Catherine is an award-winning producer, director and writer of factual television. Her work has been broadcast on the major UK terrestrial and digital networks, some of it internationally. Her non-fiction writing has been published in MIR Online.
This is an extract from Lying Down, her second novel, a work in progress.
Contact: catiw@btinternet.com
Lying Down
It is the second day of the story. Yesterday Nora (protagonist) discovered her teenage son, Ethan, had put a lock on his door and bolted himself in with a box of provisions. The only reason he’s given is that he wants to be left alone. We know there are some unspecified concerns about his mental health, but Nora has decided to let this situation play out.
***
I remember it first in my body. In those moments between sleep and otherwise, an unsettled stirring in the chest, a gnaw of the stomach, an ache in a hip that has borne the weight of a night in that small space on the landing. Squinting out from a duck-down cloud, unfocussed beneath the skylight, early morning sun strikes my face in the wrong places. Parts of the sum of things that are not as they should be. A few seconds more before the whole of it punches a tight fist into my centre, before nausea shapes a lump at the base of my throat. The door is still closed, Ethan still on the other side.
My feet tangle in the fabric of pyjamas discarded in the sweaty midst of the night, woollen carpet pressing damply into the small of my back, rough bristles against naked skin. In the scuffmarks on the wall I see a gondola, a half-hearted frown, the face of the man in the moon. I have slept on it (slept!), and it does not look or feel any better, sleep (sleep!) has not offered a clear way out of here. Somewhere near my head the phone vibrates.
Hey, how are things? All good here. Xx
If I don’t tell and we never talk about it, aren’t we just like that tree falling in the forest? Without witness, outside of society, who’s to say any of this is happening?
Avoided A&E last night, going to keep an eye on him today. Thanks so much for having Pearl – you’re a lifesaver! Xx
Three thumbs up emojis!!! Let me know if you need anything xx
I check for other messages, but there is still no word from Sam and I fantasise for a moment that he is dead, what it would be like to be free from the constraints of our marriage. But then not freedom really, there would still be the children.
My foot knocks against Ethan’s door as I get up, but it’s not until the stiff uneven descent towards coffee, that his sudden voice shoots an arrow of adrenaline into the heart of me.
“Mum?”
I retrace the stairs to his landing.
“Morning.”
“You knocked my door?”
“With my foot.”
“Why?”
“When I was getting up.”
The bed squeaks as he moves around and I cover myself with both hands, but he does not swing his legs over the edge, does not place his feet on the floor.
“Were you there all night?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m concerned. Are you ok?”
“No.”
“Do you want to open the door and let me in?”
“No.”
“Cup of tea?”
“No.”
I button myself back into the pyjamas before asking: “Did you sleep?”
insomnia|a n. Habitual sleeplessness; hence ~ AC
n. & a. [L, f. IN2 (somnis f. somnus sleep) sleeplessness;
see –IA1]
It’s hard to say for sure when he started prowling the house at all hours of the night, when I might wake at the sound of a door creaking open, or startled from my dreams find him looming, wired, angsty and wanting to talk, but it has been a while now. You get used to running on less sleep, looking out at the world through that gritty eyed filter, like that wavy old glass, all thick and distorting the view, like the baby years all over again.
Once, when he was a few months old and we were both too tired, I pushed him beyond the edges of the neighbourhood, on and on until we found ourselves lost beneath the vaulted glass canopies of Borough Market, weaving through stalls piled high with food of all shapes and colours, smells melding and following and sticking to your clothes, a carnival of the senses. I ate hot salt and pepper squid from a paper cone on cold stone steps, blowing and burning the tips of my fingers, crunching and chewing as the world milled around us. Ethan looking and pointing, happy, sad, angry, arching up against the straps of his buggy, awake. It was eight miles there and back, but not until we reached the end of our road did his eyes close; mouth open, out cold.
The Internet experts say that babies who don’t sleep might be hungry, cold, uncomfortable, teething, or perhaps unable to self-soothe.
On the many nights we found little him sitting at the top of the stairwell beyond bedtime he would say cute and deep things as I folded him into bed, lying there until one of us drifted off.
e: what happens when we die?
me: well, some people believe we go to heaven
e: what do you believe?
me: I like to believe there’s something after this
e: do you believe in God?
me: no
e: so is there somewhere for people to go if they don’t believe in God?
me: no one knows the answer to that question
e: but you could be nowhere forever
me: it wouldn’t be you as you are now, I think if there’s nowhere else, we just become nothing
e: what forever and ever?
me: yes
e: and ever and ever and ever and ever?
me: yep
e: wow, that’s really long
The Internet experts say that young children who don’t sleep might be in a poor routine, stressed, eating the wrong foods, or are perhaps gifted.
He was six when he first showed existential leanings during one of our middle-of-the-night conversations.
“Why do I need to work hard at school, because what’s the point mummy, we’re all going to die right? So I can work hard and get a really good job, or I can lie here in my bed and do nothing for the rest of my life, and whichever one I choose, in the end I’m still going to die?”
I can’t pretend I didn’t find it endearing back then, but fast forward eight years and try explaining to his fourteen-year-old self that while inherently he is right, why not make the most of the time he has while waiting for the inevitable? (If you’re up against this, God, or insert alternative higher being as appropriate, help you).
“Honey, we’re going to have to do something about this door situation today, ok?” He says nothing. “Promise me?”
When there is no reply, I find myself sticking my middle fingers up at his door, at his lack of basic courtesies. It feels so good that I push my tongue behind my lower lip, contorting my face in that way we used to when we were kids that is no longer socially acceptable, silently wringing into it all the things I want to scream and shout.
***
The day is already bright and hot. Bennett runs his morning energies round and round the garden, rolls onto his back and writhes his canine ecstasies on the lawn. Inside everything is too loud then too quiet; the roaring grind of beans, pulling of espresso, steaming of milk, the rituals of coffee, until just my hands wrapped around the smooth warm mug, sitting in a void of sound. The garden looks pretty at the moment, though the grass seems so much longer than yesterday.
The synapses have done something in my brain because I know it’s a bad idea, that it will not make me feel better today, and yet it’s a reflex I can’t override, and while I am thinking that I should not look at Instagram, I am also swiping through Instagram. There they are, all the people who are doing it better than me, all the ones getting away with it. I see that Nuala has bought some new wine glasses, that they had sushi for dinner last night #beasfavourite#nofusspotshere. I see that a woman I used to work with has been promoted to the job that was supposed to be mine. Fifty-four people have liked this post, saying things like – well done Julie, they’re lucky to have you, and the killer queen strikes again. But I think, fuck you Julie Swan.
I am about to stop with this bad idea and put my phone down on the large refectory table we designed this whole kitchen around back when those things seemed more important, but I don’t because then there is a picture of Sam on someone else’s feed, a whole group of them on a riverbank at the edge of a rainforest. He’s looking tired but smiling between a man with tattoos on both arms and a woman, tall, with hair twisted to one side of her head, hugging a camera to her chest. It was posted two hours ago.
There is a pile of clean washing on the table that I didn’t take upstairs yesterday with three pairs of his underpants folded on top. I check my texts again, but he has still not replied.
I often ask myself what I saw in Sam, but the answer is always the same, absolutely everything.
Handsome,funny,goodkisser,tidy,selfsufficient,sexyeyes,goodcook,courteous,makesthebed,nicebum,sometimesthoughtful,whatajawline,uncomplicated,interesting,interested,respectful,resourceful,didn’tasktoomuchofme.
He was driving a few of us somewhere one time we were working on a job together. I was in the back. It was one of those ordinary hire cars, Ford Focus, Vauxhall Cavalier, nothing special. He put his arm around the headrest of the passenger seat, turned to look out the rear window then reversed at speed from the parking space, all big arms and confidence. The bottom dropped out of my stomach and that was that.
Now he says things like “One of us has to work, Nora, especially in the circumstances.” It’s just I can’t remember there being a conversation about that person always being him.
***
Recently, more than once I have found myself eating jelly babies for breakfast which was not what I meant when I promised to take better care of myself, so I should eat, but the fridge is full of things for a week that this one is turning out not to be. I push two stuffed vine leaves into my mouth one after the other, so that my cheeks bulge and it’s hard to swallow. They’re here because of Gerald Durrell. We read him for book group this month and tomorrow night it’s my turn to host. The combination of slippery and rice makes me shiver.
***
If a fireman came and kicked the door down, with heavy boot against thin wood, hinges and splinters, my broken boy curled in the corner, what then?
***
Ethan’s jacket slouches over the back of a chair, there since who knows when. I drape it around my shoulders, rub the black corduroy worn and softened in someone else’s life between my fingers, push my face into its folds, hungry for the smell of him.
In his pockets:
- Oystercard (baby face picture, aged 11).
- Blue lighter (??), empty (!!!)
- Pair of fingerless gloves.
They are warm and gentle when I slip my hands into them, stitches snaking towards my radial artery in mostly even cables. Last Christmas I planned to crochet a pair for everyone, but it turned out to be less interesting than I was expecting, and by that I mean harder. All the yarn over and pull up a loop required more than I had to give, so this is the only pair. A single blonde hair traces a curved path across the woolly fibres. I tease it out gently until I am holding it between my fingers and in front of my eyes like a crime scene investigator. Pulled straight like this it must be as long as a school ruler, that’s curls for you, because I don’t ever remember Ethan’s hair this long.
It won’t lie flat on the table, curves and bounces like one of those fortune-teller miracle fishes you get in Christmas crackers. I am curious now to measure it, looking for the ruler in the cupboard with pens, crayons, glitter, glue. It is one of those bendy ones that claims to be shatter resistant, but really, why make a promise like that when it’s so difficult to keep? On the shelf beside all the art things is a bottle of metal blue nail varnish. The colour is called Pearls of Joy and my daughter begged me to buy it for her. I take it back to the table with the ruler, but when I look for the hair, it has disappeared.
I paint my nails instead. The blue is cold and unfriendly and when I stretch out my arms, wiggling my fingers to see them as another might, they look like the hands of a corpse.
***
I am halfway up the stairs with the clean washing when there is a knock at the door. The pile is higher than my eyes, so I carry on to the landing and leave it outside the bathroom before going back to see who it is. There’s another knock before I get there, even though we have a stained glass panel of Victorian proportions and even though through the natural flaws and fissures it is possible from out there to see the movement in here.
Nuala is wearing pristine high tops in her trademark children’s size.
“Nuala! Hi!” I make my whole face into a smile, poking my head around the half-opened door.
“Can I come in?” Behind her a post drop-off straggle of mothers head off into their days, a dad from Pearl’s year waves hello as he glides past on a skateboard.
“God, I’m really sorry, it’s not a good time Nu, I can call you in a bit if you want to chat.” I say this, so I am not quite sure how it happens that we are then both standing in the hallway and the front door is pushed to. I can see that she is bursting with whatever it is she’s come here for, because she clocks my pyjamas and the nails and makes no comment. She takes a long deep breath, her chest puffing out a little.
“I think I know what you’re going to say, and…” but she interrupts before I can finish.
“Bea was really upset when she saw Pearl coming into school with Arthur and Cluny this morning.” Her eyebrows raise in small surprise. “I said to her, there will be some explanation I’m sure.”
I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t.
“It was a mum’s arrangement, an emergency. Sorry Nuala, but I asked if you could help and you said no.”
“But a sleepover? On a school night?”
“I’m sorry if Bea was upset, but like I said, it was an emergency.”
She does not ask about the emergency, nor if everything is ok now, instead she stands there, eyes wide, with something more to say.
“Maybe the girls can play after school today then, so they know they’re still best friends?”
“I’m really sorry, Ethan’s not well – things are a bit tricky here.” The lexicon of our friendship is too limited to go further, the ice too thin. “Can we do something fun next week instead?”
I am saved from hearing what she thinks about this when the front door swings open and the gold-toothed deliveryman is there smiling his ‘me again’ smile.
“Hey, Mrs Wilson.”
Sometimes he is the only adult I speak to, face to face, for days on end.
“It’s a heavy one, shall I put it down here?”
He places the box on the floor. Nuala lights up as she shifts to look at him.
“Spending all her husband’s money again,” she laughs, “how the other half live, eh?”
She thinks we are the same kind of people and I have let her. The delivery man grins as he backs down the path, throwing me a wink, and even though we haven’t finished our conversation Nuala follows him out, stopping when she gets to the gate.
“See you tomorrow night for book group though, yes?”
She turns and gives the back of him a wave as she heads in the opposite direction. From behind, the fabric of her jeans hangs loose around the seat and it’s hard to believe that this is the frame of a woman who has grown and expelled two children.
The parcel has been too thoroughly sealed to concede to the efforts of my fingernails alone. I will need to use a knife and feel so pathetic and about to cry about this that I sit down for a minute and look out at the garden. It occurs to me that perhaps I could get the lawnmower out right now and cut the grass instead.
It’s just that I didn’t imagine when I was sat at school soaking up stories of burning bras and glass ceilings and having it all, that adult life might still turn out to be so devoid of choice. That it would look and feel like this, and that every time I wanted to open an awkward parcel or chop an onion I would have to stand on a stool to retrieve a knife from its hiding place at the back of the top of the cupboard.
Parenting is not for the faint hearted. No one tells you that. There are many things it has thrown up that I wasn’t expecting. Sitting on hard plastic chairs in Accident & Emergency last Christmas for example, while my son explained to a doctor with tinsel sellotaped round his name badge, the ways in which he thought about killing himself, was probably top of the list of things I hadn’t imagined when picking out sleepsuits and the sheepskin baby rug.
“Best keep the knives etc. out of harm’s way,” was the doctor’s parting shot that first time, “and if you’re worried about him again, come straight back to A&E.”
I touch each blade as I count them,
sharp knives: one, two, three, four, five.
scissors: one, two.
In the box are textbooks, cartridges of ink, reams of paper. I call him on his mobile.
“The school stuff is here, shall I bring it up?”
“No thanks.” He says.
“Ethan…”
“Mum. Leave it. Please.”
I’m not sure whether it’s an in or out feeling that I’m having, like either my insides are gradually filling with concrete or I am stuck in quicksand, but either way, something is slowing me down and I’m unable to think of an appropriate response.
“Ok sweetheart,” I say, “would you like something to eat?”
Nuala has sent me a voice note.
“Oops, sorry, I think I might have overreacted?” She sounds breathy and sweet. “It just really upset me, I don’t know why. Poor Bea. I don’t think I asked what’s up? Nothing too serious I hope. Laters.” She signs off with two kissing sounds.
***
A few weeks into Pearl’s first term at school I came across Nuala standing by the railings just outside the gates, one of those glossy haired women with a big smile, up to date clothes, always in the middle of things. Today she looked smaller, like some of the air had been let out of her.
“Are you ok Nuala?” I asked. “Do you fancy a coffee?” Her daughter and mine were besotted by then.
I hadn’t realised how lonely I was. My old local friendships had mostly drifted now we were out of step with the usual milestones, now the status quo was disrupted with people who had once been part of the every day of our lives. The circumstances exposed differences that previously had no reason to show themselves. It wouldn’t have happened to them, they thought, they would handle it differently.
We went to the cafe on the little parade near school, where flames dance all year round in ferocious silence on a small screen in the fireplace. It was full, mostly of other mothers, and tucked in one corner was a dad with a skateboard propped up against the wall, nose in book.
Nuala was upset because some other mums had gone off to an exercise class without asking if she’d like to join them.
“They wouldn’t even know each other if it wasn’t for me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond but then the waitress brought our coffees and she moved on to a story about someone I didn’t think I knew. The whole while we sat there, her phone, on the table between us, was a lighting, fading tableau of demand. As she finished her second cup it lit up again and Nuala placed her hand across the screen. She was done here. I reached for my purse.
“Oh that’s so sweet of you, thanks,” she said without looking up, checking her phone for new messages.
We folded in together after that. I liked the day-to-dayness of catching up over coffee, talking about stuff we’d watched on TV, moaning about husbands for ordinary reasons. She opened a door for me through which I could step back into the regular world, liberating pockets of time in which I could be unexceptional. I told her nothing of importance, nothing of how my family life had been blown apart like a volcano had erupted and we were coated in its dust as we tried to go about the business of our everyday lives. She thought I didn’t work because I had no need to.
“Your husband must earn a fortune,” she said early on, “lucky you.”
It was easy enough to roll along with.
***
I should message Nuala back, say it’s no problem her kicking off like that, but I can’t think how to put it without causing trouble. I look at the school things in the box. Is this why we’re here? There is still coffee in my cup on the table. I drink it, though it is cold now and the milk has separated, streaking the surface in oily swirls.