by Janey Fraser
‘Mr Gooding?’ A slightly tanned, rather mannish woman with short blonde hair was standing in front of him. ‘I’m Dr Banks. Nice to meet you. Would you like to follow me?’
He went through a pair of doors, followed by another. He half expected them to be locked to prevent the patients from escaping but it all seemed quite normal. Then Dr Banks opened a third door. Andy stopped. A tall, very pale woman was sitting on a sofa, looking listlessly out of the window. She was much thinner than when he’d last seen her, and her hair was hanging loosely instead of being twisted into that smart knot she usually wore. ‘Pamela?’ he said doubtfully.
The woman looked up at him. ‘You came then.’
He sat down beside her. Her proximity made him feel uncomfortable. ‘Of course I did.’ Overcome with pity, he made to hold her hand but she took it away. He was aware of Dr Banks’s eyes on him. ‘Do you mind if we have some time on our own?’
The doctor looked at Pamela. ‘What would you like?’
There was a silence. ‘Yes. But not here.’ Her eyes went out to the garden again. ‘I can talk better outside. I can breathe there.’
‘But you hate going outside!’ Andy couldn’t resist saying. ‘Unless you’ve got your sunscreen and sunglasses on!’
The doctor made a noise in her throat. ‘Actually, Mr Gooding, we find it helpful not to make too many assumptions here. Labelling people can do more harm than we realise.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Can you come back in half an hour, please? It will be time for Mrs Gooding’s next therapy session then.’
At first, it was hard to know what to talk about. The biggies, like ‘How could you be so stupid as to take drugs?’ seemed too huge to start with. So he began with mundane conversation such as what the food was like and what she did. Initially, she seemed to take a while to respond to his words; digesting each sentence before replying.
‘We discuss things,’ she said, sitting down on a bench by a rose bed. ‘Everything. Our childhoods. What we like doing. What we don’t like doing.’ She gave a little laugh. He couldn’t work out if it was a proper laugh or a sarcastic one. ‘And we do practical things like housework and dusting and ironing. We all muck in.’
Ironing? Dusting? It seemed so banal!
‘The rhythm is soothing. I take turns in the garden too.’ She smiled at the rose bed in front of them. ‘I’ve even learned how to prune.’
Her voice was different, he noticed. Softer. As though she was almost amused with herself. ‘What did it, Pamela?’ He moved closer. ‘What tipped you over the edge? Surely it wasn’t just Nattie and this modelling business?’
She jumped up. ‘What do you mean “just”?’ She glared at him now, like the old Pamela. ‘What do you know about being at home all day? Did you honestly think that I was going to be happy, giving it all up to be a little home-maker?’
‘You seemed happy enough at the time,’ he flashed back.
‘That was because I was scared! I was nineteen years old, Andy! I’d only been in the business for a year but already I was terrified! Everyone wanted a bit of me. The magazines. The photographers. My agent. I saw other models go under if they did something wrong or got too old. I thought I’d get out while I was still on top.’
‘No you didn’t.’ He could tell she was lying. It was like that role play they’d done in parent class where the child (Audrey) had hidden something. ‘You were scared, yes. But it wasn’t by the drugs. Or because you were pregnant. It was something else.’
The look of pure panic that swept her face told him he was right.
‘I can’t tell you.’ She began tearing up a rose leaf into tiny bits. ‘If I do, you’ll never forgive me.’
He began to sweat. ‘Of course I will.’
‘Very well.’ She was back to the cool, distant Pamela again. It was as though she was two people. ‘I told you I was pregnant. But what I didn’t tell you was that I was raped.’
‘What?’
She looked away. ‘It was a photographer. Just before I met you. He said … he said I’d been asking for it but I hadn’t … I hadn’t …’
Now she was weeping into his arms. Huge juddering sobs. Andy held her but inside he felt violently sick. ‘You said it was someone in the public eye who got you pregnant. That he didn’t want anything to do with you.’
She pulled away and looked at him wildly. ‘He was! It was …’ She began to shudder. Then she began to retch. ‘I can’t … I can’t even say his name. I don’t want it in my mouth.’
Fucking hell! Andy suddenly thought of the headline in the paper on the day he had sold the company. That article. The one above the piece about the teenage gang. It had been a report on the lavish funeral of a world-famous photographer. He was the one!
Finally, Andy understood.
‘His death brought it all back,’ he said slowly. Just as, he added silently to himself, the report on the teenage gang had done to him.
Pamela nodded, tears still streaming down her face. ‘For years I managed to blank him out. But when he died, he was everywhere! On the radio. On the television. In every magazine I opened. In … in Mel’s face.’
Andy held out his arms again and she buried her face in his chest.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he whispered into her hair. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was rape?’ His fists clenched. ‘I’d have bloody well killed him.’
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d believe me.’ Her voice came out like a child’s. The child that she had been, more or less, at the time.
‘Of course I would have done.’
Or would he? There were girls at the home who’d got pregnant. Girls who claimed they had been raped. No one believed them. It was an excuse, designed to make them look like victims. So unfair, he could see now. But at the time, that’s what they’d all thought. Including him.
‘I felt so dirty!’ She was lifting her tear-stained face to look at him. Never had he seen her like this before, with mascara streaked down her cheeks. She looked more beautiful than ever. Real. Natural.
‘Dirty?’ he repeated. He could understand that too. Hadn’t he felt the same, in the home when the boys had made him do their stuff?
‘At first, when we got married,’ she continued, ‘it was all right. I felt safe. I liked playing house. But I needed it all to be perfect to make up for what had happened before. I thought that if it wasn’t, everything would go wrong again.’
His poor Pamela!
‘It was easy at first because the girls were so good, but then they became teenagers and they began to argue back. They started to drink, like I used to. And go out with boys. I started to worry too, about Mel. Began to think that we should have told her the truth, years ago. Should have told her you weren’t her dad.’ She stared at him, distraught. ‘How can we do that now, Andy? Answer me that?’
He couldn’t.
‘In the end, I got so stressed that I went to the doctor for some tranquillisers.’
It was like listening to someone else’s life story. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you weren’t around enough. And when you were, I couldn’t bear to think that I was letting you down. You were so proud of us. My perfect family, you used to call us. You worshipped me, Andy, admit it! Do you realise how terrifying that was? All I needed to do was to slip up and then I’d have lost you.’
He wanted to deny it but there were bits that were all too true.
‘But what really got me’ – Pamela shivered – ‘was when Nattie won a modelling competition. What if she became as successful as me? I was jealous – terrible, isn’t it? – but I was also scared in case the same thing happened to her. In case she got hurt too. That world, Andy, it can be evil. No one can understand unless they’ve been in it themselves.’
She was biting her nails. Pamela never bit her nails. ‘That’s why I started using again. I thought it might help me relax. One of the other mothers at school was my dealer.’ Pamela gave a half-smile. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much undercover
dealing goes on at the school gates. It helped a bit. But I couldn’t get off it. When … when he died, I just couldn’t cope any more. And then you sold the company! It seemed a brilliant opportunity to go down to Mummy’s. Get away. After she broke her arm, it was an excuse to stay longer.’
Her eyes grew distant as though she was somewhere else. ‘I felt safe at home. Like a little girl again.’
Andy felt a pang of jealousy. She should have gone to him. Not her mother.
‘Mummy realised I needed help. A friend of hers suggested this place. Said it was expensive but that it worked for someone she knew.’
Andy didn’t know what to say. It was all too much to take in at one sitting. His wife had just rewritten their entire family history. ‘And is it working?’
‘Maybe.’ She smiled wanly. ‘It’s helped me tell you my story after all these years.’
That was true. Her courage, her honesty, had given him strength. It was time to tell his story now. ‘Actually, Pamela, there’s something I need to tell you.’
A clanging bell from the house cut him off, dammit. As if she was a robot, Pamela rose to her feet. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She was calmer now, yet still there was something not quite right.
‘Are you still on that stuff?’ he asked, willing her to say no.
‘No. I had to go cold turkey. It’s why I didn’t want you to see me then.’ She shivered and tucked her arm into his as they walked back towards the house. An onlooker, he thought wryly, might think she was perfectly well. ‘What about you, Andy? How are you getting on? Are the girls all right?’
He’d expected her to ask him that earlier. Maybe the drugs made you self-centred. ‘It’s not easy, being a full-time parent,’ he began awkwardly.
Pamela laughed, which made her seem more awake. Less dreamy. ‘I know that. Is Mel still going out with that awful boy: the one that looks like a weasel?’
‘You knew?’
She sighed. ‘Oh yes, I knew. And is Nattie drinking? And not eating properly?’
This wasn’t good enough! He rounded on her. Angry now. ‘Why didn’t you try to do something?’
‘Do something?’ she repeated with a little cry. ‘Have you tried?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And did you get anywhere?’
‘No.’
All right, she’d proved the point.
‘I’ve told them.’ Pamela gave a small hysterical laugh. ‘They’ll only learn through their mistakes. That’s why classes can’t help. By the way, how is your little parenting group doing?’
‘OK, thanks.’ He took his arm away. Her touch made him feel awkward. It was too much. Too soon. ‘We’ve finished the course now but we’re having a weekend away. Down at Seabridge.’
‘Seabridge?’
‘Yes. You don’t mind, do you? It’s about time someone went down there anyway, to give the place an airing.’
‘Is Bobbie going?’
‘Bobbie?’ He felt himself redden. ‘Yes, she is actually. Why?’
Her eyes narrowed but she shrugged. ‘No reason. Well, I hope it goes well.’ She put out her hand as though he was a guest. ‘Lovely to see you, Andy. Do come again when you have time.’
This was weird! ‘Do you want to see the girls?’
‘The girls,’ she repeated as though she’d forgotten them. ‘No. I don’t think so. Not until I’m better. I’d hate them to see me like this. Don’t you think?’
But what if she didn’t get better? Where did that leave him? And Nattie and Mel? he thought as he made his way back to the Porsche. Troubled, he began to start the engine but as he did so, remembered he’d left his mobile under the front seat. Three missed calls from his financial adviser. He felt misgiving in his chest. Then the handset began to vibrate in his hand. George again.
‘Andy?’ He sounded tense. On edge. Excited? Or apprehensive? ‘I’ve got some news. Are you sitting down?’
OF COURSE I’M NOT LYING!
Fibs that parents tell their kids:
Father Christmas is coming.
I’m not crying – it’s something in my eye.
Daddy and I are just talking.
I haven’t got any money.
If you don’t eat that up, you’ll starve.
Of course I’m not lying.
Chapter 34
BOBBIE
‘MUMMY! MUMMY! DO goldfish float when they’re asleep? Cos Daisy says so and I think she’s lying again.’
Where did they get their questions from? Last week, Bobbie would have dismissed it with an impatient ‘I don’t know’. But she felt so much better! More able to deal with anything now that she and Rob were back on track.
Thank heavens Araminta had asked Research Trivia not to take further action. She could only hope they’d agree. Of course, they didn’t want to use her any more but Vanessa had given her a few more shifts after all, which would just about cover the loss of income. Meanwhile, Rob – who didn’t know anything about this, thankfully – was being so nice! Always asking how she was feeling as well as getting home at a reasonable time. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d been on a parenting course himself!
In fact, it was almost like BK (Before Kids) as she and Sarah called it. Talking of Sarah, she and Matthew had got on really well at the school fête. Her old friend had needed no persuading when Bobbie had asked her down. ‘It will be lovely to see you,’ she’d gushed but then, as soon as they’d got there, she’d made a beeline for Matthew, offering to assist him on the “Guess the Teacher’s Age” stand.
Who would have thought that Judith Davies was actually twenty-eight? She looked more like nineteen. They’d announced that one (rather brave of her, as everyone said), soon after the near-accident. Bobbie still got the shivers when she thought about it. But what she didn’t admit to anyone was her relief when those brakes had screeched and she’d realised that it wasn’t Jack: that he was safe on the school side of the road. It was every parent’s fear that something would happen to their child.
‘Mum!’ Jack was tugging at her hand impatiently. ‘Will you answer my question! Do goldfish float when they’re asleep?’
Ah yes. She’d forgotten that one. Bobbie handed him her iPad. ‘Why don’t you ask Jeeves?’
‘Don’t want to.’
Oh dear. Jack was being bolshie again! In fact, they’d both been playing up ever since she and Rob had sat the children down and told them that they were going to be having another brother or sister. ‘Which?’ Daisy had demanded. ‘Girl or boy?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Bobbie began.
‘Why not?’
Rob had shot her a what-do-we-say-now look.
‘Because it’s a surprise,’ Bobbie had said brightly.
Daisy had pouted. ‘I hate surprises.’
From then on, she had been acting up even more than usual; bossing her little brother around and being really difficult. ‘It’s perfectly normal,’ Not Really Pregnant Mum had said reassuringly when she’d commented on the bump at the school fête. ‘My Wayne was a right little bugger when I was expecting his sister. Your kid will get over it. They don’t have much option, do they? Mind you, I’m bloody impressed that you’re up the duff.’ She nudged her meaningfully. ‘My hubby and I are too sodding knackered to have sex any more.’
Bobbie wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or not by this. Even so, it was nice that Not Really Pregnant Mum finally seemed to be offering an olive branch. Perhaps it was because they’d just had the last class. Now they’d have the weekend in Devon to ‘reinforce everything they’d learned’ as Judith Davies had earnestly put it.
‘Can you imagine what it’s going to be like?’ Vanessa kept saying. ‘Everyone bringing their partners and kids? These relatives of yours must have a really big house.’
‘They do.’ Bobbie had been down there a few times and, on every visit, had felt quite overwhelmed. It would have housed at least five families in London.
Only a few days now until they went! It mi
ght help to get through the first bit of the school holiday. That was never easy. The coming to terms with the arguments over the remote control and the skateboard-helmet nagging and the ‘He hit me firsts’ and the plasters which were never where they should be. Then, just as you’d got used to twenty-four-hour chaos, it was time to go back to the manic ‘Get up now!’ for a new school term.
But maybe these holidays would be a bit different. Vanessa had asked her to work three afternoons in the shop while she looked after Daisy and Jack at her house. ‘It will give Sunshine someone to play with. We could do a swap on the other days.’
The brilliant thing about Vanessa was that she’d already brought up one child so she knew what to do. OK, so she’d lost Jack. Once. (So far Bobbie had done this at least twenty-three times although she’d rather no one else knew about that.) But even so, she was good at calming Jack down and had a real knack for giving Daisy jobs so she felt ‘useful’ rather than being bossy. Why didn’t it work when she tried that?
Maybe there should be some government scheme where everyone had to bring up someone else’s kid for a week or two. A sort of short-term foster arrangement. It would work both ways. You’d have to be nicer to the visiting kids because you couldn’t scream at them like your own. And your own kids would learn to behave because, as every parent knew, children were usually nicer to anyone who wasn’t their mother.
‘MUM! MUM!’ Jack’s persistent voice brought her back to the present. ‘Ask Jeeves says the goldfish floats when it’s dead.’
Oh shit.
Vanessa was ready and waiting at the shop, rota sheet in hand. ‘Ah! At last!’
‘Sorry we’re late,’ whispered Bobbie, ‘but I had to replace a goldfish.’