The Broken

by Tamar Cohen

  ‘How long did Dan stay?’ asked Hannah as she retreated to the kitchen. He heard the tap going on and the kettle being filled.

  ‘Not long. September was so thrilled to see him.’

  ‘Yeah, funny that he should happen to drop by when she’s here.’

  Josh felt disgruntled. Since when was Hannah so quick to jump to conclusions, especially ones that cast him in a negative light?

  ‘Ta-da! What do you think?’ Gemma held up a dress which she’d unfolded from tissue paper in one of the bags.

  Josh eyed the wisp of black and red fabric, which looked altogether too insubstantial to contain the contours of his slightly chubby – sorry, curvy – sister-in-law. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Josh, would it kill you to sound a bit more enthusiastic?’ asked Hannah, coming through the door bearing two mugs of tea.

  ‘Thanks for asking. I’d love one,’ he said, as she handed one to Gemma and kept the other for herself.

  Gemma looked from one to the other with raised eyebrows, but said nothing. Her curly hair was pushed back from her face and Josh found his eyes gravitating towards the slight indentation in her forehead, outlined by that curved, raised, silvery scar. He glanced away quickly in embarrassment, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

  A ring on the doorbell broke the tension.

  ‘Got to be Sasha,’ said Hannah. ‘She’s going to flip when she hears Dan was here. Let me tell her, OK?’

  But as she was moving towards the door, they heard September squealing ‘Mummy!’ and the sound of the flat door flying open.

  ‘Guess who was here?’ came the little girl’s excited high-pitched voice. ‘Daddy!’

  Seconds later, Sasha appeared in the doorway with September hanging off her arm. Her face looked as if it had set in plaster.

  ‘Dan was here?’

  She was addressing Hannah, fixing her with hard, unblinking eyes.

  ‘Yeah, it was just one of those things. He was driving past and saw the car and dropped in.’

  ‘Driving past from where?’

  Hannah looked helplessly at Josh. ‘I assumed he’d been to your house. I don’t know. I didn’t really talk to him. Gemma and I went out. We left Dan here with Josh.’

  ‘And with Lily and September?’

  ‘Come on, Sasha.’ Josh felt compelled to intervene. ‘We always said we were going to remain neutral. What were we supposed to do? Refuse to let him in?’

  ‘I just wish you’d called me to tell me he was here. It’s very confusing for September, having her father waft in and out of her life like this.’

  ‘What’s waft, Mummy? Why was Daddy wafting?’

  Sasha switched her attention to Josh. ‘Dan never just happens to be driving past. And he wouldn’t have been at my house – my solicitor has sent him a letter warning him to keep away.’

  ‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to behave!’

  The room fell silent. Then September started to cry.

  ‘It’s OK, poppet.’ Sasha dropped to her knees to take her daughter in her arms. ‘Don’t be scared. Mummy just got a little cross, that’s all. Silly Mummy!’

  ‘Silly Mummy!’ sniffed the little girl.

  Sasha straightened up. ‘Sorry,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘I know it’s not your fault.’ She glanced over at Gemma, as if only just taking in her presence. ‘You must think I’m completely batshit.’

  Gemma shrugged. ‘You’re not the only one who discovered the husband she married was abducted and replaced by an alien. I get it.’

  ‘It happened to you, too?’

  ‘Sadly, yes. There ought to be a universal signal so that we can recognize each other, shouldn’t there, like a weird Masonic handshake.’

  Sasha smiled weakly, but Josh got the distinct impression she didn’t relish the idea of being lumped in some weird kinship with Gemma.

  ‘No bags?’ he asked in a clumsy attempt to change the subject.

  Sasha looked questioning.

  ‘I thought you might have been shopping or something.’

  ‘I do actually have other things in my life apart from shopping, you know. I was at the doctor’s.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’

  Sasha made a face at him. ‘The benefits of being private, darling!’

  Hannah, who had been observing, intervened. ‘Did you get them?’

  Sasha shot her a weary look, and Josh was shocked to see how old she seemed suddenly, her skin shrunken around her cheekbones.

  ‘Yep, I’m officially a junkie.’ She picked up her handbag and shook it vigorously. ‘Can you hear that rattle?’

  ‘Antidepressants,’ Hannah mouthed to her sister, with a nervous side glance at September.

  ‘I was on the happy pills for years,’ Gemma replied airily. ‘Don’t think I’d have survived without them.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not that sort of person.’ Sasha didn’t seem aware of how that sounded. Not surprising, Josh thought. He’d never met a less self-aware person than Sasha. ‘I like to be in control of myself and my life. I can’t bear that this is what he’s done to me – turned me into yet another lobotomized housewife!’

  ‘Charming.’ Gemma didn’t look best pleased and Josh couldn’t help feeling she wouldn’t be swapping any secret handshakes with Sasha, after all.

  ‘Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I don’t recognize myself.’ Sasha seemed now to be in a kind of trance, talking only to herself. ‘I look in the mirror and I think, Who is that little person, that nobody? Waste of space.’ Suddenly she contorted her mouth and made her voice deep and snarly. ‘Little Miss Nobody.’

  ‘Mummy!’ September’s eyes were wide and frightened, her upper lip pressing down urgently on the lower one. ‘You musn’t talk in that voice.’

  Sasha looked down, as if surprised to find her daughter there. ‘Sorry, darling.’ She swooped down and crushed September to her in a smothering embrace.

  ‘Get off,’ cried the child.

  Lily, who’d been leaning against Hannah, detached herself from her mother to seek Josh out. As always he felt himself soften all over at the feel of her small hand in his. He looked down at her and smiled, stroking her cheek gently with his free hand. Glancing up again, he was startled to find September staring at him and Lily with a fierce concentration that sent a chill through him, despite the crowded, stuffy room.

  12

  ‘I’m sorry, Madam, your card has been declined.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  The waitress, who didn’t look old enough to count, let alone work an electronic till, blushed, but the smile remained bravely fixed to her face. ‘Your bank has declined your card.’

  Sasha blinked at the girl. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Perhaps a different card, Madam?’

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ Sasha dug angrily around in her purse, the one that matched her bag, before pulling out a second card.

  Still smiling, the waitress ran it through the machine. The smile slipped gradually as she shook her head. ‘Terribly sorry, but that one doesn’t work either.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sash. I’ll pay.’ Hannah fumbled for her bank card, hoping against hope there was enough left on her overdraft to cover the brunch Sasha had generously invited her out for.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Sasha. Then she stopped still. ‘That bastard. That fucking bastard.’

  The waitress’s pale, downy cheeks turned a vivid shade of puce as she pretended to busy herself with the card machine.

  ‘He’s frozen my cards.’ Sasha was gaping at Hannah, her eyes wide. ‘I don’t bloody believe it.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t . . .’

  Hannah tailed off because, really, she wasn’t sure of any such thing. In fact, it was a possibility that had crossed her mind more than once since Josh had told her about his conversation with Dan about Sasha’s out-of-control spending and her continuing refusal to talk to him about the house or anything to do with money. It was a joint ac
count, so he had the right to freeze it. And, of course, Dan had his own separate bank account for his business that he could take money from.

  ‘Bank card and credit card. How could he? How am I supposed to feed September without access to any cash? What does he expect us to do – grow our own food?’

  ‘Pin please, Madam.’ The waitress slid the machine in front of Hannah and gazed off into the middle distance, trying to make it seem as if she wasn’t listening.

  ‘I guess he must be using it as some sort of leverage to get you to talk about the house and money.’

  ‘Leverage? Blackmail, more like. Well, he’s not getting away with it. Imagine, freezing my bank account while he swanks around in fucking Notting Hill with that tart! She lives in a massive big villa, you know.’

  ‘Just a converted flat in a villa, surely? Anyway, how do you know where she lives?’

  ‘He’s still my husband, Hannah. I’m entitled to know where he is.’

  As the waitress scurried gratefully away, Hannah pocketed the bill, feeling slightly sick at the amount. Sasha had always treated her to lavish meals out, claiming Hannah was doing her a favour as otherwise she’d have to eat alone like a pathetic saddo with no mates. She knew Hannah and Josh struggled for money and she liked being able to treat them. Her generosity was just one of the things that had drawn Hannah to her in the first place.

  Glancing at her phone, Hannah noticed the time. Shit, almost the whole morning gone, and she’d done nothing. She’d tried to resist brunch, but Sasha had been so insistent, and Hannah hadn’t needed much persuasion to bunk off with her instead of going home to work after morning drop-off. Now guilt lodged inside her like something heavy and undigested. Not only had she not earned any money, but she’d actually ended up spending money they didn’t have. She gathered her things together hurriedly, only noticing as she stood up that Sasha hadn’t moved. Instead she was sitting very still, staring fixedly at the single red rose in a slim vase in the middle of the table. Something about her expression and the way she kept opening and closing her hand, rhythmically splaying out the fingers then clenching them together in a tight fist, made Hannah uneasy.

  ‘Come on, Sash, I’ve got to get going.’

  Still Sasha didn’t respond, just kept on doing the hand thing. She had already confessed that the antidepressants were doing bizarre things to her body, making her jittery and strung out, liable to jump to her feet late at night to drag the Hoover over the floor or clean out the enormous American-style fridge-freezer. Now it was as if her hand belonged to someone else entirely, doing its own thing while the rest of her stayed staring rigidly ahead.

  Hannah shivered. ‘Sasha, please?’

  By the time they reached the car, parked on an exorbitant meter in one of the wide leafy roads behind Hampstead High Street, where they’d been eating, Sasha’s mood had flipped from taciturn to hyper. Installed behind the wheel of her Toyota RAV4, she now wanted to talk. And what she wanted to talk about was Gemma.

  ‘I know Gemma’s your sister, and of course she’s lovely and everything, but it must be a bit awkward sometimes.’

  ‘What must?’

  ‘Oh, you know, being around someone who’s so jealous of you.’

  Hannah swung around to face Sasha, her mouth stretched back in a shocked smile.

  ‘Oh, Hannah, it’s obvious. You’re tall and slim and gorgeous, with a husband who adores you and a beautiful daughter and an exciting job and a flat in a lovely part of London. She’s overweight, divorced and working as a hospital administrator in the provinces.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Hannah didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh. ‘She’s my sister. She’s not jealous. She’s not like that. And Oxford is hardly some boring provincial hick town.’

  ‘I’m not saying she doesn’t love you. I’m just saying she’s a little bit . . . well, resentful. You can’t blame her.’

  ‘How on earth do you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘It shows in everything she says. Have you noticed how much she puts you down?’

  ‘That’s what sisters do!’

  Sasha made a face. ‘Not like that. Not all the time. And there was something . . . No, never mind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Han. I’m sure it’s nothing.’

  ‘If it doesn’t matter, then there’s no harm in saying it.’

  Hannah was getting irritated. If Sasha had something to say, better she came out with it, so that Hannah could dismiss it, rather than let it fester out of control in her imagination.

  ‘I think she’s . . . well . . . overly interested in your husband.’

  ‘In Josh?’

  ‘Do you have another husband?’

  ‘Sasha, this is getting preposterous now.’

  ‘Haven’t you seen the way she looks at him? And there’s the photograph.’

  ‘Photograph?’

  ‘When September was there, she saw Gemma take a photograph of Josh from that bookcase in the living room and slip it into her bag.’

  Hannah couldn’t help it, she actually laughed out loud. ‘That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Sash, you know perfectly well four-year-old girls are on a different planet most of the time. Half the stuff they come out with is complete rubbish.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What do you mean, right? Why do you say it like that?’

  ‘You believe whatever you want to believe, Hannah. It’s none of my business.’

  They sat in silence for the rest of the journey, except for Sasha’s fingers drumming on the leather steering wheel. Hannah didn’t trust herself to speak. After all the support she’d given to Sasha, it seemed such a slap in the face for her to drive a wedge between her and Gemma. This was such a transparent, pathetic attempt to stir up bad feeling, it really rankled.

  After driving around the block several times, Sasha parked near the nursery and turned the engine off. They sat still for a few seconds, each gazing out of the window.

  Sasha reached out her hand. ‘Sorry,’ she said, feeling around for Hannah’s fingers. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I was angry about the bank cards and took it out on you. Erase it from your mind. Forgive me?’

  Hannah nodded and smiled, although she wasn’t sure she really could forgive so quickly. But they were at school now, and she didn’t want there to be a bad atmosphere between them when they picked up the girls. They got out of the car and made their way through the gates. Marcia Verney nodded to them, but didn’t come over.

  As they hovered by the doorway, watching the children singing the goodbye song, Hannah was uncomfortably aware that things were still not quite right between her and Sasha. There was a certain prickliness in the air. One by one the children were sung out of the classroom. September was one of the first.

  ‘You go ahead, I’ll walk home with Lily,’ Hannah urged Sasha.

  ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll drop you home.’

  ‘No, really. I want the exercise.’

  Sasha eyed her uncertainly. ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

  Lily was the last child left on the carpet. Hannah saw her casting her eyes around, checking she was there. She waved from the doorway and was rewarded with a huge smile that warmed her insides.

  ‘Mrs Hetherington? Could I have a quick word?’

  Mrs Mackenzie, the nursery teacher, was beckoning her over to a little yellow-painted octagonal table in the corner, strewn with playdough models of animals with giant legs and pea-sized heads or trunks longer than their entire bodies.

  Hannah pulled up one of the tiny red chairs and sat down gingerly, her knees coming up almost to her chin. The other woman eyed her sharply and then smiled, revealing a gold filling hidden away at the back of her mouth.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Hetherington. I just wanted to have a wee word about Lily.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely fine. It’s just she’s been a wee bit quiet lately. I just wondered if
anything was bothering her.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘When you say “quiet”, what do you mean?’

  ‘Just that she’s a bit more reluctant than usual to speak up in carpet time. More and more, September seems to be answering on her behalf, and I’m not altogether sure if that’s the healthiest thing for her. I do wonder sometimes if September can be a little bit, well, overprotective.’

  Overprotective? Surely that was a positive thing, quite sweet if you thought about it. Yet, reading between the lines, which is something you always had to do at the nursery, as Hannah was finding out, it sounded more sinister than that.

  ‘Do you mean like domineering?’

  Mrs Mackenzie maintained her smile. ‘No, no, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that September can be a forceful character and your Lily is such a shy wee girl sometimes.’

  Hannah gazed into the nursery teacher’s eyes, trying to read her expression. It seemed that everyone she’d come across who worked with young children was so scared to say anything that could be deemed negative they all spoke in these euphemisms that you were expected to somehow translate. She thought she saw something flicker across the other woman’s face, like a warning, but it was gone almost as soon as it arrived, and Hannah wondered if she might have imagined it.

  ‘Hello, Mummy.’ Lily had materialized by her shoulder and was burrowing her face into Hannah’s neck.

  ‘Hello, pumpkin.’

  Hannah felt a rush of love for her daughter so powerful it was almost overwhelming. She put her arms around the sturdy little body she knew so well, feeling a stab of nostalgia at the realization that it was noticeably less rotund than it used to be. How did other women cope, she wondered, with this terrible, primeval need to prevent anything bad happening to your child? How did they manage the fear that came out of nowhere and caught you round the throat and left you breathless at the possibility – no, the certainty – that sooner or later, when you took your eye off the ball or when you weren’t around to see, it would come – that scary thing, that angry, mean thing. And all of your love and your precautions and your safeguards would be for nothing.