Cuckoo

by Julia Crouch

  ‘But I want to see Dad,’ she whined.

  ‘You’ll have plenty of time for that, later,’ Rose said. ‘But first I really need you to help me out with Flossie.’

  Anna rolled her eyes, but knew not to pursue it. She took the buggy and wheeled it round to the back garden. Thinking how mature Anna looked, stepping in there as big sister, Rose didn’t like to think how much growing up she would have to do in the next few months.

  Taking a deep breath in and out from the tributaries of her lungs, Rose pushed open the front door into the kitchen. Gareth sat, mug of coffee in front of him, waiting. He turned to look at her, his expression as blank as a sheet of baking parchment.

  ‘Rose.’

  ‘Hello.’

  There was a long pause. Eventually, he sighed.

  ‘What were you thinking, Rose?’ His voice was tired in a way that she had never heard it before, not even at any of his former psychological troughs.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. It was a genuine question. She wanted him to take his pick.

  ‘Where do I start? You do a lot of increasingly crazy stuff including trashing my studio and MY WORK,’ he barked suddenly, standing up and thumping the table, making the spoon in his coffee rattle so violently that Rose was afraid the mug might break. He took a deep breath, and calmed himself. ‘You disappear for hours in Brighton with my daughters, then you set off in the middle of the night to God knows where, abandoning Polly and the boys, and embarrassing everyone.’

  ‘Embarrassing everyone?’ Rose said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘That’s not an apology, is it?’

  ‘I’m not the one that needs to apologise.’

  ‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’

  ‘You have ruined everything, Rose. It’s all down to you, but you’re so far gone you can’t even see it. We’ve been watching you.’

  Rose felt as if part of her were pouring out of the top of her skull. He stood there looking at her as if she was a crazy woman, as if it were she who was in the wrong, not him and his dog whore. She ran for him, her hands extended in front of her, her claws out. She wanted to push him over, out and away.

  But instead, with Gareth being so tall and her being of only average height, he stood firm. His body absorbed the impact of her charge, sending it down through his feet to the stone floor. He grabbed her wrists and held them so tightly that her bones ached, but he was still. He took a deep breath and held her away from him as if she were a dirty thing. He looked her straight in the eyes and Rose realised she was peering into the face of a stranger.

  ‘Rose. Rose. Polly and I are very worried about you,’ he said, trying to control his voice. ‘You haven’t been yourself for a long time. Not since Flossie was ill. And the things you have done recently – well, it’s not what you’d expect from someone with young children to look after.’

  Rose shook herself free and looked up at him. ‘What are you trying to say to me?’

  ‘I’m worried about my children.’

  ‘Your children?’

  ‘Listen, Rose, and listen well. We’ve been talking, Polly and I.’

  ‘I’ll bet you have,’ she said.

  He looked at her pityingly. She stared back at him, willing him to confess.

  ‘Polly called me from Brighton – she had forgotten her mobile – to tell me how worried she was about you and, as you can imagine, I was pretty concerned about you myself, given what you had done to MY WORK.’ He pointed through the kitchen to the studio, which stood despoiled and gaping at the end of the garden,

  ‘You do know that you might as well have cut my arm off as do what you did in there? You’ve never understood my work, Rose, have you? You’ve just seen it as a way for me to earn money so that you can go SHOPPING AT WAITROSE.’

  He paused and ran his fingers through his hair. He took another breath and bit his lips. ‘You know what? I don’t think you’ve ever seen me as anything other than a meal-ticket, a sperm bank, a means to an end.’

  Not this again, Rose thought.

  ‘Have you ever seen me as a man? As a sexual being?’

  Rose snorted. That he should say such a thing!

  He glared at her. ‘As anything other than second-best to Christos?’

  Rose gasped. Any wind left in her sails was ripped away.

  Gareth stopped and exhaled. ‘And, Rose, you have lied and lied and lied and lied to me. Polly’s told me everything.’

  He sat down and stared at her: judge, jury and executioner.

  ‘See what you’ve done, Rose?’ Rose wheeled round. For the first time she noticed that Polly was there, sitting part-silhouetted in the corner armchair. Her face was serious, but Rose was sure she could see a trace of victory in her eyes.

  ‘I called Gareth and he told me what you’d done. We decided you needed to see a doctor, but that he should be with you when you did, so he set off to fetch you. Then you pulled your disappearing trick. With the girls, Rose. With the girls.’ Polly’s voice had taken on a deep, understanding tone, and she had shifted her position so that she rested in the chair, one hand under her chin, as if she were auditioning for the part of The Psychiatrist.

  ‘You understand that I had no alternative but to tell Gareth about your history, about the baby?’ Polly went on. ‘About poor Frank?’

  Gareth raised his head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Rose?’

  ‘I didn’t want to lose you,’ Rose said, in a small voice.

  Gareth looked at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. ‘Don’t you think this is what all this is really about? The visit to Brighton tipped you over, didn’t it? Don’t you realise that if you lie all your life, it’s going to make you ill?’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ Rose yelled. ‘I’m. Not. Ill!’

  ‘We’ve been talking about it, Rose,’ Gareth went on. ‘I was angry. I wanted to take you to hospital, get you sectioned. But Polly here argued for you. She said that what you need is a rest, away from all your responsibilities, and she said that the girls should be able to see you as well. We have to think of them.’

  He walked over and stood right in front of her. ‘So this is the deal. We’re going to move you up to the Annexe, get you enrolled with a psychotherapist and take it from there.’

  ‘You won’t have to do anything. No cooking, no housework,’ Polly said, smiling.

  ‘Polly has very kindly agreed to take all of that on. Which is very good of her, considering she has such a lot on her plate already.’

  ‘I’m going to be recording an album,’ Polly said. ‘But we can do it in Bath, so I can fit it around the house and the children.’

  ‘You just have to concentrate on getting better, then we’ll take it from there,’ Gareth said.

  They both sat and looked at her, their eyes open wide, as if the plan they were proposing were the most simple and obvious thing in the world. As if they were offering her a kindness. Rose’s shoulders dropped, her brow lowered and she found it hard to catch her breath.

  ‘You know though, Rose, that it’s over. You know I can’t take you back now. Not after all your lies,’ Gareth said.

  ‘I know what you’re up to,’ Rose snarled at Polly. ‘Don’t talk to me about lies.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Maths,’ Polly said, standing up. ‘Always putting two and two together.’

  Rose couldn’t take any more. She launched herself at Polly, dragging her fingers into her hair, tugging at it, snagging her nails in it. Polly was taken by surprise. She fell back against the armchair and Rose found herself laying punch after punch into Polly’s head.

  Gareth jumped across the room and yanked Rose by her arm, pulling her up and away from Polly, throwing her so that she sprawled down onto the floor.

  ‘Leave her!’ he yelled. ‘Just leave her alone.’

  ‘Your precious Polly? Your little fuckwhore?’

  Polly had got up and was standing by Gareth’s side, just behind
him, looking down at Rose. She was still smiling.

  ‘Take that back!’ he roared. ‘Just leave her out of this.’

  ‘It’s OK, Gareth. She’s not well,’ Polly said, touching his arm.

  Rose crawled across the floor to the dresser, where she pulled herself up. She had hit her head when she landed and was feeling dizzy, but she had a force propelling her so strongly that nothing could stop her. She reached up with both hands to the shelf on the dresser where Anna’s egg-basket lived. She found the two largest eggs, made of onyx and marble and so big that her hands barely fitted around them. She turned to face Gareth and Polly, who seemed suspended across the other side of the kitchen, watching her as if she were an animal in a zoo.

  Then, in a heartbeat, she threw herself across the room with an egg in each hand. She flew at Gareth, reaching up and hitting his head with the stones. Taken by surprise, he tried to dodge her, but instead took a crushing blow to the temple, which sent him reeling towards the ground. On his way down, he hit his head on the upraised cover of the Aga. It was so quick that Rose had little idea what actually happened. She jumped back. He was slumped over silently, his face up against the burning hot-plate of the stove, a stream of blood sizzling as it flowed out of his nose.

  For a second, both Rose and Polly stood there, frozen with horror. Then Rose rushed towards Gareth and tried to yank him away from the stove. He was a big man and now he was a dead weight. His face ripped as she pulled him off the hotplate, leaving behind a layer of burned skin. Sobbing and retching, she knelt over him and tried to revive him, beating his still chest, trying to get life back into his body.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Gareth!’ she cried. ‘Gareth!’

  ‘Oh, Rose. See what you’ve gone and done now?’

  Rose looked up to see Polly standing over her, her hands on her hips, that faint smile still on her face. For a second or two, Rose couldn’t move. Her mind was blank except for the fact that she needed to act quickly. Then like an animal running for shelter, she scrabbled to her feet and fled across to the pantry, slamming the door behind her and drawing the bolt so that Polly couldn’t get in. She stood there, panting, until she could breathe again.

  What had she done?

  It dawned on her that she had run into a trap. If she was going to get out of there, not only was she going to have to face the horror of what had happened to Gareth, she was going to have to deal with Polly, the creator of it all. She was running on instinct now, on the need to preserve the self. Casting around the room, her eyes fell on the gun. Gareth’s gun. He had put it up on the top shelf, no doubt in some feeble attempt to hide it. The fool. It was completely visible up there behind the few jars of apple chutney that had escaped Polly’s pantry purge.

  Clambering onto the work surface, she pulled herself up by her fingertips, levering herself like a mountaineer against the shelves. She could just about reach the gun, although when she pulled it down, it brought one of the chutney jars crashing along with it. The sticky gloop splattered all over the slate tiles. Rose was nearly beyond caring about the mess, although she still added clearing up the chutney to her mental list of tasks. Using some skill she didn’t know she possessed, possibly something that had lodged in her from some film or other, she cracked open the gun. It appeared to be loaded. This was a good thing, she thought.

  She put her ear against the bolted door. All was quiet in the kitchen. Who knew what she would find when she went back in there? All she hoped was that the children were still outside.

  Holding the gun up to her chest, she eased the door open and edged back into the room. Gareth was still on the floor, where she had left him, and he was as still as ever. She would get back to him after she had finished with Polly.

  ‘I was wondering when you were going to come out of there,’ Polly said.

  Rose wheeled round to see her, back in the armchair. For the first time, she saw that sick little smile waver as Polly clocked the gun.

  ‘What are you doing, Rose?’ Polly said, standing up.

  ‘Stay there!’ Rose barked, and Polly put her hands up and stood still, rooted to her spot.

  Rose edged over to the back door and locked it. Pointing the gun at Polly, she moved around the room, drawing the curtains. Finally, she locked the front door. Now there was no danger of the children coming in. She could do what she wanted now.

  ‘What are you going to do, Rose?’ Polly asked again.

  Rose circled round to face Polly, pointing the gun straight at her. She lined the sight up so that it was level with Polly’s forehead. She had always been a good shot at funfairs with rubber ducks and the like. She was confident her aim was going to be true.

  ‘Rose, I don’t know what you think was going on, but really, everything I have ever done has been in your best interest,’ Polly said.

  ‘Hah,’ Rose snorted.

  ‘It’s true. How on earth could it be otherwise?’ Polly said quickly. ‘We go back so far, Rose . . .’

  ‘I’ve heard all this before,’ Rose said. ‘I’m bored of it.’

  ‘Rose. You think this is irretrievable, don’t you? You think you’re in so deep that you might as well finish me off and have done with it, don’t you?’

  Rose said nothing. She just reaffirmed her position with the gun and unhooked the safety, curling her finger tight around the trigger.

  ‘I was the only witness to this, Rose. The only witness.’ Rose could see Polly’s mind working with the desperation of the doomed. She wasn’t going to be taken in by it.

  ‘Exactly,’ Rose murmured.

  ‘But don’t you see? You didn’t kill Gareth. He fell. It was an accident. An accident, Rose.’

  Rose felt the waves of breathlessness coming over her again. She adjusted her stance and did her best to remain steady with the gun.

  ‘It was an accident! A horrible accident. You can walk away from this if you want.’ Polly looked relieved at the thoughts that were occurring to her. ‘The girls will still have you. But – but if you shoot me now, there’s no way you’ll get away with it. Think what a waste that will be! All those four children with no parent to speak of. If not for me, then for them, Rose. Put the gun down. Look! We can do it!’

  And, her hands still up, Polly edged round the room. Rose kept the gun trained on her, as she reached the bloodied onyx eggs. Facing Rose and squatting down, her back straight, Polly picked them up.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ she said as Rose hitched the gun again. ‘I’m just going to take them over to the sink and clean them. Look.’

  Holding the eggs up in her scrawny little arms, Polly backed round to the sink and, using a J-Cloth and Ecover, she removed every trace of blood from them. Then she dried them on a tea-towel.

  ‘Put them back in the basket,’ Rose said, and Polly did so, climbing on a chair to put the basket back in its place on the dresser.

  ‘There.’ She turned and beamed at her friend. ‘All back how it was.’

  Shaking, Rose let the gun down. She broke it open and emptied it of its cartridges.

  Polly came over to her and handed her the tea-towel.

  ‘Best to wipe that of any fingerprints and put it back where you found it,’ she said. As Rose took the cloth, Polly’s hand took hers. She looked her in the eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rose. About everything that has happened. About all this. Poor us. Poor him.’

  They looked down at Gareth on the floor.

  After a moment, Rose broke away and went to put the gun back in the pantry. When she returned to the kitchen, Polly was kneeling at his feet, undoing a shoelace.

  ‘This is why he tripped,’ she said. ‘He lost it, didn’t he?’ she said to Rose. ‘I mean, look what he did to his studio. And he phoned me and said it was you. And all the mess everywhere, the whisky. And it’s not like he hasn’t got a history of, well, difficulty. When he lunged forward to attack you, I didn’t know what I was going to do . . .’

  Rose backed into the armchair and buried he
r face in her palms. She felt hands on her knees and looked up to see Polly crouching in front of her.

  ‘Rose. This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to take the children round to Simon’s,’ she said. ‘I’m going to tell him there’s been an accident. You’re going to call Kate and tell her you don’t know what to do. Then let her take control. She’s good at that. You’re upset now. Just go with that. I’ll be back in a second and we’ll tell our story about how Gareth tripped as he went to attack you.’

  Rose nodded dumbly.

  ‘I’m glad, really,’ Polly went on. ‘It’s happened quicker than I had hoped, but everything’s back as it should be. We’re both in the right place again. Everything else is just water under the bridge, isn’t it ?’