Of course, I had my own explanation. I’d used up all my luck. And serve me right.
So I quit smoking (not that I smoked much, but I stopped even those few at parties) and I stopped drinking (ditto) and I bought a mountain of vitamin pills, and we started IVF. And it didn’t work. And it didn’t work. And it still didn’t work. So we took a break. And then we went back. And it still didn’t work. And we went on holiday. And tried again. And it didn’t work. And I quit my job. And we had another holiday. And we tried again. And still, still, still, it didn’t work. I was officially out of luck.
But along the way, although it was brutal and awful and punishing, I think I might have become a slightly nicer person. Because when John suggested we look at adoption, I didn’t immediately wonder if they would have the sort of child I wanted. Instead I thought, How can I learn to be a good enough parent and give a child whatever they need? If you’d met me then, I hope I was a bit more likeable by that time.
And then, the most amazing thing happened. It was the thing that they tell you right at the start not to even dream about, because what with better contraception and a more accepting world it basically never happens any more, but despite what they say it does still happen occasionally, and it happened to us.
A baby. There was a baby. John and I were matched with a baby.
And that baby was Joel. Our Winter’s child. He came home just before Christmas. And he was perfect. And for the fifteen years we were lucky enough to have him, our lives were transformed.
Maybe no one can be as lucky as I was for a whole lifetime. Maybe that’s why Joel had to leave us the way he did. But I still wouldn’t change a thing. Because for those fifteen years, I was the luckiest woman alive.
Posted on 12th January 2014
Filed to: Family Life
Tags: parenting journey, family life, adoption success story, missing people, support for families, Susannah Harper, Joel Harper
Chapter Eight
Thursday 16th November 2017
Nick’s been in my house many times before, but today feels different because we are alone, and because instead of the crisp shirt and suit, Nick is wearing jeans and a soft shabby T-shirt that smells faintly of fabric-softener. Or perhaps the difference is the blur in my head from the handful of painkillers I’ve downed, trying to drown out the nagging of my injured palm. Perhaps it’s because making the coffee and laying out the biscuits with just one hand is a struggle, all my movements turned slow and clumsy in the way that’s faintly reminiscent of the sweet dreamy awkwardness of being alone in the house with boys I really liked. The rain taps at the window like a visitor asking for admission. Nick has left the living room and is now standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
“I’m afraid I’ve ruined your reputation. The woman over the road saw me arriving.”
I take my time over the biscuits. “Did she speak to you?”
“No. I just saw her nebbing through the window at your gentleman caller. Now she’s out there pretending to hang up her Christmas lights.”
“Already?”
“Only thirty-eight sleeps to go now. What happened to your hand?”
“I broke a mirror.”
“It’s bleeding through already. Sit down and let me take a look at it.”
“It’s fine.”
“Where’s the first-aid kit?”
“Really, it’s fine.” Nick shakes his head sternly. “Oh, look, it’s upstairs in the bathroom, but honestly—”
“Right. In the dining room. Sit down at the table. Back in a minute.”
I abandon the coffee-making and sit down at the table, obedient and well-behaved, a good little girl. Once it would have been John telling me to sit down and wait while he fetched the first-aid supplies. Now, instead, it’s Nick. Do all men do this to women who need help? Do all women take the same pleasure in it? I can hear Nick moving around upstairs, the click of the bathroom cabinet as it opens and closes, then his feet as he comes down the stairs. The rhythm of his footsteps is different to both John and Joel.
“Okay.” He takes my hand, firm and brotherly, and begins to unwind the bandage. “Let’s have a look.” The gauze is stuck to my skin with half-dried blood, and I try not to wince as he lifts it off. “Sorry, I know this must hurt.” The last of the gauze comes away with a tearing sensation, and Nick’s fingers tighten around my wrist. “Jesus wept, Susannah, that’s a bad one.”
“It looks worse than it feels.”
“It could do with stitching. Any chance you’ll let me take you to hospital?” I shake my head and he sighs. “We’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got, then.” He dives into the first-aid box, choosing Savlon cream, fresh gauze, surgical tape, another bandage. His touch against my hurt palm is unexpectedly delicate.
“You found the first-aid kit all right?” I ask, to break the tension.
His smile takes my breath. “I’m quite good at looking for things in strange houses. Some people say I should be a copper. Are you sure you don’t want this stitching? Last chance before I wrap it up.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Tougher than you look?”
“That’s me.”
“I know it is.” His fingers are lying against my wrist and the light catches his wedding ring. I wonder if he can feel the butterfly flutter of my pulse.
“So.” He’s carefully not looking at me, concentrating a little harder than he needs to on the task of dressing my hand. “Do you want to tell me what made you start wondering about John? Has he been in touch with you recently? Done something to frighten you or upset you?”
“No! God no, nothing like that. He wouldn’t ever… no. He hasn’t. I promise. I don’t even know what made me call you. I’m so sorry.”
“You know,” says Nick, “we had a bloke in the other week telling us his neighbours were running a cannabis farm. Nothing dodgy-looking about the house mind you, no strange noises, no funny comings and goings, nice enough couple, both had jobs as far as he could tell. So we asked him why he thought that, and he said it came to him in a dream.”
Is it all right to laugh? I’m not sure I dare. What if the end of this story is so we charged him with wasting police time?
“He said that in this dream, he went round to their house to water their plants because they were away. And when he opened the front door, there was a great big pit with this huge plant living in it. He said it was like the one in Little Shop of Horrors. And when he woke up, he knew. Well, we nearly didn’t bother, in fact we told him it was an offence to waste police time, but he stuck to his story, not making a fuss, just really determined. Said he knew how it sounded and he’d understand if we didn’t act on it, but he wouldn’t feel right not saying anything. Anyway, we had someone in the area that day, so we dropped round for a quick recce just on the off-chance, and you know what? He was right. They’d got a trapdoor in the living room to a secret basement and they had this huge operation going on underground.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. And my point is, information comes to people in all sorts of ways. Especially if they’ve been through a traumatic experience. In dreams… in flashbacks… visions…” He gives me a quick, friendly smile. “And they can be so powerful that they can compel ordinary blokes to come along to the station and risk looking like an absolute prize tit, just because they know they might be right.”
“I… um…” But I can’t make myself say I had a vision of John. “It was something that came to me suddenly. Just an idea that he might have done something bad. But you looked at him at the time, I know you did. I feel so stupid. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t helping.”
“How did it come to you? Was it like an image, or a sound, or what?”
“It was like someone talking to me. Someone saying—”
“Yes?”
If you dig deep enough you might find something I don’t want you to find.
“Saying that John did his best to be a good father, but he didn’t a
lways manage it. Something like that.”
“Was there anything else? Did you see anything, maybe?”
“I got a sort of picture as well. It was John. And he was angry. More angry than I’ve ever seen him. I didn’t even know a person could look like that. He looked—”
“It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“He looked angry enough to kill someone. And I thought, what if he did? So I called you.”
“And you know what? When you told me that – as soon as you said his name – I felt I had to come round here straight away.”
I catch my breath. “Does that mean anything?”
“It means we both thought it might be important. So I want you to promise me something.”
“All right.”
“If anything else comes to you – by any means at all, I don’t care how irrational you might think it is – I want you to call me. All right? Will you do that?”
“So you don’t think I’m going mad?”
“I think you’re really brave and you’ve been through a dreadful experience and it’s left you with some scars.”
“Is that a nice way of saying yes, you think I’m going mad?”
“Hey, it’s all right if you are. I’m good with mad women, remember? Got married to one and everything. That’s better, I like it when you smile.” The table judders with a sudden vibration. “Is that your phone or mine?”
“Mine. It’s all right, I’ll let it ring out.”
“Jackie Nelson?” Nick’s looking at the screen. “Do you mind me asking? Is that the Jackie Nelson whose son’s missing?”
“Yes. She came to see me, we’ve been chatting, that’s all.”
The phone falls silent. Nick looks at the screen thoughtfully.
“Is that all right? Are we allowed?”
“Yes, of course you are.”
“So why are you looking like that? As if I’ve done something wrong? I didn’t mean to cause problems for you.”
“You haven’t caused any problems for me.”
“But?”
Nick reaches out as if to take my hand again. Hesitates. Lets his hand fall. “If I tell you something, do you promise to keep it secret?”
“I promise.”
“It has to be completely off the record.”
“I won’t say anything. Not to anyone.”
“Not even to Jackie? In fact, especially not to Jackie?”
This time, the tingle in my scalp is not because of his nearness.
“Why? What is it? What do you know about her?”
“It’s not anything I know, it’s just a precaution. I want you to be careful around her. Don’t tell her anything too personal, nothing you might regret later if… well, just nothing too personal. Don’t let her get inside your head. All those boundaries… you make sure you keep them up nice and high where she’s concerned. Just in case anything happens in the future that might make you wish you hadn’t been close to her.”
I don’t dare tell him that Jackie already crawled into my heart and found a safe haven there.
“You think she…” I don’t even want to say the word. “You don’t think Ryan’s alive any more?”
“I don’t think anything for sure, not yet. I’m not saying she’s done anything wrong at all, not her or her husband. Okay? I’m absolutely not saying that. We’re still investigating Ryan’s disappearance as if he’s a runaway.”
“But you can’t possibly think she—”
Nick raises his finger and puts it to my lips. His flesh against my mouth feels sharp and tender, all my nerve endings exposed. I can feel the rough calluses of his fingers, the dryness in his skin, the warmth of him. I can smell the Savlon he’s been putting on my injured hand, mingled with soap. He’s married, I think to myself, as I’ve thought a million times before, he’s married and he’s the investigating officer for your son’s disappearance. This can never ever happen not ever, he doesn’t see you that way and he never will so don’t even think about it. But none of it matters, because Nick is touching me – my hand, my wrist, my mouth – and even though the touch is meaningless to him, it is the most intimacy my skin has known for what feels like a lifetime.
“Just be careful,” he repeats.
He’s hardly left the house before the phone rings again. When I answer, Jackie’s voice sounds very lost and forlorn.
“Susannah? It’s me. Jackie, I mean.”
“How are you? Any news?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
“So how are you doing?”
My hand throbs treacherously. I bite my lip against the pain and hide it behind my back so I won’t have to look at it.
“Not bad,” I say carefully. “How about you?”
“Honestly? Terrible. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ring you up just to be miserable—”
“It’s okay, you can tell me.”
“I realised this morning, it’s starting to feel normal. It was bad enough when we was all just running round in a panic thinking we’d get him back in a couple of days, but getting used to it, that’s just… you know what I mean? Well, course you do, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s okay.”
“I thought I heard him come back last night. I was sat up in Georgie’s room, I heard the front door go and everything. Heard his feet on the stairs. I jumped out the chair and ran to look and then he just… There was nobody there.”
“That used to happen to me too.”
“Does it ever stop?”
“You have it less as time goes on.”
“God, I can’t afford to start howling again. Georgie’ll start too, she always does when I cry. I just wondered, is there any chance you can come round to mine for a bit? Maybe stop for tea?”
I hesitate. I’m still high and floaty with shared secrets and painkillers and the touch of Nick’s fingers on my hand and wrist and mouth. I want to sit quietly and absorb the sweetness into my skin. If I open the window and lean out, will I see the ghost of his car disappearing into the rain?
“Please.” Jackie’s voice is urgent. “Lee’s working straight through and my mam’s busy with a GP appointment for my dad. I really need someone to talk to. This awful thing happened at the police station this morning and I need you, I’m sorry to beg but I do. Please come. Don’t drive, you’ll not find us. Just get off the bus at the hospital and I’ll come and meet you and walk you down.”
This is what Nick means by boundaries; the brutal ruthless process of protecting the time you need to serve your own wants, against the brutal sucking pit of others’ needs. I’m not used to being begged so shamelessly, so guiltlessly. The feeling of being needed is intoxicating.
“Okay,” I say. “Give me about half an hour.”
The diesel thrumming of the bus shivers through my body and I’m grateful for the warmth of my fellow passengers. They said on the radio this morning that this winter would be the coldest for forty years and already the chill is creeping into the bones of the city. Perhaps we’ll even have a white Christmas. I hope Jackie and Georgie won’t get chilled waiting for me at the bus stop. The bus windows are steamy with breath and the wheels hiss as they skim over the slick wet surface of the road. My feet are cold, but my belly is hot with anxiety and guilt. This is the very opposite of what Nick told me to do.
Jackie’s face turns bright with relief when she sees me, waving frantically up at the window like a little child, turning the pram and seizing Georgie’s pudgy fist and making her wave too. Her hair sparkles with droplets of water and I can see from the puffiness around her eyes that she’s been crying again. When I stumble off the bus, she grabs me with sharp fingers and hugs me tight. I can smell the chemical strawberry of her shampoo, and I think how far we’ve come since I first saw her at the police station, how quickly we’ve opened up to each other.
“Thanks,” she whispers into my hair. “This way.”
The walk takes us down the kind of street I would dislike being alone on
. We take a narrow iron walkway over a wide railway line, stride quickly past grey pebble-dash houses with high railings and barred windows, and aging cars with bright yellow locks on the steering wheels and wheelie bins with the house numbers of their owners painted in high wavering numerals. Georgie’s scarlet buggy, darkened with rain, rolls onwards like a tank, clearing pigeons and pedestrians from the narrow footpath and onto the mown verge beside. We turn through a narrow entrance, squeeze the buggy through iron barriers built to stop bicycles. Down another path, and we’re in front of a terrace of three dark-brown houses with small windows and paved gardens. Georgie waves her arms in recognition as Jackie opens the creosoted gate of the centre house and takes out a bunch of keys, jamming them into the front door. I’m in Jackie’s home for the first time and, as she dangles Georgie from one arm while folding up the buggy with the other, she’s watching my face to see what I’ll do, what I’ll say.
The dominant feature of the hall is a large canvas print of a family photograph. Jackie, radiant and trashy, holds a smaller Georgie in her arms, bald and beribboned and tufted with fuzz, looking like Alice’s Wonderland pig in her christening gown, a bonnet crammed onto her overheated head. Jackie’s surrounded by her menfolk. Her two older sons, one too thin for his suit, one too fat. Their little brother, Ryan, despite the suit, might as well have the word ‘trouble’ tattooed on his forehead. And a man a few years older than Jackie, thick-necked with a shaved head. I turn back to Jackie to say something nice about the photograph and see the same man coming towards me through the doorway that leads to the kitchen. I find myself flinching in anticipation of a blow.
“I thought you were working.” The sudden hope in Jackie’s face makes me want to put my arms around her. “Is there any news?”
“No, nowt. I just come home for a—” he glances at me and grins. “—to use the facilities. You must be Susannah. Did I scare you just now?”
“You just made me jump.” Did he like seeing my fear? Does he like seeing that simply by asking that question, he’s made me more frightened? If this man pulled up outside my house driving a taxi, I would hide behind my curtains until he drove away again. I’m glad Jackie is here in the house with me. I wouldn’t want to spend time with Lee on my own. When he smiles, I see his yellow teeth.
The Winter's Child Page 11
