The Winter's Child Read online

  John’s arms reach down. His hands close around Joel’s arms.

  “Right then, fella. Get yourself up off the floor and let’s have a cuddle and make friends, shall we?”

  Joel, lost in despair, rolls into a tight ball and clutches tightly to Scrap-dog.

  “All right. All right. Well, if you’d rather stay there than do something nice, that’s up to you. You can come in and talk to us when you’ve finished being silly.”

  John’s sudden return to the house takes me by surprise. I didn’t want him to know I was watching him. I wanted him to think I was in the kitchen. Instead he catches me two steps from the back door.

  “He’s having a paddy,” John says to me. “He’s tired after school, that’s all. Leave him to it and he’ll come in when he’s ready.”

  Joel’s sobs tear into me. I can’t trust myself to speak.

  “Please don’t look at me like that,” John begs, and reaches for my hand. “I’m his dad. I love him too.”

  “He doesn’t like football.”

  “How can he possibly know he doesn’t like it if he doesn’t even try? I don’t want him to be left out at school, that’s all. All the other boys are footie mad. How’s he ever going to fit in if he doesn’t learn the basics?”

  “He doesn’t have to fit in, he’s fine as he is. He likes the stuff he likes. Not the stuff you think he ought to like.”

  “God almighty, I’m just trying to help him belong! Footie’s a big deal for little boys.”

  “Not all little boys, some of them like animals and role-playing and—”

  “Well, the little boys in his class, the ones he’s going to be at school with for the next fourteen years, it’s a big deal for them, all right? And that’s who Joel’s got to be friends with. The boys there actually are. What kind of a time is he going to have in the playground if he cries every time he sees a ball?”

  We never used to argue like this. There was time when I thought John and I agreed on everything, and then an even sweeter time when I discovered that John would change his mind, giving in to what I wanted, just for the pleasure of making me happy. Until Joel came, I never knew John could be so stubborn. Out in the garden, Joel’s sobs are a hook dragging at my heart. Resisting the pull is physically painful.

  “Please don’t go out there and comfort him.” John’s voice sounds as if he’s asking me, but he puts himself between me and the door. “Just let him get it out of his system, he’ll come in when he’s ready.”

  “He’s scared.”

  “He’s not scared, what would he be scared of? He’s in his own back garden with both his parents ten feet away. He’s just mad because he can’t have his own way.”

  He’s scared, I think, because he thinks you don’t like him. I push against John’s strong physical bulk. He puts his arms around me. Is he holding me? Or holding me prisoner?

  “Please.” John’s voice is warm against my scalp. “Back me on this one. Just this one. Please.”

  “I always back you.”

  “Not when you think I’m wrong. And you always think I’m wrong.”

  “No, I don’t! Look, this isn’t about who’s right or who’s wrong. Joel’s out there crying in the garden and I want to go and comfort him, and I’m going, all right? I’m his mum. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “He’s five years old. He needs to learn.”

  “He’s little and the only thing he needs to learn is that we love him exactly how he is and we’ll always be there for him. Whether he’s any good at bloody football or not. Let me go out there, please.” John doesn’t move. “You know I’m not strong enough to push you out of the way.”

  John sighs and moves aside. I know I’m right, so why do I feel as if I’ve done something unforgivable? When I brush against his chest and stomach, the muscles there are solid with anger. It doesn’t matter. I’ll worry about this later.

  Joel is still curled on the grass, still clutching Scrap-dog, still sobbing. I kneel beside him and gently stroke his back. He responds with the faintest uncoiling. I keep stroking. After a minute, a little hand shoots out and grabs onto mine, pulling it into the centre where Scrap-dog nestles, warm and damp and in need of a wash. I lie down beside Joel and curl around until he’s tucked beneath my chin. The sobbing stops, replaced by the small hitches in his breath that tell me he’s returning to a place of calmness. I can smell the autumnal warmth of the soil and the broken grass-stems and the shampoo I use to wash Joel’s hair. I forget all about the row with John and simply bask in the comfort of lying in low slanting sunshine, on the grass, with my little son. This moment is all I have ever wanted. Whatever comes next, I’ll have had this.

  “Shall we go inside?” I whisper.

  “Daddy’s cross with me,” Joel whispers back.

  “No, he’s not cross with you, why would he be cross with you?”

  “Because I wouldn’t kick the ball. He wants me to be good at football but I’m not. I don’t want to make Daddy cross.”

  Something in my chest breaks a little.

  “Daddy’s not cross because you’re not good at football. And anyway, how do you know you’re not good at it?”

  “I just know.”

  “Well, maybe if you just tried it you might like it.”

  Joel turns his face towards me then. His eyes are huge and red-rimmed, brimming over with still unshed tears.

  “You love me more than Daddy does,” he says.

  “Oh, my darling. Daddy loves you more than anyone else in the world, okay? He’d do anything for you. He’s just – he’s not – he just thought you might enjoy playing football with him, that’s all. But he doesn’t mind that you don’t want to. He’s upset too, you know. He’s sad because he made you sad.”

  “Are you sad, Mummy?”

  The unexpected question pierces me. I have to take a moment before I answer.

  “I’m happy when you and Daddy are happy. You’re the most important people in the whole world to me. So if you and Daddy are friends again, I’ll be the happiest one of all.”

  Joel scrambles to his feet. Scrap-dog beneath his arm, he marches towards the back door where John’s figure, tall and inscrutable in the darkness of the doorway, is waiting for us both. When Joel sees him, he hesitates and turns back towards me.

  “What’s the matter? There’s no need to be frightened. Come on, sweetie, in we go.”

  Joel climbs up the back step. John turns sideways to make room. Joel and I both blink as we adjust to the darkness of the inside. John’s arms are folded and he’s standing very straight.

  Be nice, I think at John. Be gentle. Don’t crush him.

  “I love you, Daddy,” Joel says at last, and holds out his arms.

  “And I love you too, fella.” John scoops Joel up and hugs him. Scrap-dog falls in the movement and I see Joel wince and follow his fall, but thank God, John doesn’t notice. His bear hug crushes Joel’s ear against his shoulder, but Joel accepts this stoically. Another fierce minute and Joel is returned to the floor and Scrap-dog is back in his arms.

  “But we both love Mummy best, don’t we?” Joel says, reaching for my hand.

  My heart catches in my throat. Then, thank God, John laughs heartily and takes my other hand, pulling me towards him for a bear hug of my own.

  “That’s because Mummy is the best,” John says.

  “You don’t need to pick who you love best,” I say. “Love doesn’t work that way. I don’t love you more than Daddy or Daddy more than you. I love you both exactly the same amount. Infinity.”

  “Infinity means where something goes on for ever,” says Joel, looking at John for confirmation.

  “That’s right. See, you can remember stuff when you want to, can’t you? Never mind all this I don’t know and I can’t do it rubbish, hey?” Joel blinks and I tense in anticipation of a new conflict, but it’s all right, it’s not serious, John’s not being serious, and the next minute he’s proposing a quick trip to the park and then fish and c
hips for tea. The darkness was only temporary, as it always is. There’s nothing to worry about. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re all friends again and love is infinite and nobody loves anybody better than anyone else, and the sun is shining and my family is perfect and we are all perfectly happy.

  “Look at him,” I say, putting my hand on John’s knee as we sit on the bench and soak up the last of the day’s warmth. On the roundabout, Joel sits alone and spins slowly, round and round, round and round and round, Scrap-dog tucked between his feet, dreamily staring out at the world. “He loves that roundabout.”

  “I asked him if he wanted to come on the swings. But he said, No, thank you, Daddy, you can sit down, I’d rather be by myself.”

  “He’s got the best manners of anyone I know.”

  “And then he said, Please, may you ask Mummy to come and push my roundabout?”

  “Oh, bless him.” I stand up, but John pulls me back down again.

  “No, don’t go to him now, he’s happy enough. I need to talk to you about this morning.”

  “What about this morning?”

  “About the way you and Joel behaved.”

  I try to stand up again. “I’m going to see to Joel, he’ll be waiting for me.”

  “No.” John pulls me back down again. “Leave Joel. You can see he’s fine. Look at him, he’s completely off in his own world. And I need to talk to you, I really really need to.”

  The tenderness in his voice hurts my heart. I make myself sit beside my husband and wait.

  “All right. So. I need to say this first: I love Joel every bit as much as you do, all right? I do. You know I do. And I love him exactly the way he is, no matter what. But this is what I’ve noticed. When I tried to get Joel to hold a pencil this morning, he cried and said he couldn’t do it. When I ask him to tidy his toys up, he cries and says he doesn’t know how to. When I tell him to put his plate in the dishwasher, he cries and gets upset, and half the time he drops it on the floor. When I ask him to put some bubble bath in his bath water, he gets in a state and pours out way too much and fills half the bathroom with bubbles, and then cries when I tell him to be more careful next time.”

  “But he can do all of those things.” I feel dizzy with relief. “He can do them all perfectly.”

  “I know he can. For you. Not for me. That’s the thing. He’s good for you, but dreadful for me. He’s good for you because he wants to please you, and dreadful for me because he’s trying to make me go away so he can have you there with him instead.”

  I stare at John in shock.

  “Look, it’s not his fault. He’s little. He had a tough start. And he’s just that kind of person, isn’t he? A very exclusive person. I’m not angry about it. But we do need to help him. He can’t go through life like this, wanting to be with you and only you, all of the time. You have to start letting him go a bit. Make him realise there are other people in the world who love him as well.”

  “But it’s not that,” I say, when I can finally speak. “Joel loves you. He doesn’t do stuff for you because he’s afraid. He’s scared he’ll do it wrong and you won’t love him, okay? That’s why he wouldn’t kick the ball. That’s why he wouldn’t hold the pencil. He thinks if he does something and gets it wrong you won’t love him, so he doesn’t dare try at all.”

  John is not used to this. He is the theoriser, the pattern-spotter who sees the system and structure at work beneath the surface. I can tell from the shape of his mouth that he’s sceptical. I have just one point in my favour: he desperately wants to believe me.

  “So what was all that this morning, then? About us both loving Mummy best?”

  “He’s trying to find some common ground with you, that’s all. He wants to be like you, and he’s afraid he can’t. Please stop thinking he’s trying to get you to go away, what an awful thing to think.” I take John’s hand and stroke his fingers gently. “He loves you so much.”

  If John was the sort of man who let his feelings show more, he would dissolve into tears at this point. Instead, he puts his arm around my shoulders and settles me into place against his chest. I feel him kiss the top of my head. We sit together in the sunshine and watch the leaves blowing, while our son twirls and twirls on the roundabout, and the sounds of other children playing drift over to us on the cool breeze.

  Chapter Four

  Tuesday 31st October 2017

  My birthday used to be filled with small reminders that the universe considered me special. Gifts and celebrations. The faint interest of teachers and strangers. The chance to knock on the doors of people whose names I didn’t know, and win myself extra handfuls of sweets as a reward for being born on 31st October. A ready-made theme for teenage parties. Then later, the slimy, seedy satisfaction of gutting and carving a pumpkin with Joel, and the pleasure John took in putting his surgeon’s skills to work on his own masterpiece.

  Today, it means my house will remain silent and unadorned in a street bright with pumpkins and fake cobwebs. Today, the small bright faces will turn towards my house and then away again, knowing that I’m not playing but not guessing the reason why; and behind them the shepherding adults will look towards each other and shiver at the reminder of their own darkest nightmares. It means waking to a cold silent bedroom and the first real frost of the year. In the branches of the apple tree, the birds sit with their feathers fluffed out around them, keeping utterly still to avoid wasting precious calories. Birds can’t store fat. It weighs them down. When I go out to the apple tree, I scatter a handful of stale bread crusts onto the lawn.

  He’ll come back to you by Christmas, and then you’ll never be apart again. For a moment I’m back there in the Hull Fair caravan, while a strange woman gloats over the pain she’s causing me. Joel used to have nightmares about birds sometimes. He was afraid of their strong feet and reptilian eyes. If the gypsy woman’s prediction comes true, will I have to leave the birds to starve? Over the hedge there are no feeders, only a wild tangle of thorns and roses, as if a princess sleeps inside. For my sake, my neighbour’s learned to force himself each morning to enter the room where his daughter died, simply so that he can look down at me each morning while I look up, and both know we’re not absolutely alone. But even the kindest heart has its limits, and the garden where his daughter played remains sacred and forbidden.

  I look up and my neighbour looks down. Our eyes meet. We raise our hands in greeting. This morning, there’s something else. He mouths something to me through the glass. I strain to make out the words. At last it comes to me. Someone’s coming.

  I hear the click of my front gate. A moment later and someone knocks once, twice, three times. In spite of myself, my heart leaps and I scurry through the house to the front door. It’s my birthday. It would be so wonderful…

  When I open the door, it’s the woman from the police station. The woman whose son was missing. Mrs Nelson. Jackie.

  She’s fiercely groomed, her make-up a pretty beige mask, her eyes shaded black, her hair ruthlessly sleek and straight. Her skinny jeans could have been painted on and her spike-heeled boots are cheap, slick and frightening. There is no sign of her baby. She looks ready for war.

  “What are you doing here?” I regret the words as soon as I’ve said them.

  Jackie looks me up and down, one quick assessing glance that’s the mirror of my own. I’ve wrapped my woolly hooded cardigan around me as if it might shield me. My hair is wispy and morning-ish and I’m devoid of make-up. The diamond engagement ring John gave me is the only bright thing about me.

  “It’s a free country.”

  “How did you get my address?”

  “By looking. That all right by you? You going to report me to the Internet Police for stalking? I’ve come cos I want a word with you.”

  “But I don’t even know you.”

  “Well, I know you. You write that blog, don’t you? All about wanting to help other people who’re going through what you’ve been through? And all the stuff about mediums and psychics
? And how they’re all a bunch of con artists? Well, you’re wrong. My nanna had gypsy blood in her and she saw things all the time so I know it’s real. And I’ve got proof.”

  This is what Melanie has been warning me about for years. That one day, someone is going to turn up on my doorstep because of my blog, and I won’t be able to get rid of them. I shouldn’t have used my real name. I shouldn’t have included so many personal details. “Look, you can read everything I’ve got to say online, it’s all on the blog and I’ll answer any comments you have there—”

  “No way! I want to talk to you face-to-face, not hiding behind screens and that, with all your bloody keyboard warriors coming after me.” She looks at me shrewdly. “Or are you scared I’m going to bray you as soon as we get in the house?”

  When I was at school and missed the bus, I would have to use my pocket money and take the service bus instead. Most of the time my fellow passengers would be old people and students, but sometimes there would be a group of girls my age, twagging off for the day and out for mischief. Then I’d sit small and still in my seat, self-conscious in my school uniform, counting down the seconds until I reached my stop, trying to ignore the insistent fingers that jabbed me in the back, the small tugs on my hair, the giggles as they tried to force a reaction from me. Once, I found the back of my blazer dotted with spit-balls. Another time, there was a thick clot of chewing gum stuck in my hair. This is how I feel now, listening to Jackie pick and jab at me. I’m a physical coward. I always have been. I can cope with abuse online but not in person.

  “I’m not scared of you,” I lie.

  “So why are you looking at me like I’m shit on your shoe?”

  She’s so bright, so loud. I think of parrots, of their bright feathers and sharp intelligence and fierce beaks that can crush a man’s hand. In a less gentrified area, everyone would be out on their driveways by now, enjoying the show, but rubbernecking isn’t something we go in for around here. Despite this thought I’m conscious of eyes peering from behind stained glass and half-drawn curtains. I wonder if my neighbour is watching too. I wonder what he would tell me to do.