Say You Love Me

by Marion Husband

  Nathan lay in the cot he first slept in when they brought him home, kept in the corner of their room for times like this. He was making quiet, contented noises, gnawing at the teething ring. The plastic would be warm now, soaked with his saliva. She turned on her side and smiled at him. He smiled back at her and waved his arms and legs, an up-turned turtle. She reached a finger through the cot’s bars and he held it tightly.

  ‘Lift him into bed with us,’ Ben said.

  She rolled over to face him. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘No.’ He stroked her hair from her face and kissed her mouth. ‘Bring Nathan into bed with us.’

  She placed him between them and Ben propped himself up on his elbow and smiled down into his son’s face. Looking up at her he said, ‘I don’t see enough of him, do I?’

  She avoided his gaze, smiling at Nathan and handing him back the teething ring he’d dropped on the bed. He needed to be changed; his bottom was sore and Ben had told her this was because of the tooth he was cutting. He knew so much about babies, although he professed to have forgotten most of his obstetric and paediatric training.

  Watching her Ben said, ‘Kitty, I know I’ve been difficult lately –’

  ‘No, not really –’

  He touched her mouth. ‘Listen. Since Nathan was born…’ He laughed miserably. ‘I don’t know, Kit…I’m not a terrible father, am I?’

  ‘No! Of course not. He adores you!’

  ‘And I adore him.’ Sitting up he lifted Nathan into his arms. For a while he talked baby talk to Nathan, then he said, ‘I adored my father.’ He glanced at her, away from looking at his son. ‘Danny. He was marvellous, when he wanted to be. He was going to buy me a bike, you know, teach me how to ride it…I never thought about him much, before Nathan. Only sometimes. And then I’d make myself forget again – it was easy, I just worked harder – at exams, at work…everyone thought I was so ambitious!’ He laughed, touching Nathan’s cheek. ‘Do you know your Daddy was one of the youngest consultants ever? How proud Granddad was!’ He glanced at her. ‘And Mum. Mum wrote me this long, lovely letter saying how proud she was of me and all I’d achieved. It was such a loving letter, and all I could do was read between the lines thinking she wouldn’t have sent such a letter to her real son, she wouldn’t have felt the need to write down how much she loved me if I had been her own blood.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘No, I know. But I think mad thoughts when it comes to Joy and Simon. You know, last night, when I thought he might die…’ After a moment he went on, ‘I was scared. I couldn’t help thinking it was my fault…that if I hadn’t upset him…I know that’s what Mark was thinking. He could barely stand to look at me.’

  ‘But Simon’s all right. And it’s not your fault.’

  He raised his knees and propped Nathan against the slope of his thighs, holding his hands. ‘You are a good boy, aren’t you? I think you are probably the best boy in the whole, wide world. We should make you king of somewhere. But where? Spain – Mummy likes it there.’ He kissed him and began to sing, ‘I had a little nut tree…Nothing would it bear…but a golden nutmeg and a silver pear…’ He kissed Nathan’s head again. ‘The king of Spain’s daughter came to visit me, and all for the sake of my little…nut…tree.’ Turning to her he said, ‘Danny used to sing that to me. He wasn’t always mad. I want to tell Mark – he wasn’t always mad – there were times…’

  Gently she said, ‘It’s all right, don’t be upset…’

  He rested his forehead against Nathan’s. He smiled. ‘You need your nappy changed. I shall bathe you, we’ll have bubbles and ducks.’

  ‘I’ll do it, you should rest.’

  ‘No, let me.’ He looked at her. ‘I’d like another baby, Kitty. Before I’m too old. Simon was too old…I hated that he was so old, so much older than Danny… Oh Christ. I wish I’d never started this. Mark was right. I’ve broken Simon’s heart.’

  She hugged him awkwardly, Nathan squirming between them, and Ben drew away from her. ‘I’m tired,’ he said, ‘it’s been a long night.’

  ‘Simon will be fine, you’ll see.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘And he thinks the world of you, it’s so obvious how much he loves you.’

  ‘Have I betrayed him?’ He gazed at her anxiously. ‘Do you think he understands? We were never allowed to talk about Danny, you know? No – it wasn’t that we weren’t allowed, more that we didn’t dare to…I didn’t dare to. Mark was so secretive, and he and Simon…well, I know they kept stuff from me. I used to think that Mark…’ He shook his head. ‘As I said, I had mad thoughts.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  Quickly he said, ‘I used to think Mark masterminded it all – you know – like Brains off Thunderbirds? I used to think that Simon was somehow under his control. Isn’t that mad? He was just a little boy, a little frail wisp of a kid.’

  ‘But you were only little, too…you must have been scared…’

  ‘Yeah. I was scared all right.’

  Hesitantly she said, ‘Maybe you should tell Simon you’ve made your peace with Danny and that it’s over.’

  ‘He doesn’t even know I’ve found him.’

  ‘Then you should tell him.’

  ‘I can’t. Not now. I’ll tell him I’ve stopped looking, that I’m not interested.’

  He’ll know that you’re lying, Kitty thought. Simon was shrewd, he saw through everyone; beneath that charming, distracted air she knew he was hard as her mother was hard – both of them of them unfailingly ruthless when it came to defending their own.

  She took Ben’s hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘It will be all right. No matter what, you have me and Nathan.’ She smiled. ‘We’ll have another baby.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘We always said we would have two.’

  ‘I know it’s not long since Nath…I can’t waste any more time, Kitty.’

  She got up. ‘I’ll run the King of Spain’s bath. Why don’t you undress him – tell me how you think that nappy rash is doing.’

  Later, as Nathan slept, they made love and he didn’t use a condom and he told her how much he loved her over and over, scaring her with his intensity. He called her my Kitty, my own darling girl, my Katherine. No one called her Katherine except him, occasionally, when he would breathe the unfamiliar name out as though its syllables were music. The sound thrilled her; she was his Queen Katherine, worshipped and adored.

  She turned her head on the pillow. Ben slept beside her, his face anxious still as though even his dreams worried him. His arm lay across her body and she lifted it away gently and placed her own hand over her stomach. She wondered if she was already pregnant. Perhaps it would be a girl this time: Sophie Joy Walker.

  Ben had told her all about Joy, his mother who had died with her sons and her husband at her bedside, men who made sure she slipped away painlessly, knowing that she was loved. Ben had told her how he had held his mother’s hand throughout her last night, and that it had been Christmas and outside frost glittered on the ground and carol singers could be heard from the hospice chapel. ‘When we were kids at Christmas she would decorate the house at night, after we’d gone to bed, so that we’d come down in the morning and it was as if the world had been transformed. It was magical. She loved Christmas, she was like a child for those few weeks and normally she was so right and proper.’ He’d smiled to himself. ‘Mum was always very proper, you know? Not cold or anything – far from it – but Mark and I were shown how to behave.’

  He had told her this before he told her that Joy wasn’t his real mother. When he told her about his real mother, his real father, it was in short, stilted sentences as if each word was too much trouble and made him angry.

  What he told her about his real parents had kept her awake that night. Still living at home, she had got out of bed and gone down to where her mother was watching the late night film. Sitting on the edge of the settee, pretending to watch James Dean, she’
d shuddered and Julie had looked at her quizzically. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She had burst into tears. At once the TV was switched off and her mother’s arms were around her. The whole story spilled out and she could hear her mother’s shock in her silence. Julie had wiped her eyes with her fingers, hush-hushing her. ‘He’s still the same man,’ she said. ‘Still Ben, still lovely Ben…’

  She’d strained to hear the conviction in her voice but Julie looked frightened and all her smiles and comforting, sensible words couldn’t hide her fear. Ben had bad blood. Upstairs in her wardrobe her wedding dress hung covered in its protective plastic. In a week she would put on her brand new lingerie and the blue garter her girlfriends had bought her and slip the dress over her head. She couldn’t imagine not wearing the dress; the dress was beautiful and it would break her heart if it remained hanging there, a terrible symbol of disappointment. She knew she was shallow to think only of the dress, but it was impossible to think about the rest of it. It would hurt too much to think of Ben and the way he bowed his head as he made his confession. He had looked like a criminal, like a man who knew how wicked he had been and craved forgiveness. He had done nothing wrong, she told him, nothing had changed. She lied and lied to reassure him, trying not to think of everything he had told her, afraid to ask all the questions she had because it was too terrifying, like thrusting a fist into a fresh wound

  Leaving Ben and Nathan to sleep, Kitty got up and dressed quickly. Downstairs there was a pile of ironing to be done, a tangle of washing to be sorted, Nathan’s freshly laundered babygrows to be pegged on the line, reminding her of a string of headless paper dolls as they flapped in the breeze. She would prepare a salad for Ben’s lunch, tearing the leaves from the pot of basil to flavour the tomatoes. She would set the table properly and make a pot of coffee and everything would be just so, just as he liked it. He would be reassured and calmed and later they would go to the hospital together. She wouldn’t think about Danny lying somewhere in another ward close by, dying his slow, painful death. Danny was a monster, a wicked, disgusting creature. She would hope that it wouldn’t occur to Ben to introduce his baby son to such a man.

  Chapter 16

  Miss Grey said, ‘Oh you stupid, stupid girl! Do you have any idea how much that vase was worth?’

  Annette looked at the broken pieces of crystal on the hearth. The vase had shattered spectacularly, the noise it made bringing the two old sisters from the other room. She crouched down and began to sweep up the bits with the hearth brush. Her hands shook. From the corner of her eye she saw the older Miss Grey’s lace-up brogues and thick tan stockings as the woman came to stand over her.

  ‘That vase belonged to my mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It just slipped…’

  ‘Just slipped! It wouldn’t have slipped if you were taking care! It shall come out of your wages.’

  The younger Miss Grey said, ‘Oh Eddie, I’m sure we don’t have to go that far. Annette, dear, do be careful you don’t cut yourself.’

  ‘If she cuts herself it’s her own to-do. Honestly – I don’t know what’s got into you, Annette. You’ve become as much use as, as – well – as that vase! Sweep it up properly, fetch your coat and go. We don’t want you back.’

  She stalked out of the room, leaving her with the younger sister, May. May said gently, ‘Leave it, Annette. And do go home, you look quite exhausted. Don’t worry about what my sister says, of course we don’t expect you to pay for the vase – it was such an ugly old thing.’

  Annette scrambled to her feet with the dustpan full of shards. ‘Will you pay me for today?’

  May’s eyes darted towards the door as though she thought her sister was listening behind it. Timidly, she said, ‘I’d have to ask Edwina – she deals with that kind of thing.’

  ‘It’s only a few shillings, Miss Grey. Only what you owe me.’

  ‘But the vase…and Edwina is so cross with you…’

  ‘All right. It doesn’t matter.’ She put the dustpan down. ‘I’ll go.’

  On the tree-lined street outside the Greys’ pretty little villa, Annette took out her cigarettes and counted them. Three left. She hesitated. She had promised herself she would save them for later, when she could sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy a smoke properly. But she needed one now. Across the road was Thorp cemetery with its benches for mourners. She would go there and sit down and smoke. She wouldn’t think about anything, she would just smoke.

  In the cemetery the horse chestnut trees were beginning to blossom. Its rooks were hopping between graves, using the headstones as lookout posts. They looked at her. They carried on with their business.

  She sat down and tried to strike a match but her hands shook too much and it snapped against the box. She took a breath and tried again. Finally she was inhaling smoke deep into her lungs. She rested her head back and closed her eyes. She felt the sun warm on her face like a kiss. A breeze rustled the cellophane protecting the roses on a new grave and brought her the smell of wallflowers. Aloud she said, ‘Please help me, God.’ She listened to the quiet, suddenly broken by a rook’s harsh craw.

  Wallflowers grew in her grandmother’s back yard, her lovely, gentle grandmother who had said, ‘Don’t marry him, pet.’

  She’d laughed. ‘Why not?’

  Her Gran had sighed. She wouldn’t say any more, she’d said her piece. Danny was a Carter, and everyone knew about the Carters. But she had known better than her gran: Danny had broken away from his family, he never saw his mam, his dad was dead, and his brothers were never mentioned except to say how much he despised them. Danny had got away and was different. He liked books. He understood things she didn’t even try to. And he had such a beautiful face.

  Her gran had worn a navy suit to their wedding, so dark it looked black. She wore a cockeyed navy straw hat, too, battered-looking so that she’d felt a bit ashamed of her. Not that there were many guests to judge the old lady’s outfit, just a few girls from the sugar factory and a man she’d never met before, a mate from Danny’s days in the marines. He was Danny’s best man. She couldn’t remember his name because she hadn’t seen him since.

  A few weeks after she’d stood at the altar with Danny in his neat, blue suit, she knew that she was pregnant. She’d just turned seventeen. Danny was delighted. Everything was working to his plan. Ben grew inside her, pushing a little hand or foot against the barrier of her muscle and skin, rolling her new big belly like a wave, strong even then. Danny would press his hand to her when Ben kicked. He would grin. ‘A little fighter.’

  Annette drew on her cigarette. In a minute she would go and stand outside the school railings, watching for her boys. In a minute, there was no hurry. She might try to sleep – snatch forty winks like her gran used to. She’d play at her feet with her two dolls, Paula and Anne. Her grandmother would sometimes mumble from her dozing, slurring reassurances of her presence.

  Annette forced herself to open her eyes. Falling asleep on a cemetery bench was the kind of thing tramps did. If Danny saw her he would go mad. Madder. Danny was mad all the time, mad in all its senses. His madness showed itself in the terrible lies he told. No one believed in his imagined fancy woman Anne-Marie, or her baby; everyone knew he’d made her up. Joan had shaken her head when she’d told her. ‘Don’t you think that if it were true it would have got back to you before now? You can’t have a stiff shit round here without the whole world knowing! He’s winding you up, pet. Anne-Marie from

  Skinner Street

  ! Christ Almighty!’ She’d had doubts about telling Joan, but it turned out she knew already – Danny had told the same lie to the men he worked with and the grapevine made sure everyone knew. ‘He wants his head testing,’ Joan had said. ‘He’ll end up in St Stephen’s the way he’s going.’

  St Stephen’s was the lunatic asylum on the outskirts of Thorp. At school, if you were a bit slow, the other children would threaten you with its men in white coats. Even the mention of the asylum’s name scared her. The i
dea of Danny being sent there was terrifying.

  Last night Danny had said calmly, ‘Fetch Mark. I want to talk to him.’

  Her heart had almost stopped, only to start racing. Trying not to sound as if she might cry she asked, ‘What do you want to talk to him about?’

  ‘You’ll find out won’t you, when you’ve fetched him. Go on. Be quick.’

  She went out on to the street to look for him, hoping he’d gone off with all the other kids to play on the rec. She would tell Danny she couldn’t find him, he might, at a pinch, lose interest in whatever it was he was planning. The thought of one of Danny’s plans made her legs feel wobbly, she had to lean against the wall of their house. She saw Mark at the other end of the street, alone. She went to him.

  Mark had turned as she called his name. He’d looked at her warily, knowing that his father was home, guessing that she had come to take him inside, within a few feet of his tormentor. She had smiled at him as reassuringly as she could.

  ‘What you doing on your own?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Where’s Ben gone, leaving you all alone?’

  He looked down at the pavement and began bumping against the wall behind him. Gently Annette said, ‘Don’t do that, sweetheart.’ She crouched down next to him. ‘Why don’t you go and find Ben? I bet he’s playing a good game somewhere?’

  He looked at her. His face was grubby and too pale, his hair cut brutally short on Danny’s insistence so that it was barely more than bristles. He was still angelically beautiful, so much like Danny that sometimes she found it hard not to turn away from him.

  She saw his eyes widen in fright and looked behind her. Danny stood a little way away. She drew breath, the metallic taste of fear on her tongue.