by Lucy Lawrie
Mutti nodded grimly.
‘No! He can come to you for the day. He can come every Saturday. And one overnight per fortnight. That’s enough for him, honestly, he’s only—’
‘Take some time to think about it,’ said Murray, with an ‘I’m a reasonable man’ sort of shrug. ‘We want to do this all amicably, of course. I thought we could have a trial this weekend. Have Pip to stay for two nights, so he can acclimatise. He’s been fine staying one night, after all.’
‘He was sad, last time,’ I said. ‘He was sad afterwards, and he didn’t leave my side for the rest of the weekend.’
‘I’ve been looking into Saturday activities for him,’ said Murray. ‘There’s a wonderful orienteering centre near Peebles.’
Orienteering?
‘He’s only two.’ I shot a pleading look at Murray.
‘And I’ve ordered a new bed for him,’ said Gretel, as if that settled the matter, the plans couldn’t conceivably be changed now. ‘And a set of Rangers bedcovers.’
Rangers bedcovers?
‘Mutti chose them. Her friend’s grandson, who lives in Corstorphine, assured her. That’s what all the little boys are into.’
Mutti shifted doubtfully on the piano stool, as though she wished she could retract her statement.
‘We’ll pick him up from nursery on Friday lunchtime,’ said Murray. ‘And bring him back on Sunday.’
The thought of being in the flat alone for two whole nights while Pip slept miles away, cold under Rangers bedcovers, well, it didn’t bear thinking about. But what would happen if I refused? A further deluge of solicitors’ letters, followed by a summons to the family court? My inadequacies laid out in court for all to hear?
‘Please.’ My voice shook. ‘You can have him for one night this weekend. That’s fine. And I’ll work up to two, I will. But just not yet. Please.’
‘Okay,’ said Murray. ‘Let’s leave it at one night this weekend. But shall we say two nights the next time, in a fortnight?’
Gretel exhaled, puffing out her cheeks as though she was making a major concession. ‘Fine.’
Wasn’t it me who was supposed to be agreeing?
‘Oh, and we’re calling a meeting for the seventeenth,’ she went on. ‘We need to get a Parenting Agreement drawn up.’
‘I’ve arranged a solicitor for you,’ began Murray. ‘Someone who used to work for us but has now moved firms. She’s very good. Don’t worry about the cost; it’s all sorted. Please Janey, try to think of this as a good thing. Gretel and I can’t wait to make Pip a proper part of our family.’
Gretel flashed him her spoilt-girl smile and gave an excited little wriggle of her shoulders, as though he was talking about a big present he was going to give her. I only just resisted the urge to smack her across the face. Mutti, last out of the front door, shot me a look of apology, as though from one prisoner to another.
33
Janey
The Jungle Jive crew had descended on my flat after this morning’s class instead of going for the usual coffees.
Jody had a ‘technique’ she wanted to tell us about.
‘This was in that book about mindful parenting,’ she said. ‘The one Paul recommended.’
She looked around the room expectantly, and Molly supplied the chorus of ‘Oh, Paul’s lovely.’
‘He found it really helpful when Shona left. Some techniques to keep Elgin really centred and calm.’
‘Oh, poor Paul,’ murmured Molly. ‘All on his own.’
‘Apart from Geoff,’ added Cleodie.
‘Sit down’ said Jody. Cleodie, Molly and I sat down on my living room floor, on a big picnic rug that Jody had brought, and positioned our children in front of us.
Suddenly apples were raining down around us: Jody was tossing them from her bag.
‘So, you take the apple, and you sit down alongside your child and look at it for a few moments.’
‘Look at the apple, Cameron,’ said Molly in a sing-song voice.
‘See the way the light shines off it,’ said Jody gently. ‘Notice the colours – tawny red, green – and the way they merge into each other. The stippled effect, almost like an artist has used a paintbrush.’
‘Notice the different textures, the rough woodiness of the stalk . . .’
‘The little spidery black bit at the bottom,’ intoned Molly.
Pip shrieked. ‘Spider!’
‘No no, Pip,’ I said. ‘Come on, look at the apple.’
‘Lift the apple. Feel the weight of it in your hand. Pass it from one hand to the other. Think of at least three similes to describe your apple.’
‘As hard as a cricket ball,’ said Molly, which was a mistake because Cameron picked up the apple and threw it at the marble surround of the fireplace. ‘As round as the moo-oon.’
‘And I’m wondering – can you smell your apple?’ said Jody.
I lifted our apple and sniffed, then held it in front of Pip’s nose. He tried to copy me, but breathed out rather than in, propelling a little snail-trail of mucus onto its surface.
‘Eww,’ said Cleodie, who was leaning back on the heels of her hands. Rose was already halfway through munching her apple.
‘And perhaps,’ said Jody lightly, ‘if we want to, we might take a little bite now. See how the skin of the apple might feel under our teeth.’
She lifted the apple to her mouth and rested her large, rabbit-like front teeth on the surface of it.
Pip gave me a baleful look and got up.
‘Pip, come back.’
‘Twains,’ he called from the hall. Vichard jumped up and followed.
‘Sorry, Jody,’ I said. ‘He’s on to us, I think.’
‘You get the idea, though?’
‘I get the idea. Thanks.’
‘The next step, if they still don’t want to bite into it, is to cut the apple up and count the pips.’
I nodded and smiled. ‘I’ll get some plates and knives.’
But once in the kitchen I sat down at the table and put my head on my arms, just for a moment . . .
Recently I seemed to have lost the knack of sleeping altogether. Dropping off sometime between midnight and one, I’d be awakened by the dream at two, and lie awake for an hour or so afterwards trying to calm down and get back to sleep. Pip usually woke up about four, wanting a cuddle or drink. And then he woke up for the day around six. My eyelids had been drooping all day, and I was – shamefully, horribly – desperate to hand Pip over to Murray. He’d be arriving at five o’clock.
I jerked up when I heard a voice.
‘Oh dear. What’s wrong?’ It was Cleodie.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, hastily sitting up and rubbing my eyes. Had I actually fallen asleep? ‘I’m just so tired.’
‘Jody wanted a basin of water to do apple ducking.’
‘Hmm, might be better to do it in here.’
It was all I needed, a floor covered in water and a laundry load of wet towels. But if it would get Pip to taste an apple . . .
Cleodie drew up a chair. ‘You must be knackered, looking after Pip on your own. I find Rose exhausting and I only have her during the day. They’re such tedious people sometimes, toddlers.’
I blurted it out: ‘I’m not sleeping. I keep having this dream.’
‘What dream?’ Cleodie’s frog-eyes widened. The kitchen was quiet – and there was no noise from the sitting room either – they must’ve still been contemplating the way the light fell on the apples.
And I found I couldn’t hold it in much longer, I had to tell someone and there she was with her unfazed expression and kind, froggy eyes. Blissfully unconcerned with the expectations and demands of parenthood, and all its unwritten laws.
‘In the dream, Pip’s lying there. Hurt. And there’s a . . . a frightening thing.’
Silence again. But I could hear her breathing, even and slow. She didn’t seem remotely shocked.
‘What sort of frightening thing? A werewolf? A tax return?’
&n
bsp; ‘A thing, an object.’
But suddenly I remembered her writing. I didn’t want to end up in the latest sensational novel about a madwoman in the attic. Perhaps I should amend the dream, just as a precautionary measure. I said the first thing that came into my mind.
‘A slotted spoon.’
‘A slotted spoon?’ she echoed. ‘Like what you’d use to lift potatoes out of the cooking water?’ She spoke as though the foodstuff in question was crucial.
‘Yes, or vegetables, perhaps.’
The corners of her mouth went down and she nodded slowly.
‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘I can see why that might be frightening.’
‘It’s not really—’
And then, from Pip’s bedroom, Jody’s voice: ‘Ooh, naughty naughty, you guys, how did you get hold of that?’
We went through. Pip and Vichard were on the floor near his cot, playing with the trains. On the cream wall behind them, a black mess of scribbles. Most of them childish, indecipherable. Apart from one word, written quite clearly a few inches above the skirting board:
HELL
I stepped back as though I’d been hit.
‘They must have got hold of this,’ said Jody, holding up a permanent marker.
‘Hell?’ I said in a little, high-pitched voice.
Jody leaned closer towards the writing. She looked . . . could she possibly look . . . smug?
‘This’ll be Pip,’ she said, gesturing carelessly to the scribbles. ‘And this bit down here is probably Vichard. I’m so sorry. Oh, I’m mortified.’
‘Vichard wrote “hell” on my wall?’
‘We’ve been doing a wee bit of phonics work at home,’ said Jody. ‘He’s tried to write “hello”. That’s what’s happened.’
‘He’s two.’
Jody shrugged. ‘I know. What can I say? Don’t worry though, Janey. Children develop at such different rates, don’t they. I’ve heard that it’s better to leave phonics work till they’re in primary one, really, because otherwise they get bored, you see. The gifted ones just get bored.’
I looked down at Vichard, who was stuffing one of the trains into his mouth and shouting ‘Gah! Gah!’
‘Pip, did you see what happened?’ I grabbed his hand and pulled him round to face the wall. ‘Who wrote this?’
Pip looked at me blankly, then at the wall, then pulled his hand away and turned back to his trains.
‘I’m not angry, Pippy. I’m not angry. But who did this?’
Had someone – something – come in here and written that while they played?
‘I really must see about getting him some of those Kumon lessons,’ said Jody.
‘Has anyone been in here, Pip? Apart from you and Richard?’
He shrugged. ‘Dend.’
I moaned quietly. Jody took my arm and led me through to the sitting room. ‘Make her some sweet tea, Cleodie,’ she said. Cleodie ignored her and sat down on the sofa.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. ‘He won’t eat. He sees imaginary people. He keeps talking about this Dend.’
Jody rubbed the back of my hand.
‘Imaginary friends are very common,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s quite rare for them to be a sign of mental problems.’
I nodded, trying to hold back tears. In that moment, Jody felt like a reassuring presence. Someone who knew so much about phonics and Kumon teachers and mindful parenting should know what they were talking about.
‘Now, Paul just raved about that family therapist they were seeing. Didn’t he, Moll?’
Molly nodded vigorously. ‘Raved.’
‘Just to get them over the whole transition. You know, Shona moving away with her human-rights barrister.’ She shrugged. ‘Geoff coming on the scene.’
‘He’d see all of you, I expect. Individually, and then perhaps together for some sessions. Maybe for some role-playing work, or trust exercises. You and Pip. Murray and Gretel.’
Oh, she’d be delighted about that. Maybe they’d even drag Mutti along.
‘I had a long chat with Paul about it and it sounds fascinating. So, for example, Gretel might be asked to act out a scenario from your point of view. Or Murray might be invited to take on Pip’s role. Maybe crouch down on the floor when he talks, so he’s physically occupying a smaller place.’
‘We don’t need a therapist,’ I whispered. ‘I’m tired. Just so tired.’
Cleodie stood up. ‘Everybody out,’ she said, clapping her hands. ‘Come on. This lady needs a nap.’
Jody looked startled and opened her mouth as though to present an alternative, subtly better proposal, but shut it again when she couldn’t think of one.
‘I’ll watch Pip and Rose,’ said Cleodie, pulling me to my feet.
And in two minutes the house was quiet, except for the faintest sound of Cleodie reading Beatrix Potter in Pip’s room. I sank my head into the pillows, eyes stinging with relief.
*
My three-hour nap meant I was feeling both spacey and wide awake when Steve came round later that evening. Murray had collected Pip and I’d sat and cried as though he’d been leaving forever with his little suitcase.
It was the first time I’d seen Steve since telling him about James and the party. I could still hardly believe I’d said all those things out loud, and I didn’t know how it would affect things between us. Had I taken anything sexual out of the equation by leaning on him with my tears and confidences? Had I cast him even more firmly in the role of sensitive man, platonic friend? Was this a date? Not a date?
He touched me lightly on the arm as he said hello, in a way that gave me no clue either way, but felt somehow more intimate than a kiss would have done.
‘Wow,’ he said, when we went into the living room. ‘This is the piano Hattie got you?’
‘Isn’t it gorgeous? I’ve been trying out some of my old tunes again but, well, I’m not much good any more.’
‘Play for me. Play for me now.’
I sat down and held my hands over the keys, letting them find the opening chords for The Trees of Glen Eddle. He sat on the sofa, leaning back, one ankle crossed over the other knee. Somehow, having him watching me changed everything. I felt, for the first time in years, that energy flowing down my arms, the passion thundering into the room with each chord.
When I’d finished, arms weak and shaking, he was sitting up straight, eyes fixed on me.
‘It’s so beautiful. You’re so beautiful when you play.’
‘It was you,’ I said, my voice choking in my throat. ‘You made it like that.’
He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t me.’
I got down from the piano stool and sat down next to him. He swivelled round to face me, his arm trailing along the back of the couch so it was almost touching my shoulder.
‘Why didn’t you make music your career?’
I shook my head. It was so ironic.
‘Dreams,’ I whispered. ‘Dreams again. It was a different dream back then.’
‘More nightmares?’
I nodded. ‘I wasn’t sleeping well, I was averaging about an hour a night, in the week before my audition at the RCM.’
‘The Royal College of Music? Really?’
‘I actually started hallucinating, in the audition.’
I remembered, as if it was yesterday, the train journey to London, how the train had stopped at Peterborough station, and I’d fought the urge to grab my case and step out onto the platform, because it was the station nearest to Ramplings. How I’d felt nauseous from the cheeseburger I’d bought in the buffet car, its bright neon cheese seeping into the hexagonal cardboard carton. I remembered emerging into a world of noise and confusion at King’s Cross station, the journey to the college by Tube, clutching my ticket so hard my fingers ached. In the college itself, the very air seemed rarefied, energised, charged with a sense of dreams within reach. After what seemed like hours, it was my turn. I found myself walking into a calm, almost unnaturally quiet auditorium, sitting dow
n at the piano, breathing its smell: the smell of the lacquered wood, the crimson felt of the hammers.
‘What happened?’
I’d arranged my music on the stand, smoothed my skirts just as I’d done now, and looked briefly up at the panel – two men and a woman, sitting in the front row of seats, holding notepads. One of them said a few words, and then . . .
‘Something made me look across the room, and way at the back, in the back row of seats, I saw . . . Oh God, Steve. It was awful . . . It was something from my dream.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded.
‘I started the first piece with the wrong chord. Unbelievably. I’d been practising it for months. It was like my fingers had forgotten what they were doing. I panicked, and started reading the music, trying to tell my hands what to do, you know? Instead of letting them feel their way, which they were more than capable of doing if I’d only been able to stop panicking. It was a total disaster. I had to stop halfway through the second page. I ran out of the room, out of the college, tried to find my way back to the Tube station. And I had a sort of panic attack.’
I’d sunk to my knees on the pavement, gasping for air, the world turning black. I’d cowered down by some railings, covering my head with my arms, the dirty, ashy smell of the pavement filling my nose. After some minutes, a waiter emerged from a little Italian café across the road and sat me down at a rickety table with a glass of water and two amaretti biscuits. Guiseppe, his name was. I pulled myself together and smiled, thanking him profusely, saying I was quite all right now, my good-girl St Katherine’s persona reviving. He called me ‘Bella’, stroked a curl away from my forehead and scribbled his phone number onto a little scrap of paper, which he pressed into my hand, with an unpleasantly moist kiss, as I left.
‘Could you have asked for another audition? Applied somewhere else?’
‘No, I got into a sort of thing. If I even started thinking about having another audition, a panic attack would start. I applied for secretarial college, thinking I’d try again in a year or so. But when I left St Katherine’s, there wasn’t the support any more.’
Without the music staff at St Katherine’s, nobody in the world had cared whether I had a career in music or not. Certainly not Granny, who was in the grip of dementia by that time, or my mother, who was doing a stint in a Broadway show and whose communications now took the form of occasional postcards.