Renée Knight - Disclaimer

I have started gardening again: pulling up the weeds, sweeping the leaves into piles ready to burn. The neighbours have complained about the smell. I’m not considerate they say. They’ve had their washing out, but I’m afraid their complaints encourage rather than deter me. I like fires. I like the smell of the smoke on my clothes and in my hair. I relished throwing the photographs onto the fire; took pleasure in witnessing their destruction. The yellow envelope with Kodak on the front turned brown then black and I imagined the negatives inside, shrivelling into nothing. I had looked through them one more time just in case I had missed Jonathan caught on camera. Perhaps his reflection in a mirror or his shadow on the wall, but he wasn’t there. I will burn my son’s belongings next. There is nothing I wish to keep. I have already started chopping wood to rebuild the fire.

Yesterday I took the laptop to Geoff. A present, I said. He was surprised but I told him that I had my eye on a new one. A lie of course.

“How’s the new book coming on?” he asked.

“Oh, I abandoned it,” I said but gave him a cheery wave so he wouldn’t worry. Today I am off to see the ladies in the charity shop.

“I found a few more things,” I say, opening up a carrier bag containing Nancy’s evening bag, knitted hat, and cardigan. I’ve practically worn the cardigan to death. There are holes under each arm and the top button is missing. I decline their offer of coffee and watch them peer into the bag, reluctant to touch its contents. I wonder whether the cardigan will outlive me after all, or whether those nice ladies will put it out of its misery.

When I get home someone is leaving a message with Nancy. I haven’t been able to bring myself to erase her voice. The message confirms an appointment. It is for a week’s time. Time enough for me to finish what I need to do. I sit down at my desk and take out a pen and paper.

Catherine is shedding layers too. She has told work that she is not coming back. She cannot face it — for the moment at least, it seems pointless to her. She has given up on her therapist too, not bothering to return after that second session, but perhaps she will try again with someone else. She probably should.

She glances over at her mother. They sit in twin armchairs, side by side: Catherine in the one her mother used to sit in before her father died, her mother in Dad’s chair. They are watching some antique jamboree, jolly, carefree, warm TV, both with a cup of tea in their hands. The doorbell rings and Catherine answers. It’s Nick. He said he might pop over and see Granny, but Catherine hadn’t been sure he meant it. The fact that he did, and is standing there, makes her heart leap.

“Mum, Nick’s here,” she calls, and her mother struggles out of her chair and totters over to her grandson.

“Hello, darling,” she says and reaches up to kiss his cheek. “Are you all better now?”

“Yes, Gran, I’m fine,” he says, but he isn’t of course. He is depressed. He is lonely. He is a drug addict. He needs help. But Granny helps a little. She has always adored Nick and Catherine watches her take his hand and hold it between hers, fuelling him with her clean love. He relaxes a little and sits down in Catherine’s chair, taking a handful of sweets from a bowl on the coffee table.

Catherine goes to fill the kettle, hovering on the threshold between kitchen and sitting room while she waits for it to boil. She studies the back of her mother and son’s heads, how they move constantly — her mother’s from the tremor which afflicts her now and Nick’s from his manic chewing of sweets. Perhaps she and Nick should have therapy together? But she dismisses the thought as soon as she has it: he is already seeing someone as part of his rehab and she doesn’t want to interfere with his progress. She tops up the teapot and takes it in, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against Nick’s chair.

“Do you want to sit here?” he asks.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she says, patting his leg.

She wonders how different it would be for Nick if she and Robert had had more children — if he’d had a younger sister or brother to deflect some of the scrutiny. She was an only child and a very happy one — that had always been her argument to Robert whenever he tiptoed into the arena of whether they should have more children. Nick had almost had a brother, or perhaps it was a sister, she will never know.

Catherine was pregnant when she came back from Spain. She didn’t know it at the time. Her periods were pretty irregular so she left it for just over a month before she did a pregnancy test. She had been back at work for a week and went out in her lunch hour to buy a kit from Boots, then she locked herself in the toilet. Of course she knew it was a possibility but she had convinced herself the test would be negative. She deserved one bit of fucking luck, didn’t she? Evidently not, because there it was. A baby inside her. She put the loo seat down and sat for a while, gently rocking back and forth, thinking. It could be Robert’s baby. They had had sex during the holiday. Just once. Despite the effort he’d made with her underwear, it was still just the once. But maybe a baby might help. A baby might be the distraction she needed. Not work but a baby. But whose baby? What if it looked like him? What if it had dark hair and dark eyes? She didn’t cry and she didn’t make a decision right then. She needed more time. She unlocked the cubicle and dropped the test in the bin then stood and looked at herself in the mirror.

“Good news I hope.”

She jumped. She hadn’t noticed anyone else come in. A colleague was standing next to her, smiling.

“Your meeting with Tony. Did you get the commission?”

“Oh yes — yes — well, he seemed to like the idea anyway — said he’ll let me know tomorrow.” She smiled and grabbed some paper towel, giving her hands a cursory wipe then dropping the paper in the bin, making sure the pregnancy test was buried. She felt slightly mad, the way she could pretend so easily — make people believe what she wanted them to believe. She’d had no idea she was so good at it.

The more she thought about having another baby, the more she realised it was an impossibility. So she booked herself into a clinic and told Robert she was going to her friend in the country for the weekend. But she didn’t leave London. It was like a sleepover with a bunch of girls in a boarding school. A few of them had come from Ireland. All of them were relieved when it was over — and they sat up in their pyjamas, eating biscuits and drinking tea and joking with a nurse who came in to discuss contraception with them. To make sure that there wouldn’t be any more unwanted pregnancies. And she joined in. It was nice to be with these women, be part of their gallows humour. She didn’t tell them about the rape — she didn’t want to spoil the mood, but she wondered if she was the only one. She was tired and pale when she got back home on Sunday evening. It was only then it hit her. It had been a pretty ghastly weekend she’d said to Robert.

“ Be with you by 7. ” She reads the text from Robert then texts back: “ Great, see you then. ”

He is coming to pick them all up and take them out to supper. She looks at the time. It is a quarter to six.

“Mum? Do you want me to help you do your hair before we go out? I could wash and dry it for you.”

“Yes please, darling,” her mother says as she pushes herself out of her chair. “Your mum is good to me,” she says to Nick as she makes her way to the bathroom.

“You will come with us, won’t you?” Catherine whispers to Nick.

“Well…,” he sighs.