‘He tried to cover it up but you could see he was heartbroken. He was supporting Heidi, making sure she was comfortable, fetching her snacks. I think he seems really sweet.’
‘Do you want some tea, sweetheart?’ Ben hooks the handle of a mug with his finger and raises an eyebrow.
‘Yes, please. Fancy cracking open the good biscuits?’
Ben winks, shooting a mischievous grin her way. ‘You’re a bad influence on me.’
She laughs, tucking her feet under a blanket. Rivulets of steam spout from the mugs like smoke from twin chimneys. Ben passes her a mug and props a plate of custard creams between them. ‘I have an early shift at the café tomorrow. I can drop you off at work if you want to go a bit earlier?’
‘That would be lovely, thanks!’ She nestles into his arms, nibbling on a biscuit and delighting in his warmth after a day on the ward. As an ICU nurse, her job entailed keeping a tight lid on her emotions, building a wall, brick by brick, to enable her to remain professional, but sometimes, when she least expected, cracks rocked through her defences. And it was at times like these, when she could curl up with Ben and leave behind her life in the hospital, that she found the sense of calm she needed to relax.
Ben wraps his arms around her and deposits a gentle kiss on her head. And Maisie savours it – savours the small pause before this day ends and a new day begins.
Miller
‘Tell me a story. Tell it again.’ That is what you used to say, sitting by my side, bright-blue eyes peering up at me, thirsty for knowledge, for an insight I could give you. I called them stories but they weren’t. They were facets of life only I could see.
The neighbours clocking each other in the street, bidden, despite trying to avoid each other with the utmost stealth, to stop, smile, chatter through clenched teeth by a need to be perceived as polite that is almost tangible. As if they are in pain. But it is not pain. Only disdain.
The man who watches his girlfriend laugh and throw about gossip like tinsel at Christmas, impatience boiling under his skin, shooting glares in her direction. But she doesn’t see them, and her friends don’t see the bruises that mark her skin like different-coloured counties on a map. Later she will pay for every word that passed her lips.
The mother on the sidewalk, fondling her newborn baby. Yes, that is what you see, but you miss the husband standing off to the side, frustrated eyes staring not at the woman but at the baby. His baby. You miss the pursing of his lips and the balling of his fists, you miss the jealousy that pours from his muscled body like steam. Jealous of the attention and love his baby receives from its mother. You miss the truth in its brutal, disgusting form. Far better to only see the sweet picture. But by missing the small things, you miss everything. Everything.
‘Tell me a story. Tell it again.’ Shall I tell you mine? Shall I tell you who I was before I met you? Before you exploded into my life in a riot of colour and noise and happiness. Before I took her from you in the water that day and slotted myself into the place she left behind.
I’ll start with my family because you know the beginning is just as important as the end.
Sunday 1 January, 1984
The girl squeals as she is hoisted into the air by her father, eyes alight with the simple pleasure of his unconditional love and devotion. Her mother stands to the side laughing, hands – nails long and lacquered – clenched into an elated fist at her chest, as if she is trying to stop her heart from leaping out. She watches them, proud of her husband for his surprising skill at handling his own child, proud of her child for her beauty and innocence. When the father props the girl on his left hip, the mother joins them, arms round their shoulders, fingernails tenderly caressing their faces, one third of their happiness. One third of their lives. Their love. One third of their family. A family of three. Or so it seems, standing as they do, ignoring the boy who hangs on the outskirts wondering why that circle of happiness doesn’t extend to him.
I spend hours watching them, noticing the finer details of their family. Theirs, not ours. It is always the three of them. The father is besotted with his bundle of freckles and blonde curls. The mother is besotted with them both, and neither notices the boy to the left, peering up at them, seeking affection, validation, encouragement. The boy who sneaks into their bedroom when he has a nightmare only to find their little angel already there, snuggled up to her parents, who even in sleep wear smiles.
I stand there for what seems like hours some nights, wishing I could see into their dreams. But then why would I need to? I already know who would be there.
Father plants a kiss on her cheek – his little angel, Mary. She giggles and squirms in his arms, swinging a podgy arm around Mother’s neck, consumed with joy. Mother takes her from Father and the girl nuzzles into the space between her neck and collarbone – so perfect for a child’s head. She pats her back and swings from side to side. To and fro. Dancing in their circle, proud of one in a brood of two.
Something I have always found fascinating is this: we share so much of one another. DNA, characteristics, mannerisms. Her eyes are my eyes, her nose is my nose, her lips are my lips. We are nearly the same person. We eat with our fingers even though Mother and Father tell us not to. We smile the same, laugh the same. We are one. And yet, if we both cry she is the one who is kissed and hugged and loved until the pain has passed. She is the one in the circle, I am the one outside. Sweet, angelic, innocent Mary.
I wonder if it is because I am not special. Not someone who catches the adoring looks of neighbours and friends. Someone who, if they do something wrong, is given a forgiving, sympathetic look. Nobody ever likes the odd boy, the strange boy… the naughty boy.
Once, when we were playing in the garden, our plastic toys strewn across the grass, slightly more on her side than mine, Mrs Taylor sauntered over, cheaply produced clothes and badly applied make-up not boding well against the backdrop of her newly permed hair. She looked at us, smiling even though it looked like a wince, and said loudly, ‘The little dears!’
Father grimaced and forced himself to look at her slightly uneven features, desperately trying to tame the eyes that flitted to the wart sitting sentinel under her left brow. ‘Good morning, Mrs Taylor? How is Mr Taylor? Good, I hope. Sunny today, isn’t it? Enjoying the fine weather?’ The words tumbled out of his mouth, one after the other, as if he was trying to fill the space where an apology should have been. His eyes found her wart again.
‘Oh, good, good.’ She brushed away the questions like flies from her T-shirt. ‘And how are these lovely children?’ She knelt down and made popping noises into thin air. As we were hidden by her mass, if anyone had walked past it would have looked as if she had lost her mind. ‘Oooh. Aren’t we a pair of cutie pies?!’ She was talking to us both and yet her eyes peered at Mary, who looked back at her with a slightly bewildered expression. Mother and Father came over, sharing a look behind her back. ‘And how is little Mary Moo this morning?’ She poked her in the ribs, like an animal in a cage. Poke. Jab. Poke. Mary, confused, grabbed a pebble from the ground and popped it into her mouth, grinning.
‘Mary!’ Mother screeched, eyes widening, rushing forward, picking her up as Father prised her mouth open. The pebble dropped at Mrs Taylor’s feet, covered in saliva. She stared at it in shock, stumbling back, affronted.
Mary grinned, a string of spittle hanging from her mouth. Father wiped it away and awaited Mrs Taylor’s reaction. She came forward and tickled Mary’s cheek with hairy fingers, her features growing horrifyingly animated as she whispered, ‘What a special girl!’
Mother