Marshmallows for Breakfast

  And since Kyle had told me about Ashlyn, he hadn't exactly been falling over himself to be friendly. I completely understood. When people found things out about me, I usually unhooked myself from their company rather quickly. He hadn't wanted to tell me about it, but had. He probably hated the idea of me knowing.

  We found the others deep in the woods. They had already set up their tents. Like Gabrielle and me, the three others were in jeans or combats, T-shirts and zip-up fleeces. The two women I didn't know were the heads of the branches of Office Wonders in Middlesex and southwest London. Both of them were in their thirties, one with red hair, the other with blond hair. Gabrielle introduced them as Moira and Lindsay. Moira had a dazzling smile, her red hair haphazardly pulled back into a ponytail. Lindsay was petite, very pretty, with smiley eyes and her blond hair styled into a straight bob. The other camper was Janene. Teri was meant to be coming but one of her kids had picked up a stomach bug and she couldn't get overnight babysitting on such short notice so couldn't make it. (Pretty convenient, I thought, since she'd confessed to me at lunch last week that she'd rather change dirty nappies for twenty-four hours straight than go camping.)

  Lindsay, an expert camper, helped us set up the tent. In theory it was easy to do. In theory Gabrielle had done it several times before. In reality it took ages. All the while Janene and Moira oohed and ahhhed over the contents of Gabrielle's hamper, because we were roughing it of course.

  “OK,” Gabrielle said after we'd laid out our luxury sleeping bags at the bottom of our tent. “I need two volunteers to go to the campsite office on the other side of the wood to register that we're here and collect our allocation of firewood.” She let a second pass before she said, “Kendra and Janene, that's so lovely of you to offer. Here you go, here's my booking confirmation, here's the map, one of you can pretend to be me, off you go.”

  I didn't even get a chance to say, “Pardon?” before her strong hands had settled on both our backs and were firmly shoving us in the direction of the campsite office. Janene looked as pleased with the arrangement as I did.

  “Bitch,” I mouthed at Gabrielle over my shoulder.

  She blew me a kiss.

  We traipsed through the woods, following the map in what looked like a straight line. It was beautiful out here. Through the gaps in the trees you could see the cerulean shade of the sky, kissed here and there by the bundles of candy-floss clouds.

  “So, are you from Brockingham?” I asked Janene. Gabrielle wanted us to bond, so I was going to do my level best.

  “Er, don't think so,” she sneered. “I'm from west London.”

  “Oh, really? Me, too,” I said. “I grew up in Ealing and went to college in Leeds. Whereabouts are you from?”

  “I mean proper west London,” she said with another sneer. “West Ken.”

  OK, strike one, I thought.

  The silence in the wood was calming and unnerving at the same time. The only sounds were from us trampling twigs and fallen leaves under foot, the occasional bird call.

  “Are you seeing anyone right now?” I asked.

  “I'm going out with my boyfriend from college. He's more serious about it than me. He wants us to get married and I probably will marry him but I'm sure I can do better. He's a nice enough guy and he's totally in love with me, but we'll see.”

  OK, strike two.

  “Going anywhere nice on your holidays this year?” I asked in desperation.

  “Yeah, yeah, just because you lived in Australia, don't think you can rub my face in it. I wouldn't go over there if you paid me.”

  Strike three and you re out.

  We got to the campsite office, registered and collected our wood then made our way back without saying another word to each other.

  “How was that, my lovelies?” Gabrielle, plastic champagne flute in hand, asked from her place lounging on her tartan blanket beside the empty stone belly where the fire was going to be built.

  Janene gave her a wan smile.

  “I found it a real team- building experience,” I said to Gabrielle. Janene rolled her eyes and sloped off to her tent, probably to fix her makeup.

  “Me and Janene,” I held up the middle fingers of both hands and moved them as far apart as my arms would go, “we're like that.”

  CHAPTER 19

  With thoughts of tomorrow's big presentation and how afterwards he would have the chance to rebuild his family circling his head, Kyle started to let go of consciousness. Started to leave it all behind him when he heard the hush of the bedroom door being pushed open and tiny footsteps entering the room.

  He opened his eyes, saw the outline of Summer in the doorway. She clutched her rag doll she'd named Winter in her arms, clinging to it like a lifebuoy. She stared at her parents, obviously waiting for one of them to wake up.

  Kyle pushed himself up on his elbows. Ashlyn, curled up in the fetal position, was turned away from him, facing the window, oblivious to anything and everything. Sum? Kyle whispered. Whats the matter?

  “There's a monster in my bed, Daddy,” Summer said with quiet certainty.

  There's one in mine, too, Kyle thought before he could stop himself.

  “I bet there isn't,” Kyle replied. He hadn't done this before. It was Ashlyn who got up in the night. It was Ashlyn who talked the three-year-old twins back into bed. Kyle usually slept through it all.

  Summer's eyes set in her head—who was this man to tell her what was and wasn't in her bed? Of course there was a monster in her room, she'd heard it. She'd felt it. She would have seen it if she'd dared turn around and look at it; if she hadn't closed her eyes before she leapt off the bed and ran for the safety of her parents’ room, it might have grabbed her.

  “Daddy,” Summer said, summoning up all the patience she had for adults, “there is.” She fixed her father with her navy-green eyes and the line of her determined mouth. She nodded and reassured, “There is. Promise.”

  Kyle was looking into the face of his wife, he realized. That grim certainty that descended upon her face and her posture in those days when they used to talk and he dared disagree. Her face would become a mask of stone, her navy-green eyes like twin emeralds that merely tolerated but didn't condone his dissent. Summer was doing the same. Kyle would be an idiot to argue, he realized. What did he know?

  He sighed, threw back the covers. “OK,” he moved to climb out, “I'll come get rid of it.”

  “No, it OK,” Summer said, moving towards her father. “I sleep in your bed, Daddy. Naughty monster go away tomorrow.”

  Kyle went to protest, then stopped. Looked at her, the little girl in a pink Care Bears T-shirt that reached her knees. The little girl who he hadn't spent much time with in the past few weeks—months—actually. Working on the project also had the unpleasant side effect in that he was rarely around for the kids. He'd almost forgotten what their voices sounded like, how dimples formed on Summer's face when she smiled, how Jaxon's eyes seemed to change color as he stared intently, waiting for the answer to a question.

  Besides, his three-year-old had decided she was going to sleep in his bed so the decision was made. There was no discussing it. Even if he did climb out of bed, go fight the monster, go check that everything was safe in her room, she'd still want to sleep in their bed. That was her way. When she got the idea she wanted to sleep here, here was where she'd sleep. Jaxon, although quieter than Summer, rarely came to their bed. He was independent. Even as a baby that'd been the difference between them. How anyone could tell the bald, wrinkled new-borns apart—Jaxon would sleep anywhere, in anyone's arms, in the crib or car seat; Summer would protest loudly if her mother, and then eventually her father, wasn't cuddling her. She refused to settle until she knew one of her parents was close.

  He swung his legs out of bed and stood up a little unsteadily—he'd been more asleep than he thought, his limbs numbed by slumber. He picked up Summer under the arms, marveling that someone who had so easily hustled her way into his bed could be so easy to lift, so light to
carry. He placed her in the middle of the bed, beside Ashlyn, who only stirred a couple of times to cough.

  He settled down beside her, pulling the covers back up, making sure she had half of his pillow.

  “Now,” Kyle said softly to his daughter, “Daddy's got to get up really early in the morning so we need to go straight to sleep, OK?”

  Summer grinned, Summer nodded. “ ‘K,” she said. “I saw a fairy, Daddy.”

  “Really?” Kyle mumbled, sleep tugging at his senses. He really needed to go to sleep. And soon. His mind was buzzing with what he had to say in tomorrow's presentation. And he had to be first in line at the copy shop to get extra poster-size plans made up.

  “She's orange,” Summer explained. “Her hair is blue and orange. And dress is orange dress. And shoes orange. And wings orange.”

  “That's a lot of orange.” Kyle's voice was a sleep-tinged murmur.

  “Daddy can't see her.” Summer explained, regret swirled with pride in her voice. “Only me. And Jaxon. Not Daddy.”

  “That's a shame,” Kyle replied.

  “I sleep now, Daddy,” Summer said as though Kyle had been trying to keep her up.

  “Right, honey,” Kyle said, feeling chastised.

  Summer closed her eyes and instinctively, it seemed, she shifted away from Kyle, turned towards her mother. When she was asleep, she wanted to be as close as possible to Ashlyn. Kyle watched her nestle herself on the edge of her mother's pillow, inches from where he had once upon a time ago slept. Ashlyn, as if sensing something had shifted in the world, hiccupped, cleared her throat, then turned over in bed, facing her daughter and husband. She was still buried in her alcohol- induced sleep, but showed the slackness of her sleeping features to them.

  Jealousy prickled at Kyle. If he hadn't been there, Summer would still be standing in the doorway waiting for attention.

  Kyle closed his eyes. Told himself he didn't have time to be jealous, he needed to sleep. To be as fresh and alert as possible for the presentation.

  He heard it as he finally relaxed his grip on consciousness. The rapid, repetitive sound of a person choking. Someone struggling to breathe, struggling to take air in and let air out. The sound was too loud, too deep to be a child. Kyle's eyes flew open and he struggled half upright, just in time to see it happen. Ashlyn choking her body convulsing with every choke, forced herself upright, trying to breathe, trying to force air into her lungs, trying to dislodge whatever was in her throat. She coughed and choked until she finally succeeded. Until all that she'd drunk and eaten came spewing out. A slimy red, liquid nightmare that exploded all over Summer.

  Kyle couldn't stop it. He'd woken up too late, his reflexes were too slow, he hadn't known what was going to happen. Whatever the reason, he didn't protect his daughter from the deluge that rained down on her.

  Summer woke up screaming. She didn't know what had splattered against her skin and slapped against her hair, but it terrified her. Wrenched her from sleep, from dreaming about the orange fairy riding a yellow unicorn. “MUMMA!” she screamed. Her shout woke up Jaxon, who was on the other side of the wall, and he started screaming. While Summer's screams had words, Jaxon's was a long loud yell of fear, of knowing something bad had happened and being terribly afraid.

  It kept coming. The purple-red nightmare continued to be retched out of the yawning hole of Ashlyn's mouth until she clamped her hand over it, the vomit bulging in her cheeks, spewing through her fingers. Summer stared at her mother, her eyes wide in horror, her mouth still making an awful sound.

  Numb and impotent, Kyle was unable to move, to do anything. Ashlyn reached down with her free hand, threw back the covers and fled. She ran for the en suite, one hand over her mouth, her thin upper body convulsing under her oversize T-shirt. She slammed the door behind her, no lock was drawn, the toilet lid was slammed up, she continued to retch into the bowl, a loud harrowing sound, a sound that echoed of true agony. It mingled with the sounds of Summer and Jaxon. Summer's screams of horror, Jaxon's loud sobs, his worry and confusion at the screaming, at why no one had come to him.

  Kyle moved then. Like a man possessed he moved, he reached out, pulled Summer into his arms, held her, despite the putrid stench of fermented red wine, stomach acid and shock that stained his daughter's skin and hair and filled the room. “It's OK, Summer,” Kyle hushed against her ear, running his hand over her sticky, vomit-stained hair, most of which was flattened against her face. “It's OK.” He rocked her in his arms, holding her close, trying to soothe her before he moved her to the bathroom. Before he went to calm Jaxon. “It's OK,” he said, rocking her. “It's OK, Daddy's got you. I've got

  Her screams slowly subsided to an unrelenting whimper.

  In the en suite there was silence. Ashlyn had finished throwing up, but she hadn't returned to the scene of her crime. She was hiding. She was passed out. She was choking on her own vomit. Kyle didn't know, he didn't care, either. Right then, if he never had to see her again it would be too soon.

  The stench, which grew more putrid with every passing second, which seemed to seep into him through his skin, was unbearable. He had to get Summer into the bath, had to wash this off her. Cleanse her of this act. His eyes strayed to the bed sheets, stained red, an almost bloody reminder of what Ashlyn had done. Of what she'd been doing for far too long.

  Moving slowly, so as not to further traumatize the trembling, whimpering child in his arms, he slid off the bed. Cradling Summer, he moved out of the room, whispering to her that she was safe, that she didn't need to be scared. In the corridor he stopped. Didn't know what to do. Go to Jaxon, or whether the state of Summer, stained with red and limp in his arms, would further terrify him. Loud sobbing was coming from his room; he was probably pinned by fear in his bed. He needed someone to go to him, to comfort him as well.

  Fuck! was Kyle's only thought.

  He moved to Jaxon's room, used the tip of his bare foot to gently kick open the white door, stepped over the threshold. Jaxon's small body was cowering in the corner of his bed, his eyes wide with horror, his face drenched in tears. “Hey, buddy, it's OK, it's Dad,” Kyle said softly, using the volume and tone of his voice to try to calm his frightened son. “It's OK, I'm here. OK? I'm here.” Kyle took a couple of steps forwards; Jaxon was still crying. “We've got to go to the bathroom right now. So, you gonna come with us?” Jaxon took a huge ragged breath, his cries subsiding. “Yeah?”

  Jaxon nodded.

  “OK, good. Come on then.” Kyle shifted Summer in his arms, moved her over his shoulder so he could hold out his hand. Before offering it to his son, he wiped off the red slime on his pajama leg. The smell still clung to them, it still turned his stomach, but he masked it. If he showed his disgust it would further upset his son. “Come on, mate, let's go for a bath.” Carefully, cautiously, Jaxon got off his bed and slipped his hand in his dad's. In the bathroom, just across the corridor, Kyle had to let go of Jaxon's hand to tug on the light. Jaxon rubbed at his eyes from the sudden brightness. With one arm still cradling Summer, Kyle used his free hand to push the plug into the bath, turned on the taps. The sound of gushing water filled the room.

  Jaxon moved across the bathroom, molded himself to his dad's leg. He didn't want to be away from him. He didn't understand what was happening. Why Summer was red. Why they were having a bath in the middle of the night. Why he'd been woken up by the terrible noise. But he did understand his dad. His dad was solid, calm, there. He needed to stay right beside him.

  When the bath was half full, Kyle shut off the taps and, gently, with one hand, took off Summer's T-shirt, left it in a reeking heap on the ground. Took off her night nappy, then checked the temperature of the water before he lowered her into it. She struggled a little when he tried to loosen her grip on his neck, so he had to stay like that, leaning over the bath, Summer's arms clamped around his neck, her terror not allowing her to let him go, and Jaxon sitting on the floor, wedged beside him, his thumb in his mouth and his other hand rubbing at his eyes.
r />   Kyle didn't know how long they stayed like that, but the water had cooled by the time tiredness made Summer go limp, releasing him. Jaxon was asleep, leaning on him. Quickly, so he could get her out of the cool water, Kyle cleaned the slime off his daughter, cleansed her skin of the red vileness, washed it out of her hair. He pulled the towel from the rail above the bath, coaxed Summer to stand up and enveloped her in its soft white folds. He scooped her up in one arm, weighted her so she was in a secure position, then he gently woke up Jaxon and scooped him up in the other arm.

  Walking slowly, he moved out of the bathroom, leaving the red water in the bath, Summer's stained clothes and dirty nappy on the floor, and went back to Jaxon s room. He rested his son on the bed first, then his daughter. They lay like two little shells on top of the covers. Working on autopilot almost, Kyle rummaged through the drawers until he found another pair of Jaxon s pajamas— Spider-Man. Jaxon wouldn't mind, he decided as he took out another nappy and snapped it on before dressing Summer in the red and blue top and trousers.

  He stared at Summer, who was virtually asleep. He had to dry her hair. She couldn't sleep with wet hair. He didn't want to go into the bedroom though. He knew Ashlyn's hair dryer was in their bedroom. Maybe… He dashed out into Summer's room, went through all her drawers until he found the small pink, baby hair dryer Ashlyn's mother had bought them. It took nearly ten minutes to get her hair dry. He didn't use a brush or anything, just waved it around her head until her hair went from sticking to her head in shiny black clumps to settling in dry black clumps around her face.

  Jaxon, who was out for the count, didn't protest when Kyle pulled back the covers and put him in, didn't protest when Kyle laid Summer beside him. Kyle was tired now. It was flooding every sense, every synapse, every nerve in his body. Rest. He needed rest. Checking that they were both still asleep, he dashed down the stairs, snatched up the pillows and seat cushions from the sofas and armchairs, then got the tartan blanket from the blanket box in the playroom before racing back upstairs.