Practically Perfect

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Can I stay up?’ he asked, and suppressed another yawn.

  Connie debated, but then shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. It’ll be much too late. I’ll send him in to you when he comes back, I promise.’

  His face remained impassive. ‘OK,’ he agreed.

  ‘Let’s take you up and show you your room,’ Connie suggested. She held out a hand, and after a second’s hesitation he slipped his into it and stood up. She curled her fingers round the back of his small, soft hand and squeezed comfortingly. ‘Bathroom first. Teeth and loo.’

  She did his teeth, gave him a little privacy and then ushered him down the corridor. ‘Here we are. It used to belong to my brother, but he had an accident and died a long time ago. I expect it will enjoy having another boy staying in it.’

  She pushed the door open, and got her first flicker of reaction from him. His eyes tracked to the disreputable old teddy on the pillow, and stayed there. She picked him up, turned down the quilt and sat further down the bed, patting the sheet. ‘In you hop.’

  He climbed in, slid down so his head was on the pillow and he was flat on his back, and stared at her with empty eyes.

  ‘Shall I tell you a story about Edward?’

  ‘I’m Edward.’

  She smiled. ‘I know—but so’s this bear. He’s Teddy Edward, and a long time ago, when Anthony was about your age, they had an adventure. Would you like to hear about it?’

  He hesitated, so long that she thought she’d lost him, and then he nodded. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Right. Well, you see, they’d gone out for a picnic. They had a little bar of chocolate, a fairy cake, a bottle of squash and a jamjar.’

  She waited a moment and sure enough, his curiosity overcame him. ‘A jamjar?’ he asked softly.

  She nodded. ‘Yes—they were going down to the river to catch minnows before their picnic. Anyway, they settled down on the river bank, Anthony on one side, Teddy Edward on the other, and the picnic in between. Then suddenly, a gust of wind came and blew Teddy Edward into the water!’

  Edward’s eyes widened. Encouraged, Connie went on. ‘Well, Anthony was terribly upset. He came running home, crying his eyes out because he’d lost his best friend in the world, and told my parents what had happened.’

  ‘Did they find him?’

  She nodded. ‘My father ran back with him to the river and walked along the bank, calling out and searching, until finally, by a humungous miracle, they spotted him. He was stuck in a branch that hung low down over the river, and my father waded in and pulled him out to safety. That’s why his fur’s all matted and fuzzy, and why he’s such a muddy colour, but Anthony still loved him just the same.’

  Edward gave a little sigh. ‘I haven’t got a teddy,’ he confessed, his eyes still fixed longingly on Teddy Edward.

  ‘Haven’t you?’ said Connie, who’d already established that there wasn’t such a thing as a teddy bear in Edward’s suitcase. ‘Well, that’s the most extraordinary thing, because Teddy Edward hasn’t got a little boy any more, and he’s been ever so lonely since my brother died. I don’t suppose you’d consider letting him sleep with you, would you? It would make him very happy.’

  Edward nodded solemnly, and lifted up the edge of the quilt. Connie tucked the teddy in beside him, kissed them both goodnight and turned down the light.

  ‘I’ll be just downstairs, in the sitting room,’ she told him. ‘Just call if you need anything, all right? And I’ll send your Daddy up to see you just the minute he gets in.’

  The little head nodded again, and Connie blew him another kiss and went quietly downstairs. She had meant to go straight into the sitting room, but instead she went into the cloakroom, shut herself in, turned on the taps full and howled her eyes out.

  Then she washed her face, sniffed hard and raided her father’s bottle of malt whisky while she settled down to wait for Patrick.

  ‘You’re still up.’

  ‘Yes. I was waiting up for you.’

  One dark brow arched quizzically, but Connie couldn’t be bothered with little games.

  ‘Edward’s here,’ she said economically.

  He froze, searching her face, then looked away, then looked back. ‘Edward?’ he croaked.

  ‘Your son—I believe he’s your son?’

  He sat down as if someone had cut his strings. ‘Yes—but—um—how—?’

  ‘Your wife—I assume your wife?’ She paused for confirmation.

  ‘Ex-wife. Very, very definitely ex-wife.’

  ‘Good. Your ex-wife brought him and dropped him off. I rather got the feeling that if I hadn’t been here, she would have left him on the step like a bag of jumble.’

  Patrick’s mouth tightened. ‘What did she say?’ he asked.

  ‘You want me to repeat it? I’m not sure I can bring myself to say the things she said.’

  ‘In front of him?’

  Connie gave a sad little laugh. ‘Oh, yes. And to him. I gather that it’s not a good idea to allow myself to get pregnant because you’re funny about abortion. And Ron doesn’t seem to get on too well with him. Oh, and her nanny’s chucked it in—’

  ‘I wonder why?’ he said drily.

  ‘And she’s gone to Antigua for six weeks and will send all his stuff on when she gets back. She said she hopes you’ll be very happy together and she only went for custody to annoy you, but it’s got boring.’

  He stared at her for an age, then he dropped his face into his hands and propped his elbows on his knees. He stayed like that for some time, occasionally shaking his head as if in disbelief, and then he looked up at Connie again, his eyes deep pools of pain and fury.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked softly.

  ‘In my brother’s room.’

  He hesitated for a moment. ‘Won’t your parents mind?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not if they’d seen him, with those great big eyes. And, anyway, it’s not a shrine.’

  He nodded, and then ran upstairs three at a time. He was gone for half an hour, and when he came down his eyes were filled with tears. She slopped some of her father’s ten-year-old single malt into a glass and stuck it in his hand.

  ‘Drink this,’ she ordered, and he gulped it, coughed, then took a more cautious sip.

  Finally he looked at her. ‘Whose is the teddy?’

  ‘My brother’s.’

  ‘It’s wet,’ he told her. ‘So’s the pillow.’

  His voice caught, and he turned round, pacing across the room, glaring at the ceiling until he’d recovered his composure. ‘I’ll kill her. This time she’s gone too far.’

  ‘I got the impression it was what you wanted.’

  ‘Oh, it is, but not like this—like a bag of jumble dropped off outside a village hall.’ He slammed the glass down, slopping the contents onto his hand. ‘Damn her!’ he muttered. ‘She really is an evil bitch.’

  ‘So why did you marry her?’ Connie said, finally asking the question that had been plaguing her for hours.

  ‘Because she was pregnant,’ he said bitterly, ‘and she threatened to have an abortion if I didn’t. She fancied being a city doctor’s wife, but she rather had in mind some smart little practice on Harley Street, I think, not the wrong end of Putney. It didn’t agree with her at all.’

  Having met her, Connie could understand that. ‘So, what will you do now?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I was trying to find a practice somewhere in the country where I could get a nanny-cum-housekeeper to look after him, and bring him up doing the things little boys ought to do, like playing in the village football team and joining the scouts and going fishing—not being left to his own devices in a smart little flat with not so much as a pot plant!’

  He sighed heavily and stabbed his hands through his hair. ‘I just needed a little more time. I went to look at somewhere last weekend, but I didn’t like the practice set-up and it was too expensive, anyway. I asked her to give me another six months, just to get sorted out with the right place, but
, oh, no, she’d got to do it her way. Being civilised is nothing like dramatic enough to appeal to her sense of theatre.’

  He reached for the whisky and took another swig, then swallowed it carefully. He eyed the glass, then shot a grin at Connie. ‘I never drink, you know. I can’t remember the last time I had a drink.’

  ‘I just thought you needed it. I thought I did, too.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about involving you in this. Damn, what a mess.’ He sighed. ‘How was he? Did he seem upset?’

  She shook her head. ‘He was very, very quiet. Withdrawn. Scared to death, I would say. Perfectly polite, but quite, quite remote.’

  Patrick swallowed hard. ‘Poor little chap. He’s often like that for the first few minutes with me, then he starts to thaw. He’s a lovely kid.’

  ‘He is—and I think bringing him up here to you was the best thing she could possibly have done. Having met her, I think that even one more day with her would have been a day too long.’

  ‘And that’s your conservative opinion?’

  She blushed. ‘Sorry. I always did run off at the mouth about things that affect me.’

  ‘And he affected you?’

  ‘You should have seen him, Patrick. He looked so small there on the drive…’ Her voice fizzled out, and she sniffed and took a gulp of her whisky. It burned all the way down and made her cough, but at least she could feel it. She got the feeling the mother could drink neat acid without noticing.

  ‘Does she have a name, by the way?’

  ‘To help you find a focus for your hatred?’

  Connie’s eyes locked with Patrick’s for a long moment, and she sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Yes, it is. She made it your business when she left Edward in your care. Her name’s Marina.’

  Connie nodded. How appropriate for such a cold fish. ‘I don’t actually hate her,’ she mused out loud. ‘I feel intensely sorry for her, and I’m angry with her, but I don’t hate her. She can’t be normal, giving up her child like that to pursue some fleeting happiness.’

  Patrick smiled slightly. ‘Thank you for that. I do try not to hate her. I don’t know that I’ve ever loved her, and she lied to me about being on the Pill. I think she was just going to slip off to a clinic if the worst came to the worst, but the trouble was, as a doctor, I was too fast to catch on to her symptoms. And that left marriage.’

  ‘Old-fashioned, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wanted to protect the child. Tell me I was wrong to do that, Connie.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t. Of course you were right. It’s just that most people wouldn’t have bothered.’

  ‘Well, I’m not most people, and I’m going to have a crisis on my hands in the morning as a result, because I’ve got surgery to get through and Edward to keep me company. I suppose he can sit in the office with the ladies, but that gives me a day and a half to find a nanny before Monday morning.’

  Connie didn’t have a choice. Her mouth took over, speaking for her heart without bothering to consult her head. ‘I’ll look after him, if you like. I’m stuck here until my arm heals, and I’m bored to death.’

  He searched her face, hope in his eyes, then the hope faded. ‘But you hate kids. You said today if you had a child you’d send it to boarding school at the age of one.’

  ‘Patrick, I was joking,’ she laughed.

  He didn’t smile. ‘I daren’t risk it, Connie. He’s had a mother who found him too much trouble. There’s no way he’s having a nanny who feels the same way, even if it is just for a short while.’

  ‘He’s no trouble!’ she protested. ‘Patrick, I was joking earlier. I love children! For God’s sake, I’m a paediatrician—’

  ‘A neonatal paediatric surgeon. That’s not quite the same thing as a nanny.’

  She sighed. ‘No, it isn’t, but the feeling for the children is essentially the same. Health, happiness, well-being, security. Patrick, I’m here. We got on well, I think. At least let me help you until you find someone who’s right to do the job.’

  He hesitated, then stood up. ‘Can I think about it? I have to be sure, Connie. You must see that. I’d like to watch you in action together before I decide. And, anyway, I think you need time to consider, too. I don’t want you taking him on as a knee-jerk reaction and then regretting it or finding it too much.’

  He had a point. She always had been impulsive. ‘All right. That seems fair. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks—and thank you for all you’ve done tonight—well, all day, in fact. I’m very grateful, for all of it, but especially for looking after Edward. And thanks for giving him the teddy, that was really thoughtful.’

  She smiled, a sad little smile. ‘It’s nice to see him being loved again. Anthony even took him to university. It seemed such an obvious thing to do, to give him to Edward.’

  ‘Not to everyone,’ Patrick said flatly, and Connie knew he was talking about Marina and the fact that she would never have given such a disreputable old toy house room.

  ‘No, perhaps not to everyone,’ she agreed. She stood up, suddenly dreadfully weary. ‘Goodnight, Patrick. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  And she went upstairs, checked her little charge and went to bed.

  Patrick didn’t know which way to turn. Connie seemed such an obvious answer, but she had found the children at the clinic a trial—or at least, she’d said so. She’d said she was joking, but what if there was an element of truth? What if she really did find it all too much?

  He sighed and switched on the beside light. He couldn’t sleep, not with his son arriving unannounced in the icy blast of Marina’s dismissal, and Connie so cross with her for hurting the little one, and his own feelings for Edward so raw and full of guilt.

  There was a little cry, and before he knew he was doing it, he leapt out of bed and ran to his son. Curiously, he met Connie on the landing, similarly hurrying, and they exchanged a rueful laugh.

  ‘I’ll deal with him. You’ve done more than enough, Connie, thanks.’

  She hovered, then nodded and went back to her room. He went in, turning up the light a fraction, and found Edward still asleep, mumbling and tossing and turning restlessly. ‘It’s all right, sprog, Daddy’s here,’ he murmured, and Edward’s eyes flickered open.

  ‘Daddy?’ he said.

  ‘I’m here, love. Can’t you sleep well?’

  ‘I had a dream,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ Patrick couldn’t leave him alone, and there was no room for him in the narrow single bed. ‘I tell you what—do you want to come and cuddle up with me, just for tonight? It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Will it be all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Of course it will be all right.’

  ‘What about Connie? Won’t she mind?’

  For a moment Patrick didn’t understand, but then suddenly the penny dropped and he had to clamp down on his anger. ‘Connie’s just a friend,’ he explained. ‘I’m looking after her daddy’s patients while he’s sick. She’s not my girlfriend, sproglet. Just a chum.’

  The child took a moment to absorb that, then nodded. ‘OK. Can Teddy Edward come, too?’

  Patrick picked the old bear up and put him on his son’s chest. ‘Of course.’ He scooped the boy up into his arms and carried him across the landing to his own room, putting him down on the big double bed. In minutes they were both asleep, Patrick flat on his back spreadeagled across the bed, Edward snuggled up close with one heavy, possessive arm around his shoulders and the bear under his chin.

  That was how Connie found them in the morning.

  ‘Won’t it make a dreadful mess?’ Edward asked anxiously.

  Connie looked up from the bowl of chopped-up chocolate caramel bars and surveyed the worried little face. ‘Very probably,’ she agreed. ‘That’s why we’re wearing old clothes and aprons. Besides,’ she added, ‘it makes it more fun if it’s messy. Right, you have to help me. I’ll stir this over the
hot water, because I can do that with one hand, but I want you to open the packet of crispies for me with the scissors. Can you do that?’

  She gave him the blunt-ended kitchen scissors, held the wrapper up so he could see and had to prevent herself from hugging him because he looked so delicious when he was concentrating. His little tongue came out and sat in the corner of his mouth, and his ears went pink with concentration.

  Finally, the top was cut open, and he put the scissors down. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Excellent. Right, I’ll stir this, and you can pour them in, a little at a time. Can you manage?’

  The short answer was, not really, but she didn’t care. He overshot the bowl and the dogs ended up with a delicious treat. Edward, however, froze until she looked down at the hopeful dogs and sighed.

  ‘Do you want more?’

  They wagged their tails, and she told them to wait. ‘Right, Edward, pour a little into each of their bowls, please, and then perhaps we’ll get some peace. That’s right. Now, tell them they can have it. Say good cats.’

  ‘But they’re not cats!’ he said with what was almost a giggle.

  ‘So what are they?’

  ‘Good dogs!’ he said, and the dogs dived into the bowls head first.

  And then, finally, he did laugh, a tiny chuckle suppressed almost before it was out, but nevertheless it was progress.

  Thank God for that, Connie thought, and then drew his attention back to the chocolate crispy bars they were supposed to be making. ‘Come on, then, let’s have a few more for us. Tip them in.’

  He was better at it the second time, and she stirred with her left hand as he poured, his tongue jammed in the corner of his mouth, his ears positively glowing.

  ‘There, that’s enough,’ she said, and stirred until the crispies were evenly coated.

  ‘Now, this is the bit I need you to do because I really can’t manage it with only one hand. If I tip the bowl up, will you scrape it all out into this dish and then squash it down flat? Then we’ll put it in the fridge to get chilly, and we can have some for lunch with Daddy!’

  He had been right. It was hideously messy, but she didn’t care. They had enormous fun, and she made sure there was lots of licking out of the bowl to be done at the end.