Into the Night Sky Page 5

  She goes out to the living room and plonks down in front of Grey’s Anatomy on the TV. Every time she tries to forget, images of the children with skin the colour of caramel come into her head. She can’t forget those dark-brown, almost black, almond-shaped eyes peeping out at her. She can’t stop thinking about how sad and lost they looked in this world even though they had only been here for such a short time already.

  She finishes the first glass and welcomes the mellow fuzziness that descends upon her as she sits back into her sofa. When that is gone she finds herself filling her glass with the remaining wine. She might as well finish it now, she thinks.

  When Rachel gets up the next morning, her head is pounding. She had finished the open bottle and uncorked another one afterwards. There is a thumping pain behind the sockets of her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t have opened the second bottle. But even with all that wine, she didn’t sleep well at all, and the faces of the three children had haunted her dreams.

  She has such a full day ahead of her today. She needs to check on the children from yesterday and then she needs to source potential foster families for another case involving young children that has recently been assigned to her. She has made a few calls to families that she knows and has worked with before, but it’s proving to be difficult because there are five of them. She will try her best to keep them all together but she knows even before she has begun that it’s going to be next to impossible.

  Chapter 9

  The morning is quiet; it’s been quiet a lot lately. The bell over the door goes and he jumps up from the chair when he sees the door opening and the three boys back again. They are standing just inside his doorstep looking in at him, just waiting to get a reaction. His heart starts racing again.

  “Get out now and close the door after you!” he shouts at them.

  “Who’s going to make us?” says the oldest and they grin at him.

  “I am!”

  He walks over and, one by one, lifts each of them over the threshold of his door and onto the path outside before pulling the door closed. They stand outside and stare in at him through the glass, begging him to react.

  Suddenly he snaps. He opens the door. “Get away from my shop!” he roars. “Get away from my shop now!”

  They step backwards on to the path.

  “Go on – go – or I’m calling the Guards!”

  “It’s public property, mister – we’re just standing on the path.”

  He goes over again and shuts the door closed on them. How is he ever meant to get a customer through the door if this lot keep intimidating whatever few he has? The Guards never take him seriously – they keep telling him that “They’re only young fellas” and that they’ve bigger problems to be dealing with.

  It’s one of those days where he really misses Leni. Of course, he misses her every day but some days it seems to ache a lot more – it sears through his skin and cuts right down to the bone. He longs to be able to tell her about what is worrying him and to share the load with her. She always knew what he should do or what to say to him to help him stop worrying. She would say in her funny Irish-German accent “Cop yourself on, Conor” and then they would both laugh at that.

  He is about to turn from the door when he sees Ella’s black jeep pull up outside. She waves at him through the glass before climbing down and lifting Maisie’s car seat out from the back. The three boys move out of her way on the path.

  “What’s going on with them?” she asks as soon as she is inside the shop.

  “They’ve nothing better to do except cause trouble for me. They’ll be gone in a while. I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning?”

  “I wasn’t in the mood for going home and staring at the walls until it’s time to pick the girls up again.”

  He can see that she hasn’t brushed her hair – there is a halo of frizz around her head. “Want a cuppa?”

  “Yeah, go on then.”

  “Do you want a bun?”

  “No, I’m not really that hungry . . . ”

  He goes out the back and throws teabags into mugs while he is waiting for the kettle to boil. He carries them back out the front to where Ella is unzipping Maisie from her snowsuit.

  “Here, want a hold of your goddaughter?” She is holding her out to him.

  He takes her, pulls out one of the chairs from the reading nook and sits down with her. Ella uses her palms to lever herself up to sit on the counter and then clasps the mug of tea between her hands.

  A rosy-cheeked Maisie uses her two feet to push up against his lap.

  “She’s getting so big.”

  “She is.”

  A trail of dribble runs down the baby’s chin and lands on his jeans. He reaches for a tissue to wipe it up.

  “Is she teething?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” she sighs. “She has me awake all night anyway.”

  “The poor little thing.” He sticks his finger in her mouth and lets her chomp down on it.

  “Eh . . . where’s my sympathy?” she asks.

  “Aw, poor Ella!”

  She forces a laugh.

  Thud. The sound hits off the glass window of the shop front.

  “What the hell was that?” Ella asks. She looks towards the window as the thuds are repeated. There are large muddy circles appearing like waves on the glass. “Jesus, are they playing football against your glass?”

  “Yep.” He exhales heavily, walks over to the door and pulls it open. “Right, that’s it! Clear off right now or I’m calling the Guards!” he roars out at them.

  They ignore him and the thuds continue. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “Do they normally do this?” she asks when he comes back in.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. She watches the glass shake with each impact.

  He sighs. “They’re a nightmare lately – they’re constantly hanging around outside the shop. I know they’re just doing it to get a reaction from me. I should just try and ignore them . . . but it’s so hard when they’re destroying my livelihood.”

  “Shouldn’t they be at school or something?”

  He looks at her like she’s mad. “Never mind them – they’ll get bored in a while.”

  “Little shits!”

  “Look, they’re moving off already . . .”

  The boys take off down the street, bouncing their ball from one to the other.

  “So, anyway, forget about them,” Conor says. “How are you doing? How are you finding it all?”

  “Yeah, it’s okay – I’m trying to get used to it.” Slowly.

  She smiles at him from underneath the fringe that has grown so long he doesn’t know how she can stand having it hanging in her front of her eyes all the time.

  “So you’re all right?”

  “Yeah. Good and bad days.” Her voice wobbles. She doesn’t tell him that the bad days far outnumber the good, the guilt that is like a parasite constantly eating its way through her body. “I just don’t know what to do with myself, Conor. It’s such a shock not going out the door to work every day.”

  “It’s just a readjustment.”

  “Yeah.” She sighs heavily.

  “Have you tried speaking to someone?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, to a doctor or a therapist or someone . . . you still haven’t even addressed the issue of why you did it in the first place.”

  “Leave it, Conor,” she warns. She can’t look at him because she is afraid she won’t be able to hold it together.

  “Fine.” He sighs heavily and then shrugs in surrender. Every time he tries to bring it up with her that she is ignoring the bigger issue she grows defensive and he hasn’t pushed her on it.

  She looks out the window at the white van that has pulled up beside her jeep. “Shit, the clampers!”

  She hops down off the counter and runs outside the door.

  She manages to stop them just before they put the yellow clamp on her wheel. She puts money in the meter and comes back into th
e shop.

  “I keep telling you – you need to start paying for parking!” he says.

  “I forgot!”

  “You always forget.” He pauses. “Look, Ella, it’ll all blow over soon.” His tone is softer now.

  “Do you think? Because it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.” She puts her head in her hands. “I don’t think I can take much more of it, Conor.” Her voice is trembling.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he says, shocked by her admission. “You just have to ride it out. Come on, it’s all going to be okay – you’ve got to be strong, yeah?” He lifts Maisie up in his left arm and comes over to rub Ella’s shoulder with his free hand.

  “I’m trying,” she whispers. “I really am.”

  Chapter 10

  The microwave always gives three beeps when it is done. Conor opens the door and removes the cling film from the other half of last night’s shepherd’s pie. He takes the plate into the sitting room and flicks on the TV. He has a pile of paperwork beside him that he is supposed to be catching up on but he can’t bring himself to do it.

  He can’t wait for winter to be over and for spring to come again. He always finds the dark evenings hard when you can’t go anywhere or do anything. The evenings seem to stretch out endlessly when he is alone. He has been going to bed earlier and earlier to read, just to pass the time.

  He watches a documentary about life in the trenches in World War One and, when he looks up at the clock, it is nearly nine o’clock. Nine is a reasonable time to go to bed, he thinks. Any earlier would just be pathetic.

  It is just after nine o’clock when Ella finally has the three children in bed. Celeste has fallen asleep sitting up reading under the lamplight in her bedroom. Ella pulls up the blanket over her eldest daughter’s chest and switches off the light. Bone-tired, she lets her weight sink into the semicircle-shaped purple velvet sofa. She’d had it custom-designed to fit along the circular walls of the room but she can never get comfortable on it. She fixes the cushions behind her back and tucks her feet up underneath her. Sipping her chilled Sancerre, she watches a woman screaming at a man in EastEnders but it makes her uncomfortable so she changes over to a cookery show. She always said that when she had more time she would watch shows like this and finally learn how to cook properly from scratch, using fresh ingredients. She watches the chef chopping lemongrass but her concentration dips after a few minutes so she flicks over. She sees an ad for The Evening Review. She looks at the presenter brought in to replace her, barely out of college and after landing a job that thousands would kill for. A job that Ella had worked her way up the ladder for years to reach. She feels anger rise inside her towards this girl, who is still in the prime of her youth. She has everything that Ella once had. She picks up the remote and changes back to EastEnders.

  Dan still isn’t home. She isn’t sure if he is genuinely working late or just staying late to avoid her. It is almost ten when she hears the door open downstairs. He climbs the spiral staircase and enters the living room. She picks up the remote and lowers the volume on the TV.

  “How was your day?” she asks.

  “Fine.” He won’t look her in the eye.

  She hates him being like this with her. She wants to get up off the sofa and go over to him. She wants for him to put his arms around her. She wants to tell him exactly how she is feeling and for him to tell her that it will all be okay. She wants to take it all back. She wishes she could undo it all and start over.

  “There’s dinner in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks.” He exhales loudly and climbs the stairs up to the top floor.

  After he is gone she gets up off the sofa and goes downstairs to run herself a bath. She flicks on the lights, which the brochure promised would give the room a spa-like feel. As the water thunders into the tub, she undresses. Walking over the heated tiles, she catches sight of her body in the mirror. Usually she would look away from her own reflection but this time she stops and places a palm on either side of her stomach. She stretches the skin, slack like an elephant’s, outwards until it is taut. She turns to the side and sucks it in, until she can hold it in no longer. Then she exhales and lets it all out again. She lowers the lights and adds some bath oil to the water. She climbs in and sinks into it so that, from her shoulders down, her body is submerged. Closing her eyes, she pulls her head under, letting the water rush in and fill her ears until it drowns out everything else. She stays like that until she has to take a breath and comes back up. The back of her head rests against the rim of the tub, while her bottom lip curls onto the surface of the water.

  When she gets out, she sits on the edge of the tub and dries herself off. She can hear the muffled sound of the television travelling down from upstairs. The stone walls of the tower always bounce sound around.

  She is exhausted: it feels like each one of her bones is too heavy for her body. She goes to check on Maisie, placing a hand on her chest to make sure she is still breathing. She is reassured by the even beat of her chest rising and falling, Then she gets into her pyjamas and climbs into bed. She turns off her lamp and waits for sleep to come.

  What feels like minutes later she can hear crying somewhere in the distance. She peels her eyes open to check her alarm clock: it’s ten past five. Dan isn’t beside her – he must have gone into the spare room again last night. She lies there still hoping that the crying will stop. But it doesn’t, instead it gets louder with every scream. Finally she pulls back the goose-feather duvet, gets out of bed and makes the journey across the cold floor to the cot at the foot of their bed to lift Maisie. The baby bucks against her, arching backwards so that Ella really has to use her strength to stop her from tumbling out of her arms. “Shush, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispers.

  The house is freezing cold and she knows that Dan forgot to set the heating to come on before he went to bed. She reaches blindly for her dressing gown and creeps out of the bedroom with the baby.

  The stone floors are icy-cold underfoot as she walks. She climbs the staircase to the kitchen and switches on the light, casting a yellow glow around the room. She sees Maisie is red-cheeked and snotty-nosed from her hysterical crying. She walks around the room with Maisie lying against her shoulder but the baby grows even more fractious. She can’t do this; she is just no good at it. She feels helpless and doesn’t know what to do to calm the baby down. She never knows the right thing to do.

  She puts her on the changing table while she changes her sodden nappy. Maisie keeps on crying.

  A sleepy Dot comes into the kitchen. Ella quickly wipes away her tears with the back of her hand.

  “Maisie woke me up, Mummy!” Dot complains. “Teacher says that we need to get a good night’s sleep to help our concen-stration.”

  “It’s con-cen-tration.”

  She makes a bottle for Maisie and puts it in the microwave to heat up. She picks up a wineglass that Dan must have left on the kitchen table after she had gone to bed last night, and puts it in the dishwasher. Dot is already pulling boxes of cereal out of the press for her breakfast. Ella makes her breakfast and they all go down to the living room, Maisie at last quiet. Ella flicks on the TV and finds the kids’ channels which seem to broadcast children’s programmes all night long. She switches on a cartoon and props Maisie up against cushions on the sofa beside her sister who is eating her cereal.

  She hears Dan getting up just before seven. He comes up the stairs into the living room and Dot runs into his arms. He lifts her up and swings her around the room. “Hello, my little Dotty-Dot!”

  She is giggling. “It’s Princess Dotty-Dot, remember, Daddy?”

  “Oh sorry, I’m so silly – I meant Princess Dotty-Dot.”

  Maisie starts chuckling when she sees her sister being spun around.

  Dan goes back to packing up his laptop into its case and winding the plug around the power pack. “Have you seen my keys?”

  Ella lifts a cardigan belonging to one of the girls, picks the keys up from underneath and
hands them to him. “Are you not having breakfast?”

  “No, I’ve got to fly – session is due to start at seven thirty this morning.”

  Later that morning Ella sits in the doctor’s waiting room for Maisie’s vaccines. A card had arrived in the post the week before, reminding her that they were overdue, and yet again she thought about how much Mrs Frawley had seamlessly taken care of in her time working for them. She can’t help staring at all the other mothers seated around the room, watching how they interact with their babies. They make it look effortless; they are not stressing like her. If their baby cries, they soothe it and it stops. Ella’s jaw is tense from hoping that Maisie won’t wake. If she starts crying here, she knows she won’t be able to make her quiet again.

  She sees the other patients’ eyes as they slowly realise where they recognise her from. She looks down at the grey marl tiles on the floor and follows the swirling pattern with her eyes. She really hopes that she is called soon. She looks up at the leaflet-holder on the wall. All the fliers start with questions. They all compete as they try to register their symptoms with the people populating the waiting room. Are you? Have you? Do you? The questions talk to her. They are the only things that ask how she is feeling.

  After a few minutes the doctor sticks her head around the door and calls in her next patient. Ella marvels at how the woman carries her baby, her changing bag and steers her two-year-old son into the room at the same time without any panic. It’s not meant to be this hard, Ella keeps repeating. What is wrong with me? she wonders for the umpteenth time. What is so wrong with her that she is almost devoid of all natural maternal instinct and can’t attend to the most basic needs of her own children?