Marshmallows for Breakfast (5 page)

“My mumma isn't very nice to Dad,” Summer informed me.

“Oh, I see,” I replied.

I'd guessed her mumma wasn't very nice to Dad, that Dad probably wasn't very nice to her mumma.

I also suspected that if I wasn't very careful, I'd become involved in this mess of not very niceness.

CHAPTER 4

T
he neighborhood was alive with children.

The sounds of them came fluttering into my flat from everywhere. Playing, screaming, laughing, fighting, making up, splashing about in paddling pools, running towards the jolly tinkling of ice cream vans. Every one of them enjoying the gift of an unexpectedly warm, sunny Sunday in late February. Everyone except the Gadsboroughs. The courtyard that separated our two buildings was conspicuously quiet. Still. Dead. It was the type of silence that held no peace; it was the unnerving hush of a graveyard at night. The still after a bereavement. A deep, penetrating silence that made anything potentially happy—even the air— wither as it passed over the garden.

It had been bothering me all day.

When I'd been cleaning and vacuuming with a CD playing loudly, I heard the silence. When I was watching television I felt it. When I was flicking through newspapers it haunted me.

I glanced out of the window beside the sofa that overlooked the main house's upper floors and dark slate roof. As I stared, subconsciously searching for any signs of life in the upstairs windows, a thousand little scenarios of what the silence might mean played across my mind.

I didn't want to get involved with them, with anyone, but there were children involved. Did my resolution extend to that? To ignoring them and what was potentially happening
to them? Yesterday, Kyle had forgotten them at breakfast. He'd actually, genuinely forgotten.

After we'd finished breakfast, Summer and Jaxon both wanted to go to bed. They didn't say anything—to me or to each other—they simply seemed to come to the same decision at the same time that this was what they were going to do next. Summer moved first, climbed down from her chair. Jaxon did the same. They were both paler than they had been when they were in my flat, and the dark shadows under their eyes had become purple-red bruises. God knows how long they'd been awake. They'd just returned from another country, it was a miracle they were still standing. Jaxon came around to Summer's side of the table and she turned to me. Close up I could see that a ring of mahogany outlined her navy-green eyes.

“Good night, Kendie,” she'd said. She was going to bed, so even though it was light outside, it was night in her mind. Jaxon didn't say anything; he looked at me, studied me in that way he had in my flat for a few seconds, then his gaze fell away. Despite what Summer had said, he wasn't sure if he liked me or not, so was reserving judgment for the moment.

“Good night, guys,” I'd replied. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Kiss?” Summer had asked and presented the smooth white curve of her right cheek to me.

I'd hesitated. I didn't know this girl very well but she was determined to push this relationship into closeness. It was only a kiss, though, it wouldn't hurt. I'd leaned down and pressed a good-night kiss against her cheek. Jaxon's eyes were still lowered, but, surprisingly, he'd presented his face to me as well. I'd dropped a kiss on his cheek. I'd watched as they walked out of the kitchen and disappeared into the
heart of the house.
How could anyone not pay attention to these two?
I'd wondered as they'd rounded the banister of the stairs, Summer in front.
How could anyone not think they're the most important things on the earth and spend every spare second staring at them?

Before leaving I'd cleared the table, washed up the breakfast things, wiped over the surfaces with the pink sponge. I'd also flipped the latch on the kitchen door, took one last look around at the smart, stylish kitchen before leaving them to it.

I hadn't seen Kyle again. He'd clearly abandoned them at breakfast. Had he abandoned them today as well? I hadn't heard anything from them or from the house after I left… More scenarios danced across my mind.

I stood up, marched across my flat to the top of the stairs, ready to run down, throw open the door and march across the courtyard to the house to double-check that things were as they should be. That the children had eaten, had been bathed, had been communicated with. It was my duty as a neighbor, as a human being. You heard it all the time after a tragedy—people saying they had a feeling that things didn't seem right but had ignored the feeling, and things had ended in a hospitalization or worse.

I paused at the top of the stairs.
They're not your children,
I reminded myself.
It's nothing to do with you. You. Are. The lodger.

Besides, Kyle didn't seem the type to hurt his children. Whatever the “type” was. He seemed to care about them. He'd been nice to me. The look of horror at frightening me crossed my mind.
He doesn't seem the type.
And there was a huge gulf between abusive neglect and neglecting a child because you're struggling to cope. They may well be two different
points along the same continuum, but it was a continuum I hadn't ever struggled along so how could I know how easy it would be to ignore your children when it was all too much? Maybe Saturday was just a bad day. Maybe they were sleeping today.
Maybe you should mind your own business.

With that final thought, I forced my body to go back to the sofa, pick up the remote and turn up the sound on the television to drown out the deadening silence.

My worry about the Gadsboroughs was probably fueled by procrastination, if I was honest. I had something I had to do and I didn't want to do it. I had a letter to write. I should have written it a month or so ago, but in the panic of leaving Sydney, finishing up at work and training my replacement, there hadn't been time.

Now I had time on my hands and I had to do it. And I couldn't. The paper, which sat on the coffee table in front of me, seemed vast and wide. Appropriate since I had an immense amount to say. Yet, so far I'd managed a small blue dot on the top right-hand corner of the page. That was where I'd pressed the nib of the pen when I started to write the date, then decided against it in case I didn't finish the letter for a while. I'd taken the pen away, and stared at the sheet knowing I couldn't write my address because he might track me down. That was the sort of thing he would do. Find out where I was, try to tell me he didn't blame me or— worse—that he loved me. That no matter what, he loved me. I couldn't face that. I felt guilty enough without knowing he didn't hold me responsible for ruining his life.

So, no date and no address later, I'd hit another stumbling block. I wasn't sure if I should go for “dear,” which felt too formal, or “hi,” which felt too casual. And then I'd thought of just writing his name and I'd frozen. I couldn't do it. I'd been petrified by the thought of committing to
paper the fact I had a relationship with him so close I could use his first name in any context. It was something most of us took for granted, using someone's first name. But it was an implied intimacy, a closeness that at moments like this said so much. At that point I'd tossed aside the notepaper and pen and went back to worrying about the family across the courtyard.

And now, I didn't know what to do with myself.

In frustration, I stood up. I stretched my five-foot four-inch body, enjoying the pull in the muscles of my back, stomach, arms and legs. My shoulder-length hair swung loose as I threw my head back. I was momentarily free. As though I was stretched beyond the confines of my physical body. All that existed of me were molecules that could reach up and touch the sky, that could push down into the center of the earth.

I picked up the remote, flicked through the channels. Finding nothing that grabbed my attention, I walked over and switched off the television.

Bed. I'll go to bed. Sleep this off.

I was probably still a bit jet-lagged. It'd only been a week since I got back, and I'd been working right up until two days before I left Sydney. And since I'd gotten back I'd been exploring Brockingham, had been acquainting myself with its transport system, winding side streets and little shops. I'd traveled to where I used to live in west London to have my plaits taken out and have my hair straightened. I'd also been into work for a couple of hours on Thursday and Friday. All of it—not easing myself into things—was probably adding to my ennui, my tension, my frustration. I hadn't slept a whole night through in weeks and tomorrow was the first day of my first full week back being a recruitment consultant. A good few hours in bed, listening to music, would be soothing.

I lay on the bed, flat on my back, spreading out, turning myself into a human starfish under the white duvet, trying to fill as much of the bed as I could. Peter Gabriel's low, husky voice enveloped the room as “In Your Eyes” started. It was 5:30 p.m. and darkness had already bled into the sky, inking out the world beyond my blinds.

Closing my eyes I started to float on the words of the song:
emptiness. Running away. Going back to the place where you started.

The memories started as frozen frames, images that imprinted themselves on my mind like clicks of a camera.

Click. The feel of that soft patch of skin at the nape of his neck.

Click. The warmth of his body under my fingertips.

Click. The intensity of his eyes.

I snapped open my eyes, thinking that would stop them, that would be the way to fight off the memories, return them to the darkness where they belonged. They kept coming. Slowly turning from frames to moving images.

Click. The brush of his lips on the well at the base of my throat.

Click. The curve of his mouth as he said, “I could be with you forever.”

Click. His hands as they tugged my top over my head.

Click. His slight gasp as his eyes ran over my seminaked body.

I stopped fighting it, allowed the clicks of memories to keep flashing up behind my eyes. Memories of him. Mem o ries of us. Memories of who I was when I was with him.

I surrendered myself to the remembering. It was easier
than fighting. And, right now, I had very little fight left in me.

I woke up with a start, with a scream at the back of my throat and terror branded onto my heart.

There was someone in my room. I could feel it.

Or maybe someone had touched me. Either way, there was definitely someone there. My eyes snapped open when I was already half upright. It was still dark in my room so I had no idea what time it was. My heart raced as I reached for the bedside lamp to shed light into the room, to chase away the darkness and reassure myself there was no one there.

The light came on and I jumped all over again, a strangled cry of shock escaping from my mouth. There was someone in my room. Someones.

Summer. Jaxon.

They stood about two feet away from the bed, near the open door.

They were only recently out of bed, I realized as I stared at them: Summer was wearing an old- fashioned nightdress— greyed white flannel with frilly collar and cuffs and vines of tiny pink flowers crawling over it—and her hair was a sleep-mussed mass of black on her head. Jaxon was wearing blue and red Spider-Man pajamas that stopped a few inches shy of his wrists and ankles, his hair stood on end and his face was still puffed up with sleep.

Twice in three days they'd broken into my flat. Twice they had scared the life out of me. I had definitely locked the front door—I'd triple-checked, like I always did. Moving the key in the lock again and turning the knob of the Yale lock to ensure that they were in place. That I was safe. That
any danger was outside. Sometimes, like last night, I'd wake up, worried that I'd forgotten to check, and would go to quadruple-check that the door was locked and the windows were secure. All so that this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't wake up, terrified because uninvited guests had decided to drop by. My heart took its time slowing down to a steady canter. I raised my knees to my chest and blinked my eyes clear, tightly weaving together my fingers over my knees as I waited patiently for this scenario to play itself out. If things ran true to form, Kyle would come racing up the stairs and into the bedroom any moment now to herd out his children like a shepherd recapturing two stray sheep. Then he'd offer me a genuine and heartfelt apology that was essentially meaningless. Yes, he was sorry, but it'd happened again: his children were inside my home. I was of the mind that woven into the letters of
sorry
was the meaning: “it won't happen again.” If it did happen again, you probably weren't
that
sorry.

Maybe I will ask him for the spare keys to my flat back,
I thought,
because any more of these little “visits” and my life expectancy is going to be severed in half.

A minute passed. And another. No Kyle.

I glanced beyond the children, into what I could see of the living room, just in case he was lurking in there, too embarrassed to cross the threshold of my room. Nothing. It was empty.

I refocused on the children. Jaxon had stuck his thumb in his mouth. I'd never seen a six-year-old boy do that. His other hand worried at the bottom of his Spider-Man pa-jama top, twisting it around and around his forefinger, as though trying to burrow into the thin stretch- jersey material. His navy-green eyes, ringed with shades of brown, were glazed over and were staring fixedly at a point near my feet.
Summer had Hoppy, her blue bunny, in her hands and was twisting at Hoppy's left ear. Twisting it forwards, twisting it backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, as though trying to wring something out of it. She was facing me but her eyes weren't seeing me. They were staring through me, focused on the headboard behind me. Her cheeks were marked by thin, shiny tracks of tears.

Oh.

In that instant I knew I should be throwing back the covers, spinning my legs over the side of the bed and stepping down onto the rug beside the bed, standing up, pulling on clothes, going over to the main house.