I opened the cupboard, and sure enough, there was the packet in front of me, but my eyes actually alighted on the Calpol bottle on the shelf below, and the clean spoon sitting next to it, ready and waiting.
I choked down a fresh surge of shock as I picked it up and turned to put it in the bin… only I couldn’t do it. I spun round and immediately returned it to the shelf, before hurriedly pushing a pill out of the blister pack instead, gulping it down and switching the bathroom light off – again, no need to leave it on all night now – and hastened across the hall into Beth’s room.
‘At least let me wash the covers, Jess,’ my mother-in-law had pleaded. ‘We don’t have to clear it out, but let’s make a bit of a start, don’t you think?’
At least wash the covers – that was the last bit I wanted anyone to touch. I pulled back the duvet and quickly climbed into the three-quarter-size bed. We’d bought her an extendable one, but hadn’t yet put it up to a full single. I looked around the room briefly. Her stuffed full bookcase, the princess castle in the corner, her wardrobe with a dress hung on the front, her chest of drawers on which sat some of her various treasures: a box of plastic bugs, a torch, a china duck that had belonged to me when I was little, a music box Laurel had given her… a picture of her and me on a mini rollercoaster the last summer, both shrieking with laughter.
I buried my face in her pillow as the tears came again and, crying silently, I deeply breathed in the scent of my child, and waited for the tablet to work – for the merciful release of a chemically induced loss of consciousness to come.
Chapter Four
‘Are you getting up?’ Ben appeared in the doorway, dressed in his work jeans, Timberlands and sweatshirt.
‘I’m not going in today, no.’ I tried to smile at him from the bed, but turned my gaze back to the window, where I’d already opened the curtains on the morning and was staring out at the blank, grey sky.
‘That’s over a week you’ve been off, now.’ He paused. ‘Although to be fair, not many people will be going anywhere today, so you’ll probably get away with it.’
I winced at his unwitting choice of words.
‘Please don’t stay in here all day though, Jess.’ He gestured around Beth’s room helplessly. ‘It’s not healthy.’
I didn’t say anything to that, just kept looking past him, trying to pretend he wasn’t still watching me.
‘We need to decide about next week, too, when I get home tonight?’ he said, after a pause. ‘Mum’s said she’ll book it for all of us; we just have to tell her where we want to go. She’s suggested Barbados, which sounds a bit much.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you think. I mean, obviously it’s really kind of her and Dad… and probably everyone’s right that we should do something completely different for Christmas this year. Mum’s not hassling, she just wants us to get something nice I think. If we want it, that is. She just needs to know then she’ll go to the travel agents and sort it.’
‘Yes, alright.’ I was exhausted just listening to him.
‘I’m sorry that I have to go in today,’ he said quietly. ‘Dad did say he could manage, but we’ve got two flats to finish off by the end of this week for the new tenants at the weekend. I’ve got to do all the coving and skirting, and there’s an auction of a six-bed house on West Strand in West Wittering this afternoon that Dad really fancies. He reckons we’ll get it for about ￡200k. Should be a nice profit on it if we tart it up, add it to the portfolio and bide our time.’ He looked at me and waited.
‘Sure, it’s not a problem.’
‘To be honest, Jess, I’m finding it easier if I stay busy. That’s not a criticism of you though,’ he added quickly. ‘So you’ll get up in a bit then?’
I screamed inside, but managed to stay silent. He would go in a minute.
‘OK, well… I’ll see you later then. At the least, please promise me you’ll eat something? Jess?’
‘Yes. I promise.’
‘Good. Well, keep your phone on and I’ll check in with you at lunchtime. I’ve lit the fire; you could get dressed and go and sit down there for a bit. Your dad rang and said he’s really sorry but he’s woken up with a shocking cold; so I’ve asked Laurel to pop over instead, assuming she can get here, of course; although, the main roads are all still open, I think. Right – back in a bit then.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘You’re sure you’re going to be alright?’
I still didn’t answer. Just nodded. I was trying not to cry again and I didn’t want to put that on him just before he left. It wasn’t fair.
Sighing, he left the room, and a few moments later, I heard the front door close behind him. He didn’t call out goodbye.
* * *
I closed my eyes in relief as silence descended on the house. When I opened them, it had started to snow again. Fat flakes were tumbling past the window. She would have been so excited. I lay still and watched as the world began to quietly white out into welcome stillness, but then next doors’ children suddenly shrieked with delight, obviously having rushed out into the garden to make footprints in the fresh fall that was settling over the last few days’ myriad of trampled paths. How could Beth be lying beneath the same snow other children were playing in?
I threw back her duvet, and as the cold air hit my skin, I got stiffly to my feet, my body hunched over from another night squashed into her small bed. I couldn’t lie there and listen to their happy shouts. It was too much. I looked down, briefly, into our untouched back garden – drifts still covering the bushes and the bird table, which looked like an oversized chess piece. Ben was crazy to go in to work with it like this. He must really not want to stay at home.
Shivering, I bent to pick up my dressing gown from the floor. I doubted Laurel was going to be coming over with the snow this heavy, so I didn’t need to get dressed. Not that she’d mind about that anyway.
I pulled the robe on, and paused again for a minute by the window. The flurry had stopped as suddenly as it had started, with only tiny isolated flakes now wisping through the air. The branches of our oak tree were weighed down with snow once more, making it look like a set of tired, drooping lungs; bronchial twigs reaching out into nothingness.
I leant my head against the pale blue wall of Beth’s room, feeling the cold leech into my warm skin.
Come back.
Beth.
I turned her name over again in my mind, and then hesitated.
‘Beth,’ I whispered, aloud.
But instantly, I wished I hadn’t because, of course, there was no answer. There would never be any answer again.
No ‘yes Mummy?’ I closed my eyes and imagined the sound of her voice, and her small arms around me. It had been so recently that it had last happened that I knew exactly how it would feel. ‘Oh!’ I gasped, winded with the pain of longing. ‘How am I ever going to do this, Mum? Please tell me that she’s with you, and you’re both safe. Please!’
I opened my eyes and stared out into the garden, desperately, for something/anything: a floating feather, a small robin, a burst of sunlight… I would work with any cliché at all right now, and seize it with both hands willingly… but there was nothing. No sign of afterlife.
But then, where had ‘signs’ got me last time?