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But she’d been too afraid to have any more children. She looks at the road unfolding in front of her, now, and thinks that the baby in the poster is a girl. She finds a little hard stone of regret in her stomach that she didn’t have that other child. A sibling for Todd, somebody he could confide in, somebody who could help him now, more than she can.
She can’t let it happen. She can’t let the murder play out. She can’t have him lose everything. Her easy little baby who unknowingly witnessed his mother crying so often, she can’t bear for this to be his end. She can’t bear for him to be bad. Let him, let him, let him – and her – be good.
Day Minus Eight, 19:30
‘Ready?’ Kelly says to Jen when she arrives home. He’s standing in their kitchen, trainers and parka on, a smile on his face. He doesn’t notice her misty eyes.
‘For …’
‘Parents’ evening?’ he says, a question in his voice. Henry VIII is winding his way around Kelly’s feet.
Parents’ evening.
Perhaps it’s this. Perhaps this is why she’s skipped back more than one day. Like Andy said. This must be an opportunity, of some kind or other. She remembers dreading this but, tonight, she feels ignited by it. Bring it on, let me notice the thing, let me figure this out, and let it end.
‘Sure,’ she says brightly. ‘Yeah, forgot.’
‘I wish,’ he says. ‘Let’s just not go.’ Kelly hates these sorts of things too, though for different reasons, his relating to the Establishment. The last time, she took a selfie of them in the car, wanting to put it on Facebook, and he stopped her.
He holds the door open for her now. ‘How was the office?’
Jen looks down at her jeans and T-shirt. ‘Yeah – had a meeting with an old client, second divorce,’ she says glibly as they leave, as though she does much repeat business. Kelly doesn’t seem to mind enough to ask.
The school hall is set up with tables spaced so evenly it looks like something from the military. At each one sits a teacher, two empty plastic chairs in front of them. Jen thinks of Todd, at home alone, playing Xbox, unknowingly waiting for his arrest for possession of a knife he might not even have.
The first time she lived this evening, all of the reports were glowing, to her relief. Mr Adams, the physics teacher, described Todd as a joy. Jen had been distracted by work, she remembers, considering what to do about Gina’s divorce, and how to convince her to allow her soon-to-be-ex access to their children, but that single word had pierced through the membrane of busyness, and she’d grinned as Kelly said drily, ‘Just like his parents.’
Jen is sitting here opposite the same man now. The hall is brightly lit, the floors shining.
Jen and Kelly sent Todd here, to a good comprehensive. They didn’t want Todd to go to private school, to become part of the institution. They settled on this, Burleigh Secondary School, a place full of well-meaning teachers but with terrible, dated classrooms and grotesque bathrooms. Sometimes, today in particular, Jen wishes they’d chosen somewhere else, someplace where a parents’ evening would provide Nespresso coffees and comfy chairs. But, as Kelly had once said, ‘He’ll get decked later in life if he spends his formative years in a choir singing hymns with a load of knobs.’
‘Yes, sharp, engaged,’ Mr Adams is saying. Jen’s attention is firmly on him. He’s an avuncular sort of man, big ears, white hair, a kind face. He has a cold, smells distinctively sweet; the scent of Olbas oil on a handkerchief. She missed this last time. It doesn’t matter, but she still missed it. Along with what else?
‘Anything we should know about?’
Mr Adams looks up in surprise. ‘Like what?’
‘Is he – you know, hanging out with anybody new, working less hard, doing anything out of character?’
‘Perhaps lacking common sense at times in the lab.’
Kelly laughs softly under his breath, the first noise he’s made since they arrived here, her introverted husband. He reaches for Jen’s hand, fiddling with her wedding ring. After this session with Mr Adams, he will go to the table serving tea and coffee, get them two teas, but drop one. The absurdity of this knowledge.
‘Oh, but the brightest minds are,’ Mr Adams says. ‘Honestly, he’s a joy.’ Jen’s heart is full of sunbeams for the second time. You can never hear enough that your children are good. Especially not now.
They scrape their chairs back and walk over to the trestle table along the back. Jen debates taking the tea from Kelly before he drops it. She watches his hands.
‘These things are so fucking pointless,’ he says to her under his breath as he faffs with teabags. ‘So dystopian. Like being in some sort of crazy evaluation system.’
‘I know,’ Jen says, passing him the milk. ‘Judgement ahoy.’
Kelly smiles a pained sort of smile at her. How long until we can leave?
‘How long until we can leave?’
‘Soon,’ she promises him. ‘Do you think he is a good kid?’ she asks. ‘Honestly.’
‘Huh?’
