House. Tree. Person.

by Catriona McPherson

“Okay, to be honest”—I hoped I wasn’t blushing—“I heard on the grapevine. Not officially. You know I live across the street. Well, the whole row of neighbours is pretty much talking about nothing else.”

  “I can imagine!”

  “My son has taken it very badly,” I told him. “I’m really worried about him.”

  “Is that his coat?” Dr. F asked, smiling. I smiled back. I hadn’t realised it, but I’d snuggled further down into it when I mentioned him.

  “And it’s kicked up some old stuff for me too,” I said, brave inside Angel’s jacket. “Nightmares and things. And actually that’s the real reason why I’m here. Lars and Belle and Surraya reckoned I should tell you I’m having a few … they told me not to call them panic attacks, so I don’t really know what to call them. Flashbacks?”

  “To what?” His voice was gentle and his face was soft, with the faintest smile.

  “A bad time. Ten years ago.”

  Now he smiled widely. Beamed at me. “Ten years ago?” he said. “And your son’s a teenager? And you’re married to his father? Well, there’s nothing to worry about at all then.” He laughed a little at my confusion but not unkindly. “Ten years ago you were grown up, Ali. You were formed by your family long before then. Ten years ago you’d formed your adult bonds and you’d made your own family. Anything that happens when our life is made can be remedied.”

  “Even if something happens that … unmakes it?” I said. That was as far as I was willing to go.

  He sat forward a little more in his seat. “Unmakes it?” he said. “You mean … you found out your life was not what you thought it was?”

  I nodded, thinking there was no way I was going to speak, but then I found myself speaking anyway. “I was really low,” I said, the words coming out on one little breath each. “And I needed my mum. Like you said. My mum. The central … like you said. And she wouldn’t come. She lives in France and she wouldn’t come back.” I sniffed and swallowed the gulp of air. “And so I got better anyway, without her.”

  “That seems very unlikely,” Dr. F said. Then he flapped his hands at the expression on my face. “I don’t doubt that you’re better. Of course you are, although a scab’s not a scar, Ali. We need to heal to scars if we’re going to carry on.”

  “Scars.”

  “Being realistic. But that’s not what I meant was unlikely. I mean that you asked her to come and she wouldn’t. Children learn very quickly how much they can lean on their parents. It’s one of the tragedies of poor parenting, actually. How quickly a little one learns not to look for help.” I flashed on Angel that morning saying just be okay, Mum, and I found myself nodding. “So my best guess is that it was a misunderstanding. A miscommunication?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Check,” he told me. “And then let’s talk again.”

  I walked out as if I had springs under me. He really was a good doctor. He’d given me more hope than I’d ever had. He’d made it sound so easy. I was on the phone to Marco before I was ten paces down the corridor.

  “Where are you?” I asked him.

  “Where do you think? Cooling our heels at the police station waiting for Sergeant Fat Arse to show up.”

  “Is Angel okay? Put him on.”

  There was a kerfuffle of sound while the phone got passed over and then silence.

  “Ange?”

  “What?”

  “Just tell them the truth, the whole truth this time, and answer all their questions. You’ve got nothing to hide and they’ll understand why you said what you said last time. Okay? Listen to me and trust me.”

  “Tell the whole truth,” he said. “Okay. You first.”

  “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he told me, his voice cold as roadkill, and then the phone rustled again.

  “What did you just say to him?” Marco’s voice sounded amused, like this was all just teenage stuff.

  “We can’t go on like this,” I said. “I can’t go on like this. I need to get things straightened out.”

  “What things?” said Marco. “’Uck’s sake, Ali, I’m sitting in a police station. It’s not the time.”

  “Things with my mum and dad,” I said. “And we need to tell Angelo.”

  “Tell him what?” Marco had forgotten to be quiet. “There’s nothing to tell him except ancient history. And as for your parents? Ali, I can’t go back through that again. I cannot watch you go downhill again. And I sure as hell can’t watch you reach out to them again and get smacked down. How can you even—How can you think this is a good time to start raking things over?”

  “This?” I said. “What time is this? We’ve both got jobs again at long last and we’ve had a bloody big wake-up call. Our son didn’t turn to us because he thinks we’re not strong enough to help him. He shouldn’t be protecting us and going it alone, Marco, he’s fifteen.”

  “Us?” Marco was nearly shouting now. “What do you mean us? It’s not us, Ali. It’s Angel and me trying not to let anything knock you.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be,” I said. “It should be you and me looking after him. And it’s going to be. I’m going to phone my parents and have it out with them.”

  “What the bloody hell does that have to do with Angelo?” Marco whispered down the phone.

  “Everything,” I said. “Because I’m thinking there must be some kind of mistake. I can’t believe there’s no misunderstanding or miscommunication.” I knew I was parroting Dr. F, but Marco didn’t, and it lent me some swagger. “At the very least, I need to tell them how I feel and see if maybe they’ll just say sorry and we can put it behind us. Then Angel’ll stop thinking I’m some kind of orchid that can’t be breathed on and then he’ll be okay too. Because there’s no way he should be in this mess.”

  “Ali,” said Marco. I could hear his footsteps and the sound of a door squeaking. “Right. I’m outside,” he said. “Standing outside the police station for the world to see. Are you happy now? Ali, please. Your parents told me that they didn’t see the point of coming all the way back and that you shouldn’t make a drama out of a misfortune.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, you told me. But what had you said to them? I don’t think you ever told me exactly what everyone said to everyone.”

  “I told you over and over again,” said Marco. “But you were off your head on tranquilisers and painkillers and those sleeping tablets that made you feel so sick. Ali, don’t go back there.”

  “I’m still there!” I said. “I never left. I’m stuck there. I need to pick the scab off and let it heal to a good strong scar instead. So tell me. What did you say?”

  “I told them you needed them and that there was a funeral planned and asked them when I could pick them up at the airport.”

  “And who were you talking to? My mum or my dad?”

  “Both,” Marco said. “Skype. And they said they were really busy with the builders and it was ridiculous to have a funeral. Mawkish, your mum said, whatever the hell that means.” It was the kind of word my mum would use right enough. “She said to tell you to get back in touch when you were on your feet again and we could all go over and have a break in the sun.”

  For a long time I said nothing. It still hurt but, poking at it, I thought maybe it hurt a bit less than before. Maybe it was the kindness of Dr. F, his wise words telling me I’d formed my own bonds and made my family. Or maybe it was that his words were true. Angel needed me to be the mum now.

  “Okay,” I said, “you’ve convinced me. But I still need to tell Angel.” He started to speak. “I’m not asking you, Marco. This is between Angel and me. I need to tell him and he needs to know. We should have told him years ago.”

  “I better go back in,” was all Marco said. “I need to be there if they call him through. And I’ve been on the b
loody phone too much already. There’s a big sign telling you to switch them off and I’ve been sitting right under it yakking for the last half hour.”

  “Bit of an exaggeration.”

  “Not to you, Ali. To work. I’ve got some good news. Just got a call to say I’m going full-time. I’m moving up to supervisor.”

  “That was quick. Did somebody leave?” I couldn’t quite swallow anyone leaving a job the way things were just now.

  “The harder you hit the bottom the higher you bounce,” said Marco. “You know me.”

  I bit my lip on the answer. I knew that he had killed a family business stone-dead trying to turn it into something it wasn’t, as if Dalbeattie was some southern foodie heaven. And I knew he’d tanked Face Value trying to stay afloat.

  “You’ll be the boss by Christmas, eh?” I said at last. Marco gave an awkward laugh I couldn’t quite decipher. “Give Angelo a kiss and tell him to shame the devil,” I said.

  I put the phone in my pocket and then cuddled down into the coat again, smelling his body spray on the lining and marvelling that my baby boy filled these long sleeves, that these flaps I could wrap right round me only just met and zipped up his front.

  From habit, I dug my fingers into the corners of the pockets and pulled out all the detritus. No cigarette ends, no Rizla papers, no beer-can ring pulls. Just hard lumps of chewing gum rewrapped in twists of silver paper. That and the usual receipts. I spread one flat and checked it. 88p from after school on the twelfth. A can of coke on the way to the bus. And another one. £1.76 from the same shop, likely for two. I wondered if this was the day of his big date, if he’d treated the girl, like a gentleman. Then I looked at the date again. The fifteenth. And the time was 3:48. That was the day when he had sworn he was in the Loreburn Centre in Dumfries having his phone stolen. How could he have been in the corner shop in Kirkcudbright buying two cans?

  I tried Marco’s phone again, but it was switched off. Maybe that meant they were already in the interview room. I looked up the number for the police station and tried it but got lost in a warren of options and pre-records. If I called 999, could I ask to speak to them? There must be some way to get in touch before Angelo repeated the lie in a formal statement and signed it.

  Then it hit me. Like a meteor. Thinking about how much we’d come to expect that everyone was accessible all the time these days, it hit me. Ten years ago, no one Skyped anyone, did they?

  Fifteen

  “Hello, sweetheart,” I said, cupping her cheek in my hand and lifting her chin so I could look in her eyes. “How are you today?”

  Sylvie rested her head into the curve of my palm and breathed out. I felt it like the ache in my chest when tears were close. Dr. Ferris had been so clear, but she was wrong. There was communication in everything Sylvie did, like the way a cat tells you what it thinks, if you pay attention. Maybe Dr. Ferris was a dog person.

  “We’re going outside,” I told her. “Look.” I had brought along a wheelchair and knee blanket that usually sat in the corner of one of the lounges. Jo had looked up from her jigsaw and said, “Someone taken a tumble?”

  Sylvie stood up with her hands in mine and then sat down in the wheelchair, lifting her eyes in surprise when it rolled a little, because of course I had forgotten to put the brake on. I tucked the knee blanket over her and threw a shawl round her shoulders too, lifting it up at the back of her head so her cloud of colourless hair was mussed into a ruff.

  “Let’s put some roses in those cheeks,” I said and started pushing.

  Julia was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, swinging her feet and kicking at the rail of an antique chair. She was dressed, booted, and coated, and already had an unlit cigarette in her mouth and her Bic lighter in her mittened hand.

  “It’s supposed to be fresh air,” I told her. She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least blow it away from Sylvie.”

  Julia frowned at me and then flicked her first glance towards the wheelchair. So self-absorbed, like all youngsters. Even without the diagnosis. “You’re bringing Grandma?”

  “She’s thirty.”

  “Why’s she coming?” she insisted, ignoring me.

  I ignored her back. Once I’d negotiated the ramp at the side of the front steps and faced exactly how hard it was to get the chair to roll over the gravel I had no breath left for chatting. And when we reached the start of the grass it got worse. The tyres made deep ruts and I had to put one hip against the back rest to keep the chair moving at all. If it hadn’t been for the way Sylvie raised her face, letting the breeze blow her hair back, I’d have packed it in.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Julia said. “She looks like a dog hanging out the back window of a transit van. You’d think she’d never been outside before.”

  “Transit. Vans. Don’t. Have back windows,” I said, finally getting going on a slight down slope. “And it probably has been a while since she was outside, so don’t spoil it.”

  Julia threw her head back and gave a Tarzan roar, beating her chest so hard she must be leaving bruises. Then she lodged her ciggie in the corner of her mouth and seized one of the handles.

  “Come on then, Sylvia! Let’s see what this baby can do!” She started running and when I skidded on the wet grass, she elbowed me aside and grasped the other handle too. Then she was off. Sylvie’s shawl came untucked and flew like a flag behind them, as I stumbled in their wake.

  “Slow down!” I shouted. “Julia, be careful!”

  “She’s hanging on,” Julia shouted over her shoulder. “She’s fine.” And they were at the gazebo before I caught them. “Skid finish!” Julia yelled and then screeched like the brakes of a racing car and pulled Sylvie hard round to the left so she was facing me.

  She was smiling. Clutching the arm-rests hard, she was pink-cheeked and smiling with her mouth open.

  “Jesus, I’m a fat pig,” Julia said, throwing herself down on one of the steps and hawking hard to spit up the result of running in the cold air with her smoker’s chest. “Just as well it’s not Sylvia pushing me.”

  “Sylvie,” I said.

  Julia spat again and then turned to face her. “Good name for a sylph,” she said. “I should be called Bertha.”

  “Oh now!” I said. “Okay, well what about me then?”

  Julia pretended to take a good long look at me while lighting up and delivered the verdict with a curling smile. “Can’t decide between Priscilla and Prudence,” she said. “How can you bear to be such a goody-two-shoes with your perfect nails and your perfect hair?”

  But I was barely listening. I was watching Sylvie. She was smiling again, even wider this time.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” I said. “Priscilla? Prudence?”

  But that was too much attention to be taken from Julia. She flicked her cigarette out into the grass, where it fizzled out in the damp tussocks, then she lifted herself to the side and farted long and loud.

  “So what’s the programme?” she said.

  “Art,” I told her. “Look at all the leaves on the ground. I want you to gather them and write a message on the grass with them.”

  “You’ve got it,” Julia said. “Is douche bag one word or two?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “First you need to decide who you’re writing it to and then you need to decide what to say.”

  “Are we even on a flight path?” said Julia, lying back on the steps and squinting up into the sky. “And how is that art, anyway? How’s it not just writing?”

  “Well, make a collage,” I said. “I’m not the boss. I just looked out the window and saw all the leaves.”

  “And what’s Sissy going to do?” Julia said. “Can I use her in the collage? Lie her on the grass and stick twigs in her?”

  “Sylvie,” I said again. “Do you have family photos on your phone? You could try to copy one of them.” Was it too obvious? Was
it dangerous to make her think about her family when there were no nursing staff anywhere near?

  She was scrolling, Sylvie watching her. I wondered if Sylvie had ever seen a smart phone, then thought she must have when her family visited. If her family visited. I laid a hand on her arm and then perched myself on the wheelchair to hold her. “Warm enough?” I said. Again, she settled into me and I snuggled her closer. But Julia had noticed and leapt up, shoving her phone in my face.

  “Here’s one of my dad,” she said. “Before I beat his head in with a cast-iron frying pan and shovelled up the jelly.”

  Sylvie kept watching Julia, but I glanced at the photograph, seeing a smiling man I could easily believe was golfing somewhere warm. He wore a pink cashmere jersey and had dazzling teeth in his brown face. It made me think, for a minute, of the man in the abbey grounds—Definitely not a vagrant. But the man in the picture had a Bluetooth in his ear. He hadn’t been dead all those years.

  “And here’s one of my new dad,” Julia said, flashing me another shot, this time of a middle-aged man in a dinner jacket and black bow-tie, a cigar in his mouth and his face shining with drink and laughter. He was sitting with his back to a wall of glass and the camera flash had bounced and dazzled, so that something about it looked supernatural.

  “And then there’s my first dad.” A snaggle-toothed man, clearly upper-class, and possibly also drunk. Red-eyed anyway. He was dressed for hunting, hard hat and everything, standing by a loose-box door with a horse nuzzling at him, spreading snot on the red of his jacket. “With my dear mother,” Julia said, and I laughed because, thinking of Mona Swain, it was so nearly true.

  Sylvie started at my laughter. As quick as that, she had fallen back into her stupor.

  “So forget family,” I said to Julia. “Just make a picture.”

  “House, tree, person again?”

  “Anything you fancy,” I said.

  She got to her feet and went off skipping and lurching in a way I didn’t understand until leaping to one side and stamping hard she shouted, “Bastard worms. Take that, you slimy little fuck!”