I gestured to the Agatha Christie – one of mine – that was open on her knee and she nodded again and smiled, showing her stained, gappy teeth.
‘I will, thanks. Bye, Beth.’
Now as I lie in my fragrant bath, I think again about how fortunate I am, despite my nightmares and silly worries of recent weeks. People come into your life for a reason – I’ve always believed that. And I’m wondering now if Nadia came into mine to help me appreciate everything I’ve got, and speculate again if there’s some way I can help her, properly help her. I just don’t know how.
Right now I need to go back downstairs and tidy up before we eat though. It feels hot in the bathroom, I realise suddenly – uncomfortably so – so I wriggle until I’m half sitting up then fish around in the bubbles for my sponge and start quickly washing my body, running it across my chest and down my arms. Then I haul myself out of the bath, dry myself briskly and slather on some body lotion before heading back into the bedroom to pull on my favourite grey sweatpants and an old blue football sweatshirt – one that Jacob left behind. It’s got the Manchester City logo on it, the team he began to support when we were at uni there and has carried on supporting ever since. I’m not remotely interested in football, but I like this top – not because it reminds me of my ex-husband but simply because it’s soft and warm and a little too big for me, which is a rare feeling these days. Most of my clothes are unpleasantly snug. As I brush my damp hair back from my face though, I realise the bedroom is far too hot too. My armpits are already starting to feel moist and I pull the sweatshirt off again and put on a short-sleeved T-shirt instead.
Why is it so warm? Please don’t tell me the heating’s packed up now. That’s all I need …
When I walk into the kitchen, Mum’s leaning against the island, fanning herself with a magazine, a half-peeled potato on a chopping board next to her.
‘Phew,’ she says. ‘It’s boiling in here. Have you turned the heating up, love?’
I shake my head, frowning.
‘No, I haven’t touched it! It’s boiling upstairs too. Oh bugger. What’s going on?’
I walk over to the patio doors and fling them open, which will help for now, but my anxiety is rising. I do a quick tour of the house, pausing in each room, feeling the radiators and pulling my hand away quickly when I realise that each one is almost too hot to touch.
What on earth? Is the boiler about to explode or something?
I check the little heating control panel on the wall in the hall but it looks fine, set as always to twenty-one degrees. But something is clearly wrong. The house is way, way hotter than that and for a moment I think I’m going to cry. I’m useless with things like this, and previously I would have gone round and knocked on Barbara or Brenda’s door, knowing we all have the same heating system and hoping that one of them would be able to shed some light on it.
I can’t do that now, of course, and I can’t even ring Jacob because he’s at the cinema. How much will a heating engineer cost? The emergency call-out charge alone, on a Saturday night, never mind the cost of repairing whatever the hell’s gone wrong …
I take a deep, shuddering breath, willing the tears away, and wipe my sweaty forehead with my forearm. First the stupid missing trampoline tool, and now this. The day started so well and now everything’s ruined again.
‘Beth? Honestly, I’m going to expire here in a minute. Have you worked out what’s going on?’
Mum’s calling from the kitchen and for the first time since our reunion I can hear a hint of … well, not irritation exactly in her voice, but she does sound vaguely exasperated.
God. She must think I’m such a mess. Losing things all the time, and now I don’t even know how to work my own central heating …
‘I’m just about to call an engineer, Mum. I’m so sorry,’ I shout back and, fighting tears again, I pull my mobile from my pocket and start looking for a number.
Chapter 19
It’s Monday again, and as I sit down at my desk I feel a sense of relief. I’m actually glad to be here today, busy though I know it will be, because the weekend was, in the end, just one stressful incident after another. The heating problem was weird; by the time I’d finally tracked down an engineer, the house had started to cool down, and by the time he arrived an hour and a half later it was back to its usual comfortable temperature again. He listened patiently as I tried to explain that only a couple of hours earlier it had been unbearably hot, prodded the control panel for a minute, and declared it to be in perfect working order. Then he charged me a hundred pounds for the emergency call-out and left again with a wry smile on his face.
‘He thinks I’m an idiot, doesn’t he?’ I said to Mum when I’d closed the door behind him and re-joined her in the kitchen.
‘He thinks I imagined it. Thank goodness you were here, or I’d think I was imagining it too!’
Mum smiled, deftly chopping a potato into thin strips for chips.
‘You definitely weren’t imagining it. It was boiling. I thought I was going to pass out!’
She picked up another potato and began to peel it, then stopped and looked at me.
‘But darling … do you think it might have been you? After all, he said there’s nothing wrong with the system, didn’t he? Did you maybe turn the thermostat up and then forget about it? And then turn it down again? You know how forgetful you’ve been lately … It’s just that I certainly didn’t touch it – I have no idea how to work things like that – and I doubt the kids did …’
Her voice trailed off and I stood and stared at her for a moment, my mind racing. Could it have been me? I do sometimes turn the thermostat up and down as I pass the control panel in the hall if the house feels too warm or too chilly, but I had no recollection of doing that that day. And I’d never turn it up that high. And yet, Mum was right – the children had never, to my knowledge, fiddled with the central heating controls. So, was it me? Did I do it, and forget, and call the engineer out and pay him all that money for nothing? A little shiver ran up my spine. This was bad, if so. I really was losing my mind …
‘Or,’ Mum said suddenly, ‘and I hate to suggest this because I know how fond you are of her and I do seem to keep bringing her up in a negative way but … well, what about Robin?’
‘Robin? I don’t understand.’
‘Well, obviously I don’t know how your heating works, as I said, but she seems to be a savvy kind of person …’
She hesitated for a moment, putting the potato peeler down on the chopping board.
‘Well, when she was here yesterday could she have set the timer for the heat to come on high this afternoon and then turn off again? Mistakenly, of course,’ she added hurriedly.
‘But why?’ I said. ‘She never adjusts the heating, as far as I know. Why would she even go near it? No, I don’t think it was Robin.’
Mum shrugged.
‘OK. But if it wasn’t you, or me, or the children …’
She picked up the peeler again and I stood watching her, thinking.
Robin? No! But again, Mum’s right … Robin is the only other person who’s been in the house in the past twenty-four hours. But to fiddle with the central heating makes no sense. None of it makes any sense …
I’ve given up thinking about it now. It’s going to drive me crazy. Maybe it was nobody. Maybe it was just a blip in the system, despite what the engineer said. It all seems to be working fine now, and I don’t have time to dwell on it any further. Yesterday, Sunday, was another busy one. I finally got the bloody trampoline assembled, after a trip to B&Q first thing to buy another spring puller, and I’m actually delighted with it. It looks good down at the bottom of the garden, and the children are going to be so thrilled to see it this evening, so excited to try it out. I visited Dad again in the afternoon, promising to record some video footage on my phone so he can see the children jumping. Then I had a nice movie night with Mum, nothing too strenuous, but I still feel exhausted this morning and I have so much to do to
day. It goes quickly though, and I power through my to-do list with the assistance of numerous mugs of strong tea and a large chocolate bar after my lunchtime chicken salad.
By four forty-five I’ve ticked off the final item on the long list and I sit back in my chair with a contented sigh, quite surprised and impressed by my own productivity.
‘Not always a woolly brained twit then,’ I say out loud to the cheese plant in the corner. ‘Actually finished that lot early, don’t you know.’ Then I roll my eyes.
I’m talking to plants now. The plant really doesn’t care. Shut up, Beth.
On the shelf to my left, my mobile phone starts to vibrate and I reach for it and check the display. It’s a call from my house phone, and I answer with a smile, expecting it to be Finley or Eloise enthusing about the trampoline which they’ll no doubt have been bouncing on for at least an hour by now, I think as I look at the clock on the wall opposite. But as soon as I hear the voice on the other end of the line my heart starts to pound. It’s not either of my children. It’s my mother. And she’s crying.
‘Beth, oh Beth, I’m so glad you answered. Something dreadful has happened …’
I’m up out of my chair, grabbing my bag and running for the door before she’s even finished trying to explain. It’s Finley. Some sort of accident. Something to do with the trampoline. She’s called an ambulance and she’s telling me to meet them at A&E. And now I’m crying too, panicking, tearing through reception, shouting to Ruth behind the desk that I have to go, that I have to get to the hospital. I can hear her frightened voice and see the startled faces of the patients who are sitting there as I rush past, and then somehow I’m in the car and somehow I’m driving and somehow, somehow, I get to Cheltenham General.
It’s a bad ankle sprain, nothing worse.
‘I thought it was broken. He was in so much pain. Oh Beth …’ Mum whispers, her face tear-streaked, mascara puddled under her eyes, as I wrap my little boy in my arms and squeeze him so tightly that he whimpers.
‘Muuuum! Stop it! I can’t breathe!’
I release him, but only a little. He looks so small in the big hospital bed. He’s still in his school uniform of a navy jumper and shorts, one leg now bandaged tightly from toes to knee. He’s no stranger to A&E, this child, so full of energy and bravado that he’s had numerous little falls and bumps over the years. But this time I wasn’t there to pick him up, to kiss it better, and now I think this was my fault. It was the trampoline, the one I put together, the one I built.
‘The leg just sort of went skewwhiff,’ Mum says as I drive us home. Eloise is with Robin back at the house, Mum having travelled in the ambulance with Finley.
‘Eloise had just climbed off to take a break, and Finley was bouncing happily up and down on his own, weren’t you, love? Robin had been out there in the garden with them for a while, and then she said she wanted to go in and finish the cleaning, so she asked me to take over, which of course I was happy to do. It was so lovely seeing them enjoying it so much, you know? And so I was just standing there, keeping an eye on Finley, and suddenly there was a sort of loud crack and one of the legs just … collapsed. I hate to say this, darling, but I don’t think you attached it properly. I mean, I’m not blaming you at all. Accidents happen and I know you were struggling with it so maybe the thing was faulty, but … anyway, the whole jumping platform thing, whatever you call it, sort of tilted down really suddenly and Finley came flying off onto the grass. You landed really awkwardly on your ankle, didn’t you, pet?’
She looks over her shoulder at Finley in the back seat, and in the rear-view mirror I see him nodding.
‘It really hurt, Mummy,’ he said. ‘It feels better now though. And I like my crutches.’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘But you need to take it easy for a few days. Remember what the doctor said? Be careful on the crutches. And definitely no more trampolining.’
He nods again, vehemently this time.
‘Don’t want to go on it anyway,’ he says. ‘Don’t like it anymore.’
I’ve been feeling sick ever since Mum’s phone call, and now I genuinely feel like I might throw up. The guilt is horrendous.
Mum’s trying to be nice about it, but this is all down to me. I was so tired yesterday, and I thought I’d been so careful, but maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I didn’t tighten all the nuts and bolts. Maybe I missed one, missed something, because otherwise this wouldn’t have happened, would it? And what if he’d landed on his head instead of his ankle? What if he’d broken his neck? My son could have died today, and it would have been all my fault …
‘Stop, Mummy!’
Finley’s shouting at me from the back seat and I realise I’m about to drive past the house. I slam on the brakes. As I lean down to help him out of the car, Brenda suddenly appears on the other side of the wall.
‘Beth,’ she says hesitantly. I straighten up and turn to look at her, my heart sinking.
Not now. I really can’t take it, not today.
But her face is creased with sympathy, her eyes anxious.
‘It’s my day off, and I was in the garden and heard the screaming, and then the ambulance … Oh Finley, are you OK? Is he OK, Beth? I’m so sorry …’
I think I’m going to cry again. Maybe, despite what she and Barbara said to Mum, she does care after all.
‘He’s OK, thanks. Just a badly sprained ankle.’
‘Oh, thank goodness. Well … I’ll leave you to it. Take care, Beth.’
There’s an awkward pause as we just stand there looking at each other. Then she turns away and hurries off towards her front door.
‘Bit two-faced, if you ask me,’ mutters Mum, who’s been listening to the exchange, and I shrug.
‘Maybe,’ I say quietly, but she’s already heading for the house. Brenda sounded genuinely concerned to me, but I’m clearly not a good judge of character, going by recent events, and anyway, I have more important things to deal with right now. Something’s just occurred to me, quite suddenly, something to do with how Mum described what had happened with the trampoline and I need to get into the house. I need to talk to Robin, urgently, so I haul Finley out of the car and, groaning a little (when did he get so heavy?) carry him in and settle him on the sofa, where he proudly shows off his bandaged leg to Eloise and starts regaling her with tales from the hospital. Through the patio doors I can see the trampoline down at the end of the garden, one leg buckled, the platform at a sharp angle, and the nausea begins to rise again. What the hell happened here? I give Eloise a hug and then go and find Robin who’s in the hall, putting her mobile phone into her backpack, ready to leave.
‘Robin, did you see what happened? With the trampoline?’ I ask, once I’ve reassured her that Finley’s suffered no lasting damage.
She shakes her head. She’s in her running gear, camouflage-pattern blue leggings today with a blue vest top and professional-looking white trainers.
‘No, I didn’t see anything,’ she says. ‘I was upstairs, vacuuming the landing. I didn’t know anything had happened until your mum came in screaming that we needed an ambulance. It was awful, so scary. I’m so glad he’s all right, poor little mite.’
I nod, not wanting to ask the question but feeling that I must.
I’m sure, positive, that she’d never do anything to harm the children, but even so, she was there this afternoon, and I have to ask, I have to …
‘Robin, you didn’t touch the trampoline, did you, while you were out there with the kids today? Or before they got home from school? It’s just that when I put the darn thing together yesterday I was so careful, and I’m sure it was fine. It was solid, you know? So I just don’t understand what went wrong, how the leg could have broken like that. It doesn’t make sense to me. So did you …?’
She’s looking at me wide-eyed, a shocked expression on her face.
‘What? What do you mean? Beth, are you suggesting …? I mean, why on earth would I …?’
She sounds confused, hurt and confused, but I’m
on a roll now and I can’t seem to stop myself.
‘And while we’re here, Robin, did you touch the central heating controls on Friday, by any chance? Because something went wrong with that too over the weekend and it always seems to be when you’re in the house, Robin, that things go wrong …’
Her mouth has dropped open, her eyes fixed on mine.
‘Are you serious? What are you accusing me of, Beth?’
I can see her eyes filling with tears. I should stop now, I know I should. I should apologise because of course Robin isn’t behind any of this, is she? I can see it in her face. And yet …
‘Well, it’s all just a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ I say, and I can hear the bitchiness, the petulance, in my voice, as if I’m listening to someone else speaking, and I am helpless to stop it.
‘And I don’t know why you’d do any of this, no idea at all in fact, but you must see why I have to ask …’
She’s backing away from me now, shaking her head, her breath coming in shuddery little gasps.
‘Beth, I can’t … I just can’t … I have to go, I’m sorry …’
There are tears rolling down her cheeks and she wipes them away fiercely with the backs of her hands, then bends down to pick up her backpack from where she’d dropped it on the floor when we started talking. She marches to the front door, flinging it open and slamming it behind her so loudly that I jump. For a long moment I stand there in the silence, staring at the closed door. And then:
‘Oh. My. God,’ I whisper. ‘What have I done?’
It’s as if the noise of the slamming door has brought me to my senses and suddenly I’m horrified, mortified. Shame washes over me like an icy wave.
I’ve just accused Robin of trying to hurt my children. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?
Slowly, I sink to my knees on the cold tiled floor of the hallway and bury my face in my hands.
I’ve lost her now too, haven’t I? Just like I’ve lost Barbara and Brenda. This should be such a happy time and instead I’m screwing everything up, ruining it all. If I go on like this I might lose Mum too all over again, and I can’t, I can’t bear that …
The Happy Family Page 13