The Second Child

by Caroline Bond

  It’s a relief to make it to the interval. Sarah says she’s going to ring home to check on Lauren. I’m desperate to stretch my cramped legs, so I leave her to it. The scrum around the refreshment stand and the confusion of faces I don’t recognise propels me outside – yet another moment when I wish I smoked. I wander around aimlessly, enjoying the quiet. What I assume are tiny birds, but on a second glance turn out to be bats, flit around in the settling dusk. Behind me the school radiates light. On my second stroll along one of the paths I realise that I can see into the classroom that the cast are using to get ready. It takes me a few seconds to register that I’m looking straight at James. He’s sitting on one of the tables in the middle of a big group of kids, most of them girls, many of them leotard-clad. Despite the sea of teenage flesh surrounding him, the self-consciousness he showed onstage is gone. He’s laughing and larking about, completely at ease. In fact he seems to be showing off. The stunning black girl from the duet is sitting very close to him. Something he says makes her laugh and she touches his arm. I turn back towards the school entrance with a sense of pride that has nothing to do with his musical talent.

  SARAH

  Ali says Lauren is fine, just coughing a bit, nothing to worry about. I slip my phone away into my bag and sit back on my uncomfortable plastic seat. The auditorium is nearly empty, apart from me, a few elderly couples who presumably didn’t fancy tackling the slippy, polished stairs, and a hassled-looking music teacher, who is organising the sheet music for the second half. The buzz from the foyer is loud, but uninviting. I sit there, suspended from duty, relishing doing nothing. The music teacher clatters over a stand and curses under his breath, while the lighting crew runs through a series of psychedelic changes as the old couples and I sit quite contentedly in the luridly lit silence, waiting for the concert to start again.

  Surprisingly Phil seems less bored in the second half, he claps in the right places, and actually looks at the stage rather than off into the middle distance. He turns and smiles at me when James is on: shared pride, a warm, simple, clean emotion. James does okay; he keeps his head bent low over his guitar, concentrating with the same intensity that he used to give to his toy cars when he was little. Now he’s all legs and folded limbs, no longer a boy, but not yet a man, but what strikes me as forcibly as the change in James is the transformation of the girls. From their junior-school days together, I recognise quite a few of them: Amy and Lottie Pierce, Freya Harding, ‘little’ Samira, who is now big and sporting braces, and the very tall girl with glasses – Anya, Anna? They are all turning into young women, slim-hipped, full-busted, stunning in their tight black jeans, make-up and heels. There are probably other kids here that I should recognise, but don’t, the ‘morphing into teenagers’ process having obliterated the children they used to be.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a wave of darkness washes over me.

  The stage is full of healthy, giddy, able teenagers, showing off their talents, and themselves, to an audience of equally able, giddy friends, just as they should, but as Lauren never will. The gulf between her heavy, unwieldy body and their normal young, voracious ones is stark. As they sing and dance, laugh and flirt, the blackout curtain that I keep closed on the life Lauren should be living tugs and parts, letting in the hurt. I glance at Phil. He’s sitting forward concentrating on the show, happy and untroubled, but I’ve started on a train of thought I can’t stop.

  Lauren will never be a teenager, she will never share a secret with a friend, never wear a push-up bra and too much eyeliner, never dance, never stand in a spotlight, never be admired and applauded. She will never have a crush on a boy, never be kissed, never be loved by anyone other than us, because she will never really grow up. The act changes and the choir comes on and starts singing ‘Let It Be’ and I sit and spiral downwards, while everyone else claps and waves to their taken-for-granted, perfectly normal kids.

  PHIL

  I enjoy the second half of the show. Some of the kids are really quite talented. The choir in particular is really good, well rehearsed, ‘on it’. In the way that even cheesy music has, the singing creeps up on me, sucking me in. It’s as they’re doing some Disney number, a song that I recognise but can’t place, that a young woman steps forward to sing the lead solo. She’s slim, with very straight brown hair, pale skin and high, sharp cheekbones. Compared to the self-consciousness of many of the other kids, she’s very assured – and God, is she good. Her voice is clear and strong. As she sings, she looks out at the audience with utter composure. And that’s when it hits me. Our other daughter could be like this: able, talented, glorious, full of potential. Until this moment the other child has been a distant figment, a character in a story that isn’t really true, but as I watch the girl perform, I realise that she is real. That, at the end of this nightmare, there will be a real fourteen-year-old girl just like one of the kids on the stage in front of me. It’s transfixing. For the first time since this chaos began, I begin to feel excitement, real ‘fizzing in my gut’ excitement, at the thought of coming face-to-face with this ‘other daughter’.

  SARAH

  We have to wait for James at the end of the concert. He finally emerges from the inner recesses of the school, his guitar slung across his back, his hair quiffed to perfection, chatting animatedly to a bunch of girls: a modern-day James Dean. The moment he sees us, however, it’s as if a switch has been thrown; he goes quiet and seems to fold back into himself, shrugging off our praises with acute embarrassment. He can’t get us away from his friends fast enough. On the walk to the car, Phil makes it worse by winding him up about the girls, asking which one James thinks is the prettiest. In fact Phil is weirdly hyper, chattering on about the performance and messing about with a kind of mania that is in stark contrast to his mood at the beginning of the evening.

  On the drive home he’s equally erratic, heavy on the accelerator and late on the brake. There’s no need, it’s only a short drive and we’re in no rush. As we come along the bottom road we find ourselves behind a bus. Phil slows down and then, without warning, swings the car out onto the wrong side of the road. Coming towards us, fast, is a van. I brace my hand against the dashboard. He jerks the wheel and pulls back in behind the bus, just in time.

  ‘Phil!’ My heart is pounding.

  ‘What?’

  ‘For God’s sake, slow down.’

  ‘It was fine.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Look, are you driving?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, can you back off then?’

  We travel the last mile with the tension pulsing between us. James is silent.

  When we get back home James heads straight up to his room, and Ali, sensing an atmosphere, leaves promptly. I go into the kitchen to get away from Phil, but for some reason he follows me. He leans against the cabinets, watching as I empty the dishwasher, and when I go to put a handful of cutlery away in the drawer it takes him a beat longer than necessary to move out of my way. I bristle with irritation. I turn and start extracting plates and bowls from the racks. Still he scrutinises me.

  ‘What?’ It comes out like a bark.

  ‘Nothing.’ His response is equally sharp.

  ‘Then why are you standing there, watching me?’ I want him to get out of my face.

  He shrugs and moves across the kitchen, taking up a new position, slouched against the sink. I stack the bowls into an uneven pile, wincing at the sound of grating ceramic. When I take them to the cupboard, he’s in my way again. Deliberately? Goading me? Why won’t he just go away?

  Instead he challenges me. ‘Come on. Spit it out. I can tell you’re in a mood about something.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I say, though it’s obvious that I am.

  ‘Yes, you are.’ For a second we both glare at each other, holding back the torrent. Then it breaks loose.

  ‘You could’ve killed us.’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic. It was perfectly safe.’ His words are clipped and precise. ‘It’s you. Yo
u’re so wound up at the moment.’

  ‘That’s not surprising, is it? Anyway that doesn’t change the fact that you were driving way like a bloody maniac.’ I can feel the adrenaline still pumping through my bloodstream. We only just pulled back in in time.

  ‘Forget the sodding trip home, will you?’ He pushes himself away from the sink and comes towards me. ‘That’s not what this is about, is it?’

  I shrug, unwilling to get into it with him, but he doesn’t seem to want to let it go.

  ‘You’re not the only one struggling, you know. This isn’t your own private nightmare.’

  His words sting and something inside me rips, but instead of revealing hurt, what they expose is anger – a stewing, rolling reserve of stored-up resentment and bitterness. ‘You think I’m enjoying this?’

  His response is swift and sharp. ‘No. Don’t be ridiculous. But you’re acting as if you own it. All of it. And you don’t. You don’t have a monopoly on finding this whole mess impossible and upsetting. You’re not the only one who’s struggling.’

  I strike back at him without thinking. ‘You didn’t seem too upset tonight.’

  There’s a moment before he responds. He mouth sets in a tight, hard line. ‘There it is. That’s precisely what I mean.’ He actually jabs a finger at me, speaking slowly and very clearly. ‘It’s not a fucking competition, Sarah.’ The expletive bounces round the kitchen. We don’t swear at each other, we never have, not until now. Phil doesn’t seem to care that he’s just stepped over one of our ‘lines’, he’s too worked up, and he’s not finished. ‘Anyway, how would you know what I was feeling tonight?’

  ‘Meaning?’ I look at him, aware that, with the brakes off, we’re hurtling into uncharted territory.

  ‘Meaning… you never ask.’

  ‘Ask what?’

  ‘Ask me what I’m feeling, what’s bothering me.’

  Though I recognise that there’s some truth in what he’s just said, I can’t stop the next attack. I strike at the heart of our marriage. ‘That’s because you never want to talk. You never have. You always dodge anything that’s difficult or messy. You leave it to me to sort out. It’s easier that way, isn’t it, Phil? At least it is for you.’ He looks at me, and in that moment I can see an utter absence of any love or affection or respect in his eyes.

  He is angry. ‘No, actually, it’s not. It’s bloody hard.’ He waits for me to back down. I don’t. He glares at me. ‘Go on then, do you really want to know what I was feeling at the concert – do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, although in that moment I’m not sure that I even care.

  ‘What I was feeling was good. For the first time in ages I actually felt more than just okay. I was excited. I saw all those young girls up on the stage and I started thinking about our daughter. Our other daughter.’ He ploughs on, indifferent to my reaction. ‘And I started trying to imagine what she might be like. What she’s going to look like. What she’s going to think of us. That’s what I was thinking about: our daughter. But do you know what, Sarah? I was too scared to say anything to you because I knew, I just knew, that if I told you, you’d do this!’ He gestures despairingly.

  ‘What do you mean, “this”?’

  He doesn’t even hesitate. ‘I knew that you’d make it about you.’

  It’s as if he’s punched me. It’s such a cruel thing to say. All the fight goes out of me. I suddenly just want it to stop. I can’t cope with him attacking me. With me attacking him. ‘Please, Phil?’ I look down, desperate to escape his anger, hoping that he’ll hear in my voice the regret and the need for reconciliation. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’ He’s silent. I wait, praying he’ll remember that we don’t this, hoping that he’ll be able to haul himself back over the line.

  But he can’t.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he snaps and, with that, he walks out of the room.

  PHIL

  I’m furious, so furious that I have to walk away from her.

  I was on such a high after the concert, feeling hope for the first time since this whole nightmare began, and she has to go and wreck it, pulling me back down into her unhappiness. The cloud of misery that she wraps herself in is just too much.

  I do know. I get it. It’s shit. But it’s shit for all of us. Not just her. She hugs it to her like a bloody child. All the meetings and phone calls and emails, I know it’s a strain, but deep down I think she likes it. She likes the control it’s giving her. She’s loving being at the centre of it all, the wronged mother! But what about me? It’s as bad for me. It’s mashed up my head as much as hers. Yet I seem to be on the outside, looking in, just where she wants me.

  And she bloody lied. She deliberately kept quiet about Mrs Winter coming back, because she wanted to keep me out of it. She made certain it was her take on things that got recorded. She was even iffy about poor old James getting a look-in. How is that acceptable?

  And then, when we really got into it, she did what she always does – she blamed me. None of this is anyone’s fault. That’s the awful truth of it. It’s just one monumental fuck-up. But oh no, wait a minute. Yes, it is. Somehow it’s my fault… I’m the one who’s not in touch with my feelings. I don’t talk enough or, when I do, I say the wrong things! Because when she says she wants me to talk, she doesn’t really. What she means is… she wants to hear me say what she wants to hear: her version of events, her version of emotions, the gospel according to Sarah. She has no idea what I keep to myself, what I protect her from, how I censor what I say, for fear of upsetting her. Exactly like tonight.

  Doesn’t she realise that I’m drowning here?

  I can’t keep paying for what I thought. I’m sorry. I really am, but what else was I supposed to think? It was the only logical conclusion. When a test says your child is not your child, there’s only one assumption you can make. All those weeks with it eating at me, ripping at my insides: the thought of Sarah with someone else. It drove me crazy, but I kept it to myself. I kept the lid screwed tight precisely because I couldn’t face hurting her. And for that she’s punishing me.

  I hear Sarah come into the hallway. She says, ‘I’m going to bed. I’ll see you up there’, quietly, almost nervously. And the bastard in me doesn’t respond. I don’t even turn my head. Her tread on the stairs is slow and heavy.

  Jesus, what a mess!

  How can anyone live normally with all this?

  I hang my head, waiting for the surges of anger and guilt to subside, but when at last they do, I feel no better, just lonely and tired beyond belief.

  Upstairs Sarah and I lie, back-to-back, together in the dark, miserable.

  14

  Lost and Found

  SARAH

  THREE DAYS later Jeremy Orr, from the investigation team, texts and asks if I’m free to talk. I call him back immediately. Without any preamble, he says they think they’ve found her. Life lurches forward, then shudders to another stop. He explains that the hospital has contacted the other family, but he advises that the next steps may take some time. ‘As you can imagine, it isn’t something you can just land on someone in one fell swoop. The team will give them time to absorb the news, before they ask about taking the blood samples and the DNA swabs. The timing of that will all depend on the reactions of the family.’ As he tells me this, he keeps saying ‘sorry’, as if he’s to blame. He rings off with repeated assurances that he’ll keep us informed.

  I sit and hold his news in my lap, where it rests, heavy and unwieldy. I need to ring Phil, but I don’t. We’re bruised from the fight, still struggling to be around each other, both of us sorely missing the rhythm that used to characterise our marriage.

  In the past we’ve always drawn together when things have got tough, our differences making us stronger. It’s been a balancing act that has wobbled as more weight has been added, but we’ve always managed to find equilibrium. Now it feels as if we’re completely out of whack.

  When we argued, the thing that shook me most was his fa
scination with our birth daughter. Our ‘real’ daughter. Which leaves Lauren as what?

  When I eventually ring and tell him about Jeremy’s phone call, I can hear it in his voice… excitement.

  ‘So they think they’ve really found her?’ He seems able to block out the thought that where she is, so is her family.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he tell you anything about her?’

  ‘No. They need to verify things first, and that’s going to take a while.’

  ‘But not that long, surely. Once they know for definite, then it’s in everyone’s interests that we get on with it.’

  ‘We may have to be patient. Jeremy said it could take weeks.’ Phil makes a small, compressed noise: frustration? I try and steer him back to our immediate problems. ‘Do you think we should say anything to James yet?’ I want to root Phil back in the family we have, not the one he’s creating in his head.