The Winter's Child

  “I’m afraid to go,” I admit. “What if they think I’m going mad and lock me away?”

  “They won’t do that. Trust me, it’s very hard to get people sectioned these days. More often than not you end up having to beg them just to take a look.” He touches the bruises, the handprint, and smiles wryly. “Although they might ask you if I did this to you.”

  Of course he knows all about this. He lives with it on behalf of his wife, every day. No wonder he’s so accepting of my own nonsensical experiences. No wonder he’s so kind and gentle.

  “I see a lot of people with mental health issues at work,” he explains, as if he can guess what I’m thinking. “When they have a change of meds and it doesn’t work out. Or when they just decide they’re sick of feeling fat and half asleep and chuck them in the bin. Then they go to the other extreme and start climbing on buildings and ranting in shopping centres about the end of the world. Some shifts everyone we have in the cells belongs in hospital really.”

  “That must be hard,” I say, because it’s my turn to speak and this is how a conversation works, you take it in turns to speak and if you don’t speak it becomes a silence, and while you’re both together in that silence who knows what will happen?

  “They’re safer in the cells than on the streets. I’ll admit it’s not really what I joined the force to do. Locking up people who are ill, I mean.”

  “What did you want to do?”

  “To help people who needed it.”

  “You do help people.”

  He touches the tiny purple bruises with his fingertips. “I couldn’t help you.”

  “But you did help. You did your best, you looked for Joel, you did everything you could. You’re still doing your best. You promised me you’d never stop looking. And you never have. Even when—” I can’t finish the sentence, but we both hear the words. Even when it’s hopeless. I want to make him feel better, happier, but instead he looks… Well, how does he look? What’s the word for the expression on his face? I think I used to know but I forgot it long ago.

  “Can I tell you something?” Nick says. His voice is so soft I have to lean closer to hear.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Do you know why I really wanted to find Joel?” When he hesitates and draws in a deep breath, I think of a diver on tiptoe, of the pause before the plunge. “I wanted…” His fingers come to rest on the fluttering pulse-point in my wrist. “I wanted to be your hero. I can still remember how you looked when you opened the door. You were so beautiful and you’d been crying. And you… you looked at me. And all I wanted then… the thing I wanted more than anything else in this world… was to find your son and bring him home, and for you to look at me like I was your hero.”

  It’s my turn to speak. I don’t say anything, because this is not a conversation where the words matter. Instead I let my fingers creep up towards his face, touching the clipped edges of his hair, his rough stubbly cheek, the thin tight curve of his mouth. And he lets me. He lets me.

  In the days before I married John, I was party to any number of kisses, but they had one thing in common: I always waited for the boy to kiss me. I wanted to be a good girl, and good girls were the object of desire, never the subject. But that was in the days before my good-girl life was taken from me. Who am I now? I am the woman who places her mouth over the mouth of a man who belongs to someone else.

  His lips open. Our tongues meet. He tastes delicious. His hands are on my back. I tear at his shirt. I need to feel him against me. My skin is so hungry. All of me is so hungry.

  I never thought I was the kind of woman who could do this.

  It’s hard to stop kissing him for long enough to drag him to his feet, but I manage it. When I lead him up the stairs towards the bedroom that used to be mine and John’s, his hand is hot and dry. On the landing, I put my hand against his crotch and squeeze so I can feel how hard he is. His breathing is ragged. I wonder if his wife does this to him. I wonder if Nathalie does this to John. I feel no guilt and no shame.

  In the bedroom, we strew our clothes across the floor. The room is cold, the sheets are cold, but it doesn’t matter. We’re creating our own heat. I should be shy, I should be worried about what he will think of my body once it’s stripped naked and exposed, but I’m not. I’m only thinking about what I want. Nick with his clothes off is every bit as beautiful as I’ve always imagined. It comes as a shock to me to realise that I have pictured this moment. Then I don’t have time to be shocked any more because we’re on the bed together, fitting ourselves into each other like a jigsaw puzzle, and in the moment before I stop thinking and concentrate only on taking from him what I need, greedy and demanding and forgetful, I think to myself, At least I’ve got this. Whatever else happens after this, at least I’ve got this moment.

  Afterwards, when I’ve come and he’s come and we’ve fallen apart again and we’re lying beneath the duvet, drifting slowly back into our bodies, I feel Nick’s wedding ring against my shoulder as he strokes it and I think again about his wife, who I have just stolen this moment from. I wonder if, when Nick leaves me, as he must inevitably do, I will feel guilty. I know so little about her, only her name and her illness, and the one quick glimpse of her face in the photograph Nick keeps in his wallet, a pretty face with dark hair and dark eyes. I know that she and Nick have no children. Once, in the days when I had everything, I would have pitied her. Now I’m the one with nothing, and if she’s even aware of my existence, I’m sure she pities me.

  I have stolen her husband for the night. When my elation passes, I should probably feel guilty. But I think that I won’t.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thursday 2nd December 2011

  Our little household’s simmering like a pot of soup. The surface looks calm enough, but watch for a while and you’ll see the tension bubbling up and bursting on the surface. Do all households with a fourteen-year-old boy in them live like this? I don’t know, because I’ve never dared to ask.

  I’ve done a terrible thing. I’ve told a terrible lie. I’ve made sure the school won’t contact John when Joel is in trouble.

  It’s terrifyingly easy, requiring only a few words and a few moments. My hand on the arm of the school secretary, a murmured confidence about stress at work, a doctor’s recommendation that he avoids too much day-to-day worry. Would it be possible for all everyday communications to be directed to me? And of course, she says yes, because she’s from another generation and it seems natural to her that the mother should be the alpha parent. Now, John lives in a fantasy world where there are no more phone calls, no more requests for meetings, and Joel has miraculously improved his attendance record and is beginning to turn a corner.

  Of course, this illusion won’t hold once his end-of-year report comes in. But in the meantime, it buys me the space I believe Joel and I need to work out his problems together, free of the terrible pressure of his father’s disappointment.

  Except that Joel isn’t keeping up his side of the bargain. Things aren’t getting better. They’re getting worse. He’s added a terrible new dimension to the secrets I’m keeping for him.

  When I get the phone call, it feels no worse than any of those that have gone before and maybe even a little bit better. Joel’s gone missing from PE, and while I know this is no more acceptable than missing any other lesson, my own residual hatred for the sights and smells and sounds of the gym (bouncing balls, squeaky shoes, shouted instructions too echoey to process, the derisory laughter of my classmates) makes me feel as if, for once, I don’t need to worry too much. When he doesn’t come straight home, the slow walk through crisp air and bare trees to find him feels like a stolen pleasure.

  He’s hiding beneath the willow tree, as I suspected he would be. He has a number of hiding places but this is his favourite, and even though the leaves are gone now, the bare golden fronds provide a surprising amount of camouflage. There’s a notebook open beside him but his eyes are closed and there’s a faint smile on his face, and he loo
ks peaceful, so peaceful, as if he’s climbed mountains and crossed oceans and searched the whole wide world over to find this, his own private belonging-place. I look at my lovely son, serene and still, all the anxious fretful energy drained out of him, no one teasing him, no one harassing him to complete tasks he can’t see the point of or trying to make him into someone he’s not, and I think, If only he could always be this contented. Why can’t everyone just leave him alone?

  I slide in through the curtain of branches and sit down quietly beside him. Sometimes when I find him here, the seductive herby scent of weed coils around us like a spell. But not today. I think this is a positive sign.

  “Mum.” He opens his eyes and smiles at me. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “What are you up to, Joel Moel?”

  “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.

  “It’s cold though. Don’t you want to come home?”

  “It’s not cold, it’s warm. Warm and beautiful and cosy. This is the nicest place in the whole world, Mum. I’m going to stay here for ever.”

  His eyes are especially blue today, the irises so bright they almost glow. Despite the greyness of the day and the shelter of the willow tree, his pupils are like pinpricks. It takes me a moment to realise what this means.

  “Joel, tell me. What did you take? Come on, sweetie, talk to me. What did you take?”

  He shakes his head, slow and dreamy. “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

  “Don’t lie to me, I know you’ve taken something. What was it?”

  “You don’t need to worry, Mum, it’s proper medicine.” He yawns. “Just one dose and everything’s all right for hours. Doctors give it to people all the time.”

  “What medicine? Tell me.”

  “Little green fairy,” says Joel, and smiles foolishly. Beside him, a tiny brown bottle nestles in the litter of fallen leaves.

  “Oh my God. Joel, no. No, no, no. You can’t do this. I can live with the weed but not this.”

  “It’s all right. They make it in a proper factory. All clean, proper standard. I know what I’m doing. It’s medicine, it does me good. I wish I could feel like this always.”

  And the awful thing is, I can see what he means. Joel looks so happy. I can’t remember the last time I saw him so happy. He looks as if this is how he was always meant to be.

  “Listen to me. This is not medicine, this is hard drugs and it’s dangerous. If school catch you, you’ll end up suspended and maybe even expelled.”

  “Don’t care. Don’t like it there anyway. Just want to be at home with you.”

  “Well, I don’t want you there if this is what you’re going to do, okay?”

  This seems to pierce the armour of chemicals. He looks at me with hurt in his face.

  “Yes, I mean it! I really do! You can’t do this, okay? You just can’t.” His eyes fill with tears. “Oh, please, don’t cry, I’m sorry. I’m on your side, all right? You’re my Joel Moel and I love you for ever. But you can’t do this, my darling, you can’t. You just… you can’t. Stick to weed if you absolutely must, but not… not this. Promise me. Have you done this before?”

  “No.” He takes my hand and pats it. “First time. Promise promise.”

  Do I believe him?

  “Thank God. Now you never will again. Will you?”

  “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  “Of course I am.” Except I don’t know how I’ll ever manage it. How I can go home and say our son truanted from school to get high on methadone?

  “Promise not to tell Dad,” Joel says. “And I won’t do this again. Promise. Swear. No more.”

  “We need to get you some help. Some counselling maybe.”

  “No. Don’t need that. Won’t take it again.”

  “Where did you get it? How did you find where to get it? How do I know you won’t go back to the same place again as soon as my back’s turned?”

  “Just some bloke. Comes to school sometimes. Not often. Swapped him some games for a dose. He likes games so we swapped. Think the teachers know about him so he prob’ly won’t be there again.”

  Should I believe this story like a fisherman’s net, all raggedy holes held together with string? I don’t know. I only know that he’s my son, and he’s in pain.

  He reaches for my hand. “Mean it, Mum. M’ useless but I’ll do better.”

  “You’re not useless.”

  “Finished letting you down now. Promise. But don’t tell Dad. Scared of him when he’s angry.”

  “Don’t say that. He loves you.”

  There’s a terrible lucidity in his face. “Does he?”

  What can I say? He’s my boy, and I love him unconditionally. But John may not feel the same.

  “How was your day?”

  John always asks this; sometimes as soon as he comes in through the door, sometimes only once we have fishbowl glasses of wine in our hands and the living room to ourselves. There’s nothing different about tonight. Except that there is. There’s something in his voice that I wasn’t expecting to hear. Something that shouldn’t be there.

  “Fine,” I say, trying to keep my own voice bright and unconcerned. It’s not really working, any more than his faux-casual voice is working for me. We know each other too well to lie to each other. But we plough on anyway, like characters in a bad play.

  “So what did you get up to? Anything much?”

  “No, nothing special. I had a chat to Melanie earlier, they’re thinking of going to France next summer.”

  “And did you go out at all?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Not really? What’s not really?”

  “Oh, you know, just over the road to the shops. They’ve got their decorations up, maybe we should put ours up this weekend too. We could go out and buy some new ones together. Why are you asking, anyway? John? Is everything all right?”

  When John doesn’t speak, I know he knows that I’ve been hiding things from him, and that now he knows he’s going to be angrier than I’ve ever seen him before. In a desperate attempt to stave off the impending battle, I plaster on a bright artificial smile and turn around to face him, only to find he’s looking at me as if his heart’s breaking.

  “Susannah,” he whispers. “Please don’t lie to me any more. I can’t stand it. It’s killing me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  He holds up my phone. I feel as if my feet are sinking in to the carpet.

  “I’ve been checking,” he admits. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know it’s awful but I had to know. I knew you were lying to me about something and I guessed your passcode would be the same as your PIN number and it was.”

  “John.”

  “So I got into your phone and I turned on the location tracker and looked at where you’ve been going.”

  Desperation makes me brilliant.

  “Oh! You mean when I go out for a walk in the afternoons sometimes? I just like the trees, that’s all, they’re beautiful at this time of year, when the leaves are off and there’s that lovely nip in the air—”

  “And then,” says John, “I made Joel give me his phone. And I checked his too.”

  The light, airy lie dies on my lips.

  “And I saw a pattern,” he said. “Something that’s happened three times since we went to that meeting. Joel’s phone shows him leaving school, way before he’s supposed to. Sometimes you go out to meet him, sometimes you just wait. But he comes home. And so do you.”

  My face is numb with shock and shame.

  “And the day after,” he continues, “Joel doesn’t leave the house at all. Or if he does, it’s only to go to the shop or something. And a couple of days after that, you go up to the school.”

  I don’t know what to say. I want to sit down and take his hand and explain, but I can’t think of a single thing I can say.

  “I was going to phone the school and ask what’s going on.” John swipes savagely at the tears tha
t linger on his cheeks. “But I didn’t want to admit to them that my wife’s been lying to me about our child. I was too ashamed. And besides, I can see what’s happening. Joel’s still truanting, isn’t he? And you’re covering up for him.”

  “It’s not that,” I say, which is absurd, because it’s exactly that.

  “Of course it’s that! Stop acting like I’m stupid, because I’m not. I’m busy, and I leave a lot of the parenting stuff to you, but that is not that same as stupid, do you hear me? Now can we at least be honest with each other so we can sort this situation out!”

  “This is exactly why I can’t talk to you about it. You only get angry and shout. And that’s not what Joel needs, you frighten him when you go after him like this.”

  “Do you think the performance he turned in last year was even faintly acceptable? Is that what you’re saying? He needs someone to go after him. Do you want him to fail every exam they put him in for? Because that’s what’s going to happen. Or do you not believe what they said to us at that meeting?”

  “They don’t understand him. They put him under too much stress.”

  “According to you, nobody understands him but you. Do you ever stop to think you might be part of the problem? Every time you cover up for him, every time you make excuses and say it’s going to be all right and he doesn’t have to worry, what message do you think that gives him?”

  I don’t know anything about messages. I only know that when Joel looks at me with that frantic, desperate fear, as if he’s drowning and only I can save him, I have to help him. What else can I do?

  “I mean, it’s not as if I’m not happy to get involved. I want to help, for God’s sake! I’ll sit with him every night and tutor him if that’s what it takes, we can get some books and I’ll coach him through it.”

  “No! You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Flashback to the awful scenes of Joel’s primary years, the sobs and the pleading and the rages as John sat at the dining room table and tried, over and over, to force Joel to complete his small quantity of homework. I remember standing in the hallway and biting my own hand to stop myself from bursting in on them and snatching the papers away.