flashes into my mind of my mum at the police station when we were finally reunited. ‘I’ll never stop blaming myself.’ She had wiped tears from her cheeks. It’s a big responsibility having a child, isn’t it? As joyous as it is watching them grow, it’s also equally terrifying.
‘The policeman taught us about being safe when we cross the road,’ Archie says. ‘We have to hold our grown-up’s hand. That would be you or Daddy. And then look left and right and not step off the pavement until the green man says it is okay but I said I’ve never seen a green man and the policeman said he’s not actually a man at all so it’s silly he’s called one, isn’t it, Mummy?’
‘Yes.’ I take one hand off the wheel and use my glove to mop my damp brow. A routine visit, that’s all. Nothing is wrong.
‘And we can only cross the road when it’s straight and not on a corner because we are little and the cars can’t see us but, Mummy, cars can’t see us because they don’t have eyes. I think the policeman was a bit bonkers bananas, don’t you?’ He screams with laughter.
I think policemen are many things: brave, resourceful but also sometimes painfully slow. There’s a process they have to follow, rules. I get that, but sometimes the wait for justice can seem endless and sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. I feel sick as I meet Archie’s innocent eyes in the rear-view mirror.
We drive past the cemetery. I don’t look. I can’t look.
George’s car is already on the driveway. The knot in my stomach tightens, along with my chest.
I lift a wriggling Archie from his seat and carry him in front of me like a shield. He kicks his legs, desperate to get down and walk.
‘Hello!’ I shout down the hallway that smells of strawberries thanks to the diffuser on the windowsill. ‘We’re home.’ My shoulders are concrete but I keep my voice bright and breezy. I’m not sure whether George knows so I brazen it out.
‘I’ll fix us some lunch…’ I trail off as I enter the kitchen. See the brown box on the worktop.
The open brown box on the worktop.
George stands next to it, a knife in his hand. I can tell from the set of his jaw that he’s angry.
He’s angry again.
Chapter Nine
George
Now
George is furious with himself. He knows it’s guilt that drives him home at lunchtimes as well as a desire to see Archie. He isn’t treating his wife well, and it pricks at his conscience each time he sees her, and yet when he does spend time with her, he can’t help snapping at her as if everything wrong is down to her and her alone. And there’s such a lot wrong, it seems impossible to think he can ever put it right. Does he even want to? He loves his son, he really does. And his wife? He thinks he must still – that’s why he still hasn’t made a final decision – but it’s a question he asks himself endlessly.
George is home earlier than usual. On the street is a car he knows belongs to a reporter. He stalks over to it and tells him again to piss off before he calls the police.
He shouts, ‘Hello,’ as he steps through the front door although he knows nobody will answer and not just because Leah’s car isn’t on the driveway – there’s something different about the atmosphere when Archie’s not present. Even if he’s asleep the space somehow feels lighter. Happier.
George hasn’t been happy for a long time. He hopes he and Leah will be able to talk calmly later. He had tried so hard to repress his anger last night but nevertheless it had spilled out anyway. He needs to apologize. Throughout their marriage it seems he is always saying sorry. It’s Leah’s day off but he can’t remember if she said she had plans today. They only half listen to each other nowadays. Hear what they want to hear.
He tosses his keys onto the worktop, his eyes skimming the kitchen. It’s tidy. Clean. At first glance you wouldn’t guess a lively four-year-old lives here. There are no Lego bricks strewn across the floor. No stick-man pictures clinging to the fridge with magnets. George frowns. He was sure there were displays of Archies ‘art’ on the baby-blue Smeg a few weeks ago. The only reason Leah would have taken them down would