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Half an hour later, a man wearing a suit and an earpiece is standing in front of me holding John’s hand. Attached to his shirt is a plastic badge telling me that he is the manager of Snakes and Ladders. Only his badge and his earpiece prevent him from looking like a funeral director, so low are his eyes, so dark his grimace.
‘I’m sorry to say we can’t find your son Matt on the main play frame,’ he announces.
My stomach tightens in annoyance.
‘He went in. He must be there,’ I reply.
‘We’ve checked every camera for twenty-five minutes.’ There is a pause. ‘Is it possible he ran past you and went outside?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought he would have done that.’
‘Is it possible?’
‘I fell asleep. So it’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.’
‘We have another play complex outside. Maybe he went there.’
‘Why would he do that without telling anyone? He’s never been there before.’
John starts to cry. ‘I want my baby brother.’
I lift him into my arms.
‘We’ll find him. He can’t have gone far,’ I tell him.
We follow the manager out of the Snakes and Ladders indoor arena, across the car park towards a large wooden climbing frame built in the shape of a fortress with boardwalk walls. The castle teems with children racing around the walls. I stand next to the manager, clinging on to John who is still crying, and a fist of panic suddenly squeezes me inside. Where is my son? Where has he gone? What’s happened to him? Then almost as soon as I start to panic, in the edge of my vision, like a speck of dust irritating me, something makes me turn to the corner of the climbing frame, and for a split second I think I see a boy of about Matt’s size, with blond curly hair.
‘What is it?’ the manager asks. ‘Did you see something?’
‘I thought I saw him.’ I shake my head. ‘But maybe I didn’t.’
And then I see him again. Matt. Matt’s hair. Matt’s red face. Matt’s black jeans and new flashing trainers running down the steps of the castle towards me. I manage to keep calm in front of the manager – who no longer looks funereal – the swarming children, and their over-vigilant parents who are hovering anxiously by the play frame. But as soon as I strap him into his car seat to drive him home I smack him, hard on his cheek. He cries. John starts to cry in sympathy. I drive home with two crying boys who are howling and bellowing, wishing I knew where I’d put my earplugs. As soon as I have pulled the car into the drive and switched off the engine, I lean into the back of the car and smack Matt again. Hard, on the opposite cheek.
~ Jenni ~
‘Why have you invited them midweek?’ Craig asks as he loads the dishwasher. ‘It’s my early shift. I’ll be exhausted.’
‘I’m worried about Carly. I need to talk to her.’
‘Because?’
‘She’s always been edgy – in a fun sort of way. But the balance has tipped. Now she’s just edgy.’
‘Well, it must be hard work being married to the local GP who works every hour that God sends, working herself, and bringing up three small children. So I do sympathise but’ – he shrugs his shoulders – ‘can’t you talk to her by yourself?’
‘I wanted to show her some hospitality. Hospitality at home. A deeper sort of friendship. You know how much she means to me. I can make dinner.’
I kiss him and he pulls me towards him, wrapping me in his arms and holding me against him.
‘Can’t you put it off until next week? Give us a bit of time on our own when the children are in bed?’
‘I told you, next week I’m going to see my mother.’
‘Not again,’ he complains gently.
I shrug my shoulders.
‘I don’t have a choice. You know that.’
Our dinner-party menu. Beetroot salad, followed by spinach and ricotta lasagne – which took too long to make as I had to cut all the stalks off the spinach. The kitchen looks as if it has exploded; there are pans and cutlery across every surface, as I didn’t have time to wash up before Carly and Rob arrived. I’m not sure why I’ve bothered to go to all this effort as so far I’ve had no meaningful conversation with Carly. She is behaving in a way I’ve never seen before, spending her time weighing up Craig, her eyes all over him when she hasn’t noticed me watching. Carly. Wearing a low-cut top and too much make-up. She has gone for the smoky-eyes look. Carly. Laughing too loud at Craig’s blokey jokes, and every time she does so Rob looks embarrassed. Rob, clean-cut and sensible in his stonewashed jeans and carefully ironed shirt. Even Craig looks surprised at the depth of Carly’s laughter.
I excuse myself and leave the room, walking back to our small galley kitchen to fetch dessert and put the kettle on for coffee. As I wait for it to boil, I look around at the culinary debris and sit on the low windowsill looking at the mess. Craig was right, entertaining like this is too much in the week. And he has to be up at five o’clock in the morning to start his shift at the fire station. He was recently promoted to leading fireman. I am so pleased for him. Craig, the only man I have ever loved. Unlike Carly, I haven’t had much experience with men. Craig is the only man I have slept with. I know that seems strange in this day and age of openness and overt sexuality, but it’s because of my religious convictions. My relationship with God. A relationship I am proud of. I don’t feel constrained or repressed because of it. God opens my life out.
Craig and I met late, and so the time we have had together was almost immediately shared with the children, which is why we have to guard our relationship so preciously. It can be such a struggle to try and find each other between sleepless nights and children’s tantrums. So far at least, I think we are managing.
But things are going to become more difficult.
My mother has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Too late. As is all too frequently the case. When the consultant told her last week, I was there, holding her hand, looking into my father’s eyes.
The kettle boils and I pour water on top of the freshly ground coffee beans waiting in the cafetière. I reach for the Eton mess I messed up earlier, and return to the party – followed by the fear of suffering and loneliness. Followed by my father’s eyes.
Carly’s cheeks are slightly red and the tip of her nose is glowing.
‘Craig tells me you have to go on hospital duty next week without the kids. Can I be of any help?’ she asks as I serve her a generous portion of dessert. Perhaps a bit more food will sober her up.
Rob stirs in his seat uncomfortably.
‘Have you run that by your mother, Carly?’ he says.
She turns to him, eyes glazed.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Nothing. Let’s talk about it later.’
‘I have other things in mind for later,’ Carly says, giggling and stabbing her fork towards a strawberry. She misses and bangs her fork onto her plate. Metal scrapes against china.
Rob looks across at me, his eyes speaking to me – see what I have to put up with. I do not reply with mine, because after all, no one ever sees inside someone else’s relationship.
~ Rob ~
The children are in bed. It took me an age to settle them. Carly, you are sitting in the easy chair in the kitchen, watching me cook a stir-fry with your piercing eyes of china blue. With your Marilyn Monroe looks and your volatile personality. Carly. So colourful. So challenging. You have put on a little too much make-up, as you always do just before I come home. Tonight it has smudged around your eyes.
‘Have you been crying, Carly?’ I ask.
‘No,’ you reply, taking a large slug of wine and crossing your legs, forcing me to admire a pair of shiny high heels I haven’t seen before.
I stir the sweet and sour noodles.
‘Are you sure?’
A flicker of the lines around your mouth.
‘Why?’
I take the stir-fry off the heat.
‘Well, your make-up’s smudged.’
‘Are you criticising me again?’ you ask with a smile. An over-egged smile that doesn’t quite work. Carly, sometimes your smile frightens me.
I serve the food into large china bowls and we sit opposite each other at the table, a lighted candle and the cruet between us. Without tasting my endeavours you take the salt and pepper and lash it across your food. I want to reprimand you. But I cannot. You are like an awkward teenager and I need to address one issue at a time. And tonight I have a more important mission. I take a forkful of food.
‘Carly, why did you slap Matt on the way back from Snakes and Ladders?’
‘He deserved it,’ you say violently. A pause. ‘Are you going to call the police?’
‘Of course not.’
I lean across the table and put my hand on your arm. ‘I just want to talk about it.’
‘I’m not one of your patients, Rob. Leave me alone.’
I remove my arm. We sit and eat in silence for a while. I can’t resist saying more.
‘Are you still cross with me about Jenni?’ I ask softly.
‘It shocked me that you want to fuck her.’ You emphasise the word fuck almost jubilantly; its guttural ending spitting out of your mouth.
‘Fuck her? When did I say that?’
‘That’s what you meant, isn’t it?’
‘You twisted my words. You pushed me.’ I pause. ‘Please, Carly, stop this. I love you.’
~ Carly~
Rob is in bed before me; he always is. I slide in next to him and he moves towards me across our silken sheets.
My luck is in.
I know he wants sex.
Last night he was too tired, and as soon as I got into bed he told me, by rolling over into his sleeping position: on his side, elbow out. The position he always uses when he isn’t interested. But not so tonight.
He is hot.
I can smell it.
He moves towards me, erect. He pushes my hands behind my back with one hand, puts a pillow under my rear with his other and goes down on me. I love this. Every flick of his tongue is exquisite. Perfect. Delicious. Whipping me into a frenzy of lust so perfect that as soon as he enters me I am ready to climax. But I hold off because I want more – I want this to last forever. Wrapping my legs around him, I push him further into me, pressing my feet against his bum. Thrashing. Gyrating. Moaning uncontrollably. I reach for his balls and squeeze them, climaxing hard. This is beautiful. This is what I need.
Rob is a gentleman. A real gentleman. My joy is his aphrodisiac. Now I have finished he lets himself go; jerking, grunting in my ear and juddering. We fall apart exhausted, exhilarated. I am still so charged it will be a while before I sleep. He closes his eyes and I can sense the moment he slips into dreams. I wait until I am sure he is sleeping, then I get out of bed and head for the bathroom. I sit on the toilet in our compact en-suite, but my nervous system is still so charged that I cannot urinate. Instead, I play with my clitoris. Legs apart on the lavatory is a good position. I climax again.
This time I am thinking of Craig.
~ Jenni ~
I am living within my own personal nightmare, the sort we all have to wade through at some point in our lives. Nothing seems real. Nothing tangible. One day I will wake up to find that this is not really happening – that my sixty-six-year-old mother will carry on mothering me forever.
Craig has tried to comfort me. He held me in bed while I cried. He listened to me when I vented my anger – listened with his ears and with his eyes.
Rob came round to see me a few afternoons ago, when I was still at home on my own with the children. He fitted me in in the middle of his home visits. I made him a cup of tea and he stayed for an hour, making me feel guilty for taking up his time. When he left, he pressed his card with his mobile number on it into my hand in case I needed any advice – day or night. He told me the dire statistics for my mother’s stage of ovarian cancer and lectured me on pain relief. I asked how Carly was because I hadn’t seen her since our dinner party. He didn’t reply as he was too busy fussing over my mother.
Carly. I think of her blue eyes, the deep blue of the sea. I didn’t manage to pop and see her before I left, but I know from Craig that she is helping me, by helping him with the children while I stay with my father in Chessingfold, over an hour away. My mother is incarcerated in St Richard’s Hospital, laid low by her chemo, so I’m chauffeuring him between their bungalow and the ward. And Craig, my rock, my brick, is looking after the kids on his break between shifts. Even though I miss him and the children dreadfully, I don’t want the little ones here at the moment. They must not see my mother like this.
My parents’ bungalow is packed with family treasures and memories; photographs, ornaments, tarnished silver cutlery. A conch shell I found on the beach when I was three. When I hold it to my ear I can still hear the sea. I spend too much time looking into the past, not knowing who worries me more; Mum or Dad. They met at school when they were fourteen. A lifetime together. I don’t suppose they can remember a life apart. Dad hardly leaves my mother’s side. He sits with her while she has her chemo, watching its poison drip into her body. He sits with her as she sleeps.
~ Carly ~
Two days after Jenni has left to be with her mother, the object of my now regular late night masturbation is standing on my doorstep. In my fantasy, he is a cross between Jude Law and David Beckham. In reality, he is a slightly overweight thirty-eight-year-old man with a dimple, wearing jeans with holes in and a Canadian-style woodcutter shirt. Rob has been called out to an emergency; a suspected severe stroke in one of his elderly patients. Craig steps into the dull light of my hallway and towers above me. He is a big man. Much bigger than Rob.
‘Thanks for having the children,’ he says.
‘My pleasure. Did my usual. Another trip to Snakes and Ladders.’ I smile at him. ‘How’s Jenni getting on? I haven’t had a chance to ring her.’
‘No news is good news. Her mother’s holding on at the moment.’
I put my hand on his arm. ‘It must be awful for her.’
He follows me into the sitting room, which is superficially tidy, the usual litter of plastic toys thrown into the cupboard at high speed.
‘They’re all asleep,’ I continue. ‘Exhausted. You can leave them here tonight if you like. I’ll run them back in the morning.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure. It’s not a problem.’ I smile. ‘But before you go, do sit down and relax for a bit. Would you like a glass of red wine?’
He sits on the sofa. The wine is already open on the mantelpiece and I pour us a glass each. As I hand Craig his glass, our fingers touch. I leave my fingers resting on his for as long as I can before he moves them away. I sit next to him on the sofa, pushing my leg against his. Again he moves away.
What is it, Craig? Are you frightened of me?
The door key rattles as it turns. Rob is home. His footsteps pad across the hallway. The sitting room door opens and he is standing in front of us, dripping with familiarity. I know from the shadows of sadness beneath his eyes that it hasn’t gone well for his elderly patient.
Craig jumps up from the sofa.
‘Thanks so much for looking after the boys. Great to see you both, but I must go. I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘You’re welcome to stay, mate,’ Rob tries to insist, but Craig is almost at the sitting room door.
‘No thanks. Stuff to do. Got to make the best of my opportunity while Carly has the children. It’s been rather hard work lately.’
‘Carly has the children?’
‘Yes. After a day out. Fast asleep upstairs.’
‘Wonders never cease.’
I give him my look. My ‘stop teasing me’ look.
‘I’ll drop them round after breakfast,’ I say, following Craig to the front door, leaving my husband to pour himself a glass of wine and sprawl across the sofa.
In the hall, Craig kisses my cheek. A dry, pastry-brush kiss.
‘Thanks again.’
I open the front door and he walks slowly down the front path. Halfway towards the gate he turns to look back. I give him my best smile, the one I practise in the mirror sometimes. My Scarlett Johansson look.
When I return to the sitting room, Rob is lying on the sofa, feet up on the arm, shoes tossed off in front of him. He moves his legs so that I can join him.
‘What was all that about?’ he asks.
‘Me being helpful with the children? Haven’t you noticed? I’m turning over a new leaf.’
‘Of course I haven’t noticed. I don’t notice anything except for my patients.’ He laughs as he waves the remote at the television. ‘If there really are five children upstairs let’s hope they stay asleep.’
~ Jenni ~
I hold her frail hand and comfort her. I lift water to her lips to ease her dry mouth. I keep to a routine: food supplements, anti-depressants, pain relief. Days and nights are dominated by medicine; morphine in higher and higher doses. Outside, beyond these four walls, other people’s lives continue. People rush past late for work, or laugh into their mobiles. The postman drops letters we no longer care about. Strangers stagger past the end of the road, late at night, after an evening at the pub. They are ignorant of the thin existence we cling to in here. The edges of their jovial conversations pull me towards happier times, but we each have one turn at life and I must accept hers is almost over. I have prayed and prayed to the Lord, and still she isn’t getting better. It must be her time.
Sometimes when she has enough energy, Mother still worries about small details, irrelevancies to me, given the state of her health. Whether the bins will be put out at the front on Wednesday. Whether the dishwasher has been emptied. Maybe the routine of minor details helps her hold on to life. But for the most now all she does is sleep.
I fear that I will lose my father almost immediately after she dies. He is not coping; when he isn’t staring at my mum, he stares into space, leaving me to run the household. He does not eat. I don’t know whether he sleeps. From time to time he clings to me and cries and cries.
I miss my family so much, stuck here in this prison of death. My husband, the musky sweet smell of him. The kindness in his eyes. My boys. The softness of their skin as I hold them at bedtime, cheek to cheek. Their energy. Their laughter. I hope everything will be all right when I’m back home with Craig. Lately, as I spend so much time sitting here, watching my mum sleeping, the rise and fall of her body beneath the counterpane, I feel my family moving away from me. Craig is coping so well without me. Better than I expected. Carly is being so helpful, which is unusual. She seems to have risen to the challenge of five children, coping better than she does with just her own. She has the constant support of her own mother, Heather – I hope it is not Heather who is bearing the brunt. A few months ago, I was worried about Carly; not enjoying her summer holiday, not enjoying her husband or her children. I was sad for her. But now, the tables are turned, Carly is on top of everything, and it is me who is sinking into quicksand.
Mum is calling me. A weak cry on the edge of the wind.
~ Carly ~
The boys are restrained in their car seats; tightly, as if they are convicts, and Pippa is sitting – back straight – on her booster seat. Everyone is making too much noise, Pippa being Little Miss Cheery, Little Miss Too Helpful, as usual.
‘Quiet boys,’ she thunders, making more noise than they are. The percussion already beating around my temples explodes. I pray for the ibuprofen I took twenty minutes ago to start working, and press a button on the steering wheel. Classic FM glides silkily into the Volvo. I turn the volume up to drown out the sound of the children. ‘Fingal’s Cave’ by Mendelssohn takes me away from here. I could be swimming in a Scottish ocean. Watching waves crash through sea-hollowed rocks. Anywhere but here.
A horn beeps discordantly through the music. The car behind is telling me the lights have changed. I press the accelerator and the car jerks forwards across the road junction in the middle of town. Next left and we are outside Craig and Jenni’s house – a few more minutes and I’ll only have my own three to put up with. Half an hour and Rob will be home. Rob. Always so helpful. Always doing something useful. Working at the surgery. Looking after the children. Doing DIY at home.
Please, Rob, will you just grab a glass of wine and sit and talk to me? Even if the children are running wild upstairs. Even if the dishwasher needs unloading. We had a world together before we had the children. A world of quiet conversation on the sofa. Gentle nights out sharing a Chinese, a curry. Trips to the theatre. Trips to the cinema. Holidays that were holidays, not child-care assault courses. And now? The children are drowning me, stopping me from being the person I used to be. No longer Carly, but ‘Mummy’, a stereotypical shadow of what is inside me. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. The word is beginning to disgust me. As I attempt to park the car, the rear beeper chirruping like a maniac, my stomach tightens as I think of last night. Rob hovering over me as I loaded the dishwasher.
‘Don’t stack the bowls that way. They don’t fit properly.’
He took them out. He put them back in again in a row on the upper shelf.
‘There you are.’ A pause. ‘See.’
And then he turned to me and gave me his concerned, patriarchal look – the look that makes me want to shout; staring at me too intensely, knitting his brows together.
‘Carly,’ he said, ‘I know you’re finding this stage difficult.’
‘Don’t you?’ I asked, standing with my hands on my hips, my arms and legs wide apart. ‘Don’t you find it difficult, Rob?’
‘Demanding. Not difficult.’
‘What’s the difference? You’re getting pedantic enough to become a lawyer.’
‘Maybe. In another life.’
He snapped the dishwasher shut and it started churning water. He challenged me with his eyes.
‘What would you do, in another life?’ he asked.
‘I don’t even know what I want to do in this one.’
‘Nihilistic,’ he muttered.
I looked at him standing in front of me, face laced with a frown, forehead a river bed of wrinkles, and missed him. Missed the man who would have laughed and dragged me to the pub, words like nihilistic never even thought of, dead on his breath before they became real.
‘I’m not perfect enough for you, am I?’ I heard myself shout, hard-edged and strident, tears peppering my eyes. I blinked to push them back. He took me in his arms.
‘Carly, none of us are perfect. You’re as perfect as it gets.’
My body stiffened against his. ‘I know that’s not what you think.’
‘Come on, Carly, leave it, I was only trying to help.’
‘And how exactly do you think criticising me helps?’
My stomach knots as I remember. Rob’s face contorts in my mind and becomes Craig’s. Craig’s face with its slightly suppressed aura of irresponsibility. Perhaps that’s why I am pulled towards him right now. Responsibility is killing me.
I sit in the car, noise sliding around me, and close my eyes. I am undressing Craig, moving my hands across his torso, down, down towards his jeans. I squeeze my thighs together.
How long have I wanted to have sex with him? For as long as I can remember? Or for as long as Rob has wanted Jenni?
I am back thinking of the first time I saw his almost naked body. In a swimming pool at Center Parcs. A child-centred weekend, several years ago. He was wearing white Aussiebum swimming shorts.
‘Mummy, are you all right?’ Pippa squeals, shaking me by the shoulders. I open my eyes. ‘Are you going to take the boys out of the car, or do you want me to?’
She is leaning through the gap between the front seats and unbuckling them for me. I watch her and wonder what it is like to be her age. Loving life without sex, drugs or alcohol. Getting high on sweets, fizzy drinks and simplicity. If only I could go back to a time when strawberry laces would have satisfied me.
Craig answers the door, bare chested, a damp towel draped around his midriff. His body is not as toned as it used to be; fat nestles self-indulgently on his belly. But then, I’d like to try some self-indulgence right now. His boys run into their house, past his legs, through the hallway into the sitting room.
‘Sorry. Had to clean up after a shout.’
Fireman’s speak for being called out. Craig the hero. I raise my eyes from his torso and hold his gaze.
It’s been so long since I flirted with anyone. Bitch-whore Jenni, is this how it’s done?
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