Between You and Me

by Carol Mason

  Within fifteen minutes, I have twelve replies. Half of them are outraged and say if I turn a blind eye it will only happen again. And again. Three suggest I call Grace out for lying. Two say this is life – their life too – and I should have known it when I married a man with kids. And then Odd One Out pops up again.

  Hi there. Me again. Try to move past the anger. My strategy? I fester for a day, then start afresh tomorrow. You said before that OH is fair, so this sense of betrayal is big for you. Okay, he never promised you a rose garden, but he owes it to you to not disappoint you as a human being. Talk to him. Keep it friendly.

  The lyrics of one of my favourite Billie Jo Spears’s songs spring to mind: ‘(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden’.

  Odd One Out – thank you. What you say makes sense – and, as an aside, that just happens to be one of my favourite songs! Anyway, not sure I’ll master the art of staying friendly but appreciate the reminder to try!

  Ten minutes later she replies:

  I hear you. Then do what’s comfortable for you. Remember, you didn’t marry Prince Charming. Sometimes OH will be slow to find fault with his daughter. It’s easier to find it with you, sadly. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, or value you, or want to make you happy. You may just have to slowly coax him out of this behaviour. Also, you’re not Pollyanna playing ‘the glad game’ – hope you get this reference! – this is life, and you chose it, warts and all. But you don’t have to stick it out. If it’s truly intolerable, you can change it and the world will still go on. Anyway. I am no expert. Clearly. Or I’d not be on this forum! Wishing you luck!

  I google the reference to Pollyanna and ‘the glad game’: a fictional heroine who was taught by her father to find something in every situation to be glad about – who then went on to spread good cheer to the common folk wherever she went.

  But who then became synonymous with blind optimism.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Shit.’ Joe walks out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and his mobile in his hand. ‘Toby’s come down with something and needs to go to the doctor. Meredith’s in court and I’ve got to get to a meeting.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I ask.

  He digs in the drawer for his underwear and socks. ‘Fever, stomach ache, headache . . . She’s been up half the night with him, gave him a couple of aspirin. Rosamie can take him to the doctor’s this morning, but she won’t be free to watch him until much later in the day because she’s taking her sick daughter to an appointment.’

  ‘She probably doesn’t want to give him aspirin,’ I say, and carefully tell him why. ‘Calpol would be better.’

  He sighs. Types.

  ‘Oh . . . maybe don’t tell her that!’

  ‘Too late.’ He tosses his phone on to the bed but it pings right away. He picks it up, reads. ‘Urgh!’ He clicks off.

  I perch on the end of the bed as he disappears into the walk-in wardrobe and then emerges in navy suit trousers and his trademark crisp white dress shirt.

  ‘I can probably help out,’ I say. ‘I’m not due into work until four . . . I could take him to see his family doctor if Meredith likes, instead of the housekeeper. Then he can come back here with me before I head into work. So long as she can find someone to collect him before three.’ Perhaps it will be a chance to get back into Meredith’s good books.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘That’s thoughtful, but I don’t want to be an imposition.’

  The formality of the word strikes me as a little odd. ‘It’s not an imposition,’ I say, noting how tired he looks. He tossed and turned in bed last night, something that’s common when he’s stressed about work. ‘Please let me do it.’

  He seems to hesitate, then says, ‘Well, let me check with Meredith, then.’ He reaches for his phone again, and is already texting her before I can suggest that I just sort it out with her instead.

  I hover there, while the topic bounces back and forth. Then he finally looks up. ‘Okay. That’s great. If you can make your way to the surgery – Meredith still wants Rosamie to be the one to take Toby in to see his doctor . . . Then you can collect him and bring him back here.’ He tells me he’ll text me Rosamie’s phone number just in case there’s any confusion.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I say, trying not to fixate on Meredith’s wishes. I tell him I’ll follow up with Rosamie in the afternoon to sort out the arrangements.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ he says. ‘It’s a big help.’

  A coffee thrown down, he’s rushing out the door. ‘Oh . . . take the Lexus. If you’re going to be doing all this driving . . . I’ll grab an Uber.’

  ‘I’d rather just take my car, actually,’ I say. I know he’s big on airbags, but I’m probably safer driving a car I know than a strange SUV with too many bells and whistles. But it’s too late. He’s already thrown me the key fob and, as a reflex, I’ve caught it.

  Toby has chickenpox. It’s pretty obvious the second I set eyes on him.

  ‘Oh, little man!’ I pluck him from Rosamie’s arms, introducing myself to her and thanking her at the same time. ‘I know . . . the itching’s awful.’

  Someone has dressed him in a pair of yellow-and-black striped pyjamas. I think he’s supposed to look like a bumble bee, but somehow looks more like a tiny inmate at a maximum-security penitentiary. Rosamie tells me that she will probably be available to collect Toby later this afternoon – in time for me to get to work.

  Back at the car, he fusses and fidgets as I try to secure him into his booster seat, flailing a fist and catching me on the nose.

  ‘It’s okay!’ I struggle to get his seat belt fastened. ‘Please don’t scratch your face, Toby. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘Itchy! I’m itchy!’ He makes a gruesome gurgling noise.

  ‘I know,’ I tell him, feeling his pain and frustration – and a little of my own. ‘But if you scratch you’ll only make it worse.’ I try to push away a small surge of helplessness as his hands fly up to his face again. ‘Please don’t do that.’

  ‘No!’ he screeches, as I gently attempt to take his hand away. Then he wails, ‘I want to sit in the front seat, not this seat!’

  ‘You can’t sit in the front seat, Toby. It’s not allowed. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘Mummy lets me! I want to! Want to!’ He screams harder, struggles like he’s trying to escape.

  ‘You can’t sit in the front seat. That’s not negotiable. But we can stop off and get you a chocolate bar if you like!’

  There’s a moment where his cries seem less frenetic and I think, Thank God! I walk around to the driver’s seat, get in, and take a moment to try to just breathe. Once I start up the car I see we’re very low on petrol. Damn. I pull out of the parking spot, glance in the rear view, see him tearing into his neck. ‘Please, Toby!’ Tension and helplessness clutch at my chest. ‘Please don’t do that! You’re going to make it so much worse. Please don’t scratch!’

  I am suddenly boiling hot, and I roll down the window. I can’t immediately think where the nearest petrol station is so I pull over again and try to work out how to punch it into Joe’s fancy sat nav. Damn. I keep mis-keying.

  ‘I want my mummy! I’m hungry and I want to go home.’

  ‘We are going home soon, Toby.’ Finally, I manage to get the thing going. ‘Just as soon as I get petrol . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to go with you! I want my mummy.’ He lets out another grisly gurgle and through the rear view I see him tug at the neck of his pyjamas to get at his skin.

  I think I want my mummy too.

  Once we get to the garage, I badly just want to get him his treat to shut him up, so I decide to go straight to the shop. There’s no one else in there, so I could probably be in and out in two minutes. But I can’t exactly leave him in the car, so we go through a similar rigmarole again as I haul him out of his seat and carry him inside.

  ‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!’ he wails. ‘I want Mummy! Why are you taking me in here?’

  ‘What snack
would you like, Toby? You can have anything you want, okay?’

  The woman manning the till is on the phone and looks up briefly. I pull a juice from the fridge and grab a Twirl when he won’t select anything for himself.

  ‘I want to go home,’ he wails when I try to pacify him by showing him the chocolate bar – one of his favourites that his dad lets him have.

  ‘I know, Toby.’

  He thrashes his arms and legs. His glasses fall off. I struggle to bend and pick them up while wrestling with the weight of him in my arms.

  The woman is still on the phone. She doesn’t want her daughter’s boyfriend coming over anymore on Sunday nights. Her daughter isn’t happy.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say.

  After a moment or two – reluctantly – she hangs up. ‘We’re having a problem with our system at the moment so we can only take cash,’ she says when I pull out my credit card.

  Damn! ‘I haven’t got cash,’ I say. ‘At least, I don’t think . . .’ I sit Toby on the counter and root around in my purse, pulling out all the loose change I can find.

  ‘You’re 51p short.’

  Her face doesn’t emote. I observe the deep wrinkles, the smoker’s lines puckering her lips.

  ‘Is there any way you could you take my card? Please. My stepson has chickenpox and I badly need to get him home.’

  She stares at Toby, and I think a mite of sympathy is breaking through. ‘I told you, no cards. We’re working on getting it fixed. It should be working again soon . . .’

  I have the most ridiculous urge to burst into tears. ‘Look,’ I say, trying to remember I’m an adult, not a big baby. I slip the credit card into my coat pocket. ‘Can I come back later with the 51p? It would have to be tomorrow, but . . . I can give you my name and address, even tell you where I work.’ I tell her I’m a doctor, for whatever that’s worth, and I say the name of my hospital.

  Her face softens a bit. ‘It’s fine.’ She waves a hand at the two items as though she’s got a grievance against them. ‘Just take them.’

  ‘I can’t just take them. Won’t you get into trouble?’

  ‘No worries. I’ll pay. 51p isn’t going to change my life. Get your stepson home.’ She looks me up and down. ‘Oh, and I gave mine baking soda baths when they had chickenpox. Worked a charm.’

  I thank her profusely, gather my stuff and a whimpering Toby. I’m just getting to the door when she says, ‘My Archie has had a searing pain running down his right leg for a while now. Do you think it could be a thrombosis?’

  I try not to look aghast. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, attempting to glance back over my shoulder. ‘I can’t diagnose someone without examining him. I’d encourage him to see his family doctor.’

  ‘He can’t go to the doctor. He’s always working, isn’t he?’ she says as I struggle out of the door.

  The sky has suddenly gone dark and I feel a few big droplets of rain as we hurry under cover. I throw my bag on to the driver’s seat, then we go through the same palaver of getting him back in his seat – thankfully he’s a tiny bit more compliant now that I’ve given him his chocolate bar. I reach into my coat pocket for my credit card so I can fill up the petrol, shut the car door and . . .

  It locks.

  What?

  My heart gives one enormous kick of terror.

  I try again. Nothing.

  Where’s the fob? Did I leave it in my bag? I can’t think straight. I pat my coat pockets, dig my hands inside. My fingers land on it. The fob! In my pocket! Toby, in his little convict’s pyjamas, peers out of the window.

  I click on the open icon . . . Nothing happens.

  ‘Shit!’

  Toby starts to cry again.

  I try moving away, and then getting closer to the door. Click, click, click. Nothing. It’s dead.

  ‘Shit, shit,’ I say under my breath. I try to think what to do.

  My first thought is to ring Joe. But then I realise my phone is in my bag on the driver’s seat. Goddamn it!

  ‘It’s okay, Toby,’ I say. He’s crying so hard I can practically see his tonsils. ‘It’s okay. I’m going to get the door open. I promise.’ I press my hand to the glass. He presses his. We are joined there in our mutual despair. I’m going to have to go back in the shop and ask to use her phone. But I can’t just leave him here. I have no idea what to do. ‘Hello!’ I shout towards the window, to try to get her attention. I wave and jump up and down. But she’s on the phone again and neither sees nor hears me.

  I’m just thinking Shit, now what, when out of the blue I hear a voice say, ‘What’s happening? Can I help?’

  When I turn around there’s a fit young guy standing beside a black Audi. He has a pleasant face, looks a bit like an approachable professional footballer. Reluctantly, I tell him what’s happened.

  ‘I’ve no idea why it locked on me! I didn’t press anything. The key was in my pocket!’

  He nods, glances inside at Toby. ‘Maybe what happened was you left your hand on the handle a second too long and it auto-locked.’ He takes the fob from my hands, tinkers with it. I note the nice three-quarter leather car coat that could only look good on tall slim guys, the black polo sweater and slim jeans. ‘I think it’s the battery. What year is the car?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I say. I tell him it’s my husband’s, that I’ve never actually driven it before.

  ‘Not to worry,’ he says, glancing at Toby again. ‘Let’s just get your kid out of there. I think I’ve got a solution.’

  Your kid. For some reason that touches me in a way that I’m not prepared for, and in that moment I want more than anything in the world for Toby to be my child.

  ‘I’ve got a similar fob. We can try my battery in yours. If we can get it started, you might be able to drive it. So long as you don’t turn the engine off.’

  I push hair off my face. There’s no way I’m risking driving it and having something crazy like this happen again. The second I get Toby out of his seat I’m calling an Uber X with a car seat. I watch helplessly as he fiddles with his remote, taking out a coin to open the back of it.

  ‘I appreciate this,’ I say.

  ‘It’s my pleasure.’

  I’m just thinking through the logistics. I’ll have to tell Joe what happened and he’ll have to Uber back with the other fob. What a drama! I turn and do one of my silly acts to try to amuse Toby. Fortunately he smiles.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ I say, once the door clicks open.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asks Toby, and Toby tells him.

  ‘What’s yours?’ I say.

  He smiles. ‘I’m Kevin Westcott.’ He digs in his coat pocket and pulls out a card. ‘If you ever want to buy a house, I’m in the business.’ I glance at the card and see he’s CEO of a chain of high street estate agents I recognise. ‘Or . . .’ He nods to the car. ‘If you’re ever in need of a mechanic.’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ I say, and thank him again.

  NINETEEN

  When we get home, I try Joe several times but his phone is switched off. Rosamie is held up in traffic getting across London, so the second I hand him over I have to pelt for my connections so as not to be late for my shift.

  At some point in the early evening while I’m busy explaining some test results to a patient whose English is very limited, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it, but a few minutes later it vibrates again.

  When I get a chance to check it I see that it’s Meredith. I’m just about to call her back when she rings again.

  ‘You locked him in the car? Are you kidding me?’ Her fury comes at me like a rogue wave. ‘Toby said a man had to come and help you get the door open!’

  ‘Meredith,’ I jump in. ‘There’s no reason to panic. I—’

  ‘No reason to panic?’

  ‘It was two minutes.’ I try to keep my voice low. But I’ve barely got the words out when a consultant walks up to me and gives me the death stare. ‘Look, hang on a minute,’ I tell her. ‘Please don’t go away .
. .’

  The consultant then proceeds to give me a bollocking for not paging him the second some test results were back. I try to tell him that I wasn’t aware the results had come back yet as I had been so busy with another patient, but he says, ‘Perhaps if you weren’t dealing with your social life, you might pay attention to fractionally more important matters.’ And then he walks away.

  Urgh!

  When I come back to Meredith I’ve no idea if she heard all of that. As if I need to feel any smaller, I say, ‘Look . . . Meredith. Toby was completely fine.’ I rush out the Coles Notes account of what happened.

  ‘Hang on . . .’ she says. ‘Back up. Did you leave him in the car when you went into the shop?’

  ‘No. Of course not! He came inside with me. He was with me the whole time.’

  ‘Except when you locked him in the car, and you were out of the car.’

  I try not to let out a sigh of frustration. ‘I was right there. Like I said, it was all of a few minutes.’

  There’s a stiff silence where I can tell she’s trying to decide whether to accept this. The consultant is now standing by the nurse’s station and sends me a look.

  Just when I think this is over, she says, ‘What if it had been summer and twenty-five degrees? What would have happened to him then, Lauren? You can’t lock a kid in a car. I’m not sure where you’ve been your entire life in order to miss this fact, but you can go to jail for things like this. It’s negligence by any judge’s standards. Have you any idea how terrified he would have been?’

  I reel at the words negligence and judge, open my mouth to protest that it wasn’t summer and twenty-five degrees and – actually – he wasn’t terrified – but the consultant is still glaring at me. I say, ‘Look I’m really, really sorry but I have to go. I’m one of only two doctors in the middle of a very busy shift—’

  ‘You’re not the only one trying to do a job!’ Her tone is cutting. ‘I’m at work too. I don’t exactly need this either.’

  I go to tell her that’s not quite what I meant, but she’s hung up on me.