A Part of Me

by Anouska Knight

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Rohan said, eyeing the tissues in my hands as if I was coming at his child with vinegar and sandpaper.

  ‘Do you want to be the bad guy?’ I asked.

  I could see the answer in his face.

  ‘Look, Lils. There are cans of spray paint too.’

  I bowed down in front of her to take a look. There was a bit of grime to sponge off, but nothing too drastic. I gently pressed the tissue to her little rounded knees. Rohan winced. Other than a small twitch, Lily hardly moved.

  I had to admit, I was glad it had gone so smoothly. Rohan let out a breath, his face softening. ‘The distraction method. Oldie but goodie.’ I smiled.

  Lily looked up at her father. There were still the remnants of crying in her voice. ‘My legs are sore now, Daddy.’

  ‘I know, baby,’ he said, wiping the hair from her streaked face.

  I stood, folding up the pink-tinged tissues so Lily couldn’t see. ‘You are a very brave little girl, Lily. Now you’ve got knees like Daddy’s elbows.’ Lily looked up at him again and set to pulling at the neck of Rohan’s T-shirt.

  ‘My elbows aren’t down there, you loony, those are my shoulders. Here, look.’ Rohan pushed aside his sleeve so she could see.

  Lily touched the large graze running angrily from Rohan’s forearm up over his elbow and grimaced. ‘Do you need a plaster, Daddy?’

  ‘Can I have one of yours?’

  Lily nodded, turning her attention back to my phone. ‘Thanks, baby.’ He smiled, kissing her on the top of her head. ‘How did you know I’d trashed my elbows?’ he asked, cocking his head to one side. He looked more boyish again, now that he wasn’t flapping – that infectious smile breaking over his mouth.

  ‘Educated guess.’

  My phone started buzzing in Lily’s hands. She held it up for Rohan to deal with. Rohan remained perfectly impassive as he turned the face around so I could see JAMES centre screen. I flicked it to silent and slipped it into my pocket. One fluid movement.

  ‘Right, Lily. I hope you have a nice night in your brand-new bedroom. And I hope you feel better in the morning,’ I said, tucking her hair behind her ear. Lily nodded, sinking herself into her dad’s ribs. ‘Can I do anything before I go?

  ‘No, thanks. We’re good.’ Rohan sighed.

  ‘Do you have everything to hand? In case of any more minor emergencies?’ I was swinging into practical mode. Force of habit.

  ‘I’m going to dig the plasters out now.’ He smiled. ‘They’re upstairs somewhere. In one of a hundred bags Meg brought.’

  ‘I could run up for you? It might be easier than you hunting around for them?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ve got it. I need to sort through it all anyway.’

  I didn’t pity him. I’d seen how lightly Lauren travelled with the boys’ things. Bags galore. ‘Do you want to check you have everything? Before I go? Kids come with a lot of baggage. Things get forgotten.’

  ‘Amy! Honestly, I can manage. If I need something, I’ll sort it myself!’ He was smiling, but his demeanour had changed. Almost imperceptibly, but I’d caught it. ‘Look, I know you’re just trying to help, but I’m not completely incompetent, okay? I can manage to look after my own daughter for a couple of weeks. If I need help, I’ll ask for it.’

  I wasn’t sure where I’d overstepped the mark between helpful and offensive, but clearly I had.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, bemused. ‘I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing. I just know it can be a bit of a handful sometimes.’

  Rohan ruffed his hair, glancing up at the ceiling as if asking to be given strength. It annoyed me. He wasn’t the one unfairly being made to feel awkward here.

  ‘Do you? I didn’t realise that you had children,’ he said. ‘I suppose Shin Splints is perfect father material, though.’ I felt my back bristle. Whatever winning opinion he might be about to impart, I wasn’t sticking around to hear it. I set the soggy tissues down by the sink and collected my things, giving Lily a smile goodbye. Then I left, leaving Rohan, and the awkwardness in the air, behind me.

  CHAPTER 24

  I DIDN’T KNOW why I felt hurt. I’d seethed all the way back from Briddleton. All the way to Bonza Booze in Earleswicke, then I’d seethed all the way back to the city outskirts and the ‘home’ I shared with the other seethe-worthy one.

  What was Bywater’s problem anyway? I mean, the guy ran so hot and cold all the sodding time, there was a serious danger of suffering some form of neural shock just from standing too close. Not that I’d be rushing to make that mistake. Again.

  Incompetent? I’d never said that. Or even suggested it. Why would I? He was rude, that’s what his problem was. Rude, and suffering the effects of one gargantuan chip on his shoulder. Well, no wonder Megan left him. She was fast becoming a kindred spirit. I might even take to wearing gypsy skirts as a show of solidarity.

  I pulled sulkily into my driveway and snapped the keys over to shut the engine off. I got out of the car clumsily with my armful of cheap Chilean red, wondering if Rohan would have been as snippy with her. Of course not. He probably wished every day that she would come back to him, forgive him for being such an obnoxious git.

  But then why the reticence about Lily staying over? If he wanted globe-trotting, biker-chick, utterly-likeable Megan back? Who bloody knew what went on in that bloke’s head?

  I slammed the door and stalked over the block paving, past the ridiculously over-shaped bushes in our ‘ornamental’ garden. I gave momentary consideration to seething about topiary, too.

  James was still working in the study when I dumped my things on the white kitchen sofa. I could see him across the garden in the summer house we’d had converted to an office. I’d wanted to site the sandpit there, so little feet could run along the decking back to the house. James had insisted on a ‘sound buffer’, so the pit had been relegated to the far corner with the least sun. He’d won that one with some spiel on UV rays. I shook my head to myself. Suckered.

  I put the two wine bottles onto the counter and eyed them over with as much reverence as if they were a pair of Ming vases. My invaluable friends for the evening. Phil had suggested Dutch courage – I was going with Chilean. Maybe she was right. Maybe my head wouldn’t be so full of distractions if that one piece of the broken pot could be jammed back into place. Brute force, and good glue. I looked across the back garden to James, the difficult piece, lounging back in his desk chair, schmoozing. He’d clock off at 6 p.m. on the nose, giving me less than ten minutes to disappear upstairs for a bath and avoid him for a little while longer.

  As I trudged back through the kitchen, it took everything I had not to take one of my Chilean friends up with me.

  *

  My skin had taken on the texture of a sundried tomato. I hadn’t planned on soaking so long but I’d been trying to think of a third reason to leave the sanctity of my airless bathroom, steam hanging heavy like a damp shroud. I was still doing my best when James invited himself in on a current of cool air holding reasons one and two.

  ‘Hey. I’ve been waiting for you to come home, I didn’t hear you get back.’ He stepped into the bathroom, chasing the heat away.

  His eyes coasted over towards the water, his voice tightening a little as I edged lower beneath the bubbles. ‘Tell me which one of these you want to open and I’ll get us a glass. I have some news, baby. Really exciting news.’ James didn’t get excited about anything other than saving a quid or making one.

  You’re nit-picking again.

  I took a deep breath, careful not to send my diaphragm too high above the waterline. ‘You pick. I’m not finished yet.’ I smiled, looking at my shrivelled toes.

  ‘I just got off the phone to Garnet’s.’ He grinned.

  ‘Garnet’s? The estate agents?’

  ‘Hurry up, and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ve a really good feeling about the next few months, Ame. Come down and we’ll crack open one of these.’

  Garnet’s were marketing the Park Lane property. I waited
for a pang of excitement, but it didn’t come.

  ‘Don’t be too long, baby. You’ve got goose bumps,’ he said, and left me to it.

  The bathroom had cleared of any lingering warmth when I finally ventured across the landing’s soft sea of beige carpet to my room. Ever the clutter-freak, James had brought my things upstairs and had left them on the chair in the corner. I slumped down at my dressing table and stared at the mirror. Wet brown rat’s tails hung limply around my face, helping the blue of my eyes to look colder than usual.

  What are you doing, Amy?

  The girl staring back at me didn’t offer an answer.

  I looked back at the hallway stretching ominously towards the stairs and the man waiting down there for me. My eyes hovered over the spare-room door, unopened for nearly a month. Like the sandpit, that little room had become another corner of our home consigned to the shade. Well, I wasn’t having it.

  I marched out onto the landing and threw open the nursery door, the smell of contained paint immediate. This was a beautiful room – part of my house, not separate to it – perfectly formed with just a few carefully chosen items to welcome a bewildered little soul into their forever home.

  I shouldn’t have hung the bunting until everything had dried, or the hot air balloon from the ceiling, but I hadn’t been able to help myself. The carpet was brand new, woolly under my toes. I walked over it to the built-in wardrobes and reminded myself of the items I’d stocked up on in readiness. New blankets and towels with their kangaroo motif that Mum had swooned over. A few packs of Sam’s unused nappies in varying sizes that Lauren had suggested having to hand. The medicine box, stocked and ready on the shelf. And then there was that most conspicuous thing, the emptiness of the hanging rails, waiting for their stash of clothing in colours we couldn’t choose yet, and sizes we didn’t know.

  Mum had bought a beautiful wooden windmill with battery-operated sails to sit on the dresser. I cast a last look over it before wedging the door stop at the base of the bedroom door, and left the room wide open behind me. It would stay wide open until the evening I pulled it to, so little eyes could rest peacefully after their first bedtime story.

  My handbag was ringing when I walked back into my room, Mum checking my progress on rounding up more internet-savvy petitioners, no doubt. I found myself hoping for a diversion – anything to keep me from the lounge downstairs.

  I slipped my phone from the inside pocket of my bag. I’d got rid of the caller id picture Phil had originally forwarded to me, but I still hadn’t changed Hotbuns Bywater.

  I thought about ignoring it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Amy? It’s … Rohan.’

  We both already knew that I knew that.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m kinda in a fix,’ he said reluctantly. The tone of his voice made me feel braver.

  ‘And you’re asking me for my help? Must be some fix.’ Silence at the other end. I wondered if he was rethinking the call. I didn’t want him to rethink the call. ‘Is Lily okay?’ I added.

  He let out a breath. ‘She’s fine. Thanks. Amy, I’m sorry I was rude to you earlier, you didn’t deserve it. It was unfair of me. And … I’m sorry.’ Something of a pulse had begun jumping in my neck. A silence began to stretch between us.

  ‘Forget it. What’s the fix?’ I asked, moving over to the bedroom door, softly closing it to.

  ‘Nappies.’

  ‘Nappies? Lily doesn’t wear them, does she?’

  ‘Only at night, but … I don’t have any. If I do, I can’t find where Megan packed them.’

  Megan didn’t strike me as a mum who would forget the nappies. ‘Did you check the bags?’

  ‘All of them. Meg said they were with the bedtime things and medicines but I can’t find any of those either. I think I must have left one of the bags in her car,’ he huffed. ‘Maybe I was supposed to go in the boot? I dunno …’

  I started to smile at the thought of Rohan trying to fashion Lily a makeshift nappy in his workshop. ‘Well, couldn’t you just send Carter out for some?’ I suggested.

  ‘He’s not here tonight, he’s out on some secret date he wouldn’t go into.’

  I risked a stupid question. ‘Can you not go and get them?’

  Rohan huffed again quietly. ‘I can’t. It’s not just the bags I’m short. I forgot to get Lily’s car seat.’

  ‘She’s staying a fortnight and you forgot the car seat?’

  ‘Meg drove off with it in the back of her car! She didn’t notice either,’ he defended. ‘She’ll be in the departure lounge now,’ he added ruefully.

  Ha! Meg hadn’t noticed that she was driving off with the car seat! Human after all!

  ‘Ah,’ I said unhelpfully. ‘I guess you are in a fix then. Would you like me to run over with some nappies?’

  I could hear Lily playing in the background. Rohan was thinking over his options, I could tell. ‘I don’t mean to inconvenience you. I know you’re probably tucked up for the evening, but I didn’t know who else to ask.’

  It was only half seven, and he couldn’t be further from the truth. ‘It’s fine, honestly. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  He sighed again. ‘Thank you, Amy.’

  ‘No worries. I’ll see you guys shortly. Bye.’

  I clicked off the call. The girl in the mirror across from me looked less cool now, eyes warmer with purpose. I ran a brush through my hair and tied it back, slipping into a pair of jeans and a loose jumper. I didn’t need to bother with the supermarket, thanks to Lauren’s over-zealous nesting instincts before Harry was born, I already had a mini selection of toiletries and nappies. I moved back into the nursery and began cherry-picking a selection of nappies in various sizes. An unopened bottle of lavender bubble bath, talcum powder, a bottle of Calpol. I stopped myself mid-scramble. Rohan might freak out again if he thought I’d gone on a girly spree for them. Might feel beholden to me and get his knickers in a twist over it. I left the powder and bubbles, but the Calpol was a must. The elixir for everything, Lauren had claimed.

  *

  James had already started on the red when I got downstairs. ‘Why have you got your shoes on, are you going out?’ he asked. ‘Are those nappies?’

  I hadn’t intended on misleading him, but once Rohan’s name found its way onto my tongue, it felt like a bad move to speak it. ‘My brother’s just having a crisis,’ I bumbled. ‘I won’t be long.’ I smiled apologetically. ‘Save me a glass.’

  CHAPTER 25

  THE THUMPING THING had hardly left me throughout the journey back to the mill. I’d driven most of the way with one hand clamped apprehensively to my neck.

  When he opened the door, Lily was wrapped in a bath towel, comfortably perched on her father’s side. He’d changed, into a plain blue shirt, rolled up past his elbows. Damp patches showed where Lily’s body had pressed against his.

  ‘Hey, Lily.’ I smiled, trying to break any residual ice from earlier. Given my record with her father, crampons and a pick might have been advisable.

  Lily looked wide-eyed from the door. ‘Hello. I’ve got plasters now.’ She hung over Rohan’s arm, directing me to her knees.

  ‘I found some in one of the bags. Come on in.’ He smiled, stepping aside. I took the bag in past them, the hallway was filled with the delicate aroma of soapy water and shampoo, and the more spiced accents of whatever clung to Rohan’s skin. ‘Thank you for this, really,’ he said, offering to take the bag from me. ‘I’m just getting her into her pyjamas, would you like to come up? Unless you need to get back?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’m good for a little while.’ I smiled. He smiled too. I tried not to be affected by it.

  Rohan held out a hand towards the honeyed-oak staircase. I started up the stairs, realising that the mill felt strangely alien. Not the echoing shell I’d been working in but a home I’d been invited into. Warm and snug and lived in. Rohan followed on with Lily and the bag.

  ‘I don’t th
ink I’ve ever seen you in jeans,’ he said, behind me. I should’ve let him lead, then my backside wouldn’t have been so perilously close to his eye level.

  ‘Have you been in a bath, Amy? Your hair is all wet.’ I looked down at Lily behind me and smiled.

  ‘Yep. I have. I bet it wasn’t as bubbly as yours, though.’

  ‘I got Daddy wet.’ She grinned, looking at him for his reaction.

  Rohan feigned disapproval and pinched at her tummy. Lily exploded into throaty giggles.

  ‘Did you?’ I laughed back. ‘Did you like Daddy’s new bath? It’s a bit like a swimming pool, isn’t it?’

  Lily nodded enthusiastically enough that the hood of her towel fell back from her head. ‘You’ve got wet hair too!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t own a hairdryer,’ Rohan noted.

  ‘You should’ve said, I have a spare,’ I said, walking across the gallery. Even the lounge below looked different, more homely. ‘Do you have a brush? You should tie her hair back when she’s ready for bed. Keep the damp off her pillow.’

  Rohan nodded, gesturing for us to walk on through to his room. Like everywhere else, his bedroom had taken on a whole new air, the design scheme we’d rolled out in here suddenly pulled together by the simple but magical act of its being put to use. It still wasn’t quite dark outside, but the wreath of pendant lights hanging over the tub and the bedside lamps were all on, throwing warm light onto the stone walls, enriching the tones of the floorboards.

  ‘Excuse the mess,’ he said, setting Lily down on already disturbed bedclothes. She looked marooned in the centre of Rohan’s bed. I watched her roll over, snuggling into the furred throws there that had already been rolled in before. Rohan began collecting up the line of toys running like a breadcrumb trail to the bathtub in the centre of the room.

  ‘It’s not mess, is it, Lily? You’re just settling in.’ I smiled, watching her wriggle her toes through the mottled brown fur. Rohan, realising he had nowhere to put his armful, lobbed the lot down in the corner next to me. He ran his fingers back and forth through his hair, and yawned.