While My Eyes Were Closed: The #1 Bestseller

by Linda Green

  The first words drip into me like antiseptic. They sting, yes, because the wounds are still raw, but I accept this because I know they are healing me, soothing the pain of her lies. But as I read on his words sharpen and pick at the wounds, pick until they are opened up, exposed. At which point the hurt pours in, searing into me, its jagged edges tearing me apart, contaminating the wound. His boots stamp over me, as if trying to extinguish a fire. He doesn’t stop until every last spark has been put out and only the glowing embers remain. And then the words which smother even that: ‘she’s suffocating me’. They are her words, I am sure of it. But they come from his lips, or from his pen at least.

  I sit, winded and wounded on the bed, for a moment before I am able to summon the strength to move. When I do so, it is to lift the diary, pick it up and hurl it across the room.

  ‘No!’ I cry. ‘No, no, no, no no.’

  I collapse onto the bed, my body shaking, my tears unable to replenish themselves quickly enough. I want to take it back, the moment when I decided to read the diary. Actually, I want to rewind further – to when the child found it, the moment I decided to bring her home to tend her wounds. Further and further still, rewinding through history until when Matthew is a child. A little boy oblivious to everything apart from the daisy chain he is making. Humming to himself in the park while I watch over him.

  ‘Piano lady, did you fall over?’

  I hadn’t even heard her footsteps on the stairs. Or if I did, I thought I was imagining them.

  ‘I heard a big thump. Did you fall over? Is that why you’re crying?’

  I don’t reply. I am not capable of speech.

  ‘Piano lady, I’m hungry.’

  My tears come faster, scouring their way down my cheeks. I hear her try to open the door.

  ‘I can’t open it,’ she calls out. ‘Why can’t I open it?’

  I clench my body tighter into a ball, like a hedgehog. I am aware of the oncoming traffic but can do little about it. It will have to avoid me. I am wounded. This is as much protection as I can muster.

  She tries for some time to open the door before I finally hear her footsteps going downstairs. I am relieved. I want to be left in peace. Outwardly, at least. Inner peace is not possible. Has not been for some time. I tell myself that he didn’t mean it – the words he said, the arrows he slung. She had poisoned his mind, as I had always expected. We do not speak rationally when we have been poisoned. We spew words out in an effort to cleanse ourselves. That is what he was doing. Cleansing himself of her bile. He meant no harm. No malice was intended. I tell myself this time and time again as I lie, curled in a foetal position on the bed. He does not hate you. He hated only the situation he found himself in. And yet there must be a tiny chink in my armour. The armour which has protected me for so long. Because one of his arrows has got through. Has pierced my skin and in doing so allowed the doubt in. Doubt is my enemy. I know and understand its power. And yet once it is in, it is very hard to get rid of.

  I lie rocking and sobbing on the bed. My skin feels dry, my hair coarse, as I wrap my arms around myself. I sucked the life out of him. And in doing so I drained myself as well. Withered and died inside, became dry and brittle on the outside. The humming has stopped. Matthew doesn’t hum any more. He hasn’t hummed for a long time. I am aware of the light starting to fade outside. He will be cold. He will need to do up his cardigan. I feel the need to be near him, to hold him close to me. Slowly I uncurl, one aching limb after another. I raise my head. I can see the diary on the floor in the corner. I need to smell it again. To stroke the pages which Matthew touched.

  I get rather unsteadily to my feet and shuffle towards the corner of the room. It will hurt, I know that. But sometimes you have to face the things which hurt you most. I stoop and pick it up, feeling the crackle of electricity as my fingers make contact with him.

  ‘It’s only me,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Not any more.’

  I pick it up, move back to the bed. Like someone dragging a wounded animal from the roadside. There is no hope for it, of course. No chance of being revived. I will hold it close though. It is the least I can do.

  I curl up on the bed again, the diary pressed against my chest. I keep it there for some time, letting his smell seep into me, his presence in the room warm me. And finally, as the light fades from the room, I draw it out, give a cursory glance at the cover before turning to the beginning. Because sometimes you need to start at the beginning in order to make sense of the end.

  *

  I do not sleep and I do not wake. The poison has left me drowsy so I slip between states of consciousness, flick between pages in history. Intermittently I am aware that there are noises from downstairs but I don’t let them interrupt me. I am cocooned here. No one from outside can get in. I am alone with my son. Which is how it should be.

  The art of reading is to know and understand the things which go unsaid. There is as much to be learned from the spaces between, the empty lines, as there is from the words on the page. I know that and I cling to it, my life raft through the rough seas. It keeps me afloat but no more than that. It does not offer me any real protection against all that is being thrown at me. I am buffeted and blasted from all directions. I lie there and take it. There is no longer any fight left in me. It is not a case of the wind having been taken from my sails, more a case of not having a sail left at all. I lie quietly until the storm has subsided and the last wave has washed over me, leaving its debris behind. And then, from this prostrate position, I survey the wreckage. Me, my withered and weathered body lying alone and desolate.

  I brought this upon myself. However much I know she was to blame, I still let her get to him. I did not protect my own flesh and blood. I was not there for him when he needed me and the one thing I know now is that he needed me, more than I ever realised at the time. I have been found wanting. It is not something any mother ever wants to hear. Particularly not from her own son. All those promises I made. To myself and to him. All the hope, the joy. It is hard to remember either now. But remember I must.

  I hear him first. The giggle is unmistakable. A lot of parents say their baby giggles but most of them do not. What they are referring to is more of a gurgle. Matthew giggles though. Giggles in the way that a boy does, rather than a baby. A boy in a blue romper suit in a baby bouncer, suspended from the door frame, his toes just able to touch the floor. He uses them wisely, pointed and outstretched, and pushes into the floor at the last possible moment, sending himself soaring up, at which point the giggle can be heard, filling the house with joy. He knows, you see. Knows that the future is all his. That already he is brighter than others his own age, who merely sit and stare straight in front of them. Matthew has never been one for sitting. Not when he can be doing this. He likes the feeling of being propelled through the air. He never appears frightened. I have heard others say their babies are not sure about bouncers. It is because they don’t understand. They haven’t grasped that they are both safe and free at the same time. It is too complex for them. Matthew knows though. He understands that this is the time to push into the floor and send himself soaring. There is no danger of being catapulted away from safety. He knows that it is not merely the harness which is suspending him, it is my love. He understands that I will let no harm come to him. I will give him boundaries, top and bottom. Allow him to dip his toe into the sea and feel the breeze blowing through his hair. But all the time I will have hold of the piece of elastic, so that if he steps or flies towards danger I will haul him back in. He giggles because he knows that. Even so young, he knows that I only have his best interests at heart. Other parents will unhook their child too early, allow them to fly and so fall, to come crashing down to earth. Far better to continue bouncing. Safe in the knowledge that no harm can come to you.

  He giggles again and I smile back at him. My beautiful bouncing boy, face beaming, eyes fixed on me. I hold his gaze as he moves up and down. He never tires of this and nor do I. Sometimes he spins wil
dly and twists, but always he trusts in me. Knows that in a moment he will come back to me and that I will always be here.

  The pages turn; the clock ticks relentlessly. I try but fail to halt its progress. I know what is coming, know that trying to stop it is futile, but still I strain every muscle in my body. Muscle has memory and I do not have to remind it what is on the other side. I can fight off sleep, I can refuse to close my eyes but, as much as I try, I cannot prevent the passing of time.

  ‘Piano lady, I’m hungry.’ The whisper comes from the other side of the door. It is wrong of her to intrude. It was wrong of me to let her. I should not have allowed myself to become distracted. You only need to take your eye off for one moment.

  I stay silent, knowing that if I do so she will think I am asleep.

  ‘And it’s dark outside. You’ve forgotten to put me to bed. Piano lady?’

  There is a shuffling sound and a slight whimpering for a few minutes, but I stay very still and eventually the whimpering fades into the distance.

  I turn back to the doorway. I only took my eye off him for a second but that is all it needs.

  His toes are not touching the floor. That is the first thing I notice. They hang, loose and limp. There is no upward momentum. No spring in his step. The boy is not bouncing any more. He hangs.

  He hangs from a position to one side of the doorway. The same doorway he used to bounce from. But his body is still now. There are no giggles, only silence. My gaze crawls slowly up his body. But inside I am fighting this: my eyes refusing to see, my ears refusing to hear, my brain refusing to take in.

  It has not happened. It has not come to this. It is the shadows playing tricks on me. In a moment he will start giggling, will push down with his toes and soar into the air. I am holding the other end of the piece of elastic. I have not let go at any point. It is simply impossible that he could have done this while I was holding on. I gather up the piece of elastic, faster and faster, desperately trying to find the end. Only to discover when I get there that he is missing. He has somehow uncoupled himself. I was holding on to thin air and I didn’t even notice.

  My gaze reaches his face at exactly the same moment that a piercing scream shatters the silence. It is my scream, although I don’t recognise it as such. His hair is flopping down over his eyes. I am grateful for that, for once relieved that he was overdue a haircut.

  It is his school tie which is around his neck. I suppose he had no other. I remember tightening it for him on his first day and telling him to do it up properly on countless other days when he was older. It is tight now. It is attached to the hook in the ceiling. The one we had put in especially so we could hang his bubble chair from it. He’d wanted one for ages. Wanted to be off the ground, the sensation of being in flight. We gave it to him for his thirteenth birthday. A handyman my mother knew had to come round to fix the hook into the ceiling because Malcolm was never any good at that sort of thing. Matthew loved that chair. He would sit in it for hours on end reading a book or listening to music. Just hang there, suspended in mid-air. It was like watching him as a baby again, his toes dangling, his face beaming.

  His toes are dangling again now. I step forward, sink to my knees and touch them, my baby’s tiny feet. He giggles and turns to face me, his eyes sparkling with aliveness. He is mine for life. I will never let him come to harm. Will never take my eyes off him.

  I am vaguely aware in the stillness of the knocking on the front door. Of Judith, my neighbour, calling out to see if I am OK. A few minutes later the phone rings. It continues until the answering machine cuts in. I hear my own voice from the landing, bright and breezy and businesslike. The phone rings a few times after that. On every occasion I answer on the machine in the same voice. And still I kneel there on the floor, holding my baby’s feet, tickling him, trying to make him giggle.

  At some point later I hear the garden gate clink open, a key in the door, a key I had forgotten he still had. Footsteps, unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time, coming up the stairs. Malcolm on the landing shouting, ‘Oh no. Dear God, no.’ He takes hold of me, tries to pull me away, drag me almost. But I am not having it. I am not leaving Matthew. I will not take my eye off him. My little boy whose feet are not long enough to touch the ground.

  ‘Let me go!’ I scream. ‘Can’t you see he’s enjoying this? Look at his face. Listen to him giggle. He doesn’t want this to end.’

  Matthew

  Thursday, 4 September 2014

  It’s no use, I know that now. My life may as well be over. Not being with Sparrow is like torture. All I’ve done for weeks is lie in my room listening to music and bawling my eyes out. I couldn’t hurt Mum and by not doing that I’ve lost Sparrow, the most amazing girl I’ve ever met in my life and the only one who’s slept with me and probably the only one who ever will. I mean what kind of fucking idiot would do that?

  And even though Mum won and I chose not to hurt her, I hurt her anyway. I’ve seen the look in her eye when she thinks I’m not looking. It’s like she’s been betrayed. She can barely bring herself to look at me let alone touch me. It’s like I’m soiled and dirty. I’ve ruined all her memories of her precious little Matthew and she’s never going to forgive me for that. She’s still got all my stuff, you know. All my toys and clothes and that, all stored away. She used to say she was keeping them for her grandchildren but I don’t know how that’s going to happen as she made the only woman who I would ever want to marry dump me. Nice move, that one.

  And the truth is I didn’t mean to hurt either of them but I’ve ended up hurting both of them, which shows how totally crap I am. And what makes it worse is that although they’ve never met, they hate each other. Sparrow hates Mum because she says she broke us up and she’s too controlling and all that stuff. And Mum hates Sparrow, I see it every time I look in her eyes (which is why I try to avoid doing that). I used to think that maybe one day if I introduced them Mum would like Sparrow and kind of accept her (cos she is really lovely) but ever since Mum found the hair in my bed it was like she hated it. Like she absolutely loathed one single strand of hair. Can you imagine what she’d be like if she ever actually met her? All of that hatred multiplied by however many hairs there are on Sparrow’s head. I want to be brave and tell Sparrow I don’t give a toss about what Mum thinks but the trouble is I do. And it’s not like I can talk to Mum about any of this – I’ve never been able to talk to her about stuff. And now when I look at her I don’t see Mum at all, I see some kind of Dementor-like figure because I just go sort of cold and it’s like she’s sucked the life out of me. Sucked all the warmth and love and just left me with the emptiness and the guilt inside. All I want to do is get back together with Sparrow but I can’t because to do that I’d have to hurt Mum. It’s like she’s suffocating me with her love. She doesn’t mean to, I know that, but she is too much. She won’t let me breathe for myself, and I don’t want to live my life on some kind of artificial respirator with her taking all the breaths for me.

  Though to be honest I don’t think I can live without Sparrow anyway. She is my entire world and there is no point, no fucking point at all, without her. She was right. I am lame and pathetic. I’m no better than Dad, letting down the people I love, failing so badly.

  And what have I got to look forward to? Going away to university and spending the entire time wishing Sparrow was there with me and hating every minute of every day without her. And coming back here at weekends to be given the evil eye by Mum because I haven’t got the balls to stand up to her.

  I’ve lost her. Lost my ticket out of this life. I know that I will never love anyone else in my entire life the way I love Sparrow. And every time she refuses to take my calls and every time I text her and she ignores it, it just like kills me inside all over again.

  I need to find a way of showing her how much I love her and that I do have the balls to stand up to Mum. I know it’s too late for us but at least she might finally understand how much I love her. The thing I want more than anything el
se in the world is for her to know that.

  21

  Lisa

  ‘You OK, Sparrow?’ Mum asks as Chloe comes into the room. I haven’t heard her called that for years. When she was younger she used to get called nothing else. It was something she said once to me when she was three, not long after she had started nursery and met Robyn, who even then she had decided was going to be her best friend for life. We were looking out of the window when I pointed out a robin on the garden fence and she looked at me rather dolefully and asked, ‘Is there a Chloe bird too?’

  I told her that if we kept looking we might just see one. And when the sparrow landed on the fence a moment later she looked up at me so hopefully that I said, ‘There you are, see. That’s a Chloe bird.’

  We kept it up for a couple of years afterwards, until they were learning about birds in Year Two and I thought I ought to tell her so she didn’t embarrass herself. She was upset at first, of course. Although I told her she could still go on calling them Chloe birds if she wanted to.

  It was Mum who came up with the idea of calling her Sparrow. Told her that she might not have a bird named after her like Robyn did but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a bird’s name instead. She liked it at first. For a long while we weren’t allowed to call her anything else. And by the time she was a teenager and didn’t seem so keen we were all so used to calling her Sparrow that it was hard to stop. I always thought it rather suited her, to be honest: her long brown hair, her stick-thin legs, the way she wasn’t flashy or anything but you still knew the world would be a much lesser place without her.

  I look at her now, her eyes dark and achy, and wonder whether she will turn her nose up or make some comment to Mum about it. She doesn’t though. She sits down next to her on the sofa, buries her face in her shoulder and starts to cry. I wonder if I should say something, sit down next to them. But I do not want to intrude, do not want to stop her when she is finally letting it out, so I shut the door quietly behind them and leave the room. I need to get out again. I need to try and clear my head.