just me and Mum for two years. And then she met Andy. It can’t have been easy for him, taking on someone else’s child – especially one on the cusp of puberty – but he took it all in his stride. He gave me space when I needed it, he played board games with me when I was fed up and let me walk his cocker spaniel Jessie when we all went out. He told me knock knock jokes that were so rubbish they made me laugh and he tried, and failed, to introduce me to sci-fi. He was kind, funny and awkward and I couldn’t help but warm to him. When he asked me if I would mind if he asked my mum to marry him I burst into tears. If he married Mum that would make us a family and he’d be my dad. There wasn’t anything I wanted more.
‘Dad’s asleep,’ Mum says now as she steps back into the living room and lowers herself into an armchair. ‘I’ll need your help turning him in a bit if that’s OK. The carer’s due this afternoon but I don’t want to leave him that long. He’ll get bedsores.’
‘Of course.’
‘CBeebies,’ Elise says, pointing at the blank television in the corner of the room.
Mum moves to get up but I tell her that I’ll do it. I settle Elise on the other side of the sofa with Effie and, as the Mr Tumble theme tune fills the room, I take the seat nearest to Mum.
‘How is he?’ I ask, keeping my voice low so Elise can’t hear. ‘How’s Dad?’
Mum twists the gold band on the third finger of her left hand. ‘He’s not good, Joanne. The consultant has him on Riluzole but it’s making him very tired. And he’s got a mask now, to help with his breathing. There’s been talk of a feeding tube but he won’t have it.’
Dad hasn’t been able to talk for at least a year but he lets you know if he disagrees with something. I saw the look in his eyes and the way his face twisted when Dr Valentine gently suggested that he might want to consider hospice care. Mum was vociferous in her response to the idea, her soft voice unusually loud as though she was literally speaking for both of them. No hospitals and no hospices. Dad wants to die at home. The disease has robbed him of so much – of his freedom, his voice, his body, his dignity – but deciding how and where he dies is his last vestige of control.
‘Oh, Mum.’ I reach for her hand but she’s too far away and my fingers graze the soft wool of her cardigan instead. ‘I wish we were closer. I wish there was more I could do. I hate it, being so far away. I feel so guilty.’
‘No.’ She sits up a little straighter in her seat. ‘Don’t you be saying things like that. You have your own life, Joanne. A house, a job, a husband and a babby. She needs to be your priority, not us.’
‘But what if we moved closer? I hate the idea of you coping all alone. I know you’ve got the carer but—’
‘I’ve Elaine Fairchild next door. And my friends from the church. I’m being looked after. Don’t you worry.’
But no family. No brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews. I know Mum still keeps in touch with her sisters Sinead and Celeste and her brother Carey – I’ve seen the Christmas cards on the mantelpiece – but she’s too proud to ask for help. She’s independent and strong-willed. She had to be, upping and leaving her friends and family and starting a new life with me as a single mum in England, a country she’d never even visited before.
‘I’m serious, Mum. I’ve been looking at jobs. There’s one here at the university. I could do it standing on my head. There are loads of good nurseries nearby and I’ve seen a lovely little bungalow in Malpas. We’d be just down the road.’
She gives me a sideways look. ‘And what does Max think of this plan?’
I glance at Elise, sucking her thumb and staring intently at Grandad Tumble. ‘I haven’t talked to him about it yet.’
‘Jo …’ Mum narrows her eyes. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’
I want to explain how much I’ve been struggling and how the move could help me as well as her and Dad. I thought that life would get better after Elise was born. I thought that, as soon as I held her warm, wriggling body in my arms, all the hurt and pain of losing Henry in the second trimester of my pregnancy would lessen. I thought my breath would stop catching in my throat, that the panic in my chest every time I left the house would subside. That the terrible, all-encompassing dread that something awful was just about to happen would disappear. But it didn’t. It got worse. We had lost Henry and I was terrified that we’d lose Elise too. I couldn’t sleep because I was convinced that she’d stop breathing the moment I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t let her out of my sight for fear that someone would snatch her. For months I refused to let Max take her out of the house in her pram because I was certain that, if he did, I’d never see either of them again. I had several panic attacks – once after Max went back to work and I tried to go to a local mother-and-baby group in the church hall, another time in the pharmacy when I went to buy Calpol for Elise – but I kept trying, I kept working out in front of the TV, I kept doing my mindfulness exercises. I refused to let it beat me. And then two months ago Mum told me that the consultant had given Dad less than three months to live and the walls began closing in on me again.
When I started thinking about jobs and houses in Cheshire I never truly believed that it could happen. How could I ever move to a different part of the country when I couldn’t even go to Tesco alone? It was wishful thinking. A pipe dream. But when Paula got into my car yesterday and threatened my daughter, something changed. I didn’t turn to jelly. I didn’t faint or cry or curl up in a ball. I told her to get out and I went in search of my little girl. Elise’s safety and well-being are more important to me than anything else. I know it’s not right, the way she’s living now, cooped up in the house with me, and I want to change that. I want her life to be an adventure and not a prison.
‘I’m not happy, Mum,’ I say. ‘Max and me … it’s not been good for a while and it’s been getting worse. I want a divorce.’
‘A divorce. Are you quite, quite sure? Perhaps couples counselling might help? Or your local priest?’
My heart sinks as she continues to offer suggestions. Elise is totally, blissfully oblivious to what’s going on. Her whole world is going to fall apart over the next few weeks and months and it’s up to me to protect her as best I can. I can only hope that Max will agree to an amicable separation but, deep down, I know that’s not going to happen. Despite his threats to leave in the past, he would never abandon me and Elise. He’s an only child and both of his parents are dead – we’re all he’s got. When I tell him that I want to move to Chester with Elise he’s going to be devastated.
Chester? CHESTER? Max stalks from room to room, his hands balled into fists and tucked under his armpits. Jo’s been planning a move to Chester and she didn’t think to mention it to him? He’d logged on to her laptop while his was updating and discovered that she’d left three tabs open in Firefox – one for a student-support job at the University of Chester, one for Rightmove and one for a primary school in Malpas. Was that the real reason she’d gone up to Chester? To go to an interview or attend a viewing before she visited her parents? He nearly called her yesterday, when he found the laptop, then changed his mind. This is a conversation they need to have face-to-face. He’s been quietly seething for nearly 48 hours.
He glances at his watch as he moves from the master bedroom to Elise’s room. 5.17 p.m. Jo texted him earlier to say they’d be home around fiveish.
He squats down to pick up some building blocks and a fluffy bear that have been abandoned in the middle of the room and transfers them to a pink plastic toy bucket beside his daughter’s cot. He pulls the curtains closed and straightens Elise’s duvet. Then, with nothing else to occupy himself, he sits on the floor beside her cot. He runs a hand over the multi-coloured Peppa Pig duvet cover then reaches for a book from the shelves set into the alcove: Snug as a Bug, his daughter’s favourite