The Mountain in My Shoe

by Louise Beech

  And the book would be in its designated two-inch slot on the shelf.

  ‘You’re the first one I’ve called,’ says Anne.

  Bernadette takes the phone to the bookshelf and pulls everything off to make sure the no-distinctive-markings book isn’t there, just off centre. Perhaps she is off centre. Perhaps this is a dream, one of those she often has where she’s trying to do a jigsaw and every time she adds a piece the picture changes. What was it Conor said last time, about the centre of the universe being everywhere?

  The book isn’t there and Bernadette sinks to the floor. She touches the titles she has read over the years to avoid thinking about her own, about the name she once had, the name Richard then gave her, one she might soon discard. She loved signing her new marital name, once upon a time; the S and W permitted her to swirl and curl the pen with flourish. Richard had smiled at the pages and pages of practice signatures, asking, was she expecting to be famous?

  ‘Is he there with you?’ repeats Anne, more urgently.

  ‘No,’ says Bernadette, and Anne’s sobs confirm that she knew this would be the case. ‘What do you mean he didn’t come home?’

  Conor is part of the reason Bernadette has finally decided to leave a marriage she has done everything to nourish for a decade. Now he’s missing too. Richard and the book barely matter anymore.

  ‘You’re stronger than you think,’ Anne said, the time Bernadette opened up. They were in Anne’s kitchen; it was a few months ago but it feels like a lifetime now. They drank tea and waited for Conor, and Bernadette admitted she didn’t know if she loved her husband anymore. Said she wasn’t even sure what love was, but that the thought of anything or anyone else was alien.

  I’m not strong, Bernadette thinks now.

  That she’s planning to leave her marriage after ten years might make her so. Memoirs about men surviving months adrift at sea define them as strong. People who cope with losing children are definitely strong. But she is just a woman walking away from a man who isn’t what she hoped for. A year ago if anyone had said she’d do it, she’d have said never. A year ago during a phone call home, Bernadette’s mother had asked how things were and she paused a moment, didn’t answer with her customary, ‘Yes, everything’s good.’

  Instead she asked her mum, ‘What if everything isn’t good?’

  Silence on the other end of the line, and then her mum said, ‘Well, you make the best of it, don’t you? No marriage is perfect and too many people give up these days. My friend Jean from aqua aerobics just left her husband Jim after twenty-five years. She was bored and he’d had a fling. But you work at it, you talk, you do what it takes.’

  A year ago Bernadette would have done what it took. Now her belongings are packed in two bags and the flat is as clean as a show home. But without the book or Richard and with Conor now gone, she’s trapped in the house where no one else lives. She can’t play her game of prove-the-monster-isn’t-there anymore.

  ‘He didn’t turn up,’ says Anne now. ‘And you know that isn’t like him.’

  Bernadette pictures Conor last Saturday, closing the door as she departed, the autumn sun bouncing off the glass as though to cut them in two. She had grit in her shoes from the foreshore and he said that when she took them off at home she’d make a mess ‘all over the joint’ and remember him. He said other words she can’t think of now or she’ll cry; ones about mountains and pebbles and Muhammad Ali.

  No, Bernadette is not strong. But he is.

  ‘Can you come?’ asks Anne. ‘If anyone knows Conor, you do.’

  The words come out despite Bernadette’s fears. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She is afraid that if she opens the front door to leave, all the monsters will jump out.

  But she’s going to have to.

  5

  The Book

  So my name is Jim Rogers and I’m your social worker. You might have other social workers through your life. (It all depends how things turn out.) No one can know what will happen when a baby is born in circumstances like yours. By the time you read this you’ll probably know what a social worker is, but I’ll write it in here anyway.

  Very simply, social work is about people. Social workers help children and families who are having difficulties. It can be any kind of difficulty – illness, death, emotional problems, circumstances, or other people. We try to do what’s best for all concerned. (Sadly this doesn’t always work.) Occasionally families have to be split up. Usually it’s for a short time but sometimes it can be for much longer. And sadly there are times when it is for always.

  I helped decide what was best for you. You were made what is called the subject of a care order, where the local authority has responsibility for you. (I have printed out some information about that and will stick it in your book after this.) We had to decide quickly what would happen and where you would go.

  Your mum, Frances, was ill when you were born. She had been ill for a long time. She has an illness that is hard to explain because it’s her head that is poorly not her body. It’s much harder to fix heads. (Sometimes it’s impossible – even for the best doctors.)

  Your mum agreed to let you go – not because she doesn’t love you but because she does. That’s what I think, anyway. It often makes it easier for us to help if this happens. She had to let your older brother Sam go too last year. A lovely family took him in and he’s still living there.

  We felt you would also be better off living with another family until your mum is well. She couldn’t hold or dress you when you were born because she was too sad. She couldn’t even take you home, even for a short while, so she let someone else take you.

  We usually try and put a child with a relative or family friend if we can but in your case it wasn’t possible. You have an Uncle Andrew who wanted to have you, but he has some complicated problems that meant he wasn’t able to.

  The next option was short-term care while your mum got help.

  Gosh, I must tell you, while I think of it, that she chose your name. I thought you’d like to know that, because names are important aren’t they? Your name means dog lover. It’s nice because your mum said she named you after someone special. I don’t know who it is but I doubt there can be any better name than that.

  I can’t tell you anything about your father, sadly. I don’t even know his name. For whatever reason, your mum hasn’t told us who he is. (Maybe she’ll share it with you one day herself. Or maybe later in this book we’ll be able to tell you.) I realise it is hard having only half of the picture, and I’m sorry about that.

  So for now you’re staying with a lovely couple called Maureen and Michael. They have looked after lots of babies, sometimes more than one at a time. They have a bedroom where there are four cots, just in case. At the moment two are being used. You sleep in one and a baby called Cheryl Rae sleeps in another.

  Maureen and Michael keep pictures of every baby they’ve looked after in a scrapbook. You are the newest. I gave them the first picture of you after you were born. (I’ve also stuck a copy of it at the bottom of this page.)

  I was supposed to start with your birth, wasn’t I? Oh well, here goes now. There were no blue or pink blankets on the ward the day you were born so you’re wrapped in lemon in this photo. You were the only splash of yellow next to rows of pink and blue. So we knew who you were right away.

  I imagine you want to know what kind of baby you were, don’t you?

  Well, the nurse said you were born last thing at night and it had been stormy but then it got very quiet when you arrived. You took so long to cry that the staff thought you were very happy to arrive in the world but then you screamed so loudly they thought you had changed your mind. You were actually due on Bonfire Night but came five days late. But there were still a few fireworks going off somewhere far away.

  There’s a copy of your birth certificate over the page so you can see your birthdate, which of course you’ll already know when you read this. But also on there is the name of the hospital you w
ere born in, when and where you were registered, and your mum’s full name.

  Your hair was dark and spiky (I stuck some of it in here too, at the top) and your eyes were blue. Most babies have blue eyes at the start. Then, after about six weeks, they can change to brown or green, and the baby’s hair can fall out too. So we will see how you look in a few more months.

  Maureen and Michael say you’re always hungry and you sleep well. You like it best when they put your pram under the trees at the end of the garden. The wind in the leaves seems to soothe you.

  You’re a good baby, they say. No bother, they say.

  They write a small three-page Baby Book for each baby they have. They’re going to photocopy some of yours and I will stick it on another page. So everyone is writing about you.

  I’ll be checking on you a lot in these first few months. I’ll visit every week and write all sorts of dull but necessary reports. We have to constantly monitor your life and investigate anything that needs checking and then present whatever we find to the courts. This could last until you’re eighteen, or it might end when your mum is well and you’re living with her again. (We’ll visit her too.)

  But this entry in your book is the most important thing I’ll have written this week – much more interesting and special than my other reports.

  So, gosh, I suppose it doesn’t really matter what the handwriting is like (as long as you can read it!) or if any of us spell things wrong. It just matters that you have a little piece of your history. When other kids have forgotten their childhoods or been told by their parents that they can’t quite recall those early days you will have it here in black and white, in this book.

  And I’m proud to be the first to write in it.

  Jim Rogers

  6

  Bernadette

  Bernadette opens the apartment door to leave Tower Rise. Despite repaints, its wood peels as though sunburnt. Fingers on the handle, she realises how similar this feels to when she first entered the place with Richard ten years ago. Her right hand forces the knob roughly anticlockwise – the only way to free the latch – and the other hand dangles by her thigh with two fingers crossed.

  What is Bernadette hoping for?

  What did she hope for back then?

  Richard didn’t follow the tradition of lifting her over the threshold; he carried their luggage instead, letting her be the first to enter their new home. They arrived even before the furniture and Bernadette opened the doors to every room, her icy breath the only thing that filled them. She sniffed the air the way she used to when she was a child and she went somewhere new.

  Richard dumped the bags in the corridor, grumbled about the lateness and inefficiency of the removal company, and set about calling them. Bernadette knew he’d soon have the place full of the things family had donated, along with his belongings and her books. She knew he’d make it right; he had so far. So she rubbed her goose-pimpled arms and listened to her new husband’s soft voice telling someone he hadn’t expected not even to have a kettle yet, and she knew she’d soon be warm, because he’d see to that too.

  Back then she had expected Richard would always find the kettle; now she knows it’s up to her to find it.

  The door hinge squeaks. Bernadette’s fingers are still crossed. A draught from the hall below tickles her ankles. Conor is missing and that’s the main concern. Anne needs her too. For now she can put aside Richard’s rare tardiness and the book’s disappearance, but the thought of Conor not being where he should be is too much. She can either stay here – imprisoned by her old routine – or she can go and help Anne.

  Bernadette glances back at her two bags by the lounge door, just like their luggage ten years ago. She’ll return for them. This isn’t the departure she planned yesterday. How can you leave a man who isn’t there? Abandon a ghost that follows wherever you go?

  Bernadette closes the door.

  Dark stairs lead down to a large hall that she knows was once grand; a local history book she read described polished tiles and ornate double doors, and black-and-white photographs showed fresh flowers on a glass table and family paintings the size of windows. Now an economy bulb barely lights the sparse, dusty area; it flickers like a lighthouse warning boats about rocks.

  Outside the taxi Bernadette called has arrived. Bob Fracklehurst – the driver who often takes her to meet Conor – finishes a cigarette and stubs it out in a takeaway coffee cup. He never throws his tab end on her drive, yet she’s seen him do it in other places.

  It’s twilight now. The gravel crunches underfoot like spilt crisps. The trees are a black mass, in which Bernadette imagines ghosts and monsters. She gets into the passenger seat, enjoying the blast of warm air-conditioning. Taxis have always taken her to places where more than two buses would otherwise be required. Richard never saw the point in her learning to drive and she agreed that it made no sense; it was costly, and they’d only ever be able to afford one car anyway. While waiting for the children that never arrived Bernadette simply stayed at home, never using her Health and Social Care Diploma to help other families, never travelling to St Petersburg as she’d dreamed of since the age of six, never learning to swim.

  ‘Usual place?’ asks Bob.

  ‘Usual place,’ she says.

  But tonight it isn’t usual at all.

  Having used Top Taxis for five years Bernadette has met most of their drivers. Some she talks to a little, in her shy and agreeable way – most she doesn’t. A driver called Graham is kind and embarrassed about his size and asks thoughtful questions rather than talking over her few words with opinionated ones. Bob lets her daydream. He hums softly and doesn’t badger her with demands for weather talk or a discussion of the local news, chatting only if she begins a conversation.

  Then, between, for a smoker, curiously melodic hums, he occasionally enquires about Tower Rise’s history and her husband’s job and her love of reading. Bernadette always relaxes because he reminds her of her father, a gentle man who never raises his voice or hand.

  ‘This isn’t your normal time,’ Bob says now, and after a thought, ‘or day.’

  No, it isn’t. None of this is normal.

  Since getting married Bernadette has never been alone in a taxi after six. She has never had anywhere to go at that time that didn’t involve Richard. But for the last five years – two Saturdays a month – she has gone in one from the door of Tower Rise to meet Conor. Saturday is his convenient day and fortunately Richard works six days as a computer engineer so Bernadette can sneak out. The word sneak makes her feel guilty; she does not sneak, she escapes. Just for a few hours.

  ‘Bob,’ says Bernadette. And then she can’t think of anything.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asks her.

  ‘Not really,’ she admits.

  ‘Shall I sing and let you be?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ says Bernadette.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  Yes, they should. Every minute that passes is one more that Conor might be in some sort of trouble. And what if Richard turns up now? She won’t be able to leave. He’ll demand to know what’s going on and all her planned words for why she’s going have changed now. Now there are only three – Conor is missing – and Richard doesn’t know about him.

  ‘Please, yes,’ Bernadette says, and the car pulls away.

  They drive under an umbrella of trees, where leaves and bark are gloomy faces watching them escape. What if Richard’s headlights now illuminate the evening? Will she tell Bob to put his foot down? Will she open the window and tell Richard she’ll explain everything later? What would infuriate him more – her leaving without telling him, or her telling him she’s leaving?

  She won’t wait and find out.

  7

  The Book

  28th November 2002

  My name is Maureen and I’ve been looking after you for a full year.

  Jim Rogers said I could write a letter that you’ll one day be able to read and I was so very pleased because I nev
er get to talk to any of the babies after they are gone. Not all our babies have a book like yours because most are going back to live with their mummies. Their mummies just need a break and yours did too, but she still does and so you’ll go and live with a foster carer now.

  I saw the first part of your care plan and it made me so very sad. There were different options for your future and just one had to be ticked. Someone had ticked the box that said Eventual Return to Birth Family (Within Unspecified Months). At least it wasn’t the other box, Permanent Placement with Foster Carer until Eighteen.

  So you may go and live with your mummy again in the future.

  I really do hope so.

  We were very sad when you had to leave us, but you see we only take babies up to a year old. Sometimes I think I’m too emotional to keep saying goodbye to babies but I love it so much when they arrive. Every time one of you leaves we wish we could have you for longer. I try and imagine how you’ll turn out. They have those really clever computers nowadays that can age you, like when kids go missing and they need to show what they might look like when they’re older. I wish we could do that with all the photos of our babies. All we have is a book of pictures of them when they’re small.

  I think you will be a very curious child. By that I mean I think you’ll be into everything. I don’t mean you’ll be odd and weird! Though maybe you’ll be that too in a so very unique way.

  You were walking at ten months, which is early, and we just couldn’t keep up! You got into the plants and the washing machine and even into the street a few times. My neighbour Charmaine brought you back one day when you’d got out the cat flap, so we have to keep it locked now. I could never turn my back for a minute.

  But your smile lit up the house. I’ll so miss that toothy grin and how you ran away every time I tried to catch you. You were rough with the other babies sometimes. I don’t think you meant to be. You were just hugging them. Like you were grabbing onto them so they couldn’t get away.