The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

  She has always known that he is carrying something painful around inside him. She saw it the first time they met. The brief from the Sunday supplement was ‘Life Savers’. The features editor had lined up five remarkable people for her to photograph, including Greg, and he wanted modern-day heroes – living gods. This meant power poses, noble gazes, subjects portrayed as untouchable, compassionate, and slightly battle-scarred. But what she saw in Greg’s eyes when she raised the camera and looked at him through the lens for the first time was more than just the discomfort of being photographed, it was something far more complicated: something injured and raw. She’d started shooting right away without putting him at his ease or adjusting the lighting, focusing on his eyes, trying to capture the expression before he could paper it over.

  After these initial shots, she had moved him around, helped him to relax, adjusting the lighting to make him regal and intense, focusing on his face with the background in darkness, shooting him slightly from the side and below to showcase the decisive shelf of his jaw, the lines of determination along his brow and cheekbones. She knew that he would be flattered by these handsome headshots and that the editor would love them, but she kept those first few face-on images for herself.

  She only showed them to him when they had been together for a few months. And he was horrified. ‘Christ, Tess, I look almost frightened. Why have I got that look on my face when all I was thinking was “this silent blonde photographer in the scruffy jeans and boots with no make-up and those extraordinary blue-grey eyes is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen”?’ He had tried to persuade her to throw the photos away, but she put them in her files and they are still there, in the attic back home, in England.

  Inside her, their baby rolls and shifts in a troubled nighttime dance, beating out its rhythms tirelessly. Greg pulls her closer. The damaged part of her recognized the damaged part of him the moment they met and it shouldn’t be a surprise, now, to encounter it again. He kisses her, softly, on the face, then on the neck, and eases her back onto the bed. She feels her body hum at his touch. His lips press against her throat, but as she closes her eyes, all she sees is a wall of fire and panicking sixteen-year-old boy held back by the neighbours, unable to save the people he loves most in the world.

  Chapter Eleven

  The temperature is fierce, claustrophobic – it reminds her of the summer, when she arrived and could barely breathe. This is not the sort of yoga she has done before. The teacher, a wiry Australian in a billowing shirt, does not demonstrate any of the postures but paces the studio, her straight black hair swinging, calling out instructions, often using Sanskrit names without explaining them.

  The mats are only inches from one another and she can hear exhalations, grunts, the squeak of feet on damp mats. The floor smells of sweat and tea-tree oil. ‘Inhale, forward fold, exhale, Chaturanga … Adho Mukha Svanasana, inhale, exhale, Urdhva Mukha Svanasana.’ She is sweating so much that her hands slip. The baby feels uncomfortable and heavy, like a dumbbell lodged inside her pelvis. A yoga class was Nell’s idea, but it cannot be a good one. She gives up and folds herself into Child’s Pose, resting her damp forehead on the mat, closing her eyes, breathing hard, waiting for it to be over.

  She thinks of the yoga class she went to for a while in the draughty church hall at home, traffic rushing by outside. Sometimes it was so chilly that her feet would cramp up. She imagines getting up and rushing to the window, wrenching it open and taking a breath of sharp, grey, Hallowe’en air. She turns her head, and opens one eye. Across the room she sees a strong body in a back bend, the criss-crossed straps of a purple yoga top revealing a network of muscles. The hair is rich brown with light caramel streaks. She cannot see the woman’s face but there is something about the hair that makes her think that it is Helena.

  At the end there is chanting and then people roll up their mats in silence and walk, trance-like, from the studio. She tries to identify Helena in the crowd of bodies putting mats and blocks back, but there are too many purple yoga tops. She and Greg threw away the hairclasp that morning, but she called Nell as soon as he’d gone to tell her what had happened.

  Nell agreed with Greg that the hairclasp probably belonged to a previous tenant. But she also suggested that Tess confront Helena about the key because there is a remote possibility that Helena did copy it and has been letting herself into the house. If she has done this, then something very unsettling indeed is going on, and it needs to be stopped.

  ‘Go to that yoga class you talked about,’ Nell said. ‘Go – give it a try. Yoga will calm you down and that’ll be good for the baby. Then afterwards, just go and knock on her door and ask her. You’ll know if she’s lying. Then you can change the locks.’

  She wraps her thick scarf around her neck and walks across the road to the bakery. There are pumpkins in the shop fronts and all the windows are decked out in black and orange with floating spiderwebs tangled on the signage. There are tombstones outside the bank, stretchy nylon webs across door frames and a life-sized zombie looming from the hairdresser’s window. She pushes through the bakery door, which is draped in black fabric with a witch’s face peering out. There is the familiar smell of cinnamon and coffee, but the display cases are Hallowe’en themed: orange cupcakes decorated with black spiders, white skulls, cakes in the shape of black cats, muffins with veiny eyeballs on top. There is a massive cake on a stand by the tip jar, white-iced, with dark-red spatters and a shard of bloodied glass gouged into the top. She must bring Joe here.

  She is crossing the road with a decaf coffee and an undecorated fig scone, wishing that she had a warmer coat, when she hears someone calling her name.

  ‘Hey? Tess? Tess? Over here!’

  It is Helena, leaning on her Prius on the other side of the road, wearing a sporty fleece and a beanie. Tess’s heart sinks, but she goes over to the car.

  ‘What did you think of the yoga class?’ Helena sounds bright and friendly.

  ‘Oh – right; I thought I saw you in there.’

  ‘You walking home?’ Helena smiles. ‘I can give you a ride if you like.’ Without make-up her eyes look smaller, puffier. Her skin is glowing, but there are broken veins on her cheeks and she looks more gaunt and pale. Tess doesn’t want to get into the Prius with Helena, but she can practically hear Nell telling her that she must. This is her chance to ask about the keys, to look Helena in the eye and work out what this woman is up to.

  There are books on the passenger seat: The Blood Sugar Solution and Madly in Love with Me.

  ‘Just toss everything in the back.’ Helena pulls off her hat and shakes out her thick hair.

  Tess puts them next to a large, cream leather holdall. The car smells faintly of coffee and essential oils. She breathes in, trying to remember if this is the sweetish smell she noticed when she ran home from the potluck. She thinks it isn’t, but it is hard to remember a smell, especially one only half-noticed at the time. The car is immaculate, and she thinks about the Volvo, littered with crisp packets and mouldering bits of sandwich, Joe’s socks, footballs, crescents of dried mud. She must never allow Helena inside the Volvo.

  ‘You seemed a little overwhelmed in there.’

  ‘In yoga?’ She wonders if Helena was watching her. ‘It was so hot – is it always that hot? I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, being pregnant.’

  ‘It’s “heated flow” but it won’t hurt your baby. It’s not Bikram. The heat opens the ligaments and protects the joints; it’s very cleansing. You sweat out the toxins – that’s the theory – though from a physiological point of view, your kidneys mostly do that. But still, heat is an emotional release, don’t you feel that? I always feel like a different person after yoga. You really should drink water though, you don’t want to get dehydrated.’ She indicates and pulls into the main street. ‘Oh, you know what, Tess? I just remembered I have to pick up some dry-cleaning. I’m in Florida later this week, giving the keynote at a perimenopause conference, and I’ll need my linen jacket. Would
you mind if I took a short detour? Ten minutes, tops.’

  She feels a creeping sense of discomfort as Helena accelerates off up the hill and the familiar street falls away. She does not want to be trapped in a car with this woman for any longer than is absolutely necessary.

  ‘You OK with that?’ Helena glances at her.

  ‘No, sure, of course, that’s fine.’

  In profile, Helena’s nose is slightly plump and upturned, a little ungainly. In her publicity shots she always poses face-on to the camera: this is why. She knows her angles. People like Helena always do. She wishes she was looking at Helena through a viewfinder right now, with the bare trees flashing behind this unguarded profile.

  She looks away, out of the window at the pumpkin-strewn porches. She has hardly taken a picture in weeks. The urge to get out her camera has faded here, for the first time in decades. In fact, it is when she sees Helena that she most wants to be looking through her camera – a protective mechanism, perhaps, a way of seeing without being seen. This is probably why she became a photographer in the first place: the world feels more manageable and controllable through a viewfinder. When she is taking pictures she is invisible.

  The street is lined with maples and oaks, which in summertime formed a bright-green canopy and then, as autumn arrived, burst into gold and red flames. Now the branches look spiky, with clumps of rusted leaves clinging to them, as if afraid to fall. The silence in the car is becoming uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s cold now, isn’t it?’ she says.

  ‘You think so?’ Helena gives a low laugh. ‘Just you wait.’

  They pass the turn-off to the elementary school and continue up the hill. She has taken Joe to Boston Common and the Science Museum and dragged him, complaining, along the Freedom Trail. They’ve been to a shopping mall and a big downtown movie theatre and eaten dumplings in Chinatown, but they have not really explored the suburban wilderness that surrounds their own home. The houses are all large, detached, well kept. They pass a house with a life-sized Hallowe’en galleon sinking into its front yard. Its ragged sails flap, and a skeleton pirate is standing at its tilted helm.

  ‘So, Tess, you were having kind of a hard time last time I saw you – at the Schechters’. How’s Joe been, the last couple of weeks?’

  ‘Oh, he’s OK now, thanks.’

  ‘He seemed pretty upset, huh? Greg says he’s having trouble adjusting.’

  She opens her mouth, then shuts it. She will not ask Helena when, exactly, she and Greg were discussing her son. She has the feeling that this is just what Helena wants. ‘I think the … boys … whatever happened downstairs … must have pushed him over the edge.’ She is not sure why she is trying to justify Joe’s behaviour. She stops.

  ‘Oh, hey, don’t worry about it, Owen’s a piece of work. You know he’s a year older than Joe, right? He isn’t really in fourth grade at all – he’s just not very big for his age. Miriam and Bob held him back a year.’

  ‘Because of his height?’

  ‘Oh, no, no, so he’d get better grades and excel at sports. If you’re a year older than the other kids, you’re going to be stronger, smarter and ultimately, you’ll be offered more college scholarships.’

  ‘People hold their kids back a year in elementary school because of college scholarships?’

  ‘Sure they do. It’s called “redshirting” – it’s a sports term.’

  They drive past a few more houses in silence.

  ‘I’m sure Sandy was totally sweet about it,’ Helena says. ‘Right?’

  Sandra had, in fact, had been gracious and kind, waving away Tess’s apologies when she went over the next day. ‘Oh, hey. Really. Please. Don’t give it a thought! I have two teenage boys, remember?’ Greg had clearly done a good job of smoothing things over. But there was no way she was going to go and apologize to Miriam; that was a step too far.

  ‘Miriam can be a tough cookie,’ Helena says, as if reading her mind.

  ‘That’s what Greg said.’

  ‘He did?’ Helena looks sharply in her rear-view mirror, as if someone might be following them. ‘It must be hard for you, having to get your head around a whole new social system, new codes of conduct, new rules. I’m sure Greg is supportive though, right? I’m sure he’s really there for you.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  They have turned off into an unfamiliar neighbourhood and are driving down a street with wide pavements and benches. The shops here are also decorated, with black-and-orange bunting and spiders and ghouls leering through windows. They pass a couple of clothes shops, a café, a Thai restaurant and a bakery. Helena pulls up outside Green Clean Organic Dry Cleaners. The pumpkins on its steps have been carved into sinister grimaces with slanted eyes and pointy teeth. A sickly witch’s face stares out through the glass door. Helena turns off the engine.

  Tess braces herself and turns to look at Helena. ‘Listen, I was just wondering – do you still have a key to our house, by any chance? Greg says you let the cable guy in for him, before Joe and I got here. I just wondered if you still had one.’

  Helena gives a slow smile. ‘I don’t have your key, Tess. I gave it back to Greg.’ She picks up her own bunch of keys. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘He wasn’t sure …’

  ‘Poor guy,’ Helena gives an almost fond sigh. ‘He did seem a little stressed out on those visits without you. It was the least I could do, you know, letting the cable guy in and the cleaners, putting the mail inside for him, you know. Just being a good neighbour.’

  Tess feels her jaw tighten.

  ‘Oh? Greg didn’t mention I’d done all that?’

  ‘No, he did …’

  There is still a faint smile on Helena’s lips. ‘You know what?’ She leans in. ‘Greg said something to me at the potluck after you’d gone and I just haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.’

  ‘Oh, really? What?’

  ‘Well, we talked, you know.’ Helena unbuckles her seat belt and turns the top half of her body so that she is face-on. ‘For quite a while, actually.’

  The image of Helena and Greg with their beautiful heads bent together rises in her mind; she stuffs it back down.

  ‘He confided that you’re struggling a little, too – not just Joe.’ Helena’s opaque green eyes are watching her closely. ‘He’s actually kind of worried about you, Tess. He thinks you’re lonely.’

  ‘Greg said that to you?’

  ‘He thinks you could do with a friend.’

  ‘He actually said that?’

  Helena shrugs. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I don’t need anyone to find me friends.’ She imagines getting out of the car and walking away from Helena. It wouldn’t take that long to get home on foot.

  ‘Oh, don’t be mad. He’s just being kind. He always was the kindest person, even when he was young, stressed out, he always had a kind word.’

  ‘Sorry, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh,’ Helena looks at her with big eyes, ‘didn’t he mention that either? We were at medical school together, you know.’

  The car suddenly feels airless.

  ‘He was a little older, of course, and kind of a legend – did you know he got a perfect score on the MCAT?’

  She swallows. She isn’t going to ask what an MCAT is.

  ‘The standardized tests,’ Helena says. ‘Everyone who applies to medical school has to take them. Almost no one gets a perfect MCAT score. But you know that, I’m sure. Anyway, listen, Tess, I have a question for you.’ She jangles her keys against her palm. ‘You don’t have to give me an answer – but I’d like to ask it. Is that OK?’

  She wants to get out of the car. She cannot bear to be in a small space with this woman for a moment longer.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘What?’ Tess snaps.

  ‘OK. Do you trust Greg, Tess?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No.’ Helena holds up an index finger. ‘Like I said, I don’t need an answer.’ And with t
hat, she swings her legs round and gets out of the Prius. Her hair ripples like the mane of a thoroughbred as she hops over a snaggle-toothed pumpkin and shoves at the witch’s mouth.

  Tess sits very still. Then she grabs her bag. She gets out of the Prius and starts to walk, fast, down the street, not knowing where she is going, only knowing that she has to get away from Helena. She ducks down a side road into a residential street and pulls out her phone. For once, Greg answers.

  ‘You and Helena knew each other at college?’ she shouts. A man passing, with a black dog, turns his head sharply. ‘How could you not tell me this? What the hell is going on here? How could you lie to me like this?’

  ‘What?’ He is walking too. She can hear his feet echoing down a corridor. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Slow down.’

  ‘Helena! I’m talking about bloody Helena! She just told me you knew each other at medical school.’

  ‘OK, that’s nonsense – she’s mistaken.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She stops on the edge of the pavement, her heart thumping in her throat. The urge to scream is almost overwhelming. A six-foot ghost flaps on a porch next to her, its eyes and mouth big black holes.

  ‘Tess – honey – seriously, it means exactly that. I did not know that woman at medical school. What the fuck has she said to you now?’

  ‘She said you were at medical school together.’

  ‘OK, fine, maybe we were; it’s a big school – and isn’t she younger than me?’

  ‘She said she was, but …?’

  ‘Well, maybe she knew me, but I did not know her.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘if we’d known each other and I’ve somehow forgotten, then surely she’d have pointed it out, and she hasn’t said a word to me. She’s talking crap, OK? I have a meeting and I’m there now, I’m outside the door and I’m late – I’ve got to go in. Just ignore her, Tess. I have no idea why she’s messing with your head, but she is.’