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We sip our coffee. Caffè latte: espresso, foamed milk. This suburban town has become a place where everyone can make perfect Italian coffee at home.
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I just wanted to check in and say you don’t have to come to the party. Obviously I’d love you to, but you have to do what you feel comfortable with, OK? I just wanted to make sure you knew that.’
My eyes fill. ‘I suppose I need to thank the neighbours for the chicken casseroles sometime.’
‘You mean you didn’t send home-made thank-you cards?’ She raises one eyebrow. ‘Rude.’
I laugh – I actually laugh. ‘Matt says we have to make an effort for Fred and that sooner or later we have to face everyone. They were all so kind. I didn’t even read the sympathy cards, and that was ungrateful.’
‘By whose standards?’ She gives a derisive snort. ‘Good grief, Ava, that’s a big stick you’re beating yourself with there.’
Despite myself, another laugh escapes me – a little one. ‘I need to wipe the ingratitude off my attitude.’
‘Yeah, you spoilt bitch.’
For a miraculous third time, I laugh properly, but just as quickly my eyes fill and a moment later I’m in tears.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry – my eyes are incontinent.’
‘Hey, hey, that’s OK.’ She is out of her chair. She pulls my head to her soft loose linen top. ‘You need to give yourself a break. Are you still seeing the counsellor?’
I nod. ‘But it doesn’t change anything, that’s the problem. It doesn’t change that I left the door open. It doesn’t change that all I want is my little girl. I just want her back so badly, unharmed, unchanged, and if that can’t happen, I’m not interested in anything else and that’s all there is to it. Not chicken casseroles, not lemon drizzle cakes. And I feel shitty about that, I do, but I’d rather people just said hello to me in a normal way, like you do; I can’t stand the pained expressions of sympathy all the time, do you know what I mean? I just want to not hear them whispering once I’ve gone past them in the street, and for them to take the fear out of their eyes when they speak to me. Honestly, it’s as if I have some horrible disease and they think they can catch it by standing near me or something. As if their children or grandchildren could be cursed just by having contact with me.’
‘That’s so shit,’ she says, her accent softening the words. She is still holding my head, and even though I’m crying, it still occurs to me that I’m beyond relieved I washed my hair this morning.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, pulling away and wiping my nose with the back of my hand. ‘I need to start seeing people.’
‘You don’t need to do anything you’re not up to. And you don’t need to RSVP to the party invitation either. Every single person on the street has replied with a yes, which, I have to say, is a little alarming, so it’s not like I’ll be standing there on my own listening to the tumbleweed. Just in case you were wanting to beat yourself up about either of those things. Listen, I have a call at eleven, so I’ve got to scoot, but just see how you go, OK, and even if it’s at the last second, you can come – or not. You won’t offend me, and Johnnie’s so thick-skinned he’d barely notice anyway as long as he’s got someone to tell about his underfloor heating.’
‘Thanks, Jennifer.’ I tear off some kitchen roll and press it to my eyes.
‘Jen,’ she says, laying a hand on my arm. ‘I always go to Jen on the fifth coffee.’
‘Jen.’ I laugh, blowing my nose on the kitchen roll. ‘Thanks.’
When she’s gone, I realise that her coming over was not, in fact, to catch up over coffee at all but to tell me that her friendship is not conditional in any way upon my attending her big, important party. When she said I didn’t have to go, I believed her in a way I didn’t believe Matt. And because of that, now I think I might almost want to; that wanting to is not impossible anymore.
Twelve
Ava
In the bath, Fred lies on Abi’s old red plastic support seat. In the shallow water, his arms and legs flail about violently. He looks like he’s having a spasmodic fight with an invisible attacker while remaining completely calm.
Afterwards, I feed him downstairs on the sofa – he in a towelling Babygro, me in new light cotton pyjamas my mum sent me last week. Today has been fuelled in some strange way by Jennifer’s impromptu visit. Jen. My friend, I think now, with a cosy feeling. Barbara has told me to try to focus on these small things – when something nice happens or I experience some small physical pleasure. Today, the feeling of having made a friend. Right now, in this moment, the tingle on my skin as the summer day cools into evening, the exquisite burgundy filigree of veins on Fred’s tiny eyelids, his deep pink mouth. He has Matt’s mouth: the same philtrum, the same Cupid’s bow.
The front door rattles, clicks. Matt, returning from work. A minute later and he appears at the living-room door.
‘Hey.’ The word is little more than a whisper. He’s never sure how he’ll find me; my moods roll in like weather.
‘Hey,’ I say.
He blows out like the wolf on the little pig’s house and his hands land on his hips, his eyes closing briefly. He’s out of breath from the ride home, his kit damp with what must be sweat, since it has been baking hot all day. The hair on his legs is dusty with dry mud and, as usual, he looks drained, black-eyed, gaunt.
‘You OK?’ His eyebrows rise in hope.
I smile. ‘Just feeding the little munchkin.’
His shoulders drop a millimetre; guilt washes over me. He is relieved to find me OK, or at least capable of pretending to be, for his sake. I want to tell him that, actually, I do feel OK; today has been a good day, and at this precise second, I feel, yes, I feel… OK.
