‘I won’t be late again.’
‘No, of course you won’t, but if you are …?’
‘I won’t be.’ And I won’t, will I? It was just this once. I was distracted. Bitched. Daniel’s face, the photos of the wraps of crack, and Lucy’s snarling face flit into my vision.
No, this is Josh’s time.
‘Come on Josh,’ I say loudly. ‘Let’s go. We can get an ice cream on the way home, OK?’
Ice cream brings his head out of the book. ‘Yay!’ he says. It’s like he’s seven again – perpetually delighted by everything.
All that afternoon into evening we play. Aside from ice cream, there is Lego, chess, burping competitions, collaborative homework. Josh gets the best of my best self. When it’s time for bed, we nestle up together on his Lego Movie duvet cover (‘Everything is Awesome’ – yeah, sure it is), and read page and page aloud of his book.
For all that my mother didn’t teach me, one thing she did: the value of books as an escape tool. Tonight, every night, I’m passing on that lore. When it’s time to sleep, tonight (as every night) I don’t want to leave him, or turn out his light. I sit there a little while, until he gently nudges me away with his leg.
‘Night, Mum,’ he mumbles. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I tell him. ‘Sweet dreams, Josh.’ I give that beautiful hair/forehead cusp a long kiss. I don’t let him see the tears in my eyes. He doesn’t yet understand all the reasons for crying. And I don’t want him to.
Josh settled, I fetch my customary glass of red wine (there are worse poisons) and pull some leftover potato salad from the fridge. I curl up with it on the sofa, then flick on the TV, softly, so as not to wake Josh. There’s a Jennifer Aniston film halfway through so I settle for that.
Jennifer Aniston at a wedding. Jennifer Aniston looking pretty. Jennifer Aniston with a boy. Good old Jen, out and about. Is that how people live? Do they really flit gorgeously from scene to scene with the only continuity being their subconscious pursuit of an honourable bachelor?
Maybe. Maybe there are people who always pursue and never give up. Chloe, for instance. Unless she really is done. Is that what all this ‘normality’ is that I’m playing at? Waiting to see if Chloe has finally left us alone? And if she has, whether I’ll ever get over my remorse at leaving her?
I change the channel. Some mating insects. Lovely.
I flick off the TV and eat my potato salad in silence.
I’m not sure this is living, really. Is it?
Should I, at twenty-nine, spend my evenings sitting quietly on the sofa, my only pastime respecting my son’s sleep? Unless you count tight-roping between guilt and fear a pastime – I should be a circus act.
But not counting that, should I just be cloistered away here? Yes, I should. And no, I shouldn’t.
Imagine for a moment that a man lived here too. What would that be like? What would we do? Would we sit quietly on the sofa too? Would we murmur sweet nothings? Would we drink wine together, dare the odd loud laugh, even if Josh’s sleep pattern were momentarily disturbed? Would we go out, maybe? Get a babysitter?
Would we feel life had moved on from having a newborn?
I allow my mind to drift back to the man from whence the newborn came. And to her. The evenings spent together. We weren’t alone then. And we weren’t drinking red wine then.
But that wasn’t romance. I can see that now. I can see the fucked-up twisty captivity of it. Wanting a father figure. Wanting stability (ha!). Wanting a house where the only rule is: You don’t touch what’s not yours.
She was his, the other girl. I never was. I need to remember that. But it doesn’t mean I’m safe from her. She’ll come looking, from time to time. A return to chaos. A return to life on the run. Should I check the phone again? Not my regular phone. The other phone. The one I keep under the bed. Probably. Just in case there’s anything on there, about Chloe.
I pull myself up off the sofa, pad into my bedroom, take the phone out of the shoebox. The old, clunky Nokia. Switch it on, half hoping it will beep, half hoping it won’t.
BEEP BEEP.
New message.
It’s from her. Shit.
‘ONE DAY I’M GOING TO FIND YOU.’
I clamp a hand over my mouth, so I won’t cry out. Sent last night – 11.54 p.m. A late-night spear shooting through the dark. When will she give up? When will she let us be?
I know the answer.
Never.
I could reply. I could put an end to it now. Say she’ll never find me unless I go to her first. Which isn’t going to happen. Can’t happen. Because think of Josh. It wouldn’t be safe.
And besides, she might be able to do something clever, like track my location, if I reply. Who knows – desperate times and all that.
No. Just put the phone back in its box. Close the lid on all thoughts of Chloe. You have to be strong. Ignore her. Stop trembling, put away those tears.
Shit. This is why I both should and shouldn’t spend the night on the sofa. Josh needs to be safe but I need somewhere else to put my brain. I should call Daniel tomorrow. Try and get a life. Everything is fine. Everything is safe. I pull myself up, ditch my supper things in the kitchen area. I go and run myself a bath. That’s what this girl needs. A long, hot, soak, to scrub everything away. Maybe one day I’ll feel truly safe. Truly clean.
***
Chloe. Sitting on a sofa. Her hair a wild loose mane, frizzing out to the side of her head. Eyes bright and wide and dark, made darker by the liquid eye liner surrounding them. Knees hugged up to her chest. I’m sitting next to her. On the other side of her, my knees bunched up too, touching almost like mirror images of each other. My hair tied back, not wild at all. We’re holding hands.
‘We’ve got to do it; you know that,’ says Chloe.
‘How? No one will believe us.’
‘They will. We’ll make them. We’ll be safe then. As long as we never ever tell anyone. They won’t know who to blame then, will they?’
I pretend to shake her hand, like I’m making a pact. Except I find I’m not shaking her hand at all. I’m shaking Josh’s hand. He’s there, in a nappy (except he’s as old as he is now), sitting in between us. Chloe gradually fades away, disintegrates into the light.
‘Wait, Chloe! What will I do without you?’
She doesn’t answer. She pretends to be gone. But she’s not gone. I can feel her. I know she is still there, watching.
***
I wake up in cold water, shivering. What the …? Christ, I didn’t know life malaise had spread to day-to-day tiredness. My fingers are shrivelled, my hair is wet, and the flat has a too-quiet feel. I clamber out of the bath and, shivering, grab my bathrobe from the back of the door. Push the recurrent Chloe nightmares to the back of my mind (‘it will take a long time for your subconscious to move on’ I was told).
What’s happened while I was sleeping? Hugging myself, I pad along the dark corridor to Josh’s room, and put my head round the door. There he is, sleeping sweetly. Of course, what else?
I’ve left his curtains open, though. Silly. I must have been so engrossed in him that I forgot the more basic maternal requirements. Still Disney print – Mickey and Minnie Mouse are separated by glass (you get what you’re given; we haven’t replaced them yet, now I’m earning). I’m about to reunite them when I see the car outside. My car. But with the inside light on.
Odd. Why would I have done that?
Maybe