Joanne Sefton - The Mother’s Lies

‘Daddydaddy‌daddydaddy‌daddydaddy‌daddydaddy.’

‘Feet down , please, Barney.’

He ignored her and the volume of the children’s joyous duet surged ever upward. Darren didn’t disappoint, miming his excitement through the double glazing whilst studiously failing to meet Helen’s eye.

Of course, she had no choice but to let him come in. After as few terse words as she could manage, Helen left the living room and let the three of them get on with it.

She went to the spare room first, but that immediately felt wrong, so instead she crept upstairs and into the womblike snugness of her childhood bedroom. She sat in the corner of the single bed, leaning against the wall, with Barney’s precious blanket tucked between her knees, straining to listen and to keep the tears from falling.

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

*

Helen studied the lilac, swirly wallpaper she’d picked out when she was fourteen, trying to match up the ghostly, faded squares with the posters and pages ripped from magazines that had once decorated her walls. Michael J. Fox over there, later replaced by John Squire. George Michael, replaced by John Squire. She pictured the various incarnations, trying to switch off her brain.

Eventually she heard his footsteps on the stairs. He’d lasted about forty-five minutes, which was more time than he’d spent alone with Barney and Alys together in as long as she could remember, not counting soft play. He opened the door without knocking and walked into the room. She stayed hunched up on the bed, looking over his shoulder instead of directly at him, but still catching the look of mild pity as he gazed down at her.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing turning up here?’ she asked.

It wasn’t brilliant, but she was proud that she had managed to spit it out, past the lump in her throat and the decades of conditioned politeness. Darren didn’t answer immediately, probably weighing up his options.

‘They’re my kids. I had to see them, Helen. I didn’t have any choice.’

‘Well now you’ve seen them.’

She was going to add ‘fuck off’, but in the end it seemed too crude, too teenage. The pair of them fell into silence. Then Darren dropped down to a sitting position, closing the door to lean his back against it and laying his long legs out across the only stretch of carpet in the tiny room where they fitted. He should know. Years ago, he used to play guitar sitting like that for hours, while she was revising or reading or just watching him. Hard to believe it was the same person.

‘My mum said Barbara’s going in today, that the op’s tomorrow?’

‘I’d like you to leave.’

He bit his lip and then put a finger to it. For a moment, she sensed he was about to slam his hand against something, but he seemed to hold himself back.

‘I miss you, Helen.’

She said nothing.

‘I know I chose this, I know it’s my fault. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. We grew up together, didn’t we? No one knows me like you do, and I know what you’re going through as much as anyone can. I’m sorry about it, Hels, I really am.’

‘Are you asking to come back?’

Now it was Darren’s turn for silence. He wriggled an index finger into the pile of the carpet and stared at the holes he was making.

‘We’ve been through all this,’ he whispered. ‘You know it’s not been right for ages. This is better for both of us.’ But then he rushed on, whip-quick, as if to head off any disagreement from her. ‘But the point is I can help you. And I want to. For the kids. And for us, for everything we were. You’ve got to let me, Hels.’

She shouldn’t have agreed, she thought later.

In truth, she didn’t agree. She didn’t say anything. But her silence was acquiescence enough.

She let him bring her a cup of tea and put the kids in front of a film. She let him sit on the single bed next to her, the weight and the smell of him on the homely sheets just as intoxicating and incongruous as it had been twenty-odd years earlier. She poured out the details of surgery and staging, metastasis and Macmillan nurses. She even told him about the green notes. He seemed perfectly happy with Barbara’s explanation about the teenage shoplifter. ‘There are some fucked-up weirdos in this world, Hels.’ He laughed. ‘That’s one thing you learn running a dating business.’

The words had come out of her like a dam burst, but Darren caught every last drop, and mopped them up and dealt with them like he mopped the tears from her cheeks. She didn’t even need to tell him where to find the tissues. Was it just a performance for her benefit? To persuade her to let him see more of the kids, or to soften her up for whatever he and Lauren were planning next? She felt she ought to be more cynical, but she was too exhausted and wrung out to do anything but accept the sympathy on offer.

Her friends were far away and had their own worries. They’d all drifted apart since they started having families – literally as well as metaphorically, as they had moved out in different directions to various London suburbs. She missed the gossip and the laughter, but Darren had always been her emotional anchor. In her twenties, she’d provided the shoulder to cry on as her friends went through dating disasters and relationship break-ups. Now, finally, she was the one in need and the only confidant she’d ever needed was the one whose betrayal was ripping her to shreds.

Eventually, after a snack with the kids and about four cups of tea, and after he’d taken off his socks because he always preferred bare feet, and after Helen had finished one box of Kleenex and, shamefully, got him to refill the screen wash on her car, he said he should go.

They agreed he’d have the kids on Thursday, assuming Barbara’s operation the day before had gone okay, and take them somewhere for the day. Both Barney and Alys had been very forbearing whilst their parents sat alone upstairs and that pricked at her – between her and Darren they were turning them into diplomats. On the doorstep, Darren paused awkwardly and she let him falter, but he turned away without a kiss, or a handshake, or any touch at all. She thought about the way they’d been in the bedroom and wondered if different rules applied there. Barney and Alys waved the Astra off quite happily, without asking any questions.

‘Was it nice to see Daddy?’ she asked.

They both nodded and ‘yes-yessed’ enthusiastically.

‘Daddy smelt happy,’ said Barney, quietly.

‘Really? What do you mean?’

But he just shrugged and tried to grab a piece of jigsaw from Alys’s hand.

It killed her that even Barney could see Darren was happier now. Happier having abandoned his family. Happier without her. Happier with carefree, bright-eyed, not-yet-thirty Lauren.

*

Neil went back to the hospital at seven the next morning. It was Wednesday already; tomorrow they’d have been away from home for a week and she had no idea when they’d be going back. She tried to occupy herself with washing the kids’ clothes and making a list of extras she should pick up for them from the supermarket, whilst waiting for news from the hospital. Neil sent a text when Barbara was going into theatre and then one when she came out; another when she’d started to come round from the anaesthetic and another when they’d let him in to see her in the recovery room. It had all gone ‘by the book’ he said, though Helen guessed those were Mr Eklund’s words, or someone else at the hospital. They’d get the first proper update on what they had found on the Thursday ward round, by which point it was expected that Barbara would be well enough to take it in.

It was early evening by the time Neil was able to report that Barbara was back on the ward. They’d planned for him to come home then, but when it came to it, he didn’t want to leave her alone. Eventually, Helen persuaded him that he should drive back around the kids’ bedtime and that she would go in and sit with Barbara through the night. When he came back and she saw him in the flesh, she was glad she’d insisted. He looked wearier than she remembered ever seeing him. The day had clearly taken everything he had to give.