Someone was talking to her. She turned round and saw the stupid bitch of a grandmother standing there. Her mouth was moving but it was too hot for Agatha to hear anything. And they were all still shouting in the garden. She reached over to pick up the cake because if anyone was going to get Hal to blow out his candles then it was going to be her.
Too late she noticed Hal standing on a chair next to his grandmother. Her eyes went to him and she saw that he was chewing. His hand moved to the plate and he was taking another sandwich to add to the one he had already finished. Ruth’s mother’s voice exploded into her ears. ‘Oh my God, he’s eating! Quick, Aggie, go and get Ruth, she’s got to see this.’
It was too hot. Had Agatha said that already? Was anyone listening? It. Was. Too. Hot. Hal had to stop. She fell towards him in one movement, dropping the plate with the cake, which smashed into fragments. It was in fragments at her feet. Feet. Fragments. Maybe she couldn’t stop falling. Maybe that’s why she was on the floor and the plate was harsh on her hands. Her blood felt warm and sticky.
Fragments. Floor. Falling.
Someone or something was screaming. It was loud and too close to her. It was so close it felt like it was in her head. It was hot in here. Too hot. Wasn’t anyone going to help her? God help the child.
The plate was broken.
The cake was ruined.
The floor was fragmented.
Her hands and feet on the floor.
There were fragments of her on the floor.
Ruth and Christian reached the darkness of the house together. They didn’t need to speak because the fear bristled on them. They were stepping into an unknown and they couldn’t help each other. The familiarity of their surroundings melted into a grotesque parody of their life. Ruth went first, calling her son’s name. She heard a small whimper, underneath or maybe over the screaming. She went into the hall and saw her mother holding Hal close to her. She was deathly white, as white as a pint of milk, except for the tiny pin-pricks of blood splattering both her and Hal.
‘It’s Aggie,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened. I took Hal to the loo and then he said he was hungry so we went into the kitchen and he ate a sandwich.’
‘A sandwich?’ Ruth couldn’t help herself.
‘I know, I’ll tell you about that later. I was trying to speak to Aggie, telling her what a great job she’d done, but she didn’t seem to hear and she looked, I don’t know, I suppose beside herself and very red. Then Hal took another sandwich and she lunged at him but she was holding the cake and she tripped and there’s blood, I think she cut her hands on the plate. And, my God, that noise she’s making, it’s not normal.’
‘Okay, Mum. Christian and I will deal with it.’ A feeling of dread was all around them, enveloping and constraining them.
Ruth didn’t want to see what was going on behind the kitchen door but Christian walked straight in. The noise was intensified and she could see the blood on the floor, along with shards of china and mashed cake. Aggie was still on the floor, looking like a wild animal. She had tears and snot all over her face which was red and swollen. Christian went straight to her and lifted her onto a chair. It seemed to calm her slightly and the noise dropped a decibel or two so that she sounded like a mooing cow. Ruth found a cloth and washed the blood off Aggie’s hands and arms.
‘I think it’s mainly superficial,’ she said to Christian.
Ruth looked at the girl she’d entrusted her children to these past eight months and wondered what she’d done. ‘Aggie,’ she said. ‘Aggie, it’s me – Ruth. Are you okay?’ Aggie looked up but her eyes didn’t connect with Ruth. She looked very young and Ruth felt a flicker of motherly love for her. She fetched her a glass of water and made Aggie drink it.
‘Aggie,’ Ruth tried again. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. Do you need to see a doctor? Do you know what’s happening to you?’
‘Shall I call an ambulance?’ asked Christian.
‘She seems to be calming down,’ answered Ruth. ‘Give her a minute.’
They watched the colour drain from Aggie’s face, the blood moving like it was being pulled by a magnet. Then her teeth started chattering.
‘Aggie, are you feeling any better?’ Ruth tried again.
The girl looked up at her and started to cry. Ruth pulled her towards her and let Aggie’s tears soak into her T-shirt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted the job so much. I’m epileptic.’
Ruth relaxed at this. There was still the thought of what would have happened if this scene had occurred when it was just Aggie and Hal in the house, but it seemed better than the other options. ‘Oh, Aggie, you should have said. Maybe we could have got round it.’
‘I suppose I should leave,’ Aggie was saying now.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.’ Ruth smoothed her hair. It felt good to be the superior one for once. ‘You’re going to go to bed and not worry about this and we’ll talk in the morning.’
‘But Hal’s cake –’
‘It doesn’t matter. He won’t even notice.’
Aggie was whimpering now and her hands were icy. But she stood up.
‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Ruth.
‘No, I’m okay. You’re right, I need to sleep.’
There was a lot that needed to be thought about, but Ruth couldn’t let herself get into that now. This was a big fuck-up and she wasn’t sure where to go from here.
‘Shit,’ she said to Christian when she was sure Aggie couldn’t hear them.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘She can’t look after the children.’
‘Of course not. But we can’t just turn her onto the street.’
‘I think we should get her to a doctor in the morning.’
Ruth wanted wine but there was a whole party still to be endured, all the questions their friends would ask, all the shock they had to absorb. ‘Yes, but first I’d better rescue the cake.’
The stairs swam before Aggie’s eyes and white lights darted around her head. That was as close to the edge as she ever wanted to get. Of course Ruth and Christian would ask her to leave in the morning; even they weren’t desperate enough to leave a lunatic in charge of their children. She sat on her bed and calculated the possibility of them ringing a doctor or the police before the morning and decided it wasn’t very likely. They’d have to deal with the party and then some guests would linger and then they’d have to get the kids to bed and have dinner with her parents. They’d imagine she was asleep and they’d leave it till morning.
She toyed with the idea of waiting till everyone was asleep and then lifting Hal from his bed and stealing into the night with him like a fugitive. But she thought it was probably unnecessary. Besides she didn’t want to be made to feel like a criminal because of one stupid slip up. She was not the person screaming on the floor, she was the strong woman she had worked so hard to be. She was not afraid. She was not wrong. She was Hal’s mother.
Agatha stayed awake all night. She heard Ruth and Christian go to bed just after eleven and she heard their voices rise and fall with the pitch of their argument, but they sounded too tired to get into it properly. At three she went to the airing cupboard and retrieved her knapsack. On the top were the bags of new clothes she had bought for her and Hal. It was all these little details which made her sure she would get away with it.
Agatha had studied the women in the park for weeks. She saw what they wore and looked at their labels when they left expensive jumpers on benches. She touched the real leather of their handbags, noticed the sun glinting off their dark glasses. She practised the way they walked across the grass of the park like they were in an exclusive restaurant with every right to be there. They didn’t let their gaze waver over people like her, they barely even noticed their children trailing in their wake like baby ducks. Life flowed for these women because they expected it to and this sort of confidence was like a shield; no one questioned you when
you were one of these women. Agatha had considered taking a few of the many clothes Ruth never wore, but she had resisted the temptation because that would have been wrong. Instead she had used her own money to buy clothes to which she could see no point other than that they opened a door to a new life.
At five she dressed and sat on the edge of her bed watching the sky lighten into a dull grey which would transform into blue in a few hours’ time. Her stomach felt emptier than it ever had; she could feel her intestinal juices swirling the sick-inducing bile round her insides. Time crawled through a sewer but still she waited because it was vitally important that she performed each step exactly as she had seen it in her mind, at exactly the right time.
At six o’clock she took her knapsack downstairs and put it by the front door. She got Hal’s buggy out of the cupboard under the stairs and opened it next to the bag. Then she trod noiselessly back upstairs. Agatha would have made a good burglar, she knew how to walk so that she carried her weight within her body, keeping her footsteps as light as if they really were feathers. Years of looking after children had made her an expert in this.
Hal’s room was dark and she could hear him sucking in his sleep. She smoothed the hair off his face and he opened his eyes silently. His cheeks gave way to her touch like a pillow or a cashmere blanket.
‘Morning, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a special treat for you, Hal. Do you want to come on an adventure with me?’
He held his arms up to her, the trust in the gesture so intense it caught at Agatha’s throat. She lifted him up and his tiny body fitted into hers, making her sure she was right. They knelt on the floor together as Agatha eased his little limbs into his clothes.
‘Now, we have to be really quiet, Hal, so we don’t wake anyone else. Is that okay?’
He nodded and she picked him up and went downstairs. It was so close, her life was so close now and yet she had never felt more scared. Her heart resounded through her body, announcing itself in every muscle, every fibre, every vein of her being.
But now he was strapped into the buggy and the knapsack was on her back. She opened the front door and pushed him out. She turned and used her key to shut the door silently. The already warm summer air embraced them and propelled them down the street. The birds singing the dawn chorus stopped and stared and, when they saw what was happening, started again, but louder this time, more triumphantly, for Agatha and Hal were going home.
Christian woke with a start, his heart pumping so viciously he momentarily worried that he was having a heart attack. He turned his head and saw it was six thirty-three. He listened for the sound of crying, but none came. He was hot and he threw the covers off, letting the morning air dry the sweat onto his naked body. He had the impression of a bad dream in his mind, like a ghost at a window or a foul taste in his mouth. Ruth was still asleep, turned away from him and breathing so silently it was almost unreal. He had a desire to check on his children, but he resisted it, knowing that at this time they were too near to the day to allow any noise.
The air felt close and stifling, although it wasn’t really that hot. It was never that hot in England. He tried to remember how he had got into an argument with Ruth the night before, but everything was jumbled. He doubted he could ever again say the right thing to her.
Christian got up and showered. It was Sunday and tomorrow Ruth wanted him to leave. The life that had seemed like a trap now opened up before him and he felt the knowledge of his need for it deep inside him. He might have to leave and live in a small room somewhere with a sofa which opened up into an uncomfortable bed and a kitchen which ran along a wall. Everything he owned would smell of the take-away curries he would eat or the stale beer he would breathe out night after night. He would wake up hating himself every morning and fall asleep each night wishing he was home.
By seven he was in the kitchen making coffee, looking out of the window at the mess in the garden which needed to be cleared up. But then Betty was at the kitchen door and her enthusiasm pulled him into the day so that he could busy himself with her breakfast and make believe that their life wasn’t falling apart.
Ruth knew she had slept in as soon as she woke up. The air seemed different and a hazy indifference swirled above her head. The clock told her that it was twenty past eight and she wondered how she had slept through the children waking and Christian getting up. She could hear Betty shouting downstairs, the whirr of the television, the smell of coffee. The sleep had done nothing for her, instead seeping into her body like a drug, teasing her with its presence, showing her what was possible.
But today was a day that needed action and decisions and pain and torment. The day was not going to let her rest. Ruth already knew it was going to frazzle her until she might sit on her sofa in ten hours’ time with a glass of wine and a dread of what Monday held in store. She pulled herself out of bed and her legs felt heavy, her head woozy. She stood under the shower in the hope it would wake her, but went downstairs feeling ravaged and distracted. Christian was busying himself with bin bags. He had already cleared most of the garden, she noticed.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘D’you want some coffee?’
‘Please.’ She wondered how she was going to do this alone. How she was going to be the one person responsible for it all. She couldn’t decide if letting him stay would be weak, too much of an admittance of something she didn’t want to know. ‘Is Aggie up yet?’ she asked instead.
‘No.’ Christian tied up one bin bag and shook out another. He irritated her with his unusual effi ciency. ‘What are we going to do about that?’
‘I have no idea.’ Usually Ruth was full of solutions, even when they were bad, but for this particular problem she couldn’t think of anything. ‘Mum said she could help us out if we need to get rid of her.’
‘You definitely want her to leave?’
‘Are you joking? What if she’d been alone with Hal and Betty when that happened?’
‘I’ve never seen an epileptic fit like that.’
‘How many have you seen?’
‘Well, none. But I didn’t know they were like that.’
Christian passed her the coffee and Betty came in from the sitting room, still in her pyjamas, the sound of cartoons following her like they cared.
‘Can I get in Hal’s tent?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure you can, sweetie,’ said Ruth. ‘Why don’t you ask him if it’s okay?’
‘He’s still asleep.’
Ruth looked at Christian. ‘Hal’s still asleep?’
‘Yeah.’
She felt a constriction in her chest. ‘But he never sleeps past seven.’
Christian was on his way back into the garden. ‘He must be tired after yesterday.’
Ruth tried to draw something from his nonchalance. ‘I think I’ll go and check on him anyway.’
Ruth took the stairs two at a time, praying to an unknown God as she went, bargaining with everything for the life of her son. She opened the door to Hal’s room and it was dark, but she could tell from the door that he wasn’t there. She walked towards the cot pointlessly because it was empty. She had been worrying about illness, but she realised that she was about to deal with something much more sinister. There was still a chance that he had found his way to her parents or Aggie. She tried her parents first because somewhere she already knew what had happened.
She knocked on Aggie’s attic room and her mother opened it. ‘Hal’s not in here, is he?’ asked Ruth.
‘No, darling. Is everything okay?’
But Ruth had turned away already, she couldn’t answer. She didn’t even knock on the door of the box room. It was as empty as a barren womb. No trace of Aggie remained. The bed didn’t even look slept in.
Ruth raced down the stairs. Her mother was at her back trying to speak and Betty was still asking about the tent. Everything was in her way. The air was like soup so she couldn’t breathe or walk. Christian was too far away, at the other side of the garden picking plastic cups out of the flowers. Sh
e went over to him and found she couldn’t speak so she touched his arm to make him turn round.
‘Shit, what’s happened?’ he said, retreating from her touch as if she was diseased.
‘Hal’s gone. So’s Aggie. She’s taken him.’
Christian put his hands over her arms, the way she’d watched actors do on soap operas. It was like he wanted to squeeze a false truth out of her. ‘Don’t be silly, Ruth,’ he was saying somewhere over her head. ‘Of course she hasn’t taken him. Have you looked everywhere?’
Ruth was aware of her mother shouting behind them. It was going to take too much effort and time to explain to Christian what was happening. She knew with absolute certainty what had happened, she just didn’t know how much of a head start the girl had got. ‘Shut up, Christian,’ she said now, shaking his hands off her arms. ‘When did you get up?’ A clarity which had eluded her for years lit up her mind.
‘She might have just taken him to the park or something.’
‘When did you get up?’ Ruth shouted.
Her mother came back into the garden. ‘They’re not in the house. I’ve looked everywhere.’
Christian started to cry. ‘Oh God, no.’
Ruth wanted to slap him. ‘When did you wake up? Come on, Christian.’
‘Six-thirty.’ He looked at her and she flinched from the terror in his eyes. ‘I woke with a start, I thought one of the kids was awake. I got up, had a shower. I must have been downstairs by seven. Then Betty got up. You were the next person down. I thought he was asleep.’
‘She wouldn’t have left in the night. Maybe her leaving woke you. It’s quarter to nine now. That means she’s had nearly three hours.’
Christian started towards the house. ‘I’m calling the police.’
Ruth followed him, the ground giving way beneath her, pulling her into an earth that was hot and hostile. The things you see in films or read about in newspapers were happening to her. Helplessness clawed at her being like a zombie was crawling through the ground to tear the skin from her bones. Betty was crying but she didn’t care.
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