Sophie's Encore (3 page)

“Or to get wet,” I laughed. “Indeed.”

In this way, the week went by, and by Saturday, I woke up feeling utterly exhausted and wishing desperately for someone to step in and help
me
out for a while.

My wish was granted when Dan turned up, unannounced as was his wont, to see if the Jones family would like to join him for an early dinner at our favorite restaurant. His suggestion was greeted with much enthusiasm by my kids, who preferred pizza ‘out’ a second time that week to the infinitely more healthy and less appealing meal I had threatened to prepare. We piled into Dan’s car and were soon ensconced at our favorite table in the far back corner, where we could see but not be seen. The kids fell gleefully on their dough balls while Dan and I shared a prawn starter and cheesy garlic bread.

“So,” Dan began, fiddling with his glass of wine, “how’s the week been? You look done in.”

“Thank you kindly,” I teased him back. “It’s been manic. How about you?”

Dan needed no further prompt. As always when asked about his work, his face became animated, and he seemed to grow taller, larger, more exultant. The band had been in the studio for only a few weeks, but the album was coming along great. His excitement was infectious, but our pizzas arrived and cut his update short. For a few minutes, we were both occupied slicing and cutting the kids’ food into the right size—my little gourmets required their pizza served
just so
—and suddenly, Josh took over the role of chief entertainer.

“Mummy,” he started, “I learned something today.”

“Did you,” I responded on autopilot, shooting Dan a meaningful look. As he knew only too well, this kind of announcement was often the opening gambit in a roundabout negotiation for a new toy. Not so today, however.

“You know snails?”

Did I ever? I suppressed a snort as I recalled my erstwhile fiancé, Tim, exterminating slugs on a rainy summer’s night by the light of a miner’s lamp. The neighbors had called out the police, and recounting the interlude to Rachel had cemented her intense dislike for my then boyfriend. Evidently, I had shared the story with Dan, too, because he muttered “exterminator” under his breath. I kicked his shin under the table.

“Yes, Josh, I know snails.” I encouraged my son to continue.

“Well, Mummy, did you know their eyes aren’t in their heads like yours and mine?”

I had never given this much thought before, but I nodded my agreement.

“How did you find that out?” Dan was genuinely interested.

“On the telly,” Josh explained, keen to get back to the key piece of information he was itching to impart. “But do you know where they
keep
their eyes?”

“Where do they keep their eyes?” Dan and I asked as one.

“Snails,” Josh started, jiggling excitedly on his seat. “Snails keep their eyes at the end of their testicles.”

Dan spat his mouthful of wine across the table, but hastily disguised his amusement in a severe coughing fit. I could feel my mouth twitch with urgent laughter, but I couldn’t allow myself to explode. Josh would be crushed. Slapping Dan’s back to maintain the coughing charade, I addressed my adorable offspring.

“Do they really keep their eyes at the end of their
tentacles
?” I voiced.

“Yes, mummy, they do, they keep them at the end of their—”

“
Tentacles
,” I prompted, and “tentacles” Josh repeated carefully.

“Ten-ta-cles” Emily chimed in, never keen to be left out, and Dan stroked her hair.

“That’s right, my sweet,” he praised her. He raised his glass to me. “To your very excellent parenting,” he proposed, and I giggled.

Sadly, the mood was broken and our evening cut short when Dan’s mobile rang with an urgent summons to return to the studio. Dan dropped us back home and rushed off.

“Sorry about this,” he offered before he drove off. I could see genuine regret on his face, but there was also impatient anxiety. He was keen and raring to attend to his emergency.

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “A rock star’s gotta do what a rock star’s gotta do.”

Later that night, I was in the middle of a strange dream involving Dan, the kids, and a gigantic, multi-tentacled snail when I was woken up by the sound of glass shattering. The scary snail had been going berserk in Dan’s garden, lashing out with its tentacles every which way, and for a moment I couldn’t determine whether the breaking glass had, perhaps, been part of my dream. I held my breath and strained to hear, but there was silence. Counting to ten and waiting for my heart to slow, I debated whether to investigate. I was always nervous about the downstairs windows which were all too vulnerable, especially in our secluded garden.

With a big sigh, I opted for the responsible action and dragged myself out of bed. As quietly as possible, I ventured downstairs, carefully peeking into each room and breathing a sigh of relief when all windows were intact. However, when I padded back upstairs, I heard it again, very distinctly. Glass breaking, and the grating noise of shards being removed from a window frame. I fled upstairs, checked on the kids, and hid in my bedroom.

Not for the first time in my life, I found myself dialing 999. Whispering furtively, I explained about the breaking glass and being alone in the house with two kids. The lady at the other end reassured me that a patrol would be with me in a few minutes, and I suddenly realized that I ought to get dressed. With trembling fingers, I pulled on jeans and a jumper before venturing back downstairs, holding the phone like a talisman for protection. Within a few minutes, there was a gentle knock on the door. A burly, cheerful-looking and quite young police officer greeted me warmly. Behind him, parked in the street, I saw not a patrol car, but an incident van from which no less than seven other police officers emerged. I swallowed hard. What if I
had
dreamed all of the breakage after all?

Two of the policemen asked if they could come inside to take a look and ensure I hadn’t been burgled. The others fanned out along the street, and two disappeared into my garden. Three minutes later, my house had been given the all clear. Miraculously, the kids hadn’t even woken up. I felt like an idiot and was about to make my apologies when the burly policeman’s walkie talkie crackled.

“Ah, you see? You weren’t dreaming,” he informed me. “We found the break-in. We must go. Bye for now.” He turned and hurried down the road, and I noticed that the police van had already disappeared, presumably going around the corner to the actual scene of the crime.

I crept up the stairs and stood by my bedroom window overlooking the garden. Sure enough, there was action in the building backing onto my property. Cloaked in darkness when I had first woken up, now all the windows were ablaze with lights, and I could see policemen going up and down the stairs. At least I hadn’t inconvenienced the law for no reason. Suddenly, I felt shaky. I had always assumed our neighborhood was reasonably safe by London standards, but now I seemed exposed and vulnerable. And lonely. In the throes of the aftershock, I fired off a text to Dan, knowing that he might not receive it until the morning or whenever studio time had finished.

Twenty minutes later, there was another knock on the door. Hoping it might be Dan, I zoomed downstairs, back in my nightie, of course, and flung the front door open.

“Hold it, hold it, young lady,” the police officer chided me in an amused kind of voice. “You don’t wanna be going ‘round opening your door like that in the middle of the night. I could have been anybody.”

I bit back a response but wrapped my arms around myself protectively. He cleared his throat.

“Well, right, so, um, I just wanted to tell you that you did right. You should always call us when you’re frightened, especially a young mum with two kids alone in her house.” He took his hat off and scratched his head.

“Right, so you did hear glass breaking. I thought you might like to know. You didn’t dream it. It was a break-in. Only it wasn’t a break-in, as such. It was someone who’d locked himself out and tried to get back in.”

Ah. I got that stupid feeling again. My neighbor would be very thankful indeed that I had set the police on him.
Not!

“However,” the policeman continued with a wide grin. “However, not to worry you unduly or anything. This is quite unusual around here, but there it is.” He cleared his throat before delivering the punch line. “He was dealin’ drugs so we nicked him anyway.”

Gangbuster Sophie! Oh. My. God. Instant visions of retaliative break-ins, letter bombs, bin fires, and worse crowded my mind.

“You didn’t tell him it was me who rang this in, did you?” I burst out, thinking of the kids and my safety before anything else.

“Of course not. Besides, he’s gone for a while, so I really wouldn’t worry. You have yourself a good night now.” He doffed his cap and loped off.

Chapter Five

Too restless to sleep, I sat on my sofa in the dark lounge and pondered. Loneliness and despair swept over me in a big wave. I hated being alone. I hated having to make big decisions for the kids and myself on my own. I hated having to be the responsible adult at all times, with nobody there to soothe my fears in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I was roused from my ruminations when my mobile phone rang. I jumped for it; it was Dan.

“Hey, I’m right outside,” he whispered, as though the he might wake the kids if he spoke any louder. “Rock star to the rescue. Shall I let myself in or will you open up for me?”

I rushed to open the front door and launched myself into his arms before he could finish his sentence or put his keys in the lock. He stepped inside and locked the door, holding me in his strong arms and stroking my hair. Slowly, he propelled me back into the lounge where he sat on the sofa and pulled me on his lap. Anxious to share the burden of worry, I related the events of the evening. Dan was full of empathy, but, yet again, his pragmatic outlook on life prevailed.

“Sweetie,” he began, “there are drug dealers all over the place. There’s probably one living next door to me. You can’t fret about this. It’s just life.”

I couldn’t quite follow his logic. “But what if he knows it was
me
?”

“How would he?” Dan replied calmly. “How would he know?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, taking a shuddering breath. Maybe Dan was right.

“How about a glass of wine?” Dan suggested out of the blue.

“What, now?” I threw a glance at the display of the DVD player under the telly. “It’s two in the morning!”

“I know. So what? You’re not sleepy. I’m not sleepy. Let’s have a little glass of wine and relax.”

“Nah,” I declined. “Let’s not have a glass of wine. Can we simply… sit here for a little while?”

“Okay.” Dan reclined on the sofa, stretching out his legs and pulling me down beside him. “There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”

I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I responded anyway, speaking as if to myself. “I’m so bloody lonely. I always have to figure everything out by myself. It’s so hard.” I didn’t like the whine of self-pity in my voice, but I couldn’t help it.

“What do you have to figure out, honey?”

“Josh,” I burst out, surprising myself and unleashing a torrent of suppressed worry. “He starts school next month. What will it be like? You know, first day and all that. Will there be lots of happy couples, lots of mums and dads together, and poor old Josh has only me?”

Dan stroked my face; he knew what was coming.

“I miss him so,” I snuffled into his shirtsleeve, not for the first time in the past couple of years. “I miss him. I want him back!”

Dan rubbed my shoulder. “I know, my love, I know,” he whispered, also not for the first time. “I wish I could bring him back for you.”

“Why did he have to go? Why did he have to take the call?” The familiar wave of grief engulfed me all over again. “Why did it have to be Steve? Why couldn’t anyone else have gone? He was supposed to be at work as normal. He was supposed to come home to us that night, as always!”

“Shh,” Dan soothed, knowing it was futile, knowing we would both have to go through this now, but still trying to stem the flood of pain. “It was his job. He was saving lives. You loved him for it.” Dan’s voice was oddly strangled, but I was too distraught to ponder the implications.

“He was a
nurse
. He worked in the operating theater. He wasn’t even a paramedic. He needn’t have gone out. He needn’t have died in that blast. He—” The cycle of grief was still intact, and I moved from despair to all-out rage.

“I am so bloody angry with him. I hate him. I hate him for putting others before us, before himself. It was all so bloody unnecessary.” I punched a cushion, narrowly missing Dan’s body.

Occasionally, I still felt every bit as hurt and lost as the very first minute after I had been told that Steve had been killed.
I’m very sorry to have to tell you…

The memory rose like an inevitable tide, engulfing me once again in its cold, heartbreaking maelstrom. I felt Dan’s arm around my shoulder and I heard his voice as though it came through a long, long tunnel, but he couldn’t stop the vision, couldn’t save me from sliding back once again to that moment.

The doorbell rang and I grumbled. Josh was asleep upstairs and I needed him to keep to his nap time. I was exhausted. Being eight months pregnant with a rumbustious toddler in the house was no laughing matter, and I had only just put my feet up and flicked the telly on for a bit of relaxing daytime entertainment.

Reluctantly, I heaved my body off the sofa—I was
quite
sure I hadn’t been this big with Josh!—and padded to the front door. As I was leaving the room, I caught the tail end of a news announcement. Some bomb or other had gone off in London and I had goosebumps of terror all over. At times it was scary, living in the Capital.

The doorbell sliced through my thoughts again and I cursed under my breath. Who was so blooming impatient?

I turned the key in the lock, suddenly all fingers and thumbs, and swung the door open cautiously. A policewoman stood on my doorstep and another waited a few paces behind. Both looked pale and stricken, and the policewoman right in front of me held her cap in her hands, turning it over and over and over.