‘You could give him a call,’ Francis suggests, noticing my silence.
‘Yeah, I think I will.’ As we retrace our steps and wander towards the fish-and-chip place we spied earlier, I dial my mother’s number. There’s a scrambling at the end of the line when it’s picked up, and a muffled, ‘Go on, then,’ in the background, but Eddie doesn’t speak. I listen to the sound of his breathing, heavy and intent down the line, waiting.
‘Hello!’ I sing out. ‘I’m just here at the seaside with Daddy. He’s won you a toy.’
‘A toy?’ His voice comes loud and clear now, piqued with interest. ‘What toy?’
‘A dolphin,’ I say, not sure if he will understand. ‘Like a fish, you know … but bigger. We can give it to you when we get back. Are you having a nice time?’
‘… Yes,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘We went to the playground. I miss you.’
His voice is even and untroubled, but all the same my eyes smart briefly with tears. ‘I miss you, too, sweetheart.’ I want to say more, but Eddie’s breathing is already growing more distant, and I hear the clunk of the phone being laid down. He’s too young to concentrate on the phone for long, and it comes to me now how much of our bond relies on simply being there, in the same place at the same time.
Another scuffle, and my mother comes on the line. ‘Having fun?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, slowly. ‘But it’s hard. Being away from him, and …’ Something shifts nebulously in the back of my mind, a half-expressed, suppressed thought; the image of you, nearer my child than I am.
‘Come on now,’ my mother says briskly. ‘Eddie’s fine. You’re meant to be relaxing.’ I know she means well, but there’s a brittle edge to her tone that makes me wonder if she’s getting exasperated. It’s as if there’s an unspoken question there: What more do you want? I’m not even sure what the answer is.
As I hesitate, I see Francis coming out of the fish-and-chip shop, holding two bulging paper bags and a bottle of wine, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. ‘I’d better go,’ I say. ‘Just about to have something to eat.’
‘All OK?’ Francis asks, when I have hung up, and I nod.
We pick our way across the pebbles to find a suitable spot to sit, and as we settle down I feel my muscles untensing again, seduced by the sea air. I pop a chip into my mouth, feeling heat and salt spread sharply on my tongue. The pebbles we’re sitting on are faintly glistening, slicked with spray.
‘We could move here,’ I say suddenly.
Sprawled next to me with his face turned upwards to the sun, Francis squints. ‘What? But … We only moved to Leeds about eight months ago. Don’t you like it?’
‘It’s not that.’ Leeds still doesn’t feel like home, but I wouldn’t fully expect it to, not yet. As I struggle to articulate what I mean, I realize that it’s stupid. I want this sense of being outside my own life, all the time. I want a holiday every day of the week. I put aside my crumpled newspaper of fish and chips half eaten, staring out to sea. ‘Forget it,’ I say. ‘Just an idle thought.’
Francis nods in acquiescence, draining the wine from his plastic cup. I glance at the almost empty bottle beside him. ‘Hadn’t you better stop?’ I ask. ‘You’ve got to drive, remember.’
Francis looks across at me, and I have a small, uneasy premonition of what he is about to say. ‘I probably have had a bit too much,’ he says. ‘Couple of glasses. Maybe you should drive back.’
I shake my head. A gust of wind blows across our picnic spot, bristling the hairs on my arms. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve been drinking, too, remember.’
‘You’ve had half a glass,’ he insists, ‘at the most. Come on, Caro. It makes sense.’
With a lurch of nausea, I realize that he is serious. ‘No,’ I repeat. A pulse is starting to beat in my head, colouring the scenery around me in a tremulous pale blue haze. I can barely remember the feeling of my hands on the steering wheel, the way the engine flared up and sputtered when I turned the key in the ignition. It comes to me now in flashes – evil little glimpses peeking through the blackness. The long, narrow road I last drove up. The gleam of headlights scattering light on to the asphalt; you sitting beside me, your hand resting at the edge of the skirt rucked up to my thighs; the last few minutes beautifully free of what was to come.
The sky darkens, and I lie down, closing my eyes. I’m shivering, suddenly light-headed.
I can feel Francis watching me, and after a while he speaks again. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘there’s really no reason not to.’
It’s unfair, but I feel rage pushing its way to the surface. He knows nothing. Doesn’t understand. I remind myself that I can’t expect him to. It’s like trying to turn a juggernaut, forcing the anger back into its box and packing it safely away, out of reach.
Another minute’s pause, and then he sighs. I hear the sound of scuffling as he settles back down. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘We’ll stay another couple of hours, then. Wait for it to wear off.’
Silently, I nod. I don’t open my eyes.
Home
Francis, May 2013
THE TRAINS ARE fucked again. As soon as I get to the station, I see the departures board striped in pale blue: delayed, cancelled, status unknown. Down on the platform, dozens of people are milling restlessly and muttering to themselves like maniacs, jabbing at phones and swigging coffees.
A bored announcement filters through the hum of noise every so often. Trains to London Waterloo are subject to delays and last-minute cancellations. This is due to a fatality on the line. We apologize for any disruption this will cause to your journey. Some clever dick has thrown himself under a train. Of all the ways to go, it’s one of the hardest to imagine. Cinematic, comedic almost – a high-speed impact and an extravagant gush of red. I read once they sometimes find limbs miles away from the site of the crash. Nasty. All the same, there’s something about the idea I like; it’s the closest you can get in death to sticking two fingers up to the machine. Inconveniencing a few hundred fat cats on their way to work isn’t a bad by-product of self-obliteration and, normally, I’d be all for it, only of course, this time, it affects me, too.
The announcement is looping around again. We apologize for the disruption. The apology is aggressively stressed. We’ve said sorry, so fuck off. I leave it ten more minutes then walk back home and take the car. Usually, I avoid driving in because there’s hardly anywhere to park near the clinic and the roads can be snarled up at this time of day, but there doesn’t seem to be much choice. Strangely, I’m in quite a good mood. I turn the radio up and concentrate on the road. My hands are shaking and there’s a familiar pulse aching in my head, but that’s minor stuff. No pills this morning. Maybe not until the evening. I’m singing along as loud as I can and my head is white noise.