Close My Eyes
Authors: Sophie McKenzie
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Contemporary Women
MY
EYES
Sophie McKenzie is the author of over fifteen novels for children and teenagers including the multi-award winning
Girl, Missing, Sister, Missing
and
Missing
Me
. She has tallied up numerous award wins and has twice been longlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal. This is her first adult novel. Sophie lives in London.
Find Sophie online at www.sophiemckenziebooks.com, on twitter at @sophiemckenzie_ and on facebook at www.facebook.com/sophiemckenzieauthor
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Rosefire Ltd, 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Sophie McKenzie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-47111-173-0
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-47111-172-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-47111-174-7
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
For my mother
I used to like stories, especially the stories Mummy told me when I was little.
The Special Child
was best. It’s a bit of a babyish story for me now but I
loved it the most back then. In
The
Special Child, there’s a child that grows up all happy with a mummy and a daddy who are the king and the queen and then a wicked witch from the
next kingdom comes and takes the Special Child into a prison and the mummy and the daddy are really sad but the Special Child does special fighting and kills the witch and escapes back to the mummy
and daddy.
We used to do stories at school. Sometimes we had to read them. Other times we made them up. I remember I wrote down
The Special Child
and did pictures.
Mummy used to say it was only a story but that sometimes stories come true. She said the wicked witch in
The Special Child
was only a lady in a story but that there were Bad People
in real life too. She said you can’t tell from looking at them and that sometimes they will be smiley and saying all nice things and maybe offering sweets and toys but underneath they are
still Bad People.
For a long time I never met any Bad People in real life – but then Ginger Tall and Broken Tooth happened and after that everything was different. Just like Mummy said.
I’m late.
I hate being late.
I’m supposed to meet Art at 5 p.m. and it’s already quarter to. I race down the corridor to the staff room. I can’t remember the new code for the door, so have to wait outside
until another teacher lets me through. I shove my spare photocopies in my pigeonhole then deposit my register in the box. As I reach the exit, Sami, the head of Humanities, reminds me that tomorrow
morning’s class is cancelled due to building repairs. I make a mental note then fly out of the Institute doors and half run, half jog along Great Queen Street to Kingsway. It’s grey and
gloomy, the clouds swollen with rain. There are no cabs. I should get the tube to Oxford Circus, but since 7/7 I avoid using the underground when possible. Anyway, I’ve always preferred the
bus. Art hates buses. Too slow.
I charge round the corner to the bus stop, negotiating several uneven pavements and a swarm of Italian teenagers as I run. Good, I can see a number 8 trundling towards me along High Holborn.
That’ll take me to John Lewis. I can race up to Harley Street from there.
Inside the bus I press my Oyster card against the pad and lean with relief against a post. The woman next to me – young, straggly haired – is wrestling with a baby in a buggy.
‘Sit down, for fuck’s sake,’ she hisses under her breath. There’s so much anger in her voice I have to turn away and move up the bus.
I arrive at the clinic at quarter past five. Art is waiting by the door. I see him seconds before he sees me – smart and suave in his suit. It’s dark grey, Paul Smith – his
favourite. Stylish and simple, he wears it, as usual, with a plain open-necked shirt and no tie. Art looks good in those kind of clothes. He always has. He turns and sees me. He’s tired. And
irritated. I can see it in the way he raises an eyebrow as I walk up.
‘Sorry I’m late.’ I raise my face and he kisses me. A light, swift brush of the lips.
‘It’s fine,’ Art says.
Of course the truth is that I’m not really sorry and he isn’t really fine. The truth is that I don’t want to be here and Art knows it.
I follow Art inside. He shrugs off his jacket as we cross the entrance hall. The shirt he’s wearing has a tiny nick on the inside of the collar. You can’t see it but I know
it’s there, just as I know Art is pissed off with me from the way his arms hang stiffly at his sides. I should feel guilty. After all, I’m late and Art’s time is precious. And
I’m aware that this is hard for him as well as for me.
Art stops as we reach the waiting-room door. He turns to me with a smile, clearly making a huge effort to overcome his mood.
‘Mr Tamansini was here a minute ago. He’s very pleased we’re back.’
‘You’ve spoken to him?’ I’m surprised; the consultants rarely leave their rooms during appointments.
‘He just happened to be in reception when I arrived.’ Art takes my hand and leads me into the waiting room. It’s classic Harley Street: a row of stiff chintz armchairs and a
matching couch. A fireplace with dried flowers on the mantelpiece and a terrible piece of modern art above. Certificates, licences and awards are positioned in glass frames all around the walls. I
catch sight of my reflection in the mirror in the corner. My jumper is creased and my hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed for a week. It really needs cutting: the fringe is in my eyes and
the ends are split and dry and curling shapelessly onto my shoulders. Before Beth, I had highlights and a trim every couple of months. I straighten my jumper and smooth out my hair. My eyes shine
bright blue against the pink of my cheeks, flushed from running up the road. I used to go to classes at the gym as well. Now I never seem to have the energy.
‘He’s on time, but they sent the next couple in ahead of us as you weren’t here.’ Art’s tone is only faintly accusatory.
I nod again. Art runs his hand up my arm.
‘Are you okay? How was your class?’
I look at him properly. His face is still so boyish, despite the fact he turned forty last week. I don’t know whether it’s the soft curve of his jaw or the dimple in his chin or the
fact that his eyes are so big and eager. I stroke his cheek. The skin is rough under my fingertips. Art has to shave twice a day but I have always liked the shadow on his face. It gives him a
rougher, sexier edge.
‘The class was fine.’ My throat tightens. I so don’t want to be here. ‘I’m really sorry I was late. It’s just . . . being here again.’
‘I know.’ Art puts his arm around me and pulls me against his chest. I bury my face against his neck, squeezing my eyes tight against the tears I don’t want to let out.
‘It’s going to work this time, I know it is. It’s our turn, Gen.’
Art checks his watch. He’s had it years and the face is scratched and worn. It’s the watch I gave him – my first present to him on his birthday, three months after we met. That
evening Art let me buy him dinner for the first time; I’d insisted, seeing as it was his birthday. It was a mild, spring evening – the first warm night after what felt like months of
winter and, after dinner, we’d walked along the Embankment and across Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank. Art told me about his plans for Loxley Benson . . . how all his life he’d been
searching for something to believe in, something worthwhile to put his energies into, something to drive towards.
‘And your business means all that?’ I’d asked.
Art had taken my hand and told me ‘no’, that I was what he’d been looking for, that our relationship was what he wanted more than anything.
That evening was the first time he told me he loved me.
I pull away now and wipe under my eyes as discreetly as possible. Quite apart from Art, there are three other couples in the waiting room and I don’t want them to see. I sit down and close
my eyes, my hands folded in my lap. I focus on my breathing, trying to take my mind away from the turmoil raging through my head.
Art still loves me. I know he does. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have stayed with me through the long, terrible year after Beth. Not to mention the six failed IVF attempts since.
But sometimes I wonder if he really listens to me. I’ve tried to explain how tired I get of these visits to the clinic. The highs and lows of IVF. It’s been nearly a year since our
last attempt. Back then I insisted on a break and Mr Tam – as he’s known on the online infertility forums – supported me. Art agreed – we both hoped I’d get pregnant
naturally. There’s really no reason why I shouldn’t – at least not one that anyone’s found. Just as there’s no reason to explain why every single attempt at IVF has
failed to produce a pregnancy.
Art’s been angling for me to undergo more treatment for the past few months. He even made this appointment for us. But I can’t bear the thought of another round, and the physical
side effects and psychological battering it will bring. I’ve been there too many times: starting a cycle, wasting an opportunity to start one because you’re away, going to the clinic
every day to be tested, taking the drugs at specific times on specific days – all only to find your follicles aren’t big enough or plentiful enough, or else that the embryos don’t
survive. Then resting a cycle or two, obsessed with when you ovulate, when you menstruate, before you start again. And on and on. And none of it, none of any of it, can ever bring her back.
Beth. My baby who was born dead.
I want to tell Art all this, but that means talking about Beth and she’s shut up in my head in a safe place along with the pain and the grief and I don’t want to go in there and
start raking it all up again.
‘Mr and Mrs Loxley?’
Art leaps to his feet. The nurse smiles at him. It’s hard not to smile at Art. Even before he appeared on
The Trials
on TV people smiled at him. All that boyish charm and energy.
I’m sure that’s half the secret of his success with Loxley Benson, that way he looks at you, his eyes blazing, making you feel special, as if nothing matters more than what you’re
about to say or do.
The other half’s a different story, of course. Art’s smart. Shrewd. And completely driven. Mum saw it when she met him. Before he’d made his fortune, when he’d just set
up his business – an online ethical-investment company – with no money and no security. ‘That one,’ she said. ‘That one’s going to set the world on fire.’
Then she’d given me that wry smile of hers. ‘Just make sure you don’t get burned while you’re trying to keep up.’
Mr Tamansini’s desk is as big as a ship – all embossed brown leather with brass studs around the edges. He looks lost behind it – a small, olive-skinned man with a pointy face
and delicate hands. He’s pressing his fingertips together, which he always does when he speaks. He gazes at me and Art sitting next to each other on the other side of the desk.
‘I’m going to suggest you try ICSI this time,’ he says slowly. ‘That’s where we inject sperm
directly
into the egg.’
‘See?’ Art nudges my arm like we’re in the back row of a classroom. ‘I told you there’d be something new.’
I stare at Mr Tamansini’s fingers. Weird to think they’ve been inside me. But then the whole idea of being a gynaecologist is weird. On the other hand, I like Mr Tam. I like his
stillness. The way he stays calm even when Art is at his most forceful. He was my consultant for four of the six failed IVF attempts. I guess you could say we’ve been through a lot
together.
‘ICSI’s not new,’ I say, looking up at Mr Tam. ‘Why that? Why now?’