Georgia reaches the security gates and stops to scan her card ID, then moves beyond sight. Fairbridge takes no chances with their students’ safety, but it always makes Callum morose, watching the kids disappear behind those barriers, locked away from the world. It is so different from his experience of secondary school, catching the bus there and back, exploring the fields and town at lunchtime. But back then the whole world was a playground, filled with heady excitement. He had never thought of life as dangerous until he had children. He hadn’t expected that parenthood would come coupled with an amorphous sensation of helplessness, of controls that lay permanently just beyond his grasp.
How can he be the father of such a grown-up young woman? He will never forget the first time he held Georgia, her body fitting snug against his palms as she screwed up her face under the harsh hospital lights, already indignant at the intrusion of the world. He could well recall those fierce promises he made on that night, to that baby he can still see faintly in the solemn girl he’s just said goodbye to. He is afraid he has failed to live up to them.
He can still see Anya that night too. She had looked radiant, despite the fourteen-hour labour she had endured. His blotchy, wrinkled child and tired wife made mockery of the manufactured beauty that was touted wherever he turned. He couldn’t tear his gaze from either of them.
Remembering, the emotions rise to unsettle him. They had been happy for such a long time, before the problems took hold. In the early days when he and Anya were first married they had regularly hiked over the mountains, to secret spots that Callum knew, initially carrying picnics with them, and later taking baby Georgia perched in a rucksack on Callum’s shoulders, her chubby hands clutching fistfuls of hair. They had only stopped exploring so far afield after Zac came along, by which time Georgia was too big to carry but too small to walk far. Their excursions became picnics in the park as they snatched time between naps and the endless chores of the day. He’d told himself that it wouldn’t be forever, but now it seemed he’d got that wrong. Anya had never intimated that she missed their rambles. Was that because she didn’t, or had she chosen not to complain?
Whichever it was, at that point her attention had slowly shifted from him towards the children. She was endlessly preoccupied with their needs – and the children fulfilled her in a way he couldn’t compete with. So, rather than giving in to jealousy, he had looked around at what he might do for himself, and there was Dave from Mountain Rescue encouraging him along. Dave had told him about the team’s commitment to the job, the crazy hours, and that it didn’t always make for an easy family life, but Callum had done the right thing and discussed all that with Anya before signing up. She liked the idea – she wanted him to have hobbies, she’d said. He had only gone ahead after checking he had her full support.
So, over the past ten years, while he has spent all his free time on the fells, every spare moment of Anya’s life has involved packing lunches, helping with homework, taxiing kids to out-of-school activities, and being an endless source of emotional support. They had each found roles that fulfilled them, and to begin with, everything worked. Anya had seemed pleased that Callum had something to keep him occupied – perhaps he was one less thing to think about. The times they could relax together began to thin out, and she always apologised about being too tired to make love. One day the TV arrived in their bedroom, and then they would find themselves watching it until they fell asleep. Their lovemaking drifted to special occasions, and then tailed off even further.
It had been a long, slow drift into apathy, not a sudden downslide. Perhaps that was why neither of them had acknowledged they were heading into dangerous territory, a place where it was too easy to make too little effort. Perhaps neither of them had looked far enough ahead to predict what life would be like in another ten years, when all the kids wanted was for their parents to leave them alone.
He glances at himself in the rear-view mirror, seeing a middle-aged man’s face overlaying his own. The creases and lines multiply faster every year now, only his eyes unchanging as the skin bunches and folds around them.
What are you doing, Cal? he asks this stranger in the mirror. How has it come to this?
He brings his hands to his face to find they are shaking. Last night, while his family was in crisis, he had been on his own path of destruction. He has let them all down, and they have no idea.
Today he will try to set things right – even though he already suspects that will be impossible. He takes a deep breath, but before driving off, he digs his mobile from his pocket and calls his brother.
‘She’s been sedated since they operated on her leg,’ Liam says as soon as he answers, his voice a strange rasp, as though something hard has lodged in his throat and he is struggling to speak through it. ‘We just have to wait, see what the day brings.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Callum tells him. ‘But there’s something I need to do first.’