She thinks again of her son’s little face repeating the horrid word and her stomach churns. Ashley’s body moves as though she is a puppet on a string, up the stairs of the house, and then her hand is on Lucy’s doorknob and she is pushing open the solid white door. There are posters tacked to the wooden panels, and Blu-tack marks where their corners have peeled upwards. She isn’t sure what she is looking for when she bends down and pulls out the drawers underneath Lucy’s bed. They are stuffed with clothes, hastily crumpled skirts and shoes with dirty heels, a pair with the nails poking through the bottom. They need to be re-heeled or thrown away. As she searches, she thinks to herself that this is the second time in a week that she has rummaged through drawers that are not hers. What is the matter with her? Doesn’t she know her family at all?
Sitting on the bed, she moves her hand mechanically towards her daughter’s bedside drawers, trying to ignore the feelings of guilt. Bottles of nail varnish are lined up on the top of the drawers, red, pink, gold. Her iPhone charger trails across the floor.
Carefully, Ashley reaches out, opens the top drawer of Lucy’s bedside cabinet. She has no idea what she is looking for. In moments like this, panic starts to creep at her insides; she is younger than most of the other mothers, maybe she doesn’t know what she’s doing, doesn’t know what’s normal. She pushes the thoughts away. Inside the dark of the drawer, Lucy’s contact lens case sits neatly with a bottle of solution. The green and white plastic eyes look at Ashley, unblinkingly, accusingly. She slams the drawer shut and makes herself leave the room and walk back down the stairs. Her daughter is still sound asleep on the sofa, her breathing slow and steady, her lips parted in an unconscious pout.
22
London
Corinne
I’m taking Mum out for dinner. I told her on the phone that I’d like to meet her in London today and treat her to a meal. She sounded good, like she was happy to hear from me.
She got the train into Blackfriars and we met at the station, found a quiet little French place just off Farringdon Road. Mum’s always liked French food; she and Dad used to eat it all the time. Not that I’m trying to bribe her or anything, but I want her to feel comfortable.
‘This is a lovely choice, darling,’ she says, and she smiles at me. Is it my imagination or does she look nervous?
I give the waiter my name and Mum gives a sad smile.
‘I always used to put everything under your father’s name, you know,’ she says. ‘People recognised it, sometimes. Quite often, actually. Richard Hawes. Gave us a certain gravitas, especially in London. Where people knew his work. He liked it, he liked the recognition.’ She paused. ‘I had a call from the Royal Institute of British Architects the other day, they want to host a memorial dinner for him on the anniversary. Black tie. Fundraiser for cancer. They invited me of course, but I just . . . I just don’t think I can face it.
I squeeze her arm; the action hurts my finger where the little nail ripped into it. I’ve wrapped a plaster around it but the blood keeps seeping through, drying around the edges. I pull at it anxiously.
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her, ‘we can have our own dinner that night. Just us. But it’s good that they’re honouring him, Mum.’
We are shown to a little table near the window, a red and white clothed affair boasting a candle stuck into a wine bottle. The menus are leather-bound, several pages long. I’ve no idea what to get and to be truthful I’m not that hungry. Mum debates for a while then gives her order, pointing to the words rather than attempting the pronunciation.
‘Give it a go, Mum!’ I joke, and she blushes slightly, embarrassed.
‘Your dad always did it for me. He liked to.’
Perhaps this is my chance. I need to be careful, I don’t want to upset her.
‘Mum,’ I say, ‘speaking of dad, how are you feeling?’
She looks down at the tabletop. ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she says. ‘Not too bad. Soldiering on, you know.’
I nod. I do know.
‘You know we are here for you, don’t you, Mum?’ I say. ‘Me and Ash. I know we don’t see you as often as we’d like but we’re only a short train away, you know that. Lucy and Ben loved seeing you the other weekend, so did I. It was really lovely.’
I pause. ‘Apart from the rabbit, of course.’
Mum reaches out, touches my hand. ‘I feel awful about that, really I do. What a horrid thing to happen on your visit. Thank goodness Dominic sorted it all.’ She sighs. ‘And your sister didn’t seem in very high spirits, did she?’
I squeeze her hand. ‘It’s not your fault, Mum! Ashley will be OK, she and James will work it out.’ I mentally cross my fingers as I say this, because the truth is, I don’t know if they will. She’d never forgive him if he really was having an affair, I know she wouldn’t.
Mum’s figure looks so small across from me, in the busy restaurant she nearly shrinks into the background. She used to be such a presence, when we were little, she was so elegant, so put together. Her once-blonde hair is ashy grey, she never even wears lipstick any more. It’s as though she’s fading away.
‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘I really . . . I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mum, and I know I mentioned this before, but I could do with finding out what happened to all of dad’s stuff. And I really do want to know where the doll house is.’ I swallow.
She’s fiddling with her fork, running her fingers up and down the prongs. The waiter interrupts, bustles over with a basket of bread.
‘This looks delicious,’ Mum says, and she smiles at me across the sawn-off slices. I can almost feel her willing me to let it go, change the subject.
‘Mum?’ I say. ‘Mum, it’s me. It’s Corinne. If something’s happened to dad’s stuff – if you’ve lost it, or you can’t remember where it is – please, you can just tell me! I won’t think any less of you!’
There’s a beat. I panic slightly, worry that I’ve gone too far. I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing her of being senile, or something.
‘Corinne,’ she says, and she puts a hand to her head, palm to forehead like you would to a poorly child. ‘Corinne, please. I don’t know why you don’t believe me. It’s all at home, it’s in the loft. It’s under a lot of stuff, that’s all. There’s an awful lot of junk up there. I haven’t got round to sorting it out. Why do you need to know so badly?’
She looks up at me. I stare back at her. French music plays overhead, sur le pont d’Avignon . . . I can’t believe she’s lying to me again. I don’t want to tell her what I’ve found. I’ll sound mad.
‘Mum!’ I say. ‘Listen to me, I—’
‘Duck à l’orange?’ The waiter appears, interrupts me with a smile and two steaming white plates. We sit in silence as he places the meals down in front of us. I flash him a tense smile.
‘Corinne—’ Mum says, and I hold my breath, thinking she is about to tell me the truth, but then I see her eyes flick behind me, see her look out of the window, and the change in her expression is like nothing I have ever seen before.
She looks terrified. She looks like she has seen a ghost.
23
London
Corinne
My heart jumps. ‘Mum!’ I say. ‘Mum! What’s the matter?’
I wheel around in my chair, follow her gaze out to the street. There’s nobody there, nothing out of the ordinary, just the wet London pavements and a couple of men in suits, striding towards the Underground with their briefcases. I twist back around, grab my mother’s hand.
‘What’s going on, you look terrified. Did something just happen?’
My breathing is fast and I try to control it. But I’ve never seen Mum look like this. It’s horrible. She hasn’t said a word; her face is as white as a sheet.
‘Here,’ I say. ‘Here, Mum, have some water.’ I slide my own glass across to her and she picks it up, takes a sip. I can see that her hands are shaking, the glass clinks slightly against her teeth.
Slowly, she lets out her breath in a
long whoosh.
‘You OK?’ I say. ‘What was all that about?’
Her head is bowed, she’s looking down at the table.
‘Mum?’
She lifts her head, and I see then that her eyes are shiny with tears. When she speaks, it is in a whisper.
‘I’m sorry, Corinne. I’m so sorry, my darling, but I’ve got to go. I have to get home.’
Before I can speak, Mum is pushing back her chair, grabbing her handbag, threading her way through the busy restaurant. I push back my own, jump to my feet and follow her, calling her name, not caring about the fellow diners.
‘Mum! Mum? Will you just stop!’
She turns to me at the door. I catch her arm, breathing hard from the adrenaline.
‘What are you doing?’ I say. ‘We’re supposed to be having dinner!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, and she puts her arms round me, her thin little arms, and I smell the scent of her perfume, the freesia scent that clings to all her cardigans. She hugs me tight and then she whispers in my ear, her breath tickling the skin on my neck. ‘Please let me go, Corinne, I’ll call you in the morning. I promise.’
‘What? No! Mum, you can’t just run off!’
‘Please, Corinne,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry I just can’t – I can’t cope with being here. It’s too much – the crowds, and being without your dad, I can’t do it.’
Her face is white, her eyes red. I stand in front of her, staring. Her eyes are pleading.
‘I’m not trying to be difficult, my darling, I just . . . I feel overwhelmed, here, I have to . . . I have to get out.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ I say, ‘come on. If you really want to go then at least let me call you a cab? I can take you to the station.’
She shakes her head at me, pulls a shawl around her shoulders. I put a hand on her arm but she turns away. I have no choice but to do as she asks. I gaze at her retreating figure, my thoughts spinning in confusion.
‘Please ring me, Mum!’ I call desperately after her retreating back. ‘I’ll worry!’ She raises a tiny hand to me, I see her wedding ring shine in the darkness and then she is gone, swallowed up by the crowds on the street.
The waiter appears at my side.
‘Will Madame be wanting the bill?’
Then
It’s my birthday today! I woke up feeling happy, but when Mummy saw me she got sad. She’d bought me some presents, a big badge and a balloon that stayed in the air the whole time, and she said she was going to make a cake as well. But then her eyes started to look all funny, like they were made of glass, and a tear came down her cheek. She reached out and stroked my hair, and she said she can remember the day I was born and how happy she was, and how after that everything started to go wrong.
So that means it is my fault that we’re like this. I couldn’t eat any of my birthday cake after that. We ended up throwing it away. Then I felt guilty about that too. I could have saved it to feed to the animals at the big house. I hate my birthday.
The next time we go there, one of the cars is gone. Mummy says the older one is going to live somewhere else now, because she’s getting married. When she says that word, her lip curls up at the top and her cheeks suck in, like she’s eating a lemon, yuck. I wonder if I’ll ever be a married person. I hope not. I don’t think I’d like it.
After that, we go somewhere new, somewhere we’ve never been before. All around us are offices, we are right in the middle of London. Mummy says I’m old enough to come into the city now. It’s a Saturday, the weather is warm. I want an ice cream but Mummy says not yet. We go to some of the shops and Mummy says I can have whatever I want, which she never normally says, so I quickly grab a teddy bear and we’re just about to go to the dolls section when suddenly she grabs me by the hand and tells me to move. I’m about to argue with her but then I see him, he’s over on the other side of the shop, at the counter where you buy things. I look around but I can’t see the others. Maybe he’s buying presents for them. Just for one second, I let myself imagine – I imagine that he’s remembered my birthday, that he’s buying me a surprise present and any minute now he’ll turn around and give me it. But then I tell myself not to be so stupid. He doesn’t care about my birthday. Nobody does.
Mummy stares at him, and her grip on my hand gets tighter and tighter until I want to scream out but I know that I mustn’t. I did that last time and it wasn’t good. We have to be quiet, we always have to be quiet, that’s our special thing. We’re hidden behind a row of teddy bears but I can see his hands at the counter, and he’s buying things for a baby. Little pink socks and a tiny white hat.
So we follow him. In and out of the crowds like usual, keeping our distance. All I can think about is how I had to put down my toys, my teddy and my dolls, how I never got to have them before we had to leave. We’re going to a big office building, all shiny with glass windows that make the sunshine bounce back into my eyes, bright bright bright, so that I have to screw them up tight. We stop on the corner, watch him wave a black card in front of the doors and step through them. Like magic.
‘Mummy,’ I say, pulling on her hand, ‘can we go back to the shops after? Please?’
I don’t think she hears me. We don’t go back. I never get the toys.
24
London
Corinne
Mum rings me early the next morning.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ she says. She tells me again that she’d been feeling really unwell, had found coming to London last night too hard. Being there in the restaurant had reminded her of Dad, of the places they used to go together when he was alive.
‘I know it’s silly, Corinne, but it hasn’t been easy,’ she says. ‘I miss your father so much . . . perhaps being in London just brought it all back. I don’t know, I’m holed up in Kent on my own and I just . . . I felt suddenly like I had to get home. London is so busy. The feeling was a bit . . . overwhelming. I was never as good at all that as your father. All that hustle.’ She clears her throat. ‘I suppose it was a bit of a panic attack. I’m so sorry.’
She apologises again and again, says she’ll give me the money for our uneaten meal.
‘It’s OK, really,’ I say, but she insists, tells me she feels terribly guilty.
‘You do understand, don’t you Corinne?’ she says, and then I have to say yes, of course I do, because how can I tell her that I don’t really believe her, that I don’t think she’s telling me the whole truth?
When I told Dom all about it he stayed calmly in the centre of things, as he always does.
‘Maybe she was upset, though, Cor,’ he says. ‘She hasn’t been to London in a while, has she? I guess there are a lot of memories.’ He pauses. ‘Or was it something to do with the food?’
‘No!’ I say. ‘We didn’t even get to eat anything! It was something she saw through the window, Dom, I’m sure of it.’
He looks sceptical then, and I feel a little pang of dread. Is he going to start doubting every single thing I say?
‘Have you thought about taking a pregnancy test yet?’ he asks me, and I tell him that I’ll do it this week, that I’m going to do it as soon as I can. And I am. I’m going to get one today.
I see Gilly as I’m walking out of our building. She looks harassed, she’s on her own, Tommy isn’t there. Her mobile phone is pressed to her ear, and she’s gesturing a lot, waving her other hand in the air as she talks. I don’t know if she’s seen me. I wonder if she’s talking to the man, the man who’s going to leave his wife. She looks up suddenly and sees me; I wave awkwardly, not wanting to intrude. She makes a ‘one minute’ gesture and crosses the road towards me, hanging up the phone as she does.
‘How are you?’ I say. ‘That looked a bit intense.’
She rolls her eyes. She looks like she might have been crying and her hair is all messy, scraped back in a bun to show her wrinkle-free forehead.
‘Oh, I’m fine, fine,’ she says. ‘Just, you know. Bloody men! It’s my birthday, actually, and
I’m trying to get Ben – my ex – to take Tommy, but . . .’
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Happy birthday! I didn’t realise. Have you got anything special planned?’
She shrugs. ‘Well, not any more, I’ve got Tommy. Anyway, sorry, it doesn’t matter, I hate my bloody birthday as it is. Better off staying in. But how’re you? Any news?’
I smile at her. Why not tell her? ‘Actually, I’m planning to do a pregnancy test today,’ I say, and she grins at me, gives me a little hug.
‘Oh, Corinne, that’s wonderful news. I’ll be thinking about you. Let me know how you get on.’ I tell her I will, and then her phone begins to ring again, a sharp, incessant sound that pierces through the air.
‘I’ll let you go,’ I say, and I leave her standing on the street outside our building, the phone against her ear. I look back once and she’s still standing there, her mouth pressed to the mobile, her eyes on me. She waves, gives me a big thumbs-up. I wave back, and she smiles, keeps talking into the phone. Her eyes look like they’re still fixed on me but I must be imagining it, she’s just staring into the middle distance, staring at nothing at all. I feel a pang of sympathy for her; I wonder why she hates her birthday. Maybe it reminds her that she’s on her own. But she’s not really, I think to myself, she’s got a child.
*
It’s a rainy Thursday and the gallery’s been relatively quiet for the last hour or so, Marjorie’s leaving me alone. It is a relief to be there, away from the flat, from the increasing sense of unease I feel within its walls. I know part of me is avoiding being at home. I keep thinking the little horse is going to turn up at any second and I almost wish it would, so I can prove it to Dominic.
The clock reaches one. There is a Boots on the high street, five minutes from the gallery. I can be there and back in my lunch break. As I head for the pregnancy aisle, I think of how often I have done this before, of the mind games I play with myself; if I can get to them in an even number of steps, it will work. If I can hold my breath all the way to the till, it will work. If, if, if. This time I force myself not to. I select the blue and white packet, then take two more for luck.
The Doll House Page 14
