Just between us, p.9
Just Between Us, page 9
It seemed enough. A lot. Then, unexpectedly, it seemed too much. What started as concerned interest, notice, soon felt like surveillance; her every damn move was documented. Their gazes caged her. Be careful what you wish for, that’s what they say, isn’t it. The worst of it was that they were all looking at her all the time, but no one could see her. Not really. They all thought they knew her. They repeatedly insisted on it. ‘Oh, you’ve always loved pink.’ ‘You like a Malibu and Coke, that’s your poison.’ Yes, when she was seven; yes, when she was seventeen, but they don’t know who she is now she is twenty-seven.
The scariest thing of all is that sometimes, she doesn’t know who she is either. She hasn’t had time or space to work it out.
Giles would never have given her space. And nor will her father. She has to snatch it for herself.
‘I have to leave,’ she reaffirms with dogged determination. She drags her case off the bed and takes one, two long strides out the bedroom door. More steps take her down the stairs.
‘You are just like your mother.’ The words are spat out. Clearly not a compliment.
‘Maybe I am.’ She hopes so, actually. She might need some of her mother’s gumption if she is going to just go, no looking back. For most of her life, since her mother upped and left, Stacie has hated her. She’s believed her to be beyond selfish, an evil, terrible, ruinous bitch of a woman. But now she wonders, was disappearing all her mum had the strength to do? Just enough strength to leave the village but not enough to take Stacie with her, even though Stacie was only very small for her age at the time and really wouldn’t have been any trouble. For the first time ever, she feels some sort of sympathy for her mother, maybe even empathy. Who is to say whether their situations were that dissimilar? She feels a plan form in her head.
She opens the front door. ‘I’ll text you my address when I have one.’ He knows her very well. He’s probably already guessed that she has decided to head to Paris. That she’s going to find her mother. She hugs him briefly; his grasp is tight, she has to wriggle out of it.
The door slams behind her.
Friday 3 July 2020
12
Fiona
‘We should do something tomorrow,’ Fiona says. The suggestion rolls over the breakfast table. She’s using her happy, enthusiastic voice. It’s not a voice that is honestly very ‘her’. She’s aware of that; she hopes they are not. She often uses this tone of voice when talking to the boys and has done for years now. Not because she’s a woman without kids and therefore doesn’t know how to speak to children, as some might wrongly assume. The opposite. She knows how to speak to children better than most parents. She thinks being happy, or at least appearing so in front of them, is important. Over and over again she sees parents getting it wrong, not making the effort. Parents snapping at their children, shouting at them, even ignoring them altogether because they are simply more interested in what drivel is on their phones: a C-list celebrity banging out the latest TikTok dance, a mindless meme about recognising anxiety in high-functioning introverts. It sickens her. Honestly it does. Ungrateful, Fiona has always thought. Ungrateful and thoughtless. So she chooses to speak to kids like they are miracles, special, valued.
But it has become a strain lately, it’s been a struggle to remain constantly upbeat.
Maybe it’s because she’s living with the boys now, and being grateful and thoughtful a hundred per cent of the time is, after all, a big ask. Or maybe because of the pandemic and because everyone – literally everyone on the entire planet – is simply grumpy and fed up. Or maybe it’s because Kylie is dead.
Under this particular set of circumstances it is, naturally, a strain to remain relentlessly enthusiastic, persistently upbeat. The boys don’t respond. At least not all the time, not all of them and not always positively. There are a lot of ‘nots’ in Fiona’s life now that she has stepped into Kylie’s shoes and ‘bubbled up’ with Mark, Oli and Seb. A lot of negativity. She never had much sympathy when Kylie used to grumble about the boys’ lack of enthusiasm. And by ‘boys’ she meant her stepsons and her husband, which Fiona always thought was a little infantilising, a little off. Before, she just wasn’t able to understand Kylie not appreciating every single moment of motherhood and being a wife. She thought perhaps her friend simply wasn’t good enough at either role, wasn’t trying hard enough to make them all happy. Because Mark was a good husband, the boys are good kids.
But now she must admit it can be a little bit wearing.
And she finds herself using the same shorthand, ‘boys’, to refer to all three of them. Mark sometimes acts like a lost child who needs looking after.
It goes without saying that the circumstances under which Fiona is mothering are more than trying. They are without doubt harder than anything Kylie ever faced. True, Kylie might have stepped on board when they had lost their mother, but they were tiny then. Their needs were uncomplicated. Fiona is facing a much more nuanced situation; everyone knows teens are unfathomable. She realises she must be especially patient when Oli (or even Mark!) acts as though she hasn’t spoken, or when Seb is clingy, tearful or nervous and simply won’t let her have a moment to herself. He has started to literally stand outside the bathroom when she’s having a pee, for God’s sake. He wants to know where she is every minute of the day. Follows her around like a puppy. It’s not normal. Or sustainable. She needs her space too.
Deep breath, deep breath. Of course it’s not normal. She can’t expect it to be yet. The clinginess is entirely understandable. Most of the time it’s quite flattering, rather comforting.
But she would like to pee in peace.
She repeats the comment. A little louder and more forcefully. ‘We should do something.’ It is just possible they haven’t heard. Mark and Oli are often in their own worlds. Worlds she has tried to access but can’t. Not quite. Worlds of what? Grief? Regret? Anger? Fear? She’s not sure. Something bad. The worlds of nightmares. ‘We should mark the day. Celebrate it.’ Their eyes stay trained on their cereal bowls. Thank God for Seb. In an instant, her frustration with his neediness is forgiven. At least he acknowledges her, responds to her. He looks up, meets her gaze. Eyes wide, dark and shining. Always shining. Sometimes with something painful, other times with hope. At least they are not dead. The other two have dead eyes. Today Seb’s eyes shine with interest, curiosity. Maybe simply a desire to be entertained, distracted.
‘Like what?’ he asks.
‘Like go to a restaurant or an amusement park.’ Her smile reaches across her face but has no chance of making it into her eyes. Smiling hurts. Fiona remembers the day Kylie and Mark got married, when Kylie commented that her face ached from all the smiling. She was happy about it, though. Smiling even as she said it. Fiona didn’t understand. She does now, sort of. Her own face also aches with smiling; the effort it takes.
‘Oh.’ Seb is obviously disappointed and too young to be disingenuous, even to be polite.
‘What do you mean, “oh”? Wouldn’t you like to visit Chessington World of Adventures?’
‘Not me. It’s for little kids,’ chips in Oli.
‘Thorpe Park, then.’
Oli doesn’t respond, so Fiona turns her attention back to Seb, the younger, easier boy. He mutters, ‘Suppose that would be good, but I just thought you meant something different.’
‘Well, since we’ve done nothing other than go for walks for months, I thought that going to a theme park would be different.’
The Fourth of July. Independence Day in the USA, and here in the UK now too. That is the date when restaurants, cafés and tourist attractions finally reopen. Life can start again. Some are calling it Super Saturday, others are dubbing it Freedom Day, unapologetically echoing the American public holiday. Quite un-British this level of buoyancy, but Fiona is ready to embrace it. She wants to eat food someone else has cooked and drink a cocktail that will be shaken by a smart young man, ideally with an insincere but nonetheless flattering glint in his eye. She can’t understand why the others aren’t being more enthusiastic.
‘I thought we’d do something really different,’ says Seb.
‘Like what?’
‘Like look for Mum.’
Fiona freezes. She doesn’t know what to say. She glances at Mark, wondering if he will pick up the baton. He doesn’t. He continues to spoon muesli into his mouth and chew carefully. She didn’t realise how annoying Mark’s eating habits were until she moved in with him. It’s weird; they must have eaten hundreds of meals at the same table over the years. Aware that Fiona was often on her own, Kylie was forever inviting her to Sunday lunch, Saturday brunch or even a midweek supper if she thought Fiona was at a loose end. Over all those years, Fiona never found Mark’s mastication irritating. She didn’t even notice it. But now she does notice it. The deliberate, difficult way he chews each mouthful over and over again before he finally gulps it down. It’s as though he finds it hard to swallow.
Maybe he does.
Death affects everyone differently. Mark is losing weight. He looks gaunt and grey. Technically he could still have worked through lockdown. A landscape gardener who operates as a sole trader could have safely carried on. He didn’t do so. He moped around the house. Some days he didn’t even get out of bed. As he was no longer doing the manual work that provided his physical exercise, his muscles have quickly turned slack. He used to ooze a taut, healthy strength. Now he appears flattened. Diminished. Sunken. Fiona, on the other hand, is ballooning. Since Kylie’s death she has gained six kilograms, nearly a stone! She used to be a woman who watched her weight; who noted fat and calorie intake, refused puddings whilst longing for them, said no to cheese, and settled for black coffee when the cream-laden lattes were obviously more appealing. Now, at this critical moment, her willpower has deserted her. Her hand seems to be operating independently of her mind; it repeatedly stretches for an extra biscuit or a second helping, it opens the fridge and cupboards and reaches for sausage rolls, chocolate, handfuls of crisps and nuts. She crams the food into her mouth; unlike Mark, she barely takes the time to chew, but gulps down the goodies greedily, desperate to satiate the pangs of hunger, to fill the feeling of hollowness. The void.
Seb is staring at her. His expression is a complicated mix of hope and embarrassment and fear. He wants to believe his mother is still alive, but his older brother has bluntly and repeatedly told him that’s hardly possible; he’s ashamed of appearing naive and silly, he’s terrified an adult is going to tell him not to hope. That would be worse.
Fiona doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know how much hope she ought to nurture. Is it kind to allow the boy to continue to fantasise? Daan Janssen has been charged with the abduction and murder of Kylie. He has clever lawyers who have managed to negotiate that he remains on bail in Holland until the trial. Even the trial is likely to take place over Zoom. He’s obviously trying to avoid extradition. But she doesn’t think he’ll be able to wriggle out of a conviction. There is a great deal of evidence against him. Even without a body, everyone is expecting him to go down for murder.
Everyone, that is, except for Seb, aged just twelve; he believes his stepmother – the only mother he has ever known – to be alive. Or even if he daren’t quite believe it, he is still daring to hope for it. Long for it.
Fiona does not believe Kylie is alive. Nor does she hope for it or long for it. She knows Kylie is dead.
Because Fiona killed her.
13
Mark
‘Can we, Dad? Can we look for Mum?’ Mark is aware of his younger son’s intense gaze burning into the crown of his dipped head; he is bent over his breakfast and has to force himself to straighten up and look his boy in the eye. It’s an effort.
He doesn’t know what to say. Mark thinks parenting is a prolonged and impossible test. Single parenting is that but with big doses of isolation. There are always so many questions and he just doesn’t have the answers.
When they were little, he asked himself endless questions. Things like, should you take away that pacifier now he is approaching two years old? Should you cut back your hours at work to spend more time with them? Is he an especially picky eater? A noticeably poor sleeper? Is he shyer than his friends? Is he rougher? Is he wilfully ignoring you or has he got poor hearing? Will he remember when you lost it and yelled and yelled at him because he mushed his peas into the carpet?
Will your pockets be deep enough?
Will your knowledge be wide enough?
Will your advice be wise enough?
Will your love be endless enough?
You just want to bloody share it. The responsibility. The weight. Before it crushes you.
So when he met Leigh, he thought all his dreams had come true. He really did. She was able to absorb so much of the responsibility. She wanted to; it was obvious. She slipped right into their lives. Made to measure. And since she couldn’t have her own kids, well, she was just thrilled to step up to the plate and mother with absolute conviction and devotion. She was sensible, pragmatic. That first time they met, when Seb fell from the slide at the local park and landed smack on his head, cut wide open, blood gushing out, Mark froze. It was all too similar to that moment he found Frances at the bottom of the stairs. Bleeding and broken. But Leigh was just wonderful. Obviously a trained first-aider, or so he thought at the time – afterwards she confided to him that she was acting on instinct and didn’t really know what she was doing for sure. Although just two weeks after the accident in the park, she took herself off on a first aid course because she said on that occasion they had been lucky, that her instincts had proved correct, but in the future she wanted to be sure that she could look after them. If ever one of the boys was stung or scalded or choking or drowning. That was what she’d said.
Leigh saw a future for them straight away and she started to plan for it. She was very practical that way. Willing to learn. She also went on a few cookery courses and a ‘Good Parenting’ one. He thought that was a bit crazy at first. A course to tell you how to bring up your own kids. He had to hide his amusement, but as the months went by, turned into years, he had to admit she did make their home life calmer and happier. She always seemed to be in control, she talked a lot about positive discipline and enabling the boys to fulfil their potential. She often spoke about equipping them with the skills that would set them up for life. It was clear she was desperate to do a good job. She was the best stepmother they could have imagined, quite unlike any of the stepmothers in the fairy tales. She oozed kindness, generosity, patience. He stopped asking himself so many questions and Leigh was brilliant at answering the ones the boys started to ask.
Until she fucked off and married someone else, that is.
Mark stares at his younger son, who is all wide-eyed and expectant. Waiting for him to come up with an answer. Why can’t the kid accept the facts and just enjoy a day trip to a theme park? He glances at Fiona, but she remains annoyingly mute. Normally she prattles on in a more or less constant manner, but apparently she’s not going to answer this one. It’s not her fault, she doesn’t know what to say. Why should she? She’s just a family friend. Ironically, Mark is aware that if Leigh was here, she would know what to say to Seb. She’d know which words would comfort him, manage his expectations, allow room for grief and then, eventually, acceptance. Although obviously if Leigh was here, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The thought punches him. Deep down low. He keeps saying he’s over it, he wants to move on, but – Christ Almighty – his wife was a bloody bigamist. He feels such a fool. He still can’t get his head around it. Not really.
Who could?
Fiona would hate it if she knew he thought of her as simply a family friend. He’s aware she thinks she’s more than that to him. Not an unreasonable idea, as they are having sex. But maybe an unrealistic notion, as they are not sleeping together. They have tight, needy, functional sex. Silently, in the dead of night, so as not to wake the boys. It’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It’s not about that sort of thing at all. They have sex so Mark can prove to himself that he’s still alive, still here. It answers a need. His need, but it’s not about needing Fiona. Sometimes they have sex to release tension, frustration. At least he does. He has no idea why Fiona has sex with him. They never talk about it. Afterwards, he always gets up and goes downstairs to sleep on the sofa bed in the sitting room. The sex helps him fall asleep. Sleep is elusive, and so anything that helps him with that is a good thing.
Fiona has been amazing. Objectively, no one would deny that. She has kept the ship afloat. The main thing in her favour is undoubtedly that she’s stuck around. Seriously, it sounds like nothing, but in the end, it is everything. The success of every relationship depends on that, ultimately. It boils down to whether a person is prepared to stay or not. She stayed when it was really hard, when everyone just cried or sulked or sat in a horrible impenetrable silence. She cooked the boys their favourite meals. Of course she knew what they were; she’d watched Leigh make them often enough. She picked up the reins on Seb’s home-schooling, gently cajoling him to at least join the Zoom. He isn’t that invested in doing well at the moment, but she has provided some sort of routine. She does the laundry, suggests what they should watch on TV; she made a birthday cake for Oli.
When she first arrived with her large suitcase, Mark’s eyes flicked to it and somehow betrayed his surprise at the volume of stuff she was bringing with her.
‘I’ve never mastered packing light,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Look, I don’t have to stay. I’m not being presumptuous. I just thought we needed choices.’ Mark didn’t choose, not exactly. The government did. They locked everyone down. He could have asked her to leave at any point. He could still. He sometimes thinks he should, but he never does. It requires a level of energy that he can’t muster.
