Her Perfect Family(44)
‘We need to be honest so we can work out how to deal with our worries,’ Lucy says as if reading his mind. ‘So that we know what to do when we have difficult feelings. When we have worries. And when we’re afraid.’
‘Do you get worried?’ Amelie says suddenly, looking very earnestly at Lucy.
‘Of course.’ Lucy adjusts her hairband. ‘But not too much. Because I know the tricks now.’
‘Tricks?’ Amelie looks very interested now, her eyes wide and hopeful, and Matthew feels his heart leap. He thinks of her crying when he ran to them in the supermarket car park after the cathedral. He thinks of her creeping into their bed in the night. I’ve had an accident, Mummy . . .
‘Yes – the tricks are how to make myself feel better. That’s what I’m going to show you.’ Lucy winks and takes a piece of paper herself. ‘So my worry is what people will think of me.’ She starts to draw a stick person with a big stomach and in the belly she takes different-coloured pencils and draws lots of wiggles. ‘I get funny feelings in my tummy – like wiggly worms – because I worry if people will like me.’
Amelie laughs and Matthew finds himself smiling and realises that he likes Lucy already.
‘So what are you all worried about at the moment? Mummy and Daddy – write it down. And Amelie, you draw a picture of your worry.’
Matthew stares at his blank page and frowns. Sally starts to write immediately and Matthew wonders what the hell she’s writing. Amelie draws a picture with crayons. She draws Sally with her blonde hair, using a bright yellow crayon. He is drawn very tall with big, baggy trousers and his curly hair a sea of squiggles. Next Amelie draws herself in a pink dress. Very small in the middle with stick arms and huge hands, reaching out to each parent.
She then pauses and all the adults watch as Amelie takes a red crayon and draws ugly lines across the whole family. Huge, fat red lines.
‘That’s the blood,’ she announces as she presses harder on the paper, her face turning paler as she watches the family disappear behind all the red lines.
‘That’s my worry.’
CHAPTER 29
THE FATHER – NOW
Back at the house, Ed feels utterly overwhelmed. He picks up the new post from the doormat and adds it to the huge pile already unchecked on the side table. Lord knows what could be lurking in there. Unpaid bills. Final demands. Speeding tickets. But who . . . bloody . . . cares.
Until this moment, all the normal tiers of responsibility in his life – work, pay the mortgage, insure the car – have been kicked into the long grass, completely overshadowed by one thought only. Getting Gemma well.
Technically he’s been freed up to concentrate on this one thing; he’s been given compassionate leave by his agency and has no immediate financial worries. They have savings and Ed hasn’t been thinking about work or the future or anything beyond Gemma and those blessed machines, ticking away in her cubicle.
But on the drive home and now here in the hall, staring at his face in the mirror by the coat hooks, there is this new and terrible pressure, crushing down upon him. The horror of an entirely new future, even if Gemma does come back to them. Has he blown it? Will he lose it all anyway? His family? This home where they’ve been happy.
He stands very still for a moment and then turns from the mirror. He can picture Gemma running through the hall in a fairy outfit – her wings so wide that they brush against the staircase as she passes. Look, Daddy. My wings are flapping. I’m flying.
He turns his head, back towards the door and imagines packing boxes and a furniture van outside. The horror of another divorce. Another failure.
Rachel won’t say why she wants a photo of Laura. She says she’ll tell him when he gets back to the hospital. So how did she know about the strawberry-blonde hair? What the hell is going on?
The police asked for a picture of Laura too but he genuinely doesn’t keep one on his phone and in any case their last contact was so long ago, he has no idea what Laura looks like now. Short hair? Long hair? Grey hair? So DI Sanders is chasing an up-to-date, official photo from the clinic in Canada and also from the passport office.
He told Rachel all this too; he told her that he only has a few very old photos in the loft but she still wants to see them. Says it’s important. Ominously she says they may need to speak to DI Sanders again together but he doesn’t understand why and, typical Rachel, she won’t say. If they had a different kind of relationship he would press her but that’s not how they roll, and how can he cause even more distress after what he’s put her through?
He takes a deep breath and opens the under-stairs cupboard for the folding ladder. He drags it upstairs, click-clicking against each carpeted step. Normally he lifts the ladder high enough to prevent dragging but today he can’t be bothered. On the landing, he looks at the narrow loft opening and sighs. For years they’ve been debating a loft upgrade with proper flooring, a larger access and a fold-down ladder but the project’s always been bumped. How he wishes now that they’d gone ahead.
It’s a ridiculous hatch and he has to twist himself awkwardly to get inside. He’s forgotten the torch so takes his phone from his back pocket for its light. He knows exactly where the photos are. He tucked them in an old school book at the bottom of a cardboard box of boyhood treasures. A set of marbles. A prize conker. A favourite Lego kit. He put a stack of musty old comics and superhero annuals in the top of the box to discourage Rachel from rummaging. She hates comics. Hates anything musty.