The World at My Feet

by Catherine Isaac

  ‘You’re definitely feeling ill, aren’t you?’ I ask, as I lead him to the car.

  ‘I feel very funny,’ he says gravely, and although I’m still full of doubts it’s enough for me to open the door, put him in the back and jump in the front.

  It’s been more than three years since I’ve driven a car. My panic is now so sharp I can taste it. I put the keys in the ignition and the urgent whisper of my inner voice makes me freeze. Get back in the house. You can’t do this. You cannot drive a car. Not after three years. Not without another adult present. Get back in the house right now or something very bad is going to happen.

  I turn back, feeling a bead of sweat trickle in a straight line from my armpit all the way down to my waistband.

  ‘Strap your seatbelt on, Oscar.’ Then I check the mirror and put the car into reverse.

  He leans forward. ‘I don’t know how. And where’s the car seat?’

  Another bolt of panic. I consider phoning a taxi, then realise they probably wouldn’t have a car seat either – and that’s before we get onto the thought of Oscar having a meltdown in the back of a stranger’s car. ‘I think if it’s an emergency, you’re okay not to have one. Wait there, I’ll get a cushion.’

  I yank on the handbrake, open the door and run into the annexe, where I grab a couple of cushions. Once Oscar’s seated on them, with the seatbelt fastened around him, I get back in, put the car in reverse again and press my foot gently on the accelerator. When it doesn’t move, I press harder, misjudging the bite point as the car judders back. Even though I quickly snap away my foot, the bumper clips against the stone wall. Oscar shrieks. My blood pools.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ I say, but I’m now actually panting. I close my eyes and take a moment to compose myself. I count steadily from one to five on the out breath, repeating it as I breathe in. I don’t look for distractions. I tell myself I’m going to ride this out.

  ‘Why aren’t we moving?’ Oscar pipes up.

  I put the car in gear and begin to drive.

  * * *

  The journey feels surreal, like watching a speeded-up black and white movie. Every function of my body is misfiring. My knuckles are drained of blood, my muscles are trembling, my arms are cold and rigid. Cars seem to come at me like ghosts in the night, each one making my heart skip and thump and miss the odd beat entirely. Everything I’ve learnt from the past few weeks with Colette, the theory and the logic, now only exists in a compartment of my brain that I can’t access.

  It rubs off on Oscar. He senses my fear, mirrors my anxiety. By the time I am at the car park of the hospital, he has started to sob.

  ‘Please don’t worry, sweetheart,’ I say gently as I open the door.

  I get him out and am halfway across the car park, when I spot a sign saying this is a pay and display. After fumbling in my pockets, I realise I don’t have a penny on me. Why the hell would they make parents bringing their sick children to A&E pay for parking? What sort of money-grabbing—

  I stop and look at Oscar, who begins to cry again. ‘Please don’t worry. Come on, darling. Put your arm around me,’ I say, bending down to hook his hands around my neck as I lift him up. I run across the tarmac, deciding I’ll respond to any parking tickets with a sternly worded letter at a later date.

  We burst into the reception of A&E and discover a queue at the counter, of six adults and what appears to be five patients. I stand at the back and after a minute register how slowly it’s moving. A noise is released from Oscar’s mouth. I can’t tell if it’s a yawn or if he’s gasping for breath. I tap the shoulder of the man in front.

  ‘I’m sorry… I think this child could be seriously ill,’ I tell him. ‘Would you mind?’

  People are kind. I’d forgotten how kind they could be. Each person and their child allows us to move to the front of the queue and I gabble something to the lady at reception, who tells us to take a seat. A nurse calls our name soon afterwards and I carry Oscar into a sparsely decorated triage room. It’s white and clinical, except for an alarming attempt at a Buzz Lightyear mural, in which his slightly wonky face reminds me of some of Salvador Dalí’s early work.

  Oscar sits on my knee and looks at the nurse with wide, frightened eyes.

  ‘Who have we got here?’ she asks cheerily. ‘Hello, Oscar, nice to meet you.’

  She turns to me. ‘Are you Mum?’

  ‘No, I was babysitting,’ I say, dispensing with the introductions to get straight to the point. ‘I gave him some nuts without knowing he had an allergy and I can’t get in touch with his mother to ask how serious it is. He’s had some strange symptoms – he looks red and blotchy and he’s breathing oddly. Also, he feels ill and he’s been dizzy.’

  He nods, verifying my account. ‘And my toe hurts.’

  ‘Is that right?’ she smiles, typing something into the computer. ‘All right, young man, let’s take a look at you.’

  I carry him to the bed, lie him down and take off his shoes. I am wrestling with a Velcro strap when my phone rings. ‘This might be his mum,’ I say, looking at the nurse.

  ‘Take it,’ she says, ignoring all the signs to the contrary.

  I press answer. ‘Mandy. Oh, thank God. I’m in casualty with Oscar. He told me he has a nut allergy and, well, I hadn’t known anything about that so I gave him this entire bowl of peanut butter. Two, in fact. I obviously don’t have an epi-pen and I couldn’t get hold of you—’

  ‘He told you he’s got a nut allergy?’

  I swallow. ‘Yes.’

  She begins to weep. At least, that’s what it sounds like for the first few seconds, until I realise that she can in fact hardly speak for laughing. ‘Oh my God, Ellie. He does not have a nut allergy. Oh, what is he like… you poor thing. Ha!’

  I glance at the nurse, who is taking Oscar’s blood pressure as he lies groaning on the hospital bed. I think of all the children waiting outside, the sympathetic parents who’ve just let us barge past in the name of a medical emergency. I cup my hand over the phone.

  ‘Then why would he say that?’ I hiss.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, composing herself. ‘He doesn’t understand the difference between having an allergy to something and just not liking it. This started when his friend Zachary at nursery – who has got an egg allergy – told Oscar that it meant he didn’t like eggs. Since then Oscar’s gone around telling everyone he has a pear allergy. Or a broccoli allergy. All it means is he doesn’t like it.’

  ‘But he ate an entire bowl of peanut butter,’ I say. ‘He definitely liked that.’

  ‘He’s obviously over that particular phase then. Oh God, I can’t believe you’ve taken him to hospital. Oh Ellie, isn’t he a little bugger?’

  I put the phone down and am forced to explain all this to the nurse, who is remarkably understanding and assures me I did the right thing under the circumstances.

  ‘Why did you tell me you felt funny?’ I ask him, as I’m putting his shoes back on.

  ‘I did,’ he shrugs.

  ‘I think sometimes if grown-ups worry, it rubs off a little,’ says the nurse.

  ‘And I’ve definitely got a sore toe,’ he adds.

  Chapter 50

  Harriet

  Shortly after Ellie’s sixteenth birthday, Harriet was back at work full time and at her desk in Fleet Street. She was about to head to Brixton for the second day running, where riots had broken out following the fatal shooting by armed police of Derek Bennett, a 29-year-old black man. As she stood up and grabbed her jacket, the editor’s secretary Pam appeared at her side.

  ‘Have you got a minute, Harriet? Jerry wants a word.’

  Harriet got on well with her boss. He wouldn’t ever become one of the legendary editors – he was no Harold Evans or Robin Esser. But his editorial judgement was good, and he fought his journalists’ corner with the zeal of a lion, albeit one who’d avoided dirtying his hands as a reporter and climbed the corporate ladder via the subs’ desk. Still, he’d successfully seen off budget cuts, political
interference, awkward advertisers and dealt with some of EC1’s finest drunks – again, usually from the subs’ desk – with a cool head.

  ‘I wondered if you’d consider writing a first-person piece for us,’ he said, as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. ‘I thought it would be interesting to read about your experiences with your daughter. Eleanor, isn’t it?’

  Harriet felt her spine tighten. ‘Elena. Ellie,’ she corrected him.

  ‘I got the idea after reading this,’ he said, tapping on a news article in the Guardian, sitting on his desk. Its title was CEAUSŞESCU’S CHILDREN – what happened next to the Romanian orphans adopted by British couples.

  It detailed an extensive study by Professor Julian Steadman and his team at the British Psychiatric Institute that had been conducted on fifty-five of the several hundred children adopted from Romania and brought to Britain to live. They’d studied the children, not merely in the aftermath of their arrival in the UK, but also their progress in the eight years afterwards.

  The children arrived in the UK with unique problems. The younger ones showed a limited capacity to move and speak and many had difficulty giving and receiving affection. They rocked back and forth and many displayed ‘quasi-autistic’ symptoms. At first, none of the youngsters knew how to play. Going outside was a terrifying experience for many because they were so unused to it.

  The article added that the length of time spent in an institution was the most significant factor in developmental delays and psychiatric problems. Around forty per cent still had contact with mental health services. Professor Steadman was quoted:

  ‘Many of the children have made remarkable progress since being removed from the orphanages, but it is worth noting that sometimes problems can take years to be fully realised. You can’t simply take a child whose entire life has been lived in a tiny cot and suddenly say: “There you go. You have the world at your feet.” The human brain does not work like that.’

  ‘I’m not for a minute suggesting your experience has been like this, obviously,’ said Jerry. ‘From what I hear, Ellie is a terrific girl. Really, I thought it would be good to show the other side of the coin. An unqualified success.’

  Harriet shifted onto her other foot. ‘Would you mind if I said no, Jerry? The thing is, Ellie’s sixteen now. It’s a tricky age. I don’t think she’s one for the limelight.’

  He smiled. ‘Rather like you then?’

  ‘You know me, Jerry. Never become the story.’

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ he chuckled. ‘Okay, don’t worry about it. Thought it worth asking. I’m just glad it’s all worked out for you and the girl. Let me know if you change your mind though, won’t you?’

  She never did. But she would remember that newspaper article often in the coming years. It would spring to mind when Ellie said or did something to remind them that, despite appearances, she wasn’t unaffected. How could she be? But although there had been nightmares and odd but rare incidents in which they would find her quivering, suddenly and for no apparent reason, until the day Harriet received a call from Ellie’s roommate Carolina at university she hadn’t fully appreciated what had been lurking in the shadows of her daughter’s mind.

  Arriving at Ellie’s hall of residence, she and Colin found her pale and trembling in her bed. Harriet packed her bag as Colin led Ellie to the car, like a knight in shining armour, with the eyes of a broken man.

  As Ellie curled in the back, wrapped in a blanket with her temple pressed against the cold window, there were too many questions to say out loud, their worries too big to express. So they drove in silence through the black night as the blur of street lights led them to Chalk View.

  Ellie seemed to recover quickly at home and, though Harriet knew that appearances could be deceptive, she was an optimist. After a few weeks of home-made food, movies on the sofa and time in the garden, Ellie was soothed back to her old self.

  Even though she would never return to university – to Harriet’s quiet dismay – she would ultimately make her way to London and again Harriet would hear herself saying the same words as when she was a child. Ellie was thriving. In fact, she thrived for more than a decade until things started to go wrong again. When Harriet opened the door to Ellie after she’d fled London, her high-flying job and fully functioning life, she knew instantly why she’d returned.

  But it wasn’t until months later, when the glow had returned to her daughter’s cheeks, that Harriet realised Chalk View hadn’t merely become her refuge. It had become her prison. The question she kept asking herself now was: what would it take for Ellie to finally escape for good?

  Chapter 51

  Ellie

  The wedding is at Bosworth House, a glamorous sprawl of a hotel that commands its forest landscape like a Jacobethan dominatrix. We arrive via a long avenue lined with lime trees and classical statues, floodlights guiding us to a large turning circle. Sweeping stone steps lead up to a neatly cropped, lawned terrace. The place is colossal, the ultimate display of Victorian ego, a stately beauty surrounded by lush countryside.

  ‘Wow,’ I say, stepping out of the taxi.

  ‘Like I say, Mimi’s parents are loaded,’ Guy replies, rolling his eyes. But then he spots someone on the stairs and waves. ‘Jimbob!’

  He marches off towards a tuxedoed man lounging on the stone banister, gazing at his phone. There is something Gatsby-esque about the pair, as they chat under the glow of an overhead lamp. Guy’s dinner suit is more formal than anything I’ve seen him in before, yet he owns the look completely – every angle is sharp and tailored, his white shirt crisp against the faded tan of his neck.

  However, as I stand watching him, traces of the orange and neroli oil from his bristles lingering on my cheek where he kissed me briefly in the taxi, I feel uneasy. Not about him, or at least, not just about him. Everything has felt wrong since this afternoon.

  My mind has been in a discombobulated, paranoid state since I returned from the hospital. I spent hours in the bathroom as my stomach churned, convinced I’d never leave. My hand trembled as I tried to put my make-up on and I had to restart the process several times. Even now, the skin under my eyes feels pink and sore.

  As the taxi pulls away, I am left at the side of the circle, acutely aware of my aloneness beneath the swollen sky. I look up and feel the gallop of my heart beneath my ribs. I am suddenly pummelled by the thought that Jamie might be looking at this pink sky too, right at this moment.

  I wonder if he has been thinking about our argument as much as I have. I wonder if he regrets it. A shock of tears springs in my eyes and I blink them away, forcing indignation to billow up again. I glance over to the staircase as Guy slaps a chummy hand into the other man’s, then swings his left palm into a slap between his shoulder blades. Smiles glint. Laughter is released into the air.

  I tell myself that it’s not a bad thing that I’m standing by myself. It’s better like this. I don’t want Guy to go on about how I’m feeling, how I’m doing, like Jamie would. If he was here showing all kinds of concern, it might draw attention to my anxiety. It might indulge it and feed it, like stacking peat on a fire. That’s what I tell myself, at least.

  My heels sink into the gravel as I focus on slowing my lungs, but a shot of sweat pricks under my arms. I tug away the pits of my dress. I’d tried it on dozens of times before tonight and, in the soft light of my bedroom, had been pleased with the way it cinched my waist and how the fabric drifted down my back. Now, it feels scratchy and exposes too much skin.

  ‘Ellie. Over here,’ Guy shouts, beckoning me. I snap out of my thoughts, paste on a smile and tramp towards him, clutching the skirt of my dress.

  ‘Hello!’ I say to his companion. I’m too bright, too loud, too conspicuous.

  ‘Hello there,’ he grins.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and grab a drink,’ Guy says and the two men head up the steps as I trail behind.

  A red carpet leads to the entrance, flanked by flamelights that shimmer o
range and yellow. I find myself floating towards the door, adrift amidst a sea of silk dresses and a fug of perfume. There is a shriek of laughter and music from inside. The evening already has a bacchanalian feel. As we stand in line to be greeted by the bride and groom, I silently, internally chant my own mantra. You will enjoy this. This is wonderful. Exactly what you wanted.

  By the time I’ve smiled and moved down the line saying, lovely to meet you! and have you had a wonderful day? I find I’ve arrived inside without fully knowing how I got here. Now there are more people, friends or family of Guy’s, and he’s talking to them and introducing me to one or two. I think I’m making the right noises, but words and phrases tumble into the room like bubbles, before drifting away, unconnected to one another.

  ‘Darling! Guy! Over here!’ I turn around and see a woman who looks to be in her sixties. She has a wispy, light blonde bob and is deeply tanned, with a line of vivid orange lipstick smeared on her mouth, a fraction outside her lip line. She’s wearing a heavy-set gold necklace that sits amidst a slightly puckered décolletage and, despite being no more than five foot two in block heels, she stomps towards us like she’s preparing to batter down a door with her forehead.

  When Guy says this is his mother I try not to look surprised, even though it is impossible to identify a single physical feature they have in common. He introduces me by name, though gives no explanation that we’re here together, and she responds with a cursory hello, before hooking her arm through her son’s.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she announces, prising him away. Their discussion takes place a few feet from where I’m standing and ends when she plants a kiss on his cheek like a full stop, before wiping off a smear of lipstick with the heel of her hand.