What Have I Done?

by Amanda Prowse

  After wiping around the sink and flushing the loo, Tanya returned to the bedroom. She looked out of the window and not for the first time marvelled at the fact that if you could swim far enough you could get all the way to Canada. She would like to go to Canada. What did she know about it? They ate a lot of maple syrup; they had big bears and even bigger mountains. Something in the back of her mind told her that they spoke French, was that right? This made her laugh. Imagine that, swimming all the way to Canada and not being able to speak French.

  Tanya made her bed. She pulled the sheet taut and smoothed the creases from the duvet cover. She plumped the pillows and piled them just so, before folding the soft blanket over the base, just as she liked it. There was something quite wonderful about climbing into a bed that had been so beautifully made.

  ‘Bonjour!’

  She laughed as she tested out the foreign word, then walked over to the mirror above the fireplace.

  ‘Bonjour, I am Tanya, Mr Mountie. Can I have some maple syrup s’il vous plaît?’

  This made her laugh even more. She giggled until tears gathered in her eyes. Who would have thought it? Thick old Tanya Wilson, if she swam all the way to Canada, could actually speak a bit of French to the Mountie who would hand her a towel on the beach. Now that was amazing.

  She switched off the bedside lamp and opened the sash window, just enough to air the room. She cleaned her teeth and patted her face dry with the soft white towel before replacing it carefully on its hook. Tanya placed her forehead on the cool glass of the window and could hardly draw her eyes from the sea that stretched out before her, a vast never ending blanket of black. Her fingers lingered on the sprig-patterned curtains, feeling the tiny bunches of lavender embroidered beneath her touch.

  ‘Off for a walk?’ Tom enquired as she trotted past the kitchen. Tanya nodded.

  ‘Well it’s a beautiful day out there. And at least you won’t have to rush back for lunch. How many pancakes have you put away, girl? You must have hollow legs!’

  He shook his head in genuine astonishment.

  ‘Thank you for teaching me how to make lasagne, Tom. It didn’t taste too bad, did it?’

  He laughed, wondering how they had got on to that topic.

  ‘You’re welcome, love. Between you and me, I was a little bit worried for me job – it tasted superb. You’re a natural!’

  The cliffside path leading down to the beach from Prospect House was sheer and precarious. It meandered down the steep slope like a giant snake, with no apparent logic to its route. Rotting, half-buried steps punctuated its course and tufts of coarse grass grew at the edges in thick, ankle-turning clumps. Tanya’s smooth-soled sneakers skidded and slipped on the loose stones, making her stumble then wobble until she regained her balance. She removed her shoes and held them aloft in her right hand, as though protecting them from further scuffing. An image of herself tumbling off the cliff, limbs flailing, filled her head. That would be just typical of her life – nothing ever going according to plan. Though the note in her pocket would apply just the same.

  When the path finally flattened out and the stones gave way to sand, Tanya’s faltering steps turned into strides. The beach was empty. She ran the last few metres with a smile on her face as the salt-tinged breeze lifted her fringe and buffeted her chest.

  Tanya shrugged her arms through her cardigan and folded it neatly with arm holes and hems together, before placing it on the sand. Next she slipped out of her jeans, which she placed with precision on top of her cardigan. She unhooked her bra and let the straps fall along her thin arms, and finally she stepped out of her pants. Her clothes sat in a neat little pile, like laundry waiting to be collected and put away on wash day. On top of her discarded apparel she placed her room and front door keys; just beneath them she positioned the pale cream envelope, twisting it to make sure it was clearly visible. She was done. She turned her face skywards and savoured the rays of sunshine that pierced the Mediterranean blue of the day. It was quite exquisite to feel the warmth on her naked skin.

  Tanya stopped as she approached the water and winced in sudden pain. A small shard of glass, not yet smoothed into opaque sea glass, had sunk into the white flesh of her sole. She lifted the foot onto her opposite knee, gripped the tiny splinter and prised it free. A trickle of blood ran thick and red down her bare leg but she didn’t try to stem its flow; it mattered little compared to the journey she was about to undertake. She wasn’t sure why she had even bothered to remove it; what did it matter? A second or two of foot pain meant nothing in the grander scheme of things.

  She walked forward to the dark shadow on the sand where the water lapped, staining it the colour of dark tea and pitting it with fizzing holes in which small worms and crabs bathed.

  Tanya trod gingerly, feeling the shock of the icy current on her exposed flesh. It was her first time in the sea and wasn’t quite the warm bath that she had anticipated. She took tiny, cautious steps at first, until she was knee deep. Then she found her courage and strode further out.

  She allowed the tiny waves to lap her with their salty tongues. She turned and faced the shore, stepping slowly backwards until the sea covered her shoulders. Her teeth chattered in her gums and her limbs jerked involuntarily, trying to counter the effects of the cold.

  She gazed up to the top of the cliff for one last look at Prospect House. This was the one place that she had been happy, the one place she had been comfortable and felt wanted. She pictured the shiny bathroom, remembered the comfort of her clean, white bed and its blanket tucked around her shoulders on chilly nights. Her heart had ached at the thought of being asked to leave. She had messed up and she knew it. It was to be expected; she always did mess things up. It was as if she was programmed for self-destruction.

  She remembered a Christmas from her childhood when she had been given a Furby toy. Presents were thin on the ground in their house and she had loved the furry creature that opened its eyes and mouth when it sang, loved it more than anything she had ever owned. She couldn’t believe that something that brilliant had been given to someone like her. She sang with it, stroked it, slept with it and held it close. Then, one night, her mum, in an even fouler mood than usual after a drunken spat with her latest bloke, had threatened to stamp on her Furby to ‘Shut it the fuck up!’ The thought of having to witness her beloved toy being destroyed was so unbearable that a little while after her mum’s rant, Tanya had taken her Furby out into the cold, damp night and stamped on him herself. With tears in her eyes, she threw his battered, broken body into the communal skip. It was far easier to cope with his loss than to live with the threat of his destruction hanging over her.

  Tanya knew that life at Prospect House was as good as it got. There would never be a flat or a little job for someone like her; she would never go to Canada and never have a coffee machine like the one in the pub. But at least this way, she would never be separated from her baby, never know the pain of having to choose between her drug of choice and keeping her child, never wonder through heavy lids on a comedown who was feeding and bathing her little one, while she reached for the arms of the man that would feed her poison. The clifftop house was a wonderful sight. Her last vista could easily have been something quite different – a stained ceiling, the peeling wallpaper on a damp toilet wall or the slimy bricks of a deserted alleyway. This was better, much better. She liked the fact that she had decided. She was in control.

  She placed her shrivelled, prune-like palm against the flat of her belly and rubbed in small circles. She was not alone; she would never be alone again, but would forever be at peace with her little secret safe and snug inside her.

  ‘You’ll never be afraid of the water.’

  She spoke the words in her mind, to be heard by the small kernel of a human that had been conceived with love and was beginning inside her. The idea gave her a huge amount of comfort.

  Her body had gone numb with extreme cold and her skin was peppered with a million goosebumps. Her fine hair floated
like orange seaweed around her head. Still with her eyes on Prospect House, Tanya took two deliberate steps backwards. The soft sand beneath her feet gave way to nothing and she went down and down, under the sea, like the mermaid she had imagined so many times.

  The cold water filtered into her airways, slowly at first, as her natural reaction was to close her mouth and hold her nose, but once she relaxed it gushed in, filling every space with thick salt water. When her brain registered that her gag reflex was futile, she was overcome with a beautiful calmness. A pinprick of light shone above her. She smiled. Then she slowly closed her eyes and embraced the peace and escape that lay ahead.

  As Kate pulled into the driveway she was aware of Tom hovering by the back door. He was passing the checked dish cloth from hand to hand and was clearly agitated.

  ‘Oh great, what now? What drama awaits me – please not more drugs.’

  She spoke to the mirror of her sun visor, hoping for a ‘run out of carrots’ catastrophe, but fearing something much worse. Maybe Janeece was right and she was getting old, possibly too old.

  Kate scrambled down from the jeep with her shopping basket in one hand and the local paper in the other.

  ‘Everything all right, Tom?’

  ‘Everything’s just fine, Kate.’

  Despite his answer, he continued to twist the cloth in his hand, indicating quite the opposite.

  ‘Oh good. No minor catastrophe awaiting my attention?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that you’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll be right in.’

  Judging from Tom’s twitchy stance, it could be an unexpected house guest, as had happened once before when poor communication and slow post had meant a girl had turned up for a short-term stay without warning. It didn’t really matter – they would cope, they always did. There was plenty of room and as soon as a nice cuppa and words of kindness had been issued, all would be well. Or it might be a surprise visit from social services, a much less palatable scenario. Kate hung her head at the very thought. Her spirits sank; why today on this most perfect of days? Not that she had anything to hide, far from it. They had an open-door policy, but it would be tedious and time-consuming and she would have liked to have had her paperwork in slightly better order.

  Kate entered the kitchen with a cheery ‘Hello!’

  And came abruptly to a halt.

  The paper fell to the floor as her hand flew to her mouth. Her heart beat so quickly that she felt quite light-headed. Sitting at the table was her son.

  Tom deposited a mug of tea on the table to match the one he had already served Dominic and quietly disappeared.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Oh, my! Oh, Dom!’

  Kate walked forward and ran a hand across his back; with the other she cradled his head into her form. Her touch was gentle, tentative, not only because she was unsure of how she would be received, but also because of the very real fear that he might vanish. She had pictured this scenario so many times that she thought it might be a dream. It wasn’t. He was solid to the touch, he was real and he was in her kitchen.

  She inhaled his scent, familiar and intoxicating.

  ‘Oh, Dom, look at you! Look at you! This is wonderful, this is the best moment… I have missed you!’

  It felt like the grossest of understatements. Words could not describe what the absence of her kids had meant to her – they were all far too meek, thin and inadequate.

  ‘You’re squashing me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, darling.’

  Kate took the seat opposite her child.

  She surveyed the man sitting in front of her. He was wearing jeans and a thick, white cotton shirt and he really did look wonderful. His muscly forearms were covered in a mat of dark hair. She squinted and superimposed from memory the gangly arms of her boy, covered in paper-thin Spiderman tattoos that had come courtesy of a packet of bubble-gum. She could picture his skinny, freckled limbs poking from beneath a striped T-shirt sleeve that gaped in the absence of biceps or triceps. How long ago was that? Ten years? No, twenty years. My goodness, where had that time gone? She noted that the contours of his teens had now bulged into muscles, the hair had sprouted thicker and darker than she had seen it last and all his sharp angles had been replaced by rounded solidity.

  The physical changes were huge, but Kate could also see that he had some time ago vaulted the line between lackadaisical teenager and careworn man of the world. His eyes no longer held a subject in languid fascination; instead his glances were hesitant, furtive. His leg jumped, his heel beat time and his fingers drummed. He was edgy, nervous. He spoke a little too quickly and his humour was biting. He made Kate think of an animal backed into a corner, ready to pounce.

  ‘I can’t believe you are here, I really can’t. There is so much I want to say, Dominic, but I almost don’t know where to start – which is crackers because I’ve practised every day since I saw you last. I am so happy. How long can you stay?’

  Already the fear of him leaving was eating up their precious moments together.

  ‘I’ve got rooms made up already; we can have a proper catch-up. Are you hungry? How did you get here? Did you drive? Francesca said you had a little runaround. I feel like a kid! I am so excited! How’s Lydi?’

  The words burbled from her like water.

  ‘No, I can’t stay, but thanks. Lydia is great, thank you. Quite the little artist, getting rave reviews for her work and she thoroughly deserves it; she’s very talented.’

  Kate hated the way he had thanked her – politely, as if she were a stranger. There was no warmth in his response. The tone in which he talked about his sister was protective, with an underlying sneer that seemed to ask, What has it got to do with you? Kate decided not to tell him that she had seen some of Lydia’s work and that yes, she definitely did deserve all the rave reviews.

  ‘And what about you, Dom, what are you doing? Still working with Luke and Gerry?’

  ‘Yes, we have a property business actually – buying and selling, renovation, interior design, that kind of thing. It’s going pretty well.’

  ‘Oh my goodness, that sounds great! And it sounds so clichéd, but you have grown, you look wonderful. You are so beautiful, Dom, such a good-looking man. I always knew you would be. Do you have a girlfriend?’

  His response was vague. An image of a recent conquest came into focus, but it was futile. What girl would stick around once they knew his story? He had no intention of confiding in his mother. Instead, his eyes assessed the room in which they were sitting.

  Kate had known that their first meeting might be this way, but it didn’t make it any easier. She wanted so badly to hold him tight.

  ‘I can’t tell you how very happy I am to see you.’

  He ignored her words.

  ‘This is a nice set-up you have here. The house is interesting…’

  Kate nodded. She didn’t want to talk about the house.

  ‘Dom, I have missed you dreadfully.’

  ‘Well, you knew where I was. If you missed me that much…’

  She held his eye.

  ‘Darling, that’s not fair. You made it quite clear that you didn’t want to see me and I respected your wish. I figured you would come to me when you were ready.’

  Dominic laughed, but it was an insincere chuckle that for a brief moment put her in mind of Mark.

  ‘Well, clever old you. All that amateur psychology is obviously paying off, here I am! You once told me that I could always talk to you, that you would listen. You said it was your job.’

  Kate smiled. Yes, she had said that.

  ‘Well, you’ve been doing it really badly and I am majorly pissed off with you, Mum!’

  He sounded like a little boy; it made her heart constrict. She pictured him using the same tone to protest about bedtimes or having to eat Brussels sprouts. But he had called her Mum! How she had missed that.

  ‘Dom, it’s been too long that we have been apart. I don’t want to spoil
it by fighting.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not all about what you want. Maybe there are things that I want, that I need.’

  ‘What things, Dom? Tell me what they are and I will do my best to help you. I love you so much. I don’t want to see you hurting.’

  ‘Hurting?’ He put his splayed hand over his mouth and gripped his chin and cheek, again stifling that incongruous laugh. ‘Christ, you have no idea about hurt.’

  ‘Oh, Dom, I think I have more than an idea.’

  She swallowed the words that bubbled on her tongue. ‘Your father was a monster. You have no idea how I lived; I was tortured for eighteen years, but I put up with it for you and Lydia.’ But she kept them to herself, not wanting to burden her son still more.

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Dom, and I do know what my actions have put you through—’

  ‘Do you, Mum?’ He interrupted again. ‘Do you really know what your actions have put me through? Have put Lydia through?’

  Kate cast her eyes downwards and awaited the onslaught that she knew was coming; the one she had been waiting the last ten years to receive.

  ‘Mountbriers was all I’d ever known. Those people weren’t only my friends, they were my family. I loved being part of it. I used to feel so proud putting on that uniform and walking through the stone archway every day. It made me feel so special; it was everything to me. I was working hard, doing great, planning for the golden future that you kept telling me I would have. But you were lying, weren’t you? You had other plans for my future, for all of our futures. And it wasn’t as if I left in the way that other kids did. I didn’t win a scholarship and flit off to another school; my parents didn’t run out of fees and send me to the local comp. Plenty of kids did that and it was okay for them; they could still be part of it, if they wanted to. But not me. I couldn’t keep in touch or pop over for weekends, or even finish off the bloody term!’