Keeping Sam

by Joanne Phillips

  Upstairs, Kate paused in the doorway, overwhelmed all over again at the sight of her son, at the solid reality of him. She approached him and lowered herself onto the carpet by his side. As usual, he accepted her presence with no surprise, merely passing her a slightly sticky green crayon before continuing to scratch out his own piece of art.

  As they played, Kate relaxed and began to enjoy herself. He was a clever child, and clearly sociable, unlike she had been at his age. Chatting easily, Sam pointed out his favourite toys and told her how he was going to be a builder when he grew up. Kate felt herself brimming over with liquid love, like someone had opened her up and poured it in and didn’t know when to stop.

  He called her father Pops and her mother Nana, much to Kate’s surprise – she had expected them to be more formal, more old-fashioned. ‘So,’ she said, reaching across the tiles to pick up a toy rabbit with chewed-looking ears, ‘do Pops or Nana ever shout at you?’

  The boy looked unsure and Kate corrected herself hurriedly. ‘I mean, do they tell you off sometimes?’ She smiled warmly to put him at ease, holding the rabbit out for him to take.

  ‘Only when Sam bad,’ he said quietly, taking the toy from her and cuddling it briefly to his face.

  ‘I bet you’re not bad very often though, are you?’

  ‘No.’ His voice was smaller and more timid than before, and Kate hoped with all her heart that she hadn’t upset him with her questions. But then he looked up at her, eyes bright again. ‘Shout at each other,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Very lots.’

  ‘Do they?’ Kate turned her face away, her heart pounding. That was how it had always started. A row, raised voices, thunder rumbling below the stairs. She had learned to stay in her room, in this room, and be as quiet as a mouse. She was always terrified she might get in the way of one of her father’s rages …

  Kate instinctively reached out for Sam, embracing him awkwardly. He allowed her a few seconds then squirmed away, returning to his crayons.

  Perhaps the phone call with Elizabeth had unsettled her more than she’d realised. She had said her parents weren’t monsters, but for a long time wasn’t that exactly what she had thought about them? Kate could see no outward signs that her son was unhappy, but no one had ever noticed any signs in her as a child either. She knew only too well how easy it was to become accustomed to anger and volatility. More than anything, she didn’t want this for Sam.

  ‘Don’t worry, little man,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll have you out of here in no time.’

  Settling back against the foot of the cane sofa, Kate reflected on how easy and comfortable it felt to be here with her son. Did he feel the same? she wondered. What did he think of her visiting like this?

  ‘Sam,’ she said, interrupting his flow of constant chatter.

  ‘Henry at play group call me Sam,’ he told her. ‘Nana call me Samuel.’

  ‘Well, your name is Sam.’

  ‘How you know?’

  ‘Because I’m your mummy,’ she said firmly. ‘Do you remember I told you that last week? Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘Henry has a mummy.’ Sam thrust his fist into his mouth, his eyes wide and surprised.

  ‘And so do you, sweetheart. You can call me mummy if you like.’

  ‘Nana say you call Kate.’

  I bet that’s not all she’s called me, Kate thought glumly. Although by the looks of it, not in front of Sam, which was something to be grateful for.

  ‘Sam, there’s something else you need to know. Soon you’re going to be coming home with –’

  ‘Kate!’ Barbara’s voice from the doorway made both of them jump. They turned around, looking up with identical shocked expressions.

  Then Sam smiled easily and said, ‘Hi, Nana,’ while Kate tried to calm her breathing.

  ‘Time to get washed and ready for tea,’ Barbara said to Sam, who jumped up eagerly, scattering his crayons all over the floor. He poked his head around his grandmother’s legs to look back at Kate.

  ‘She staying for tea?’ he asked, pointing. Kate felt such a surge of love for him. Her son. Her own, sweet little boy.

  Before she could answer that she would love to have tea with him, her mother butted in. ‘No, she isn’t. Now, go on, off you go.’

  ‘By-eee,’ he sang as he disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Kate and her mother regarded each other warily. Feeling at a distinct disadvantage sitting on the floor, Kate dropped eye contact and pulled herself upright. She grabbed her new cane and leaned on it.

  Kate’s father appeared behind Barbara, his dark eyes tired but warm. Barbara spoke to him without taking her gaze off Kate.

  ‘She has been asking the boy all sorts of inappropriate questions. And she was about to tell him that she is taking him home with her. I warned you this would happen. Now we’ll have to deal with the fall out.’

  ‘What fall out?’ Kate enquired mildly, knowing her blasé tone would only infuriate her mother more.

  David looked at the side of his wife’s head, then back at Kate. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Were you listening behind the door the whole time?’ Kate said.

  ‘Just as well I was.’ Barbara confronted her husband. ‘Well, I hope you’re happy now. You said to just leave them alone together, to let them get on with it, and now look what’s happened.’

  ‘What kind of inappropriate questions?’ he asked, still looking at Kate.

  ‘About whether we argue. About whether we shout at Samuel.’ Barbara’s face was as tight as a vice. Kate wondered if her mother still suffered from the headaches that had been almost constant when she was a child. She decided that if she did, she probably deserved them.

  She waited for her father’s expression to change from one of confusion to one of anger. She remembered watching him like this as a child, marking his moods the way you’d notice changes in the weather. A storm coming. The gathering clouds. Kate glanced behind her parents, worried that Sam would come back in.

  The explosion should have happened by now. Kate could remember so clearly watching their arguments, seeing her mother veering back in the face of his outbursts as if pushed by a sudden wind.

  ‘I’m not scared of you anymore,’ she told her father quietly, fingering the brick she had secretly pocketed. ‘You can’t intimidate me. I’m not a child.’

  His mouth opened and closed, his face reddening, the colour creeping up from his collar but leaving patches of white around his mouth. She knew this process well, knew she probably had about three minutes before he began to lose control. Kate turned to her mother.

  ‘I’m leaving now. I don’t want to cause a scene – it will only be Sam who suffers, I’m sure. But I’m telling you now, if I ever hear that he –’ she indicated her father with a nod of her head ‘– has so much as raised his voice near my son, I will take Sam out of this house myself, with or without your or the court’s say so. Do you understand?’

  ‘You can’t take him,’ her mother stated flatly. ‘I will never, ever let you do that.’

  Kate shook her head, incredulous. ‘Mum, you’re deluded. Once the date comes through you are going to have to come to terms with me, or you’ll risk never seeing Sam again.’

  Barbara shook her head. The faint smile playing around her lips made Kate feel slightly sick. ‘We’ll see,’ Barbara said. Then she turned and walked slowly down the stairs.

  ***

  She found her father in the lounge. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to leave it alone, just get out of the house, quit while she was ahead. But there it was, that wilful streak again.

  He was sitting on the sofa facing the wall, legs crossed, a glass in his hand. A familiar tableau. The smell hit her as she approached, both fresh and stale, assaulting her with a torment of memories.

  ‘He shouldn’t be living here with you,’ Kate said quietly. Her father said nothing. She couldn’t see his face. ‘Not if you’re still drinking.’

  ‘Ah, Kate,’ he said, and then
nothing else. For a moment, Kate allowed a spike of worry to enter her heart. He was ill. That was clear to her now. But the spike couldn’t penetrate the years of fear and hatred. She turned away and went to find her mother in the kitchen.

  ‘He’s very sick, isn’t he?’ she said quietly. Sam was already eating, sitting in a high chair in front of a wall-mounted TV showing cartoons. She waved to him, but he didn’t even glance in her direction.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Barbara replied. Kate caught her mother’s expression. Weary. Her mother wasn’t afraid of him anymore either. Her mother was merely tired of him.

  ‘So, I’ll be back to see Sam again on Friday. With or without your permission.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Barbara said tiredly.

  In the doorway, Kate stopped and looked back. ‘Is it the drinking?’

  Barbara shook her head, then she looked down at her hands and shrugged.

  ‘You should stop him, Mum. It’s not too late for him to change. Look at that cabinet in there – it’s full of booze. Throw it away. You shouldn’t have so much alcohol around with a child in the house.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a fine one to talk,’ Barbara retorted.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘it was the odd bit of pot. And it was Evan who was into it, I only ever dabbled occasionally. Besides, marijuana isn’t the same as other drugs.’ Even as Kate spoke she could see her mother closing up. There was no distinction in her eyes between smoking pot and lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of your arm.

  ‘The widest used drug in this country is alcohol, did you know that?’ Kate pointed again to her parents’ well-stocked drinks cabinet. ‘It’s far more physically addictive, and more likely to make you violent.’ A picture of her father leaning over her, breath like methylated spirits, eyes bloodshot, appeared in Kate’s mind and threatened to wreck her composure. She turned back to her mother, her eyes flashing. ‘Alcohol just happens to be legal.’

  Barbara returned her glare with a challenging one of her own. ‘That’s hardly the point, is it?’

  ‘Well, Mum, what is? You tell me. I’m sorry you feel I’ve let you down. I did my best, but the attack, and the drugs that were found in my flat – none of that was my fault. I don’t know why you’re punishing me. All I want is to take Sam home and get on with my life.’

  Her mother, back-lit by the fading sun, gave the tiniest of shrugs. It was the merest suggestion of a movement, but Kate could not mistake her meaning. She crossed the kitchen and kissed Sam on the top of his head.

  ‘Be safe,’ she whispered, then she left the house without another word.

  Chapter 11

  Barbara set the table the same way she had every evening for more years than she cared to remember. Placemats, knives and forks. Dessert spoons, wine glasses, napkins. Two of everything, like the Ark. Samuel had eaten earlier in the kitchen, so this was just for her and David. Her husband never commented on how nice the table looked or said thank you for the trouble. He would notice if she didn’t do it, though. Of that she was certain. Or if there was no dinner – meat and veg and some kind of carbohydrate, nothing too spicy or too foreign – he would fly into a rage and tell her what a terrible disappointment she had been as a wife.

  Not that anything like that had happened for a long time. But that was the thing with unpredictable behaviour, especially the type you got used to. While you never knew when it might happen, you always knew what a person was capable of.

  Dinner that evening was lamb with asparagus, and was as unremarked upon as all the others. Barbara toyed with her food, thinking about Kate and the upcoming hearing. She hadn’t told her husband about her plan to derail their daughter’s attempt to get Samuel back once and for all. He wouldn’t understand. Life was far more simple for him. He was happy with his golf, with his whiskey and his cronies. There was no need for her to go rocking the boat.

  She could see now that he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. He wants me to ask him what’s wrong, she thought. He wants me to notice how quiet he’s been the past few days. But she resisted. Let him bring it to her if he had a problem. Why should she always be the one to fix things?

  David placed his knife and fork down carefully side by side on his plate. He cleared his throat and looked up at her expectantly. Barbara ignored him, staring through from the dining room to the sun room, and out into the floodlit garden beyond.

  ‘Barb,’ he said finally. She turned to him, a quizzical look arranged on her face. He said, ‘I’ve been thinking –’

  Oh, God! What now? Last time he’d thought they’d ended up with a hot tub, both of them too shy – or too reluctant to see each other half-naked – to ever use it.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Kate,’ he said. ‘And Samuel.’

  Barbara speared a piece of lamb with her fork and said nothing.

  ‘I think we should let Samuel go and live with her. I mean, right away. Not wait for this silly court case, not wait a moment longer. You’ve seen them together, they’re getting closer every time she comes.’ He folded his arms across his chest. He said, ‘It’s time, Barb. Time to let go.’

  Barbara dropped her fork onto her plate. ‘How could you be so cruel to me? Don’t you care how this makes me feel?’

  ‘This isn’t about you,’ he said calmly. Too calmly. This wasn’t right at all. Barbara surreptitiously looked at his glass. Had he forgone his usual drink tonight? ‘This is about the boy and his mother. She’s changed, you must be able to see that. She’s not the flighty girl we thought she was. We don’t have any right to keep him away from her.’

  Barbara stared at her husband. ‘After everything she said about you, now you’re taking her side? What the hell is going on, David?’

  She could see now that he was struggling to keep his temper. For once she wanted him to lose it, wanted to have the upper hand. This calmness was more disturbing than the shouting. It wasn’t like him.

  He got up from the table and began to pace the dining room. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all, and the truth is …’ he stopped and turned to face her. ‘Barbara, I’ve not been entirely blameless where Kate is concerned.’

  She couldn’t look at him for fear of what she might do. This is no time to get a conscience, she thought. That ship has well and truly sailed.

  He carried on, pacing the room with slow, flat footsteps. ‘What I mean is, there may have been a grain or two of truth in some of what she said when she left home. It’s hard for me to admit this, Barbara …’ He seemed to be accusing her, as if she were the one making it hard for him. He sat down again, pushing his plate out of the way. ‘It’s been weighing on my mind lately.’

  ‘I’m not having this,’ Barbara told him firmly. ‘She’s done something to you, made you feel guilty. It’s all rubbish.’

  ‘No!’ His voice was suddenly so loud that she glanced towards the ceiling, as though she could check on Samuel through the floorboards. It was a shock to see his sudden anger, but also there was a sighing inside her, a feeling of things falling into their proper place. David leaned his weight on the table; she felt it tip his way slightly.

  ‘It is not rubbish,’ he bellowed. ‘It’s just the way things are.’

  ‘Well, that’s as maybe, but I don’t see what this has to do with Samuel. He’s better off here, and he always will be.’ She stood and began to pile up the plates, scraping scraps of food onto a side dish. David placed his hand on hers. His hand was hot and heavy; she could feel the tremor vibrate up her arm.

  ‘He’s better off with his mother. You’re a mother – surely you know that’s true. We can’t keep punishing her forever, even if she is still punishing us.’ He sought out her eyes, his expression challenging. ‘Why are you so desperate to keep him? Are you bored, is that it? Does he give your life meaning? Or are you trying to make up for the mess you made with Katherine? Because that’s what it looks like from where I’m standing.’

  Whether it was his use of their daughter’s full name, which neithe
r of them had spoken since the day she left, Barbara wasn’t sure, but suddenly she was suffused with her own anger, and she could not bear to look at her husband’s sunken, mean-spirited face a moment longer. She shook off his hand, and then, taking up the pile of dishes, flung them with all her strength across the room. They landed, surprisingly intact, with a hollow thud on the floor between David’s stereo and the dresser. Her husband’s eyes widened as she picked up each utensil in turn and threw them after the plates. A knife, followed by a fork, flew across the room in a perfect arc. And Barbara realised that she was shrieking, an incoherent stream of obscenities flowing from her mouth like water out of a dam.

  So now he’d had his epiphany, after all this time. But it was too late – his crisis of conscience was one that could cost her her grandson. She wouldn’t let him ruin everything for her, not again.

  David was on his feet now, moving across the room with surprising speed and pinning her to the wall before she moved on to the crystal glasses. Which was good really, she thought absently as her husband screamed in her face, his fist as big as the leg of lamb she’d got out of the freezer earlier. Those glasses were an anniversary present from Bob and Sheila. It would have been a crime to break them.

  Chapter 12

  In Corrin Cove, the summer season kept everything alive, but once the tourists began to depart, the town took on a forlorn demeanour, sinking into itself as though sulking at being left suddenly alone. Yet Kate had always loved the cove best in the autumn – it felt like it belonged to her again, and the beach, with its wide expanse of sand and pebbles and the endless, uncaring sea, was her playground. September brought with it darkening evenings when the lights across the promenade glittered like fireflies; tattered bunting dripped from shop canopies; and each and every shop on the Parade put out a sign proclaiming Sale! Everything Must Go! in red and white chest-high lettering. Kate was delighted to discover a tiny haberdasher’s down by the seafront, tucked in an alley between the amusement arcade and a pizza parlour. Now her morning walk consisted of a trip down the hill, and she barely leaned on her cane at all on the way back up. Sometimes she swung the cane by her side, and it made her feel jaunty, even if only for a minute.