She leads me in over the threshold. In the plastic carrier-bag behind the door I glimpse a small silvery tree, a long box holding a set of porcelain angels, a few skeins of tinsel that pour over the side like fat snakes. She didn’t have them when I left her in the café. She must have carried on shopping after I left her. Patting and coaxing, she pushes me up the stairs and shoehorns me into a tiny bedroom, crammed tight with a cast-iron bed and a pair of matching wardrobes. Then she scoops up the slippery maroon throw from the base of the bed and wraps it round my shoulders. The gesture is so kind and automatic that I burst into noisy tears.
“Hey.” Jackie sits beside me and pats my shoulder. “It’s all right.”
“I’m so sorry about this morning.”
“God, you’re not upset over that are you? That was nothing, forget about it.”
“It’s not just that. I had an argument with Melanie and something awful happened in the hairdressers and I don’t know what’s happening to me, I think I’m going mad.”
“Right.” Jackie’s sharp, motherly firmness is exactly what I crave. “Shut up now, or you’ll wake Georgie. Let’s get you cleaned up and looking human. Then you can tell me what’s going on.”
I sit meek and childlike as two cotton pads are placed over my eyes and something cool and luxurious is smoothed onto my face. Deprived of sight, I become extra sensitive to the sounds and scents around me; the alcohol and cucumber notes of the cleansers, the click and squirt of the bottles, the faint hum of the radio from the room beneath us, the warmth of Jackie’s fingers against my skin, the slow minty heaviness of her breathing. I wish I could lie against the pillow and relax completely, forget the perils and terrors and complexities of the day and simply sleep, sleep and sleep while my best and only friend takes care of me.
“Oi. Don’t go to sleep on me.” Jackie shakes my shoulder. “I’m getting the hairdryer out in a second, so don’t get too comfy, all right?”
“I’m not going to sleep.”
“Yes, you are.” She fingers the ends of my hair. “Nice colour this. Bit long though. Were you getting it cut shorter? Want me to have a go at it?”
“No, don’t worry, it’s fine.”
“It’s all right, I got my City and Guilds years ago. I was going to be a hairdresser till I fell for our Jaden.”
“I wasn’t really sure about getting it cut anyway, I should probably leave it alone.”
“Did you go because of what I said this morning? You don’t want to take no notice of me, I’ve got no clue what I’m on about half the time. Right, let’s get it dried and into some sort of shape.” She hesitates. “Then how about I put you a new face on? Get you glammed up a bit?”
I don’t especially want to be made up by Jackie in her dramatic style, but the warmth of the hairdryer is so delicious, the peace of simply sitting meek and doll-like as she teases and smooths and straightens my hair, then fusses and pats and paints at my skin, is so compelling, that I give in to the comfort of letting her do as she pleases. After all, no one will have to see me. After all, I can’t possibly look any worse than I looked on my way over here.
“Right,” Jackie commands. “Take a look.”
In the mirror is someone I don’t quite recognise. She looks roughly like me, but more striking, more noticeable, and fiercer; someone you’d take notice of, but perhaps be cautious around too. Someone who might dance and drink and have sex. Someone who matters. Someone with a life.
“Better?”
Is it better? Or is it just different? I can’t decide.
“Amazing,” I say, and watch in the mirror as the strange woman’s painted lips move in time with my own.
“So come down to the kitchen and I’ll make us a cuppa. Then you can tell me what’s been going on.”
“I’ve been seeing things,” I say. The thin porcelain of the mug is burning hot, but I press my hands close to it anyway, welcoming the fierce heat.
“What do you mean, seeing things? What sort of things?”
“Visions of… of drowning. Of being drowned. There’s always someone there with me, someone watching while I… Sometimes they’re holding me under. Sometimes they just push me into the water. It even happened at the hairdressers, for God’s sake, she was washing my hair and I thought she was trying to drown me in the basin. And once I saw—”
“Yes?”
“I saw my husband,” I admit, and bite hard on the inside of my cheek to keep the tears at bay. “He was angry with me. So angry I thought he was going to… But then he wasn’t even there! He wasn’t even there. I think maybe they’re telling me what happened to Joel. I think maybe he… perhaps he’s… and maybe he’s trying to tell me that—”
“Oh, love, no. No, no, no, don’t say that. You don’t know that, you don’t.” Jackie strokes my back gently. “He could still be alive. He could.”
“I know he could. And that’s why I’m so confused. Because I saw a fortune teller at Hull Fair and she told me he’d come back to me by Christmas and that must mean he’s still alive, mustn’t it? But then if he is, why do I keep seeing all this awful stuff about being drowned?” I take a scalding mouthful of tea. “Melanie – my sister, I mean – she thinks I’m going mad.”
“Fucking hell,” says Jackie, with sincere reverence. “I mean really. Just, fucking hell. You poor thing.”
“I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Yes, you do, of course you do. It’s the trauma, isn’t it? It does things to our brains. Like soldiers. You’ve been in the trenches too long and it’s all catching up with you.”
“But what if it’s real? What if Joel’s really trying to get a message to me somehow?”
“Suze. Listen to me. Please.” Jackie puts her mug down and takes hold of my shoulders. “There are no psychics. There are no ghosts. It’s all bollocks. Whatever’s happening to you, it’s nothing to do with the other side trying to get in touch with us, and that rip-off merchant at the Fair can no more tell you when Joel’s coming back than Georgie can. You know that. You told me and now I’m telling you. All right?”
“I know.” I don’t know if I believe her or not but it’s easier to say I agree than to carry on arguing. “Thanks for listening.”
“Do you think maybe you might want to talk to someone about it though? Like a doctor or someone?”
“No! Absolutely not.”
“I’m not saying there’s something wrong with you, but just to make sure.”
“I don’t need anyone to help. I can cope with it, I’m managing it. It’s not hurting anyone but me anyway.”
Jackie shakes her head. “You can’t go on like this, running around town with wet hair and no coat on, scaring yourself stupid in your own home. You looked like a little ghost yourself when I opened the door. There’s no shame in seeing someone for help.”
“I can’t. Don’t you see? I mean, even if this is just all in my head. What if I remember something important? Something that might help find where Joel is? And what if the doctors make it stop?”
“But look, you can’t—”
I hold up my hand for quiet. “I think I can hear Georgie.”
“Do you really mean that? Or are you just trying to shut me up?”
“No, I really can, listen.” Upstairs, we hear a loud thump, and then a joyful yelp. “See?”
Jackie sighs. “Give me two minutes.”
When Jackie brings Georgie downstairs, she’s bright-eyed and shrieky and stares at us with expectant eyes, waiting for us to produce something to entertain her. So we bundle her up in a stiff pink snowsuit and Jackie lends me a spare coat and gloves, and we lock up the house and take a walk through small streets and past old warehouses to West Park, Georgie bowling along in front of us. Within a few minutes, she’s staring dreamily out at the world as it scrolls past her field of vision, sucking on her fingers and occasionally making a half-hearted swipe at the plastic rings Jackie’s strung across the buggy.
The cold is bitter an
d unrelenting and the sky crammed with clouds, but the park is still astonishingly lovely. A bloom of ice crusts the shaded edge of the paddling pool and the leaves glow amber and brown. When we prise Georgie from her buggy she arches her strong straight back and reaches starfish hands towards the iron sky as if she’s trying to grab handfuls of it to stuff into her mouth. In the aviary, the parrots huddle disconsolately at the back of their cage and ruffle up their feathers, and a lone wallaby leaves the safety of the huddle to venture across the paddock in small delicate hops, watching our hands to see if we have something for it to eat. Jackie holds out a handful of tissue and stealthily smushes Georgie’s hand into the soft fur of its neck. Georgie shrieks in delight and the wallaby jumps back in surprise, the tissue dangling from its mouth as it leaps away.
“Poor wallaby,” I say.
“Poor nothing. That’s what it’s here for. Paying its rent, aren’t you, mate?” The wallaby lets the tissue fall to the ground and stares reproachfully at us with liquid black eyes. “Reckon they’ll put them in Santa hats when it gets closer to Christmas? Let’s sit down for a bit, these boots are killing me.”
We sit down on the bench by the paddling pool and watch the runners, Georgie throwing herself from Jackie’s arms to mine and then back again. I’m astonished by the strength she has. A man about my age, trim and greying and soaked with sweat, jogs past us. His eyes slide sideways towards us, pass over Jackie, snag on me. The rhythm of his feet slows a fraction. He smiles approvingly.
“He fancies you,” Jackie says. Georgie lurches across towards me.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, he does. Don’t blame him, either. Your hair looks nice that colour. You look – God almighty, Georgie, you weigh a ton – you look years younger. Suits you.”
Do I like being looked at this way by men? I’m not sure. There was something proprietorial in his gaze, as if I was a purchase in a shop or a painting in a gallery. He wasn’t seeing me at all, not really; only the outer wrapping, newly painted and tinted in this season’s colours. Georgie holds her arms out to me, and I brace myself for her enthusiastic bounce into my arms.
“Well, I’m not in the market for a date so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Why not? You’re divorced, right? You’re allowed to see other blokes.” Georgie lurches back over to Jackie. Her right foot kicks me hard in the stomach. “Look, there’s another one that’s clocked you. See?”
Another runner, much younger this time with thick hair and a well-tended beard, but the same glance, the same assessment, the same feeling that I’m on display and being considered by someone who believes they have the right to choose or to reject, to admire or to deride, while I sit within my coat of paint and wait for their judgement. He must be twenty years younger than me but he still seems to approve of what he sees, as if the effort I (or more accurately, Jackie) has made with my appearance has been done for his benefit and he’s happy to reward it with a little flirty smile. It doesn’t seem to occur to him to wonder if I find him attractive in return.
Georgie throws herself towards me again. I take her on my lap and vary the game by turning her onto her back and scrubbling my hand in her middle. She yelps and folds around me like a clamshell. Do I want to spend time with a man who has only noticed me because other women have temporarily re-coloured my hair and skin and eyes and lips? What happened to finding a soulmate? Someone who’s attracted to the person you are inside? But then again, what man in their right mind would be attracted to someone as damaged as me?
“You don’t have to pick up some randomer in the park,” Jackie says. “But don’t you think it might do you good to have some fun? You’re my mate, I don’t like seeing you so lonely, it’s not right. Susannah? Oi. Are you listening? Susannah?”
I can see Joel.
It’s not Joel.
Except it is.
I’ve fallen victim to this illusion a million times. A glance across a crowded street, a face glimpsed from a bus, and for a moment it’s them, just going about their business without a care in the world, and even though you know it’s not them at all, you have to jostle through the crowd or jump off the bus and chase after them, until the illusion collapses and you realise that once again you’re pursuing a stranger. I’ve done this and done it and done it, until at last I learned not to do it, to fight every instinct in my body and turn away and keep going about my day, and save myself the pain of once again swallowing down hope that’s shattered like glass. Pain you can learn to live with; it’s the unfulfilled hope that will kill you in the end.
But this is different. It really is Joel. It’s really him.
He’s taller and broader at the shoulders, still thin, but shaped like a man rather than a stretched-out boy. His hair has darkened by a few shades. His skin has cleared up and is shadowed with stubble. He’s dressed in clothes I’ve never seen before. But it’s him. I know it’s him. Not because of the colour of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, the way he stands or the way his hands move. But because when he sees me looking, he speaks to me, and even though he’s on the other side of the paddling pool and too far away for me to hear him, I watch the shape his lips make and hear the words chime like a bell in my head:
Help me, Mum. Help me. I need you. Can you hear me? I need you to come and get me.
And as I stand up, dazed and desperate, and pass Georgie over to Jackie without even realising what I’m doing, he turns and runs away.
I’m off like a hare out of a trap, running faster than I ever knew I could. Joel is fast, but I’m going to catch him, I have to. He needs me. He spoke to me. I’m going to reach him. The wallabies and the sheep hold up their innocent blank-eyed faces as we pass, first him, then me, separate but tethered by an invisible cord.
At the skate park I lose him. A girl in jeans and knee-pads and a helmet scoots up and down the half-pipe, flicking her board around at the top of the curve, over and over. When I gasp out my frantic question (Did you see a young lad jeans and a green hoodie running past which way did he go?) she looks at me warily as if I might be here to hurt her. I start to repeat the question, but then I see Joel disappearing behind a smooth concrete mound and I start running again, oblivious to the shrieks and curses of the skaters and runners and walkers whose paths I charge across, my lungs burning but my heart pounding a triumphant martial rhythm. I will be fast enough. I’m gaining on him. I’m strong enough to do this.
We’re pounding down a wide concrete path lined with tall rusted shapes like aloe leaves, bent over at the tops and with street lights concealed in their peaks. My legs are turning weak but I can still see Joel, and that’s all that matters; as long as I can still see him I have a chance. And then Joel turns round as if to check I’m still following and once again our eyes meet and he smiles and beckons me on.
I’m so happy I think my heart might burst out of my chest. My son is here. He’s been alive all this time. I run down the path and feel as if I’m flying. He’s still ahead of me, but the gap is closing, just another five strides and I’ll be close enough to catch him.
“Will you stop running, you utter fucking nutter!”
Hands and hands and hands, grabbing at my arms and hair. I fight back wildly for a minute, but then my legs give up the battle to hold me upright and I crumple as if someone’s cut my strings. Jackie is there, and one of the runners who was looking at me earlier. I have a sense of being enclosed, and I realise I’m sitting on a small patch of road between the bumpers of two cars. My leg aches fiercely. Absolutely everyone is staring at me.
“What’s got into you? I had to leave Georgie with some woman, where is she, where’s my baby—” Jackie is beside herself, barely able to speak. I spy a patch of scarlet and point wordlessly. Jackie swoops fiercely over the buggy and snatches Georgie out, clutching her like a talisman.
“Will she be all right now?” The runner is clearly desperate to get away, terrified of being made responsible for my fate. “D’you want me to call the police?”
>
“No, she’ll be all right now, I’ll look after her, thanks for helping. You get off, we’ll be all right here. I know what’s wrong with her, don’t worry.”
I pull myself up, leaning against the bonnet of the car, and look wildly around for Joel. Where has he gone? Where is he where is he where is he? I can’t see him anywhere. Jackie hauls me onto the pavement. The woman who brought Georgie disappears. The cars drive on, the drivers shaking their heads in disbelief. Only Jackie stays with me, clutching Georgie with one arm and grabbing onto me with the other.
“What happened?”
My left leg is starting to hurt and there’s a smear of black dirt across my jeans. “I saw Joel.”
“No, you didn’t! We were just sat there talking, and then you suddenly handed Georgie over to me and stood up and took off like a maniac.”
“But he was stood right across the paddling pool. He was there. I saw him.” Jackie shakes her head. “I know, I know, but it wasn’t like that. Okay? He saw me. He looked at me. He asked me to help him. Then he ran away. He was asking me to follow him, Jackie, I swear.”
“There was no one there. Can you hear me? There was nobody stood there. You were following no one.”
“But I saw him,” I whisper. “I saw him.”
“But he wasn’t there. You saw him. But nobody else did. Look, you need to talk to someone about this. It’s getting out of hand. It’s more than you can handle by yourself.”
“He was there,” I repeat, and then Jackie’s arms go around me and I feel her stagger under my weight and we sink to the pavement, Georgie protesting loudly as she gets caught somewhere in between, strangers tutting as they have to pass us, and Jackie strokes my hair and murmurs something into my neck and I know she’s right, and this is more than we can handle by ourselves, and we need to talk to someone.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday 23rd November 2013
The Winter's Child Page 16