The Perfect Family Read online

  “Last one to the sea is a stink bomb!” Annabel called out, her hair flying behind her as she sprinted ahead of Aidan into the water.

  “You’re crazy, Bel,” Aidan said, shaking his head. “You too, Mum!” he added, laughing as, seconds later, I slipped off my Birkenstocks and joined Annabel.

  “Come on in. It’s lovely and warm, honest!” I teased, luring Aidan into the water and chuckling at his horrified expression as the cold turned his skinny calves pink.

  “You tricked me!” he called out indignantly, his teeth chattering.

  “Makes a change,” Annabel said, her smile suddenly dropping. “Dad’s usually the one who plays tricks.” Scooping her legs through the water, she dragged herself back on to the beach and started heading back up the shingle slope.

  “Hey, hang on, sweetie. Not so fast.” I hurried after her, grabbing my things and trying to ignore the sharp stones cutting into the soles of my feet. “What was that about? Have I done something to upset you—or has Daddy?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, pausing only to shove her feet back into her sneakers, not bothering with her socks.

  “Talk about what, darling? Do you know what this is about, Aidan?” I asked him as he appeared, panting, at my side.

  “Is it because Dad didn’t come to watch your show when he said he would?” Aidan slipped an arm through Annabel’s and matched her stride for stride as they set off in their own three-legged-race back to the promenade.

  “Yeah. That’s it,” Annabel said. “Can we go shopping now, Mum?”

  “Well, if you’re sure, love?” I said, not completely convinced. “You know Uncle Max loves coming to watch you in all your plays. I bet he asked if he could go instead of Daddy. I expect it was supposed to be a surprise. Not a trick.” I hooked an arm round her shoulder and pulled her against me.

  “Mum, it’s fine. Shopping?” she reminded me after a few moments, pulling away and rolling her eyes.

  “Sure. Shopping. You can each choose a new outfit then I just have one more stop to make—a quick appointment—before we get the train home.” I frowned and checked my watch before pressing the button at the pedestrian crossing.

  “Cool,” Aidan said, linking arms with his sister again.

  She never pulled away from Aidan; ever since they were little, I’d often looked at them and found it hard to distinguish which skinny arm belonged to which tiny body. They were entirely comfortable being entwined; I wondered if that would change as they grew up, and my stomach clenched at the thought of them turning into teenagers, then adults. My babies; they’d always be my babies, and as we ambled through the sunny streets of Brighton, I hoped we’d always be this close.

  * * *

  “How about this?” I asked, holding up a gorgeous blue velvet minidress that I was sure Annabel would love. She adored anything dramatic and sophisticated. “The navy really brings out the color of your eyes, love.”

  “It’s too short, Mum. And the neck’s really low. It’ll show everything. No. I don’t like it.” She pushed it away and strode off to the next section.

  “Oh, are you sure?” I held on to it, surprised that she’d rejected the dress. “You could wear your black leggings underneath, and—”

  “No, I said. I just want a new hoodie.” She stalked off towards a rack of black sweatshirts, back ramrod straight.

  “Not like you to be self-conscious, darling?” I said softly, shoving the dress back and helping her flip through the jersey tops, raising my eyebrows as she picked out a sweatshirt at least three sizes too big for her. It would hang down around her knees.

  “Hey, look. Let’s get this for Dad as a surprise,” Aidan said, grinning as he held up a white T-shirt with a logo of giant black sunglasses on the front.

  “Hmm, funny. They do look a bit like your dad’s, don’t they?” Shall we get it, do you think?”

  “Yeah. Dad loves surprises,” Annabel muttered as I juggled debit cards and finally handed over the one for my small savings account. We only had one credit card, and Dom kept hold of that. Household finances were his responsibility; childcare was mine. That was what we’d agreed, although it did sometimes occur to me that Dom treated himself to far more new clothes than the three of us put together.

  “Uncle Max does too,” Aidan added, trying to be reasonable. “He’s always bringing us new DVDs and video games and stuff.”

  “You’re his niece and nephew. He likes you. It’s not a crime.”

  “Daddy said he’s surprised Uncle Max isn’t in prison by now,” Annabel said.

  “What? That’s silly. He was probably joking. It’s just that where they grew up was . . . Well, I think lots of the kids used to get in trouble. You two are lucky you have such a nice home.”

  “Is that why Uncle Max is always coming round?” Aidan hooked his arm through mine as we left the store.

  “Probably, love. But family is important. Don’t you think? We all need to look after each other.” I squeezed his arm and automatically reached for Annabel’s hand as we crossed the road.

  Once we were safely on the other side, I paused to look at each of the twins in turn. Aidan was eyeing up football boots in the window of the sports shop, but Annabel had her head down, scuffing her feet.

  “OK, am I just missing something here? What’s up, darling?” I said, squeezing her hand encouragingly. But whatever it was, she refused to say, and I felt a pang of nostalgia for the old days when the children blurted out every thought they had the second they had it. They were closer to turning into pre-teens than I’d realized.

  “Can we get an ice cream now?” Aidan asked when there were no more football boots left to admire.

  “Yes. You may. When you’ve told me what’s going on,” I said. “Something’s happened. Or something has upset Annabel. And I’d like to know what it is, please. Is it something about Daddy?”

  “Why didn’t he come with us today?” Annabel asked, looking up at me, a frown on her pretty face. “He didn’t come last time, either.”

  “He’s working.” Aidan poked his sister in the side. “He’s always working.”

  “Holidays at the seaside don’t pay for themselves, you know.” Nor do school fees, I added in my head.

  “We could have just stayed at our old school. That was free,” Aidan mumbled, reading my mind.

  “Nothing’s completely free, and you haven’t even finished a whole year at your new school yet. Let’s just wait and see how things go over the next few weeks, hey? Now, we’ve just about got time for an ice cream before my appointment, if we get our skates on.” I forced a smile, feeling worried but not quite sure why.

  “Yay,” the twins both said in unison, and I wasn’t deaf to the irony in their voices.

  “Come on, darlings. It’s been a lovely day. I know it’s a shame for it to end, but we’ll come back again soon. You like being by the sea, don’t you? I know you love Cornwall best, but Brighton’s lovely, don’t you think?”

  * * *

  I try to remember what the appointment was, but I have no recollection of who we were meeting that day, or why. The next memory I have is of Annabel’s tiny feet stamping up the stairs the following evening after I told her that she couldn’t go for a sleepover at her friend’s house because it was miles away and I didn’t know the parents.

  “But it’s half-term, Mum. I want to hang out with Davina for a couple of days. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Don’t you want to have time at home, though? I told Daddy last night that you missed him in Brighton, and he said he’d take a couple of days off.” I didn’t tell her that Dom’s agreement only came after almost two hours of me carefully cajoling and him irritably deriding my inability to drive, my lack of appreciation of his work schedule, and generally acting like I’d asked him to fly us to New York for the weekend. “I thought we might all go to the cinema tomorrow. That film you and Aidan wanted to see is on in Kingston. Or we could take your bikes up to Richmond Park and invite U
ncle Max. Yes?”

  I hesitated in the doorway of Annabel’s bedroom, feeling torn. I wanted to sit down and have a proper chat with her, but I knew if I didn’t have Dom’s dinner ready when he came home he’d be in a foul mood.

  “I’d rather stay at Davina’s. Please, Mum?”

  “Oh, Bel. I’m sorry, I—”

  “Fine!” Annabel snapped, leaping up and slamming the door in my face.

  “Darling, don’t be like this,” I said, leaning my head against the door, wishing I knew what to do for the best, annoyed that I couldn’t discuss these things with Dom.

  Aidan had been right: their dad was always working. Dom didn’t seem happy about it, either, often complaining that all he was good for was a pay check at the end of each month, and that I spent more time with the twins than with him. We seemed to bicker about it constantly, and I knew I was guilty of finding excuses to avoid going out alone with him. After dashing between school runs, after-school clubs, the supermarket, cleaning the house and keeping the garden in order, the last thing I felt like doing was dressing up and sitting in a noisy restaurant. I knew I needed to make more effort, but it didn’t help that every time we went out we just ended up arguing about the kids or Dom’s work.

  It felt like we’d started to live on different planets, and it was turning into a war of the worlds. Dom said he missed having a wife who didn’t have Lego bricks in her handbag and baked beans on her shirt. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt able to talk to him about the things that worried me—about Annabel growing up and wanting more freedom, about me not feeling ready to let her go off into the big bad world. I didn’t even dare to raise the issue of the school again. Dom had apologized profusely after the slap on our ninth wedding anniversary, but he’d lifted a hand to me several times since then. So far, he’d just about managed to keep his temper under control, but I was forever on tenterhooks, trying not to provoke him into unleashing it.

  I shared some of my anxiety with Lucy, and I bottled up the rest, not wanting to admit to my friend that Dom had struck me. Nor that Annabel had actually shut me out of her room. I almost felt sadder and more hurt about that than about Dom’s creeping aggression, and I remember my fear at the thought of letting Annabel sleep over at someone else’s house, not knowing who was tucking her in at night, giving her a last kiss and cuddle; not being able to keep her safe.

  A sudden thought surfaces and refuses to be ignored . . .

  Does that explain my choice?

  Did I want to clip Annabel’s wings? Keep her as a child—my baby—for ever?

  Daddy’s princess; Mummy’s angel.

  That’s what she will be forever more, now. She will never grow up, and I ask myself if, deep down, that’s what I really wanted. Did I choose Annabel because death ties her to me for all of eternity? She can never become an adult and leave me now; my beautiful darling will always lie beneath the rose bushes, close to me, frozen in time.

  Maybe I chose my daughter because I believe that my son—gentle, home-loving Aidan—will always choose me, but one day Annabel would have chosen to leave me. All I would have left would be a room full of her swimming trophies and dance medals, her story books and teddy bears. She would have taken flight and perhaps never returned to the nest.

  Having unlocked the thought, painful as it is, I force myself to consider it: did I punish Annabel for not needing me enough—for craving the big wide world more than the welcoming home I’d tried so hard, and endured so much, to create for my children?

  I can’t breathe as the possibility hangs in the air: did I push my daughter away before she could reject me? It’s a thought far too painful to bear, especially because in choosing Annabel, I have lost Aidan anyway.

  THIRTEEN

  Aidan is dancing round the living room. His whoops of glee pull me to him like a magnet and I drag myself away from tormenting memories to seek him out, finding him bouncing around holding some kind of shiny gold figure above his head.

  It’s a trophy, I realize. A swimming trophy. It must be Sunday, then; swimming meets are often on Sundays. Have I lost an entire day, locked inside my thoughts? Time still doesn’t seem to have much meaning for me, but I cling on to this one small detail: it’s the weekend, Aidan will be at home. Perhaps today I’ll find my voice again, find a way of closing this awful chasm between us.

  He must have won a meet this morning, I think, smiling at the joy I haven’t seen on his face for so long, feeling sad that I wasn’t there to support him. I wish Dom had told me about it rather than leaving me to sleep. I wonder if he is deliberately keeping Aidan away from me. Maybe he wants me out of the way; maybe he’s intentionally withholding our son—to protect Aidan from the distress of seeing his traumatized, confused mum, or to punish me for what I did?

  Or perhaps it’s nothing so calculated. Maybe he simply left me sleeping this morning because I look exhausted. I am feeling so dreadfully tired, it’s true. So tired that it’s an effort to move. Dredging up my memories has left me wrung out by emotion; everything aches and my nerve endings feel like they’re buzzing, my fingertips tingling hotly and a headache taking hold.

  This is new, I acknowledge in surprise. For so long, I haven’t felt much in the way of bodily sensations at all, my physical senses numbed by grief. Now, at least, I’m aware of pain—which is progress of sorts, although I worry that, my immune system weakened by stress, I might have developed some kind of debilitating illness. I’m still losing chunks of time, and mostly I feel confused and disoriented. I should probably see my GP, but I still can’t face leaving the house. I wonder if she does house calls . . .

  I’m diverted from the thought as I notice the bright halo of afternoon sunshine spotlighting Aidan in the center of the room. He looks thinner, I think, and his hair is shorn again. I wonder if he decided to get it cut for the swimming meet, or if Dom took advantage of my mental absence to get his son’s crowning glory clipped—to make him look less prissy, more manly, as he always insists. Did Aidan glance anxiously over his shoulder, waiting for me to save him as his father dragged him protesting into the barber’s?

  Did he stretch out his arm beseechingly when I chose his sister?

  The question blindsides me, and I can’t stop my mind spiraling into even darker thoughts . . . Did I signal to Annabel with a nod or a gesture? Did she look at me with confusion in her eyes, the agony of my betrayal tearing her heart to pieces even before the killer took his shot? Did Aidan watch, his whole world crumbling in horror, then run for his life to escape the woman who should have given her life to save theirs?

  Stop. Don’t go there. I order myself to resist being dragged back into the past; I must stay in the moment. Today Aidan is a winner, and I’m fiercely glad to see his joy. I just wish I’d been there to cheer him on. Selfishly, I wonder whether, in his excitement, he might actually have turned to me, sharing his surprise and pride with his mum just as he would have done before. When Annabel was here.

  She would have been so proud.

  I long for Aidan to meet my eyes and read my thoughts without needing to hear me say the words I’m unable to speak—a smiling conspiracy between us, both of us remembering how Annabel would have pirouetted around the room along with her brother, and then teased him that he’d only beat her time because she let him.

  Just for a second, Aidan pauses and his eyes seem to meet mine. They are bluer than the Cornish sea with tiny flecks of gold in the irises; his pupils are black pinpricks in the bright sunshine that fills the room. I’m so sorry, my darling. The thought ripples through me. I try my absolute hardest to say the words but they are stuck in my throat; I try to smile but it won’t come.

  I close my eyes and instantly I see a balaclava, big gloved hands, a gun pointing at my face; I see Annabel’s eyes so wide the whites all around the sapphires of her irises are bone-china bright; I see Aidan’s eyes dull with shock and fear, terror transporting him somewhere else. He looks right through me, as he has done every day since.
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  Why did you choose Annabel, Mum?

  I see this question in his eyes constantly. My gentle, sensitive boy who was always a step behind Annabel; my shy, loving son who used to be so much more openly affectionate and needful of me. And I still can’t give him an answer, I think wretchedly. I can’t explain it to him because I don’t even have an explanation for myself. The whispering parents at the school gate are right: what kind of mother chooses one child over another?

  I force myself to listen to the voice in the back of my mind torturing me with one more possibility I can’t bear to confront: Did I love Aidan more than his sister?

  I stare at him in mute anguish but he spins away from me and in the next moment his flying arms catch the tip of a glass trophy on the Art Deco mantelpiece, the heavy object tipping and falling to crash in a shattered pool of glistening splinters on the tiled grate below, the shiny victorious glass golfer figure decapitated, his bronze golf club rolling to one side.

  Dom appears as if from nowhere, his right arm raised like an axe above Aidan’s cowering head. I stare down in fear at my son, crouching now on the carpet, and my mouth opens in a silent scream.

  Run!

  Aidan darts to the left and I see a wet patch darkening his jeans. His small face crumples, toffee-colored freckles standing out more prominently against his white skin, his eyes dark with embarrassment, shock and distress.

  Don’t look back!

  He throws himself to the ground, arms shielding his head, and the world seems to spin. I feel like I’m suspended upside down and a surge of nausea chokes me, blood rushing to my head. My arms feel like dead weights and I cannot lift them. I feel powerless to protect my son. Dom is taller, stronger. He could snap a child’s arm like a twig; he could crush a boy’s skull with one fist.

  Could he shoot a ten-year-old girl with a bullet?

  The thought charges at me, stark and unstoppable. No! That’s impossible. Utterly unthinkable. I dismiss the idea instantly—not least because if Dom were guilty, he would surely be in prison now. But still it feels like my bones have fossilized; I can’t move, my body turning rigid as I allow my shocked mind to absorb the truth: I’m scared of my husband.