by Sue Watson
‘Thanks, darling,’ I whisper, when we all reach their room. ‘I don’t want Dad to get annoyed about them watching TV, you know…’
‘I know.’ She rolls her eyes and helps me put them to bed. I wonder again what I’ll do without her when she goes to uni next year.
The boys’ heads hit their pillows and I don’t even have chance to give them hot milk. They are instantly asleep and we both sigh at the relief and sheer madness of it all.
We close the boys’ bedroom door quietly and are walking across the landing when she stops. ‘Why do you do this, Mum?’ she suddenly says, her face serious, her eyes searching for the answer.
‘Because they need to sleep,’ I say, brushing away the question.
‘I don’t mean that, I mean Dad. Why didn’t you just tell him you were busy, so the boys are a bit late going to bed? Better still, why can’t he put them to bed? He used to with me, didn’t he?’
‘Yes he did… he used to read to you every night too.’
She smiles at the memory, and I wonder if she misses the old Simon as much as I do. I know he adores Sophie, just doesn’t always show it – I hope she knows.
‘Darling, it’s fine,’ I say, faking a smile. ‘Dad’s just… he loves us all very much, but let’s face, I can’t let him come home from a day in the operating theatre to those two crazies live and unleashed.’ I roll my eyes. ‘He works so hard and it just keeps the peace, you know.’
‘I know.’ She gives me a look I can’t quite fathom and puts her arm on my shoulder.
I’m touched. Sophie isn’t one for open affection but she’s intuitive; it’s like she knows I’m upset and in her own way is trying to comfort me.
‘You know I love you, don’t you, Mum?’ This is so sincere, for a moment I wonder if she’s about to tell me bad news. But when I look into her face, I see love. I don’t see much love these days and my stepdaughter’s kindness makes me want to cry.
We both stand on the landing, caught between sanctuary and what waits below. I have this sense of foreboding, like something terrible is going to happen, but I’m just getting carried away after reading the emails. Everything is going to be okay because I won’t allow it to be otherwise.
‘Come on,’ I say, in a too bright voice, ‘us grown-ups can eat even if I am a cruel mother and starve my youngest.’ I wink at her and she gives me a vague smile.
‘I’m not hungry, but thanks.’
‘You don’t have to eat the meat,’ I say, ‘but please eat something. There’s Quorn?’ I’m begging her to join us, and she knows it. ‘Sweetie, you are eating aren’t you, you’re not dieting or anything stupid?’ I take her hand in mine as we speak.
‘God no. I had a huge pizza for lunch today – I’m still full.’ She pats her flat-as-a-pancake stomach and blows out her cheeks like she’s a big fat pig. I don’t believe her. Then again, I’m not sure who I believe any more – I don’t even know if I believe myself. I think again about the emails and wonder if I imagined them and it’s just the pills clouding my mind. The words are so clear in my mind – I miss you, I can’t bear to be apart, I just want to spend all night in your arms. Can I really have imagined them?
Sophie gives me a hug and I try to feel the weight of her in my arms but she’s pulling away too soon and heading to her bedroom, so I’m left to face the music.
I go back downstairs to finish preparing Simon’s dinner. To my deep joy, the kitchen’s empty. I’m glad of the space. I need to work out what’s real and what isn’t. My head is full of him and her, our holiday in Crete, Caroline and Simon kissing, Sophie not eating, Simon loving Caroline, the boys having only Jammie Dodgers for tea, their faces sticky with jam, the sofa covered in crumbs…
Shit! The SOFA. I hurl myself into the sitting room to remove the damning crumbs that reveal at least two maternal sins – that they watched TV and ate biscuits. If Simon gets even a waft of my bad mothering he’ll think I’m not capable of looking after the children. I throw myself face down onto the sofa, shovelling the crumbs from one hand to the other. I’m on my knees, desperate to remove every tiny sweet morsel of evidence. But I suddenly have the feeling I’m not alone. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle, and lifting my head slowly, I see him out of the corner of my eye. He’s sitting in the big armchair, waiting and watching. Just waiting and watching me.
‘Oh… Simon,’ I start, ‘I was just…’
‘Go on… what were you just…?’ He lifts his head slowly, questioningly.
His words hang in the air like a threat. He knows about the biscuits.
‘I was just… cleaning the sofa.’ I’m still on my knees, staring at him, wondering what will happen next.
‘Marianne, tell me something,’ he says, picking fluff from his trousers.
I wait. And wait. I’m still on my knees, looking up at him in the armchair. He takes his time. His face is unreadable; how much does he know? How much can I get away with?
He finally looks up and, putting his head to one side, asks, ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
Chapter Eight
‘No, of course I don’t think you’re stupid.’ I try an outraged laugh, but it comes out as more of a scared splutter. I hear Sophie on her phone – sounds like she’s coming down the stairs. I hope she isn’t; I don’t want her around for this. A couple of seconds pass and I hear a door close upstairs. Sophie won’t have to witness whatever happens next and for that I’m overwhelmingly grateful.
‘So, am I right in thinking that you don’t think I’m stupid?’
‘No… absolutely… no, you’re not…’ I seem to be frozen in my prone position in front of the sofa, a handful of crumbs now warm in my clenched, sweating palm.
‘In that case, why do you treat me like I’m an idiot?’
‘I… I don’t. You’re not…’ I can feel the ground shifting under me; the pills make me feel so dizzy.
‘So what makes you think you can hide the fact that the boys were plonked in front of the TV tonight with no dinner while you flounced around the house?’
‘I didn’t try to hide anything… I just—’
‘I’m sorry, you’re not being very clear.’ He’s now glaring at me, his eyes boring into my face, my soul.
‘I was busy cleaning… and when I came downstairs, they were almost asleep and…’ I feel so guilty. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with snooping around his emails, none of this would be happening.
At this he stands up, and still on my knees, I instinctively move across the floor away from him, practically crawling now. I feel like a trapped animal. I want to leave the room but my body won’t let me; besides, I need to explain to him what happened, show him I’m not a bad mother, that I’m well, but Simon speaks first and I’m already lost.
‘After… everything, I really would have thought you’d be on top of things where the kids are concerned.’
‘I was… I am…’
‘No, you clearly weren’t and I’m seriously considering the situation, Marianne.’
‘No… please… Simon…’
‘I’ve told you before. The children have to be your priority. Those boys are six years old and they can’t be left alone while you wander about doing as you please.’
‘I was here, I didn’t leave them, I just… I was busy.’ Panic is rising in my chest. He will put the children in his car and take them away from me… to her.
‘Busy? Busy? You don’t know the meaning of the word. But here are two words you do know the meaning of, and I want you to think about them and the implications for the family’s future – “unfit” and “mother”.’ He takes a casual step towards me and I look up at him, ready for him to give me what I deserve. He’s right, I’m not fit to be a mother, and not good enough to be Simon’s wife either. He stands over me and says through gritted teeth, ‘Get up.’
I stand up slowly, moving in front of him, bracing myself for the slap that comes hard and swift across my face. The impact of his hand makes my heart jump, but I keep my eye
s open so I can take in his hatred and loathing – it’s what I deserve.
Give it to me.
‘You are not fit, Marianne.’
I wait for the second slap, the punch. I welcome it and close my eyes. I’m ready for whatever physical or emotional pain he feels fit to inflict. I want it. Who can blame him after what I did? But it never comes.
‘Go to our room, get undressed and wait for me.’ He brushes past me roughly and I flinch, but there’s no smack, no knock to the floor.
Not yet anyway, but later he will inflict pain, because I have to be punished.
And I know what comes after the pain. We haven’t had sex for a while, but tonight he wants me… he doesn’t want me in a loving, gentle way, but still he wants me.
He leaves the room, and after a few seconds I allow myself to breathe again when I hear the front door slam and the sound of his car starting up.
I go upstairs and do as he says. I sit up in bed waiting, but who knows where he’s gone and how long he will be? I couldn’t ask.
I am alone, and as insane as it sounds after everything that’s happened this evening, I’m drawn back to her. Caroline. Grabbing the iPad like a drug addict, I log on, hungrily jacking up in my own bedroom. I always delete the history so it takes a few seconds to find her Instagram – but when I do Caroline’s world opens up before me.
No locks on Caroline’s life. No passwords, no secrets.
I go back over a few days of Caroline drinking and mugging to the camera, and a bunch of roses, apparently ‘from my love #TrueLove’. I can barely bring myself to look, but it’s a compulsion. My face is still stinging from the hard slap and I caress my cheek with one hand, feeling his touch as I gaze at her. A day at the seaside posted only last week, just her on the beach, but she isn’t alone because the photographer’s with her.
Is that you, Simon?
She’s pensive, natural, like a beautiful girl on a poster for a trendy band. The photo is taken from behind, her short, blonde hair glinting in the autumn sunshine. The beach is pebbly and pale grey, and I’m upset to see how good this looks against her dusky-pink oversized cardigan. She looks like a model. Then I see something familiar on the sand. I look closer to see she’s sitting on our fucking picnic rug, the one Simon keeps in the boot of his car.
I have to stop a moment and take this in: Simon’s lover is sitting on our family picnic rug. We use it all the time: the boys sat on that rug as babies, Sophie sunbathed on it in Devon and Greece and now he’s putting it under her. How fucking dare she sit on my family’s picnic rug – my cheek throbs and my heart aches. I don’t think I can stand this a moment longer, but I can’t stop. I have to stay and walk through my private Instagram hell, each picture a fresh, searing pain.
I search for clues and find them easily: the back of his head, his car in the distance. Each picture is further evidence, if I needed any, that Caroline and Simon’s lives are entwined on a personal level. They’re twisted around each other in a complex network of veins and arteries thrumming through each other’s days, each other’s lives. And I can’t keep her out – because she’s already let herself in.
* * *
I’m still in bed on the iPad when Sophie knocks on the door – still scrolling, searching for my hit. I don’t know how long I’ve been there. I wonder where Simon is, and hate myself for caring. Sophie asks if I’m okay, and I abandon the iPad and say I’m fine, just tired, and despite Simon’s orders I say I’m going to make a cup of tea, and she follows me to the kitchen.
I suddenly smell the burning lamb and recall a vague memory of a planned dinner, but when I open the oven door, the meat’s now black, inedible. I am a mess. I can’t even make a meal without ruining it. What’s happened to me?
I put the kettle on and ask if Sophie’s hungry, knowing what the answer will be. I go into ‘Mum’ mode, where I feel safe and can pretend nothing has happened, that I haven’t been waiting in bed for my husband, who hasn’t returned home, and that he didn’t spend the day with Caroline on a beach when he told me he was working.
‘Sweetie, I wish you’d eat.’
‘And I wish you’d stand up to him sometimes.’ She’s glaring at me across the kitchen. The air is acrid with burnt meat and I’m devastated that Sophie must have heard our conversation. She knows I went to bed to wait for him too. What must she think of us?
‘Oh, Sophie, it isn’t how it seems,’ I try. ‘Dad’s stressed. He’s tired and a bit grumpy and… I just don’t want to wind him up and exacerbate the situation.’
‘So, it’s okay for him to hit you?’
I’m shocked by this. I don’t know why. Sophie’s probably seen enough over the years but I have to pretend. I have to tell her the little lies I tell myself… the lies I tell Simon and the one’s he tells me. Our little lies.
‘It… he’s… he didn’t. People do stuff… it isn’t always as it seems.’ I’d almost forgotten about the slap. I’m sure he’ll be apologetic when he gets home. I assume he’s gone for a drive to calm down – or to see her.
Sophie looks at me with his eyes, Simon’s dominant gene overpowering Nicole’s brown ones, as they overpowered mine, giving the boys their big blue eyes. The difference now is I don’t see his hate in Sophie’s baby blues, but I do see the same doubts about my sanity. Sophie’s caught us fighting before now. She knows things can get a bit rough; she also knows I’ve suffered from depression, and she knows about baby Emily too. And then there’s other stuff – like me falling out with women friends, mothers of her friends, and the small matter of me ‘attacking’ a woman in a bar earlier this year. I’ve never doubted Sophie’s love for me – she’s my child, even if it isn’t by blood– but I wonder if, after everything, she trusts me and knows I’m there for her. I hope she feels safe around me and doesn’t worry I may do something erratic, out of control. I wish I could reassure her that I’m safe – but I can’t.
I want my relationship with Sophie to be different from the one with my own mother. It was difficult – with her frayed mind stitching together a tenuous reality. She suffered from depression and was unable to care for me, which meant most of my childhood was spent in foster care. I was finally allowed to see her when I was ten years old, and after supervised visits we were able to spend whole weekends together without any social workers. My mum was loving and kind, if a little sad, but I remember toasting mallows with her over the open fire in her little terraced house. She had a new baby, my half-sister Megan, and a nice new partner David, who I wished was my dad too. After the first visit, I dared to hope I might become part of a family – it was my dearest wish, even more than a Barbie doll. Then, one weekend, I went to stay and Mum seemed quieter than usual, almost listless. On the Saturday morning, David put Megan in her pushchair and took her to the shops to buy some groceries. He did everything when Mum wasn’t well, cooking and cleaning, looking after Megan – and it didn’t seem like there was much food in the house so he had to go to the shops. As Megan always seemed to be crying, I guess he also hoped some quiet time alone with me might help make Mum feel better. ‘I’ll leave you girls to chat,’ he’d said kindly as he left. ‘Keep an eye on your mum.’
Mum went upstairs soon after they’d gone, leaving me to watch The Wide Awake Club on TV. After a while, I realised she hadn’t come back down and so I called her and wandered upstairs to see what she was doing. I found her in the bath; the water was scarlet and I was so confused at first I thought it was a strange new bubble bath. I kept telling her to wake up and when she didn’t I pulled out the plug and let the scarlet water glug away, but the blood was still pouring – it was coming from her wrists. Apparently, David found me holding her with a towel, insisting she was sleeping. I must have been in extreme shock. Even now I can’t think about it without shaking. And when I’m not well, I close my eyes and still see the white towels stained in my mother’s blood. This had been my first experience of untimely death, but it wasn’t my last.
It was over thirty years ago, and I
didn’t know her well, but she was my mum. For a brief and beautiful moment in my childhood, I was able to glimpse a family, but when I tried to grasp it, it disintegrated in my hand. I cried for the mother I lost, the mother I’d never had for many years, and still sometimes find myself in the midst of grief for a woman I hardly knew. It was only when I became a mother myself that I wondered how she could leave me in such a brutal way, knowing I would probably be the one to find her. Years ago, I spoke to David, who’s since remarried, and he had no answers. ‘Just try to forgive her, Marianne. She was very poorly, but she loved you.’
After years of therapy and having a family of my own I’ve been able to understand it and forgive my mother for leaving me. That’s why my relationship with Sophie is so important, and I know how much she needs me, so tonight, with Simon gone and the boys in bed, I make us both camomile tea and we sit in the semi-darkness of the kitchen together. Eventually she kisses me good night and leaves to go to bed, but as she reaches the door she turns to me.
‘Promise you won’t let Dad hurt you again.’
I shake my head. ‘I won’t,’ I lie, and hope she’s reassured by my confident smile. Later that night when he returns, I bite the pillow and try not to cry so she won’t know that I didn’t keep my promise.
The following morning he arrives in the steamy kitchen, filled with toast crumbs and children’s chatter, and stands behind me as I make coffee. His hands slip round my waist and move down to my thighs, giving them a gentle squeeze and reawakening the sex and bruises from last night. I want to cry out in pain, but I just turn and smile and make like I’m busy as my eyes fill with tears.
Later when I’ve taken the children to school and Simon’s gone for the day I bathe my aching body in a warm bath and try to be kind to myself. I feel so desperately lonely and at times like this, I wish I had a mother to talk to, to share my pain and tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do. Is this how marriage should be? I know I shouldn’t discuss our personal lives – I mustn’t open up our relationship for others to delve around in – but I would like a friend. I need a friend. I’ve never had much luck with my attempted friendships, until recently with Jen, but I know Simon doesn’t approve of her, and I can see why, but I wish he’d be a bit more chilled about it – he can be a bit of a pain where my friends are concerned, if I’m honest. Early on in our marriage, when it was just me, Sophie and Simon, I was keen to invite Sophie’s friends round and make things nice for her. So one day I told her she could invite her best friend Kate for tea after dance class. Sophie was about nine and excitedly took hold of her friend’s hand and they ran up the stairs to her room squealing. Later, when Sonia, Kate’s mum, came to collect her, I invited her in for coffee and we sat at the kitchen table chatting. I remember thinking, this is nice, I should do this more often, as we shared stories and experiences of being mums to nine-year-old girls.