One Step Closer to You

by Alice Peterson

  ‘But, Mum! I want a go on this.’

  ‘Mate, you have to assemble it,’ Matt says. ‘Listen to your mum.’

  ‘And we haven’t brought your helmet,’ I add.

  ‘We’ll play on it next time. I can give you some stunt lessons. Deal?’ He holds up his hand to do a high five.

  ‘Deal,’ Louis agrees, hitting his hand and giggling. ‘Do you want to play stomp rocket with me?’

  ‘I sure do.’ I hand the rocket over, telling Louis we need to find a more secluded part of the park. Louis and Matt go on ahead, me trailing behind with the scooter and bits of wrapping paper.

  ‘I play stomp rocket with Emily and Uncle Ben,’ he says, eagerly assembling the firing pipe and launch pad on to the ground.

  ‘Uncle Ben? Who’s he now?’

  ‘Mum’s friend. You have to see whose rocket goes the highest. I always win.’

  ‘Do you now? Well, we’ll see about that,’ Matt says, glancing my way, hoping I’ll join in, but all I can think is: have I opened some terrible can of worms? This doesn’t feel real. How can he waltz back into our lives as if nothing has happened?

  Louis attaches the foam rocket over the pipe, angling it towards the sky. ‘You see this.’ He gestures to the plastic launch pad, filled with air. ‘You stamp on it, as hard as you can. I’ll show you!’ Louis raises his foot, stamps on the pad and the rocket is released, whooshing into the sky. Matt applauds, before Louis scurries to retrieve it.

  ‘Nice one, mate! Can I have a try?’

  Eagerly Louis hands the rocket to Matt.

  Matt positions the rocket in the tube. He pumps up his fists, flexes the muscles in his arms, beefs up his legs, making Louis giggle, before he stamps on the pad, the rocket flying high into the air. I watch as they both run to pick it up, Louis saying, ‘My turn next!’

  Dog walkers and passers-by watch them; some smile at me. From a stranger’s point of view we look like a normal family, enjoying a day out in the park, but I feel anything but normal inside. Is this an act? What if he meets up with Louis a few times, and then gets bored? The novelty could easily wear off. The damage it would cause Louis couldn’t be undone. At the same time, there’s a little voice also saying that this could be good. Give Matthew a chance. Ben and Hugo are fantastic, as is Jim, but they’re not ‘Dad’.

  I watch them laughing as they race towards the rocket again. As I’m trying to mould this morning into something positive, I still can’t get away from that feeling that I’ve let my son, my baby cub, into the lion’s den.

  And the one person I want to talk to about all this is Ben.

  42

  Ben and I sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. The table is covered with spreadsheets and paperwork. Emily is curled up on the sofa with Nellie, watching a Disney film, her arm in a cast now covered in bright stickers. ‘What’s up?’ Ben had asked in an offhand way when I’d called him earlier today, after seeing Matthew.

  After arranging to see Ben in the afternoon, I told Louis I needed to do some boring Sunday afternoon errands and that maybe if he was good, Uncle Hugo would come round and play a game with him. I didn’t want Louis coming over, telling Ben and Emily all about seeing his daddy. He wouldn’t understand that it’s not the best thing to say right now.

  I ask Ben how he is and what he’s been up to, but he cuts through all my small talk with, ‘So, have you met up with him?’

  I nod. ‘It was OK,’ I downplay it. ‘Louis had a good time.’

  ‘I’ve had the best day! When can I see you again?’ Louis had asked his father.

  Ben gets up, opens a cupboard, offers me some biscuits.

  I cradle the mug in my hands.

  ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ He won’t look at me.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How did you find him?’ Ben’s voice is strained. He’s pacing the kitchen, making me feel uneasy.

  ‘Strange. It was like he was a different person.’ I tell Ben how he’d turned up with an expensive scooter. It didn’t make me feel comfortable, but of course Louis was over the moon.

  ‘Will you see him again?’ Ben asks.

  ‘Well, buddy, how about next weekend?’ Matthew had suggested to Louis, ‘as long as your mummy is cool about it. We could go to the zoo, maybe have a pizza together.’

  I’d expected Matthew to be awkward, unsure how to interact with a six-year old, even if it was his own estranged son, but instead he was stepping into the role effortlessly, as if he’d never left.

  ‘Maybe next weekend.’

  ‘Ginger biscuits?’ Ben now asks, shaking the packet at me.

  I wish he’d sit down. ‘No, thanks.’ I pause. ‘I’m caught between a rock and hard place, aren’t I? If I do see Matt again, if I allow him back into our lives, I run the risk of him letting us down, but if I don’t I’m the baddie in Louis’s eyes, I’m the one stopping him from having a father. What would you do?’

  Ben shrugs. ‘You have to do what feels right, in your gut.’

  ‘You sound like my shrink,’ I say, aching for him to smile.

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I press my head into my hands.

  ‘Well, only you can make the decision.’

  I can’t help registering the bite in his tone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. Here I am going on and on. I just needed to talk to you. I’ve missed you and Emily. How are you?’

  ‘We’re fine.’

  I can’t bear the coldness between us. I reach for his hand, but he withdraws it. There’s distance in his eyes.

  He turns away from me. ‘I can’t do this, Polly.’

  ‘Do what?’ But I know what he means.

  ‘This. Pretend it’s normal between us, friends having a cup of tea and all that crap. I want what’s best for you and Louis, of course I do, but Matthew coming back has changed everything.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to,’ I say quietly.

  ‘I can’t be objective! I’m the last person you should be talking to! I don’t like the man. I hate what he did to you. He’s a bastard,’ he says, forgetting Emily is watching television in the next room. ‘I’ve done some bad things in my life, you know that, but no man has any right to hit a woman. In my book he’s the lowest of low.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s …’

  ‘Louis’s father? Some dad!’ He begins to pace the room again. ‘He hasn’t been in touch for years! I wish he’d never contacted you. I don’t ever want to meet him and you know why.’ He walks over to me now, holds my face in both hands and looks into my eyes, and for a moment I think he’s going to kiss me, and part of me wants him so badly … but as soon as he’s touched me, he lets go and walks away. ‘I can’t be your friend anymore. I can’t be good old Uncle Ben, your confidant, the guy who picks you up when you’re down. Don’t you see?’ He turns back to me. ‘I’m in love with you and it’s killing me listening about whether you do or don’t meet up with the father of your son again when all I can think about is how we were this close to getting together and …’

  ‘Daddy?’ Emily comes into the kitchen and looks at us, wondering what’s wrong, before asking me if I want to see her special box that she keeps by her bedside table. Inside are pictures of her mummy and Patch.

  ‘Polly and I are in the middle of something, sweetheart. Go back and watch the film. I’ll be with you in a minute. Here.’ Ben burrows in a drawer and produces a dog chew. ‘Give Nellie a treat.’

  Emily looks from me to Ben, before sloping off back to the sofa, Nellie padding closely behind.

  ‘Ben, this isn’t about you, all I’m asking for is more time, while I work out …’ I look at him, unsure what I want to work out.

  ‘You don’t know what you want, that’s the problem, but I do, and I can’t sit around hearing about you and Matthew getting closer.’

  ‘Oh my God! You think I’m going to get back with him?’

  ‘Who knows? Is he seeing anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know! Even
if he weren’t …’

  ‘He comes back, all Mr Charming. You fell for it before.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean … Ben, I don’t want to get back with him. It’s never been about that! You can’t be jealous, there’s nothing to be jealous of. This is about Louis. Louis. That’s what no one understands! If Emily’s father suddenly turned up, swearing he wanted to be a part of her life, would you slam the door on him? How would you live with yourself?’

  Ben sits down again. ‘I wouldn’t let him anywhere near her. You don’t pick and choose when you want to be a father.’

  ‘Daddy?’ Emily says again, clearly troubled now by us arguing.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.’ He watches as I pull my jacket on.

  ‘You’re scared of moving on, Polly.’

  I stop dead. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ His voice softens for a moment. ‘I know what I want.’

  ‘I don’t want Matthew. You know how much you mean to me.’

  He nods, as if he almost believes me.

  ‘I understand that his coming back is a huge deal and that he wants to be a part of your son’s life. I get that it’s scary, but that doesn’t mean your life has to stop. You can’t let your entire life revolve around Louis.’

  Janey has said this too.

  ‘This is the perfect excuse to put the brakes on us,’ Ben goes on. ‘You’re terrified of being happy again, of taking risks.’

  Determined not to agree with his theory, I say, ‘Seeing Matt again is taking a risk for my son, but I don’t want it to be at the cost of seeing you. It feels like you’re giving me some kind of ultimatum, that if I can’t make up my mind about us right now, when all this other stuff is going on in my head, that’s it.’

  ‘If you’re in trouble, if that man dares to hurt you, I’ll be there, but I can’t meet you and Jim anymore on our Mondays, you and I can’t go on camping holidays or head to the park every weekend. She’s getting too attached to you too,’ he whispers, gesturing to Emily. ‘It’s not fair to let her imagine that the four of us might become one happy family. I can’t do that to her. I won’t.’

  ‘So it’s over. We can’t be friends.’

  There’s sadness in his eyes. ‘We can’t go back to the way things were. Too much has changed.’

  43

  2009

  I’m on the tube heading to Oxford Circus, to see Hugo during his lunch-break. He’s still working for the BBC, in Portland Place.

  ‘Make an appointment, make it formal,’ Neve had advised when we talked through Step 9, which is to ‘Make direct amends to people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others’.

  So far I have apologised to Janey for not being there when she was made redundant. I have made amends with my father for being a terrible daughter. His reaction overwhelmed me. Never before had he shown much emotion. He’d hugged me, saying, ‘You haven’t let us down. We have. We love you and want you to get better. Please talk to Mum,’ he added, ‘she’s been so worried.’

  Yet I can’t bring myself to say sorry to her, not yet. As for Louis, clearly I can’t make an appointment with him but what I can do is make a living amend and be as good a mother as I can be.

  As I watch a crowd of people entering the carriage at Warren Street, my mind drifts to Matthew again, something of a habit. I sometimes wonder what I’d do if I saw him amongst the crowd. Would I hide? It’s been nine months since I left him.

  What else has happened? Aunt Viv has moved in with Jean and I have taken over her small flat. ‘You don’t need to go,’ she’d pointed out. ‘You and Louis are comfortable here, you’re close to work and I can pop round and babysit whenever you want.’

  I miss the sound of her footsteps in the flat and the way she’d open the blinds and curtains to welcome a new day. I miss seeing her meditating on the sitting room floor and the smell of freshly brewed coffee first thing in the morning. I used to laugh hearing her sing in the shower, her voice almost as bad as mine. But at the same time I know it’s good to be independent. Carefully I worked out that I could afford the rent. I don’t have much left over, but then again I am saving thanks to family helping with childcare, a luxury many single mothers don’t have.

  I see Stephanie once a week now and am beginning to find it easier opening up. Sometimes I’d go so far as to say I enjoy our sessions. I fit AA around my work. I have become good friends with Harry, Neve and Ryan. How naïve to think they were all scavenging bins and sleeping rough. Give Harry a globe and he’d tell you all the places he and Betsy have travelled to since being clean. Ryan left school when he was sixteen to pursue a career in music. He has just produced an album for a singer called Kitty Adams, who made her name on a talent show.

  Jean gave me the job. Perhaps, as Mum had implied, it wasn’t exactly stiff competition since I was Aunt Viv’s niece, a bit of a charity case basically, but at the same time I have thrown myself into the role with a passion and even begun taking cookbooks to bed. Jean tells me people love to read about food almost as much as eating it. ‘Many take a cookbook to bed,’ he had said to me with a shrug when he was making both of us a coffee the other day. ‘It can be better than a lover.’

  ‘And at least a cookbook will never let you down,’ Aunt Viv had added before he threw a tea towel at her.

  Aunt Viv, Mum, Hugo and I have devised a rota for Louis. Mum travels down by train once a week, staying one night and two full days to look after her grandson. Aunt Viv looks after him two days a week. Hugo, who doesn’t work on Fridays, takes Louis out for the day. Our routine is a little shambolic at times, but it seems to work and Louis is happy. I could look after him full-time, but Aunt Viv was right. Working again is not only helping me pay the rent but also restoring my self-esteem. I leave at four and have the rest of the day and evening with Louis, and I value every minute, especially bath and story time. No longer do I hurry through the pages just so I can get to the vodka bottle.

  *

  I approach the front desk, saying I’ve come to meet my brother, Hugo Stephens.

  The guy behind the reception gives me a visitor badge and guides me towards the lifts.

  I sit down in the waiting area listening to the end of Hugo’s programme. His career is thriving. He now has his own weekly show on a Wednesday morning, alongside producing the daily lunchtime slot on Radio 2.

  ‘When I was younger, I was too proud to ask for help getting around,’ he says live on air. ‘I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I went to a special school for the blind until I was eighteen. I was fortunate to go there, it gave me many opportunities, but it also sheltered me from the real world. Can you imagine going from this cocoon to the busy streets of London, me trying to blend in and get myself around! Often I’d torment myself by taking hours instead of asking the way. Men are bad at asking for directions at the best of times.’ I can hear humour in his voice. ‘Anyway guys, that about wraps it up. Remember to keep on sending those messages. I always love to hear from you.’

  *

  As Hugo and I make our way down Portland Place, I hear Neve’s voice in my head. ‘Don’t make it into a drama. You’re just there to say “sorry”. Don’t expect anything in return.’

  We push open the doors to a crowded café, people working on laptops, others on their mobiles.

  Hugo grabs a table in the corner as I order one soya latte and a filter coffee. ‘So what’s this all about?’ he asks, as I join him with our drinks.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For hurting you.’

  Hugo squints. ‘For hurting me?’

  ‘For telling lies, embarrassing you in front of your friends …’

  ‘Polly,’ he stops me. ‘It’s all in the past. Dead and buried.’

  ‘And then when Matthew came along,’ I continue, determined to say my piece, ‘I was so stupid, Hugo. I drove you out of our flat …’ I inhale deeply. ‘I threw your support back in your face.’ />
  He puts his coffee down. ‘You weren’t yourself,’ he says with kindness. ‘That’s why I was scared. I was watching my sister disappear and there was nothing I could do about it.’

  ‘Hugo, you’re a much better person than I’ll ever be.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You showed no resentment, took all my crap and still helped me when I needed you. You have had to deal with stuff through no choice of your own; you don’t let anything stop you from doing exactly what you want. You never seem scared or …’

  ‘Oh I’m scared all right. Been scared since the day I was dropped off at school.’

  ‘You were only seven.’

  ‘I used to cry myself to sleep, wondering how I was going to last until Friday.’

  ‘I was lonely without you.’

  He nods. ‘I have an apology to make too. I stole all of Mum’s love.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ I say, a lump in my throat.

  ‘Polly, I did. Parents shouldn’t have favourites.’

  ‘It’s not your fault though.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I know Mum is different with me.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘She’s more protective, makes more allowances for me. She still treats me like that five-year-old boy, making sure I’m eating properly and insisting I bring my washing and ironing home. And I let her.’

  ‘Mothers and their sons,’ I say, a reservoir of tears filling inside me. ‘It doesn’t help future wives, you know.’

  Hugo laughs. ‘Rosie says that too.’ He takes my hand. ‘You didn’t need to say sorry, but I’m touched you did.’

  ‘I wish I’d listened to you. You were the only one brave enough to warn me about Matt.’

  ‘He might be Louis’s father, but … oh boy, it’s rare I dislike someone, truly hate their guts,’ he says, his voice churned with emotion. ‘I used to panic that he might try and worm his way back into your life. I was worried you might drink again.’

  ‘It won’t happen,’ I assure him.

  ‘If I saw that man again I couldn’t be sure what I’d do. Promise me,’ he urges, ‘promise me that if he ever comes back you’ll have nothing more to do with him.’