The Playdate (17 page)
“Cal?” I hear Suzy say.
“Sorry,” I say. “There’s this really bizarre woman walking around . . .”
“Cal,” she repeats.
“What?” I say.
I hear a noise that I don’t understand. A noise down the phone that sounds like a sharp intake of breath. Then silence.
“What?” I say. “Suze? What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
The Frenchwoman stops in front of me, and carries on screaming. I turn my head away, desperately trying to hear Suzy.
“. . . into the road . . .” I hear her say.
“What?”
The Frenchwoman carries on her tirade.
“Oh will you be QUIET!” I shout, silencing her and making her walk off with a haughty stare.
“You tell her, love!” jeers the newspaper seller beside me.
“Rae . . . fell into the road . . .”
“What?”
“. . . hurt her leg . . . she’s fine . . .”
“What do you mean, fine?” My voice splutters away as if it has run out of gas.
“. . . cut her leg a little . . .”
“Her breathing, Suze—how’s her breathing?” I shout.
“OK. I think . . . you want me . . . take . . . A&E?”
“Yes. Please,” I shout. “They need to check her out. Go to Northmore. Tell them to contact cardiology as soon as she gets there . . .”
There is silence at the end of the phone. I stare at it. Suzy’s cut off.
Shaken, I turn and knock into the newspaper stand.
“You all right, love?” the newspaperman shouts in a rasping voice.
I shake my head, and turn one way and then the other.
He takes my shoulders, and I can smell stale cigarette smoke.
“I’ve got to get to Northmore—my daughter’s fallen in the road.” I jerk away from him, panicked.
“All right, love. You stay there!” he shouts, and sticks his arm up and whistles. A black cab stops, and he opens the door and pushes me in it.
“Northmore A&E, mate!” he shouts. “It’s her little girl!”
And the cab pulls away before I can thank him.
She had an hour to change out of her work clothes and get the evening meal ready for Allen. She walked around the kitchen, concentrating hard, to keep the bad thoughts from her mind. Shut them in a box, her therapist had told her. Put each bad thought in a box, then imagine closing the lid and locking it. Fill your mind with other new, harmless ones.
For instance, this new oven. This new oven seemed very hot for only 180°C. The lamb casserole smelled dry and smoky. She prodded the potatoes with a fork. Undercooked. She took milk out of the fridge, poured it in the pan, and put it back over the gas ring. Mash it, she thought. Allen hated lumps. Mash it. Again and again. There should be no lumps.
By the time she heard the sharp click of a key in the door ten minutes later, the potatoes had been beaten into a watery purée.
Allen walked in with his briefcase and put it down.
“Hello,” she called, trying to keep her voice relaxed. “Dinner’s nearly ready.”
“OK, love,” he replied.
Putting cutlery on the table, she walked into the hall.
“Here, let me help you,” she said, taking his overcoat off his shoulders.
“Thanks,” he said, leaning in for her to kiss his cheek. She wanted to lift up her hand and touch his cheek, but these moments of intimacy were so difficult now that she was frightened of how he might react. At the last moment she lost her nerve, and used her hand instead to brush away something invisible from his lapel. He stroked her arm lightly as thanks.
“What’s for tea?”
“Stew.”
“Lovely.”
He went upstairs to change into the cords and sweater she’d left out on the bed, giving her a chance to get the dinner on the table. Concentrate, she thought, piling on the stew. Don’t let your mind slip. Put the bad thing in a box.
Trouble was, the lid of one particular box was desperately trying to get off.
Mash, mash, mash. Squash, squash, squash, she thought. Squash the lid down.
Allen walked back into the room and placed his newspaper on the side for later.
“Good day?” she said, dishing out stew, carrots, and potatoes. The potato ran toward the gravy and disappeared into brown mush.
“Yes, I think it was,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “It looks like the bus stop idea will go to planning.”
“Oh, well done, love,” she said.
Allen smiled and sat down to his dinner with a contented sigh. “Mmm, lovely.”
She sat down and watched him pick up his cutlery, leaving her own where it was on the table. She would watch him for a moment enjoying the food she had cooked for him. For a second she let herself pretend that it was last night again. That they were nearly finished with their tea, and she was looking forward to the night they’d spend together on the sofa watching
Coronation Street,
then the ten o’clock news, Allen doing his
Guardian
crossword, her helping him with the ones at the end he couldn’t get.
Because tonight that wasn’t going to happen.
“So, how was your day?” he said finally.
She looked down at the table.
“Not very good at all, I’m afraid, love. Something very bad has happened.”
Allen watched her, his eyes concerned, chewing the same piece of meat over and over.
“She’s over there.”
I am already walking swiftly through the security door, past Suzy, to get to Rae, who is sitting in the pediatric section of Northmore A&E watching a telly on the wall. We’ve been here so many times, I already know what to expect. Stale air. Strip lighting so bright it scratches your eyes. Grubby toys scattered on the floor that smells of bleach. A cleaner wiping up yellow bile.
“Mummy,” she murmurs, pointing at the telly. “Henry’s got this film.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” I say, taking her face firmly between my hands and scanning it, inch by inch, starting my mental checklist. Lips—pink, if a little pale. Skin pale, too, but not out of the ordinary. Eyes . . . OK. Strangely bright, actually. Breathing normal.
“Has she been seen?” I call to Suzy, ignoring the curious stares of other waiting parents.
“Yes, hon, they’ve checked her leg and her blood pressure and pulse. The cardiology guy’s going to get here when he can.”
“Show me your leg, Rae,” I demand, whipping off the blanket. Suzy has already stuck a large Winnie the Pooh bandage on it. Rae lifts her hands to show me skin engraved with bloody scratches.
The innocence of the baby bandage infuriates me. There is no such thing as a little cut when it comes to Rae, as far as I am concerned.
“How do you feel?” I bark.
Hold her hand tightly, I had said to Suzy, twenty-four hours ago. Hold her hand tight on the road.
Rae recoils a little at the unfamiliar tone of my voice. She looks up at Suzy, then back at me.
“OK?” Rae tries.
“Not breathing funny? No pains?”
“No!” she says, frustration entering her voice. “The lady just asked me all that.”
I look up at Suzy. She makes a sympathetic face.
“You want me to get the nurse?”
I turn away from her. She waits a second.
“Hon? I said, you want me to get the nurse?”
“No.”
She hesitates, then tries again.
“Sure?”
“I’ll speak to her when I’m ready.”
There is a heavy silence for a second. Rae looks at me, and then at Suzy. She starts to smile, then bites it away nervously.
“Well, you know best.” Suzy moves away toward the door. “You know what, I’m going to give you girls a couple of minutes to yourselves.”
I nod numbly, and go to put my arm round Rae. But before I can, she stands up and limps over to sit beside a child with a patch on his eye, and looks back up toward the TV. A toddler runs past bashing a tambourine. Each shrill bash crashes through my temples. “Rae?” I call, softly.
She keeps her eyes on the screen.
* * *
How many times have I told Suzy about Rae’s poor coordination?
I bite my thumbnail. She was supposed to hold her hand.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the security door opening again, and the shape of a tall person carrying two cups of coffee.
Suzy stands for a second. She puts one foot experimentally in front of the plastic chair beside me as if to test the water. Then another. She slowly sits down and hands me a coffee. The hot, acrid smell turns my stomach. She puts hers on the floor with her right hand, then gently touches my little finger, which is resting on my knee. She leaves it there, and looks at me.
“Suze,” I whisper, pulling it away before I can help myself. “I’m sorry. But what happened?”
She takes my hand again and leans gently into me.
“Hon?” Her voice is hurt. “You OK?”
“It’s just—I thought you understood about Rae falling over. I feel like I’ve said it a hundred times. Sorry, I know you were helping me out, and I wasn’t there, but . . .”
“I do know that.”
“So, what happened?”
“OK, well, you know you rang me from work to pick her up? So I had to leave the house about ten-to-six to get her from
after-school club? Well, I’d just put the twins in the buggy and was going out the door, and Peter started to throw up. I didn’t tell you on the phone but he’s got a temperature, and just before he was sick I noticed this rash on his arm. Anyway, he just kind of projectile vomited everywhere. All over Otto, some over me. To be honest, I was concerned he might be real sick, you know, maybe”—she checks my face before she says the word—“meningitis . . .”
My anger deflates a little. “Why didn’t you say when I rang?”
She lets out a deep sigh. “Hon, you sounded so stressed when I rang yesterday, I was scared to ring again in case I was interrupting something and I got you in trouble. I didn’t know what to do. The twins were covered in vomit. I couldn’t leave the house, so I took them back inside and rang the after-school club. I spoke to the leader—Ms. Buck?—and told her that I was going to be twenty minutes late, at least, to pick up Rae. She sounded kind of pissed. And then I remembered you said the woman next door worked there, so we agreed that she would bring Rae back with her to Churchill Road when the club closed, and leave her with me till you got here.”
It takes me a second to realize what she is saying.
“So it wasn’t you that was with her when it happened?”
This wasn’t Suzy’s fault.
Suzy shakes her head and pulls me toward her. A stupid, embarrassed smile breaks out on my face. “No—oh, you silly person. Is that what you thought? Oh God, hon. You know how careful I am with her. No wonder you were angry. No—she was with that woman. And now I feel so bad that I asked her to bring Rae home. I didn’t even question it—she’s her teacher, for Christ’s sake. I was worried about Peter, and you sounded so cross on the phone, I just had to make a decision.”
“So how did it happen?”
“Well, I don’t know. I was changing Peter and I heard this shouting at the end of the road. I didn’t think much about it, then I remembered Rae was coming back. So I ran out to the gate and I saw this pile of people in the road. I ran over and I realized Rae was lying on the road, with a teenager beside her with his bike.”
“A bike?”
“Yeah. He was trying to get up—he was shouting something at Debs, then he got up and rode off.”
She pauses and looks at me.
“Suze. Are you telling me Rae was hit by a bike?” I stammer.
“Yeah, no—I don’t know, Cal—you’re going to have to ask the police.”
“The police?” Other parents look up as my voice blurts out sharply.
“Hon, please try to stay calm. Yeah—someone called them, I think a woman on our road who thought Rae had been knocked over. Look, I really don’t know what happened, but I think Rae tripped over on the pavement, and started to fall into the road just as this boy was turning the corner. I don’t think he hit her. I think he probably just lost his balance trying to avoid her. Now, whether she cut her leg on the bike, or the road, I don’t know. She didn’t know.”
Each detail flashes at me like a strobe light, as I try to take it in.
“The bike cut her leg?”
“Yeah, maybe, but, hon—listen, they’ve checked her over. They don’t seem worried.”
“And he rode off?”
“I think so.”
I look at Rae. She was hit by a bike. And this is my fault. Suzy was too scared to ring me because I was being such a selfish bitch on the phone, asking her to pick my kid up when her kid was sick, while at the very same time planning a way to cool down our friendship. It serves me right.
Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. I turn to Suzy.
“So where is she?”
“Who?”
“Debs.”
“I don’t know.” Suzy looks down.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, Cal. It was kind of weird, actually. She was just staring at Rae, like she was frozen or something. I don’t even know if she followed us up the road. I was too worried about Rae.”
“But, Suze, you did tell her that Rae had to be held tightly on the road?”
“Of course I told her. I specifically told her on the phone when we arranged it. I just . . . I just feel so bad. Like this is my fault. I don’t know what to do. I was worried about Peter throwing up . . .”
“No. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault for being late and putting you in this position.”
Suzy looks at me and bites her lip.
“What?”
“OK, well, I’m glad. But there is something that you are going to be mad at me about.”
“What?”
“Um. Tom.”
“What do you mean, Tom?”
“I rang him.”
“Oh, Suze—why?”
“I know. I’m sorry. There was just this moment when I couldn’t get through to your phone and I kind of panicked. I know how worried you two get.”
“So he knows what happened?”
She nods, her mouth screwed up apologetically.
With a loud bang, the A&E door flies open and the frame of a large man fills the doorway. For a second, I think it’s Tom, but there’s no way he could get here this quickly from Sri Lanka. I refocus. It’s Jez.