Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
She would have to stop living her life as one variation after another on a pastoral theme. She would have to think of something absolutely different to do next time. She should probably move abroad, Italy or France. Of course you could never move far enough – Patagonia, China – nowhere was far enough, but the trick was to keep moving. The trick was not to leave the bug behind. And one thing was certain, you could never go back.
She was going to give him a chance to come with her, just one chance. He was going to be shocked and he wouldn’t come but he was going to get that chance.
He was on his bicycle (with bicycle clips – for heaven’s sake – around the ankles of his cheap black trousers) and he looked round when he heard the car approaching. She had the top down and when she drew level she stopped and he dismounted and laughed and said, ‘That’s one snazzy set of wheels, Mrs Weaver,’ as if he was a second-hand car dealer, and she said, ‘Sure is, vicar,’ and she patted the seat beside her and said, ‘Do you want to come for a ride?’ and he made some kind of helpless gesture towards the bike but then he said, ‘Oh, what the …’ and laid the bike down in the long grass of the verge. But when he put his hand on the door handle, she reached over as if to stop him and said, ‘But I have to tell you, I’m going to drive off and I’m not coming back, not here, not ever, and when I leave I’m going fast,’ and he said, ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ and she thought how she loved the way he looked like a solemn little boy when he was trying to think of the right answer to something. She revved the engine and said, ‘I’m going to count to ten …’
23
Case History No. 3 1979
Everything from Duty, Nothing from Love
MICHELLE THOUGHT THAT SHE’D BEEN ANGRY BEFORE, but never like this. It was like being a volcano, plugged and stoppered and unable to get rid of the boiling stuff inside. Which was called – what? Magma? Lava, for fuck’s sake, she couldn’t even remember the simplest words any more. ‘Maternal amnesia’, the books said, but if it was amnesia it was very selective, it didn’t allow her to forget how completely miserable and unhappy she was, did it? And today had been going really well up until this moment – she’d been on top of everything, everything under control, and then he’d barged into the house without a second thought and woken the baby up.
Michelle tugged at the axe, but it was stuck like bloody Excalibur in the log and she was so lost in her fury that she didn’t hear Shirley and when she turned round and saw her she nearly jumped out of her skin and she said, ‘Jesus, you frightened me,’ and just for a nanosecond in time she forgot how angry she was but then she heard the baby screaming inside the house – half of East Anglia must be able to hear the bloody baby – and it all came boiling up again and she knew this time it was going to blow and it was going to be a mess. Krakatoa. You see, she could still remember some things. ‘You look like you’re going to kill someone with that axe,’ Shirley laughed, and Michelle said, ‘I am.’
She charged through the back door like a Viking berserker and when Keith saw her he laughed as well, they were all fucking laughing at her as if nothing she said was important, as if she didn’t mean what she said, and she lifted up the axe, although it was awkward because she didn’t really understand where its centre of gravity was, and she flung it at Keith, but it was a girly throw and the axe bounced heavily and landed harmlessly on the floor.
He was furious, even more angry than she was and at first she thought it was just because of the axe, although it was miles away from him, but then she realized he was shouting about Tanya. ‘You might have hit her, you might have really hurt her,’ and she said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, it was nowhere near her,’ and he yelled, ‘You crazy fucking bitch, that’s not the point,’ and she felt suddenly frightened because she could see that Keith had lost it now, he didn’t even look like himself and he made a move to pick up the axe but the next moment it was in Shirley’s hands and she didn’t do any girly tossing, she just lifted the whole weight of the axe up and brought the blade down on Keith’s head and then everyone was quiet, even the bug.
Shirley was in the St John Ambulance but it didn’t take medical training to see that there was nothing anyone could do for him. Michelle was on the floor, hugging herself as if she was in a straitjacket, rocking backwards and forwards, and she could hear a weird keening noise that she realized was coming from her, and Shirley said, ‘Don’t do that,’ her voice cold, but she couldn’t stop the noise so Shirley grabbed her and pulled her to her feet and shouted, ‘Shut up, Michelle, shut up!’ but she couldn’t so Shirley punched her in the face.
The shock was so great she thought she might have actually stopped breathing for a second and all she wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and find oblivion. Shirley said, ‘You’ve just ruined both our fucking lives, not to mention Tanya’s,’ and Michelle thought, not to mention Keith’s, but she knew Shirley was right because when it came right down to it, it was her fault.
So she got up from the floor – she felt as stiff as an old woman – and picked up the axe, which at least wasn’t actually embedded in his head, which was something to be grateful for, and then she wiped the handle of the axe on her jeans and grasped it herself and said to Shirley, ‘You go.’
Tanya was standing up, hanging on to the edges of her playpen, and she started screaming again, just as if she’d been stuck with a pin. Shirley picked her up and tried to quieten her but that child didn’t look like she would ever be quiet again. ‘Just go,’ Michelle said. ‘Please just go, Shirley.’ Shirley put the baby back on the floor and said, ‘I promise I’ll look after her for you,’ and Michelle said, ‘I know you will. Take her away, give her a fresh start, be the mother to her that I can’t be,’ because if there was one person in the world she could trust it was Shirley.
‘Right,’ Shirley said, and you would think she’d done this before, she was so in control. ‘Right, I’m going to phone the police and I’m going to tell them that this was how I found you. Right? Right, Michelle?’
‘Right.’
And then Shirley picked up the receiver and dialled 999 and when the operator answered she started screaming hysterically, you would think she was the best actress in the world, and then finally she stopped and replaced the receiver and they waited in silence for the police to come. The bug had fallen asleep on the floor. It was very cold and Michelle would have liked to clean up a bit for the police coming but she didn’t have the energy. Finally, they heard the sound of a siren, and then another, and the noise of the police cars bumping their way along the farm track, and Michelle said to Shirley, ‘You never had any chocolate cake.’
24
Theo
SHE HAD DYED HER HAIR A STARTLING PINK COLOUR THAT made him think of flamingos. It suited her much better than the custard yellow. It made her look healthier. She was healthier, she must have put on half a stone in a week, although that was hardly surprising as Theo had been feeding her with the single-mindedness of a parent feeding a chick: beans on toast, Horlicks, macaroni cheese, bacon rolls, sausages and mashed potatoes, bananas and cherries and peaches – she didn’t like apples, neither did Theo. Laura had liked apples. Lily-Rose wasn’t Laura, Theo was very clear about that in his own mind. Theo was sticking to his donkey food, he got more satisfaction from watching Lily-Rose eat. You would never think to look at her that she would have such an appetite, it was as if she was making up for years of starvation.
She slept in Laura’s room, with her dog at the foot of the bed. Theo couldn’t go near the dog and Lily-Rose worried that it would trigger another asthma attack in Theo. Theo worried too but he told her about Poppy and how he had got used to her and that he believed you could get used to anything in time, and she said, ‘Yeah, I think that too.’ They looked at photographs of Poppy, and of Laura, and Lily-Rose said, ‘She’s lovely,’ and Theo was glad that she didn’t use the past tense because it always hurt. He hadn’t told Jenny about the girl living with him, he could just imagine what she would say.
She was the product of a profoundly dysfunctional background and she almost certainly needed professional help. She had a history of running away from home, of drug abuse, petty theft, prostitution, although she seemed clean of everything for now. Her mother had murdered her father and she was brought up by her grandparents, who sounded just as bad as her own parents (he suspected abuse). Her life was unreal, like a television programme. A documentary or a bad soap opera. Yet she seemed remarkably happy, playing with the dog in the garden, eating an ice cream, reading a magazine. She loved being woken in the morning by a cup of sugary tea and a slice of buttered toast. In the evenings they’d started (bizarrely) doing a jigsaw puzzle together.
‘We’re like a pair of fucking old age pensioners,’ she said, but not unkindly. He didn’t want to save her or keep her or change her, although he was doing all of those things and would continue to do them if she wanted. The one thing he didn’t do was worry about her. So many bad things had happened to her she was damage-proofed. He was happy just to give her back a childhood. And when she was ready she would move on and he’d deal with that when it happened.
25
Case History No. 2 1994
Just a Normal Day
THE THING THAT HAPPENED WITH MR JESSOP WAS STUPID. (he was always saying, ‘Call me Stan,’ but she just couldn’t, it sounded wrong, he was a teacher.) It was funny because she hadn’t felt particularly singled out or anything. He’d had Christina over a couple of times, and Josh as well, and last year the whole Biology A level class went to his house for an end-of-term barbecue. That was the first time she was in his house, in fact. The barbecue was rained off and he’d rushed to the supermarket and bought stuff for sandwiches, which she had helped Kim to make. She always called her Kim, never Mrs Jessop. Kim had seemed really pissed off at having them all in the house – she’d just had a baby a few weeks before so maybe you couldn’t blame her. Kim was the same age as Jenny and yet you couldn’t have found two people on the whole planet who were more different from each other.
They made ham sandwiches, with that cheap, shiny ham – Kraft processed slices for the vegetarians – Kim slapping margarine on to doughy white Sunblest bread and Laura thought, yuck, and then berated herself for being such a snob. Dad had always been obsessed with feeding them well – home-cooked meals, wholemeal bread and loads of fruit and veg (although God knows what crap he ate himself when he got the chance). Of course, poor people couldn’t afford all that good stuff, but then the Jessops weren’t poor. Teachers moaned all the time about their pay but they weren’t exactly paupers. Although, to be honest, Josh was right when he said Kim was white trash and it did make you wonder how Mr Jessop had ended up with her in that horrible little house that smelt of sour milk and baby shit.
She was wearing red high heels, which somehow wasn’t what you expected new mothers (or teachers’ wives) to wear. Her hair was dyed almost white, very Blonde Ambition, and made her skin look unhealthy. Mr Jessop was completely in thrall to her, it was like she controlled him with one eyebrow, and he seemed a quite different person to the classroom Mr Jessop (although not so different that you would want to call him Stan). When he was in the classroom he was funny and cynical and always saying mutinous things about the school. He was nothing like any of the other science teachers, more like an English teacher. When he was at home he was less interesting somehow and you would have thought it would be the other way round.
All the girls cooed over the baby – Nina – when Kim brought her downstairs. Even the boys were interested in her as if she was a novel science project (‘Can she focus yet?’ ‘Does she recognize you?’) but Laura felt completely uninterested. She knew it would be different when she had her own, but other people’s babies left her cold. Kim wasn’t breastfeeding: one of the girls – Andi – had asked her and she said, ‘God, no,’ as if she couldn’t imagine anything more unnatural and Josh and Laura exchanged a look and both of them tried not to laugh.
‘Of course, I’m not educated like you lot,’ Kim said later, when they were washing up together, by which time they’d formed a kind of alliance – Mr Jessop had bought a crate of beer and boxes of wine and everyone in the living room was completely pissed, in that stupid loud way, and neither Kim nor Laura was drinking, Laura because she was on antibiotics for an ear infection and Kim because of the baby – ‘I need my wits about me,’ she said, and Josh whispered to Laura, ‘If she can find any,’ and Laura pretended to ignore him because Mr Jessop was looking at them as if he knew they were saying things about his wife.
Kim was from Newcastle and her accent seemed totally foreign and alien. The fact she was a Geordie made her a little frightening. Laura imagined the north was populated with hard, no-nonsense women that you wouldn’t want to take on in a fight. ‘I left school at sixteen,’ Kim told her, ‘and did a year at college, secretarial, since you ask,’ and Laura said, ‘Oh?’ although she wasn’t really listening because she was wiping down the kitchen surfaces, which were already spotless because Kim might be trashy and stupid but she kept a very clean house, which was something Dad would have approved of. It would be really good if, when she left to go to university (and definitely not before then), Dad were to meet a really nice woman (not a Kim), someone mature, even a little dowdy and a real homemaker, someone who would appreciate all his good qualities and would want to make him very, very happy. He deserved happiness and when she went to university he was going to be heartbroken, even though he pretended he wouldn’t be. Maybe not heartbroken, not the way she felt when Poppy died, but he was going to be very sad because it had been just the two of them for so long and he lived for her. That was why she was going to Aberdeen, because it wasn’t on the doorstep – she had to get away, to be herself, to become herself. As long as she stayed with Dad she’d be a child.
She wouldn’t be like Jenny. Jenny was really bad, she never phoned or wrote, all the effort was always on Dad’s side. It was almost like she didn’t care about him at all. When Laura left she was going to phone a lot and she’d already bought a little stock of postcards, funny ones and ones with cute animals on, that she was going to send to him regularly. She loved him more than anything, that was why she’d agreed to work in his office, even though it was much more fun in the bar, but it was only for a few weeks and then she’d be off, like an arrow into the future. And she couldn’t wait.
* * *
After that day, the day the barbecue didn’t happen, she started babysitting for them – apparently Kim suggested her to Mr Jessop so she must have liked her in some way (although you would never have guessed). Mr Jessop asked her at the end of a class one day and she said, ‘Well, OK, but I don’t know anything about babies,’ and he said, ‘God, Laura, neither do we.’
She usually got Emma to come over and sit with her because Emma was good with babies, she really loved them in fact, which was ironic and pretty sad really because she’d had that abortion and for a while she seemed to really lose it but she was the sort who always pretended to be bright and cheerful, which was why Laura liked her. And they’d usually just sit and do their homework together although sometimes they looked through Kim’s wardrobe, which was always an education in itself, but it didn’t feel right being in their bedroom because, unlike with most other adults, you could actually imagine Kim and Mr Jessop having sex, which was kind of embarrassing.
She’d told Dad that she was a virgin, because she knew that was what he wanted to hear, and as lies went it was pretty harmless, in fact it was charitable. And it wasn’t that far from the truth because she’d only had sex with four boys and one of them
They did it in Josh’s bedroom, which his parents never went into. His parents were those arty, liberal types who’d let him do whatever he wanted since he was twelve (so it was amazing really that the boy had turned out as well as he had). His parents were downstairs watching some nature documentary about whales.
At first it had been funny and they couldn’t stop laughing and then they’d grown quite formal, examining each other’s bodies like anatomy students and having foreplay by the book, but then they’d got completely into it and were down on the floor like dogs and it was just as well that the television was turned up loud because she could hear herself yelling like someone she didn’t know at all and afterwards, when they were lying there on the floor, stunned by the way it had taken them over, all they could hear was whale song and they’d both started laughing again because his parents must have heard them, but if they did they never said anything. Josh said, ‘Well, we surprised ourselves there, did we not, Miss Wyre?’ and she said, ‘Can we do it again, please?’ and he said, ‘God, woman, give me a minute, will you.’
When Dad picked her up he said, ‘Are you all right, you look flushed?’ and she said, ‘I think I’m coming down with something,’ and he made her hot lemon and honey and she sat up in bed, in her Winnie-the-Pooh pyjamas, and hugged him and said, ‘Thank you, Best Dad in the World,’ and hoped he couldn’t smell Josh’s spunk. That was when they were fourteen and they’d done it a few times since and she knew Josh was in love with her, but was grateful that he was careful never to say so.