This Time Next Year(43)

Quinn sat on the bottom stair picking at the chipped varnish covering the crack in the banister. In the blue house, the banisters snaked up from the bottom floor four and a half whole turns. If Quinn lay on the floor in the hall and looked up, he couldn’t see where the banister ended; he liked to imagine the curling wood went on and on, winding upwards like Jack’s beanstalk to the castle in the clouds, or – in this case – to the attic. When he was little he used to try climbing to the top without touching the stairs – the carpet was lava and the banisters were safe. He had to get to the top to rescue his sister from the evil tribe who lived in the attic, threatening to throw her into the fearsome volcano.

He’d made it as far as the second floor, balancing his feet on the thin rail of wood, holding on to the railing above before he’d slipped and fallen down arm first onto the banister below. He’d broken his arm and taken this chunk out of the wood. It had only been a small chunk, but his father had gone ballistic.

‘That banister is irreplaceable! It’s carved from a single piece of oak!’

‘What were you thinking? What were you doing?’ cried his mother, crouching down to Quinn’s level, blue eyes blinking wildly, her blonde hair rolled in curlers and black streaks running down her cheeks. The spiders that lived on her eyelids looked as though they were melting.

‘Rescuing my sister from the attic,’ Quinn said, through breathy sobs.

His mother’s face turned white; she covered her mouth with a hand, pushed him away and fled back upstairs, taking them two at a time.

It was Daddy who had taken him to hospital. Quinn remembered because it was the first time he’d been allowed to sit in the front seat of his father’s convertible. Daddy couldn’t work out the car-seat straps in Mummy’s Volvo, so they went in his car, which didn’t have a car seat or a roof. ‘Don’t scuff the leather with your feet,’ his father instructed. Quinn didn’t have any shoes on because his father hadn’t known where they were kept and Quinn was crying too much to tell him. That was years ago. Daddy didn’t live with them in the blue house any more.

Today, Quinn was waiting on the stairs for his mother to come down and give him his birthday presents. He’d been awake for hours, but he could be patient – eleven year olds were supposed to be patient. He’d got dressed and made himself breakfast – a bagel with peanut butter. At least it was the Christmas holidays, so he wasn’t in any rush to get to school. Quinn looked up at the clock in the hall, ten to ten. Would she be cross if he went to check whether she was awake? He crept up to the third-floor landing.

Her door stood slightly ajar. The curtains were open and light was streaming in. Maybe she was having a bad morning? Sometimes, when she had a bad morning, Quinn had to get a lift to school with William Greenford from four doors up. Sometimes, when she was having a bad day, he had to stay at William Greenford’s house after school, and he didn’t even like William Greenford.

His mother was lying on the bed in her pink silk dressing gown. It lay open with the cord undone. Quinn blushed to see his mother wasn’t wearing nightclothes underneath, just cream-coloured pants. It didn’t look like a sleeping position; her body sprawled like that with her arms up around her head and her face buried between two pillows. Quinn crept backwards out of the room – he didn’t want her to know he’d seen her without clothes on.

Maybe this afternoon she would get up. She would get dressed and come downstairs. She would make herself coffee and then he could unwrap his presents and she could pretend this wasn’t one of her bad days, just a bad morning. Maybe she’d even take him to Primrose Hill with his bike, if she worked up to it this afternoon.

Quinn had asked for the Lego Millennium Falcon for his birthday. If she could just give him his present now, he wouldn’t even mind so much about her having a bad day. She didn’t need to take him anywhere; it wasn’t like he expected a party. If he could just start building the Falcon, he would be happy for hours.

Ten minutes later and there was still no sound from her room.

‘Mummy?’ he said, quietly. ‘Mummy, are you awake?’ he tried again.

‘Not now, Quinn,’ her voice sounded like a dying bird. ‘Today’s not a good day.’

Quinn carefully pulled the door to; it didn’t lie straight on its hinges any more and you had to lift it to make it close. The door had been slammed so many times – maybe the hinges had grown tired, like Mummy.

Quinn looked across the landing at his mother’s bathroom. He didn’t like going in there. The white tiled floor had never been white again; that much blood seeping into the floor had turned the grouting grey. Daddy got them to take out the whole floor. Then he redid the guest bathroom too, so that the new tiles would match.

Quinn didn’t remember all the details – he’d been six. His memories of that day felt like a trailer for a film, flashed images and sounds branded onto his young brain. He remembered being woken by the screaming downstairs. First he thought it must be the television, but then it went on and on. He saw the blood before he saw his mother. She was on the floor in a pool of it, sitting against the toilet, clutching her balloon stomach. The screaming had stopped; she was so white, she could hardly speak. She told him to find her phone. Quinn didn’t remember getting the phone or calling for an ambulance.

He remembered thinking the bath must have overflowed, but he didn’t know why the water was red. He remembered thinking he’d never seen his mother look so scared. He remembered waiting outside a hospital room the next day with his father. Daddy kept clicking the strap on his Rolex watch open and shut. He smelt of smoke and dirty washing. Then Daddy went in to see her and Quinn was told to wait outside. Mummy cried and screamed at him for not being at home.