The Perfect Mother (18 page)

I come to a list of Manifestations of MSBP—the sorts of things they say these mothers do. This is shocking, strange to read in this bright, bland, pleasant place. ‘Starvation or interfering with parenteral nutrition or withdrawing stomach contents through a naso-gastric tube. Administration of salt solutions, laxatives, diuretics, sedative drugs, warfarin or anti-epileptic drugs. Altering blood-pressure charts, temperature charts or interfering with urine testing…’

I can hear the music from outside in the mall. The man the other side of the bookshelf is still talking into his mobile. ‘We’re not having the tone of voice argument again, are we?’ I glance back over my shoulder, like a thief. The frail old man is immersed in a copy of
Stalingrad.

I turn to the back of the book and start flicking through. Bullet points catch my eye. ‘
Table 5. Confirming the diagnosis.
Check on personal, family and social details with relatives, the GP and social services. The perpetrator is often an inveterate liar…’

The conversation with the receptionist comes into my mind. I realise I am sweating. I leaf back through the book.

‘
Table 3. Clues to the diagnosis of MSBP.
The mother is unusually knowledgeable about medical problems and treatments. Treatment is ineffective…’ My pulse is skittering in my wrist. I try to work out what it means to be ‘unusually knowledgeable’.

I turn back a bit further, and the book falls open at ‘
Table 2. Features commonly found in perpetrators.
’ So this is what I’m meant to be like, I think. ‘Usually the birth mother is the child’s exclusive carer.’ That’s not so unusual, either. ‘Previous paramedical training.’ That’s OK, I don’t have any paramedical training. ‘Previous contact with a psychiatrist.’ I think of my sessions with Lesley at The Poplars: the thin carpet, the smell of disinfectant, the self-esteem tree with the fruit that I couldn’t fill in. I don’t think that qualifies. I’m beginning to breathe a little more easily: so far, this isn’t too terrible. Then, at the end of the list: ‘In local authority care during childhood (children’s home and foster care).’

The rushing in my ears is like a roar. I close the book abruptly, as though it could hurt me.

There’s a hand on my arm: the man in the mudcoloured jacket.

‘Excuse me, but are you all right?’

He smells pleasantly of cigars and his eyes are mild.

‘I’m OK. Thank you.’

‘I could get you a glass of water,’ he says.

‘Please don’t worry.’

‘I thought you were going to faint for a moment there,’ he says.

‘It’s probably just the flu,’ I tell him.

‘It’s nasty, that flu,’ he says. ‘I take echinacea myself. You ought to try it.’

‘Thank you. Yes, I will.’

‘Well, if you’re sure you’re all right…’

He goes off to the desk, with
Stalingrad
under his arm.

I take the book. I half expect someone to stop me, to ask why it is I want to buy this book. I go towards the cash desk through the children’s section. It’s soothing here, all the little bears and dazzling colours, the gorgeous multiplicity of things. I choose a book for Daisy, something from the mythology shelf: a book of Celtic folk tales, with a white stag in a blue mist on the cover. At the cash desk I put the folk tale book on top. The assistant treats me as though I am perfectly ordinary, but my face is hot as I pay. I leave the bookshop hurriedly, with a rush of relief.

But when I get home with my bag of books, this stupid thing happens: I can’t get my key in the lock. The tag of metal that falls down over the keyhole has fallen sideways and got stuck into the door jamb, and it’s blocking half the keyhole and can’t be moved. I try to push it up but I can’t do it; to look at it, you’d think it would be easy, but somehow it’s got wedged. It’s ridiculous. I’m standing there with the key in my hand and I can’t get into my house. I feel conspicuous, up at the top of the steps, the thin rain falling on me, unable to open my door. If someone was passing on the pavement, they’d think I was breaking in.

I push yet again at the tag with my finger. Nothing happens. I hit it with the key, and it finally swings round and I can undo the lock, but I’ve broken the skin on my hand. There’s just a single drop of glossy blood, richly red as the vermilion in my paintbox. It hurts a lot for such a little cut.

Richard is home earlier than he’s been for weeks, early enough that we’ll be able to eat together. He’s brought me flowers—purple arum lilies, sculptured and exquisite. They are to cheer me up, he says, because I was upset. I think how thoughtful this is.

Daisy hears and comes downstairs, her stilted walk, one careful step at a time.

He hugs her.

‘How’s life, munchkin?’ he says.

‘My stomach hurts,’ she says.

‘You poor old thing,’ he says.

‘Dad, can we
do
something?’ she says.

I think he’ll tell her he’s tired, that he needs to read his paper. But he says, ‘Of course,’ and they go to look through the stack of board games in the living room. We have Monopoly, Cluedo, a game with jumping frogs—most of them presents from Gina and Adrian; Gina likes to say how very valuable it is to have family time together away from the television. We used to play these games in the evenings sometimes, but we haven’t done it for ages and I don’t know when we stopped. Sinead has so much homework
now, and Richard works so late. Something slides away from you, and for a while you don’t even notice its absence.

They choose the Cluedo and open up the box on the living-room floor. I heap some cushions for Daisy to sit on, and make her a hot-water bottle.

‘Mum, you could play.’

I shake my head; I have to cook the dinner. But Sinead is persuaded to join them, pleased to have an excuse to postpone her cross-section of the Aosta Valley.

Daisy tips out the weapons, and the little grey figures on their coloured bases. She wants to be Miss Scarlett.

Sinead is reading the book of instructions. ‘They even have birth dates,’ she says. ‘Wow, these people are
old.
’

Daisy shoots Sinead with the tiny silver dagger. Sinead dies extravagantly. Richard starts to deal.

‘Do that cool thing where you shuffle them,’ says Daisy.

He shuffles them with panache; she watches with admiration.

I go to the kitchen, but still half watching through the open door. Daisy is intent, leaning a little forward. When Sinead suggests it was Reverend Green and Miss Scarlett in the broom cupboard, Daisy is outraged. ‘You’re so
immature
, Sinead. You’ve got to play it
properly
.’

But Richard is playing seriously, just as Daisy wants. I love to see this. It’s how he used to be when the girls were younger—untangling puppets, gallantly losing at cricket, entering into their world. I wonder if something has changed in him, after what I told him yesterday, and at last he sees how much we need him here.

‘I want to win,’ says Daisy. ‘I really want to win.’

He ruffles her hair; his face is softer, tender.

I breathe out a little.
Trust Betrayed
is still in its carrier bag, hidden in the make-up drawer in my bedroom. I need so urgently to talk about it with him: for him to see the danger we are in. But I’m sure now he will listen.

There’s a sudden silence: Richard is about to make an accusation. I go to the door to see.

‘It was Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick,’ he says. He’s relishing the moment; his voice has an edge of melodrama.

Daisy holds her breath; her eyes gleam in her white face.

‘If you’re wrong you’re out, Dad,’ says Sinead.

Richard looks in the envelope that holds the answer. He says nothing for a moment, his face a caricature of regret.

‘Oops,’ he says. ‘Well, at least I was close.’

Daisy laughs, her fat happy laugh that you hardly ever hear now. I wait for a moment, listening. I love him for making her happy.

‘Now I can win,’ she says.

After the meal, we wash up while the girls are watching
Holby City
in Sinead’s room.

‘There’s something I need to talk about,’ I tell him.

The flowers he brought are in a vase on the table, their stamens dark and powdery as soot. I focus on them, clear my throat; I know what I will say.

‘There’s something I want to talk about, too,’ he tells me.

‘Oh.’

He’s washing a casserole in the sink, wearing the rubber gloves he always uses to keep his skin smooth for violin-playing. Now he turns towards me; he hasn’t finished the washing-up, but he’s peeling off the gloves.

‘Darling, I’ve been thinking. I mean, I know how tough it is for you. With Daisy at home so much, and having to care for her and everything.’

‘I’m all right.’

He shakes his head a little. ‘Well, I hope so. You seemed quite overwrought yesterday. I’ve been wondering if you could do with a bit of help,’ he says.

‘You mean like going to a therapist or something?’ This irritates me, yet I know he’s only being caring. ‘It’s sweet of you, but really, I’m OK.’

‘I didn’t mean that exactly. I meant help in the home.’

‘What’s wrong with our home? I thought I was coping fine. It still looks OK, doesn’t it?’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘You always run the house beautifully. That isn’t quite what I meant.’

‘Really, it isn’t necessary,’

‘I’m not so sure,’ he says again. ‘Anyway, I rang an au pair agency today. It seems an ideal solution.’

I put down the saucepan I’m drying.

‘No. I don’t want an au pair.’

‘It really doesn’t cost a lot,’ he says. ‘And there might be spin-offs—it might help Sinead with her languages.’

‘And where were you planning this person would live, exactly?’

He isn’t looking at me; he turns a little away. ‘There’s masses of space in the attic.’

‘No.’
A sudden hot anger flares in me. ‘
No.
The attic’s
my
place. She couldn’t live there. Richard, I don’t want this.’

He sighs. ‘This always happens. Whenever I try to help, you just get so emotional.’

I sit down heavily at the table. I rub my face with my hands.

‘No, Richard. I couldn’t share the house like that. I
couldn’t.
I don’t know how people do it. I’d hate to have some other woman here all the time.
Hate
it.’

‘There’s really no shame in having help,’ he says. ‘Most people have someone living in—a nanny or au pair or someone. They couldn’t manage without it. Even your mate Nicky has an au pair.’

‘Nicky’s different from me.’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Well, thank goodness. I’d rather have you.’ He’s smiling, trying to be mollifying. ‘But all the same—I’ve never quite understood why you haven’t wanted those things.’

I think of the years I spent living with strangers—everything worn, tattered, smelling of other people, scuffed and shiny with the pressure of other people’s bodies, of never having a place to be my secret separate self. And then of the joy of having this house that belongs to me, lived in by those I love, held and protected by its steep tiled roof and stone dogs and thick hedges, where every wall in every room is washed in a colour I’ve chosen. I couldn’t have a stranger here—to look, to judge, to know about me,
to be there even in my most intimate moments, with Richard, with my children. Surely he knows this. Surely.

‘Was that why you came home early?’ I say. ‘To ask me this?’

He puts his hand on my shoulder. There’s a stale rubbery smell to his skin, from the washing-up gloves. The smell is briefly, sharply, repellent. I turn my face away.

‘Cat, do something for me. Promise you’ll at least think about it. I really believe it could make things easier for you.’

I don’t understand why he’s being so insistent.

I shake my head.

‘I don’t want to be watched all the time,’ I tell him.

The words fall like little stones into the space between us.

CHAPTER 22

O
n Saturday, there’s another postcard.

I’m making our morning coffee when the postman rings. There’s a music magazine for Richard that won’t go through the letterbox, and a heap of catalogues, bills and offers of cheap insurance. The postcard is sandwiched between the Boden catalogue and the telephone bill. It shows a marble statue of a woman who’s reading a book and wearing voluminous clothes. The caption says it is the personification of History on the plinth of Schiller’s monument in the Gendarmenmarkt.

I turn it over.

Darling, Well, it’s spring time here and the pink oleanders are out at the café in the Tiergarten. You’d love this city in the spring, Trina, I know you would, you always were very artistic! Berlin is changing so fast now, it’s a different city, my darling, not what you’d expect. They say the guidebooks are all out of date now!

Don’t leave it too long to get in touch, my darling, my health is not what it was. Much love, as ever.

Her writing evokes her. I see her vividly for a moment, smell her smell of Marlboros and lily of the valley, hear the faint jangle of her gilded bracelets.

I read it through again. ‘You always were very artistic.’ That fills me with a sour anger. What right has she to claim to know what I’m like, to know anything about me? I put the card in the recycling bin.

I take Richard his coffee and the
Financial Times.
Sinead is up and dressed already, in jeans and a cut-off top that says in sparkly letters, ‘Never judge a girl by her T-shirt’. She’s going out with a gang of friends, to ice-skate at Queensway and eat Dim Sum and buy stickers and notepaper with cartoon animals on from the shops in Chinatown.

‘Cat, is my lipliner OK?’

‘Of course it is. You look gorgeous.’

‘I don’t. I look really rank today.’

I put my arm round her. ‘Nonsense. You look like a supermodel. See you have some breakfast before you go.’

‘What is it about breakfast? Daisy never eats breakfast.’

‘That has nothing to do with anything,’ I tell her.