by Linda Green
‘No, it’s not,’ said Matilda. ‘I wouldn’t get you something to eat. That would be dead boring.’
Josh unravelled the pile of goods beneath. A T-shirt, a hoody and a pair of sneakers that had seen better days, all of them black.
‘I got them from Oxfam in Hebden Bridge,’ she announced merrily. ‘Daddy said I could get more things for my pennies there and it helps the starving children.’
‘Thank you,’ said Josh, bending to give her a hug. ‘They’re awesome. I mean really not your usual rubbish at all.’
Matilda appeared chuffed at the compliment. ‘The other one is from Grandma. And she’s coming round tomorrow, so you’re supposed to save it until then unless you really, really can’t wait,’ she explained.
‘I’ll contain myself,’ said Josh.
Matilda appeared disappointed, shrugged and returned to the sock puppets on the stairs, satisfied that she wasn’t going to miss anything.
Josh picked up the guitar somewhat gingerly.
‘Go and try it out if you like,’ said Chris. ‘Take the amp with you.’
‘You mean I have permission to make more noise than her?’ he asked.
‘I doubt you’ll manage it, but you can have a go,’ replied Chris.
Josh said thank you twice more before he got up to go upstairs.
‘How about I bring you up a cup of tea and some toast in a bit?’ I said.
He nodded and smiled before leaving the room.
I turned to look at Chris. ‘I think we can safely say that was a hit?’
‘You can’t go wrong with a guitar as a sixteenth-birthday present.’
‘Did you get one, then?’
‘No. I had to wait until I was eighteen. Saved up all my money from my part-time job when I was at college.’
‘Your folks never gave you one?’
‘I don’t think they could afford it, to be honest. And you know what Dad was like, not one for frivolous things like music.’
‘So where is it, your first guitar?’
Chris looked down at his feet. ‘Sold it,’ he said. ‘If I remember rightly, it kept Josh in nappies for a good six months.’
‘In that case,’ I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, ‘I think it only fair that Josh lets you have a turn on his.’
By the time I took the tea and toast up, Josh and Chris were getting stuck into something sounding vaguely like ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. Josh had the guitar slung across him in true rock-star fashion. And Chris was standing on Josh’s bed, presumably demonstrating the finer points of air guitar.
I smiled at them both. ‘If Kurt Cobain calls round, shall I send him straight up?’ I asked.
Josh smiled and exchanged one of those looks with Chris before turning to me. ‘Kurt Cobain topped himself before I was even born.’
‘I knew that,’ I said. ‘I so knew that.’
Josh and Chris did the look again. They were more like brothers sometimes, they really were.
‘Says the woman who counts Duran Duran’s Rio as one of the best albums of all time,’ smirked Chris.
He and Josh cracked up laughing.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That’s the last cup of tea you’re getting this morning.’
‘Love you anyway,’ Chris called after me as I left the room. ‘Despite the dodgy music taste.’
I smiled and went back downstairs. And smiled again as they turned the volume of the amp up a notch or two.
* * *
It was lunchtime when Josh finally emerged, showered and dressed, downstairs.
‘Well, what’s the verdict, then?’ I asked.
‘Awesome,’ said Josh. ‘It’s got a great tone to it.’
‘Well, it did when I played it, anyway,’ said Chris.
Matilda, who’d been ploughing through her mental maths homework with a look of utter disdain on her face immediately put down her pen and buzzed around Josh.
‘Can I have a go on your guitar, please? Just a little go.’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Why not now?’
Josh looked up, somewhat sheepishly. ‘Actually, I was going to ask if it’s OK for me to go round to Tom’s for a bit?’
‘For a bit or a lot?’ I asked.
‘Well, probably the rest of the day. Only he’s desperate to see the guitar and his mum said she’ll do us a pizza and we just want to hang out and listen to music and stuff.’
I glanced at Chris. His face had fallen slightly. But I knew he wouldn’t say no.
‘Yeah. Sure,’ he said. ‘But family lunch here tomorrow, remember? Grandma’s coming, and it would be nice if you weren’t stuck in your room all day.’
‘No probs,’ Josh said.
‘And if Tom’s mum asks you to turn the amp down, you turn it down, OK?’ I added.
Josh nodded.
Chris rolled his eyes and did the sign of the cross in front of him. ‘Watch out,’ he said. ‘The noise police, otherwise known as mums, are on the march.’
‘You’re worse than he is,’ I said.
‘Reliving my youth.’ Chris smiled, putting his arms around me. ‘Guitars do that to men in their forties.’
‘Right. I’d better get going,’ said Josh, displaying the first sign of urgency we’d seen from him that day as he went back to his room to get the amp and the guitar.
Chris kissed me, then nodded at Matilda who was sitting at the table swinging her legs and staring mournfully at Josh’s empty chair.
‘Listen, love,’ I said, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘You have to remember it’s Josh’s birthday and it’s only fair that he should get to hang out with his best friend, if that’s what he wants to do.’
‘But I want to do stuff with him.’
‘I know, but teenagers like to do their own thing. You probably will, one day.’
Matilda pulled a face. ‘I won’t. I’ll want to be with all of you on my birthday.’
I smiled, deciding not to argue or point out that Josh probably wouldn’t be around by then, anyway. ‘Well, we’re going to have a nice birthday meal together when Grandma’s here tomorrow. And in the meantime, it’s jacket potatoes for lunch.’
Matilda looked at me intently. ‘Josh is having pizza,’ she said.
I looked at her and shook my head. Sir Alan Sugar really had missed a trick not doing a primary-school version of The Apprentice.
‘Well, we’ll have pizza for tea, then,’ I said.
A smile flickered on to Matilda’s face.
‘And after lunch,’ said Chris, scooping her up from the chair and hoisting her up on to his shoulders, ‘I am going to thrash you at Mouse Trap.’
‘Yay!’ shouted Matilda as they galloped around the kitchen table.
‘Hall, please, if you’re horse racing.’ I smiled. ‘I’ve got hot potatoes about to come out of the Aga.’
‘You heard your mother,’ said Chris, galloping into the hall, Matilda clinging on to his neck and grinning.
Josh came back downstairs, loaded up and looking somewhat like a roadie. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘You’re gonna miss Mouse Trap,’ Matilda shouted out from Chris’s back.
‘I’ll get over it.’
Matilda poked her tongue out at him.
‘If you need me to give you another lesson, just call,’ Chris said to Josh.
‘No chance. You are so playing Mouse Trap all afternoon,’ Josh called out before pulling the door shut behind him.
* * *
Of course, the thing with Mouse Trap is it takes so long to set up that by the time you’re ready, you’ve lost the will to live – let alone play a board game.
We’d been at it for about half an hour when there was a knock on the door. Usually, Matilda would leap up and dash for it before Chris and I even moved. But she was at the particularly delicate stage of replacing the mouse trap, and when I said it would probably be the window cleaner coming back for his money, she decided she was staying put. I got up
from my cushion on the floor, being careful not to jog the board, and stopped to pick up a ten-pound note from the pot in the hall, at the same time making a mental note to check before I went back to the game that I had enough icing sugar in the cupboard to finish decorating Josh’s cake for tomorrow.
I opened the door, ten-pound note in hand. A dark-haired woman stared back at me, her smoke-coloured eyes rimmed with kohl. She was wearing skinny jeans and a black top and holding a large present wrapped in black and silver paper. I noticed her hands were shaking. I knew who she was straight away, even though it had been years since I’d looked at her photo, which had been taken years previously. You don’t forget cheekbones like that. And besides, I was reminded of them every time I looked at Josh.
I watched her look me up and down. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly, whether in an attempt at friendliness or simply satisfaction that she was still the brightest star in the sky, it was hard to say.
‘Hi, is Josh in?’ she asked.
‘Er, no, he’s not.’
‘Oh, is there a time I can call back to see him? Only I’d like to give him this myself.’
I was taken aback by her gall. She still hadn’t even introduced herself. I might not have had any idea who she was. She didn’t know who I was, for that matter, although she could probably guess. I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t send her packing without consulting Chris first. And I couldn’t accept the present without checking with him either. She was back. And whichever way you looked at it, Chris needed to know.
‘Chris!’ I called from the hallway. I tried to do it in a casual tone so as not to bring Matilda running out with him. But at the same time I couldn’t help thinking I should have tried to warn him in some way. No one should be flung from an innocent game of Mouse Trap unwittingly into the jaws of their ex. It wasn’t right.
She flinched as I said his name. The corners of her mouth returned to neutral, her eyes narrowed slightly. I thought for a second that she might simply dump the present and make a run for it. Fight or flight. She stood her ground, though, until he appeared behind me in the hallway. His footsteps faltered as he caught sight of her. He stopped dead behind me. I felt his breath fast and shallow on the back of my neck before he spoke.
‘Lydia.’
She smiled at him. Not at her full wattage, I was sure, more of a seductive glow.
‘Look, I know I should have called or something.’
Chris was in front of me now. On the edge of the doorstep, his face doing a good impression of a question mark. Many question marks, to be honest.
‘What …? Why …? I don’t understand.’
‘I wanted to give him his present,’ she said.
‘Well, you can’t. He’s not here.’
‘I know. She’s already said.’ Lydia nodded in my direction but didn’t bother to remove her gaze from Chris’s face.
‘You can’t just turn up like this,’ said Chris. ‘What if Josh had been here?’
‘Then I could have given him the present.’
‘And what would you have said?’
‘The truth,’ she said. ‘It’s usually the best thing to start with.’
‘Jesus,’ said Chris, shaking his head.
They paused for a second. It was long enough for my mediation training to get the better of the lurching feeling in my stomach.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t think this is the time or the place for this conversation. We’ve all had a bit of a shock. How about we take the present for Josh and let him decide what he wants to do.’
‘OK,’ she said with a shrug. ‘There’s a note inside the card. Could you give it to him, please? Make sure he reads it. It’s got my contact details on.’
For a second I thought Chris was going to tell her where to stick her present and card. Maybe he would have. But at that moment Matilda came out into the hall.
‘Oohh, that’s a big present,’ she said. ‘Is it for Josh?’
I saw Lydia look at her and straight away back to me. Presumably spotting the maternal resemblance but perhaps seeing Chris’s eyes too. Because for the first time that afternoon she appeared to have been rendered speechless.
‘Yes, it is,’ I said, filling the silence. ‘The lady’s just leaving it for him.’ I took the present from Lydia, my look warning her not to say anything, give any clue as to who she was.
The box was heavy. Whatever it was, I suspected it wasn’t cheap.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
Lydia looked at Chris and then back to me and nodded, turned and walked out of the garden. She stopped just outside the gate and lit a cigarette with shaking hands before carrying on down the lane.
I shut the door, needing to feel safe inside my own home. I wasn’t any more, though. None of us were. That much was clear. I only had myself to blame. Chris had offered to move when we got married, but I’d said no because I hadn’t wanted to uproot Josh. It was a big enough deal acquiring a stepmother without being kicked out of the only home you’d ever known as well. I hadn’t wanted to be one of those stepmothers out of fairy tales. I’d wanted to break the mould. Yet in doing that I’d left myself open to attack.
I turned to smile at Matilda, knowing we had to pretend that everything was fine for her sake.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I do believe I was in the process of beating you at Mouse Trap.’
‘What do you think it is?’ asked Matilda, ignoring my taunt and nodding towards the present.
‘I don’t know, love,’ I said, putting the box in the tall hallway cupboard in the hope that it would be a case of out of sight, out of mind.
‘Who was that lady? Why haven’t I seen her before?’
I hesitated, unsure whether to let Chris answer. He remained silent.
‘Someone Daddy and Josh knew years ago,’ I said. ‘Now, let’s get on with that game.’
Matilda nodded and ran back into the lounge. I turned to look at Chris. His face was ashen, his eyes burning fiercely.
‘She has no right to see him,’ he said. ‘No right whatsoever.’
‘Listen,’ I whispered, taking hold of his hand and squeezing hard, ‘try not to worry. We’ll work out what to do. We’ll talk later, when Matilda’s gone to bed, OK?’
He nodded and tried his best to smile. I followed him back into the lounge, realising I still had the ten-pound note for the window cleaner in my hand.
* * *
It was gone eight before Matilda finally went to bed. As soon as I came down after reading to her, I went out the back door. I knew exactly where Chris would be. The wooden bench in the back garden faced west, allowing huge vistas of the sunsets over our beautiful part of the Pennines. The sun had set more than an hour ago but Chris was still sitting there, soaking up the faintest trace of colours left in the sky. Staring out into the darkness beyond.
I sat down next to him. Put my hand on his thigh. Wanting to let him know I was there, but not attempting to wrench him out of wherever he was right now. It was bad enough for me, coming face to face with the woman who’d come before me. Who, for all I knew, had sat on this very bench with him, sharing this view. But what it must be like for him to have the mother of his son turn up after all these years. The maelstrom which it must have unleashed inside him, I couldn’t begin to imagine. I sat with him a while longer before I finally spoke.
‘She’s never been in touch? Not until today?’
He shook his head. Closed his eyes for a second. ‘I did what she asked,’ he said. ‘I never came after her or tried to find her. And now she decides she wants to bloody see him.’
We sat silently for a minute or two. Each immersed in our own thoughts.
‘What do you want to do?’ I asked eventually. ‘About the present, I mean.’
‘Personally I’d chuck it off the edge of the crags, but I guess that’s not one of the options.’
I smiled at him and stroked his leg again. ‘If she’s come here once, she’ll presumably come aga
in if she doesn’t hear anything. We can’t just stick our heads in the sand. Josh could be here next time.’
‘I don’t want her anywhere near him.’
I took hold of his hand. ‘Maybe Josh won’t want to see her, anyway. The key thing is that we ask him. Give him the present so that he can make his own mind up. Can you imagine what he’d say if he found out she’d turned up and we hadn’t told him?’
Chris looked at me. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult, that’s all. What if he wants to see her?’
‘Would that be such a bad thing?’
He gave me one of his ‘What do you think?’ looks.
‘Maybe she’s changed,’ I said. ‘People do.’
Chris made a ‘pppfffft’ sound and shook his head.
‘Well, let’s wait and see, shall we? We don’t even know where she’s living. It might be a flying visit, and she’ll be off again.’
Chris sat for a while, staring up at the sky. It was getting cool now. I pulled my cardigan further across me.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t mind, could you talk to Josh? I’m not sure I’d say the right things. Not sure I’d be capable of saying anything, really. I’m pretty numb with it all.’
‘Sure,’ I said, rubbing his arm. ‘Tonight, when he comes home?’
Chris shook his head. ‘No, I’m not having anything spoiling his birthday. Tomorrow. After Mum’s been and Matilda’s gone to bed.’
‘OK,’ I said, standing up. ‘You coming in?’
‘In a bit,’ he replied.
I nodded, kissed him on the lips and walked slowly back indoors.
I know this is going to sound stupid, but we were at this Handmade Parade workshop thing they do in Hebden Bridge every year. I was helping our daughter with her costume – it was a mythical creature theme and she wanted to be some kind of goblin – and I asked him if he could make me some horns to wear, because I hadn’t had time to make my own costume.
Anyway, he comes back five minutes later with these pathetic-looking brown bits of corrugated card he’d scrunched into a bendy shape and said, ‘Will these do?’
And at exactly the same moment a woman next to us put on the horns that her husband had made for her, and they were these huge things, made from wire, with papier mâché around them, painted purple and silver, and she looked so chuffed and I thought to myself: that’s what I want. Not her horns but a husband who could be bothered to make something special for me.