The Safest Place (6 page)

Between us, David and I leapt upon Sam’s inclusion in the football tournament. I say inclusion, because I don’t think it ever really stretched to proper enthusiasm for Sam. It never
got quite that far. Sam enjoys kicking a ball around just as much as the next boy, but he isn’t competitive, not in the least. He really hates pressure. He just played along with us because
he knew it was what we wanted, and we charged at it, all guns blazing; me, because I was just so desperate for Sam to be popular, to fit in with the other boys, to be what I considered normal, and
David because Sam’s lack of any particular talent at sport had always been a slight disappointment to him. David of course is a fine all-rounder. We have, in our sideboard, umpteen photos of
the schoolboy David with his football team, his rugby team, and the inter-school athletics relay team, along with countless rusting medals. Before Sam was even born David had visions of cheering
him on from the touchline, fantasies of teaching him all that he knew, of reliving his own life through his son. Wrong, I know, but are we not all wrong, one way or another, in the dreams that we
have for our children?

I look back and I see Sam dutifully kicking his ball into that net on Sunday mornings and my heart aches. I see him trying so hard to please his dad, to please us both; the puppy-dog light of
gratitude in his eyes every time David called out, ‘Yes, Sam, good shot, Sam, well done!’

Melanie and I altered our usual arrangement so that on Fridays after school we’d all come back here, me bringing the girls and she coming along soon after with the boys.
Friday being Friday, we swapped the tea-drinking for wine, cracking open a bottle as soon as she arrived so she’d have time to sober up again before the drive back home. They’d stay
quite late, which suited me just fine as I found Friday night waiting for David to come home the hardest night of all; that sense of the weekend being both delayed and diminished, the knowledge
that when he did get home he would be tired and grumpy from the week’s commuting. I was grateful to Melanie and her children for being there. They took away the quiet; they took away our
isolation. I’d stick fish fingers and chips in the oven for the children; lazy food, that I would never have stooped to in London. In London, I would never have drunk wine at four
o’clock. But it was fun; Melanie herself was fun. She had a wicked sense of humour; so wicked in fact that I often thought myself lucky not to be on the end of it. While the boys kicked their
ball around in the garden, making the most of our new net, and the girls collected sticks and leaves from outside and cushions from inside to make their little dens, Melanie and I, we sat on the
sofa together, we laughed, and we drank our wine.

The friendships I’d had before had taken years to evolve; they’d formed gradually, subtly, over time. In London there were so many people all around me, people I knew on varying
levels of intimacy. In London, you really can pick and choose, even if you are on the shy side, like me. But I took it all for granted, and then I moved here, and I threw it all away. I went from
knowing so many people, to knowing none. I cannot tell you the starkness of being faced with just yourself every day; the fear of being always alone. In my newly narrowed existence my friendship
with Melanie mattered more to me than any friendship ever had before. I was so glad to have met her. If it had not been Melanie but someone else who had approached me that day outside Ella’s
school I would have been the same with them. Had it been a dog-walking woman, I’d have been into dogs. Had it been a worthy, dedicated mother-type I would probably have become more worthy
myself. That Melanie was Melanie; that she was so relaxed, that she liked a drink and a laugh, and had those two children the same age as mine, seemed like an enormous stroke of luck.

Yet there is a memory from this time that flickers in my head, bothering me. I cannot shut it out. It’s of the Saturday morning before the football tournament, and the first time that
David met Melanie and her children. Max and Abbie had both slept over the night before, and Max and Sam were already outside playing football when David eventually got up and came down to the
kitchen, where I had been for quite some time, slicing up tomatoes to go with the burgers for tomorrow.

‘Who’s that?’ David said, watching them through the window.

‘That’s Max,’ I said without looking up. ‘Sam’s friend. He stayed over.’ David had come home late last night, on the last train out of London. All of us,
Ella, Abbie, Sam, Max and me, were asleep when he got in, though surely he would have noticed the extra shoes in the hall.

‘You didn’t tell me Sam had a friend staying,’ David said, a faint note of accusation in his voice.

‘You didn’t ask,’ I said.

David was watching the boys intently. I followed his gaze, out to where Max was kicking the ball at Sam, who was in goal. Max was big and strong; he slammed that ball at Sam repeatedly.
Sometimes Sam saved it, sometimes he didn’t, and when he didn’t Max laughed at him, a high-pitched drill of a laugh that split through the morning quiet. ‘You’ll have to do
better than that, Sam,’ he yelled. ‘How could you miss that one?’

It was just banter; it was just what boys do. Sam didn’t seem to mind too much. ‘Sorry,’ he said, and braced himself for the next one.

‘Doesn’t seem much of a friend,’ David said, and I took this personally. I took it as criticism.

‘Well he is,’ I said. ‘And Sam’s lucky to have him. He wouldn’t have any friends at all if it was left down to him.’

David looked at me. He was about to speak but just then Ella and Abbie came running in, chattering, clattering about as they opened the fridge, ran the tap, grabbed cups, poured drinks.

‘Hello, Ella,’ David said, but Ella didn’t hear him. ‘Hello, Ella,’ he said again. ‘And who’s this?’

Ella glanced at him, and giggled, and Abbie giggled too, and they scampered off again, bursting into laughter in the hall.

‘Well that’s a nice welcome,’ David said.

‘What do you expect?’ I said. ‘She’s got her friend with her.’

‘So I see. She might say hello to her dad, though. I haven’t seen her all week.’

‘That’s not her fault.’

David picked up the kettle, shook it to check for water, put it back down and flicked on the switch. ‘You’re in a bad mood,’ he said.

And I said, ‘It’s not me, it’s you. You seem to object to the fact that the children have got friends. I thought you would be pleased.’

‘Of course I’m pleased they’ve got friends. I’d just like to know who’s staying in my house, that’s all.’

‘If you’d come home earlier last night you would have known.’

‘Jane, I couldn’t come home earlier. I had work to finish.’

‘You’ve been late all week,’ I said. ‘I hoped that last night, for the beginning of the weekend, you’d be home a bit earlier.’ I could hear myself, petulant,
complaining. How had it come to be like that? And yet it had, too often, too soon; the strain of waiting for David to come home, the disappointment that waiting entailed.

‘So did I,’ he said. ‘I’m completely shattered.’

Just then, there was a howl of pain from outside. Sam was crouched on the grass, head in his hands. I could see blood from his nose seeping between his fingers. Max had hit him smack in the face
with the ball.

‘
Jesus
– ’ David said and flung open the back door. ‘You there,’ he shouted at Max. ‘Enough!’

‘David,’ I called, running out after him. ‘It was an accident.’

‘That boy has kicked that ball non-stop at my son,’ David said. ‘That is not what I put that net up for.’ He said it to me, but Max could hear him well enough. He stared
at David, and stepped back as we approached.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ he muttered.

‘It’s all right, Max,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘It’s not all right,’ David said and he bent down to help Sam to his feet. Sam was crying properly now, and the blood was mixing with the snot, and running down his chin. David
led him in to the kitchen, and I followed with a reluctant Max.

There was no harm done, not really. Sam’s nose wasn’t broken. I cleaned his face up at the sink and if David hadn’t been there that would have been that. It was an accident;
Sam knew that, I knew that. The boys would have got over it and got on. But David was there, making a bad situation worse, and the tension between us caught and flared.

‘It was an accident, David,’ I said. ‘Just an accident.’

‘Yes, I know it was an accident.’

‘Then why are you making it into such an issue?’

‘I am not making it into an issue.’

‘The poor boy’s mortified.’

‘I haven’t even heard him say sorry.’

‘Sorry,’ Max said.

And Sam, who really was mortified by hearing his father tick off his friend, wailed, ‘
Dad
!’

The girls came running in to see what was going on. They crowded around us, gawping at Sam’s face, squealing at the blood.

‘What happened? Let’s see. Is Sam OK?’ asked Ella.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s OK.’

‘Did Max do that?’ Abbie said.

And yet again I said, ‘It was an accident.’

Then into this atmosphere Melanie arrived to pick up her children. She came around the back, tapped on the back door and walked straight into the kitchen. This was normal practice for Melanie,
as it is for many people around here. The front door is for delivery men and strangers, unless of course, you live in the town. But it wasn’t normal practice for David. He stared at her,
appalled.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Have I caught you at a bad time?’

‘No, no,’ I said brightly, wiping my hands on my thighs and sticking a smile on my face. ‘Come on in.’

In one glance Melanie took in the room, her eyes both watchful and amused. And straight away her kids went to her, like cubs to a mummy bear, wrapping themselves around her body, even Max, who
was a good foot taller than her, and had to stoop to fit under her arm. Melanie looked at David, and then at me, curious.

Quickly, I said, ‘This is David. My husband.’

I could feel the tension coming off him in waves.

‘Hello,’ he said, somewhat curtly.

‘And this is Melanie.’

‘Hello,’ Melanie said cheerfully. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Max kicked a ball in Sam’s face,’ said Abbie in a stage whisper.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Max said.

Melanie laughed. ‘Of course you didn’t,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a look at you then, Sam.’

Sam, who was still holding a bloodstained tissue to his nose, did his best to smile.

‘Oh you’ll be fine by tomorrow, won’t you, Sam?’ she said. And to me she said, ‘Kids, eh?’ and again she laughed.

And I laughed too, probably too loudly.

‘Did you have to be so rude?’ I said, the minute Melanie, Max and Abbie had gone.

‘I wasn’t rude,’ David said.

‘Yes you were. I was so embarrassed!’

‘She walked straight in through the door to our kitchen,’ David said. ‘As far as I’m concerned that’s rude.’

‘She’s my friend,’ I said. ‘That’s what friends do here.’

It was lunchtime now. The children, who had disappeared to escape the atmosphere, came back in search of food, then changed their minds and skulked off again.

‘Can we not argue,’ David said. ‘Please can we not?’

‘We’re not arguing.’

‘I just want to be at home at the weekend and relax with my family, that’s all. Can we please not spoil it?’

But it was already spoilt. The tension lingered around us, unspent.

The next day was as bad. Sam’s nose was swollen, and a bruise had appeared half-moon-shaped under his left eye.

‘I can’t play!’ Sam wailed at breakfast. ‘Everyone will laugh at me.’

‘No they won’t,’ I said, and I tried chivvying him up like I used to when he was younger. ‘Think of it as a war wound,’ I said. ‘Real football players get
bashed all the time. You look like a proper player now. Like – ’ I searched my head for the only footballer I could think of ‘ – David Beckham.’

‘No I don’t,’ Sam said, and his eyes filled with tears.

‘Eat some food, Sam,’ I said. ‘You can’t play on an empty stomach.’

‘I don’t want to play. And I can’t eat.’

‘Maybe we should have got him looked at,’ David said, as Sam dabbled his spoon about in his uneaten cornflakes.

‘Where?’ I snapped. The nearest hospital was thirty miles away. There was no handy walk-in centre nearby, like we’d been used to before. ‘It isn’t broken. It would
be a lot more bruised than that if it was broken.’

‘Eat up, Sam,’ David said. ‘We need to get going.’

‘I can’t do it, Mum.’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Sam,’ I said. ‘Stop making such a fuss and eat your breakfast. You can’t pull out now. I’m doing the burgers with Melanie.’

I did not see Sam playing football. I was busy putting burgers into buns. Nor did I see him shivering on the sideline between games, quivering with the cold, and with fear, his
pale face forever close to tears. I did not see, but I could imagine it well enough. I did, however, catch him at lunchtime. I left Melanie for a minute and sought him out, to make sure he had
something to eat. I took a tray of burgers, and found him standing on the edge of a small group of boys, looking as miserable as I’d feared.

‘Burger anyone?’ I asked holding out my tray like a waitress.

Several grubby hands reached out and snatched at the burgers, but not Sam’s.

‘Wait!’ I laughed. ‘Leave one for Sam,’ though no one did. I had to grab one back, from a boy who’d taken two. ‘Here you are, Sam,’ I said, holding it
out to him. I said it gently, kindly, and he looked at me warily with his anxious blue eyes, the left one now as bruised as if he’d been thumped. ‘Take it,’ I said, and like the
good boy that he is, he took it. I wanted to cry for him. I wanted to cry so much that there were needles stinging my eyes and a lump the size of a fist throbbing in my throat. ‘See you
later,’ I forced myself to say brightly, and I quickly turned and walked away.

Melanie’s on-off partner Colin came along to the football tournament. I had met him before, once, at Melanie’s house, but David obviously hadn’t. Colin was a
carpenter by trade and came to watch the football in his dusty work clothes, with a beanie hat pulled down low on his forehead, and fingerless gloves that left his fingers free to constantly twist
and smoke his roll-ups. He was a quiet man, not shy so much as brooding. That day, he stood near David on the touchline, while Melanie and I tended to the burgers, though they didn’t speak to
each other much. They were brought into proximity because of Ella and Abbie, who’d wanted to meet up, and had since run off to play with the other younger kids, across the field, leaving
their fathers alone. I imagine that David took one look at Colin, and realized immediately that they’d have absolutely nothing in common and would probably never see each other again anyway,
which, as it turned out, was true. And I imagine Colin looked at David with his neat hair and his pristine wax jacket and thought the same. But it was awkward, or so it seemed to me. When Melanie
and I joined them we stood between them; two women chatting between their unsociable men. Not that Melanie seemed to care; if anything she found it amusing. But I was still embarrassed, after
yesterday. It’s not that David wasn’t polite; he was, to Colin, to Melanie, to me, unfailingly so. It’s just that whereas I had regarded the football tournament as an exercise in
furthering friendships for myself and our children, for David it was about Sam. He was there to watch Sam play football. It was as simple as that.