The Promise, page 2
Yeah, not bad. You?
‘Sorry,’ he said, realizing he was standing there in silent mourning. He’d been right about the quietness of the house, he thought. The atmosphere was like a held breath. A suppressed sob. ‘Um, yeah. So I thought . . . Can we talk?’
‘Sure,’ she said, unmoving. She did hate him. She didn’t even want him to go any further into the house.
‘Could we . . . ?’ The words stuck in his throat.
Patrick and Zoe had always been the most generous hosts, pressing food and drink on you, urging you to stay – There’s no rush, sit down, help yourself! – but today resentment radiated from her in waves. Go away, go away, her body language said. You should have stopped him. He’d still be here, alive, if it wasn’t for you.
Dan forced himself to finish his sentence. ‘. . . maybe go in the kitchen?’
‘Okay.’ She turned and walked down the hall into the large, light-filled kitchen. He remembered them having this extension built, back when Gabe had just been born; how the flapping sheets of blue plastic over the end of the wall had frightened Ethan, who must have been four at the time. This room was the heart of the home, the long oak table set more often than not with a couple of extra places for friends. The layers and texture of family life that had silted up were visible everywhere: framed holiday photos and Art Deco posters alongside the crayoned drawings on the walls; a collection of spotted mugs clustered colourfully along the dresser, mingling with various wonky school-made pots; the fridge boasting certificates for good spelling, football skills, an art commendation.
Today the room had a different feel. Perhaps it was the meanness of the late-afternoon light that left it drabber than usual, but there was definitely a new air of neglect about the place as well. Some of the plants on the windowsill appeared shrivelled and stalky, their leaves miserably brown in places. There was a box of recycling by the bin – cardboard and empty yogurt pots and tin cans – waiting to be sorted. And random stuff lay everywhere: library books and unopened post, a pair of shin-pads, a roll of gaffer tape, a broken necklace, a spelling chart . . . A Lego knight lay face-down on top of the butter dish and Dan stood it up again, wondering where the children were. It felt as if he’d entered an alternative universe; one out of sync with real life.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Zoe said. She sounded defiant, as if she expected criticism. ‘I’m in the middle of dinner.’
‘Yes. Sorry,’ he replied like an echo, unsure what else to say. There were sausages spitting in formation under the grill, he saw, a pan of potatoes foaming on the hob, and a chopping board on the side with a mound of peeled carrots. ‘Can I . . . do anything?’ He hadn’t even brought a token gift, he realized, cursing himself. No flowers or wine, no peace offering at all.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Do you want a drink? I’m going to carry on with this, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied. He couldn’t bring himself to say yes to a drink, despite the dryness of his mouth. He couldn’t take anything else from her. ‘Um. So,’ he began, ‘I just—’ He broke off, trying to remember the speech he’d composed on his way here. It had seemed plausible back then, noble even, but now the right words seemed to have slid out of reach. ‘I came round to say that I’m sorry I’ve not been over for ages, but I do want to help,’ he managed to get out. I’m sad too, he wanted to say. I’ve been a complete mess. Today is the first time I’ve shaved in a fortnight. ‘I want to support you and the kids,’ he went on. ‘You know, be there for you all. So if there’s ever anything I can do, then—’
‘MUMMY! He hit me,’ yelled Bea just then, bursting into the room like a small raging tornado. ‘Gabe hit me with the remote, right here.’ Bristling with self-righteousness, she pointed to her temple, where a red mark bloomed. ‘See?’
Zoe’s shoulders stiffened. ‘Gabe,’ she shouted tonelessly. ‘What have I told you? If you can’t share, the screen goes off. Do you hear me?’
‘You said he’d be banned from the Xbox if he did it again,’ Bea was keen to remind her. ‘You need to ban him now, Mummy. Tell him!’
‘I’m busy at the moment,’ Zoe said, not turning round as she chopped through another carrot.
‘Hi, Bea,’ said Dan. This was his chance to do something useful, he realized. ‘Shall we set the table together to help Mummy?’
‘That’s Ethan’s job,’ she said, flouncing out again. ‘Gabe! Mummy says you’re in big trouble,’ they heard her yell. ‘Really, really BIG. If you touch me again, you’re dead.’
Zoe flinched at her daughter’s words but before Dan could say anything, Ethan walked into the room. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked. ‘Oh, hi, Uncle Dan.’
Ethan was tall and reedy, pale-faced with large square glasses and tufty ginger-brown hair. He was a quiet boy, thoughtful and artistic, who gave the impression of creating whole worlds up in his un-walled mind. He’d been such an earnest toddler, head always cocked as he asked one brain-bending question after another. Now he was fourteen and still a quirky sort. Patrick had worried about him starting secondary school – He’s not like the other kids, they’ll kick the shit out of him, he’d agonized once to Dan – but so far Ethan seemed to be surviving unscathed.
‘Bangers and mash,’ Zoe said shortly.
‘Hi, mate,’ said Dan. ‘How’s school?’ Then he promptly cringed at his own remarks because: one, Ethan was not a ‘mate’ kind of person; and two, no kid ever liked being asked How’s school?, the most boring question in the world. ‘Are you working on a new sculpture at the moment?’ he added quickly, as if needing to prove that he had actually met his nephew before.
‘Nope. I’ve stopped going to the club.’ Ethan grabbed some cutlery from a drawer and began dumping it around the table.
‘Oh. That’s a shame,’ said Dan, straightening a fork. He vaguely remembered that Ethan had been overjoyed to be offered a place there – some edgy creative space in Wandsworth where they made all sorts of weird and wonderful artworks from wire and scrap metal and clay. ‘How come?’
‘I don’t think we need to go over this again,’ Zoe said, sweeping the chopped carrots into a pan of boiling water.
A muscle clenched in Ethan’s jaw and he banged down the last knife with such force that it spun in a circle. Then he stormed out of the room.
‘Good one,’ Zoe muttered, rolling her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ Dan said for what felt like the hundredth time since he’d arrived. ‘I didn’t realize.’
Zoe swung round, eyes glittering. ‘No, Dan, you didn’t, did you? You didn’t realize because you’ve no idea what’s been going on.’ She slammed a lid on the pan of carrots and the blue flame beneath it jerked and trembled in response. ‘Coming round here and bleating Sorry over and over again, like that’s going to change anything. Well, it’s not good enough. You’re too late!’
‘Sorry,’ he said before he could stop himself, then grimaced. ‘But, look, I do want to help. I—’
‘No, you look,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest, but then Bea was barrelling into the room once more, wailing this time.
‘He twisted my arm right behind my back. It hurts! I think it’s broken!’
Zoe became rigid, as if she was on the verge of shattering into pieces. ‘You want to help?’ she asked Dan, so fiercely it felt like an attack. ‘You really want to help?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. She was going to ask him to have a word with Gabe, he guessed. Or pour glasses of water to go with dinner. Or come back tomorrow and run the lawnmower around the garden, which was looking pretty unkempt.
‘Great,’ she said, her voice clipped. She held her hands up in the air, signalling surrender. ‘Then it’s all yours,’ she said. ‘Dinner, the kids – everything. I’m going out.’
‘What . . . where?’ Dan asked in surprise, but Zoe was already striding towards the door.
‘MUMMY!’ screamed Bea, racing after her. ‘Don’t go! Come back!’
‘What the hell . . . ?’ asked Ethan, as first his mother and then his sister charged past him.
In the hall, Bea had body-slammed Zoe and was now clinging around her legs. ‘Mummy, no,’ she cried. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Stop being so dramatic,’ Zoe said, stuffing some keys in her jeans pocket. ‘I’m not going forever. I just need a break.’ She unwound the little girl’s arms from her knees. ‘Be good for your uncle,’ she added on her way out.
‘MUMMY!’ Bea howled as the front door closed. Through the red and green teardrop shapes of its stained-glass window you could see Zoe walking quickly down the path, then turning onto the pavement. Dan blinked and she was gone completely. Meanwhile Bea was rolling around on the carpet, wailing and snotty. She had lost one parent already, Dan remembered. He had to be kind with her, rather than impatient.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, kneeling down. He put a wary hand on her shoulder as if she were a wild animal, but she shook him off with a sob. ‘Mummy’ll be back soon. She’s just gone for a walk. Do you want to help me dish up tea?’
‘No! I just want her!’
‘She’s not allowed to dish up,’ Ethan put in unhelpfully. ‘Too babyish. She’d only spill something or burn herself.’
‘Would NOT!’ Lying face-down, Bea kicked out, almost scoring a direct hit to Dan’s groin.
‘Hey,’ he yelped, backing away. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said from a safe distance. ‘Come on, hop up now and . . .’ He struggled to think of something she could do. ‘You can help me mash the potatoes. I bet you’re a great masher.’
Bea said nothing, but kicked wildly again and thumped the floor for good measure, the rainbow tail of her unicorn onesie bouncing with each movement. ‘I want Mummy,’ she sobbed. ‘Mummy!’
‘Leave her,’ said Ethan, turning back towards the kitchen. ‘She’s just trying to get attention. This is what she does, like, every day. It’s so boring.’
Dan hesitated, feeling powerless. Bea sounded genuinely distraught; he couldn’t simply abandon her there. What else could he offer his niece other than potato-mashing? ‘Um . . .’ he began, his mind unhelpfully blank.
But before he could think of anything, there came a shout from the kitchen. ‘Uncle Dan? Did you know that the sausages are on fire?’
Chapter Two
Dinner wasn’t exactly the most tempting meal of Dan’s life. The sausages were blackened. The mash was lumpy, the carrots woody and underdone. ‘This is dis-gusting,’ pouted Bea, her eyelashes still spangled with tears.
‘It’s pretty gross,’ agreed Gabe, who had curly brown hair and wore a mud-smeared football kit. He added a massive splodge of ketchup to his mash and stirred it together. ‘Pink mash. Yuck,’ he said, with undisguised glee. ‘Now it looks like a road accident. Brains everywhere.’
‘Gabe,’ said Ethan. ‘Shut up.’
‘Make me,’ jeered Gabe, holding up a fork full of pink mash and letting it drop in soft, wet dollops onto the plate. ‘Braaaaains,’ he crowed, sneaking a look at his brother.
Ethan scowled and Dan found himself wondering where Zoe was and how long she intended to stay away. Also whether his woefully late appearance at the door had been the final straw after the worst three weeks of her life.
Bea pushed her plate back in mutiny and Dan felt compelled to act fast, before the meal plunged to even more dismal depths. ‘This is a fairly rubbish dinner,’ he said, before quickly adding, ‘My fault – not your mum’s’, in case anyone saw fit to dob him in for it later. ‘So where’s the nearest chip shop round here?’
His words were like a magic spell, as all three of their heads whipped round towards him. Yes, okay, he was desperate, and guilt had made him a pushover.
‘It’s on Sandycombe Road,’ said Ethan. ‘Like, five minutes’ walk? Four, if we’re quick.’
‘Are we really going to have chips?’ asked Bea, with an air of faint suspicion. ‘Actually really and truly?’
‘CHIPS!’ cheered Gabe, who seemed to have no such doubts. He stabbed his knife and fork vertically into the revolting pink mash, then leapt off his chair and struck a superhero pose. ‘CHIPS TO THE RESCUE!’
His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Chips are my actual favourite!’ Bea squealed. Even Ethan jumped up from the table with a newly eager air.
‘What are we waiting for?’ asked Dan, and they abandoned the rubbish dinner and set off. First lesson in childcare: buy them off with fried food, he thought, with a wince as they headed along the road, hoping very much that they wouldn’t bump into Zoe on her way back. Sorry, Zoe. Sorry, Patrick. Just filling your kids up with grease and salt because I couldn’t even manage to keep the sausages from catching fire. Looking on the bright side, though, I didn’t burn the house down, right? Not yet, anyway!
Still, at least everyone had cheered up. Bea was skipping and twirling around each lamp post singing about chicken nuggets, while Gabe gave Dan a lengthy account of that afternoon’s school football club. He seemed to have scored about eighteen goals, according to his version of events, including several headers, an overhead kick and one from the halfway line. ‘Unbelievable,’ Dan said each time, which about summed it up.
Ethan was the only one who was silent and Dan shot him a look. ‘Everything all right, E?’ he asked.
Gabe, interrupted from a story about an amazing volley that had resulted in him getting his first hat-trick, glanced across at his brother. ‘Oh,’ he said, scrunching up his nose. There was something appealingly Just William-ish about Gabe, with his unruly springy hair and freckles, plus his almost permanent air of dishevelment. ‘It’s cos I’m talking about football. It makes him really angry. Because he’s got anger-management problems. And—’
‘Shut up, dumb-arse,’ said Ethan, elbowing him, whereupon Gabe promptly jostled him back.
‘See?’ he cried, dodging away as Ethan glowered and made a proper swing for him. ‘See that, Uncle Dan? Anger. Issues. That’s what his teacher told Mum. And I – ow! See? And now he’s hitting me.’
‘Come on, less of that,’ Dan said, to no effect whatsoever. ‘Boys!’ He was relieved to see the lights of the chip shop ahead, like a welcome beacon, as the two of them began scuffling in earnest. Gabe had always had a knack of winding his older brother up, but Ethan looked positively murderous this time as he hit out at Gabe.
‘Enough, you two, we’re here now, pack it in,’ Dan said, grabbing them both and pulling them apart. ‘Right then, guys – what do you all want?’
‘I’m not a guy actually,’ Bea reminded him. ‘But I would like chicken nuggets and chips, please, Uncle Dan.’
Ethan was still white in the face, whereas Gabe looked sweatily bullish. Clearly the magic offered by a bag of chips couldn’t solve everything, although the two boys did stop trying to punch each other long enough to mumble their requests at least. Small mercies.
Back at the house, as everyone tucked in with rather more appetite, Dan kept glancing over at the clock as it ticked through the minutes, with no sign of Zoe’s return. He had one ear tuned to the sound of the front door while the kids chatted, wondering if she still accidentally listened out for Patrick coming home at this time of day. You would, wouldn’t you? Some habits were so ingrained they were muscle-memory, wired into your cells. After Rebecca left, Dan hadn’t been able to sleep in the empty bed because he kept waiting for her to get in beside him. He still thought about her on what had been their wedding anniversary and her birthday, the memories less painful every year but bittersweet nonetheless. But anyway. He was trying his best to keep her out of his head, especially after . . .
Don’t go there, he told himself quickly. He had wasted enough time agonizing over her lately.
It was half-past six once they’d finished eating. Now what? Dan wondered. Would Zoe be back before the kids’ bedtime or was he meant to do that too? ‘Does anyone have any homework?’ he asked, at which their faces fell. ‘Or we could play a game of something?’ he added hastily.
Ethan sloped off upstairs, whereas Gabe claimed he needed to ‘finish the level’ of the Thor game he’d been glued to on the Xbox earlier, which left Bea, who told Dan that she did want to play something: unicorns. This involved Dan crawling around the playroom while Bea rode imperiously on his back, occasionally casting spells that allowed them to fly to various magical lands together. She seemed so much more cheerful that he didn’t dare complain about the friction burns he could foresee appearing on his hands, although he did feel tremendous relief when Gabe called through to say that it was seven o’clock and bedtime for ‘baby Bea’. After the inevitable argument with her brother about how she wasn’t a baby, and he was a pig, actually, she eventually acquiesced and trudged upstairs. Childcare was exhausting, thought Dan, as he supervised his niece’s teeth-brushing in the bathroom a short while later. How had Zoe managed to deal with this alone, day after day? Managing the turbulence of her children’s grief on top of her own, soldiering miserably through each long evening without her husband there – it seemed unthinkable. Barely possible.
‘Oh, am I meant to be giving you a bath?’ he asked, belatedly noticing a line of animal flannels along the edge of the tub.
‘Hmm,’ said Bea, through a mouthful of foaming toothpaste. ‘Usually I have a bath, then brush my teeth. You got it wrong actually, Uncle Dan.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Never mind. You can go to sleep stinky this once, I’m sure.’
‘Girls don’t stink,’ Bea told him, outraged. ‘Anyway,’ she went on as if something had just occurred to her. ‘How can I sleep without a story from Mummy?’ She rinsed her toothbrush and made a big show of spitting flamboyantly into the sink. ‘And the Daddy song?’
‘What’s the Daddy song?’ Dan asked, following her into the very pink, bunting-adorned princess kingdom that was her bedroom. The walls, the curtains, the carpet all glowed a warm rosy hue, with a sparkly fairy-tale palace painted above the bed. Dan found himself imagining Patrick up a ladder painting the walls and hanging the pastel bunting, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. How he had doted on his little girl.
