Authors: Anouska Knight
T
HE WALLS OF
my old bedroom weren’t magenta any more but an inoffensive cream and peppermint pinstripe where Mum had done away with the bohemian décor of my youth. My once beloved tie-dyed swathes had been replaced with crushed silk drapes in her favourite sage, more befitting of the 1930s home Dad had left us with. For the last week, hiding out here from my life, I’d been fifteen again.
‘Sweetheart? Are you coming down? They’ll be here soon.’ I stopped studying the abstract patterns in Mum’s artexed ceiling and rolled over on my pillow. More clattering sounds of saucepans being thrown into service echoed up the stairs.
Mum’s Sunday lunch was ritualistic as far as my brother was concerned. Since Lauren had given birth to their second child two months ago, Guy had tried to blag Mum to lay on a regular midweek curry night, too. He’d complained that mealtimes with a mischievous four-year-old had been chaotic enough; add a newborn to the mix and Lauren was beginning to lean towards
quicker, easier, less-washing-up meals. Mum hadn’t gone for it. She’d told him to be grateful Lauren was still cooking for him at all after delivering two nine-pounders, epidural-free.
‘Coming,’ I called, stepping out onto the landing. The morning had been fairly sedate, with Mum busying herself with her latest crusade on behalf of the WI and greater good. She’d taken my reluctance to talk about James and my crumbling adoption hopes as her cue to lead the conversation. Earleswicke community centre was soon to be levelled because the parish council shrewdly thought it made more sense to sell the place on than stump up the cash for an upgrade. I was with them on that. The community centre had smelled of damp and lost property when Mum used to drag me off to Brownies there. I was eight at the time and to my knowledge, it hadn’t seen a lick of paint since. No doubt I’d hear the whole sorry tale again once Guy and Lauren arrived. I’d use the opportunity to huddle up with Samuel and catch up on all things creepy-crawly and dinosaur. Mum had put them off coming last weekend. A few concerned words from a well-meaning cabbie and Viv had gone on lockdown, prescribing a week of peace so I could lick my wounds. That and endless home-cooking.
The rich homely wafts of roast beef floated up the stairs to greet me. This was how Mum swung into recovery mode, as if food could fix whatever had been broken. She’d launched herself into maniacal cooking when Dad
had first left. All of his favourites, every night for weeks, just in case he walked back in through the door. He never did.
‘Okay, sweetheart?’ She was carrying a tray of tea through to the conservatory as I crossed the kitchen towards her. The conservatory was cooler than the kitchen, the rattan armchair creaking beneath me like a groaning shipwreck as I settled into it. ‘How are you feeling today?’
Outside, the garden had held onto the morning’s frost, as though the lawn had accepted its abandonment by the sun, stoically contenting itself with ice instead. ‘Fine. Thanks. Lunch smells good.’ I smiled.
Mum nodded approvingly as she poured a drop of milk into each of the cups. Her hair would redden in the autumn, but until then it would remain nearly as dark as mine, with only the beginnings of grey featuring just where she would clip her corkscrew curls over one ear. Miraculously, I’d dodged the full severity of Mum’s curly genes, though I realised now how youthful she still looked because of them.
‘A good meal will set you up, sweetheart. Tomorrow isn’t going to be easy, but I think you’re doing the right thing.’
Thoughts of a Monday-morning showdown with Marcy and Dana heading up the office gossips made my stomach lurch. I’d gone over all the reasons for and against going back there, trying to find a way around it,
but the fact was if I just walked out now, I couldn’t think how I’d explain my sudden change in circumstances to Anna. Not that job-security alone was going to be enough to dupe her into seeing through our application.
‘She should be the one clearing off,’ Mum declared, vigorously stirring the tea.
I never thought that James would do this. He’d pleaded for a chance to fix things, to undo the undoable. I’d listened as Phil had coached me through the week on the evils of the unfaithful, but through the malignant mass of bitterness and hurt churning away at my insides, there was something of me that desperately wanted James to fix it all. But we were on social services’ schedule, not Relate’s. We didn’t have time to delve into our brittle relationship and gently nurse what had been broken.
‘And should James clear off too, Mum?’ I asked.
She tapped her spoon on the rim of her cup, ignoring my accusation of her lopsided justice. ‘You know, sweetheart, James has done a terrible thing. But it doesn’t make him a terrible person.’
I watched as she set the hot drinks in place between us, then looked away through the glass onto the garden. A little robin flitted down onto the lawn and began pecking away at the grass. Maybe I was the terrible person. Maybe I’d pushed James out, neglected him. There hadn’t been much room left for anything that wasn’t either work or adoption related for longer than was healthy for anyone.
Mum held her cup to her face and blew over it, settling herself back into her chair. ‘He called again this morning.’ I carried on watching the determined little bird. James had been calling all week, leaving texts and voicemails, apologising, asking that we talk, offering to take some of his annual leave if that made my returning to work any less humiliating. ‘He said he needs to talk to you, sweetheart, before you go back into the office.’ I hadn’t accepted James’s offer but still he’d anticipated I’d go back to Cyan. I hated that I was so predictable.
‘Mum, please, don’t. I’m not ready to speak to him yet.’
‘You can’t avoid him for ever, Amy. You need to talk to him. Before the social worker catches wind of all this. Won’t you see him in the office tomorrow anyway?’
An unfortunate creature caught the attention of the robin, suddenly transforming it from Christmas icon to ruthless killer. I’d never been great with birds, they seemed all beady eyes and sharp bits to me. ‘He has site meetings on Mondays. It’ll be easier for me to go back there tomorrow while he’s not there.’
While I still have a job
. That’s if I didn’t lose my bottle first, which was more than possible.
Mum repositioned her glasses on her head. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. I know he’s hurt you, sweetheart, but if you’re both serious about trying to salvage this, you’re going to need to work together. Children need stability, and this situation is far
from stable. You need to be very careful you don’t jeopardise everything you’ve achieved over these last months because of one …
indiscretion
.’
Indiscretion. That was one word for it.
‘It’s not that simple, Mum. He didn’t just
slip up
.’
Mum took a sip from her cup. ‘James shouldn’t have fooled around with that girl, Amy. But men … they
do
slip up, lose their way. Sometimes, sweetheart, they just can’t help themselves.’
It was only ever a matter of time before parallels would be drawn between James and my dad. I inhaled deeply and rolled into the inevitable. ‘That’s just it, Mum, they can help themselves. It’s a choice they make.’
‘No, not always, Amy. Sometimes they just … they fall into an unexpected situation, and then before they know it they’re not sure what they want.’
I wondered if after telling herself the same thing for so long, my mother had somehow erased the basic principles of betrayal from her understanding. Eighteen years on she was still hanging onto the ghost of a notion – that Dad’s departure was somehow not of his choosing.
Mum looked out onto the garden. I let my eyes fall to the teacup steaming on the table between us. It felt intrusive somehow to look outside while she did also. She sighed and turned uncertain eyes back to me. ‘I’m not trying to be insensitive, Amy. I know how much hurt you must be feeling, I do. But, you and James have been through so much together. Experiences that have bound
the two of you. He hasn’t led you to believe that he wants a relationship with this woman, has he?’ I searched the garden for something to concentrate on. The robin was nowhere, abandoning me to the conversation. The answer to her question was
no
. No, he hadn’t. In every one of the messages he’d left these past seven days, James had said that he loved me. He loved me, and that he was sorry.
Mum was still waiting. I shook my head to answer her.
‘James knows how complicated things can be, Amy. Hear him out, see what he has to say. Life isn’t a walk in the park for anyone, sweetheart. It’s complicated and messy and at times, ruddy heart-breaking. But, you have to press on.’
‘So what? I should just forget what he’s done?’
‘No, not forget. James has done wrong, but he
is
trying. Doesn’t that count for something?’
It did count for something. Mum had never met another man, waiting for my father to show a fraction of the regret James had shown over this last week. It would be cruel to say to her that it didn’t count, I just didn’t know whether it counted enough.
‘I can’t go through with the party, Mum. I’m sorry. Even if we were on speaking terms, I couldn’t stand in front our friends and family and … fake it.’
‘You haven’t got anything to be ashamed of, Amy. Lots of people learn to carry this sort of burden. Relationships are all about accepting each other’s imperfections. Goodness
knows, we all have those.’ I couldn’t argue with that.
Imperfections
didn’t exactly encompass that which James had accepted in me.
‘The party was a nice idea, Mum, but it was your idea. I never wanted a fuss about the adoption, I just wanted the …’ I couldn’t say the word; it stuck in my throat like a rusty barb. I had to get around this or I’d never make it through a single day at Cyan. I tried to think of something, anything, else, but I was already losing again. I looked outside, hoping the shift in position might slow the inevitable but the tingling was already there behind my eyes.
‘Oh, sweetheart. Don’t cry. You’re tougher than this, I know you are.’ Mum leant over and began rubbing my knee reassuringly. I shook my head. I wasn’t tough. I couldn’t survive a broken fingernail or a mistimed buzzword.
‘I’m not, Mum. Guy’s tough, not me.’ I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever seen my brother cry, not even during the catastrophic fallout after he’d walked in on my father and Petra. Guy had glued the three of us together until Mum had finally realised that we didn’t need to keep eating Dad’s favourites any more.
‘Oh, Amy, you’re tougher than you think.’ She reached for my hand, clasping onto it as she always had whenever I’d brought a crisis home with me.
‘What am I going to do, Mum?’ I asked steadily, trying not to set myself off again. She was making small circular motions over the back of my thumb.
‘Well, first you need to work out what’s most important in your life right now, sweetheart.’
‘I know what’s most important. That part hasn’t changed in the last five years.’
‘Right. Well, that only leaves one other question. Has James’s part in that changed in the last five years?’
James had always been part of that picture, but tensions had been growing lately. Somewhere along the line, we’d stopped laughing and making plans. I realised that there had only been one plan for a long time now, and what had started out as a joint venture had at some point turned James into a back-seat passenger on my much diverted road-trip to parenthood. But never had I imagined him not being there, somewhere, with me. Never had he said he wanted to get off this journey. Or maybe I just hadn’t been listening.
A bustling through the front door and my brother’s cheerful voice throbbed through the open hallway. ‘Hey, hey! Somethin’ smells good! Sam … don’t
push
! You’ll knock somebody over.’ Sam scrambled into the kitchen making a beeline for the biscuit jar.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Mum warned, leaping from her chair to intercept him. A waft of cool air came in with them as Guy plonked Harry’s car seat down on Mum’s pine kitchen table.
Lauren followed them all in, rosy cheeked, puffing mousy-brown strands of hair away from her face, arms full of the things Harry couldn’t possibly need in just a
couple of hours. She dumped her bags and came straight over with an embrace, then reassuringly rubbed my arm. ‘Hey. How are we doing?’ I smiled crookedly letting her hug me for a second time. ‘I’m so sorry, Ame.’ I shrugged my shoulders. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t blub in front of the kids.
Guy scratched his short-cropped curls and threw me an unimpressed look. I glared back at him, in case he was under any illusion that dealing with Mum’s counsel wasn’t taxing enough. He arched his eyebrows and held his hands up briefly in submission. He wouldn’t say anything about James, for now. I let out a breath as he came over and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘Just say the word,’ he said quietly. ‘He needs his arse kicking.’
‘Samuel Alwood! What on earth have you done to your face?’ Sam peered wide brown eyes out at Mum from underneath the hood of his duffel coat, a strange purplish bruise beneath his eye.
Lauren huffed as she pulled him from his coat. ‘He stuck a Tic Tac up his nose, didn’t you, buddy? Pushed it that far up there, burst a blood vessel.’
Sam grinned at his achievement. ‘I made Mummy’s legs go funny!’ he said triumphantly. Lauren was squeamish, which made it all the more baffling to understand how she’d had not one, but two children with my heathen brother.
I bent down beside Sam. ‘Let me see, Curly.’ He lifted his chin to allow me a better look. ‘Ew, gross. At least
you’ll have minty fresh nostrils for a while, kiddo.’ I stole a kiss before he could make his escape.
‘Daddy said I can’t put anything else up my nose now, Aunty Ame. Not even my fingers.’
I ran my hand over the softness of his curls. ‘Good to know, kid.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s good advice.’
‘I’ve got some advice for you too if you want to hear it?’ Guy asked me.
The timer on the oven began bleeping urgently, answered with a grizzled response from the kitchen table. I ignored Guy as Lauren peered into Harry’s car seat and groaned. ‘
Harry!
We can’t spend all day in the car! It’s not practical.’ She began to unclip him from the seat harness as Harry’s protestations grew. ‘Guy’s taken to driving him around the estate to get him off!’ she said, scooping him from the chair.