Sing me to Sleep

by Helen Moorhouse

  The anger makes me do things, sometimes. Physical things, I’ve noticed. A lot more than before. I’ve knocked over some books from the shelves in the living room, for starters. Popped open a DVD case for Bee because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t help her do it in person. Broke a couple of glasses, knocked a picture off the hall wall.

  And I shifted a chair – that was a big one. It was stupid stupid Vicky’s fault. She’s got a new look these days. Gone is the sleek, manicured Posh Spice look that she cultivated in the olden days, before she had her baby.

  Her little red-haired, pink-cheeked baby girl.

  Little Matilda who is almost two now. A hideous little thing – I can say that now I’m dead and I don’t have to worry about offending anyone – with eczema and brown bruises from falling over, although she hasn’t been walking long. Too fat and lazy to get up off her baby backside and bother to learn, I should think – much like her mother who has embraced what they apparently call ‘Pramfacechic’ wholeheartedly.

  I suppose it’s not fair to criticise Matilda – she doesn’t know any better after all and it’s not her fault that her mother feeds her rubbish and never encourages her to move. But there she is. Poor little pink Matilda, with her skin ailments and her three discernible words.

  Bee is slightly repelled by her, slightly afraid, the poor thing. She tries to be kind but it’s difficult because Matilda’s nose is never wiped, and no one pays her any attention so she’s a starer – and if she senses for a second that she’s going to get love in any shape or form, she latches on and won’t let go. Just like her mother in that respect. I do actually feel sorry for her, the poor snot-covered little mite. She’s not the brightest button in the box. And as the Mycrofts all have brains to burn – although what they choose to do with them has been their own affair – I can only assume she takes after her dad, whoever he was. Because it also doesn’t take the brightest button in the box to work out that it wasn’t Guillaume. It was never Guillaume. And while Vicky cried desertion throughout the rest of her pregnancy, cried that Guillaume could never have loved her at all (which was true, of course), I wonder did she know all along that he hadn’t sired her offspring?

  And I wonder now does he know? Guillaume? Because no one’s heard from him. Since the day I died.

  I assume that he knows that I’m dead. Or does he? I know that Ed tried to contact him a million times on that awful day but by the time that Ed was informed about the crash, Guillaume would have been in the air – Cape Town bound – with his mobile turned off. And from what I can see from Ed, he never turned it on again. And that was the last that anyone heard of him.

  He hasn’t come back, hasn’t made contact with anyone – which is pretty low considering that when he left he thought he’d almost stolen Ed’s wife, along with impregnating his sister. And considering the fact he was convinced that he loved me truly.

  I don’t know if he knows about Matilda. And her pinkness. I don’t think he can because Vicky ranted with amazing regularity that she was sure he must be dead too because he’d never have left her with their child on the way. He has never made any contact with her to find out about the child, has never paid a penny in maintenance.

  It’s as if he, too, died.

  And if anything, his desertion, Matilda’s birth and the clear evidence that he could not have been her father has made Vicky even more horrible than she already was; it has made her past redemption.

  So horrible that when she reduced Bee to tears at a false accusation, when she called her names and accused her of stealing Matilda’s Smarties, when she made Bee feel ashamed and naughty and confused over nothing, I summoned up so much anger that I moved a chair. Just a little bit, mind – it didn’t shoot across the room or anything – but it did move just enough for Vicky to think she’d misjudged the distance she needed to cover to plonk herself down on it. Just enough that she fell on her backside and hurt herself.

  I am not totally powerless after all. I will still do everything in my limited powers to fight for my beloved Bee, my heart, what’s left on earth of my soul.

  And maybe what’s left of me. Because Ed is getting over me. He’s applied for a new job – he’s been seeing that Dr Rice woman for quite some time now – he cooks, he cleans – he even whistles the occasional tune. And he doesn’t cry any more – not much, anyway. Which is a good thing, I know. But so much is slipping away from me right before my eyes, and moving a chair can do nothing to solve it. I feel that I am growing further away from them. That I am drifting off their radar. That before long I’ll be forgotten.

  I’ve been forgotten by Guillaume already – that’s clear. But I cannot bear it if they move on from me – if Ed and Bee forget me.

  And worse, if I am trapped here to watch it forever.

  Chapter 30

  July 28th, 2000

  Rowan

  Rowan glanced at her watch for the third time that morning. Immediately, she berated herself silently for doing so. It was only five minutes since the last time she’d done it, for heaven’s sake. It was still only nine thirty. That wasn’t going to change significantly any time soon.

  She straightened her back, rolled her neck along her shoulder blades left and right, and tapped her fingers impatiently on her desk. She should focus, she knew. But it was difficult. The sun was beaming down outside the office. Even though no natural light shone into the reception area, she could see it through the long glass panes of the salesroom every time one of the team wandered in and out to her desk for messages and faxes with none of their usual sense of urgency, relaxed by the sunshine of the day and the promises it brought: lunch outdoors, ice creams for an afternoon break, a cool glass of wine in a sun-soaked beer garden to celebrate the end of the day, the end of the week.

  It was one of those Fridays. Casual clothes, a longing to be outside before summer ended forever and time at a virtual standstill. She wished suddenly for it to be one of those frenetic days when the hours would fly, when the phone barely ceased and she hadn’t a moment to catch her breath or make a cup of tea, and the sales team were snapping at each other to get things done before the arrival of a deadline and the designers rushed up and down the stairs to and from the enormous open-plan studio above, bathed in the natural light of the atrium on the floor above.

  Rowan glanced upward, as if somehow she could magically see, through the white, stippled ceiling above her, all that daylight and blue sky and puffs of clouds that the designers could see if they wanted. She’d look up all the time if she worked up there, she thought to herself. Open spaces inspired her, made her drawings come to life. Although the chances were that she wouldn’t be getting up there any time soon. Since starting work as the receptionist at Grafix Designs three months previously, her hopes of rising through the ranks to become an actual designer, from the humble beginnings of the reception desk, were fading by the day. Her heart sank a little as she saw for a moment a bleak future for herself. Two months shy of her thirtieth birthday and here she was, sitting day in and day out in a cheap suit that made her itch, answering calls for other people and unable to figure out how to break through.

  Her lack of qualifications didn’t help, of course. She was barely even qualified to be a receptionist, come to think of it. She decided to look further into taking a graphic design course. She was good at drawing – it had always been her strength. There had to be a way to make a career out of what she was good at after all. She’d just have to find it. And at least she had her little sideline at home to keep her sane. To keep her from being just a bad receptionist.

  For today, however, her only thoughts were of dashing out the door as fast as she could. Through the tourist crowds and down to St Paul’s Station. From there, Central Line to Oxford Street – change – Bakerloo to Paddington – and then into the queue for the six-thirty to Taunton. No time for delays or hanging about. More than anything, she wanted to be on that train out of London that evening. Back to Somerset. Back to all the fresh air she could breat
he, all the sky she could manage to see at the one time. Back to Judith’s Acre.

  So engrossed was she in imagining how it would feel at the exact moment that she would disembark the train in a delicious evening breeze at Taunton station, that Rowan failed to hear the squeak of the reception doors opening and the soft stride of a new arrival across the plush carpet. It was only when she heard a light cough that she roused herself from her trance and straightened herself to greet the person who stood there.

  He was vaguely familiar, she realised. His hesitant smile was warm. Lots of teeth, Rowan noted, out of the blue. When he spoke in greeting, his voice was soft.

  “Hi,” he said quietly. “I’m here to see Rob – I’ve got an appointment at ten?”

  “Take a seat,” she responded with her habitual smile. “I’ll just ring upstairs for him.”

  With curiosity she watched from the corner of her eye as he sank into one of the leather chairs to the right of her desk and placed the laptop bag he was carrying on the floor at his feet, glancing back at her and frowning as he did so. Who the hell did he remind her of, she wondered again, the question nagging at her as she dialled an upstairs extension and waited for a man with a deep Welsh accent to answer over the speaker with his habitual “’Hoy ’Hoy!” Rowan rolled her eyes and squirmed. Although it was a preferable greeting to his prolonged “Wasssuuuup?” she thought.

  “Rob, your 10 a.m. is in reception,” she said briefly, making to cut him off as fast as she could but not before he managed to respond with an “Alroight, moi loverrrr!” in his crude approximation of her accent. Rowan coloured immediately and smiled politely at the waiting man who grinned back, a hint of sympathy in the smile.

  “Funny guy,” he remarked quietly.

  Rowan smiled softly back for a moment before returning her attention to a sheaf of pink faxes on the desk before her just as Rob Thompson, Head of Design, bounded through the doors of reception like an eager puppy and thrust his hand at the man who was here to meet him with a loud “All right, mate! Wonderful to see you – come upstairs!” and in a matter of moments they were both gone, leaving Rowan to rack her brains in peace.

  She was still pondering the question of who the new arrival looked like when she fled to Postman’s Park at lunchtime. She knew she should probably work through, particularly when she was due to finish early, but the day had grown even quieter. Three quarters of the sales staff had disappeared off on imaginary calls and the total silence of the phone made Rowan believe that every single one of their clients had done the same. There were so few sunny days, she reasoned to herself as she grabbed her tub of hummus and the sticks of veg that she had placed in the kitchen fridge that morning. Surely bunking off for a half an hour on one of them wasn’t a cardinal sin?

  She assumed that by close of business there would be no one left in the office at all, in fact. By then, work, such as it was, would have shifted to a pub near St Paul’s – the one with the big beer garden, she imagined. While she flung herself as fast as she could down the steps toward the musty, dank air of the Tube tunnels, freedom finally within reach.

  The sun on her arms felt blissful and she took a moment to savour it as she emerged from the building out onto the street. She made her way down to the small park where she often sought sanctuary and ate lunch, and spotted that a favourite patch on the grass was free. In a matter of moments she was settled, her lunch arranged before her and forgotten, her water bottle untouched. It was her sketch pad that was her complete focus, balanced on her knees, her pencil skimming the blank page rapidly as she immersed herself in her true passion. Drawing.

  Rowan remained like this for a solid fifteen minutes, frantically sketching on the paper, as if somehow purging herself with a frenzy of activity. Only when she had stopped suddenly and looked up to the sky, made a roll of her neck along her shoulders and took a deep cleansing breath, did she notice for the second time that day, the familiar man from the office, only six feet or so from where she sat, yet somehow she had missed him completely up to now.

  She observed him for a moment. Sitting on a bench, a half-eaten bread roll in its wrapping on the seat beside him. He was doing the exact same thing she was. Sketching.

  His pace was more measured, she noted, his hand more hesitant and careful about putting the pencil on the paper than hers, his concentration deep. He analysed the work that he did as he did it, stopping every now and again to hold the pad aloft and sit back from it to gain a different perspective.

  It was in doing this that he happened to glance over the pad he worked on and caught Rowan staring at him. His response was to feign surprise at seeing her, and then smile again. It was that smile, along with the sudden breeze that brought with it a familiar scent that made Rowan realise finally who it was she was looking at.

  It was Ed, she realised with a start. Ed, from New Year’s Eve. Ed of the balloons and the tears and the kiss.

  And he remembered her too, it appeared, as he stared directly at her, his eyes growing wide and his mouth making the shape of some words in her direction. “It’s you,” he said, nodding, as if he too, at that precise moment, had just realised who she was.

  Rowan could think of nothing else to do except smile herself and mouth back, “It’s me.”

  Without realising for a second how familiar that walk would become to her, Rowan Sutherland watched as Ed Mycroft gathered his belongings and strode the short distance between them to sit awkwardly beside her on the grass and smile again, neither of them entirely sure where to begin.

  september 2000

  Rowan

  Since the arrival of Ed Mycroft on the design floor, Rowan found herself, every day, looking forward to lunchtime. If she cared to admit it to herself, she had actually started to look forward to going to work. There was something there to interest her now. Something that was more than the isolation of her desk, the constant bleeping of the phones, the ridiculous headset she wore, the demands of the sales team and the taunting mystery of the upstairs floor which she was only allowed to glimpse. Where she longed – or at least thought she longed – to work.

  Ed worked up there, of course. He had been an animator, he told her as they sat on their favourite bench in the park between one and two each day. He had worked for a pretty big animation company once, had created a character – nothing special really, but it had done quite well for him, he said, before brushing off the subject to talk about something else.

  They ate together outdoors most days. Lunch hour became precious to them and they spent it talking, exchanging their back stories. At least some of them.

  There was one thing that Rowan burned to talk about, yet it was a subject that he avoided at all costs. Because after almost three months of knowing each other, Ed had still to make any reference to the dead wife he had mentioned on New Year’s Eve. Rowan knew that they had both been drunk but her memory of him saying this was completely clear. She had replayed those words over and over in her mind ever since when she had thought about him and she burned to know exactly what had happened. Had he really been married? How did she die? And what sort of woman had married him?

  It had taken him until the end of August for her to find out that he had a child. A daughter, he said. Bee was her name, short for Beatrice. The revelation had surprised Rowan. And unnerved her a little. Because ever since New Year’s Eve and that lunchtime in the park back in July, she had known that she was intrigued by Ed Mycroft. Attracted to him. Interested. More interested than she had been in any man since . . . well, since college. Since then.

  And sometimes he seemed to be interested in her, too. She would catch him staring at her from under his lashes and see him blush as he looked away immediately, embarrassed at being caught.

  And they seemed to have a real connection – they laughed easily together, they listened sympathetically to each other’s rants. Rowan had felt, as the summer ended, that she had grown to know so much about him and, in turn, had told him so much about herself. She even had to go
as far as to say that she felt completely comfortable with him, that he was entirely honest with her about everything that he had told her so far and as for what he hadn’t . . . well, there was still time . . .

  So once he had mentioned his daughter, Rowan felt as if she had been smacked in the face. It had never entered her head that such a thing might exist. A child. A daughter. It opened up a whole new element to him, an undiscovered area of his life that unsettled her and led her to wonder if there was much more that she didn’t know.

  Once Ed mentioned this little Bee to her, this five-year-old girl, Rowan found herself thinking about little else. It had been a Friday when he had told her that he was taking the following week off to get his daughter settled into school. And that had been it. Casually dropped into the conversation, as if he assumed it was something she knew already, and then left, floating in the air as he changed the subject casually to something else.

  Rowan stayed at home throughout the entire weekend. Working on her little side project. Her website, her plan.

  She had got the idea when she had overheard two women in the park the previous spring, discussing wedding invitations. Complaining about the lack of originality that they had seen in everything they had viewed so far, describing what they thought they might like. Rowan had listened intently. And had gone home and taken out her sketchbook instantly.

  She was still at the very early stages of putting her plan into action, but her ideas for quirky wedding invitations had expanded to include birthday and Christmas card samples and now she was working hard on designing a range for newborns. Quirky, hand-drawn sketches, on sustainable papers with interesting colours and textures. She still had a lot of work to do, of course, on making the finished products. But when she had, she would launch her website and see if she couldn’t put her talents to good use by selling a few here and there. Corkscrew Cards, she had christened it.