But if I don’t, the battery will be flat, we’ll need to call the AA, Josh will be late for important playground business deals again … Urgh. Bloody adulting.
I pull the curtains shut and Josh stirs slightly. At least these days I don’t need to ‘shh’ him to sleep and rub his back, like when he was little. Tiny. In that first place. Jesus, what were they thinking, placing us there …? And maybe the back-rubbing was more for me than for him. Clutching him, facing the door, ready to dodge a bullet at any moment. ‘It will all be OK, Jen.’ All very well for you, love. You’re not the one who’s done this to yourself – to you and your newborn. Had this done to you, rather. We were the victims.
Josh is really stirring now and I don’t want him to think I’m watching him in his sleep (again) so I pad out of the room. I slip on some jeans, a sweater, and some trainers, find the key and pull the door gently shut. Even now, even when he’s a big boy, I worry about leaving him in the flat alone. That’s why I put the rubbish out in the mornings when we’re together.
There was that case, once, about a woman who popped round to her neighbour’s house while her kids were playing inside. While she was out there was a freak gas explosion. The kids died. How do you live with that? At least if she’d been in the house, they’d all be dead together. If all you’ve got are your kids, what do you do if they’re gone?
Outside, I open the car and flick off the light. As I’m doing so, I see the slip of paper on the windscreen that I’d noticed earlier when I was rushing to pick up Joshua. Shutting the car door, I pick up the bit of paper and read what it says.
I inhale sharply.
Because on it is written: ‘WE KNOW YOUR SECRET.’
What? The paper shakes in my hands. Shit. First the text message. Now this. We need to move again. I should go up and grab Josh now, put him in the car. Flee.
Then I turn the paper over.
‘… Even if you don’t. We’ll find the secrets in your family tree and share them. Look www.secretancestor.com today!’
Oh for fuck’s sake. Jen, it’s fine. It’s an ad. ‘We know your secret’ is a marketing slogan. You’re safe. Josh is safe. For once and for all, get over yourself.
I stuff the paper in my pocket and let myself back into the block of flats.
‘Go to bed and get a life,’ I mumble to myself as I climb the stairs.
I almost don’t notice the package on the doormat.
‘I don’t live here, I don’t live here!’
‘You do. You have to stay!’
‘I don’t want to be friends with you. I have other friends, back in the other home.’
‘No you don’t. I know. No friends, no friends, no friends.’
The chanting, from everywhere. No friends, no friends, no friends.
Then the spitting, then the kicking. The hair-dragging. The head held out of the window, the ground too far but also too close below.
No friends, no friends, no friends.
‘Stop it! Stop it! Let me go!’
‘You’re sure? You want us to let you go?’
Her voice. The ringleader. Her, who I’d seen at another home, once before. Back again to torture me.
‘What’s going on? Chloe, what’s happening?’
A loud voice, an adult voice.
‘Stop this at once!’
And so they stop. She stops. I fall to the floor. People peel away.
All is calm. The rest of my first evening passes without episode.
But then, when I go to bed, there it is. An envelope on my pillow. One of those jiffy bags. I open it, thinking it might be a settling present from the home. But no. It’s shit. Literally. The envelope is fully of shit. A little welcome present, from my new friends.
***
Josh is shaking me awake. I open my eyes to find myself sitting at the kitchen table with a half-built Lego spaceship in front of me.
‘Your package arrived,’ I tell him. Because it was addressed to him. Not to me. What I found outside our flat last night.
No shit in this one. Doesn’t stop the memories though. I hope he won’t notice my eyes are puffy. Christ, there was much worse stuff. But it’s those little cruel ones that stick in your dreams. Emotional torment scars just as deep as the physical stuff.
Josh looks at what appeared in his package.
‘What! You built my spaceship? Mum, you can’t do that – it was mine to build!’
Urgh. What was I thinking? Of course boys like to build their own Lego. I look at my effort. It’s not that worthy of thanks, but some would be nice. I started another cup of tea between the booster engine and the hatch door. I think I lost my place in the instructions; the hinges don’t quite work.
Unhinged. Hah.
‘Sorry, Josh. I wasn’t thinking. Why don’t you break it up and start again, OK?’ He tuts at me, but he does as I say. ‘I’m going to go and shower,’ I tell him. ‘Grab yourself some toast.’
I rustle off, leaving him fussing over the spaceship.
I’m such an idiot. Why did I spend all night in a fitful half-dream, half-wake, full-of-hatred place just because my kid ordered a toy? Him and his mates, they’re members of some ‘Activity envelope’ club – you (I) pay a monthly subscription and some toy turns up. Usually they’re crappy bouncy balls or Airfix model aeroplanes. But Lego is cool.
Apart from when it gives you nightmares. Stupid. A neighbour must have received it for us earlier then left it on the mat outside our flat when I popped out. And I chose to spend the night sobbing into the kitchen table because of some stupid incident way back in another lifetime. When Chloe was still around.
But she’s gone. And she’s not coming back. Whatever those texts say, I won’t allow it. I think about it under my bed. I should check it again, shouldn’t I? No, not now. Focus. Jump in the shower, wham on some concealer, stick on a pretty dress and try not to lose my job through having cotton wool for a brain.
And get a life. Stop sitting on the sofa every evening, brooding. Move on.
Josh has finished the spaceship by the time I’m back from the shower.
‘Right, let’s fly to the moon!’ I tell him.
‘I need to get to school, not outer space,’ he chides me. I see his eyes flick to the clock. That child is a punctuality addict.
‘That’s what I meant, kiddo. Let’s go.’
‘No coffee?’ he asks.
‘You’re enough of a wake-up call for me, my love!’ I don’t tell him I was up half the night drinking caffeine.
‘Uh-oh! Don’t crash the car!’
‘Hah, hah. Come on, get your blazer.’
I manage not to crash the car either on the way to school or to the office.
In the car park I notice that no one else has a bit of paper on their windscreen claiming to know their secrets. But then, like me, I guess that everyone else has been home and removed it. Probably not after falling asleep in the bath and before having a panic attack but – hey! – that’s Jen Sutton for you. Full of surprises.
‘Pretty dress, Jen!’ Sheila calls out when I walk in.
‘Thank