Page 60 of The First Time I Saw You
‘I can’t find them!’ My hand begins flicking the sticks around the steering wheel, one of them activating the radio, which begins blaring out Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’. I finally find the wipers and they begin swiping the mud away at a furious pace. ‘Move the cane, Da!’
‘I can’t! Mikey is stuck!’
‘Oooh, whoooo, whoooo, whooooo! Ahh! Ahhh!’ Bonnie sings.
‘Michael!’ The car continues to bounce, the low gear screeching alongside Bonnie’s questions about where all the good men have gone.
‘Ah, Michael Caine! Ha! I get it, Sammy.’ Da seems oblivious to the way I’m gripping the wheel.
He pulls the cane away as I slam on the brakes. The adrenaline is pumping through my body, making me breathe in short gasps while my heart hammers inside my chest. I sit still for a moment and stare ahead where Timmy has stopped his quad bike, the image of him encircled in darkness as he revs the engine at me. He adjusts his helmet and sticks up his middle finger at us.
‘That little—’ I say.
‘Buckle up, Michael,’ Da says as I slip the gear stick into first, take my foot off the brake and begin hurtling after Timmy from down the street with Da shouting, ‘That’s it, my boy! Show him not to mess with an angry blind McLaughlin driving a car!’
Timmy drives his quad bike around in a semi-circle as I come hurtling after him; he tears off towards the summit of the field and dips down beneath the horizon. We bump and creak our way after him, the mound of the hill coming into my view before we hurtle over its peak and career downwards where Timmy is flying off ahead, giving lewd hand gestures over his shoulder. We gain on him, my fingers gripping the wheel, my head leaning as close to the windshield as I can get it. We begin to catch him up, but the front of the car suddenly dips, and we find ourselves trapped in the clutches of a hidden ditch, the back wheels spinning and the car remaining stationary. Timmy zooms away, flies past us and gives us a wanker sign as he does.
Da, Michael and I sit speechless until we burst out laughing, the type of laughter that crunches your stomach muscles and takes away your breath. Da claps me on the shoulder.
‘That’s one of your bucket list ticked off, eh, Sammy?’ He smiles at me and I see tears in his eyes; I’m not sure if it’s from the laughter or because of what is happening to me.
In all this time, I hadn’t really thought about what it was like for my parents to see me losing my sight; how difficult it would be for them to watch their son lose the world in front of us. Our laughter peters out as a thought hits me out of the blue; I will never see the face of my children. I will never get to hold my baby in my arms and look at its features and say it has my nose or my eyes. That’s even if I have kids. Who would want to take this burden on when they could find a person who is able to look into their face and tell them how beautiful they are?
Sophie is better off without me.
Week Twenty-Five
Sophie
I have thrown myself into my new business, trying to hide Charlie’s words in between the neat rows and columns of numbers, but they refuse to be hidden, peeking out at me when the total doesn’t match the receipts. His words cling to the backs of my eyelids when I try to sleep, they lie on my tongue when I try to eat, they reverberate around Bean’s cocoon, and I wish I could grab them with my hands and hide them away.
The image of my hand slapping his face refuses to go. I can’t remember any thought process before my hand left my side; it was just instinctive. The Book says mood swings are normal; it is normal to act out of character, everything feels heightened and this is all down to my hormones. I worry that my mood swings may not go once Bean comes. I’m hanging on to this excuse: it’s my hormones; it’s not learnt behaviour; I won’t become a result of the things I saw as a child.
My hands grasp the coffee cup and my feet are tucked up beneath me as I stare at the TV. The curtains are drawn, and my half-eaten dinner is congealing on a plate on the floor.
I don’t think I have ever felt so alone.
My mother’s voice resonates inside me: ‘You can never be alone in this house.’ She had said this while she was polishing the cheap memorabilia that were scattered around the room, shuffling picture frames on the window sill, picking up small ornaments that she had bought on various day trips. ‘This house is full of memories and each one is a reminder that you are not alone.’She smiled at me as she ran the cloth over the old teak sideboard which doubled as a makeshift bar at Christmas, picking up a snow globe with a Welsh dragon trapped inside. ‘Do you remember the day we got this?’I can hear her voice as if she was still in this room.
My hand slides away from the coffee cup and I wipe away a stray tear.‘It was that horrid day out to Llandudno when you were four . . . do you remember? It had rained all day, so we ended up in that little gift shop. You started crying when you saw the dragon, because he was facing the wrong way and couldn’t see what was going on around him.’
I answer her, even though my words are falling on silent walls and empty chairs. ‘You said if we took it home, he could watch us for the rest of his life. You said that, Mum, but do you know what I used to think?’ I rub my face. ‘I used to think that it would have been better off staying in the shop than watching the things he did to you.’
My new sideboard sits against the wall, the edges of the wood leaning further out than the rest of the oak, in the shape of a fat ‘T’; all that is on it is the blue frame that Charlie gave me and Bean’s scan picture sitting neatly inside. What things could I display on it? What story would my possessions tell? I put the coffee cup down and walk towards it, sliding my hands along the smooth surface. What would I cover this with? Nothing from the London house meant anything to me. I trace my finger around the frame and across Bean’s picture.
‘That’s what we’ll do, Bean, we’ll put our favourite things on here, only the good things in life. Nothing bad.’ I open one of the drawers and pull out a pack of Post-it notes and a pen. I write on the first one my happiest memory so far: seeing Bean at my twelve-week scan. I write it down and then stick it on top. I write on the next one: the day I kicked Samuel in the ankle. I smile and stick that below the first one. I feel Charlie’s words start to lose their sting as I replace them with good memories; good things in my life.
My back aches as I look at the sideboard, which is now covered with the things that make me happy: Helen and Greg’s home; the way Caitlin drags her snowman teddy around with her everywhere she goes; this house that I’ve made my own . . . and Samuel. There are lots and lots of happy memories with Samuel: the way he walks, almost as if he might trip himself over at any minute, the look in his eyes as he proposed that I stay in Washington, the awkward way he had asked me to stay at the end of the week. Once I start to write these memories down, I can’t stop. His smell, his accent, the scar inside his hand, how he had been dancing the day I had watched through his window . . . the sideboard is covered with my memories of him.
Mum was right. I don’t feel alone any more, but she has shown me more than that: she has shown me that my head is filled with Samuel; that I am happiest with Samuel.
‘Shall we call Your Dad, Bean?’ I ask quietly, daring myself to speak the words out loud. I rub my stomach tentatively. ‘I wonder what he will think of you.’
I glance up at the giant clock-face that counts down the days to Bean’s arrival. It is the middle of the night in DC. I’ll call him tomorrow . . . and this time I know I won’t hang up.
Samuel’s mobile is now out of order, as is his home phone. I swallow down my irritation. If I had let the phone connect those few weeks ago, I would be closer to finding him now. I google the Greenlight number and hear the dialling tone connect as I swallow down my nerves and take a few deep breaths. Bean is kicking me impatiently. I picture the reception desk; I picture the doors that I had walked through: a confident businesswoman in killer heels. I rotate my foot, an old flip-flop dangling from my swollen foot.
‘Greenlight Finance, how may I help?’
