The Sleeping Season

by Kelly Creighton

  Charlotte was in the shower when I let myself in. David was unscrewing a bottle of wine in the kitchen while keeping an eye on the gravy. I was interrupting their monthly date night, every fourth Friday. Timothy went down to sleep at 7.30 p.m. in his own bed. Charlotte was yet to let him sleep over anywhere else; anyway, it was highly unlikely that David’s mum would have him. The arrangement was mutually pleasing yet restrictive at the same time.

  David gave me a glass of wine. He threw a tea towel over his shoulder, stepped backwards to tilt the pan so the oil formed a web. He fried some fish while a cheese-sprinkled baguette breathed under the grill. He may not have been a great father, at least not a bathing, nappy-changing, hands-on kind of one, but he was a good husband to Charlotte. He was a good, old-fashioned father, the kind there didn’t seem to be any more.

  Charlotte was bent this way and that. It was a relief at least to see that she had David, who although he wouldn’t cook for the family and expected her to be a good housewife most of the time, was quite handy when it was date night or her birthday; he even baked cakes. This makes it sound as though she was lucky to have David, maker of meals, hunter-gatherer, but really, she had kept up her end of the bargain. Five babies later and she didn’t look any different from when we were teenagers.

  Charly and I may have been twins but we made sure there were differences. I had my hair long while hers was shoulder length; mine was chestnut brown while she had copper streaks in hers. She had facials, botoxed away the wrinkles; I barely wore make-up. She was proud to be the only mum at school who didn’t wear shapeless grey clobber; I didn’t give a toss what I wore so long as it was comfortable.

  She came down the stairs perfumed and primped, the ends of her hair still damp. A pale blue shirt gaped at her chest and she wore a pair of washed out jeans and peep-toe stilettos; her toenails were painted pillar box red.

  ‘Harry, come here a minute,’ she said. She held out a silver necklace for me to do the clasp. ‘We had a viewer.’

  ‘Probably a time-waster,’ David chirped.

  Their home was on the market. Charlotte couldn’t carry Timothy up to bed any more. They had talked about building an extension to give him a ground-floor bedroom, but they decided to explore the idea of moving house.

  ‘When should you expect to hear if they like the house?’ I asked.

  Charlotte put on the monitor in Timothy’s room; it could tell if he stopped breathing and would sound an alarm.

  ‘The viewers were making all the right noises,’ Charlotte said.

  The doorbell chimed.

  She took my wrists. ‘Listen, we’re having a friend coming round, a fella who David knows from five-a-side.’

  David skipped past us for the door.

  ‘No, Charly, I’m not staying,’ I said.

  ‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘Don’t be awkward.’

  ‘I’m seeing someone,’ I insisted. My boyfriend – known to her too as Paul, not Greg – must have seemed like an apparition.

  ‘When you can’t go to your sister’s house with your boyfriend, you know he isn’t worth it,’ Charlotte said. ‘Or he isn’t real – one or the other.’

  Standing behind David was a very real man. He was about three inches taller than David, so about six feet tall.

  ‘This is Paul,’ Charlotte said with a laugh. ‘An actual Paul,’ she whispered in my ear.

  I felt myself blush as he reached out to shake my hand, the wiry cuff of his winter coat scuffing my wrist. Stupid me, thinking I could be included in date night without an ulterior motive. The only ulterior motive I’d considered was that Charlotte wanted to stick her nose in the River Reede case.

  Paul stood there, smiling, scratching the light stubble on his jaw, looking as uncomfortable as I felt, only he obviously hadn’t had this blind date sprung on him. He had had a chance to spruce himself up. I hadn’t bothered with anything.

  ‘Just in time, mate,’ David said to Paul, hand on his arm. ‘I’m just gonna plate up.’ David walked through to the kitchen and gathered the cutlery. ‘Charly, sweetheart, will you help set the table?’

  They put on a show of married life, when I knew that too many times my sister battled the chores alone, or that David was on at her for buying a new outfit and trying to pass it off as old. He noticed; he noticed everything about his wife. I was only half jealous of this. At least they were still fighting the little things. That was married life, the fight.

  We all sat down, David chattering away, trying to alleviate the awkwardness. We ate the fish he’d prepared; as good as it looked, it tasted metallic. David was talking about this woman who, at the last minute of having her windows fitted, said she had ordered brown UPVC and not white, because she thought the white was cheap-looking.

  ‘I mean, she waited till the last one went in and then she spoke up,’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t you have her order?’ asked Charlotte.

  ‘Yes, and she was absolutely right,’ David said. ‘We put the order through right, but there was a mix-up at the delivery end. When I arrived on-site to help the lads, I thought they’d already checked.’

  ‘Did she kick up?’ asked Paul.

  I imagined he thought the story petty, being an anaesthetist, as Charlotte made sure to tell me straight away as if she was trying to sell me this stranger the way she was trying to sell her home. I certainly found David’s work problems trivial in comparison with my week, but Paul looked interested enough. He was certainly polite.

  ‘The woman was out looking at the windows loads, according to the lads who started the fitting,’ David continued. ‘But then she took me aside, said that it was wrong. They were all sealed in by that time.’

  ‘Stupid woman,’ said Charlotte. ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘The woman said she had noticed but was embarrassed to say. In case she got anybody in trouble.’

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘So then you’re home late.’

  David lifted the gravy boat. ‘You want a double helping?’ he asked, smiling.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Charlotte, but I could tell she was glad, now that their guest was looking at her inquisitively. ‘I think David’s trying to see if you recognise us,’ she said to Paul. He sat slightly open mouthed. ‘Gilberts’ Gravy Granules? You want a second helping?’ Charlotte asked, all animated. I noticed how Paul’s face lit up when my sister spoke.

  We had appeared in just the one advert when we were ten. Mother thought it would be cute, and the novelty of twins was a winner. Then there was an article in the paper about us being the kids of the Chief of police. That was the end of our acting careers.

  ‘Yes, I know now,’ Paul said. ‘That advert was out again quite recently, wasn’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘It was Gilberts’ twenty-fifth anniversary,’ I said.

  That had been a nightmare, a couple of years earlier, being at Strandtown station and noticing the billboards on Pomona Street with my own face smiling back at me in innocent amusement.

  Paul smiled at me. Charlotte was murmuring something to David to give Paul and I a chance to talk and pretended she wasn’t paying attention to us.

  ‘You work for the PSNI?’ Paul asked.

  He’d obviously had the low-down already. I could have killed Charlotte. I could be at home waiting for Greg to phone. Maybe he’d even call round if he could get away from work. We’d started to watch a boxset together and that was enough for me.

  ‘Yes, I’m a Detective Inspector,’ I told Paul.

  ‘She’s going to be promoted again soon,’ Charlotte said, looking self-satisfied.

  ‘Don’t … It’s not confirmed,’ I said.

  ‘You must feel great, getting promoted,’ said Paul.

  ‘You’d think,’ I replied, ‘but really you just get a whole new set of insecurities.’

  David poured more wine; I asked him for soda water for mine. Paul was offering to drop me home if I wanted to drink. The subtext was obviously that I’d maybe invite him in. That was one of th
e things I hated about men my own age; if they had got to their mid-thirties and were still single, the desperation just reeked off them. They were always trying to close the deal. They’d often try to impress me with their jobs and their cars: ‘I’m a partner, so I’m kind of tied into my career, and I’m driving a Boxster these days.’

  But men talking to other men was what really took the biscuit, how they competed over jobs and family, who worked the hardest. Keepie-uppies. Greg was unaware of competition in that regard; it was part of my attraction to him. There wasn’t a self-conscious bone in his body. He drove an average, typical car, worth far less than he could afford and he never boasted about his position.

  Paul, on the other hand, was young, broad-shouldered, with beautiful blue eyes and blond hair. He caught me with a smile when I looked at him. But he’d managed to fit in that he drove a BMW and owned a kit car he’d put together himself.

  ‘Harriet, Paul has just completed a triathlon,’ David said.

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘What made you do that?’

  ‘I like to set myself physical targets. Plus it’s something to talk about at dinner parties.’

  I laughed, unimpressed. ‘Well worth the effort then.’

  After dinner, the men went out for a drive in the kit car.

  ‘What’s your deal with Paul?’ Charlotte asked me. ‘He’s a honey and he likes you.’

  ‘You better stop before you gush yourself into the ground, Charly,’ I replied.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell them off for driving? They’ve both had a drink,’ she said.

  ‘I’m off-duty, thanks. And I’m not saying I don’t like him. I’m just not interested.’

  ‘You’re never going to have a kid at this rate.’

  What good was it doing Mother in Bethany Nursing Home that she had five kids? And there was Timothy upstairs, his whole family having to uproot to accommodate him.

  ‘When are you next going to visit Mummy?’ I asked Charlotte.

  ‘I’m busy this week. Timothy’s got the doctor’s. Go by yourself,’ she said. ‘Mum’d love to see you. Doesn’t always have to be us together.’

  ‘Charly, have you ever not loved Timmy … because of his handicap?’ I asked.

  ‘Handicap? He’s not Rory McIlroy!’

  ‘I mean disability.’

  She laughed. ‘Fucken hell!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She squinted at me. ‘Sometimes. I suppose. In answer to your question. But most of the time I love him more because of it. Why do you ask anyway? Is it Mum? Is it the Huntington’s? Coral’s talking again about the rest of us getting tested.’

  There was a fifty-fifty chance that we would inherit the disease. It was in a box I’d locked up and disowned. Charlotte hated to face it too.

  ‘River Reede.’

  ‘That little boy gone missing?’ said Charlotte. ‘You working on that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘His poor mum. I know her, you know. She runs a breastfeeding group at the community centre.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Yeah, and she’s a right bitch.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Oh yeah! When I couldn’t feed Timothy, before we knew … she was on at me to keep trying. At the time it made sense with the low muscle tone. Plus I don’t sweat.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Sweat glands is all they are. Have you ever seen me sweat?’

  Thinking back to when we were at school, Charly would get slightly pink around the cheeks after playing in netball tournaments. The other girls would grudgingly get into the shower afterwards but Charly would refuse. ‘See, fresh as a daisy,’ she’d say, lifting an arm. ‘Don’t sweat.’

  ‘But you didn’t breastfeed the others, did you?’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘Was it obvious?’

  ‘Believe me, H, you’d know,’ she said. ‘Breastfeeding mums make sure they tell you. No, that’s a lie – they ask first if you breastfeed. If you don’t, they look at you like you’re a monster. If you say you did, they ask how long you did it for. Fuck, I even told someone I had when I hadn’t. They asked how long and I said three months. She said, get this, sometimes I wonder why I bothered doing it for a year when no one else bothers.’

  ‘Surely it’s personal choice.’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Tell the midwives that. Even I caved with number five. Last chance to do things right. And it was fucken horrendous. Timothy had to go back into the hospital – UV lights, lost too much weight.’

  ‘I remember. Where did you meet River’s mum? Was it at the community centre?’

  ‘She’d just had a baby too and was feeding him. Everyone else had a shawl over them or tried to be discrete, but she just sat there, titties out. And her husband! Now, he was a creep. The beast from the east I called him. Not to his face.’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘He was taking photos, making them black and white, and she was posting them on Facebook. A few mums complained.’

  ‘Which community centre?’

  ‘In East Belfast, Connswater. Zara was really Breastapo. Smoked like a chimney, too.’

  ‘You sound like Daddy.’

  ‘Breastfeeding nicotine should be a crime,’ Charlotte said. ‘I get that breastfeeding is great if you eat and drink well. Some of the diets they were on would have made you sick. I remember, there was this girl, about nineteen, and she was admitted back to hospital. She had awful problems and was pumped full of meds. Nearly died. I bumped into her at Forestside a few months later. It turned out that this Reede woman made her feel awful about not breastfeeding her child, turned up at the hospital and told her that she had to keep breastfeeding. I mean, give the girl a break! The baby couldn’t come into hospital with her mum, so the granny had the child. Well, didn’t Zara go round claiming that Kassie told her to breastfeed the child, like a wet nurse. Zara sat in the child’s bedroom, whapped her tit out and fed the child. They have this sense of superiority because they can breastfeed. It’d be like me boasting that I never had postnatal depression, you know?’

  ‘So you never had postnatal depression?’

  She laughed. ‘Was that not obvious either? No, I had depression alright when Timothy was diagnosed, but that was circumstantial, grief-dependent.’

  ‘Do you think Zara Reede suffered from postnatal depression?’

  ‘Who knows. They were saying on the radio the other day that it can sometimes take four years to come out of PND. In some ways I was really lucky – five kids and no sign of depression. Mostly lucky.’

  I thought about the last time I had been talking to Zara. She said she didn’t want to leave the house, so a neighbour brought her breastmilk to the hospital for her. This was what she had been doing since River refused the breast a couple of years earlier – donating milk. The night before Raymond died the hospital had sent someone to collect it. They used it for preemies. Even with all her own problems going on, Zara still sat morning and night with that pump on her nipple like a martyr.

  When David and Paul came back from their drive, we all had coffee. Paul was still looking at Charlotte as if he was infatuated with her. He seemed to have a Pavlovian response to her, watching any parts of her where her skin was exposed. I was sure David must have noticed; maybe he was proud. Paul was one of those men who saw himself as a family man, who wanted to have it all. Just like someone else I used to know.

  Paul’s reaction to Charly was more sexual than the way Jason used to look at his brother Alex and his sister-in-law when we were in their company, like there was the picture he wanted to be part of. It rendered him speechless and jealous as hell. Aren’t we all jealous of something?

  But I missed Alex and Verity. It had been a relief to get shot of the people who made my life worse, but what I hadn’t realised was that I’d also have to get rid of some good people too. It was tough, but you had to cut them out too, you had to remove some of the good tissue to make sure
you obliterated the cancer.

  *

  At three o’clock that morning I was a little girl again, dreaming about dropping down by Jamesy’s side, angling my ankles away from his giant swollen hands. I wrenched Father’s Barbour off his head; those eyes, which I expected to be milky, were technicolor blue, and fixed in a somehow familiar hooded gaze.

  That night, Jamesy wasn’t another variation of the same theme; he wasn’t River, nor Timothy, nor Brooks. He was Mother, looking unfocused at a spot in the cooling dirty white sky behind me, her flesh goose-pimpled from all her years floating.

  When I jolted awake, I turned the volume up on the telly and sat with my arms circled around my knees on the sofa. I allowed myself to think about Mother for once.

  Despite Diane Linskey saying that no change was good, there was nothing good about it. Mother was seventy and had been in a nursing home for ten years already. Huntington’s was taking its time with her, longer than anyone had thought, or wanted. And what was so bad about that? How awful did it sound that I wanted it to be over? If I sniffed the sadness hard enough it could go all the way into my lungs.

  Mother had become forgetful. She scalded her legs with hot spud water one family Sunday dinner, Sunday dinners which incidentally stopped at the same time as her diagnosis. She was the thread that held the family together.

  Father had gathered us in the drawing room of the old house: marble, fires and bread. We were seated loosely around the room. I remember noticing how the sofa seemed to be holding her up. Father was on the opposite end, already distancing himself from her. Then he told us about her Huntington’s, his language laced with self-pity, though never again after. We’re all allowed an off-day, I suppose.

  And Mother, she looked utterly lost. Traceless.

  Addam was telling us that God never did anything without a reason. I wondered what these mysterious reasons might be. How Addam could continue to defend them? He hated homosexuality; he was opposed to abortion; he was supposed to be about love; yet he was the sibling I felt least loved by. Too many stipulations came with his love.