The Child Inside (8 page)

I saw the anger drain out of his eyes.

And he let go of me, then, in horror. He turned away from me. And he’s never done anything like that since; whenever we have argued – however much I have goaded and pushed – he has never lost control. But, oh, how I wish that he would.

Later, I am sitting at the dining table, methodically sticking stamps onto Christmas cards when my sister Janice phones.

‘What you doing?’ she asks.

And I say, ‘Oh, nothing much. The usual, you know. Getting ready for Christmas.’

‘Mm,’ Janice says, not impressed. She was married once herself, but not for long. She has no children. She lives on her own in north London, and teaches English at a comprehensive school. ‘Guess what?’ she says now. ‘I’m off to Paris for the weekend.’

‘Really?’ I say. ‘Who with?’

‘Aha.’

‘You’ve got a new man,’ I state. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Paul,’ she says, a little nonchalantly.

‘Must be serious if he’s taking you off to Paris. Will we meet him over Christmas?’

‘Not sure,’ she goes on. ‘There is one little snag.’

‘Oh?’

‘He’s married.’

‘Oh, Janice, no.’

‘Oh, don’t go all pious on me,’ she says.

‘I’m not, but . . . How come he’s going to go to Paris for the weekend if he’s married?’

‘It’s complicated,’ she says.

‘You mean he told his wife it’s a business trip,’ I state. ‘How very original.’

And now her tone changes entirely. ‘We can’t all be happily married with our happy little families,’ she says. And that is me labelled, whether or not it is true. I tell myself it is envy that makes her say things like that, however misplaced I think her envy might be. We don’t talk about my marriage; we don’t talk about my feelings at all. How’s Jonathan? she’ll ask. How’s Andrew? But that is all. And I’ll say: fine, thank you – and that is it. That’s all she wants to hear. Anything else is off-limits, has been since her divorce.

I wish we could talk. I wish I could tell her things.

Now, to change the subject as much as anything, I ask, ‘Do you remember Leanne, from across the road from us in Ashcroft?’

‘Of course I do,’ she says. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I was just thinking about her, that’s all.’

Janice laughs. ‘I remember when her dad bought that fancy car. Pissed our dad off no end.’ She pauses. ‘Funny girl, Leanne, from what I remember. A bit screwed up, wouldn’t you say? I wonder what became of her.’

I wonder it too.

I wonder how it came to be that for such a short time that small group of people came together and shone as brightly as the stars. And then, one by one, they all fell away, like lights going out in the dark.

I sit at the computer and I google Leanne’s name. Nothing comes up. There are a couple of other people with the same name – one in America, one playing hockey for a school in Scotland – but not her. Not my Leanne. I even look up her old school, but she’s not there, and neither is Fay. It’s very strange, looking at the listed names of her year group; some of them have written about what they are doing now, and I can’t resist clicking on a few and having a read. I wonder if any of them remember their dead classmates, Vanessa and Annabel. I wonder if they ever give them a thought.

And I think of those lives, cut off so very young.

Suddenly I remember Vanessa’s brother, Simon. His name jumps into my head on a burst of adrenalin; I cannot believe I didn’t think of him before. I key in his name and there he is.

Three entries. One person. It has to be him.

I feel a sudden rush of euphoria. For some reason I was afraid that he would be dead too, or just vanished without a trace, but there he is, very much alive. I’m so pleased. So pleased and so very, very relieved.

Vanessa’s little brother.

I hardly knew him. I can’t even picture what he looked like, except that he was blonde like her, and tall and thin. Gangly, in fact. I remember him trying to mix records on his music deck at those parties like a DJ. And I remember that his face would turn scarlet if one of the girls teased him.

‘Oh, Simon, you’re so cute,’ crooned Fay.

And Vanessa said, ‘He’s too young for you. Keep off!’

I sit back in the chair, and I read his name, over and over. And I repeat it to myself.
Simon Reiber, Simon Reiber.
I scroll down the list, but there is nothing else, nothing to tell me anything else about him, just his professional listing. But I have no doubt that it is him. How could it not be?

And now I remember the school that he went to: St Dunstan’s out near Oxshott. A few of the boys that Vanessa knew went there. I type in St Dunstan’s on the schools site and search for him. He was two years younger than Vanessa, I think, but he isn’t listed under his year group. I search through some of the other years, just in case, but find nothing. I do see a couple of other names that I think I recognize, but I can’t really be sure. And then I look at the school photographs, posted there by ex-pupils. And he is mentioned; there is photo of about fifteen boys wearing cagoules over their uniforms and standing in the rain in front of a coach. The caption underneath says
Second-year geography field trip
, and there are the various boys’ names (including his), written, I assume, in order. The photo is small, and not very clear. I zoom in as far as I can, but still their faces are tiny, peeping out from under their hoods, and blurred by the rain. The list of names suggests that he is the third one in from the right. I lean close to the screen and scrutinize the picture till my eyes hurt. The boy is pale, fine-boned and grinning. Yes, I think that it is him; I’m pretty sure of it. He’d have been twelve years old, thirteen at the most. I look at that smile, at that careless, boyish grin. His sister was alive still, then.

I think of him, going about his boyish life, laughing, mucking around, with nothing more on his mind than any other boy of that age. And I think how horribly all that would have changed.

And now I think of that old woman in Kew; I think of her sitting there in that small, claustrophobic sitting room, listening to my speech about how I knew Vanessa. I think of her impassiveness, of the distance in her cool blue eyes. I was so sure that she was Vanessa’s mother, yet why would she deny it, and how could she be so unmoved?

But of course if she is Vanessa’s mother, she’ll be Simon’s mother, too. I need to know. I cannot let it go.

I take her a gift this time. Just some chocolates that I pick up from one of those lovely shops by the station; hand-made truffles wrapped up in a cute little box with a bow. And it gives me a bit of confidence, coming out of that shop with my parcel tucked into its small paper bag with pink-ribbon handles. Today, I am the sort of person who makes such purchases. I am a person with a mission.

I walk briskly towards her house. I know my way around these streets now, and that familiarity allows me to adopt an air of assurance, I feel. Why, anyone passing me by might even think I actually lived around here.

I am little nervous by the time I reach Mrs Reiber’s house, but I shovel that hesitation down inside me. Act the part, I tell myself; act it, and you will be it. So I press my finger hard on her doorbell and paste a smile firmly on my face while I wait for her to answer. I do not even allow myself to consider that she might not be at home. Jonathan breaks up in less than a week and after that I will be housebound, unable to escape, and if she is not in now I will have to come back tomorrow, before the Christmas concert, and that will hardly give me any time at all. But thankfully she is in. The door is unlatched and I pin that smile back, further into my cheeks. She sees that it’s me, and for a moment she looks afraid. Or annoyed. I’m not sure which. But then she slaps her own mask into place: that cold and empty smile. She doesn’t speak, though, and she doesn’t open the door any wider.

‘Mrs Reiber,’ I say on a deep breath, ‘hello.’ And quickly I hold out my offering. ‘I bought you these,’ I say, ‘as a thank you for being so kind to me the other day. And as an apology for just turning up like that and for, well, for being so upset.’

For the count of one, two, three, four seconds we stay exactly like that: me proffering my gift, she holding onto the door that she peers around, and not taking it. But I hold my nerve. ‘You do remember me, Mrs Reiber? I was here the other day.’

Now she does look annoyed. ‘Yes, yes, of course I remember,’ she says, and somewhat unwillingly she loosens one hand from the door and takes my held-out gift. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘There was no need.’

And then another five, ten seconds pass and that smile on my face is cutting in like a grimace now. No doubt she wants to close the door and have me gone, whereas I am of course hoping that she will invite me in again. That, however, is not looking very likely. And so I say, ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to visit you again.’

‘Well, no,’ she says a little reluctantly. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’ And as if her manners won’t allow her to do otherwise, at last she says, ‘Would you like to come in?’

And I see this as a clue, as more than a clue – as evidence. I mean, surely she wouldn’t let me back into her house if she wasn’t Vanessa’s mother? I could be anyone. I could mean her all manner of harm.

This time as I follow her down the hallway I say, ‘You have a lovely house. Have you lived here very long?’ Clues, clues, I am fishing for clues. But she doesn’t answer. The door to the living room is open slightly and I try to glance in as we pass; I catch a glimpse of green carpet, green walls and a large, dark wooden bureau. I wish that we were going in there, but she takes me to that room at the back again. I look around the kitchen as we walk through and I see a stack of papers piled up on the side next to a near-empty whisky bottle, and on the windowsill above the sink that diamond ring is perched; the glint of it catches my eye in the general gloom. And again I think, what is she doing letting a stranger into her house? There is no evidence of cooking or food preparation in the kitchen, none at all. But that is how it must be, to be lonely and old.

But she isn’t that old, not really.

She’s wearing that’s suit again, and now I notice that although it’s expensive, the wool has worn shiny and thin at the back of the skirt, and at the elbows, too, the material is starting to fray. And I can smell her slightly, a faint, sour smell like old milk. At first I think that it isn’t her, but then I realize that it is and this shocks me, really shocks me. How could Vanessa’s mother let herself come to this? Vanessa’s mother with her beautiful clothes and her expensive perfume, the skin on her face and on her arms so polished and smooth, like a film star, always on show.

I sit down on that old leather sofa again, and she sits herself opposite me. I am careful not to appear as if I am staring as I look at her face. She wears no make-up, and her skin, as well as her hair, is badly neglected: dry and flaking, almost powder-like, across her cheekbones. And her lips are cracked and sore; there are tiny red lines bleeding into the corners of her mouth. I try not to stare, but it’s hard not to, and my heart is wrenched to see such neglect.

She really isn’t that old. Certainly not much older than my own mother, who runs about Ashcroft still, busying herself with the bridge club and the Women’s Guild and gets her hair done, without fail, once a week. Age is a state of mind, my mother says. Behave like an old person and you’ll become one.

‘Perhaps you would like a cup of tea,’ Mrs Reiber says, and I wonder by her tone if maybe I have been staring.

‘No, no, please,’ I say, ‘I don’t want to put you to the trouble.’ And my heart starts speeding up. ‘Mrs Reiber,’ I say, I
have
to say, ‘if there is anything I can do for you, anything at all while I am here, then please, I would be so glad to help. Do you need any shopping or – or can I help you prepare some lunch?’ I feel the colour flooding into my face. She is sitting perfectly still and is staring at me with those stony blue eyes.

‘I am quite capable of looking after myself, thank you,’ she says.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I say, though I think that quite clearly she isn’t. ‘But if there is anything – I would love to help, that’s all . . .’ There is a long, awkward pause.

‘Kew is very convenient,’ she says at last. ‘I can get everything that I need from the shops nearby.’ Her voice is cold, and defensive, and so I tread more carefully.

‘It’s lovely around here,’ I agree. And the shops by the station are gorgeous. My son has a friend who lives just near here,’ I say. ‘Kew is a very nice place.’ She doesn’t respond, but I carry on. I try to make chat. ‘The Gardens are lovely, of course, although I haven’t been to them for a few years. We used to come with our son, Jonathan, sometimes, when he was small. He loved the greenhouse.’ I am waffling on; is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. She is so closed, and unreadable. She invited me in, but she isn’t exactly friendly. ‘Do you have a son?’ I ask, and I catch her off guard.