The Playground

by Julia Kelly

  ‘Come on, guys. We have to go.’ Since having children, Bella always had to go. I had a fierce longing to stay where we were, to stay part of that tight family unit. The light, the warmth, the scent of the house, the same smell I grew up with, the dread of the drive home. Mum gave me a box of chocolate hearts as she led us to the door – they’d been given to her as a gift from an old lady she drove to and from bingo. ‘No, no, you take them. I don’t want them,’ she said, ushering everyone out.

  *

  ‘Change is possible.’ The ticket machine said.

  I carried Addie in my arms through the empty car park, footsteps echoing, imagining that at any moment someone could come up behind us and do something dreadful. Maybe I wasn’t even on the right row. The thought that we might be there for hours made me panic. I felt for my phone in my pocket. Took it out.

  ‘There it is, Mama!’

  ‘Such a clever girl,’ I said, breaking into a run, Addie bouncing in my arms, when I saw the clampers beside my car.

  ‘Hello! Here I am. Sorry. I’m just leaving.’

  ‘You won’t be going anywhere, love,’ said a bald man, kicking his foot against the flat front left wheel.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  He despatched another, quieter, foreign, man to a garage to blow up my spare tyre, while he set to work on removing the burst one. I stood by, making inane comments and asking silly questions, hoping to appear completely inept so that they would continue helping me. Men loved to be needed. I should have needed Joe more.

  When the tyre had been replaced, I thanked them, told them I was poor, bit my lip and dug my hand into my pocket. ‘All I have are these chocolate hearts,’ I said, flirting. They didn’t want them. The bald guy said he didn’t like chocolate, the foreign man said nothing, just smiled and waved his hand as he walked away.

  On the road home, I fought the feeling that the replaced tyre was not secure and would, at any moment, roll out in front of me. It frightened me that my child, asleep behind me, trusted me so entirely. Driving at night was like driving in a dream, the endless flashing lights like a giant pinball machine. I sat right forward in my seat. I couldn’t see anything with clarity. I felt reckless, imagining that I was leaving small, nocturnal animals – foxes, badgers, cats – dead in my wake. Whenever I’d overtake anyone, I’d glance in the overhead mirror to check that pedestrians were still standing, that cyclists were still on their bikes, dogs still breathing.

  Halfway through Shankill, I felt a horrible whooshing sensation in my head and my heart and breath seemed suddenly very faint and far away. I knew the signs – I was having a panic attack. Eat a cold apple, I’d read somewhere. I had no apples, cold or otherwise, there was nowhere to pull in and I was too frightened to stop so I sang ‘The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow’ as cheerfully as I could to distract myself and to stop the panic from developing. Somehow it seemed to work.

  As I turned off Bray High Street, the broad blue Aircoach careered around the corner, forcing me into the very same pothole that I’d hit on the way out. ‘Oh no, Mummy. I’m scared,’ Addie said, jolted awake by the impact. The replacement tyre burst. I could feel the ragged rubber, the hard metal beneath as I tried to find somewhere to pull in. I reversed into a space outside the launderette, damaging the burst tyre further as I tried to ease back into it. I called my Mum for help, tears coming, as they always did, as soon as I heard her voice.

  *

  We sat in the darkness together while we waited for the recovery van, singing Ten Little Indians and eating the chocolate hearts.

  I switched on the radio. The eight o’clock news.

  A four-year-old child had been abducted in England by a man driving a jeep. I shivered at the thought of the anguish of the mother, at the terror and loneliness of the little child.

  ‘Never, ever get into a car with a stranger, OK? Are you listening? Even if they offer you sweets or toys.’

  ‘OK, Mama.’

  She was silent for a moment, considering this.

  ‘Well, I might just see what they’d got.’

  A sudden loud knock on the window made me jump. Even with her bicycle helmet on, I recognised her – eyebrows fierce, angular, lips pursed – it was the woman who lived in the flat downstairs. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said, unheard through the glass, then I smiled, rolled it down. ‘You can’t park there!’ she spat in at us. ‘Can’t you not see the yellow lines?’ I had to change my expression mid-sentence. She was waving her hands around, looking furious.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ I said, trembling. I didn’t know if she recognised me and I was too embarrassed to say anything. I turned on the engine, watched her cycle away through the rear-view mirror, all lit up in her reflective gear, her sensible arm out to indicate as she turned the corner and disappeared. As soon as she was out of sight, I turned the engine off again and we sang Old McDonald till we ran out of animals. ‘Stupid cow!’

  ‘Come on,’ Addie whined as we waited. ‘This is too boring.’

  ‘It’s just crazy!’ she said, a minute later, burying her head to disguise her smile at her use of a new phrase. ‘It’s a disaster!’

  Where was she getting these words?

  *

  The recovery van was cartoon-like in its size and seriousness. ‘Nee-naw, nee naw,’ Addie shrieked, turning around and standing up on the front seat watching as it reversed towards us, lights flashing, lowering its long lip.

  I lifted Addie up into the van with the strange man, then hoisted myself up into the cab like a cowgirl or biker, holding onto the black bar. The driver, in fluorescent dungarees and jacket, was dark, greasy, silent and seemed suited to the nightshift. There was something unidentifiable in white cellophane by my feet. I fought the awful fleeting thought that this might lead to our doom, held Addie tight around the waist as we set off. She was silent; transfixed by the strangeness of the situation. I kissed her curls and blew on her neck the way she liked me to – it sent her into a small trance of pleasure. ‘Again,’ she whispered, her hot little fingers closing around mine. ‘Look, Mama, the moon’s following us. It really is.’

  When we pulled into the front drive, a woman I’d never seen before was standing, arms folded, on the doorstep. ‘Oh, God, no. Not a canvasser. I’m not in the mood for this.’

  ‘Looks like a Green,’ the recovery man said. I took in her grey, centre-parted hair, the cloth bag slung over her shoulder, the walking boots. I was irked by her folded arms. She looked impatient.

  ‘Hello, I’m Joy,’ she said, walking towards us, one of her hips a little stiff, her hand outstretched. ‘I saw your advert for a roommate? Looks like a bad time.’

  There was a flurry of negotiations and slips of paper.

  ‘No. No. It’s fine. Come in. God, the place is a bit of state. I wasn’t expecting a response so soon,’ I said, yanking the key from the door. ‘Stupid thing always sticks.’ I was apologising, talking too much with panicky thoughts of unflushed toilets and dirty dishes in the sink, of bad smells, of being exposed.

  Chapter Eight

  Alfie sniffed out the stranger, circled her, slotted his nose in her crotch.

  ‘You lead the way, good dog,’ the woman – I’d immediately forgotten her name – said, sounding at home already. He pit-patted down the hall ahead of us, methane gas seeping from his rear end. Her accent sounded American; her windcheater and walking boots seemed to confirm it. She looked older than I had imagined a potential flatmate, perhaps in her late-fifties. And what a strange time to call around, eight o’clock on a Sunday evening. What was she doing in Dublin? I guessed at her profession – photographer, writer, artist – and pulled the bathroom door shut as we passed, not confident that it was quite ready for inspection.

  I led her to the second bedroom, the room I was hoping to sublet. I still had to sort all of this out with the landlord, but I would, in the next few days. It looked grotty now, seen through another’s eye. It was small and appeared even smaller with the floor to ceiling, vinyl fitted ward
robes – you had to inch around the base of the bed to get in or out of the room – and with it being still full of boxes to be sorted, towers of paperbacks that I had some idea of organising into theme or author order.

  ‘Small is good,’ she said, enunciating each word as she looked around. ‘Oh, my, just look at all those candles. How wonderful.’ She had her hands on her hips and was gazing at the top row of the book shelf, where I, having no other use for them, had lined up the dozen scented candles Joe had been given as a thank-you from his last client.

  She unhooked her shoulder bag and flopped down on the bed, which Addie was bouncing on, excited to have a visitor in the house and at being up so late. She exhaled, grinned, looked around.

  ‘I like it here, it’s homely. Isn’t it, little lady?’ she said, turning to take Addie in. ‘Oh, my, aren’t you a pretty one? Such a face. And look at the Celtic ring in those eyes.’

  This made Addie shy; she buried her head in her shoulder then sought out my arms. ‘It still needs a lot of sorting, we’ve really just moved in.’ I said, lifting my little girl and encouraging everyone out of the room. ‘Let me show you the sitting room. We’ve got a great balcony.’

  Before I could explain or apologise about the lack of furniture in the room, the emptiness of which made our voices reverberate around the white-washed walls, she said, ‘There is such a sense of peace in here. A real feeling of calm.’

  We climbed out onto the balcony, all three of us, followed by the dog. She seemed even more excited by ‘the scent of the sea’, ‘the gorgeous trees’ around the square, by ‘the wonderful Victorian houses’ and by the playground. ‘Oh, it’s all so Dickensian. I can just picture being here in winter, with the fire going,’ she said looking in towards the room and then back out across the square, ‘and little kids making snow angels in the park.’

  I didn’t mention the Goths, how rundown the playground was close-up or that it was now, according to the woman downstairs – Irenka, I’d just remembered – besieged with rats. What was wrong with me that I kept forgetting people’s names? Irenka was blaming our landlord’s building work for having disturbed them from their underground nests. Addie and I hadn’t been there in weeks.

  Over tea in the kitchen, the woman – Joy Steinberg – told me about herself. She was Californian, born in Santa Barbara, and she worked as a visual artist – I’d guessed right twice. She took a spiral-bound notebook from her cloth bag and I flicked through it, bracing myself. Her passion appeared to be female pudenda like the erotic flower paintings of Georgia O’Keefe. I was in dodgy territory. I tried to recall Art Appreciation from fourth year in school.

  ‘Em, so would you work mainly with acrylics?’ Why oh why would I ask a question like that?

  ‘No, watercolours generally. That’s why I want to be in Bray, I want to focus on landscape work for a while. I have a little studio back in Santa Barbara which I show at yearly. Though I do some portraits too.’

  ‘Oh, really. And, um, would portraits tend to be the head only or the whole body?’

  ‘Well, they can be both, I guess.’

  I reminded myself of something Joe used to say: always take a thought once round your head before expressing it. I stayed quiet and let her talk while I took her in. She had the look of a native Indian; there was a blankness to her face that was hard to read, her small brown eyes were shallow set and crinkled with age around the edges. She seemed a little intense, she would say something then stare at me as she waited for its import to sink in, holding my gaze for so long that I had to look away, or down, fiddle with my fingers. But then her face would broaden into a smile and within fifteen minutes of being in our home, Addie was sitting on her lap, playing with her Wampum beads.

  I’d placed the ad online, on impulse one evening when Addie had fallen asleep early and I’d been feeling lonely and worried and broke. And though she had turned up without contacting me first, I had a good feeling about Joy: she seemed to like children and dogs (I imagined walks and art classes) and she was single so I wouldn’t have to put up with canoodling on the couch and, best of all, she would be out all day at a studio she’d rented in Bray.

  *

  Joy moved into our flat the very next night, too late for the pasta I’d prepared – not great to begin with, it was stodgy and cold by the time she arrived, with endless bags and questions and confusion about parking. She was too alive, too awake, so ebullient about everything that it was hard, a physical strain, to raise my voice to meet her level, but my whispering seemed to calm her; suggested imminent bed and sleep.

  I lay in the dark of my bedroom that night, unable to sleep, needing the loo but too nervous to venture to the toilet for fear of those awkward nocturnal encounters that come with bathrooms and new flatmates. The bathroom, which was between both our bedrooms, had a frosted glass panel in the door, which showed if it was occupied at night and made going to the toilet both visible and audible.

  I could hear shuffling and squelching sounds coming from her room. What was she doing in there? Obscure Kundalini yoga poses? Nailing small mammals to the floor? I rummaged about in the bedside drawer for the small see-through bag Dr Percy had given me, ‘to be used only for emergencies’. I popped a pink pill from its plastic capsule and bit it in half between my teeth. I swallowed it with some water, put the remaining half back into the plastic bag and into the drawer, turned the lock, turned my pillow, sank my head on the delicious cool of the underside, settled, sat up again to check on Addie, and sank back wondering whether I’d made another big mistake.

  There. I felt it again, that shooting pain in my chest, near my heart, ouch! It was worse when I breathed in. What the hell was wrong with me? I tried deep breathing to slow down my heart rate, had a go at the Valsalva manoeuvre – pinching the end of my nose and blowing out, letting my ears pop.

  Addie had been watching me as I’d got her into her pyjamas that night.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘What is it, cheeky monkey?’

  ‘You need to fix yourself up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s why because you’re broken.’

  Chapter Nine

  The rain was still coming down, sliding off the slates, leaving them black and forming watery tassels from the parapet to the gutter. I could hear it as it gurgled and twisted down into the drains. Since the floods six months earlier that had left two people dead and cars floating head high in basements, heavy rain was no longer something to moan about in Ireland, it presented a real danger. Bella’s neighbours had had to swim out of their house to safety. Their sloping garden backed onto the River Poddle and a graveyard beyond and the floodwater had rushed in and crashed through their kitchen window.

  Joe had left the house in gum boots and what he called his ‘leesure pants’ (adopting American accent) during the subsequent clean-up. He’d offered to help his ex-girlfriend try to salvage some of her belongings from her flooded basement in the city centre. They’d gone in with torches, waded through mud, picked over old photo albums of their lives together, ruined furniture from the flat they had once shared. He was gone too long; it had made me vulnerable – for the first time since Addie was born I was focusing my attention on him. He had enjoyed reassuring me when he got back, wet-eyed and dirty that night. And I had seen him again as I had when we first met. After his bath, we had sex for the first time in weeks.

  Outside the wind was picking up. The plastic windmill Addie had stuck in the dead hydrangea pot on the balcony whirled around in pretty multicoloured spirals, faster than either of us could blow it. It was four-thirty; almost evening; it had been dark since we’d got up.

  How I loved days like these. Days when things were cancelled, when fires were lit and shutters closed, when no one was doing anything, when the weather forced us all indoors, providing us with permission to sulk, to not get dressed, to watch Lady and the Tramp under a blanket at four in the afternoon if we wanted to.

  I squeezed Addie’s soft thigh, trying to ge
t her attention.

  ‘Do you think there could be a little mouse in a little boat sailing down the river outside our house?’ No response.

  ‘Maybe he’s in a little matchbox boat,’ I carried on, warming to my story.

  ‘Using teeny tiny matchsticks as oars,’ she said, humouring me. She fell back into her television trance and worked on her sucky blanket. There was a whistling sound to her breathing, I’d noticed it a few times lately. Her blanket was so snotty and ragged it looked like something from the Famine – I’d have to sneak it from her one of these days and wash it, get rid of all those germs. I tried to slide it away from her, still wanting to play, but she yanked it back with an irritated little sound and inched away from me. I played instead with her pigtails. Joy had done them for her. There was always something different about her when she’d spent time with Joy; a plait in her hair, her clips adjusted, her scarf rearranged around her neck. Subtle improvements, subtle little criticisms. Once, without saying a word, she took Addie from me, wiped her chocolatey mouth and did up the toggles on her duffle coat.

  It felt like a small, silent victory to have the flat and the television to ourselves. When Joy was about, it was either not switched on at all or there as background colour and noise which we talked over and I was still shy enough around her to feel that I had to comment on everything that we watched.

  I looked around me for diversion; I stretched over Addie to grab the Vanity Fair from the coffee table, reminding myself to cancel my subscription ASAP. Joy’s reading glasses, folded on top of its glossy cover featuring a naked Kate Winslet (also sprawled on a sofa but looking somewhat more seductive) slid off and onto the floor.

  Her possessions were everywhere: her walking jacket wedged between the banisters; an alien sheepskin slipper in Alfie’s mouth; a brush in the hall, tangled with dead grey hair; her facecloth draped over the bathroom sink.