The Playground (19 page)

‘Do you ever get scared?'

‘They caught it in the early stages.'

‘Lovely lady.'

‘Very hard though, if you've children.'

‘Not funny, really.'

‘Always thought he was seeing someone else.'

‘It's not good news, I'm afraid.'

*

‘It's not good news, I'm afraid.' Those words brought me right back there. The doctor had been smiling as she said them, it was what bad
news did to her face. Seeing that I was going to cry, she'd nudged the purposefully placed box of tissues a little closer to where I was sitting. ‘Your embryo didn't survive the defrost.' How many times had she been through this? How many couples had sat opposite her, devastated, crumpled, beyond hope. And still she'd smiled. An empathetic sort of smile, but a smile none the less. She'd made phone calls, took notes. She'd written out our options on a green Post-it note. There was one more embryo they could defrost, though the quality wasn't as good as the one that hadn't survived. Alternatively, we could embark on another fresh cycle but that would be quite costly. Joe had had a big presentation at work that day so I was on my own. She'd told me to think about it.

I'd walked out of her office and across the city into a large department store. Clothes were like my comfort food. I'd tried on a skirt in a size bigger than usual, but I couldn't even get the zip up I was so bloated with fertility drugs. I'd looked at my face in the changing room mirror: baggy-eyed, worn-out, washed-up.

I'd hung the skirt on the side of the cheese counter, left and wandered back to the clinic, praying and terrified.

‘It looks like a really good one!' The consultant had said, beaming.

Our final little ice baby had survived the defrost. I'd watched it throbbing and swelling on a monitor beside me and saw the catheter enter, deposit the embryo and slowly exit again.

‘You have a beautiful uterus,' the embryologist had said, looking up at me from between my legs.

*

We'd been waiting to see the triage nurse for almost an hour: standing, sitting, texting, lying my child down across the plastic, easy-wipe seats, then lifting her up again. The woman with the fishbone that turned out not to be a fishbone at all but a small bit of wire, was now wire-free and wishing us luck as she escaped into the clear air and the
land of the free and the healthy. The man beside us told me he was dying of lung cancer as he opened a packet of crisps. Then he told me that we were in the wrong hospital.

*

‘The X-ray shows no bruising to the ribs,' the paediatrician at the children's hospital said, as he listened to Addie's chest, ‘but I agree that she sounds a little wheezy. Does she have a history of chest infections?'

‘No, she's never really been sick,' I said, holding her close to me.

‘It may be some sort of allergy. Do you have any pets?'

‘Yes, just a dog, but he's been with us since before she was born. I don't think he could be causing the problem. I'm pretty good at brushing him, picking up his fur.'

‘Well, he may or may not be. It isn't so much their fur, more their dander and saliva. Dogs shed tiny flakes of skin as it replaces itself, just as our skin does,' he said, in that simple sort of tone adults adopt when they are in the company of small children. ‘Does he shed a lot?'

‘Yes, but he's short-haired.'

‘Short-haired breeds shed the most, I'm afraid. It's possible that she has developed an allergy.'

‘Do you mean asthma?' I asked, panicking.

‘Don't panic. It's very common in small children. And also very manageable. I'll prescribe an inhaler for her as a precaution. Here's an information leaflet, it should tell you most of what you need to know.'

‘And what should I do about the d-o-g?'

He spelt out his response.

‘I can't do that I'm afraid. It's just not possible.'

‘Well, I can't make that decision for you but if your child's wheezing gets any worse and you find yourself using the inhaler more regularly it's something you may have to consider.'

Alfie got out of bed, stretched, straightened his legs in front of him, shoved his rear end in the air. As soon as he saw me take his lead from where it hung on a hook at the back of the flat door, he began yelping, pacing and jumping in circles, eyes alight, frantic – a crazed beast on LSD.

He tried to sit still so that I could slide his collar over his snout and ears, he raised and jutted his head forward to help, but he was too excited, he couldn't do it. He kept knocking the collar out of my hands.

‘Please, Alfie. Stay. That's it. Good boy.' His big eyes were pleading, filled with expectation. This was all he wanted in life, a walk and a master to obey and love.

I put on my coat and rooted in the hall drawer for poo bags. Now he knew it was happening. He couldn't contain himself; he grabbed his squeaky giraffe and charged down the stairs ahead of Addie and me. And when we were down, he thundered through the opened hall door, and leapt with unabashed glee into the boot of the car – the car always meant a long walk. There he sat alert, in a tidy position, only his paws still moving, pacing from side to side.

‘Where are we going?' Addie asked, as I strapped her into her seat.

‘Alf's going on his holidays.'

‘To America? On the airplane? Can I come too?'

‘No, not to America. Alfie's going on holidays to a special place in the countryside with lots of other doggies.'

‘Al
fie
,' she shrieked and giggled when he came up behind her, sniffed the back of her neck and gave her a big, paternal lick.

The dogs' home was a two-hour drive from Bray according to Valerie – the brusque-sounding woman I'd spoken to on the phone. I was nervous of the trip; though I was now a fully qualified driver (my round-the-corner reverse didn't go very well – the German said I'd have needed to take a bus to reach the kerb, but he let it go) this was the longest trip I had ever attempted on my own. I didn't trust either of my companions' bladders for this length of time and it made me anxious that they were so trusting of me, so sure that I knew what I was doing. They both looked very contented to be going on an expedition. The more I looked in the rear-view mirror, the more I couldn't stand it. ‘I am strong,' I told myself. ‘I am making decisions. I am in control.'

For the first few years he'd been so noisy in the car, howling with such misery on even the shortest journeys, that Joe used to drive with a water pistol over his shoulder, ready to douse him. Now he sat upright, attentive, and silent in the boot, only standing when he needed some air, sticking his snout out the side passenger window, which Addie was controlling with the automatic button.

I babbled away, sang songs, recited nursery rhymes, tried to keep things upbeat.

‘Do it again.'

I don't know why this poem had stayed with me. It had beaten my own short story,
Killing Time
 – a dark and worrying essay about varying ways to top yourself – in our first-year creative writing competition.

The road wound out, undulating; great hills and huge dips. We drove on through a valley, through a picture-postcard scene: the dense forests on either side of us coloured orange, red, saffron-yellow, gold, the light coming through the clouds above us into the blueness, biblical in its intensity. Ireland does autumn so well.

On and on we went into the never-ending distance, the mountains ahead of us always moving away. The car dipped, hit rocks and potholes on roads too narrow and unknown to be safe and strewn with leaves turned to mulch around the edges.

I listened to the radio, Addie chatted to herself. Alfie was no longer visible in the rear-view mirror; he must have gone to sleep.

A lone goat ambled in muddy ground outside the entrance to the shelter, which I found after several wrong turns and pulling over to ask strangers. Addie laughed at the perfect white head and orange beak of a goose, dipping and reappearing behind a hedge.

Our arrival at the home set off a cacophony of noise: warning barks, dejected wails, cries and howls. Dogs leapt in muddy compounds against grey metal fencing, knocked over feeding bowls, tore up newspaper; others, older, more jaded long-term residents stayed curled up in the back of their cages.

Alfie was awake now, standing, ears erect. I parked on a patch of grass gouged with tractor wheels, got out, released him. He took off, nose to the ground, cocked his leg on the side of the rusty entrance gate for a prolonged pee. I lifted Addie out of her seat, let her hot head rest on my shoulder.

‘It's too noisy,' she said, looking up, one cheek angry red. ‘I want to go home.'

‘You know what? So do I, let's go.' I called Alfie, walked back in the direction of the car. It had started to spit with rain. An unidentifiable animal was whining. A gate was banging somewhere. Little pockets of hens puck-pucked in the mud around us.

‘Hello.' I turned to see a manly woman in a fleece top, tracksuit bottoms and gum boots, stepping down from a mobile caravan. This must have been Valerie. We walked back towards her. She addressed me as ‘Ava', which I didn't bother to correct. She didn't seem to notice Addie, but immediately bent to pet Alfie, rubbing him on the back, then clasping her hands around his face, letting him lick her on the mouth. ‘Oh, aren't you a handsome fellow? Aren't you, aren't you, aren't you?' she said, getting him excited.

She looked up at me from where she was still crouched over, petting him. ‘Has he had his breakfast?' she asked, running her free hand through her own cropped hair.

‘Yes, about an hour ago.'

‘And some buttery toast.' Addie said, kicking to be free.

Valerie began filling in a flip chart. I tried to answer her questions, inhaling to keep from getting upset, as I'd done so many times since Joe left. But once they started, they wouldn't stop. Hot, salty tears filling my eyes, then spilling down my cheeks.

‘Don't be sad, Mummy. Feel better,' Addie said, anxious, her own bottom lip protruding, her little brows arched in confusion. ‘Alfie's happy. He's going on an airplane on his holidays next week.'

‘I think it's easiest for everyone if you just get on with it,' Valerie said. I could hear the disapproval in her voice, sensed that she felt we didn't really need to do this. The last thing the refuge needed in a recession was another dog.

Before she said anything further I tried to explain, ‘Like I said to you on the phone, if there were any possible way.'

‘I know. I understand,' she said, though she didn't. I couldn't bear that we were doing this; that I was tearing our little family apart.

‘Oh, Alfie,' I said on my knees now, as he licked my face, gave me his paw. ‘You're such a good boy. Such a good boy.'

‘Don't worry, we'll take good care of him.'

‘Do you think it will be long, you know, till he finds …'

‘Impossible to say; it's a little more difficult for older, large dogs. Puppies are what everyone wants, though they don't even want them at the moment.'

‘Where will he sleep?'

‘Last cage on the right, with Lily, a lovely old Basset Hound. I'll show you.'

Valerie took Alfie by the lead; he snuffled along beside her, head bowed, looking back at us. The rain was heavier now, stinging our faces. She led us through a yard where a long line of aluminium dishes were laid out in a row, to a huge fenced cage, partitioned into small runs and a covered area at the back of each, where the dogs slept. There was a toy teddy on the grey concrete of the Basset Hound's cage and a dish of uneaten food. The Basset's eyes glowed out at us from where she was sheltering in her kennel.

I handed over Alfie's feeding bowl and his favourite squeaky toy, the plastic giraffe that was once Addie's, the one that all French babies have. Alfie sniffed at it, then looked up at me, eager, keen-eyed, trusting, loyal, loving, velvet-eared, waiting for his walk. Valerie handed me back his collar.

‘Let's go, Alf. Hurry up, Alfie. Let's go home,' Addie said as we turned to leave.

I carried her away, but her arms were outstretched. She was kicking me in the stomach, screaming.

‘No, Mummy, no. Wait for Alfie. I want Alfie, Alfie home. Alfie home.'

‘Shush, shush.'

‘No, Mummy, don't say shush. Let's go, Alfie. I want Alfie,' she said, her little face collapsing.

I could hear Alfie cry too – that soft plaintive sound he sometimes made when he was dreaming.

Addie let her body go stiff, refusing to get into her seat, then she bit me hard on the arm. I had to push her into submission. I held my hands on her stomach, forced the straps around her, while she flailed about and kicked and hit me. ‘I need Alfie. Need Alfie,' was her mantra till her voice became hoarse. Somewhere along the road back to Bray she faded with exhaustion to sleep.

I pulled over at a lay-by near a scrubby field and rested my head on the steering wheel. Another member of our little family gone. Addie's face was dirty with tears and snot, her hands gripping Alfie's collar, her eyelashes fluttering in sleep. How could I keep doing this to her? Consistency, love, routine is what all the books said and in her first years of life, two things had already left her. I sat there, at that lay-by, somewhere south of Wicklow for I don't know how long, but till the light had faded and evening was on its way. Then I indicated, pulled out and moved on. I turned on the radio, picked dog hair off my coat.

Joy was carrying a bale of hay and a box of small pumpkins through the garden gate – she stood well back and out of our way when she saw us approach and helped to direct my car into its space. I'd forgotten all about the pumpkin patch she had organised in the playground that day. I'd even forgotten it was Hallowe'en.

Addie had been excited about it for weeks, putting her sucky blanket over her head, making little ‘whooo' sounds, like all the best spirits do, as she walked around the sitting room with her hands in the air, stopping and holding up the bottom of it every few seconds to see where she was going. Joy had made her a homemade witch's costume for the occasion.

‘It was awesome,' Joy said, thumping up the stairs ahead of us. ‘There must have been thirty kids there. I was worried we might run out of pumpkins but they all got one. And Sophie brought cupcakes along for everyone – oh, she's such a kind girl. She's invited us to go trick or treating with her tonight. Irenka's coming too. Where were you guys anyway? Oh listen, I got some posters printed up for Ratty.'

Now she was at the top of the stairs, rooting in her pumpkin box and trying to catch her breath. She unfurled a poster on which she had illustrated an image of Ratty with the words LOST and REWARD OFFERED in capitals and her phone number beneath.
Ratty had been missing for weeks and I was hoping Addie would forget all about him. ‘And I picked up some sedatives for Alfie – NaturVet Quiet Moments, they're the best they say – the poor guy's going to be freaked out by the fireworks,' Joy said, holding the flat door open and letting us in ahead of her.

‘Alfie's gone on holidays,' Addie said, almost in inverted commas, as if she no longer believed me, stomping past us into the sitting room like a teenager. I waited to explain my decision till she was absorbed in a cartoon and Joy and I were out of earshot, in the kitchen.

‘You're kidding me, right?'

‘He's going to have a good life. A much better one than he had with us. They're going to find him a lovely home in Sweden or maybe even in Italy; lurchers are a novelty over there because they don't breed them nationally,' I said, knowing that this scheme was really for retired greyhounds. I was lying to make both of us feel better. I tried to picture Alfie in his new home in Europe, sprawled out on a chaise longue, with a sparkling, diamanté collar.

‘I can't believe what you're telling me,' Joy said, taking her brown rice off the boil. I sat at the kitchen table; she stood over me, hands on hips.

‘Look, please don't give me a hard time about this. I'm miserable enough about it as it is.'

‘And how do you think Alfie's feeling right now? And what about your poor kid? She adores that dog. I just don't know how you can do that to her.' I had never seen Joy angry before and it was alarming, so much more so with her than with anyone else because I was seeing her for the first time without her armour: her warmth, her effervescence, her optimism. I tried to beam myself out of the room, as I'd done so many times at school or when I was being fired or
shouted at or broken up with. I focused on the Celtic brooch pinned to her purple waterfall cardigan. It had come loose and was about to fall off.

‘I've explained it to Addie, she understands.'

‘Like hell she does.'

‘I did it for Addie.'

‘Oh give me a break.' The brooch fell to the floor.

‘You don't have to believe me, but I did.'

‘Dogs are good for kids. They're healthy for their immune systems,' she said, bending to retrieve it and pricking herself with her finger as she did.

‘Not according to the doctor. I'm too worried to risk it.'

I got up. Moved to the window, shut it. Turned around.

‘Oh, these Western doctors don't know diddly-squat.' She looked at her finger, put it in her mouth, sucked away the blood.

‘And since when are you such an expert? You don't even have kids. Excuse me,' I said, knowing that that last bit was below the belt. I forced her to stand out of the way so I could open the fridge. I closed it again, opened the freezer and got out some Birdseye potato waffles for Addie's tea (‘Might as well eat air,' she had said about these the last time she'd seen me buy them, ‘zero nutritional benefit'). Tonight I didn't have the energy. Tomorrow I would start healthy living for both of us again.

She watched as I opened a can of beans, spilling some over the edge as I emptied them into a saucepan and stirred.

‘I may not have kids but I know that all children do much better with stability and how much they benefit from regular contact with both parents, even after a split.'

‘I'm sorry? What's that got to do with any of this?'

She said nothing. I took out two plates, put the waffles on. Poured beans over them.

I took a carton of apple juice from the fridge, poured it into Addie's plastic cup. You should really dilute that first, I could hear Joy think, and give it to her with a straw, so much better for her teeth – better still, don't give it to her at all; water is all she needs.

‘That kid needs to see her dad is what I'm saying and, well, I think I should let you know that I've made a few calls on Addie's behalf.'

‘Oh God, who did you call?'

‘I knew you'd be pissed if I told you but I felt it was my duty as Addie's friend. I did a little research – Google's just wonderful, isn't it? – anyways, I found the agency you thought he'd joined and, well, I just went right ahead and phoned them, but I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you.'

‘Off you go?'

‘He's moved to their sister agency in Amsterdam. I don't think he's coming home, dear heart, to you, or to his precious child.'

‘I am well aware that he's not coming home, that's hardly news.' I moved to the kitchen door, closed it over, continued more quietly. ‘And how dare you make that call without telling me?'

‘Oh, you'd never have had the balls to do it. Someone's got to look out for that kid.'

‘That's complete crap!' I said, accidently showering her with saliva. ‘I've accepted that I'm a single mum now and I know I'm doing loads of things wrong, but I am trying my very best, believe me,' I said, choking with self-pity. ‘And you don't know the first thing about my relationship with Joe or about being a mother for that matter. It isn't all about organic quinoa and origami swans. There's a little more to it than that,' I said, squirting ketchup on the side of each plate.

I wanted her to retaliate, instead she just stood there, irritatingly serene, with a slight smile on her face, as if she'd seen all of this coming. She'd placed her hands together in prayer position, legs crossed, and was leaning against the cooker watching, utterly silent, as I put our TV dinner on a tray.

‘Mummy!'

‘What is it, sweetheart? Just give me a second.'

‘But
Bubble Guppies
is over.'

‘OK, I'm coming, darling,' I said, picking up the tray.

‘You know what you need?' Joy finally spoke. She had given this some thought.

‘Go ahead, tell me.'

‘You need to do a course in anger management, dear heart. That's what you need.'

*

A car passed on the road outside, sending a shadow sweeping across the sitting room wall, lighting up the little figures on the Indian cabinet. Addie wriggled into her costume, struggling to keep her hat in place with one hand while holding her broomstick with the other.

‘I don't want to blow away up into the sky' she said as we went down the stairs, counting them the way we always did, her small hand in mine.

‘I promise you won't. I'll hold your hand very tight.'

I put on my own witch's hat at her insistence and we set off together across the road to join Sophie's party.

Out on the square, little skeletons, pirates and devils were being hurried through the murk, their costumes and plastic bags rustling. Fireworks were going off somewhere on the seafront; they whistled and rushed, great flashes of colour lighting up the night sky.

Some of the houses had made a huge effort: candle-lit pumpkins
glowed from bay windows, scarecrows and witches hung behind them. ‘Do not enter' signs and fake cobwebs had been stretched across front doors, tombstones made out of painted-grey polystyrene were positioned in gardens, skeletons hung from bare trees. Other homes looked ghostly enough without embellishment in the damp, foggy night. ‘Dank,' Joy would have said. ‘The weather in Dublin's so dank.' There were no lights on at the drug-dealer's house on the corner; both of us jumped at the teenagers who were kissing in the darkness in the mass of the leylandii trees outside. Juliette giggled, Dylan apologised and told Addie she was an excellent witch. Kids were running from the old sisters' house. They were a natural and easy target. Their game was to ring the doorbell and leg it; we saw a grey-haired figure retreat from the first-floor window but couldn't tell which sister it was. Billy, shifty-eyed under a racoon hat, was playing a more dangerous game; stuffing lit tapers through their letterbox. He'd had it in for Pamela ever since she'd driven her ancient Citroën to the high street knowing that his kitten, later to be christened Diesel, was stuck in its engine. Frank, the youth worker, said he'd come close to punching the old woman on Billy's behalf; Pamela said cat or no cat, she had to go to the post office to cash her pension cheque.

A few homes had made no effort at all and were not participating: the glow of a television set in the corner, unseen faces balancing dinners on knees behind curtains, watching the six o'clock news, ignoring the occasion, all knocks on the door.

We crossed the square and climbed down the steps to the basement of Sophie's house, cobweb-covered lanterns guiding our way.

‘My bum bum's gone off,' Addie said, hiding behind me, as we waited for the door to be answered. It wasn't Sophie but her husband, Mark, who let us in. He looked like he'd been asleep, with his shoes off and his shirt hanging out over his jeans.

‘Ah, you've just missed them,' he said, ‘give me a second.' He padded back into the sitting room. I waved in at the au pair girl, Beatriz, who was sitting forward on the sofa, tidying her hair and tugging at her skirt, as though she were about to pose for a photograph. ‘Hello, Eve! Oh, you look so horrid, Addie!' she shouted out, not getting up.

‘Mama, why has he done his buttons up wrongly?' Addie asked while he was away. I shushed her but saw for myself as he tucked his shirt into his jeans on his way back to us with a basket. He held it down in front of her, apologising, ‘It's been fairly ransacked, I'm afraid.'

Addie took a green lollipop.

He gave us directions to the big estate that they had all set off to collect around. I listened, thanked him, but knew we wouldn't be going there. It was Joy who Sophie had invited, not us. Those two seemed to have become great pals lately, as Mum would say.

On the way home we passed a house whose front door was opened wide: adults and children were streaming in, all in fancy dress, the host, Count Dracula, was beckoning them. Addie wanted to go too. I tried to explain that we didn't know them, that we wouldn't be welcome. She seemed to accept this and then was silenced by her lollipop, serious under her witch's hat. We headed for home, Addie's cape rustling as she moved beside me, her empty orange bucket swinging in her hand.