Sophie Hannah: The Wrong Mother

The madwoman’s husband. Nick is laid-back about day-to-day life, but I’ve never met anyone more black and white about anything that qualifies as an important issue. He wouldn’t understand at all if I told him, and who could blame him?

I say quietly, ‘I don’t think that’s the husband, is it?’ Impartial, uninvolved.

‘Of course it’s the husband. Who do you think he is, the milkman?’

As Nick speaks, another caption appears, black letters on a strip of blue that cuts the weeping man with the long nose and heavy-lidded eyes in half. My mouth opens as I read the words: ‘Mark Bretherick, husband of Geraldine and father of Lucy’.

Except that he isn’t. He can’t be. I know, because I spent a week with Mark Bretherick last year. How many can there be in Spilling, with wives called Geraldine and daughters called Lucy?

‘Where do they live?’ I ask Nick in a stretched voice. ‘You said you knew the house.’

‘Corn Mill House-you know, that massive dobber mansion near Spilling Velvets. I cycle past it all the time.’

I feel faint, as if every drop of blood in my body has rushed to my head and filled it, pushed out all the air.

I remember the story, almost word for word. I have a good memory for words, and names. It didn’t even used to be a corn mill. There was a corn mill nearby, and the people who owned it before us were pretentious gits, basically. And Geraldine loves the name. She won’t let me get rid of it, and believe me, I’ve tried.

Who said that to me?

I spent a week with Mark Bretherick last year, and the man I’m looking at is not him.

Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

Case Ref: VN87

OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 1 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

18 April 2006, 10.45 p.m.

I don’t know whose fault it is, but my daughter now believes in monsters. They are never mentioned in our house, so she must have picked it up at school, like God (about whom she’d heard so little at home that for the first few months she called him Gart-Mark found this hilarious) and her obsession with the colour pink. Education, even the fraudulent (sorry, creative) Montessori variety that we pay through the nose for, is no more than a process of brainwashing-it does the opposite of train children to think for themselves. Anyway, Lucy’s terrified of monsters now, and insists on sleeping with a night light on and her bedroom door open.

The first I knew of it was when I put her to bed yesterday at eight thirty, turned the light out as I always do and closed the door. I felt the usual sweeping relief all through my body (I don’t think I could explain to anyone how important it is to me to be able to close that door) and I punched the air in triumph as I often do, though never if Mark is watching. I don’t mean to do it, but my arm moves before my brain has time to stop it. I feel as if I’ve escaped from prison-all my dread disappears; even the certainty that it will return tomorrow can’t stifle my joy. When Lucy goes to bed, my life and home are my own again and I can be myself, free, doing whatever I want to do without fear, thinking about whatever I want to think about for a few precious hours.

Until yesterday, that is. I closed the door, punched the air, but before I was able to take more than a couple of steps towards freedom, I heard a loud wailing noise. Her. I froze, trying to close my ears from the inside. But I wasn’t mistaken, it wasn’t a cat outside or a car coming up the lane, or bell-ringers at the church across the fields (though it’s bliss when this happens the other way round: you hear a faint whine or some other high-pitched noise that you’re certain is your child wanting attention, more attention, and then-oh, thank you, Gart!-it turns out to be only a car alarm, and you’re saved). But I wasn’t, because the source of the awful whining noises was my daughter.

I have a rule that I’ve made for myself, and that I stick to come what may: whatever I feel inside, however I feel like behaving towards Lucy, I do the opposite. So when she cried after I’d closed her door, I went back into her room, stroked her hair and said, ‘What’s the matter, love?’ because what I really wanted to do was drag her out of her bed and shake her until her teeth fell out.

There must be parents who are so strict and terrifying that their children make sure never to annoy or inconvenience them. Those are the people I both envy and loathe. They must be cruel, vicious, intimidating ogres, and yet-lucky them-their children tiptoe round them trying not to be noticed. Whereas my daughter’s not at all frightened of me, which is why she screamed after I closed her door, even though she was absolutely fine: bathed, fed, kissed, hugged, the blessed recipient of at least three bedtime stories.

I need her not to be around in the evenings. Evenings! Anyone would think I meant from six until midnight or something extravagant like that. But no, I settle for a mere two and a half hours between eight thirty and eleven. I am physically unable to stay up any later than that, because every minute of my day is so exhausting. I run around like a slave on speed, a fake smile plastered to my face, saying things I don’t mean, never getting to eat, enthusing wildly over works of art that deserve to be chopped up and chucked in the bin. That’s my typical day-lucky me. That’s why the hours between half past eight and eleven must be inviolable, otherwise I will lose my sanity.

When Lucy told me she was scared of monsters getting her in the dark, I explained as reasonably and kindly as I could that there was no such thing as a monster. I kissed her again, closed the door again, and waited on the landing. The screams got louder. I did nothing, just listened for ten minutes or so. I did this partly for Lucy’s sake-I knew there was a danger ( never underestimate the danger or something awful might happen) of my smashing her head against the wall because I was so furious with her for taking up ten extra minutes, minutes that were mine, not hers. I cannot spare her any time apart from what I already give her, not even a second. I don’t care if that sounds bad-it’s the truth. It’s important to tell the truth, isn’t it, if only to yourself?

When I was certain I had my rage under control, I went back into her room and reassured her, again, that monsters weren’t real. But, I said-ever the understanding, reasonable mummy-I would leave the landing light on. I closed the door, and this time I got halfway downstairs before she started screaming again. I went back up and asked her what was wrong. The room was still too dark, she said. She insisted that I leave the landing light on and her door open.

‘Lucy,’ I said in my best authoritative-but-kind voice, ‘you sleep with your door closed. Okay, love? You always have. If you want, I’ll open the curtains a bit so that some light comes in from outside.’

‘But it’ll get dark outside soon!’ she screamed. By this point she had worked herself up into hysterics. Her face was snot-streaked and red. My palms and the skin between my fingers started to itch, and I had to press my hands together to stop myself from punching her.

‘Even when it’s dark, some light will come in, I promise. Your eyes’ll adjust, and then the sky won’t look quite so black.’ How do you explain to a child the grey illumination of the night sky? Mark’s the intellectual in our family, the one worth listening to. (What does Mummy know about anything of any importance? Mummy has sold her soul. She contributes nothing worthwhile to society. That’s what Daddy thinks.)

‘I want my door open!’ Lucy howled. ‘Open! Open!’