Cuckoo (38 page)
‘Wonderful,’ she said.
‘Did you like your soup?’ Polly sat on the side of the bed and placed her hand on top of Rose’s, patting it ever so slightly.
‘Great.’ Rose made her mouth smile.
‘I’m going to give you my full range of healthy, warming meals,’ Polly said. ‘We’ll have you back on your feet in no time.’
Rose could see Nico behind his mother, pulling a face and sticking his finger down his throat, pretending to be sick. So it seemed he could be on her side. Rose would remember that.
‘Can we watch
South Park
now?’ Yannis said. He had hung around the edge of the room, leaning against the wall. Rose wondered if she looked scary to him, with her hair loose and matted and her face unwashed. She could still smell the brown river on her skin, and wondered how long it was exactly since she had showered or bathed. She shifted in her bed and a stale biscuity smell wafted up from the bowels of the duvet.
South Park
now?’ Yannis said. He had hung around the edge of the room, leaning against the wall. Rose wondered if she looked scary to him, with her hair loose and matted and her face unwashed. She could still smell the brown river on her skin, and wondered how long it was exactly since she had showered or bathed. She shifted in her bed and a stale biscuity smell wafted up from the bowels of the duvet.
‘Go on, bog off, Square Eyes,’ Gareth said, ruffling Yannis’s hair. He had always loved to play with English idiom. One of his favourites was ‘wanker’, a word he had never encountered before he arrived at Goldsmiths. The boys charged off with a cheer, but Anna hung back, waiting for her promised night with Rose.
‘Go and brush your teeth, Anna, then you can get in with Mum,’ Gareth said.
After Anna had gone, Polly leaned towards Rose, her face full of concern, and put her hand on her forehead. ‘And how are you now? It seems like a lot of things hit you all at once: the drinking, the drowning and the disease,’ she said. ‘Poor you.’
‘Polly’s had a great idea,’ Gareth said, sitting on the other side of the bed. He took Rose’s hand and squeezed it.
‘It would be great for you to have a break, Rose,’ Polly said. ‘You’re overwrought. You’re dealing with all the fallout of Flossie’s illness, and now you’ve made yourself sick as well. Our bodies and our minds are so bound up with one another. There is no such thing as an accident, you know. Anyway, we both reckon you need a little holiday, so look!’ She spread ten railway tickets onto the bed. ‘Five tickets there, and five tickets back. We don’t have to pay for Flossie, apparently. It’s a total bargain.’
‘What?’ Rose peered at the tickets.
‘I was going to save this for a surprise, but I think the time is right now. We’re going to Brighton! You, me, Yann, Nico, Anna and Flossie. I got the tickets the other day when we were in Bath. They’re really cheap if you get them in advance.’
‘What? When?’
‘At the weekend. We’re going on Thursday morning, coming back on Monday.’
‘But what about school? And Gareth?’
‘It’ll be fine. Gareth is old enough to look after himself, believe me.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ Gareth gave her hand another squeeze. ‘All we’ve got to do is make sure you’re better for the trip.’
‘And as for school,’ Polly went on, ‘well, for fuck’s sake, this will be
educational
. They’ll be seeing the spots where their old mums used to hang out.’
educational
. They’ll be seeing the spots where their old mums used to hang out.’
Rose looked down at the tickets again, as if by reading the details on them she could make sense of all this.
‘But why don’t we drive?’ she asked.
‘I don’t want you driving,’ Gareth said. ‘This is supposed to be a rest for you.’
‘Anyway, the train’s really cool,’ Polly urged. ‘It goes cross-country and we get to see the lovely English countryside on the way.’
Rose frowned. ‘I’m not sure though if I
want
to go back to Brighton,’ she said.
want
to go back to Brighton,’ she said.
‘Course you do. It’ll be like we never left.’
‘But we
did
leave. Quite consciously on my part.’
did
leave. Quite consciously on my part.’
‘You know what, Rose? You can’t keep hiding from your past all your life. You’ve got to face up to things or they get you in the end. Believe me, I know.’
‘Look, if this is some kind of therapy you’ve dreamed up for me . . .’ Rose’s argument was hampered by the fact that she didn’t want to talk about all of this in front of Gareth. There were things Polly knew that he didn’t, and Rose was keen to keep it that way. He seemed oblivious of any undercurrents, though, and just continued to sit on the bed, holding her hand and smiling – a little, she thought, like a zombie, or a man possessed.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Polly went on. ‘We’re just going to go back to our home town, meet up with some friends, take the kids to the pier and the Sea Life Centre, show them the scenes of our youthful misdemeanours, visit a few old pubs then come back. What could be simpler? The boys are dying to see Brighton. And they’ve got Anna all excited too.’
‘Where will we stay, though?’
‘Lucy’s got space, now two of hers have left home.’
‘Lucy?’
‘You know – Lucy Gee. Tall, skinny, red hair? At school with us? Got pregnant? Went off and got married really young? Well, Mr Lucy went off and left her after the fourth child. Bastard. But that was ages ago, and her kids are all quite old. She’s got the house until the last one leaves, so she’s got loads of space. We’ve stayed in quite close contact, me and her.’
Rose was surprised. She wondered, given all that, why Polly hadn’t thought of turning to this Lucy after Christos’s death, rather than foisting herself onto her and Gareth.
She closed her eyes. Of
course
she remembered Lucy. She could hardly forget her. But she couldn’t remember Polly being so intimate with her. And she herself certainly hadn’t been close to Lucy. In fact, she couldn’t remember having had any friends other than Polly. But, then again, her memory was unreliable: there were chunks of her life she had wiped out of her mind.
course
she remembered Lucy. She could hardly forget her. But she couldn’t remember Polly being so intimate with her. And she herself certainly hadn’t been close to Lucy. In fact, she couldn’t remember having had any friends other than Polly. But, then again, her memory was unreliable: there were chunks of her life she had wiped out of her mind.
The last thing she wanted to do, however, was to go to Brighton. Everything there was too close to the bone for her. But she felt trapped. Stuck between the beaming faces of Gareth and Polly, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse. The trip had been so firmly arranged that there was no chance of it not happening.
It was a strange sort of kindness, though, Rose thought, with Polly knowing what she knew.
‘Now you lot have got to get out of the way.’ Anna had come back in, clutching the kitten. She climbed on the bed. ‘I want my mum back for the night.’
Gareth smiled and stroked Rose’s hair. ‘Goodnight, love; night, Floss, Anna.’ He bent over and kissed the three of them. ‘Come on, Poll, let’s leave the girls to their sleep. And I’ll take that little Monkey, Miss Anna.’ He scooped up the kitten and moved towards the door, waiting for Polly.
‘Good night, Rose.’ Polly kissed her on the cheek then got up and followed Gareth out of the bedroom. As she closed the door, Rose heard her laughing at something he had said.
Anna snuggled down next to her, lifting the duvet up over her shoulders.
‘Poo, Mum. Stinky old bed.’
Thirty-Five
Rose couldn’t sleep. She lay there in a bath of sweat, sandwiched between her hot little daughters, desperate for a pee. She lifted herself up and over Flossie, almost leapfrogging so as not to wake her up. It was only the third time she had stood up in two days, and she had to pause for a few seconds to allow the blood to return to her head. Her bare feet curled under the chill of the wooden floor, as she stood silently in the middle of the room, swaying, waiting for the black dots in front of her eyes to subside.
The house was completely silent. She looked at the clock on Gareth’s side of the bed. It was three o’clock. So she must have slept, then. She took a pee, then got her kimono from its peg and, drawing it around herself, feeling a little lighter than she had a few days ago, she cracked open the bedroom door. The landing was pitch black. There was no moonlight to help her down the stairs. She didn’t want to switch on the hallway light, so she went back to the bedroom and got the torch from her bedside table. She often used it when Flossie woke up, to avoid disturbing Gareth. It had become something of an irrelevance though, since he hadn’t slept in the same bed as her for three nights now.
Swooping the torch across the stairs like a cat burglar, Rose tiptoed down towards the kitchen. The light made this most familiar of places seem strange and new to her, as if it had been rearranged. She flicked the switch on the torch and stood, again in the dark, straining to see if she could discern any movement up at the Annexe. All was silent; all was dark.
She moved across the stone floor that was even colder than the wood under her bare feet, and switched on the lights that ran underneath the wall cupboards. It was all the light she could bear just now. She turned and looked around her. The room
had
been changed. Under her tenure, it had been ordered, with clean surfaces and everything resting in its allotted space. Now it was like it had been when she had returned from the hospital the first time. The story of last night was present everywhere. There was a bowl of vegetable peelings on the counter that filled the air with the sweaty tang of stale onions. The sink was full of unwashed pots. The food processor stood in a queue for its turn to be cleaned, old soup crusted round its edges. The table hadn’t even been cleared from what looked like a dessert of oranges. Two empty wine bottles stood at one end, with two drained glasses by their side. The chairs were spread around the kitchen; you could read exactly how each person had pushed themselves away from the table, and in what mood.
had
been changed. Under her tenure, it had been ordered, with clean surfaces and everything resting in its allotted space. Now it was like it had been when she had returned from the hospital the first time. The story of last night was present everywhere. There was a bowl of vegetable peelings on the counter that filled the air with the sweaty tang of stale onions. The sink was full of unwashed pots. The food processor stood in a queue for its turn to be cleaned, old soup crusted round its edges. The table hadn’t even been cleared from what looked like a dessert of oranges. Two empty wine bottles stood at one end, with two drained glasses by their side. The chairs were spread around the kitchen; you could read exactly how each person had pushed themselves away from the table, and in what mood.
A sound like a distant newborn baby’s cry made her jump. She looked where it was coming from and saw the kitten, tiny and fluffy, swaddled in a blanket in a shallow cardboard box. Rose had crocheted that blanket. It had been for Anna when she was a baby. Trying not to handle the kitten with the violence she was feeling – she didn’t want another dead animal on her hands – Rose picked it up and shut it in the living room. If it shat everywhere, it wasn’t going to be her problem. She picked up the blanket, shook it out and, folding it neatly, put it carefully over a chair back.
Rose’s stomach turned and she realised she was hungry. She moved to the fridge and opened it. It was empty except for a chunk of cheap cheddar, two cooked sausages and a bowl of noodles: leftovers from meals she didn’t know about. In the door stood a pot of natural yoghurt, half a tub of hummus, orange juice and milk and at the back a couple of old jars.
She stood at the fridge and absent-mindedly crammed the sausages into her mouth. She scooped the noodles up with her fingers. Then she took a couple of bites from the cheddar, holding it as if it were a piece of cake. Taking the hummus over to the breadbin, she finished it off with an almost whole loaf of staling bread, dunking it into the pot and scraping it around until there was nothing left. Leaving the empty pot on the crumb-strewn worktop, she went back to the fridge and applied herself to the yoghurt. She worked quickly now, washing the food down with alternating gulps of the milk and orange juice. Kneeling on the floor, she opened a drawer in the freezer and pulled out a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Rocky Road ice cream. Squeezing it out of its frozen carapace, she bit into it as if it were a giant ice lolly, barely noticing that her teeth ached with the freeze.
Remembering from long ago how all of this went with her, she pulled out a bag of petits pois and tipped them into her mouth, sucking briefly to thaw them before she swallowed.
She shut the freezer door and stood up, her insides chilled. She needed something to warm herself up now, so she climbed up onto the stepping stool and reached for the biscuit tins. They were still as empty as they had been when she was packing for the picnic. Still on the stool, she found a jar of sultanas and crammed overflowing fistfuls of them into her mouth, then a packet of oatcakes, which she took over to the fridge and helped down with the last of the milk.
Feeling as if she had finally filled the emptiness, she lay on the stone floor and looked up at the ceiling. Her hands strayed to her belly and stroked its now firm, convex shape. For a second she felt nothing but a solipsistic bliss.
But then, as she knew it must, the other feeling crept in. A dull nausea, like the smell of new carpet, began to seep into her toes and move up her body. What on earth was she doing here, on the kitchen floor, with the remains of her disgusting frenzy all around her? It had been almost two decades since she had done this, but it had come back to her like a bad dream that you can never quite force out of your mind. She sat up and crawled to the pantry, where, finding the red plastic bowl she usually did the hand washing in she stuck her finger down her throat and made herself vomit up every last trace of her session.
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