The Perfect Mother (26 page)

I sit at the table beside him.

‘Of course.’ I put my hand on his. ‘Of course you count. It’s just that it’s all such a strain, with Daisy ill and everything…’

He ignores me.

‘There’s something I want to know. Do I have a place in your fucking universe, Catriona? Do I mean anything?’

‘You know you do. Don’t be an idiot.’ It’s the way I might speak to a child—light, encouraging. ‘You know that. Don’t be silly.’

‘Do I count at all?’ he says again. The words are difficult,
amorphous things he struggles to master. ‘Sometimes I wonder. Whether I count at all.’

‘Richard, you’ve drunk too much. Come to bed now.’

He shakes his head, too many times.

‘I don’t know that I do,’ he says. ‘I don’t know that I do count.’

‘Richard—you’re only saying these things because you’re drunk…’ I touch his hand to soften what I’m saying.

He slowly lifts his head; he’s looking at me, the gleam of the cooker-hood light reflecting in his eyes. ‘Sometimes…’ he says. ‘Sometimes I wonder what happened to that girl. The girl I saw in the garden under the…the…You know, that tree thing,’ he says.

‘You mean the catalpa tree?’

He nods, but his face is dreamy, unfocused. ‘The girl under the tree. The girl with the sun in her hair. Whatever happened to her?’

‘Richard, you need to sleep.’

He pours more whisky: some of it misses the glass. I just let this happen.

‘I liked you like that,’ he says. ‘That beautiful girl. I want to know what fucking happened. Where she fucking went…’ His voice fades.

‘Everyone changes,’ I tell him, reaching for soothing platitudes to calm him. ‘That’s life. People change, move on. Of course I’m different than when I was twenty-three.’

But he’s in his own world, seeing his own vision. I have no sense that he hears a word I say.

He drinks more whisky. I wonder how on earth I am going to get him to bed. Perhaps I could just leave him here, in the hope that he will sober up and go upstairs eventually. But I don’t want the girls to see him like this.

He puts down the glass, with too much noise, and reaches his hand to my face.

‘You know, you’re beautiful,’ he says. ‘You’re very beautiful.’ He’s looking at me as though he’s only just really seen me. He runs his hand down the hair at the side of my face with a kind of residual tenderness. ‘Still beautiful. But you’re not like you used to be. You’re not that girl any more…’ He leans towards me as though he is sharing a secret, something dark and private. His eyes are clouded, troubled. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, Catriona, you must realise that. But sometimes I don’t bloody know what I want…’ There’s a weird incongruence between the banality of this and the intimate intensity of the way he says it. ‘Sometimes I just don’t fucking know what I want.’

‘Never mind,’ I say.

‘That girl,’ he says. ‘The girl with the sun in her hair.’ Separating out the syllables, as though he’s speaking a language he’s only just learnt. ‘I want to know what fucking happened.’

There’s a sound in his voice like a sob. Someone different looks out of his eyes, someone with such a sense of deprivation. I hate this—hate the easy tears that alcohol induces. He makes me think of my mother.

‘Richard, people change. That’s how it is. Just come to bed now.’

There’s impatience in my voice, perhaps; at last he seems to hear me.

‘Bed,’ he says. ‘That is a very good idea. What good ideas you have, Catriona.’

He reaches out and starts to unbutton my shirt with one hand, pushing his hand straight inside my bra, clutching blindly at me like a boy.

I take his hand between both of mine.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I tell him.

He follows me, stumbling a little on the steps, grabbing at the bannister. I close the bedroom door behind us with a quick rush of relief.

He comes across to me as I’m pulling the curtains, and starts to take off my clothes. He’s impatient, there’s heat in his eyes, his fingers are clumsy, eager. Undressing one another in the middle of the room feels daring, strange. Not like the way we usually make love, in bed under the duvet, by the forgiving light of the bedside lamp. More like when we were first together, when it was all shot through with a sense of danger, when he used to dominate me, and want to deck me out in bangles and silver chains. Maybe he feels this too; he’s holding my wrists together behind my back. I feel a flicker of the old excitement.

‘I’d like to…’ he starts to say. ‘Cat, what I’d really like…’

And then he seems to give up, to slump. He collapses onto the bed, pulls me beside him. He still has his shirt on. He rolls on top of me, slides straight into me—he’s very heavy; he presses down on me; his muscles are too relaxed. The whisky on his breath is all over my face.

He thrusts a few times.

‘Fuck,’ he says.

I feel his erection soften.

‘You’ve just drunk too much,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s go to sleep now.’

He rolls off me. He lies with his back to me and is instantly asleep.

I pull the duvet up over him and go to check on Daisy.

Next morning, he is full of apologies. He’s binned the rest of the whisky, he promises he’ll never have it in the house again. He’s afraid he was thoroughly pathetic, and he hopes I’ll just forget it. I tell him, Never mind, you just got a bit emotional—I mean, we’re both so stressed, with everything that’s happening…He uses a lot of mouthwash before he goes to work.

When I go up to the attic, I find that he has put the airbed away and the sheets he used are in the laundry basket. I feel a profound relief, thinking that maybe things will be all right now, that his drunkenness has in some obscure way healed the rift between us.

CHAPTER 32

S
he’s wearing a trouser suit. She looks harder, older, today—definite, as though there is a black line drawn all round her. Next to her I am messy and unsure.

She leans back in her chair. She has a folder on her knee.

‘Thank you both for coming in,’ she says.

It’s our last session, I tell myself. I only have to get through an hour.

‘Now, since I saw you last, I’ve been discussing Daisy’s case with Dr McGuire, and I want to share our conclusions with you,’ she says. I notice that she doesn’t
turn on her voice recorder. ‘I’m going to, as it were, set out my stall—then you can come back to me.’

Richard nods.

I wonder why she feels the need of this elaborate preamble.

Her green eyes move across our faces.

‘We believe,’ she says, ‘and, as I say, we’ve talked this through together as a team…we believe that some time out from the family would be useful for Daisy…’ I open my mouth; she silences me with her hand. ‘That that would enable us to comprehend more fully just what is happening here.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I tell her.

‘What we’re talking about here is a spell for Daisy as an inpatient, for assessment,’ she says.

I feel a warm surge of relief, that Daisy’s illness at last will be properly investigated.

‘OK. Well, good. I think she needs that.’ My mind is racing ahead, making lists and plans. Sinead can go to Sara’s; Daisy will need new pyjamas, she wouldn’t want to appear in public in her animal ones; and we’ll both have to get slippers, they insist on slippers in hospital, I remember that from when Daisy was born; and we’ll need some drawing paper and all her fairy-tale books…‘And I could stay with her, couldn’t I? They let you stay with your child now, don’t they?’

‘That’s true on a medical paediatric ward,’ she says. ‘But, you see, that isn’t quite what we’re talking about here.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘As you know,’ says Jane Watson, her voice as sleek as silk, ‘we do have concerns about Daisy and just what is going on and why she isn’t responding to treatment. So it would be more a case of following up on the psychological side of things, and seeing just what happened to Daisy’s illness when she’s away from the family.’

For a moment I can’t process this—it doesn’t seem to make sense. But Richard is murmuring agreement beside me.

‘Now, as you may know,’ she says, ‘I have some beds at an inpatient unit for children and young people. The Jennifer Norton Unit. It’s quite an easy journey from where you are. And that’s where I’d like to admit her.’

I recognise the name. For a moment I can’t remember where I heard it, then I think of Dr Carey’s uninvited visit. But I can’t recall what she said, remember just the smell of fox and my feeling of unease.

‘But surely that’s psychiatric.’

She gives me a little frown. ‘It’s a unit where we have the space and time to look at psychological problems,’ she says smoothly. ‘It’s time out from the family, time out from some of the pressures in these young people’s lives.’

Fear is rising in me. ‘And I could stay with her?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have the facilities for that,’ she says. ‘And in a way it would defeat the purpose of the assessment. Which, as I say, is about time out from the young person’s normal environment. But you’d of course be able to visit weekly.’

‘
Weekly?
She’s only eight, for Chrissake.’

Richard puts his hand on my wrist. I move my arm away.

‘And how long would this be for, exactly?’ I say.

‘Obviously there’s a settling-in process,’ she says smoothly. She’s looking at Richard, enlisting his support. ‘We need to get to know her, and she needs to get to know us.’

Richard nods. ‘Of course,’ he says. His voice bland and reasonable, keeping everything calm.

‘And we would certainly need some weeks to do a full assessment.’

‘Weeks? But she’s ill,’ I say. ‘What would happen about her illness—who would look after her?’

She smiles at me, that shiny practised smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

‘I really don’t think you need to worry,’ she says. ‘As I say, we’ve got a very good staff ratio. And you don’t need to worry about her school work either. At the Jennifer Norton we’re fortunate to have two full-time teachers and an occupational therapy department—you can rest assured she won’t get behind. So, any more questions about what I’ve said so far?’

But Richard is shaking his head, and I cannot speak.

‘Let me tell you a little more about the unit.’ She’s moving forward carefully, as though examining every word she says. ‘We do have quite a mixture of children. We have some girls with anorexia, for instance. Obviously these are all children with troubles of one sort or another, and where it’s been decided that for whatever
reason a period away from their families would be beneficial. But, as I say, the staff ratio is excellent—virtually one to one.’

‘But this is ridiculous—Daisy doesn’t have psychiatric problems.’

‘Maybe not as such,’ says Jane Watson. ‘But if there are, as we think, issues in the family that need to be addressed, this will help us to get a handle on that.’

She waits for my response.

‘And if we refuse?’ I say.

Richard leans towards me.

‘Cat, we need to talk all this through properly,’ he says. The turn of phrase is hers. I feel a brief wild rage with him, that he’s taking on her language.

‘I want Jane to answer my question. What if we say no?’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘I’m very much hoping that that won’t happen. I’m very much hoping that you’ll recognise the necessity for this.’ She smiles briefly at Richard. ‘You’ve been so very co-operative so far, in coming to sessions and working with me here…’

‘But if we don’t want this, if we don’t let her go?’ I say again.

Richard lets out a small exasperated sigh.

Jane Watson clears her throat.

‘We do feel this is very important.’ Her voice is hard, clear. Now there’s none of that tentativeness that invites you to confide. ‘It’s Daisy’s future and health we’re talking about here. And—just in the hypothetical situation that you did have objections—to be frank, we would
need at that point to take some legal powers, because we do feel that it’s crucially important to have Daisy thoroughly assessed.’

I realise I am shaking. I clasp my hands tight together so she won’t be able to see. I feel the walls press in.

‘You mean a Care Order?’

‘It’s something we could do.’ She turns to me—she’s talking just to me now. ‘And I have to say—I mean, I don’t want to dwell on this—but if it came to that, we would have good grounds for a Care Order in Daisy’s case, if that’s the only way for the assessment to be done. Though to have to go through the courts would greatly increase the stress on Daisy, as I’m sure you recognise.’

Richard glances at me and away again. ‘Jane, I really don’t think you need worry. Like I said, we’ll talk it through at home.’

Her face softens. She nods. ‘Well, obviously it’s far far better for all concerned if we’re agreed on how to move forward…Now, you will I’m sure want to look round the unit before Daisy is admitted—just to put your minds at rest. You’ll find it’s a very friendly place and the dormitories are quite small and really very cheerful. In the meantime, I’ll reserve her a bed.’

‘When would you want her to start?’ says Richard.

‘I’ll have to check out the bed situation,’ she says. ‘But I think I do have a place coming up, probably at the end of the week—normally we’d have to wait for very much longer.’ She’s brisk now, leaving no space for disagreement.
‘As I’m sure you’ll appreciate there’s tremendous demand for beds in the Jennifer Norton. Right, then.’ She snaps the folder shut. ‘I’ll try and get the letter confirming everything in the post as soon as possible. I’m confident we can all agree on this.’

She stands. We get up too.

‘Look, I’ll find you our leaflet. And you can look at the map and reassure yourselves that it’s very easy to get to…’

She rifles around in an in-tray on her desk. Her hair falls over her face.

‘Here we are,’ she says.

It’s like the publicity for a holiday play-scheme, with lots of paintbox colours and photos of smiling children.

She brings it over, stands close to us, next to Richard. I smell her sandalwood scent. She turns to the map on the back, points to the place with one discreetly manicured fingernail. I just catch sight of the road name for a moment, then she tips the leaflet slightly away from me. I tell myself I must have read it wrong.