by K. L. Slater
‘Tell me about it.’ I frown. ‘After seeing the boys virtually every day for the best part of three years, we’ve now got a situation where I haven’t set eyes on them since Monday evening.’
‘And what does Henry have to say about all this?’
‘He doesn’t know most of it yet.’ I pull a face. ‘I haven’t told him that I snooped at Ben’s house, and he’s away on one of his fishing trips, so he hasn’t seen the state I’ve got myself into. I’m hoping Ben won’t tell him about the scene I caused at school.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear all this, Judi.’ Maura touches my arm. ‘Have you spoken properly to Ben yet?’
I nodded. ‘He came over last night and we had a chat, but it’s like she’s brainwashed him, Maura. He won’t have it that she is in any way to blame for anything. But they’re all coming over on Sunday, so at least I’ll get to see the boys then. There’s nothing she can do about that, thank goodness.’
This morning when I left for work it was pleasant and dry, so I decided to walk in. I brought my umbrella just in case, but when I finish at one o’clock, I’m pleased to see that the weather is still fine.
As I walk, I begin to plan Sunday lunch in my head. I’m going to make sure I cook Ben and the boys’ very favourite dishes, so they know just what they’ll be missing out on if they stop coming over.
This time yesterday I was in quite a state, stalking off to school to see Noah and then to give Ben what for. Today, I push thoughts of seeing the boys out of my mind. Now I know they’re coming on Sunday, I can relax a little, safe in the knowledge that we’ll have a wonderful afternoon together. Despite Amber’s best efforts to spoil everything.
Walking past the park, I’m surprised to see Fiona Bonser there again, sitting on that same bench. The pushchair stands next to her thin mottled legs. I can’t help noticing that her feet are encased in the same scuffed stilettos she always wears. She is clutching a woefully thin cardigan close to herself with both hands, her back turned slightly away from the prevailing breeze.
At least this time she doesn’t appear to be sobbing, but after she gave me short shrift last time, I’ve no intention of stopping for a chat. I keep my eyes on the pavement ahead and continue walking.
‘Hello, Mrs Jukes,’ I hear her call.
I stop and look over the short hedge. ‘Oh, hello, Fiona,’ I say in mock surprise.
‘Bloody freezing, i’nt it?’ She wraps her arms tighter around herself.
‘It’s not so bad when you’re walking,’ I reply. ‘But you’re sitting there at the mercy of the wind, so I have to say you could do with a more substantial coat.’
‘Yeah, it’s on my wish list.’ She gives a dry laugh and I think about the five or six coats I never use, currently gathering dust in my wardrobe.
‘Well, I’d better get off, things to do. Take care of yourself, Fiona.’ I begin walking again. I’ve enough of my own problems to sort out without getting involved with hers.
‘Do you like birds?’
‘Sorry?’ I look back.
‘There’s a blackbird just over there; she keeps taking worms to her baby.’ She points towards the bushes and her face lights up with a childlike wonder. Then her smile fades. ‘Do you know, she’s doing a better job looking after her kid than I am.’
Fiona sounds like she’s carrying the weight of the entire world on her skinny shoulders. I feel bound to pass the time of day with her for a few minutes at least. So instead of walking on, I turn into the park entrance.
‘Hank’s asleep.’ She nods to the pushchair when I get close.
‘Hank? That’s an unusual name for a little one.’
‘His dad was American.’ She stares into the middle distance. ‘Reckoned we were going to get married and set up home together, didn’t he? He was going to take my other kids on and everything.’
‘But that didn’t happen, I take it?’
‘Nah. He ran off back to the States soon as he found out I was pregnant.’
‘I see,’ I say quietly.
‘Bastards, all of ’em.’ She looks at me, her eyes flashing. ‘Blokes. They treat you like shit, don’t they, Mrs Jukes?’
I give her a thin smile.
‘I suppose Mr Jukes is a nice man, though, eh?’ she says as an afterthought.
‘He has his moments,’ I say, peering into the pushchair. ‘Hank’s cheeks look rather red.’
‘He’s teething, little bugger. Keeps me up all night and then sleeps it off ready for his next go later on.’
‘There’s some very effective teething gel you can buy. It numbs their gums nicely. I think it’s called—’
‘Can you get it free on prescription?’
‘No. At least I don’t think so, but you could always ask the doctor. I don’t actually think it’s that expensive.’
She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
‘I bet it’ll still make a big hole in the fiver I’ve got to last me until I get my Family Allowance on Monday, though.’
I nod, understanding and feeling chastised. ‘How are you, Fiona? In yourself, I mean.’
‘Oh, you know,’ she replies flatly.
‘I don’t know, not really. To be truthful, you look very cold and a bit down in the dumps.’
She sits thinking for a moment and then shakes her head as if she’s decided against saying something. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you eating properly?’ I glance at her bony blue-tinged knees.
‘My kids don’t go hungry, if that’s what you’re trying to say,’ she snaps. ‘I’d starve to feed them kids, I would.’
‘Fiona, I wasn’t implying anything of the sort,’ I say hastily. ‘I know that you look after your children very well. The best you can.’ I say this despite little Hank lying there in his pushchair unprotected and quite under-dressed for the cooler weather.
‘Yeah, well, most people don’t think that about me. I can see it in their faces. Disapproval.’
‘I’m not most people. It’s obvious to me that you love your children very much.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Jukes,’ she says with a smile. ‘I’d do anything for my kiddies. I would, you know. It’s just that sometimes … well, it gets so bloody hard.’
She looks at me and I can see she’s starting to well up.
‘Now come on. Cheer up, Fiona. You’re doing an amazing job under very difficult circumstances, and for that, you’re to be admired.’
‘It’s just … it’s just …’ She can’t get past those two words.
‘It’s just what, dear?’
‘It’s just so fucking hard at times.’ She wipes her eyes with the back of her fingers. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to swear.’
‘I’ve heard worse, don’t worry about that.’ I pat her leg and it’s freezing to the touch. ‘When was the last time you had a decent meal, Fiona?’
She shrugs. ‘I finished the kids’ beans on toast that they left last night.’
I glance at my watch. It’s a quarter past one and Henry isn’t due back until at least six this evening. I stand up. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Eh? Go where?’
‘You’re coming home with me. I’m going to cook you a nice meal, you can have a hot bath to warm you up and we’ll collect some teething gel for young Master Hank on the way.’
‘But where … I can’t …’
‘I won’t take no for an answer, Fiona. I’d really like to do this; please let me.’
She stands up, her high heels sinking into the soft ground beneath our feet. She turns to me as if she’s going to object again, and I press my finger to my lips.
‘Let’s just go,’ I say.
39
Judi
The first regrets begin to surface in my mind after we’ve been walking for about ten minutes.
I start to think about what Maura might say if she finds out. Getting involved in a patient’s personal life is never advisable, and I’m pretty certain that the doctors, my employers, would frown on it.
But I shrug off the grumbles. I can’t just leave Fiona there to suffer alone. She seems so wretched. So lost and alone and in need of someone to offload to.
As we walk up the street towards home, Fiona looks open-mouthed at the large houses on either side. ‘Do you live in one of these, Mrs Jukes?’
‘Call me Judi.’ I smile at her. ‘I suppose our house is quite similar to these properties, yes. We’re nearly there now, so you’ll see it for yourself.’
She doesn’t reply, just keeps tottering along in her high heels, gawping at the properties as we pass. In the stark daylight, I notice that the old acne scars are clearly visible on her skin, the thick brown make-up sinking into the tiny craters, casting shadows that make the pitted hollows look much worse.
‘Here we are,’ I say, turning into our driveway and reaching for the buggy. ‘Let me help you with that.’
‘Blimey, look at this. It’s just like Downton Abbey.’
I smile and take the pushchair handles, negotiating the buggy along the narrow pathway that runs over the gravelled surface of the drive. I turn around to make sure Fiona is following, and see that her painted face is turned upwards, taking in the scale of a house that is merely ordinary to me but extraordinary to her.
I step up on to the tiled porch step and unlock the door, pushing it wide open.
‘In you go, Fiona, I’ll bring the pushchair in behind.’
Once we’re both inside, I push the buggy down the hall to the open space under the stairs, and Fiona lifts Hank out. His eyes flutter and open and immediately scan his surroundings.
Fiona helps me make up his bottle in the kitchen. It feels so nice having a baby in the house again.
‘It’s a long time since I’ve done this.’ I spoon in the powdered formula milk. ‘Too long, in fact.’
‘Your kitchen, it’s like something out of one of them posh house magazines.’ Fiona takes a long drink of the fresh orange juice she says she prefers over tea. ‘If I lived in this place, I reckon I might never go out again.’
I grin and look at her but see immediately, by the way she is taking in the room, seemingly in awe, that she is deadly serious. To her, the spacious duck-egg-blue Shaker kitchen I barely notice any more is the epitome of real luxury living.
For a moment I’m transported back to the day Henry and I looked around the house as prospective buyers. When the estate agent discreetly disappeared in order to give us a few minutes to chat things over, I clapped my hands together, stretched up onto my tiptoes and kissed my new husband on the cheek. It happened here, in the very spot I’m standing right now.
‘It’s my dream house,’ I breathed in his ear. ‘I love it. But I love you more.’
‘Glad to hear it. And I love you too, Judi Jukes.’ Henry never tired of calling me by my full married name for our first few years together; said he loved the alliteration, just the sound of it rolling over his tongue. ‘We’re going to be very, very happy here. We’ll raise our family and grow old together, pottering around in that beautiful garden until the sun goes down.’
I remember smiling that day, looking out of the French doors on to the pretty planted space beyond, imagining us taking tea out there together of an afternoon, or maybe sipping a glass of chilled wine as the sun disappeared behind the sleek conifers. I remember stroking my rapidly rounding belly – our first baby, David – and thanking God for everything He’d given me.
Now Henry pays a nearby retired landscape gardener, Mr Buxton, to mow the grass, and I can’t remember the last time we spent any time together outside.
‘Judi, are you OK?’
Fiona’s concerned voice brings me back to the moment, and I smile and screw the top firmly on Hank’s feeding bottle.
‘Sorry, I was just thinking about when we first moved in here. I can hardly believe it’s so long ago now. And do you know, Fiona, the strangest thing is that sometimes it seems a whole lifetime away, and then at other times the memories are as vivid as if it all literally happened yesterday.’
Fiona shoots me a sideways glance but doesn’t answer.
I pop upstairs, throwing my coat and handbag on my bed. From the wardrobe I select a mid-length feather-filled coat that I haven’t worn at all this year, and then it’s on to the bathroom to run Fiona a scented bath. I lift two of our best high-thread-count Egyptian cotton towels out of the airing cupboard and lay them on the side of the vanity unit. Finally I hang a freshly laundered white cotton robe on the hook inside the door.
A trickle of pleasure runs through me when I think of Fiona enjoying the experience.
‘Your bath is running now,’ I say when I get back downstairs. She’s standing at the kitchen doors looking out at the garden. ‘Bathroom is up the stairs, first on the right.’ Her face lights up when I hold out the coat. ‘And this is for you. It should keep you a great deal warmer than that little scrap of knitwear. I’ll pop it on the pushchair for when you leave.’
I’m astonished how willingly she hands Hank over to me. ‘Thanks, Mrs Jukes … Judi. All this … well, it’s ever so good of you.’
‘Really, it’s nothing. Enjoy your bath, and when you come down, I’ll have a nice lunch waiting.’
When I hear the bathroom door close behind her upstairs, I take Hank and the bottle full of warm milk into the living room. I pile a few cushions behind me and sit cradling him in my arms while he takes the milk, staring up at me with enormous trusting dark blue eyes.
When David was around five or six months old, he had trouble keeping his milk down. We got to the stage where we wore towels over our clothes after he’d fed because invariably, within minutes, up it would all come again. When the symptoms showed no signs of abating and David began losing weight, we were referred to the hospital. It was found David had gastro-oesophageal reflux and needed a minor operation to fix it. After that he was fine for a short time and then it started happening again. The doctors simply couldn’t find what the problem was.
I remember it was a very worrying time, especially when we couldn’t get any answers. Eventually the regurgitation of his food stopped and he began gaining weight again. But in the meantime, during those awful weeks of not knowing what was wrong, family and friends rallied round. Everyone looked after both me and David. Henry, who by this time had already seemed to have lost interest in me as a wife, transformed overnight into a knight in shining armour. He wrapped us both in cotton wool, took some time off work and basically wouldn’t let me lift a finger.
It partly drove me mad, but although I never admitted it to anyone, it made me feel safe and precious, and for a short time it was just like the first few months of our courtship all over again.
I still get a warm feeling thinking about that time, even now.
40
Judi
When Hank has taken half the bottle, I adjust him into a seated position and rub his back gently.
There is a line of dried dirt on his neck and underneath his ear, and his tiny hands are splayed like grubby starfish on my lower arm. I spot small patches of a biscuity crust bunched around the edge of his pale sandy-coloured hairline.
His cheeks are ruddy and sore near his mouth and I feel annoyed that we called at the chemist for teething gel on the way over here and I could just as easily have picked up some shampoo and oil to treat his cradle cap too.
I know Fiona does her best with her children, but I’m afraid it isn’t nearly good enough. I shiver when I consider that this precious, healthy boy, with his whole life in front of him, has already lost the lottery when it comes to his mother.
Hank releases a small burp of wind pretty much without any help, and I tilt him back down again. He takes the rest of the feed willingly and hungrily. When we get to the end, I feel certain he could easily have taken more, and it makes me wonder whether he is getting his three necessary feeds a day.
I use a spot of antibacterial foam on my finger, and when it’s dry, I squirt a blob of teething gel onto the tip and wait until Hank opens his r
osebud mouth.
I begin to sing, jigging him very gently on my knee. ‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle. That’s the way the money goes, POP goes the weasel!’ Hank lets out an amused little cackle and I slip my finger into his mouth, rubbing the numbing gel on to one side of his gums.
The wet skin is swollen and hot under my fingertip, and every so often I feel a rugged little bump as a tooth pushes up, ready to break through the inflammation. When I’ve done the other side, I wipe my finger on a tissue and lift him up in front of me.
Both Noah and Josh suffered terribly when they were teething. I can remember having each one of them for several nights when they were tiny to give Ben and Louise a rest. Louise was never threatened by my closeness to Ben and the boys. On the contrary, she was the first to admit how much she appreciated my advice and experience.
I hold Hank under his arms and bounce his feet lightly on my knee. His pale blue socks look bobbly and worn and are clearly in desperate need of a thorough wash, if not the bin.
‘Is it time to change Hank’s stinky nappy? Is it?’ I chant in a silly voice. ‘I think Nanny Judi better had, yes I do!’
I’m just about to sit him down again when he lets out a sort of garbled sigh, and a sticky little hand shoots out and gently touches my cheek, lingering there. He looks at me with wide, trusting eyes and then gives me a big toothless grin, as if he can’t believe his luck that he’s here.
It’s so wonderful to feel wanted again.
I quickly change Hank’s nappy, trying to ignore how badly stocked Fiona’s changing bag is. Its meagre contents include one of the thinnest, cheapest nappies I’ve ever seen, a nearly empty tube of soothing cream and a dummy. And that’s about it.
I peel off the existing sodden nappy to find that the poor child is rife with nappy rash, and after I’ve liberally applied the cream, the tube is completely empty.
I look up to the ceiling, hearing the telltale creaking of the floorboards that signals Fiona is out of the bath.
