You, Me and Him

by Alice Peterson

  George races past me into the fruit and vegetable aisle.

  I push my trolley and it moves like a crab. I have to make a decision. Do I turn round and get another one or do I persevere?

  George is now out of sight.

  I am never late.

  I remember that half-witted conversation I’d had with the receptionist at my GP’s surgery a month ago, just before staying with my parents for the weekend. ‘I’m afraid we have no appointments today, Mrs Greenwood. Please try again tomorrow morning at eight-thirty.’

  Obediently I had, only to listen to the engaged tone, over and over again, like a funeral march in my ears. When I’d finally got through at 9.10: ‘I’m afraid the doctor’s full up for this morning. If you ring at …’

  ‘But I’m leaving today. Can’t he fit me in? I’ve been trying constantly for the past forty minutes.’

  ‘The surgery has been exceptionally busy this morning.’

  ‘All I need is a prescription signed,’ I’d argued reasonably.

  ‘If you call at two-thirty he might be able to fit you in this afternoon.’

  ‘There’s no one else I can see this morning?’

  Some tapping on a keyboard. ‘The computer says all booked up. Lots of ’flu bugs around, this time of year.’

  ‘This is a ridiculous system!’

  She’d bristled. ‘Any comments you have, you can place them in the comments box.’

  I start to smile, remembering that night at my parents’. Mum, Dad and George had all gone to bed. Finn and I had stayed up talking on the window seat in the kitchen. It’s my favourite place in my parents’ home, somewhere I feel safe. I’d stretched my legs out across his knees and picked up the nearest glossy magazine. Finn swiped it away from my hands. ‘Hey! I was reading that.’

  ‘How to make the most out of your greenhouse,’ he’d read out to me, and then shut it immediately. ‘Oh come off it, J, we don’t even have one.’ I’d shrugged my shoulders. ‘We’ll get one when we move to the country and I’ll grow cherry tomatoes.’ Finn has always been a city boy; he says he feels lost and confused in front of green spaces and trees.

  He’d unzipped my black boots slowly, gently stroking my calves. I was wearing black diamond-patterned tights. He started to massage my feet, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘Carry on,’ I’d insisted, leaning back.

  With his hand moving up the inside of my right leg, we heard a door shut upstairs and both drew in our breath and looked at each other like teenagers again. I put a finger to my mouth. We’d listened to the sound of my father’s footsteps coming along the creaky corridor. I knew they were Dad’s because they are heavier and more deliberate than Mum’s. My skirt was inching up my thighs; Finn’s hands were touching my hipbone now and pulling at my tights. I’d wriggled and arched my back to allow him to peel them off. We heard footsteps again. ‘Will you remember to turn off the lights when you come up?’ Dad had called down the stairs.

  ‘What’s so funny, Mum?’ Now George is tugging my coat.

  ‘Will do,’ Finn had called back, throwing my tights to the floor with exaggerated abandon.

  I laugh out loud, remembering.

  ‘Mum! What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing. Can you grab some milk with the green top and some of your cheese straw things?’

  I remember repositioning myself so that I was sitting facing Finn. I was unbuckling his belt; the leather slipped through the loops of his jeans and on to the floor. I lifted my arms and he’d pulled my jumper over my head. ‘The tights were getting lonely,’ he whispered. He’d looked at my bra then, a slightly faded off-white number that needed replacing. ‘I think you could have dressed up a little more for me. This has to come off …’

  George rushes back to me with no milk. Instead he shoves a CD excitedly in my face – Best of Kylie. He’s also struggling to hold a Snickers bar, packet of crisps and sherbert dip.

  I shake my head. ‘That’s four things. I said one.’

  He throws them into the trolley. ‘I want them all!’

  I take out the Snickers and Kylie. Although I love Kylie … maybe I can keep her? No, I say to myself. George grabs the CD from me and puts it back into the trolley. ‘No,’ I say, trying to keep my voice low and calm. A man walks past. ‘Children are so spoilt these days,’ I hear him mutter.

  ‘NO, GEORGE.’

  He starts to cry. Anyone would think I had run over Rocky and then reversed to make sure the damage was done. Some more looks askance and murmurs of disapproval.

  ‘Start as you mean to go on. If your child starts creating merry hell because they want sweets, don’t give in to them,’ the cheery woman had advised.

  George starts to cry violently now, tears streaming down his face like a sudden rainstorm. ‘I want the Kylie CD. It has the “Locomotion” song.’

  ‘All right, we’ll keep Kylie, but that means no sweets.’

  ‘But I want the sherbert dip!’

  A woman turns round to stare. George and I halt traffic around us like a car crash. ‘I won’t eat them all in one go,’ he insists with big pleading eyes. ‘MUM, I WANT THEM ALL!’

  I’m beginning to feel sick. It’s the smell of coffee. ‘OK, fine, keep them.’ His tears dry instantly and his smile returns as if it has been quickly painted on again with one rushed sweep of the brush.

  I continue pushing the trolley. ‘My dad likes Jammie Dodgers,’ George tells one of the shop assistants when we reach the biscuit section. He grabs about five packets and another five fall to the floor. I apologise before yanking him up by the arm and ordering him to take one handle of the trolley. With each breath, I am inhaling the smell of coffee beans and the doughy white warm bread that is coming out of the ovens. I shut my eyes. ‘Mum!’ Our trolley crashes into the sweets section. Pick ’n’ mix. George’s hand dives into each box greedily.

  ‘Is she all right?’ I hear someone muttering.

  I can’t go through it again. I can see George dismantling the cot, his small hands pressing against the bars, screaming as if I have put him into a cage. A prison. I haven’t given birth to a baby, I have a trapped animal that wants to make my life hell. I love George now, but then …

  Sometimes I couldn’t even look at him.

  Unscrewing the bars.

  I can hear sweets being thrown into the trolley. George is like an abstract figure to me now. I try to tell him to stop but no words come out.

  Opening windows. Trying to jump out of them.

  Emulsion paint all over the new carpet.

  I can’t do it again. I won’t. I have a life to lead. A good life! I can’t go back to those days.

  ‘Your child is making a terrible mess,’ a shopper observes. ‘Can’t you control him?’

  Radiators being ripped off the wall; curtains being torn and pulled. Handbrake lifted. Accident. Being locked out of the car.

  Calling the police.

  ‘There’s no discipline these days.’

  I lean against the trolley. My head is pounding. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Someone, call for help!’

  ‘Mummy! I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll put my sweets back.’ George is scrabbling around on the floor.

  I can hear voices but can’t register faces.

  My breathing is quickening. I feel hot. Dizzy. Sweat on my forehead.

  George crawling; breaking everything in the house.

  Finn and me arguing.

  Sleepless nights.

  Burning his hand on the fire.

  Accident and Emergency.

  Anti-depressant tablets.

  Being told I’m not a good mother.

  Thinking I am a terrible one.

  Living in a faded red dressing gown.

  End of my career.

  End of my life.

  I gulp hard. There is a hand on my shoulder. A balding man with a large badge on his white shirt hands me a glass of water which I take gratefully. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ he asks. ‘There’s a bench over there, b
ehind the check-out.’

  I swallow the water in one go. It’s like Popeye’s spinach. I have to know. I straighten up. ‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘very much, but I’m fine.’ I hand back the glass.

  ‘You take care,’ he says.

  George runs alongside me. He starts to pull something else that we don’t need off the shelf. ‘No more trouble or I’ll tell your father,’ I threaten sternly. ‘Try not to bring your partner into the argument; it’s always best to deal with the crisis on one’s own to gain your child’s respect.’ ‘I’ll tell Finn and he’ll stop you from using the computer for a week.’ George pauses as he thinks about all those games of Hangman he’ll miss out on. I head for the pharmacy, an air of purpose to my stride at last.

  I pick up a pregnancy testing kit. I decide to buy three.

  My trolley tries to meander in a completely different direction as I attempt to steer it safely to the car. I bend down to try and straighten the wheel as it is now totally skew-whiff. I hear a car horn honking ferociously and, without thinking, let go of the trolley. ‘GEORGE!’ I scream, seeing him inches in front of the red bonnet. The driver winds down his window furiously. ‘For God’s sake, woman! Can’t you control your son?’

  ‘I’m sorry, OK?’ I say, tears stinging my eyes like nettles. My trolley is now in the middle of the lane too, blocking the driver’s exit. ‘George, come here!’ He runs back to me so quickly that one of his shoes scuffs the tarmac and he trips and falls. His knee is grazed and bleeding. I rush over to him as he starts to cry.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ the man yells.

  I help my son up and dust the dirt from his knee. I find a handkerchief from my bag to mop up the blood.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ he insists, tears running down his cheeks. ‘It stings, Mum.’

  ‘Come on, woman. I don’t have all day.’

  Other shoppers pushing their trolleys past stop and stare. ‘Stop shouting,’ I tell the red-faced driver, ‘and stop calling me “woman”.’

  I can’t control my own son. I will never be able to. I can’t even control my trolley! I keep a firm grip on George and tell him not to leave my side; for the first time that day he obeys me.

  *

  ‘You must never, ever cross the road without looking,’ I tell him when we arrive home. He wouldn’t listen to me in the car. Hands held tightly over his ears, he’d hummed so loudly that I could hardly hear myself speak. ‘You stop. You look right.’ I do the actions. ‘You look left. You look right again, and then you decide if it’s safe. I was only cross because I was scared. I love you too much to see you hurt.’ I hold his knee still and manage to get a plaster on the cut and even a quick kiss before he wriggles out of the chair.

  He runs up to his bedroom, slams the door and turns his music on loudly. I follow minutes later and find him curled up in a ball on his bed, sucking his thumb, a corner of his pale blue cot blanket poked in his nose. Long-suffering Rocky is fighting to breathe against his chest, his big eyes almost popping out with the pressure of being squished into this awkward position by his master. George is breathing heavily, trying to inhale the comforting smell of the blanket. He calls it ‘Baby’ because it has travelled everywhere with him since he was born. He even takes it to school, hiding it in his PE bag. I remember the panic we’d once had after leaving it behind. I’d been pushing George in his buggy in the supermarket and nothing I said could make the absence of Baby less painful. Then he had fallen quiet. We were in the checkout queue and he’d grabbed a lady’s jersey skirt, the exact same pale blue as Baby, taken the hem and pressed it to his nose, his eyes shut, the pain instantly taken away.

  I walk to my bedroom, clutching the pregnancy kits with clammy hands. I have to know before Finn comes home. Finding out you are pregnant can be a joyous moment for you and your partner, I read on the back of the pregnancy kit box.

  I take the test and pray.

  The line turns blue.

  I take the test again. Best out of three.

  Another blue line.

  I sit down at my desk and write an email to Emma, my ADHD friend. I met her through a website support group for ADHD mums and dads. George was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder when he was five, nearly six years old. Emma has a seventeen-year-old boy called Nat with ADHD. She’s so proud because he’s just become an apprentice at British Gas.

  Fingers trembling against the keys, I tap, ‘Emma, if I have another child, what are the chances he or she could have ADHD? Am terrified. Have just found out I’m pregnant. Gene is stronger in boys, isn’t it?’

  I pick up the phone, too restless to wait for a reply. I key in a mobile number. Pick up. ‘Thank God you’re there,’ I say.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Are you free?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, I’m about to go to rehearsals.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ I can feel tears coming on.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Everything. George nearly got run over today.’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s in his room.’

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘I’ll be round in a minute.’

  ‘But your rehearsals …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he cuts in.

  ‘Thanks, Clarky.’ Already I feel relieved. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  A message appears in my outbox from Emma. ‘Josie, congratulations first, although can see it’s terrifying prospect too. The condition is two point five times more common among boys than girls. There’s always a possibility but try not to worry. Easier said than done, I know …’

  I go back into my bedroom and lie face down against the pillow. Sometimes I wish I could rewind time and go back to those carefree days. If I had a magic carpet I would fly back to that world with no responsibilities. No fear. No George. The world of smoky pepperoni pizzas and warm beer; lazy days by the river and drinking coffee in run-down cafes.

  When it was just Finn and me.

  And Clarky.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I met Finn when I was eighteen and living in Cambridge. I thought it was going to be another ordinary day at the restaurant, washing the glasses, laying the tables, renewing the flowers, refilling the olive oil bottles, writing the specials on the board. I was too busy to think about meeting anyone, my face flushed from the hot ovens in the kitchen and my feet sore from racing around while I tried to remember what everyone had ordered. Look and you never find. Don’t look and they walk through the door.

  I was living with Clarky, my old neighbour from home. Growing up, he was like the brother I’d never had. After me, Mum couldn’t have more children so instead she’d decided to have dogs. She’d bought an Alsatian called Molly and a mongrel called Tinker who was a mixture, we thought, of Bassett hound and Jack Russell. Tinker had a strong chest and sturdy front legs. She took us for walks.

  Clarky’s real name was Justin Clarke but I called him Clarky. He’d always been popular at school; not in an obvious way, he was just different from all the other children. The other boys loved football and sport – which he liked, too – but Clarky was also a brilliant musician. He started playing the violin when he was four. ‘I only began to talk properly when I was four,’ I’d told him.

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t really serious at four,’ he’d explained dismissively, with a little wrinkle of his nose, ‘I only started playing seriously when I was seven.’

  His father, short and severe with a dark beard, had taught him every day for at least two hours. He looked like the type who’d own a long wooden ruler which he’d rap against your knuckles if you weren’t behaving. When I was younger I didn’t like going round to Clarky’s for tea because I’d be told off if I didn’t sit upright in my chair. I didn’t dare lean my elbows on the table either. Clarky’s dad played the flute and his mother was an opera singer so it wasn�
��t surprising that they wanted their son to follow in their exalted musical footsteps. My parents’ jobs hadn’t seemed nearly so interesting. Mum had looked after me full-time when I was very young but when I was at primary school she’d started to run a Bed and Breakfast. Before she married, she was secretary to an eccentric scientist who had worked in a shed at the bottom of his garden. My father was a solicitor. He looked important in his dark suit and polished shoes but, growing up, I hadn’t seen much of him. He’d commute into London and stay with his sister during the week, only to return grumpy and tired on a Friday evening. By Sunday he was full of laughter and fun, back to himself, either in the garden or sitting at the kitchen table making things out of wood. That was his passion. He’d made me a tree house where as a teenager I’d sit for hours, painting and drawing. On Sunday evening he had to go back to the ‘big smoke’ as he called it. ‘London leaves you grey by the end of the week,’ he’d admitted.

  Clarky had been a mini-celebrity at school. His name was often read out during assembly. One day the headmistress, wearing her usual plum-coloured dress, beamed with pride, saying we must all congratulate Justin for being accepted into the Junior Royal Academy of Music. Each Saturday after that he’d travel by train to London wearing sensible trousers, a white shirt buttoned so high at the collar it looked like it was choking him, and a round-necked patterned jumper. He always carried a dark brown leather case that held his sheet music. I used to love the smell of that leather case. I would press it against my nose. ‘Josie, you’re mad!’ he’d say, trying to claw it back from my fingers.

  ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I once asked him.

  ‘I want to go to Cambridge, like my grandfather, and read music. You?’

  ‘I want to be an artist, like … Michelangelo! Or Leonardo da Vinci, that wouldn’t be so bad.’

  ‘He invented flying.’

  ‘Yes, I want to be like him.’

  Clarky had the unfortunate label ‘teacher’s pet’, but miraculously this hadn’t annoyed the other boys because he wasn’t big-headed about his success. I think he’d been embarrassed by the attention. The others were in awe of him, though, just as I was. I would watch him staring out of the window during a maths class, in his own world. I used to long to know what he was thinking. Whatever it was, I’d imagined it to be mysterious and interesting compared to my own dizzy thoughts about what was going to happen in the next episode of Dallas. Clarky had pale grey eyes, a neat thin nose, and a mop of curly fair hair that went all fluffy when it was washed. ‘He’s like an angelic choirboy,’ Mum used to say, ‘and he always helps me with the washing up.’