‘Yes.’
‘So actually,
you
were the most important person, as if you weren’t up to making the journey, then you weren’t obligated to make it.’
‘Er . . .’ Karen scrunches up her nose. ‘It’s difficult when you’ve got kids.’
I bet Johnnie hasn’t got children, thinks Abby. ‘I’m sure lots of mums would do as Karen did,’ she says.
‘Of course,’ says Johnnie. ‘But it’s also important to learn to say no – even to children.’
‘I do find it hard,’ says Karen.
‘If we always say yes to everything, it’s exhausting, isn’t it?’
Karen nods. ‘I have been awfully tired lately.’
‘Perhaps you need to put yourself first more often,’ says Lillie.
‘I don’t let my children get their way the whole time, though. Otherwise they’d be horribly spoilt.’
I bet she’s a great mum, thinks Abby. She seems kind and generous, but I reckon she’s no fool.
‘Setting boundaries is a vital step in taking responsibility for yourself and your life,’ says Johnnie.
Sounds like he’s reading from a textbook, thinks Abby, irritated. Just like the therapist I saw at college.
‘But surely it’s a good thing to help others,’ interjects Rita.
‘Sometimes I think we don’t help one another enough,’ says Tash.
‘Exactly,’ Abby mutters, hackles rising as she recalls how often people look away when she’s having trouble with Callum.
‘I’m always very grateful when people stop to help me.’ The silk of Rita’s sari rustles as she strokes her troublesome leg.
Tash nods, bright-pink hair serving to emphasize the gesture. ‘If the world was full of everyone looking out for themselves, no one would ever lend Rita a hand to get on a bus.’
Rita and Tash smile at one another, pleased to be in agreement.
‘Perhaps I wasn’t being clear,’ says Johnnie. ‘I’m not saying we shouldn’t help each other, not at all, and getting a response from someone if we’re
kind to them can be very rewarding too.’
Again Abby thinks of Callum. She’d love more response from him; often she craves it.
Johnnie continues, ‘But putting other people first
continually
can be a sign we’re depressed. If we
never
say no, or our boundaries aren’t firm enough because
we’re always doing things for others, including our children, what is the danger?’ He looks round at them all.
‘We end up not knowing who we are?’ says Lillie.
‘Precisely. We lose our sense of self.’
Lillie nods. ‘I read somewhere it’s important for children to have boundaries so they learn about their mum’s needs, too.’
Suddenly it strikes Abby.
They’re talking about me!
she thinks. Yet they sound so smug and judgemental. It’s one thing for Johnnie to be a know-all – he’s in
charge – but to be lectured by Lillie is galling. Anyone who can spend that long getting ready each day clearly doesn’t have the kind of demands on them Karen and I do. Does she think I
wouldn’t
love
to say no more often so I could spend time nurturing myself? I used to enjoy experimenting with my hair and dressing up before Callum was born. People would say what
quirky style I had, tell me I had a great figure. When I was at college I used to dance, go clubbing, I was quite the hedonist. Imagine what would happen if I started acting more selfishly now
– the speed at which my son operates, he could break a couple of TV screens in the time it takes to paint my toenails. And there’s already one parent being belligerent around the house;
if I started saying no as much as Glenn does, all hell would break loose.
‘When you’re a mother it’s not always possible to put yourself first,’ she says tightly. ‘It sounds as if you’re saying there’s something wrong with
Karen making her children a priority, or me wanting to get home to look after my son as soon as I can. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all.’
‘But you can’t look after anyone else properly until you can look after yourself,’ says Lillie. ‘You shouldn’t let others define you.’
Abby’s anger rises. ‘It seems you’re telling Karen and me how to parent. You know my little boy can’t even say the word “no”? He understands it, but still,
you haven’t a clue how difficult these things are with him. Just because he accepted those stickers you gave him on Saturday, Lillie, you think he’s always like that?’
‘No, Abby, please, I wasn’t—’
‘I’ve spent the last seven years putting my son first – I’m his mother, for fuck’s sake, and if I don’t, who else is going to? Not the bloody authorities, let
me assure you.’
Lillie’s mouth falls open, but Abby doesn’t care.
‘When you have a child, they’re like an extension of yourself. They’re
part
of you. Unless you have kids, you can’t possibly know that.’ She looks
pointedly at Johnnie, then Lillie.
Lillie grips the seat of the sofa. Her face drains of colour.
‘It’s OK,’ says Rita, who is sitting on the adjacent armchair. She reaches over to squeeze Lillie’s arm and drops her voice. ‘She doesn’t know.’
Know what?
thinks Abby, as Colin jumps up and goes to crouch at Lillie’s side.
‘She doesn’t, Lil,’ he says.
Oh God, thinks Abby, what have I said? But before she can ask, Lillie has leapt to her feet and run from the room, black rivers of mascara streaming down her face.
Michael sits down in the chair opposite Gillian. ‘My wife wants me to talk to you properly,’ he says.
Gillian nods. There’s a silence, then she asks, ‘What about you, Michael, do you want to?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He pauses. ‘Yes, I
do
want to. It’s just I’m not sure if I can.’
Gillian clasps her hands together. ‘It’s difficult for you, Michael, I understand that. Sometimes the worst bit is getting started, then it becomes easier, as with a lot of things
we’re afraid of.’
Michael looks down at his cuticles. He sees a loose bit of skin that needs picking, but he stops himself. ‘I don’t know where to begin.’ He shrugs.
‘Well . . . How about you tell me about the circumstances that brought you in here?’
The last few weeks were so awful, I can’t possibly unravel them into anything coherent, thinks Michael. He says nothing. He can hear the clock ticking on the wall.
Eventually Gillian coughs. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but before . . . you mentioned a shop . . . ?’
It’s as if he’s been kicked in the gut, and next thing he knows, out the story spews. It still feels so raw it could be happening to him right there and then.
*
‘Right. That’s me done,’ Michael says to Ali, clicking the padlock together to secure the grille across the window. He looks up at the Bloomin’ Hove
sign.
‘Oh mate, I’m so sorry.’ His friend’s dark-brown eyes glisten with tears.
‘Don’t you start.’ Once Ali goes, he’ll go himself.
Michael steps forward and reaches out his arms to Ali. They thump one another on the back, once, twice, and break apart.
‘You stay in touch,’ says Ali.
‘I will,’ Michael says, although he doesn’t know if he can bear to.
He climbs into his MPV, gives a quick wave and drives off.
It’s a gloomy, overcast day; there’s no breeze to carry away the clouds and the air is heavy. Back in Rottingdean, the bungalow feels pointedly empty. As Michael steps over the
threshold, his footsteps echo on the parquet floor. He’s not told Chrissie this is his last day yet; he decided to hand over the keys first, then say, so she isn’t expecting him home
this early. She must have gone out.
He goes into the living-cum-dining room; there’s a letter addressed to him lying in the middle of the polished oak table.
He opens the envelope, scans the contents. It takes a few seconds to process. He reads it again to make sure, but yes.
They want the car.
He stands there, letting the shock wash over him.
After a few moments, he pulls open the French windows, steps outside. The path is lined with daffodils leading down to the end of the garden and there, against the back wall – the
shed.
His
shed.
No sooner has he clapped eyes on it than it’s as if the energy he’s pent up from so many weeks sitting in front of the telly comes back in a flood of adrenalin and testosterone. He
isn’t fifty-three. He isn’t tired and grey-haired and living in Rottingdean. He’s seventeen. He’s a peroxide punk, from Croydon. And he’s livid.
FUCKING livid.
He throws open the door.
BAM!
The thin wooden walls shake. With robotic determination he reaches for his sledgehammer; the very same sledgehammer he used to knock through the hatch from
the kitchen to the dining area. Then, like a warrior wielding a weapon as if his life depended on it, he brings it down on one of the shelves. The chipboard isn’t strong and neither is the
bracket. Jars tumble with a tinkle of nails and screws.
BAM!
He thwacks the shelf above. Boxes of electrical wires and plugs jump high into the air then thud onto the floor.
BAM!
He hits the wall itself. Years of damp air and sea salt have taken their toll – the wood is soft, like tissue paper.
BAM!
He strikes his workbench – the wood is laminated, stronger. So he goes at it again –
BAM! BAM!
– and eventually it splits in two, jagged with
splinters.
Far away he hears someone calling his name, but he simply turns to the rear wall.
The sledgehammer goes straight through the old Formica dresser; the doors ping from their rusted hinges. He turns his arm to use the sledgehammer as a hook, and in one movement scoops the pots
of paint and white spirit and putty and filler from the inside of the cupboard, with a clatter of tin on tin, to join the chaos on the floor. The lid comes off some ancient white gloss; it gloops,
sticky as honey, coating the broken shards of glass and a roll of wallpaper.
‘MICHAEL!’
Michael spins round. There’s a figure standing at the open door of the shed but he can barely see through the red mist.
He turns back, raises the sledgehammer above his head and –
BAM!
– brings it down.
The dresser is demolished. Good. He never liked it anyway.
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’
But Michael moves to face the third wall.
‘MICKEY, STOP!’
Out of the corner of his eye he’s vaguely aware of Chrissie, dressed in her coat and scarf. Just as he’s about to bring the sledgehammer down once more, she grabs his right arm.
‘NO!’
He bats her away with his elbow. She stumbles but just manages to steady herself. He’s dimly aware she can’t be badly hurt and is glad, but he’s gladder still when she hurries
off up the garden path. He carries on until he’s razed the shed to the ground.
*
‘So what happened then?’ asks Gillian.
‘Chrissie rang the police,’ says Michael.
‘I see.’
To his mortification, Michael finds himself too choked up to speak. ‘She must have been very scared to call 999,’ he says, after a while.
‘Maybe,’ says Gillian. ‘But it was a good thing to do in the circumstances.’
‘I’ve never raised a hand to my wife though, honestly. I wouldn’t have hurt her.’
‘Perhaps she was worried you’d hurt yourself.’
‘I was just so far gone . . .’
‘I understand.’
Do you? I can’t imagine you ever getting that angry, thinks Michael. He glances up at Gillian; her face seems to have softened. Perhaps she isn’t that much older than he is, after
all; she just appears that way. ‘You seem pretty patient to me,’ he says.
Gillian gives a half-smile.
‘You’ve waited a long time for me to say anything.’
She raises an eyebrow. There’s an understated humour in that gesture, he thinks. I like it. ‘Aye, well . . .’
‘Chrissie says it’s not helping that I bottle stuff up.’
‘Do you think she’s right?’
‘I find it hard to talk about . . . er . . . my feelings.’ Though it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, he realizes. ‘I guess when I do let it all out, it’s
quite spectacular, isn’t it?’ He laughs. ‘I hope it was worth waiting for.’
‘It was.’
Michael feels a small burst of satisfaction. ‘Reckon that’s why the doctor got me admitted here – he was concerned I’d trash all of Rottingdean.’
‘Might I ask why you chose the shed, in particular?’
He is silent, casting his mind back. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘It’s purely, from how you’ve described it, you were in the house when you opened the letter. So why not – I don’t know – turn over the table or the sofa or
break the TV in there? You must have been pretty fed up after watching so much television.’
Michael pictures the living-cum-dining room at their bungalow. He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t do that. Not with all those family photographs watching me.’ In his mind’s
eye he can see Chrissie’s carefully dusted china ornaments, the plumped cushions on the sofa, the freshly vacuumed rug by the hearth. ‘It’s Chrissie’s room.’
‘It’s not yours, too?’
‘Yeah, but Chrissie works really hard to make the house nice . . .’ Michael sighs. His wife’s dedication both touches and dismays him. On the one hand he’d hate for her
to let things slip; on the other it seems to underline his own shortcomings. ‘I guess I went outside because . . .’ He struggles to recall the sequence of events. ‘When I read
that letter, I was so angry . . . I’ve had run-ins with mates as a teenager, punched the wall, that sort of thing, in the past . . . But that afternoon – I can’t remember ever
feeling like that before. My skull was going to burst. I had to do something.’
Gillian nods.
‘All those people, wanting a piece of my business. Tim and Lawrence from the hotel, Bob, even Jan . . .’ He can feel sweat breaking out on the back of his neck at the memory.
‘They shafted me.’
‘It sounds as if you feel circumstances really conspired against you, Michael.’ Gillian stops, then says, very deliberately, ‘And I do appreciate it must have been horribly
frustrating. But all these reactions you’re talking about – the anger, the sense of injustice – are just thoughts, or that’s where they start out. And thoughts can be
changed. I’d venture to suggest if you look at what happened from a different perspective, you could see that you were very gallant.’