One Step Closer to You (3 page)

My name is Polly. I’m thirty-three years old, a single mother to my five-year-old son, Louis, and I live in north London. Each morning I pray for a sober day and before bedtime Louis and I tell each other all the things in life we are grateful for: my brother, Hugo, comes top of the list, custard tarts a close second. I work in a café in Belsize Village, run by a Frenchman called Jean. Half the café sells cookery books from across the world; the other half is the kitchen and eating area, where I cook soup and bake cakes for the locals. I attempt to go jogging as much as I can to run off licking the wooden spoon. I’ve been seeing an addiction counsellor called Stephanie for the past four years, and finally, every Friday lunchtime I go to my AA meeting. Sometimes I go to a couple of meetings a week, I squeeze them in when I need to, but Friday is always my regular slot. AA is my oxygen. It doesn’t matter how busy I am or
what else is going on around me, my recovery comes first.

As I make my way towards the church, close to Louis’s school in Primrose Hill, I think about the friends I have made in AA. Firstly, Harry. Harry is in his late seventies, grey-haired and slight in build. He’s always dressed in a tweed jacket one size too big for him and occasionally a matching cap that he models at a jaunty angle. Harry loves to be in charge of the kitchen, serving hot drinks and biscuits. The first time I came to a meeting, all snotty-nosed and red-eyed, Harry plied me with sweet tea and gave me his cotton handkerchief with an embroidered ‘H’ in the corner. He hasn’t had it easy. He suffered abuse in his childhood and became addicted to alcohol in his twenties, drinking heavily into his fifties, until his doctor told him he had the choice either to carry on drinking or die in six months. He has been clean now for over twenty years and to celebrate each anniversary he takes his wife Betsy out for a slap-up meal.

Next is Ryan, a music producer in his late twenties, sleepy brown eyes, who always looks as if he’s just rolled out of bed and shoved on a pair of jeans and sneakers. Over the past four years he’s sported orange, pink, black and blond hair, but currently it’s his natural brown, which suits him. He plays the guitar and has a rescue bulldog called Kip. Louis and I once met Ryan and Kip in the park and Louis had an instant crush; Ryan is impossibly cool. If I were a little younger, or the old Polly …

There’s also Neve, two children, just turned forty,
divorced, but now in a happy relationship with a former addict. She left the corporate world and has since become a yoga teacher. Neve has an open, angelic face, which makes it hard to imagine that by the age of fifteen she was addicted to cocaine, drink and sex. Basically, she wanted the largest piece of whatever was put in front of her. She chaired the first meeting I went to. Everything she said echoed my life. She was also funny, describing how she’d been pulled over and breathalysed on her way to the meeting. ‘When the policeman asked me the last time I’d had a drink I replied, smugly, let me tell you,’ she’d added with a wink, ‘“Twenty-ninth September 2005, 5 p.m., Phoenix Airport, Arizona, sir!”’ I was in awe of how she’d turned her life around, so much so that I plucked up the courage to ask her to be my sponsor – a person who helps you to stay sober through the AA programme. ‘I’d love to, Polly,’ she’d said at the end of the meeting, before adding, ‘but you’ve got to promise me one thing. You swear you’ll never
ever
lie to me.’

And finally there’s Denise, in her late fifties, dark roots and dyed blonde hair. She’s had many jobs, mainly in retail and now works part-time for Sainsbury’s, behind the cheese counter. Denise’s mother was an alcoholic who didn’t make it to fifty. Her father chucked her out on the streets when she turned sixteen. She has a mustard tinge to her skin and the crumpled lines on her face give away her forty-a-day habit. She lives in a council flat with a ginger cat called
Felix, and since giving up smoking, has taken up knitting instead.

I enter the church hall, waving to Harry behind the tea and biscuits table, before taking a seat on the back row, next to Denise, who’s knitting something in pale blue today. She tells me it’s a cardigan for her grandson Larry. ‘He was called Larry, ’cos my daughter always used to say when she was preggers, “He’s as happy as Larry.”’ She chuckles as she carries on, giving me a flash of her nicotine-stained teeth. ‘Didn’t see you last week, sweetheart?’

I tell her Louis and I spent Christmas and New Year with my parents in Norfolk.

Neve enters shortly after me, dressed in yoga pants that show off annoyingly toned legs and a sheepskin coat. Her short brown hair is pulled back at both sides in a couple of clips, accentuating her high cheekbones and deep-blue eyes. Out of breath, she sits down next to me and says, ‘So blooming glad Christmas is over.’

Ryan strolls in next, wearing headphones. Just behind him is a tall man with thick dark hair and a beard, his shoulders hunched awkwardly as he looks for a space to sit down. ‘What is it?’ Neve asks when she sees me shrinking into my seat.

‘I know him.’

Her eyes light up as she says, ‘He’s handsome in a beardy kind of way. Who is he?’

He turns round, as if sensing someone is talking about him.

‘An ex?’ Neve whispers.

I shake my head.

‘Your gynaecologist?’ There’s that flash of mischief in her eyes.

‘Shh! I don’t have one, luckily.’

‘Your Botox man?’

‘Bog off.’

‘Your doc who tells you not to drink and smoke,’ chips in Denise with a husky chuckle, her knitting needles clickety-clicking.

Neve turns to me, the colour in her cheeks fading. ‘It’s not Louis’s dad, is it? Matthew?’

‘Whoa, Matthew’s here?’ says Ryan, catching half the conversation as he approaches us with a mug of tea, laces undone and headphones now round his neck. I still get a knot in my stomach whenever someone mentions Matthew’s name.

‘Everyone calm down,’ I say, feeling far from calm myself. ‘He’s a dad from school, that’s all.’

‘Oh, right.’ Neve seems disappointed.

Ryan scratches his head in confusion. ‘Who’s a dad from school?’

Neve gestures to the back of a man wearing a navy jumper. ‘Do you think he saw you, Polly?’

‘Don’t think so.’

I explain to Denise, Ryan and Neve that his name is Ben and his niece, Emily, is in Louis’s class. Emily started
school during the second half of the Christmas term last year. When I’d asked Louis about Emily’s father, he’d said, ‘Emily doesn’t have a mum. Her heart was attacked. Her uncle Ben looks after her instead.’ Part of me is pleased to see him here. I have an ally, someone I can be sober with at school fundraising events, a kindred spirit at the school gates. I’ve wanted to talk to him and now I have an excuse. The other side of me likes to hold on to my privacy. I like being new Polly at the school gates, unscarred, the mother who has left her past behind.

*

‘Hi. My name’s Colin, and I’m an alcoholic.’

‘Hi Colin,’ everyone replies. Colin is chairing the meeting, sitting at a table in the front of the room, next to the secretary, dressed in a grey cable knit jumper. ‘It took me a long time to admit I was an addict. I pictured old men in mouldy clothes with rotting teeth, clutching a whisky bottle in a brown paper bag and sleeping in skips.’

There are smiles and mutters of agreement in the room. Harry, sitting a few chairs away from me, wipes his forehead with a handkerchief, before finishing off his slab of Battenberg cake.

‘We’re good at fooling ourselves, but in reality my sofa was my park bench.’

As Colin continues, my mind drifts to Ben. How is he managing with Emily? What happened to Emily’s father? Is this his first AA meeting?

‘I started drinking heavily when my divorce papers came through.’ Colin shakes his head. ‘I used to dream about lieins and freedom, no child jumping on the bed at six in the morning. Truth is when the kids were with my ex suddenly I had all this time on my own. I was also still in love with my wife, which didn’t help, and in complete denial that it was over. I didn’t drink to be social. I’d drink to get plastered. One time I vandalised public property, another time I went round to my ex-wife’s house and thought it was a great idea to hit the new boyfriend. “Don’t blame me! I was drunk!” That was the excuse. Addicts need an excuse to drink, never want to accept responsibility. “It’s Friday,” or “I’ve had a bad day at work.”’ Colin smiles wryly. ‘“It’s Christmas!” That’s a great excuse to drink even more because
everyone
gets wasted at Christmas. Looking back now, I reckon all my cherry-faced cousins were pissed on whisky and mulled wine.’

I think of Granddad, that very first time when I was allowed to stay up for supper on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, he had fallen backwards into our tree and blamed it on Hugo getting in his way, when in fact Hugo was nowhere near him. In my teenage years I saw a darker side to Granddad. His jokes weren’t so funny anymore. He became a sad and lonely figure. I understood why Mum talked to him as if he were a child and why he and Granny Sue had slept in separate bedrooms for years. It had nothing to do with Granddad ‘snoring’. Granny Sue didn’t want to be woken up by Granddad staggering home from the pub.

‘Then something made me sit up,’ Colin continues. ‘My six-year-old daughter became ill. I had a choice now. It was a case of “Do I run?” or “Do I face life and be there for her?” Basically, I had to sober up and be a proper man, be a dad.’

I watch as Ben heads abruptly out of the room. Neve glances at me. Should I follow him?

When Colin finishes his talk, the secretary opens the meeting to anyone who wants to share. A woman raises her arm. Colin nods.

‘Hi. I’m Pam and I’m an alcoholic.’

‘Hi, Pam,’ everyone says.

Will Ben come back?

‘Thanks, Colin,’ she begins. ‘I haven’t touched a drink for nearly five years now.’

There’s clapping. Maybe he’s outside having a cigarette? Neve encourages me to go.

I tiptoe out of the room and head outside to a small group of people smoking. I see Ben in the distance. Unsure if I should go after him, I see him glancing over his shoulder. Caught off balance, I take a step back before waving tentatively. But it’s too late. He’s turned round, hands back in pockets as he walks away.

After the meeting, I jog back home. I live in a tiny rented two-bedroom flat in Primrose Gardens, off England’s Lane, in Belsize Park. I had no idea how beautiful and green this part of north London was until I moved here. Hampstead Heath is only a ten-minute walk away from my flat. Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park are equally close.

Inside the block of flats, before heading upstairs I glance in my cubbyhole to see if I have any interesting mail. It’s all junk except for a credit card bill, which I decide can stay there.

The moment I walk through the front door, Louis charges towards me in his pilot’s costume. ‘Have you been a good monkey for Uncle H?’ I ruffle his bushy brown hair.

He nods. ‘We played pirates.’

‘Thanks, Hugo.’ I touch his shoulder. ‘I really needed to go today.’

‘How were your breakdown friends, Mum?’ asks Louis.

Recently, Louis overheard Hugo and me talking about
AA and my breakdown friends, as Hugo calls them. He’d walked into the kitchen in his pyjamas and said, ‘What’s an alcoholic?’

Hugo and I exchanged glances. ‘It’s someone who drinks a little bit too much,’ I replied.

‘So if I drink too much Ribena, am I an alcoholic?’

‘No, sweetheart.’

He waited, clearly not understanding.

‘It’s if you have too much wine or beer, grown-up drinks.’

‘Uncle Hugo drinks beer
and
wine. Are you an alcoholic too?’

I can’t remember how we poured water over this heated conversation. I think it had something to do with having a biscuit before going back to bed.

Hugo, Louis and I head into the sitting room that now resembles a bombsite.

Louis grabs his play sword and swishes it in my direction, exclaiming, ‘You’re dead!’

I stagger to the floor, clutching my chest in defeat. ‘Right.’ I spring back to life and look at my watch. It’s early afternoon. ‘Let’s tidy this mess up, go for a walk and then do you fancy something to eat?’ I ask Hugo. ‘My treat.’

‘Pizza Express!’ shouts Louis, jumping up and down.

*

Hugo sticks close to me in the dark. Every now and then I take his arm to steer him along the road and make sure he doesn’t headbutt a lamppost or trip over a toddler. Hugo
is six foot four with thick dark hair like mine, and a soft plump tummy held in by a wide leather belt. He makes me, an average five foot six, look like a midget beside him. We often wonder how we came out of the same person, me joking that I need a stepladder to kiss him hello. Though on the podgy side, he’s fit and always challenging himself to climb mountains and ski down black runs. His latest feat was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. He promises Louis that when’s he older he will take him trekking up a mountain. It’ll be a strictly boys’ holiday, a time to bond.

Uncle Hugo and Louis are close. When I left Matthew, Hugo became a father figure to his nephew. He doesn’t spoil or indulge Louis to make up for the fact his dad is out of the picture. If Louis believes he can get away with eating a second chocolate marshmallow biscuit, he can think again. ‘I can see more than you realise,’ Uncle Hugo says, wagging a finger.

‘Careful. Step here,’ I say.

‘Up or down would be helpful.’

‘Sorry. Down.’

*

Pizza Express is in Belsize Park, close to the cinema with the comfy leather seats. When inside the restaurant, I slow down to allow Hugo to adjust to the darkness. A waiter leads us to a table by the window. It’s packed since it’s still the Christmas holidays. I notice Louis glancing at the next table, watching a dad going through the menu with his son.
One of the waitresses comes over with a small pot of pens and crayons and a paper place mat for Louis to colour in.

‘Well, I’m guessing they’re not for me,’ Hugo says, already charming her.

I order apple juice and dough balls for Louis before reading the menu out for Hugo. Hugo can’t read in a dark restaurant. At work he reads from a computer screen, the typeface blown up. It’s clear he’s partially sighted since his eyes are inverted and he has a strong squint. His sight is in the corner of his eyes, so it’s hard for him to look directly at someone sitting opposite him. He tells me that when he is lost in a strange place with no one to guide him he finds it easier to walk in sidesteps. He calls it his sexy crab walk.

‘Lasagne,’ Hugo says, stopping me mid-sentence. ‘That’ll do.’

When we order our food the waitress asks if we would like to see the wine list.

‘No,’ says Louis, looking up from his place mat, pen in hand. ‘My mummy is an alcoholic.’

Oh, Louis!

‘Oh right,’ she says, blushing, before she flees from our table as fast as she can.

*

As we wait for our food, Louis is zooming his toy police cars around the floor, playing good cop, bad cop. ‘Don’t go too far,’ I call out to him.

‘So how was the meeting?’ Hugo asks.

Without mentioning names I tell Hugo that I saw someone from school there, adding that they didn’t stay for long.

‘Maybe he or she didn’t feel comfortable?’ Hugo suggests. ‘Hugs not drugs isn’t for everyone.’

‘Excuse me, we’re not all raving hippies.’

‘Did this person see you?’

‘Think so. Apparently his sister had a heart attack. She died, Hugo. She would have been around our age.’ I chew my nail. ‘He must be going through hell.’

‘When you next see him, talk to him.’

I nod. ‘By the way, how did your date go last night?’

‘I don’t think we’ll be heading down the aisle any time soon.’

‘No snap, crackle and pop?’

‘None.’

‘Oh bollocks. This one sounded so promising, too.’

Hugo has joined an online dating agency. He tried to persuade me to join a single-parent dating website too, but right now I’m happy being on my own. The idea of meeting strangers in pubs doesn’t appeal anymore. Besides, there’s a lot to be said for being on your own. I feel in control when it’s just me; I can do what I like, see who I like, wear my yoga pants most of the time and eat ice cream out of a tub in front of the new series of
Strictly Come Dancing
. My last relationship, with a lawyer called David, ended nine months ago. He was six years older than me and on paper every
woman’s dream: good-looking in that male model catalogue way, old-fashioned in that he liked to pick up the tab in restaurants, he didn’t like football (hurray), was a good listener (rare) and was refreshingly honest about how much he wanted to marry and settle down, when most blokes can’t even commit to a second date. I met David in an art gallery. I was gazing at a sculpture of a man’s head by Picasso when I became aware of a tall dark stranger watching me. ‘I’m glad I don’t have such a large nose,’ he said, guessing why I was smiling, before introducing himself. We went out for dinner that night and to my surprise Louis and a recovering alcoholic didn’t put him off. As our relationship progressed he was positively supportive, suggesting he gave up booze too. David could not have been more different from Matthew. I told myself that it didn’t matter that my pulse didn’t race when we were together or that my head wasn’t intoxicated by thoughts of him when we were apart. Those kind of relationships spelt trouble. And for a time I did enjoy feeling safe and part of a couple. Our relationship lasted a year. Mum only met him twice but was bitterly disappointed when we broke up. Janey was infuriated when I kept on saying he was too perfect, especially when her last date had quibbled over the bill, saying he hadn’t eaten any garlic bread. Hugo liked him, but knew there wasn’t enough spark. Another factor against us was that David wasn’t a natural with kids. He and Louis didn’t hit it off as I’d hoped. I could tell David was irritated if Louis cut into
his weekend paper time or spilt juice over his paperwork. When David began to talk about holidays and us moving in together I knew, from my reaction, that I had to break up with him. The pressure of more commitment was keeping me awake at night. I knew I was lying to myself and to David, pretending my caution was Louis. I wasn’t ready because I wasn’t in love with him.

‘She kept on saying “poor you”,’ Hugo says, bringing me back to his date. ‘She didn’t get the fact that when you’re born blind it’s all I have ever known so there is no need to feel sorry for me. I only wish I’d been able to see the price of the wine she was merrily ordering. It was literally poor me by the end of the night.’

Hugo tells all his stories on air. He’s a journalist and radio presenter. When he left university he did work experience for the BBC, longing to break into broadcasting or journalism and began working for them on the production side soon afterwards. He moved to the other side of the microphone five years ago, when he began writing a blog about being partially sighted and it received so many hits that he was given his own midweek show on Radio 2 called
How I See It
. Hugo is honest about everything, from the barbecue fluid left in the fridge that he almost mistook for fruit juice to how he gets around on the tube and buses, to films and books, political views and most popular of all, the single scene in London.

My mind drifts to Ben again. I wonder if he takes Emily
out for meals. I’ve never seen him out and about, or bumped into him at the supermarket. I’d say he’s about forty, but then again beards can age people.

‘Polly?’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’re still thinking about that guy from school, aren’t you?’

I’m wondering why he left so abruptly.

‘Maybe he’ll go to another meeting,’ Hugo says. ‘It can be pretty daunting first time.’

*

Back at home, later that evening, I say goodnight to Louis. He’s been unusually quiet since we left Pizza Express. His pilot costume now hangs on one side of his wardrobe, next to his clown suit. Fido the toy dog is under the duvet covers with him. It was one of Uncle Hugo’s toys, so ancient now that Fido’s fur is threadbare and he’s missing an eye. ‘He’s half blind,’ Hugo had said. ‘Rather apt, don’t you think?’

‘We thank our lucky stars for Uncle Hugo, don’t we?’ I say. ‘What was the best thing you did today?’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why doesn’t Dad visit me?’

I take a deep breath. Understandably, Louis is beginning to ask more questions, especially when we go out and see families together in parks and restaurants. ‘Daddy has to
work out his problems,’ I say. ‘He has many problems, it has nothing …’

He pushes my hand away from his cheek and for a second the angry look in his eyes reminds me of his father.

‘What problems? Where is he?’

‘He had to go away …’

‘Where?’

I have no idea. ‘Louis, he …’

‘Doesn’t he want to see me in my pilot costume?’

‘No, I mean yes …’ I wish I knew the right thing to say. How much should you tell a five-year-old? ‘He can’t come home, Louis.’

‘Where is his house? We can go and see him.’

I shake my head.

‘Louis, your dad has problems,’ I repeat, adding before he can interrupt, ‘things I can’t explain to you, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.’

*

Later that night, I sit down on my rocking chair in the corner of my bedroom. It’s my favourite spot in the house, my thinking spot. From the window I can see the communal gardens and the larger neighbouring houses with their bay windows. Often I try to imagine what each family is like behind closed doors.

As I rock back and forth, I vow that one day, when Louis is old enough, I will tell him the truth about his father. I feel guilty that I’m raising him as a single mum, but at the same
time, if Matthew never showed up again I’d be relieved. Finally I’ve reached the stage where I don’t look over my shoulder all the time; I feel safe at night. I’m lonely, but then everyone gets lonely, right? But at last I sleep without worrying about creaks and night-time noises. I don’t have nightmares that he might be outside, watching us.

I don’t blame anyone for the choices I made. I had to fix myself. I’ve made a start, and want nothing and no one to threaten the life Louis and I now have.

But I can’t stop Louis from asking questions.

My parents kept too many secrets. I can see my mother now, buttoning up her lips whenever I asked anything personal. She kept my Aunt Vivienne a secret for years.

When the right time comes, I will tell Louis about my past and what has led us here.