by Linda Green
‘So what’s the problem?’
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It’s her.’
He stared at me, his brow furrowed. ‘I don’t understand.’
I sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Lydia. The whole thing. It … it just won’t go away.’
‘But she’s gone.’
‘Not for me, she hasn’t. She’s left her mark on everyone. Nothing’s the same, and yet you’re acting as if everything’s fine now. And it isn’t.’
Chris blew out and sat down heavily on the bed next to me. ‘She’s gone. End of story.’
‘It’s not for me. Your ex turns up, tears our family apart, goes away again, you blame me. And yet we’re not supposed to talk about it.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘Well, it sounded like it on Christmas night.’
‘I was angry because you kept giving her chances when I knew she was going to screw up again.’
‘What was I supposed to do? Our family was being torn apart, and you wouldn’t see anyone else’s point of view. I was trying to hold things together and I messed up. I’m sorry, OK?’ I turned my head so he wouldn’t see the tears forcing their way out of my eyes and down my face.
Chris put his arm around me, pulled me towards him and held me. Held me like he hadn’t done for a long time. Stroked my hair. Gave me tiny delicate kisses on my eyelids until they were soothed enough to open again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘Having an ex from hell, for a start.’
‘I don’t think she’s from hell. She’s just got issues.’
Chris smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s a bit of luck you don’t work in TV,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, all those reality TV shows would be called things like The Neighbours Who Need a Facilitator to Improve Relations, or The Divorced Couples Who Might Like to Consider Mediation.’
I managed a weak smile. ‘Am I that bad?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not bad at all. You’re lovely. You’re the nicest person I know. Maybe that’s why I want to protect you from all the shit out there.’
‘I don’t want protecting,’ I said. ‘I want us to be in this together. If you’re upset, I want to know about it. If I’m upset, I want to be able to talk to you.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to shut you out, but when she came back I sort of shut down. It was the only way I could cope.’
‘You never really dealt with her walking out on you, did you?’
‘Probably not. I was too busy looking after Josh.’
‘It’s not too late to get help, you know.’
Chris looked at me and smiled.
‘I’ve gone into relationship counsellor mode, haven’t I?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I really don’t want to trawl back through the whole thing. I just want to get on with my life. And my life is with you and Josh and Tilda.’
‘You don’t think she’s coming back?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘She’s still Josh’s mum. That’s one hell of a pull.’
‘But if she really cares for him, like she says, she’ll stay away.’
‘And what if she doesn’t?’
Chris shrugged. ‘Well, Josh has got Caitlin now. She ought to prove enough of a distraction.’
I wasn’t so sure but I didn’t want to push the point any further. I looked up and caught sight of myself in the dressing-table mirror. Half of my hair, which had been tied up, was now straggling down my face. My mascara was smudged. My dress was still half unzipped at the back. The phrase ‘hedge backwards’ sprang to mind.
‘Look at the state of me,’ I groaned.
Chris kissed me on the forehead. ‘I don’t care about all that,’ he said. ‘I’m here with you, and that’s all that matters.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Now, how about we start this whole thing again? I do believe I was fumbling with the zip of your dress.’
He leant over and kissed my neck, one hand reaching for the zip. All was quiet this time. I couldn’t hear her. See her. Feel her presence. It was just me and Chris.
‘Here,’ I said, standing up, undoing the zip and slipping the dress down over my hips, ‘does this help?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Chris, smiling as he stepped towards me. ‘That helps a great deal.’
* * *
‘So,’ said Debbie, when I called to pick up Matilda on Sunday evening, ‘good weekend?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, smiling and feeling like a teenager who had stayed over at her boyfriend’s for the first time. ‘York was lovely, as ever.’
‘Well, I hope you didn’t see too much of it,’ said Debbie. ‘Or have time to send me a postcard.’
‘No worries there,’ I said. ‘How’s Matilda been?’
‘Oh, you know. Ransacking the house, all-night parties, the police have been round to serve an ASBO.’
‘They’ve had a good time, then?’
‘Yep, I’m surprised they haven’t talked each other to death. But they appear to have survived on five hours’ sleep and midnight snacks of marshmallows and strawberries dipped in chocolate.’
‘Jesus, can I come next time?’
‘Only if you promise to let me have her for the weekend again. Ideally at some point before she’s sixteen.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘it’s a deal.’
‘Mummy!’ screamed Matilda, appearing at the top of the stairs. She ran down, gave me an enormous hug and ran straight back up again.
‘Come on,’ said Debbie. ‘I think we’ve got time for a cuppa. And I want all the gory details.’
Last Christmas she gave me a Thermos. I mean, George Michael would never write a song about that, would he?
I wouldn’t mind but I’m not even forty yet. What would it be next year, a bed-pan? I’m not going to hang around to find out.
16
I’d asked Catherine to come alone. I’d already seen Nathan. To be honest, we hadn’t really made much progress. He still seemed to have the idea in his head that my role was to make Catherine change her mind about starting a family. My attempts to get him to look at areas where he might be willing to compromise had been met with a polite but firm refusal.
Catherine sat down opposite me. She crossed her legs. Her hands were still clasped tightly in her lap but her shoulders were not as hunched as usual.
‘Thanks for coming,’ I said. ‘I know it’s been a good few weeks since I saw you. How have things been?’
‘OK, I guess,’ she said.
‘And what does OK mean for you?’
She hesitated. ‘It means things haven’t got any worse.’
‘Right. And how bad would you say they were? To start with, I mean. Say on a scale of one to ten, with one being fantastic and ten being unbearable.’
The pause lasted a lot longer this time. ‘About nine,’ she said softly.
I nodded, made a note on her file while I gathered my thoughts. ‘Nathan clearly doesn’t think things are that bad,’ I said.
‘You won’t tell him, will you?’ she asked.
‘No. But I am concerned about the difference in your perceptions of the situation. Whose suggestion was it that you came for counselling in the first place?’
‘Nathan’s,’ she said.
‘And yet he doesn’t seem to think it’s that serious. He only scored it a four.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Why do you think that is?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘I guess he sees things differently.’
I didn’t buy it for a second. The way she looked down at her hands suggested she knew that too.
‘Why did he say he wanted to go for counselling?’
‘To get the baby thing sorted. He said it would make me come to my senses.’
‘And how did you feel about that?’
‘I knew it wouldn’t change my mind.’
‘But
you went along with it all the same.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It was easier that way.’ She took a sip of water. Her hand was shaking a little.
Part of me felt it was wrong to chip away like this. But sometimes it was the only way.
‘So why didn’t you suggest coming to counselling yourself?’ I asked. ‘If you say things are as bad as a nine.’
Catherine looked down at her hands. The nail varnish was chipped on at least three fingers today.
‘I didn’t think it would help.’
‘Why not?’
‘The situation was beyond that. Talking about it doesn’t help everything, you know.’
It was the first time she had been curt with me. I knew I shouldn’t take it personally. She was clearly under a lot of strain. It was simply unfortunate that it had hit a rather raw nerve.
‘Why was it beyond that, Catherine? What had been happening between you?’ I had to steel myself to carry on, even though I could see it was making her uncomfortable.
‘He can be very controlling.’ Her voice cracked slightly as she said it.
I nodded. Trying to give her every encouragement to carry on. ‘In what ways?’
‘Not liking me to go out on my own. Always needing to know where I am. Who I’m with. He doesn’t like the fact that my co-owner at the gallery is a man. He gets very jealous.’
‘And have you reassured Nathan that he has no grounds for this?’
‘Yeah. My business partner’s gay for a start. I’ve told Nathan that, but he doesn’t buy it. Not even in Hebden Bridge.’ She almost spat out the last sentence. The previously buttoned-up exterior was in the process of unravelling.
‘And what happens, if you do go out on your own or stay late at work? If he doesn’t know where you are or who you’re with?’
Her hands were trembling. It was not only her hands, but pretty much her whole body. Her eyes were focused intently on a spot on the floor in front of me. She opened her mouth, then shut it again.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Take as much time as you need.’
She tried again but with no success. I could see the whites of her knuckles growing ever clearer. She stood up, still staring at the floor. Took off her cardigan. The bruises reached all the way from her shoulders down to her elbows. They varied in colour from yellow to a dark mauve. A timeline tapestry of pain, of hate, of suffering. She took her boots off and peeled off her tights. If anything, the bruises on her legs were worse. And finally, she rolled down the top of her skirt so I could see her belly. It may have been a knee, or a foot, it was hard to tell. The mark was fresh, though. Maybe only twenty-four hours old.
‘This,’ she whispered, finally looking up from the floor. ‘This is what happens. And this is why there is no way on earth I am getting pregnant.’
We weren’t supposed to touch our clients. It wasn’t considered professional. But I wasn’t a professional right now, and she wasn’t a client. She was a woman, reaching out to another woman. And I was damned if I was going to let her stand there alone.
I took her in my arms and held her. Her body was still shaking. Not shivering, shaking. I held her until the shakes turned to sobs and she sank down on her knees to the floor. I picked her cardigan up and put it over her shoulders.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘It’s done now. You’re not on your own any more.’
* * *
I was still thinking about Catherine on Mother’s Day morning. She wasn’t a mother. And maybe she never would be. But she was still nurturing, still protecting. Albeit towards a foetus which didn’t even exist. You didn’t have to be an actual mother to be worthy of a thought on Mother’s Day.
She hadn’t wanted to call the police or a women’s refuge. She wouldn’t even take the numbers in case Nathan found them. She’d gone home to him. That was the hardest part for me to understand. Having come that far and given so much of herself she had somehow rolled all the hurt back inside. It was the emotional equivalent of one of those hold-it-all-in garments from M&S. Her pain might not have been visible from the outside, but somewhere along the line it would need to find an outlet. It was simply a matter of pushing it deep inside for now and hoping it wouldn’t pop out at an inconvenient time and place.
She was completely and utterly dependent on Nathan. Because of her eating disorder. Because he had genuinely helped her with it when they’d first met. So she’d let him gradually take control of her life to the point where it wasn’t hers any more. All because she had it in her head that he was the only thing which stood between her and it coming back again. And instead he was eating away at her, sapping her confidence, pummelling her into submission.
I had at least persuaded her to make another appointment to see me. She was going to tell Nathan that we were working on her issues. And he’d swallow that whole, of course, because he clearly didn’t think he had any issues that needed sorting.
Chris stirred next to me, rolling over and draping an arm across my body. I couldn’t imagine it, sleeping in a bed with a man who hit you, who abused you. And yet somewhere that was what Catherine was doing. I hoped that one day she’d think herself worthy of more than that. And in the meantime, I owed it to her to appreciate everything I had in my life which she didn’t.
‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ Matilda barged into the room in her pyjamas and leapt on to the bed brandishing a card which, even in the dim morning light, practically glowed, it had that much yellow paint on.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ I said, propping myself up on one elbow while I opened it.
‘I’ll turn the light on so you can see it properly,’ said Matilda.
Chris groaned and screwed up his eyes as she flicked the main light on.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, squinting.
‘It’s got a poem inside. I wrote it myself.’
‘As opposed to commissioning Carol Ann Duffy,’ whispered Chris.
I dug him in the ribs, opened the card up and read it out loud.
‘ “My mummy is a busy bee / She’s very good at nagging me / She goes to M&S for my tea / And washes my hair so I don’t have fleas.” ’
Chris stuffed a corner of the pillow into his mouth to stop himself laughing out loud.
‘It’s lovely, sweetheart, thank you,’ I said, giving her a kiss.
There was a picture of me underneath. I had a large oval body and something flappy on my arms.
‘Are they wings?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s your cardigan,’ she said.
I nodded. Clearly, I was that kind of mum.
‘Come on,’ Matilda hissed, jumping on top of Chris. ‘We’ve got to get to work.’
She dragged Chris out of bed, allowing him enough time only to pull on a dressing gown, before marching him out of the room.
I allowed myself a smile as I heard the bash of a pan downstairs. It would be blueberry and banana pancakes for breakfast. I turned over, not that I actually expected to get back to sleep.
The knock on the bedroom door a few minutes later was a faint one. I looked up to see Josh’s face poking round it.
‘I didn’t think you’d be asleep,’ he said with a smile.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I shall look forward to a Mother’s Day lie-in when she’s your age.’
‘You’ll probably miss it, actually,’ he said.
I smiled at him. ‘Do you know? I expect you’re right.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘as you’re awake, I may as well give you this.’
He held out an envelope and a small thin box wrapped in tissue paper.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You know I always say you don’t have to.’
‘Yeah, and I always tell you I want to.’
I smiled at him and opened the envelope. It was one of those ‘For someone who’s like a mother to me’ cards. Chris had started getting them for him after we got married. And at some point Josh had decided to carry on doing it himself. Inside he had written ‘Thank you for being there’. I blinked hard and pick
ed up the present. I peeled the tape off one end, slid out the box and opened it. It was a bracelet of plum and purple stones.
‘Oh, Josh, it’s beautiful.’
‘Caitlin helped me choose it.’
‘You told her the colours, though,’ I smiled.
‘Yeah.’
‘You really shouldn’t go to this expense, though. Your pocket money’s supposed to be for you.’
‘I wanted to. After all the, you know, stuff …’
He looked down at his feet. For a second he didn’t look anywhere near sixteen.
‘Come here,’ I said.
I hugged him to me. Sometimes, just occasionally, he was still my little boy. I let go but, surprisingly, he held on a bit longer.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘I know it’s going to be really difficult for you today.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m glad Caitlin’s coming.’
‘Me too.’
‘You’ve told her not to worry about it, haven’t you?’ I asked. ‘The whole meeting-the-folks thing.’
‘Yeah. She knows you don’t bite and all that stuff.’
I smiled. ‘I remember being so nervous when I met my first boyfriend’s family. I spilt peas all over the floor and used the wrong cutlery and everything.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Josh.
‘Patrick McDowell. He had red hair, but I was past caring because I was the last one of my friends to have a boyfriend.’
Josh smiled. ‘You mean, you were desperate.’
‘Yeah, I guess I was. Probably why it didn’t last long.’
‘How long?’
‘About eight weeks, I think. He dumped me for someone called Vanessa in the sixth form. I wasn’t that gutted, to be honest. I played “Is She Really Going Out with Him” by Joe Jackson a couple of times and I was pretty much OK.’
Josh smiled again.
‘You really like Caitlin, don’t you?’
He nodded.
‘I can’t wait to meet her.’
‘Just so long as you don’t do all that “Welcome to the family” stuff.’
‘Did her parents do that?’
‘No, they were pretty chilled, actually. Much better than Alicia’s, anyway. Tom said her dad sat down and had “the talk” with him.’