If You Could See Me Now (8 page)

Elizabeth had annoyed college roommates and lovers with her persistence in keeping the curtains open. She didn’t know why she remained
firm
on keeping them open; it certainly wasn’t as though she were still waiting. But now in her adulthood, the open curtains acted as her alarm clock; with them open she knew the light would never allow her to fall into a deep sleep.

Even in her sleep she felt alert and in control. She went to bed to rest, not to dream.

She squinted in the bright room and her head throbbed. She needed coffee, fast. Outside the window, the bird’s song echoed loudly in the quiet of the countryside. Somewhere far away, a cow answered its call. But despite the idyllic morning, there was nothing about this Monday that Elizabeth was looking forward to. She had to try to reschedule a meeting with the hotel developers, which was going to prove difficult because after the little stunt in the press about the new love nest at the top of the mountain, they had design companies
Flying in from all parts of the world and looking for the job she knew should be hers. This annoyed Elizabeth; this was her territory. But that wasn’t her only problem.

Luke had been invited to spend the day with his grandfather on the farm. That bit, Elizabeth was happy with. It was the part about him expecting another six-year-old by the name of Ivan that worried her. She would have to have a discussion with Luke this morning about it because she dreaded to think of what would happen if there was a mention of an imaginary friend to her father.

Brendan was sixty-five
years old, big, broad, silent, and brooding. Age had not managed to mellow him; instead it had brought bitterness, resentment, and even more confusion. He was small-minded and unwilling to open up or change. Elizabeth could at least try to understand his difficult nature if being that way made him happy, but as far as she could see, his views frustrated him and only made his life more miserable. He was stern, rarely spoke except to the cows or vegetables, never laughed, and whenever he did decide someone was worthy of his words, he lectured. There was no need to respond to him. He didn’t speak for conversation. He spoke to make statements. He rarely spent time with Luke, as he didn’t have time for the airy-fairy ways of children, for their silly games and nonsense. The only thing that Elizabeth could see that her father liked about Luke was that he was an empty book, ready to be
filled with information and not enough knowledge to question or criticize. Fairy tales and fantasy stories had no place with her father. She supposed that was the only belief they actually shared.

She yawned and stretched and, still unable to open her eyes against the bright light, she instead felt around her bedside locker for her alarm clock. Although she woke up every morning at the same time, she never forgot to set her alarm. Her arm knocked against something cold and hard and it fell with a loud bang to the
floor. Her sleepy heart jumped with fright.

Hanging her head over the side of the bed, she caught sight of the iron poker lying on her white carpet. Her “weapon” also reminded her that she had to call Rentokil to get rid of the mice. She could sense them scurrying around her in the house all weekend and she had felt so paranoid that they were in her bedroom the past few nights that she could hardly sleep, although that wasn’t particularly unusual for her.

She washed and dressed and after waking Luke, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Minutes later, with espresso in hand, she dialed the number to Rentokil. Luke wandered into the kitchen sleepily, blond hair tossed, dressed in an orange T-shirt half tucked into red shorts. The outfit
was completed with odd socks and a pair of runners that lit up with every step he took.

“Where’s Ivan?” he asked groggily, looking around the kitchen as though he’d never been in the room before in his life. He was like that every morning, it took him at least an hour to wake up even once he was dressed and walking around. During the dark winter mornings it took him even longer; Elizabeth supposed that somewhere into his morning classes at school he
finally realized what he was doing.

“Where’s Ivan?” he repeated to no one in particular.

Elizabeth silenced him by holding her
finger to her lips, and giving him a glare as she listened to the lady from Rentokil. He knew not to interrupt her when she was on the phone. “Well, I only noticed it this weekend. Since Friday lunchtime, actually, so I was wond—”

“Ivan?” Luke yelled, and began wandering around the kitchen, looking under the table, behind the curtains, behind the doors. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. This carry-on again.

“No, I haven’t actually seen—”

“IVAAAAN?”

“—one yet but I definitely feel that they’re around.” Elizabeth
finished and tried to catch Luke’s eye so that she could give him the glare again.

“Ivan WHERE ARE YOOOUUU?” Luke called.

“Droppings? No, no droppings,” Elizabeth said, getting frustrated.

Luke stopped shouting and his ears perked up. “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU PROPERLY.”

“No, I don’t have any mousetraps. Look, I’m very busy, I don’t have time for twenty questions. Can’t someone just come out and check?” Elizabeth snapped.

Luke suddenly ran from the kitchen and out into the hall. She heard him banging at the living room door. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE, Ivan?” He pulled at the handle.

Elizabeth slammed down the phone after her conversation had ended. Luke was shouting through the living room door at full volume. Her blood boiled.

“LUKE! GET IN HERE NOW!”

The banging at the living room door stopped immediately. He shuffled slowly into the kitchen.

“DON’T DRAG YOUR FEET!” she yelled.

He lifted his feet and the lights on the soles of his runners
flashed with every step. He stood before her and spoke quietly and as innocently as he possibly could in his high-pitched voice. “Why did you lock Ivan into the living room last night?”

She had to put an end to this now. She would choose this moment to sit down and discuss the issue with Luke and by the end of it he would respect her wishes, she would help him see sense, and there would be no more talk of invisible friends.

“And Ivan wants to know why you brought the
fire poker to bed with you?” he added, feeling more confident by her failure to scream at him again.

Elizabeth exploded. “There will be no more talk of this Ivan, do you hear me?”

Luke’s face went white.

“DO YOU HEAR ME?” she shouted. She didn’t even give him a chance to answer. “You know as well as I do that there is
no such thing
as Ivan. He does
not
play chasing, he does
not
eat pizza, he is
not
in the living room, and he is
not
your friend because he
does not exist
.”

Luke’s face crumpled up as though he was about to cry.

Elizabeth continued. “Today you are going to your granddad’s and if I hear from him that there was one mention of Ivan, you will be in
big trouble
. Do you understand?”

Luke began to cry softly.

“Do you understand?” she repeated.

He nodded his head slowly as tears rushed down his face.

Elizabeth’s blood stopped boiling and her throat began to ache from shouting. “Now sit at the table and I’ll bring you your cereal,” she said softly. She fetched the Coco Pops; usually she didn’t allow him to eat such sugary breakfasts, but she hadn’t exactly discussed the Ivan situation with him entirely as planned. She knew she had a problem keeping her temper. She sat at the table and watched him pour Coco Pops into his cereal bowl. His little hands wobbled with the weight of the milk carton. Milk splashed onto the table. She held back from shouting at him again, although she had just cleaned the table yesterday evening until it sparkled. Something Luke had said was bothering her and she couldn’t quite remember what it was. She rested her chin on her hand and watched Luke eating. He munched slowly. Sadly.

There was silence, apart from the crunching in Luke’s mouth. Finally, after a few minutes, he spoke. “Where’s the key to the living room?” he asked, refusing to catch her eye.

“Luke, not with your mouth full,” she said softly. She took the key to the living room out of her pocket, went out to the doorway in the hall, and twisted the key. “There now, Ivan is free to
leave
the house,” she joked and immediately regretted saying it.

“He’s not,” Luke said sadly from the kitchen table. “He can’t open doors himself.”

Silence.

“He can’t,” Elizabeth repeated.

Luke shook his head as if what he had said was the most normal thing in the world. It was the most ridiculous thing Elizabeth had ever heard. What kind of an imaginary friend was he if he couldn’t walk through walls and doors? Well, she wasn’t opening the door, she had unlocked it and that was silly enough. She went back to the kitchen to gather her belongings for work. Luke
finished his cereal, placed the bowl in the dishwasher, washed his hands, dried them, and made his way to the living room door. He turned the handle, pushed open the door, stepped out of the way, smiled broadly at nothing, placed his
finger over his lips, pointed at Elizabeth with another, and giggled quietly to himself. Elizabeth watched with horror. She walked down the hall and stood beside Luke at the doorway. She looked into the living room.

Empty.

The girl from Rentokil had said that it would be unusual for mice to be in the house in June. As Elizabeth eyed the living room suspiciously, she wondered what on earth could be making all those noises.

Luke’s giggling snapped her out of her trance and, glancing down the hall, she spotted him sitting at the table, swinging his legs happily and making faces into thin air. There was an extra place set and a freshly poured bowl of Coco Pops across from him.

“Boy is she strict,” I whispered to Luke at the table, trying to grab spoonfuls of Coco Pops without her noticing. I wouldn’t usually whisper around parents, but as she had heard me a couple of times already over the past few days, I wasn’t about to take any risks.

Luke giggled and nodded.

“Is she like this all the time?”

He nodded again and munched on his Coco Pops.

“Does she never play games and give you hugs?” I asked, watching as Elizabeth cleaned every inch of the already sparkling kitchen countertops, moving things a half an inch to the right and a half an inch to the left.

Luke thought for a while and then shrugged. “Not much.”

“But that’s horrible! Don’t you mind?”

“Edith says that there are some people in the world that don’t hug you all the time or play games but they still love you. They just don’t know how

to say it,” he whispered back.

Elizabeth eyed him nervously.

“Who’s Edith?”

“My nanny.”

“Where is she?”

“On her holidays.”

“So, who’s going to mind you while she’s on her holidays?”

“You.” Luke smiled.

“Let’s shake on it,” I said, holding out my hand. Luke grabbed it. “We do it like this,” I explained, shaking my head and my whole body, like I was having a convulsion. Luke started laughing and copied me. We laughed even harder when Elizabeth stopped cleaning to stare. Her eyes widened.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Luke whispered.

“You answer a lot,” I
fired back and we both laughed again.

Elizabeth’s BMW rattled along the bumpy track leading to her father’s farm. She clenched her hands around the steering wheel in exasperation as the dust
flew up from the ground and clung to the side of her newly washed car. How she had lived on this farm for eighteen years was beyond her; nothing could be kept clean. The wild fuchsia danced in the light breeze, waving their welcome from the side of the road. They lined the mile-long road like landing lights and rubbed against the windows of the car, pressing their faces to see who was inside. Luke lowered his window and allowed his hand to be tickled by their kisses.

She prayed that no traffic
would come toward her, as the road just about allowed her car through, leaving no room for two-way traffic. In order to let someone pass she would have to reverse half a mile back the way she came, just to make room. At times it felt like the longest road in the world. She could see where she was trying to get to, yet she would have to keep reversing in order to get there.

Two steps forward and one step back.

It was like the frustration she suffered as a child at home—the excitement of seeing her mother from a mile away, but being forced to wait the twenty minutes it took her mother to dance down the road, until she’d hear the familiar sound of the gate creaking.

But, thankfully, no traffic
came this time. They were delayed already as it was. Elizabeth’s words had obviously fallen on deaf ears, because Luke refused to leave the house until Ivan had
finished his cereal. He then insisted on holding the passenger seat in the car forward in order to let Ivan into the backseat
first.