To Dare

by Jemma Wayne

  No matter how much George had attempted the night before to reassure her, she couldn’t help but feel terrified of Terry. Rarely in her life had anybody spoken to her with such venom, and what made it most disconcerting was that she couldn’t fathom what had caused it. There had been plenty of times over the years when there had been a valid reason for somebody to take issue with her, whether they did so openly or only in whispers behind her back, like Sarah now; but she had barely even brushed shoulders with Terry. She had heard him enough, suffered his vileness, pondered what a disgusting man he must be; but she had never said so. George did square up to him. Still, that hatred – that was something that neither she nor George could possibly have caused in the space of one conversation. In some ways that was a comforting thought. It meant that it wasn’t really because of her. But on the other hand, having not caused it led Veronica to conclude that she had little power to fix it. And it was this thought, this maddening, recurring helplessness, that kept Veronica awake into the small hours, even after the music next door had finally stopped.

  In the end, there had been only one remedy to her wakefulness. It was obvious really and she should have thought of it weeks earlier: the only way to combat a feeling of powerlessness, was to reclaim the reins of power. Not half-heartedly. Not through resentment-led pilfering, or even the unreliable fixing of and fixating on others. But boldly and head-on. Of course, to do that, one must acknowledge that there is a lack of power to start with, a vulnerability, a flaw – but they had begun now, they had begun, she and George both.

  Veronica pulled her laptop onto her bed and set about googling. Within twenty minutes, she had booked an appointment with a fertility specialist, a nutritionist, an acupuncturist, and with the housing officer at Camden Council. The fertility doctor had a cancellation that afternoon, and the housing officer would see them two hours after that at four. Putting down the phone to the council with a feeling of invigoration, Veronica fired off an email to George. She didn’t mention the doctor, not yet. But George replied seconds later confirming that he could make the council appointment, and also that he was glad they were taking action, with three kisses – an excess of emotion which he only appended to messages when he knew she needed them. Veronica slipped those kisses around her like a chainmail vest, conscious of how potent the sharing of truth between them had been.

  Dressing in a bold red summer dress, bias cut and nipped in at the waist in ode to Hepburn, Veronica stepped onto her doorstep with a surge of confidence. She had almost forgotten this feeling, but it tasted familiar and wonderful. At the sight of the house next door, her stomach traitorously contracted a little, but she threw her chin up nevertheless, pausing only to lock the door. The latch was still sticking. It seemed to close and then pop open unexpectedly. In spite of her morning of activity, she had forgotten to call the locksmith. Making a mental note to do so when she returned, Veronica spun back towards the street, and it was then that she spotted Dominic.

  Hand in hand with his little sister, it was with seeming lack of hurry that he strolled down the paving, though his shoulders were hunched peculiarly upwards as though pulled taut with tension. Veronica checked her watch. One-thirty. Clearly he was missing school. Perhaps, she considered, he was ill. Or maybe he’d been to get his hand checked at the hospital. Dominic kissed the top of his sister’s head, receiving hot, clammy arms around his neck. He smiled and looked up.

  Again, Veronica’s stomach contracted. At the back of her mind, came an instant, worming whisper, a nagging that told her this boy was trouble, and not her problem, to get on her bike, to ride away, to focus on her own challenges as planned. In prudence, she knew that she should listen to that whisper. But there was another murmur too, telling her to make sure Dominic was alright, telling her to help him – that old desire to fix. Risky, unreliable, but so enticing. Veronica repaired her bike key to her bag and stood solid on the pavement, ignoring the itch at her thighs. Dominic stopped directly in front of her. He turned his eyes towards the ground and lifted his sister into his arms, kissing her neck.

  “Hi,” Veronica offered.

  Raising his gaze, Dominic smiled at her, hesitantly.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  His cheeks were flushed from the heat, improving his sallow complexion, but dark shadows pulled at his eyes, blackening them with a heaviness not meant for children. His smile wavered at the edges. He gripped Jasmine tight. Veronica suppressed an unbidden urge to reach out and hug him.

  “It’s much better today,” he said, holding the bandage up for her to see. Then, after a slightly too-long pause, added. “Mum would’ve done it, she said.”

  “Is your mum home?” asked Veronica.

  “No. She’s at work.”

  “What about your dad? Sorry, your step-dad?”

  Dominic looked down for a moment at Jasmine as though consulting the toddler, or contemplating her, then slowly back towards Veronica. “No.”

  “Where is he?”

  Dominic shrugged.

  “So you’re looking after your sister, are you? Don’t you have school?”

  Dominic shrugged again. Veronica didn’t expect more than a shrug in answer to this – it wasn’t an easy question, and there could be legal ramifications. But the boy didn’t move with his shrug inside. He didn’t disappear. He wouldn’t confirm Veronica’s suspicions, but he didn’t deny them either. He stood looking at her, the adult, the only adult there, as though waiting for something, waiting for her to say something, for her to do something, for somebody grownup to take control. Just like she had waited – in Oman, at school, forever – for somebody to notice and act for her.

  Her bike was within touching distance. Her appointment was soon.

  “Shall I come up and wrap it for you again?” she asked finally.

  What a stupid, stupid, stupid suggestion. After the altercation the previous night, what would Terry say if he found her standing in his flat? What would he do? Before she’d even moved from the pavement, terror gripped her. In her pocket was her mobile phone and she slipped her hand against it as though it provided safety, knowing even as she did so that if she needed to act fast, it was useless. She would have liked to call George, but how could she? With Dominic listening, what would she say? As he let them in, she couldn’t tell if the look on his face sat so strangely because he was apprehensive too, or relieved, or perhaps something else entirely.

  The inside of the house next door was altogether different to her own. It reminded Veronica of what their building had looked like before they’d done the work to it, at the stage when she and George had declared it to be uninhabitable. A threadbare carpet lined the entrance, nipping the edges of stairs like grass that needed trimming. The walls were snaked with cracks and patches of yellow. A smell of mould or mildew hung over it all. Once they were up the stairs however, and inside Dominic’s flat, all of this faded to nothing, smothered immediately by the overwhelming stench of marijuana and spilled beer.

  It was impossible to know if the state of the place was the result of the previous night’s party, or if it was the norm. While Dominic went to the bathroom to find bandages, Jasmine gripped hold of Veronica’s hand, peeking up at her from behind her legs and giggling gleefully when Veronica reciprocated her smile. Veronica examined the girl carefully for signs of alarm at the state of the room, but she didn’t seem to see, or notice, or find unusual the piles of empty beer cans, the array of unwashed plates encrusted with food, the cigarette ash that speckled the furniture and floor, the sticky patches beneath their feet. Veronica’s mind flew to the council meeting she had set up for that afternoon and, hand still caressing her phone, she wondered if she should take some photos of the mess around her. She shouldn’t be there, she knew she shouldn’t be there, Terry could return at any moment; but surely she should do something.

  Veronica’s mind shifted suddenly again, this time to the daydream she sometimes still had, where she scooped the girl up in her arms and carried her away. Was
it this girl in particular who she wanted to save, Veronica wondered, or was it any child she could lift up in her arms and claim? As though reading her thoughts, Jasmine reached upwards with a series of grunts in a clear desire to be lifted. Lifted away? Veronica lifted her. Terry’s child.

  The girl was warm and softly rounded. She manoeuvred herself around Veronica’s waist like a clinging koala and Veronica responded, her arms cradling the girl’s back, the stance of it instinctive and natural.

  What was she doing?

  As Jasmine nuzzled closer, Veronica felt her arms begin to tremble. What the hell was she doing? If Terry found her holding his daughter like this, she didn’t know what might happen. The thuds that had once reverberated through their bedroom wall now began to echo like a pulse around her head – thud, thud, thud, thud. Get out, they warned her, a beating, wartime drum. Put the girl down. Leave the boy. Get out. Get out. Get out. But she felt stuck, as though somebody was clamping her thigh to a bed, or muzzling her mouth. Jasmine burrowed gently into her neck, and Veronica found herself kissing the top of her head as she had seen Dominic do earlier. Somewhere in the back of her mind she considered that she barely knew this child, and not only was it strange for her to be holding her this way, but it was strange, too, for the girl to give such affection to a person she didn’t know. Yet the girl was snug, and yearning, and Veronica could not put her down.

  Dominic arrived back in the room carrying a shoebox of disordered medical supplies. Seeing the two of them in embrace, he strode forwards, and with an almost accusatory stare, held out the shoebox to Veronica. “What are you doing?” He lifted Jasmine away, but the girl lurched forwards, clinging in protest to Veronica’s hair. Her brother untangled her quickly, skilfully, and levered her down his body onto the floor where he gave her a biscuit to quieten her.

  “Sorry,” said Veronica, still feeling the weight of the toddler, and the accusation. “She wanted to be picked up. You two are close, aren’t you?”

  Dominic shrugged.

  “I see you’re very protective of her. That’s lovely.”

  “I can’t protect anyone,” muttered Dominic, and Veronica immediately raised her eyebrows.

  “What do you mean?”

  But now he only shrugged again.

  Veronica looked into the box. An insufficient offering of plasters and bandages fought for space with unmarked pills and copious bottles of medicine, and an open pregnancy test, one of two sticks remaining.

  “There’re bandages in there,” said Dominic.

  Veronica nodded. “Yes, I see them.” She smiled at him, but as she did so she noticed that Dominic’s eyes were no longer on her. Instead they had moved to the door, static in watchfulness, his pupils wide and apprehensive. Had he heard something? At once, her stomach contracted again. Had he heard someone? Get out. Breaking off from her rummaging, she strained, as she imagined Dominic was straining, to hear movement on the stairs. She listened intently, as he did. She stared with him at the flaking wood. But there was nothing, and after a minute or so, she saw the tension slowly release from his body. Now he smiled, a forced, awkward expression and Veronica felt her heart lurch. Over the past few minutes she had been thinking only of the precariousness of her own situation in the flat, but what would Terry do to Dominic if he found her here with him? What must it be like for Dominic, she wondered, to live all the time with such trepidation? He was only a child. In a patchwork way, she remembered being a child too.

  She wrapped his hand. For the entire time that she did so, her ears pricked at creaks in the walls and unexpected car horns. And thuds continued to sound inside her head. Like the knocking on a dormitory door. Her heart raced. Every second or two she was convinced she had heard somebody on the stairs, and at one point she dropped the end of the dressing so that it unravelled into one of the sticky patches on the floor and she had to start again. But at last she finished. Dominic hadn’t moved his eyes from her since she’d begun, and part of the way through, Jasmine had reattached herself to her leg. With the job done, the three of them found themselves standing uncomfortably close, in uneasy, unoccupied silence.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Veronica needed to leave. She needed to get out of there. But the act of that suddenly felt like desertion. Casting her eyes around the room again, she noticed a sharp kitchen knife on the counter. On the wall there was a nunchuck, and a pair of boxing gloves. The girl was two. The boy a small eleven.

  “What time will your mum be back?” she asked Dominic.

  “Not sure. Later.”

  The council meeting was later. Veronica stroked Jasmine gently on the head, then looked apologetically to the boy. “I’ve got to go.”

  Dominic nodded without resistance, but he didn’t move. He looked up at her. And she hesitated.

  “Could we try to contact your grandparents?”

  Dominic shook his head. “I don’t know their number, and I can’t remember where they live. And anyway, Terry said he’d kill me if I tried.”

  “He’d kill you?”

  Veronica watched as Dominic’s eyes startled, as though aware too late that he’d let something slip. The boy forced a little laugh. “I mean, he’d be annoyed. And Mum would be. I’m not allowed to see them.”

  “What about your dad’s parents? Your real dad’s, I mean?”

  “Dad’s dad’s dead. And his mum didn’t want a bar of us after Dad died. I don’t remember her anyway. Only her voice, I think. She sung gospel or something. And she smelled of something sweet.”

  There was a creak and immediately Dominic went silent. Veronica had never heard him say so much at once, nor tell her anything so personal. She didn’t want to leave him now, but the minutes were ticking by, increasing the likelihood of Terry’s return. Besides, she wasn’t supposed to be fixing others.

  “I’m so sorry, but I have an appointment,” said Veronica.

  Dominic nodded, as he had before.

  A car door slammed on the street and instinctually both of them listened.

  “I’m right next door,” said Veronica. “If you need anything.”

  Again the boy nodded, his beady eyes never leaving her face – unmoving, unreadable. Veronica looked away from him towards the door. Thud, thud. She was unsure if the noise was in her head, or outside that piece of wood. But she was unable to move. While he stared at her like this, she was unable to do anything, as though caught in a spell, or a web of dark, unknowable things.

  Abruptly, however, Dominic shook his head. He grabbed Jasmine up from the floor and away from Veronica’s leg. “We don’t need anything,” he told her.

  Dr Shirazi filled in a blood test request and handed it over his vast desk towards her. The table top was a physical manifestation of chaos. Brown paper files towered in one corner, post-it notes littered the surface, and atop it all, was a scattering of dropped shells from the nuts the doctor was steadily eating. He was, she had heard, the best in the business.

  “There’s probably nothing wrong,” he told her, with a slight accent she presumed was Middle Eastern. “The itching, that’s the key, that’s what tells me the problem.”

  “What is the itch?” she asked. “I was thinking some kind of nutritional thing?”

  “It’s unlikely to be nutritional,” he smiled.

  “Oh.”

  “More likely, your mind is telling you that before you’re ready for a baby, there is an itch you need to scratch.”

  Veronica raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s quite physical sometimes, the goings-on of the mind. And now it’s telling you, quite clearly, that there is something you need to deal with. Something you need to let out. Something stopping your body from doing what you want it to do. Maybe you don’t actually want your baby quite yet.”

  “I absolutely do want a baby. Now.”

  Dr Shirazi manoeuvred another nut into his mouth, gathering the shell into a growing pile and regarding her closely. “You had a miscarriage, how long ago…”
He checked his handwritten notes. “Almost a year. Have you said goodbye to that baby yet? Have you let go of your fear that it will happen again? Have you acknowledged the disappointment? How are things with your husband?”

  Without warning, tears threatened at the corners of Veronica’s eyes. Missing nothing, the doctor handed her a tissue and she laughed with embarrassment, forcing a cough to keep the tears at bay. “Things have been tricky,” she admitted, intensely uncomfortable. “Strained. But improving now.”

  Dr Shirazi nodded. “The body has to be ready to receive something new. You need to scratch the itch. Metaphorically,” he clarified. “Don’t actually scratch or you’ll damage your skin. Further. I see it’s already very raw.”

  He picked up his voice recorder and spoke into it a rambling series of notes for his secretary: book follow up appointment for Veronica Reddington, inform me as soon as bloods are back, attach information for grief counsellor. Veronica looked at his pile of shells and attempted not to raise her eyebrows again. She had been after action that morning, not airy fairy chatter, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to take seriously the mystical ponderings of this nut-eating man. On the other hand, if she did take him seriously, then she was now both affronted and infuriated. How dare he suggest that she was sabotaging her own chances of pregnancy, as though through some kind of emotional deceit, it was her fault? She longed for a baby with at least part of her consciousness every minute of every day. There was no part of her resisting. She was ready. But people swore by him.

  “We’ll run all the tests anyway,” said Dr Shirazi, as though sensing her hesitation. “Your scan was fine, all normal. Pop across the road on your way out and we’ll take the bloods. Then we’ll have all the information. It’ll take a few days for the results.”