Page 23 of The First Time I Saw You
‘Samuel.’
‘Hot Irish Samuel?’
‘Hot Irish Samuel.’ I give a little shrug of my shoulders as though it was a foregone conclusion that it wouldn’t be anyone other than him.
‘I thought you were on the pill?’
‘I am, but I had a sickness bug the week before I went over to DC. It’s not like I was thinking much about contraception then. There hasn’t been anyone since Samuel.’
‘Are you together? Again?’ She looks up at me hopefully.
‘No.’
‘Why not? You said that you were going to sort everything out, tell him about why you couldn’t stay together until that deal was sorted.’
‘Because he thinks I stole his idea.’ I blow my nose again noisily and wipe away the tears before taking a sip of tea – grimacing because there is too much milk in it.
‘But if you explain—’
‘I did, but then—’ I look up at the ceiling and try to control the watering of my eyes. I take a deep breath. ‘He’s the one who got me fired. Slept with me then, well, got his own back, I suppose. I don’t blame him really.’ Helen’s eyebrows shoot up into an angry triangle. ‘Don’t look at me like that, try to see it from his point of view. He thinks I stole his idea and then took over the company that he was going to turn around, took it over with – from his point of view – his own idea.’
‘Did you explain that to him, before you, you know?’
‘Of course I did, but, well, it seems that he didn’t believe me. I understand why he would do it. He’s hurt and betrayed. Don’t forget I buggered off and didn’t tell him anything.’
‘I told you! I told you to ring him and apologise.’ She purses her lips and crosses her arms.
‘Again, Helen, really? I told you so? Bigger picture, Helen, bigger picture.’ I reach into my bag again and let my fingers run along the edge of the cardboard frame. ‘Speaking of which . . . do you want to see it?’ Her face lights up and she claps her hands as I pass the picture with a shy smile. ‘It’s apparently the size of a baked bean.’
‘Bean . . .’ she smiles at the picture, ‘nice to meet you.’
Week Six
Samuel
SPRING
Week Seven
Sophie
As I lie in Jessica’s bed, covered in pink cartoon ponies, I listen to the sounds of Helen’s house: the hum of the central heating, the click and hum of the fridge below and the gentle snores of Caitlin lying opposite. I look up at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling and place my hand on top of my stomach. Can I do this? Can I have this baby, this Bean? I turn on to my side; the bed creaks and springs twang in resistance to my adult weight. My eyes close and I breathe in the smell of fabric softener mixed with something else, something sweet, something which is alien to me.
I replay the last time I saw him. I think about the way he looked at me and I feel his betrayal cutting deeper than it did before, because now I have Bean. Do I want a man who can do that? Sleep with someone, make them believe that they were loved, only to betray them the next day? I meant what I said: I do understand why he would do it and, as crazy as it sounds, I could forgive him for it, but now . . . now there is Bean and I can feel that forgiveness – that understanding – slipping through my fingers.
The night is spent drifting in and out of sleep, like all the nights over the past week. At half past three I creep downstairs, pausing next to Caitlin for a moment, watching the rise and fall of her chest; the way her cheeks are slightly flushed and how her chubby hand remains gripped around her snowman doll even though the rest of her body is relaxed. She looks so vulnerable and precious that the realisation of Bean becomes ever more threatening. I leave the room quickly, trying to discard this terror that feels heavy and brittle, but it does not stay in the room with the sleeping child. This terror follows me into the kitchen. It won’t be quietened, but becomes louder, irrepressible; it spreads its thorns into hidden places and panic fills me. I wander quietly into the lounge and pull the cord on the lamp, filling the room with a sepia hue.
The room is mismatched. Pieces of odd furniture are marked with fading felt-tip pens; toy boxes line the edges with dead-eyed Barbies making a bid for escape. The book shelf is filled with dog-eared stories of rabbits and tigers, pirates and princesses; among them I spot a few familiars, a few glimpses of the Helen I grew up with, but they are few. The real Helen has become suffocated, smothered and pushed back, retreating behind the urgent needs of these garish books. My stomach cramps, a reminder that Bean is here and with me . . . is this what it will do? Will it suffocate me? Turn me into something, someone I’m not?
I wander over to the fireplace and pick up one of the photos of me, Mum and Helen; it can’t be long after she’d moved in with us. We are standing in the garden; the wind is blowing my hair and I remember that it had smelt of candyfloss . . . Mum had been trying to make fudge and the sugar had burnt so we had to go outside because of the smoke. He had taken this picture. I close my eyes and prod the memory until it hurts: the smell; the sound of the sea in the background and her laughter. Grief hits me like a wave; I let it crash over my head, let it fill my ears and my lungs until I can’t breathe. I collapse on to the floor and cry, for the injustice of what happened to my mother and for the injustice of what is happening to me. Like glue, the memories ooze through me, thick and profuse.
I was fifteen when she died. When he took her from us. My life was torn apart, but not in the way that Helen’s was. The community tried to support us, especially when the journalists started hounding us, trying to get an insight into the mind of a killer. The guilt Helen felt almost ruined her. She had always been a good girl, always dotted her ‘i’s and crossed her ‘t’s’; she couldn’t cope with the shame. She thought people were looking at her, pointing the finger; she lost her friends, she left university, she lost everything except me. Even now, Helen is always wary of strangers, always suspecting that they may be after her story.
We left Wales, we left the house that eventually became mine once I turned eighteen and we started again. To everyone other than Greg, she is just Helen Yates; they have no idea who her father was.
‘Aunty Sophin?’ I’m pulled back from the memories. I try to quickly compose myself as Caitlin stands by the door frame. Beneath sleepy lids, her wide blue eyes look tired; the battered and bruised snowman dangling from her hand. ‘Why you cryin’, Aunty Sophin? Did you fall over and have a bump?’
I nod as I try to silence the aftershocks of my tears which are still shaking my body. She scampers towards me, chucks the snowman to the floor and cocks her head to one side. ‘What is broken?’ she asks with her hands on her hips.
