Everything and Nothing (26 page)

Agatha wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get the icing for the biscuits so spectacularly wrong, but it had tasted like shit and she hadn’t had the nous to try it until she’d iced nearly all of them, which meant she’d had to scrape it off forty biscuits before bloody re-making it. Then Ruth had come in and told her not to bother. Not to fucking bother! The woman was totally unfi t to be a mother.

When the party had started all these people flooded into the house. It was horrible. Everywhere Agatha looked people were laying claim to Hal and giving him presents and picking him up and shouting. Why did they all have to talk so fucking loudly? They drank glasses of fizzy wine and talked over their children’s heads about the most banal crap. Nothing made any sense or had any cohesion to it. Agatha had a party plan, but Ruth had made no attempt to follow it. A few times she’d tried to talk to Ruth, to get some order back into the party, but Ruth had barely been able to hide her disdain and told Agatha not to worry, she’d handle the games. But then when the games had started Ruth hadn’t handled them herself, she’d got that bloody bitch whatever her name was with the long flowing black hair and pouty lips and tight jeans. She was a bloody liar, Ruth, just like every bloody body bastard else.

Agatha had looked out of the window as she was taking the cling film off the sandwiches and arranging the biscuits on a plate and getting the little sausages out of the oven when she saw Hal holding hands with the long-haired bitch. He was jumping up and down and smiling. Agatha had a sudden pang of hatred shoot through her that was so violent it momentarily took in Hal as well. Fickle, that was the word. Every bloody bastard body was fickle as well as a liar. If she’d had a gun she’d have shot the lot of them.

Was it getting hot in here? Agatha desperately pushed open all the windows. She was sweating. It was rolling off her so that she could feel it running down her back and pooling at the base of her spine. Was it hot? Why was it so hot? Agatha pulled at her T-shirt, she wanted to take it off, she needed to take it off.

Someone was talking to her. She turned round and saw the stupid bitch of a grandmother standing there. Her mouth was moving but it was too hot for Agatha to hear anything. And they were all still shouting in the garden. She reached over to pick up the cake because if anyone was going to get Hal to blow out his candles then it was going to be her.

Too late she noticed Hal standing on a chair next to his grandmother. Her eyes went to him and she saw that he was chewing. His hand moved to the plate and he was taking another sandwich to add to the one he had already finished. Ruth’s mother’s voice exploded into her ears. ‘Oh my God, he’s eating! Quick, Aggie, go and get Ruth, she’s got to see this.’

It was too hot. Had Agatha said that already? Was anyone listening? It. Was. Too. Hot. Hal had to stop. She fell towards him in one movement, dropping the plate with the cake, which smashed into fragments. It was in fragments at her feet. Feet. Fragments. Maybe she couldn’t stop falling. Maybe that’s why she was on the floor and the plate was harsh on her hands. Her blood felt warm and sticky.

Fragments. Floor. Falling.

Someone or something was screaming. It was loud and too close to her. It was so close it felt like it was in her head. It was hot in here. Too hot. Wasn’t anyone going to help her? God help the child.

The plate was broken.

The cake was ruined.

The floor was fragmented.

Her hands and feet on the floor.

There were fragments of her on the floor.

Ruth and Christian reached the darkness of the house together. They didn’t need to speak because the fear bristled on them. They were stepping into an unknown and they couldn’t help each other. The familiarity of their surroundings melted into a grotesque parody of their life. Ruth went first, calling her son’s name. She heard a small whimper, underneath or maybe over the screaming. She went into the hall and saw her mother holding Hal close to her. She was deathly white, as white as a pint of milk, except for the tiny pin-pricks of blood splattering both her and Hal.

‘It’s Aggie,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened. I took Hal to the loo and then he said he was hungry so we went into the kitchen and he ate a sandwich.’

‘A sandwich?’ Ruth couldn’t help herself.

‘I know, I’ll tell you about that later. I was trying to speak to Aggie, telling her what a great job she’d done, but she didn’t seem to hear and she looked, I don’t know, I suppose beside herself and very red. Then Hal took another sandwich and she lunged at him but she was holding the cake and she tripped and there’s blood, I think she cut her hands on the plate. And, my God, that noise she’s making, it’s not normal.’

‘Okay, Mum. Christian and I will deal with it.’ A feeling of dread was all around them, enveloping and constraining them.

Ruth didn’t want to see what was going on behind the kitchen door but Christian walked straight in. The noise was intensified and she could see the blood on the floor, along with shards of china and mashed cake. Aggie was still on the floor, looking like a wild animal. She had tears and snot all over her face which was red and swollen. Christian went straight to her and lifted her onto a chair. It seemed to calm her slightly and the noise dropped a decibel or two so that she sounded like a mooing cow. Ruth found a cloth and washed the blood off Aggie’s hands and arms.

‘I think it’s mainly superficial,’ she said to Christian.

Ruth looked at the girl she’d entrusted her children to these past eight months and wondered what she’d done. ‘Aggie,’ she said. ‘Aggie, it’s me – Ruth. Are you okay?’ Aggie looked up but her eyes didn’t connect with Ruth. She looked very young and Ruth felt a flicker of motherly love for her. She fetched her a glass of water and made Aggie drink it.

‘Aggie,’ Ruth tried again. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. Do you need to see a doctor? Do you know what’s happening to you?’

‘Shall I call an ambulance?’ asked Christian.

‘She seems to be calming down,’ answered Ruth. ‘Give her a minute.’

They watched the colour drain from Aggie’s face, the blood moving like it was being pulled by a magnet. Then her teeth started chattering.

‘Aggie, are you feeling any better?’ Ruth tried again.

The girl looked up at her and started to cry. Ruth pulled her towards her and let Aggie’s tears soak into her T-shirt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted the job so much. I’m epileptic.’

Ruth relaxed at this. There was still the thought of what would have happened if this scene had occurred when it was just Aggie and Hal in the house, but it seemed better than the other options. ‘Oh, Aggie, you should have said. Maybe we could have got round it.’

‘I suppose I should leave,’ Aggie was saying now.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.’ Ruth smoothed her hair. It felt good to be the superior one for once. ‘You’re going to go to bed and not worry about this and we’ll talk in the morning.’

‘But Hal’s cake –’

‘It doesn’t matter. He won’t even notice.’

Aggie was whimpering now and her hands were icy. But she stood up.

‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Ruth.

‘No, I’m okay. You’re right, I need to sleep.’

There was a lot that needed to be thought about, but Ruth couldn’t let herself get into that now. This was a big fuck-up and she wasn’t sure where to go from here.

‘Shit,’ she said to Christian when she was sure Aggie couldn’t hear them.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘She can’t look after the children.’

‘Of course not. But we can’t just turn her onto the street.’

‘I think we should get her to a doctor in the morning.’

Ruth wanted wine but there was a whole party still to be endured, all the questions their friends would ask, all the shock they had to absorb. ‘Yes, but first I’d better rescue the cake.’

The stairs swam before Aggie’s eyes and white lights darted around her head. That was as close to the edge as she ever wanted to get. Of course Ruth and Christian would ask her to leave in the morning; even they weren’t desperate enough to leave a lunatic in charge of their children. She sat on her bed and calculated the possibility of them ringing a doctor or the police before the morning and decided it wasn’t very likely. They’d have to deal with the party and then some guests would linger and then they’d have to get the kids to bed and have dinner with her parents. They’d imagine she was asleep and they’d leave it till morning.

She toyed with the idea of waiting till everyone was asleep and then lifting Hal from his bed and stealing into the night with him like a fugitive. But she thought it was probably unnecessary. Besides she didn’t want to be made to feel like a criminal because of one stupid slip up. She was not the person screaming on the floor, she was the strong woman she had worked so hard to be. She was not afraid. She was not wrong. She was Hal’s mother.

Agatha stayed awake all night. She heard Ruth and Christian go to bed just after eleven and she heard their voices rise and fall with the pitch of their argument, but they sounded too tired to get into it properly. At three she went to the airing cupboard and retrieved her knapsack. On the top were the bags of new clothes she had bought for her and Hal. It was all these little details which made her sure she would get away with it.

Agatha had studied the women in the park for weeks. She saw what they wore and looked at their labels when they left expensive jumpers on benches. She touched the real leather of their handbags, noticed the sun glinting off their dark glasses. She practised the way they walked across the grass of the park like they were in an exclusive restaurant with every right to be there. They didn’t let their gaze waver over people like her, they barely even noticed their children trailing in their wake like baby ducks. Life flowed for these women because they expected it to and this sort of confidence was like a shield; no one questioned you when you were one of these women. Agatha had considered taking a few of the many clothes Ruth never wore, but she had resisted the temptation because that would have been wrong. Instead she had used her own money to buy clothes to which she could see no point other than that they opened a door to a new life.

At five she dressed and sat on the edge of her bed watching the sky lighten into a dull grey which would transform into blue in a few hours’ time. Her stomach felt emptier than it ever had; she could feel her intestinal juices swirling the sick-inducing bile round her insides. Time crawled through a sewer but still she waited because it was vitally important that she performed each step exactly as she had seen it in her mind, at exactly the right time.

At six o’clock she took her knapsack downstairs and put it by the front door. She got Hal’s buggy out of the cupboard under the stairs and opened it next to the bag. Then she trod noiselessly back upstairs. Agatha would have made a good burglar, she knew how to walk so that she carried her weight within her body, keeping her footsteps as light as if they really were feathers. Years of looking after children had made her an expert in this.

Hal’s room was dark and she could hear him sucking in his sleep. She smoothed the hair off his face and he opened his eyes silently. His cheeks gave way to her touch like a pillow or a cashmere blanket.

‘Morning, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a special treat for you, Hal. Do you want to come on an adventure with me?’

He held his arms up to her, the trust in the gesture so intense it caught at Agatha’s throat. She lifted him up and his tiny body fitted into hers, making her sure she was right. They knelt on the floor together as Agatha eased his little limbs into his clothes.

‘Now, we have to be really quiet, Hal, so we don’t wake anyone else. Is that okay?’

He nodded and she picked him up and went downstairs. It was so close, her life was so close now and yet she had never felt more scared. Her heart resounded through her body, announcing itself in every muscle, every fibre, every vein of her being.

But now he was strapped into the buggy and the knapsack was on her back. She opened the front door and pushed him out. She turned and used her key to shut the door silently. The already warm summer air embraced them and propelled them down the street. The birds singing the dawn chorus stopped and stared and, when they saw what was happening, started again, but louder this time, more triumphantly, for Agatha and Hal were going home.

Christian woke with a start, his heart pumping so viciously he momentarily worried that he was having a heart attack. He turned his head and saw it was six thirty-three. He listened for the sound of crying, but none came. He was hot and he threw the covers off, letting the morning air dry the sweat onto his naked body. He had the impression of a bad dream in his mind, like a ghost at a window or a foul taste in his mouth. Ruth was still asleep, turned away from him and breathing so silently it was almost unreal. He had a desire to check on his children, but he resisted it, knowing that at this time they were too near to the day to allow any noise.

The air felt close and stifling, although it wasn’t really that hot. It was never that hot in England. He tried to remember how he had got into an argument with Ruth the night before, but everything was jumbled. He doubted he could ever again say the right thing to her.

Christian got up and showered. It was Sunday and tomorrow Ruth wanted him to leave. The life that had seemed like a trap now opened up before him and he felt the knowledge of his need for it deep inside him. He might have to leave and live in a small room somewhere with a sofa which opened up into an uncomfortable bed and a kitchen which ran along a wall. Everything he owned would smell of the take-away curries he would eat or the stale beer he would breathe out night after night. He would wake up hating himself every morning and fall asleep each night wishing he was home.

By seven he was in the kitchen making coffee, looking out of the window at the mess in the garden which needed to be cleared up. But then Betty was at the kitchen door and her enthusiasm pulled him into the day so that he could busy himself with her breakfast and make believe that their life wasn’t falling apart.