But how unreasonable I was, I realised. It was grief, and only that, that gave birth to my feelings. I had to thrust them from me. How could I attach blame to Bonnie—a child less than two years? As easy to blame Sam and Lucy. If they had not climbed the tree, and if Lucy had not fallen, then we would have been there to prevent such a tragedy. No, the fault, I knew, was mine. Hard to accept, but I had to try, to live with it. I had left Bonnie and Davie unattended . . .
Oh, God, there was so much conjecture. And how pointless, how worthless it all was. And no amount of examination, no amount of self-recrimination could alter the situation in any way. So the thinking, the worrying, must end. It had to stop. Davie was dead. Impossible to realise, but it was so. He was gone. From now on we must live for the living.
In time, I knew, Kate would be herself again. It was a bad patch, but we’d get through it. Be patient. Say nothing. All our memories apart, we would, given a breathing space, be as we once were.
EIGHT
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Kate nodded. “And I’m certainly not imagining it.”
Over her shoulder the warm July sun glinted on the cups and saucers of our afternoon tea. Against the light the fronds of the ferns in the tall vase looked transparent.
“But she and Sam have always got on so well together,” I said.
“I know. But not lately.”
We had been discussing plans for a little party to celebrate Bonnie’s birthday—her third—due in a week’s time, when Kate had asked whether I’d noticed a difference in Sam’s behaviour.
I frowned, studying her across the table, trying to read her expression. Over the past year she had got so much better. Easier with me, and more at peace with the children. And I had been so happy seeing the change in her, seeing her more as she used to be. Now I wondered, briefly, whether the change might have been a product of my hope and imagination. But no. There was no sign of the great tension I had used to see in her face. No hint of hysteria. She just looked worried.
“Tell me what you mean,” I said.
She shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I think perhaps he’s—jealous. Maybe he resents the attention she gets as the baby of the family. I don’t know. I can’t think of any other way to account for his behaviour.”
“What kind of—behaviour? He doesn’t seem any different to me.”
“Oh, dear.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m making a lot out of nothing. But he comes to me . . . keeps coming to me with stories . . .”
“What stories?”
“Stories. Tales. He keeps accusing her of things. Cruel things . . .”
“Oh, come on. Surely not.”
“Darling, I’m not making it up,” she said quickly. “He does. If it had just happened once or twice it would be okay. But it happens often.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Well . . . he says she’s cruel to him. He says she pinches him—‘hurts him’ as he puts it. Lots of little things like that. And he blames her for damage to things of his that he’s obviously done himself.”
She moved over to the window and looked down the garden path to where Sam sat playing with his toy farm-cart. I went and stood behind her, my hands on her shoulders.
“I wouldn’t bother about it. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will pass.”
“It does bother me,” she said. “It’s just not like him. He’s getting so—destructive. His books and things. And he blames it all on Bonnie.”
Over her shoulder I watched Sam. He sat on the flagstoned path filling his cart with earth from the garden. The sun beat down on his straight chestnut hair, making it shine almost bronze where it reflected the light. Against the white of his tee shirt his arms were deeply tanned, his hands darker still with the dust of the dry earth. I had given him the cart two months ago on his sixth birthday. It had become his favourite toy and he took it with him everywhere. Looking at him, seeing him so content, so absorbed in his play, I found it hard to accept what Kate had told me.
“Well, if it’s true,” I said, “then it’s just a phase. Forget it, Kate.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I’m probably being just over-indulgent.”
Late the following afternoon I found, partly concealed behind the rain water-butt, the remains of Sam’s farm-cart.
Kate was busy preparing tea in the kitchen when I returned home, and I had gone back outside to take advantage of the sunshine after my day cooped-up indoors. It was as I idly pulled a few weeds from the flower-bed that I came upon the pieces of his toy. It had been wrecked beyond repair. And not by any minor accident: the wood was splintered and the metal twisted and bent.
I couldn’t understand it. Sam had always been so careful, so proud of his belongings. It was a quality in him—in all of them—that we had tried to encourage. Now, looking down at what was left of his toy, I felt completely at a loss.
I went back into the kitchen where Kate was breaking eggs into a bowl.
“Where’s Sam?”
“Playing upstairs, I think.” She didn’t look round, went on with her work.
As I got near the top of the stairs I could see over the landing to where Bonnie sat on the playroom floor. Sam was kneeling close beside her. I thought at first that they were in the middle of some game or other until, very suddenly, Sam’s voice rang out.
“No!” he said. And I realised they weren’t playing at all.
I reached the doorway just as he raised his clenched fist and struck Bonnie hard in the face.
I was so shocked I just stood there. I watched as Bonnie rocked backwards, reeling from the blow. She didn’t scream or cry out. No sound at all. She just got to her feet and moved towards him while he backed away towards the window. And it was then that I yelled.
“Sam!”
There was a kind of shocked silence as they turned to look at me and I could hear the sharpness in my voice echo around the room. Furious, I strode forward, grabbed him, and slapped him hard on the leg.
“How could you do such a thing! She’s just a baby!”
He turned to me with pain and shock in his eyes. Tears welling like sudden springs. His words choking out between his sobs.
“Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Daddy, she hurt me . . . hurt me . . . Bonnie hurt me . . .”
“Rubbish!” I barked. “Don’t lie to me! How could a child of that age do you any harm! She’s barely three and you’re six!”
“She did. She hurt me . . .” He put a hand to his head. “My hair. She hurt my hair.” He could hardly speak for the tears.
“I don’t want to hear any more.”
We faced each other, I looking down from my six feet and he looking up at me with disbelief in his face at the expression on my own. I held out to him the pieces of the broken toy.
“How did this happen?”
He looked away, and then back again. His lips were pressed together, chin quivering.
“Answer me,” I said.
His eyes flicked a glance at Bonnie and then to me. He hesitated another moment, then said quietly:
“Bonnie did it.”
There was a pleading look in his eyes, as if he knew that I wouldn’t believe him. For seconds he just stared at me and then, with a rush, came towards me, arms outstretched.
“Get away from me,” I told him. “You’re not the boy I know. You’re cruel and you’re a liar.”
He gave me one more look: amazement, horror, then turned and ran out of the room.
I listened to his stifled sobs receding, the clatter of his feet on the stairs. Then I went over to Bonnie. She was crying now. She sat by the window making little moaning sounds, her face wet with tears. I held her to me and kissed her cheek where the imprint of Sam’s hand still lingered—red and angry as the mark I had left on his leg.
“You’re a brave little girl. Don’t cry.” I dabbed at her wet eyes with my handkerchief. One hand, I noticed, she was keeping behind her back.
“What’s that you’ve got there . . . ?”
I asked. “Can I see . . . ?”
She smiled at me at last, gave me an impish little look and shook her head. Her hand moved more firmly out of sight.
“Come on, now. Aren’t you going to show me?”
She shook her head again.
“All right, baby, you keep your little secret.” I patted her blonde curls. “Go on downstairs now. It’s time to eat.”
After she had gone I stayed for some minutes thinking over what had happened. Ah, well, it would all sort itself out, I told myself, then I went down to the kitchen and dropped the wreckage of Sam’s toy into the waste-bin.
I was about to replace the lid when I saw something lying among the scraps of paper, potato-peelings and egg-shells. I reached in and lifted out a small tuft of hair. The same colour as Sam’s. On the end was the slightest trace of skin, blood-stained.
I stood there. Kate entered, clattering cups and saucers. I must have looked miles away, for she said, “What are you mooning about? Have you lost something?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. Then, “Come on, darling,” she said, “the children are washing their hands. Tea’s ready.”
“Okay.”
I opened my fingers and let the hair fall back into the bin and covered it with the lid. Forget it.
Coming from the bathroom a few minutes later I found Kate, Lucy and Bonnie sitting at the table. Kate was cutting bread. She said quickly:
“Sam is evidently not hungry, so I’ve sent him back upstairs. He’s in a terrible mood, and I’m just not going to put up with it. He refused point-blank to sit next to Bonnie, and when I insisted he made a dreadful fuss. So he can just go without.” She put slices of bread on a plate and put it in the centre of the table. “He’s getting impossible, that boy.”
I had been about to sit down. Now I moved back towards the door. Kate looked at me sharply.
“Now please—don’t you go up and start laying on the sympathy. He’s got to learn.”
She was probably right. He had to learn. I nodded, went to my chair and sat down.
“Daddy . . .”
Bonnie was seated on my right, giving me a winning smile, her teeth very white against her pink cheeks. She held out to me a tiny piece of brown bread.
“For you . . .”
“Ah . . . thank you . . .” I leaned over, opened my mouth, and she put the tit-bit inside.
“What a sweetheart,” Kate said. She was smiling again now.
“Yes, she is.” I kissed the top of Bonnie’s head. Her hair was soft and silky against my lips, and for a moment the memory of the tuft of hair I had found in the waste-bin came back to me. But it was useless to dwell on it. It didn’t mean anything. Nothing at all. Bonnie’s eyes were full of love as she smiled. Hold on to what is real, I told myself.
“Yes,” I said, “she is a little sweetheart.”
Lucy said, not to be outdone:
“Bonnie’s everybody’s sweetheart.”
Later, when Kate was getting Bonnie ready for bed, and while Lucy sat reading, I went upstairs to see Sam. He was very much on my mind.
I opened the door quietly. And as I stood there I was struck again with how different it all looked since Davie had gone. Well over a year had passed, but I suppose there are some things you never get used to.
Everything that was his had long since been taken out of the room. I had done it. About a month after his death. Noticing one day the room’s extraordinary untidiness I had suddenly realised that Kate just couldn’t bear to go in there and be faced with all the reminders of him. She just couldn’t cope. So I had gone in and collected up everything that belonged—had belonged—to him, his books, his models, his pebbles, his paints, his rock samples, his games. I filled two large boxes and I put them in the shed.
Kate never commented on the room’s sudden barren appearance. Neither did I mention what I had done. When I had taken the boxes through the house she was nowhere to be seen.
A week after I saw that the pheasant’s feather was still Sello taped to the wall. I took it down as carefully as if it were crystal and put it away with his other things. For all I know it’s there yet . . .
And still, as I stood there, the emptiness of his corner could take my breath away. It made my love for Sam well up in me so strongly, so that, for a moment, I was tempted to wake him, to hold him. I kept thinking about the slap.
I moved softly across the carpet and looked down at him as he lay fast asleep. He had pushed aside some of his blankets—probably due to the warmth of the evening—and I pulled the sheet up more closely under his chin.
He didn’t stir. I leaned down, listening to his steady breathing, peering at his face in the dim light from the window. And even as I watched, his peacefulness was punctuated by a sigh—too deep for such a small boy—that disturbed, for a second, the rhythm of his body. I reached out my hand to him. The same hand with which I had struck him.
I had never laid a finger on him before in his life. Not before that afternoon. And when I had done it then it had been in sudden anger, and without thought—so I tried to comfort myself. I was overwhelmed with remorse when I thought of it. I could still feel it—the blow. I can feel it now. I can still feel my hand bouncing off his flesh, the sting in my palm and fingers.
I put out my hand and lightly touched the top of his head. I stroked his hair—but very gently, so as not to waken him. And he flinched in his sleep, jerking his head away as if I had hurt him. I peered closer, straining my eyes to see.
I had hurt him.
Two inches from his ear was a little bare spot, bloodied, the size of a new penny. It was raw. As if the hair had been torn from his scalp.
NINE
Around the breakfast table Lucy, Kate and I gave Bonnie our birthday kisses, our greetings and our little gifts. It was a Sunday, so I could enjoy my day at home. Later on, Kate and I had planned, we would organise some games in the garden. After that, Bonnie would have her party.
Kate and I gave Bonnie a box of bricks. Lucy gave her a brightly-coloured ball which she had saved up to buy from the village shop. Sam’s present was there too—a wooden boat that he had made weeks ago, now wrapped in gaily-patterned paper that was clumsily stuck together with tape. The gift lay next to her plate, but he, himself, would not go near her.
“Come on,” Kate said to him as he hovered uncertainly at the far end of the table. “This nonsense has got to stop.” She spoke half-coaxing, half-reprimanding, holding out her hand to him, crooking her fingers. “Come on. She’s just a little girl, and it’s her birthday . . .”
She paused. We all waited.
“Come on now, Sam . . .”
A week had passed since the incident with the broken toy, and during that time he had refused to go anywhere near where Bonnie was. During mealtimes Lucy had changed places with him—to Kate’s displeasure—otherwise he just would not eat. But the situation couldn’t continue, it was clear.
“Come on now, Sam,” Kate said again, a stronger note in her voice. Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but Kate silenced her. “No, he’s got to sit in his own chair. He can’t be pandered to like this.”
But Sam stayed where he was, eyeing the empty seat next to Bonnie. In Kate’s face I could see her growing frustration.
And suddenly she moved, so quickly that Lucy started. Kate jerked from her chair and gripped his wrist.
“Now! Sit down now! Now! This instant! And stop being so silly!”
“Kate—” I began, breaking our unwritten rule that neither should undermine the other’s authority, and she frowned at me so that I stopped. But she relaxed her hold on Sam’s wrist.
For some moments we seemed fixed like statues, the only sounds being Kate’s angry breathing and the bird-song from the garden. And then Sam was moving to the table, quiet, obedient, taking his place next to Bonnie.
We watched.
In the almost tangible silence Bonnie gave him her sweetest, warmest smile, then reached out and placed her hand on his.
He t
ensed. I saw his fingers clench, gripping the tablecloth, his knuckles showing white beneath their tan. Then, the next second, Bonnie leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek.
“Isn’t she sweet,” Kate said. She smiled encouragingly at Sam.
“Be a good boy, darling. Now kiss her back. Show her we can all be good friends. Let’s stop all this silly quarrelling.”
But Sam didn’t seem to be aware of her words. He had raised his eyes to me, and, in the space of that split-second I saw a look of pleading there. Pleading and—what?—fear?
His glance moved back, resting on Bonnie. Without taking his eyes off her he lifted his hand and wiped roughly at the spot on his cheek where she had kissed him.
“Leave the table.” Kate’s voice sounded tight and level. Her eyes were blazing. “When you are ready to apologise for your behaviour you can join us again. Not before.”
Leaning across the table she snatched up his plate and moved briskly away into the kitchen. A moment later she reappeared standing in the doorway.
“I’ve put your breakfast out on the kitchen table,” she told him. “You can sit out there. See how you like eating on your own.”
Sam was quite still, his eyes cast down at the empty table-space before him. Lucy looked from his face to Kate’s and then back again. She didn’t understand it. No more did I.
His mouth sullen, Sam paused a moment longer then got down from his seat and walked past Kate into the kitchen. Through the doorway I watched as she pointed to his plate.
“Sit down. And no more nonsense.”
Forlornly he sat. The chair was rather low for him and he looked incredibly small and alone at the large scrubbed-wood table. He made no effort to eat. Tears came to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks unchecked. Kate gazed at him for a second, as if wavering, then turned and came back into the room. I saw the distress in her face, and I was angry at him for causing it. She was right. He couldn’t be allowed to continue in this way.
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