Page 8 of The Housewarming

Fred is three months old. He keeps me alive; this is not an exaggeration. It’s possible he’s all that keeps me alive. His sister is a two-year-old girl in a picture frame. Matt tells me we must try to move on. He tells me that Fred will help us because we have to be strong for him. New life brings new hope, that’s what Matt says. He clings to these aphorisms because he has to, and mostly I forgive him. He doesn’t want me to be this sad. No one does. But if anyone else tells me that God only gives us what we can handle, or that everything happens for a reason, I swear I will punch them in the jaw. I will knock every tooth from their head. I will spit in their stupid face.

I never used to have thoughts like that.

I used to be kind, witty. Kindness has melted, wit become sarcasm. If I met me now, I would hold me at arm’s length. Something edgy about her, I would think. Not sure I can trust her. I never used to understand why anyone would be mean about or to another person. Now I do.

Fred is smaller than Abi was at this age, but he will soon transfer to a buggy. His pram is the one I used for Abi before she was ready for the pushchair. I wanted a new pram for Fred, but prams are expensive and Matt is right when he says that’s not how you forget the past, by throwing away everything that belonged to it. The past is a reminder, good or bad. To destroy it is to destroy its lessons. This is what he says. For me, it’s not that easy.

‘Thing is, I don’t want to forget,’ I tell Barbara, snivelling my way through entire boxes of tissues. ‘I just don’t want to remember every second and feel like it was my fault. I want to be able to look at her picture and stop hoping the doorbell will go and that someone will be there with her in their arms saying, here, I found her. She’s safe. She’s well. She was existing this whole time in some alternative reality, free from harm.’

Even as I say all this, the images come, hazy and pastel-shaded pink and blue. Abi throws back her head and laughs – how she laughs with the warm sun on her hair. How she collapses with giggles into my arms. Unharmed, untouched, happy as the day she left.

‘I want to imagine her into reality,’ I say to her, poor Barbara, paid to listen to all this. ‘I want to stop imagining where she might be… because if she didn’t die, then someone took her. If I could just remove that possibility, I could at least grieve.’

Barbara nods and listens. She knows I’m working towards a past tense. When I say the same to Matt, he listens too. But then he pushes harder. He says: ‘We have to accept the facts, darling. We have to move on or we’ll be living our lives in limbo.’

I don’t reply. It is not a conversation I can stand to have. And I will be buying a new pushchair for Fred. There’s a limit.

Fred was already on the way when Abi disappeared. I thought the foggy brain and the nausea were exhaustion from disturbed sleep and the endless activity of life with a small, bright, curious child. I took the thickening of my waist as a sign that, post-baby, it was harder now to keep the weight off, that perhaps my shape had changed. But then my period was late and so, the day before she went missing, that Sunday morning, I snuck into the bathroom and did a test and there he was: two blue lines on a white stick. I yelped, my stomach fizzing as I ran downstairs. The kitchen already smelled of the slow-roast pork Matt had put in before dawn; the vegetables were chopped and waiting in pans in cold water, the table set for Neil and Bella coming for super-late lunch. Abi was in the back garden, helping Matt with his bike, which was suspended on a stand on the lawn. It was sunny but cool outside. He had fixed her up with a bucket of soapy water and a cloth and she was washing the wheels with deadly serious intent.

‘Matt!’

Our eyes met over Abi’s little head. I held up the test, felt my eyes fill at the smile that spread across his face.

‘What’s that?’ Abi was pointing at the stick. She had on her yellow wellies and pink shorts, and the front of her stripy jumper was soaking wet where she’d spilt the filthy water. Her face was a little grubby too, smudged with dirt from the bike wheel.

I shoved the test in my pocket. ‘Just a toothbrush that broke,’ I said, rolling my eyes, but she’d already gone back to her task.

I glanced again at Matt, saw in his eyes the promise of a snatched celebratory hug later, an excited conversation that evening after Neil and Bella had gone, lying in bed guessing at when we thought it might have happened, because back then, there were so many possibilities.

But mostly I remember that I felt joy. And if I remember it, it means I was capable of feeling it.

We were supposed to be having a barbecue that day, but September had brought a chill to the air so Matt decided on a roast dinner instead. He always took care of the food. I’m the table-setter, the washer-upper. He lets me peel and chop, but that’s about it. We had drinks at the breakfast bar while Neil and Bella showered Abi with the usual attention.

‘What’ve you got there?’ Neil pointed to her chest. When she looked down, he flicked his finger up, catching her on the nose. She laughed, even though he did this every time.

‘Come, NeeNee.’ She grabbed his hand and dragged him off to the living room – him all eye-rolling, mugging like he was under arrest, even though we all knew he loved her wanting to monopolise him in this way. She wanted him to build her train track. He always used to make a figure of eight for her, then sit on the floor pushing the Thomas the Tank Engine set along the tracks, making choo-choo noises. He was so much better at playing with her than I was. All he needed was a bottomless supply of lager.

We weren’t going to tell them so soon. But when we sat at the table and I refused a glass of red wine, Bella asked: ‘Aren’t you even having a glass with your meal?’

No flies on Bella. I had declined a pre-dinner fizz on the excuse of a poor night’s sleep, which was part of the truth.

‘Ah, no,’ I said, feeling myself blush.

Bella’s eyes rounded. She glanced at Matt, back at me, and smiled. ‘Are you?’

I laughed.

‘Oh my God, you are!’ She had tears in her eyes, which I took for delight.

‘Congratulations, guys,’ Neil said, his glass raised. ‘Really delighted for you both.’

A silence fell. I couldn’t pinpoint what had happened. I still can’t. But it was awkward, definitely. At the time, I thought perhaps they were offended that we’d left them to guess like that when they were our closest friends.

‘We were going to wait till I was further along,’ I said. It was almost an apology.

Eventually Neil made some comment about how delicious the meat was, Matt answering him hastily with some inane reply about how many hours it had been in, at what temperature, while Bella drained her glass and poured herself another. And when I think back to that day now, the thought of them coming over at all seems so alien. They haven’t been to the house since that day, not like that. I was ill and then not up to it, then they came over briefly when Fred was born but I wasn’t able to face polite conversation, and now, perhaps, too much time has passed.

Tragedy is like an infectious disease. People avoid you. They don’t want to catch it.

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