Something is rising in the back of my mind. Shadows stirring darkly at the end of a long road. Your voice, rising out of nowhere. I press my hands to the sides of my head, willing the image back down. I won’t think about it. Not now. Not ever.
I hear the sound of sobbing and I realize that I’m crying, tears streaming down my cheeks and trickling on to my top. Blindly, I move to the front door and fling it open, step outside. There’s nowhere to go, but I can’t stay here. I see the rows of houses through my tears, with their neat, featureless windows and their prettily kept gardens. Across the street, a middle-aged man is carrying recycling bins out, setting them on to the front lawn. He’s watching me through narrowed eyes, frowning, evaluating.
‘Caroline?’ It’s Amber’s voice, and I jump. She’s appeared out of nowhere, just behind me, stretching out her hand tentatively to touch my shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’
I wipe my sleeve across my eyes, burning with embarrassment and fighting to compose myself, but it’s useless. Mutely, I shake my head. She is staring at me, her lips marginally parted and her smooth forehead creased. Her eyes are wide and unblinking, like painted glass. The thought flicks through my head that this isn’t normal; the intensity of it, the tight focus of her concentration. And yet I can’t help but respond to it. When you’re at the centre of that focus, I realize, it’s hard to ignore.
‘I’ve had a message,’ I hear myself say. The enormity of it all is swirling in my head, but I have to get rid of at least a fraction of it. ‘From an ex,’ I manage to say.
Amber nods slowly; her eyes are asking me to continue.
‘I’m not …’ Speaking is an effort. ‘I’m not sure what it means.’ Abruptly, the tears dry up. I sit down numbly on the low garden wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man opposite straighten up to dust off his hands, give me one last look then disappear slowly back towards his house.
Amber sees me looking. ‘Don’t worry about him.’ She raises her voice, just loud enough that it might carry on the wind. ‘It’s your business, not everyone else’s.’ The man’s back stiffens, and he slams the front door behind him without looking back.
Amber turns back, crouching down beside me. ‘Listen,’ she says, ‘is this ex someone you want back in your life, or not?’
‘No,’ I say quickly. The word feels treacherous and unreliable in my mouth. ‘No.’
‘Then you ignore the message,’ she says, shrugging. ‘It’s simple.’ All of a sudden, the concern has dropped away from her face and she’s smiling as if she has solved a complex conundrum, the final piece slotting into place to illuminate the whole.
I nod, because there seems to be nothing else to do. There’s no way of explaining that it’s already too late to ignore you. And besides, the question she has asked me is redundant. You can’t come back into somebody’s life when you’re already in it. What happened to us isn’t something that can be brushed away or undone. Even after all this time, it’s still under my skin.
Home
Caroline, May 2013
IT’S SATURDAY MORNING and, as soon as we get up, everything is clear and sweet and simple. The night has passed uninterrupted, free of the erratic noises and movements that so often characterize Francis’s wakeful hours before dawn. He’s slept in our bed all night; opening my eyes to see him beside me feels gleefully novel, as if we’re a young couple waking up together for the first time.
Eddie has slept well, too, and prattles through his breakfast, a barely comprehensible stream of consciousness that could be conversation or the aftermath of some half-remembered dream.
‘Come on,’ I tell him, bringing him his clothes. ‘Arms up,’ and he obediently stretches, his fingers splayed and grasping for the skies.
‘You want to go to the playground,’ he says, his voice muffled as I pull his T-shirt over his head. It’s a strange little quirk that always makes me smile, this inability to differentiate between the first and second person, as if we’re two indistinguishable halves of the same whole.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘We can do that. I’m not sure about Daddy …’ I glance at Francis, expecting him to make some excuse, but he smiles.
‘Why not?’ he says. ‘Nice day for it. We could go down to that one near the river.’
‘There you go, Eddie.’ I nudge him gently in the ribs. ‘Mummy and Daddy will both come. Does that sound good?’
‘Yes!’ He beams and throws himself between us on the sofa, arms stretched haphazardly in an attempted cuddle. You could take a snapshot of us now, I find myself thinking, and we’d look like a happy family. And although I know that pictures lie and moments are transitory, it’s a comfort, nonetheless, to think that, even momentarily, the pieces have clicked into place and are fitting together the way they were always meant to.
‘We could leave now,’ I suggest tentatively. A little thought is flickering at the back of my mind – I don’t think he has taken anything this morning, and if I can get us out of the house … He frowns slightly as he weighs up my proposal. For an instant, the air between us sharpens and tightens as I wait. Then he nods, and I’m rushing Eddie into his shoes and jacket, pulling on my own clothes and getting the buggy ready, filled with a crazy, stupid sense of elation.
We take the bus to the playground, and all the way Eddie sings loudly, tracing patterns in the air with his hands as if he’s conducting the passengers. Sometimes, strangers can be unfriendly, but today it’s all indulgent looks and doting smiles. ‘He’s lovely,’ an elderly woman comments to us as she hobbles off the bus. It feels like an award, a seal of approval. We’ve done something right. Francis brushes my hand with his fingertips and my eyes fill up with tears.
At the playground, Eddie runs ahead and launches himself straight on to the climbing wall, struggling to get a grip in his canvas shoes. I buy a carton of juice from the café and stand watching him, laughing as he grudgingly accepts an offer of help from an older boy, then follows him minutes later to the sandpit and stands shyly, waiting to be invited to play.
On the bench behind me, Francis laughs, too, and it strikes me that I haven’t heard this sound in a while. I twist around and look at him, trying to see him through fresh eyes. So many times in the past few months I’ve been ambushed by the sharp, unpleasant thought that he’s little more than a ruin of who he once was – the pale, bloated face, the glazed eyes. But today, with the brightness of the early summer sun streaming across his face and the happiness he radiates as he watches Eddie, he looks almost well.
He catches me staring and gets up, hands in his pockets as he strolls towards me. ‘He’s enjoying it,’ he comments. A beat, and then he slips his arm around my waist. ‘I am, too,’ he says.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
‘Listen,’ he says quietly, bending his head closer towards mine. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve been rubbish lately. I’m going to change things, you know.’
It’s the first time for months that he has said these words, and it feels as if some tension has snapped and released. The warmth of the sun is on our faces and we’re watching our child playing and, even though I’ve heard it all before, in this moment it feels like there’s nothing wrong and nothing in the way.
The words I’ve held back for weeks are forcing themselves to the surface. ‘The pills …’ I say. ‘I know you say you aren’t, but I know you’re taking them again.’ I hesitate. ‘Too much,’ I force myself to say.
His eyes cloud and I think he will shrug and retreat into another distant denial. Then he gives a brisk, decisive nod. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s stupid. I don’t know why.’