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‘Here’s the wee man!’ said Neil. ‘Bring him in, bring him in. Let’s have a proper look. Oh, he’s a smasher, Helen.’
The NCT mums had talked about their own mothers being all over their babies. But when Helen went home, it was Neil who held Barney first, who kissed his toes and nudged his pinkie into Barney’s hand so the baby’s little fingers would curl around it. Barbara stuck the kettle on so Helen could make up a bottle and they could all have a cup of tea that didn’t taste of cardboard.
When Barbara finally held him, he reached towards her and did the thing with his mouth that Darren kept saying was going to turn into smiling any day now.
‘He likes you, Barbara,’ said Neil.
‘I think he does.’ She smiled down at Barney. ‘I also think it’s about time he went down for the night.’
Neil held him again, whilst Darren and Helen brought the travel cot in from the car and wrestled it up next to their bed in the spare room. His chest still rose and fell dramatically with every breath, but Helen noticed it wasn’t as marked as it had been in those first days. Already her little boy was growing, getting stronger.
‘Are you okay?’ It was Barbara, passing by with an armful of carrier bags. Helen wondered if her mother would notice the tears threatening to seep from her eyes.
‘Deathly tired, that’s all.’ She smiled. ‘It’s been a tough couple of weeks.’
She expected her mother to frown, but Barbara just nodded. ‘There’s nothing harder than coping with a newborn, Helen. You need to be kind to yourself. You and Darren, too.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I mean it. Don’t struggle more than you have to. We can help, and Adam and Christine, of course.’
‘We’re doing fine.’
‘I’m sure you are, Helen.’
Neil opened a red wine he’d been saving and they toasted Barney first, and then, jokingly, the queen. Before long, the glasses were drained. Helen sank into bed, knowing that sleep would take her the moment she shut her eyes and that the next thing she knew would be Barney’s mewling hunger dragging her from it.
Barbara
Barbara listened for the change in her daughter’s breathing as Helen finally succumbed to her exhaustion. For a few moments, she stood by the spare room door, matching her own shuddering breath to Helen’s, trying to be slow, trying to be calm. When she was sure that her daughter was asleep, she crept into the bathroom.
The master bedroom had an en suite – Neil had plumbed it in himself ten years earlier and together they’d sponged the walls blue and lavender. The bathroom cabinet was cluttered with stuff that was never used – toiletry gifts that hadn’t quite hit the mark and little travel bags that Neil had saved from the occasional business-class flights taken before he retired. Right at the back was a cheap polyester make-up bag. Like everything else, it had gathered a fine film of dust. It wasn’t often that she felt the need to get this kit out. She was pleased to note that when she checked over the contents they were immaculate.
Next, she swabbed the toilet lid with a disinfectant wipe, before setting out the cotton wool, the steri-strips, the antiseptic and the pack of blades. Her hands shook as she ripped the cardboard from the packet.
She allowed herself a pause, more breathing and counting to steady herself, but she knew Neil would be back before too long. Of course, he couldn’t be expected to understand how difficult she found it to have a baby under her roof. He didn’t even know the memories that it brought back. This would help her, just as it had helped when Helen herself was tiny. Neil would hate it but manage to accept it nonetheless, because Neil’s best quality was his ability to accept.
The feeling of the blade on her thigh was delicious for an instant, and even after that first golden moment, when the loathing began to pour back in, the sense of satisfaction remained. Now she was steady, now she was in control once more. The blood ran into the shower tray, her anxiety seeping away with it.
She cleaned up quickly, feeling the silvering of old scars under her fingertips as she pressed and wiped the wound.
Later, in bed, Neil’s fingers found the neat row of steri-strips.
‘Oh, love,’ he sighed.
‘I’m okay. I won’t need to do it again.’
He’d always had a vampire’s sense for her blood, and a haemophobe’s aversion to it. He drew his hand away abruptly and nestled it in her hair, stroking and soothing – although she was the one who had to do the reassuring. She’d known she would struggle with the baby in the house. These days, she didn’t cut often, and she was disappointed in herself that it had come to this, but she’d done what she needed to do. Neil thought the world was about gardens and beauty and patience rewarded. Barbara liked that about him, but in her heart she believed it came down to much less than that – just people doing what they needed to do.
A few hours later they made love, when they’d both been asleep and could pretend more or less to be sleeping still. It was the first time in many weeks, and, in the morning, when the memory of their silent and familiar coupling came back to Barbara, it made her smile. She recalled bittersweet moments from their past, and the fact that Neil was perhaps not so much of a haemophobe as he liked to have her believe.
Helen
The next morning, Darren took Barney to meet his other grandparents. They would all be going over for dinner, but Helen’s day had been going since four a.m., not counting the two a.m. feed. His suggestion that she try to grab a nap had been welcome, but sleep didn’t come easily – partly because Barney wasn’t nearby. And it wasn’t helping that dawn had been hours ago. Again, she felt the endless daylight was stalking her.
Eventually, Barbara stuck her head around the door. ‘Shall I bring you up a cuppa?’
‘No. Hopefully I’ll get to sleep. Thanks, anyway.’
Ten minutes later she was still lying there. It was bright outside and the closed curtains cast a jaundiced glow about the room without achieving any semblance of darkness. She heard the kettle go on, and the steps on the staircase shortly after.
Barbara edged round the door with a mug in each hand, peering at Helen to check if her eyes were open before speaking.
‘I thought I’d make two, just in case you were still awake.’
‘Thanks.’ Helen gave up and pushed herself up against the headboard. She was slightly unnerved by her mother’s thoughtfulness. Barbara was efficient, witty and even generous, but in Helen’s experience, her admirable qualities didn’t usually extend to anything resembling tenderness. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any headache pills?’
Barbara quickly fetched a pack from her own bedroom, and a glass of water.
‘Are you coping, Helen? I hope you’d tell me.’
Helen went to shake her head but stopped because it hurt.
‘It’s okay – tiring. Everyone struggles a bit, though – it’s normal.’
‘Of course it’s normal,’ Barbara said, even though Helen had not meant it as a question. ‘God knows I’ve never been one for newborns—’
‘Haven’t you?’ asked Helen. She couldn’t remember seeing her mother fuss over a baby, but then she couldn’t remember there being many babies around. And Barbara wasn’t a fusser over anything.
‘Better when they grow up a bit … By mid-thirties it’s much easier!’
Barbara’s laughter sounded forced, as though she felt this should be an intimate moment and was working desperately to make it happen. Helen laughed along, but a little cautiously.
‘You know, Helen, I’ll admit I found it difficult to feel close to you when you were younger. Your dad found it much easier, and then you two were so natural together … Anyway, I want you to know I’m not judging you.’ Now Barbara gave a sharp laugh. ‘I’m the last person to judge anyone.’
There was a lump in Helen’s throat. It was as much to do with her mother’s rarely spoken of pride in her, with a vague sense of Barbara’s own missed opportunities, as with the fact Helen was knackered, but most of all it was grief for the shared understanding she should have had with this woman, her mother, that they’d somehow missed out on along the way.
Helen wanted to reassure her mother that she did care about her, that she’d always cared about her, even though Barbara had made it as hard as she could. The thoughts and words buzzed in Helen’s head but she couldn’t marshal them; she couldn’t trust herself. She’d always felt somehow that her birth had spoiled things for her mother. That was the conclusion she’d drawn from the never-spoken-about gaps in Barbara’s past. And that was why, she reasoned, Barbara could never feel about Helen the way Helen felt about Barney.
August 2017
Helen
Barbara had still been on her laptop when Neil was ready to leave for the hospital. He’d put her bag in the boot, checked the admissions letter twice and was now shuffling by the front door.
‘I’m just tying up loose ends. You don’t want me taking it with me, do you?’ Barbara called down to them.
‘What’s she doing on it these days, anyway – I thought she’d pretty much retired?’ Helen asked her father.
He shrugged. ‘Open data. Citizen journalism. Crowd science. None of it makes a jot of sense to me, but she’s always got something going on. Keeps her sharp, she says, and I suppose it seems to work.’
They heard the computer power down and then Barbara emerged on the stairs. She and Neil went out to the car. Helen took the children to wave at the window. Neil’s face was strained and she regretted not taking the chance to ask him how he was whilst Barbara was busy. Still, it underlined Barbara’s point about the notes: he wasn’t a man who needed anything extra to worry about.
Pat from next door rushed over to the car with a card in her hand and both Neil and Barbara looked to be trying hard to seem pleased to see her, without managing to succeed.
Normally, Helen only insisted the kids come to the window to wave when the grandparents had been staying with them and were leaving to drive home. Barney was clearly bored by waiting for them to actually get into the car and couldn’t get back to CBeebies quickly enough. Alys, though, was confused.
‘Granddad Neil and Nana Barbara go to our house?’ she asked, as the car finally pulled away.
‘No, Nana is going to hospital for a few days. Granddad will be back later.’
‘And Nana.’
‘No, just Granddad.’
‘Granddad can come to our house.’ She was nodding firmly, as if that decided it.
‘No, we need to stay here a bit longer. We need to wait for Nana to come home.’
‘Daddy come here.’
God, thought Helen, please don’t start this now. ‘No …’ she began patiently, getting ready to explain once again.
‘Not no!’ Alys shouted. ‘Daddy come now!’
She was pointing out of the window. Helen hadn’t even registered the car that had pulled into the cul-de-sac a few moments after Neil’s Nissan had turned out of it. It was a silver Astra, badged up by a hire company.
Fuck. Alys was right. He was three days early.
Darren jumped out of the driver’s seat and bounded onto the drive, before catching sight of them in the window and veering across the lawn, waving at Alys.
Frantically, Helen strained to see if there was anyone else in the car, but he seemed to be alone. Alys’s voice rose to a clamour and by this time Barney had left the television and was hauling himself up to stand on the sofa and see what was going on.
‘Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy.’
‘Feet down, please, Barney.’
He ignored her and the volume of the children’s joyous duet surged ever upward. Darren didn’t disappoint, miming his excitement through the double glazing whilst studiously failing to meet Helen’s eye.
Of course, she had no choice but to let him come in. After as few terse words as she could manage, Helen left the living room and let the three of them get on with it.
She went to the spare room first, but that immediately felt wrong, so instead she crept upstairs and into the womblike snugness of her childhood bedroom. She sat in the corner of the single bed, leaning against the wall, with Barney’s precious blanket tucked between her knees, straining to listen and to keep the tears from falling.
Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.
*
Helen studied the lilac, swirly wallpaper she’d picked out when she was fourteen, trying to match up the ghostly, faded squares with the posters and pages ripped from magazines that had once decorated her walls. Michael J. Fox over there, later replaced by John Squire. George Michael, replaced by John Squire. She pictured the various incarnations, trying to switch off her brain.
Eventually she heard his footsteps on the stairs. He’d lasted about forty-five minutes, which was more time than he’d spent alone with Barney and Alys together in as long as she could remember, not counting soft play. He opened the door without knocking and walked into the room. She stayed hunched up on the bed, looking over his shoulder instead of directly at him, but still catching the look of mild pity as he gazed down at her.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing turning up here?’ she asked.
It wasn’t brilliant, but she was proud that she had managed to spit it out, past the lump in her throat and the decades of conditioned politeness. Darren didn’t answer immediately, probably weighing up his options.
‘They’re my kids. I had to see them, Helen. I didn’t have any choice.’
‘Well now you’ve seen them.’
She was going to add ‘fuck off’, but in the end it seemed too crude, too teenage. The pair of them fell into silence. Then Darren dropped down to a sitting position, closing the door to lean his back against it and laying his long legs out across the only stretch of carpet in the tiny room where they fitted. He should know. Years ago, he used to play guitar sitting like that for hours, while she was revising or reading or just watching him. Hard to believe it was the same person.
‘My mum said Barbara’s going in today, that the op’s tomorrow?’
‘I’d like you to leave.’
He bit his lip and then put a finger to it. For a moment, she sensed he was about to slam his hand against something, but he seemed to hold himself back.
‘I miss you, Helen.’
She said nothing.
‘I know I chose this, I know it’s my fault. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. We grew up together, didn’t we? No one knows me like you do, and I know what you’re going through as much as anyone can. I’m sorry about it, Hels, I really am.’
‘Are you asking to come back?’
Now it was Darren’s turn for silence. He wriggled an index finger into the pile of the carpet and stared at the holes he was making.
‘We’ve been through all this,’ he whispered. ‘You know it’s not been right for ages. This is better for both of us.’ But then he rushed on, whip-quick, as if to head off any disagreement from her. ‘But the point is I can help you. And I want to. For the kids. And for us, for everything we were. You’ve got to let me, Hels.’
She shouldn’t have agreed, she thought later.
In truth, she didn’t agree. She didn’t say anything. But her silence was acquiescence enough.
She let him bring her a cup of tea and put the kids in front of a film. She let him sit on the single bed next to her, the weight and the smell of him on the homely sheets just as intoxicating and incongruous as it had been twenty-odd years earlier. She poured out the details of surgery and staging, metastasis and Macmillan nurses. She even told him about the green notes. He seemed perfectly happy with Barbara’s explanation about the teenage shoplifter. ‘There are some fucked-up weirdos in this world, Hels.’ He laughed. ‘That’s one thing you learn running a dating business.’
The words had come out of her like a dam burst, but Darren caught every last drop, and mopped them up and dealt with them like he mopped the tears from her cheeks. She didn’t even need to tell him where to find the tissues. Was it just a performance for her benefit? To persuade her to let him see more of the kids, or to soften her up for whatever he and Lauren were planning next? She felt she ought to be more cynical, but she was too exhausted and wrung out to do anything but accept the sympathy on offer.
Her friends were far away and had their own worries. They’d all drifted apart since they started having families – literally as well as metaphorically, as they had moved out in different directions to various London suburbs. She missed the gossip and the laughter, but Darren had always been her emotional anchor. In her twenties, she’d provided the shoulder to cry on as her friends went through dating disasters and relationship break-ups. Now, finally, she was the one in need and the only confidant she’d ever needed was the one whose betrayal was ripping her to shreds.
Eventually, after a snack with the kids and about four cups of tea, and after he’d taken off his socks because he always preferred bare feet, and after Helen had finished one box of Kleenex and, shamefully, got him to refill the screen wash on her car, he said he should go.
They agreed he’d have the kids on Thursday, assuming Barbara’s operation the day before had gone okay, and take them somewhere for the day. Both Barney and Alys had been very forbearing whilst their parents sat alone upstairs and that pricked at her – between her and Darren they were turning them into diplomats. On the doorstep, Darren paused awkwardly and she let him falter, but he turned away without a kiss, or a handshake, or any touch at all. She thought about the way they’d been in the bedroom and wondered if different rules applied there. Barney and Alys waved the Astra off quite happily, without asking any questions.
‘Was it nice to see Daddy?’ she asked.
They both nodded and ‘yes-yessed’ enthusiastically.
‘Daddy smelt happy,’ said Barney, quietly.
‘Really? What do you mean?’
But he just shrugged and tried to grab a piece of jigsaw from Alys’s hand.
It killed her that even Barney could see Darren was happier now. Happier having abandoned his family. Happier without her. Happier with carefree, bright-eyed, not-yet-thirty Lauren.
*
Neil went back to the hospital at seven the next morning. It was Wednesday already; tomorrow they’d have been away from home for a week and she had no idea when they’d be going back. She tried to occupy herself with washing the kids’ clothes and making a list of extras she should pick up for them from the supermarket, whilst waiting for news from the hospital. Neil sent a text when Barbara was going into theatre and then one when she came out; another when she’d started to come round from the anaesthetic and another when they’d let him in to see her in the recovery room. It had all gone ‘by the book’ he said, though Helen guessed those were Mr Eklund’s words, or someone else at the hospital. They’d get the first proper update on what they had found on the Thursday ward round, by which point it was expected that Barbara would be well enough to take it in.
It was early evening by the time Neil was able to report that Barbara was back on the ward. They’d planned for him to come home then, but when it came to it, he didn’t want to leave her alone. Eventually, Helen persuaded him that he should drive back around the kids’ bedtime and that she would go in and sit with Barbara through the night. When he came back and she saw him in the flesh, she was glad she’d insisted. He looked wearier than she remembered ever seeing him. The day had clearly taken everything he had to give.
As soon as she’d kissed the kids – both sleeping soundly, thank God – he was gently hurrying her out. She insisted on delaying long enough to make sure he ate the pasta bake she’d left for him, and wondered bleakly whether anyone would get so concerned about her by the time she was Barbara’s age.
It was going dark by the time Helen arrived, and the strange, unnatural half-light of the hospital corridors made her feel suddenly weary. Barbara was in a half-private cubicle set back from the main ward. The young nurse on night duty explained that visitors were allowed in tonight because she was just out of surgery. Soon she’d be moved into the ward itself and visiting hours would have to be observed.
The heels of Helen’s ankle boots clipped loudly on the few steps between the ward door and Barbara’s cubicle, and she peered anxiously into the gloom, hoping she’d not woken up any of the other patients. The nurse left as soon as Helen was settled in the chair, closing the ward door carefully behind her and slipping off, rubber-soled, into the shadows. Helen had no chance to ask her anything.
Barbara lay there like a storybook invalid, her head back against the semi-propped pillows, eyelids lowered and hands folded on the blanket. Her skin had an oniony look, translucent, papery, unhealthy. It was as if the operation had somehow removed a layer of her. Helen was shocked by the difference from the previous day, when she’d looked whole and wholesome – give or take the odd liver spot and the dark circles under her eyes.
She sat down in the plastic armchair and laid her hand over her mother’s. She couldn’t decide if Barbara was too cold or if she herself was too hot. Barbara’s eyelids didn’t flicker. By now, Helen had tuned in to the shallow sound of her breathing. She let herself fall into its rhythm.
June 1963
Katy
The honeysuckle made no difference; Katy couldn’t tell them anything.
The builders and their machines had changed the very shape of the earth. It had been moulded and flattened and moulded again, like the sandpits in the infant school.
‘Well, did you come in to the left of the oak, or the right of the oak? The damn tree’s not moved!’ The sergeant with the moustache was making no effort to hide his annoyance.
Katy could remember there being trees; she didn’t know if the one he was waving at had been one of them. She wanted to tell him that she’d been terrified and panicking. That she’d barely slept and it was the furthest she’d ever gone from home on her own. When she thought about that day, it was through a fog of guilt, the horror of what she’d done weighing down on her with each day she got older, each day she spent at Ashdown. Mr Robertson might understand, but she knew this man never would.
‘I only remember there being a road sweeping up ahead of me,’ she said, and the muscles round her mouth twitched oddly as she fought back tears. ‘There was a bank of loose earth and stones. That’s where … that’s where …’
‘It’s okay.’ Miss Silver stepped closer, patting her arm.
‘It’s bloody well not okay,’ interjected the policeman. ‘How far from the site perimeter was this road? How far did you have to walk to get to it?’
Katy shook her head. She couldn’t answer.
‘How was the road orientated? Which direction did it go in?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her lips formed the words, but there was no voice.
The man’s face was in hers now. She could see the smattering of ginger hairs in his brown moustache, and the spittle catching at the corners of his lips.
‘There were signs bloody everywhere; what did the signs say? How high was this banking? How far were you from the building itself?’
Eventually it was over. The little group picked its way across the field and back to the car park, the policeman muttering darkly about not having any more of this sort of little jolly. Katy managed to keep her silence, though a few tears escaped down her cheeks. They didn’t sting like they had in the cold of January. The inspector went ahead to where Etta Gardiner stood, the same constable still by her side. Katy couldn’t hear what he said, but she heard Etta’s loud gasp and saw the inspector’s white handkerchief flutter as he pulled it out to comfort her. Although they kept a good distance away, Katy’s cheeks burned as they walked past, feeling Etta’s gaze track her all the way to the Austin.