The Forgetting(50)

A calendar flicked through Livvy’s head as she calculated how often, realistically, her parents might see Leo once they’d moved to London. There was no use pretending it would be the same as it was now.

‘What about childcare? It’ll be prohibitively expensive in London.’ Her dad fiddled with the cuff of his jumper, pulled at a loose thread, pushed it back under his sleeve.

‘I’ve got to find a job first.’ Livvy laughed, but it sounded forced, as though it were being dragged involuntarily from her throat.

‘It’s just that Dad and I . . .’ Her mum glanced at Livvy’s dad, a silent communication passing between them. ‘We were going to suggest that when you went back to work, we’d have Leo a couple of days a week. Not just the nursery pick-ups you asked about. I mean, two whole days. It would have helped out on the financial front and we’d have loved to have had him . . .’ Her mum’s sentence floated away, as if she were watching a bubble drift through the air, waiting for it to pop.

Livvy fiddled with the chain around her neck, a parallel future playing out in her mind: staying in Bristol, taking the promotion, leaving Leo with her parents twice a week. Entrusting her son to people she loved.

She breathed deeply, held the disappointment tight in her chest. ‘That would have been amazing, Mum. It’s a really generous offer, and Leo would have loved it. But like I say, we’ll still see loads of you.’

A look of concern darted between her parents like a pair of swifts passing in the air.

‘So when’s all this going to happen?’

Livvy refilled her lungs. ‘In seven weeks.’

‘Seven weeks?’

‘And you’re sure you’re happy about this? I know you want to be supportive of Dominic, but you do have to think about yourself too. It’s not just your job you’ll be leaving behind. It’s all your friends, your family. It’ll be such a wrench.’ Her mum’s tone hovered somewhere between distress and anxiety.

For a moment, Livvy considered telling her parents the truth: that of course she was nervous about all she’d be leaving behind. But looking at their fretful expressions, she reminded herself that the decision could not be undone: Dominic had handed his notice in to his Sheffield employers yesterday morning. To confess any ambivalence now would only mean burdening them with misgivings it was impossible to resolve. ‘Honestly, I’m fine about it. More than fine. It’s going to be great.’

There were a few moments’ silence, the air in her parents’ sitting room stale suddenly, as though they had been gathered there for a year, not an hour, recycling one another’s exhaled breaths.

‘Has there been any more contact from Dominic’s mother?’ There was something uneven in her mum’s voice, as though an attempt at neutrality had been tipped off balance.

Livvy thought about the text message and the phone call that she was yet to share with Dominic. ‘No, not since she turned up at the farm.’ The lie slipped from her tongue, and Livvy reassured herself it wasn’t really a lie, more a benign fib to protect the integrity of her promise to Dominic not to discuss his family with anyone else.

‘It’s just . . . Dad and I were thinking. Maybe you should meet her. It seems such a shame, none of you having any contact with Dominic’s family.’

Livvy shook her head. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘But she must feel dreadful. She’s just lost her husband, she’s estranged from her son, she has no contact with her only grandchild. Imagine if that was me or Dad.’

‘But you or Dad wouldn’t be in that position in the first place. There’s a good reason why Dominic doesn’t want to see her.’

‘Well, maybe if you explained things to us a bit more, we might understand.’ Her dad smiled encouragingly.

Livvy hesitated, thought about her promise to Dominic, weighed it up against her parents’ concern. ‘I can’t – it’s not fair on Dominic. But his dad was . . . quite abusive. And his mum did nothing to protect him. I can’t go into details, but you just have to trust me: he’s right not to want contact with her.’

Her mum glanced at her dad, then back at Livvy. ‘But now that his dad’s passed away, maybe it would be a good moment to reconcile with his mum? Obviously we don’t know exactly what happened, but if Dominic’s father was abusive to him, isn’t it possible that his mother was a victim too?’ There was something elliptical in her mum’s words, as though half her thoughts had been erased before she spoke, leaving only faint indentations on the page.

She just stood there, like a rod of iron, and wouldn’t tell me anything.

Livvy thought about the harrowing events Dominic had described, about his mother’s complicity and her failure to keep him safe. ‘That’s not the impression I’ve got. But anyway, it’s Dominic’s family, so it’s up to him whether or not he has contact with her. It’s not my decision to make.’

Her dad drank the last of his tea, patted Livvy’s leg. ‘Well, you have to do what you think is best. It just seems terribly sad, that’s all.’

On the floor next to Livvy, Leo picked up the metal fire engine, threw it across the floor, and she bent down, picked it up. ‘I think this one’s getting a bit restless. Shall we take him to the park?’

Gently pulling Leo’s arms through the sleeves of his coat, Livvy was aware of an ambient, unnameable anxiety flickering behind her ribs. Strapping Leo into his pushchair, she tried to ignore it, hoping that if she looked the other way for long enough it would somehow manage to fix itself.