‘Christ, Katie, there’s boxes and paper everywhere! Could you not have flattened them as you went along, or put them out in the garage? I can barely move in this hallway.’ He kicked an empty box to make his point. It knocked against a small table, sending the telephone tumbling to the floor.
‘For goodness sake, Simon!’ I bent to pick up the phone and put it back in its base unit. ‘I’ve been busy all day unpacking. Kitchen’s done, so are the bedrooms.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. If we can just get these boxes out of the way so we can move around the house…’
‘Feel free. I’m knackered, and am doing nothing more tonight.’ I glared at him, daring him to suggest I do it now. ‘And why are you so late home anyway? I was hoping you’d get back a bit earlier today, so you could help. It’s gone eight, already.’
‘I had a five o’clock meeting. And it’s still an hour on the train, plus twenty minutes either side. What’s for dinner?’
‘We had lasagne and chips. There’s some lasagne left, I could microwave it for you.’
‘Reheated pasta – yuk. After my long day in the office.’
‘Either that or a sandwich. Which you can make yourself.’ I turned on my heel and went upstairs before he could see the tears in my eyes. I was just tired, I knew. But why had he agreed to work late on the first day in our new house?
‘Why’s Dad cross?’ asked Lewis as I got to the top of the stairs.
‘He’s tired. So am I. And it’s your bed time.’
‘All right, sorry, Mum. I was just coming down to tell you Thomas is crying.’
I’d spent an hour reading him stories and cuddling him to sleep earlier, so this wasn’t welcome news. I sighed and went in to him.
‘What’s up, sweetheart?’ I said, crouching down on the floor beside his makeshift bed.
‘Lewis is being too noisy. I can’t sleep.’
I kissed his forehead. ‘I’ll tell him to be quiet. He’s coming to bed now anyway.’
‘And I can’t find White Ted.’
I could sympathise with that. My laptop and folders were still unaccounted for. White Ted was probably in the still-sealed box of cuddly toys in a corner of Thomas’s room, but I really didn’t feel up to rummaging through it right now. But if I didn’t, who would?
‘I’ll find him. You snuggle down now and I’ll be back with him soon.’ My knees groaned as I stood up and crossed the landing to Thomas’s room. Ripping open the box I up-ended it in the middle of the floor. It could be sorted out tomorrow. Thankfully White Ted turned up among the assorted cuddlies, and I picked him up gratefully.
Simon appeared at the doorway. ‘Sheesh, is that the way you unpack? No wonder the house is such a tip.’ He grinned – it was clearly meant to be a joke, but I wasn’t in the mood. I glared at him.
‘Aw, love, let’s not argue. Sorry I was narky when I came in,’ he said, crossing the room to give me a hug. I leaned against him for a moment, enjoying the comfort but not quite wanting to forgive him yet, then went to give White Ted to Thomas.
On Saturday, after homework and an exploratory walk with me around the village, the children spent the afternoon reorganising and playing in their rooms while I did some housework. Simon had gone to visit his mother in the Southbourne nursing home where she now lived.
‘How was your Mum?’ I asked Simon when he returned home in the early evening.
He sighed, and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. Recognising the signs of a tough day, I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Pinot Grigio I’d put in there to chill, ready for this moment. I poured him a generous glass. The kids were happily snuggled up in the sitting room, watching a Disney DVD.
‘Thanks, love.’ He took a swig, then sat, glass held in both hands, staring at a spot on the table. I waited. It had been six months since I last saw Veronica, and if I was being honest, I’d say I wouldn’t mind if I never saw her again. We hadn’t taken the children to see her for nearly a year. It’s not that we didn’t love her – it’s just that visiting her had become so stressful and upsetting for all involved.
‘Mum was, I guess, worse than last time.’ Simon took another gulp of his wine. I sat down beside him, ready to listen, if he wanted to talk about it. He didn’t always.
‘Did she know you?’
‘Sort of. She thought I was Dad. Funnily enough, that’s easier than when she thinks I’m a complete stranger. At least I can talk to her then, without her calling the nursing staff to get me ejected from her room.’
I rubbed his shoulder in sympathy, but he shrugged my hand away.
‘She talked about her younger days. When she’d first met Dad, and they played at the same tennis club. How he’d asked to walk her home, and she’d said yes, then led him the long way round so as to spend more time in his company.’ Simon smiled. ‘Luckily I knew that story – it was one they always told – so I was able to chip in at the right moments. We had a bit of a laugh about it.’
‘Well, that was nice, at least.’ God, it must be so hard. Simon lost his father to cancer twelve years ago, and now he was losing his mother to dementia. All that was left of her was these occasional snippets of old memories, washed up like flotsam. We’d had to move her into a nursing home eighteen months earlier, when she’d stopped letting her carers into her home, thinking they’d come to rob her. A year ago she stopped recognising me and the children. Five months ago she didn’t know who Simon was, and he’d come home that day and sobbed on my shoulder like a little boy.
He still visited her every fortnight, making the long drive down to the Dorset coast, spending ten minutes or three hours with her depending on whether his presence upset her or not. We’d explained her illness to the older children, who’d taken it in their stride, the way children do. Little Thomas didn’t even remember her when we showed him a photo of himself as a baby, sitting on her lap. Simon had pressed his lips together and turned his face away. The idea that our youngest would grow up knowing only one set of grandparents pained him, I knew.
He refilled his wine glass, took a sip, then a deep breath, and looked at me. ‘She also talked about how she’d never been able to have children, how she and Dad decided on adoption. And about the day they collected me from the children’s home. She still thought I was Dad, and went through the whole story, saying do you remember, Peter? do you remember? And of course I do remember it, but from an entirely different point of view.’
‘But you’ve heard her talk about that day before, love,’ I said.
‘Yes, but on those occasions she knew I was there. Today she thought I was Dad, and was talking as though I, Simon, her adopted son, wasn’t present.’
I scanned Simon’s face for clues as to what she’d said, how he’d taken it. He looked drawn, the way he always looks after visiting Veronica. But was he more upset by her stories this time? Had she said something distressing? Before she was ill she’d always talked about that day with warmth and affection. The chubby blond four-year-old running full pelt into the hallway of the children’s home in pursuit of the resident cat, and stopping abruptly when he saw her and Peter standing there in their coats and hats. His formal greeting, parroting what he’d been taught: Good afternoon, Mr and Mrs Smiff. His shy smile when Veronica told him he could now call her Mummy, and Peter, Daddy. The wondrous moment when he first slid his warm, sticky hand into hers, as they led him outside to their car and his new life.
‘What did she say that was different?’ I asked, as gently as if he was still that shy little four-year-old.
‘She spoke about her fears that it wouldn’t work out, that I might change their relationship and not for the better, that despite all the visits they’d had with me before