‘Yes,’ Marge says, then, ‘Sorry, why?’
‘Well, if Bertie said he wanted to leave all the way back in October, then maybe he told her the reason. God, I can’t believe that she didn’t tell me, though.’
‘He didn’t tell her why, I’m afraid,’ Marge says. ‘I asked. But you’re right. It’s very remiss of her not to have told you.’
‘She really should have,’ Victoria says, feeling both tearful and angry at the same time. ‘And this happened back in October, you say?’
Marge nods.
‘So she’s had nine months to tell me.’
‘In all fairness to your sister, I don’t think you’ve spoken to her once since then.’
‘But all the same,’ Victoria says, ‘this is important.’
‘I know,’ Marge says. ‘And she should have told you. You’re right.’
Victoria shakes her head. ‘God, I used to think we were close,’ she says, laughing sourly. ‘But this . . .’
‘You are close,’ Marge says, ‘so don’t say that.’
‘If she had just let me know, we could have sat Bertie down and spoken to him,’ Victoria says, now slipping into outrage. ‘None of this need ever have happened.’
‘I know,’ Marge says.
‘That’s . . . just . . .’ Victoria splutters.
‘Unforgivable?’ Marge offers.
‘You’re right,’ Victoria says. ‘It’s unforgivable. It totally is.’
As Victoria drives, she runs through various possible scenarios for a telephone conversation with her sister. But whether she phones her to shout, or she phones her to cry, in her mind, they all end badly. Her ultimate realisation is that she simply can’t talk to Penny without a) being the first to climb down (and, after today’s revelations, she’s really not in a mood to do that) and b) telling her about the overdose, which would make it no longer a simple mishap but something that Bertie (and they) have to live with evermore, c) explaining where the Valium came from (when Penny warned her to get off it years ago) and d) and, this is perhaps the most dangerous, without giving Penny the possibility of telling her exactly where her parenting has gone wrong. Because with Penny seeing herself as such a successful parent, and such a successful psychologist, that could really grate on her. That could push them past the point of no return.
Once they have dropped Marge off, Bertie moves to the front seat.
Victoria has never been particularly good at discussing things, but it has always seemed slightly easier, or at least a little less difficult, to do so in the car. It’s perhaps the lack of eye contact, or the security provided by locked doors; it could be because movement makes escape impossible, or the fact that the driver is too occupied to make any sudden gestures, but whatever the reason, it has always struck her as the least worst place to broach a difficult subject. She takes a series of deep breaths and prepares herself.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asks after a moment, and she’s happy with her voice, which sounded casual yet optimistic. ‘Does it make you nervous, going to see Dr Cheeder?’
Bertie, beside her, shrugs. ‘Not really,’ he says.
‘Is she easy to talk to?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Bertie says. ‘Fairly.’
‘Is she . . . easier to talk to than me, for example?’
Bertie simply shrugs again in response, but there’s the vaguest hint of a snort through his nostrils, a snort which says, I know what you’re doing, and I’m not falling for it.
‘I want to ask you something,’ Victoria says, ‘and you don’t have to answer, OK?’
Bertie turns away now. He stares out of the side window.
‘Is that OK?’ Victoria asks, then, ‘Hello? Earth to Bertie. Are you receiving me?’
‘I just thought I was getting a break from all that with Dad away,’ Bertie murmurs.
Victoria manages to sigh entirely silently. She runs her tongue across her teeth before continuing. ‘Are you glad he’s away?’ she asks.
‘I was,’ Bertie says, still without turning.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I was glad until you took over his role as chief inquisitor.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Victoria says softly. ‘I don’t think you’re being very fair to me.’
They drive on in silence for a few minutes before Bertie finally replies, ‘Sorry, you’re right. I’m not being fair to anyone at the moment.’
Tears immediately spring forth, and Victoria is glad that Bertie is still looking away. It’s the first real thing her son has said to her in weeks.
‘That’s OK,’ she says, her cracked voice betraying her. ‘We’re all in a strange place at the moment.’
‘I know,’ Bertie says. ‘It’s my fault.’
‘It’s not,’ Victoria says, reaching out to touch his leg and then restraining herself. This is going so well, after all. Better not to take risks.
She negotiates a roundabout before asking, ‘So, can I ask you my question?’
Bertie sighs. ‘If you have to,’ he says.
‘Did you ask Penny if you could live with them?’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ Bertie says, now turning disgustedly to face her. ‘You’ve been talking about me behind my back?’
‘Not at all,’ Victoria says calmly. ‘She said something to Mum about it, that’s all. She said you’d asked to stay there or something. I just wondered if it was true.’
‘Gran’s such a shit-stirrer,’ Bertie says as he turns away anew. ‘And she just laughed at me anyway,’ he adds, too softly for Victoria to be completely sure of his words.
‘I’m sorry?’ she prompts.
‘Nothing,’ Bertie says.
‘But you did ask her?’
‘Yeah,’ Bertie says. ‘Sort of.’
‘And did you say that she laughed?’
Bertie half-shrugs.
The sign to the hospital has come into view and Victoria suddenly wishes she had chosen a longer route. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me why?’ she says as she indicates and pulls into the hospital complex. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to just tell me why Penny’s place, or even boarding school, is preferable to here? It would make everything so much—’
‘Yeah,’ Bertie interrupts. ‘I’m sure.’
Victoria sits and waits. She alternates between staring at the closed door behind which her son is no doubt telling his deepest secrets to a complete stranger, looking down the long, shiny corridor and checking her phone, which obstinately refuses to access the internet now she finally, for once, wants it to.
After ten unbearably slow minutes, she stands and makes her way back to reception and then on up to the hospital restaurant, where she buys a cup of coffee, which she sips as she stares, instead, out at the lawn.
Despite the hopping blackbird and the weeding gardener, the hour continues to pass slowly, and by the time she returns downstairs she’s feeling nervous and highly strung, but she has resisted, at least, the desire to pop another Valium. Not only is she aware that she needs to be alert for this meeting with Bertie’s doctor, but she’s scared, too, that the doctor will somehow be able to tell. You’re stoned off your face on Valium, aren’t you, Mrs Cunningham? she can imagine her saying.
At exactly one minute to twelve, the door opens and Bertie steps out, closing it quickly behind him as if to keep the secrets locked in. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he says flatly.
‘All done?’ Victoria asks as she stands.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I just need a quick word with her myself,’ Victoria says, touching her son reassuringly on the arm with one hand and reaching for the door-handle with the other. ‘I won’t be a minute. Just wait there.’
‘I’m not sure you can . . .’ Bertie starts, but Victoria is already inside, already pushing the door closed behind her.
Dr Cheeder looks up from her notes and frowns deeply. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘but can I help you?’
‘Yes, I’m, um, Bertie’s mother,’ Victoria reminds her, taking a
seat, even though she can already tell that she’s not going to be invited to do so.
‘Yes, I know who you are,’ the doctor says. ‘But unless I’m mistaken, we don’t have an appointment.’
‘I know, but I need to talk to you,’ Victoria says.
‘That’s as maybe, but you’ll need to make an appointment. I have my twelve o’clock waiting outside.’
‘There’s no one there yet,’ Victoria says. ‘And I only need five minutes. Please?’
Dr Cheeder licks her lips and sighs. She covers her notes with an orange file and nods. ‘OK. Five minutes. But I can’t tell you anything Bertie has said to me in confidence. You know that, right?’
‘Yes,’ Victoria says. ‘It’s just that there’s this boarding-school thing. I assume he has told you he wants to go to boarding school?’
Dr Cheeder smiles blandly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t possibly comment.’
‘OK, so let’s assume he has told you,’ Victoria says – she has prepared herself for this. ‘Let’s pretend that you know that he wants to go to boarding school, all right? So my question is – theoretically, of course – supposing you had a child who was going through a difficult time, who you were worried about, who you felt you needed to keep an eye on . . . Would you consider that sending him away to a boarding school was a good idea? Even if that’s what he wanted? Because I’m really not sure what to think here. And I really don’t want to make the wrong decision.’
Dr Cheeder crosses her fingers and clears her throat. ‘It’s extremely important that Bertie doesn’t think I have betrayed his confidence,’ she says. ‘His trust is the most important thing there is right now, believe me.’
‘I understand that. But surely we can talk theoretically?’
‘Yes, well . . . theoretically, then, as you say, if I did have a son in the situation you describe, I might think, having treated a few boarders in my time, that he possibly has an inaccurate idea of what life at boarding school is like. So I might try to negotiate with him in order to find some other way for him to obtain the space and distance he currently craves.’
‘OK,’ Victoria says. ‘I think I see.’
‘Personally, I have a brother, so perhaps I’d ask him to help. I might ask him if my theoretical son could come and stay for a while. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Yes,’ Victoria says. ‘Yes, I do . . . But I only have one sister, and we’re not even on speaking terms.’
‘In order to discuss your relationship issues with your sister, you really would need to make your own appointment. But those are your issues, not Bertie’s. If you catch my drift.’
‘I do,’ Victoria says. ‘I catch it perfectly.’
‘We all need some space sometimes,’ the doctor continues. ‘As a parent of a child who is in the process of becoming an adult, our job, sometimes, is just to recognise that. And to facilitate, perhaps, a non-permanent, non-damaging way for our child to separate from us, just as much as they need – without having to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.’
‘So the boarding school is a bad idea,’ Victoria says. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘I’ve said all I’m going to say right now,’ Dr Cheeder says. ‘And I’m afraid I really do need to write up Bertie’s notes and get on to my next patient.’
Victoria glances longingly at the sheets of paper peeping out from under the orange folder as she sighs and stands. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
‘One final thing,’ the doctor says, glancing at the door.
‘Yes?’
‘As far as Bertie is concerned, we didn’t speak about him. Not even theoretically. We spoke only about you, OK? I can’t impress on you sufficiently how important it is that he doesn’t doubt the confidentiality of our meetings.’
‘Of course. Thanks again.’
‘You’re welcome, Mrs Cunningham. Um, if there’s a pale teenage girl sitting out there, tell her I’ll be just five minutes, would you?’
‘Of course,’ Victoria says. ‘Yes, of course I’ll tell her. Sorry to have held you up.’
‘It’s fine,’ Dr Cheeder says. ‘As you say, these decisions are difficult but important.’
Outside, in the car, Bertie fastens his seatbelt, then asks, ‘Why did you need to talk to my doctor?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Victoria says, as she manoeuvres out of the parking space. ‘Oh, that’s not really your business. It was private, really. But it wasn’t about you, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Bertie says.
‘It really wasn’t,’ Victoria tells her son. ‘It was about my Valium, if you must know. I’ve been taking it for too long and I was asking her about reducing.’
‘Oh, OK,’ Bertie replies, his tone softening. ‘What did she say?’
‘I’m afraid that really is private,’ Victoria says. ‘But I’m going to deal with it, OK? So don’t worry. How was your session?’
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘Did you ask her what she thought about boarding school?’
‘Nope,’ Bertie says.
‘Maybe you should have,’ Victoria says. ‘She might be able to help you decide.’
‘I have decided,’ Bertie says.
They drive in silence for a moment, then he adds, ‘Will we ever see the Anderssons again?’
‘Penny and Sander?’ Victoria replies. ‘Of course we will.’
‘Right,’ Bertie says. ‘When?’
‘I’ll talk to your dad when he gets back from his holiday. We’ll see what we can arrange, OK? Maybe you can go down for a weekend or something without us.’
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Victoria says, even though she can’t think how she could possibly organise such a thing without speaking to her sister. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Yeah. That would be cool.’
It is Monday morning, and Penny has a long, difficult and almost certainly exhausting week ahead of her. As she sips her morning coffee, she leafs through the pile of unpaid bills and tries to decide which one to pay first. She is hesitating between paying the most overdue ones, such as the broadband bill, or the most essential ones, like electricity.
Their money issues have really been getting to her recently, and have, for the first time ever, caused her bouts of actual insomnia.
She’s been lying awake obsessing about potential remedies. They could sell the house, for instance. They could then pay off all their debts, buy a nice four-bedroom house inland somewhere, and still have a couple of years’ salary to stash in case of future disasters.
But she knows how deep Sander’s attachment to the house is. She loves the place, too, of course, but Sander’s relationship with the place is on a whole different level. It’s a symbol of his manhood, really, of his (past) ability to provide for his family.
They could take in a lodger – that’s the other idea she has been chewing over. And if she could get Sander to admit that he’s never actually going to paint anything ever again, they could even take in two. But she’s loath to introduce such random elements into the midst of her otherwise successful family life. It’s impossible to know what effect a new person in the house might have on them all. And didn’t Will’s aunt get burgled by her own lodger, after all?
And so she shuffles through the bills and hesitates between broadband and water, between rates and electricity, and feels a little sick.
She glances at the clock. It’s eight fifteen, so she’ll have to leave soon.
Her job has been getting her down recently. She has an ever-increasing caseload of kids who have lost their parents, and asylum seekers stuck in hopeless bedsits and bereaved parents who need to be taught how to grieve, and there’s virtually no hope, under the current government, that anyone will ever be recruited to second her.
The result is that she’s spreading herself ever thinner, doing her job less and less well. She’s going to meet new clients having read their case notes at night when sh
e was half asleep, or in some cases going to meet them having not found the time to read them at all, and she hates herself for it, hates herself for bluffing her way through interviews about the most traumatic events people will ever have to live through.
Sander, this morning, is sulking, too. She had asked him, over coffee, to reduce his considerable drug budget, just until they get things back on an even keel.
He has been spending – she finally worked it out – almost £200 a month on grass, a figure which Sander flatly denied.
‘I spend no more on dope than you spend on wine,’ he had claimed, which, seeing as Penny knows exactly how much she spends on wine a month (£29.98 on two boxes of Australian Chardonnay from Lidl) is completely untrue.
When Penny had told him this, Sander had simply uttered the word, ‘Jesus’, and left the room. So nothing is resolved. And she will have to attempt the conversation all over again.
She swigs down the last of her coffee and grabs her car keys and coat from the hallway – it’s raining outside. But then she remembers the washing machine. She just has time to hang the stuff to dry before she leaves.
Downstairs in the basement, the machine is silent, despite not having finished its cycle. She can see, quite clearly, that the drum is still full of water. ‘Not again,’ she groans, reaching down to pull off a shoe.
She whacks the machine on the side next to the timer, exactly as Sander has shown her, and for a second it looks as if she has succeeded – the machine lurches into action, the pump begins to whir and water begins to sluice. But then there’s a faint popping noise, and the room, with the exception of a faint hum, is suddenly silent again.
‘Not now,’ Penny tells the machine as she turns the knob to Spin and whacks it again. She tries the Drain position, too, but nothing happens. The machine is resolutely on strike.
She unplugs and plugs it in again, bashes the on/off button with her fist. Nothing. ‘Shit!’ she mutters, checking her watch and pulling her shoe back on before heading upstairs.
When she pushes the studio door open, Sander looks startled. He looks guilty, in fact. Clouds of sweet-smelling smoke hang in the air.
The Bottle of Tears Page 14
