Yes, My Darling Daughter

by Margaret Leroy

  “Sweetheart, what’s the matter? Is it something Adam said?”

  She shakes her head. “I want them back,” she says through her tears.

  “Who do you want back, sweetheart?”

  “I want my family back,” she says.

  “But this is your family, Sylvie. Me and you together.”

  I’m not sure that she can hear me.

  “I want my house and my family. I want them, Grace.”

  There’s a little dull ache in my heart, but I’m desperate to comfort her.

  “We’ll find the answer, sweetheart,” I tell her. I rock her gently against me. “Somehow or other, we’ll get there. We’ll make things better somehow . . .”

  She seems so far away from me. She goes on crying silently, and there’s so much grief in her face.

  Later, once Sylvie has cried herself to sleep, I ring Adam. I know I have to end it once and for all, my brief flirtation with his impossible theory.

  He answers straightaway.

  “Grace. Hi. Good to hear from you. We were going to fix an appointment . . .”

  There’s music playing in the background, languorous jazz piano. I wonder about that whole life of his, which I know nothing about. Perhaps he is with his girlfriend, the seductive biophysicist.

  “The thing is,” I say, “I’m not so sure anymore—not sure it’s right for Sylvie. You know, what we’ve been doing. Not sure it’s going to help her . . .”

  There’s a brief silence.

  “You have to do what you think is right,” he says.

  I know he’s disappointed. He’s being so carefully reasonable, but I hear the sag in his voice. I think of how he seemed when we left him in the corridor—that gaunt, stretched look he had. I feel uneasy, that I’m being so ungrateful.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says a little too hastily. “I have to admit I’d have loved to work with Sylvie. But it was good to meet you both anyway.”

  “Yes, it was,” I say vaguely.

  I stare into the dark of my garden through the gap in my curtains, where light from my French windows spills across the lawn and gilds the twigs of the mulberry. I feel stuck. I don’t know how to finish this conversation. Hearing his voice, all the warmth in it, my anger seeps away, and it enters my mind that it’s too abrupt to just end our connection like this—with this quick, embarrassed phone call—when he’s been so kind to us. That really it wouldn’t be polite. That I owe him something more than that.

  I clear my throat.

  “I wonder—could I come and see you? I’d really like to explain. Just me without Sylvie—perhaps in my lunch hour or something?”

  It isn’t what I’d planned to say.

  “Yes, of course,” he tells me.

  He sounds surprised. I imagine him—how he pushes his hand through his hair so the hair sticks up, gives him that startled look, like everything amazes him.

  27

  SUNDAY IS A gorgeous day, with a wide-open sky and the light so vivid the world seems crowded with things.

  I spend the morning out in the garden with Sylvie. The air smells different, and you can see much farther than before. The trees in the Kwik Save car park are fizzing and seething with starlings, a whole flock of them that have settled there. They’re dark as wet tree branches, with greenish beaks and heads that flicker and twitch. I cut back the straggling roses and tie up the dying snowdrops with raffia from the flower shop. Sylvie has a miniature rake, and she rakes the leaves from the lawn.

  “I like to work in the garden,” she says. She’s bright-eyed, rather out of breath.

  “I know you do. And you’ve always been such a help. Even when we first came here, when you were only two. You’ve always helped me.”

  “Even when I was really small?”

  “Yes, even then,” I tell her. “Though I had to keep my eye on you. Once, I had my back toward you and suddenly you went quiet, and when I turned round, you were eating a handful of earth.”

  “Did it taste nice, Grace?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. You seemed to be enjoying it.”

  “Did I really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  She’s pleased by this picture of her younger, more delinquent self.

  “I wouldn’t do that now,” she says.

  “No.”

  “What was I like when I was little?” she says.

  “You had the tiniest fingers . . . Like this.”

  I show her how tiny by touching her wrist with my fingertip, just a feather touch. But I’m wary. I don’t know where this conversation might lead—going back in time like this. It always happens so rapidly, between one breath and the next, the most innocuous comment undermining everything, taking her away from here, from me and the life that we share.

  The starlings take off in a great swirling mass. They darken the garden as they pass over, as though the sun has gone in. I wait for what Sylvie will say.

  But this time she just smiles at me.

  “That’s very tiny, Grace,” she says.

  We’re invited to Lavinia’s for an afternoon party. There will be wine and Earl Grey tea and crumpets, and music around the white piano in her living room.

  The house is full when we get there. There are smells of claret and cigarette smoke and the lavish scents of candles from the flower shop. Light through the crystals in the windows throws colors all over the floor.

  Lavinia brings me wine and beckons to someone’s teenage daughter. The girl is wearing denim shorts and massive slouchy boots and extravagant purple lipstick, and she plainly adores small children. She tells me she is Tiffany, and she’d love to take Sylvie upstairs, where she says there is a PlayStation. Sylvie goes happily with her.

  I stand by Lavinia’s Buddhist altar, sip rather too fast at my wine. A man comes over to talk to me. He has freckles and an engaging smile, and I immediately like him. Then he tells me he is a healer, and I feel my heart sink a little. I have such a longing for ordinariness. I’d like to talk about the local elections or how much everyone misses the London Routemaster bus—anything concrete and solid and indisputably real. But I ask him politely about it, and he tells me to hold out my hand. I wonder if this is some kind of come-on, like when men try to read your palm, but he doesn’t touch me. He holds his own hand out, just over mine.

  “There. Can’t you feel it?” he says.

  But I can’t feel anything.

  “Can’t you sense the vibration?” he says. “A bit like pins and needles?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I say.

  I feel I have disappointed him. Perhaps I should have pretended.

  I’m relieved when the musicians start to play. We all crowd into the living room to listen. There are three of them—clarinet, saxophone, and piano. They’re gray-haired and rumpled and casually, dazzlingly skilled. The music wraps around you, seems to become part of you.

  Sylvie comes downstairs with Tiffany, drawn by the music. She comes to find me, slips her hand in mine.

  “Was she okay?” I whisper to Tiffany.

  “Of course. She’s gorgeous,” she says. “She was really chatty—weren’t you, angel?” She bends, smooths Sylvie’s hair.

  I’m so pleased that it all went well, that Sylvie behaved like any normal child.

  Tiffany straightens up again.

  “But I think she liked your other house better—the place where you lived before,” she says. “She told me all about it. She must have a really good memory.”

  I try to ignore this, pretend it isn’t happening.

  “I guess she does,” I say vaguely.

  “It’s amazing when she’s still so small, remembering all those things like that. You must be so proud of her,” she says.

  “Well, thanks for looking after her. You’ve been so helpful,” I say.

  The musicians are playing “Summertime.” My heartbeat slows as I listen. Sylvie looks up and smiles at me—her face is shining with
pleasure. The music throws its bright nets over everything, and I try to live in this moment and think of nothing else. I tell myself this is good, this is all that anyone could ask for—the music all around us and Sylvie’s hand in mine.

  Mostly, we are happy at Lavinia’s.

  But in the night she wakes me. She’s standing at the side of my bed. When I turn on my lamp, her vast vague shadow is thrown against the wall. She’s sobbing, her body shaking.

  I put my arms around her. I feel her sobs move through me, as though we are one person. The sobs seem too big for her body.

  “Sweetheart, you’re here with me,” I tell her, as I always do. “You’re safe here. Whatever you saw—it’s all over. What you saw was only a dream.”

  She goes on crying. Her face is marked with the shiny tracks of tears that glimmer in the light of my lamp. I’m seized by a panicky helplessness. I can’t reach her, can’t comfort her.

  She quiets a little, and there are words in her crying.

  “No no no no.”

  At first I think she wants to push me away, that she’s telling me to let go of her. But she’s clinging to me, pressing up against me.

  “Sweetheart, you’re safe now. You’re safe here with me. It wasn’t real, what you saw.”

  “No no no no.”

  I have the strangest sensation—that it’s not Sylvie’s voice exactly. The intonation sounds somehow off. As though the words aren’t precisely hers, as though they’re someone else’s words. The little hairs stand up on my neck. The room seems tilted, unsafe.

  I push back the covers so she can get into my bed. She climbs in. She’s sitting up, her back straight, rigid. Her crying is suddenly torn off.

  “Grace.” Her voice is high, shrill. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” She clutches at my arm, her thin fingers digging into me. “Grace.”

  Fear surges through me. I don’t know how to help her.

  I put my hands on her shoulders, looking into her face.

  “You’re breathing, sweetheart. You’re breathing fine. If you can speak, you can breathe . . .”

  I try to keep my voice quite level.

  “We’ll breathe together,” I tell her.

  We breathe in time. She takes big, noisy gulps of air. The panic leaves her. She moves down under my duvet, and her eyes roll upward and close.

  But I lie awake for hours and hours, hearing her crying in my mind. I’m still awake when the first frail light of dawn slides under my curtains. It’s such a lonely sight.

  28

  AT LUNCHTIME ON Monday I have my meeting with Adam Winters.

  I’m late because it’s such a struggle to find a place to park. It’s a raw, hollow day, with an echoey calling of rooks, and the air is thick and gentle with moisture. As I walk across the campus, I can feel the wet on my hair. I tell myself this won’t take long. I’ll say what I’ve come to say and thank him, and then it will all be over, and at least I’ll have some clarity, at least I’ll know where I stand.

  He’s waiting for me outside the campus cafeteria. A hot smell of chip grease hangs about its doors.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” he says. “Perhaps we could find somewhere quieter . . .”

  “No, really, it’s fine,” I tell him. “I won’t be able to stay all that long. I have to get back to the shop.”

  “Yes, of course,” he says.

  He pushes open the doors. A wave of sound crashes over us, and I think that perhaps he was right, that we should have found somewhere more peaceful. The place is milling with students, all laughing and flirting together, so shiny and certain and careless. I envy them, as I always do.

  We buy tuna baguettes and coffee, and he takes me to a table by the window. It looks out over a courtyard that has a struggling fountain in a shallow concrete pool. There are coffee rings on the table, and the sauce dispenser has a dark, dried crust of ketchup down its side.

  His glance is thoughtful, concerned.

  “You look exhausted, Grace,” he says. “Is everything okay?”

  I explain how Sylvie woke in the night. I don’t tell him about the words she said and how strange that made me feel. I tell myself I was probably overwrought anyway.

  He murmurs something sympathetic. I wish he wouldn’t be nice like this. It makes it harder to say what I’ve come here to say.

  I clear my throat.

  “The thing is—I thought I should see you—to tell you why we couldn’t carry on. It seemed only fair to come and see you.”

  The words are lumpy, solid things.

  But he smiles at me politely.

  “That’s really good of you,” he says.

  I start to unwrap my baguette. The squeak of cellophane sets my teeth on edge. My body feels loose and clumsy, like it’s a wooden marionette that I don’t know how to control. I wish I wasn’t here at all.

  “I’m worried it’s wrong for Sylvie. That it’s the wrong direction to go in. That it’s wrong to be concentrating like this on all the strange things that she says.”

  “I understand,” he tells me. “I can see why you might have doubts about it.”

  We’re leaning together across the table to hear each other above the noise. His face is a little too close to mine. I can see all the detail in it—the stippling of stubble on his jawline, the smudges of dark in the thin skin under his eyes. The coffee has a burnt taste, but it’s strong and I drink gratefully.

  “She was upset after the session,” I say. I’m forcing myself to be honest, even though it feels so difficult. I feel I owe him that. “I felt you pushed her too hard.”

  He sips his coffee, his eyes on mine.

  “You don’t like her being asked things directly, do you? Not the really big questions,” he says. “I’ve noticed that. And you hate it when I press her . . .”

  “But if you ask her directly, she mostly can’t tell you,” I say. My voice a little shrill. Protesting, justifying myself.

  “Yes,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to tell you. She’s only a little kid—it’s a struggle for her to express it. She’s trying to talk about things she has no words for.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” I say.

  He puts his cup down in the saucer—carefully, as though it could easily break.

  “It’s almost as though you don’t quite trust her,” he tells me. “Perhaps you need to trust her to decide what’s safe to say.”

  His voice is gentle, but I still don’t like him saying this. For a moment I don’t say anything.

  “I’m always so frightened of hurting her, of making everything worse,” I tell him.

  “Grace. She’s hurt already.”

  There’s nothing I can say to that.

  We sit for a while in silence. Then Adam leans toward me across the table. He has his eager, urgent look.

  “Look, I know it seems weird, what I do,” he says. “I can understand your misgivings. When I first got into the paranormal, my colleagues were appalled. Well, I’m sure you can imagine—”

  “Simon, you mean?” I think of the man in the blazer, of the skeptical tone in his voice. Adam can be very . . . enthusiastic. Don’t you find that?

  “Yes. Among others.” He makes a little gesture, as though to push something away. “Simon thinks that reality is what we see and hear. No more than that. That the study of the paranormal is a debasement of science. That people’s sense of the unseen is just a delusion,” he says.

  “He did say something about you being very left field,” I tell him.

  Adam takes up the paper napkin that came with his baguette, starts ripping little strips off it.

  “To be honest, I think he’d like me out of his department,” he says.

  “But what about having an open mind?” I ask. “You know—that thing you said. ‘A scientist should never say that anything is impossible . . .’”

  “Simon has this favorite line that he always comes out with,” he says. “As though it answers everything. ‘If you’re
too open-minded your brains drop out.’”

  Something changes in me when he says that. I see his life quite differently. It’s always looked so enviable—his prestigious job, his admiring students. I hadn’t imagined that he might know some kind of loneliness too.

  “So why do you do it?” I ask him. “Why is it so important to you?”

  There’s a brief silence between us.

  I try again. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

  I don’t really expect that he’ll tell me. I expect him to reply with some impassioned abstraction—how psychologists need to be less defensive and think outside the box, how we shouldn’t be so frightened of the things we have no words for. I don’t think for a moment that he’ll really answer truthfully.

  He’s silent for a moment, as though working out what to say.

  “There was this thing that happened,” he says.

  There’s a new, harsher note in his voice. I’m intrigued.

  “What thing?” I ask him.

  He isn’t looking at me.

  “My brother died,” he tells me.

  I stare at him. For a moment I think I misheard.

  “Your brother?” I remember the photo on his desk, the boy in oil-stained overalls who looks like Adam but isn’t him. I feel a warning tug of sadness. “Is—was that him in the photo in your office?”

  Adam nods. “That’s Jake,” he tells me.

  “When did this happen?” I say.

  He thinks for a moment, adding up the years.

  “Jake was seventeen when he died. He was two years older than me. It’s sixteen years ago now. He died in a car crash,” he says.

  I’m a little afraid. I’m not sure I want to hear this.

  “But—how? What happened?” I ask him.

  “We used to take cars when we were kids,” he tells me.

  “Oh.” I feel a jolt of surprise, that he’s not quite who I thought he was. “That’s not at all how I’d imagined your childhood,” I say.

  I feel my face go hot. This seems to imply that I’ve thought about him too much.

  He’s looking at me curiously.

  “How did you imagine it, then?” he says.