by C F Dunn
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
M. L. Haskins
CHAPTER
12
The Gate of the Year
“Mummy! Theo’s eating ants again.”
I scooped him up, brushing panic-stricken insects from my son’s cheek. “What are you doing, cheeky chops? Ants don’t want to be eaten.”
Twirling in her skirt, Rosie then lifted it over her head like a cape and peeked out. “I extept it’s the formic acid; it tastes like lemons.”
“I expect you’re right,” I said, fishing one out of his mouth with my little finger, damp, but alive, and wondering how my four-year-old daughter knew what ants tasted like. “Come on, Rosie, we’ll be late.”
“Of course, lemons might taste like ants,” she mused, strapping herself into her booster seat while I secured Theo in next to her, still looking very pleased with himself. I wiped his chin free of dribble and what looked suspiciously like an insect leg, and gave him his bear instead. “Daddy says citric acid tastes like formic acid to humans, but they’re chem’clly different.” She walked her model T-Rex along the window edge. “I prefer lemons.”
I had to ask. “Why?”
“They don’t wriggle, like this,” and she made her fingers scurry against her lips.
I grimaced.
“I hope you’ve given up eating ants, Rosie, or there won’t be enough for the anteaters.”
She squealed with laughter, setting her brother chortling. “That’s silly, Mummy! Anteaters don’t live in Maine.”
We drove from the shelter of the courtyard through the big gates under the arch and out onto the drive that was no more than a track, through the long grass singing with grasshoppers. “Has Daddy been telling you about his adventures again?”
Bewitched by the passing sky, Rosie twiddled her fingers, her dinosaur forgotten. “Yes.”
“Rosie, you remember you mustn’t tell anyone else, don’t you? These are our stories and they belong to us. They’re not for sharing with your friends.” She met my eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“I know, Mummy. Daddy’s different.” And not just her daddy. Her differences were becoming increasingly apparent, even for a Lynes. She barely slept now, and I had long since given up cajoling her to bed, only to find her with her father ensconced in his study in the early hours of the morning, poring over a book together, or him telling stories to make her eyes pop. Her rate of learning accelerated, and I never knew whether I would find her playing with Lego or learning Latin. It stirred an ember of envy that I had to firmly extinguish.
“But it’s nothing to be worried about, darling,” I added quickly. “Everyone is unique; everyone’s different in some way or other.”
“‘Different is good’,” Rosie said firmly. “Daddy said so. God made us ’cos he’s the Lord and he made Heaven and Earth and the sea and a-ll that’s in them.” She made an expanding circle of her arms, encompassing the world.
“Did Daddy say that, too?”
“No, Rev’nd Baker said so last Sunday. Didn’t you hear him?”
I screwed up my eyes, thinking back to the previous weekend, but it was lost in a blur of nappies and teething and sleepless nights. “You re’mber. He said that we are made in the image of God and then Theo pushed all the hymn books on the floor and everyone laughed.” Almost everyone. I coloured at the memory. Her brother bounced and rocked in his car seat at the mention of his name, and Rosie leaned sideways and tickled his tummy. “I don’t mind being different,” she said. “Do you, Mummy?”
“Er, no – no, not at all.”
“God doesn’t mind if I’m big and fat like… like a watermelon…” she patted her tummy, “… or teeny-weeny like ants.” She held up her thumb and forefinger to the sun and made a gap between them through which she spied the golden star. “God loves me just the way I am,” she said philosophically.
“He does,” I confirmed, warming at the thought. “We are made perfect in his sight.”
“He doesn’t mind if I’m clever…” she continued.
“No, he doesn’t,” I said, wondering where this was going.
“… so he won’t mind if I stay at home with you and Daddy and Theo and Ollie.”
In the mirror, I narrowed my eyes at my daughter. “But then you wouldn’t be able to play with your friends in preschool and that would be a shame. You would miss your friends, wouldn’t you?” I concentrated on taking a left turn down the tree-lined street leading to the kindergarten belonging to the school in its elegant red-brick building. Parents expelled tots and teens from the expensive-looking cars queuing either side of the road, and bundled them through the gaping mouth of the front door. I died a little every time I left her there. Finding somewhere to park, I remembered Rosie hadn’t answered me. I switched off the engine and twisted in my seat. “You like seeing your friends. You like Jamie and Clara, don’t you?”
Still staring into the sun, she seemed determined to capture it, but eventually said, “I wish people were more like Jesus,” and her fingers compressed the burning orb until she blotted it out altogether.
Theo entertained himself by trying to pick the shiny sequin butterflies off Elena’s bag, propped against the desk in my tutor room. Elena bent over her seven-month bump and peered at his head. “Emma, Theo has ant in his hair.” She pronounced his name “Teo”, Russian-style, which I rather liked. I looked up as she removed the ant from the fine blond strand and flicked it out of the window.
“Mmm, he likes ants. He had a handful for breakfast this morning.”
She tutted. “You’re weird.” She seemed to like the word she had recently mastered, because she tried it again. “Weird, do you hear me?”
Closing my book, I put it back on the shelf and picked Theo up, checking for further stray creatures. “I hear you. Where do you want to go for lunch? I haven’t long before I must go and pick up Rosie. These short sessions play havoc with my timetable. Hey, slobber-chops, are you hungry?” I nuzzled Theo’s neck and he chortled good-naturedly.
“Can’t Matthew go?”
“It’s a bit of a long hike from New York,” I pointed out. “Frankly, I wanted to go with him, and Rosie would have loved the Met museum, but he’s doing some ghastly business-related work, and she would have missed school, so…”
“You’re stuck with me instead,” Elena finished, and companionably tucked her arm through mine, and the three of us trundled down the long corridor towards the stairs.
I hadn’t needed much dissuading. The idea of any time spent in the company of the odious legal representative was a thought too far. Anyway, Matthew needed to discuss family matters with George Redgrave, and no matter how hard he tried to contain the hurt, it seeped out of him every time he mentioned Henry, colouring the air around him until it bled.
It was difficult to remain morose in the face of Elena’s chatter and the warmth of the late summer sun, and we ended up buying sandwiches to eat by the college lake, laying our jackets not far from where Sam had spread the picnic all those years ago. Squealing in delight, Theo spotted a duck. “Not near the water, young man,” I cautioned, as he scuttled off on all fours. Elena watched him, unable to disguise the curl of wistful envy. I handed her a sandwich and bottle of water from the bag. “Are the test results back yet?”
Still watching him, she shook her head. “Nyet.”
Distracted, Theo negotiated a spiky clump of reeds. “No news is good news?” I ventured, but she became glum, fingering the wedding band next to her engagement ring.
“Matias is so angry that this bad gene came from him, and he worries that the baby will be, how do you say… deformirovannogo. And lately, we – he – finds it difficult to… you know…” She shrugged despondently. “Has Matthew said anything to you?”
“No, but he wouldn’t break patient confidentiality and tell me anyway.”
“Matias is not his patient; he is his friend,” she responded, a little fiercely, making Theo sto
p what he was doing and look around. Her chin quavered. “We want this baby to be healthy so bad, but I want Matias even more, Emma, and I am frightened there is something wrong with him.”
“I know,” I said hugging her, and feeling her distress. “Matthew will do everything in his power to help him. And I want to help you. I can’t give you what you want, but I can give you hugs, my time and lots and lots of pizza.”
She snuffled a laugh, her colours changing like a chameleon from distressed blues to sombre purples, becoming lighter as I fed her hope. Drawing back, she wiped her nose. “You make me feel better,” she managed at last, then sniffed and frowned over my shoulder. “Should Theo be eating that?”
Theo had dozed off into one of his short, intense sleeps in the car on the way to pick up Rosie from preschool, giving me time to mull over Elena’s fears. She never mentioned death, but it lurked behind her eyes and sapped the light from her. It had grown into a faceless monster, unknown, nameless and therefore without the boundaries of definition, free to stalk her waking hours and expand in the mirror of the night. Matthew knew more than he was saying, and it could only be a matter of time before the results came back. It put my own fears into perspective, for as it stood now, it was unlikely I would lose my husband to death. Had that made me complacent? Did I deserve his life?
The traffic had proved lighter than anticipated, and I parked opposite the school without the normal rugby scrum for places, and watched the drift of kindergarten parents towards the gates as they arrived one by one. Mostly women, they gathered in huddles, shooting thin-lipped comments between them like a pinball. I had no desire to join them – I wouldn’t know what to say – so I stayed put and hoped that Rosie wouldn’t be the last out again. Parents were discouraged from going in to collect their child; it stifled independence, we had been told from the outset. You could tell the parent of a new inmate; they hovered anxiously and alone for the first few days, until they were sucked into a group, or retreated to the anonymity of their car to wait instead. No newbies waited by the gates today, and only a few of us loners kept to our cars, ready to leap out and grab our children at the last possible moment to avoid having to do anything other than exchange a nod and a smile with other parents.
Late September sun heated the interior of the car, scalding the leather. I opened a window and leaned an elbow on the edge, welcoming the slight breeze that nudged the brilliant yellows of the trees lining the street. A bunch of children, ranging in age from about three to seven, scuffled out, accompanied by several staff. I spotted Rosie and waved wildly. She ignited into a smile, and heaved her diminutive dinosaur bag onto her back, giving her a purple hump. Being careful not to wake Theo as I lifted him from his baby seat, I slipped out of the car, ensuring the locks engaged behind me. I indicated to Rosie to wait with her friends, and dodged a car to cross the road. By the time I reached her, standing to one side of the gates, she looked rather subdued.
“Hello, darling!” In an attempt to save her dignity, I refrained from crushing her in an enormous bear hug, but she threw her arms around my middle, so what choice did I have but to return it? “Oo, I missed you,” I said, swinging her around with my spare arm. “Did you have a lovely day?” She threw a glance at the retreating backs of her friends, their pigtails bouncing in time to their mothers’ brisk pace.
“Can we go see Ollie when we get home? Please,” she remembered to say.
“Yes, we can go and see Ollie, if you would like.” I counted to three and took the plunge. “Rosie, would you like some of your friends to come over to play after school one day?” It didn’t come naturally, but I was sure it was one of those dutiful things parents were supposed to do. Matthew had said that Ellen fed dozens of Henry’s friends when he was a child. “They could come for tea,” I added as a rash afterthought.
She thought about it for all of two seconds. “I want to see Ollie,” she stated.
“Ollie. Not your friends. Right. Perhaps just once? I’m sure you’d enjoy it. Look, those children are calling to you. Go on,” and I gave her a gentle push towards them. She walked reluctantly towards the group under my watchful eye, but before she reached them, one thin, freckled boy, a few years older than her and inches taller, called out, his words lost in the rustle of desiccated leaves from the street trees. The wind died and then quite distinctly I heard, “Dozy Rosie! Dozy Rosie!”
I saw her stiffen, her shoulders hunch and, without warning, she leapt, sending the other children shrieking as they split and ran. She lashed out at the boy, her small fist punching into his stomach and sending him flying onto his back. Her fists continued to beat the air as I pulled her from him before she did any lasting damage.
“Get her off! Get her off!” A gilded woman in white leather and a fake tan tottered towards us. By now a small crowd had gathered to watch, and seeing his mother, the boy began to cry. Rosie scowled at him in disdain.
Shaking her finger in my face, the woman spat, “I’ll report her for this. She attacked my son. I saw her!”
Startled awake, Theo shied from her wagging finger. I shielded him from her spite, and tucked Rosie behind me. “Then you will have heard him taunting my daughter.”
“He did no such thing! You should know better than to let your girl run wild. She’s dangerous. I’ll have her expelled. Children like her shouldn’t be allowed.”
I scanned the woman’s waspish colours, broken with scarlet anger, and realized where her son had learned to bully. Apologies would count for nothing here. Picking up Rosie, I turned away, grateful to have her to hold, to stop me from shaking. “Don’t you walk away from me,” the woman shouted, but I did exactly that – anything, anything, to get away from those gawping faces and accusing eyes. “You’re not fit to be a mother!” she yelled as a passing shot.
“Rosie, don’t stick your tongue out at people, please,” I said quietly, as we crossed the road. When we reached the pavement, I rearranged her twisted skirt and brushed the hair from her sombre eyes. “Has that boy said things like that before?”
“He’s horrible,” she said, subdued.
“I heard what he said. It isn’t true. People say nasty things when they don’t understand, or when they’re unhappy inside.”
“Like his mummy? She’s all orange.” She pulled a face.
“I expect so. Come on; we’ll go home and take Ollie his carrot.” I took her small hand and we wove along the crowded pavement back towards the car.
A dark-haired woman in sunglasses and a nondescript suit, and partially obscured by moving people, stood by the car. I picked up the pace. As we neared, she bent down to retrieve something from between the gutter and the wheel, and in straightening, bumped into me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said automatically, but she walked away without acknowledgment and was lost to view among the other parents. “Oh, all right then,” I scowled at her back, by now well and truly fed up with the afternoon’s events.
Rosie’s clear voice lifted over the heads of the pedestrians. “Mummy, that lady’s rude.”
“Shh, Rosie! She probably didn’t see me.”
“She did. I saw her see you.”
Unlocking the doors, I hustled her into her seat. “Then perhaps she’s had a bad day, or something’s on her mind.”
“But she wasn’t wearing a hat!” my daughter objected.
I opened my mouth to explain the colloquialism, then decided enough was enough. Theo yawned, exposing pink gums and the tips of his first teeth. “I think we’d better get home. Ollie will be waiting in the paddock and Theo can find some more ants to chew.”
The afternoon’s drama was forgotten the instant Rosie spied her father on the roof of the house on our return.
“When did you get back?” I called up to him, shading my eyes from the afternoon sun. “And what on earth are you doing up there?”
“About an hour ago. You weren’t back so I thought I’d take a look at that slipped tile. Hello, Rosie-posy, how’s my girl?”
“I m
issed you, Daddy.”
Matthew did a controlled slide to the edge of the roof, clung for a second to the eaves box, and dropped the thirty or so feet to the cobbled yard, landing lightly on his feet.
“Don’t do that!” I exclaimed, when I found my voice.
Rosie jumped up and down on the spot. “Daddy’s Spider-Man.”
He picked her up and hugged her, then extended an arm to pull me close, and kissed his son’s sticky cheek. “I wish you would use a ladder like any other person,” I grumbled, but he grinned and ruffled my hair.
“I missed you all. Home is where my family is.”
“Daddy, Theo says he wants a puppy.”
“Does he, indeed?” He tried to look serious. “And I expect you would like a puppy, too?” She nodded vigorously, and I raised a quizzical eyebrow only to be met with his slight frown and shake of the head. I decided distraction would be more effective than an outright “no”, which would only result in a flood of questions.
“Do you think Theo would like to visit Ollie now, Rosie?”
Rosie looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, but he would prefer a puppy. Can we have a puppy, please, Daddy?” She turned blue orbs on her father.
“Sweetheart, we can’t…” he began, already seeing her face fall.
“But we have a puppy,” I pitched in. “Look at his fabulous fur!” And I ruffled Matthew’s hair, making it stand in windblown sheaves of corn-gold. “He looks just like a Golden Retriever.”
“Daddy’s not a puppy!” Rosie objected, giggling despite the pout she tried to adopt as her father pretended to lick her face, but snuffled her neck instead, then rolled onto his back, dragging her with him until she forgot to object and plead in the tangle of laughter and limbs that followed.
The phone was ringing as we tumbled into the kitchen through the back door. Rosie dashed off to the study, and came back after a few minutes with the handset. “It’s Granny,” she said, with an air of importance reminiscent of the Annunciation. Depositing Theo on the floor, I took the phone.
