by Jill Childs
I stammered a reply, a sentence or two about the woman in the café and the hairdresser and Mrs Minns herself, the nursery manager. He kept his eyes on me, full beam, bathing me in his attention. Caroline was excluded and ignored.
We ate the rest of the course like this. Dominic addressed all his questions to me alone, pursuing every conversational opening he could find, even though I had little to say. He treated me as if I were the only woman at the table, while Caroline sat in silence. It was excruciating.
When we had all finally finished, Caroline rose to clear the plates. I started to get up too, to help her, only too eager to escape the awkward atmosphere but Dominic insisted I stay put.
‘Please, Sophie. Let me.’
He got to his feet, took my plate and his own and followed her out.
I breathed more easily when they were both in the kitchen, although my damp hands still plucked at each other in my lap. My sense of release didn’t last long. In the kitchen, they started at once to argue. Snatches of the bickering drifted through to me through the connecting hatch.
Caroline said, ‘Why the hell not? I’ve got a life too, you know.’
His voice, indistinct. Something about Lucy.
Caroline hissed back: ‘I’m not doing it, I’ve told you. You wanted us stuck out here.’
A rattle of plates as he bent to stack the dishwasher, followed by a bang as he slammed the door closed.
A suck as one of them pulled open the fridge door. She was talking now, her voice muffled. I only caught the final words, suddenly audible as if she had turned towards the hatch.
‘Never,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t even like me.’
Then Dominic said sharply: ‘Don’t be absurd. That’s pathetic.’
My heart thudded. I wondered if they were talking about me again.
Her voice became more distant again as she moved towards the kitchen door.
‘Let’s just get through this, can we?’
She came through carrying a dark chocolate mound of mousse on a platter. Her expression was hostile. We ate dessert in tense silence, then I excused myself early and headed upstairs.
In her bedroom, Lucy was fast asleep, one arm curled round her pillow, her cheek pressed against her hand. I straightened her duvet, then sat for a moment beside her bed in the gloom, listening to the slow, steady sound of her breathing.
I thought of my own parents and their love for me. The way they always sat and listened when I tried to talk to them, the nights they sat up with me when I wasn’t well, watching over me as I slept, and a thousand other acts of love which I, as a child, never knew to thank them for.
‘Children don’t need to thank their parents,’ Mum had said with a smile when I was in my twenties and tried to tell her how grateful I was, how loved I’d always felt. ‘That’s what you do, as a mum or dad. Unconditional. You say thank you by passing it on to your own children and they pass it on to theirs.’
I wiped my eyes. That was it though, wasn’t it? There were no children to love, not of my own. Only Lucy. Maybe that was why I’d found myself here so often.
I was on my way back to my own room when a low cry came from downstairs. Caroline. I stopped, my hand tightening on the banisters, and listened. A moment later, a stifled whimper, then the murmuring of Dominic’s voice, agitated. A sharp crack – a slap perhaps – then another moan.
I didn’t know what to do. Was she ok? Should I go down? It was embarrassing enough already. None of my business. Dominic didn’t want me here. And yet…
I started down the stairs, then hesitated, straining to make sense of the sounds. Caroline gave a sudden series of cries, high and insistent, the rhythmical, rising tone of a bird. I knew then exactly what was going on. Make-up sex, right there in the sitting room. Made all the more exciting, I supposed, by the need to keep quiet, by the fact there was another adult in the house who might just walk in on them.
I flushed, desperate now to retreat unheard, and crept back up the stairs to my own room and closed the door softly. I undressed and got into the shower, running the water loud and long to block out any other noises.
* * *
The next morning, I woke early to the sound of the car engine revving. Tyres skidded across the gravel driveway. By the time I looked, Dominic’s car was gone.
Sunday morning. A day earlier than usual. He was gone for the week, leaving us here, in this strange household full of secrets and, at its heart, a frightened, confused little girl.
Caroline was in a bad temper that morning. Lucy and I were having breakfast in the kitchen when she strode in, her hair swept back into a ponytail, no make-up, wearing sweatpants and a baggy top.
She barely grunted a reply when I said good morning, just opened and closed the kitchen cupboards with a bang, made herself a cup of coffee in her portable cup and grabbed a cereal bar.
Lucy sat quietly over her toast. Her eyes focussed on her plate. Her shoulders hunched as Caroline crashed around the kitchen.
‘See you later.’ She strode out in a foul temper without acknowledging Lucy at all.
I stared after her. Was that it? What about looking after Lucy? She hadn’t mentioned any meetings today. I had the feeling I’d somehow slid into being treated like the new nanny, and an unpaid one too. I shook my head. I liked being with Lucy. It wasn’t that. But I didn’t like being taken for granted.
When I’d eaten my toast, I reached over and tickled Lucy’s chin. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
Her eyes widened with cautious interest.
‘Finish your breakfast, clean your teeth and I’ll show you.’
I made a game of it. I packed some snacks for later, added colouring pens and paper and, when she was ready, wrapped a scarf round her head to cover her eyes, then led her, her hands in mine, step by step, out of the front door and out towards the cliff.
She was a timid child and she seemed anxious at first, wary each time she lifted a foot and slid it forward, uncertain, to see if the ground was safe. She tried to wriggle the blindfold higher with her shoulder when she thought I wasn’t looking so she could glimpse what lay ahead. I kept both hands firmly in hers, talking her through each step.
‘Left a bit. It’s a bit bumpy, mind the stones. Now three or four steps forward, that’s it, you can do it! I’m right here, Lucy. It’s ok.’
It was slow going. Lucy started to tremble as soon as she heard the boom of the sea and pressed herself against me as if she needed to feel me there, to be reassured. We moved slowly out towards the edge of the cliff and started climbing down together towards the beach house. The waves were loud in her ears now and the salt spray fresh on her cheeks. I knew it from her reactions. Her senses were made keener by her inability to see. At each bend, as the wind blowing up from the water whistled round the rocks and caught us full in the face, she paused, increasingly fearful. I squeezed her hands and drew closer to her so she could feel me there, protecting her.
‘Nearly there, Lucy. You’re doing so well! Good girl. Keep going!’
I led her finally down the path to the door of the beach house, then told her to stand still with her eyes closed as I quickly unlocked the door to help her across the threshold. It smelled fresh and clean inside now, a pleasant lemony scent of cleaning fluid, cut through with salt from the sea air.
‘Ta-dah!’ I unknotted the scarf for my big reveal and pulled it dramatically away.
I’d expected Lucy to be intrigued, excited about our new den, a playhouse where we could hang out together, away from the rest of the world. In fact, her reaction could not have surprised me more.
After I pulled away the scarf, she stood stock still for a moment, blinking and staring into the room as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her arms, limp now at her sides, stiffened into rods and started to tremble. The colour drained from her cheeks.
‘Lucy? Are you ok?’ I reached out a hand and touched her shoulder.
She didn’t seem to hear or feel me. She was lost in a different w
orld, one I couldn’t fathom.
I said again: ‘Lucy?’
She moved forward through the room as if she were in a dream, looking round with staring eyes, haunted by a desperation I could hardly bear to see. I followed as she made a circuit of the room, her head turning here and there, taking it all in, but her eyes wild. It was as though she was imprisoned by demon inside her mind. She quickened her pace as she ran through to the small toilet and the mini kitchen, as if she were searching for something.
‘Lucy, what is it? What are you looking for?’
Back in the main room, she ran to the window and looked out at the turbulent water below, then fell to her knees and began to weep. Not the usual sobbing of a young child who’s fallen or needs the reassurance of an adult, but a desperate, intense crying, carrying grief more lacerating than any young child should ever know.
I ran to her and pulled her onto my lap, wrapped my arms round her and rocked her, even as she struggled and screamed and pulled away from me.
‘Lucy! Lucy! What is it? What’s wrong? Please! It’s ok!’
Her weeping went on for so long that I began to despair. She was beside herself, throwing her weight forward as she tried to fight her way off my lap, tossing her head this way and that as if she wanted to escape the pain inside it, whipping me with her fists. Her breath came in gulps, her face and hands were wet with tears and mucus as she sobbed. Outside, the wind whistled round the side of the building and, far below, the waves rose and fell, indifferent to us both.
* * *
She only quietened when she was too exhausted to cry and struggle any more.
I held her close in my arms, spread across my lap like a much younger child, and rocked her, crooning nonsense: ‘Sssh, little Lucy. Shush now. It’s all over. It’s alright.’
I settled her finally on the floor, her head resting on my jacket, and went to warm some milk for her. What just happened? What had I done?
When I brought her the cup of milk and a biscuit, her breathing was still ragged, her body still calming after the onslaught. She turned big eyes on me as I sat her up and helped her to drink.
‘Tell me, Lucy. Please. What is it? Can’t you tell me?’
She lifted her lips from the milk cup and stared at me, her mouth firmly closed. Then her face folded and she started to cry again, quietly now.
I shook my head, close to tears myself. ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, her face fraught. I gave her a cuddle and this time she let herself be held.
Once she was calm again, I locked up the beach house and we went for a walk together along the cliff, all the way to the village, letting the sea breeze blow us along. The sight of her face, swollen and blotchy after all her crying, made me feel physically sick. I’d done that to her with my clumsy attempt at cheering her up. It was my fault that she was so upset. I just didn’t understand why.
I stayed close to her, trying to make her laugh by chasing and tickling her. On the way back, we played hide and seek in the trees.
She allowed herself to join in and once or twice she even managed to giggle, but her underlying mood was languid and sad and however much I tried, she wouldn’t talk to me. Her eyes slid away from mine when I tried to ask her why she’d been so upset. Her lips pursed and stayed closed.
* * *
That evening, I sat up late in the sitting room, reading another of Caroline’s detective novels. They were battered old volumes, second-hand perhaps, and clearly well-thumbed. Caroline had written in the front of many of them, her scrawny signature followed by the date and the place she’d bought the book. Hong Kong or Singapore or New York or other cities they’d visited for weekends.
Many of them dated back to her teens and twenties. It was odd to think that these were the same books she’d described to me in emails as she read them for the first time. Sharing her thoughts about the plot. Guessing who might be the murderer. I remembered the emails well. I’d even found the same books sometimes in the local library and read them too, trying to keep up. As if I could ever keep up with Caroline.
She’d read them on junk trips or on aeroplanes or on the New York subway. In hotel rooms and by swimming pools. My reading was in my poky bedroom at home or sitting in a corner of the sitting room while mum and dad watched tv. Her life had seemed so enchanted and so utterly different from mine. I felt grateful just to be her email pen-pal. I’d never expected her to come back to England. I’d never expected our paths actually to cross again.
The book in my hands now was one of the most dog-eared of all: Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery. It was held together here and there by Sellotape. I wondered if it really was the same copy she’d had in our last year at primary school.
It was the first Agatha Christie novel she read. I thought it was unbelievably grown up with its bold type and the massive clock-face on the cover. She made a show of reading it on the bus home from school, lifting her head now and then to update me and share her latest theory on who was guilty and why. When she got to the end, she announced that it was her favourite book of all time but that I was probably too young to understand it.
I smiled now as I looked at her untidy signature on the flyleaf, the letters sloping forward as they always did, as if her name were battered by a gale. This was the sloppy, childish version of her handwriting but it never changed all that much, judging from the little I saw over the years. Just the sight of it brought back memories. When she sent me birthday cards or occasional postcards, the writing was so scrappy that it was always a struggle to make out the words. She used to get into terrible trouble at school for it and pretended not to care.
‘It’s because I’m left-handed,’ she told me once, as if it explained everything, ‘in a right-handed world.’
It reinforced the sense I always had of her, that she was special and different and the world didn’t fully appreciate her talents. But once we started communicating by email instead, it did make life easier.
* * *
Caroline came back at about nine o’clock. I stiffened when I heard the car, then her quick step on the gravel and her key in the lock. I kicked myself. I should have gone up to bed earlier and got out of the way. Too late now.
She put her head round the door and smiled. Sunny and charming and a little contrite. She looked a different person from the grouchy woman we’d seen at breakfast.
‘Everything ok?’
I nodded. ‘Fine. You?’
She nodded. ‘Much better. Cup of tea?’
I pushed a scrap of paper in the book to mark my place and took it through to the kitchen to watch her make tea. She seemed ravenous, already putting bread in the toaster and buttering a crust to eat while she waited.
‘Oh, Sophie.’ She sprayed crumbs onto the floor, pacing around as she filled the kettle and switched it on, got out a plate for her toast. ‘I can’t imagine what you think of us.’
I opened my mouth to protest with a lame ‘I don’t know what you mean’, but she jumped back in before I had the chance.
‘We’re really happy, you know. It’s just the way we are. Both quite tempestuous. And now, with him away all week and me trying to get the business off the ground and worrying about Lucy, it’s just a lot to cope with.’
I nodded, trying to look as if I understood. I didn’t, not really.
‘But I’m so sorry. Dom is too. We were awful at dinner last night. You will forgive me, won’t you? You’re not going to up sticks and abandon me, are you?’
I shrugged. That was it, then. She’d run off after Dominic and spent the day somewhere else with him, making up. Now she’d come back worried about what I might think and that she might lose her obliging babysitter.
She made the tea and set our mugs on the table, then sat down and started chomping her way through the buttered toast. I thought about all the emails she’d sent me over the years. Had we even really been friends, all this time? I couldn’t decide if she was simply oblivious or calculatedly taking advantag
e of me and my attachment to to Lucy. And what did this have to do with her condition? Was that perhaps the reason she was so… selfish?
‘You don’t believe I’m serious, do you?’ Caroline, her eyes on my face as she chewed, seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. ‘Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. To say sorry and show you I really mean it.’
She paused for effect.
‘Tomorrow and Tuesday, I’ll take Lucy. Don’t even think about her. You do whatever you want. Take the car somewhere and spoil yourself.’ She lifted her hand as I opened my mouth to speak. ‘It’s fine. Don’t say a word. You deserve it. Lucy and I will be just fine. The hotel doesn’t need me until Wednesday. I can work on my proposal in the evenings.’
I thought about Lucy’s tense, hunched body that morning as Caroline had crashed her way around the kitchen, about her sobs and screams in the beach house. Maybe they did need time together. Maybe it would do me good to get out of this madness for a while and clear my head and put some plans into motion as to where I was heading next.
I hesitated, trying to think of something to say, some neutral way of changing the subject. I nodded at the book I’d been reading.
‘Look familiar?’ I tilted the cover to show her. ‘Don’t tell me who did it. I can’t remember.’
‘Neither can I.’ Her expression was vague. ‘I probably read it, once upon a time.’
‘The Seven Dials Mystery,’ I persisted, staring at her. ‘Don’t you remember? You loved it at school.’
She looked pained, then lowered her eyes to her drink. ‘I’m sure I did. I can’t recall any of those plots now though. I should get rid of them, really.’ She sipped her tea. ‘Anyway… what are you going to do with yourself for the next two days? You want any tips?’
I let her chat on about a spa hotel in town which did day passes – best to buy them in advance online – and a local art museum with a small collection.