by Clare Boyd
He looked up at her, as though asking permission to open it.
She sat down next to him. ‘Go on. Open it.’
At every photograph, he asked her questions. Her sad stories tumbled out of her.
One page was of Deidre, at five years old, on that sofa, scowling at the camera, brandishing a fistful of sweets.
The next page was of her mother lying sprawled out on that same bloody sofa in her holey, puce leggings with her eyes half-closed.
The next page was a collage of all of the photographs she could find of her mother’s ex-boyfriends. There were six in total.
The next page was a crotch shot of Craig. It was the only one she could find that she hadn’t burnt in the compost. She had been amused that it was of his crotch, considering that his loins were in actual fact more relevant to her life story than his face.
And on and on. There were many more choice moments that Mira thought worthy of the album. With each new page, came an unpleasant reminder of her past. She had reconstructed the reality of her childhood. If she had brought this out to show dinner party guests, they would not coo over how sweet she and Deidre were as babies, they would probably cry for her.
On the last page, she had fixed the final photographs. She had cut around the little blue rabbit from several photographs, discarding the faces of Deidre, Doug and Harry.
Carefully, she had stuck the rabbits into a beautiful flower pattern. It was the same blue soft toy that she had bought her son before he was taken away, the same soft toy that she had sent to Deidre’s baby on his first birthday. At the time, she had thought it would help her feel better to pass it on to another baby, to rid the house of it. Of course it had not worked. The grief had only worsened in the days after she had sent it.
When she looked at the sad page, devoid of any real baby photographs, she longed for the day when she might be able to replace the blue rabbits with real photographs of her son.
By the end, by the last page where the blue rabbits danced, Barry was crying. They were both crying. Mira had forgotten what it felt like to have a lightness in her soul.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘You have nothing to be sorry about.’
They sat in silence for some time.
Barry asked, ‘Do you want me to cancel the lads?’
‘No, no, off you go. You deserve some fun,’ she said, closing the album, realising the time.
She took the album back to the dining room, where it would be safe.
When she returned to the lounge, Barry sat staring at the blank screen.
‘If you stay in, I’ve got control of the remote!’ she threatened.
‘In that case, I’m off,’ he laughed, leaping up and pecking her on the cheek. ‘As long as you’re all right.’
‘I’ve never felt better,’ she said, truthfully.
But Barry took ages to leave the house. He was fumbling around in the hallway, stomping up and down the stairs, opening and closing cupboards and drawers, until finally the house fell silent.
* * *
On the way out to the shed, she passed the dining room and noticed through the open door that a white DL envelope had been neatly placed on top of her album.
She moved closer.
The Post-it said, Forgive me.
Alarmed, she picked it up and popped her head out of the room, double-checking she had in actual fact heard Barry leave.
‘Barry? What’s this?’
There was no reply.
In her hand, the envelope sat, tatty and yellowed. The flap to close it was no longer stuck down. The handwriting on the front was unfamiliar. Everything about it was disconcerting.
She tucked it into the pocket of her wax jacket and traipsed outside into the cold.
The key was stiff in the lock.
Inside, the window was mottled with intricate, feathery ice motifs.
She slipped her worn fingerless gloves over her trembling hands, then put her reading glasses on and pulled out the letter.
A photograph fluttered out onto the floor and her heart stopped beating. She couldn’t pick it up to look at it closely yet. The letter was shaking in her fingers. The rest of the world spun away into oblivion. Every ounce of her being was directed at the words in front of her.
May 7th, 2005
Dear Mira,
I hope you don’t mind me calling you Mira. It didn’t seem right to call you Miss Waters. Or maybe you are married now?
It is my birthday today, as I am sure you, of all people, remember. Or at least I hope you do.
Since I turned eighteen, it has taken me many years to pluck up the courage to write to you. I found your address from the Adoption Contact Register. Thank you for adding your details.
If you would be interested to meet me, I would really like to meet you. My telephone number is: 0207 224 5678.
Best wishes,
Oliver Ivory
* * *
Mira read it over and over and over again.
The door rattled open.
‘Hello Mrs E,’ Rosie whispered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to warm herself.
Mira glanced over at Rosie by the door, as if she had always been there, as if her presence was inconsequential. She bent down to pick up the photograph and her chest seized up with love. That face. His face. The face of the baby she had seen hanging from the midwife’s hands, high in the air above her splayed legs like a newborn king.
‘Who’s that?’ Rosie asked.
‘That’s my baby boy,’ Mira rasped, holding it out for Rosie to see.
‘Oh! He’s soooo cute!’
‘He’s called Oliver Ivory.’
‘So he wrote to you?’
‘He did!’ Mira cried, as though confirming a miracle.
‘Now do you believe in unicorns?’
‘I do!’ Mira grabbed hold of Rosie and hugged her with joy in her heart.
Then Rosie began to chatter away on Mira’s lap, while Mira’s brain was working overtime, charging ahead to when she would call Oliver Ivory. Oliver Ivory! What a good name. She was thinking about where it would be best to meet him. In London? Or would it be cosier at home? She would bake a cake for him. Thirty-four cakes for every birthday she had missed!
She read the letter again, admiring how flamboyant his handwriting was, with his long ys and curly fs.
And then, for the first time she noted the date.
2005. 2005? That didn’t make sense. It can’t have taken eleven years to reach her.
‘Mrs E?’
‘What?’ Mira snapped.
‘I was telling you about my movie roll.’
‘Were you, pet?’ Mira said, looking at the date on the letter again, trying to find any other explanation than the one she liked least.
‘I learnt it in drama club. Like when you clap your hands in front of the other actor’s face, it sounds like they are being slapped, or when you hit here, like this,’ Rosie said, thumping her chest, ‘and it sounds like you have punched someone in the stomach.’
‘That sounds nice.’
‘But it wasn’t nice! I rolled so fast I hit my head on the wall.’
‘Silly girl. Now, I’m so sorry, Rosie Rabbit, but I’m going to have to go.’
Rosie looked crestfallen. It couldn’t be helped, thought Mira brusquely.
‘But what about my hot chocolate?’
‘I know. Why don’t you stay here and make it yourself. You’re old enough now, aren’t you? There’s the chocolate powder,’ Mira said, handing her the tub and clicking on the kettle. ‘Wait for it to click off before you pour it.’
Mira scooped up the photograph and letter and slipped them back into her pocket.
‘See you soon, Rosie Rabbit.’
Flustered, Mira shut the shed door and locked it with the key, as it was her automatic habit, and slowly made her way, shed keys dangling, across the crispy lawn. The timing of Barry’s discovery of this letter was incredible. The coincidence was uncanny: just as
he finds out about her son, he finds a long-lost letter from him. Perhaps he found it lodged under the matt when he was sweeping up today. Perhaps he stumbled upon it in the pocket of an old suit jacket, forgotten about, unopened. Barry could not have hidden this letter from her for eleven years. Could he? He wasn’t capable of such deception. It was inconceivable. He loved and respected her. There was no way he could have betrayed her with such a foul duplicity.
* * *
When Barry finally got home, Mira was waiting for him in the kitchen. She had the letter in front of her on the table.
He stumbled in, coughing, steaming drunk.
She waited for him to notice her there.
Seeing her, he stopped, stock still, his jacket hanging limply from one arm.
‘Come sit down,’ she said.
Dutifully, he wove to the table and slumped in a chair.
The fumes coming off him made her eyes water.
She smoothed her hand over the letter. ‘Tell me you didn’t hide this from me for eleven years.’
Barry’s sluggish muscles tried to form words from his lips, but failed.
He put his head in his hands. ‘You lied to me,’ he slurred.
‘So you punished me?’
‘No, no, no, no,’ he repeated, swinging his head back and forth. ‘I hid it from you to protect you.’
Mira’s whole world tilted. ‘No, I won’t believe it.’
‘You were the one who wanted to keep him a secret. I rrrr… respected that,’ he stammered. He raised his head. His eyes were swimming. ‘I love you,’ he whined.
‘If you loved me, you’d never have held this back from me,’ Mira murmured, in disbelief, amazed by his warped logic.
‘But I thought you didn’t want to remember.’
The magnitude of his misapprehension began to hit her. He was right, in one way. Until the album, until Rosie, she had not wanted to remember. Not more than a split second, in case the trauma of remembering obliterated her. She looked at him, impassively. He had known her better than she had given him credit for. For eleven years he had been living with the secret she had smuggled into their marriage, and he had accepted it. More than that, he had lived with it in his heart, as though sharing it unconsciously was enough, that keeping it might protect her from it. It had been a misguided act of love.
But the thought of those wasted eleven years ignited a wild rage in her.
‘It was not your decision to make!’ she cried, banging her fist on the table. He jumped slightly, sobering for a split second, before sliding back.
‘That album...’ he stuttered. ‘That album... it broke my heart in two pieces.’
If it was too late, if Oliver, her son, had been too hurt by a second rebuff – which she wouldn’t blame him for – Mira would never be able to forgive Barry.
She clenched her jaw, pulling back her anger. Barry wasn’t strong enough for the weight of everything she was feeling, really feeling. She had lived for decades under a crust of pain, and now she was breaking through, to feel life’s sun warm her skin, and to feel the cruel burn of that heat. She wanted to drum the beat of her loss – every minute of every year of that loss – across the valley, over the hilltops, to rattle through window panes. Her chest had been prized open and her heart was a shiny, juddering mass of naked yearning and unsatisfied love. There was no way she could send her desires into the shadows again, no way she could pretend that they hadn’t existed.
‘I want to meet him,’ she stated tearfully.
‘I don’t know, love, I don’t know if that’s right, after all these years,’ Barry blubbed, wiping snot from his nose with his sleeve.
His pathetic snivelling was hard to stomach. She wanted to slap him. If he had been sober enough, she might have whacked him with all of her might, savouring the hot, satisfying sting in her palm. But it would be wasted on him in this state.
‘Go rot in hell,’ she spat, leaving him there whimpering in the dark.
Chapter Fifty-Five
I awoke with a start. There was a child screaming. The cries reverberated through my body, clearing out my head, taking precedence over every other thought or feeling that had plagued me for so many days.
I got out of bed, smelling the sourness of my pillows and pyjamas.
When I opened the window, there was an icy rush of wind, and I heard the piercing scream of a child calling out for his mother from one of the houses further along the terrace. This was the scream that had woken me up. It didn’t matter that the child did not belong to me, it mattered that it was a child screaming for his mummy. Only his mummy would do.
It was still dark, before six o’clock, but I stripped the bed and then showered.
As I stood under the flow of warm water, I picked at a curl of white paint on the wall, which revealed a hint of the pink paint underneath. I wanted to keep picking and picking until the distressing pink was revealed in its hideous glory.
I was tired of hiding everything away. I was Rosie’s mummy and she had been screaming for me for a long time.
I felt hungry. My system was free of the unidentifiable virus. It turned out that even despair and self-doubt could pass through my body like flu.
After wolfing down three pieces of toast, I scribbled a note of my sincerest thanks to John, for showing me the way. Then I scrubbed the filthy kitchen, tied up two bags of rubbish, and dropped the note into John’s letterbox. The urgency to get home was overwhelming.
On the train – which was trundling along in the opposite direction to the press of commuters – I sat in an almost empty carriage. There weren’t any other passengers jostling to distract or irritate me.
I turned my phone on, daring to read some of the emails from Lisa. The most recent of which was an internal group email informing us that an outside candidate from our rival firm had been offered the promotion Richard had promised me. I couldn’t have cared less. I shut my phone down. There was nothing important there.
The vacuum allowed me space and time to think, to feel. I contemplated the cowering wretchedness that I had succumbed to over the last few days. I had allowed the anger and fear to engulf me. I had let them take me and I had discovered that they would not kill me. I had let go of the tight reins on my life; the life that I had failed so miserably to whip into shape. The so-called strength of the Campbell woman had crumbled away. But miraculously, in its place, I discovered that truth and courage had been hiding in my heart all along.
With that, came acceptance that Rosie might never change her statement, that the CPS hearing would probably take place in four days’ time and that I had absolutely no control of the outcome. Whatever happened, I was going home to tell Rosie a real life fairy tale.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Help me, Mummy
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I walked into the kitchen where my mother sat reading the newspaper in her dressing gown. She looked about ten years older than she had a week ago.
There were two advent calendars propped up on the cookbooks behind her, with two little doors open. I had quite forgotten that Christmas came with December. This time last year I had a wreath on the door with red velvet ribbons, and a stack of Christmas cards to write.
When my mother saw me she jumped, and patted her heart. ‘You frightened the living daylights out of me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I live here, Mum.’
She closed the newspaper.
‘Peter’s gone to work already.’
‘Are the kids still asleep?’
‘I let Noah watch a bit of telly.’
‘Before school?’
‘Just to keep him quiet while Rosie sleeps.’
‘But they’ve got to be at school in half an hour.’
‘Rosie wasn’t feeling well last night.’
‘What was wrong with her?’
‘She said she was over-tired.’
We both smiled. ‘I’ve never heard her say that before.
’
‘She even went to bed early.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘It’s probably okay to wake her now.’
‘I’ll just say hello to Noah first.’
But when I walked into the television room, he looked up at me blankly, his eyes circled grey. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and looked back at his cartoon.
I sat next to him and put my arm around him. ‘I’m home now, okay? I’m all better.’
And he lay his head down on my lap. When I realised he was asleep, I gently put the blanket over him and snuck out.
‘Rosie,’ I knocked. ‘Rosie?’ I went in.
Her duvet was flat. Her pillow puffed.
‘Rosie?’ I called out of her door. ‘Rosie?’
I checked all the rooms upstairs and then charged downstairs.
‘Mum, is she up already?’
‘I didn’t hear her get up.’
‘Her bed’s made.’
My mother’s eyes sank back into their sockets. ‘She never makes her bed.’
‘Exactly.’
‘She must be hiding.’
‘Rosie! If you’re hiding, please come out, darling!’
The panic was disorientating. Both of us maniacally flitted around the house, looking in all the rooms, once, twice, even under beds and in cupboards, and out in the garden, right down to the bottom, where her den was frosted and empty, the tin kettle lying muddy on its side. The blue bucket dangling.
Back in the house, I wanted to shake my mother. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘Let’s be calm,’ my mother said, tightening the belt of her dressing gown. ‘Let’s be calm,’ she repeated, but her eyes were darting all over the room, as though Rosie might be perched somewhere unnatural.
‘Could Peter have taken her into school early?’ I was clutching at straws.
‘No, no. He left at six.’
I took out my phone, slippery in my sweaty hands. ‘Peter, it’s me.’
