Like This, for Ever

52




‘ABBIE, DO YOU remember my mum?’

Abbie Soar, Harvey and Jorge’s mum, put down the chopping knife and gave the smallest, saddest shake of her head.

‘I don’t, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘It was just you and your dad when you first arrived at pre-school.’

The kitchen door opened, Jorge’s strong, clear voice rang throughout the house and Harvey appeared, tugging at the waistband of his school trousers.

‘Mum, can you get me Tommy Hilfiger’s boxer shorts?’ he asked, heading for the counter, nose in the air, like a hound sniffing out truffles.

‘Possibly. But what would Tommy Hilfiger wear?’

Harvey pushed his body against that of his mother. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said, looking up into her eyes and digging his chin into her breastbone in a way that looked pretty uncomfortable but which Abbie didn’t seem to mind. She wrapped her hands around his middle and worked her fingers inside his waistband. Then she bent her head and nuzzled her face against Harvey’s neck. It was the sort of physical intimacy of which Barney had no personal experience.

He turned away, fixing his attention instead on the photographs on the wall. They were in black and white, all taken by Abbie in foreign countries: black kids dressed as soldiers, who might have been playing a game except for the hollow look in their eyes; women with dark headscarves and startlingly pale eyes, watching out over arid landscapes for men who would never return; people limping from a burning hospital.

It was pretty depressing stuff. Not a single picture on the wall made you feel good about life. But the picture he could see reflected in the glass of most of the photographs was disturbing him even more. A mother, treating her child’s body like an extension of her own; her son nestling against her as though they were two adjoining pieces of a jigsaw. For a second, Barney felt rage threatening to overwhelm him.

Not fair, not fair!

OK, Harvey didn’t have a dad, but dads weren’t the same. Dads earned money and kept you fed and clothed and drove you around the place, but mums wrapped their bodies around yours and made you feel safe. Mums were the ones who cried when you cried, but loved your tears all the same because they had the power to make them go away. Mums were there in the night, when dark, twisting fears were wrapping themselves around you. Mums were the ones who lay down close and whispered stories about riding through tropical forests on blue elephants. Mums were the ones who could put their hands on your bare bum and bite your neck and nobody would think it at all unusual.

Not fair!

He’d heard nothing from Lacey. He’d known it had been bad luck to mention his mum to her. Now he’d done it with Abbie, too. In the picture glass he could see her now, watching him over Harvey’s head.

‘Tell you what, hon,’ she said to her son. ‘Will you go and get my phone for me? I left it in Jorge’s room.’

With a heavy sigh, as though there were no end to the effort expected of him, Harvey left the room.

‘Did you take all these?’ asked Barney, embarrassed now, feeling as though he’d give anything to take back what he’d just revealed about his mum.

‘Years ago,’ Abbie said. ‘Before Harvey was born.’

Upstairs, Jorge had stopped singing. Barney could hear him and Harvey talking.

‘I asked your dad once about your mum,’ said Abbie. ‘Not being nosy, just friendly. He told me it was just you and him. And he said it in such a way that made me feel he didn’t want me to ask any more questions. So I didn’t. As far as I know, no one else ever did either.’

Barney looked at a picture of a boy of about his own age, gazing up at the camera. A boy with a blood-soaked bandage around his head. ‘You’ve seen some pretty nasty stuff,’ he said.

Abbie came closer, until she could put a hand gently on Barney’s shoulder. The little finger of her hand brushed softly against his neck.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have.’