But he is not entirely honest, and the truth is hidden in the things he leaves unsaid.
LIZ
Saturday 20 January, 10 a.m.
Eight
I close my front door gently behind me and wait in the hall, savouring the moment.
I’ve never felt more grateful to be home.
The radiator hiccups heat. Nick thinks it’s mad, my obsession with keeping our house warm. Brought up in an Edwardian house, he sees draughts as inevitable. But if you’ve never taken being warm for granted, then you crave it. It’s one of our basic needs, followed by safety and security. Then comes love. Well, at least I had my brother Mattie for that.
I shrug off my coat and move through the hall towards the kitchen and Nick, who I met in my first year of university, and who, with his reassuringly ordinary background – two teacher parents who were kind to each other; one younger sister, who seemed to like me – made me realise I was lovable, after all.
We met at the university swimming pool, and grew close manning a student telephone counselling service. That sounds hideously earnest but even then there was this shared desire to help. It took a while for me to trust him: why did he want to be with me? Wouldn’t he prefer someone from a background more like his? And then we did a sponsored hike in the Yorkshire Dales, during which he saw me at my worst: exhausted, tetchy, vomiting – I had a stomach bug I didn’t want to admit to – and he still seemed to want me. I remember him holding me after I’d retched all night, and parting the hair from my face with such tenderness I finally listened to what he was telling me. I love you, he whispered in that dank, sodden tent, as he shielded me from the waterlogged canvas, and it was a revelation that someone not only desired me – there’d been a couple of boyfriends before – but wanted to be with me unconditionally. We’ve been together ever since.
I get that familiar but oh-so-welcome kick in the stomach as he smiles at me now.
‘OK night?’ He stops clearing the detritus of breakfast.
I shrug, unable to convey the array of emotions I’ve felt since contacting social services: a deep concern for Betsey, and guilt at what feels like a betrayal.
‘Bit shit?’ He puts the dirty plates down and holds me close. I sink into him, enveloped by his heft. Not that he’s heavy but his shoulders are wide and his six foot two frame reassuring. Encased, surrounded, I feel safe. I breathe in coffee and the wool of his jumper, the faint, male saltiness of his skin.
I kiss the dip above his clavicle and am surprised by a flicker of desire. I revised for a first-year anatomy paper by working my way down his body. Clavicular fossa: just a few of the terms are lodged in my brain. He nuzzles my neck. ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ I say, enjoying the warmth of his lips, and I run my hands down his back, reading his spine like Braille. Ordinary life is suspended for a moment. He whispers something suggestive and I laugh out loud. ‘Not very practical,’ I say, as I pull away. He gives me a look and I smile, rueful. But in truth I’m distracted not just by the thought of the children barging in but by my nagging anxiety about what’s happening to Betsey and Jess.
‘Jess came in with her baby,’ I say, filling the kettle. I speak blankly as if this will neutralise what happened. ‘She had a nasty bang to the back of her head.’
As a teacher, Nick knows what this might mean.
‘I had to call social services.’
‘You think one of them hurt her? Are you sure?’ Nick is far less cynical than me: has never had any reason to think the worst of a parent, though his work means he’s been exposed to the reality. Like me, he won’t want to think this of a friend.
I shrug. ‘Neil’s sure. And there are grounds for suspicion: Jess’s story was dodgy, her manner evasive, and there was a delay in bringing her in.’
‘And you think Jess did it? Or Ed? Christ . . .’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ The words rush from me like a sigh.
‘It’s just, if anything, Jess is overprotective, isn’t she? And cautious . . .’
‘Yes. Yes, she is.’
‘And gentle, and in control.’
‘That’s what I thought. I’d describe her as a loving parent. A good parent. I still want to think she is . . .’
‘Do you remember how calm she was when Rosa had her tantrums? How she’d give you a break and just sit beside her while she screamed it out?’
‘I know.’ I remember reading to Kit one wet afternoon while Jess sat patiently by a prostrate Rosa; and my sense of inadequacy as my daughter screamed, puce with indignation, and Jess waited for her to stop.
‘Ed as well,’ my husband goes on. ‘I mean I know he finds Frankie tricky but I’ve never seen him lose his rag – never seen him snap at the children, not really.’
A wave of weariness picks me up and drops me back down. It only takes a moment to harm a baby. Could one of our friends have momentarily acted on their frustration? I can’t articulate this thought.
‘I’m sorry – I need to get some sleep.’
‘Of course. You go up. I’ll take the kids out.’ He smiles and I see that he looks tired, too: there are flecks of grey dusting his sideburns and the spokes at the corners of his eyes have deepened, though his swimmer’s physique has barely changed since he was eighteen.
‘Try not to beat yourself up,’ he adds.
‘Mmmm.’
‘If you think there were grounds for it – well, your duty of care is to Betsey.’
‘I know, I know . . . Doesn’t make me feel any better about it, though.’
I put a herbal tea bag in a mug but Sam bowls in before I can fill it with boiling water.
‘Muuuuuuum!’
‘Careful!’ I put the kettle down as he barrels towards me and grabs me around the waist. ‘Gosh! You seem better!’
‘I’ve eaten loads!’ He clutches his flat stomach, a strip of flesh where his top rides up. He’s invariably hungry, my boy, and he’s often in motion, his centre of gravity close to the ground as he spins like a breakdancer. He reminds me so much of my brother at this age: the endless energy, the constant hunger, the reckless need to do things the second he thought of them: to live in the moment, whether it was clambering up walls, or jumping in at the deep end of the pool when he could barely swim. That early childhood willingness to chance things; to push the boundaries. A frisson of unease runs through me, and I pull my boy close.
‘Dad says I’m well enough to go to football,’ he says, looking up at me, and I smile down at his hopeful eyes, his unblemished, peachy skin.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I say as he breaks free and races upstairs. I listen to him thundering along the landing, making the wooden floorboards of our Victorian terrace creak.
‘Must remind him not to run,’ I mutter, but half-heartedly because I love his noise and vibrancy: the perfect antidote to working in paediatrics. Sometimes I look at my children and think: this is what childhood should be like. I feed off their energy, their fearlessness, reminding myself that this – rather than chronic illness, or acute injury, or abuse – is most children’s normality.
‘Sam-’ Nick calls up the stairs after him, though he tells the children not to do this. ‘Please don’t thud. The walls are shaking.’