A Family Man

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘So he fell off a sofa?’

  ‘I think so, I wasn’t there … that is, I was, but in the other room – they adjoin each other – on the telephone. I think he must have caught his head on the edge of the window ledge as he fell. He was playing pirates you see and —’

  ‘And this other bruise – was that caused at the same time, while you were out of the room?’

  ‘No, that was a couple of days ago at a friend’s house. Some sort of contretemps in the garden – I can’t claim to be a witness to that one either.’ Matt smiled tightly. ‘It’s been a bit of a week.’

  ‘I see. And did Joshua pass out on either of these occasions, even for a few seconds?’

  Matt shook his head. ‘No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.’

  ‘And he hasn’t seemed sleepy?’

  Matt looked down at the dazed pale face burrowing into his jacket.

  ‘Well, he’s tired now, of course. From shock and so on. You’re wondering about concussion, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ She frowned. ‘And there was no one – your wife or partner, for instance – who was with him during either of these accidents?’

  ‘No. We … it’s just the two of us at the moment. Isn’t it, mate?’ he whispered, brushing his lips against Joshua’s hair.

  It wasn’t until a doctor ran through many similar questions that it dawned on Matt that he was being regarded with suspicion. A single father, a bruised child, a lame story about not being around when the accident happened. The scenario spoke for itself.

  ‘I know it looks awful,’ he gabbled, as the doctor, a short, squat man with pouches under his eyes, scrubbed his hands in the sink next to the desk. ‘Two head wounds in one week, but he’s just at that age. Spends most of the day being a pirate – a dangerous occupation at the best of times.’ He could hear the desperation in his voice.

  ‘Well, he’s going to look even more like a pirate when we’ve finished with him,’ quipped the doctor, his expression softening, whether for Joshua’s sake or his own Matt found it hard to be sure. Pulling out a surgical glove from a packet on the desk, he blew it into a comical cockerel head of a balloon and placed it in Joshua’s hands. ‘There you are, young man, You take charge of that while I put a bit of glue on this face of yours and then some special plasters to keep it nice and tightly closed.’

  ‘Glue?’ said Matt, momentarily distracted from fears of arrest. ‘Not stitches?’

  ‘Not these days. Now hold him tight a minute as I need to squeeze the sides together while I just —’ He performed the deed while he talked, so deftly that Joshua barely flinched. ‘That’s it. All done. Good boy. I’ll prescribe an analgesic – to be taken every four hours for two days – and no jumping around for at least a week. Take this down to X-ray and when you’ve got the results bring them back up to the nurse on the front desk. I don’t think there’s any cause for alarm but it’s better to be safe, as I’m sure you’ll agree,’ he added, his round face darkening for a moment. ‘A bit of a queue down there, I’m afraid – it could take some time.’

  When they were eventually discharged, with a prescription for some painkilling medicine and a clean bill on the X-ray front, it was already quite dark. As they crossed the hospital forecourt, a grey cuticle of a moon slipped into view from behind a mist of cloud. While it was not quite raining, the air felt moist and chilled. Shivering with cold, Matt pulled the panels of his coat more securely round Joshua, who was latched on to his chest like some kind of infant marsupial, his small fingers looped tightly round clumps of his jumper, his legs hooked over his hips. Having got out into the main street, Matt stopped on the edge of the pavement, suddenly bereft of any sense as to where he should go, aware only of the dankness of the night, the blurry yellow stream of passing cars and the pulse of unhappiness deep inside. He had thought he was over the worst, that he had been beginning to wrest some order out of the chaos. It was dispiriting beyond belief to realise that the process of recovery and readjustment had barely begun, that what he had imagined to be rock bottom was merely a halfway house, that if he looked down there were many dizzying depths still to go. The consolation of love for the child in his arms, instead of easing the pain, made it worse; because of the weight of the love, the guilt, the responsibility for moulding hope and happiness in a life that still had so far to go.

  * * *

  It was several minutes before Matt realised he was walking in the wrong direction. He had left the car down a narrow street on the other side of the hospital, with two wheels on the pavement, on a red line, or a double yellow – he hadn’t known or cared. Slowly he turned and retraced his steps. Joshua, now thoroughly asleep, was heavier and harder to hold. It was several days since he had asked about Kath, a sign perhaps that he was beginning to accept the status quo in the way that only children could, the way that made them so exploitable. He hadn’t even called for her when he fell, Matt mused, marvelling at the fact, thinking what massive adjustments they had both made already, so soon into this new version of their lives.

  Rain seeped from the cloud at last, mingling with a few obstinate tears that had slipped on to Matt’s cheeks. He walked slowly, trying to cast his mind back to the illness and death of his mother, wanting to recall what emotional pain had felt like as a teenager. But all he could remember clearly was the anger, the sense of outrage not only at being deprived of something all of his friends took for granted, but at being set apart, tarnished with the brush of misfortune. The carrying on had not been bravery, as most observers assumed, but a deep desire to have the embarrassment of

  difference overlooked, to merge back into inconspicuousness. He looked down at the crown of Joshua’s head, shining wet in the darkness, wishing he could protect him from experiencing such complications, wishing even that Kath had died instead of scarring them both with the stigma of desertion.

  He reached the car at last, surprised in his fatalistic frame of mind not to find it shackled with wheel clamps or cellophane-packaged parking tickets. By the time they got home, stopping at a chemist en route, Joshua was so tired that it took several attempts to get him to swallow the prescribed spoonful of pink liquid. Afterwards, Matt, his fingers and shirt front sticky from mismanaged efforts with the medicine, staggered downstairs, empty-headed with fatigue and hunger. Seeing the large dark patch on the carpet, he fetched a half-pound bag of salt and tipped the entire contents over it, swirling it round and round in a rippling pattern a good half-inch deep. His bottle of beer, barely touched, was still on the table.

  Picking it up, he noticed there were still smudges of blood on his hands.

  When the telephone rang half an hour later, he was stretched out on the sofa with half an eye on a celebrity quiz show, so nearly asleep that he almost did not bother to answer it.

  ‘Matt? It’s Louise. Just wondered how you were, how the week had gone.’

  ‘Oh, fairly hellish, thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t wake you, did I? You sound sleepy.’

  ‘No, no. Just recovering from a bad day. Well, no,’ he corrected himself, ‘the morning was tolerable – almost good, in fact. I appear, at last, to have secured an interview with the Andrea Beauchamp. But the afternoon took a nosedive, literally, when Josh cracked his head open doing a kamikaze act off the sofa. A hospital emergency department is not a place I would recommend either for relaxation or entertainment on a Friday night. They kept asking me to explain what happened. It took a while to twig that I was being eyed up as at best negligent and at worst the cause of the wound.’

  ‘You can’t meant they thought that you …?’ ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous.’

  Matt shrugged. ‘Not really. Just doing their job. I expect they’ll be asking me about Kath’s disappearance next, sending forensic teams under the floorboards.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, don’t be silly.’

  He sighed. ‘Don’t listen to me. Feeling sorry for myself. It was good of you to think of calling.’

  ‘And is
Josh all right?’

  ‘Seems to be. They took X-rays and so on, did the job properly – we were there for hours.’

  ‘Look, Matt, I was wondering if you wanted to get together over the weekend? Anthony’s going to Europe —’

  ‘But he’s only just got back, hasn’t he?’

  ‘From Boston, yes. That was Tuesday. He’s frightfully in demand at the moment. The children see him so rarely I think they think he’s some sort of lodger.’ She laughed sharply. ‘So anyway, I thought it might be fun if we got together.’

  ‘Thanks, Louise, but I’m interviewing a prospective baby-sitter tomorrow and I’ve got my dad coming on Sunday, so I’m going to spend some time getting the house straight.’

  ‘I could have Josh if you like, or come round and help out or —’ ‘Thanks again, but he’s pretty shaken up and the doctor said to take it very easy. Lots of TV and food. No extra excitement of any kind – especially not King Arthur games,’ he added wryly.

  There was a pause. ‘Okay. Not to worry. When Josh is feeling better, maybe. Let me know if you’d like me to have him after school again, or if you want Gloria, or if there’s anything that I —’

  ‘Louise, I’m okay,’ Matt cut in, suddenly fed up with all her sympathetic browbeating, wanting only to crawl upstairs to bed.

  That night he dreamt of Kath for the first time since she had left. She was beautiful and laughing, her fringe sweeping along the tops of her eyelashes, her mouth wide and red, teasing and needy. She beckoned and he followed, many times, round twists and turns in his head, chasing the image which kept dissolving like a silver shimmer on a hot road.

  14

  It would have been hard to say who was more surprised, Matt on seeing the carrot-headed girl from the playground or Josephine herself, who let out a small shriek of dismay before turning to scurry back down the steps.

  For an instant Matt hesitated, half inclined to let her go, astonished at life’s capacity to shock with its grisly little coincidences. When at last he called after her she paid no attention, except to glance over her shoulder like a frightened rabbit. Just as he expected her to round the corner out of sight, she stopped by a grey car and tapped on the window. ‘I said, hang on,’ he called again. Leaving the front door open, he hurried down the steps after her. ‘Of course, I had no idea that —’

  ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you,’ she muttered, giving up on the car door, which was evidently locked, and turning to face him. Most of her hair seemed to be in her eyes, a fluffy cloud of orange. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

  ‘Well, that makes two of us.’

  They were interrupted by a sharp female voice from across the road. The dark curly-haired woman whom Matt had seen on the occasion of their last meeting was striding towards them, heavy-soled black boots pushing out from under the panels of her long brown coat. As well as the satchel of a handbag she carried a large black umbrella which she pointed at Matt, causing it to blow open and shut like a large flapping bird. ‘Josie, is everything okay?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ began Matt.

  ‘He’s the guy who wrote that advert,’ interrupted Josie wearily. ‘It’s him, his little boy.’

  ‘Is it really?’ The woman gave the umbrella one last shake, aiming its point at the ground this time as opposed to Matt’s head. ‘In that case …’

  A plaintive cry cut her off in mid-sentence. It came from Joshua, standing a few yards away in the open front door, barefoot and still in his pyjamas. The piece of hospital gauze protecting his forehead had come loose and was hanging somewhat ghoulishly over one eyebrow.

  ‘Nasty fall yesterday,’ Matt mumbled, feeling that such an appearance called for some explanation. Remembering in the same instant that he did not have his house keys and that a sudden gust of wind could leave them both marooned in the street at the mercy of unfriendly strangers, he turned back towards the house. Joshua called out again, this time with greater volume and clarity. ‘He’s gone, Dad. Spotty’s got outside.’

  ‘Who’s Spotty?’ enquired the girl, pushing her hair out of her eyes and peering towards Joshua with new interest.

  ‘Hamster,’ muttered Matt, breaking into a run. Back at the top of his steps he hustled his protesting son inside, bundled him into his coat and wellingtons and grabbed the house keys from the hall table. ‘Okay, where did you see him go, Josh? Which way exactly? Down the steps? By the dustbins? Try and tell Daddy exactly because then we have a better —’

  ‘Is this it?’ Josephine was standing at the gate, holding up the truant rodent with a look of cheeky triumph on her face. ‘He was going for a walk, I think. Trying to see the world.’ She stroked the hamster’s smooth chestnut head tenderly with her index finger, badly bitten, Matt noticed, and dabbed with the remains of pink nail varnish. ‘What a goer, what a bold, brave little thing.’

  ‘Spotty is brave,’ echoed Joshua, grinning proudly.

  So it was that the interview, which had looked destined not to be, took place after all, amidst some considerable celebration, and involving not only the girl but also her mentor of a friend, who turned out to be a drama and English teacher at her school, a comprehensive near the Old Kent Road. After making coffees and endeavouring to start proceedings with the correct measure of detached businesslike interest in Josie’s potential as a childminder, Matt gave up and let the conversation find its own flow. Josie, after making a comparable effort, was soon splayed out on the floor alongside his son, sketching faces on her fingertips with a Biro and waggling them to make him laugh.

  The teacher, meanwhile, who had introduced herself as Sophie Contini, looked considerably less at ease. She sat on the edge of an armchair, holding her coffee in two hands, answering Matt’s questions stiffly, her face only softening when she glanced at the pair on the floor. Having declined to surrender her coat, she had eased it off behind her on the seat, as if wanting to be ready to slip her arms back into it at a moment’s notice. Her hair was scraped tightly back off her face, stretching the curls out flat except for some wisps at her temples. After limping through a few pleasantries, she seemed relieved at the chance to help Matt clear away the empty mugs.

  ‘So does your partner work full time?’ she asked, following him into the kitchen.

  ‘No … that is, we’ve recently separated.’ He made a face. ‘Still trying to adjust to the new circumstances. Soon, I hope to be working from home.’

  ‘So that’s why you need Josie.’ The remark was a statement rather than a question, delivered without any suggestion of the compassion or curiosity Matt had lately come to expect from females. ‘Could I just say … I don’t want her getting dragged into anything.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You know … domestic warfare.’ ‘I can assure you that —’

  ‘Where she lives she gets quite enough of that sort of thing, not just from her own family, but on the estate as a whole …’ She lowered her voice, casting a tender look back through the double doors into the sitting room. ‘She’s had to grow up very quickly. Don’t get me wrong,’ she added hurriedly, seeing the expression on Matt’s face, ‘when it comes to little ones Josie has a truly magic touch. She just seems to be able to get on their level, knows how their minds work. A bit of regular, secure work is just what she needs, something good for her to focus on and that allows her to exercise her talents. And if you’re thinking about that incident in the park, she only hangs around with those girls very occasionally. She lives in a tough world, Mr Webster, the sort of world where sometimes you have to be seen to be playing the game in order to survive.’

  ‘All this is very heart-rending, but I’m not a …’ He had been going to say charity, but she interrupted him again.

  ‘I brought her today, but she’s going to get a bike. In the meantime, if it’s a late night, I’ve said I’m prepared to come and pick her up.’

  ‘But what about her parents?’ asked Matt, curious, in spite of himself.

  She offered him a tight smile. ‘Let’
s just say they have a lot of other things on their plates. Caring for Josie has not always been their highest priority. There’s a son a couple of years older who’s already…’ She stopped, doubt sweeping across her face. ‘Look, Josie is a sweetheart. You really would not regret employing her to look after your little boy, I promise you.’ She smiled properly for the first time, drawing attention to her wide mouth, and then biting her lower lip as if ashamed of it. ‘She finishes school this summer, hopefully having secured enough GCSEs to qualify for an NNEB course. I’ve promised to help her apply – obviously a job like this would be invaluable —’

  ‘It seems she has a lot to be thankful to you for,’ commented Matt dryly.

  ‘I do what I can. The school is full of children like her. All they need is a bit of encouragement and support … I have kids knocking on my door at all times of the day and night. I’d be failing if I turned any one of them away.’

  ‘That must be good for your private life,’ Matt murmured, admiring what he was being told but also wondering if it was possible for anyone to sound more self-righteous or take themselves more seriously.

  The hazel eyes flashed defensively. ‘I manage, thank you, Mr Webster. Now I think it’s probably time we were going, unless you’ve any more questions. If you want written references I can get them from several families round me where Josie has helped out over the last year. I hope you won’t hold my honesty against her. I thought it was important that you should have a fair idea of the big picture.’ She paused before adding, ‘But if that means you’ve already decided against employing her I think it would be far better for all of us if you just came right out and said so —’

  Matt, who had been steeling himself to do exactly that, compelled to do so both by the disheartening thumbnail sketch of Josie’s background and the intimidating attitude of her protector, caught a glimpse of Joshua grinning at his new friend and said instead that references would not be necessary and that he could stretch to paying six pounds an hour, but not a penny more. Dennis would, after all, be around to keep an eye on things, he reasoned a few minutes later, hurrying after them into the hall, his mind burning with the thousand questions he should have asked before inviting anyone to take on so important a role.