Marshmallows for Breakfast

by Dorothy Koomson

  I hadn't seen Kyle again. He'd clearly abandoned them at breakfast. Had he abandoned them today as well? I hadn't heard anything from them or from the house after I left… More scenarios danced across my mind.

  I stood up, marched across my flat to the top of the stairs, ready to run down, throw open the door and march across the courtyard to the house to double-check that things were as they should be. That the children had eaten, had been bathed, had been communicated with. It was my duty as a neighbor, as a human being. You heard it all the time after a tragedy—people saying they had a feeling that things didn't seem right but had ignored the feeling, and things had ended in a hospitalization or worse.

  I paused at the top of the stairs. They're not your children, I reminded myself. It's nothing to do with you. You. Are. The lodger.

  Besides, Kyle didn't seem the type to hurt his children. Whatever the “type” was. He seemed to care about them. He'd been nice to me. The look of horror at frightening me crossed my mind. He doesn't seem the type. And there was a huge gulf between abusive neglect and neglecting a child because you're struggling to cope. They may well be two different points along the same continuum, but it was a continuum I hadn't ever struggled along so how could I know how easy it would be to ignore your children when it was all too much? Maybe Saturday was just a bad day. Maybe they were sleeping today. Maybe you should mind your own business.

  With that final thought, I forced my body to go back to the sofa, pick up the remote and turn up the sound on the television to drown out the deadening silence.

  My worry about the Gadsboroughs was probably fueled by procrastination, if I was honest. I had something I had to do and I didn't want to do it. I had a letter to write. I should have written it a month or so ago, but in the panic of leaving Sydney, finishing up at work and training my replacement, there hadn't been time.

  Now I had time on my hands and I had to do it. And I couldn't. The paper, which sat on the coffee table in front of me, seemed vast and wide. Appropriate since I had an immense amount to say. Yet, so far I'd managed a small blue dot on the top right-hand corner of the page. That was where I'd pressed the nib of the pen when I started to write the date, then decided against it in case I didn't finish the letter for a while. I'd taken the pen away, and stared at the sheet knowing I couldn't write my address because he might track me down. That was the sort of thing he would do. Find out where I was, try to tell me he didn't blame me or— worse—that he loved me. That no matter what, he loved me. I couldn't face that. I felt guilty enough without knowing he didn't hold me responsible for ruining his life.

  So, no date and no address later, I'd hit another stumbling block. I wasn't sure if I should go for “dear,” which felt too formal, or “hi,” which felt too casual. And then I'd thought of just writing his name and I'd frozen. I couldn't do it. I'd been petrified by the thought of committing to paper the fact I had a relationship with him so close I could use his first name in any context. It was something most of us took for granted, using someone's first name. But it was an implied intimacy, a closeness that at moments like this said so much. At that point I'd tossed aside the notepaper and pen and went back to worrying about the family across the courtyard.

  And now, I didn't know what to do with myself.

  In frustration, I stood up. I stretched my five-foot four-inch body, enjoying the pull in the muscles of my back, stomach, arms and legs. My shoulder-length hair swung loose as I threw my head back. I was momentarily free. As though I was stretched beyond the confines of my physical body. All that existed of me were molecules that could reach up and touch the sky, that could push down into the center of the earth.

  I picked up the remote, flicked through the channels. Finding nothing that grabbed my attention, I walked over and switched off the television.

  Bed. I'll go to bed. Sleep this off.

  I was probably still a bit jet-lagged. It'd only been a week since I got back, and I'd been working right up until two days before I left Sydney. And since I'd gotten back I'd been exploring Brockingham, had been acquainting myself with its transport system, winding side streets and little shops. I'd traveled to where I used to live in west London to have my plaits taken out and have my hair straightened. I'd also been into work for a couple of hours on Thursday and Friday. All of it—not easing myself into things—was probably adding to my ennui, my tension, my frustration. I hadn't slept a whole night through in weeks and tomorrow was the first day of my first full week back being a recruitment consultant. A good few hours in bed, listening to music, would be soothing.

  I lay on the bed, flat on my back, spreading out, turning myself into a human starfish under the white duvet, trying to fill as much of the bed as I could. Peter Gabriel's low, husky voice enveloped the room as “In Your Eyes” started. It was 5:30 p.m. and darkness had already bled into the sky, inking out the world beyond my blinds.

  Closing my eyes I started to float on the words of the song: emptiness. Running away. Going back to the place where you started.

  The memories started as frozen frames, images that imprinted themselves on my mind like clicks of a camera.

  Click. The feel of that soft patch of skin at the nape of his neck.

  Click. The warmth of his body under my fingertips.

  Click. The intensity of his eyes.

  I snapped open my eyes, thinking that would stop them, that would be the way to fight off the memories, return them to the darkness where they belonged. They kept coming. Slowly turning from frames to moving images.

  Click. The brush of his lips on the well at the base of my throat.

  Click. The curve of his mouth as he said, “I could be with you forever.”

  Click. His hands as they tugged my top over my head.

  Click. His slight gasp as his eyes ran over my seminaked body.

  I stopped fighting it, allowed the clicks of memories to keep flashing up behind my eyes. Memories of him. Mem o ries of us. Memories of who I was when I was with him.

  I surrendered myself to the remembering. It was easier than fighting. And, right now, I had very little fight left in me.

  I woke up with a start, with a scream at the back of my throat and terror branded onto my heart.

  There was someone in my room. I could feel it.

  Or maybe someone had touched me. Either way, there was definitely someone there. My eyes snapped open when I was already half upright. It was still dark in my room so I had no idea what time it was. My heart raced as I reached for the bedside lamp to shed light into the room, to chase away the darkness and reassure myself there was no one there.

  The light came on and I jumped all over again, a strangled cry of shock escaping from my mouth. There was someone in my room. Someones.

  Summer. Jaxon.

  They stood about two feet away from the bed, near the open door.

  They were only recently out of bed, I realized as I stared at them: Summer was wearing an old- fashioned nightdress— greyed white flannel with frilly collar and cuffs and vines of tiny pink flowers crawling over it—and her hair was a sleep-mussed mass of black on her head. Jaxon was wearing blue and red Spider-Man pajamas that stopped a few inches shy of his wrists and ankles, his hair stood on end and his face was still puffed up with sleep.

  Twice in three days they'd broken into my flat. Twice they had scared the life out of me. I had definitely locked the front door—I'd triple-checked, like I always did. Moving the key in the lock again and turning the knob of the Yale lock to ensure that they were in place. That I was safe. That any danger was outside. Sometimes, like last night, I'd wake up, worried that I'd forgotten to check, and would go to quadruple-check that the door was locked and the windows were secure. All so that this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't wake up, terrified because uninvited guests had decided to drop by. My heart took its time slowing down to a steady canter. I raised my knees to my chest and blinked my eyes clear, tightly weaving together my fingers over my knees as I waited patiently for this scenario
to play itself out. If things ran true to form, Kyle would come racing up the stairs and into the bedroom any moment now to herd out his children like a shepherd recapturing two stray sheep. Then he'd offer me a genuine and heartfelt apology that was essentially meaningless. Yes, he was sorry, but it'd happened again: his children were inside my home. I was of the mind that woven into the letters of sorry was the meaning: “it won't happen again.” If it did happen again, you probably weren't that sorry.

  Maybe I will ask him for the spare keys to my flat back, I thought, because any more of these little “visits” and my life expectancy is going to be severed in half.

  A minute passed. And another. No Kyle.

  I glanced beyond the children, into what I could see of the living room, just in case he was lurking in there, too embarrassed to cross the threshold of my room. Nothing. It was empty.

  I refocused on the children. Jaxon had stuck his thumb in his mouth. I'd never seen a six-year-old boy do that. His other hand worried at the bottom of his Spider-Man pa-jama top, twisting it around and around his forefinger, as though trying to burrow into the thin stretch- jersey material. His navy-green eyes, ringed with shades of brown, were glazed over and were staring fixedly at a point near my feet. Summer had Hoppy, her blue bunny, in her hands and was twisting at Hoppy's left ear. Twisting it forwards, twisting it backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, as though trying to wring something out of it. She was facing me but her eyes weren't seeing me. They were staring through me, focused on the headboard behind me. Her cheeks were marked by thin, shiny tracks of tears.

  Oh.

  In that instant I knew I should be throwing back the covers, spinning my legs over the side of the bed and stepping down onto the rug beside the bed, standing up, pulling on clothes, going over to the main house.

  I knew what I should be doing, but I couldn't. This was how nightmares began. How I became immersed in a horror I couldn't stop. A moment when the sense of disaster began whispering in my ear, writing across my chest. If I moved, it might become a reality. If I didn't move, I could be wrong. Kids were always being woken up by bad dreams that made them cry. Dreams that drove them out of their beds and into their parents’ rooms. I could be wrong about this.

  “What's the matter?” I asked.

  Summer rubbed at her eye with the palm of her hand. She was so pale the dark green and blue veins that branched out from her neck and curved over her jaw line stood out like jagged, badly penned tattoos. Jaxon continued to suck at his thumb, his line of sight never straying from my feet.

  Even as I willed her to say “I had a bad dream” my heart rate began to gallop. Speeding in my chest, faster than it had when I turned on the light a few minutes ago. It battered in my ears, pounded in my head, drummed in my throat. Please say bad dream, please say bad dream.

  “You have to come to our house,” Summer said, her voice so weary it sounded as though it was about to collapse under the weight of its troubles.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Her eyes persisted in staring through me, as her small rosebud lips opened. “You have to come to our house,” Summer repeated. “My daddy won't wake up.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Will he be blue?

  Lying on the sofa? On the floor? Was it his heart? Did someone get in the house and do something to him? Did he decide it was all too much and end it all? Will he be cold? How long has he been gone? These thoughts circled my head like a flock of bloodthirsty vultures as I walked across the courtyard. I'd never seen a dead body before. Why did this have to be the first?

  With gentle verbal prodding and coaxing, I'd managed to get an explanation from Summer as to what had happened. Jaxon had stayed shrouded in his silence, his thumb still in his mouth, although he closely monitored my reaction to their story. Summer had heard a noise downstairs when she woke up. She went to her dad's room to ask him what the noise was but found his bed empty. So she'd gone to get Jaxon and, together, they'd gone to investigate. The noise was the television. Their dad was lying on the sofa and the television was on. Summer had shaken him, tried to wake him up to tell him he'd left the television on. But nothing. Jaxon tried. They shook him. They called his name, but nothing. They'd sat down on the floor, waiting for him to wake up, had gone back to sleep beside him, but he hadn't woken up. In the end they'd decided to come and get me. To see if I could wake him up. They'd used a chair to stand on to open and unlock the back door, then had come over to my flat. Used the spare keys— they knew where they were kept—to get in.

  Once I'd heard the story, all the while feeling ice-cold fear trickling in a thin, steady stream down my spine, I'd asked the kids to wait for me in my living area, flicked on the tele vision, found some early morning cartoons for them and went to change. I could have worn the jogging bottoms, T-shirt and black fleece that I slept in, but I'd decided to get dressed to give myself time to prepare. To steady myself. With trembling hands I'd pulled on underwear, jeans, T-shirt and a black V-neck sweater. All the while, You should have done something, you should have done something. You should have done somethingwas the thought being screamed over and over in my ears.

  If I'd just gone over yesterday, talked to him, talked to them, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

  Dressed but no less terrified, I'd returned to the living room. The first thing that hit me was the scent of alcohol. It wasn't strong or overpowering, simply a waft of the slightly stale, acidic smell that caught my nose. I hadn't had a drink since I'd moved in, there was no alcohol in the flat, so why did the living room smell of booze? Beer. Yes, beer. I'd glanced at the kids, but they hadn't moved, were sitting in the same position, staring blank-eyed at the television.

  I'd sniffed again and it was gone.

  After I told their blank faces to wait for me in the flat and that I'd be back soon, I'd started my trip across the courtyard. It was only a few meters, but in reality it was the journey of a lifetime. A journey that would change my life forever. Once I'd seen Kyle's body—a dead body—that would be it. There'd be no going back to the person I was before. That moment would be one of those indelible marks on my soul. Another scar that would never quite heal. God knows what it had already done to the two six-year-olds waiting in the flat.

  As I approached, I saw their maple wood back door was still ajar from where they'd left and I gently pushed it open, taking a deep breath. The house was still as I stepped over the threshold, my heart racing in my ears, a loud drumbeat that drowned out everything. I was holding my breath, I realized as I crossed the wooden-floored kitchen, moving to the far door, the door that led to the corridor. I stopped, forced myself to exhale, forced myself to start breathing. A ragged, shallow in-and-out that resided in the upper part of my chest, it was the best I could do, but at least it was breathing. The stripped wood flooring continued out of the kitchen into the corridor, pointing me towards Kyle. At the end of the corridor was the front door with the chain slung across as security. It didn't look as if someone had broken in. A few steps in front of the front door was the staircase, and in the space between the staircase and front door was another door, which was shut. Closer to where I was, to my left there was another door that was open. I guessed that was where he was. I couldn't imagine the kids shutting the door behind them as they left to get me.

  As I moved closer to the open door it occurred to me that I should call the police. But the need to know was stronger than going through the formalities. Once I knew, had confirmed what the three of us suspected, I'd know how to treat the children. I'd think of something to say, some way to protect them until this part was over. I didn't want a police officer, a complete stranger, to tell them. I was a virtual stranger, but not a total stranger.

  At the doorway I hesitated, wondering if I should think again. Go call the police. They were trained to do this sort of thing, I wasn't. I was trained to recruit people, not deal with …

  Summer and Jaxon's emptied faces came to mind. The hollowness of their stares, the hopelessness s
moothed over their expressions. They'd already done this. They had no choice in the matter. If they can do it, so can you, I scolded myself.

  The living room was incredibly large. It used to be two rooms—a domed archway marking the wall that had been removed to create one bright airy space. There was a dining area at the back, in the living area there were two sofas and two armchairs, all in a soft- looking burnt- butter leather, arranged in a square facing the television, which was squawking noisily by the window.

  I saw the soles of his feet first. On the sofa nearest the door, his feet were facing towards the door, one slightly crossed over the other, the left foot on top. My heart all but froze as I looked at the network of small lines on his feet. I opened my mouth, started breathing heavily, trying to calm myself and at the same time not pitch forwards into hyperventilating. I was on that knife-edge between pure calm and total hysteria. And then it happened. It clicked in. I lost all feeling in my body as I decided to leave. I went to that place, that little corner where I was always safe. Always calm. Always protected. Protected from every nasty little thing in the world.

  None of this was difficult anymore because I wasn't scared. I could do this. I had to, so I was going to. I stepped forwards, one foot in front of the other, aware with every step, every move forwards, of the overpowering smell of alcohol that saturated the air.

  I continued to take more steps right towards the center of the room until I was closer to the sofa. And, oh, my, God. Oh my God!

  The area around the sofa was crammed with bottles and bottles of alcohol. Bottles and cans of alcohol. Small green flasks of gin, large clear bottles of vodka, amber bottles of whiskey, brown bottles of beer, a few green bottles of white wine, a couple of dark bottles of red wine. A smattering of cans. Mainly spirits, though. They were like a moat around the sofa. That was why my flat smelled of it—the scent had clung to Summer and Jaxon, hitched a ride on their clothes, twisted itself into the strands of their hair and the pores of their skin. Amongst the sea of booze bottles and cans I could make out the two crescent shapes the kids had made so they could lie down beside their father. Lie down and wait for their father—who had quite clearly and purposefully drunk himself to death—to wake up.