Cath Staincliffe: Half the World Away

This morning I listened to the first jets taking off every few minutes from the airport, growls climbing to a roar, then fading. I’m still bereft. Lori going seems to fuel the grief I’ve been coping with since my mother died in June. The two things are muddled up.

The alarm went at seven, and Nick got the boys up while I made their packed lunches. The news about chemical weapons being used in Syria made my mood seem like an indulgence. Then came breakfast. No matter how well prepared I try to be, there is always a sense of impending chaos at breakfast time. Finn or Isaac will be missing some crucial item of clothing, their book bag or PE kit. There is a disaster with the food, one of them finishing the milk before the other has any, a cup of juice ruining a precious drawing (usually Finn’s juice and Isaac’s drawing). There is a squabble about toys. Or a sudden inability to reach the toilet in time. Things can get messy so I dress after breakfast, then chivvy the boys into footwear and coats, then herd them out of the door. Benji tries to come with us – he always tries it on even though he knows that Nick will take him for a turn around the park before going into work. And the boys and I will walk him again after school.

Finn is seven, Isaac two years younger and they both have places at the primary school where I work. It’s a C of E school attached to a parish church, which wouldn’t have been my choice (we’re not religious) if I hadn’t worked there. But sending them to another local school would’ve made all the taking and collecting so much more complicated. And, to be fair, I like the school: the head-teacher, Grace, puts her life and soul into it. She’s a good manager and most of the staff respect her. I’ve been secretary there since Lori was eight when I gave up child-minding. She was already at a secular school and I didn’t like to move her so we managed the hour before and after the school day when I was still at work with a patchwork of arrangements. I relied on other parents, the after-school club, child-minders, my mum and, when I ran out of all other options, Tom. These days, the pressures on parents seem even greater and our school, like many others, has a breakfast club as well as the after-school club where Finn and Isaac go.

Having Lori so young – I was twenty – put paid to any travel plans back then. While friends of mine were discovering Goa and Machu Picchu, I was by turns bewildered, exhausted and exhilarated in the world of nappies, baby sick and sleep deprivation.

I discovered I was pregnant partway through my second year but I was determined to complete my degree on time. It seemed important to prove to the world that I could do it all. And I did. Just. It was horrendous.

Now the phone is ringing with notices of absence, the mail is arriving and I’ve a tray full of work to get going on and a backlog of emails to deal with. It helps being busy: the demands of routine drive a juggernaut through any inclination to dwell on Lori leaving.

In the staffroom at break people ask me if Lori got off all right – everyone has been sharing in the build-up to her trip. We’re a close team and I know the problems other people are dealing with. Henry’s father has dementia – he’s become restless and agitated and hostile; Zoë had a miscarriage last term; Pam is going through a really acrimonious divorce; and Sunita has just been diagnosed with diabetes. It puts things in perspective.

As we walk back from school Finn holds my hand, swinging his arm to and fro and singing. He loves to sing but he makes an awful racket.

Isaac runs ahead and back, like Benji, a sheepdog driving his charges. He stops to examine anything of interest, a sock in the gutter, conkers, a worm stranded on the paving. He always finds something to bring home for his special box (currently the one that our microwave came in). Today it is a throwaway lighter. I check it doesn’t work and is empty of fuel before letting him keep it.

Even though we have Benji, Isaac is scared of dogs. As we near what he calls the Dog House, he runs back and takes my free hand. The yappy terrier there barks furiously on cue and Isaac flinches, his fingers tightening around mine.

‘Wait at the lights,’ I remind him, once we leave the danger zone and he lets go. He zigzags along the pavement, holding the lighter out as if it’s a lightsaber or a remote control or a magic wand, muttering something I can’t catch. He’s slight and dark-haired, skinny like Lori, pale like me. Both he and Finn have inherited Nick’s deep blue eyes with those flecks of gold. I never tire of staring at them. Mind you, with the lads that depends on them sitting still long enough, which is especially rare for Finn.

We collect Benji and head straight back out. Stopping for a snack invariably descends into a rerun of the morning’s mission to leave the house intact – things unravel so quickly – so I leave the boys in the drive and fetch the dog and his ball.

Finn throws the ball over and over, not necessarily in the direction he intends it to go but that doesn’t matter to Benji. We stop at the playground and tie Benji up at the railings while the boys mess about on the slide and swings. Isaac wants to go on the stepping stones but he isn’t quite brave enough to leap from one wooden block to the next so he jumps down onto the mulch between them, then clambers up again.

‘See the heron?’ I say. The bird is almost overhead, coming from the pond. Isaac looks up.

‘Hey, Finn,’ I call across. He’s on his back, on the roundabout, his feet dangling over the edge onto the ground, slowly walking it around. ‘See the heron?’

We watch it fly out of sight. ‘Time to go,’ I say.

‘It flies high,’ Finn says, as I’m untying Benji.

‘Yes.’

‘Like Lori in an airplane.’

‘Aeroplane. That’s right. And where’s Lori gone?’

‘Thailand.’

‘Why’s it called Thailand?’ says Isaac. ‘Do they all wear ties?’

‘No. Nice idea but it’s a different spelling, a different word.’

‘I made a card for her,’ Finn says, ‘with all of us on, me and Daddy and you and Isaac and Lori and Benji.’ He grasps my hand. ‘Did she like it?’

‘She will. She’ll open the case and there it will be. And there’s a picture from Isaac, too,’ I say.

Isaac is crouched at the edge of the path. ‘A feather.’ He holds it out to me. Black with a metallic glint in the light.

‘That’s lovely.’

Nick gets back later than usual, staying at the office to make up the hours he missed the day before. I’ll wait to eat with him, feed the boys first. While the pair of them watch television and Isaac draws herons and pterodactyls over and over again, I go up to strip Lori’s bed.

The carpet is littered with scraps of paper, items of clothing, spent matches and torn Rizla packets. Several dirty cups stand on her bedside table, with a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola and biscuit wrappers. I can smell the perfume she wears – Marc Jacobs’s Daisy that we got her for Christmas. The room is decorated in the deep green she chose a few years ago and one wall is a collage of photographs. Some of her own and others from magazines and websites. She’s built it up, sticking the pictures on with glue, and it now fills the whole wall. There’s never been any theme to it, as far as I know. It’s a mix of portraits, landscapes, nature photography and action scenes. I find it too busy, overwhelming the space, but it’s not my space. Not yet. If she moves out when she’s back from her travels then maybe we’ll redecorate. See what she wants to do with the photos. They’ll have to be stripped off the wall and they’ll likely be damaged in the process.

Finn and Isaac are happy with the bunk beds for now but eventually I think they’ll want their own rooms – at least, Isaac will. Before then it’ll be nice to have a guest room. But who knows what Lori will choose to do? Her plans extend only as far as Christmas when her travels end and it’ll be back to the harsh realities of job-hunting in a recession.