This Perfect World (18 page)

It’s Mrs Partridge, in a total panic. I can barely make out
what she’s saying. Arianne is coming down the stairs swinging
her ballet shoes by the ribbons and singing ‘Old Macdonald’
at the top of her voice. I shush her to be quiet and take the
phone into the living room.

‘She wouldn’t take her pills,’ Mrs Partridge wails into my
ear. ‘And she’d got hold of the ring pull off a Coke can. Said
she’d slit her wrists if they made her take her pills. And I
feel so wretched . . . all my fault . . . I took her in that Coke
. . . always so careful to take away any rubbish; I have to
be, you know . . . don’t know how she got hold of the ring
. . . They’ve sedated her, you know, in her arm, but she made
a terrible fuss . . .’

Arianne has followed me into the living room and is
staring at me with wide blue eyes and swinging her ballet
shoes round and round above her head like lassoes.

‘I’ve got to go and see her,’ Mrs Partridge is saying and I’m
cursing myself for forgetting to take the old ballet shoes out
with us in the first place. We should have gone straight to the
shops after dropping Thomas, and then I’d have missed this
call. ‘I’ve got to see her, but I’ve got Nathan at home . . . Asked
Mrs Day next door if she’d have him for a bit, but she’s got
to go out herself at eleven. I’ll never be back by then . . . Don’t
know what I should do . . .’

‘I’ll have Nathan.’ The words are out before I even think.
There is definitely some god playing chess with me.

‘Oh, would you, dear?’ Mrs Partridge erupts into gratitude.
‘I could get the bus if I go now . . . Mrs Day can have
him till eleven, if you could—’

‘I’ll pick him up from there. I’ll leave now.’

And that’s it, sorted.

‘Damn!’ I snap as I put down the phone.

Arianne stops swinging her ballet shoes and her eyes grow
wider.

‘The ballet shoes will have to wait,’ I tell her, and before
she can start protesting I add, ‘Nathan’s coming to play.’

‘Who’s Nay-fun?’ Arianne asks. And I reply with the first
thing that comes into my head.

‘He’s my friend’s little boy.’

And so it is that Arianne and I go to collect Nathan from
the turquoise house attached to the Partridges’.

I have never had to knock at this house before and I
cannot tell you how nervous I am. When I was a child, this
house was even more frightening to me than Heddy’s. I never
knew who lived here, I only knew that they had the most
vicious-sounding dog on earth locked behind their front door.
And no matter how quietly I crept up the Partridges’ pathway
to call for Heddy, that dog would hear me, and bark and
growl and slaver like mad, hurling itself at the inside of that
door, trying to break out and get me.

I do not even know if it’s the same people who live here
now, and there’s no sign of any dog so far. Even so, as I walk
up to the front door I’m tense, on the alert, waiting for the
dreaded thud of animal against wood, and for the attack to
begin.

Arianne is oblivious to my fears. She’s fascinated by that
awful car stuck up on jacks, never having seen such a thing
before. She’s crouching down in the weeds, trying to get a
look underneath it.

‘Don’t touch,’ I say, but she finds herself a stick, and starts
poking it in the rust holes around the wheel arches.

The doorbell doesn’t seem to work, so I do my best to
rattle the letter-box flap instead; it’s stiff and I have to really
force it back and slam it down for it to make any sound at
all. It occurs to me how farcical this whole situation is. I
could not have dreamed it up, not in the weirdest of dreams.

The door is opened by a plumpish woman of uncertain
age, whom I presume to be Mrs Day. I have to say she doesn’t
appear to be in too much of a hurry for someone who is
about to go out. She’s wearing a quilted pink housecoat
buttoned down to the floor and there are heated rollers
hanging in the ends of her lemon-yellow hair. She’s smoking
a cigarette, which she must have stuck in her mouth while
she opened the door, and now she takes it out and smoke
clouds out of her face and into mine.

‘Poo!’ says Arianne, who has stopped poking at the car
and come to see who’s opened the door. She jumps up and
down between me and Mrs Day, flapping her arms around
to disperse the smoke.

‘Mrs Day?’ I say. ‘I’m Laura Hamley. I’ve come for Nathan.’
I give her my most charming smile because she looks as
though she needs it. She doesn’t, however, return it, possibly
because Arianne is still jumping about, trying to wave the
smoke back inside the house and running off a stream of
observations, out loud.

‘That lady’s got her nightie on,’ she says, pointing, ‘and
it’s got tatty round the end.’

‘It gets a bit much, all these last-minute emergencies,’ Mrs
Day says, through another puff of smoke, as if this is somehow
my fault. ‘I do have commitments of my own.’ Then she tips
her head back slightly while still looking at me and calls out,
‘Nathan!’

Out of the shadows behind her comes this small boy. I
find myself straining to see him better and realize I know
nothing about him. He skulks in the darkness behind Mrs
Day’s pink form; from what I can see he is no bigger than
Thomas.

Arianne is intrigued. Children are always curious about
other children. She pushes herself round the side of a somewhat
affronted Mrs Day, to get a better look.

‘Is that Nay-fun?’ she says to me.

‘I think it must be,’ I reply. And to the little boy I say,
‘Hello, there.’

He creeps a little nearer, until he is up beside Mrs Day.
She doesn’t provide much refuge, but steps to one side,
leaving him exposed to our stares. He’s a stocky little thing,
with black hair falling over dark, solemn eyes.

‘Well, here he is, then,’ she announces with some displeasure,
and it is very plain that she wants to be rid of us all.

I think he might have some things with him, things he
might need for the day, but he doesn’t. There’s just himself,
in his football T-shirt, jogging bottoms and trainers.

‘How old are you, Nathan?’ I ask cheerily as he gets into
the back of the car, beside Arianne.

‘Seven,’ he says, and sits staring at the seat in front of him
while Arianne prods him and tugs at his sleeve.

‘I’m three,’ she tells him proudly. ‘And Thomas is six.’

In the mirror I watch as he ignores her. Poor little boy;
he doesn’t know who we are.

‘Thomas is Arianne’s brother,’ I tell him. ‘You might meet
him later.’ I watch for his response in the mirror – there is
none. ‘He’s out at a friend’s today, so we’re having pancakes
for lunch. They’re Arianne’s favourite. Do you like pancakes,
Nathan?’

He shrugs, but says nothing. His hair is in bad need of a
cut, hanging right in his eyes and making him blink. It’s thick,
black hair, forward-falling, like Heddy’s. Designed to hide
the face. He scratches his head a lot, the sides, the back, the
top. I see him scratch in the mirror, and my heart sinks.

And he smells slightly, it’s a biscuit smell, like Jacob’s
cream crackers. I can’t help noticing it, in the confines of the
car. It reminds me of Heddy, and the names we called her. I
think of their bath, with the cactus plant and the sewing
machine in it, and I think of wet beds.

And again, I wonder how on earth I ended up in this
nightmare.

*

Arianne is a very sociable child. She shows Nathan her marble
run and her farm and lets him play with her Duplo. He sits
on the floor with his legs crossed and lets her boss him around.
He’s got a Duplo horse in one hand and a little house in the
other. He puts the horse in the house and takes it out again,
then in again, then out. And every few seconds he lets go of
the horse altogether, and scratches his head.

I sit on the sofa and watch them. And every time one of
them leans forward too much and it looks like their heads
might touch, I find myself acting like a jack-in-the-box and
leaping between them to keep them apart.

After lunch, which Nathan eats quickly and without saying
a word while Arianne chatters away non-stop, we have to
go and get Thomas from the Littlewoods’. The Littlewoods
live a short drive away, just off the High Street. This time I
put Nathan in the middle seat in the back of the car so that
Thomas can just hop in beside him. But then I find myself
checking in the mirror every two seconds that his head isn’t
too close to Arianne’s.

Normally Arianne and I would go into Fiona’s house for
a while, and perhaps stay for a quick coffee and a chat, but
today I leave the children in the car outside. I can feel Arianne’s
little face staring at me, somewhat miffed, as I walk up to
the door.

Fiona opens the door, immaculately clad in unrumpled
linen. The baby Minka is clamped to her hip and sucking on
a carrot.

‘Come in, come in,’ she says. ‘The boys are in the playroom.’

‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ I tell her. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

‘Oh,’ she says, hoiking Minka up a little. ‘Where’s Arianne?’

‘In the car.’

Fiona peers past me and looks at the car. ‘Doesn’t she
want to come in?’ She jiggles Minka, who is struggling dangerously
with that carrot. ‘We were looking forward to seeing
Arianne, weren’t we, Minky-Mink?’

Minka appears to be holding her breath and is going a
little blue around the mouth. Suddenly she shudders and
retches and shoots out a large lump of carrot, which Fiona
deftly catches in her free hand.

‘Well done, Minka!’ Fiona applauds at this very strange
achievement. To me she says, ‘It’s so important to give them
finger foods, I think. Helps them to learn how to eat.’

So long as they don’t die in the process, I think, but I smile
in agreement. The colour is coming back into Minka’s somewhat
dazed face in raspberry-pink blotches.

Then Fiona says, ‘Who’s that in the car with Arianne?’

‘I’m looking after a friend’s boy,’ I lie, and to stem her
curiosity I say, ‘Look, thanks for having Thomas. I really
ought to be going.’

‘Oh,’ Fiona says, curiosity not stemmed in the least. ‘Right.
I’ll call the boys, then.’ She has another quick look at the
car, then calls down the hallway, ‘Thomas! Mummy’s here!
Milo, Julius, Cornelius, come and say goodbye to Thomas.’

Thomas, Milo and the three-year-old twins, Julius and
Cornelius, come bounding from the playroom dressed as
Robin Hood, a wizard, a cowboy and Captain Hook, respectively.
There is no end to the wonders of the Littlewood
dressing-up box.

‘Darlings, how wonderful!’ exclaims Fiona as they screech
and whoop up and down the hall. ‘Oh, they’ve had such fun!
Haven’t they, Minky-Mink? They’ve had such fun!’

I try to find this sweet, but really I just want to get going.
I can’t leave the others in the car forever. Agitatedly I wait
as Thomas gets back into his own clothes, finds his shoes
and the goodbyes are said. I can’t help noticing that there
are still faint lines on Milo’s cheeks where Thomas scratched
him. Funny how the most embarrassing wounds always take
the longest to heal.

‘Who’s he?’ Thomas demands as he gets into the car.

‘This is Nathan,’ I say in my jolliest voice. ‘He’s come to
play with us.’

‘Why?’ Thomas does up his seatbelt and stares at Nathan
suspiciously. Nathan stares down at his knees.

‘We’re looking after him today,’ I explain, patiently as I
can, as I start up the car.

‘Why?’ Thomas says again. ‘Where’s his mummy?’

This is just the sort of question I was dreading. I decide
to take the honest route. ‘Nathan’s mummy is in hospital,’ I
say brightly, making it sound like a fun day out. ‘She’s not
feeling very well at the moment.’

I look in the mirror and think perhaps I shouldn’t have said
that. Nathan is still staring at his knees and his face is almost
completely hidden by his hair. My children are both staring
at him and I’m wondering what they’re going to say next.

‘Has she got a sore tummy?’ Arianne asks. ‘I went to
hospital when I had a sore tummy.’

‘And I went to hospital when a bee stung my cheek,’ Thomas
boasts proudly.

‘Did a bee sting your mummy?’ Arianne asks Nathan.

Nathan says nothing. I glance in the mirror again as he
lifts up one hand and starts scratching his head.

Nathan is playing with the Duplo again, putting that horse
in and out of the house.

Thomas has set up a race track for his cars, with bridges
and bends and all kinds of hazards, and he’s whizzing his
cars one by one to a spectacularly noisy end. Arianne has
built an entire village out of Duplo and her little people are
heading home now after a busy hour or so at the shop, the
park, the school. But Nathan just sits on the floor and puts
that horse in and out of the house.

He seems closer to Arianne’s age than Thomas’s, but really
he is worlds away from either of them. He’s Heddy’s boy
all right. I look at him and I see it, the same slow blankness.

It’s nearly six o’clock. I’ve given the children tea and soon
I will need to put Arianne and Thomas to bed. I watch
Nathan sticking that car in and out of that house and I think
it can’t be much longer before Mrs Partridge phones and I
can take him home again.

By seven o’clock she still hasn’t phoned and I am getting
anxious, and more than a little annoyed.

The toys are tidied up, Thomas and Arianne are getting
tired and fractious, and Nathan is still holding on to that
horse, though I’ve told him he’ll have to give it back before
he goes.

I am toying with the idea of returning Nathan to Mrs
Day’s, though that does seem a little unkind, and of course
she may not even be in. But I want to get my children to
bed, and James will be home at eight-thirty. I decide to phone
the hospital, to see if I can find out what’s going on. I’ve just
got out the phone book to look up the number of St Anne’s
when, at last, the phone rings.