There was a time, of course, when I would have been the same, the knowledge of their visit would have sent me to the scales, to working out how many calories I could get away with eating without alerting Joel to the fact I was restricting, to spend half the morning trying on different outfits to see which one would say, ‘Not trash’ or at least, ‘Not fat trash’. Since that day, things like that aren’t important any more.
*
They arrive in their old Ford Fiesta and have smiles on their faces as they walk through the door, hug the children and sit down and accept tea with the triple chocolate (white, dark and milk) banana muffins I made earlier.
I notice almost straight away the assessment of my wrongdoings has begun: the lingering gaze on Zane’s hair tells me it’s the wrong type of haircut for them; the uncertain stare at Phoebe’s upper arms reveals to me that there is too much flesh on display there, and the look at Aunty Betty tells me that it’s business as usual, despite her outfit. Once upon a time, my anxiety would have me babbling, constantly on my feet, hissing to Phoebe to put a cardigan on, willing Zane’s hair to grow, wondering how I could make Aunty Betty acceptable. Once upon a time, that once upon a time I had a husband who knew how to help me reframe my anxiety.
‘These fairy cakes are lovely, Saffron,’ Joel’s mum says. It might have been me being so traumatised by Phoebe’s pregnancy, the letters, the fight with Fynn, and the photo, but even to my Mackleroy-criticism-trained ear, she sounds like she means it.
‘Thank you,’ I reply, waiting for the slight, the backhanded part of the compliment that comes with almost everything she says to me.
‘Did you come up with the recipe yourself?’ she asks.
Why would she think that? I look at the children – which one of them has told her what I’ve been doing? Phoebe is smiling banally, probably counting down the seconds until she can escape back to her phone and her room, while simultaneously wondering if someone’s going to tell on her to people she’s actually scared of. It’s Zane.
‘Erm, yes,’ I say. ‘I’ve been experimenting with different ingredients with varying degrees of success.’ I’ve been looking for the perfect blend of flavours, the one that used to be Joel, I want to tell her. And when I find it, everything will be all right. He’ll come back to me, to us. I won’t be selfish, you know, I’ll share him with you, it’s only fair since you brought him up. ‘How did you know?’
‘Zane told me,’ she says. Before I can silently ask my son what possessed him to tell her this, she smiles at me. In response, I stare at her, transfixed. It’s such a beautiful smile, one that our wedding photographer captured as she adjusted Joel’s buttonhole minutes before the ceremony, one that she often gave to her son when she thought no one was looking. Her face, so set with the lines that sorrow has scored upon it, is suddenly alive with this smile – her eyes gentle and open, her lips slightly parted to show some of her teeth. The beam rips my breath away, and I have to look down because tears are spiking behind my eyes.
I didn’t realise, not until this second, that I’ve longed for even the briefest glimpse of niceness from her.
‘You’ll have to give me the recipe,’ she says.
‘Right, yes. OK.’ I cannot lift my gaze for fear of her smiling at me again and making me cry.
‘Phoebe,’ Joel’s dad says, making all of us jump. ‘How’s school?’
‘It’s good, Grandpa,’ she says. Sweetness and light. She can definitely turn it on for the people she’s actually afraid of.
‘Have you decided where you want to go to university yet?’ he asks. Even if I wasn’t on the verge of sobbing, I couldn’t look up now. He asked her this the last time he saw her, well over six months ago, and she’d given him the stock answer of having to see which university had the best reputation for the course she wanted to do. What would she say now? Actually, Grandpa, I’m pregnant so I may be delaying uni for a while, if not for ever because I’m going to be having a baby. Yes, that’s right, I’m no better than my piece of trash mother.
‘Erm, no, not yet.’
‘Well, don’t leave it too long,’ he says, good-naturedly. ‘It does a person good to have a clear path in life. Even if it does take some pleasant detours along the way … Don’t you think, Saffron?’
Me? He was talking to me? In that tone? As if anything I thought meant anything to him and them and the world? ‘Erm, yes, I suppose so,’ I say without facing him, either. If I look at him and he’s smiling, I will have a breakdown. There are things that can send a person over the edge, and after eighteen months of nothingness, of business as usual with a side order of ‘what if he hadn’t met you, would this have happened to him?’, sudden pleasantness is not something I can assimilate or process at all.
Aunty Betty has been strangely quiet, too. The tension we always seem to have in the air is coming from us, I realise, each of us waiting for our turn in front of the firing squad. Something is not right, here. I knew this before with Phoebe in the lead-up to finding out she was pregnant but I ignored it. I glossed over it because in the midst of everything, in the process of ‘moving on’ like a good bereaved person is meant to, I was jealous she was happier, I was grateful that she seemed to have moved on when I couldn’t even contemplate it.
Something is wrong now, the world is off-kilter.
Before I know it, before I can tell myself I am being ridiculous and paranoid, I am on my feet. ‘Zane, Sweetheart, can you come and help me with something upstairs, please?’ I ask him.
He glances down at where he’s left his DS, looks at each of his grandparents, then warily he rises. I’m right. It’s a wrench in my already mangled stomach, but I’m right.
*
In his bedroom, I shut the door. His room is neat, tidy, everything slotted away in its rightful place even though I only do a minimal clean, vacuum and take the laundry down. He keeps it tidy himself, returns toys to their shelves, pulls his duvet over in the mornings, folds his pyjamas and leaves them neatly on his pillow – his dad’s influence, in the main, but his own conscientiousness spurring on the rest.
I smile at him as we sit on his bed together. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I haven’t paid you enough attention and I’m sorry.’ I slip my arm around his shoulders, pull him towards me and gently kiss the top of his head. There’s a stopper in my throat, preventing me from speaking properly, and there’s a knife in the centre of my heart, stopping me from doing what I have to do. Is this how it felt for Joel? Knowing you’re bleeding to death, knowing what is coming is inevitable but being powerless to stop it? Knowing that at this point, there is nothing you can do.
‘It’s all a bit much at the moment, isn’t it?’ I say to him. ‘With Phoebe, with Aunty Betty, the drama last week, my car, me running around trying to fix things – it’s too much, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ he says and I’m grateful at least, he can admit that. He’s not going to pretend any longer.
I inhale, gathering strength from the ability to pull air into my body. ‘Do you want to go and stay with Granny and Grandpa for a while?’ I ask him. I do not breathe, do not move, do not even think as I wait for his answer.
It takes him all the time in the world to screw up his courage and tell me he doesn’t want to be here any more. He doesn’t want to be with me any more. ‘Yeah,’ he whispers.
Is this how Joel felt, when the knife was first inserted into his being? Like nothing could ever hurt this much?
‘OK, Baby, OK.’ On Tuesday I’ll need to call St Caroline’s, but they have been so considerate, offering support and staggered school days, I’m sure they’ll understand now. I have to pack him enough stuff for his time away. I’ll have to give Joel’s parents some money. I’ll have to find a way to file this away in my mind and my heart, to remind myself for every second of every day until he comes home that this is for the best, so I don’t spend the next few days breaking down if I see a young boy in the street.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ he says quietly.
I tug him as near to me as possible, surround him with all the love I have for him, press my lips against his forehead again. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s me that’s sorry that I didn’t notice earlier that you need a time out. If staying with your grandparents is what you want for now, then that’s fine.’
‘Can I come home whenever I want?’
‘Yes, of course. This isn’t for ever, you’re coming home really soon. Any time you want. Even if it’s the middle of the night, call me and I’ll come and get you.’
‘For honestly, real?’ He hasn’t said that since he was six. His dad, on the other hand, said it right up until he died.
‘Absolutely. Any time you need me, even if you just want to talk to me, just call me.’ I drop another kiss onto his head. ‘In fact, it’s a condition of you going that you call me at least once a day. And, at least once every few days, you must call in the middle of the night for a chat and to complain about something. OK? Deal?’
I raise my hand and he averts his mortified face when he realises I was going for a high-five. Suitably shamed, I lower my hand and hug him instead.
‘Right, I’d better get on with packing some stuff for you,’ I say briskly, to cover the sound of the earthquake happening in my heart. ‘Can you go down and get Granny to come up for a minute so I can talk things through with her?’
‘Is this for honestly, real OK, Mum?’ Zane asks.
‘Yes, it’s for honestly OK. It’ll do you good to have some time with them, but I’m telling you this like I’m going to tell Granny, you’re coming back really soon, OK? This isn’t for ever. It’s a bit of a holiday while things calm down. OK? Go on now, get Granny and I’ll get packing.’
*
‘Zane isn’t your second chance,’ I say to her when she has crossed the threshold and shut the door.
‘I know that, Saffron,’ she says, still with the pleasant tone that revealed she had been speaking to my son and they were buttering me up to convince me they could take care of him in my place.
I am arranging his clothes in neat piles on his bed. I’m packing fourteen of everything, so he can stay for up to two weeks without needing stuff washed. Under his clothes, hidden from view, I have put his memory box of Joel. I gave them both the A4-size boxes with individual photos of them with their dad, and the same group photo of them at the beach hut. I also put in a notebook, a pen and a note saying how much he loved them. It was the best I could do and I’d told them to fill it with whatever they wanted and I would never look in there. They could show me things, but it was their space to fill however they chose. Zane would need it if he was away from home, and he could maybe add stuff from his grandparents’ place.
‘Well, I don’t think you do, actually,’ I say. ‘He may look like Joel did before he met me, when Joel was all yours, but Zane isn’t Joel. Zane is his own person. And he’s not your son.’
Her hand, placed tenderly on my shoulder, causes me to jump. ‘I know that, Saffron,’ she repeats, kindly.
‘And this isn’t for ever. I’ve told Zane that, and I’m telling you, this is only for a short while and then he’s coming back home. Because this is his home.’
‘I know.’
I can’t start crying in front of her. It’s always felt wrong to do so. No matter how she’s treated me over the years, no matter how she treats me now, she has lost her only child. I don’t know how I’d cope with that. It’d be churlish to cry in front of her, knowing that I could, theoretically, find another husband but she’ll never find another son.
‘I’ve told him, too, that he has to call me at least once a day. The day that passes without me speaking to him is the day I come and get him, is that clear?’
She nods.
‘Good,’ I say, aware that she still has her hand on my shoulder, probably the first time she has touched me so gently. ‘And don’t say anything bad about me to him. He will tell me, he will hate you for it and I will come and get him.’
‘We wouldn’t do that,’ she protests, but at least she has the grace to not sound hurt or incredulous that I would suggest such a thing.
‘Yes you would. So just … just cut out the snide remarks. If you’ve got another issue with me then take it up with me and leave Zane out of it.’
‘Fine. Yes.’
I have her on the ropes, she’d agree to anything right now. Admit you’ve been an unfair bitch to me all these years, I should say. Admit that I was actually good enough for your son.
‘We’re going to look after him,’ she says and I snap back to the stark reality where my son is leaving. ‘That’s not to say you’re incapable of that. He just wants to be somewhere else right now.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know.’
*
There’s only one reason I can pack his clothes, I can hug him goodbye, and I can watch him drive away in the old Ford Fiesta. I need to know he and Phoebe are safe, I can’t do that if he’s here right now. If he’s in London, then he’s safe. I don’t think she would dare leave me alone for long enough to follow them up to London. If he’s here, there’s always the danger that she will use him to get at me.
IX
Monday, 6 May
(For Tuesday, 7th)
Saffron.
I’d like to apologise. I haven’t been fair to you.
As I explained before, I get so het up because my life was upended, too, when he died. I had to leave it all behind to go live abroad. I tried to get away from here because I couldn’t live with the pain of what had happened.
He talked to me. That might seem insignificant, or even pathetic, but very few people talk nowadays. They text, they email, they connect on ‘social media’ but they don’t talk. They don’t listen. He talked, he listened and he waited patiently to hear what you had to say. It’s an amazing way to make a person feel special. You don’t concentrate on what you’re going to say after what they say, you listen and hear and digest what they’ve told you then you talk and contribute what you have to say.
He did that. He listened, he heard, he seemed to understand. It was odd to hear him talked about in the papers and on the news and that’s why I had to get away. I was gone for a whole year and when I came home, I tried to get my life back on track. There was a vacuum, though, where my heart should be. I think that was because the person who listened, who heard, who tried to understand, was missing.
I lived for Wednesday evenings. Even when we didn’t work together any more I still liked being around him. He was the shining one in the class, so much talent and everyone loved him. Being around him was magical.
Of course he loved you. Of course you loved him. I loved him, too. We’re the same you and me. We loved him. We’re lucky like that.
I’m sorry for the things I’ve said, the things I’ve done. I hope you can forgive me. I think it’s time I backed off a little.
Take care of yourself, Saffron. Take care of your beautiful children. I’m going to go back to my proper life now and put this all behind me.
Good luck with the rest of your life.
A
XLI
Lewis Bromsgrove is hugging my daughter.
I have no idea why he has his arms around her, but I assume they didn’t want to be seen, which is why they are out here, on a small, out-of-the-way road at the back of the school. Getting sent by Kevin on a wild goose chase to drum up business from an uninterested company near Shoreham seafront is the best thing to have happened to me today. Without knowing why, my instincts told me to take this shortcut from Old Shoreham Road to Dyke Road back into town and there they are.
Neither of them notices me, of course, they are both too engrossed in each other. My whole being seems to leave my body as I drive on, not wanting to arouse suspicion by stopping, no matter how much I want to leap out of the car and rip them apart. I park up, a little way down on the opposite side of the road, behind a red, new-style Beetle so I can see them both.
I’m as confident as I can be they haven’t noticed me
as my trembling hand unclips my seatbelt and I turn to watch them out of the rear windscreen.
They’ve stepped apart now, but they’re still standing close together, Phoebe’s hunched shoulders and bowed head broadcasting that she is upset. Mr Bromsgrove, as he is to me anywhere near these grounds, is listening to what she is saying. I can’t hear them, of course, but what she says is enough to cause him to put an arm around her shoulders, still listening and then, it happens again: he puts both arms around her and pulls her towards him, hugs her.
Teachers, as far as I know, aren’t allowed to touch pupils in this way. If at all. Certainly not twice in less than a minute.
Mr Bromsgrove is hugging my daughter.
It’s not Damien. It’s him. It was him all along. That’s why he has been trying to charm me, it is not me, it is my daughter he wants. He has kept me distracted with attempts to ‘hook up’, as Phoebe would say, so he could work his magic on her. I was stupid enough to believe it. I actually thought someone other than Joel liked me, found me attractive without knowing me first. When I was allowed to go to school discos, I was always the one stood on the side for the final slow dance, no one even glancing in my direction. By the time I went clubbing in my university days, I had mastered the art of dancing alone, enjoying it, revelling in it while all my friends were snogging or leaving with the men they met. I wasn’t fat in those days, not like in school, but I wasn’t the kind of thin that made me visible or appealing to anyone who hadn’t entered the last chance saloon, either. No one spent the night trying to woo me into bed, they only saw me at one-thirty in the morning, when it looked like they would be leaving alone – and realised I was better than nothing.
Lewis Bromsgrove must have seen that in me, he must have known that I was the type of adult who grew from that kind of child. He must have guessed that I would fall for flattery and I wouldn’t notice he was carrying on with my daughter. Filling her head with lies, allowing his son to take the blame for the things he had done.