Postcards From Berlin (18 page)

Inside the bookshop it’s warm and bright and hushed, with the thick, slightly scorched smell of new carpet. I wander round
the shelves with a rather deliberate nonchalance. There are few people here: some women with protesting children in buggies,
one or two older people in taupe mackintoshes. The medical section is near the back. It seems well-stocked; students from
the hospital must come here. There’s no one else in this part of the shop except an elderly man in a jacket the color of mud,
who’s looking at military history. The other side of the bookshelf, a man I can’t see is talking into his mobile. “Of course
I love you. Why would I say it if I didn’t?” A private voice, but irritated. “Well, there you are, then.…”

The books are mostly weighty looking, substantial. I read through the titles on the spines: Half of them contain words I don’t
understand. It seems there’s nothing here that will help me. Perhaps I was stupid to come. I’m just about to go when my eye
falls on a book called
Trust Betrayed
. It’s a gray paperback. I pull it out. The subtitle takes up half the cover:
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Inter-Agency Child Protection and Partnership with families.
I open it. It’s obviously written for professionals, but the print is quite big and it doesn’t look too technical and it
seems like a book that I could understand.

I come to a list of
Manifestations of MSBP
— the sorts of things they say these mothers do. This is shocking, strange to read in this bright, bland, pleasant place.
“Starvation or interfering with parenteral nutrition or withdrawing stomach contents through a naso-gastric tube. Administration
of salt solutions, laxatives, diuretics, sedative drugs, warfarin or anti-epileptic drugs. Altering blood pressure charts,
temperature charts or interfering with urine testing …”

I can hear the music from outside in the mall. The man on the other side of the bookshelf is still talking into his mobile.
“We’re not having the tone-of-voice argument again, are we?” I glance back over my shoulder like a thief. The frail old man
is immersed in a copy of
Stalingrad
.

I turn to the back of the book and start flicking through. Bullet points catch my eye. “
Table 5. Confirming the diagnosis.
Check on personal, family and social details with relatives, the GP and social services. The perpetrator is often an inveterate
liar …”

The conversation with the receptionist comes into my mind. I realize I am sweating. I leaf back through the book.

“
Table 3. Clues to the diagnosis of MSBP.
The mother is unusually knowledgeable about medical problems and treatments. Treatment is ineffective …” My pulse is fluttering
in my wrist. I try to work out what it means to be “unusually knowledgeable.”

I turn back a bit further, and the book falls open at “
Table 2. Features commonly found in perpetrators.
” So this is what I’m meant to be like, I think. “Usually the birth mother,” it says. Well, most mothers are. “The mother
is the child’s exclusive carer.” That’s not so unusual either. “Previous paramedical training. “That’s OK: I don’t have any
paramedical training. “Previous contact with a psychiatrist.” I think of my sessions with Lesley at The Poplars: the thin
carpet, the smell of disinfectant, the self-esteem tree with the fruit that I couldn’t fill in. I don’t think that qualifies.
I’m beginning to breathe a little more easily: So far, this isn’t too terrible. Then, at the end of the list: “In local authority
care during childhood (children’s home and foster care).”

The rushing in my ears is like a roar. I close the book abruptly, as though it could hurt me.

There’s a hand on my arm: the man in the mud-colored jacket.

“Excuse me, but are you all right?”

He smells pleasantly of cigars, and his eyes are mild.

“I’m OK. Thank you.”

“I could get you a glass of water,” he says.

“Please don’t worry.”

“I thought you were going to faint for a moment there,” he says.

“It’s probably just the flu,” I tell him.

“It’s nasty, that flu,” he says. “They say it comes from China. I take echinacea, myself. You ought to try it.”

“Thank you. Yes, I will.”

“Well, if you’re sure you’re all right …”

He goes off to the desk, with
Stalingrad
under his arm.

I take the book. I half expect someone to stop me, to ask why it is I want to buy this book. I go toward the cash desk through
the children’s section. It’s soothing here, all the little bears and dazzling colors, the gorgeous multiplicity of things.
I choose a book for Daisy, something from the mythology shelf: a book of Celtic folktales, with a white stag in a blue mist
on the cover. At the cash desk, I put the folktale book on top. The assistant treats me as though I am perfectly ordinary,
but my face is hot as I pay. I leave the bookshop hurriedly, with a rush of relief.

But when I get home with my bag of books, this stupid thing happens: I can’t get my key in the lock. The tag of metal that
falls down over the keyhole has fallen sideways and got stuck into the doorjamb, and it’s blocking half the keyhole and can’t
be moved. I try to push it up, but I can’t do it. To look at it, you’d think it would be easy, but somehow it’s got wedged.
It’s ridiculous. I’m standing there with the key in my hand and I can’t get into my house. I feel conspicuous, up at the top
of the steps, the thin rain falling on me, unable to open my door. If someone was passing on the pavement, they’d think I
was breaking in.

I push yet again at the tag with my finger: Nothing happens. I hit it with the key, and it finally swings round and I can
undo the lock, but I’ve broken the skin on my hand. There’s just a single drop of glossy blood, as richly red as the vermilion
in my paint box. It hurts a lot for such a little cut.

______________

Richard is home earlier than he’s been for weeks, early enough that we’ll be able to eat together. He’s brought me flowers
— purple arum lilies, sculptural and exquisite. They are to cheer me up, he says, because I was upset. I think how thoughtful
this is.

Daisy hears and comes downstairs, her stilted walk, one careful step at a time.

He hugs her.

“How’s life, munchkin?” he asks.

“My stomach hurts,” she says.

“You poor old thing,” he says.

“Dad, can we
do
something?” she asks.

I think he’ll tell her he’s tired, that he needs to read his paper. But he says, Of course, and they go to look through the
stack of board games in the living room. We have Monopoly, Cluedo, a game with jumping frogs — most of them presents from
Gina and Adrian: Gina likes to say how very valuable it is to have family time together away from the television. We used
to play these games in the evenings sometimes, but we haven’t done it for ages and
I
don’t know when we stopped. Sinead has so much homework now, and Richard works so late. Something slides away from you, and
for a while you don’t even notice its absence.

They choose Cluedo and open up the box on the living-room floor. I heap some cushions for Daisy to sit on and make her a hot-water
bottle.

“Mum, you could play.”

I shake my head; I have to cook the dinner. But Sinead is persuaded to join them, pleased to have an excuse to postpone her
cross-section of the Aosta Valley.

Daisy tips out the weapons, and the little gray figures on their colored bases. She wants to be Miss Scarlett.

Sinead is reading the book of instructions. “They even have birth dates,” she says. “Wow, these people are
old
.”

Daisy shoots Sinead with the tiny silver revolver. Sinead dies extravagantly. Richard starts to deal.

“Do that funky thing where you shuffle them,” says Daisy.

He shuffles them with panache. She watches with admiration.

I go to the kitchen, still half-watching through the open door. Daisy is intent, leaning a little forward. When Sinead suggests
it was Reverend Green and Miss Scarlett in the broom cupboard, Daisy is outraged. “You’re so
immature
, Sinead. You’ve got to play it
properly
.”

But Richard is playing seriously, just as Daisy wants. I love to see this. It’s how he used to be when the girls were younger
— untangling puppets, gallantly losing at cricket, entering into their world. I wonder if something has changed in him, after
what I told him yesterday, and at last he sees how much we need him here.

“I want to win,” says Daisy. “I really want to win.”

He ruffles her hair. His face is softer, tender.

I breathe our a little.
Trust Betrayed
is still in its carrier bag, hidden in the makeup drawer in my bedroom. I need so urgently to talk about it with him, for
him to see the danger we are in. But I’m sure now he will listen.

There’s a sudden silence: Richard is about to make an accusation. I go to the door to see.

“It was Miss Plum in the library with the candlestick,” he says. He’s relishing the moment; his voice has an edge of melodrama.

Daisy holds her breath. Her eyes gleam in her white face.

“If you’re wrong, you’re out, Dad,” says Sinead.

Richard looks in the envelope that holds the answer. He says nothing for a moment, his face a caricature of regret.

“Oops,” he says. “Well, at least I was close.”

Daisy laughs, her fat, happy laugh that I hardly ever hear now. I wait for a moment, listening. I love him for making her
happy.

“Now I can win,” she says.

After the meal, we wash up while the girls are watching
Brookside
in Sinead’s room.

“There’s something I need to talk about,” I tell him.

The flowers he brought are in a vase on the table, their stamens dark and powdery as soot. I focus on them, clear my throat;
I know what I will say.

“There’s something I want to talk about too,” he tells me.

“Oh.”

He’s washing a casserole in the sink, wearing the rubber gloves he always uses to keep his skin smooth for violin playing.
Now he turns toward me. He hasn’t finished the washing up, but he’s peeling off the gloves.

“Darling, I’ve been thinking. I mean, I know how tough it is for you. With Daisy at home so much, and having to care for her
and everything.”

“I’m all right.”

He shakes his head a little. “Well, I hope so. You seemed quite overwrought yesterday. I’ve been wondering if you could do
with a bit of help,” he says.

“You mean like going to a therapist or something?” This irritates me, yet I know he’s only being caring. “It’s sweet of you,
but really, I’m OK.”

“I didn’t mean that exactly. I meant help in the home.”

“What’s wrong with our home? I thought I was coping fine. It still looks OK, doesn’t it?”

“Of course,” he says. “You always run the house beautifully. That isn’t quite what I meant.”

“Really, it isn’t necessary.”

“I’m not so sure,” he says again. “Anyway, I rang an au pair agency today. It seems an ideal solution.”

I put down the saucepan I’m drying.

“No. I don’t want an au pair.”

“It really doesn’t cost a lot,” he says. “And there might be spin-offs: It might help Sinead with her languages.”

“And where were you planning this person would live, exactly?”

He isn’t looking at me; he turns a little away. “There’s masses of space in the attic.”

“No.” A sudden hot anger flares in me. “No. The attic’s
my
place. She couldn’t live there. Richard, I don’t want this.”

He sighs. “This always happens. Whenever I try to help, you just get so emotional.”

I sit down heavily at the table. I rub my face with my hands.

“No, Richard. I couldn’t share the house like that. I couldn’t. I don’t know how people do it. I’d hate to have some other
woman here all the time. Hate it.”

There’s really no shame in having help,” he says. “Most people have someone living in — a nanny or au pair or someone. They
couldn’t manage without it. Even your mate Nicky has an au pair.”

“Nicky’s different from me.”

“Sure,” he says. “Well, thank goodness. I’d rather have you.” He’s smiling, trying to be mollifying. “But all the same — I’ve
never quite understood why you haven’t wanted those things.”

I think of the years I spent living with strangers — everything worn, tattered, smelling of other people, scuffed and shiny
with the pressure of other people’s bodies — of never having a place to be my secret, separate self. And then of the joy of
having this house that belongs to me, lived in by those I love, held and protected by its steep tiled roof and stone dogs
and thick hedges, where every wall in every room is washed in a color I’ve chosen. I couldn’t have a stranger here — to look,
to judge, to know about me, to be there even in my most intimate moments, with Richard, with my children. Surely he knows
this. Surely.

“Was that why you came home early?” I say. “To ask me this?”

He puts his hand on my shoulder. There’s a stale, rubbery smell to his skin, from the washing-up gloves. The smell is briefly,
sharply repellent. I turn my face away.

“Cat, do something for me. Promise you’ll at least think about it. I really believe it could make things easier for you.”

I don’t understand why he’s being so insistent.

I shake my head.

“I don’t want to be watched all the time,” I tell him.

The words fall like little stones into the space between us.

O
N SATURDAY
, there’s another postcard.

I’m making our morning coffee when the postman rings. There’s a music magazine for Richard that won’t go through the letter
box, and a heap of catalogues, bills, and offers of credit. The postcard is sandwiched between the Vertbaudet catalogue and
the telephone bill. It shows a marble statue of a woman who’s reading a book and wearing voluminous clothes. The caption says
it is the personification of History on the plinth of Schiller’s monument in the Gendarmenmarkt.