Darling

by Rachel Edwards

  No need to worry, Mrs Waite. We’ll continue with our enquiries.

  But I did worry. I checked the front door was double-locked and quizzed Thomas once again about the precision of the intruder alarm. I left on a spare room light, locked Stevie in, and kept my shoes close to my bed, in case I needed to run.

  I worried.

  The next night, the end began.

  It started with a thank you. A heartfelt embrace from my husband to thank me once again for having opened myself to him so completely, for explaining why I had reacted to those abandoned knickers in the way I had. Once again, he pulled me to him.

  ‘God, thank you; you were so brave to tell me, about the … sorrel. Thank you for giving us a chance.’

  I said nothing, breathed him in.

  ‘And your sister? Has she called you again?’

  ‘She may well have tried, she withholds her number now.’

  ‘Maybe you should—’

  ‘No! You can’t trust a word that woman says! Anyway, she won’t bother us again, not now she’s spoken to you …’

  I was trying to convince myself as much as him. I drew back:

  ‘Come on, please, Thomas, forget her. You’ve been hinting that I had to be bored only seeing you all the time, wanting us to do “something fun” together. Should we give this party a shot?’

  That evening it was the drinks party of Carla Moore, a woman who was still grateful for the drawn-out medical advice I once gave her about caring for her mum; she still called me her angel, ‘no word of a lie’. So, sort of a friend, you could say. I thought that drinking her warm cocktails as I mingled with people to whom I was not married might be doing both the hostess and my husband a favour.

  First though, I made another quick check, to confirm the answer I had sought out since breakfast: yes, my photo was no longer online. There was nothing: no me, no dirtied yellow dress, not even one pixel of Stevie, nothing at all. The whole site had been shut down. I eased, just a touch. Not too much. I was still smarting with the shock of having seen us and all those other strangers, the many random dark faces: the man, forty-seven, the woman, sixty-eight, the man, age unknown, face after face, and the horror did not switch off altogether; it went on standby.

  Now though, we were to have a break from it all, have a drink, maybe a dance. If we could find the right sitter. Ange the childminder did the odd evening when asked. But Ange, who was always available, was on voicemail, over and over, and then I tried her eldest niece, her back-up; no joy there either. I went through my contacts, trying to remember if the nervy girl who had once covered for me with Stevie while I hauled ass to the wards on short notice was Sarah L or Sara R. I had started to look through old emails to find out whether I was in fact about to leave my son with a long-dropped babysitter or our one-time female plumber, when Thomas finally staged an intervention:

  ‘Stop harassing yourself. Lola’s in, she can do it.’

  ‘Is she?’ I lied. ‘Oh I know, but it’s not fair to—’

  ‘She can just—’

  ‘We don’t have to—’

  ‘Stop,’ he said. ‘We can’t live like prisoners. Lola has it. He’ll be fine.’

  I folded into his hug, wondering how cross he would get if I now started to feign a headache. Then the heat and musk of his arms began to seep through and I stopped peering into that grotesque hall of shame and thought: sixteen.

  I changed into my red dress.

  ‘Maybe just for an hour or two.’

  What could go wrong in an hour or two?

  At the party, we started out as a tight little pair of observers, watching the same people walk through the door and sharing the same silent thoughts under all the music. It seemed right; Thomas was behaving like a man who had never felt closer to his wife. At one point someone else from the architectural world came over and his partner made a beeline for me and we were no longer standing together. Soon we were ten people apart, the woman still chattering at me about some course she was doing.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll be back in a tick.’ I held up my empty glass.

  I should have gone to Thomas, but I went straight to the drinks table, stayed there, topping myself up too fast. Sign of a successful couple – wasn’t it? – to be too relaxed and confident to monopolise each other at parties. I would stay away for a little bit, leave him to hold court. But at heart I was worried. Worried that I should not, after all, have burdened Thomas with my tales of sorrel, and worried that just in being there I had been seduced by stupidity’s comforting embrace. Lola and Stevie home alone, together; people knowing where we lived. That had to be a mistake.

  I was on edge, and because I was on edge I over-enthused to those who tried to make conversation, got into a dangerous rhythm with the rum and whatevers, lost track of time and of myself. Thomas was still too busy chatting about the Stephen Lawrence Prize shortlist to his new friend to notice. I wended my way back to him, but by around 9 p.m. I had fallen off the edge and was starting to mistake my own fizzing, fuzzy mind for ‘having fun’. I started to dance, a light bounce, at Thomas’s side.

  ‘It is actually good to be out, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Darling, and it’s high time. But just this last one, I’m afraid, then we had better get back.’

  ‘Yes,’ I stopped bouncing, let sobering thoughts in once more. ‘I had been thinking that, too. I agree.’

  The cold air slapped a little sense into me, but only a little. Not enough to get a sense of whether the danger I could smell was real. The late evening did not buzz, it hummed with end-of-the-weekend purpose, its street lights throwing out an orange glow into the black, creating the uncertain gloom that passed for night around these parts. High Desford was not a city that never slept, more a town that could not rest. We hopped on a passing bus back to the Old Town, something Thomas had not done for years, so already it felt a bit daring, an oldie transgression.

  As we neared the right stop, we passed a shifting crowd on the high street. Girls laughing and shivering in too few clothes, eking out the last of their fun, men smoking under street heaters, pints in hand; a knot of big men, hard domes of head catching the light and in the middle of them all, him. Face on, unmistakably him.

  ‘Darling, what is it?’

  ‘I think I saw …’ But we had passed the pubs and cafés and were turning in to a quieter road. ‘Let’s just get home.’

  The key turned in the lock. And then it happened.

  As soon as we went in, she started talking.

  ‘You came back just in time,’ Lola said to Thomas and me. No, there hadn’t been any problems, she had a special show for us both, she said. She explained, as if I did not already know, that she had been hanging out a lot with Stevie. She had been trying very hard to do the right thing, for Stevie. Here my skin began to prickle, the blur struggled to sharpen, focus.

  ‘He’s really quite a bright kid, entertaining, you know?’ she said. ‘We’ve been practising a show for the parents. You’re going to love it.’

  She strode to our side of the room.

  Some cute skit, that would be all, some corny cuddly punchline, then time for bed. But with my mouth drugged too slow, frozen in its gasp, I watched as my Wonderboy pulled off the half undone KAFOs.

  ‘Mummy look!’ he said.

  ‘Walk to me, Stevie,’ she said.

  ‘What? Lola no! He can’t—’ I began at last, but it was already happening.

  Stevie was walking towards her across the room, with no callipers. A bit faltering, but with no lurch, no falling. My breath held, but it was no more than he did at bedtimes.

  ‘Now skip and jump and kick, like I showed you, Ninja!’

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘She could snap his bloody bones!’

  Dancing? Was she making my boy perform?

  ‘Take that, Lolly!’

  ‘Don’t, Lola! Stevie!’ shouted Thomas.

  Too late. Stevie the martial artist was jumping and spinning and flicking out his legs at his step-sister and crouch
ing low then pounding into the air with each foot, with sick-making vigour, just missing a vase. All the dangerous, unmistakable vigour of a healthy child.

  ‘Darling?’ said Thomas.

  The air had been kicked out of my chest. Lola’s metal eyes turned on me with nothing soft and light in them. They were all steel.

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Darling? What is this?’

  I had already grabbed Stevie.

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Darling?’

  I was strapping him back into his KAFOs.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t, I’m not up to this, sorry.’

  I did not stop to pack anything this time, I simply threw Stevie over my shoulder. But Thomas stood in the doorway:

  ‘No, you can’t simply try to run off whenever—’

  ‘Out of my way!’

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Darling, please, stay here, she was only trying to help. What is this?’

  Stevie was wriggling, trying to get down and the blur in my mind felt raw and the fuzz was clearing and getting tight and all I could see ahead was Thomas wanting answers.

  ‘No! Please.’

  Thomas and Lola both took a step away from the door and my son went slack in my arms. I held Stevie closer so that he did not fall and hurtled out of that heavy door into the ever-orange night.

  Lola

  DONE LIST 9

  I have done something terrible. I encouraged Stevie to dance, as if he could walk properly, when apparently I ‘could have done him serious damage’. It was pretty dumb, but I thought I was helping. I went online and was trying to help him but I must have got it all wrong. Another major not-joking fuck-up – like me sharing some stupid photo of Darling on Facebook ages ago (I’d honestly forgotten) when we were just taking the piss out of her, which actually ended up in the police coming round our house. Then I asked Stevie to dance and now Darling’s finally stormed out and Dad is pretty confused. She’ll be back though. She has to come back. Everyone is just making too big a deal of this.

  The more I read and find online, the more not-joking this looks. I should have just asked Dad, or dealt with it some other way rather than making Stevie dance. But that visit really threw me. Not the police guy. Get this – as soon as they set off for that party, literally a few minutes after, the doorbell went. I shouldn’t have answered it, but it was still light and I thought it might be Ellie, because she was in town. It wasn’t Ellie, it was this woman. This other black woman.

  She asked me if Darling was in. I said no. Then she asked if she could see Stevie and I said, ‘Sorry, who are you?’ I was getting a bit worried. Then she started gabbling, quite fast and looking over her shoulder, said that it was OK, she was a teacher and she was a relative, Stevie’s auntie, Auntie Jade, and that if she could see him for five minutes, then she would leave us in peace.

  I said I could phone Darling and Dad, just to check it was OK and then she started getting all jumpy, saying that would be a waste of time and not to bother. Really weird. She looked like she might cry and said she was going, muttered a lot of crazy stuff, like she was going to drop to her knees right there. But the last bit I remember, she said:

  ‘Forget it, you can’t help, but thank you. I’ve got to go. Please give Darling this and ask her to call me as soon as she is back.’

  I took an envelope from her and went to shut the door.

  But then she said ‘wait’ and handed me a piece of paper too. She said: ‘This one’s for you.’

  It was this leaflet. I haven’t stopped reading it:

  Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is a mental health condition in which a caregiver makes up or causes an illness or injury in a person under their care, such as an elderly person, someone who has a disability, or a child …

  I’ve gone over and over it, I’ve even checked it out online. It does make some sick sort of sense, but how could I have been certain without testing it out? That’s when I knew I had to see if Stevie could jump and kick.

  I did make too big a show of it, I guess. I needed to see if she would react. But then again, I wasn’t bloody wrong.

  I’ve got even bigger problems than this Darling stuff. It’s all over social media – in two Ben Wischer retweets alone – Will Benton thinks I’m ‘munt’. But of course he does and of course it’s online, why would it not be? Come join the shit-kicking party, Wishy and gang, make yourself at home! Why the hell did I ever believe for a moment that Will ever really saw who I was?

  Perhaps because he told me he did.

  Fuck.

  Bad: still no sign of Darling. Whichever way this is going to go I will need her like never before. For starters, questions I can never, ever ask Dad:

  Dad, what happens if I drank alcohol when I didn’t know? Before?

  Dad, how do I stop labour hurting?

  Dad, how exactly do you change a nappy?

  Dad, is breast really best?

  Oh God. Is this happening? (That was a real question.)

  Holy goddamn cannoli, what’s wrong with me? No one was on my side more than Darling and then I had to go and upset her. Why didn’t I just ignore the stupid leaflet? #serialfuckups

  I’m sure she’ll come back. She knows I need her. She’s a nurse and they’re angels, right? How can she not come back?

  OK, I actually am a total melt. I had the answer all along: my iPhone, Family Sharing. She’s in some house only about twenty minutes away. Her sister’s? Dad said to leave her to cool down, but it’s already been a whole day. I’ll walk. If I could just find that stupid envelope that I swear was right there and leave now, we could all talk it out and I’d have her back before dinner time.

  Wish me luck, kids. Oh, just realised. That’s really not funny any more.

  Achievements

  Tried to talk to Dad about what Darling’s sister said, but he said that we should not believe a stranger and that Darling would have an explanation. Probably made it sound like I didn’t trust her – bad move. Whether I trust her or not, she’s all I’ve got.

  Threw her sister’s letter down somewhere while I got my head around this stuff (should I steam it?) but have somehow managed to make it disappear, WTF?

  Used the app to find Darling. Thank you, God.

  No more achievements, everything’s just gone really it’s too hard.

  Maybe one achievement after all. Got Ellie to invite me over asap. Because we really need to talk.

  Darling

  TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER

  One night in this online-booked flat and I was ready to crack.

  I sat wondering whether to email Thomas or phone him. If I were to phone, the words needed to be right. An email might get missed, miss the mark. Too much to say for a text. A phone call might be too live, too raw, or it could be the shout-out that would save the day.

  I searched for answers. Literally, online. Theories. But nothing would come, nothing that I could say to Thomas without imagining him giving me the look that would stop all my fussing and striving for good.

  What would Thomas be thinking of me?

  I rang. I rang and rang. The first call failed. And the next – what did this mean? I moved to the window to get another bar of signal. Nothing. The next few calls went straight to voicemail and by the seventh or eighth attempt I felt I was nearing some critical mass that might tip me permanently into the realm of the blocked. I stopped, saw a look of growing appetite on my boy’s face. An early dinner might do as a distraction. I had stocked up that morning thinking we might stay for a week, and Pattie’s best oxtail had already been lime-washed, trimmed, tossed in Jamaican herbs and spices, and then left to marinate. (If you couldn’t feed your family in a crisis, then you couldn’t feed your family.)

  Time to cook. I fried the meat, consoling myself that when he turned on his phone, if he turned on his phone, Thomas would at least see the moderate but meaningful chain of missed calls, a trail of communication crumbs leading back to his lost wife.

  As I chucked water, car
rot and onion on top of the oxtail and left it to simmer, it occurred to me that, depending on what he had gathered from that shameful kicking-Ninja scene, he may well wish me to stay lost.

  To take the edge off that thought, I had bought a bottle of aged Appleton to watch over me while I watched the pot.

  I needed to move. An hour of rum in me and as I stared at the news on TV I could feel the amber glow of both screen and glass turning my spirits darker. High Desford station had been cordoned off and armed police drafted in as they carried out a controlled explosion of what could be an abandoned suicide vest. Maybe real and a dud, or a fake; either way, an ineffaceable evil. What did these people hope for? To win a future where all lived as they commanded or else had been obliterated in a shower of their flesh, blood and bone. And what other pulse of horror would have to run through even the most murderous mind in order to make one’s own being a lethal weapon? These days, that was the question.

  My son, I would see to my son. I could not just sit there, I had to help him, to protect. He was playing, legs out in the usual V before him, at my feet on the sitting-room floor.

  ‘Stevie! Come here.’ I shifted off my seat into a squat and hugged him until he squirmed. ‘Do you feel a bit tense in your legs, darling?’

  ‘No, Mummy, I’m OK,’ he said, looking at me with wide calm eyes. I could see now: he wore his bravery as some children wore glasses.

  ‘You do, don’t you?’ I could always tell. ‘Don’t you worry, we’ll take care of it. Mummy’ll do it for you.’

  Mass out, chile, keep cool.

  I took off the KAFOS and gave him a great physio session. I flexed his joints and gave him weight to bear, but not too much. I did everything for him that he needed. Of course I did, that’s what I do: I’m his mummy and more. I am a nurse.