by Fiona Gibson
‘No, I don’t.’ She rubbed at her pink eyes and looked down at her lap.
‘Kayla’s told you that already,’ I retorted. ‘She’d never seen it before in her life.’
‘Yes, I realise that, Mrs Miles.’ Mrs Wrightson pulled a tight smile and looked back at Kayla. ‘So, what d’you think happened today?’
Kayla sniffed. I had to grip the sides of the plastic chair to stop myself from hugging her, as I knew she’d hate that, being cuddled in a teacher’s office.
‘Somebody must’ve put it there,’ she murmured.
‘Why would anyone do that?’ the teacher asked in a superior voice.
‘How the hell should she know?’ I snapped, lurching forward.
‘Please, there’s no need to get upset …’
‘I think there is, actually,’ I fumed. ‘So, the gym teacher saw the paint, and that was that. Kayla was labelled a vandal, someone who’d insult a boy with—’
‘Please, let’s try and discuss this calmly.’
‘That’s what I came here to do,’ I blasted out, sensing Kayla folding into herself, trying to shrink away to nothing. Oh, God, I’d gone in there wanting to be firm and logical, and now I was on the verge of slamming my hand on the desk and fighting back tears.
‘I know you’re upset,’ Mrs Wrightson offered, ‘but I don’t think shouting is going to help—’
‘Can we just leave now, please?’ I snapped. ‘I think Kayla’s been through enough today.’ Before Mrs Wrightson had even given us permission, I stood up and Kayla followed.
The teacher fiddled with a flashy sapphire ring on her middle finger. ‘Yes, of course. And thank you for coming in, Mrs Miles.’
As we left her office, I couldn’t shake off my annoyance at not having stood up for Kayla more forcefully. They’d jumped to conclusions, that’s what got me. A girl like Paige would never have been blamed without someone checking things out.
I was aware of the odd glance from other kids as we made our way down the corridor, past the framed artwork on the beige walls, and a mosaic of people standing hand in hand, with the slogan ‘Every Colour is Beautiful’. Maybe I was just being paranoid. After all, it’s a big school – over a thousand kids – and they couldn’t all have known about Kayla being accused of that terrible thing. Maybe we were getting those looks because I hadn’t had time to change out of my Burger Bill’s tangerine shirt and my ugly black trousers. I was aware of that familiar, fatty burger smell wafting off me as we stepped out into the cool air.
‘Of course I didn’t do it,’ Kayla says now, on the bus we’ve waited forty minutes to catch.
‘I believe you,’ I say. When I try to take hold of her hand, she pulls hers away. At least she hasn’t insisted on going to Paige’s tonight.
‘So, who d’you think might’ve put that can in your bag?’
‘Don’t know,’ she mutters.
I turn to look at her face. Her cheeks are still pink, irritated by her tears. Her hair is half coming down from its topknot and hanging around her face, looking a bit greasy. Her ears look sore too. She had her first piercings at fourteen, nagged me until I crumbled, eventually coming to the conclusion: is this really worth fighting over? Pick your battles, I thought. I took her to Claire’s Accessories in Solworth and wandered around the shop, pretending to be fascinated by pouches of something called ‘unicorn glitter’ while my little girl had her lobes punctured with a gun.
Then came the nagging for a second piercing, which I said a definite no to. I’m not a fan of loads of studs and hoops, all the way up the ears. So she got Paige to do it – Perfect Paige with the big house, the professional parents with their running gadgets and half-marathon boastings on Facebook. One evening, when they were out, Paige found a needle and jabbed it through Kayla’s ear. Of course it went pus-y, oozing yellow goo; Kayla needed an antibiotic for the infection.
‘It can happen to anyone,’ she said defensively, when we came back from the doctor’s. ‘Paige knew what she was doing.’
‘Of course she did,’ I retorted. ‘If you had a bad tooth, and she offered to pull it out with some rusty old pliers, would you have let her do that too?’
We sit there in silence now, the bus chugging out of Hesslevale and into the country, where it passes through three villages before our stop. ‘Okay,’ I say eventually, ‘so can you at least think of someone who might’ve wanted to get you into trouble?’
Kayla shakes her head.
‘Or someone who has it in for Flynn, for some reason?’
‘No one does,’ she mumbles. ‘Everyone likes Flynn.’ She wipes a sweatshirt sleeve across her face. ‘No one’s ever going to believe me, Mum,’ she adds.
‘Yes, they are,’ I say. ‘The truth’ll come out, and then someone will have to apologise to you. I’ll see to that.’
We fall into silence, and she leans into me and closes her eyes. I slide an arm around her as the bus rumbles through narrow country lanes. Despite our horrible day, it feels so good, having my girl close like this. Sometimes I miss her so much, it causes an actual ache. Nate seemed to understand that – how hard it is to feel you’re being pushed away by your own kid. What must he be thinking now? I wonder. He’ll be furious, naturally – and like everyone else, he’ll probably assume Kayla did it. After all, he doesn’t know her. I wish he’d met her. Then he’d know she’d never do such a horrible thing.
Of course, he hasn’t been in touch about his dad’s watch either. I wouldn’t expect him to now. I just wanted to do a nice thing for him after our day in York, when he bought me that dress. I feel for my phone in my pocket, itching to call, or at least text him. I picture him standing there, looking ridiculously out of place at Andrea’s eighties night, and remember how I just wanted to see him smile and have fun. And that first time we met properly – I mean, not just in a driving test situation – when he was pissed and splattered in pink watermelon juice. I just wanted to hug him then too. My fingers fold around my phone, even though I know I’m the last person he’ll want to hear from now.
Back home, Kayla heads straight to her room, while I round up all the mugs and smeary glasses that have been left dotted around the living room. Is this the kind of thing Sinead was so angry about? I can’t believe Nate’s like Gary, who, incidentally, is still out at work, no call or text to say when he’s coming home.
That’s a good thing, I decide, as I head out to walk Wolfie down the lane. I don’t want to see him right now, and have to explain what happened at school today. I know exactly how it’d play out: another reason why I am a disaster as a mother, a woman, a human being. Well, sod him. I don’t care what he thinks anymore. I felt out of control in Mrs Wrightson’s shabby office, with her in a position of superiority and me feeling like nothing. I’m sick of feeling like nothing. I won’t allow it to happen anymore.
Heading back to the house now, I pause at the farm gate and tap out a text to Nate: So sorry about what happened at school today. It’s disgusting. Please believe me that Kayla had nothing to do with it. I hope Flynn is okay. Feel free to call me anytime, T xx.
And then, much later, when no reply comes and Gary still hasn’t returned home, I climb into bed, making a firm decision to change my life.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Nate
Hesslevale is in full bloom. It’s midsummer now, and the island on the town centre roundabout has been cultivated, with vegetables and flowers growing abundantly. Anyone is allowed to take them. It’s part of the community gardening project, which Sinead has thrown herself into since she came back to us. Howard from next door – who spearheads the venture – is delighted that she’s become involved.
‘It’s doing me good,’ she says, coming in one evening smelling of sunshine with a basket filled with broccoli and nasturtiums – which, apparently, you can eat (flowers in your salad is very Hesslevale). She is still working in the shop, and keeping busy; too busy, I worry sometimes, considering her ‘condition’ (I know that sounds terribly Victorian).
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However, when Sinead has her scan, and we see the curled-up little smudge nestling there – everything apparently fine – we feel reassured enough to start thinking about names. Sophie, Nina, Clara? Leo, Noah, James? I suggest Arthur, after my dad.
‘Hmmm. Not sure about that,’ Sinead says.
‘Or “Arty”?’ I add as a joke. ‘Arty Turner …’
‘Arty Farty,’ she says, giggling.
‘Or how about my dad’s middle name?’ I suggest.
‘What was that again?’
‘Charles. Charlie …’
‘I like Charlie,’ she says. ‘It’s cute but fine for a grown-up too.’ She pauses, seeming distracted now as she chops vegetables at the kitchen worktop. ‘Can you remember if Flynn’s still funny about mushrooms?’
‘Yep, no change there,’ I reply, surprised that she’s asked. Sinead’s always had Flynn’s dietary likes and dislikes firmly imprinted on her brain.
‘I wonder when your likes and dislikes become sort of fixed?’ she muses. ‘I mean, when your taste buds basically stop changing? Or d’you think there’s still the potential to like something you’ve always hated, even at our ripe old age?’
I smile and wind my arms around her waist. She’s wearing her hair up in a messy topknot, and as she resumes chopping, I can’t resist kissing the back of her slender neck. ‘I think he’ll regard mushrooms as the devil’s work for the rest of his life.’
‘He can have a jar sauce then,’ she adds.
‘Or I could make something just for him.’
She exhales, sets the knife down on the chopping board and turns to face me. Something is bothering her now, and I assume it’s not mushrooms. ‘I don’t think we should get into making two separate meals, do you?’ she asks.
‘No, I guess you’re right.’ I am conscious of being careful to agree with her as much as humanly possible.
She pushes a frond of fair hair from her eyes. ‘Nate,’ she says carefully, ‘d’you think we should have an amniocentesis?’
I frown and take hold of her hand. I know it’s been worrying her, whether or not to have the test, to find out whether our baby has a significant risk of chromosome abnormalities. We’re also aware that the test carries a slight risk of causing miscarriage. ‘Look, darling,’ I say, ‘every time we talk about this, we come to the same conclusion, don’t we?’
Sinead nods. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘I mean, if there was something …’ I pause. We both detest the word ‘abnormal’. ‘Whatever it showed up,’ I go on, ‘what would we do anyway?’
‘We’d carry on with the pregnancy,’ she says firmly. ‘It’s just … you do realise I’m ancient, in baby-making terms?’
I enfold her in a hug. ‘Hey, come on. Look at all we’ve been through together. I think we can handle anything life throws at us now, don’t you?’
She presses her face into my chest, and when she pulls away she musters a smile. ‘Yes, I suppose we can.’ She glances down at my watch and touches its face. ‘I think it’s sweet, how attached you are to that.’
‘I lost it, you know,’ I say, taking over now in the making of dinner as, looking exhausted, Sinead sits at the kitchen table, where she flips open her laptop. More research, probably. Despite my reassurances that everything will be okay, we are both aware that sixteen years have passed since our son was born. She was just twenty-seven then.
‘What did you lose?’ she asks vaguely.
‘My watch. I lost it at Liv’s barbecue …’ I teeter on the edge of telling her that Tanzie found it. Now we’re back together, it feels important not to have any secrets – however insignificant. One day, I might even work up to telling her about eighties night.
She peers at the screen. ‘It says here I shouldn’t be eating sprouts.’
‘But you don’t like sprouts,’ I remind her. ‘Neither does Flynn, or Mum, for that matter. Remember, we decided not to bother with them last Christmas—’
‘Not those kind of sprouts.’ She turns around and frowns, as if I am a pupil who’s failed to pay proper attention in class. ‘I mean sprouted seeds, like alfalfa and all that …’
‘Oh, right,’ I say, although I’m not entirely sure what alfalfa seeds look like.
‘They’re impossible to wash clean,’ she adds, focusing back on the screen while I make two sauces – mushroomy for us, tomato and basil for Flynn.
Conversation is rather stilted later at dinner. Was it always like this, I wonder, as Flynn shovels in his pasta as if stoking an engine? Perhaps I’m just being sensitive.
Sinead’s back, I remind myself, when she’s headed upstairs for a bath and Flynn has wandered off to play guitar in his room, and I am loading the dishwasher. That’s all that really matters.
It’s when I’m wiping down the worktops that I spot the sheet of paper lying there, beside the fruit bowl.
It’s a list, written in her handwriting. For a moment, it feels like my heart has stopped. I pick it up and read:
Swan’s feather
Wave crest
Summer cloud
Dandelion clock
I stand there, staring at it, wondering if it’s some kind of code, referring to … what exactly? I turn at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Sinead appears, smiling, wrapped up in her dressing gown.
‘What’s this?’ I ask lightly, still clutching the sheet of paper.
‘Oh, that’s just a list I made.’
‘Yes, I see that …’
She frowns, then her eyes flicker with knowing and she gasps. ‘You didn’t think it was something … awful, did you?’
‘No, no, I just wondered …’ I place it back on the worktop and squeeze out the dishcloth.
‘It’s just paint colours, Nate. For the spare room. I mean, for the baby’s room …’
‘Oh, yes, of course!’
She stretches up and kisses my cheek. ‘We are going to get all that junk out of there, aren’t we? And redecorate?’
‘Yes, absolutely. I was thinking about that.’ I look at my wife, all pink and fragrant from her bath, and take her in my arms.
‘It’s just, I’m worried it won’t be ready for when the baby comes.’
‘Hey,’ I say gently, ‘there’s plenty of time—’
‘I’d just feel better, if it was all done …’ She breaks off, and I remember this from the other two pregnancies: the fixating on paint colours, curtains, a lampshade and cot, and how she wouldn’t settle until everything was perfect. The baby we lost at ten weeks had had a nursery ready and waiting. I didn’t remind her that Flynn had slept in a cot at our bedside for the first year.
‘The nesting thing’s kicking in, isn’t it?’ I ask, touching her cheek.
Sinead nods. ‘You know what I’m like. Please bear with me.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I do remember from the other times. Just leave it to me, okay? I’ll clear out the room and we’ll have it all ready in no time.’
‘Thanks, darling.’ She grins now, and seems to relax. ‘I just want everything to feel right.’
So I start that evening, even though it does seem a little crazy, with something like six months to go, to be dragging Sinead’s old filing cabinet from the spare room and parking it in the corner of our bedroom (there really is nowhere else to put it). It feels a little like arriving at the airport three hours before take-off, as we did on those holidays when Flynn was little: better to hang out in Starbucks for what felt like a week than risk missing our flight.
But then, if it’s important to her, it’s important to me. I haul out all the boxes of books, old toys and God knows what else we’ve been hanging onto, and carry them up to the loft. I find a gnarly old tennis ball that belonged to Larry, our lurcher, and Flynn’s matted old panda that endured many washing-machine cycles over the years.
Finally, the room is bare, its hint-of-apple walls distinctly grubby, the grey-blue carpet fuzzed with dust. A male voice drifts upstairs from the TV; Sinead and Flynn are watching a documentar
y about Scientologists. They’re fascinated by that kind of stuff. I’m aware of them discussing it, enjoying watching it together. Perhaps everything really will be okay, after all?
All finished for the night, I stand in the doorway and assess the room that will soon be ready for our baby. There were three of us living here when we first moved in, so delighted to own a real house, with a garden – a proper family home. Then, briefly, there were two. Soon there’ll be four, I muse, wondering now what those paint colours actually look like – not that I care really. I’d agree to have this room papered with gold leaf if that’s what Sinead wanted – because right now, I feel like the luckiest man in the world.
*
Three days later, I’m still trying to remind myself of that when Sinead calls me at work to say she’s having strange cramps, and by the time I’ve rushed home, she is bleeding.
‘It’ll be okay, darling,’ I say, even though – remembering the last time this happened – I know there’s a very strong chance that it won’t be.
At Solworth hospital I hold her hand tightly as she has another scan. This time, something is wrong.
‘I’m very sorry,’ the young blonde woman says, ‘but there’s no heartbeat.’
And so our baby has died, and all I can do is hold Sinead as she cries in the hospital bed, and tell her it’s no one’s fault, that miscarriages happen all the time.
‘We’ll be okay, my darling,’ I soothe her. ‘We can try again.’ I catch a flash of horror on her pale, drawn face. ‘Or we can just be together,’ I add, wiping away my own tears now. ‘That’s all we need, isn’t it? To be together. You, me and Flynn.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tanzie
In the end, it’s not the uncaring attitude that does it, or even the shagging around. Like Sinead with her list, sometimes it’s the little things that tip you over the edge. Only with me, it’s not about shoddy DIY or dog poo left in the garden. It’s driving.
‘Gary,’ I start, one wet Thursday evening as soon as Kayla has gone to bed, ‘I want to sit one more test.’