Lifesaver Read online

  ‘Perfect place for a four year old’s birthday party, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Nooo, Auntie Anna, it isn’t,’ said Crystal, appalled. ‘Mummy, don’t make me have my party here. I want to go home!’

  ‘I’m only joking, darling, don’t worry. I’m sure Mummy will stick with the bouncy castle and the Polly Mixtures the clown, won’t you, Vic?’

  Relieved, Crystal turned her attention to picking a scab on her elbow.‘Where’s the party, Mummy?’

  Vicky pointed towards a sign saying Kiddies Korner in flashing neon. ‘Over here, I think…on’t pick it, Crystal, or it won’t heal.’

  We weaved around a cluster of slot machines, over the casino-patterned carpet and up a short flight of steps, where the noise changed. The clamour of the machines faded to a mercifully dull roar, but it was supplemented by the sugar -fuelled screams of six children’s birthday parties all taking place simultaneously, each in its own truncated bowling lane. Score monitors above each lane blared out more noise, and over the top of it all some distorted but thumping pop was hovering, like toxic emissions.

  Crystal stood uncertainly in her party dress, clutching her gift for the birthday girl. The raw pinkness of the skin under her picked-off scab made my throat hurt, it looked so vulnerable.

  ‘At least it’s not bleeding all down her party dress,’ said Vicky, catching my gaze. ‘Look, Crystal, there’s Lottie!’

  Lottie was a sturdy child with pierced ears. She was wearing crimson nail polish, high wedge heels, an armful of sponged-on tattoos, and pink lipstick.

  ‘Happy birthday, Lottie,’ said Vicky as Crystal handed over the gift. Lottie snatched it without a word and dumped it on the pile of other presents under a bench, before marching back to the top of the bowling lane, elbowing Crystal out of the way.

  ‘She’s the only four year old with cellulite that I’ve ever seen,’ Vicky whispered to me.

  ‘I’m sure Lottie will love your present,’ she said, bending down to comfort Crystal. ‘She’s just over-excited.’

  ‘I still want to go home,’ said Crystal mournfully.

  After the inauspicious start, though, things eventually improved. Crystal watched the other children roll bowling balls down metal ramps into the lane, and after a few minutes she allowed me to lead her over to them and show her how to do it. We scored a strike immediately, which cheered her up no end, so I left her there, happily joining the back of the queue for her next triumph.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ called Vicky, giving her the thumbs-up.

  ‘Bowling’s good fun, really, isn’t it?’ I commented. ‘Pity about the racket though.’

  ‘And the…pond-life,’ added Vicky snobbishly.

  We were sitting on a wobbly bench at the side of the lane, watching the children all become noticeably more hyperactive as they slurped lemonade from huge paper cups brought over and distributed by Lottie’s mother. I couldn’t bear to see Crystal drink that crap, but I knew I shouldn’t say anything to Vicky. I couldn’t, however, manage to prevent myself from muttering, ‘I wish they at least had a choice about what to drink.’

  Vicky glared at me. It was an old bone of contention, and I didn’t really blame her. I knew I got on my high horse about Crystal’s diet, and I did appreciate how difficult it was to get a small child to eat broccoli and not Jaffa cakes, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Anna, it’s supposed to be a treat. It’s a party - it’s practically inevitable that Crystal will get hopped up on additives. Anyway, I bet if there was a choice, it would only be between Coke, Diet Coke or 7-Up. They don’t do organic elderflower cordial in these sorts of places.’

  Well, they should, I thought, just about managing to button my lip. I wished it had occurred to me to bring a bottle of mineral water.

  Vicky changed the subject. ‘So how’s things? All set for your audition? I’m so envious.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said, although I wasn’t thinking about the audition. I was thinking about the letter from Adam Ferris, tucked in the inside pocket of my handbag. I looked at Vicky, at her familiar, tired but pretty face. Part of me really wanted to tell her—I had a thrilled fearful excitement in my stomach, like the butterflies on Holly’s frieze—but another, bigger, part made me keep quiet. Maybe I’d tell her later, once I’d decided what to do. Some things were too big to tell; at least until you’d got them sorted out in your own head first. That was how I felt about Max.

  ‘Don’t be jealous. I’m sure I won’t get it.’ Now it was my turn to change the subject. ‘How’s my little Pat?’ I took a long slug of Crystal’s lemonade, thinking that the more of it I drank, the less it would be able to poison Crystal.

  Vicky sighed. ‘He’s hideously clingy at the moment. I can’t put him down. When I left him next door before you came round, he screamed so loudly I thought the windows were going to blow out.’

  For a minute I thought she was about to cry, but when I reached a tentative hand over to squeeze her knee, she moved her leg away, so I withdrew it again.

  I thought about Pat, thirteen months old and utterly adorable. If he were mine, I wouldn’t care how clingy he was. The clingier the better…ow wonderful, to be that loved. I couldn’t say that to Vicky, though.

  We sat in silence for a while, watching as Lottie lugged a large ball to the top of the metal chute and shoved it down. When it knocked down six of the pins, Lottie did a little Indian war dance of delight, her bottom wobbling. She ran around and hugged all the nearby children, a podgy Beckham who’d scored a goal for England. I turned to remark on this to Vicky, but her face had that closed-down expression on it again.

  ‘Oh look, what fresh hell is this?’ I said instead, as the children’s food arrived.

  The party tea consisted of plastic baskets of brown, hard, cold chips and some breaded bullet-shaped sticks of indeterminate origin. I hadn’t been expecting a nice fresh green salad or anything, but you’d have thought they could run to a slice of cucumber or two, or a few carrot sticks…although perhaps that was being too optimistic. The kids probably wouldn’t have touched anything that healthy with a bargepole. We got up to help the other parents distribute it.

  ‘What do you suppose that is?’ I asked, pointing at one of the unappetizing sticks with distaste.

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied Vicky. ‘It looks like something my cat would produce.’

  We were joined by another of the mothers, an attractive, slim woman with wavy blonde hair and an ankle bracelet. ‘I think it’s supposed to be a chicken nugget. Although I wouldn’t swear to it. I’m Diana, by the way, Susie’s mum—that’s her over there with the stripy dress. Whose mother are you?’ She addressed the question to me, but Vicky butted in.

  ‘Crystal’s; there, the one without bowling shoes on. They didn’t have any tens left, so the boy said she could wear her sandals—just as well, really, since she hasn’t got any socks on. I didn’t like to think of her feet in those strange shoes, I’m sure she’d have got blisters from them.’

  I made myself snap back to attention, becoming aware that the plastic basket in my hand was at a perilous slant.

  ‘And who knows what else, too. I’m glad Susie’s wearing socks.’ The woman turned back to me. ‘So, whose mother are you?’ she repeated.

  There was a pause. Vicky’s eyes met mine, then dropped away.

  ‘I’m Crystal’s godmother,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m just here to provide moral support. Is there a bar in here? I’m gagging for a gin and tonic.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Soft drinks only, as far as I can see.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘This place is a nightmare. All this noise, and no booze? It’s a shame, isn’t it—bowling is such a fun thing to do.’

  Clearly relieved that the crisis seemed to have been averted, Vicky joined in. ‘Yeah—you know, someone should open a middle-class bowling alley. No slot machines. Chilled Sauvignon and canapés.’

  Susie laughed. ‘Classical music piped in instead of this Euro-disco nightmare
stuff.’

  ‘Velvet sofas to wait on in between turns.’

  ‘Members only, and you have to be proposed and seconded…’

  ‘Elderflower cordial for the kids—organic, of course.’

  I caught Vicky’s teasing expression. I supposed I’d asked for it, with my earlier criticism about the lemonade, but all of a sudden I found I couldn’t keep up the banter. The depression which I usually managed to keep in check in public rose up like a swirling tide, threatening to cut me off. ‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I said, walking away. I knocked a discarded basket of chips to the floor and although I picked up the basket, I didn’t bother to collect up the dropped chips.

  The Ladies’ was back through the amusement arcade and out the other side, next to those machines where you dropped ten pences in and tried to shove the existing ones off a ledge. It never worked; the ledge of money just got thicker and thicker and more and more teetering, from what I remembered of youthful seaside forays into arcades. Pressure, building up and up—that was how I felt most days. Getting closer and closer to the edge but stopping just short of it. For the moment. It was ten months since Holly died, but it still felt like yesterday.

  When I got into the Ladies’ I just stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection in the artificial light. Everything was artificial here, I thought. The light, the lemonade, the food. My ability to act normally.

  The door opened and Vicky came in, bringing a blast of slot-machine noise with her. She joined me at the basins.

  ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘Not entirely. I need a wee too.’

  ‘Where’s Crystal?’

  Vicky gave me another look. ‘That woman Diana’s keeping an eye on her. She’s fine. What’s wrong, Anna?’

  ‘Nothing. Honestly. Nothing new.’ It was true, I thought. I’d had some wonderful news. Why did I feel so mixed up about it? Besides, it was Vicky who, in my opinion, was keeping something from me. She was behaving more strangely than I was—sullen and seeming ill one minute, hyper and hearty the next.

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you ever need to talk.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I considered saying the same back to her but, with Vicky, there was no point. She’d tell me whatever it was when she was good and ready, and not before. I entertained a small selfish hope that she was thinking about leaving Peter.

  Vicky prodded the greyish puffy flesh beneath her eyes, looking despondently at her reflection under the harsh fluorescent light. ‘Look at the state of me. I look terrible. I’m so bloody tired, and this place has given me a headache.’

  It was true that Vicky wasn’t as attractive as she used to be, but everyone knew that once you had children you didn’t have so much time to spend on your appearance. Perhaps I could persuade her to get her roots done, I thought, and maybe have a massage too. That always helped. I wished she wouldn’t moan quite so continually about being tired, though. It wasn’t as if I got a lot of sleep either, unless I knocked back industrial amounts of tranquillizers first, but then I always felt muzzy and cross for hours the next day.

  ‘Why are you so tired? Pat’s not ill, is he?’

  ‘No, although he’s still got that cough. He woke me up four times last night, and then Crystal decided to get up at quarter past five. I keep telling her she has to stay in her room till seven, but she won’t. Then she wakes Pat up, and that’s it. I don’t know how they keep going all day—I’m shattered by noon.’

  I still didn’t really understand. Surely sleep was something to which you acclimatised; trained your body? If six hours was the regular allocation instead of nine, so what? You got used to it. As far as I was concerned, it would be such a small price to pay for two beautiful children.

  I would never moan, if it was me. Those perfect little bodies could jump into my bed at whatever time of night they wanted. I’d never turf them out, never. The memory of the small hot arms twined around my neck, that time I had Crystal for a sleepover, were forever imprinted on my consciousness. Her small clumsy pats on my face had been like the best kind of gift.

  I kept offering to have Crystal again—Pat, too, if Vicky and Peter wanted to go and have a night in a hotel somewhere. I’d have been happy to have them both, even with Pat’s clingyness and Crystal’s present obstreperousness. But Vicky kept putting me off. In fact, we’d almost had words about it—Vicky grumbled that Crystal didn’t want to sleep in her own bed anymore, and couldn’t understand why Mummy and Daddy didn’t let her sleep with them, like Auntie Anna had.

  ‘Does Peter still never get up with the kids in the night?’ I asked, knowing the answer.

  Vicky snorted. ‘Um…et me think…o. Well, occasionally at weekends. But you know, being a carpenter’s a pretty stressful job…’ She turned and went into a cubicle.

  ‘You should ask him to help a bit more. Maybe just on alternate nights. You’ve got to do something, if you feel this wretched.’

  The sound of Vicky sighing floated over the top of the cubicle door, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing. ‘I’m sure it’ll get better eventually,’ she said, emerging wearily. ‘In about sixteen years’ time.’

  I took out my make-up bag and reapplied my lipstick. I knew it wasn’t very charitable of me, but sometimes I couldn’t shake the thought that, apart from on the subject of Peter, Vicky was making a fuss about nothing: her kids were healthy and gorgeous. What else could she possibly ask for? Even if she looked a bit jaded, she didn’t have any stretchmarks or cellulite, and her stomach was flatter than mine.

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Vicky, shouting over the noise of the hand-dryer. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friend, once more.’

  By the time we finally left UltraBowl, Vicky wasn’t the only one with a headache. She and Crystal were having a heated contretemps—Crystal had spotted a kids’ indoor adventure playground in the corner of the arcade and demanded to go in it; and the ensuing din on top of everything else was making my brain throb against the sides of my skull.

  ‘Over my dead body’, Vicky muttered to me. ‘God knows what kinds of viruses are lurking in that ball pit.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘No, darling, we’ve got to go and pick Pat up from next door. He’ll be missing us by now!’

  In the end we had to carry Crystal, screaming and expostulating, to the car, where she proceeded to bang her cheek on the car door. Vicky tried to placate her with the slice of thickly-iced but leaden birthday cake that UltraBowl provided in their party bags, and, although I didn’t realize it, I must have had a disapproving expression on my face because she scowled at me again, turning into an older, paler, facsimile of Crystal.

  ‘Ah-ah-ah-auntie Anna?’ sobbed Crystal, spraying cake crumbs around the car. ‘Sit in the back with me? My cheek hurts so much!’

  ‘No darling, grown-ups sit in the front,’ Vicky began, but I was already climbing over Pat’s empty baby seat, squeezing myself in the gap in the middle of the back seat, and cuddling Crystal. I found it so hard to say no to her.

  I heard Vicky tut to herself, and felt a little guilty—it was true that Crystal was already the most monumental hypochondriac, and I supposed that me making a huge fuss of her might make her worse. Heaven forbid Crystal ever got anything seriously wrong with her—she’d probably go into a total decline. As it was, she harped on about the most minuscule of scratches, insisting that they necessitated the application of cream and glow-in-the-dark plasters. Crystal would have sold her soul for a Band Aid.

  I’d started to administer homeopathic remedies to her at the first sign of any symptoms - sore throat; bumped head; ‘strummock hake’ (as she called it when she was younger) - and although Vicky said that she didn’t mind, I’d noticed that she didn’t show any inclination to use them on the kids herself. I extracted the bottle of Arnica tablets from my handbag.

  ‘Ooh, yummy,’ said Crystal. ‘Medicine! Can I have lots, Auntie Anna, because my cheek really, really hurts.’

  ‘No, just two tablets. Stick out your tongue fo
r me.’

  Vicky turned the key in the ignition, but it took three attempts before the elderly Escort would start. ‘We desperately need a new car,’ she muttered.

  ‘Mummy, new cars are very very expensive,’ Crystal said, through pursed lips.

  ‘What are you now, the finance director?’ Vicky snapped, as she drove slowly over the speedbumps outside the bowling alley.

  Crystal drew herself up to her full height on her booster seat and spoke as if she were trying to explain something very simple to someone very stupid: ‘Mummy. I’m half fairy. How could I possibly be a finance director?’

  It was the first time Vicky had smiled all day; but her face immediately settled back into stern lines again and I sensed conflict

  ‘Anna,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Going back to the arnica: it’s not that I disapprove of homoeopathy, you know that I don’t; but those pills taste sweet, and it does kind of reinforce her belief that if she makes a fuss about her bumps and ailments, she’ll get lots of attention. She’s started asking for them when there’s nothing wrong—even by her standards…

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling slighted. I put the arnica back in my bag. ‘Only trying to help’.

  ‘Can I have some more medicine?’ asked Crystal.

  Vicky indicated left off the roundabout, leaving the industrial estate which was the proud home of UltraBowl. Her mobile rang just as we were about to turn onto the main road, so she pulled over and switched the engine off again.

  ‘Shall I get that for you?’ I asked from the back seat, already delving into Vicky’s cavernous shoulder bag, rummaging around amid packets of babywipes, two pacifiers, a spare pair of Crystal’s flowery knickers and Vicky’s make-up bag to try and locate the small silver phone. I managed to pass it to her just before it went over to voicemail.

  ‘Hi!’ said Vicky into the phone, suddenly animated again. ‘How’s it going?’