Pulse(82)

Should I call the police?

But what could I tell them?

Grant arrived home after ten o’clock and found he couldn’t get in through the front door. So he rang the bell and made me jump.

‘Why did you double-lock it when you knew I was still out?’ he demanded when I let him in.

‘Have you had a nice evening?’ I asked, ignoring his question.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Complete waste of time. It was meant to be a working supper, a brainstorming session, but as soon as the wine came out it degenerated into a whingeing session about the company. I knew we should never have had it at a restaurant.’

Grant was cross.

It had been his idea to have the evening session in the first place, so that the design team couldn’t drift off back to their workstations rather than participate in the discussion. It had clearly not been the success he had hoped for.

‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘How was your day?’

‘Busy,’ I said.

‘What have you had to eat?’

He always asked.

‘Not much,’ I said.

‘What did you have for supper?’

‘The boys had a McDonald’s on the way home.’

‘And you?’

‘I was going to have some fish,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t feel like it.’

‘Chris,’ he implored, ‘you really must have something to eat. You know what Stephen Butler said. Do you want to end up back in that hospital?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then you must have some supper. I’ll make you an omelette.’

I smiled at him. ‘That would be nice.’

Grant put his head round the sitting-room door.

‘Bedtime,’ he said to the twins, and received the usual howls of protest in reply.

‘Come off it, Dad,’ they complained. ‘Can’t we watch the end of the film?’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s time for your bed. You can watch the rest tomorrow.’

Reluctantly the boys switched off the DVD and went up the stairs.

‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ I shouted after them. ‘Do your teeth.’

How things change in life. No teenager ever wants to go to bed early, I certainly hadn’t, but now in my forties there was nothing better than an early night. As a family, we had almost reached the point where the parents went to bed first, leaving the children to lock up and turn out the lights.

Role reversal.

But that didn’t only apply to the boys.

Over the past couple of months my mother’s health had begun to fail and she’d had a couple of TIAs – Transient Ischemic Attacks, also known as ministrokes. Even though most of the symptoms rapidly disappeared, the attacks had left her somewhat confused and very frightened.

After many years of stubborn independence since the death of my father, she was now forced to rely on me more and more. And, whereas in the past I might have resented this intrusion into my own freedom, I discovered a newfound tolerance, even love.

So I had started caring for her as if she were a small child, as she had once done for me.

Perhaps that is why we humans are so keen to have children – we instinctively know it is the best way of being looked after when we get old.

But that is assuming we actually do get old and our children aren’t run over in the meantime by a long black Mercedes with dark-tinted rear windows.

The very thought made me shiver with fear.

I went into the sitting room and peeped through a crack in the curtains, out towards the driveway, checking that there was no dark-suited chauffeur with big biceps lurking between the rose bushes.

‘What are you doing?’ Grant asked from behind me.

‘Just checking,’ I said.

‘Checking for what?’

I turned and looked at him, trying my hardest to keep the worry out of my face. But he could read me all too well and he knew straight away that something was wrong.

‘What is it?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Nothing,’ I replied, but I had difficulty holding back the tears. I needed to tell him. I needed his reassurance that everything would be fine.

But he wouldn’t give it. He couldn’t.

In fact, Grant was cross when I told him. Very cross indeed.

‘Why did you ever even go near them?’ he demanded. ‘I knew that working at that bloody racecourse was a bad idea. I wish now I’d stopped you going. It’s been nothing but trouble.’

We were in the kitchen.

While I’d been up to say goodnight to the boys, Grant had made me an omelette. Now I sat with it only half-eaten in front of me.

I pushed it away.

‘And you won’t bloody eat either. Do you realise what that does to our social life? We haven’t seen any of our friends for months.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ I said. ‘The boys will hear you.’

‘I don’t care if they do,’ he said, louder than ever. ‘If you had an ounce of sense in you, you’d put their welfare first rather than starving yourself to death and pursuing this ridiculous notion you have.’

‘That’s not fair,’ I said. ‘And it’s not a ridiculous notion. Do you really think there would have been this reaction if it wasn’t true?’