‘Some people imagine “the blind” sit at home and read Braille, live in the dark and hobble around on a white stick.’
‘Guilty,’ says Ben, raising his hand. ‘Not about the hobbling, but I wouldn’t have put skiing with blind people.’
‘Don’t worry. But what you said earlier, about it being terrifying? I was petrified before the start of the downhill race and I was pretty scared when I fell down a crevasse while training on a glacier in Italy. It’s about trust and freedom. Skiing conquered a lot of my fears. Both of you know all about that.’
*
Aunt Viv slips on her coat.
‘Thanks so much for babysitting,’ Ben says. Aunt Viv babysat Louis, Emily and Nellie at my flat tonight.
‘Any time,’ she replies, kissing us both goodnight. ‘So glad you two had fun.’
After Aunt Viv has gone, I show Ben the photograph of Hugo skiing, all six foot four of him, donning his skin-tight yellow plastic suit and crash hat to race the downhill in Colorado.
‘How does he get home?’
‘By reference,’ I say. ‘He knows the bus routes, that’s fine, and he knows there are six trees along his road and his door is just before reaching tree number five. When we were children we’d count the stairs together and after a while he knew the house off by heart. It’s kind of the same in London. He knows little pockets. It’s instinct more than anything. Often he’ll catch cabs in the winter, but he hates that, says it’s like throwing money down the gutter, but sometimes life is too short to get freezing cold and lost.’
‘He’s pretty special, your brother,’ Ben says.
I place the photograph back on the mantelpiece. ‘Yes. Yes, he is.’
After a mug of mint tea, we tiptoe into Louis’s bedroom. I watch Ben carefully lift Emily out of bed. She was sleeping on our pull-out mattress. She wraps her slim arms around his neck. They look more together now; a puzzle that’s beginning to fit.
*
‘Is Ben Emily’s dad now?’ asks Louis when I kiss him goodnight.
‘I thought you were asleep.’ I sit down at the edge of his bed. ‘Yes,’ I add, ‘he is.’
‘Do you want to kiss Ben?’
‘He’s a friend, sweetheart.’ I am aware I hesitated.
‘Then he could live here, and he could be my dad too.’
‘Oh, Louis.’ I brush his cheek. ‘Ben is a friend, just like Emily is your friend. He won’t be moving in with us.’
‘Emily wants you to be her mummy, that’s what she said.’
For a second I’m flattered. ‘I can’t be Emily’s mum, but I can be her friend,’ I reassure him. ‘Now, are you going to go to sleep?’
‘Emily says her mum died in her sleep. You won’t die in your sleep, will you, Mum?’
I lift the duvet, telling him to budge up. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I promise him.
26
I’m sitting outside my counsellor’s office, waiting to be called in. Stephanie apologised, saying she was running late. I flick through a magazine of celebrities with toned bodies on the beach, only months after giving birth. I toss it back on to the coffee table. It’s the summer holidays and for the next six weeks I’ll need to juggle work with Louis. In a way, it’ll be a relief to stop the grinding routine, no longer having to clock-watch to get to school on time.
As I continue to wait for Stephanie, I think about the past few months leading up to the end of the summer term. I have spent virtually every weekend with Ben. Neither one of us wish to go anywhere near a pub or bar at a weekend, and we’d prefer to give parties a wide berth unless they’re for close friends or family, so we’ve naturally begun to do things together with the children. Recently we visited Grace’s grave in Hampshire. We laid down flowers, Louis keeping aside a pink rose to give to Emily in case she was sad. We have seen the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum and one Sunday we went to the National Portrait Gallery and the children dressed up in costumes and learned all about the famous people in the paintings. Louis and Emily were fascinated to hear about Henry VIII chopping off his wives’ heads.
We take Nellie out for long walks on the heath. We love our Sunday picnics on Parliament Hill, watching all the other dogs playing as we eat our homemade sausage rolls and cupcakes. In the evenings Aunt Viv often babysits for us, shooing us off, saying we need adult time. ‘Have a meal,’ she insists, ‘or go dancing. Stay out as late as you want.’
Ben and I usually take it in turns to choose a movie and head to the cinema on Belsize Park Road with the comfy leather seats. We laugh, saying how sad it is to be eating popcorn on a Saturday night, but at the same time it’s a relief not to be in some seedy nightclub.
We go on shopping trips. Ben and I bought Emily and Louis chef’s hats and aprons and I’ve been teaching them how to bake in Ben’s kitchen. Much more space in his flat and, besides, Ben has all these mod-con gadgets that need to be used before they turn to rust. We listen to Emily’s favourite group, One Direction, as we make shortbread, chocolate cookies and orange and lemon cupcakes with fancy icing – it all gets a bit messy, but Ben’s beginning not to care. When we’re all dancing around the kitchen table to ‘Live While We’re Young’, sometimes I catch that look in Ben’s eyes that says, ‘A year ago I could not have imagined myself doing this.’ Like me, I sense he’s a lot happier. I feel a connection to Ben because there’s always been something missing in his life. It’s not as simple as a wife or family or money. It’s something you can’t describe. I felt spiritually bankrupt for years; I didn’t care about anything, and I see that in Ben too. I see him as one of my tribe, and I’m beginning to think he sees me in the same way.
We’ve talked about our friendship, both of us admitting again that this is a first for us. Sometimes I sense he might want more, but in the next breath he’s saying he doesn’t want a relationship. Surely what we have is too precious to risk. Janey keeps on saying how unusual it is to spend so much time with a single man and for there to be no hint of romance. But that’s why it works, I tell her. If I want sex I’ll look for it elsewhere.
‘Polly,’ Stephanie says, standing at the door, dressed in a cream blouse and linen trousers. ‘Come in.’
*
‘How are you feeling today?’
‘Good.’
‘Can you expand?’
‘Happy.’
That throws her. ‘Right. Good.’ She adjusts her glasses.
‘This morning, when I woke up,’ I continue, ‘I felt a beam of sunlight through my bedroom window, before Louis jumped on to the bed and said, “Mum, do cows have normal feet?” He’s always coming up with the most random questions.’ I smile. ‘Half of them I don’t know the answers to. Anyway, we cuddled in bed and I felt so lucky to be alive. I’ve been clean for four and a half years. I’m proud of myself. I don’t feel so empty anymore.’
Stephanie remains poised. ‘Why do you think that is, Polly?’
‘I don’t know, a sense of well-being I guess. I’m still single, don’t have a high-flying job but I have a job I really enjoy. I don’t even miss sex that much. I’ve become quite the nun.’
Stephanie wants to smile.
‘I overdosed on sex in my twenties.’
‘What do you think was missing from your life before, that you’re getting now?’
‘I’m enjoying my friendship with Ben,’ I admit. ‘It’s given me a lot of confidence, being with someone who understands the “addict” thing.’ I keep on thinking until at last it dawns on me why I am happier. ‘The thing missing from my life for so many years has been intimacy. I enjoy laughing with Ben about the funny things that have happened during my day, tucking Louis up in bed, taking Nellie for a walk. It’s nothing earth-shattering, it’s just doing all the normal things normal people do.’ I sip my water. ‘Ben’s asked me on a camping trip.’
I think back to how he’d come into the café to ask if I’d consider going with him. ‘It’s for Emily,’ he pointed out when he clocked my hesitancy and making it
even harder for me to say no, he went on to tell me that Grace had made a promise that they’d go to this festival in the summer holidays. ‘Do you like camping?’ I’d asked. ‘Can you put a tent up?’
‘Of course not, but how hard can it be banging a few pegs into the ground.’ He went on to show me a picture of a fairytale castle set in acres of land. ‘It’s my treat, Polly, for you and Louis, as a thank-you.’
‘That is such a big deal,’ Janey had exclaimed. ‘You’ll be sharing a tent!’
I look back at Stephanie. ‘I don’t think my past can hurt me anymore. I’ve looked over my shoulder for too long. I feel as if I have so much to look forward to now, even a camping trip in the rain.’
27
2008
It’s been two months since the announcement that Lehman Brothers crashed.
Someone knocks on the door. It’ll be Matt. When we argue he always storms out only to have to come back to get his car keys. I open the door, stare blankly at our thirty-something ginger-haired neighbour from downstairs who acts like some social worker.
‘Er, I was just wondering,’ he says, dressed in sloppy trousers and a U2 T-shirt, scratching his head. ‘I heard a lot of shouting again?’ He looks over my shoulder, into the hallway.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I reassure him with a smile. The telephone rings. ‘But thanks anyway. Better get that.’ I shut the door and head to the sitting room. It’s Mum. She’s kindly agreed to pay for us to live here for now, until we know what’s happening to the house. ‘I’m doing it for Louis more than anyone else,’ she’d said, when I’d promised to pay her back. She couldn’t help adding that Matt had been reckless. There had been warning signs, but he’d refused to listen to them, gambling with his money and with our future. Now what’s going to happen? Will the bank repossess the house?
‘Everything’s fine, Mum.’
‘Did you see your GP?’
‘You’re depressed, extremely common I might add,’ he had assured me, when I told him I wasn’t sleeping. ‘Being a first-time mother is exhausting.’ I didn’t argue with him when he wrote out a prescription for antidepressants.
‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum, just the normal tiredness.’ I make a knocking sound against the coffee table. ‘Someone’s at the door …’
‘Hang on! Polly! Call me later …’
I hang up abruptly, thinking of the day ahead, the lone-liness of sitting here in the flat, staring at these four walls or pushing Louis round the park like a zombie, worrying if Matt is going to come home tonight and what mood he’ll be in. I glance at my watch, wondering how long I can let Louis sleep. I think about calling Janey, but then decide against it. Since our argument we’ve patched things up. She said sorry, I said sorry, but we’ve barely seen one another since she’s been busy job-hunting. She’s been approached by someone in the film location industry, to see if she’s interested in joining forces to set up their own company.
I haven’t told her the full story behind what’s going on between Matt and me, but I know Janey doesn’t like him. When there’s no food in the fridge and I point out that there’s nothing stopping him from a trip to the shops, he hits me, saying I waste our cash on vodka. Then he says sorry, he always says sorry, pleading with me that he didn’t mean it and saying it won’t happen again. I know it will. Deep down I think Matt hates me as much as I hate myself. Pretty much whatever I do or say now provokes him, and Louis isn’t his son; he’s some screaming child who wakes him up in the middle of the night. Matt never wants to hold him. During heated rows he blames me for having a baby. ‘I never wanted this life,’ he says. ‘You did. You trapped me.’
I know Matt’s in deep trouble. As he keeps on telling me, he’s up to his eyeballs in debt and if I make any more demands on him he’s going to crack.
I force myself off the sofa when I hear Louis crying. It’s like drilling in my ears. I understand why women say they could kick and scream at their children. I love my son, I do, but I wish he’d stop crying, just for five minutes. I lift him out of his cot. ‘Stop crying, baby boy,’ I say, rocking him in my arms. ‘Please stop crying. STOP CRYING.’
*
Later that morning Louis and I are in Cathnor Park, around the corner from our flat. I can’t even remember dressing Louis in his dungarees and hat, or getting here. I push Louis on the baby swing. What day is it? Maybe I should call Hugo? I need to tell someone about Matt. He and Aunt Viv both understand we’re not happy, but along with Janey, I don’t have the courage to tell them what really goes on behind closed doors. They suspect, but neither could imagine it was this bad. It’s my fault. I’m so ashamed that I’m in this position. Each time I have a fresh bruise I swear I’ll leave him, but end up talking myself out of it, especially when he tells me he didn’t mean to, and that I have to support him. Even if I could leave, where would I go? Surely it will get better when Matt sells the house. The truth is, I don’t want to be alone. There’s comfort in being with someone, even someone like Matthew.
Irritably I lift Louis out of the swing. He protests, kicking his arms and legs, he begins to cry again, snot running down his nose. I shove him back in his pram and look for some tissues. He needs changing too. I swear I could leave him here, leave him and run. I unscrew the vodka bottle I stuffed into my bag, but there’s barely any left. I walk away from the pram. One step, two steps … Go, that internal voice is saying to me. Escape. Leave Matt and this life behind. Grab your passport and take off, Polly. Go anywhere but stay here and face the mess you’re in. I take another step and another step away from my son. Then I hear him cry out. I can’t breathe. I turn back and run. What is wrong with me? I’m a monster. I look at his trusting eyes. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to be alive. I pick him up and cradle him in my arms. ‘I’m so sorry, so sorry,’ I say, smothering him in kisses. I am a bad person, bad friend, bad daughter, bad sister, bad girlfriend and a bad mother. Bad everything. I’m thankful Louis is too young to see the real me.
We have to get home quickly. I walk past a bin and chuck the empty vodka bottle into it, but stop abruptly when I see a bottle of beer. I glance around; there are a few mums playing on the swings and climbing frame with their children. I rummage in the bin to grab the can and also take out a plastic cup, stained with lipstick around the rim. I pour the dregs of the beer into the cup. There’s a good fingers’-worth. It’s accompanied by a couple of cigarette butts. I fish the butts out and drink every last drop.
*
Someone is shaking my shoulder. ‘Sweetheart,’ he says, in a voice I don’t recognise, ‘you have a visitor.’
Aunt Viv is in the sitting room. Matt stands next to her, acting like the concerned husband.
‘You only have to sit down for one second.’ I exaggerate a yawn. ‘Such a busy day, Aunt Viv.’
‘Glass of wine, Vivienne?’ Matt heads into the kitchen.
‘You know I haven’t touched a drink for over twenty years,’ she says coolly.
‘You must be pretty strong to be able to give it up. Wish I had that willpower.’
‘I’m not strong,’ she says, her eyes fixed on mine. ‘It’s only because of my weakness that I can’t drink anymore. One is too much and a thousand isn’t enough.’
‘Well, I’m full of admiration,’ Matthew says, before excusing himself, shutting the sitting room door behind him.
When he’s out of the kitchen Aunt Viv grabs my trembling hand.
‘What’s wrong? How much are you drinking?’
I feign ignorance. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You can tell me, you know I’m the last person to judge.’ Aunt Viv searches my face, my eyes for clues. She glances at the door. ‘I don’t want to see you get hurt. Nor does Hugo.’ She picks up my glass, sniffs it. I grab the vodka from her. Half of it spills onto the table. ‘Aunt Viv! What are you … ?
‘Shut up, Polly!’ She shakes me by the shoulders. ‘And tell me the truth. The truth. Do you understand? How much are you drinking?’
I ed
ge away from her. ‘I don’t know. A lot, but …’
‘How much?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Is Matthew … ?’ She looks at the door again. ‘Is he hurting you?’
‘No! I mean, things aren’t great, the house hasn’t sold and the bank is on his case so he’s very worried …’
‘I don’t care about him. I care about you. What’s this?’ She touches my face. ‘Don’t tell me you banged your head against a door again. Let me help you.’
Every part of me wants to tell her.
‘You can trust me,’ she says. ‘Drink isn’t the answer. Look what it did to our family.’
I place my hand over hers, look into her eyes, and for a moment I recognise myself.
I release my hand when we hear the loo flushing, a door unlocking, footsteps heading towards us.
‘Leave him,’ she urges.
*
‘What were you talking about when I came in?’ asks Matt, the moment Aunt Viv leaves.
‘Nothing. I’m going to bed.’ I walk past him; he takes my arm roughly. ‘What were you talking about?’
‘Let go.’
‘Not until you tell me.’
‘It was nothing.’
‘You’re lying.’
I try to manoeuvre myself out of his way. ‘You were talking about me, weren’t you?’
‘Not everything’s about you, Matt.’
He follows me into our bedroom, paces up and down. ‘She doesn’t like me. Hugo’s been poisoning her, I bet. That’s why she was here, checking up on you.’
‘Don’t be so paranoid.’ I sit down on the edge of the bed and kick off my shoes.
He walks over to my side of the bed. ‘It’s difficult not to be when you lie to me.’
‘Matthew, if you hit me again I swear …’ I reach for the telephone on my side of the bed, ‘I’ll call the police.’
He grabs the telephone from me; hurls it against the wall like an animal. Terrified now, I edge away from him, muttering I’m going to sleep next door, in Louis’s room.
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