by Simon Lelic
And then it clicked.
She was shocked at first, of course she was. Hurt, a bit. Angry as well that her best friend—which is what Susanna by that point had become—had chosen to conceal from her such a fundamental aspect of who she was. It explained everything. Everything. Susanna’s bearing, her beliefs, her behavior in just about every incident in their shared history that Ruth could bring to mind. She’d always known Susanna had her secrets. She’d just never imagined that the door she’d hidden them behind would open to reveal such darkness. Such depth too. It wasn’t some cubbyhole Ruth found herself peering into. It was a dungeon.
She said nothing. She made her peace with the fact Susanna hadn’t confided in her (her life, her choice, Ruth reasoned. It wasn’t as though Ruth had confessed every shameful secret from her past) and resolved to carry on just as though she’d never found out. Although, oddly, knowing what she did somehow made Ruth love Susanna all the more. She didn’t know the ins and outs of what had happened; she wasn’t sure which version of events she should believe. All she could go on was her instinct and the relationship she and Susanna had already forged, and in that context Susanna appeared both stronger and braver than Ruth ever imagined. She felt sorry for her friend, yes, but she had also never felt so proud. Look at what she was doing. Look at who she’d become!
And Ruth thought she was doing well substituting a husband for a pair of parakeets.
One thing that did change was how responsible for her friend Ruth began to feel. She’d always looked out for Susanna, had always been careful not to leave her in the building alone, not without warning, and had always cast a discriminating eye over any thuggish-looking middle-aged men she passed while on her lunch break, say, or on the walk to and from her car. But having found out the truth—having realized what it was Susanna was running from—Ruth took her role of guardianship to another level. More than anything, Ruth has come to realize how afraid must Susanna feel. How afraid, and how alone. What she would most like to do is enfold Susanna in her arms and assure her that she loves her in spite of everything. And yet to do so, she feels, would be a betrayal, strange as that might seem. So doing this, looking out for her: it is to Ruth’s mind the next best thing.
* * *
• • •
Sitting here in her office now, she isn’t sure what has made her so uneasy. Partly it’s the prospect of leaving Susanna with a stranger. A young man too, someone so close to the age Susanna’s son was when he died. Susanna told Ruth she would be fine, but she would say that, wouldn’t she, especially when the client was there listening in. And what she said about . . . How had she put it? Doubling up. Ruth is sure that isn’t something Susanna would normally do. In fact she’s told Ruth before, something about timekeeping, about how important it is in counseling to stick to the schedule, unless Ruth is getting mixed up? She does listen when Susanna tells her things but she would imagine it’s the same for her as it is for Susanna when Ruth talks to her about teeth. Sometimes she can see Susanna tuning out. Ruth doesn’t hold it against her. Other people’s passions: frankly they’re not always that interesting.
Maybe she’s just tired. She’s had a long week and now she’s just . . . What’s that word Susanna uses? Projecting. She’s feeling blue, basically, and she’s allowing that to influence her perceptions of what’s happening around her. Maybe when Susanna said she was fine she really meant it. She’s had long enough to judge whether she’s in any danger, and if she was feeling in any way threatened she would have signaled for Ruth’s help when she had the chance. And the fact is, she didn’t. If anything she seemed impatient to be left alone. So maybe Ruth should mind her own business; stop treating Susanna as though she were a child, when in reality she is a tough, middle-aged woman who’s been through more in her life than most people could begin to—
“Ruth?”
She looks up. She checks the time again and curses. She’s been sitting here for the better part of twenty minutes whereas she told Alina she would be ready to go in five.
“Coming!” she calls back. “I’m just this minute putting on my coat!”
Alina grumbles something from the hallway about meeting her downstairs, which is Alina-speak for Get a bloody move on. Which is fair enough, actually. Alina was wrapped and ready to go when Ruth had turned from Susanna’s door, and is no doubt gasping for that G&T as much as Ruth is. Was. All of a sudden she doesn’t much fancy it, nor even the bath with Alfie Boe. Not the one on the stereo, anyway.
She hauls on her coat even so. She shoves aside the paperwork she’s been pretending to tackle and switches off the overhead light. A minute later she is through her surgery and casting one last glance at Susanna’s office door. She hesitates, just for a moment, and then she is downstairs, hoisting a smile for Alina and pulling the door into the building closed behind her.
EMILY
19 AUGUST 2017
It feels like me and Adam have had our first argument. Which we haven’t, at least I don’t think we have, but today . . . let’s just say it didn’t go the way I hoped it would.
We’ve seen each other a few times since the bus ride but only ever for a couple of hours. Mainly we’ve been chatting by text. So today was supposed to be our first proper day out. Not even anything that exciting really, just a picnic on the common. But anything is better than sitting in Starbucks, right? Plus it was a chance to spend the entire day with Adam. An evening would have been even better—a meal or a movie or something—but there’s no way Mum would have allowed that. Not without getting Adam’s life story first, and at the very least running some kind of background check. As it was, I had to tell her I was planning to spend the day with Frankie. I didn’t like lying to her, and she’s made me swear more times than I can remember that it’s something I will never, ever do, but if I hadn’t, today might not have happened. Although, looking back, maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all.
So, me and Adam, we’re walking along, looking for a spot to lay the blanket, and we’re heading toward this little private patch of trees. Even from a distance I can see there’s no one else sitting there, meaning me and Adam would have it all to ourselves. And we haven’t kissed yet, we haven’t done anything more than hold hands, so what I’m thinking about is maybe today will be the day—you know, when we finally get to have our first kiss. But then Adam stops walking.
“How about right here?” he says.
And we’re basically in the middle of the field, right on the edge of the kids’ play area.
“Here?” I say.
Adam is already spreading out the blanket.
“Sure. Why not.”
“You don’t think it’s a bit . . .” Public, I want to say, still thinking about that kiss. “Noisy,” I end up saying.
“Noisy?” Adam looks up at me, then around. His eyes fix on the play area. Today was like twenty-five degrees, not a cloud in the sky, so it’s heaving. “I guess,” Adam says, “but it’s a nice noise, don’t you think?” Which, when he says it, this little kid lets out this humungous screeeeeeeaaam. Adam, he kind of half winces, half smiles, like, Thanks, kid. You know?
“OK, so maybe it’s a tad noisy,” Adam concedes. “Here, let’s go a bit farther back.”
Which we do, a bit, and it’s better, a bit, but it’s not like it’s the noise I’m really worrying about.
“You really like that sound?” I ask him as we settle. I gesture with my head toward the playground. “The kids playing?”
Adam gives this embarrassed little shrug. “Not the screaming, obviously. And the crying I can live without. But the laughing, the running around . . .” He shrugs again. “Kind of, I guess.”
I must have looked at him funny because rather than letting it go he tells me to lean back and shut my eyes. And this time I definitely look at him funny but he’s like, “Go on, it’s not a trick, trust me.”
So I lie back.
“Why, though?” I say but by the time I’ve finished asking my eyes are shut anyway because when I lean back the sun is directly overhead.
“Are you comfortable?”
I wriggle until I am. “Physically,” I tell him, which he laughs at.
“Right. Now listen.”
There’s movement on the blanket beside me and when I peek I see Adam is lying down next to me. On his back, the way I am. Eyes closed, the way mine are. Were, anyway. I shut them again.
And at first I’m just waiting for something to happen. For Adam to start tickling me or something, or maybe, right out in the open, for him to lean over and deliver that kiss. But after a moment I’ve forgotten all about that and instead I’m doing what Adam told me to do. I’m listening. And you know what? He’s right. The sound of those kids playing . . . This is going to sound stupid, I know, but all of a sudden it isn’t like noise anymore. What it sounds like, as I’m lying there with the sun on my face, is the happiest, most cheerful kind of music.
When I open my eyes Adam is propped up on one elbow. He’s looking at me, smiling. “See?” he says.
And I do. I get it. It’s like listening to waves on the shore, or rain when you’re lying in bed. And to show him I get it, what I do is, I reach up and I kiss him.
Now, ordinarily this would be fucking momentous. Right? If it weren’t for what happened after, it would be the whole point of me writing what I’m writing. Except now, looking back, what I’m wondering about is whether it happened because of that. Because of that kiss. I mean, it only lasted for a couple of seconds, probably not even that, but right away Adam starts acting all weird.
He sits up. He’s surprised, I guess, probably almost as much as I am. “Emily,” he says. I like that, by the way. That he calls me Emily. My mates, even Mum sometimes, they tend to call me Em. It’s a silly thing probably, not even that big a deal, but Emily just sounds way more grown-up, and I get treated like a kid enough.
“Emily,” he says, “you haven’t told anyone about us. Have you?”
“What do you mean?” I say. Because what I’m expecting is for him to say something about the kiss. Or not to say anything, but to smile or laugh or something.
“Frankie, for example. And your mum especially. You haven’t told her that we’ve been seeing each other, have you?”
“No. Of course not. You asked me not to, remember?” Because he did, right after that time on the bus. I mean, setting aside the fact that I would never have told anyone about him anyway, Adam had this bee in his bonnet about the age thing, about what my mum and other people might think. So what I figure is, that’s what’s bothering him now.
“Relax,” I tell him. “No one saw. And anyway . . .” I touch his arm. “So what if they did?”
Adam’s looking toward the playground, at the parents chatting around the sandpit. He half smiles back at me, and for a second I think everything’s all right. But then he’s looking back where he was looking before and that smile of his dips into a frown. He gets up then, and starts walking toward the play area. Toward the little fence, which comes up sort of level with his belt.
“Adam?” I say, calling out. When he doesn’t answer I get up and follow him. “Adam!” He doesn’t answer but he stops at the fence and I realize he’s spotted this little kid. So I stop too and from then on I’m just watching, from a few yards away, back up the hill. The whole time, from then on out, all I was doing was standing there watching.
“Hey,” Adam says, and he bends down, so that he’s talking to the kid through the railings. “Hey, buddy. Are you OK?”
Because the kid, the little boy, who must be five or six or so, he’s crying.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Adam asks him. “Did you trip or something?”
The kid just wails. His crying doesn’t change. It’s like he doesn’t even realize Adam’s there. And his face is this mess of snot and tears. There’s dirt too, and sand all glued to his cheeks where the snot has smeared.
“Hey. Hey, buddy.” All Adam’s doing is trying to comfort him. He slips a hand through the railings and gives the boy a little shake on his shoulder. Just, you know. Nicely. He’s not being weird or anything, I swear.
Then, “Get your hands off him!”
This woman comes up to Adam and she says it again. “Get away from him! Get your hands off him!” And at this point Adam isn’t even touching him!
Adam says, “Are you his mother?”
“Todd,” the woman barks, blanking Adam completely. And she’s furious, even though her little boy is sitting there crying. “Todd,” she goes, “come here! Now!”
Todd, the boy, he carries on wailing.
“Are you Todd’s mother?” Adam says again.
“Yes, I’m his bloody mother,” the woman snaps. “Not that it’s any business of yours. Todd!”
She goes to grab Todd by his arm but Todd gets up and legs it past her. And I can hear him crying as he goes, I can virtually hear him crying now, but the thing is—the thing I’ve just realized—is that him running off was the last we saw of him. I don’t even know if he’s OK, or what the matter was in the first place. Which on the one hand makes me feel bad, because I’d like to know, you know? But on the other hand, I guess Todd isn’t really my point. My point is Adam.
He’s glaring at the woman. “You do realize he was crying, don’t you? You realize your son was upset?”
“Todd!” The woman is yelling after her son but then, when Adam speaks, she whips her head back round. “Yes, I realize he was crying. He cries all the bloody time!”
“I wonder why that is.”
“I beg your pardon?” the woman says, smiling this ugly-looking smile. “Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”
Up until this point no one else was really watching. They stopped when Adam went to talk to Todd (like, thank God someone’s dealing with it . . . ). But the woman raises her voice this time, and it’s obvious she’s not just shouting at her kid, so people are starting to take notice.
“I’m wondering who you think you are,” Adam replies. “Your little boy’s sitting there, bawling his eyes out. But rather than going to him, rather than acting like a mother should, you just, what? Ignore him. Hope some stranger will deal with it instead?”
“I told you, he cries all the time! And I didn’t ask you to—”
“Do you even know why he was upset? Did you even bother to check whether he was OK?”
The woman, she’s having one of those moments where she’ll probably come up with a million clever things to say afterward. I can almost hear her telling her mates later, about how this nutter accosted her on the common and she was like, boom, back in your place, when really, in reality, all she was doing was standing there like a fish.
Then she does think of something. What she thinks of is, “Piss off!”
Which is the point I should probably have stepped in.
“How fucking dare you!” the woman goes. “What are you, some kind of kiddie fiddler? Hanging around kids’ playgrounds, looking for little boys to go and rub.” She mimes rubbing a kid’s shoulder, the way Adam did when he was comforting Todd.
“A kiddie fiddler,” Adam repeats. And his smile . . . I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s not exactly all that pleasant then either. “You know what,” he says, “I’m surprised you even noticed me. What were you doing while your son was crying?” He gestures to the phone in the woman’s hand. “Checking Facebook? Looking at Twitter? If I was a kiddie fiddler, I could have snatched Todd away before you even realized he was missing.”
“What’s going on here?”
This from some dad-type. And I don’t know if he knows the mother, but all of a sudden, he’s there at her side. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes, there’s a fucking problem!” the woman yells.
“This pervert is threatening to kidnap my son!”
Which is NOT what Adam said!! Not even close! Again, though, I don’t say it. I just think it. Loudly—but I realize that still doesn’t count.
“You what?”
The dad, he’s all outraged. It’s kind of pathetic, actually. He’s like one of those big fat hippos on Planet Earth that tries to stop other hippos muscling in on its territory.
“Back off, pal,” he goes. “Go on, piss off out of it. If you haven’t got kids, you’ve got no business being here.”
“I’ll call the cops, that’s what I’ll do,” the woman chips in, all loud and whiney. I didn’t notice it till then: how shrill she was. Her voice is like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
“Go ahead,” Adam tells the woman, and I can tell he’s losing it too. “Call the police. In fact, here, I’ll do it for you. Let them know what a great mother you are, see how many laws you’ve broken by being such a waste of space.” And then, what he does is, he reaches for the woman’s phone. There’s the fence between them obviously but they’re standing so close it hardly even matters. And the point is, Adam reaching out like that, trying to grab the woman’s phone: it’s a mistake.
The woman squeals. The dad steps forward and gives Adam a shove. Adam stumbles, almost falls, but then he’s up and leaning over the fence. Then he shoves the dad, who gets hit at the same time by the woman, who’s flailing at Adam, and I guess the dad, he must have thought it was Adam who hit him, because it’s all this big thrashing mess, and what he does is, the dad, he punches Adam. Hard. Right in the face.
And then I do move.
I yell, “Stop! Don’t! Leave him alone!”
Adam’s bent over. He’s virtually kneeling on the grass. I can’t see his face because it’s covered by his hands but I can see there’s blood so I’m panicking, you know? “He didn’t do anything!” I shout at the dad. “He didn’t even do anything!”
