Truly Madly Guilty(101)

‘She saw it on that TV show,’ said Clementine. ‘Remember? The one with the –’

‘I don’t care how many tastebuds you’ve got,’ said Sam. ‘You can try a mouthful.’

‘Blerk,’ said Holly.

‘Let’s see some good manners,’ said Clementine.

Sam didn’t look at her.

It was as though he’d just been waiting all these years for the perfect excuse to hate her and finally he’d got it. Her throat filled. The shepherd’s pie wasn’t as good as it normally was. Too heavy on the Worcestershire sauce.

She put down her fork and had a mouthful of water.

‘I’ve got a sore tummy,’ moaned Holly.

‘No you don’t,’ said Clementine.

Clementine’s mother thought their marriage was a problem that could be fixed with a good dose of common sense and elbow grease. Marriages were hard work! But what could they say to a counsellor? They weren’t fighting over money or sex or housework. There were no knotty issues to untangle. Everything was the same as before the barbeque. It was just that nothing felt the same.

She looked at Ruby, who sat in front of her in perfect, pink-cheeked, giggling, naughty health, and remembered how strange it had felt when Ruby was transferred out of the hushed, important environment of ICU and into an ordinary ward with ordinary patients and busy, distracted nurses. No lovely Kylie just for them. It was like going from a five-star hotel to a youth hostel. Then, after two nights in the ordinary ward, an extraordinarily young, tired doctor flipped through Ruby’s paperwork and said, ‘You should be able to take her home tomorrow.’ Her chest was clear. She hadn’t needed physio. The antibiotics had successfully fought off the chest infection before it took hold of her. Of course there would be neurological check-ups, out-patient care, she’d be monitored, but she was fine.

First world medical care meant they didn’t have to pay for their first world negligence. They’d brought her home to a stack of presents and an overly loving big sister, who at intervals would try to pick her up and cuddle her, something she’d never done much of before, and would inevitably squeeze too hard and Ruby would shriek and Holly would get yelled at.

No one behaved normally except for Ruby, who clearly wanted the fuss over. She did not want to sleep in the big bed with either of her parents. She wanted her own cot. And she did not want a parent sleeping on the floor of her bedroom. She would stagger to her feet in the cot, her thumb in her mouth, and point Whisk at the offending parent: ‘Go away!’ she would say. So they went. Ruby seemed to sense if anyone became too clingy or sappy. Clementine sometimes sat holding her, quietly crying, and if Ruby noticed she would look up angrily and say, ‘Stop dat.’ She did not want to be cherished, thank you very much, unless it involved an extra biscuit.

They should have been like lottery winners. They’d got a reprieve, a last-minute pardon. They were allowed to return to their ordinary lives and their ordinary worries, to arguments over shepherd’s pie. So why were they not living their lives in a permanent state of joy and relief?

‘I am not going to eat one single bit of this,’ said Holly. She folded her arms dramatically. ‘Not. One. Single. Bit.’

‘Well, in that case I’m not going to let you have one single minute on my iPad,’ said Sam. ‘Not. One. Single. Minute.’

‘What?’ cried Holly, predictably shocked and enraged, as if this were a brand new threat, not one she heard virtually every day of her life. ‘No fair!’

‘Just one mouthful,’ said Sam to Holly. ‘You too, Ruby.’

‘Did you play with Isabel at Honey Bees today?’ said Clementine to Ruby.

‘Ummmm … yes,’ said Ruby. She lifted her eyes and tapped her fingers to her mouth, trying to remember. ‘I mean no.’

They said she was fine at day care. Not traumatised or affected in any way as far as they could see, just happy to be back. In that first month after the accident, Clementine had decided, and she truly meant it at the time, that she would give up her career and become a stay-at-home mother. (She had even allowed for the fact that they wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage repayments, they would sell the house, sell the cello and rent a modest flat, where Clementine would spend her days grating vegetables, doing craft and never removing her eyes from her children.) She had said to Ruby, ‘Would you like to give up Honey Bees and stay home with Mummy every day?’ Ruby had looked at her as if she’d asked for a treat and been offered a raw carrot. ‘No fank you,’ she enunciated very clearly. So that was the end of that as a means of atonement.

‘Fine then, I’ll have one mouthful.’ Holly picked up her fork and took the teeniest, tiniest possible mouthful. Her face contorted into a paroxysm of disgust.

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Sam thumped the palm of his hand flat on the tabletop so hard all their plates rattled and everyone jumped. He stood, grabbed both the girls’ plates and walked into the kitchen where he dropped them into the sink with a loud clatter.

There was silence. Holly and Ruby looked flabbergasted. This was never part of the shepherd’s pie routine. It wasn’t meant to be serious. They weren’t a family who yelled and thumped tables.

Ruby’s lip trembled. Her eyes swam with tears.

‘It’s okay, Ruby,’ said Clementine.