by Clare Boyd
They stood side-by-side as Mira showed Rosie how to fill the pots and press the seeds deep into the cool, damp soil. They worked silently. Rosie was the first to speak up.
‘This lady with weird stick-out teeth came round to our house.’
‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts.’
‘But I don’t know what’s in her insides?’
Mira chuckled. ‘Who was she?’
‘She was a social worker.’
Mira knocked over three potted plants with her elbow as she turned to Rosie. ‘Did she ask you lots of horrible questions?’
Rosie stared at the spilt soil. ‘Not lots.’
‘Tell me one.’
‘She asked me what my favourite subject was and I told her it was maths.’
‘Maths?’
‘It’s not really my favourite.’
‘Oh?’
‘I like art and forest school best.’
‘So why did you say maths, you big banana?’
Rosie giggled. ‘Because she was being nosey.’
‘She’s just doing her job, pet.’
They fell silent as they continued their potting. And then Rosie spoke up again.
‘You know how your mummy slapped you?’
‘Yes, petal.’
‘Were you telling the truth?’
Mira felt her blood run cold with fury. Rosie’s hot chocolate was on the edge of the workbench. Mira nudged it and the hot liquid cascaded down Rosie’s blue duffel coat and onto her red wellingtons.
Rosie squealed. ‘Hot, hot, hot!’ she cried, hopping up and down and shaking out one wellington.
‘Dear me, how careless of me, eh?’
Mira bent down and brushed Rosie’s coat with a cloth, and Rosie lost her balance slightly. Mira stopped being so rough, remembering how little Rosie was, and how vulnerable. Softening, she looked at her, and buttoned up one of the toggles. ‘Never mind, my little Rosie Rabbit,’ she said gently. ‘D’you think your mummy’ll notice your dirty coat?’
‘I don’t care if she does. She’ll just blame me for it. She blames me for everything.’
‘Has she been blaming you for everything that’s happened recently?’
‘Not really but only because Granny Helen is here.’
Mira nodded gravely. ‘Off you pop then. Better not be gone too long.’
‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘Take a couple of pots of these and say your school gave them to you.’
‘Thanks,’ she sulked, like they were poor consolation.
‘And why don’t you send me a note in the blue bucket to tell me how you’re getting along?’
Her face lit up. ‘That’s a good idea!’ Then she balanced the pots into the crook of her arm, freeing a hand. ‘Can I take two more pieces of cake so I can give Noah one?’
‘Of course,’ Mira said, slicing two pieces and wrapping it in a napkin. ‘Next time you come, you can have two cups of hot chocolate to make up for it and we’ll check on our little seedlings, okay?’
‘Bye,’ Rosie said, hugging Mira goodbye as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Mira’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
‘Bye, petal,’ she called back, her voice breaking a little.
Mira clutched the side to stay upright as Rosie scampered out, her pockets stuffed full.
How Mira had hungered for her own child’s arms to hold her as Rosie’s had, to share secrets together, to heal their troubles, to fight, to make up, to feel their little rosebud lips on her cheek, to see their shiny eyes light up when they spoke of happy things, to inhale that edible, intoxicating smell of newness and innocence, sugar and mud.
Rosie’s departure left Mira with a grotesque yearning in her chest.
Abandoning her sweet peas, she hurried back into the house and straight into the dining room.
Her fingers worked through the photographs as nimbly as a tea picker’s: happy photographs into happy piles, sad photographs stuffed into brown envelopes.
The album would be filled with a dreamy past, the rewriting of her history; it would tell stories of cordiality and smiles and contentment. All the dismal memories had to be expunged, replaced by the bigger picture of childhood bliss. It was better to see the good rather than dwell on the bad.
She heard the front door bang. Barry was home.
‘Hi, love! I’m in here!’ she called out.
Barry came in to see her.
‘Shall I run your bath for you, love?’
‘Thanks, I won’t be a minute.’
‘When d’you think you’ll finish it?’ Barry said, leaning into the doorway, watching her adept plucking and sifting.
‘Really soon now,’ Mira said. She would not be able to explain to Barry how or why she had found her way with it finally. She had been too busy trying to remember the past, to seek the truth, when what she really needed to do was to forget.
Then her fingers made contact with a photograph she had long forgotten about.
Bang. BANG. The door to her teenage bedroom had been shoved open. Click. The doorway flashed, and flashed again. Mira had pulled her dressing gown from the floor, to cover at least her belly, if not her bra and pants. It was too late. Deidre had got what she wanted.
‘Those stretch marks are so gross,’ Deidre had jeered. ‘It’s like you’ve got a giant alien baby scratching at your insides.’ The camera flashed again, leaving globs of red and green swimming before Mira’s eyes. Violated. Resigned. She had dressed for school, knowing she would have more to contend with there.
Her school friends had reacted to her pregnancy with the predictable mix of quiet, suspicious awe and nasty snickering. She had not been popular before her pregnancy; now the mean girls had a tangible reason to dislike her. There was one girl who had been friendly. But she smelt of urine and Mira didn’t like her. Mira didn’t need friends. She had her baby. When she was in break time or bored in lessons, she spoke to it, quietly. They had a bond only she could understand. She remembers thinking that the rest of the girls in her class were immature, and she told them so often enough to keep them away.
Mira pressed the photograph to her chest, where her heart thumped through to her fingertips.
She felt Barry’s presence behind her.
‘What’s that one?’ he said, peering over her shoulder.
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, let’s see it, hand it over, is it an embarrassing one?’ he teased.
Mira scowled. ‘Stop it.’
Not getting the hint, he tugged at the corner of the photograph. ‘I bet you look drop dead gorgeous.’
It was unlikely he would identify the teenager with long, pretty hair and a pregnant belly, but she couldn’t risk it.
‘If you dare touch me again, I’ll scream until I’m sick.’
Barry reeled back, and Mira was also aghast by her reaction, mortified by its childishness.
‘I’ll call down when the bath’s run. I’ve booked the March Hare for seven.’ The quietness of his delivery spoke volumes about how wounded he was.
The door clicked closed. She was not in the mood for their Friday-night date at the pub to celebrate their twentieth-fifth wedding anniversary. A pint and a pie were what Barry had wanted to mark the occasion. All she wanted was to immerse herself in the album until she had finished ridding it of all unhappiness.
As she sat opposite Barry on the small round table by the roaring fire, they avoided mentioning their fight. He was a little withdrawn, but the traditions of their anniversary played out like clockwork. She sipped fizzy wine. He supped a pint. They ate chicken pie and chips and reminisced about their small registry-office wedding on the edge of town, followed by a jolly knees-up at a pub similar to the one they sat in now.
While she smiled and pretended to be taken back to the charming moments of their wedding day twenty-five years ago, all she could remember was her guilt. How fraudulent she had been in that ivory suit, how sick she had felt when she promised to be
true to him in her vows, how much she had been shamed by Jesus Christ’s face looking down on her from his cross. She had not been true to Barry. She had married him on false pretences and she had prayed to God the Almighty to forgive her for wanting to hide her sins from the man she loved. She hoped that this new start, this handsome marriage, could help her to move on from her failures, from her shabby past, from the unendurable agony of letting her firstborn go.
The memory of her baby had to be lost and forgotten about; undisclosed, therefore unreal.
‘Here’s to the next twenty-five,’ she said, holding up her flute.
Twenty-five years of marriage had not been long enough to forget. She was still a fraud. Time had not been a healer. But that was her cross to bear. The guilt, the secret, the white lies were part of her life, just as breathing was. Barry was the only good thing to have ever happened to her and she had been willing to make personal moral sacrifices to keep him.
He clinked her glass and pushed his spectacles – whose lenses had darkened in the bright pub – up his nose. ‘Blimey, in twenty-five years, we’ll be seventy-five.’
‘Can always rely on you for a cheery thought.’
‘You don’t think we’ll get lonely in our old age, do you?’
‘As long as I go first, I’ll be fine,’ she grinned.
‘I’ll bump you off then before I’m about to croak.’
‘Good plan. There’s nobody else who’ll miss me.’
They looked deep into each other’s eyes for one long-held moment, acknowledging their bond.
‘It’s a shame we’re not closer to your Deidre’s Harry. Being around the young ’uns keeps us young, so they say, or not as sad about getting older, I wouldn’t wonder.’
‘Goodness gracious, I’m grateful we’re not closer to Harry. He’s the kind of child who puts you off children.’
But Mira knew what he meant. He was referring to their own childlessness. He would always test her on their anniversary, just to check that nothing had changed.
When Barry shared his Eeyore-morose fears or philosophies on life, Mira enjoyed the power she held to snap him out of it.
‘I don’t regret a thing about us, Barry,’ she said, putting both her feet on top of his boots as though she was a child about to dance on his feet.
‘I know. Me neither,’ he said, beaming. ‘We’re a good team, just the two of us.’
Last year, and on the many years before it, this similar conversation had left Mira feeling warm and comfortable. She had never wanted another child, and had been thankful that Barry had been unwavering on the subject. Their agreeable match had given her all the nurturing and fulfilment she needed. This year, however, her mind darted straight to Rosie. Her sweet, new little confidante, who made her feel like singing and dancing when she was with her, and ever so young again.
She couldn’t wait for the morning to check for the blue bucket. She hoped that the little accident with the hot chocolate hadn’t scared her away.
Chapter Forty-Three
TOP SECRET
* * *
Dear Mummy,
* * *
I had the most embarrassing day ever. The doctor told me to stand there in front of her with my pants and vest on and then she looked all over my legs and arms and my TUMMY and asked me why I had that bruise on my arm. What a dumb doctor. How could I remember when I got that bruise? The nurse took a photo of it, like she’s going to put it on Instagram. My arm! Imagine? BORING.
* * *
We are doing parables at school this week. It is really hard but I have made up a brilliant one – smiley face emoji – that I’m going to do for homework. It is about a girl who lies. I’m only going to show Granny Helen. Not you.
* * *
Uh oh, I think I can hear her coming upstairs. She always checks on me when she goes to bed. She goes to bed so early. If she is a grown-up why is she going to bed so early? It’s so annoying. Better go.
* * *
Rosie
* * *
P.S. No time.
Chapter Forty-Four
‘Hi, everyone!’ I cried, dumping my bag on the floor, kissing Rosie and Noah on the head as they were bent over their homework.
‘Hi,’ they mumbled.
‘Hi, darling, you’re early,’ my mother said, the only one to raise her head from the homework sheets strewn across the kitchen table. ‘Good day?’
‘The usual,’ I sighed.
How could I describe to my mother how hard the week had been since my arrest. The swiftness of the changes to our family life had been hard to grasp. The adjustments felt like a whirlwind that I was caught up in, rather than an ordered plan.
The noises and bustle of life outside home had become almost unbearable. While I tolerated work, signed contracts, held conferences, I longed to be back home, cocooned with my mother, who had settled into our life with surprising grace and pragmatism – she had always been good in crises.
I continued hoping that something would shift soon, that Rosie would break down, but she hadn’t and we were stuck in a surreal holding pattern, loitering above reality. Each day, like another bead on a string that was tied to the dreaded fourth of December.
Endlessly, I second-guessed what was going on behind the scenes of that police station, what picture DC Miles was building of our family from the outside-in, from information gathered from a series of professionals whom we barely knew. There was Dr Peed – whose name had never failed to make us giggle – whom we saw twice a year when the children had a verruca or tonsillitis. Mrs Brewer, Rosie’s form teacher, whom we met once a term for ten minutes to discuss her excellent grades. Miranda Slater, who had probably disliked me on sight.
I only ventured out locally if I absolutely had to, driving whenever possible, with my hood up or sunglasses on, hoping I wouldn’t bump into anyone; I’d had a bad experience on the high street at the beginning of the week.
It had been Tuesday evening and I had been nipping in and out of the chemist for some iron pills, when I spotted Charlotte’s mother coming out of the beautician’s two doors down. She sported a coat with a real-fur lined hood, which made me feel cross with her way before I remembered why I wanted – needed – to avoid her. Unfortunately, it had been too late. Our eyes had met. There had been no time to duck into a shop or change direction. I slowed down, and instantly my face flushed and my mouth dried. I put a chewing gum in my mouth, ready for the inevitable.
She walked straight past me. It was more devastating than any awkward small talk could ever have been. However much I tried to persuade myself that she might have been rude for all sorts of other personal reasons, I suspected that the rumour was out already. It never took long.
One of the teaching assistants at New Hall Prep, who had two children at the school, might have been the weak link between school protocol and parent gossip; or the school receptionist’s sister might clean Charlotte’s house; or the duty officer at the police station might be sleeping with the school receptionist’s sister. Who knew how one indiscreet moment could lead to wildfire. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but...’
My adrenalin levels had spiked and my downcast mood was momentarily flung aside as I concocted creative retorts to embarrass her with in the playground and heartfelt emails to make her feel bad. Deep down, I knew it was futile to engage with the woman on any level. She was not renowned for her incisiveness and she had been looking for a reason to snub me ever since Charlotte’s first fight with Rosie, which she blamed Rosie for, of course. Nevertheless, I now wished we could go back to how it had been before between us, when I would politely endure her inane, barbed chatter, and have a laugh with Peter about it afterwards.
‘Cuppa?’ I asked Mum.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, rising from the chair, which I gratefully sat down on.
‘So, what’ve you got tonight, you two?’
Neither of them answered me.
‘Hello? What homework do you have?’
‘Place value,�
� Noah said, arcing his pencil along a number line.
Rosie ignored me completely. ‘Granny Helen, will you read my fable through?’
‘A fable?’ I said, trying to ignore the fact that she was ignoring me. ‘That sounds interesting. Can I read it?’
I stood up and moved behind Rosie’s chair to peer over her shoulder. Rosie covered her work with her hand and said, ‘I want Granny Helen to read it.’
‘I’ll get supper on,’ I replied, hurt, but trying to hide it.
‘It’s okay, darling, I’ve promised them my special tuna bake.’
‘Right, everything is in order, seemingly.’
I felt rejected, superfluous. It had been awkward getting out of work early, but at least there had been the sense from Lisa that I would be missed.
Since Sunday, when Rosie had clung to me and sobbed herself inside out, I had tried hard to be nice, too hard. Our hugs had lingered, but they were laced with the unsaid. Our conversations had included laughter, but the content was inconsequential. When I kissed her goodnight, she had pulled the duvet around her ears as though protecting them from anything I had to say.
In only a few days, both children had begun to ask Granny Helen to knot their ties, to fill their water-bottles, to help with their homework, to put more ketchup on their sausage buns. The three of them had created a functioning self-sufficient unit that I didn’t feel part of. I was out of place and phony – mechanically patient and upbeat with the children – and I couldn’t wait for the next morning when I could escape from scrutiny, from the self-consciousness around Rosie, and back to work.
However, while they were busy and engaged, happily ignoring me, I thought of Rosie’s diary. Her school bag was at her feet. I picked it up.
‘Got your PE kit in here?’ I asked, half expecting her to grab the bag from me.
‘Think so,’ she replied, letting me look.
Her trainers and gym kit were scrumpled up at the bottom. The diary was not in there.
