The Flavours of Love (43 page)

I stand and return to my place in front of the metal saucepan Joel used to make his cement-like porridge in, and where I’ve laid out the pastry sheets to warm up to room temperature. The white-bristled, rubber-wood pastry brush waits to be dipped into the bowl of water to seal the pastry edges, and then into the beaten egg to sweep over the top. I don’t know what I’m doing. These all look like alien items to me and I’m supposed to do stuff with them – I know what that stuff is, but I have no clue how to do it.

‘I loved him, the man who gave me Joel, very much,’ she says. ‘He was a part of me, and when I lost him, like you, I found a way to hide from the world. I found a way to live in the world again, too. I hope you will as well.’

My mind won’t take me back to where the baking was my cipher for thinking, and what I was doing made sense. I am in trouble. I need help. But I can’t explain that to her. I can’t tell her what I did nineteen months ago to protect my daughter.

I can’t explain to her that what I used to do was from when I was desperate. I was desperate when it first started as a thirteen-year-old who no one paid attention to unless it was bad and no one approved of no matter how much she tried. I stopped for years, I lived with
being large for years. And then I was desperate again at college when I needed friends. I needed to not be the fat clever girl all the time. And then I fought with myself for years, I got myself onto an even keel. I was balancing myself and Joel would kiss my palm and say how proud of me he was. Then
that day
happened. I made it to six months but I was desperate a year ago. I had to get back into control, numb the pain in another way because sex with Fynn had been a bad idea. But now, I am not that kind of desperate. I am in a place where I need to be clear-minded and rational. I need to solve this problem and save my family, so no matter how much I want to stuff down these raw layers of pastry, or spoon the uncooked filling into my mouth, I won’t. Because I don’t do that any more.

When I turn around to tell her this, to say that I had my reasons and I don’t do that any more, she’s gone. Whisked away and upstairs, as though taken by the silence of angels.

Saturday, 18 May
(For Sunday, 19th)

Saffron
.

Fine. Have it your way. But remember, whatever happens next, you could have avoided it by simply opening your blinds.

A

flashes up on my phone. I want to talk to him but at the same time I don’t. His presence in the world is complicating enough without the additional conflict I feel about him keeping secrets with Phoebe from me. It niggles at me. What else isn’t he telling me? What else would he be willing to keep from me?

In the midst of trying to work out how to bring an end to the stalking before
she
can further hurt Phoebe, maybe turn her attention to Zane, I don’t want to work out how I feel about Lewis as well. It is a complicated strand in the knot that is already inside.

He’s called every day for the week and left long messages. He’s said to me that the school has found some of the culprits of the bullying, and have suspended them with a promise to put it on their permanent files. He’s told me that Curtis has been in touch with Phoebe and he’s pleased that she and I are finally talking. He’s explained that he’s sorry for not letting me know earlier what was going on. He says the right things and I know he means them, and if I wasn’t paranoid about Joel’s killer and worried about everything else, I could maybe talk to him. But the truth is, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

My finger hits the call reject button. I’m about to give myself up to the guilt of that when I hear something in the corridor. I wander out and stop halfway along between the kitchen and the living room door.

‘And where do you think you’re off to?’ I ask Aunty Betty who is clearly readying herself to all but sneak out of the house. I’ve asked her to let me know if she’s going out so I can come with her, but this request has fallen on deaf ears, obviously.

She is wearing her normal-looking black wig and has carefully applied foundation, powder, eyeliner (with a little flick at the ends of her eyes) and mascara. Her lips have a gloss but no colour. She has on her beautiful black wool coat with the wide, stylish lapels, and she’s carrying a cute little square patent black bag with a gold clasp.

‘Just down to the post office,’ she says. Aunty Betty always sounds like she has something to hide.

‘What for?’ I ask.

She stops examining herself in the full-length mirror beside the coat rack and slowly rotates to look at me. ‘What do you think I’m going to the post office for? To post a letter.’

‘Just a letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have stamps. Large letter ones and normal ones, first class and second class of both. They’re in the box on the mantelpiece. Which do you need?’

‘It’s OK, child. I need the walk.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, of course. I need a walk, that’s all.’

‘I may have been one of the worst mothers to a teenager ever, but even I know when a person is sneaking out to see some guy. Who is he?’

My sixty-six-year-old teenager cuts her eyes before she rolls them at me.

‘Have you ever seen that work when Phoebe does it?’ I ask.

‘You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my mother.’

‘I literally have heard it all now,’ I reply. ‘OK. Wait there, I’m going to get my bag and my socks and I’m going to come with you.’

‘But—’

‘Either I come with you or I give you one of my stamps. Which is it?’

‘You can come with me,’ she mumbles.

‘Great. I’ll get my stuff.’

‘Buurrrnnnned,’ she mumbles miserably as I take the stairs two at a time.

*

We walk down to the bottom of our road and then cross onto the side of the road where Queen’s Park begins. Every step I take I am aware that
she
is watching,
she
is examining what I do to make a comment on. That’s why I’ve asked Aunty Betty to let me come with her whenever she goes out. She has no idea the danger she – and all of us – are in. Phoebe is upstairs and knows not to open the door to
anyone
.

‘This is all your fault,’ Aunty Betty admonishes as our pace of walking slows with our approach to the Rislingwood Road Post Office because it is near the top of a steep hill. ‘You keep getting letters – sometimes every day – and it made me want to write to young Zane.’

‘You’ve been writing to him every day?’

‘Yes, and sending him five pounds. You don’t mind, do you?’

I shake my head. ‘Not at all. Phoebe will when she finds out, though.’

‘Yes, you’re right there. Who are your letters from? A secret admirer?’

‘Something like that,’ I say.

We swing the door open and there’s a queue right up to the door, and we have to squeeze ourselves in behind them as if we’re joining the world’s slowest conga line. There are two men behind the counter, one of them looks up over his half-moon glasses, his tanned skin setting off the white of his thick locks and he brightens up like sunrise on a summer morning when he sees Aunty Betty.

Oh, well
, I think and shimmy forwards with the slight surge of our conga line,
at least someone’s happy
.

My life seems to be draining away too quickly. Like I am in an hourglass and my life force, the time I have to find a solution, is running out for me. Time is running out for me, but all I can do is wait.

Wait for Phoebe to make a decision. Wait for another letter. Wait for my heart to move on to another stage of grief so I can feel something different inside. Wait for the time when my son can safely come home. Wait for something huge to happen to bring things to a head.

I have to go to the police. I know this. I fear what it’s going to do, what it will unleash in
her
.

None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for her. And for me, of course, because I was the one who got him those cooking lessons, I am the one who set him on that path. It’s my fault that he died in the way he did, it’s down to me that he isn’t here any more.

This morning I heard Phoebe bolt to the toilet, and I think she’s started to have more pregnancy symptoms, namely in the form of morning sickness.

I watch my eldest’s slender form wander up towards the back of the health food shop. She moves slowly, rolling her right shoulder back as if it is aching. I remember the backache that came with both my pregnancies: twinges and tugs like over-stretched elastic bands between the muscles. General pangs and spasms appeared overnight, too, accompanied by a strange, almost metallic taste in my mouth no amount of water could clear, and my skin seemed to cycle from clear to spotty to clear within hours. We’d been trying for a baby, but it wasn’t until my body started to change in ways I hadn’t counted on that the terror descended for real. It wasn’t simply about putting on weight, how I looked was different, how I thought seemed different.
Nothing could prepare me for that first pregnancy. I’d wanted Phoebe to make her decision before this stage, if I was honest. If she was going to carry on with it, then she’d be able to embrace it, if she wasn’t, then physically it might not be so arduous before it was ended.

I catch up with Phoebe. ‘I need to ask you something and I need you to give me an honest answer,’ I say to her.

‘Oh, God, what?’ she asks. Her eyes, dulled by the aches of her body and probably from throwing up, avoid me. Instead, she leans heavily on the trolley.

‘I need you to tell me who the father is.’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘It’s not Curtis.’

‘It is!’ she insists loudly, then lowers her voice. ‘It
is
.’

‘I’ve seen you and Curtis together, he is not the person you were talking about five weeks ago. He’s a lovely lad, and I don’t for one second believe he lied to you about not getting pregnant first time. He’s not that sort of boy. You love him like a friend, yes, I can see that, but he doesn’t make your heart race and he doesn’t make you so desperate to be with him that you’ll convince yourself you really believe any cock and bull story you’re fed about contraception. Tell me who he really is.’

She wriggles her body as if trying to free her back and rolls her shoulder in a circle while she stares down at the items in the trolley.

‘I thought we’d got to a really good place, you and me,’ I say. I’m not usually into emotional blackmail, but needs must. ‘I thought we’d got to the stage where we could trust each other with almost anything. I’d really like you to tell me who it is. I’ll try not to get angry.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she says quietly. ‘He’d get in so much trouble.’

‘With who?’

Shrug. ‘Everyone.’

I step forwards, place my hand on her bare forearm. Her skin is clammy and cold under my fingers. I take her face and tip it to
face me, her eyes are unfocused and bloodshot. A line of sweat is collecting across her forehead, and she reaches down to rub her stomach. ‘Are you in pain?’ I ask her.

Shrug.

‘How long have you felt like this?’

Shrug.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling ill?’

Shrug.

‘We need to get you to a doctor,’ I say, reaching for the bags in the trolley. In between my stretch for the bags and saying the word doctor, Phoebe’s eyes roll back in her head and she crumples to the ground.

I want to cry.

The ache in my throat, the caught air in my chest, the wet smarting behind my eyes are all parts of it, are all parts of the anatomy of tears I want to shed.

I can’t let myself do it, though. Right now, crying feels like the weak option. Normally I wouldn’t think that, but in this moment, any tears will admit that everything is still falling apart when it was meant to be getting better.

I want to feel better. I need to feel better. I need to feel full, crammed with so much stuff there is no space for anything else; not even the smallest cavity for this dread and anguish. I want to purge, too. I want all of this stuff that’s inside, the worry, the uncertainty, the guilt, to be excavated so I am empty; so I am nothing.

Is this what happens when you ask to feel something else? Do you need to be specific and say exactly what you want to replace the anger with because you’ll get what you’re given? What I’ve been given to replace the anger is terror, torment and even more guilt.

I’m sitting in an easy chair in a hospital room in the children’s hospital of Sussex Royal County Hospital, The Alex, as they call it. Phoebe has had surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy as well as the resulting ruptured Fallopian tube and I am waiting for her to wake up. I am waiting for her to wake up before I call Aunty Betty and Zane, before I have to introduce new worry into their lives.

This little room, only a bit bigger than my bedroom at home, is surprisingly full with machines: electronic panels on the walls, a mechanical arm with a small television screen that hangs over the bed like a dentist’s close-work light, and two portable units she’s
hooked to that bleep intermittently and have colourful displays of her heartbeat and blood oxygen levels. Despite those bleeps and flashes, everything feels still in here. Tranquil, almost. Phoebe seems peaceful as she sleeps, her face in profile against her puffy pillow.

I’ve noticed the furtive looks amongst the staff when they hear or read her date of birth and find out she was pregnant: they wonder if I’m up to the job of being her parent; they silently ask how I let this happen in the first place; and quietly question how I allowed this to continue without her having a proper appointment with a midwife or GP. Their scorn and disdain aren’t necessary – no one can hate me more than I hate myself. I hate myself for not noticing, for not hurrying her up so she could have gone for a proper consultation with a medical person no matter what her final choice was going to be. I hate myself for not predicting this was going to happen.

My gaze wanders over the lines of her young face, her hair pulled back into the low ponytail she’s taken to wearing since not being at school. She seems so untroubled in this moment. Even when I look in on her most nights she doesn’t look completely relaxed – there’s always that shade of loss we often take with us into the dreamworld. Now that powerful drugs have knocked her out, she can sleep, she can finally let go.