And sometimes I’d think, fuck it, fuck you both, and I’d leave and there’d be the two of you, closing the door behind me, going back into your lovely cozy house to do lovely things together. And she ate what you gave her. She’d come home and tell me about stir-fries and crispy prawns and stews from African restaurants. There was no sugar in your house, no junk food, no CBeebies, no cheap electronic toys that made noises that imprinted themselves onto your psyche forevermore. None of the stuff I’d given her to shut her up. Just books and music and trips to the park.
Then one day, and you’ll remember this day, Floyd, it was pretty significant, you told me you were thinking about home-schooling Poppy. I’d just filled in the forms on the Internet for a place at our local primary school. But that wasn’t good enough apparently: oh no, nothing was good enough for your precious Poppy. Only you, Floyd. Only you.
“My mini-me.”
That’s what you used to call her.
As though I literally had nothing whatsoever to do with the child. And as though only a child who mirrored you in every single respect could possibly be worth loving.
Anyway, you said, “She’s very bright. Really very bright. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was Mensa level. I don’t think a mainstream school is going to know what to do with her. And if I’m going to home-school her, it makes sense for her to come and live with me permanently.”
And you know, I think you thought I’d be relieved. I think you thought I’d say, OK, fabulous, well, that’s a weight off my mind. You knew how hard I found her at home. You knew how much we clashed. And you knew, deep down, that I wasn’t a natural-born mother, that I wasn’t a nurturer.
But what you didn’t know was what I’d done to get that child for you. You had no idea. You had no idea that my life was not a life, not in any real sense of the word, and that the only thing that lit the path for me was you, Floyd. And if you had full custody of Poppy, then, really, what was the use of me? You’d have no reason to see me anymore. You’d have no reason to keep me on the side.
I couldn’t let you take Poppy. She was my ticket to you.
We started that conversation like adults and finished it in a red heat.
I knew then that you wouldn’t let it go. And a few weeks later you found your moment and you pounced.
I couldn’t bear to leave the house with that child half the time. She was a liability in public places. In shops she wanted me to buy her everything. And I mean everything. There was no shop that didn’t sell something she wanted. And if I didn’t get it for her, then I was “mean” and I was “horrible,” and she’d scream the place down. So I learned to do all my errands when she was at the nursery. But that afternoon I remembered that I needed ketchup—not for me, mind, oh no, I could live without ketchup without having an epileptic fit, but Madam couldn’t. So I left her. I was gone for ten minutes. Possibly fifteen.
She had climbed up onto the work surface in the kitchen, looking for food—of course, because she might die if she didn’t eat something for ten minutes—and she’d fallen and bashed her head against the corner of the unit and there was a cut and there was some blood and I called the 111 number and they told me what to look out for and when to bring her in if necessary and I did everything right, Floyd, everything. I behaved like a proper decent parent. But of course the next time she saw you she had a huge black eye and she was all wan and bruised and oh, Mummy went out and left me and I was hungry and I just wanted some cereal, that was all, and blah blah blah. And you turned to me and you said, “That’s it, Noelle. That is it.”
And I knew what you meant and I knew it was going to happen. So that was when I decided. Me and Poppy. We were going away. And if you wanted us back, you’d have to come and find us.