The Playdate (16 page)
Rip.
She pulled them so quickly they tore at her eyelids.
Suzy sighed, rubbing the patches of stinging flesh left behind.
It helped, but not enough.
So she pushed one hand up the sleeve of her shirt, where nobody would see it, and dug her newly manicured nails into the flesh of her arm. She kept them there, like a claw.
Rae is so excited about her playdate with Hannah after school, she dresses herself within minutes of jumping out of bed and runs around collecting various bangles and stickers that she wants to take to Hannah’s house.
“So you’re all right about going to after-school club, then?” I venture, as she scoops up the last spoonful of her porridge and we head into the hall.
She starts to smile, then looks confused. “Yes. I don’t know.” Her face suddenly drops. “I miss you, though.”
“Well, I miss you, too,” I say, brushing her long curly hair in front of the hall mirror and dividing it into the plaits I know will be pulled out long before home time. “But soon, we’ll have lots of new things to look forward to. If you’re really well behaved and do what Hannah’s mummy asks you, maybe we can invite Hannah back sometime.”
“Yes!” Rae squeals.
“And you know what?” I smile at her in the mirror. “I might have a new friend, too. A girl at work called Megan.”
Rae stares at me in the mirror. “What is she like?”
“Nice.” I smile. “Friendly. You’d like her—she looks like Alice in Wonderland. And she thinks I’m good at making jokes.”
Rae opens her eyes wide, then pulls a comedy cynical expression that I recognize as Tom’s.
“Oi—monkey,” I growl, grabbing her sides and squeezing.
* * *
We head out the door with plenty of time to spare.
“Hey, hon!”
My eyes drop to the floor at the sound of Suzy’s voice. For some reason, it makes me feel panicked and trapped. I force myself to smile, then look over to see Suzy coming out of the gate with Henry.
“We didn’t see you yesterday.”
“Sorry,” I say, crossing the street with Rae. “We got back late but we might come over later and use your toilet if that’s OK? Ours is only half-working and the landlord’s plumber can’t come till tomorrow.”
“Sure. How are you, sweetie?” Suzy says, patting Rae’s shoulder as we head down Churchill Road together. “You tell Mommy about after-school club?”
Rae’s face drops.
Suzy makes a questioning gesture at me.
“I’ll speak to Ms. Aldon this week,” I say. “Haven’t had a chance yet.”
“Well, good luck getting any sense out of her, hon,” she sighs. “I can’t wait till Henry’s out of that woman’s class—one of the mums was telling me the other day that she . . .” She lifts
up her hand and gestures taking a drink. “Don’t you think she looks hungover sometimes?”
But before I can answer, Rae pipes up.
“Mummy’s got a new friend at her work. She looks like Alice in Wonderland. And she thinks Mummy is good at jokes.”
She makes her comedy expression of disbelief again at Henry, and he laughs out loud.
Oh no. Poor Suzy. That will hurt her.
“She’s not my friend,” I gabble to Suzy, out of earshot of Rae. “She just works there.”
But Suzy doesn’t seem to have heard any of it. She is concentrating on Henry’s backpack, which is hanging open, and trying to do it up as we walk.
I watch her, thinking about Megan.
Should I ask Suzy? Is it hypocritical?
But then if I start to make friends away from Churchill Road, it could do Suzy good in the long run, I reason. She might not realize it yet, but she needs to break free from me, as much as I do from her. In a roundabout way, I’m giving her her own freedom, as well as grasping mine.
“Suze . . .” I venture when we reach the main road.
“Hmm.”
“Actually, there is a work thing on Thursday night. I’m really sorry to ask, but would you mind babysitting Rae for a couple of hours? It wouldn’t be till later, once the boys are in bed.”
“Sure, if Jez is around.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks,” I say, taking her arm. “When I’m back full-time, I’m going to find a childminder so I won’t have to ask you anymore.”
She stares at me.
“Callie, really, hon. You don’t need to do that. I’m happy to help. You never know who you can trust with your kids, anyway. Speaking of which, why don’t you head off to the station? I’ll take Rae for you.”
“Really?”
“Course. I’ll talk to Ms. Aldon and find out what’s going on with her, if you like. I’ll do my best, anyway.”
“OK, thanks,” I murmur appreciatively. I know I should do it myself but Rae seems better today, and if Suzy takes her into school, it would give me a twenty-minute head start on the day with Parker.
I wave as Suzy takes both Rae’s and Henry’s hands firmly in hers, and crosses the main road.
“I’ll pick you up at Hannah’s,” I mouth at Rae. I would have shouted it, but at the last moment, instinct tells me Rae hasn’t mentioned her playdate to Henry yet.
* * *
By the time I reach Rocket, my head is buzzing with ideas for Parker’s sound track.
He drops in for an hour to talk through it, then leaves for the morning. For inspiration, I Google “Swedish lakes” to find out about the wildlife that lives in and around them, then start to search our massive sound library for a match. I am so lost in thought about the exact noise a freshwater roach makes when it grabs a tiny water snail in its mouth that I don’t even notice it’s lunchtime, till Megan comes in and offers to fetch me a sandwich.
“So, can you make it tomorrow night?” she asks, wafting delicious perfume past me and wearing a leopard-print top.
“I think I can.” I smile. “If that’s OK?”
“Course it is! It’ll be good. OK, so anything with cheese from Pret?”
I hand her the money, embarrassed that she’s doing this for me, but also a tiny bit thrilled that I can hand over one of the many menial tasks that have filled my day for so long to someone who is genuinely happy and paid to do it, and carry on with my work.
I am so engrossed with sourcing sounds for the house-building that I jump when my mobile goes off.
I don’t recognize the number. Who is it?
“Callie, it’s Caroline, Hannah’s mum,” a voice rings in my ear.
It takes me a minute to place it.
“Oh God, Caroline—hi!” I say too loudly, glancing at the clock. How did it get to be 3
P.M.
so quickly? “I’m glad you rang. I meant to ring you this afternoon to say that Rae is a bit tricky on the road at the moment. It’s a bit complicated, but when she had her big heart operation before school started, there were complica . . . Well, she lost some oxygen and it’s left her with poor coordination. The trouble is that at the moment, she’s desperate to run and I’m—”
“Callie, can I just stop you there,” Caroline says.
“Yes. Sorry.” I must sound mad. She’ll think I’m drunk again.
“I’m sorry, but I’m ringing to say I’m going to have to cancel Rae’s playdate.”
I stop breathing. Oh no. Please no.
She carries on. “I completely forgot that Hannah had an extra piano lesson at five tonight that’s been rescheduled from last week when she was ill.”
She pauses, waiting for me to reply.
How could she? What on earth have I done to this woman?
And then I see it. Caroline never had any intention of having
Rae to play. She just said yes last night because she couldn’t think of an excuse to get out of it quickly enough.
Disappointment courses through me. How on earth is Rae going to feel?
“Oh, that’s a shame. OK, don’t worry,” I mumble. “Caroline, would you tell her at five, when you pick Hannah up from after-school club?”
“Yes, of course. And I am sorry, Callie,” Caroline says. “Maybe another time.”
“Maybe,” I say, knowing there will not be one.
“Well, bye.”
“Bye.”
* * *
There is no time to be upset. My sadness for Rae sits in a lump inside my chest like indigestion. Guy is flying in and out of the studio all afternoon checking on me. He confides that if Parker’s short film is well received, he may end up moving on to feature films like Sam Taylor-Wood and other artists. If we impress him now, it could bring in new and bigger sound design contracts in the future.
Parker has to be in New York next Wednesday, so we are tight for time. Parker pops back in to see what I’ve done at the end of the day. We’re playing everything back when I look up at the clock. I freeze. How is this happening? A minute ago it was 4:10
P.M.
Now it is 5:20.
“Guy?” I gasp. “Is that clock right?”
He checks his watch. “Yeah—problem?”
“I am sorry, but I’m so late—I have to go.”
He frowns.
“We did say five . . .” I mouth at him.
“Can you do another ten minutes, Cal?”
The implication is clear. We’re under pressure here. He let me off at four yesterday. I owe him.
“OK, but I have to make a call.”
I run to reception and Megan gives me her phone. I bash in a number, hating my own hypocrisy. One minute I am trying to break away from her; the next, I am relying on her like family.
“Suzy,” I whisper. “Listen, I am SO sorry. I’ve been held up. I don’t think I’m going to make it to after-school by six. Is there any way you could pick up Rae if I ring them to tell them you’re coming?”
There is a pause.
“Suze?”
“OK, hon, that’s fine . . .” she murmurs.
“What?” I say. “You sound annoyed.”
“No—not at all. Not with you. It’s just that Rae was kind of upset again when I picked Henry up at three-thirty.”
“Really?” I say, bewildered. She wouldn’t have known about her canceled playdate yet at three-thirty—she should have been excited to go to after-school club with Hannah.
“Yeah, she lay on the floor, and screamed. Ms. Aldon had to take her to after-school in the end because she wouldn’t go with Ms. Buck. And now if you’re not picking her up at six, either . . . I mean, hon, I am just wondering. Are you sure you’re going to manage this?”
Oh God. And now Rae’s going to be devastated about her canceled playdate when Suzy picks her up, so she’ll have to deal with that, too. I can’t take this right now. Guy emerges from the studio and waves me back in.
My stomach is hurting.
“Suze, I know. But, please, can you just do it this time? I’ll call you as soon as I get away and explain everything.”
“OK, hon. Listen, don’t worry about it,” she says, and hangs up.
I put the phone down and roll my eyes at Megan.
“You’ll work it out,” she says. “It took my sister ages.”
Why couldn’t Suzy say that, I think as I walk back into the sound studio? Now I feel so worried I can hardly think straight.
* * *
In the end, Guy keeps me for forty—not ten—minutes, by which time I am almost hyperventilating. Eventually Parker picks up his jacket and Guy gives me the nod to go.
“Good start,” he says. “Let’s pick this up tomorrow.”
I burst out of the studio a respectable one minute after Parker, and start teetering along fast on my heels to the Tube, trying to ring Suzy’s house on my mobile. No wonder you see so many women running round London wearing suits and sneakers.
Suzy’s phone rings out six times then goes to voice mail.
Maybe they went to the park. I try her mobile. That goes straight to voice mail, too.
That’s odd.
At Oxford Circus station I stop and stand at the entrance, wondering what to do. Once I am on the Tube I won’t have a phone signal for half an hour.
Flustered, I ring both her phones again, and leave a horribly apologetic message on both saying that I’ll be back around 6:45
P.M.
I am just putting my first foot on the top of the Tube stairs when my phone rings.
“Hi, Suze?” I shout above the roar of traffic and a newspaper seller shouting,
Come and get it!
“Did you get my message?”
There is a sudden scream right beside me. A tall woman in a business suit, with groomed hair and perfect makeup, is marching down Oxford Street toward me with a sharp, military stride, screaming in French into a phone headset. The sight is so bizarre I stop talking for a second to watch. She lifts her long legs up high with each step, verbally tearing a strip off somebody with such ferocity that one mother pulls her children toward her. Must have been dumped by her boyfriend, I think. Blimey. He messed with the wrong woman there.