A Part of Me

by Anouska Knight

  Slowly, I released my breath and watched Phil’s expression sober as she strained to hear. The culprit was already taking shape in Phil’s mind, I could tell. ‘That randy little sod!’ she whispered. ‘Come on, let’s bust the Nightshagger!’

  I was too drunk for this, so was Phil. I could feel that last bout of laughter still sitting high in my chest, threatening to erupt. I watched Phil cock her ear and wait. The giggler had no idea they had company.

  ‘And do what?’ I whispered.

  ‘Just bust him! Ame, we’ll never have to wait our turn for printouts again, or panic about getting things print-ready before the repro lot clock off! Stewie will do anything to keep this from Adrian! How good’s your camera-phone?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Phil grabbed my hand and hoisted me up before we both tried to tack delicately in heels across the reception’s polished floor. As we slipped into the darkness of the first studio, whispers at the far end of the office gave way to another ripple of laughter. This time, Stewart joined in with his guest, a muffled masculine growl of a laugh, rising and disappearing in waves as he buried his face somewhere that most likely did not belong to his wife. Whoever did own those places was enjoying his visit. It made the laughter rise in me. I yanked on Phil’s hand to slow her Royal Marine-like lead across the darkened office before my lungs erupted into ear-shattering laughter.

  What? she mouthed as I held her back. One of Phil’s orange non-Marine issue eyelashes was coming unstuck. The grunting was coming from the boardroom, just the other side of a few shafts of moonlight spearing the office windows. Phil yanked us on, passing our own workstations to slump ourselves just the other side of the glass boardroom wall, blinds mercifully shielding us from view.

  It probably wasn’t the most appropriate time, but the alcohol in me saw fit to roll off a few more comedy blinks. Phil clamped a hand over her mouth, and for a few more moments, we both stayed that way – crouched in darkness and silent hysterics while the grunter grunted on. Over his groaning, Stewie’s guest was delivering a running commentary on her talents. Listening to dirty talk was too much. I clamped my fingers and thumb over the end of my nose, trying to hold down the pressure of burning hilarity before it leaked noisily from my face.

  Phil was at it too, straining to remain quiet as she leant against the glass wall, but unlike me, Phil was focused–determined to take Stewart down commando style. From behind her makeshift lashes, Phil fixed me with determined eyes. She raised her free hand, aggressively pointing two fingers at her own eyes then mine. Then she signalled the count.

  Three fingers …

  Two fingers …

  One …

  We half exploded, half fell into the boardroom. Phil had clearly done this before, going straight for the lights.

  ‘GREEN BERETS! EVERYBODY FREEZE!’ she shouted as the half-naked blonde skittered from where she’d been straddling her friend.

  The laughter that had been waiting for its escape jumped from my body towards the dazed couple before I could stop it.

  For a few seconds, the room became like a vacuum, a spinning black hole sucking away the air. A queasiness immediately filled the void my laughter had left behind. I swayed on my feet.

  Sadie looked younger without her glasses.

  Disorientated, I watched the groaner lurch from his chair, yanking at his trousers.

  ‘Amy!’ James, baffled, running a hand over his muddled blond head. ‘Shit! Amy, I can explain …’

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘ARE YOU SURE this is what you want to do, honey? Why not leave it a little while, just until you’ve given yourself a few days to think everything through?’ This was the third time Phil had called. It was a rare occasion that saw the softness beneath her prickly veneer, but I guess she thought the situation warranted it. Somewhere in the murky recesses of my mind, I knew it wasn’t a good sign.

  ‘All I’ve done is think, Phil. My head hurts from it. I just …’ I watched the rain silently streaming down the windows overlooking the executive homes opposite. So far April had been unseasonably cold. All morning the sky had promised snow, but there was nothing on the horizon now but miserable grey inevitability.

  Phil waited for me to get it together, but I’d already forgotten what I was saying.

  ‘You can’t just walk, Amy. You’ve worked too hard at that place. Don’t tell Adrian anything, not yet. Just … call in sick. Think about all that later.’

  Later? Because later would somehow suddenly mean I didn’t work at the same company as the man who’d just car-crashed our life? Or the woman he’d chosen to go joyriding with? What could later possibly offer? My focus shifted from the streaks of rainwater, breaking my view of the new sandpit in the garden, to the faint reflection I could see of myself in the cold grey glass. I turned away–away from it all, back to the house James hadn’t returned to last night. Apparently, he couldn’t explain. Other than a flurry of missed calls at 3 a.m. there had been nothing.

  ‘Ame? Are you still there?’

  I leant my back against the bookcase and scanned the rest of the lounge. My own home suddenly felt foreign.

  ‘I’m here.’

  Anna had advised us to replace the old glass coffee table with this wooden one. Wood was safer, easier to affix corner cushions to. I’d bought those the same day. And the socket covers, the kitchen drawer catches and the fire guard. All deployed and ready for action. We were fully accident-proofed. If you wanted to hurt yourself around here, as in really cause yourself gut-wrenching pain, James’s idea of love and loyalty was probably going to be your best bet. I tried to shake his name from my head but, from nowhere, the turmoil of the last twelve hours saw its chance and rushed me again. I covered my face with my sweater sleeve, holding the lower part of the phone away so Phil wouldn’t hear.

  ‘Why don’t I come over?’ she tried.

  Quietly, I breathed through it. I felt my chest release again, reluctantly unclenching like an angry fist, and risked a steady lungful of air.

  ‘I can’t stay here, Phil. I’m going to Mum’s once I’ve packed some things.’

  ‘Is Viv picking you up, or do you need a ride?’ she asked softly.

  ‘No. Thanks. I’ll get a cab.’ My voice faltered.

  ‘Are you crying? Because if you’re crying I’m coming over right now.’ A warm rush streaked down either side of my face again. I wiped the tears away, as if that might somehow hide the evidence from my friend.

  ‘Stand down, Phil. I’m not crying,’ I lied. ‘I have to go. I don’t want to be here much longer in case he turns up.’

  Phil let out an unappeased breath. ‘Okay. Call me, will you?’

  I nodded at the phone and set it down on its post before Phil could hear me lose it again.

  I hadn’t been sure that I couldn’t stay here until I’d said it out loud. Now I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t think he’d have brought her here, but it wasn’t impossible. I booked a cab and skipped upstairs, pulling closed the first door I passed. The lingering smell of recent paint was reason enough to shut off that bedroom. James said we should wait, see who we were matched with, but I’d started painting the nursery in neutrals the day we’d returned from panel. Maybe I’d jinxed it. There were superstitions about that kind of thing.

  My bedroom felt just as foreign as the rest of the house. I began stuffing a few handfuls of clothing into James’s overnight bag before lunging towards my dressing table. The bottom drawer slid out easily, revealing the prettily decorated firebox nestled safely on its cushion of winter sweaters. I couldn’t remember where the idea had originated from, my grandmother probably, but I was glad for it now. In the event of a house fire or other major catastrophe, letters, keepsakes – anything of irreplaceable value–would all be to hand in the firebox. All in one place, ready for salvation.

  I lifted the découpaged box from the open drawer and regarded it. Dedicated teacher that she was, there wasn’t much Mum couldn’t achieve with PVA glue and patience. My fingers brie
fly reacquainted themselves with the delicately placed art nouveau motifs in muted blues and greens, the subtle unevenness of the layered images she’d painstakingly crafted. She’d made the firebox for us that August, busying herself in the kitchen while I’d pretended to sleep up here. James had to return to work eventually, for normality’s sake, if nothing else. She’d said such precious things deserved to be kept somewhere nice.

  I let my fingers rest on the lip of the firebox. As if I needed to look. As if I didn’t know by heart the remembrances kept safely inside. The pitiful testaments to our son’s tiny life.

  He’d have been at school now. Greenacres Primary in Earleswicke, where his grandmother, headmistress there, could have kept an eye on him for me. Made sure he ate his sandwiches; comforted him if one of the other kids was mean. Something like anger flared in my stomach. I fed the firebox gently into James’s bag, pulled on my jacket and skipped out across the landing for the stairs.

  Thoughts of Sadie knowing the inside of my home almost sent me into a delirium. The firebox wasn’t the only thing I couldn’t bear her to have been anywhere near. I padded from the pale stairwell carpet onto the milky polished tiles of the hallway. We’d spent months fattening out the file I’d kept safely in the kitchen cupboard. The file that demonstrated the family we could offer to one of the thousands of children awaiting a home. Every last detail of our lives was in there, including our copy of the prospective adopter’s report Anna had put together on us. The PAR was the result of months of countless assessments, interviews with friends, family, diagrams of our support network, income, medical backgrounds, and it was not being left here. Sadie probably knew it all anyway, pillow-talk while I sat at home, oblivious and foolish. Well, it was all coming with me.

  A car horn papped outside as I strode into the white tundra of our clean-lined kitchen. I stood the overnight bag against the wine fridge and stalked over to the last cupboard at the end run of units.

  I yanked open the tall, sleek cupboard door. The door clattered clumsily, opening only a little way before jarring back against my fingers, denying me access. The handle pulled my fingernail with it and a hot pain drew a hiss from my throat.

  I still wasn’t used to the cupboard locks, designed to prevent inquisitive little hands from finding their way to trouble. A searing pain flared where I’d snagged my nail. It was already bleeding happily, a burning sensation spreading not just through my fingertip, but it seemed completely through my core, too. I held it up for inspection and found I’d torn the end of it clean off. It was only a fingernail. Anyone looking in would’ve thought I’d just severed a major artery. I slumped pathetically against the unit doors to the cold tiled floor. Something had been severed, it just wasn’t anything that could be tackled with a tourniquet and fast thinking. At the sight of a silly bleeding finger, something tight in my chest, like an over-stretched elastic band, suddenly gave way. I tried not to, but it was futile. It was as if every muscle in my body wanted to cry for itself too. So I let them, right there on the kitchen floor as the taxi papped on outside.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WALLS OF my old bedroom weren’t magenta any more but an inoffensive cream and peppermint pinstripe where Mum had done away with the bohemian décor of my youth. My once beloved tie-dyed swathes had been replaced with crushed silk drapes in her favourite sage, more befitting of the 1930s home Dad had left us with. For the last week, hiding out here from my life, I’d been fifteen again.

  ‘Sweetheart? Are you coming down? They’ll be here soon.’ I stopped studying the abstract patterns in Mum’s artexed ceiling and rolled over on my pillow. More clattering sounds of saucepans being thrown into service echoed up the stairs.

  Mum’s Sunday lunch was ritualistic as far as my brother was concerned. Since Lauren had given birth to their second child two months ago, Guy had tried to blag Mum to lay on a regular midweek curry night, too. He’d complained that mealtimes with a mischievous four-year-old had been chaotic enough; add a newborn to the mix and Lauren was beginning to lean towards quicker, easier, less-washing-up meals. Mum hadn’t gone for it. She’d told him to be grateful Lauren was still cooking for him at all after delivering two nine-pounders, epidural-free.

  ‘Coming,’ I called, stepping out onto the landing. The morning had been fairly sedate, with Mum busying herself with her latest crusade on behalf of the WI and greater good. She’d taken my reluctance to talk about James and my crumbling adoption hopes as her cue to lead the conversation. Earleswicke community centre was soon to be levelled because the parish council shrewdly thought it made more sense to sell the place on than stump up the cash for an upgrade. I was with them on that. The community centre had smelled of damp and lost property when Mum used to drag me off to Brownies there. I was eight at the time and to my knowledge, it hadn’t seen a lick of paint since. No doubt I’d hear the whole sorry tale again once Guy and Lauren arrived. I’d use the opportunity to huddle up with Samuel and catch up on all things creepy-crawly and dinosaur. Mum had put them off coming last weekend. A few concerned words from a well-meaning cabbie and Viv had gone on lockdown, prescribing a week of peace so I could lick my wounds. That and endless home-cooking.

  The rich homely wafts of roast beef floated up the stairs to greet me. This was how Mum swung into recovery mode, as if food could fix whatever had been broken. She’d launched herself into maniacal cooking when Dad had first left. All of his favourites, every night for weeks, just in case he walked back in through the door. He never did.

  ‘Okay, sweetheart?’ She was carrying a tray of tea through to the conservatory as I crossed the kitchen towards her. The conservatory was cooler than the kitchen, the rattan armchair creaking beneath me like a groaning shipwreck as I settled into it. ‘How are you feeling today?’

  Outside, the garden had held onto the morning’s frost, as though the lawn had accepted its abandonment by the sun, stoically contenting itself with ice instead. ‘Fine. Thanks. Lunch smells good.’ I smiled.

  Mum nodded approvingly as she poured a drop of milk into each of the cups. Her hair would redden in the autumn, but until then it would remain nearly as dark as mine, with only the beginnings of grey featuring just where she would clip her corkscrew curls over one ear. Miraculously, I’d dodged the full severity of Mum’s curly genes, though I realised now how youthful she still looked because of them.

  ‘A good meal will set you up, sweetheart. Tomorrow isn’t going to be easy, but I think you’re doing the right thing.’

  Thoughts of a Monday-morning showdown with Marcy and Dana heading up the office gossips made my stomach lurch. I’d gone over all the reasons for and against going back there, trying to find a way around it, but the fact was if I just walked out now, I couldn’t think how I’d explain my sudden change in circumstances to Anna. Not that job-security alone was going to be enough to dupe her into seeing through our application.

  ‘She should be the one clearing off,’ Mum declared, vigorously stirring the tea.

  I never thought that James would do this. He’d pleaded for a chance to fix things, to undo the undoable. I’d listened as Phil had coached me through the week on the evils of the unfaithful, but through the malignant mass of bitterness and hurt churning away at my insides, there was something of me that desperately wanted James to fix it all. But we were on social services’ schedule, not Relate’s. We didn’t have time to delve into our brittle relationship and gently nurse what had been broken.

  ‘And should James clear off too, Mum?’ I asked.

  She tapped her spoon on the rim of her cup, ignoring my accusation of her lopsided justice. ‘You know, sweetheart, James has done a terrible thing. But it doesn’t make him a terrible person.’

  I watched as she set the hot drinks in place between us, then looked away through the glass onto the garden. A little robin flitted down onto the lawn and began pecking away at the grass. Maybe I was the terrible person. Maybe I’d pushed James out, neglected him. There hadn’t been much room left for anything t
hat wasn’t either work or adoption related for longer than was healthy for anyone.

  Mum held her cup to her face and blew over it, settling herself back into her chair. ‘He called again this morning.’ I carried on watching the determined little bird. James had been calling all week, leaving texts and voicemails, apologising, asking that we talk, offering to take some of his annual leave if that made my returning to work any less humiliating. ‘He said he needs to talk to you, sweetheart, before you go back into the office.’ I hadn’t accepted James’s offer but still he’d anticipated I’d go back to Cyan. I hated that I was so predictable.

  ‘Mum, please, don’t. I’m not ready to speak to him yet.’

  ‘You can’t avoid him for ever, Amy. You need to talk to him. Before the social worker catches wind of all this. Won’t you see him in the office tomorrow anyway?’

  An unfortunate creature caught the attention of the robin, suddenly transforming it from Christmas icon to ruthless killer. I’d never been great with birds, they seemed all beady eyes and sharp bits to me. ‘He has site meetings on Mondays. It’ll be easier for me to go back there tomorrow while he’s not there.’ While I still have a job. That’s if I didn’t lose my bottle first, which was more than possible.

  Mum repositioned her glasses on her head. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. I know he’s hurt you, sweetheart, but if you’re both serious about trying to salvage this, you’re going to need to work together. Children need stability, and this situation is far from stable. You need to be very careful you don’t jeopardise everything you’ve achieved over these last months because of one … indiscretion.’

  Indiscretion. That was one word for it.

  ‘It’s not that simple, Mum. He didn’t just slip up.’

  Mum took a sip from her cup. ‘James shouldn’t have fooled around with that girl, Amy. But men … they do slip up, lose their way. Sometimes, sweetheart, they just can’t help themselves.’