The Child Inside

by Suzanne Bugler

  I sit there on my bed long after she hangs up.

  Was Andrew just trying to protect me? Did he keep his feelings to himself, for my sake? Is that really what he thought I wanted?

  How can you live with someone, and think that you know someone, and then when something bad happens find that you are in different corners of a triangle, far, far apart?

  I didn’t want Andrew to protect me, but I didn’t want to talk to him, either. He wouldn’t have got it right, whatever he did. He was the father of my dead baby. How could I ever see beyond that?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  All evening Janice’s words go round and round inside my head. I move about the house, tidying things that don’t need tidying. I sweep the floor, from one end of the hall to the other, through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. I sweep and sweep, but ours is an old wooden floor, badly restored. Weekend after weekend Andrew was on his knees with a useless old sander, scouring away. We still have the cracks. We still have the draught and the dust that comes up through the cracks. I sweep, and it gets me nowhere.

  I turn on the TV in the living room and sit on the sofa, and try to watch. But how can I possibly be still? Janice’s voice is in my head, tormenting me, making me see images I don’t want to see.

  My sister and Andrew in the hospital chapel, heads bowed together like Mary and Joseph. My baby daughter, wrapped in a blanket, in a death-shroud, her skin cold and white as porcelain, held in Andrew’s arms. And where am I? Where am I?

  Did I shut Andrew out, or did he – and everyone else – shut me out? How could my sister be there beside Andrew when I am not? And when I think back to those numb and thumped-out days, all I see is Andrew and Jono, Andrew and Jono. As if Jono was a shield to hide behind, or some kind of distracting toy to wave in my face. Andrew and Jono – never just Andrew. I never saw just Andrew again.

  And those other people who traipsed through my house being useful in the aftermath – my mother, my father, any friends who were brave enough still to come – didn’t they too just shove my son at me, as if to say, Look, look at this boy, look at what you have still got?

  How could I grieve with no space? How could I open my arms to Jono without longing to hold her? How could I ever love him without guilt, without fear?

  Jono is in his room. He has been there since he left his pasta, uneaten, at the kitchen table. I do not know what to say to him. I do not know what to do.

  Often I have fantasized about leaving Andrew, but I always imagined Jono and I sticking together. I imagined a scenario not unlike the times when Andrew is simply out, or away on business, when Jono and I relax, and watch too much TV, and eat careless, lazy food from the freezer at all the wrong times of day. I imagined how much closer we would be, Jono and I, without Andrew there to create the triangle. With Andrew exiled, the pressure would be off, and Jono and I would be free at last to just be.

  But if Andrew created the triangle, it was the triangle that held us together.

  Jono’s door is closed, shutting me out. I stand there on the landing, listening for sounds from within, but hear nothing. I tap on the door, and I wait. I tap again.

  ‘Jono,’ I say, my face close to the door so that he will hear me, ‘would you like to have a go on the PlayStation before bed?’

  He doesn’t answer and I creak open the door. He is sitting on his bed, legs crossed, and fiddling with a little torch attached to a metal key ring, flicking it on, flicking it off. He stares down at the torch, his face bloated with misery.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but he doesn’t answer. The frown on his face deepens, and he draws his lower lip in, creasing up his chin. I watch him fiddling with that torch, and my heart contracts. I remember when he got it; Andrew brought it back from a trip to Bath last year. I wipe my hands on my thighs and move a little closer. I strive for normality. ‘Have you done your homework?’

  Flick, goes the torch in his fingers. Flick, flick, flick.

  ‘Have you done all your homework?’ I ask again.

  ‘Homework, homework, homework,’ he mumbles without looking at me. ‘All you care about is homework.’

  ‘I thought you might like a go on the PlayStation,’ I say, trying to make it sound like a treat, trying to inject a little light into my voice.

  ‘I don’t want to go on the PlayStation. I want my dad.’

  Still he doesn’t look at me, and my heart twists some more. Carefully I sit down on the edge of the bed beside him and he turns away from me, his shoulders raised so that he is hunched right over, almost into a ball.

  ‘Jono,’ I say, and I am fighting back the tears now. ‘Sometimes things . . . happen. Between grown-ups. Things you couldn’t possibly understand.’ I try to touch him, but he flinches, and curls himself up further. My heart is a solid burning mass. ‘Whatever happens between me and your dad, we both love you. We’ll always love you.’

  I don’t see it coming. He moves so fast; like an animal, he uncurls from his ball and rises up and hurls that key ring straight at me, at close range. It hits me on the cheekbone, right where Andrew struck me. It hits me so hard that I hear it crack inside my head like a pistol shot. I feel it like a pistol shot, too, and slap my hand across my face, clutching at the pain.

  ‘Well, I don’t love you!’ Jono screams and he’s lashing out at me now, too, arms and legs flailing like a wild thing. He kicks my chest, my legs, my stomach, and I double over, protecting myself, protecting my unborn baby. ‘I don’t love you! I hate you! I hate you!’

  I manage to stagger from his room. My face is bleeding; I can feel it sticky under my hand. I can’t stand up straight. I can’t even see properly. I feel my way along the landing to my room, close the door behind me and collapse down on my bed. Jono is still screaming, I hate you! I hate you! and I hear the thud and the crash as more things are thrown. And I hear him crying, too, in between his screams, sobs loaded with hatred and rage.

  I curl up on my bed with my eyes closed. My head is throbbing, but my body and my heart are numb. I need to sleep. I need to sleep and sleep and block it all away.

  You think you are bound forever. You think you are tied, to this person and to this person. You think that it really matters. You spend your life, clutching at chains, clinging, clinging.

  We are undone now.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I hear Jono get up in the morning and go downstairs, but I cannot bring myself to follow him. I hear him slamming his bag around in the hall. I hear him open the cupboard and rummage for his trainers; it is Friday, indoor PE day. I sit on my bed and I listen to the faint rustlings as he laces his shoes and puts on his blazer; I hear the click of the front door.

  And then he is gone.

  He did not eat last night and he did not eat this morning. Because I am his mother, I care about this. I care about this more than I care that he threw the torch at me, that he kicked me, that he hates me.

  He cannot hate me.

  He did not say goodbye to me, nor I to him. This hurts most, like the most brutal severing of the cord.

  I would lie on my bed forever. I would sleep again; I would sleep forever. But in my head I picture Jono, plodding up the street to wait for the school bus with his bag on his back, shoulders stooped, face turned to the ground. My little boy, my little boy. And I picture Andrew, his body bent into the confines of Janice’s sofa – if he has slept on Janice’s sofa – in her dark and poky living room in her dark and poky flat. I picture his unshaven face on her cushions; she has too many cushions. Too many cushions and too many throws, and everywhere too many candles. I can smell those candles; the cloying spinster stink of wax and hippy oils. How I hate those candles. And I can smell Andrew, too; the sleep smell, the man smell, the smell of his socks and his unwashed hair, cocooned, confined, on Janice’s sofa.

  I think about them talking about me, and there is a hard, tight knot deep inside my heart.

  And I think of Simon, crisp and fresh in his expensive clothes, planning his day, planning hi
s weekend, dispensing me from his life as casually as I entered it. I think of the dreams I spun, the stupid, ghost-driven fantasies. Whatever did I hope there could be?

  I cannot sleep again. The demons in my head will not still.

  How I longed to be free. How I longed to be free, but I am not free; I am merely alone.

  My eyes are sticky and tight from crying. My cheek is sticky and tight from the blood that has congealed on my skin. Some of my hairs are caught in that blood; I try to prise them away, but they are trapped, like spider’s legs in glue.

  I force myself to rise and go into the bathroom. My body is as slow and stiff as an old lady’s. I place my hands on the sides of the sink to steady myself, and peer into the mirror. How ghoulish I look, the wound to my face as bright and overdone as a Halloween party-piece, the bruise raised and purple already, the cut juicy and moist and vampire-red, stark against the pallor of my skin. I take a cotton-wool pad from the packet on the windowsill, dampen it under the cold tap and start cleaning off the blood. The cut is deep, and bleeds anew as I dab at it, and threads of cotton wool attach themselves to the goo. So much damage from one small key ring. I should probably get it seen to, but I won’t of course.

  I am still wearing yesterday’s clothes. When I am done cleaning my face, I undress and shower, then dress again. I go through these things methodically; it is the only way. And then I clean my face again, cover the cut with a plaster, and watch as a red stain rises up and blooms through.

  I cannot go out.

  I cannot leave the house with my face like this and my life like this. If I thought I was a prisoner before, then what am I now? I drift through the day, unable to think ahead or make plans. There is a blank wall inside my head that I cannot see past.

  No one calls me. At some point in the afternoon I phone Janice’s flat, though I do not know what I want to say. But the phone just rings unanswered. I wonder when Andrew will come back, for his things at least. I move about the house quietly, half-listening for the door. I want to see him and I don’t want to see him.

  I turn on the computer, to kill time, and I type in Simon Reiber and stare at his name. I did not know him before, I tell myself. I did not know him before. Not really. He was the brother of a friend of a friend, that is all.

  That is all.

  I type in abortion, and up come the adverts, the religious sites, the cold, clinical facts. I see these listed sites and they are all nothing to do with me; I cannot look any closer. I cannot read them. So I type in late motherhood and up springs a whole load of information about the dangers and the pitfalls, and all the things that could go wrong. But hey, it’s a lifestyle choice. It’s all about having a career, and being in control.

  But what about me? I have no career, and I am not in control.

  So I stop even looking. And I go and find my bag, and take Simon’s cheque from my purse, and I tuck it away in the bottom of my jewellery box, where it will be safe. And into my head flashes my last image of Simon, walking away from me. I see his face in profile as he heads for the door, the decisive, impatient movement of his body in his perfectly cut clothes. Do what you have to do, he said to me, as if getting rid of a baby was no bigger deal than a trip to the bathroom.

  What a fool I have been.

  The minutes and the hours tick by. I make fishcakes for Jono’s tea, peeling, boiling and mashing the potatoes, and flaking in the fish. They sit on a plate now, ready to be cooked, plump and floury and benign. They are a lie, these fishcakes, they are a con. I sit at the table, and I look at them, and my stomach is crawling with guilt and dread. It is almost half-past four. I do not know what I will say to Jono when he gets in. I do not know what I can do, other than make him fishcakes, and wait.

  I watch the hands of the clock click by, and by. I listen for Jono’s footsteps on the path, his key in the door. Five o’clock comes, and five o’clock goes. I sit at the table, and I wait.

  But Jono doesn’t come home.

  The coach must be stuck in traffic.

  I pace about the kitchen watching the hands of the clock slowly click their way round to half-past five. On a normal day Jono would phone me if he was going to be late, but of course this is not a normal day.

  I go to the front of the house and stand in the living room, where I can look out at the street from the window. The coach has been late before, but not this late. What if he didn’t catch it? What if he was delayed at school for some reason and the coach set off without him? But that has never happened before. And surely he would have phoned me. He’d have had to.

  I call his mobile, but it’s switched off. He only ever puts it on when he wants to call me; he never thinks that I might need to speak to him. So many times I have told him to turn his phone on when he comes out of school, so many times.

  I phone the school, but of course the office staff will have gone home now. I get the answerphone, with its various options for redirection. I try every option. I call and call again, till eventually the phone clicks and a woman says distractedly, ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m a mother of a boy at the school,’ I say, stumbling over the words. ‘My son comes home on the coach. Was there any delay, do you know; anything on at school? He hasn’t rung me. He hasn’t come home.’

  My heart is pounding. The phone shakes against my ear.

  ‘What form is he in?’

  ‘8G,’ I say. ‘It’s Jonathan Morgan.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ She’s gone for ages. I walk from side to side in front of the window, unable to stand still. There must have been a sports practice or a drama practice; something I didn’t know about. Something I should have known about, but have forgotten in all the recent chaos. Jono will be waiting for me. He’ll be standing at the school gates, waiting for me.

  The phone clicks. ‘There were no after-school clubs on today for Year Eight,’ the woman says.

  ‘But was there anything else? A drama rehearsal or something? Is there anything he might have stayed behind for?’ Please, I am thinking. Please tell me there is something.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to the bursar,’ she says and her voice is patient to the point of irritation, as if every day there are children who do not come home from school. ‘There are no children left in school.’

  ‘Well, could there have been a problem with the bus then? Maybe it broke down or something. How can I find out?’

  ‘We use a very reliable coach company,’ she says now, as if I have personally insulted her. ‘They always let us know if there is a problem.’ Then, as if I am completely stupid, ‘Have you tried phoning him? He does have a phone?’

  ‘His phone isn’t on,’ I say and there is a short silence. I can almost see her rolling her eyes.

  ‘Then perhaps you might phone one of his friends, someone from the same bus,’ she says, spelling it out as if I am an idiot.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, of course,’ and hang up.

  But Jono has no friends who get the same bus as him. His friends that I know of live in Kew, and West Byfleet. There is nobody who lives near us. Nobody he sees every day, to walk home with, to chat with, to be in and out of each other’s houses with. I picture him, trudging up the road to the bus stop every morning with the woes of the day ahead of him, and I want to fold him in my arms, my baby, my poor sweet baby.

  It was different at primary school. At primary school we walked back and forth with all the others, me talking to whichever mums were going our way – and there were many, always there were many – while Jono ran ahead with the other kids; he was one of them, so happy, so at ease. But Andrew and I ripped him away from all that. The other kids went on to the local secondary school, but that wasn’t good enough for our Jono. So we stuck him on a coach each day and sent him fifteen miles out into the countryside, to be among strangers, to be alone.

  And where is he now?

  This is my fault. He can’t face me after throwing that torch at me. He will be in Surbiton, wandering around the shops instead of coming home. I rush in
to the hall, stick my shoes on and grab my keys and practically run down our road. The coach drops off just near the station – but I’ve no way of knowing if it did drop off. Everything is as normal. Everything is busy and slow and choked up as normal; cars crawling round the one-way system and up past the station. I get as far as the High Street, but most of the shops are shut now, and anyway, when did Jono ever hang around shops? I don’t know where he could be. There is a play area at the end of Mitcham Lane, not much of a play area – just a couple of old swings and a seesaw – but we used to go there sometimes, when he was little. I double-back on myself, and as I head there I fancy I can see him, forlorn, his chin tucked into his jacket, rocking back and forth, back and forth. But when I get there the place is deserted. I don’t know what to do. I spot a woman walking a dog on the far side of the green and run over to her.

  ‘Have you seen a boy?’ I ask. ‘A schoolboy, thirteen years old. He’s got dark brown hair.’ But she just shrugs and shuffles away.

  Maybe he is home now. Please God, maybe he is home now. So I run back. My hands fumble and drop the key; I pick it up, ram it in the lock and slam open the door. ‘Jono!’ I yell. ‘Jono!’

  And when he doesn’t answer I search the house: the kitchen, the living room. I run upstairs to his bedroom. Where is he? Where is he? I pick up the book on his bed and put it down again. I pick up his pyjamas and hold them against my face, so soft, so precious, my Jono, my Jono.

  Andrew needs to know. Andrew should be here. So I go back downstairs and I phone Janice’s flat, but no one answers. I phone Janice’s mobile, but she doesn’t answer. I try to get a grip. I try to think what to do. Maybe Jono’s gone home with a friend. Maybe one of his friends will know where he is.

  So I dig out the class list and phone Oliver’s house.

  ‘It’s Rachel,’ I say as soon as Amy answers. ‘Jono’s mum.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Hello, Rachel.’