The Playdate (33 page)
He nods.
“What did he say?”
Tom exhales heavily and becomes very still. I have never seen him like this before.
Then he opens his lips.
And my life changes.
“Gordon went to the bar . . .” he murmurs.
“Uh-huh . . .”
“And while he was there, Jamie showed us a photo of his kid and we were all taking the piss, because the kid’s got blue eyes and Jamie and his girlfriend have got brown eyes . . .”
The blood inside my veins turns to ice.
Please no.
I turn quickly back to the mirror and continue brushing my teeth. If I brush my teeth everything will stay normal, I think.
“And we were all making jokes about how the milkman had obviously been doing his rounds when Jamie was away filming . . .”
Tom pauses. His cheeks are rigid with the difficulty of saying what is to come.
“And then Jamie turned to me and said, ‘You can talk, mate . . . ’ ”
My spare hand reaches out and grips the sink.
“At which point, Gordon walks back from the bar with a round, and hears Jamie telling everyone that Rae has brown eyes, and you and I have . . .”
His voice breaks off.
I am brushing my teeth so hard now I can feel my gums bleed.
“And Gordon, who thinks that Jamie is just talking about
genes in general, says, ‘No, that’s extremely unlikely. The gene for eye color is autosomal recessive. Brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child, but very rarely the other way round. A brown-eyed child usually has to have at least one brown-eyed parent.”
And finally our eyes meet in the mirror.
Our blue eyes.
* * *
Tom stands up in the kitchen to go and see Rae.
“Tom,” I say. “I know you’ll never believe me, but I really wasn’t sure.”
He looks at the photo of Rae on the fridge. “Yes, you were, Cal.”
I can’t help it. I reach out and touch his arm. And for a second he lets me.
“You’ll always be her dad.”
He pulls his arm away.
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“OK, but please don’t tell Suzy,” I whisper.
He drops his fingers on the table, and drums them.
“I don’t want that guy near Rae again. That’s the condition,” he says, walking to the kitchen door and opening it.
I bite my bruised lip.
It takes me a moment to realize that he is saying something else. But this time there is a catch in his voice.
“Or you, Cal. I don’t want him near you.”
Surprised, I look up, but he just walks away, into the hall.
“Tom . . . ?”
“I said, that’s it.”
At 3:20
P.M.
, she stopped hearing the noises. The American woman’s front door banged, and then it was over.
Debs sat on the floor of the spare room in a praying position, her head in her hands, barely daring to move.
For ten whole minutes, she sat there counting. When birdsong from the garden and distant traffic gradually filled the room again, she slowly unwrapped from her head the swaddling she had made from Allen’s woollen scarves, and removed the earplugs. The cartilage inside her ears felt red and swollen. Tentatively, she stood up, trying not to make a sound. At the door, she gently grasped the old Victorian knob and turned it, holding her breath, cringing when the lock made a muffled click. She leaned her head into the upstairs hallway for a second just to make sure.
Nothing.
The silence bathed her ears like the warm olive oil Mum used to pour in when she had an earache.
Biting her lip, she experimentally took a few tiny steps across the upper hallway to the banister, and leaned her weight against it to lighten her footsteps. If she moved like this, stretching her arms down the wooden rail, bit by bit, leaning on it, she could ease her body down with minimal tread.
Three minutes later, she was tiptoeing across the downstairs hall into the back kitchen, her eyes turned away from the wall she shared with the American woman, like a hostage avoiding eye contact with a bank robber. In the kitchen, she realized her throat was raw, and turned on the kettle, holding one hand over the switch so that she could dampen the click of the “on” button.
Finally, she let out a long breath, and felt brave enough to reach up for a cup and a tea bag.
CLICK. The kettle switched off.
“Argh!” she exclaimed in hushed tones, before covering her mouth with her hands.
It was then she caught sight of her reflection in the silver kettle. Crazed eyes, two hands over her own mouth.
Oh Lord. What on earth was happening to her?
She poured the tea quietly, took out the milk, shutting the fridge with a soft
shhh,
and recalled last night. Allen had carefully laid out the pieces of his mother’s teapot on the counter after tea, as she stood behind him, ashamed.
“I must have made her a thousand cups of tea in this thing,” he said, fitting together two pieces of the handle.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, love,” she had said. “But while we are on the subject . . .”
She had finally managed to explain her feelings about his mother’s belongings. The way they intruded in her new marital home. How she would like to sell them or put them in storage.
“Whatever you want, love,” he’d said, turning his back and sitting down with his
Guardian
crossword.
It had felt so good. She had taken control, just like Alison suggested. Overcome her fear. Fixed something.
And now she was tiptoeing toward her own kitchen table, terrified again.
Debs, she thought.
This could not go on. This needed to be fixed, too.
Desperately, she searched around in her mind for a solution. In a moment of clarity, she knew what she’d do. She’d persuade Allen to sell the house. Tonight. She’d persuade him tonight. Yes, it would cost thousands to move again—probably everything she’d ever saved and put into this house would be lost in another round of stamp duty, and solicitor and estate agent fees—but this time she would take control; make sure they got it right. They’d move out of London, perhaps to the Hertfordshire countryside, and then Allen could commute. And this time, they’d go detached. Find a bungalow. Maybe with a large garden, up a lane, where the Poplars couldn’t find her. Where she wouldn’t be able to drive herself insane wondering if her neighbors were persecuting her, because there simply wouldn’t be any neighbors.
The decision calmed her shaken nerves for a second. It was a solution. A terrible one, but a solution nonetheless.
Then a thought hit her. Wasn’t Luton Airport near Hertfordshire? Wouldn’t there be planes flying over the . . .
“Oh!” With a sharp intake of breath she suddenly, finally, listened to the madness in her own voice.
“No,” she said, shaking her head at what she had become. No more.
Twenty minutes after Tom goes, I am taking the rubbish out when I see Suzy coming out of her house. Caught unawares, I hide my face. I’m not sure I can control it right now.
“Hey there,” she calls, crossing the road.
“Hi,” I say, keeping my eyes on the floor, as if I am looking for something I have dropped.
“You OK?” she replies, bemused.
“Yeah,” I say, “just tired.”
“Rae, honey?” she calls, walking straight past me and into my flat.
Where’s she going? I stand up and follow her.
“Hey, did the police guy ring back yesterday? About Crazy Lady?”
“Oh. I’d forgotten about that. No.”
“You need to chase him, hon. I’m telling you”—she points to her head—“nuts. I won’t let the kids in the garden.”
“Really? OK.”
“Anyway.” Suzy gives me a sympathetic frown and rubs the side of my arm. “You OK? It’s all going on this week, huh? I saw Tom over here earlier. You guys OK?”
“Yeah . . . um, he’s decided to come back to London full-time to help me with Rae—so I can go back to work.”
Suzy opens her eyes wide and smiles. “That’s great, hon. It’s about freaking time.”
She keeps rubbing my arm. The warmth of the friction seeps into my exhausted muscles, and my shoulders slump like collapsed tent poles. Fatigue courses through me, and all of a sudden I need to sit down.
“Hon,” she murmurs, “you look done in. Let me take her?”
“Who?”
“Rae. Up to the ice rink? Jez is stopping at the phone shop in Muswell Hill on his way back from Hampstead with the boys. I’ll get Henry straight from him at the roundabout on the Broadway, then drive Henry and Rae to the palace.”
Hannah’s party. It’s today. It’s now.
“Oh. I don’t know, Suze, I haven’t even got a present . . .”
“Who says Aunty Suzy rocks?” Suzy exclaims, pulling a Polly Pocket box out of her bag. “I got it at Brent Cross. I figured you wouldn’t have time.”
“Thanks,” I mumble. “But I don’t know. She’s tired and . . .”
I don’t want her out of my sight.
Suzy stands up and takes me by both shoulders.
“What is it? Don’t you trust me with her?”
I look up at Suzy’s kind face and all the emotions of the last twelve hours come crashing together. I remember what Jez said, about the strain she was under. And I realize I am done. I simply cannot hurt this woman anymore.
“Yes. Yes. Course I do . . .”
“Well, let me take her for you. You’ve had a crazy week. Put your feet up, watch a film. Then if the police guy rings you can speak to him properly without Rae there. It’ll be so noisy up at the ice rink.”
Last night, when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed Rae skated past me with blue lips and I kept shouting to her to stop and she wouldn’t turn round.
“Oh—don’t you look beautiful, sweetie?” Suzy calls over my shoulder to Rae. “You ready?” And she winks at her.
I turn to see Rae dressed in her party outfit, her cheeks radiant with excitement. Panic grips me.
“Actually, no, I’m sorry, Suze. I just don’t . . .”
“No!” Rae yells, looking at Suzy. “Mummy, no! I want to go. It’s not fair, I never get to do anything good, EVER. I never get to go to parties. Hannah wants me to come.”
Her lower lip is jutting out, threatening to wobble. Last week, all I could think about was how I wanted Rae to have a real chance at life, at last. And now I am doing precisely the opposite. Letting my own anxiety about remote risks ruin her life again.
“Hon,” Suze says, taking my shoulders. “Listen to me. Listen to Aunty Suzy . . .” I give her an unwilling smile. “You know I will protect her with my life. If you feel worried, just follow us up there when you’ve spoken to the police. Jez will come up later with the twins so there will be two of us anyway.”
Rae starts whooping and jumping up and down.
“OK,” I murmur, resisting the voices in my head.
I walk to the airing cupboard, pull out a bag Debs has marked “winter,” and take a Puffa jacket from it.
“Suzy, it’s cold in there. If she looks chilled can you put this on over her fleece?”
“Sure, hon.”
She looks at me and touches my arm again.
Suzy lifts Rae up and gives her to me. Rae and I kiss on the lips and I think how soft her kiss is. Gentle and sweet like a little peach. I want to devour her. Keep her here with me. Safe.
“Say bye to Mommy,” Suzy says.
And I let Rae go.
Even though the noises had stopped, Debs needed to escape the house. So she took some golden marigolds Allen had picked up at a nursery in Cruise Hill on his way home from cricket last Saturday, and settled down to plant them in the small bed in their front garden, trying to relax.
It took her a minute to realize she could hear voices.
The American woman.
Hunkering down, Debs peered through the tall hedge. Suzy was standing on Callie’s doorstep, Rae held tightly in her hand.
Through the leaves, Debs saw Suzy and Rae wave to Callie, and heard the front door shut.
“I did it!” Rae giggled. “Mummy let me!”
“Clever girl. I told you.”
“Are we walking to Ally Pally, Aunty Suzy?” she heard the little girl call.
She didn’t hear Suzy’s reply, but they crossed the road and stood close to where Debs was hiding. Debs lay paralyzed like a
mouse in the clutches of a cat. They were so close she could have touched them through the hedge. Then there was a beep, and the sound of doors opening. She saw a small set of feet disappear off the pavement and heard the rear passenger door shut.
Then she heard a whisper. A strange whisper.
She strained and heard the American woman talking to herself in a squeaky falsetto. It took her a second to realize it was an unpleasant imitation of Rae’s voice.
“Ma-mee let meee!” she whispered. The voice dropped back to her normal tone, but remained quietly under her breath. “Yeah, well, let’s see what Ma-mee does when Aunty Suzy gets real tired of being fucked around, sweet cheeks.”
And with that, she opened the driver’s door, her feet visible climbing inside. Debs instinctively moved forward, pointlessly, to reach out to the little girl locked in the car. Her movement rustled the hedge, making her gasp.
The American woman’s feet stopped.
They climbed back out of the car—and pointed toward Debs.
Debs shut her eyes tight.
“Look at me.”
The words were cold and clear. Debs opened her eyes to see Suzy staring at her through the hedge.
“I’m watching you,” the American said coldly. “Spying on our kids. You didn’t get my note, huh?” She lifted her arm and formed it into a fist. “Teeth through the back of your fucking head, lady. Not going to say it again. Want me to leave it on your answering machine this time?”
And with that, Suzy turned round, got into her car, started up the engine, and drove off. Oh my Lord.
* * *
Debs sat on the paving stones of her front garden.
Oh my Lord.
She had been right all along.
