‘What?’ I say incredulously. ‘I’m just buying a test, Emma. It’s not conclusive evidence of anything.’
‘I’m just saying. If Sylvie ends up with child, then everyone will know it was you.’ She hands over the change and I reach over the counter and snatch the plastic bag with the test in it from her hand.
‘Yeah, whatever, just don’t tell anybody,’ I say nastily. ‘It’s not for Sylvie, anyway,’ I add, muttering.
‘What? How many people are you sleeping with?’ she shrieks, and I start walking out immediately, not able to deal with her. ‘Let me run a few names of people you’ve hooked up with, Max, you total boy slut.’ I hear her voice calling after me, reciting a list as I leave the store, practically running: ‘Maria in form 11S, Marissa King, Sam Baines, Carla Hollis, Nats B, Karina C, Anita Singh, Olivia Wasikowski, Becky P, Anna Svensson, Coralie in 11B, Sarah M, Rosie C . . .’
Stupid bitch.
Karen
December’s first few days bring the most honed shafts of light: delicate, pale, concentrated rays that strike the dust falling through the air and reveal it. I love this time of year: the low sun, the acute happiness of short days and cold air. The dust is my particular love. I read somewhere once that the dust in our houses is almost all dead human skin. The dust is us: Steve, my boys and I. We are living in a whirlwind of our own skin, making this house our home, giving it our fingerprint. Our DNA is at rest on the mantelpiece.
At least, until the cleaning lady comes tomorrow and dusts it.
On Saturday morning, I cannot help lying down in the small living room, sighing in exhaustion and with relief, locking the big, old door with the quirky metal key ever so quietly so Steve’s staff cannot come in. I cannot help melting into the comfort of the old sofa, and taking a moment to watch the light drift across the room, the dust falling through it. Beyond the light is one of the new pictures of my family over the mantelpiece that we had such a rushed, hassled day to get. When I look at us all, I still can’t quite believe that I made this family, that I am this old, that I am responsible for both those boys, one already a teenager.
Max was Max the moment he was born. He gave a startled cry, then smiled, and kept smiling. He slept through the night and rarely whined and was happy with so little. Steve worried about that sometimes. Max was happy with nothing. Steve wanted him to want things. I understand, but I think it’s important to be grateful and not to make a fuss, and Max is very grateful and doesn’t make a fuss.
Then Daniel came, and grizzled and grumbled and turned away from us and wouldn’t take milk and threw toys.
It’s true I see them a little differently: Daniel is a hormonal timebomb, Max . . . isn’t.
Max is the gun that can’t fire. He doesn’t have the same hormonal problems as other teenagers; he’s just steady and unchanging. In ways, he will never grow up. He’ll never have kids. This is awful. It’s awful that I see it that way, but I’ve never had cause to see it any other way. He is steady and unchanging and he has never let me down.
I take a tissue from my pocket and wipe away tears that have begun to stream down my cheeks. I have been thinking a lot lately about what could go wrong for my boys, and it is because I have detected a change of mood in Max that is frightening to me. I find any time I am alarmed about Max, my emotional state has reverted immediately to how I was the first year of his life, when I couldn’t keep it together, when I was sick with worry about him. I feel like that mother who couldn’t even give birth to a normal, functioning baby, as much as I know that’s illogical. I remember the doctors’ faces, aghast, concerned, serious.
Yes, Max has been moody lately. Perhaps it’s testosterone finally kicking in naturally, but I find I don’t want to accept it. I find myself shaking my head. I’ve never seen him miserable, I’ve never seen him mean. There was that one night when he was about fourteen, after all those hormone injections, but that was one of the reasons we stopped him taking them. If Max naturally doesn’t have all those hormones coursing through him, then why add them? I don’t want a moody child. I don’t want him to hate me. I don’t want to be the one that administers something that makes him upset. I like that he’s not like other teenagers. I like that we’re so close and I don’t want to lose him to adolescence. He is not full of testosterone, he’s not horny all the time, he doesn’t feel the need to become the sort of rutting pack animal teenage boys usually are, taking drugs, getting girls into trouble. He’s just Max. He’s just my perfect, smiling, uncomplaining, clever, sweet, reliable Maxy. I hate that he’s been in such a mood lately. I hate it to my core. It makes me feel uncomfortable, wrong, terrified. And I realise in thinking about it that, terribly, I don’t want him to grow up. I don’t want him to push away from me like Danny does.
I have to stop thinking about this, because I know that nothing I do can stop him from growing away from me in the end. I can resist it with every synapse under my skin, but one day Max will move away from us and I won’t know him as well as I do now. I try to ignore my inner panic, to calm myself.
I listen to the sounds of my house. I become aware of the Saturday morning noises, which have changed very little over the years, but are beginning to become quite different. Instead of the kids, I can hear Lawrence and Debbie in the kitchen, discussing the campaign with Steve. The kettle boils and the clink of cups being set on the surface mixes with low murmuring. There is a plumber here taking out the old boiler. I hear quiet grunting, and the metallic sound of tools touching each other. The radio is on, softly, on the windowsill behind the sink. Upstairs, Max is missing, but football games mean this is often the case on a Saturday, and I either go to watch him or anticipate his return. I look forward to his hug, his cold cheeks, watching him walk in with mud on his socks and shirt, then watching him brush it out again. Above me now, I hear the sound of tinny guns and gruff voices cut out and I know Daniel has tired of playing his game. Sure enough, his feet bump lightly down the stairs – light and slow feet for Daniel; soft, quick, but heavier sounds for Max; loud, steady and thumping for Steve. I think I’m heavier-footed than I want to be.
There is a knock at the door.
‘One minute, darling!’ I call.
I check my face in the mirror, wipe streaked mascara from under my eye, and unlock the door. Daniel’s curly haired head pops through.
‘Hello, Robot Mum.’
‘Hello, Robot Son,’ I say, letting him in, locking the door after him. He looks around, as if he doesn’t live here. ‘Do you want a robot cuddle?’ I ask hopefully.
‘Robots do not respond to human affection.’
‘I hear robots have energy systems which respond to the heat of a human body. Perhaps if you lie next to me, your energy will be recharged for the next level of World of War.’
I sit down on the sofa and pat the spot next to me.
‘No, thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m actually playing Living Dead 10: The Annihilator.’
‘Oh, I see.’ I take my hand away from the couch and place it on my lap. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I’m annihilating them and mutilating their families so they won’t come for mine.’
‘Goodness.’
‘It’s rather a violent game.’
‘I guess you’re doing well, then.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Well . . . thanks for the protection.’
‘You’re welcome, Mum.’ Finally Daniel sits down next to me and curls up to my shoulder. I move my head over his and smell the minty shampoo in his hair.
‘Could I maybe do football like Max when I’m older?’
‘I don’t see why not. You could go to practice now if you wanted.’
‘With Max?’
‘They arrange the practice groups according to age, darling.’
‘Oh.’
There is another knock at the door, and Daniel gets up to open it. A blond head appears.
‘Max?’
He pushes the door open tentatively, still wearing his rumpled scho
ol uniform. Behind him, Steve’s intern raises her hand and waves at me.
‘Good morning!’
‘Hello,’ I call to her, smiling, then address Max. ‘I thought you were at football, honey?’
‘No, I got in a while ago.’
‘Why are you upset?’ says Daniel loudly. Max looks over his shoulder at the intern and shuts the door.
‘I’m not, I’m just tired.’ Max rubs his face. His eyes are red.
I sit up and Daniel leaps off me and runs past Max. ‘I’ll get World of War ready upstairs so we can play, Max!’ He bangs through the door.
Max nods and looks at his feet.
‘What’s wrong, honey? Where have you been?’
He shakes his head and looks as if he’s going to leave the room, then seems to change his mind and closes the door. He turns back to me.
‘Mum . . .’
He pauses, then walks over to the couch and sits cross-legged on it, facing me. He bends his head and I reach over to his hair and run my fingers up his neck, and through the soft, fluffy yellow. ‘You’re so lovely,’ I say.
Max raises his head. ‘Mum. I can tell you anything, right?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Mum,’ he moans, letting out a sob that alarms me. It’s the sob of someone who does not cry often, the half-held-back sob that has characterised all Max’s infrequent outbursts of sadness. It stops, a second after it starts. This is how Max cries. This is the extent of Max’s misery. He leans forward, wrapping his arms around me.
‘Baby,’ I croon, panicked on the inside, calm on the outside. ‘Of course you can tell me anything. We can talk about anything. Mum’s here.’
‘Um,’ he mumbles into my neck. ‘Oh fuck, Mum. Sorry for swearing. I’m just . . .’ He sits back, wipes tears from his green eyes and leans towards me again, tilting his head downwards so his hair tickles my neck and his forehead rests on my collarbone. ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘No.’ My whole body stiffens, unwillingly and all at once. I raise my hands away from his shoulders, as quickly as if dropping something hot, and I repeat myself firmly, as if to stop him, as if to make him stop talking, stop doing this, just stop. ‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re not.’
PART TWO
Karen
I look at Max in the rear-view mirror. He’s curled into the door with his hands over his face. Despite this, I don’t think he’s crying. He’s just sitting there, not saying anything. I’ve never seen him so silent and blank.
He takes his hands away and the look of sheer disbelief mirrors my thoughts.
‘This is unbelievable,’ I mutter, looking at the road, gripping the steering wheel. ‘This is insanity.’
‘Karen,’ Steve murmurs from the passenger seat. ‘Slow down. You’re at forty-five in a thirty.’
We pull up at a red light and I look over my shoulder. ‘What happened? What were you thinking?’ I almost shriek.
Max’s eyes trail around the car, avoiding mine. He shrugs.
‘Did you just shrug?’ I screech.
‘Karen!’ Steve says.
I turn back to the wheel, trying to calm myself down, but racing towards hysteria. ‘I just . . . I thought you liked girls.’
Steve makes a clucking sound with his mouth and looks back at Max. ‘Do you want to keep it?’
‘Steve!’
‘What?’
I frown, pressing down on the accelerator again. ‘Don’t ask such bloody stupid questions.’
‘We have to ask,’ Steve murmurs.
‘Um, no,’ Max says in a tiny, clear voice from the back seat.
‘Thank god,’ I snap.
Whenever there is a problem in the lives of one of our children, my instinct is to run to Steve. I know this to be true and I am aware that in some ways this is very unhealthy, but I do it thinking of my mother, her inability to punish us without being too severe, her inability to depersonalise our actions. Everything that we did wrong she saw as an affront to her, and I never wanted to give that impression to Max or Danny, but I know that I take things too personally. I think back to Max’s birth, and know that my first notion of myself as a mother was as a bad mother, and I panic.
True to form, as soon as Max told me, I went to Steve. Shrugging Max off me and grabbing his arm in the same instant, I practically ran out of the living room, looking frantically for his father, bowling past the stunned intern and up the stairs. I heard Danny as we rushed past his bedroom door, playing World of War.
‘Max,’ he yelled, hearing us outside. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Not right now, he’s doing something with Mum,’ I snapped hastily.
I turned around and Max was standing there, looking at me uncertainly.
‘Come on.’ I ushered him in to my room.
‘I don’t want Dad to know!’ he said, panicked.
I shook my head at him, as if to say, ‘Not now’, opened the door, and nearly pushed him into the room, so strong was my need to get this off my chest, to not be the one adult solely responsible for my son.
Steve was shaving.
‘What is it?’ he said, seeing my face.
I gestured to him to follow me, and he washed off his chin with an anxious look. I picked up the phone from my nightstand and the three of us relocated to Max’s room.
Max sat on his bed.
I stared at him. He looked at me in horror. He shook his head.
‘Max, what is it?’ asked Steve.
He itched his hair and whispered in a small, high voice, ‘I’m pregnant.’
Steve sucked in a breath, rubbed his lips together, and blew the air out. I loved him for being so calm in that moment, but I was also jealous. I felt like falling to the floor and cracking up, sobbing, completely going to pieces.
But I had only had to bear the burden alone for all of three minutes. My limbs relaxed just a bit, and I brushed Max’s clothes off a chair and sat down.
‘Are you sure?’ Steve asked.
Max nodded.
‘OK,’ said Steve. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘I spoke to Dr Verma a few months ago. I took a morning-after pill.’
Why didn’t the doctor call us? I think immediately, but then I realise: it’s all confidential, so I can’t help my son not make mistakes that might ruin his life.
‘But it didn’t work?’ Steve says softly, his forehead creased.
‘I think maybe I threw it up. I didn’t realise at the time. In the sink, remember?’ Max says quietly to me. I shake my head and look down at the floor.
‘This cannot be happening,’ I mutter.
Steve looks at me. He takes the phone out of my hand, gives my palm a squeeze, then turns back to Max. ‘Did you like Dr Verma?’
Max nods.
‘I’ll call her then, and we’ll go see her.’
‘Today,’ I say, raising my head. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Thankfully the clinic is open on weekends now. We booked an appointment for three o’clock with Dr Verma.
As Steve spoke on the phone, I watched Max sitting on the bed. He was curled into the corner of the room, cross-legged, head bent over, his face hidden by hair. He blinked and looked up slowly, straight at me. We held each other’s eyes, not saying anything, not letting our faces say anything.
‘Yes,’ Steve was saying on the phone. ‘Thank you, that’s so kind. Yes.’
Max’s mouth stretched into a small smile.
I tried to smile back, to let him know it was OK, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it without bursting into tears. I felt his head lower in my peripheral vision. His hand lifted to his cheek, brushed it and dropped again.
‘If you could be discreet, that would be very kind,’ said Steve. ‘Yes, there has been lots of attention with the campaign.’
Max and I both looked at him. I watched Max roll his eyes in exactly the way I do, and felt sick.
This is my child. This is my child, I thought. I briefly, horrifically, imagined him having sex. ‘Oh my god,�
�� I murmured.
Max leant his head on the wall and started to bite his nails. Steve hung up.
‘It was an accident,’ Max said quietly.
Steve sat down on the end of the bed. ‘It’s OK, Max, these things happen.’
‘What?’ I turned to Steve incredulously.
‘Teenagers get pregnant. It happens.’
‘No,’ I said coldly. ‘It doesn’t just happen.’ I turned to Max. ‘Who did you have sex with?’
Steve looked over at Max.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Max muttered quickly.
Before I could say anything, Steve nodded. ‘OK, we’re in at three with Dr Verma. Change your clothes and let’s all get something to eat before we go.’
I stood up and headed for the door. I wanted to ask him more questions, but more than anything I wanted to get out of Max’s bedroom. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough.
‘Max?’ I heard Steve say. ‘Do you want to come down for lunch? Can I bring you some toast?’
I shut the door behind me.
Steve sent the intern and Lawrence home, and we had a quiet conversation in the living room, about the campaign, about privacy, about what we would do if this got out to the press, if the situation somehow became worse.
‘Do you think I should tell Lawrence about Max?’ asked Steve.
‘No!’ I whispered. ‘Why?’
‘Crisis management, keeping it contained if it does come out?’
We sat in silence for a minute or so.
‘How the fuck can you think of it like that?’
Steve looked up at me from his tea, surprised. I could feel myself shaking with anger.
‘Like what?’
‘He’s our baby. We have to protect him, no matter what,’ I hissed.
‘Karen, he’s an adult. He’s not going to live the rest of his life under our protection. He’s going to go out in the world, and he’ll have to learn to not only live with this and be happy, but to cope if somehow people found out about him, if it became an issue. Avoiding discussing this with him now will only make things worse. I’m passionate about the campaign, about better government. We can’t change who we are because of Max. It will only make him feel more different.’
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