by Louise Beech
They travel in silence through the estate. Only when they pass the city centre and drive parallel with the river does Anne ask gently, ‘Is Conor’s Lifebook really lost?’
‘Yes,’ says Bernadette.
‘I wondered if you were maybe protecting him or something,’ says Anne. ‘His privacy. I would’ve understood. That book – it’s not to be bandied about by just anyone.’
‘Anne, I haven’t told you everything.’
Bernadette watches the lights bounce on the water. She finds it easy to talk to Anne. She doesn’t have anyone else; friends drifted away when they had babies and Bernadette didn’t, when she stopped joining them on evenings out, when she didn’t work in the offices or shops they did.
‘I didn’t want to say in front of Yvonne and PC French – it’s private. It’s not just the book. I was leaving Richard tonight.’
‘You were?’ says Anne, softly. ‘You mean, when I called? You sounded upset and I thought you’d had a psychic hunch about Conor. I know you’ve been unhappy for a while – that’s been easy to see. How did Richard take it?’
‘I haven’t done it yet. I mean, I couldn’t, because he didn’t come home.’
As they drive onto the motorway she tells Anne about the curious evening. She has started at the end, at Richard not turning up. That’s the cliffhanger, like when you tune into a soap opera just before the credits roll. She needs to explain how it came about and what happened with the Lifebook and what Bob Fracklehurst told her in the taxi about Richard’s so-called sister. She needs to go back even further.
She needs to talk about it.
Bernadette has never been a big talker. As a child she was happiest with her nose in a book and had just one school friend, Shannon, with whom she lost touch after college. Bernadette’s mum always said, ‘We hardly know we’ve got her.’ If Bernadette was worried about something, she would keep it inside; it wasn’t that her parents didn’t care or want to know – they are both loving people – but Bernadette couldn’t stand to upset them or cause trouble. And yet loneliness frightened her; the thought of never finding a partner, someone to share a home with, kept her awake many nights during her teens.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ asks Anne kindly.
Bernadette does. She needs to make room in her head, but there is so much to share. It starts to rain and the windscreen wipers swish-swash the water, like waves after a zigzagging boat.
‘We’ve got an hour,’ says Anne. ‘Talk to me. It’ll distract us both and get us to Conor faster. It’ll clear your head to help you concentrate on him and it’ll give me something to listen to while I drive. Tell me, Bernadette.’
How should she tell it? Should she just speak as though reading lines in a book, like they’re sharing a favourite chapter? Should she pretty the truth with gentle adjectives or go with precise verbs – the things he did, the things he said. A sort of verbal Lifebook. Anne is waiting and Bernadette knows she won’t ask questions or interrupt.
Who better to tell?
‘What is a husband supposed to be?’ Bernadette asks, not sure if the question needs an answer.
‘What do you mean?’ Anne looks over and the car swerves very slightly.
Bernadette doesn’t voice the other questions racing through her head.
Is a husband a man who ignores you for two days because you asked why his mother has to decide what you do every Christmas? Is he a man who tells you your inability to carry a baby to term is because you’re not pure? A man who says he loves you after breaking your arm, that you shouldn’t have questioned his decision to move the furniture in the bedroom so you’d not hear the couple on the other side having sex? Is he a man who puts a cheap gold band on the wrong finger at a tiny wedding service blessed by his mother’s priest, one who kisses you chastely and promises to honour but not obey? A man who says you don’t need a honeymoon because you’ve got each other for the rest of your lives.
Is a husband someone you forgive and stay with because you loved him so much at the start, because your own mother gave up everything for your father and they’re happy, because now you have no one else and no money and no bravery?
Yes. That is a husband; that is Richard.
‘It was the milk,’ says Bernadette.
‘The milk?’ asks Anne.
‘Yes. Last week.’
*
‘Did you leave the milk out?’ Richard’s voice came from the kitchen, distance not softening his tone.
Bernadette froze with a silk pillowcase in one hand. Richard always slept restlessly, leaving sheets everywhere. As every morning, she tucked corners beneath mattress, puffed up pillows and smoothed down dishevelled duvet. She’d spilt milk on her pillowcase last night and removed it now to replace it with another. But Richard’s words stopped her.
‘Did you leave the milk out, Bernadette?’ Slightly louder, but still slow.
‘Yes.’ She softly pressed her fist against her lips and closed her eyes. When she opened them again his words had not gone away.
She left the unfinished bed and went to the kitchen; if he came looking for her it would only add to his annoyance. In the kitchen he stood barefoot and crisply suited for work, with a half-empty carton of milk in his left hand: semi-skimmed, for their health.
‘You know I hate lukewarm milk on my cereal in the morning.’ Richard looked at the space above her head like he couldn’t bear to look at her face. He often did this. ‘You left it out all night. How hard is it to remember to put it away?’
Bernadette didn’t respond. She knew from experience that he didn’t want any sort of answer. It was best to listen. How quickly she had picked up and acted on signs so their marriage ran more smoothly.
‘Now I’ll have to go to work on an empty stomach. Do you know how little time I get to eat?’ The milk carton swilled at every jerk of Richard’s arm.
Still he stared into a distant place beyond her existence. Often she wondered if she existed at all when he glared at that elusive spot above her head. Was she here? Was she the ghost in a house she often felt was haunted? Noises at night on the stairs often had her creeping down to check things. Rattling in other rooms had her running to catch some intruder.
Perhaps she was the poltergeist.
‘Are you listening, Bernadette?’ Richard’s voice crept up a few decibels. Now he required an answer. Now he looked directly at Bernadette and she existed again, but it really didn’t matter what she said.
‘Yes. Sorry, I had some milk in bed last night and I must have forgotten to put it away.’ It was so unlike her. She knew he liked order.
‘Because you have so much to think about, I suppose? Because you have endless deadlines to meet and you’re competing with a hundred others half your age? You’re in charge of our home. That’s all. You deal with the small things and you can’t even manage that.’
Bernadette listened as the words span faster, like Conor freewheeling on his bike, knowing where it would lead and unable to prevent the crash. She could have said that she’d love to go to work like he did. That the small things of home were not enough and by mid-morning she had only her books and the trees.
But she didn’t. On and on went Richard’s voice. She tried to listen and anticipate what he wanted from her, but the slap punctuated his sentences with an exclamation mark.
Bernadette fell back but quickly caught her balance. She avoided his eyes; if even a flicker of anger stained hers he would continue ranting. Such violence was a shock. He had only struck her a handful of times; usually the stream of words was enough to quell his rage.
He hurled the milk at the wall. The plastic carton bounced and landed on the table and then the floor, spraying milk like liquid fireworks. Rancid milk dripped onto her feet.
Richard then touched her cheek tenderly. ‘You make the small things pure,’ he said softly. He often used the word pure. He meant perfect. Right. His. ‘Most of the time. No one does it like you.’ She still didn’t meet his eyes. Finally he wal
ked past her, avoiding the milk. ‘I love you for those reasons,’ he said, and went into the lounge.
Kneeling where the lino was dry, Bernadette mopped up the milk and squeezed the sodden cloth into the sink three times. She wiped the wall where it had splashed, and polished the floor with a different cloth until it gleamed and there was no risk of anyone slipping.
Down the passage, the front door slammed and she knew the place was hers again. Bernadette changed out of her wet clothes. Her throat was so full of trapped words, it ached more than her cheek. Richard would say sorry later – he always did after losing his temper. He’d explain that he only got angry because he cared, because he loved her so much.
In the quiet she tidied the kitchen. There were no dishes from the night before so it didn’t take long. Pots were never left overnight; Richard thought it slovenly so Bernadette always did them last thing. Usually she put the milk away too. She wouldn’t forget again.
He’d said she made the small things pure. Was this all she wanted from life? The small things; mopping up milk and waiting for a husband to come home and reading about lives in biographies and writing about one in a child’s Lifebook while her own passed by.
How had she accepted it for ten years?
When Conor – a few days later – got excited about how the smallest thing in the universe became the biggest, and said she was therefore the smallest thing in his world, Bernadette knew. She knew that she could not wait at home for Richard anymore. She wanted bigger things.
*
‘Oh, Bernadette,’ says Anne.
Bernadette doesn’t speak for a moment because her throat is as sore as it was that morning. The windscreen wipers have been measuring the beat of her words, like a musician’s metronome maintaining the tempo; swish, beat, swish, beat, swish, beat. She is glad they have passed the time and are now halfway to Conor’s mum’s house.
‘Does he hit you a lot?’ asks Anne.
‘Oh, no,’ says Bernadette. ‘That’s the thing – that’s why it shocked me. He gets angry and rants – more frequently in recent years – but it passes and he says sorry. There have only been two or three times in ten years when he struck me. And there was always reason. Other times he simply didn’t speak. Went into this quiet place where I couldn’t reach him.’
‘But has he always been so controlling?’ asks Anne.
‘I suppose someone is always what they are.’ Bernadette pictures him in their early days, dressed more casually, in soft shades, and affectionate in his own moderate way. She talks because it is so easy with Anne. ‘It’s only when we don’t like it that it becomes a problem, doesn’t it? If you love someone fully at the start, you forever remember it when things decline, don’t you? He was thoughtful back then. Never forgot a birthday or the anniversary of some little event only we knew about. We went to Scotland once before we were married – our only holiday. In January because it was cheaper. It was cold and the hotel was basic, but I’ve never forgotten it. We walked in the hills and talked and talked. Richard used to talk in such a way, you almost forgot where you were. I wish we’d taken some photos but we never bothered. I can still see the hills though; I can remember how he said the rain only made him want to hang around and see them again in the sun, like the day we met, in that café, during the downpour, how he wanted to see me again in better weather. That’s my happiest memory with Richard – Loch Lomond in the rain. He first said he loved me there. Said he’d protect me from the dirty and brutal world.’
‘Dirty and brutal is a harsh view of the world,’ says Anne, sadly.
Bernadette nods; she’s right. An upbringing in a strictly Catholic home by a mother obsessed with cleanliness and purity and discipline left Richard with some extreme views, ones that had at first been refreshing compared with those held by more worldly and outgoing men.
Bernadette once liked that she was only his second lover, that he believed sex was about love, and marriage was a bond in which two people sacrificed everything for one another. It sounded like the kind of marriage her parents shared, full of devotion and commitment. Such a union was all she’d ever hoped for. When it didn’t quite turn out that way she refused to give up hope, and certainly refused to ever let on to her parents that she’d failed. But hope dies eventually, like a potted plant in an unused room.
‘He took me to a beautiful restaurant once,’ says Bernadette. ‘He never likes to waste money so I was quite excited. It was the kind of place where people talk in low voices and the waiters hover close by to tend to anything you want. I chose fish in parsley sauce but it was awful and I could hardly eat it; I think it was off. Richard told me he’d be hurt if I wasted it so I made myself. I was sick later. That’s how much I loved him.’
‘Oh Bernadette,’ says Anne again. A police car speeds past, chasing a yellow van. ‘I’d say I’m surprised you stayed so long – but I’m not. People stick things out, hoping it will get better. I did with my first husband. I stayed for our children, but that wasn’t enough reason in the end. They were unhappy as well. So I left. And it worked out for the best. I met Sean. I might have only had him briefly, but love like that lingers, keeps you nourished. You could still meet someone, Bernadette, you’re only thirty-two. Could still have children.’ Anne looks kindly at her. ‘You’d make a lovely mum.’
Bernadette can’t talk about children, about the one time she got pregnant. She won’t think now about how they tried for a long time, how Richard believed sex was about love and creating life, how they almost gave up and he said she couldn’t sleep in their marital bed if it didn’t happen soon. She won’t try and understand now why she just accepted this so wordlessly and slept on the sofa until conception occurred – by some miracle – following a violent act of love where Richard came upon her in the shower, and the water barely cooled his heat.
Bernadette won’t dwell on the time she missed a period, and then two, and doctors confirmed their pregnancy. When Richard kissed her feet and said she would make the purest of mothers. When he insisted the water had had God bless their union and grant a child.
But Bernadette can’t stop the thoughts. Rain zigzags down the windscreen as blood had down her leg. Anne looks at her with concern, just as the nurse had. Nothing could be done; nature had her way.
It was a boy; a tiny, too-early boy.
When they came home from the hospital Richard let Bernadette go to bed first for a change. He usually retired while she locked doors and windows, closed curtains and washed up. She’d get into bed carefully so as not to disturb him, glad at least that it was already warm. That night of going in first meant the bed was cold, as empty as her womb.
In the morning Richard said Bernadette couldn’t have really wanted the baby, that God knew this and took it away. He never spoke of it again, and rarely instigated sex. When it did happen he made sure – despite his Catholic upbringing and a belief that conception is sacred – that no baby would follow. They never got the blood out of the rug in the lounge and he threw it away.
‘Conor has been like my child,’ says Bernadette.
‘I know,’ says Anne. ‘He belongs to everyone and no one. That’s why I’ve always fostered children, rather than adopting one. I don’t want to make them mine, I just want to help them find where they really belong, I suppose. But you could have many children.’
‘I sometimes wonder why, even though Frances can’t have Conor, she won’t let him be adopted either,’ muses Bernadette. ‘I suppose she can’t let go. She’s sticking it out like we have and I imagine you never give up hope where a child is concerned.’
‘If she’d kept him,’ says Anne, ‘we’d never have known him. Everything happens the way it should.’
She’s right; if she hadn’t lost a baby, Bernadette wouldn’t have volunteered at BFL and met Conor. The need to mother someone had built up like steam in a pressure cooker. She’d only needed one child; one friend had been enough in childhood; one husband. One lost baby.
Bernadette fingers the cheap
gold band Richard placed on her finger, a ring she has never since removed. Imperfect after catching on a wall hook once, it has otherwise worn reasonably well for ten years. She tries to remove it now – twisting and pulling the deformed circle – but the more she tries the warmer her finger gets and the more impossible the task. It won’t budge; she’s still tied to Richard.
‘So where do you think he is tonight?’ asks Anne.
‘Conor?’ says Bernadette.
‘Richard.’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
And Bernadette is not sure she wants to know.
17
Conor
When I got to the car, I looked in the open window at the strange mister and kept my face dead not bothered.
The man didn’t ask about where the library was. He wore smart clothes. He smiled and it wasn’t in a way that was to trick me. I’m sharp like that. I know. He asked if I was Conor and I was surprised he knew my name. So I said, If you really know me tell me something about me. He said I don’t like to not finish things. I was really spooked. He was right.
It makes me mad when I can’t finish something I’ve started. I get into trouble at school when I yell out loud. So I keep the black words in my throat. I stomp about at home if we have to go shopping before I finish an Xbox game. I slam my chair into the desk if dinnertime interrupts me drawing.
My favourite thing is drawing you see. It gets the blackness out. That’s why I was mad when I didn’t finish my THUNDERSTORM painting.
And that’s what the strange mister said next. He said I loved drawing. And then he said he knew my mum. I was a bit shocked I admit. I think I stepped back from the car and he looked all worried. He said I should trust him. He would even take me to Mum’s.
I realised I wouldn’t have to pay for a train ticket if he took me and I wouldn’t have to find her house when I got there – cos really I wasn’t totally sure about that.
Where does she live then? I asked him.