Haven't They Grown(5)

‘Home,’ she says, holding her phone half an inch away from her ear. ‘I’m at home.’

I tried to push it away but it’s back again: the strong sense that what I’m seeing isn’t an ordinary conversation. There’s something wrong.

A short silence follows. Then she says, ‘Hey, Chimp.’ She stops, raises her voice slightly and says, ‘Hey, Chimpyyy!’

Strange. The words don’t match the expression on her face at all. She looks upset and worried, not in relaxed greeting mode.

Is she talking to a new person now? Did the person she told she was ready put a child on the phone? It must be a child, surely. Who else would allow themselves to be called Chimpy? Her change of tone, too, from normal to deliberate, slower, louder …

Suddenly, she turns away and stretches out her arm, holding her phone as far away from herself as possible. Then, a few seconds later, she brings it back to her ear and wipes her eyes with her other hand.

She started to cry and didn’t want Chimpy to hear.

‘Peterborough,’ she says in a more normal tone of voice. ‘Lucky. I’m very lucky.’

Tears have filled my eyes. I can’t blink. They’d spill over and then I’d be officially crying, which would be insane. This woman has been no part of my life for twelve years. Why should I care that something about this phone conversation has upset her?

‘Yes. Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’ I watch as she puts her phone back in her bag. For a few seconds she stands still, looking tired and defeated, relieved that the conversation is over.

She opens the back door of the Range Rover, sticks her head in and says, ‘We’re he-ere!’ The deliberate jolly tone is unconvincing. Then she stands back. Nothing happens.

No surprises there. When the destination they’ve arrived at is their own home, teenagers don’t get out of the car unless nagged extensively. If you’re dropping them at a friend’s house, it’s a different story.

I hear Flora sigh. ‘Thomas! Emily!’ she says in a sing-song voice. ‘Come on, out you get!’

‘Why are you speaking to them like they’re still toddlers?’ I mutter. ‘No wonder they’re ignoring you.’

Even when her kids were little, Flora’s speaking-to-babies-and-children tone annoyed me. Thanks to her, I made sure I always addressed Zannah and Ben as if they were proper people.

Flora stands back as if someone’s about to get out of the car. ‘That’s it!’ she says encouragingly.

Quit it, woman, unless you want them to run off and join a cult. They ought to be able to get out of a car without a pep talk from their mother.

A small, bright blue rucksack tumbles from the car to the ground. I see a leg emerge, then a boy.

A very young boy.

What the hell?

‘Come on, Emily,’ says Flora. ‘Thomas, pick up your bag.’

A little girl rolls out of the car. She picks up the blue bag and hands it to the boy.

‘Oh, well done, Emily,’ says Flora. ‘That’s kind. Say thank you, Thomas.’

This cannot be happening.

I touch the skin of my face with my right hand. Both feel equally cold. All of me feels frozen apart from my heart, which beats in my ears like something trapped in a tunnel.

I lean back in my seat, close my eyes for a few seconds, then open them and look again.

Nothing has changed. The little girl turns and, for a second, looks straight at me.

It’s her. That T-shirt with the fluffy sheep on it … Le petit mouton.

The girl I’m looking at is Emily Braid, except she’s not fifteen, as she should be – as she must be and is, unless the world has stopped making sense altogether.

This is the Emily Braid I knew twelve years ago, when she was three years old. And Thomas … I can’t see all of his face, but I can see enough to know that he’s still five years old, as he was when I last saw him in 2007.

I have to get out of here. I can’t look any more. Everything is wrong.

My fingers fumble for the car keys. I press them hard, then realise I’m pressing the wrong thing. It’s the button on the dashboard, not the keys. I’m waiting for the engine to start and it won’t because I’m not doing it right, because all I can think about is Thomas and Emily Braid.

Why are they – how can they be – still three and five? Why are they no older than they were twelve years ago?

Why haven’t they grown?





2


Several hours later, walking back through my front door and closing it against the world feels like an achievement.

I made it. Me and Ben, safely home. How I was able to concentrate on driving properly, I’ve no idea. I probably shouldn’t have risked it.

I lean against the wall in the hall, shut my eyes and let the sound of Ben telling Dominic about the match wash over me. His voice broke a few months ago, and we’re still getting used to this new deeper one. His music teacher described him as a ‘bass’ the other day, and it gave me a strange, dislocated feeling. My sweet little boy, a bass – the lowest and most booming kind of male voice there is. How did that happen?

How do I tell Dominic, or anyone, what I saw on Wyddial Lane?

I want to be in the lounge, in a comfortable chair with my feet up, so that I can think about what to do. This seems an impossible goal. I can’t imagine getting to that chair, even though the lounge is only a few feet away. Nothing makes sense any more, so I might as well stay here in the hall, looking at the clumps of mud from Ben’s football boots that I’m going to need to pick up at some point.