Read You, Me and Him Online

Authors: Alice Peterson

Tags: #General, #Fiction

You, Me and Him (10 page)

BOOK: You, Me and Him
2.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

‘Granny, you can’t vet every girlfriend I have like this.’

She chose to ignore him. ‘Are you roosting together?’

‘Roosting?’

‘Sleeping,’ Finn filled me in with a wink. ‘Granny, it’s none of your business. Leave Josie alone.’

I smiled wickedly. ‘No, we’re not. I’ve begged and tried every trick in the book, even a black lace see-through dress didn’t work on him, but I figure he’s got to relent sooner or later.’

Granny allowed herself to smile. ‘Hold on to this girl, Finn. I like her!’

‘Funnily enough, so do I,’ he replied, looking directly at me. ‘In fact, I love her, Granny.’

‘Love me?’ I repeated with a dumb smile. I wanted to walk over to him but as soon as I put one foot in front of the other the punt started to rock again, this time more violently. ‘Watch out!’ Granny cried out. ‘We’ll all fall in and this jacket can only be dry-cleaned.’

We missed a canoeist narrowly. Finn and I were laughing madly now. ‘I told you I was no good at this,’ he shouted.

‘All right, Mrs Greenwood, I’ll stay put because I can tell your boy from here that I love him too,’ I said. Granny raised an eyebrow, unmistakable amusement in her shiny eyes. ‘She loves you. You love her. Everything’s dandy. Now, can we get a curry? I’m bored and getting cold.’

‘Praise the Lord,’ Finn said, turning the punt around.

CHAPTER TWELVE

George lies on his bed refusing to get up.

‘It’s your first day back. You have to go.’

‘Leave me alone!’ he screams, bashing his head against the pillow.

With all my might I pin down his legs and pull off his stripy blue pyjamas. George covers his crotch. ‘You’re not allowed to see my bits, Mum.’

‘I’m not looking,’ I tell him, unbuttoning his pyjama top. ‘Hey, how did you get that bruise?’ It’s on his right arm.

‘Football.’

‘Promise?’

He nods without hesitation.

I grab a hand and march him to the bathroom. Finn tells me I spoon feed George but what he doesn’t understand is that George
can’t
do it. Anyway, the child psychologist told me there was no harm in helping him get dressed. ‘There are bigger things to worry about,’ she’d said, ‘like his education.’

‘I won’t go to school. Over my dead body!’

‘You have no choice,’ I tell him.

*

Ten minutes later I sit on the loo seat watching George splash his face with cold water.

‘Have you brushed your teeth?’

‘Yes.’

I hold up his brush. ‘It’s dry.’

George takes it sullenly and then proceeds to squeeze the tube of toothpaste so hard that an enormous dollop lands on his Mickey Mouse brush and half of it falls onto the floor. ‘Other children don’t need their mummies to brush their teeth for them,’ is a conversation Finn and I have had over and over again. In fact, he and I still argue about pretty much every single aspect of George’s getting washed and dressed routine, so much so that he now won’t take part in it at all.

I bite my thumbnail, trying to hold in the frustration. He
kind of
brushes his teeth before running back into his bedroom where I have laid out his school clothes. He yanks on his shirt and buttons it up incorrectly – nothing lines up. Is Finn right? Should I be doing it for him?

‘Brush your hair.’ George drags the brush through his hair once before dropping it onto the floor. I pick it up and tell him his hair’s still tangled.

‘What’s he going to do when he’s older? Marry a full-time carer?’ is another typical Finn argument, each word like a blow to my heart.

‘But George CAN’T do it. What part of that don’t you understand? If I leave him he won’t get dressed and then I miss my meeting. What else can I do?’

This is the only time when Finn looks as lost as me because there is no answer. ‘Why don’t we swap roles for one week, see how you get on?’ I had once suggested.

‘Right, gotta run,’ he’d said with a flash of the car keys, a brief glance in my direction and rapid steps out of the front door.

George throws the brush on the floor again.

‘You do that one more time and no pocket money. Remember your tie.’ I go downstairs, telling him he needs to be ready in five minutes. I make myself a strong coffee. Finn is eating a last mouthful of muesli. ‘He’ll never learn,’ my husband helpfully reminds me. ‘Right, I’m off.’ He gives me a perfunctory kiss on the forehead.

After slamming the door on Christmas Day, Finn returned just an hour later. I was still with George, curled up on the sofa with Baby over our shoulders.

‘Can I join in?’ Finn sat down with us and I gave him some of the blanket. He put an arm around me; his hand was purple with cold. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving in closer, our heads touching. ‘I was naïve to think it wouldn’t end disastrously. Anything that involves my mother normally does.’

‘You deserve better than your mum.’

‘I’m sorry,’ George copied us.

‘Do you think my mother has a single nice bone in her body?’

‘She must have, she had you.’ His grip on me tightened.

We have tried to patch things up but he deeply resents the way I feel about this pregnancy. He wants to be excited about it but says he can’t even show that now. And I resent him for barely acknowledging my fears and concerns. He treats them as trivial which makes me realise he never fully understood how I felt when George was growing up. There is a big gap between us and we don’t seem to be able to meet anywhere near the middle.

George tears downstairs, no tie on and holding no PE bag. His shirt is hanging out of his trousers and he isn’t wearing any socks.

‘Upstairs, George, NOW! Get dressed properly,’ Finn orders.

‘Don’t shout.’ I take George by the arm.

Finn clamps his briefcase shut. ‘ADHD can’t always be his excuse not to do anything properly. He’s nearly seven years old.’

‘Seven?’ I laugh at how clueless or in denial Finn is. I tell him that Emma’s son, Nat, the British Gas boy, still has to rely on his mother to get him up and out of the front door in the mornings, and he’s eighteen. ‘
I’m exhausted
,’ Emma wrote to me. ‘
Nat was on the internet late last night to a girl and he hadn’t ironed his shirt for work Monday morning and kept on saying, “In a minute, Mum, in a minute.” I didn’t dare go to sleep, thinking he’d leave the iron on … the house would burn down … then this morning he wouldn’t get up so in the end I had to chuck a bowl of freezing cold water on him
.’


Well done
,’ I wrote back quickly, ‘
but isn’t it a hassle having to dry all those sheets?


Lose apprenticeship or wet sheets? Tumble dryer is the answer.

‘Get dressed, George.’ Again Finn ignores what I’ve just said.

‘I am dressed.’ He looks at himself. His trousers and his shirt are on. I know exactly what he’s thinking.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Dad, I am.’

‘Do I go to work looking like a scarecrow?’

‘I’m not a scarecrow,’ says George, lip quivering.

‘Where are your socks then?’

‘Upstairs.’

‘Well, go and get them.’

George runs back upstairs and a few minutes later returns wearing his socks inside out.

‘At least he’s got them on,’ I say to Finn, who still doesn’t look satisfied. ‘I’ll get his tie.’

Finn shakes his head. ‘Has he taken his Ritalin?’

‘Five minutes ago.’ Give the patient their pill; they get better. If only life were that simple.

Finn picks up his house keys and heads towards the front door. ‘Have a good day,’ I call out as mechanically as Finn’s earlier peck on the forehead. I hate it when he leaves like this. It only takes the everyday grind of getting George ready for school and we’re straight back to playing harassed husband and wife, unable to communicate. George is now preparing food for Rocky, heaping great spoonfuls into his bowl with gravy dribbling onto the clean white shirt that I ironed yesterday.

I go upstairs to get him another one. I attempt to hold him still while I put it on, followed by his half-chewed tie. George bangs my coffee mug against the table and some of that goes on his sleeve but I’m not changing this one. ‘Won’t go to school,’ he starts to chant. ‘Won’t go to school.’

‘You’re going whether you like it or not.’

‘Can we go to the Science Museum?’

‘Nope.’

‘Can we go to your special clothes shops, Mum, not the toy shops?’

‘NO.’

Finally he is dressed. George puts Baby into his PE kit, along with his plimsolls and Aertex shirt. He takes his canvas satchel with homework and textbooks. I frogmarch him to the car and he struggles against me as I try to put on his seatbelt. ‘I HATE you,’ he screams when I shut the car door. ‘Hate you, hate you, HATE YOU.’

*

I drive. Neither of us says a word. I should enjoy the rare silence but instead the air feels spiked with tension.

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can we start the day again, please?’

My shoulders relax as I stop at the traffic lights. I turn to him. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

George smiles. ‘And how are you today, Mummy?’

‘Very well, thank you, George. How are you?’

‘Very well too, thank you. Did you know that Mercury is the closest planet to the sun?’

‘I didn’t. How interesting.’

‘The sun is about four point five billion years old, did you know that? Can we have some music?’

‘Yes, go on.’ He flicks in between the music stations, unable to settle on any particular one. I blot out the noise, an art at which I have become skilled. Kylie’s ‘Locomotion’ starts to play loudly and the mood changes instantly as we both start to sing. When we stop at a red traffic light I turn the volume down. There’s a tall man in a black cloak, with long bushy hair and a wispy beard, twirling around a lamp post, declaring at the top of his voice, ‘JESUS IS LOVE! HE HAS COME TO SAVE US.’

He’s wearing enormous headphones that are connected to a sound system in a bag slung across one shoulder and crossing his middle.

‘JESUS IS HERE!’

We both can’t help laughing at this funny sight. ‘Where is he?’ asks George, leaning out. I try to pull him back in.

‘JESUS LOVES YOU.’

‘He loves me?’

The man starts to pirouette around the lamp post. ‘JESUS
IS
LOVE! HE’S ALL AROUND US.’ His voice is so loud, I’m sure my parents can hear him as far away as Dorset. Someone opens a window from a top-floor flat to see what’s going on. George looks to the left and right. ‘But I don’t see him!’ he tells the man.

The light turns green and swiftly I drive on. George turns to wave at the prophet.

As we reach the school gates he’s quiet. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he says once more, but this time his voice is calmer and I know it’s not going to lead to an argument.

‘Why do you hate it so much?’ I ask gently, dreading the answer. He’s being bullied.

‘I haven’t got any friends,’ he replies and stares ahead, tapping his hands restlessly against one another. The gesture reminds me of Finn when he’s overdosed on caffeine.

I park the car and unbuckle George’s seatbelt. ‘You’re my friend,’ I tell him.

‘You’re my best friend, Mum,’ he says back.

There are lots of mothers at the gate kissing their children goodbye. I watch George run across the playground. His Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox snaps open and out fall his rubber cheese and ham sandwiches, wrapped in Clingfilm, along with an apple and fromage frais yoghurt. Everyone laughs and jeers as he kneels down to pick it up off the ground. ‘George is a loser,’ one of the other boys calls. I want to rush over and help him put his lunchbox back together again but know that would only encourage the other children to tease him more. George picks himself up off the ground and walks through the main school door. He doesn’t turn round to see if I’m still there.

I turn on the engine and drive away.


Dear Emma
,’ I write at work before Ruby arrives at the office, ‘
just taken George to school. OH, I feel blue. He tells me he has no friends. A part of me dies when he says that. Does Nat have friends now? Tell me it gets better
 …’


Oh, God
,’ she writes back. ‘
I remember those first days at school. I used to feel like a bad lion letting my cub go out into the wild, unprotected. Nat has made friends, he tells me he’s “grown up a lot” and is better able to keep them now. George is a sweet boy. I’m sure it’ll get better.

I hope she’s right. Another message comes onto the screen.


P.S. Nat even made sausage rolls on his own with no prompting. Made a real mess but I never would have believed it in a million zillion years. Keep the faith
.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I park the car behind a shiny white van with a big blue disabled badge on the back and a luminous yellow sticker which reads, ‘IF YOU PARK IN MY SPACE WOULD YOU LIKE MY DISABILITY TOO?’

There is a great buzz of noise outside the iron school gates.

I suck a peppermint. Next to me is a mother with long chestnut-coloured hair, the colour of autumn, that almost reaches her waist. She’s wearing a blue velvet jacket with a patchwork skirt and heavy black lace-up boots. There’s a strong smell of garlic. What did I eat for lunch? I panic, subtly trying to smell my breath.

‘Sorry,’ she says, hand over mouth, ‘I’ve been making a chilli sauce. I’m a cook.’

I could almost fit a napkin ring around her waist. She clearly doesn’t lick the wooden spoon. ‘Josie Greenwood.’

She holds out one hand. Virtually every slim finger is covered with rings with large aqua- or amber-coloured stones. ‘Agatha, but call me Aggie.
Murder on the Orient Express
was my father’s favourite novel.’

I smile. ‘What year is your boy in?’

‘Two.’

‘Mine too.’

‘It’s his first day. I moved to this area after my divorce.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘About the area or the divorce?’ She laughs. I like her already.

‘The divorce.’

‘God, no, I’m much better off without the sod.’

I laugh. ‘The area’s not so bad, there’s a park with tennis courts and a playground. My son and I go for runs in the morning, but avoid the Uxbridge Road.’

‘What’s your little monster called?’

‘George. Yours?’

‘Eliot. I call him El. I wanted to call him Holmes, but my husband said he’d get teased at school. He was probably right,’ she adds tight-lipped. ‘About the only thing he
was
right about, though. I hear the old head had a breakdown and they had to get someone else in quick?’

‘Mr Phipps. I haven’t met him yet.’

The bell rings and children start to file out. Most of the girls carry pale blue and pink rucksacks, the boys carry black and red ones. Some boys kick a ball across the playground, others just walk straight to the gates and their mums. They’re given a quick hug – George tells me it’s not cool to hug your mum for too long now.

‘Come on, El,’ Agatha starts muttering. ‘First days are always a bloody nightmare, aren’t they?’

‘General rule of thumb is, you know you’re in trouble if a teacher comes out before your child. It means they have something bad to report,’ I inform her.

Another crowd of boys walks out of the main entrance but George is not amongst them. I feel like I am playing a game of Monopoly at school. If he comes out on his own, I’ve passed Go and can collect my £200. If he’s with a teacher I haven’t passed Go, I don’t collect my money and we both go to jail.

Soon Agatha and I are the only two mums remaining outside the gate. It is eerily quiet.

‘How many children do you have?’ I ask.

‘Oh, there he is!’ we both exclaim at the same time. George is pushing a young boy in a wheelchair across the grey tarmac. Ms Miles follows closely behind. She’s wearing a dull jacket with a dark skirt that matches the colour of her hair and general personality. Her hair is curled and looks waxy and stiff like a wig. ‘I don’t like this teacher,’ I whisper to Agatha. ‘She’s been at the school for years and hates George.’

‘Not so fast, George,’ Ms Miles screeches at him. ‘It’s not a sports car.’

‘Hi, Mum!’ He lets go of one of the handles and waves.

‘Looks like El’s made a friend,’ says Agatha. I want to ask her why Eliot is in a wheelchair but now isn’t the right time.

‘Is everything all right, Miss Miles?’ My heart is beating fast.

She smiles twitchily. ‘
Ms Miles
, please, and no, I’m afraid not. We had an “incident” in the creative writing class. Plagiarism.’

‘It wasn’t my fault!’ George blurts out. ‘Mum, we were asked to write ’bout what we did at Christmas and I said we’d visited my great-granny by the canal and I heard her fart.’

Eliot’s shoulders start to heave up and down in the chair and he lets out a snort.

‘George isn’t lying,’ I tell Ms Miles. I have passed Go! We’re safe until the next round.

‘I’m not lying,’ repeats George. ‘Eliot copied me! He said that his granny farted too!’

Eliot now sits quietly in his wheelchair which is largely covered by stickers of Bart Simpson. He has a knot of curly red hair, a splattering of freckles over his cheeks and nose, and he wears black-rimmed glasses, just like his mother’s, except his are round and Agatha’s are more oblong-shaped.

‘El, why didn’t you write something about that jungle puzzle we finished?’ Aggie suggests.

‘Boring!’ George says with a laugh like a hyena. ‘Dad gave me a scooter.’

Eliot hits his wheelchair in a rage. ‘I don’t have a dad.’

Ms Miles demands an apology from George.

I encourage him with a stern nod. I had been thinking more along the lines that a scooter would be no good for Eliot because he’s in a wheelchair. So, in fact, double whammy.

‘Sorry. What’s for tea, Mum?’

Ms Miles turns to Agatha and me. ‘It’s Eliot’s first day. He was nervous, that’s understandable.’

‘I was nervous,’ Eliot says as sweetly as an angel, but I am sure I can see a smirk behind those large hazel eyes.

‘I think you owe my son an apology too,’ I say.

‘George shouldn’t have given Eliot his work,’ she responds curtly.

‘Was he sitting in the front of the classroom? Couldn’t you see what was going on?’

She purses her lips. ‘Mrs Greenwood, I am a professional. Make sure it doesn’t happen again, both of you. Is that understood?’

‘Bitch,’ George says as she walks away.

‘George!’ I gasp as if ice-cold water has been tipped over my head. ‘Where did you hear that word?’

Eliot’s shoulders are moving up and down again.

Aggie starts to push him towards the white van. ‘Ms Miles is strict, isn’t she?’ She digs into a large leather satchel bag to find her car keys.

‘She shouldn’t be a teacher. I don’t think she even
likes
children. Do you need a hand?’ I say.

‘No, we’re pros at this.’ She opens the boot of the van and presses a button on her keypad. A ramp automatically comes into place with tracks for the wheels of the chair. George stands watching, mesmerised.

She pushes Eliot into the back of the van and shuts the door.

‘’Bye, Eliot!’

George presses his face against the glass and starts to pull faces. I grab the arm of his dark green v-neck jumper and wrestle him away from the van. Aggie watches, wondering why I can’t control my son. I can see it in her eyes. Eliot puts both fingers up at me. I blink and look again. ‘Bugger off,’ he mouths now, hitting his wheelchair triumphantly with a wicked smile and a lick of his lips.

*

‘George!’ I shout above the noise in the car. ‘Turn it down. What’s wrong with Eliot?’

‘What?’ he shouts back.

I reach to adjust the volume switch. ‘Why’s he in a wheelchair?’

‘His legs don’t work properly,’ my son states simply. ‘Is it the same thing as my head not working properly, Mum? My head’s too busy all the time, isn’t it? Are Eliot’s legs lazy all the time?’

*

Finn is on-call today but should be home by now. It’s past eleven. I’m in my pyjamas, tucked up in our large double bed. A soft glow warms the white room. With the money Finn’s mother gave us for Christmas (Gwen had to write out another cheque) I bought a new glass lamp base for our bedroom and a white pleated shade. The only colour in our bedroom is the orange, yellow and pale blue flowers on the curtains and a bright pink stool near my dressing table. I am talking to Tiana on the telephone.

‘How did the date go with Mr Shuttlecock by the way? Sorry, that was ages ago and I never asked.’ Clearly not that well otherwise I would have heard about it.

‘Another frog. He had rather bad, let’s say, “hygiene issues”.’

‘Oh,’ I say, more disappointed than her.

‘Has Clarky met anyone?’

‘No.’

There’s a sigh of relief. This piece of news is as comforting to Tiana as hot sticky pudding because it means that she’s not alone in her quest to find the perfect soul mate. ‘The thing is, he’s still hung up on you, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, come off it.’

‘The whole country knows it, except you, although I think you do know really. How’s Finn been since announcing the baby’s arrival to the whole world? I love that man, but God, he can be difficult, can’t he?’

‘He’s now convinced I don’t want the baby. It’s like his pride is hurt because I don’t want
his
child, and that’s not true.’

I hear a key in the lock. ‘He’s back.’

‘You go. Talk to you later.’

Finn takes the stairs two at a time. I hear him going into George’s bedroom first. Finally, he puts his case down and lies on the bed next to me, kicking his shoes off.

‘You’re late,’ I say.

‘I had a quick drink with Christo. Last orders.’

‘You didn’t ring, that’s all.’

‘Do I have to call all the time outlining my movements?’

‘Finn, what’s got into you?’

‘Where do I start? Sometimes I wonder why I do this job.’

‘Because you’re good at it?’

‘I saw a young girl who’s been snorting cocaine like there’s no tomorrow.’

‘How does that affect the heart?’

‘It tightens the arteries; they can go into spasm. If it’s short-term use it’s normally fairly temporary, but in this case … oh, God. I lost one patient in cardiac arrest today and had to tell the mother. She was only twenty-fucking-two.’

I touch his shoulder and start to rub it gently. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, it’s the job. That’s what I’m paid a shitty amount to do. Tell relatives that we couldn’t save their loved ones.’ He looks at me, his eyes tired and flat.

‘I’m sure you did …’

‘We should have been able to save her.’

‘You’re a doctor, not God. I’m sure you did everything in your power to help that girl.’

He shakes his head with miserable frustration. ‘J, I know you’re trying to help but you have no idea what it’s like.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I admit. ‘I can only imagine.’ I reach out to try and touch him but he flinches. His mind is far away. He’s still with that twenty-two-year-old. ‘How was your day?’ he asks absently.

I tell him about the first day back at school and meeting Eliot and Aggie. ‘I’m tired and it’s only day one.’

‘Are you saying all this to make me feel guilty about you being pregnant?’

‘What?’

‘You’re trying to tell me again that another baby is the last thing you need.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I say slowly. ‘You’re twisting my words.’ I turn off the light and turn away from him, pulling the duvet closely around me. ‘I’m going to sleep.’

We lie next to each other but there’s an ever-widening chasm between us.

BOOK: You, Me and Him
2.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn by Ann M. Martin, Ann M. Martin
Aftershocks by Damschroder, Natalie J.
Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron
Butterfly Cove by Christina Skye
Brigid of Kildare by Heather Terrell
Bad Girls by Brooke Stern
Where Evil Waits by Kate Brady
Ride the Fire by Jo Davis
The Last Empire by Plokhy, Serhii
The Adventures of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin