‘Drank what?’ Jess walks up to us, pushing a sleeping Betsey in a buggy laden with lavender from the plant stall.
‘Sam had a soft drink,’ I say, because I doubt Frankie would have defied Jess over this. In any case, there’s nothing she can do about it. I glance at my son, still folding the floss onto his tongue. ‘Sam, you’ve probably had enough of that now.’ I take the candyfloss from him, and wipe his thick fringe from his damp forehead. ‘Why don’t you help Daddy on the coconut shy?’ I nod to a familiar figure in the distance next to a garishly decorated stall.
He brightens. ‘I’ve run out of money, anyway. Coming, Frankie?’
‘Is that all right?’ Frankie checks with his mother. She hesitates, and it’s as if she’s running through all potential disasters.
‘Of course,’ she manages eventually, and the two boys run off.
For a short time we watch them haring across the playground. The site is humming with children and parents and it’s a sign that Jess is becoming less over-anxious that she’s willing – if not happy – for them to roam free.
I’m flooded with a rare sense of unadulterated joy. Perhaps it’s the hard blue sky, or the sun beating down so intensely my hair sticks to the back of my neck. Maybe it’s that three hundred children are playing and chattering happily; or that Betsey, now fifteen months, is thriving and Jess seems to be getting better. Perhaps it’s that a friendship that fractured is knitting back together: that shared decade of motherhood counting for something, after all. I still berate myself for not recognising Jess might be struggling. But at least the family are now receiving help: Jess is seeing her therapist, and Frankie has been diagnosed as having ADHD and given medication. He’s still an intense child, still troubled; but the family seems less fragile, less likely to snap.
‘Frankie’s doing OK, isn’t he?’ I turn to my friend.
‘I guess so. He still has bad nightmares.’
‘It’s still early days,’ I say, hoping I sound optimistic not dismissive. ‘And what about you?’
‘I’m getting better,’ she smiles, and her tone is less equivocal. ‘The CBT’s helping, though I don’t find it easy to do.’
‘And look at Betsey!’ I nod at her daughter, flushed in the heat and exhausted after spending the first hour of the fair toddling around. Lolling in her buggy, she is close to falling asleep. Not for the first time I think of how resilient children can be. She spent over three weeks in hospital – a week while her morphine and sedative withdrawal was managed. (‘She’s become an addict,’ Jess said in one of her least rational moments.) But you’d never know, from watching her, that less than five months ago she was in PICU with a fractured skull.
‘She’s still on the anti-seizure drug,’ Jess says, ‘but Dr Hussain said it’s a preventative measure.’
‘She should be weaned off it soon.’
‘God I hope so. I beat myself up about it all the time. I still can’t believe I was so stupid to leave them like that.’
‘Oh, Jess.’ We’ve gone over this before, in particular her guilt at risking Betsey not getting the right treatment. ‘Beating yourself up is a waste of energy: I’ve had to learn that.’
‘I know.’ She gives a small smile. DC Rustin isn’t investigating her for neglect, it not being deemed in the public interest to prosecute her. But she lives with the consequences of leaving her children every day. She shoves her large shades back down: no one would know she is on the edge of tears, just as none of us guessed this was a daily occurrence ever since she had Betsey. I reach out and touch her forearm, cool beneath my fingers, and she gives my hand a small squeeze.
The chair of the PTA hurries past, brandishing a loud hailer through which she is barking orders. ‘The maypole dancing is starting in five minutes!’ she intones. ‘I repeat. The maypole. In five minutes!’ The sound of an accordion and violin drifts from where the pole has been erected on the playground, its ribbons drooping despite the slight breeze.
‘Rosa’s taking part in that. I said I’d catch her before she went on. Do you want to watch?’
Jess shakes her head. She doesn’t like crowds: still worries that people will be chattering about her. She gestures back to the school building. ‘I think I’ll just sit in the shade.’
The grounds of St Matthew’s are large for a London primary school but I think I spy the girls in the distance, doing balletic stretches by the outer fence. Heading there, I take a shortcut past the preschool portacabin: there’s no one here and it’s a relief to escape the mass of bodies queuing for hot dogs and fried onions by the barbecue, or for pints of warm Pimm’s.
I’m enjoying the quiet, and perhaps that’s why a familiar voice catches my attention.
‘I don’t know how much more plain I can be,’ says the man, out of sight but talking in the shade of the preschool building. ‘I’m sorry but I have to prioritise Jess. Surely you can see that after all she’s been through?’
I stop, uncomfortable, and hover around the corner. Ed’s distinctive bass isn’t as reasonable as usual: it’s tinged with an acid sharpness as if someone has pushed him to the edge.
There’s no response at first, and then a clipped, cool dismissal from a female voice I also know.
‘You’re misinterpreting me,’ says Charlotte. ‘There’s no need to be so bloody dismissive. I was only trying to help.’
‘I’m not sure she’d view it as that – or that I do either.’ He sounds angry. ‘Can’t you see your wanting to see me will distress her? I’ve valued our friendship but it can’t continue. I don’t mean to sound harsh but you need to leave me alone.’
There is silence, and I try to imagine what’s going on on the other side of the portacabin. Is he holding her, or has she stalked away? A movement and he is walking off, pace brisk, head bent, not wanting to be seen. What did Charlotte suggest, and was Jess right to suspect Charlotte of still carrying a flame for her husband? He’s rebuffed her pretty emphatically, but their conversation unsettles me.
I hang back as Charlotte heads off, too. She’s walking in the direction of George and Kit, who have joined the girls and are tossing a tennis ball while they practise their moves for the maypole. (Kit’s fracture has long since mended.) This is George’s last summer fair before he heads off to King Edmund’s prep in September and it will be easy enough to lose touch with the Masons. Perhaps that will be easiest for us all.
I’m reluctant to chat but I promised I’d see Rosa and I don’t want Charlotte to think I’m being unfriendly.
‘Charlotte – hi!’ I overcompensate in case she notices that I’ve come from the same direction.
‘Oh, hello.’ She’s wearing shades so I can’t see her expression but she holds herself stiffly and her voice is strained.
‘I’m sorry you’re going. We’ll miss you,’ I say, hoping I don’t sound insincere.
‘We always said we’d go private: we’re just going a little earlier than intended. But I think George will miss everyone more than I anticipated.’
There’s an uneasy pause and she backs into the shade of the sycamore almost at the playing field fence. It’s hard not to feel as if she’s already left us emotionally and is trying to do so physically: either that, or she is trying to hide.
‘Charlotte-’ I begin, not knowing what to say but sensing that something is very wrong.
‘What?’ She shoves her shades up and I see raw hurt in her eyes. Then she puts them back down as if she has given me more than enough insight. That rare moment of honesty is all I will get.
‘Nothing,’ I say, and I cast around for something benign to say. I start blathering about how the children are growing and then I have a brainwave. ‘Do you remember that photo, all lined up when they were babies? Do you think we could try to replicate it, now?’
‘Oh, George would love that.’ Her smile becomes slightly less pinched.
‘We could even do one with the four of us with all the kids?’ I add, out of some ridiculous desire to pretend we can revert t
o a simpler time.
‘Oh no. No, I don’t think so. I hate having my photograph taken. I always feel so tall and gangling beside the rest of you.’ And then, in an acknowledgement that our relationships have never been the same since Jess told us she was pregnant with Betsey: ‘Please, Liz. Let’s not try to force things.’
‘We’ve got to do the maypole now, Mum!’ Rosa bounds up, rescuing me from my embarrassment. ‘Mel’s there already. C’mon. You said you’d see me and we’re late already.’
‘I’m sorry, Charlotte – I need to go.’
I’m here if you want to talk, I almost add, troubled by the bleakness of her expression. But she’s so private she’s never confided in me before and is unlikely to start now. With a feeling of relief, I walk away.
*
‘What’s up with Charlotte?’ Mel asks, as I squeeze next to her to see our girls waiting by their maypole ribbons. ‘Talk about unfriendly.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I say, as the music cranks up for the introductory dance. The girls start skipping backwards and forwards towards the pole before facing each other and dancing in alternate directions. Rosa bites her lip in concentration but still gets ahead of herself, confusing the plaiting so that the PE teacher has to step in and try to untangle their criss-crossing.
‘Isn’t this lovely,’ says Mel as she watches Mollie weave her way in and out with natural grace. ‘Look what the bastard‘s missing.’
I squeeze her round the waist. Rob is holidaying in Majorca with his now twenty-five-year-old girlfriend and has a relaxed attitude to complying with his contact arrangements. ‘It’s his loss,’ I tell her. ‘You can’t recreate a memory like this.’
And suddenly a spasm of grief runs through me for a girl who never lived to run at sports day; who never got to sprint and jump and leap like my daughter. I feel acute sorrow for Clare, my never-known sister, and for my mother – or rather, for the mother and grandmother I would have liked her to be. Janet never came to my school events, let alone my kids’. Did depression dull her emotions, or did guilt cloud everything? She continues to unsettle me, my mother, not least because, in her absence, she is a lacuna. I am conscious that I never really knew her at all.
*
Later, much later, when the children are puce and the temperature is still in the late twenties, we join the mass of families swarming from the school to queue for ice cream.
‘Can we get one, pleeeeeease?’ Sam begs, over the sound of ‘Greensleeves’ coming from the nearby van that chugs exhaust as its owner dispenses fat Mr Whippy’s.
‘Think you’ve had enough,’ Nick says, indicating Sam’s bag of spoils and a box of homemade fudge he has somehow bought.
‘You can have an apple ice lolly,’ I compromise.
‘S’all right. I’ll have some water.’ We skirt the queue and press on as he glugs from his plastic bottle, a trail of liquid trickling down his chin.
Heat shimmers from the pavement in a thick wall, and the mass of parents amble: it’s too hot to rush and, for once, there’s no need. The sea of bodies narrows. Nick hangs back with Rosa, who is chatting to Mollie, with whom she has a play date, but I find myself caught up in the crowd, and push ahead with my boy.
In the line in front of us, Betsey is perched on Ed’s shoulders like the queen of the jungle. ‘You have got hold of her, haven’t you?’ Jess frets, as she clutches Frankie’s hand. Kit walks between them with the buggy. ‘Of course,’ Ed says – and I see how hard she finds it not to double-check and ask again.
A car backfires somewhere behind me, and the crowd looks around, anxious. The school’s close to a Tube station and the thought of a terrorist attack or a shooting is never far from our minds. Jess glances back and catches my eye. I smile, but she’s distracted by Frankie who’s panicking, dragging her along, as he looks behind us. ‘We need to go, we need to get going. Please, Mummy . . .’ He urges her to walk faster. Jess sweeps ahead, and Ed ends up beside me.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, all right. It’s all getting a bit easier.’
‘Lovely that you’re here – and around more.’
‘Well, you read me the Riot Act.’ He grimaces.
‘Was I that bad?’ When Jess was released, I told him she needed far more support.
‘You were quite fierce, but to be fair I needed telling,’ he concedes. Ahead of us, Frankie is still calling, the sound an almost falsetto cry. Ed gestures with his head. ‘Wish we could do something about this. Frankie’s still getting freaked.’
‘Well, he’s had a traumatic time.’
‘He’s still having nightmares.’
‘Yes, Jess said.’
He adjusts Betsey on his shoulders, as if itching at the problem. ‘I can’t help feeling there’s something he’s not telling us. Something that’s causing this disproportionate stress.’
I catch sight of them up ahead; can hear his anguish quite clearly. ‘We need to go faster, Mummy. We need to go faster.’ He shoots that terrified look again.
For a moment I wonder if he’s scared of me: the woman who, Kit once told Rosa, ‘set the police’ on their mother. But I was the adult who persuaded him to open up about what happened and so helped secure Jess’s release.
Besides, he’s glancing beyond me, deep into the crowd still clustering for ice creams; way beyond Nick and Rosa.
There’s something or someone he’s spotted who frightens him so intensely he needs to speed away.
FRANKIE
Friday 19 January, 6.20 p.m.
Forty-five
When someone starts knocking on the door, Frankie jumps up in excitement, races to the hallway, and just as quickly runs back to Betsey, whispering to her to be quiet.
Their mum said he mustn’t open it. He never does – not for the postman, or the Amazon delivery man or the men who bring the supermarket order, if they come when he’s at home. ‘I’ll get it,’ she always calls, with her suspicious face on, and something stops him hurtling towards it. So he knows never to answer it when she is out.
She even reminded him of the fact. He holds onto this rule and the others. Don’t answer the door. Don’t lift her. I won’t be more than five minutes. She’s been away for eight now. He checks the digital watch he wears on his wrist as the knocking starts up again. His mum likes rules. Likes things to be clear and ordered. But now she’s broken her own rule – I won’t be more than five minutes – and the knocking is going on and on.
Betsey starts her whimpering cry again that means she’s tired or has a heavy nappy. He can smell the tang of her wee and something ripe and meaty like a big, fat poo. ‘Have you pooed yourself ?’ he whispers, delighted and appalled. He really needs to do something now. His mum would never let her sit in a smelly nappy. It would sting. So he should sort this and change her. That would make Mummy happy and he’d love to make her happy; she’s been so stressed recently, shouting, and making him more het up and jangled than ever – as if her worry is flowing into him and Betsey and they both need to scream it out.
Perhaps that’s her at the door? Maybe she’s forgotten her key and needs letting in. But if it’s her, then why doesn’t she just say so? She’ll know he’ll be frightened. And she said not to let anyone in. He tries to call out but the back of his throat is tight and no sound comes out. Maybe they should hide: pretend no one’s here, though Betsey is giving the game away with her crying. ‘Shhh, Betsey,’ he hisses. Her bottom lip wobbles and she whimpers even louder. He’s having no effect.
I’m taking my phone. She’d said that, too, in case he wanted to ring her. He scrabbles for the landline and presses redial. It rings out: a repeated trill – and then her voice asking him to leave a message. He wants to tell her about the person at the door but he’s too scared he’ll be heard. He hauls up Betsey, hitching her high on his hip; she’s heavier than she looks, and more wriggly. Don’t answer the door. Don’t lift her. I won’t be more than five minutes . . . I’m taking my phone.
Betsey is
screaming now. She’s really angry and he wants to match it, this noise that challenges him to retaliate, to cry even louder, but he’s too scared of the knocking at the door. ‘Shh, Betsey! Stop crying.’ He jiggles her then tries to jolly her along with Rabbie, but the velveteen rabbit flops in his hands; he doesn’t get it right.
The tapping comes again. A hard, intrusive sound: someone very much wants to come in. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-at-tat-tat. There is a metallic clatter as someone lifts the flap of the letter box and it snaps like a monster then viciously clangs shut.
And then he hears a voice – and he’s so relieved. Because he knows this voice, and he knows this woman, though he doesn’t really like her, and she’s meant to be here, dropping Kit off. It’s all been arranged. His brother’s come home and can help with Betsey, even if this other mummy can’t. He’ll be able to change her – or carry her up the stairs so they can both do it together. He’ll make everything better now he’s here.
He races to the door, Betsey in his arms and jiggling as he runs, and fumbles with the catch.
‘Hi-iiii!’ he sings, excited to see his big, capable brother, the child who makes his parents happy. But there’s just one person on the doorstep and it isn’t him.
‘Where’s Kit?’ he says. The night is very black and the woman standing there has her serious face on: the one she wears when she’s telling George off for going on his Xbox instead of doing his violin practice.
‘Still at football. I popped round to see Mummy.’ And then Charlotte smiles, more kindly. ‘Can I come in?’
CHARLOTTE
Friday 19 January, 2.20 p.m.
Forty-six
Ed is hurrying towards the Tube station when Charlotte sees him. She finishes early on a Friday so she can take George to violin and football. Three hours of ferrying but her boy’s reaction makes it worth it. She craves this pick-up like a woman longing for her lover after a week apart.
She doesn’t expect to see Ed. Hidden behind a flower stall, she feels the same old sensations: a heart-tug and a stirring, deep inside. Twenty years on, he still has it: his looks, but also this ability to provoke strong emotions. The one who got away. The one who, for one night at least, was so very nearly hers.
Little Disasters Page 28