Cross Her Heart: A Novel

by Sarah Pinborough

  I freeze where I am, confused and alarmed. Is this my fault? Is this because I’ve been so shitty? I hover in the hallway, unsure of what to do. Do I ask her what’s wrong? I feel small again. I go to take a step forward, but then hesitate. There’s something about the way she’s standing—the stillness—that makes me feel as if I’m watching something private. Something where I don’t belong. Are the cracks in our relationship coming from her side too? Does she have secrets she’s not sharing? I find it hard to believe. She’s an open book, my mum.

  It’s unsettling though. Those little bottles hold only one glass or so, but who doesn’t pour wine before drinking? What would make you drain it in basically one swallow? In the end, my stomach in knots, I creep back upstairs. I can live without a cup of tea.

  6

  Lisa

  It’s pitch-dark outside, no hint of a comforting grainy dawn gray yet, but I sit, wide awake, with my knees up under my chin and stare out at the bleak night, my stomach in terrible knots. It wasn’t Peter Rabbit. I know that. Peter Rabbit is long gone. It would be impossible for it to have been Peter Rabbit, the Peter Rabbit, but I want to run down to the recycle bins at the end of the road and root it out again to be sure. I take a deep breath. It’s not Peter Rabbit. It’s just a coincidence.

  When I’d seen the soft toy out there in the rain, slumped dejectedly against Mrs. Goldman’s gate, my heart had almost stopped. It was grubby and sodden, dropped maybe hours before, but the bright blue trousers stood out against the graying white fur. It wasn’t the same bunny, that was clear when I’d picked it up with trembling hands and a scream trapped in my throat, but it was close. So close. I wanted to hold it against my chest and wail, but the front door opened and Mrs. Goldman appeared and instead I forced an air of idle curiosity as I asked if she knew whose it was. She didn’t, of course. Why would she? Her hearing isn’t great and her days are spent staring at the TV, not out of the window.

  I gave her the bag of shopping and tried to smile and chat but the bunny was heavy and wet in my hand and the soft fur was cold, and all I could think was how the blue dungarees were exactly the same shade and style as those dungarees and those dungarees had been handmade, and my head started to swim and I felt sick. Once Mrs. Goldman had finally gone back inside, I forced a confident walk down the path and then, out of sight of both her house and mine, I finally held the toy close as if it were a dead animal my body heat could somehow bring back to life.

  I took several deep breaths, years of therapy having drummed the technique into me as if steady oxygen could make anything better when most of the time I wished I didn’t have to breathe anymore at all, and walked swiftly to the big bank of recycling bins at the end of the road and threw it inside. I could still feel the ghost of damp fur against my fingertips though, and I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me home without crumpling.

  In the kitchen, for once grateful my daughter was finally becoming the kind of surly teenager who hides in her room, I grabbed the small bottle of Prosecco Marilyn had given me from my handbag and twisted the cap off, drinking it straight from the bottle in two goes. The acid bubbles made my chest burn and my eyes sting but I didn’t care. Anything was better than the awful pain and fear at the core of me, in the place I try hard to pretend is at best empty now, until something like this happens and the scab is ripped away and all the terrible, terrible hurt crammed inside is exposed once more and I want to curl up and die.

  I gasped and choked as I swallowed the last of the wine, leaning on the breakfast bar and using the physical discomfort as a distraction to calm my thinking. Slowly the buzzing in my ears faded. It was a coincidence, it had to be. Lots of children have toy bunnies. Some poor toddler was probably crying for the one I’d so ruthlessly tossed away at the end of the street. So what if it was wearing blue dungarees? There were probably thousands of soft toys in dungarees. It wasn’t Peter Rabbit.

  I repeated that one sentence over and over in my head, glad I’d thrown the bunny away in the communal bins rather than the ones in our garden, too far to keep running to look at it without drawing attention to myself. It wasn’t Peter Rabbit. Yes, it had upset me, but it hadn’t been put there on purpose. It was harder to reconcile myself with the second sentence. It isn’t a statement of fact. It’s highly unlikely it’d been put there on purpose, but I can’t definitely know it in the way my sensible brain knows the toy I found wasn’t Peter Rabbit.

  It’s this unease I’ve felt recently. The sense something isn’t quite right. What if it’s more than my usual paranoia? What if I’m wrong to steer away from it? I get up and creep down the corridor to Ava’s room. The lights are all off and the house is silent and I twist the handle as carefully and slowly as I can, not wanting to make any noise.

  I watch her from the doorway, my perfect girl. She’s on her side, facing away from me, curled up small, exactly how she slept as a toddler. She is so precious, so wonderful, and looking at her calms me and reminds me that I have to stay alive, I have to keep breathing. For her. She gave me back my desire to live, and I will always protect her. She will never know what I keep inside. Not if I can help it. I want her to be blissfully free. It must be a wonderful thing to be blissfully free.

  I stay for a few minutes more, the sight of Ava far better for me than any amount of deep yoga breathing, and then reluctantly leave her to sleep in private. It’s nearly three a.m. Taking sleeping pills now is a bad idea, but so is facing the day with no rest at all, and so I compromise and swallow only one instead of the usual two I need when these fearful, sad moods have me gripped tight. I’ll feel terrible all morning tomorrow but at the moment two or three hours of oblivion is what I need. I can’t keep going around in circles of fear and grief. I’ll go mad by dawn if I do, I’m sure of it. The bad feeling is only my anxiety. The bunny wasn’t Peter Rabbit. The words bang at my skull, trying to knock sense into me as I crawl back under my covers.

  I want oblivion, but instead I dream. It’s the dream, in glorious, vivid Technicolor, and while I’m there, it’s wonderful.

  In the dream, I’m holding Daniel’s hand. It’s soft and small and warm and his fingers grip tight in the way toddlers do as he looks up at me and smiles. My heart bursts in rainbow showers of joy and I bend over to kiss him. His chubby cheeks are all smooth, creamy skin, tinged pink from the outside air, and he giggles in surprise as my lips smack loudly against his face, but his eyes are lit up by love. His eyes are like mine, blue flecked with gray and green, and in them I can see how I am his everything.

  Peter Rabbit is in his other hand, and he holds him maybe even more tightly than he holds on to me. He cannot imagine me not being there, but he’s had some near misses with Peter Rabbit. Once left on a bus but remembered in the nick of time. Another time, on a counter in the corner shop. Daniel has the fear that Peter Rabbit might one day not be there and the thought alone is enough to make him cry. He’s two and a half years old and Peter Rabbit is his best friend.

  I feel something tapping against my subconscious, a dark truth that won’t be ignored, not even in a dream—It is not Peter Rabbit who will one day not be there. This little hand in mine will be cold and still and will never reach for me again.—but I push it away and take Daniel to the small park with the tatty swings and roundabouts where the paint is so chipped the rust from the metal underneath stains clothes on a damp day, but he squeals with joy at the sight of it. He’s two and a half and he doesn’t see rust and decay and something unloved. He sees only the good things. He is the good thing.

  His hand is out of mine and he and Peter Rabbit run to the swings. I run after him, staying slightly behind because I love watching the way Daniel’s small body moves, so cute and clumsy, bound up in the constraints of his coat. He looks over his shoulder at me and I want to hold this picture of sweetness forever to remember when he is grown into a boy and then a man and this everything I am is gone.

  It is a perfect dream. An afternoon in the park. The love is overwhelming. It’s pure. It’s s
o strong it almost suffocates me, bubbling out through my pores there’s so much of it. It’s unrestrained. No barriers are up around it. There is nothing wicked in the world in that moment and I think, if I let the love take me, I shall transform into a pure beam of light shining on Daniel.

  I wake up, gasping painful breaths into my pillow and clutching at fragments of fading images, hoping in vain to grasp one and follow it back and hold his small hand forever. It’s always the same after the dream. It hurts so much I want to die, the aching need to go back and save him. I try to think of Ava, my perfect girl, the child who came after, oblivious, free and wonderful and untarnished by the world. She is here and alive and I love her with all of what’s left of my heart.

  Perhaps my love for Ava makes it all worse, if it’s at all possible. I think of the bunny rabbit in the bin. It is not Peter Rabbit. I know that. I know where Peter Rabbit is.

  Peter Rabbit was buried with Daniel.

  7

  Ava

  I’m not sure exactly what’s in the punch but it’s some crazy mix of shit. Fruit juice, lemonade, the vodka Ange brought, and a bottle of Bacardi Jodie added from her mum’s booze cupboard. Jodie reckons her mum won’t miss it, but I’m not so sure. There was a fierce look on Jodie’s face when she poured it all in that made me think her mum would definitely notice when she gets back from France. Like Jodie wanted to get into trouble. So weird, how our mums are such opposites. Jodie’s is never here and mine is becoming way too clingy. “Weird mums club” is what we call it. We haven’t told the others. They wouldn’t understand.

  My head buzzes. We had cider in the pub earlier and this is my second glass of punch. I’m well on my way to getting wasted, which is probably the best way for doing it. Losing it.

  I lean back on the bed, half lying down, my head resting against the wall. My mum would lose it if she could see me now, on my friend’s bed with my sort-of boyfriend. She’s already texted once to check that we’re all at the house. I’ve put my phone on silent. Imagine if she texted right in the middle? At least she’s gone out tonight. She doesn’t go out much, which makes me feel more guilty about wanting my own life, but I’ve been stretching the umbilical cord for the past year or so and I want it to snap, even though I can feel her constantly trying to pull me back.

  I’m still a bit freaked out by the other night. The weird drinking in the kitchen thing was bad enough, but then she came into my room in the middle of the night and watched me while I pretended to sleep. Why would she do that? It’s made me uncomfortable, as if the world is suddenly unsteady.

  I take a long swallow of my punch as, down the corridor, the toilet flushes. My heart speeds up a little. Fuck. I’m actually going to fuck. For a moment, I have a totally irrational longing for my mum. It makes me drink some more. She’s the last person I need. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a woman. He always says so.

  “You all right?” Courtney asks, as he comes back into Jodie’s spare bedroom and starts fiddling with his phone to play some tunes. I smile at him, nod, and drink some more. It’s too sweet but I don’t care. I want to get smashed, and the booze and lack of food is obliging. I wonder if he’s nervous. Probably not. If all the stories are true, Courtney’s done it loads.

  I’m not as anxious as I thought I would be. It’s been a busy day, I’m tired, and I could happily curl up and go to sleep. I started at the gym early this morning, and then, once my legs and shoulders were trembling and aching, I forced myself to swim for an hour. I’d met Ange at ten so she could buy something new to wear. Something skintight, obviously. Angela’s been served in pubs since she was about twelve. With her tits and all dressed up, Angela often looks older than Jodie.

  Courtney’s mouth is hot and wet on my neck and his hand slides onto my hip. This is it. I feel detached, here but not here. My body’s in the moment, but my mind isn’t, like I’m watching us from above and thinking, Just get on with it. I can hear my breath getting heavier, although I’m not really turned on. It’s a mechanical reaction. Being with Courtney means I can’t help thinking about him. I’ve heard nothing today. He said he was going to be busy, but surely everyone has time to send one little hello? Something so I’d know he was thinking about me.

  Courtney’s mouth meets mine and I obligingly part my lips and let our tongues explore each other. He’s a good kisser compared with most of the other boys I’ve been out with, but tonight it feels like an invasion.

  Why hasn’t he messaged me?

  He’s grinding hard against my thigh. I have to do it. I haven’t got a choice—everyone’s expecting it. They’ll be laughing and chatting and dancing downstairs, but inside they’re all wondering if we’ve done it yet. Is it going to hurt? Am I going to be different after?

  I’d thought about backing out somehow, but then that woman in the pub knocked my bag off the table and sent all my stuff flying everywhere. The girls saw the condoms and Ange went all weird American for a while. Once the laughter and teasing had died down, she said black boys don’t use condoms, and we’d all called her a racist, but she insisted it was true before Lizzie said it wasn’t only black boys, it was all boys if they could get away with it, which is why she’s on the pill. I laughed with them, but Jodie must have seen how uncomfortable I was feeling because when we went to the loo she whispered that there are only a couple of days in the month you can get pregnant anyway and so not to worry.

  “You okay with this?” Courtney’s got my bra hitched up over my boobs and his eyes look all funny and the words are breathless. Needy.

  I nod, even though I am not all right with this anymore. He’s already pushing my skirt up. Everything’s clumsy. Not like it was when I imagined it.

  What would he think if he knew what I was about to do? Would he be jealous?

  The condom is still in my bag on the other side of the room. A continent away. How am I supposed to mention it? I should have said something about it before. His jeans are undone and yanked down and he grabs my hand and pushes it into his crotch. He groans as I touch him, and his shaking hands yank at my panties but we get caught up in a tangle and our teeth clash together. I take control and there’s a pause as I wriggle out of my underwear, and as I do, he looks at me properly.

  “You know I really like you, don’t you?” he says. “I’ve never gone out with a girl like you before.”

  It makes me feel slightly better about all this, and so I take the moment to tug my top off too. He might not be naked, but I am. If I’m doing this, I’m not doing it being half choked by my own bra.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  This time when he kisses me, I try to be in the moment even though beautiful is his word, not Courtney’s. Courtney normally calls me hot, despite the fact I know I’m not. Not really. I think of the condom again but it’s too late to mention it now. He’s poking and prodding and nudging, trying to get it in, and I realize that maybe he’s not quite so experienced at this either.

  And then we’re doing it. Or rather, Courtney’s doing it. I’m just lying here and trying not to think about how different it would be with him.

  8

  Lisa

  “Hey, everyone! Smile!” It’s Emily, face glowing, a mobile phone held up in the air over us. I turn away automatically, one hand flying up across my face. “No photos,” I say.

  “It was only for Facebook.” Emily sounds hurt. “So my boyfriend and family can see who I work with.” She’s very sweet but very young.

  “I don’t want photos of me on your Facebook either,” Julia says. Her voice is sharp, a cutting blade that takes no prisoners. She’s late, arriving only moments ago, and I wonder if she’s irritated because she looks hot and bothered rather than her usual cool self, but I’m still surprised—and relieved—by her interjection. Marilyn knows I hate having my picture taken, but this time I’ve been saved from having to explain myself to new people. Maybe Julia and I have something in common after all. “And anyway,” she continues, “it’s hardly professional, taking selfie
s at a work do. This isn’t some cheesy club.”

  “More of a celebration than a work do,” Marilyn cuts in, seeing how stung Emily is. The poor girl looks like she might cry. “But you may have a point. Not everything in life has to be Facebooked and Instagrammed.”

  She’s saying all this as much for my benefit as anything else. I don’t have any social media accounts even though Marilyn swears you can set your profile to completely private. I still wouldn’t trust it, and who would I have on there? Only Marilyn probably, and I see her most days as it is. “Oh shit, I sound old.” She groans overdramatically, lifting the mood as only she can. “Come on, Lisa, let’s grab us all another wine before the money behind the bar runs out.”

  We separate from the others, leaving Toby to continue his obvious hot pursuit of Stacey, and make our way to the bar. I didn’t want to come tonight. No matter how much I’ve tried to shake it, my stomach has been a riverbed of slithering eels since finding the rabbit, and the past clings like an oil slick on feathers, breaking my heart all over again. It’s taken everything I have not to spend my time following Ava around to make sure she’s safe, which I’ve worked really hard at not doing now that she has more freedom. Trying to hide how I’m feeling is exhausting and if there was any way I could have got out of coming to the party, I would have, but there was no way I’d have got away with it. This is Penny’s once-a-year company and clients drinks and nibbles, and with the new staff, the second branch opening, and my new contract, she wouldn’t have been happy.

  In that respect, Julia was right. We may be in a salsa club, but this isn’t a girls’ night out. It’s still, in some ways, work. However, as I lean on the bar next to Marilyn, I’m surprised to find I’m feeling better for coming out. The music is full of life and the words are foreign so I can’t get snared by lyrics of love or loss.