by Joy Richards
They had tried to slot back into their old lives, but to no avail. So they had decided to come back home. Penelope could barely look Aaron in the eye, and vice versa. They had chosen to go, when they could have been much safer staying where they were. Or they could have chosen to go home, immediately, like Gideon had. Instead, they had chosen risk. Michael could not believe that Aaron would ever feel pressured to live up to his and Claire’s lives. They had never wanted him to. But maybe, implicitly, they had made him feel as though it was his job to carry on with the family business of saving the world. Gideon was now a journalist covering medical scandals, Elijah was a GP and Jacob had given up medicine for consultancy, which was more lucrative but significantly less noble. Aaron was the only one left doing the type of work his parents had done before him. Working with refugees, wearing bulletproof vests, getting sick and spat at to help others.
Maybe he did feel the pressure. Maybe he had cracked and put Penelope at risk. She had also wanted to go, but Michael imagined she probably did not want to think about that. He opened his arms and she walked straight into them. He closed them and held her for a few long minutes. She had lost so much weight he could feel her bones through her hoodie, her shoulder blades poking him like broken wings. Eventually, she pulled away and turned round, jogging off into the distance up the public footpath. Michael let her go. She needed space. He turned round and went to check the bird feeder.
Once Michael came back inside, Aaron was shouting at his mother. In a different time, Michael would have put him to rights. He had raised his boys with a soft voice, but inside that velvet glove was very much an iron fist. You needed that, with boys. But now, he did not know what to say.
“All I said,” Claire was practically whispering, trying to keep calm and not shout, “is that I know, the pain will dull. It will never go away, but you will learn how to live with it.”
“Well!” Aaron screamed, his face red, his eyes lit with wildfire. “That was clearly very easy for you, wasn’t it, Mum?” He froze. His face fell. He realised what he’d just said, and his mouth opened like that of a dead fish.
Claire also looked frozen. Her face was blank, expressionless. She stood still, and for a few seconds nobody moved. Michael was standing in the doorway, wishing he could run out and forget what he’d heard. Then Claire walked over to her son, looking him dead in the eye. She was moving slowly, deliberately.
She slapped him across the face, in one single blow. It was incredibly loud, and the noise filled the kitchen. They had never slapped the boys, even when they were younger. Aaron didn’t move, his eyes were full of tears.
“M--mu--mum,” he said, stuttering.
“Please excuse me,” she whispered as she turned round and left the room. Michael could hear the creak of the floorboards as she limped upstairs.
Aaron stepped forward. “Dad,” he said. “Dad, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean it.”
“Get out.” Michael made a monstrous effort to make sure his words were coming out clearly.
“Dad, please.”
“Get out,” Michael repeated. “Your wife is running up the footpath, you might be able to catch up with her. Or don’t. In fact, I don’t much care where you go as long as you get out of my house.”
“Dad, listen.” Aaron’s tears were streaming down his face.
“Get… out.” Michael didn’t shout, or raise his voice. His face and body were absolutely still.
“I’m sorry.” Aaron grabbed his jacket and headed towards the front door. “I am really, really sorry. I’ll give you some space, text me when you want to talk.”
Michael sat at the kitchen table. He could hear the faint sobbing of Claire upstairs. She had locked herself in the master bathroom, he was sure of it. Michael lowered his head on his folded arms on the tabletop, and wept.
16
Esther
Esther was born at the Royal Surrey County Hospital on a hot summer’s night in 1988. They had just returned from Kenya when they had found out Claire was pregnant, and this time with a girl. They had been overjoyed, finally a baby girl to spice up the lives of their three beautiful boys. Claire had just sold her book, and they had both left the Foreign Office. Michael was going to focus on non-profit work, working with refugees. A new life beckoned.
However, this pregnancy had been full of issues almost from the start. Claire’s previous pregnancies had been easy and uncomplicated. She had gained little weight and kept on working and exercising right up to her due date. Jacob had been born in Jerusalem and Aaron was born in England, both in nice hospitals. Elijah, however, was born in rural Kenya, in the kitchen of the large colonial house they had been given to inhabit. All of them had been healthy bouncy baby boys.
This baby was different. She was not growing at the right rate, and Claire kept suddenly bleeding in the middle of the night. She was put on bedrest, given a whole host of extra medical exams. The baby’s heart was not working well, they were told. She would probably need surgery as soon as she was born, but she would be all right and go on to lead a happy healthy life. A bump in the road, which Claire had tackled with her usual optimism. She had sat in bed, editing the drafts of her manuscript that her publisher was sending. Michael had looked after the children together with Claire’s mum. They’d made it an adventure for them, a little game. A few wild months while Mummy is in bed, followed by a beautiful baby sister to play with.
That bubble had been a ridiculous dream, they had subsequently realised. Claire was just over seven months pregnant when she went into labour. They rushed to the hospital, and Esther was born. But the birth had been too much for her fragile little heart. She lived for six short minutes, before going still and cold in Claire’s arms. Those had been the hardest moments in Michael’s life. There had been a day, years later in Rwanda, when he knew he was about to die. He had seen the gun, and knew the bullet was coming. That was nothing compared to how he’d felt, wrapping his arms around his wife and looking at their tiny, beautiful daughter turning grey right before them.
Once they had come home, their boys had saved them from despair. They had rallied around their parents, cared for them and hugged them. The boys had given them the will to carry on, to keep being parents and lovers and to work hard to build a better world.
Eighteen months later, they’d had Gideon. They had been on assignment in Egypt when they’d found out, and Michael had asked Claire if she wanted to go home and have the baby there, in the safety of a clean English hospital. She’d shaken her head. She had not needed to say a word, but he knew that she could never go back to where Esther was born. They couldn’t save Esther, they didn’t get to look after their new baby. Gideon was born, once again, on the kitchen floor, and had filled their hearts with his healthy, lusty cry and his aggressive flailing as they had lifted him up. Beautiful, happy, healthy boy. He had been their last child, and by far the sweetest little boy out of the four of them.
Occasionally, in the midst of the madness that was raising four boys so close in age, Michael looked over at Claire’s face and saw a shadow going by. Or she’d raise her eyes and look at him, and they both knew they were both thinking of Esther. The pain had never gone, it had just become part of who they were. They walked past it every day and barely noticed it, like a piece of furniture or a local landmark. People who walk past the Vatican every day to go to work no longer notice it, in spite of how spectacular it looks. Similarly, they just walked past their pain, forgetting what it meant until they thought about it. Michael had been angry, Claire had been broken.
After Michael had been shot, they both saw it as a chance at a new life, a life where they could both be whole. Still, a corner of their heart was always for Esther and always would be. And that’s the corner that was throbbing. Where Aaron had stuck his knife and twisted it. Where he’d rubbed his salt. Michael took a deep breath and remembered that quote that used to hang in his office on a little metal sign: “Hurt people, hurt people”.
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nbsp; 17
Sarah
Once Sarah returned home from breaking up with Alex, she couldn’t bring herself to sleep in their old flat. It was hers, it had all of her things in it, and yet she could not make herself put her pyjamas on and get into bed. Instead, she packed a bag and ran off to her sister’s house in St Albans. Julia welcomed her with a big hug. They said nothing, just stood in the hallway hugging each other. They were an odd pair: they were never particularly close and enjoyed very different things in life. They even looked different: Sarah in her smart work coat and pointy suede heels, Julia wearing a stained polka-dot nightdress under an oversized grey dressing gown, untied, with the limp belt trailing behind her like a tail. Nevertheless, Sarah felt relief rushing through her body the moment she stepped in the door. She was Getting Away. All of her worries could follow her here, but not as intensely as they did back home. Julia was the oldest, and she was in charge. For this first time in her life, Sarah found it rather comforting.
As they sat in the kitchen drinking cups of mint tea, Sarah reflected on the true power of family. They weren’t close, they had very little in common and they had definitely both judged each other’s life choices. Julia thought a life without children was incomplete. Sarah felt that Julia’s choice to have two children and only work part-time at a non-profit was very much Letting Down The Side. Of course, they had never talked about these things, but they both knew full well how the other one felt. In fact, Sarah was sure that if Julia hadn’t been her sister, they would never have been friends. However, none of that mattered, because they were sisters and they loved each other.
Over the coming days and weeks, Sarah came to see her sister and her husband in a different light. They handed over the guest room to her, and a spare set of keys. They did not pry, or ask too many questions, but were always there to help. Every night, when she got home from work, Sarah found a simple but nutritious meal for her under a plate in the kitchen. In the morning, she got first dibs on the bathroom: the children started using their parents’ en suite, so she could shower and dress first. In fact, the children were kept very much out of her way. It sounded horrible, but at this particular juncture in time Sarah found it hard to be around them. She loved them, of course, in a cool-auntie sort of way, but they reminded her of her troubles too much. Julia cleared her schedule and found lots of time to hang out with her. She took a day off, and they both went shopping at Brent Cross like a couple of teenagers. It was fun. Sarah bought an ostrich leather handbag, and a silk scarf she was unlikely to ever wear. A couple of evenings they went out for a glass of wine after the children were in bed. St Albans is not much of a nightlife hotspot, but there were a few chain pubs and an All Bar One where they sat and drank bad Pinot Grigio telling funny anecdotes about work. It was nice, in a healing sort of way.
Sarah started feeling better after a couple of weeks at her sister’s place. She had a furious argument with Alex over the phone, when he came out and finally asked her to quit her job to join him and start a family. She had known all along, but to actually hear him say those words hurt more than anything she’d ever felt. This made her so angry: it was such a blatant violation of everything she had ever wanted, everything she had ever shared with him. It was an awful evening; she had called him after a very late night at work and got a taxi back all the way to St Albans, crying.
However, once she woke up she started feeling much better. Part of what had been eating away at her was what a terrible shame it was, to throw away such a wonderful partnership. How in sync she had felt with Alex, how she’d felt as though he knew her deeply, in every corner of her soul. And yet, this man with whom she had apparently shared fifteen years of her life clearly did not know her at all. That, in a way, made it easier to let go of him. Her relationship had not been what she thought it was. It might not all have been a lie, but he certainly did not know her the way she felt he did. And, to be fair, vice versa. She had thought he would never want to be a father, and there he was, drunk, asking her if she would like to get pregnant. Clearly, they were not the match made in heaven they had thought they were.
Sarah was feeling more positive. She went jogging around St Albans and even enjoyed the occasional game of Hungry Hungry Hippos with her nieces. Not wanting children did not mean she couldn’t enjoy their company, in small doses. She was finding her feet again. That’s when the call from the estate agent came. Alex had loathed the man, and she could not blame him. He was sweaty and unpleasant, and always wore the most obnoxious ties. This time she liked him even less as he was bearing bad news. The buyers had definitely pulled out of the sale. In fact, apparently, they no longer wanted to move. This was distressing. The flat had to go back on the market.
It felt as though she had been set back by light years. All that paperwork, all for nothing. All that time, all for nothing. They would have to start again, with the viewings and the offers and eventually the various legal hoops to jump through before she could finally be free of the flat and all it represented. Since she had left, Sarah had been back a few times to pick up some clothes and she had found it heartbreaking. The apartment was not just the home she had shared with Alex, it was the symbol of their broken dreams. The thought of having to go back again and again to sell it was too much. It was depressing. It made her feel as though she was stuck in a field of quicksand, keeping her tethered to Alex even though he was a whole continent away. That is when Julia set her up on a date with Steve.
Steve was, in many ways, the opposite of Alex. He was a proper bloke, a guy’s guy. A dude. He was loud and funny in an earnest way and knew about DIY and fixing cars. He had lived in Hong Kong for many years and had just come back to England. He did not know many people and was keen to make new friends. He enjoyed meeting new people, which was why he loved his job as a salesman so much. Alex would have secretly hated him. Nevertheless, Sarah agreed to go for one drink with him, because he was an old university friend of Julia’s and she was asking so nicely. Also, Sarah needed a distraction from the real-estate disaster that was her flat.
They went to the All Bar One and had cocktails at happy hour, which was the sort of cheesy, vacuous thing her and Alex used to mock other people for. To her surprise, she had a nice time. Steve was funny and interesting and had plenty of travel stories from his years of selling security systems all over Asia. He was also very well read and very well travelled. Every year, he read all the books on the shortlist for the Man Booker prize. He had been to Antarctica. He liked to play and watch rugby, which was another thing her and Alex would have mocked him for. And yet, she liked him.
Cocktails turned into dinner at a Pizza Express, which turned into a steamy after-dinner at his tiny flat by the St Albans train station. Sarah could not quite believe it, as she took off her bra. She was in bed with a man, less than a month after breaking up with her long-term partner. What was happening to her?
The morning after was very much a surprise. She had expected to have to perform the Walk of Shame alone, sneaking into Julia’s house without the children noticing. Instead, he’d made her eggs Benedict, and he’d driven her to Julia’s so she could get changed before work. Once she got out of the house after a quick shower, she realised he was still there. To give her a lift to the station. He opened the car door for her. He was a gentleman, which was not something Sarah had ever thought she would appreciate in a man. And yet, as she sat on the train into work, she found herself smiling.
Inexplicably, they kept seeing each other. The places he took her were a Who’s Who list of things that Alex and her London friends would find desperately uncool and depressing. They had dinner at Zizzi’s, followed by a pint at the Green Giant pub down the road. They went to an AMC cinema to watch one of the Avengers movies, and he got her a Coke and sweet-and-salty popcorn. They went for a picnic in the park, which was all from Waitrose and very nicely packaged. The trouble was, those things were nice. Zizzi’s pasta was unauthentic, but delicious. The Green Giant was friendly and spacious. Marvel films were e
ntertaining, and Waitrose picnics were delicious. He took care of things for her. He made reservations, he came to pick her up.
Slowly yet steadily, Sarah found herself forgetting about her past. This new life was so nice, she could melt into it. When she had to cancel on him because of work, he understood. Sometimes, he would come to the office instead, with a picnic they ate in the hallway on those shiny designer chairs no one ever sat on.
Julia was ecstatic. “He’s such a good guy,” she would say, with a big smile, every time Sarah came back from one of their dates. “He’s so funny, and clever, too!”
Sarah could not help herself but agree. He was funny and clever, although not in the way Alex had been funny and clever. She was getting used to it and had even watched half of a rugby match on a Sunday afternoon in the pub with Steve. Not because she now liked rugby, but because he did and he was just so nice.
He came round Julia’s house for Sunday roasts, bringing a delicious dessert every time. He played with the children with unashamed delight, taking part in their games as if he were a child himself. He laughed at their jokes and spun them into the air like toy aeroplanes. Sarah’s nieces adored him, and drew him stick-figure pictures that he oooh’d and aaaaah’d over like they were genuine pieces of art. He let the girls put make-up on him, and a Frozen wig that sat awkwardly on top of his mop of curly hair. He made no secret of adoring children, which Sarah found safer, in a way. He would not lie to her, to appease her for the time being hoping she may change her mind. Of course they didn’t discuss kids – it was far too early in the relationship.
