by Jemma Wayne
The woman turns out to be a social worker named Polly. She wears a pair of loose black trousers, a short-sleeved blue blouse, and her cropped blonde hair sticks slightly to the sweat on her brow. Her cheeks are flushed by the heat of the day, but a red lip brightens the effect so that the colourfulness looks almost intentional. When Simone creeps tentatively down the stairs and cracks the front door, Polly smiles broadly, introducing first herself and then the officers, allowing Simone one last pretence of choice in asking politely if they may come inside. Simone doesn’t have to let a social worker into the house, she knows this, but police is different.
Simone invites them to sit at the kitchen table. The TV is still blaring, and despite being well used to its constant presence, a remembered etiquette flits through her fingers. She feels embarrassed to leave it on in front of company, though not enough to turn it off. She is too grateful for the shield it provides, the distraction that will stop Jasmine at least from hearing whatever it is these people have come to say. It won’t work quite the same for Dominic. Dominic is listening.
What are they going to say?
Simone imagines that Terry has gone and done something stupid, that he’s hurt somebody, or done something to himself, that he’ll need an alibi again. She braces herself for this. But Polly does not want to sit at the table or whisper to Simone by the door, and begins instead by asking if she can speak to Dominic, alone, in his bedroom she suggests. A glance to the police officers confirms to Simone that this is not a request, so pasting on a forced smile she ushers Dominic over. “What’s going on?” she asks Polly as breezily as she can, putting her arm around Dominic. But beneath lowered eyes, she and her son exchange bewildered glances, and before he disappears with Polly, Dominic grasps his mother’s hand as he has not done in a very long time, and Simone squeezes his palm back. Through interlocked fingers, their panicked thoughts mingle wordlessly, tensing flesh, tormenting bitten nails, conspiring together to maintain the pretence they both know is the only way to protect each other. And then he lets go, and with Polly is gone.
Simone’s mind races – what does the woman want with Dominic? Who’s reported them? For what? Maybe Dominic’s done something. She should have come down on him harder after the incident at school. She should have asked more questions before allowing Polly to lead him away. She should have insisted on remaining with him. Terry would have insisted. Terry wouldn’t have been mild and meek. She wishes he was there. She was trying to seem flippant, amenable, innocent, but there she was caring too much again about what others might think. She offers the police officers tea. Employing the polite tones of her childhood, she sashays around the kitchen with inquiries as to milk and sugar, muttering niceties. But the police officers are young and slightly awkward. They won’t join her in the charade. Their answers are courteous, but she can see their eyes darting about the flat, looking and judging. Mostly, they sit without talking, sipping tea despite the heat. She listens hard for clues to emerge from beneath Dominic’s closed door.
Finally, Polly returns. When she does so, she nods to the police officers who stand and occupy themselves by the window, then she pulls out a chair and sits across from Simone. Dominic has not come out of his room. Hands placed on top of each other on the table, Polly exhales heavily, as though she and Simone are not on opposite sides of authority, not here because it has been ordered, but old friends sharing the day’s woes. “How are you doing?” she smiles.
“Fine,” says Simone, more perfunctorily. “What’s all this about?”
Polly smiles again, relaxed, easy. How does a person become this way? “Has everything been alright lately, in the family? Dominic tells me you’ve got a new job?”
“Yes,” says Simone. “Just on reception at a gym. Nearby.”
“Great.” Polly keeps smiling. “How’s that going?”
Simone hesitates, searching for the condescension in Polly’s tone, but she finds none. “It’s good,” she answers. “It’s going well. I’ve only just started.”
“Wonderful.” The smile never seems to leave Polly’s face and Simone finds herself wondering if the woman sleeps this way, her cheeks plastered upwards. “And how are you managing balancing the job with your young family? It can be tough.” She nods towards Jasmine whose eyes haven’t left the TV. “Do you have help from Dad? Or your family maybe?”
“Jasmine’s dad is wonderful,” says Simone quickly. “Terry loves spending time with her, and he’s not working, right now, so he’s usually around. He’s a great father.” She pauses. “Dominic’s dad passed away a number of years ago. Unfortunately. He was a great father too.”
“Sorry,” says Polly. Her eyes don’t move from Simone’s for a second. She is still smiling. “And your partner, Terry is it, is he good with Dominic too?”
“He loves Dominic.”
Polly nods but doesn’t speak.
Simone attempts to be similarly reserved, but the silence seems to draw words out of her. “They’re boys, aren’t they? They play footie together and stuff.”
“Where is Terry now?” Polly asks.
“Oh, he just popped out. I’m sure he’ll be back soon for his dinner. Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll have to get cooking soon…” Simone half lifts herself from her chair in a gesture towards the kitchen area, but Polly holds her stare patiently until Simone sits back down. Suddenly, the woman’s seemingly endless smile transforms, and she leans across the table – there is concern in her eyes, sympathy, knowing.
“Have there been any difficulties for you lately, Simone? Drugs? Alcohol? Violence maybe?”
“What are you getting at?” Simone knows at once that she has said this too quickly, too loudly, too defensively, but she steadies herself. Her abruptness could as easily be cultivated by indignation, as fear.
Polly nods, clearly understanding those twin possibilities. She looks at Simone carefully, then takes a breath, as though she is getting ready to level with her, or confide something, or make a decree. Simone waits. The two women are around the same age, and somehow, despite the difficulty of the situation, Polly continues to wrap her questions in the guise of an old friend. If it weren’t for the police officers by the window, they could almost be at a café together somewhere, like the one Fiona took Simone to once, swapping the secret stories of their lives. Beneath Polly’s gaze, Simone resists an urge to touch her throat. She hopes that the make-up she applied earlier is holding. “I’ll get right to it,” says Polly at last. “We had a report that Dominic’s been hurt, so we always need to check those things and see that his home environment is safe.”
“Hurt?” Simone declares with surprise – real, but also heightened for drama. “Who told you that?” She shouldn’t have asked who told her. She should have asked how he’s been hurt. But Polly appears to have conjured for herself the should-have-been question.
“His hand,” she says.
“Oh, that. Well that’s silly, he cut it on a kitchen knife,” objects Simone with what she hopes is convincing flippancy.
“That’s what he said, too,” Polly nods.
“Because that’s what happened.”
Polly pauses, as though waiting to see what else Simone is going to say, but she is not going to fall into that trap again. Dominic did cut himself; it is actually what happened, this time. There is no need to reveal more. “Who reported it?” she asks crossly, attempting to keep the unsteadiness out of her voice.
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” says Polly. “But I can tell you that one report came through Dominic’s school.”
“One report? There was more than one?”
“Yes, over some months.” Polly watches Simone as this registers.
“He cut it on a knife,” she says.
Polly pauses for a moment, then leans forward again – friends, confidantes, informant? – and she speaks softly. “Why wasn’t Dominic at school today?”
“He wasn’t feeling well.”
“Why are his clothes torn?”
“Does Terry hurt him? Or you?”
This is what Simone has been waiting for. Preparing for. On cue, she pretends to be aghast. She shakes her head as if astonished, indignant, and pushes her mug of tea away from her. “Of course not!”
“Are drugs a problem? Or alcohol?”
“Of course not!” Now Simone flaps her hand dramatically around the room. Thank goodness she has just finished cleaning it; she cannot imagine what the woman would have thought if she’d arrived an hour earlier. “Does this look like a drug den?”
“It looks very nice,” concedes Polly. “Which brings me to my next question – are you the registered tenants of this flat?”
Simone freezes. This, she hadn’t prepared for, and she doesn’t know what to say. She wishes again that Terry was there to help her, to think for her, to tell her what to do. They can’t lose the flat, she can’t give it up, she can’t go back to the estate. “It’s Terry’s cousin’s,” she answers carefully. “Milly. Her husband died, so we’re staying with her for a while, keeping her company.”
“Oh? So you have help from an auntie type too?” Polly’s smile returns at this, clearly pleased with such a development.
“Oh yes, of course,” confirms Simone. “Did I not mention that? She’s on holiday though, this week.”
Now the smile dissolves just a little. “Okay. Well, I’ll leave you my card,” she says. “And I’ll be in touch with Dominic’s school, just to check on his progress there. Would you be open to setting up a plan with us, together with his teachers? Aside from this, knife injury, it seems he’s struggling a little with some aggression in the classroom.”
Simone nods and quickly dons her now familiar ‘good parent’ costume. “Yes, I know. I’ve spoken to his teacher about it already. We need to get that sorted, of course. I’ve no idea where it’s all come from.”
Even as she speaks it, this line, this lie that she has repeated now twice in a week, she can hear her own parents’ – they have no idea, no idea. Their denial twists itself around her throat. But she has delivered the sentiment as convincingly as ever, so it is surprising when Polly continues to stare, to wait for more. Testing her? Challenging her? Defying her? Offering her rescue?
Simone doesn’t flinch. Inside, she imagines herself breaking down, telling Polly everything, flooding and fouling the newly cleaned flat with the filthy truth. There is a surging pulse somewhere in that thought, thumping, pushing her to do it. Do it. Do it. But she doesn’t know if she can trust Polly. Terry always says it, they can’t trust anyone except each other. She imagines Dominic and Jasmine being dragged away from her. She imagines Terry’s reaction when he arrives home. She takes a breath. She imagines something else: herself mustering all the passion and certitude that is necessary in order not to fall into the abyss. And she doesn’t flinch.
“I’ll be in touch with the school then,” says Polly finally, satisfied at last by Simone’s un-crumbling. Either that, or the wall of denial has tired her. Or else it is six o’clock, and she’s hot. Polly takes one last, long look around the flat, letting her eyes linger for a moment on Jasmine, then she smiles at Simone, that unfailing smile, exhaling deeply, heavily, as she did at the start, two friends who have exchanged woes.
It is only as the door is closing, only as the absence of Polly and the police officers creep through the room, stripping with it the shiny veneer that she and Dominic have together conjured, does Simone realise that instead of relief, she feels a sudden, searing loss. At the sound of the door, Dominic has come out of his room and is standing next to her. He has done his part, as she has done hers. But all at once she realises what in their fear they both have missed: an opportunity for escape.
Simone feels dizzy. She raises her arms into the air next to her, and Dominic takes her hand, but the realisation continues to disorientate, because it is only in this moment, this very moment, that she understands the truth of it, the obvious, complicated truth: that escape is what she longs for. Until now, she has not even seen how trapped she is. They are out of the estate, they have broken through the grey, towering walls, and she had been imagining this to be freedom; but amongst the free she feels more trapped than ever. It hits her now with the full weight of epiphany.
Has she missed it?
Most days, Terry would have been home with them. But just then, there had been a chance, there had been a rare chance. Terry was out, and she had both the kids, and still marks on her neck, and surely if she’d told Polly or the police officers the other things that Terry does, they would have done something. An overwhelming surge of panic shoots through Simone’s chest at the loss of it – what if this was her only chance? What if she waits for things to improve with Terry and they never do? What if things get worse? What if she has realised two seconds too late that they need to get away?
Listening for a moment, she can still hear footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps it is not too late after all. Perhaps if she calls Polly back…
Without thinking further, Simone reaches for the door handle, but she pauses for just a split second to look to Dominic who is standing stock-still next to her. She should not have done this. When she looks into Dominic’s eyes, she sees clearly the same panic that is pushing at her own lungs and squeezing hard against her throat, and it makes her waver. “It’s a chance,” she tells Dominic, urgently. But he shakes his head. He is terrified. And of course he would be. Chances are risky. By their very nature, they are a gamble, and she hasn’t even planned it properly. She isn’t even sure if Polly could protect them. She doesn’t even know if, should she make it to Polly, she would be able to snitch on the man she has loved.
There is a part of her that loves him still.
That’s the joke of it all. She needs him. She depends on him. She wants him, even now.
But wanting him has destroyed her. It is destroying her children too.
Forcing herself to turn away from Dominic, Simone opens the door just a crack. The front door to the street sounds from below, they are almost gone, but she could still run down the stairs and catch them. There’s still time. She could still tell. She could tell. She could tell.
It’s not only Terry though, who might be told on. There are plenty of things that could be said about her too. Terry could say them. In his clever way, he could make her the villain. Then she could lose not only him, but the children. She could gamble, and end up with nothing. But what if she does nothing?
Glancing again to Dominic, she hesitates for a moment more. Her mind flitting back and forth. His eyes seem to lock her into immobility. They are so intense, always so intense and unreadable, so dark and tormented. That’s what she’s done to him, she realises. That’s what Terry’s done to him tenfold.
It was Terry who flushed Dominic’s head down the loo. It was Terry who stood on the doorstep arguing with her parents. It was Terry who put the final stop to their visits, leaning far into the car to make certain they understood. It was Terry who told Dominic he’d kill him if he tried to see them. He shouted this while holding his face hard against a pillow. It was she who stood by and did nothing.
She throws open the door.
And runs straight into Terry.
“Who the fuck were they?”
Terry’s mouth is close to Simone’s ear as he pulls her inside, slamming the door behind them. Dominic’s eyes dart anxiously to his mother, but from behind Terry, Simone shakes her head. She and Dominic have performed many roles today, they can do this one too. “Bloody social worker,” she tells Terry. “And some cops. Apparently somebody took issue with our noise last night.”
“Fucking wankers next door,” he spits. “I knew they’d do that. What did you say to them?”
“That it was a one-off party, that we’re usually quiet, having the kids and everything. That we’re really surprised by the complaint.”
“Hah!” laughs Terry, his mouth wide and wet. There is a blurriness to his ga
ze. He has been drinking, or smoking, or something. “That’s what all those exams of yours were for.” He grabs her around the waist and plants a moist, lingering kiss on her mouth. It is as though their encounter by the Nash arch never happened. It is as though he has never hit her or threatened her or taunted her, it as though they always love each other this way. “Did they buy it?”
“’Course,” she smiles. “I used my posh voice.” Then for authenticity she adds, “Bloody interferers.”
Now, Terry gets a different look in his eye, as if a new thought has traced itself in the muggy air in front of them. “I’m gonna lay into them, I tell you,” he mutters. “Bloody rich wankers. You should’ve heard the way that idiot talks, so far up his own arse. And her, with her smug, prissy face, I’d like to smash that in.”
Simone’s chest tightens, but she tries to remain breezy. “Maybe just leave it, Tel. Don’t play into their hands. It’s probably what they want.”
But Terry has already stopped listening. He has turned and stumbled back down the stairs onto the street where Polly is possibly just a road away. When Simone and Dominic look down from the window, hands again interlinked, they see Terry curling himself around the railings that separate their doorstep from their neighbours’. He steadies himself with the shared black iron, then raises his fist, using it to pound hard upon the neighbours’ door. With the window open, they can hear the noise even from upstairs. But they watch calmly. This pounding on wood is less dreadful than the sound of pummelling flesh.
Veronica
There had been nothing to do but ignore the thudding. Veronica had been too scared to move from the couch or look out from behind the shutters, let alone answer the door, but she had also been too proud to call George, and too worried about Dominic and Jasmine to press the panic button or phone the police. So she had sat, listening to Terry hammer at wood.
It crossed her mind that she may have misjudged things. The previous night, watching Terry shrink into himself in front of her husband, the matching of men had felt so simple and animalistic. Outclassed at every turn, Veronica had almost felt sorry for Terry in the inevitability of it. And the hammering now was proof. He was so witless. There was no logic to it. It was broad daylight so the best he could do was what? Assault one of them, or kill them she supposed; but then his life would be over too. It was all so stupid.