Forget Me Not (3 page)

‘I trust you to keep Lexi safe, Ben. I didn’t mean it that way.’

Though he couldn’t keep Vivien safe. This conversation is a minefield.

‘I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, to sleep in that bed, to use that bathroom – what it will be like for Lexi, as she grows older, to know—’

I stop speaking because I fear I’m making things worse, for him and between us.

‘I don’t know which is worse,’ Ben says, ‘to think someone hurt her or to know she committed suicide. Isn’t that bizarre? Part of me would prefer murder. Then I don’t have to deal with the fact that she made the decision to leave us.’

‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think that’s bizarre at all.’

‘There’s no evidence of an intruder,’ he says, ‘and I don’t believe there was one. I think I didn’t see what was in front of me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I should have known. I should have done something to help her.’

‘You can’t blame yourself.’

‘Oh, I can.’

This room is too warm and I feel a familiar thudding headache coming on. From the corner behind me, a statue watches over us: a bird carved from black stone with an enormous hooked beak, so tall it reaches almost to the ceiling. How I hate this house. I worry about Ben and Lexi, as though the traces of what happened upstairs might poison them too.

I notice in his reflection in the glass in front of me that Ben is wearing a white shirt over black suit trousers. His tie hangs loose around his neck. He must be spending time in the office already.

‘Who will look after Lexi when you need to go back to work full time?’ I say.

‘Isaac is helping me out for the time being.’

‘Really?’

‘He has adult daughters of his own. He’s wonderful with her.’

‘It sounds like you’ve come to rely on him a great deal.’

He nods.

‘Ben, Lexi is eight years old. She needs a woman in her life.’

Ben does not say anything, but I imagine I can read his thoughts. His own mother died before he and Vivien even met, and so Lexi never knew her paternal grandmother. I feel sure Ben is thinking of her now, and wishing his own mother were standing beside him instead of me. I’m sure he believes his own mother would have done a much better job of loving Lexi. I am someone Lexi sees briefly at birthdays and at Christmas time. I am her grandmother in name, but not much more.

‘I’m looking into hiring a nanny,’ he says. He places his drink down on the coffee table. He begins fiddling with his wedding ring. ‘Rose,’ he sighs, ‘why exactly are you here?’

‘I want to help,’ I say. ‘I can take time off work. I can pick up Lexi from school. I can stay to help with her homework. I can cook. Anything you need. You only have to ask.’

‘I appreciate the offer,’ he says, though his tone says something different.

‘Is there a problem, with what I’ve said?’ I ask him.

‘Lexi isn’t used to spending time with you.’

I could say the same about him, but I don’t, I manage to keep myself in check. Ben is in pain. He’s grieving and he’s powerless. I have to be patient.

‘Ben, I promise you, my priority now is Lexi. My career comes second. I’ve stepped down as manager of the unit.’

‘Lexi is my priority too.’

‘Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to imply anything different. I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m not expressing myself very well. I think you know what I’m trying to say. I’m really not trying to make you angry.’

‘Do I sound angry?’ he says.

‘Yes. And understandably so.’

‘I am angry. Angry that I’ve lost my wife and that Lexi is going to grow up without her mother. And I’m angry at you, Rose. Angry that you disappeared from our lives after Lexi was born, after all we’d gone through in that pregnancy and at a time when Vivien really, really needed you. I don’t have any right to criticize you, Rose, and I have enormous respect for you, raising Vivien as a single parent and still managing to have the career you’ve had. But Lexi is so vulnerable. And she barely knows you.’

I want to protest at the unfairness of what he’s saying, but I don’t.

‘Please give me a chance,’ is all I say.

‘I’m trying to give Lexi some sense of a normal life,’ he says, ‘and to minimize the damage here. I really don’t know what you want from us and whether your relationship with my daughter is going to help her or make things worse. I worry that you’re using Lexi to deal with the guilt you feel for neglecting your own daughter all these years. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I do.’

Ben is in pain, his face mapped out with loneliness and regret. He is doing the best he can for his daughter and he believes I have no heart.

I have to be careful, because Ben holds all the cards. I’m frightened of being unimportant and of being discarded, and I see all too clearly that my place in my granddaughter’s life is far from secure. I have not understood until now that I might lose Lexi, too. I could lose everything. I have to tread carefully. So I don’t argue with him and I don’t defend myself and though I feel the pressure of the tears behind my eyes, I do not cry.

‘Well?’ he says. ‘Where have you been for the last eight years?’

‘We all do things we regret.’ I sound weak. Shallow.

‘Look,’ he says, his voice softening. ‘All I can think of is what it would have meant to Vivien to have your support with Lexi all these years. She needed you.’

‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ I say, ‘everything is so raw and Lexi is your priority, rightly so. But one day, I’d like to explain. We can sit down and talk properly.’

He picks up his glass and returns to the drinks cabinet for a refill. There’s no point in beginning this conversation now, no point trying to reason with him or persuade him of anything. He can’t be thinking straight after all that whisky.

‘Vivien was so lucky to have you,’ I say.

My daughter has crept back into the room. She is with us in the curves of the armchair and the lines of the charcoal sketches, in the polished silver of the picture frames. She is in the air we breathe, in the sensual mix of whisky and gardenia. She is the strong glass and steel frame that has been grafted onto the spine of this old house.

Ben returns to my side, at the window, and we stand in a more amiable silence as we stare out at Vivien’s twinkling lights. After a few moments, I ask him the question I’ve been wanting to ask since I stepped through the front door of this cursed house. I ask if I may go upstairs to see my granddaughter.

To my relief, he says yes. As long as I do not wake her.

The walls of the square landing on the first floor are covered with family photographs: Lexi on the day she came home from the hospital, Lexi in Ben’s arms, Lexi as a toddler taking her first steps. There is one shot of the family together, as they pose on a beach. It is a beautiful photograph, because they are all laughing.

All three doors up here stand slightly ajar. Red and pink letters on the middle door announce:
Alexandra’s Room.
I wait in the doorway until my eyes adjust to the darkness and I can make out the sleeping figure of my granddaughter.

I step into the room and move closer, slowly, until I’m standing at the edge of her bed. Lexi is on her side, curled up, her eyes closed and her right hand cupping her chin in a pose that reminds me of her mother when she was little. A strip of light from the landing falls across her face, illuminating a skin so pallid as to be almost translucent.

She’s so still I feel afraid, just the way I did when she was a tiny baby in an incubator and I feared she would stop breathing. I place my hand against her back, against her cotton pyjama top, and I feel her chest move up and down with each breath.

I want to run my fingers through her ginger curls but I stop myself because I don’t want to wake her. Her sleep is peaceful.

Lexi’s quilt has fallen to the floor. I pick it up and lay it gently over her small body. The fabric is a delicate grey and there are little white stars embroidered around the edges. The same fabric has been used for the curtains and the upholstery of the armchair in the corner of the room.

As I look around, at the drawings on the walls, signed illustrations from
Matilda
, I think about how much time and thought my daughter put into the decoration of her only child’s bedroom. Somehow, her careful choice of bedding and curtains and etchings feels like an accusation: Vivien succeeded where I failed. Each phase of Lexi’s life has been documented and celebrated, portraits taken, birthdays celebrated. It’s as though Vivien was trying to replace everything she missed out on while I was working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. As though she wanted to show me my failings.

I cannot stop myself; I bend down and kiss Lexi’s plump cheek. She still has that innocent, baby smell. I want to keep watch over her always, as though by watching I might keep her from any more suffering.

The gate clangs shut behind me. When I look back at the house, Ben has already closed the gloss-black front door.

Blackthorn Road is hushed as I begin my walk back to Cambridge Court. I pass a row of ivy-clad houses secured behind high gates and then a new build, still under construction, a board outside promising an indoor cinema and a basement swimming pool. The night is milder than it should be at this time of year and the air is lush with the smell of wet earth.

As I reach the corner, I see a woman walking towards me. She’s looking down at the pavement and the hood of her raincoat is drawn up over her head. We draw closer, we exchange a glance. And then we stop.

‘Rose!’ she says.

‘Cleo?’ I take a step back, not quite trusting my own eyes. It has been so many years since I saw her last that I wonder if I have conjured her up, my daughter’s oldest friend.

Cleo hesitates, then she holds her arms outstretched, before she rushes at me and enfolds me in an embrace. The vigour of her grip convinces me she is real.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. Her voice is muffled, her mouth pressed against my shoulder.

We’re standing in front of a house with a low white wall and over Cleo’s shoulder, I can see inside, through the window and into a well-lit kitchen. A young woman is standing at the sink, filling a kettle. She carries on with her life as normal, safe and sound in her own home, her children asleep upstairs, no doubt.

Cleo feels me tense up and she lets me go. She tucks her hands back into the pockets of her raincoat. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, again. ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing anyone can say.’

Cleo fiddles with her hairline, pulling loose a strand of fine brown hair. She was the same way as a child, always fidgeting.

‘I can’t believe she’s not here any more,’ she says. ‘I remember being in the Reception classroom and looking at her and thinking that Vivien was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. She looked like a pixie, with her big eyes and her black hair.’

Her eyes fill with tears. Mine feel so dry.

Cleo’s family lived on the ground floor of Cambridge Court and she and Vivien were in the same class at St Leonard’s all the way through infant and junior school. Cleo was an intense, intelligent little girl, but I also recall stains on her school uniform, dirt under her fingernails, lice infestations. My daughter was the ballerina princess, her hair combed back in a tight bun and traces of glitter still lingering on her cheekbones.

You should be kind to her, Vivien
, I hear myself say. I asked my daughter to take pity on Cleo, but Vivien went further; she genuinely liked her.

I was never sure how I felt about Vivien and Cleo’s friendship. Maybe it was the way the two of them would lock Vivien’s door when Cleo visited, as though there were secrets they wanted to keep from me. I worried, sometimes, that during the hours spent in Vivien’s bedroom, behind closed doors, my daughter might manipulate Cleo, might take advantage of Cleo’s adoration. I suspected Vivien would copy Cleo’s homework and that several of Vivien’s school projects might in fact have been the result of Cleo’s best efforts.

‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ I say. ‘I thought you and Vivien lost touch years ago?’

‘We did, but I needed to pay my respects.’

‘So you’re on your way to see Ben?’ It’s not my intention, but my words come out sounding like an accusation.

Cleo doesn’t appear to notice. ‘I’ve thought of you, and of Ben and Alexandra, every single day since she died,’ she says.

Although the diffuse orange streetlight is forgiving, something bothers me about Cleo’s face. Something’s not quite right, though I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps it bothers me that she’s wearing rather a lot of make-up for a condolence visit. Her lips are a deep red, her eyebrows drawn in in a dark brown and her eyelashes are thick with mascara.

‘I’m sorry, Cleo, I’m tired and I need to get home. It was good to see you.’ I take a step away from her.

‘Are you still working such long hours?’

‘I’ve cut back. I stood down as manager of the unit.’

‘Please,’ she says, ‘I want you to call me if there’s anything you need.’

Cleo has a messenger bag across her chest and she opens it and pulls out a leather card holder. She slips out a business card and hands it to me.

Cleo Baker. Translator.

I tuck it into my coat pocket.

She looks as though she’s about to embrace me again, but I draw back, raise my hand in a half-wave and walk on. After a few steps, I stop. I turn back and watch as Cleo walks towards my daughter’s house. She presses the buzzer on the side of the gate. Pushes it open. Disappears inside.

Inside the Intensive Care ward the lights are dimmed and my blue-gloved hands are pushed through the holes in the side of the incubator as I tuck little Kelsey back into her nest. Kelsey was born yesterday and I’ve been with her since my shift began. A twenty-five weeker, she’s ventilated, with a blue tube strapped down across her cheeks and obscuring most of her face. Her head is the size of a peach and her lobster-red body is covered with bubble-wrap. Her eyes are still fused shut and her ears, without cartilage, curl in on themselves.