A Part of Me

by Anouska Knight

  ‘Exactly,’ Mum said tartly, sucking her teeth.

  The head of Earleswicke parish council was a well-fed hog of a man – I’d had the misfortune of being eyed over by him at a previous community event Viv had dragged me to. For him to state publicly that he’d do anything for those thousand signatures quite clearly suggested what we all already knew. That there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of securing anywhere near that number.

  ‘Well, we’ll sign it, won’t we, Phil? And we can get everyone at the office, that’s another twenty-five, thirty.’

  I smiled encouragingly.

  Mum pushed her glasses back into the mass of curls bunching above her head against the sofa. ‘We’ll get them. Just you watch. Anyway, they didn’t say anything about who could and couldn’t sign the bloody thing. Sue made a very good point and has suggested we all phone around family and friends for their names, too. You know how big Granny Sylvia’s Catholic side is.’

  ‘Mum, they’re not even in England.’

  ‘It’s an e-petition, Amy. Geography is no boundary. Names are names.’

  ‘I could ask Hotbuns Bywater for his signature, for you. If I can get him to stand still long enough the next time I see him,’ Phil offered, fiddling with one particular nail of interest. ‘So do you want me to cover tomorrow, Ame?’

  ‘Hotbuns Bywater? Is that a name you can register on an e-petition?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Viv. Let me tell you, that’s the name his mother should’ve registered on the man’s birth certificate. I don’t think I’ve ever slept with a disabled guy but I would definitely let him walk me through it.’

  Viv sighed. ‘If you aren’t sure about that, Philippa, you’ve probably been with too many men.’

  ‘He’s good enough to eat, Viv.’ She grinned, unperturbed by my mother’s tone. ‘Solid upper body, bronzed skin, perfect smile. Great hair—’

  ‘He’s not disabled,’ I interrupted. And then couldn’t think of anything else to add to that.

  Phil stretched two lithe Lycra-clad legs out in front of her. ‘Of course he is, Ame, he’s only got one leg!’

  Mum was all ears, putting her glasses back on her nose as if that would help her hear more clearly.

  ‘Yes, Phil, I know that. But disabled, it’s hardly a label that suits him.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start up one of those dreary political-correctness debates, Amy. We’ve all got labels.’

  ‘She’s right, sweetheart, we do. We give them out, too. I see it every day at school. Spoilt, Bully, Bossy, Nits. And that’s just the lunch staff.’ She smiled.

  ‘Oh great,’ I groaned quietly, ‘so what’s mine? Failure? Unemployed? Doomed to spinsterhood with strong likelihood of eventual consumption by cats?’

  ‘Actually, sweetheart, I think that one’s already taken,’ Mum said drily.

  Phil stifled a smile. ‘Don’t be dramatic, Ame. Yours would be … Transitional. Mine, on the other hand, would be—’

  ‘That’s cheating!’ I interrupted. ‘You can’t choose your own label.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’ve labelled Rohan as disabled, and I don’t think he’d choose it for himself. So why should you get to?’

  ‘Oh, Rohan is it now? When did he stop being That Joker, Bywater?’ Phil asked, watching me. Phil had a laser-like stare that could out glare Superman. I could feel it quite clearly even as she carried on yapping for Mum’s benefit. ‘They got off on the wrong foot, didn’t you, Ame? No pun intended.’ I ignored her, and the tingling in my cheeks. ‘Despite his utter gorgeousness, I think he might be a decent bloke, you know. He was going somewhere at lunchtime today with a homemade pie of all things. I couldn’t believe it! On a mercy dash to a friend, I think. I’ve gotta say, it didn’t look the prettiest, and I don’t usually go for the goody-goodies, but if the man can cook …’

  A voice in my head was already chanting, Change the subject, CHANGE THE SUBJECT!

  ‘What’s the definition you go by at school, Mum?’ I asked, trying to make some general point rather than defending Rohan specifically.

  Mum was staring vacantly across the room towards the hearth, plotting Councillor Hog’s usurpation, no doubt. ‘Definition of what? Disabled? Well, you’re disabled if you’re unable to do something the way an able-bodied person can.’

  I shrugged, content in my reasoning. ‘There you go, Phil. That’s definitely not R … Bywater.’

  Phil batted me away. ‘Abled, disabled, whatever. Maybe he’ll convince me tomorrow, or at least let me take a closer look.’ She grinned salaciously.

  ‘Actually, I think I’m going in tomorrow. I left my laptop there on Friday night, so I’ll go straight there in the morning. Mum, is there any chance I could borrow your car tomorrow, please? I’ll drop you off first?’

  ‘I thought you were ill?’

  ‘I am. But I’m hardly dying.’ Actually, I’d felt quite perky this afternoon.

  ‘No, Amy. I’m sorry but you can’t. I need my car tomorrow, I have to go to another school in the afternoon. Didn’t James say that you could borrow his this week? As he’s working from home.’

  Phil looked at me disapprovingly. ‘You’ve spoken to James? I thought you were having a time-out from him.’

  ‘A time-out?’ my mother blurted, ‘Philippa, it’s been nearly a month; they need to sort themselves out, one way or the other!’ Mum settled back into the seat, stretching her legs across the pouffe, filling an otherwise silent lounge with the creaking of leather. Phil munched thoughtfully on another grape.

  Mum had been nervy since I’d told her about the call from Anna. ‘I am sorting myself out, Mum. I’m just not rushing into anything. Since when was that a bad approach?’ I really did not want to get into this but Mum had already jolted around in her seat to face me, her cheeks flushed with sudden frustration.

  ‘Since it risks losing you the one thing you want more than anything, Amy! For goodness’ sake, you’ve got to get yourself sorted out! You do realise what a fine line you’re treading here, don’t you?’ I could see far too much of the whites of Mum’s eyes. It had been years since I’d experienced a telling-off in front of a friend, and never before had one been administered with more disorientating vigour.

  Phil began unfurling herself from her seat like a mayfly from its cocoon. ‘I’m just going to go and put the kettle on,’ she said gingerly, heading for the door. I watched her float out of the lounge, aware that Mum was only watching me.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, trying not to feel ambushed.

  ‘Amy. You have a week to get you and James back to a point where you can sit through a conversation with your social worker without her pulling the plug on the whole thing! Everything that you’ve worked so hard for! And you don’t seem to be moving any further forward!’ Not-so-funnily enough, those had been my thoughts too when I’d called James this afternoon to tell him about Anna. ‘What do you want, sweetheart? If James isn’t it. What are we aiming for here?’

  I felt cornered, harangued. But above all, I felt cheated. ‘I want a normal life, Mum!’ I hissed under my breath, my mother’s emotional ascent sweeping me along with it. ‘I want the man in my life to love me enough not to bang one of the office girls just because he can! Or maybe just to have what everyone else seems to get awarded for a quick bloody fumble on a Saturday night!’

  The unfairness was suddenly crushing again.

  ‘And you’re entitled to want those things, Amy!’ Mum said, commandeering my knee. ‘But do you want them with James? Because like it or not – and I know the timing is awful – you need to decide whether you’re going back to him or not. Before you don’t have that choice!’

  I slumped back into the soft corduroy of the sofa and tried not to let the amassing sense of injustice turn to frustrated tears. ‘I want … I wa—’ I suddenly wasn’t sure what I wanted, at least not all of it. Then the tears were there, lining up like a battalion of horses ready to trample me down.

  ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart
.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ I blubbed, clumsily rubbing either side of my nose.

  I just wanted to be a family. A chaotic, noisy, wonderful family where there was love and laughter and tears like anyone else’s. And I wanted James to want it too – wanted him to love me enough as I was, to be faithful to me, to love me the way I knew he did once. Maybe I hadn’t given him enough attention. Maybe I’d been too desperate to be a mother, but I couldn’t help how much I wanted that. To raise a child of my own, to plant a seed of some small part of myself and watch it grow inside them forever and always. A little person, a part of me, who would be better off for having me as their mum and who I would cherish every day in return. I wanted it so much, my bones ached.

  The tears that had begun flowing steadily were suddenly slowed again by a thick swelling panic in my throat. It had been hard enough going through it all with someone else, first with our own, and then with the adoption. I couldn’t imagine ever doing it alone. A giddying breathlessness kicked in, the thought of it all falling apart like burnt paper, and the stark question that would remain afterwards: how could I have let it?

  Mum’s expression was pained, as though she’d been watching a terrible picture show play out across my face. I tried to galvanise myself.

  ‘I know I have to sort it out with James, Mum. I just didn’t want to have to go back there so soon.’ I snivelled. ‘I don’t want him to think he can treat me that way,’ I went on, trying to steady my erratic judders of breath.

  ‘I know, sweetheart. I know,’ Mum said, pulling me into her warm embrace. ‘But you can work on that, sweetheart, and you will, I know you will. You just can’t work on it from here.’ A few more breaths and I’d almost got my breathing under control, Mum’s mass of curls muffling any trailing snivels.

  Phil, always intuitive, called through from the kitchen. ‘Half-time mouth-swill. Is it safe to come back in there before round two?’ Mum wiped my face tenderly and kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘It’s safe, bring the biscuits in with you, Phil,’ she instructed. I took a deep steadying breath, and hoped Phil wouldn’t give me too much stick about the decision that seemed to have just been reached here. Between the things I hadn’t said, and those my mother hadn’t had to.

  Phil padded quietly into the lounge with the tea tray and placed it on the little wooden side table.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the biscuits,’ Mum said, jumping up from the sofa. Phil took mum’s seat and watched her leave before fixing warm hazel eyes on me.

  ‘She’s beaten you down, then?’ she asked, blowing the fringe out of her eyes. I reached up and ran unsure fingers through my own hair. Phil and I were about as different as two friends could get, but we each understood what the other was made of.

  ‘It’s such a mess, Phil,’ I said. ‘But she’s right. Nothing’s getting fixed while I’m hiding out here, is it? I know how you feel about him, Phil – I hate him too – but put yourself in my shoes. What would you do if you were me?’

  Phil watched me intently, none of her usual feistiness to harshen the edges of her face. Other than James and Mum, she was the only person I’d ever shared the firebox with, the only person I’d let share his memory. She knew what was at stake, and why it was so precious. She blew out a cheekful of air and looked down at the rug.

  ‘Well, first of all, I’d never fit in your shoes with these size sevens,’ she said, smiling weakly. ‘And second of all,’ she shrugged, looking intently at me, ‘I’d be asking myself what significance that terrible pie sitting in the kitchen has.’

  CHAPTER 20

  THERE WERE PERKS to working alongside companies, eager to have us specify their goods on the next chain of hotels or show homes designed by Cyan. Like my kitchen. An arctic tundra of clean lines and minimalist functionality, polished to a mirror-like sheen. James had haggled us the kitchen. It was worth nearly three times what we’d parted with for it. I knew this not because I’d been there when James had gone ahead and chosen it, but because it was a fact he’d enjoyed rolling out each time we’d had dinner guests.

  Phil hadn’t said much on the way here last night. She’d helped me with a few bags of my things but she hadn’t come in, even though James hadn’t been here. When he did return home, I didn’t ask where he’d been. It had felt good to be held again, arms stronger than my own locked around me. I wanted to believe what he was telling me, that we could get there again, if we worked hard enough. But there was a sense of being like two icebergs, once split from the same glacier, bouncing around each other aimlessly, trying to find how to fit again.

  I tried one last sip of my morning brew before making a mental note to buy more milk on the way home later. I tipped away the watery tea James had made me before leaving. He liked to get a couple of hours cycling in on home days. Said it set him up for the day. I wondered how he would take to losing those hours to the morning routine of a toddler, or cope with soggy biscuit marring the flawless lunar landscape of our kitchen.

  You have to stop doing this, Amy. Stop looking for cracks.

  I wondered how long he’d settle for sleeping on the sofa.

  I deposited my cup in the dishwasher, grabbed my bag and favourite blazer and moved into the hallway for his car keys. The oversized circular mirror there told me I probably shouldn’t bother asking who the fairest of them all was. It sure as hell wasn’t me this morning. I found a hairband in the console drawer and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, realising with some disappointment that my nose didn’t look any less puffy. The chicken broth had worked wonders, but only on the inside, apparently.

  *

  The sun was dazzling as I stepped outside, bouncing off James’s silver saloon and making our front garden look like the set for some car advert. We could fit four cars on the driveway, but I’d never really needed my own, not with us working at the same practice. I disabled the alarm and slipped into the driver’s seat. James’s car was yet another immaculate environment, something else he was going to have to learn to flex his exacting standards of tidiness with.

  I looked suspiciously at myself in the rear-view. You’re doing it again.

  I hadn’t been crying, and yet one of those shuddered breaths took over my chest for a moment. I found myself staring at the steering wheel. I’ve made the right decision. This is where I need to be. We’re going to get the spark back. The lady from across the street rushed out of her house, a keyboard under one arm and a large brass instrument under the other, shouting at her kids to get their school bags before they got in the car.

  We could make this work, not just for the three of us, whenever that came to be, but for James and me, the couple we used to be.

  I cranked up the engine and immediately remembered why James was so fond of the car.

  The journey to the mill was quick and smooth. When I pulled into the front yard, something had changed. There was a buzz around the place. A couple of new vans in the yard, the odd tradesman milling around.

  I gathered my things and locked James’s car, nervously joining John Harper, spectating as an enormous bathtub was winched up to the balcony of Rohan’s first-floor bedroom.

  ‘He ordered it then,’ I said idly.

  John’s eyes stayed fixed on the climbing load. ‘He’s an eager lad.’ He smiled. ‘Nothing wrong in that.’

  I decided to go in through the front entrance. If that thing came down, I didn’t really want to be on the gangway beneath it. Across the millpond, two lanky youths were helping Rohan give the boathouse its second coat of paint.

  ‘Who are the kids?’ I asked John. He turned slowly, like a ship changing course.

  ‘The one dopey enough to wear a woolly hat in this weather, that’s Lee, and the other’n, with the jeans hanging below his arse, that’s Tristan. Likes to be called Stan,’ John said, tapping his finger to his nose. ‘So I call him Tristan.’

  ‘Where are they from?’ I asked, smiling. ‘They don’t look very old.’

  ‘Old enough for a good day’s ha
rd graft. And a bloody good clip round the ear. If the buggers had broken into my house, it wouldn’t be a paintbrush I went at ‘em with, that’s for sure. There’s a third’n, too – young Nathan. He’ll be coming after school.’

  Neither of the youths was the one I’d seen in Rohan’s kitchen. And I didn’t think it was the police who’d have set them up in their community service down at the boathouse. Rohan glanced back over his shoulder and saw John and I looking his way. He stopped painting and threw a long tanned arm in the air to wave over to us. I thought to wave back and realised I already was.

  John let out a small humph of a laugh next to me. ‘You’re happy this morning, you don’t see many girls turning up to work with a smile like that.’ I looked at him, embarrassed. ‘Like to see arses hanging out of scruffy jeans, do you?’

  ‘Er, no. Not particularly. I’ll see you later, John,’ I said, leaving him with a smile too. Lest he think I was particular in who I dished them out to.

  After a morning of much activity and a near-calamitous bath delivery, work at the mill was in full swing. I hadn’t seen Rohan yet, properly. He’d been busy at the boathouse, but I knew by the fresh garden salad I’d just found in the mini-fridge he’d been up here. I’d tried to rationalise the small flutter I’d felt when I’d found my lunch waiting for me. He hadn’t hand-made it or anything, it was in a deli tub with a use-by date and a barcode, but the slices of cucumber illustrated on the packaging sleeve were notably absent from inside.

  ‘Well, isn’t that the bummer?’ I heard Carter yell from across the landing. I took the salad and mooched across the upper floor towards Rohan’s room, where Carter was appraising the piles of tiles and adhesives covering the balcony. The temporary winch had been used for everything once the contractors had realised how much lugging it would save them.

  ‘Hey, Carter, nowhere to pull a lotus flower?’ I smiled, digging in for a tomato.

  ‘It’s lotus, just lotus,’ he replied tetchily. I grinned into my salad tub. I moved closer to the doors and stood at Carter’s left side. Rohan looked like he was walking alongside the millpond. I wondered if he was going to come and have lunch with us.