The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘The police?’ He says it in a loud whisper, as if they’re a controversial secret society, unmentionable in polite company.

  ‘I can’t explain now. Please,’ I say, on my way out of the door.

  ‘Sally, I’m not sure. I…’

  I run out on to the street, thinking that if I can only get to Nick’s work, everything will be all right. I need to speak to him. I need to tell him someone is leaving headless animals next to my car. I walk as quickly as I can to the taxi rank outside the health food shop, looking behind me every few seconds to check I’m not being followed, and pretending I can’t hear Fergus, who is standing outside Mario’s shouting, ‘Sally! Sally, come back!’

  I stagger along the pavement. My legs feel as if they’re made of wool. No red Alfa Romeo that I can see. Other red cars, though-their brightness hurts my eyes. And one green VW Golf that’s driving behind me, just an inch or two behind. In the pedestrianised, access-only part of the street. I stop walking, turn back towards Mario’s. Fergus has gone.

  The green VW stops and the driver door opens. ‘Sally.’ I hear relief. ‘Are you okay?’

  It’s as if I’m looking at him through running water, but I’m still sure: it’s the man from Seddon Hall.

  ‘Mark,’ I say faintly. The street spins.

  ‘Sally, you look terrible. Get in.’

  He hasn’t changed at all. His face is round and unlined, a mischievous schoolboy’s face. Like Tintin. Worried, though.

  ‘Sally, you’re… I’ve got to talk to you. You’re in danger.’

  ‘You’re not Mark Bretherick.’ I blink to straighten out my vision, but it doesn’t work. Everything’s wobbly.

  ‘Look, we can’t talk now, like this. What’s the matter? Are you ill?’

  He gets out of the car. The scene in front of me is going grey around the edges; all the shops are shaking, distorted. I’m vaguely aware-as if it’s a dream I’m watching through a gauze veil, someone else’s dream-of looking up at Mark Bretherick, of his arms supporting me. Not the real Mark Bretherick. My Mark Bretherick. I’ve got to get away from him. I can’t move. It must be him-the cat, the bus, everything. It must be.

  ‘Sally?’ he says, stroking the side of my face. ‘Sally, can you hear me? Who was the man shouting your name outside the café? Who was he?’

  I try to answer, but nobody’s there any more. Nobody’s anywhere apart from me, and I’m only in my head, which is getting smaller and smaller. I let the nothingness pull me down.

  Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

  Case Ref: VN87

  OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

  GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 4 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

  29 April 2006, 11 p.m.

  On the news tonight there was an item about two little boys in Rwanda. Their parents had been murdered by an enemy tribe a few years ago. The boys were only seven or eight years old but had worked for years in a mine, doing heavy manual work in order to survive. Unlike us pampered Westerners, they had no days off. They were on the news because finally (perhaps thanks to some charitable initiative-I missed some of the report because Mum phoned) they are able to stop working and go to a new school that has opened nearby. The BBC reporter asked them how they felt about this new phase of their lives and they both said they were delighted; both are eager to learn and grateful for an opportunity they thought they’d never have.

  While Mark mumbled next to me-all the predictable responses: how sad, how shocking, how moving-I thought to myself, Yes, but look how civilised and mature they are. We should pity them, of course, but we should also admire what they have become: two wise, polite, sensitive, substantial young men. You only had to look at them to see what a pleasure they would be to teach, that they would give nobody any trouble. It was hard not to marvel at the vast gulf between these two lovely, respectful boys and the two children with whom I’d spent the afternoon: my own daughter and Oonagh O’Hara. If ever two people would benefit from a few weeks’ forced labour in a Rwandan mine… well, I know it’s a terrible thing to think, but I do think it so I’m not going to pretend I don’t.

  So, this afternoon, a Saturday. Cordy and I are at Cordy’s house, trying to persuade our children to eat. Sausages and chips, their favourite. Except Oonagh won’t eat hers because there is some ketchup on a chip, and Lucy won’t eat hers because the sausages are mixed in with the chips instead of on separate sides of the plate. By the time the complex negotiations have been concluded and all the necessary amendments have been made, the food is cold. Oonagh whines, ‘We can’t eat our food now, Mummy. Stupid! It’s cold.’

  Cordy was evidently hurt, but she said nothing. Her idea of discipline is Sweetie-come-for-a-cuddle. If Oonagh called the Queen of England a scabby tart, Cordy would praise her democratic slant of mind and her confident colloquialism.

  She threw away the sausages and chips and made more. I counted what, of the second batch, was eaten: four small cylinders of sausage, eight chips. Between two of them. If those two dignified Rwandan boys had been presented with the exact same spread, they would have cleared their plates and then offered to load the dishwasher-no question about it.

  Later, while Cordy was upstairs trying to introduce the concept of sharing into a squabble over dressing-up clothes and Oonagh’s reluctance to let Lucy wear any of her pink frilly dresses, I decided a punishment was necessary. No child should get away with calling her mother stupid. I crept into the lounge and took Oonagh’s Annie DVD out of its case. Love of Annie has spread like a forest fire through the girls in Lucy’s class. It makes me sick they way they’ve all latched on to it, as if there’s cause for any of them to identify with children who have a genuinely hard time rotting in an orphanage. The craze started with Lucy, I’m ashamed to say. It’s Mum’s fault. She’s the one who bought Lucy the DVD. I thought it would be appropriate for me to confiscate Oonagh’s copy, then quickly decided that removing it wasn’t enough: I wanted to destroy it.

  (In the end I brought it back home, locked myself in the bathroom and attacked it with the small knife I use to chop garlic. I suffered a mild pang of guilt when it occurred to me that I was destroying Miss Hannigan-the only character in the film that I like and admire-and I sang her song under my breath as a tribute, the one about how much she hates little girls. The lyrics are the work of a genius, especially the rhyme of “little” with “acquittal”. I’m sure I’m not typical or representative, but I would certainly acquit Miss Hannigan if she wrang those orphans’ necks. Every time I sit through the film with Lucy, I pray that this time the orphanage will catch fire and all those whiny-voiced brats will be burned to a crisp.

  I nearly stole Cordy’s Seinfeld DVD collection and destroyed that too when she told me she was pregnant. ‘It was a total accident, but we’re really pleased,’ she said. She’s only had this new boyfriend for a few weeks. She and Dermot are still living in the same house, though in separate beds. Last I heard they were trying to work things out.

  I smiled furiously. ‘We?’ I said. ‘You mean you and Dermot, or you and your new man? Or all three of you?’

  Her face crumpled. ‘It was an accident,’ she said in a forlorn tone.

  Accident! How was it an accident, exactly? I felt like asking. Did a member of a local archery society fire an arrow that travelled from a distance to pierce New Boyfriend’s condom? Did a bird of prey swoop down and use its sharp beak to extract Cordy’s diaphragm when she wasn’t looking? Of course not. If you choose to use no contraception and you get pregnant, that’s not an accident: it’s trying very hard to get pregnant in a way that you hope will ‘out-casual’ the enormity of pregnancy and the possibility of failure.

  Let me tell you, I nearly said, what not wanting to have another child means: it means using extra-safe Durex every single time, no exceptions, and still, in spite of the condoms, sneaking to the chemist after each fuck to buy the morning-after pill-at twenty-five p
ounds a time, I might add-as an extra insurance policy. I’ve never told anyone and I probably never will (unless one day I feel like worrying Mum a bit more than usual) but I think I’m hooked on Levonelle the way some people are hooked on painkillers. My hormones must be well and truly frazzled, but I don’t care; call it my sacrifice for the greater good that is childlessness.

  It isn’t only about avoiding pregnancy, since Gart knows I subject each condom to a rigorous examination before I allow it anywhere near me. I know I don’t need the Levonelle. I also know I could go on the pill for free and save a fortune, but that wouldn’t be as satisfying, wouldn’t scratch the right psychological itch. The paying of the twenty-five pounds is important to me, as is the ritual of lying to pharmacist after pharmacist about when I last took Levonelle, nodding solemnly through their earnest speeches about nausea and other possible side-effects. Every time I hand over the money, I feel as if I’m paying my subscription to the only club in the world that I’m interested in belonging to.

  I’ve often thought I ought to volunteer (not that I’ve got the time) to counsel infertile women. Their misery, from what I’ve seen, certainly seems genuine, and it occurs to no one to give them anything but sympathy by way of emotional support. Give me an hour or two and I could persuade them of how lucky they are. Has anyone ever told them, for example, that for a mother to be with her child or children in the company of child-free women is the worst kind of torture? It’s like being at the best party in the world, but being forced to stand on a chair in the middle of the room with a noose round your neck and your hands tied behind your back. Around you everyone is sipping champagne and having a raucous (wild?) old time. You can see their fun, smell it, taste it, and you can even try to have a bit of fun yourself as long as you make sure not to lose your balance. As long as no one knocks your chair.

  8

  8/8/07

  Simon was halfway up a narrow winding staircase, wondering how it could have been designed for use by human beings, when he found himself face to face with Professor Keith Harbard.

  ‘Simon Waterhouse!’ Harbard beamed. ‘Don’t tell me you’re Jon’s dinner date. He kept that quiet.’ In the dim, stone-walled stairwell, the professor’s breath filled the air with the thick, tight smell of red wine.

  There wasn’t a lot Simon could say. The munchkin staircase led nowhere apart from to Professor Jonathan Hey’s rooms.

  Harbard’s mouth made a chomping motion as he considered the implications. ‘You’re consulting Jonathan?’

  ‘There’s a couple of things I want to ask him.’ ‘I’, not ‘we’; Simon avoided a direct lie. He couldn’t ask Harbard not to mention his presence here to Kombothekra or Proust. Shit. At least he hadn’t phoned in sick. Charlie’s response to his marriage proposal had cut through his illusions about what he could get away with. If she’d said yes, he would be feeling as invincible today as he had yesterday. As it was, he’d woken up this morning in a chastened frame of mind, determined to take no chances. He’d phoned Professor Hey and asked if he could come to Cambridge later than planned, after the end of his shift. Hey had said, ‘Call me Jonathan,’ then added, after a small cough, ‘Sorry. You don’t have to. You might rather call me Professor Hey. I mean, you can call me Jonathan if you want to.’ This was too confusing for Simon, who had resolved on the spot to avoid saying the man’s name at all.

  Hey had invited Simon to stay for dinner at Whewell College after their meeting. For some reason, Simon had felt unable to decline. He was dreading it; his mother had done him no favours, he knew, by insisting for years that mealtimes should be private, family only. That Hey knew nothing of Simon’s hang-up would make it easier, he hoped.

  ‘Funny little college, this.’ Harbard put out his hands to touch the stone walls on either side of him. He looked as if he was getting into position to kick Simon down the steps. ‘It’s like the land that time forgot compared to UCL. Still, Jon seems to like it. It wouldn’t suit me. I’m a London boy through and through. And the sort of work Jon and I do… well, I wouldn’t want to be tucked away in an enclave of privilege. That’s the trouble with Cambridge -’

  ‘I’d better get on,’ Simon interrupted him. ‘I don’t want to be late.’

  Harbard made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you around.’ Simon didn’t like the professor’s transatlantic accent any more than he liked his way of ordering a drink: ‘Can I get a glass of Australian red? And, actually, can I also get a glass of sparkling mineral water? With ice?’ If Simon had been the barmaid at the Brown Cow, he’d have taken Harbard at his word and pointed him in the direction of the freezer.

  When he could no longer hear the professor’s heavy footsteps, Simon stopped and pulled out his mobile. He’d been meaning to phone Mark Bretherick, before Charlie’s unexpected fury had made him regret everything, even the things he hadn’t done. Sod it; he’d do it. He was going to get it in the neck anyway, now that Harbard had seen him, so he might as well do what he believed to be the right thing.

  Bretherick answered after the second ring, said, ‘Hello?’ as if he’d been holding his breath for hours.

  ‘It’s DC Waterhouse.’

  ‘Have you found her?’

  Simon felt something uncomfortable lodge in his chest, something that was the wrong shape for the space it was trying to occupy. To say no would be misleading; Bretherick would assume the police were actively looking for the woman he insisted had stolen photographs of Geraldine and Lucy from Corn Mill House. Simon wasn’t convinced she existed, and was beginning to wonder about the missing brown suit. ‘Your wife’s diary,’ he said. ‘You asked about showing it to your mother-in-law. What did you decide?’

  ‘I keep changing my mind.’

  ‘Let her read it,’ said Simon. ‘As soon as possible.’

  Bretherick cleared his throat. ‘It’ll kill her.’

  ‘It hasn’t killed you.’

  A flat laugh. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Show Geraldine’s mother the diary.’ Simon was shocked to hear himself. An elderly woman would be devastated, and possibly nothing would come of it.

  He and Bretherick exchanged curt goodbyes, and he climbed the remaining stairs to Jonathan Hey’s rooms. The white outer door, with Hey’s name painted on it in black, was open, as was the wooden inner door. Music drifted out to the stone staircase. Country and western: a woman’s voice with a Southern twang. The song was about someone waiting for her man who was a riverboat gambler, who promised to return and then didn’t. Simon gritted his teeth. Did all sociology professors feel the need to pretend to be American? Hey’s accent, on the telephone, had been well-to-do home-counties English; how could someone from Hampshire or Surrey listen to songs about the Bayou and the Mighty Mississippi without feeling like a twat?

  Simon knocked on the door. ‘Come in,’ Hey called out. Mercifully, he switched off the forlorn American woman. Simon walked into a large, high-ceilinged room with white walls and a threadbare beige carpet, much of which was covered by a red and black patterned rug. The pattern reminded Simon of faces, specifically, the faces of the constantly moving target creatures in ‘Space Invaders’, the first and only computer game he’d ever played. On one side of the room there was a wine-coloured three-piece suite, and on the other a white table with a wooden top surrounded by six white chairs with flat wooden seats.

  There was no sign of Hey, though his voice was representing him in his absence. ‘Be with you in a sec!’ he shouted. ‘Have a seat!’ Simon couldn’t tell if Hey was in the kitchen or upstairs. Through one half-open door he could see an old-fashioned cooker with a stained top; it reminded him of the one in the student house he’d shared with four people he’d despised, all those years ago. Another door at the other end of the same wall opened on to the stairs.

  Simon didn’t sit. While he waited, he looked at Jonathan Hey’s many glass-fronted bookcases. He read a few of the titles: Folk Devils and Moral Panics. A Theory of Huma
n Need. On Women. How to Observe Morals and Manners. He saw names he’d never heard of, and felt disgusted by his own ignorance. Sexist that he was, he’d assumed sociologists were mainly male, but apparently not: some were called Harriet, Hannah, Rosa.

  One whole shelf was dedicated to Hey’s own publications. Simon skimmed the titles, which were variations on a theme; again and again, the words ‘crime’ and ‘deviancy’ cropped up. He looked to see if Hey had written any books specifically on the subject of what Harbard called family annihilation. He couldn’t see any; perhaps the article he’d co-written with Harbard was the extent of his work on the topic.

  There was a framed poster on one wall advertising the film Apocalypse Now. Next to it was another poster, a cartoon of a black woman wearing a headscarf and holding a baby, with the caption: ‘The hand that rocks the cradle should also rock the boat’. The slogan irritated Simon, for reasons he couldn’t be bothered to think about. There was nothing else on the walls apart from Hey’s framed degree and PhD certificates and a truly repulsive painting that looked like an original, of an ugly adult’s face wearing grotesque clown make-up beneath a white, lacy baby’s bonnet.

  ‘The picture.’ Hey appeared in the room. He had a pleasant, plump face, and was about twenty years younger than Harbard. Simon noticed his clothes: a shirt and formal jacket with faded jeans and blue and grey trainers-an odd combination. ‘It was supposed to be an investment, but the artist sank without trace. Who was it who wrote that poem about money talking? “I heard it once-it said goodbye.” Do you know it?’

  ‘No,’ said Simon.

  ‘Sorry, I’m wittering.’ Hey extended his hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming all this way.’

  Simon told him it was no problem.

  ‘I’ve been considering contacting you. I probably wouldn’t have plucked up the courage, though, which would have been lazy and wrong of me.’