by Janey Fraser
She did too. Vanessa had forgotten how her daughter had had the same toothy gap at this age. The rest of her – the nose and the eyes and even the hairstyle – was identical. ‘Look at this one!’ urged Vanessa, caught up in Sunshine’s excitement. It was almost (but not quite) enough to make her forget the ache in her chest from where the needle had gone in earlier. ‘She’s older here.’
Her granddaughter’s eyes widened. ‘How old?’
‘Sixteen.’ Vanessa’s voice caught in her throat as she recalled the time all too well. It had been around the time of that pregnancy test.
‘And who are the other people in the photograph?’
‘Her friends. Remember how I told you that she went to Corrywood too? She was at the big school then.’
‘Will I go there? After Mummy comes back?’
The question threw Vanessa. ‘I’m not sure. Probably. We’ll have to wait and see.’
Sunshine pouted. ‘I don’t like it when you say “wait and see”. It always means “no”.’
Vanessa laughed. She could remember thinking exactly the same at that age. Maybe some things never changed from one generation to the next. In one way, it was reassuring. In another, alarming.
She had to shut the shop early the next day. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she explained to one of her regulars who arrived just as she was locking up. ‘It’s my granddaughter’s school fête.’
The woman looked distinctly put out. ‘I’ve driven into town especially. Can’t I come in for just a few minutes?’
Oh dear. If only Bobbie were here. But, as she’d rather coolly informed Vanessa, she needed to go to the fête too. It was one heck of a black mark if you didn’t! Besides, it was the last day of term before the Easter holidays. Most parents, even the ones who worked in London, made a big effort to be seen.
‘I’m afraid I’m really going to have to go now,’ said Vanessa, looking pointedly at the clock after her customer had been rifling through the rails for a good fifteen minutes without even trying anything on. ‘I’m open tomorrow at the normal time, if that’s any good.’
Judging from the muttering, it clearly wasn’t. Too bad. Sunshine was more important. She’d been so excited about the fête with the face painting and the guess-the-mummy-or-daddy competition that Vanessa owed it to her to be there.
‘Van Van!’ Sunshine, who’d been holding Miss Davies’s hand in the playground where all the stalls were set up, broke off and came hurtling towards her. Vanessa almost didn’t recognise her granddaughter with the blue and pink butterfly markings all over her face. Did these enthusiastic face painters ever stop to think how long it took to get that stuff off?
‘Sorry I’m late, poppet. I had to shut my shop up.’
‘Ah yes, your shop!’ Miss Davies had an enthusiastic ring to her voice. ‘I must come in sometime. Everyone says it’s brilliant.’
‘Look!’ Sunshine was pulling her towards a table manned by a horsey-looking woman with red hair. She’d seen her before, hadn’t she?
‘I’m in the other parenting class up the corridor,’ the woman announced in a rather posh voice. ‘I meant to come and say hello before.’ She spoke as though they were already familiar. ‘It’s a long time since your Brigid and my Mark were friends.’
‘Your Mark?’ questioned Vanessa, confused.
‘Yes. Look!’ The horsey redhead pointed to the photograph on the board behind her. Sunshine had chosen to take in the one of her mother as a teenager. ‘That’s my son standing right next to your Brigid in the picture. Then someone said you were looking after her little girl.’ She lowered her voice. ‘What happened there exactly, then?’
How indiscreet! Couldn’t she see that Sunshine was listening? ‘My daughter went travelling,’ said Vanessa smoothly. ‘She’s still abroad at the moment so that’s why I’m caring for my granddaughter.’
Sunshine had skipped off now, towards Jack who was at the next stall. ‘Stay still,’ Bobbie was saying. ‘No, you can’t go off on your own. We’ve had quite enough of that.’
She had to talk to Bobbie – try and make up again. But the horsey redhead wasn’t letting up. ‘My Mark graduated from Oxford last year. He’s a lawyer now, working in the City.’ Her face shone with pride. ‘We’re hoping that his little brother is going to follow in his footsteps.’ Her voice dropped again. ‘Mind you, Sebastian’s not proving as easy to bring up as Mark. He’s from my second marriage, you know. Between you and me—’
A sharp voice interrupted her. ‘I don’t want to spoil your conversation but could I have a go at this please? No, not the “Guess Who’s My Mum or Dad” competition. The “Guess If It’s Home-Made” one.’
My goodness! Vanessa stared at the narrow-faced woman with the elfin haircut who had just pushed in so rudely. She was wearing the jacket! The suede jacket that had been ‘sold’ from the shop when Bobbie had first started. She was certain of it. ‘Excuse me!’
Her voice was drowned by a shout. ‘JACK! JACK! COME BACK HERE NOW! AND GET OFF YOUR SKATEBOARD!’
‘That child is an utter nightmare,’ muttered horsey redhead. ‘His mother simply can’t control him.’
‘It’s not her fault,’ snapped Vanessa.
‘It’s all right!’ Sunshine called out. ‘I’ll catch him!’
‘WAIT!’ Vanessa began running after her. The two of them were heading for the road. But someone was at the gate, surely? No! The teacher who had been in charge was now rounding everyone up for the mothers’ race.
‘GOT HIM!’ Sunshine was hanging on to Jack triumphantly. For a little thing, she was very feisty. Just like her mother.
‘GERROFF.’ Jack wrenched his way free and sulkily made his way back to his mother.
‘Thank you,’ Bobbie began to say. ‘Look, I’m sorry about the other day.’
‘BINGO!’ Sunshine’s little voice broke through Bobbie’s apology as she began to wave furiously across the road. ‘Look, Granny! It’s Brian with Bingo. He’s come to meet us like he promised.’
‘COME BACK!’ For the second time in five minutes, Vanessa tried to run but this time her legs were glued to the ground in fear. As if in slow motion, she tried to force herself forwards. For a second there, she thought she’d done it. Almost grabbed her little granddaughter by the hem of her school skirt. But it was too late. She’d pulled away.
‘SUNSHINE!,
There was the flash of a car. Brian shouting ‘STOP’ in the same emergency voice they’d learned at dog training. A screech of brakes. And then a horrible, empty silence.
There was a little girl who wouldn’t get dressed.
‘I beseech you,’ said mum, but daughter knew best!
She made such a din
That both parents gave in –
So she went to school in a vest.
Chapter 33
ANDY
‘HOW IS PAMELA?’
‘Your wife still away, is she?’
‘Seems odd not to see Mrs Gooding! She’s usually the one in charge here!’
‘How nice that you’ve stepped in!’
Andy spent most of the afternoon at the fête, batting away questions with a smooth smile, while manning the face-painting stall with Natasha. Both had been roped in by the ever-persuasive Miss Davies because the original volunteers had been struck down by a virus that was doing the rounds. There was no way he could tell them what was really going on. Again and again, he played over the conversation with the psychologist in his head. ‘Your wife is suffering from low self-esteem. It’s a common trigger for addictions.’
Andy hadn’t cared for the psychologist’s silky voice. All this psycho-twaddle! If these people had grown up in a home, they’d know what it was like to be in the real world. ‘Low self-esteem?’ Andy had repeated. ‘But she always acts as though she’s better than anyone else! Pamela is cool, distant and … well, superior. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly. And that applies to anyone who isn’t her.’
‘You sound very angry,’ the psychologist had said.
<
br /> Angry? No. Betrayed, yes.
‘Pamela wouldn’t allow me to contact you before,’ she continued, ‘but now, I’m glad to say, she’s happy for you to come down for a family session.’
‘With the girls?’
‘No. Not yet. Just you.’
‘SUNSHINE!’
Andy’s thoughts were sharply interrupted by a woman’s scream. Dropping the cash box, he spotted a little scrap of a girl rushing over the road at the far side of the playground. As if in slow motion, a car came along (not fast, thank God) and there was a terrible squeal of brakes.
‘Shit, Dad,’ breathed Nattie next to him, brush in hand.
There was a horrible silence: the kind you read about when a disaster happens. Andy was hardly able to look. And then, to his relief – and disbelief – he spotted the little girl sitting on the other side of the road, next to a man with a dog.
‘Are they all right?’ gasped someone.
‘I don’t know,’ said another.
That small blonde woman whom Bobbie worked with was now belting across the road. Bobbie was by the entrance gate, her arms round Jack. She looked distressed. Andy found himself abandoning his stall and running over. ‘What happened?’
She was shaking as he put his arm around her comfortingly. ‘Sunshine ran over the road to see Brian. The car swerved and Brian managed to scoop her up just in time. Can you look after Jack? I just need to make sure they’re all right.’
She was so unlike Pamela. If his wife had been here, she would have made some disdainful comment about parents who didn’t keep their children under control.
Bobbie was coming back across the road now, holding hands with the little girl who had so nearly been run over. The child was chattering away, seemingly oblivious to her scrape with death in the way that only children could be. ‘I just wanted to stroke Bingo,’ she was chirping.
The woman who owned the shop was hanging on to the older man, who had a nasty cut on his arm.
‘Who’s in charge of First Aid?’ someone called out.
‘Sure you don’t need an ambulance?’ asked someone else.
‘Definitely not,’ said the older man cheerfully. ‘Please don’t make a fuss. Down, Bingo, down.’
‘I still think we ought to get you checked out at Casualty,’ said the small woman.
Andy turned away. Some injuries were only skin deep. Pamela’s was different. Mental illness, the psychologist had said after they’d made the appointment, couldn’t be sorted overnight.
‘Thanks for looking after Jack.’ Bobbie gave him a lovely warm smile that made him melt. She shook her head as her son ran off to help his sister on the ‘Guess How Many Additives’ table. ‘He ran off first, you know. If Sunshine hadn’t tried to stop him, she wouldn’t have seen Brian on the other side of the road.’
She began to shake again. How he wanted to put his arm around her once more, but twice in one day might be too obvious. Instead, he steered her away to a slightly quieter spot, near the Friendship Stones, where children who didn’t have anyone to play with could meet up with others. Maybe there should be something like that for adults, he thought.
‘Look, this probably isn’t the right time, but there’s something I’ve got to ask you. Has Rob said anything about Pamela?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She hadn’t even told her own brother!
‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me now.’
So he did. After he’d finished, she stared at him in disbelief. ‘But that’s awful. Poor Pamela! And you’re going down to see her tomorrow? To this rehab place?’
He nodded. ‘I’m dreading it, to be honest. I’ve got a feeling, from what the psychologist said, that they all blame me.’
‘How can they? You’ve given her everything she could ever want.’
‘I thought so too.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Clearly it wasn’t enough.’
‘Listen, Andy.’ This time, it was Bobbie who put a hand on his arm. Her touch made his whole body tingle. ‘You’re one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. No one can blame you for this.’
He shrugged, looking across to Nattie, who was waving at him crossly, indicating she needed his help at the face-painting stall. There was a queue of parents waiting to hand over their money to turn their kids into Spider-Man, still an old favourite apparently, along with the butterfly. ‘We’ll see, after tomorrow.’
Her eyes widened. ‘So presumably, with all this, you’re cancelling the parenting weekend in Devon?’
Andy shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want to let everyone down. And it will do the girls good to get away for a weekend. They’ve both agreed to come, amazingly.’
‘What do they think about Pamela?’
‘That’s the thing.’ He couldn’t quite meet her eye. ‘They think their mother is just having a break. She doesn’t want me to tell them about the drugs. Or the drink. And the psychologist says I have to honour her wishes.’ He glanced across at Nattie again, who was still waving furiously. ‘It’s one of the things we need to talk about.’
Then he remembered. How selfish of him! Unable to stop himself, he glanced down at Bobbie’s stomach, which was gently bulging. ‘What about you? How are things going?’
‘Wonderful!’ Bobbie took away her hand and he felt a sudden sense of loss. ‘I’ve told Rob about the baby and he was really excited! As for the secretary, she’s seeing someone else. I can’t believe I got the wrong end of the stick. Must be all those hormones flying around!’
‘Great. Great.’ Andy had to force the words out of his mouth. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’ And so he was, he told himself, making his way back to Nattie’s stall. So why did he still have that silly idea in his head? The one that kept imagining what life would have been like if he’d married someone like Bobbie?
‘Andy, mate!’ A hot sweaty hand grabbed his sleeve in the crowd. ‘Glad I’ve bumped into you.’ There was a wheeze followed by a hacking cough. Ugh! The man was actually spitting on to the ground; some of the other parents – understandably – were regarding him with disdain. Andy felt defiled by his company, just as he had felt all those years ago in the home. ‘I’ve been sick, mate. My kid passed on that virus that’s going round. But I’m back now.’ There was another bout of coughing, followed by a hoarse whisper. ‘Got that money for me, have you?’
‘I’m not being blackmailed,’ hissed Andy. ‘And certainly not here.’
‘So you don’t mind everyone finding out about your past?’ Kieran threw back his head and laughed, revealing a gold tooth at the back. ‘Reckon you’re calling my bluff. Tell you what, Barry – or Andy as you call yourself now. I heard about this little weekend away you’ve got planned for our group. Somehow I slipped off the group email but I’m sure you can send me another. We can settle up there. OK?’
‘I’ve got a meeting today,’ said Andy briefly over breakfast; a quick affair which you might miss if you blinked. Natasha was on her new ‘no food’ diet, sipping hot water with lemon. Mel, meanwhile, was texting furiously, sitting on the kitchen counter in shorts and laddered tights again.
‘Is anyone listening?’ he added. ‘I’ve got a meeting today.’
‘But you don’t work any more,’ said Mel, without looking up.
He thought of George. When he sold the company to Harry Screws, he’d expected the money to last a good year or so. But he hadn’t reckoned on the bills for Pamela’s place or the sudden dive in the stock market that had taken a severe chunk of his savings. ‘Actually, I’m just having some time off until I find something else. What are you two doing now?’
‘I’m going to be having wild sex and Nattie’s going to keep on starving herself. Don’t look like that, Dad. I’m only kidding.’
Was she? Andy wasn’t so sure as he set off for Sussex in the Porsche which used to give him so much pleasure but which now did nothing for him. Just as well. If George’s latest email was right, the car would have to go, along with everything else. Turning on the radio,
he caught the tail end of a heated discussion about children and smacking.
‘In my view, it should be encouraged.’ The speaker spoke in a no-nonsense military manner. ‘It’s a necessary deterrent. Just like capital punishment.’
Bit harsh, wasn’t it?
‘Thank you, Dr Know,’ said the interviewer uncertainly. ‘I’m sure we will get plenty of feedback on that one!’
Dr Know? That was Bobbie’s mother’s boyfriend, wasn’t it? What would this so-called expert have to say, wondered Andy, about an addict mother? Or a father trying to make up for lost family time?
The thought almost distracted him from the road. Only when he got on to the motorway and set cruise control did he allow himself to think. Andy had never been to a rehab centre before. He’d once seen a documentary about a really smart one in London; a programme which, he remembered now, Pamela had taken a keen interest in. How long ago had that been? A year perhaps. Maybe two. Was she on drugs then? Or taking those tranquillisers? If so, she’d hidden the signs pretty well.
Maybe the coldness was actually a symptom? A clue that his wife was doped up to her eyeballs. And what about those times when she had been really edgy and twitchy: had she been waiting for the next fix? There had been some kids in the home like that. He’d wanted none of it. But then again, it might have been better than the terrible thing that he had done.
No. He wouldn’t think about that now. He needed to concentrate on Pamela. Andy stared up at the huge grey stone building with its porticoed entrance and neatly tended gardens all around. No wonder this place cost a bomb.
‘Don’t be surprised when you see her,’ his mother-in-law had warned. ‘She’s not quite her usual self.’
He was feeling nervous now; he didn’t mind admitting it. Making his way through the courtyard, he strode past a fountain and up the steps. It was like a hotel with these plush carpets and chandeliers. ‘Mr Gooding,’ he said quietly to the receptionist. ‘I’m here to see my wife.’
She nodded as though he was expected. ‘Please, take a seat.’ She indicated a glass-topped coffee table laden with magazines. Andy tried to read but thoughts kept spinning round in his head. How many other stressed parents ended up here? Grown-up kids whose parents had mucked them up. Adults who couldn’t cope with the impossible hoops that children put them through. And yet he couldn’t imagine life without his girls. How sorry he felt for people who couldn’t have them.