“Any more where that came from?” John keeps patting, keeps rubbing. Is that all right? Is there any more to come? How do we know when to stop? And surely he’s being too rough? I glance at Lynne but she’s clearing up the untouched mugs of tea. I want so much to tell John that I know best, but I don’t. We’ve known Joel for precisely the same amount of time. We’ve read the same file, wept shamelessly over the same background information. I can’t claim any sort of superior knowledge.
Except that just for a moment, Joel looked at me, and I knew we were on the same side, and he was trusting me to take care of him.
Even as I think this, Joel produces another tremendous burp, followed by a plume of curdled milk. John laughs and reaches over Joel’s head for a muslin cloth. Don’t squash him! Don’t hurt him! He’s so tiny! Lynne comes back in, sees what he’s doing, and laughs.
“I see he christened you,” she says, and pats Joel’s fluffy little head. “Good work, mister.”
Joel, of course, keeps screaming. I can’t tell if there’s any change in the intensity or not. I ache to take him back and tuck him into the place where he belongs, the safe spot under my chin where he can feel wrapped in warmth and comfort. I make myself wait two more endless minutes before I finally crack and reach my arms out. John goes upstairs to the bathroom. I stand in the bay window, swaying slowly backwards and forwards, murmuring into Joel’s scalp, hoping he’ll find peace.
“He’ll be much better in a couple of weeks,” Lynne says. “This is his worst time because he’s waiting for his dose. But two more days and he’ll be off the medication, and a week after that his system should be clear and he’ll be much happier.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I know. They get into your hearts even when they’re yelling like banshees, don’t they?”
“I feel like I’m stealing your baby,” I blurt out.
“No. Not at all. He’s your baby. I’ve just been looking after him for you. Don’t worry. You’ll be his mum, and John will be his dad. It works even if they come home when they’re two or three or four, so just think how much easier it’s going to be with Joel. Hey, listen to that.”
Beneath my chin, Joel hiccups, sighs and then falls silent. The sudden peace is deafening. John clatters down the stairs and I pray he won’t wake Joel. When he sees Joel asleep, he looks at me in awe, then creeps over to inspect him.
“So you can stop shouting when you want to,” he says, chuckling. “That’s good to know.” One finger reaches out to touch the perfect bow of Joel’s mouth.
“Don’t wake him, don’t wake him—”
John sighs, and lets his hand fall. In infinitely small increments, I make my way to the sofa and sit down. John sits beside me, and together we admire our sleeping son for eleven silent minutes before he wakes with a start, and begins screaming again.
Despite the screaming, we stay two more hours, taking it in turns to hold, rock, pat and nuzzle our son, only leaving when Lynne’s teenage children come home from their last day at school, laden with cards and a term’s worth of work, and bringing with them three friends, so suddenly we’re outnumbered by the younger generation. As the clock ticks round to six o’clock, Lynne goes to the kitchen and comes back with an amber glass bottle and a dropper.
“Poor little mite,” she says, and the fierce tenderness in her face as she takes Joel from me makes me feel once more as if I am stealing her child. “This is what you want, isn’t it? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Things will get much better for you once this stuff’s out of your life, I promise.”
“We’ll see ourselves out,” says John firmly. “Thanks so much for, well, everything.”
“My pleasure. See you again tomorrow morning. Bring your travel system, you can take him out for a walk if you feel up to it. Come on, then, little man, let’s get this into you.”
She holds the dropper carefully over Joel’s yearning mouth. We close the door and creep out of the house like burglars.
We get into the car and sit in silence, dizzied by the experience of meeting our son. I can smell Joel on my skin and on my clothes. I can feel the weight of him in my arms, the exact shape of his body against mine. This is what motherhood feels like. I want more. I want to go back to Lynne’s house and beat down the door.
“Blimey,” says John at last, and scratches at the stiff milky stain on his jeans. “Fake it till you feel it, hey?”
I look at him blankly. The last three and a half hours have been the most beautiful and fulfilling of my life. I’m not faking anything. I am genuinely, completely, utterly besotted with our child.
“We’ll figure it out,” John says, and pats my leg. “Well, I suppose we’d better get home. Get some rest before Round Two begins.”
As the car pulls away from the curb, I’m transfixed by the final image I have of Joel; lying in the arms of a strange woman, his mouth open like a baby bird, waiting for the Oramorph his little body craves to be dripped gently onto his tongue. I think how strange and sad it is that it should be this, and not milk or warmth or cuddles, that should be his first and most intense experience of need satisfied. I wonder if the sensation reminds him of the days and nights he spent swimming in the toxic chemical soup of his birth mother’s womb, and if the gradual disappearance of this first and most needful comfort from his little life feels like the slow withdrawal of maternal love.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunday 24th December 2017
When Nick’s car pulls up outside my house, he’s greeted with a festival of lights. As eager as he is, he still lingers in my frozen garden. The dried-out heads of the hydrangeas have bloomed again with a blue-white glow that flickers off the strands and slivers of silver hanging from the stems, and the path is lined with tiny bulbs like snowdrops. From behind the blue velvet curtains of the front room, I savour the sight of this beautiful forbidden man who I’ve lured to my side with a few words on an electronic screen. I wanted holly for my doorway, but the shops were bare of it and I lacked the courage to steal what I wanted from the trees, so instead I’ve added even more lights, framing the doorway so that Nick, waiting for me to greet him, is almost literally dazzled. When he sees me properly, he has to stop and stare for a moment.
“Wow,” he manages at last.
“Do you like it?”
“You look—” he shakes his head in amazement. “Can I kiss you? I don’t want to spoil anything.”
So the long hours at my dressing table were worth it; the careful patient work with brushes and lotions and blenders and creams has not gone to waste. For tonight, I’ve brushed the dust from my make-up box and used every half-forgotten trick I once knew to make myself young and dewy again, concealing wrinkles and shadows, painting on the lines and shapes and shades that will make my eyes larger, my lips softer, my cheeks plump and ripe. In sunlight, I would look overdone and over-coloured, but by the cold white lights of winter, among the silver tinsel and white-painted glass globes, I look perfect.
There’s more. I’ve soaked my hair in a long luxurious drink of moisturiser, dried it soft and sleek and then smoothed each strand further between hot ceramic plates; piled it high and soft and luscious, studded it with crystals that invite only the most delicate of touches, the most reverent of caresses. And then there’s my frock, my foolish frivolous crushable fragile blush-coloured frock, lovely enough to be married in, bought with money I don’t have from a shop I have never been to before. I’m remote and polished and dazzling, something to look at but not to touch. I look delicately beautiful but also slightly mad. Exactly the type Nick craves. The last time we were together he fell on me like a starving dog. This time I see the same hunger but also a reverence, a desire to admire from a distance and perhaps show me to other men. See what I have? See what’s mine? But don’t look too long or I’ll have to kill you. I lead him into the front room, where a fat green bottle slumbers within a silver bucket.
“Happy Christmas,” I say, and give him a tall crystal glass that shimmers with bubbl
es.
He raises the glass, hesitates, takes a single delicate sip. “I have to drive afterwards.”
“It’s only champagne. It won’t get you drunk. It only makes you happy.”
His eyes meet mine. “I’m already happy.”
And for this moment, I’m happy too. Not the sunflower joy that blooms in the summer of our lives when our children are young and our husbands faithful, but the deep velvet black of the Christmas rose that blossoms in spite of the darkness, lovely and transgressive and poisonous to touch. I clink my glass against Nick’s and let the champagne take me, bubbles dissolving in my bloodstream. Nick’s fumbling in his pocket, taking out a square flat package that shimmers with ribbon and silver paper.
“I wanted to give you this,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind. It seems a bit presumptuous but I saw it and I just couldn’t resist—”
A gift for me, from my lover. The first gift for… How long has it been? Too long. Chosen by someone who sees me as an object of desire. I want to keep it just as it is, all its meaning and secret potential wrapped tightly in glimmering silver paper. I also want to tear the paper off like a savage and see what’s hidden inside. When I look at Nick, I see him looking at me and wrestling with the same impulse.
I tug delicately at the ribbon, catching it between my fingers as it tumbles. I unfold the paper from around the turquoise box, pry open the lid with a manicured fingernail. Inside, a diamond glows cold and fiery from its intricate prison of silver, suspended on a chain of tiny links like manacles.
“Oh!” My breath catches. “Oh! This is… It’s so lovely… You didn’t have to—”
“I couldn’t resist. I saw it and all I could think about was how lovely it would look on you. I thought of you up in your bedroom, picking up your phone and telling me I could come to see you, wearing just that necklace. I could picture it so clearly—”
And on the strength of that brief moment of desire, of a need so intense it was like sickness, he took his credit card and spent – how much? Hundreds? A thousand? More? – on this necklace, the price of fulfilling his fantasy. If I was his wife, I’d have to laugh and frown and shake my head and ask how much it cost, steer the perilous course between finding out the truth and spoiling his surprise, between keeping control of our finances and making him feel less of a man. I’d have to think ahead to a lean three months of fried eggs for dinner and nights in watching movies on the sofa while we cleared the balance from our credit card. But I’m his mistress, and mistresses are creatures of pure cold fantasy. Up in your bedroom, wearing just that necklace. All that money, simply so he could speak these words to me and pray that I’ll one day repay him by making his dream come true.
His fingers brush against my neck as he fastens the clasp. He’s so filled with need and greediness that for a moment I think I might melt. Shall I let myself become flesh again? Shall I abandon my plans for the evening, take down my hair, shimmy out of my dress and give him what he wants? Beyond my reflection in the window, the path is white with frost. There’s still something I need to do.
“Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s wonderful.”
“You were staring out of the window.”
“I was looking at my reflection,” I tell him. “At my present. It looks beautiful.”
“Only because you’re beautiful.” Nick’s words vibrate against my neck. He’s kissing me, gently but firmly, and all my skin is on fire with his touch. It would be so easy.
I force myself to break away from his searching mouth.
“I have a present for you too,” I say.
He watches me as I go to the heavy oak sideboard. When I kneel to open the door, the zip of my dress grazes against my spine. I wish it was Nick’s fingertips instead. It’s hard to stay balanced on my tall silver shoes.
My gift for Nick is packed in a tall square box, wrapped in green-and-scarlet paper and tied with a red velvet ribbon, like an illustration from a children’s story. He takes his time, just as I did, savouring the slow unwrapping that I know he is reimagining as another, more urgent, unwrapping to follow. Inside, the box is packed with scarlet tissue.
What is he hoping for? What sort of gift do women like me give to their lovers? An outfit that fulfils a sinful fantasy perhaps, or a wicked little toy for consenting adults only. A reminder that we, our own selves, are all the gift we’ll ever be able to offer. He plunges his hand inside. I hold my breath and watch the subtle movement of the muscles of his wrist. A moment later and he’s holding Scrap-dog.
I’m ready with my explanation, but I can tell he doesn’t need it. I’ve seen Nick in many moods and wearing many different skins, but the one constant truth of his nature is that he is always, always a good copper. He knows exactly what he has in his hands.
“Where did you get this?”
“Do you remember the day I cut my hand? You asked me to tell you if anything else happened, and I said I would, but I didn’t quite dare, I didn’t trust you. But now I do. I found Scrap-dog, Nick. I found him in Joel’s room. He came back to me. And so did something else.”
“Tell me.”
“I know now what happened to Joel.”
Nick’s fingers tighten around Scrap-dog’s neck. His eyes are bright.
“You’ve remembered something?”
Could you call it that? Is that what’s been going on? Survivors of conflict frequently find themselves back in the battlefield, their lives torn apart not by phantoms but by the ghosts hiding in their own nervous systems. “Yes. I’ve remembered something. Something important. You were right, Nick. You were right all along.”
“About… about…” I can see the name John hovering on his lips, but he swallows it back down, forcing himself to take his time. He knows how fragile my remembering may turn out to be. “Okay. Okay. I understand. Tell me, my love, and we’ll take it from there. I’ll do everything I can to help you, you know that. Just tell me what you’ve remembered.”
I’ve felt this way before, felt the way Judas must have felt in the moment before that kiss. I’ve been caught once already in that moment of hesitation, forced to confront the wrong that I’m about to do. But I wasn’t wrong last time, and I’m not wrong this time either. I’ve already given Nick the gift of Jackie. Now it’s time to give him my husband. This is what I have been hiding from all these years. But now I’m finally ready to face it. Why should I hold back?
“I need to show you,” I say. “Is that all right? Will you come with me so I can show you?”
I wonder if he might be irritated by my impulse, but Nick is not like John, who loved me best when I was whole and sane and capable. Nick loves my scars, my damage and my fragility, and Nick is more than willing to guide me into the passenger seat of his car, saving the hem of my dress from soiling, pointing out the puddle of ice that might spill me from my feet. He helps me with my seatbelt as if I’m a child. When he turns up the heat to keep the chill from my bare shoulders, I sense he would like to have a blanket to wrap me in.
“So where are we going?” he asks.
He wants to know our destination, but I can’t see that far ahead. Our route only reveals itself in fragments, like sudden gleams of moonlight between trees at midnight. So I sit with Scrap-dog on my knee and I say to him, “Follow the road round and then turn right,” and then “Keep going straight,” and “Still straight”, and “Left here”, flashes of insight that come to me unbidden. Nick accepts my directions in rapt silence, driving as carefully and gently as if I’m made of glass.
The town centre, its offices closed but still intermittently hectic with party-goers and last-minute shoppers, is a patchwork of brilliant revelry and eerie darkness, lit from above by the unending relentless glow of the Christmas lights. Why are all these people still here? Don’t they feel for the workers who have to plaster on a smile and twine tinsel in their hair and serve up cashmere scarves and sticky drinks and embossed boxes of scent? Don’t they feel the slightest twinge of guilt when th
ey tell these men and women to “Smile, love, it’s Christmas”? I’m glad to stop in the dark streets by the law courts, where all activities are suspended until well into the New Year. At my imperious direction, Nick parks the car.
“Now we have to walk,” I say.
“Where are we going?”
I don’t know. I only know we’re getting closer. “You’ll see when we get there.”
“Is it far? I don’t want you to hurt your feet. Those heels—”
“Then I’ll take my shoes off.”
“But the cold—”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Susannah.” Nick takes my hand gently. “Are you sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Are we going to find anything… anything that might upset you? Because if we are, you can just tell me where we’re going and I’ll go there alone. You don’t have to come with me.”
He thinks I’m going to show him Joel’s body, but it was all lost in the mud. I know that now. All I can do is show him where it happened, and how it happened, and hope that this will be enough to break John open like a nut so he’ll finally confess what he did. This is the best I can do for my son, and how little and pitiful that best is. Would it have been any different if I’d let myself see the truth earlier? Surely not. What the mud swallows, it holds onto forever. I have to believe this is true.
“I’m coming with you,” I tell him.
The sound of Christmas Eve waxes and wanes. A pack of males who would want to be called men rather than boys reel past in a cloud of beer fumes and curses and laughter. The sight of me, shivering and bare-shouldered in my formal dress, clutching a worn cuddly toy, induces a frightening, predatory pause – they jostle to a halt, look me up and down, lick their lips, consider Nick’s capabilities as a protector – but then some hidden impulse is transmitted between them and they lurch off again into the night, laughing as they pass around their assessment. Too fucking old. Her tits weren’t bad though. Nah, they’d hang to her fucking knees when you got her kit off. Come on, let’s get some more fucking drinks in and find some proper lasses, eh? Nick winces, but I don’t care. What does any of it matter? There are more important things to think about. I take Nick’s hand and we slip between tall shadows and down onto the wharves, where a fishing boat, scarred from its long battle with the ocean and the Icelanders, has found anchor in the river where she can lie and dream of past glories. The smell of the water rolls towards us like mist. When I turn my face towards the sky, I feel the silent flutter of snowflakes falling against my cheeks. How perfect. We’re going to have a white Christmas. Joel always loved the snow.
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