Wonderboy

by Fiona Gibson

  “No, not all these years.” Neither of us is shouting. We don’t do that, we wouldn’t want to upset Tod.

  “You had someone else.”

  He rubs his face, making a papery sound. “I know we planned Tod, but who knows how it will really feel, being somebody’s parent? And I met Babs—”

  “So that’s her name.” It doesn’t suggest Agent Provocateur underwear but large, faded knickers. My voice is steady, and I’m not even crying. I’m not doing anything, just perching on the bed’s soft corner. We could be having our new-kitchen-or-paint-the-old-one debate.

  “It just happened, Ro. I showed her a flat and—”

  “It just happened. You were freaked out by having a baby, so you decided to make another.”

  “I didn’t want her to have it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wasn’t an affair, not a relationship. It was just a thing.”

  That word—thing—triggers something inside me. My inner toddler. “What kind of thing?” I yell at him.

  “A little mistake,” Marcus whispers.

  “Was I supposed to find the photos? I have to say, Marcus, it was more challenging than your usual treasure hunts.”

  “You must think I’m really twisted to do something like that.”

  “I think you’re worse than twisted.”

  I want to know where the flat was, and he tells me: two streets away from Tod’s school. Not just Tod’s school, Tod and Sarah’s school. She started reception class four months before we left London. Tod might even have played with her. Did he know her? What does Marcus give Sarah for her birthdays? What kind of presents does he give Babs—underwear? A chrome bridge for the bath, or a hoe?

  “That was just a joke,” he says into his hands. Does he give them money? Yes, he gives them money when he sees them, at least once a week. He won’t say how much, it’s irrelevant.

  Did he give Sarah that rabbit for her fourth birthday?

  Yes.

  Does he love her?

  Yes, she’s his daughter.

  Does he love Tod?

  He won’t even answer that. I must be out of my mind to ask that question.

  Does he love her, this Babs, with whom he had a thing?

  “I feel nothing for her. We’re just Sarah’s parents.”

  Oh, is that all. The nearest throwable object is Tod’s lighthouse snow dome, which he left on my bedside table, and which doesn’t hit Marcus but the marshmallow wall behind him, bouncing back and skidding across the bedroom floor, its snow blizzarding madly. It doesn’t even crack.

  I feel a tug on my dressing gown sleeve.

  “You woke me up,” Tod whispers. He is naked and shivering.

  Marcus looks up and says, “Put your pajamas on, Tod. Go back to bed.”

  Tod picks up the lighthouse snow dome. “Mum,” he says, “please stop.”

  chapter 23

  Tooth Fairy

  Marcus has his usual hurried toast and coffee and attacks his nostrils with the nasal hair clipper. He looks very clean, very handsome. He has barely aged since we met. The only real difference is that small trough now in the space between his eyebrows. If you saw him, speed-walking to his Covent Garden office, you would stop him to ask directions without worrying that he would send you in the wrong direction, or turn out to be crazy.

  I can hear Tod in his room, protesting, “It’s not even morning.”

  “Just wanted to say goodbye,” Marcus says.

  “Are you going to work?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  It’s the start of an ordinary day. I will have a quick bath before Tod is properly awake—can’t face the superpower shower first thing—and boil two eggs. While Tod’s having breakfast I’ll pack his lunchbox and gym kit—jobs that mothers like Tina do the night before—and wet the back of his head, try to squash his disobedient hair. Then I’ll jam my mouth shut to stop myself from nagging as he teases a shoe with his toe.

  Everything will be normal. The only difference is, Marcus isn’t coming back.

  Tod waggles the trembling enamel the whole way home from school. He doesn’t want the tooth anymore, he wants money. Hard cash. The tooth fairy loot will be dropped into the dolphin moneybox, along with the pound from the Gatwick lady. “I can’t wait,” he says, “for all that money.”

  At bedtime I read from Mazes and Labyrinths, tuck Tod in, take his spout cup and locate Dog on the bathroom floor. Then I pack his schoolbag for tomorrow and make his lunch. I trim each sandwich with scissors to neaten its edges. I lay out a clean school uniform, plus pants and inside-out socks, and even remember to feed the fish. I am managing.

  “Is Dad back yet?” Tod calls down from his room.

  “He’s staying in London. You should be asleep, darling.” I didn’t say “tonight” so, technically, I haven’t lied.

  When he’s finally asleep, I pull out my drawings from their folder and spread them all over the living room floor. They are all of the same boy. I’d try to draw different characters but every child would always turn out the same, even if I changed his hair color or turned him into a girl, which indicated that my lecturer was probably right in doubting that I would ever make it as an illustrator. This boy didn’t have a gang. He just had lots of other boys who looked exactly like him. That became the idea of my story.

  I turn on the computer in the room we’ve always referred to as the study, although no one’s ever done any studying in here, and start typing. I had a name for the boy but can’t remember what it was. I should write things down, like my sister does. Make lists, own clipboards. The only names I can think of are Sarah and Babs. If Marcus had gone to the right flat, gone to Cedric Street instead of Cecil Street, we’d never have met. I wouldn’t have hunted for his damn Easter eggs. There wouldn’t have been a tin in the cupboard, or a Tod.

  I stab the off button and slap the keyboard for not helping me. Marcus’s things are all over the house. He hasn’t even taken his toothbrush. Most of his books are still packed in a box with the removal company’s name—Smart Moves—stamped on the side. We’ve lived here for nearly a year and not even properly moved in.

  My drawing things are in a dented cardboard box, beneath another box, containing the casserole dishes from Marcus’s parents. Some of the inks have dried up but there’s enough to have a play about. I drag the box into the living room and remember my old thing of drawing the boy carefully, then placing another sheet over the first, using the drawing as a guide, and making him freer.

  I only notice that it’s gone three a.m. when there are no more sheets in my pad.

  Something smacks on to the bed, something heavy and shouting and out of control. There’s a scream, I think it’s my scream, and Tod, crying and flinging his arms around my neck. “What is it? Calm down, sweetheart—tell me what’s happened.”

  Marcus was wrong, that night at the Poacher’s, when he accused me of bringing everything back to Tod. I haven’t considered him at all. I try to convince myself that I’m heading for some Fabulous Mummy award by trimming his sandwiches with scissors.

  “Tod,” I say, “please tell me why you’re crying.”

  He jabs at his gum. “The tooth fairy didn’t come.”

  “Did it fall out? Take your finger away. Show me.”

  He’s still making ur-ur noises as he stretches his lips.

  “It’s still there,” I tell him, “it hasn’t come out yet.”

  “In my dream it did,” he rages.

  Over breakfast I tell Tod that sometimes, the tooth fairy sets a treasure hunt when a child is about to lose a tooth, as a trial run for the main event. “So maybe you should start looking, in the smallest room we have that isn’t the study.”

  He flings down his spoon, zooms into the bathroom and emerges with the pound that the almost-lost tooth fairy had cleverly concealed beneath the apple soap.

  “Shall we go to Lexley after school,” I suggest, “and spend all this money?”

  Retail therapy is, I
feel, fair compensation for an absent dad.

  “I could tell something was wrong, that day on the common,” Natalie says. “What’s happened, Ro?”

  “There’s someone else, or there was someone else. He says it’s all over.”

  “I’ll come and stay for the weekend, leave the kids with Hugh.”

  “No, please don’t do that. I don’t want any dramas around Tod.”

  “I’m not dramas,” she says, her voice cracking, “I’m your bloody sister.”

  As far as I’m aware, this is as close as Natalie has ever come to proper swearing.

  Tod and I are driving back from Lexley where he prowled around the toyshop, examining boxed puzzles. He made the shop girl explain how bar codes work, and show him her bleeping gadget, before selecting a construction kit consisting of magnetic straight bits and silver balls. He has fashioned these into a bracelet. He wanted to spend only the nearly-gone tooth pound, the soapy coin, but not the Gatwick lady’s pound.

  We are passing the golf course road when Tod asks, “Is Dad on holiday?”

  “Of course not. He wouldn’t go on holiday without you.”

  He tweaks his bracelet. He knows that something is different, probably because I stumped up the extra nine quid required to buy the magnetic construction kit.

  “Will he still be my dad?” Tod asks, gazing out of the passenger window.

  “Yes, he’ll always be your dad.” I am finding it hard to see through the windscreen, and switch on the wipers and demister, but of course it’s just my eyes. I grope for Tod’s hand but he tugs it away. “You’ll still see Dad,” I explain. “It might be a while, until we talk and see what we’re going to do.” I glance at Tod, trying to figure out if what I’ve said is enough, like the seed-egg explanation, or has just confused him even more.

  He runs the magnetic bracelet back and forth along his wrist and says, “What I like about this is, when you put the wrong bits together they push away, and when you get it right, they just stick.”

  The aching starts in the early hours. I can’t remember if it’s okay to take paracetamol when you’re pregnant so I squirm in bed, trying to shrug off the pain.

  By morning there are flecks of blood and I know what is happening. I walk Tod to school, and every few minutes that cramping comes again, and Tod tugs at my hand, saying, “Mum, we’re going to miss the bell. Miss Glass started giving late marks and if you’re really late, you’re marked absent.”

  On my way home I call the shop on my mobile, leaving a message: “Julia, Ro. Sick again. I’m so sorry.” My plan is to drive to Lexley General—assuming they have an A&E department—and hope I’m not kept waiting for hours. No, that only happens in London. We’re in the country now. I’ll be dealt with quickly, efficiently, and be home in plenty of time to pick up Tod.

  I sit on the loo, the pain constant now. When there’s a lull I’ll find our Lexley street map, and the hospital, and drive myself there. There isn’t a lull, it just gets worse, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  Through the living room window I can see Joe, throwing lengths of wood from his truck on to the drive. My plan is to pull on my coat, calmly cross the road, and ask if he could possibly drive me to Lexley.

  What I do, as he holds me tight, is say, “Please, Joe, I need you to help me.”

  There’s no heartbeat. “I’m very sorry,” the doctor says. “I know this doesn’t make it easier, but it’s extremely common.”

  He has silvery hair and the soft, pink hands of a younger person. I feel blank inside. All I can do is study his immaculate nails and say, “Thank you.”

  “There’s no reason,” he adds, glancing at me, then at Joe, “why you shouldn’t go on to have a healthy pregnancy in future.”

  Joe is holding my hand. Each wall is painted a different shade of cream, like various cheeses. There are flowers, still in their patterned cellophane wrapper, which have been jammed into a jug with its handle snapped off.

  “I’m very sorry for both of you,” the doctor says.

  As I must stay in for a D&C, Joe will pick up Tod from school, then leave him with Lucille, and collect me later from hospital.

  How easily things can be organized. I was pregnant, and now I’m not. Babs and Sarah are real, my baby doesn’t exist. Everything seems eerily simple.

  Monday morning. “Sure you want to wear that to school, honey?” I ask.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Tod demands.

  “The other children might make fun of you, wearing a bracelet.”

  “It’s not a bracelet,” Tod insists, “it’s magnets.”

  “And you’re going to wear your magnets all day.”

  “They’ll be jealous.”

  “Who’ll be jealous?”

  “Joely, Adam and Claudia Turnpike.”

  “Who are they?”

  “My friends, of course,” Tod retorts.

  I’m heading home, passing the bookshop, when Julia runs out and calls after me, “Here’s a letter for you.”

  It’s addressed to Ro (illustrator) c/o Coffee & Books. Inside the envelope is a postcard depicting Muriel Hope’s Alfie in a bat outfit. She has written:

  Dear Ro,

  So sorry I had to rush off after the reading. I have two-year-old twins who refuse to settle to bed if I’m not there. Bad mum was late home! Just wanted to let you know that I loved your illustrations. They’re so full of humor and life. Pls send a selection to my agent, Antonia Devine, at Devine Associates, 42 Eden Terrace, Chiswick, London W12. Best of luck, you deserve it. Muriel Hope

  “Good news?” Julia asks.

  I thrust her the card. She reads it, grabs me, and we scream and jump up and down. It’s not the kind of behavior you’d expect in Chetsley High Street.

  “Marcus hasn’t been here all week,” Nettie blusters down the phone, “not since he popped in on Tuesday morning, took a client out—then nothing. It’s ridiculous, Ro.”

  “Could he be at the new office?” I suggest.

  “Don’t you think I haven’t been there, done my utmost to track him down? He could at least call. Has something happened?”

  “I think Marcus should tell you.”

  She puffs on a cigarette. There’s a popping noise, then a savage exhalation. Marcus would never tolerate smoking in the office.

  “Maureen is worried senseless,” Nettie adds.

  I know this. Marcus’s mother has also left several messages. “I think,” I say carefully, “that Marcus needs some time on his own.”

  “Don’t we all?” barks Nettie, as if all this is my fault, like I should know or care where he is.

  Joe is spending next weekend in Dorset with Ed, his son. They are going camping. Joe wanted to wait until next summer, but Ed insisted, so Joe has bought a two-man tent. He is putting it up in the garden to make sure everything fits together.

  “Let me help,” Tod demands. It’s blustery, kite-flying weather, not putting-up-tent weather.

  “Okay,” Joe says, “but you’ll have to really help and listen to me, okay?”

  Joe’s outsized sweater is peppered with sawdust, his jeans streaked with green paint. As I watch them, battling with billowing nylon, I realize that I have been put off camping not only by my mother’s foot being damaged by a gas canister, but by the fact that you have to practice erecting a tent. You don’t have to practice lying in hotel beds or ordering room service.

  “Look, Tod,” Joe says, “let’s fit the poles together, then see if we can feed them through these channels in the tent.”

  Remarkably, it does turn out to be tent-shaped. We leave Tod zipping and unzipping its entrance, and climb up to the tree house.

  “Can I ask you,” I say, “when you and Ed’s mother broke up?”

  “When Ed was a bit older than Tod.”

  “Was it awful?”

  “No,” Joe says, pushing unkempt hair from his face, “it wasn’t awful. It was the only thing we could have done.”

  “That’s what I’m trying t
o tell myself. That we’re not damaging him, screwing him up.” Tod dives headfirst out of the tent and lies facedown, flapping hands and feet, being Salmon Man.

  “What about you?” Joe asks. “How are you feeling since—”

  “There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t have been having a baby. So really, it’s a good thing it happened.”

  He looks at me. “You don’t really think that.”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  He strokes my hair, then puts an arm around my shoulders, like any friend would.

  I spend each evening of the following week writing the story and producing more drawings to match the bits where it spirals off, as if writing itself, and I’m just putting words in the right order. Tod works steadily on the 3-D maze, which is now the size of a coffee table with sticky-out bits, like jetties, made from planks left over from Joe’s tree house. Tod has made a WAY IN sign and attached it to the entrance on a Sellotape hill. We are both very busy, which prevents us from mentioning Marcus.

  I have explained, “Me and Dad just can’t live together anymore. We’ll still see him, I’m just not sure when.” Tod accepted this with a small nod, as if I had told him that his bike was in the cycle shop in Lexley, having its chain fixed. Later I found a crayoned self-portrait. It had angry black eyes and a downturned slash of a mouth.

  At least the livestock nightmares have stopped, and he wolfs entire dinners without having to be nagged or bribed with a doughnut if he clears his plate. It could be a growth spurt—his school trousers now finish at his ankles and new shoes are an urgent requirement—or maybe it’s due to the fact that some color has crept back into our meals.

  It’s just after midnight when I hear the siren. I switch off the PC, and run to Tod’s window, which overlooks the street. The ambulance has pulled up at Joe’s gate. Lucille, Carl and Adele are crouching around another person, who is half sitting, half lying on the pavement. Adele is wearing what look like pajamas, with a coat on top, and some kind of enormous footwear.