James strides into the kitchen just as Nathan is stuffing another biscuit into his mouth.
‘Daddy!’ Arianne cries and then both she and Thomas launch into their tales of our trip to the park and, more unfortunately, our trip preceding this to the house where the funny car is, with its rusted old wheels and the doors hanging off, to pick up Nathan.
James listens, but he’s looking at Nathan, curiously. And I can see that James is thinking that Nathan is different. I can see him taking in the paleness and the puffiness of Nathan’s face and the sore patches round his mouth as he munches on his biscuit, and the dirt ground into the skin around his nails, even though I had them all wash their hands when they came in. And it annoys me that he should see all this, and judge as he cannot help but judge.
James looks at me, and he raises one eyebrow, just slightly.
And later, when I have returned from taking Nathan home, and the children have been fed and finally settled into bed, James and I face each other over the chasm that is growing between us.
Out of habit, we sit opposite each other and eat the pasta. Out of habit, we drink the wine.
And James takes a big sip from his glass and says, ‘Well then?’
Not so long ago that would have been the prompting for a story, and not so long ago I would have obliged. Tonight I say, ‘Well, what?’
‘Who’s the boy?’
Carefully, I say, ‘He’s my friend’s son.’
‘Your friend’s son?’
‘The girl I told you about. The one who’s had the breakdown. If you remember.’
‘I remember,’ says James. ‘But I didn’t realize that she was your friend.’
I feel like I am being cross-examined, and I force myself to eat, feeling as if I could choke on it. ‘I just want to help her out,’ I say.
And James says, ‘Oh, I’m well aware of that, Laura. I just hope your guilty conscience isn’t clouding your judgement.’
I look at him sharply, half-expecting him to laugh. But I see that he is perfectly serious.
‘I have a right to know who our children are hanging around with,’ he says. ‘And I don’t like them playing on wrecked old cars.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, they weren’t playing on it.’
But James appears to have had enough of sitting and talking with me. He picks up his plate and his glass and decamps to the living room, where he turns on the TV. And so I have the choice of either staying where I am, alone, or joining him on the sofa, still more or less alone. Either way he has made his point. There is no room for my past in our marriage. Of that I am very clear.
NINETEEN
I am nervous as hell when I pick Mrs Partridge up on Tuesday to take her to the hospital. I’ve booked Arianne in to Carole’s for extra hours, just in case. Mrs Partridge’s appointment with the doctor, Ian told me, is at half-past eleven, but doctors, of course, can often run late.
Mrs Partridge is ready, as usual, and is grateful, as usual. She sits beside me in the car, buttoned up to the chin in her coat, even though it is a hot, humid day, and clutches her bag upon her lap. I expected her to be happy, and I can’t understand why she isn’t. She isn’t even speaking, much. It’s like she’s locked into herself, filled with her own fears.
‘It’s good, isn’t it? About Heddy?’ I say.
And Mrs Partridge, who is lost in her own thoughts, says, ‘What, dear? Oh, yes, dear, very good.’
‘When will she be home? Do you know?’
‘Soon, dear, the doctor said soon.’
‘Well, that’s fantastic, isn’t it?’
Mrs Partridge sighs. I glance sideways at her. She’s staring out of the windscreen in front of her with a deep frown on her face, and chewing on her lip. ‘My Heddy,’ she says at last, ‘she’s up and down. Up and down.’
And I see her wanting Heddy home, and not wanting it, as she sinks under the weight of her own life.
‘This house,’ I say. ‘You didn’t mention it.’ I try not to sound accusatory. After all, what business is it of mine?
Mrs Partridge says nothing, and stupidly I can’t help feeling a little hurt. But I carry on, ‘It’ll be so much better for you, won’t it, to be living near Ian? Better for all of you. Easier, for you especially.’
And Mrs Partridge says, ‘Of course it will, dear. It would be lovely to see the children growing up.’ She says it in the same tone that I imagine she might say she’d like to win the lottery one day, or travel the world. Like it’s in the never-never, the dreams that are not for her. And I realize that this is just one more thing for Mrs Partridge to deal with. However good the outcome, she can’t see beyond the getting there, beyond the one more thing. The future is a luxury Mrs Partridge has never dared to think of; she’s too crippled by the struggle of now.
‘Mrs Partridge, I’ll do whatever I can to help you,’ I say and my eyes are suddenly burning with tears.
We’ve time to see Heddy first, before we see the doctor.
More than anything, I don’t want to see Heddy again.
I don’t want to see her eyes, looking into mine, and remembering again what I did to her. I don’t want her mother to see it.
And yet I walk along that corridor beside Mrs Partridge with my heart pounding out my dread, and I know that this is my punishment. This is the circle, turned all the way and closing up again. I’ve no choice but to see it to the end.
She’s sitting up on the bed, against newly plumped pillows. She looks at us as we come into her room, her mother and me, and what can that be like for her? I force myself to say, ‘Hello, Heddy. I hear that you are feeling much better.’ And I load my voice with kindness, with brightness, as if I could make her think that I am nice now. As if I could make her forget.
‘Say hello to Laura,’ Mrs Partridge chides, bustling around Heddy, adjusting her pillows, smoothing her sheets. She shifts Heddy over a little; Heddy’s dress is caught up underneath her and I get a glimpse of the fat underside of her leg, white, naked. Like a firework exploding in my head I see her falling head first, the plump flesh of her twelve-year-old thighs exposed and quivering, her pants, tired and old, sticking to the crack of her bum. I see it and I see it.
And I hear myself laughing, gorged up with hysteria, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Heddy’s hands are on her lap, clasped tight. I can hear her breathing, the heavy, whispering puff. I feel her looking at me, but I cannot meet her eyes.
Mrs Partridge fusses over Heddy. She says, ‘Laura brought me in the car today. So kind of her, so much quicker than the bus. We’re to see the doctor, in a little while. About your coming home, Heddy. What about that then, eh? What you got to say about that then, Heddy?’
Heddy says nothing, so Mrs Partridge carries on, ‘Ever so grateful to Laura, aren’t we, Heddy?’ She perches herself on the edge of the bed. ‘Cat got Heddy’s tongue again today, Laura. Funny that. She was quite chatty, at the weekend. I think perhaps she’s a bit shy around you, Laura.’
And, coward that I am, I say, ‘Listen, I’ll go and wait for the doctor. Give you some time on your own.’ I force myself to look at Heddy and I see her face, down there in all the grass and the weeds, deadly white, stripped raw with pain, twisted round and staring up at me, terrified.
And in the shadows at the edges of my eyes I see the powder-white chunk of her bone, fresh as a new tooth, forcing its way out through the skin of her arm.
I blink. I swallow. I feel a thin bead of sweat trickle its way down between my shoulder blades, inside my shirt.
‘All right, dear,’ Mrs Partridge says. And, ‘Don’t you go minding Heddy now. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready.’ She reaches out and puts her own thin hand on top of Heddy’s, and squeezes Heddy’s sausage fingers, and then pats them. ‘She’s much better now, aren’t you, Heddy? Much better.’
I make myself speak. I say, ‘I’m glad. Really I am. I’m so glad.’
Mrs Partridge doesn’t really need me with her to see the doctor. It’s a short meeting, a m
ere tying up of ends so that Heddy may be dispatched upon her way.
We see Dr Millar himself this time; he’s older than the other doctor, and relaxed and to the point. In his hands he has a large file with Heddy’s name on it. I wonder what is written inside. More to the point, I wonder if I am in there somewhere, and I feel the colour rising in my face.
Dr Millar looks at Mrs Partridge and at me, and he smiles. He bends that file between his two hands like a card pack, about to be dealt. ‘We’ve a final assessment scheduled for Thursday,’ he says. ‘And social services will have their own report. But I see no problem. Helen has made remarkable progress.’
‘Is she ready to come home, though?’ I ask, on behalf of Mrs Partridge, who in the presence of authority has once again shrunk into herself.
‘Of course she is.’ His smile deepens. ‘We can’t keep Helen here forever. There are other people waiting, who need to be here much more than she does.’ I sense Mrs Partridge bristling a little at this, but then he says, ‘The best place for Helen now is at home, with her family, leading a normal life.’
Normal, he says, but however do you define normal?
‘I’ve plans for Heddy and myself and little Nathan to move up to Birmingham, to be nearer to my son and his family,’ Mrs Partridge says suddenly, and the way in which she says it leaves me in no doubt that this plan really has been there for a long time. And that she just chose not to mention it to me.
‘I think that’s an excellent plan,’ Dr Millar says.
We make the journey home in near-silence, Mrs Partridge busy no doubt with her thoughts, and me tortured by mine. I’ve a splitting headache and the sun is too bright, too intense, driving into my eyes.
When we pull up outside her house I say, ‘Do you plan to move soon then, do you think?’
And Mrs Partridge says, ‘Oh, I think so, dear. There is no reason for my Heddy to be wanting to stay down here.’
She looks at me and she’s going to say something else, but stops before she’s begun and instead says, ‘You’re ever so pale, dear. Are you well?’
‘I’ve got a headache,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’
And Mrs Partridge reaches her bony hand across the gear stick and pats me on the arm. ‘Dear, dear, and all this rushing around on our behalf. Come inside and have a cup of tea before you go, dear. Do.’
Her kindness is my undoing. I am so wretched with my own guilt that I follow her into her house, into the dark, creeping stillness, redolent with cigarette smoke and the rancid memory of chip fat. She unbuttons her coat and hangs it on the rack. Already I’m regretting coming in with her, but there is something I have to know. I stand in the doorway of the kitchen, the soles of my shoes sticking tackily to the lino, as she unplugs the kettle and fills it at the sink. The water hisses in the pipes and spurts out from the tap in angry bursts. The morning’s breakfast things are stacked on the rack, washed and waiting to be put away, and hanging over the edge of the sink is an old dishcloth the colour of slate.
‘Mrs Partridge, I haven’t got time for tea,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to get back for the children. I’d love a glass of water, though, if you don’t mind.’
She hands me a tumbler; on it are engraved the words ‘Happy Christmas’ and the faint remains of a snowman. ‘Sit yourself down, dear. Make yourself comfortable.’
The kitchen table is tiny, and pressed up against the wall. To sit at it, I have to pull a chair out half into the hallway. On the table, next to the ashtray and the salt pot and a pair of folded-up socks, is a pile of papers and letters, some of which are from estate agents. I don’t want to pry, but there they are, right in front of me.
Mrs Partridge catches me looking. ‘Ian picked those up for me. At the weekend. I’m to read through them all,’ she says, ‘and choose.’
‘I can help if you want,’ I say. ‘You know what estate agents are like.’ Though, of course, she doesn’t.
She makes her tea, squeezing out the teabag with her bare fingers and dropping it into the sink. The fridge, when she opens it, smells of old milk, and starts up a rumble. The pain in my head is throbbing harder now, in time with my heartbeat.
Mrs Partridge sits herself down on the other chair, wedged in between the table and the sink. We are very close, crowded in there. Too close. She pats her pockets and finds her cigarettes, and sticks one in her mouth. It hangs there, bobbing from her lip as she fishes again for her matches. She strikes one, lights up and exhales upon a sigh. And I am engulfed in smoke.
‘Mrs Partridge,’ I blurt out and my head is really pounding now. ‘That time Heddy hurt her wrist, when we were still at junior school . . .’ A wave of nausea rushes up inside me and I have to swallow it back. ‘Do you remember?’
Of course she remembers. She sucks on her cigarette and her face is tense, shadowed with remembering. ‘Yes, dear,’ she says. ‘A terrible business.’
I swallow again and force myself to carry on.
‘We’d gone to the graveyard. There was this boy—’
She talks right over me. Loudly she says, ‘A gang of boys. My Heddy was chased by a gang of boys. On her way home from school.’
‘No, Mrs Partridge, it was—’
‘Yes, yes, dear. She was chased and she tripped. On her way home.’
‘Mrs Partridge, I—’
‘She was chased and she tripped,’ she insists. ‘That’s what happened, isn’t it, dear? That’s what I told your parents.’ She grinds out her cigarette and her face is tight, pinched. ‘Always so kind, your parents.’ I’m about to speak again, and again she talks over me. ‘Did you have to get back for your children, dear?’ she says. ‘Don’t want to rush you, but goodness it’s getting late.’ And she stands, leaving her tea untouched. ‘And my Nathan will be home soon. I need to be thinking about dinner.’
But I cannot leave it like that. ‘Mrs Partridge,’ I say desperately on my way out of the door. ‘I wasn’t kind to Heddy.’
‘No, dear. Maybe not always, dear,’ Mrs Partridge says. ‘But your parents were.’ And there is something in her voice, something more than just gratitude and denial.
She knows.
She knows what I did to Heddy, and I think she’s always known. But who is she trying to protect by denying it? Not me, surely?
Herself, maybe. Maybe she just doesn’t want to face it.
Or is she trying to protect my parents? Is she covering up for me to spare them the pain of what I have done? But why would she bother to do that? And why, oh why would she want to have anything to do with me now?
If anyone ever hurt one of my children the way that I hurt Heddy Partridge, I would want to tear that person apart, ripping at their limbs and clawing out their eyes. I wouldn’t sit there drinking tea with them. I wouldn’t be giving them second chances.
And yet she knows, I’m sure of it.
The shame blossoms inside of me. Every part of me is stained.
TWENTY
Meanwhile, back in my own little world, it comes to my attention that Tasha has sent out the invitations to her housewarming party. I can’t help but notice this because, as well as the usual flurry around the forthcoming end-of-term extravaganzas at school and at nursery, there is additional excitement, a buzz, if you like, centred on Tasha. Every time I see Tasha these days she’s got Fiona Littlewood fawning all over her, and giving her the benefit of her advice on everything from canapés to glass hire to godforsaken patio heaters. And Tasha just laps it up. Everywhere I go there are women twittering away like birds, and it’s Tasha this and Tasha that, like they have a little competition going on to see who can say her name the most.
Tasha, our own little celebrity, with her big house and her rich husband, famous around here just for being Tasha. Everyone wants to be Tasha’s friend. So, of course, did I.
Even Belinda has an invitation. She tries to collar me at nursery with her schedules and her lists, and there it is, pinned to the front of her clipboard. Like a badge, for all to see. How proud she must be.
Two weeks ago it would have pissed me off no end that Belinda has an invitation and I don’t, but now do I care? Do I?
Of course I do, just a little.
Then Arianne tells me that Phoebe doesn’t want to be best friends any more.
‘But I don’t mind,’ she says, her little face all serious. ‘I can be best friends with Sophie now instead. She’s got red shoes and a pet rabbit.’
Arianne, so innocent, so unaware of the ways of our world. I think how I steered her as I steered myself, keeping us up there where I thought it mattered.
‘Well, it’s good to make new friends,’ I say to Arianne now, and I talk to her about choosing them wisely, and for the right reasons. Advice I could have done with myself.
But Thomas is not so easily consoled, and cries at night because he’s got no one to play with at lunchtime. ‘I want to play football,’ he sobs. ‘But Milo won’t let me.’
‘Why is it up to Milo?’ I ask.
‘He says it’s his game.’
‘Well, can’t you play with some other boys?’
But Thomas says, ‘All the boys play football. Except for me.’
And I cannot have that.
So I do what I should have done already. I speak to Mrs Hills.
I say, ‘I don’t like to make a fuss, but this has been upsetting me for quite some time. This really isn’t the sort of school where language like [I mouth it] fuck-head is acceptable. I do not expect my child to hear, and repeat, words like that at school. I’m sorry, Mrs Hills, but I really do feel you need to speak to the mother. And really, I think this is a matter for the headmaster, don’t you? After all, Mr Littlewood is a governor and, really, do you think that is the kind of example we expect from a governor of this school?’
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