by kendra Smith
‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘No, it’s fine – but that’s quite enough about me. Tell me more about you – how’s Tyler doing?’
‘The stroppy teenager?’ I laugh. ‘Yeah, fine. I’m so proud of him for attempting to get into this course, for having the get-up-and-go to get on with it. So many lads from around us, near the estate anyway, they just can’t be bothered. It doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on him. He has his days, mind you, but on the whole, he’s a great kid. I just—’
I push some hair from my face and smile at him. There it is again. That zing in my heart.
‘I used to be into photography myself, took tonnes of shots in South America – I had the time. I won an award in a local newspaper, in fact,’ he says laughing.
‘Really? That’s impressive.’
‘Not really – the category was urban black and white scenes; maybe a hundred entries. There wasn’t much competition.’
‘Still. Sounds impressive – maybe you could teach Tyler a thing or two.’
‘Sure, why not? I’d love to meet him.’
‘Do you miss South America?’
He looks at me, shrugs again, and stares into the distance. ‘Yes. No. I think I’m ready to be “back” back home, I suppose. It was great, amazing, but when that new CEO took over at the helm of that local company, we just didn’t see eye to eye. Anyway—’ he puts his glass on the table ‘—I want to know more about you, how you grew up – everything! I’m not driving, so I can listen properly.’ His eyes widen.
I laugh and tell him more about the bits I want him to know, a few of the funnier stories about some of my foster parents, about life now. He laughs at my tales of how long Tyler takes in the shower, I glaze over my cleaning work, I mention my class at the gym and how I couldn’t bend down at the dentist’s for three weeks after it. I tell him carefully edited bits about my life. I don’t tell him about my yearning for a proper family – whatever that is – or that there’s a baby growing in my tummy for cash. I don’t want to scare him off with that secret and my others.
I look at my watch and realise it’s later than I thought. ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee when you drop me back?’ Please say yes.
‘Love to.’ Daniel grins at me, pulls back my chair for me and starts to hum as we walk outside together.
*
I open the kitchen door with Daniel standing behind me and squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Well, I can. Tyler’s been here alone: debris litters the kitchen; the cat is sitting inside a pizza box and dirty dishes lie on the draining board.
I sigh and feel quite embarrassed about the mess: dishes stacked unevenly on the side; greasy water is floating in the sink that has been left all day; pale baked beans, lying abandoned in the sink, naked of their tomato sauce. Had Tyler not even thought to clear away a few things?
‘Sorry!’
‘It doesn’t matter, Charlie.’ Daniel smiles as I try to find a clean glass. A mayonnaise jar sits without its lid on the sink. Congealed sauce glistens along the rim.
‘Let me just rinse these out and we can go in the lounge.’
‘No problem.’ Daniel grabs the empty pizza boxes and puts them in the bin. ‘Tyler, right?’
‘Yeah, he only seems to see things if they are behind a camera lens!’
‘Can I use the bathroom?’ Daniel smiles at me again.
‘Sure, it’s by the front door.’
While Daniel is in the loo, I nip upstairs to check Tyler.
I open his bedroom door to find him slouched over his laptop on his bed. ‘Hi, Tyler – what’s up?’ I say leaning on his door.
He shrugs. ‘Dunno. Just pissed off, coz I got another letter about that course, the photography one – it’s the portfolio. Even if you get that money, I’ll never get the portfolio finished without a camera. I just want to give up – it’s not worth it.’ He leans back on his pillow with a thump.
That does it. I’ll ask Suzie for an advance – and I’ll look for a camera on eBay. ‘Listen, I think we can make it. I’ve asked for another cleaning shift, and I’m going to see if I can get an advance from Suzie – or, sell my jewellery on eBay—’
‘S’OK, Mum, we can’t afford it.’ He looks up from his screen, a ghostly white light across his cheeks in the dim room, my man-boy who is so passionate about his dreams, and I am determined to help him.
‘But we can, Tyler!’ I walk towards him. ‘I can just about make the deposit, and when I get the money for the baby we can—’
I stop as I hear Daniel flush the loo downstairs.
‘Who’s that?’ Tyler’s head jerks up at me.
‘Oh, my, er, driver – you know, that guy Suzie organised to take me places.’ I try not to notice the look of shock on Tyler’s face.
‘Look, Tyler, let’s talk about this later.’ I touch his arm. ‘I am really, really proud of you, you know, sorting out this photography course. I just need time to figure out all the payments.’
I go back downstairs and notice Daniel is sitting in the lounge. With that my phone pings in my back pocket. I quickly glance at it. A text from Tyler:
Thank you.
My heart leaps as suddenly someone knocks on the front door. Sweet Jesus, that’s all I need: Paul.
I pull my shoulders back wondering how I am going to handle this. Out of nowhere, Suzie’s voice is bellowing at me.
‘Charlie! It’s me, Suzie, can you let me in? It’s bloody freezing out here!’
What the hell is she doing here? I don’t want Daniel to find out about the pregnancy – not yet anyway.
I open the door. Suzie is standing shivering on the doorstep. She briskly brushes past me and marches in. ‘God, it isn’t much warmer in here!’ She laughs loudly.
She takes off her coat and hangs it on the banister – tiny snowflakes melt on the sleeve as I stare at them.
‘Are you sure it’s OK to leave my car on your street?’
That does it. ‘Well, we’ve had a few cars that have been nicked on the other side of the estate, but not here,’ I say pointedly.
‘Yes, right OK.’
‘Um, I’ve actually got people here…’
‘What people?’ Suzie seems irritated that I might entertain in my own home.
‘It’s Daniel, the driver you booked me. He just dropped me home,’ I add, remembering who’s footing the bill.
‘Oh right.’ Suzie gives me a brief smile, but not before I spot her look of distaste as she surveys the place, takes in the piles of letters on the hall table, the specks all over the hall carpet. She can probably sense the dust balls under the sofa.
‘Well I just came over to give you some money for supplies – you seemed short last time I was round – and, um, I brought some multivitamins. I couldn’t help noticing you seemed a bit, low, low on, er, things.’
‘Thanks,’ I mutter.
‘What?’ snaps Suzie.
‘Keep your voice down!’ I really don’t want Daniel to know about the business arrangement we have – I know I will have to tell him about it, but not yet and I want to do it myself, in my own words, explain what it means to me, why I’m doing it. I hope he’ll understand.
‘Why?’
‘Because my son is working upstairs,’ I lie.
‘Oh right. Sorry,’ Suzie says loudly, marching along the hall to the kitchen, her high heels making very loud clipping noises.
I follow her. What an annoying woman.
Daniel suddenly appears in the lounge doorway. ‘Hi.’ He takes Suzie’s hand and shakes it. ‘Oh, hello, Mr Forrester, I hope you’re taking good care of Charlie?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Daniel, why don’t you wait for me in the lounge?’ I smile, and am grateful when he nods and wanders back down the hall. We go into the kitchen and I shut the door.
‘Why the secrecy?’ Suzie says nodding to the closed door.
‘I just—’ I start to explain but give up. �
��I just don’t want everyone to know – OK? What else did you want?’
‘Well I’ve looked into a cleaner, too, Charlie—’
‘You what?’ That was it.
‘Well, I don’t want the surrogacy agency to have any second thoughts, you know, if they visit again, or when they do the Skype calls. I want them to see a tidy place – it’s important.’
Fury flares up in me. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘The woman trying to pay the bills – at the moment,’ she hisses back at me. She moves a cereal box out of the way and puts some tablets on the kitchen table along with a business card.
‘Look, when you have your Skype chats with the client manager, she’ll be able to see your kitchen, Charlie. I just want it all to go OK. I don’t want anything to block this.’ Then she turns around and leans on the table and looks at me properly. ‘And there’s something else.’ She looks pale. ‘I saw you at the baby shop.’
My heart freezes. I look at her. ‘Look, I can explain…’
‘Forget it,’ she whispers. ‘Just remember this is my baby, Charlie.’ She looks suddenly helpless.
‘I know that, Suzie,’ I say quietly as she looks at me, ‘but it does not give you the right to boss me around all the time, to—’
‘To what, Charlie? Wonder if you’re actually going to keep the baby?’ And with that she walks past me, opens the kitchen door, and I hear the front door slam shut. My heart sinks. What a mess.
34
Dawn
Dawn’s backside hurt as she got into the driver’s seat. She sped home to pick up Joyce who was waiting for her by the front door. Always so punctual! Joyce was resplendent in a pale pink coat and velvet hat, bending over and cutting the leaves of a poinsettia on the porch. Dawn pulled up, stopped the car and got out. Joyce turned and waved.
‘I’ll just put these secateurs back, my dear!’ she said, waving them at Dawn, and hurrying back inside.
As Joyce clambered into the car, she adjusted the seat. Then she removed a few plastic pigs, a ballerina and a sandwich box. It took her a while to organise herself, umbrella down by her feet, handbag firmly on her lap – just like the Queen might do, Dawn imagined.
As they drove up the magnificent drive into Hollycombe School she felt that familiar feeling wash over her again: she just didn’t fit in.
She pushed hard at the solid oak door and was greeted with a warm gush of air from the school’s cosy reception area – as well as a grinning Victoria, standing there in a tartan skirt and black polo neck jumper.
‘Oh, Dawn, how are you? Don’t you look flushed – again!’
‘Hello, Victoria.’ Dawn pulled what she hoped was a nice-to-see-you smile, whilst she was secretly hoping that when Victoria turned around her skirt would be tucked into her knickers.
No luck. Victoria was perfectly presented – complete with a red velvet bow securing her shiny ebony tresses at the back.
‘Yes, I’ve just been to a Spin class, actually.’
‘Oh, working off some mince pies, are we?’ Victoria smiled sweetly whilst looking down at Dawn’s stomach – then she disappeared into the chapel.
Joyce took Dawn’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, dear, I’ve read all about these snooty mums in the Daily Mail. Don’t take any notice. You look positively glowing.’ Dawn beamed at Joyce. Sometimes, just sometimes, her say-it-like-it-is mother-in-law was a blessing.
‘Mum, watch out for enemy attacks!!’ Dawn turned around and looked up to catch sight of Felix waving at her from the balcony.
‘Hello, darling!’ Too late, I’ve already been attacked by the enemy in a festive red bow. ‘I’ll be there in a minute. Did you remember your Christingle candle?’
‘Affirmative! Got it here. Alpha, Romeo, Tango! See you later, Mum!’ She loved that boy.
‘Where’s Alice, sweetheart?’ asked Joyce.
‘She’ll be in a bit later, Nanna! Operation Christingle!’ And he gave them a salute. ‘The Year Threes have to show their candles to the school at the end.’
Dawn’s shoes clipped along the wooden corridor to the chapel. She noticed Joyce was humming ‘Good King Wenceslaus’ quietly under her breath. The headmistress, Mrs Govenor, strode past. ‘Morning!’
She did love that chapel, especially at Christmas. She wasn’t remotely religious – well, she wasn’t sure – might just keep her options open, was going to look into Buddhism – there was definitely something in that: David Bowie had been a big fan, hadn’t he? Had his ashes scattered in Bali… Yet her heart was pretty torn: she did love the spirit of Christmas, the sounds and the smells of a proper Christian Christmas.
The chapel was decorated with tiny tea-light candles all along the back wall and on the windowsill, and they glistened in the dull morning light. The tree was a glorious sight. Bright red ribbons were tied on every branch, and the Kindergarten children had been allowed to make one decoration each, which hung from each branch, too. Seemingly glitter had been the main component. Completing the look was bright purple tinsel woven around the base. A joyous, all-singing, all-dancing Christmas scene.
Joyce shuffled in her seat. ‘It’s wonderful, darling. Alice practised the words to the song with me last night.’ She waved to Alice who was standing proudly in the front row.
Dawn smiled. It was nice to have her mother-in-law here, mostly, but her ‘few days’ had morphed into a few weeks now and Joyce’s promise of going home and coming back again hadn’t quite happened. Oh well, as long as she didn’t interfere too much. Dawn sighed, picking up a hymn book.
The service passed as most school ones did: with a few Reception children swallowing their words in the microphone about Mary and Joseph, a handful of shepherds with tea towels around their heads; angels were in the back row with tinsel around their hair and one had started to sob and had to be taken away by a teacher. There was ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ and ‘Little Town of Bethlehem’, where Dawn found herself holding back a few tears herself. It really was very hot in there.
‘And now—’ the headmistress beamed at the congregation ‘—we’ve asked all of Year Three to stand up and show us their special Christingle candles or lights. We let them do the decorating themselves at home and they’ve brought them in as a surprise! This year we’ve allowed not just candles, but torches, fairy lights on the candles. We’ve let the children be inventive in the spirit of “shining a light on Christianity” – the theme of this service.’
‘Children?’ She gestured to the children to produce their offerings. As Dawn looked up her blood suddenly ran very, very cold. No, no, no… Right in front of her, her daughter Alice produced – with a silver tinsel bow around it – a flashing Rampant Rabbit. From the teensy bit of her knowledge regarding sex toys, Dawn felt sure it was The Rampant Rabbit, not the other vibrator in her box, the Delightful Dildo she had ordered online and never quite got around to opening. The unnamed cardboard box had lain underneath her bed in a box next to the one she used to store the winter blankets and she hadn’t quite found the courage to open it. She’d even thought that the postman knew, just sensed that it was a different delivery. She was sure he’d smirked as she signed for it.
That had been two months ago. It was on her list, her Do it Before Fifty, and she hadn’t quite found the courage to ‘do it’ yet; not, frankly, was she quite sure what she was actually going to do with them.
Alice grinned at her mother and Nanna. Dawn felt all the colour drain from her face. Victoria and the other Baking Queens turned around and stared at her with surprise and smiles playing on their lips, which she knew would haunt her for the rest of her time at Hollycombe School.
35
Dawn
Thank God Mrs Govenor had found it funny. Joyce hadn’t spoken much on the journey home, but Dawn had made her promise that she wouldn’t tell Eric. No, dear, that’s quite all right, I couldn’t bring myself to say the word in front of him, anyway.
She’d dropped Joyce at home and carefully hidden the thing away at the bottom of the
cleaning cupboard. Leave it another few days and she’d quietly ‘lose’ it in the bin, blame it on having a clear-out if Alice ever asked her if she could have her ‘special toy’ back.
As Dawn drove back into Chesterbrook, all the fairly lights had been put up along the high street – it was a magical fairy-tale scene. Alice would like this. Dawn smiled. She tried to think of when she could take her little girl to see the Christmas lights. It was like something out of a gingerbread land. The shops had a fine smattering of snow on their windowsills and roofs; sparkly lights and tinsel adorned almost every shop window; warm golden fairy lights were twisted around the bay trees outside the café she was going to. She knew Alice wouldn’t be her ‘little girl’ much longer – that there was only a thin line between her playing with Barbies and logging on to thigh-gap websites and consuming Jägerbombs – and knowing exactly what a vibrator was for. She shuddered and suddenly she felt every inch of her forty-nine years. She took a deep breath.
This nonsense with Eric was really playing on her mind… Why was he so tired all the time on a Friday? Eric? She knew that he was out and about God knows where, working on clients’ gardens – rich, attractive, slim clients who had nothing better to do than prevaricate about where to plant their azaleas and how often the grass should be cut. But her Eric? When she got home she’d just have a little look through his trouser pockets, maybe check a few bank transactions online. What was happening to her? She couldn’t let this ruin things. Four days till Christmas. Then a little voice said. Only eight months till you are fifty.
She slowed down and drove into the car park. She got out of the car and locked it.
Her reverie was broken by some shouting.
‘Nooo! Zis way!’ accompanied by some very loud barking. ‘Noo!’
‘Ramone?’ Dawn thought she could just make him out at the back of the car park, waving his arms.
‘Hello, Da-wn.’ He said it like it had two syllables.
‘Hi, Ramone, how’s Pixie?’ She couldn’t help laughing. The wretched animal was pulling on the lead, anxious to get away.
