by Sara Foster
All around us, time beat its wings, herding us in the only direction it could. The endless hours of those early years became a seamless tumble of days, gathering momentum as our children grew up. Some of my friends cannot wait to be empty-nesters, but I am pushing hard against the idea. Zac and Georgia’s childhood has gone so fast, and I have more to give, surely, to ensure that my eldest child leaves our house fully prepared for the onslaught of the world. She cannot be ready yet.
My daughter has been preoccupying me for some time. I watch as she gathers prospectuses for university. I take an interest and read them, I ask her what she thinks, and look interested while she talks. But I am a fraud; I am also thinking, Don’t go, don’t leave us. I witness her growing excitement about the possibilities her life may hold, and simultaneously I entertain the horrifying thought that this time, once she goes, she won’t really come back. Her life is just coming into full bloom, her destiny unfurling before her. I am delighted for her, but at times I have to stop myself from grabbing hold of her and begging her not to leave. Even though she asserts her independence at every opportunity, I am going to miss her terribly. I wonder if this is normal, or if the gaps in my own life glare too fiercely, reflected as wanting under the spotlight of Georgia’s hopes and dreams. She is off to make her mark on the world, and what will I do once she is gone? For how many more years will I sit in the lounge each evening, watching TV and waiting for Callum to come home?
Callum has another life already. His colleagues on the rescue team are an alternate family to him, and I play no part in it. He doesn’t seem to want to let me in. Trying to find out what kind of evening he’s had is like pulling teeth. He’ll mention names I’ve never heard of, as if I should know who these people are, and when I ask he’ll look at me strangely and drop in a few words – ‘new recruit’, ‘dog handler’, ‘former policeman’ – as though that’s all I need to know. He is happy enough to talk to Zac and Georgia about their days, and to support them in their hobbies, but other than that his mind is elsewhere. When I told him recently that I wanted to redecorate the kitchen he said, ‘Great.’ I showed him tile samples and brought home brochures and he agreed with every single thing I suggested. In the early days of our marriage, when we often had differing opinions, I would have thought such acquiescence wonderful. We’d fought so fiercely over the children’s schooling that I had never imagined there could be something harder to bear. But when he stopped caring enough to argue we crossed another line towards loneliness. When I lost interest in the kitchen project, Callum didn’t even notice.
For a while I tried to fill these gaps with hobbies. I went to exercise and craft classes and even had a short-lived stint in an amateur dramatics group. And while I enjoyed all those pursuits for what they were, they didn’t remotely heal the space inside me that so desperately wants to be filled. A few hours of distraction can hardly replace the idea of someone to share a life with. Someone who cares how your day has gone enough to respond accordingly, perhaps make you dinner. Someone who will snuggle up in the evenings and discuss joint plans for the future – or even, now and again, buy the odd thoughtful, unexpected gift. Callum does not play this part in my life any more – the wealth of unopened perfume bottles that lie in my dresser drawer from numerous birthdays and Christmases attest to that.
When I focus back on the television I can’t tell if I have been asleep or just lost in daydreams. I check my mobile but there’s nothing. The program has changed to news from overseas. An angry mob of men and women half a world away have invaded my living room, shouting at the camera about things I don’t understand. The timer on the electric fire has clicked off, snuffing out the artificial flames, and it is getting colder by the minute. The clock on the DVD player reads 12.12 am.
My head is foggy now. I need to give up chasing my worries around in circles, and focus on the morning. I work at the school on Fridays – I’m one of two part-time counsellors, and I will be needed. There will be students wanting support to deal with tonight’s trauma, as well as my regular appointments. I take my responsibilities for the emotional wellbeing of these young adults as seriously as Callum takes his towards the hikers and climbers on the fells. And yet, all I want to do tomorrow is stay home with Georgia, and keep her close. Can I do that? Surely everyone will understand.
Go to bed, I tell myself again, but my body won’t move. I’m drifting again, even though I would rather stay awake, to stave off what tomorrow might bring.
• • •
The next thing I know, someone is shaking me. I squint into the light of the lounge room to see Callum’s tense face close to mine.
‘What the hell is going on?’ he demands as soon as he sees my eyes open. ‘Liam phoned me to find out how Georgia is and I didn’t know what he was talking about!’
The time on the DVD player is now 12.55 am. I’m not entirely surprised. Once it goes dark on the fells, rescues become dangerous and protracted. Progress is necessarily slow, since the only light comes from torches and the moon, and with one wrong footing a volunteer can suddenly be in need of help themselves. Nevertheless, tonight I’m not in a particularly tolerant mood.
‘For god’s sake, Callum,’ I hiss. Only the thought of the children asleep upstairs stops me from raising my voice. ‘I have been leaving you messages all night. You could try answering your mobile. I presumed you were out on a rescue. I thought you’d phone me back when you saw the missed calls.’
Callum sinks into a chair opposite me. ‘It’s been busy – I was caught up.’
I try to keep calm. ‘So, what have you been doing? And what did Liam say – how’s Sophia?’
‘She’s sedated. She’s broken her right leg – it’s a nasty fracture. Liam sounded terrible. He wanted to know what Georgia said to the police. He hasn’t had much chance to piece together what happened.’
‘It sounds like the car came up behind them and just didn’t stop,’ I tell him. ‘We have Danny Atherton to thank for Georgia being in one piece – apparently he hauled her out of the way just in time.’
‘And how is Georgia?’
I run a hand through my hair and sigh. I’m not sure I know the answer. ‘She’s very shaken – she was in shock when I first saw her, then the police came here and took a statement, and by the end of that she was shattered.’
Callum nods, and we sit in silence. I am focused on his face, while his gaze has moved to some unknown spot behind me. I open my mouth to ask him about the rescue, then think better of it, and we sit like this for a minute before he catches my eye again. The sight of me seems to stir him into action.
‘I’ve got to get some sleep,’ Callum announces, slapping his knees to indicate the finality of his decision, then jumps up. ‘I’ll talk to Georgia in the morning,’ he adds, before leaving the room.
I consider staying down here on the chair, but I know I’ll be achy and regretful tomorrow. I hear Callum in the bathroom as I head upstairs, and I peek into both children’s rooms, to see they are each turned to the wall, their bodies still. I want to creep over to see their faces, like I would have done without a thought when they were younger, but I don’t want to wake them. I can’t be bothered to wash my face and brush my teeth, I just get quickly into my pyjamas and jump under the covers to escape the cold. Callum comes in and undresses with his back to me, then climbs in beside me, turning away without a word in order to flick off the light.
I wish he would reach for me, pull me close and whisper sweet comfort while the light is missing. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t, and I don’t make any move of my own. In the darkness, I wish I had stayed downstairs in the chair, where it wouldn’t hurt so much to feel alone.
A few tears escape onto my pillow, but I bite my lip and pull myself together. It’s a habit I have developed – this small, permitted release of tension before I buck up and remind myself of my responsibilities: all the people who lean on me, all the reasons I cannot fall down.
Beside me, Callum moves onto his back, and t
o my surprise I get the slightest whiff of alcohol. The team never drink on the job, but they have been known to stay and socialise afterwards. The thought of him having a good time, oblivious to his family’s nightmare, completely riles me. I debate kicking him accidentally while I roll over, but I restrain myself, and turn away.
I urge sleep to come, but all I see is a pair of headlights, shining like angry eyes in the black night, bearing down on the silhouettes of our children. Vicarage Road isn’t lit by street lamps once you’re past the church, but how could you not spot three people with your headlights on?
In an instant, my confusion clears, and I open my eyes in the darkness. That’s what’s bothering me, I realise. That’s why I can’t picture the scene, because if the car headlights were on, why did the kids have so little time to jump out of the way? Surely they would have been aware of the vehicle with enough time to move to the side of the road to let it pass. And why didn’t they hear the engine? Now I am itching to wake Georgia – to make sure the police covered this with her. Now I wish I had taken the glass to the wall.
Feeling increasingly uneasy, I sit up in bed. Beside me, Callum’s body begins to rise and fall rhythmically, and I am aghast at how well he can sleep. But then, he is no stranger to trauma out on the fells, and he has taught himself to switch off. He is wise enough to realise that if he doesn’t help himself first, then there will come a point where he is of no use to anyone.
But it isn’t going to be that easy for me. Tonight, I’m just going to have to wait until exhaustion claims me. And meanwhile, I might as well do something.
I pick up my phone. Usually, I leave it downstairs, unwilling to let its constant alerts invade the privacy of our bedroom. But tonight I want it beside me, in case there is news of Sophia. I press the button so the screen illuminates, and to my surprise a string of text messages have snuck in since it switched automatically to silent. Some are from people I know well, others from acquaintances, and they are all along the same lines. We heard about the accident. How is Georgia? How are you? Is there anything we can do?
I am buoyed by all this concern. Suddenly, while sitting in the semi-dark, alone except for the snoring heap next to me, I am surrounded by love and warm wishes. I scroll through them but there’s nothing from the people I really want to hear from. I send another brief message to Helene. I’m still awake. How’s Sophia?
And then I wait.
I know what I am going to do next. My fingers are itching. However hard I try, I can’t resist. I go to the Facebook welcome page, but instead of logging in as myself – which I rarely do anyway – I log in as my daughter.
I found her password a while ago, on a scrunched-up piece of paper on her desk. I had been scurrying between the rooms emptying the bins, and I had checked it wondering if it was rubbish. It was easy to remember: Sn00pD0gg, Georgia’s nickname for our old dog, with zeros instead of the letter o. I hadn’t thought I would ever use it, of course – but at that point I wasn’t worried about Georgia. However, since the summer I have been trying to pinpoint a change in my child – not the reserve of a teenager, but the withdrawal of a troubled soul. There is no substantial evidence for this – which is the first thing Callum would ask for if I relayed my suspicions. But my motherly instinct is a noisy place right now, alarm bells chiming with distinctive tenor, and however much I try to reason with myself, I cannot quieten them.
Ostensibly Georgia and I have been Facebook friends ever since I first let her sign up. However, some time ago she changed her privacy settings and locked me out of all but her most banal posts. Helene assured me Sophia had done the same, and so I tried not to mind or to worry, and to let her have some freedom.
But not tonight.
I log in to Facebook, intending to scan quickly and log straight out again, but of course that is impossible once I have seen that there are more than thirty – thirty! – messages on Georgia’s wall. Most are in familiar code – Just heard WTF! – OMG are you OK?
Why do I want to tell all these people to leave Georgia be? I think of the text messages I just received, and how they made me feel loved, not harassed. Stop with the double standards, I chide myself. But I still can’t settle.
Perhaps it’s because Georgia has replied to every single one of them, usually with a simple thank you, or letting people know she will update them when she hears anything about Sophia. And her last reply was only two minutes ago. Now I can picture her, lying there in the dark with her phone in her hand, waiting for the next alert.
I know this is what many teenagers do these days, but long before the school sexting scandal I have been uneasy about my children’s online lives. The obvious dangers are well documented, but I am scared by others, much more subtle. What might it mean for my daughter’s sanity that she is lying in her room in the middle of the night in the midst of numerous social interactions, when what she really needs is to rest and recuperate? And why – despite her page proclaiming she has more than 400 friends – do I get the impression each time I look at her that she feels desperately alone?
4
ZAC
Zac’s eyes are like sandpaper from a restless sleep, and now he’s running on adrenalin. For much of the night he had held a pillow over his ears, as though he could smother his fractious thoughts. As soon as dawn had set his curtains glowing and the song thrushes chirping, he had been up and dressed, and was out the door within minutes.
He had scribbled a note for his parents, letting them know he was biking to school. He often chooses to ride, but he has never left before without saying goodbye – he doesn’t know what he’d say to Georgia this morning. Everyone will be preoccupied with the accident, but he is still reeling from that photograph too. And he is afraid that if his mother catches him alone today she will decipher some version of the truth on his face, and get it out of him.
As soon as he wheels his bike out of the garage and sets off along the lane, Zac feels calmer. He loves riding along the narrow, winding paths out of Fellmere towards Ambleside. He revels in the energy-sapping climbs, and the thrill of freewheeling the descents. His friend Cooper is always keen for them to travel together, since they are the only two boys who live in Fellmere, but when they do it’s an endless competition of speed and style, and Zac arrives at school feeling frazzled. When he’s alone it’s just the ride itself, the shifting of speeds and gears, and he can let his mind drift without being goaded.
He has so much time to spare this morning that he sets himself a meandering route cross country, one he is sure his mother wouldn’t approve of, but he needs to think.
The characters he manipulated in Black Ops were always picking up grenades and using them without hesitation. He was beginning to get an idea of just how different it was when you had a real one lying in your hand, the pin unplugged, and you alone responsible for the direction it travelled, and with whom it collided on the way.
He can’t stand being alone with this secret, and yet there is no one he can tell. What would his parents do if they saw that photograph? Is there any way he could have misinterpreted what he had seen? He hadn’t thought so, but now, as he cycles on the empty path, with the day fresh and stirring around him, he begins to doubt. Maybe his mind has played a trick on him. Maybe he has got it all wrong.
His thoughts are still whirling when he realises he is on the spirit road. Whenever he sees the corpse stone he feels uneasy, but it’s probably nothing more than the recurring twinge of humiliation from when, as a boy of seven, his older sister and cousins had run away from him here, leaving him so terrified that he had cried until they stepped out from behind a tree, laughing. He can never help but wonder just how many dead bodies have been set down to rest temporarily upon that spot. Despite its association with the dead, this section of the track always feels more alive than the rest – the grass moving energetically in the smallest breeze, the rustles and whispers of the drying leaves a little louder than elsewhere, crunching emphatically under the bike’s wheels.
Z
ac had thought he was above childish superstitions nowadays, but when he reaches the tarmacked section of the trail, the spindly branches of birch trees leaning towards him in welcome, it is as if his burden lightens. He feels not only relief but a renewed sense of purpose. He needs to see that photograph again. Only then can he make a decision about what to do next.
There is still plenty of time before school begins, so Zac heads straight down the path and approaches by road. The hardest section of the ride is inside the school gates, where there’s a steep uphill climb to reach the bicycle racks. Zac loves catching sight of the main building, a gothic country house that was converted more than a century ago after two dedicated teachers pooled all their resources to buy it. Although this building represents the school in all its marketing material, it doesn’t house any classrooms, which are instead tucked away among the foliage and found along a labyrinth of outdoor walkways. In Zac’s opinion, the only other school with as much character is Hogwarts.
The school opens at eight and closes at seven, unless there are special evening events going on. Zac reaches the front entrance at a few minutes to eight, unsure if he’ll be allowed in. He holds his pass out, and the gate buzzes and swings slowly open. He rides through and heads for the bike stands – unsurprisingly, he is the first there. He unbuckles his helmet and locks up his bike, then grabs his rucksack and heads through the main doors of the school building. It’s so early that all he can hear is the sound of his footsteps on the polished board, and a couple of secretaries chatting in the admin rooms at the other end of the corridor. His stomach begins to complain, and he berates himself for not grabbing something to eat before he left the house.
He heads hopefully to the dining room. It is his favourite place in the school – not just for the food, but because the low-lying building has windows instead of walls running along one side, with a view right across the valley towards the northernmost tip of Lake Windermere. In one corner of the room stands a polished wooden boat that had once belonged to Arthur Ransome – as a young boy Zac had often dreamed of sailing it to his own secret island. But when he gets there the doors are locked, and the canteen won’t be open for another thirty minutes. He doesn’t want to wait that long.