The Child Inside (15 page)

But it is the people you see every day that shape and colour your world.

Jono isn’t the only one sleeping over. Oliver has room for Isaac and Luke, too. They are there already; Amy tells us so when she answers the door.

‘They’re in the games room,’ she tells Jono. ‘Go on and join them.’

Jono looks at me. It’s the same look he gave me on his first day at school.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, darling,’ I say. ‘Have a good time.’

The look in his eyes breaks my heart. I see how much he needs me, and yet how he wishes that he didn’t. He tries to appear nonchalant and starts walking down the hall, his body stiff and awkward.

‘You’re going to be busy then,’ I say to Amy, with a big, forced smile. I feel her watching me watching Jono. I feel her making notes.

‘Not at all,’ she says breezily. ‘We’ve people coming later; friends, with their children. It’ll be quite a party, I think. The children will have a ball.’

She smiles her polished, confident smile and I suppress a flicker of irritation that she didn’t tell me before that there would be other people here. Isaac and Luke I knew about, because Oliver told Jono, but a houseful? I picture poor Jono, stuck in a house full of strangers. We’re not like that, in our family. We’re just not like that. We don’t surround ourselves with people, we don’t just gang up – the more, the merrier. We’re quiet people, however much we may all wish that we weren’t.

But still.

I take from my bag a piece of paper on which I have already written my mobile number, and hold it out to her. ‘Andrew and I are out tonight, but you can call me on my mobile,’ I say. ‘If there’s any problem.’

She slowly unfolds her arms, takes the piece of paper without looking at it and folds her arms again, so that my phone number dangles carelessly from her fingers, soon to be forgotten, soon to be misplaced. Her smile is a little less benign now.

‘Why would there be a problem?’ she says.

I am loath to leave. Every fibre of my body is screaming to see Jono one more time before I go, to ask if he really wants to stay, to take him home with me if given the chance. But I am fussing. And social mores dictate that I must leave my child in this house full of unknown people, and trust that he will be fine.

I walk away from there, worried that he will be thirsty, hungry, homesick, shy . . . I worry as though he were a three-year-old. I worry because it is my duty to worry, my purpose, the very essence of myself. My love and fear for Jono wrap themselves snake-like around my throat and squeeze. It is all I can do just to keep walking. Panic spots an opportunity and sends out its spores, shooting prickles into my hands. What would I do without Jono? What am I without Jono?

And there is the real fear.

I fold my arms across the front of my body and walk. My car is parked just a short way from Amy’s house, but I walk slowly, in no hurry to go home. I need some apples, and maybe some bread, things I could buy from the shops near the station. And so I have an errand, something to do. A distraction.

And into my head suddenly comes this bizarre image. Last summer we went on a short holiday to Cornwall. We stayed in Fowey, and while we were there the regatta took place. The village was packed with people night and day and there were all sorts of celebrations going on. Most of the people were from London; they had descended on Fowey in their hordes. And the thing that I noticed most was how they all knew each other, these people. There were literally hundreds of them; boaty types with lean, tanned legs wearing shorts and sailing jackets in blue or red or yellow, and rubber shoes on their feet. I remember how the women called to each other and to their kids, standing tall as they did so, one hand sheltering their mouths, as they bellowed out their instructions in crisp London accents:
Posy, Ned, Hugo, we’re off to find some lunch now.
Not at all afraid of their own voices. Not at all afraid of being heard. They acted as though they owned the place. And I remember their children, mucking around on the shingle, dragging boats and dinghies in and out of the water as though they’d done it all their lives, which they no doubt had.

We watched them, Andrew, Jono and I. We watched them from our spot in the shade down at the water’s edge, and in the streets, and again in the restaurants. They moved through the village en masse, filling every space with their presence.

‘They’re just another tribe,’ Andrew said. ‘You get the skiing tribe, the football tribe, and this is the yachting tribe. Some people just go around in tribes.’

I watched them, repelled and envious in equal measure. We three, we have no tribe. We have nothing to protect us from ourselves.

I buy my apples, my bread and one or two other things. I buy a ridiculously expensive string bag in which to carry them and walk out of the shop, feeling just a little like I’ve been had.

I think of Jono, and I hope that he is settling in, that he is happy enough, mixing with Amy’s tribe.

Sometimes, when I was growing up, there were parties across the road at Leanne’s house. Cars would arrive and clog up the street. Music would go on, until the early hours. I’d lie in my little bedroom with the window open, and I’d hear the laughter. The next day Leanne would have purple bruises like thumbprints under her eyes, and she’d feel sick, and shake a little, as though from the cold, never mind that it was hot. It was always hot; they were always summer parties, always spreading out into the long, sultry nights.

And the next day my parents would be tight-lipped and drawn with disapproval. They’d go about their Sunday routine a little slower, a little quieter than usual.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, love?’ my dad would ask my mum.

And she would sigh and say, ‘Yes. Yes, I would, thank you. I’m too tired for anything today.’

‘I think we’d better all have an early night, tonight,’ my dad would say, pointedly.

Later, they’d be out the front, supposedly watering the plants. I’d see them, with their hosepipe and their watering can, each of them with their eyes fixed across the road.

‘Bit quieter tonight,’ my dad might say.

And my mum would add, ‘I should think so.’

And I believe that they were repelled and envious in equal measure, too.

And now, as I make my way along the road like a tourist with my overpriced goods in my overpriced bag, I realize that is how we live, too. I am the child of my parents, as Jono is cursed to be the child of me, and of Andrew. I think this, and my heart is caught with a sharp and scratching anger. I do not want to live my life in a perpetual audience, forever on the sidelines. I do not want it for me, and I do not want it for my son.

I walk fast, angry now. Angry with myself, with all of us. Suddenly I wish that we could be the ones down on the shingle in Fowey, the ones that the quiet people watch. When I met Andrew I knew that he was kind, honest, decent. I thought that I would be safe with him, but I know now that there is no such thing as safe; there is only fear and denial.

We
are in denial.

When our baby girl died, we bundled ourselves up and pulled ourselves together as though we could just carry on like before. After all, there never was a real baby, an
actual
baby that you could see and hold, just a swelling of my belly and an image on a screen. The cot went back in the loft. The buggy went back to John Lewis. We still had Jono. We were just as we were.

Only we weren’t.

I reach the junction where the road curls round to Mrs Reiber’s house, and I look down there, half-expecting to see her. I stop myself from walking down there, but I think of her, sitting in that gloomy house, with just her own denial for company. And again I feel so angry, so
frustrated
. I think of Simon coming here, to Kew, to visit his mother. I think of him driving around these same streets – walking, probably, along this very same pavement. And I think how dangerously easily life can become stilted and stunted, never moving on, just a series of daily routines running one day into the next. I see the frightening similarities between his mother and myself, and the thought appals me.

Tonight, as we have no Jono, Andrew and I are going out to a restaurant. After all, that is what you do when your child is at a sleepover; you make the most of it. You cannot stay at home; you cannot avoid each other without your child there to hide behind.

So we are going out.

I take my time getting ready. It feels like a big deal, a test almost. In the shower I exfoliate, I condition my hair. I rid my body of excess hair and excess dry skin; I buff and I preen. And then I stand naked in front of my full-length mirror and I look at myself; at the whiteness of my skin with its smattering of freckles, at the roundness of my breasts and my thighs, and at my mother’s tummy: soft, pliant, used. I am the giver of life and the taker away.

I do not like to look at myself. I do not like to be naked. My body is no longer a source of pleasure, but an object of functions; I inhabit it, but it is not me. But now I try to look at myself objectively. I turn sideways, I pull in my stomach. I do not have a bad body, but I have a body that has been neglected. I have a body that has not been loved for a very long time. And when I look at my nakedness I am reminded of that.

But tonight I make an effort, to see what happens.

And what happens is that Andrew drives us to the Italian restaurant out past the golf club, and we walk in and are seated at a small table near the back. At the table next to us, on one side, sits a youngish couple, clearly very much in love. All evening I am aware of the way that they keep holding hands across the table and the way that the man strokes his strong, fine fingers across the backs of hers. And he smiles at her, and doesn’t take his eyes off her. I notice that she is wearing an engagement ring, but no wedding ring.
Just wait
, I can’t help thinking,
just you wait.
She sits on the same side of the table as me, and I have to turn surreptitiously sideways to get a good look at her, and then of course I wish that I hadn’t. She is young, and unselfconsciously beautiful, her dark hair sleek and shiny, her olive skin shown off to perfection by her red strappy top. The tables are close together and she is well within Andrew’s vision. He only has to move his eyes a mere flicker to the right and he can look at her properly, and so every time he picks up his glass, or raises his fork, I think that this is what he is doing.

On the other side of us sits another couple, a little older than us this time, and even more jaded. They barely speak to each other, but oh boy, do they drink, bottle after bottle. It strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that we three women should all be seated on the same side of our tables, with our backs to the walls, and thus be presented in a row as the various stages of disillusionment.

The restaurant is popular, and the larger tables in the middle of the room are taken up by people out in groups, couples out with other couples, chatting, laughing, having fun. From my seat I can watch them, and see all that fun they are having. Andrew, as he has his back to the room, can only look at me, or the wall behind me, or that beautiful girl to my left. Or the other woman, to my right, of course. I smile, and do my best to engage him. I feel that we have entered a show, and that now we must play our parts.

We make polite chat. We talk about Jono mostly, of course, and the house, and our plans for the summer. Or, rather, our lack of plans for the summer. We cannot afford much; our money is all being spent on Jono’s school. And the truth is I don’t much like summer holidays; to me, everything that is wrong with us is magnified when we are away, when we are stuck together for a week, the three of us, dependent and bound. I picture us, trudging around foreign streets in mutual silence, or saying,
Look, Jono, look at the man over there with the bird on his shoulder
; or
Look, Jono, do you see how rickety that building is?
And Jono, sullenly, painfully, snapping back,
Yes, yes, I know, I can see, you don’t have to go on.

Once, when Jono was younger, we went on a package holiday to a hotel with a children’s club. It was hell. Not for Jono so much, but for us. We had to deliver him to the club at 9.15 in the morning and we didn’t see him again until five. The hours in between were interminable. We pined for him. We counted the seconds. And when we got him back again, we fell upon him with our anxious questions:
Did you have enough to drink, what did you have for lunch, did you put your sun cream on, stay in the shade, wear a hat?
We smothered him with neurotic love, till the joy was squashed right out of him. Poor Jono. He doesn’t want to be with us, but we can’t bear to be without him.

So when Andrew sits opposite me now, saying, ‘We could go to France, maybe, and stay in a caravan on one of those sites with the big swimming pools. I know it’s not very exciting, but it wouldn’t cost too much if we just had a week, and Jono would like the pools,’ I cannot raise much enthusiasm. I cannot think of anything worse than the three of us being holed up together in a caravan, surrounded by other noisier, happier families who are good at that sort of thing, spilling out their fun and their laughter and multiple children, along with their bicycles and their barbecues, and all the other families that they came with or just happen to meet up with while they are there . . . I cannot think of anything that would make me feel more alone. But Andrew is hardly enthusiastic either, really; he makes the suggestions okay, but it’s as if he feels that it’s what is expected of him. There is a huge shadow of negativity behind his voice. His tone reminds me of those old people you see waiting in pairs at bus stops, when one might comment on the good weather we’re having and the other will come back with an
Ah, but we’ll pay for it later.
When did Andrew start speaking like that, as if there’s a condition and a price to be paid for everything? ‘If we booked early we might get a good deal on the Channel tunnel,’ he’s saying, ‘or maybe we could look at the ferries.’