why did I screech at Jackie like that? I’m appalled at myself. I’m not fit to have friends. I can’t be trusted with other people. From now on, I’ll have to work even harder to keep myself small and tight and closed off. From now on I’ll only speak to the people who love me and accept me exactly as I am. That way if I lose control again and start shouting, I know I can be forgiven. I fumble in my pocket for my phone and call Melanie. Please answer. Please answer. Please answer.
“Hi there.” Melanie’s voice is cool and guarded.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Yes, I know.” There’s a nasty little silence and my heart skips a beat. Then, “Any news?”
“No. No news.”
She normally says I’m sorry, but again there’s a nasty little silence.
“So what are you all up to today? How are Thomas and Grace?”
“They’re fine.” Just that, no chatty news, no little stories of what Thomas asked at dinner the other day or what Grace did at playgroup. “And how are you?”
My heart hurts. I’m not used to Melanie being angry with me.
“I’m fine, I was just ringing for a chat.”
“Susannah?” Melanie’s voice is a little gentler. “Are you all right? Are you crying?”
“No, I’m fine, I’m really fine, I can tell you’re busy, I’ll call you later—”
“Where are you? Do you need me to come and get you?”
“No! No, I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that, but you’re obviously not.” And at last, the capitulation. “Do you want to come round here for a bit? Grace is at playgroup all day today, but we can have a chat?”
“Actually, is there any chance we could go out? You and me, I mean?”
“Um. It’s not a great time. Well, no, hang on, I suppose if… I’ll have to get Richard’s mum to get Grace and Thomas, though. Um. No, the hell with it. Yes, why not, that sounds lovely. What do you want to do?”
“I want to get my hair cut.”
“So what are we thinking today?” The hairdresser combs her fingers through my hair, smiling at me through the mirror. Her own hair swings around her face like a glossy dark curtain. The salon is busy and buzzy, offering beauty treatments as well as hair appointments, and Melanie sits with four other customers as she waits for her turn to be manicured. I have no idea how Melanie managed to get us both appointments here. Did she mention Joel, maybe even invent a poignant anniversary? Or were we just lucky that they happened to have the exact appointments we wanted even on such a busy afternoon?
“I felt like a change,” I say. “Something a bit different. More modern.”
“Maybe some of this length off?” The hairdresser folds my hair up under itself so I can see how I might look with my locks shorn shorter.
When Joel was little, he used to twirl strands of my hair around his fingers. I used to carry a tiny pair of scissors so I could cut myself free when he slept. “That sounds good.”
She’s still toying with my hair, folding it higher and higher. “If you wanted something really radical, you could try a pixie cut. That would look beautiful with your cheekbones. And it’s so easy to take care of, just a bit of texturising and you’re done for the day.”
“No! No, not a pixie cut.”
“Too drastic?” She smiles and lets the length fall again. “Maybe just to your shoulders, then.”
“Yes, that sounds fine.”
“And colour-wise?”
It meant a lot to Joel that our hair was the same colour. He used to love looking at childhood photos of himself and then of me, the illusion of a genetic connection so convincing even I could almost believe it. You were always meant to be ours, I used to tell him as we marvelled together at the resemblance between us. It’s just you had to grow somewhere else before you could come home to us.
“Nothing too different, I want to stay blonde, I don’t know really, I just looked in the mirror and thought it was time for a change.”
“Some cooler tones would look really funky. See our Gemma over there?” She points to the pretty young junior sweeping the floor. Her hair is a soft silver-grey. “That sort of colour at the ends. And keep the warmer tones at the top. Take the length up to your shoulders, and some layers to add movement. What do you think?”
I have no real idea what this will look like, but I know it will be different, and when it’s different, Jackie’s words will lose their power because I will no longer be the woman I was this morning. From the seats by the magazines, Melanie nods reassuringly.
“That sounds great,” I say.
Within minutes, I’m wondering what reckless insanity has led me here. The questions she asks me are normal, chatty questions, but for me it’s like walking over broken glass. Do I have plans for tonight? No. Got any Christmas parties coming up? No. Am I working at the moment? No. Married? Seeing anyone special? No. And the hardest one: Do I have children? No, I say, despising myself, and then in a moment of brilliance I add the chirpy rider, But my sister has two! And instantly we’re safe in the well-worn track of All the best bits and none of the difficult bits and I bet you’re their cool auntie, aren’t you? and Are you looking forward to spoiling them for Christmas? and So lovely that you’re so close with your sister. I spool out the stories, performing my devoted-auntie routine for this kindly stranger (taking Grace to feed the ducks and Grace falling in, taking Thomas to an Adventure Park and coping with his terror of the dead-eyed perspex cow, buying them Moon Sand for Christmas and Melanie hoovering it out of the carpet for months afterwards), and then suddenly I’m being offered coffee and a magazine and the conversation is over.
Time passes. I turn the pages of my magazine, studying the winter party dresses as if I might actually buy one. I drink my coffee. Melanie is taken into the tiny sage-coloured
side-room to have her nails soaked in warm water while she selects a shade of polish. My scalp tingles with chemicals. In the mirror I glimpse my head, covered with tinfoil packets. I look like an eccentric Christmas decoration. The last scrapings of dye sit incongruously blue and purple in their tubs. I’ve never understood how purple dye can make my hair golden. I wish I hadn’t done any of this, but it’s too late now.
“Mrs Harper?” It’s Gemma, the junior with the ash-grey hair. “If you’d like to come over to the basins, it’s time to rinse you out?” Her smile is nervous and I wonder how I must seem to her. A rich spoiled older woman with money to burn on an impulsive afternoon at the salon, someone of her mother’s generation or perhaps even older, who she needs to keep sweet because I’m a paying customer. At my usual place they know everything about me. That poor Mrs Harper whose son disappeared. I can’t decide if I prefer that, or sleek anonymity. I settle myself in the chair and feel the basin lap uncomfortably at the base of my neck.
“I’ll just lift this up a bit for you?” She has that young girl’s habit of turning every declarative into a question. The cold porcelain shifts position to become a little more supportive. “Is that better?”
“That’s great, thanks.”
“And I’ll just get these last bits of hair out for you?” I lift my head and her fingers brush shyly against my neck. “There, I think that’s all of it? Is this water all right for you or would you like it a little cooler?”
“It’s fine.”
I try not to wince as she strips the foils from my hair. This will all be worth it when I next see Jackie and show her my new hair, with its new length and new colour. No, that’s not right. I can’t see Jackie again ever. But it will still all be worth it. I’ll have shown that I’m not a hypocrite and I really do practice what I preach and I’m living my life in the best way I can, despite everything. Who knew that a single haircut could mean so much? The foils are out now and all I can feel are warm water and cool shampoo and Gemma’s hands, gentle but firm, massaging my scalp. This must be the first thing they teach on a hairdressing course: how to wash hair.
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