Perfect People

90

Staring through the car windscreen at the sodden countryside, Naomi thought, glumly, January. Those flat weeks after the Christmas decorations had come down, when all the joy seemed to have gone from winter, and you still had February ahead of you, and much of March before the weather started to relent.

Two o’clock; already the light was starting to fade. In a couple hours of it would be almost dark. As John swung into their drive, the Saab splashed through a deep puddle and water burst over the windscreen. The wipers clouted it away. Naomi stared at the stark, bare hedgerows. A hen pheasant scuttled forlornly along the grass verge, as if it was a toy with a battery that was running down.

The cattle grid clattered, then the tyres scrunched on the gravel. John halted the car in front of the house, between Naomi’s grimy white Subaru and her mother’s little Nissan Micra.

With the wipers stopped, the windscreen quickly became opaque with rain. Naomi turned towards John and was alarmed by how bleak he looked. ‘Darling, I know I’ve been against having anyone in to look after them, and last week I totally rejected Dr Michaelides’s suggestion that they go to some special school – but after seeing her again now, I feel differently. I think she might be right, that they need specialist care – nurturing – teaching – whatever they want to call it.’

‘You don’t think that’s admitting defeat?’ John said.

‘Us letting ourselves get down about Luke and Phoebe would be admitting defeat. We have to stop feeling we’ve failed in any way. We have to find a way to turn their lives into a positive for them – and for us.’

He sat in silence. Then he touched her cheek with his hand. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I really do love you. I’m sorry for all I’ve put you through.’

‘I love you, too. It was your strength that got me through Halley.’ She smiled tearfully. ‘Now we have two healthy children. We – we’ve-’ She sniffed. ‘We have to count our blessings, don’t you think?’

‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘You’re right. That’s what we have to do.’

Ducking their heads against the rain, they hurried in through the front door. Peeling off her coat, Naomi called out, ‘Hi! We’re back!’

John could hear voices, American accents. He wrestled himself out of his wet coat, hung it on the stand, then followed Naomi through into the living room.

Her mother was sitting on the sofa, in an Arran sweater way too big for her, working on a tapestry in front of the television. An old black-and-white movie was on, the sound turned up almost deafeningly loud, the way she always had it.

‘How did it go?’ her mother asked them.

‘OK, thanks,’ Naomi replied, turning the volume down a little. ‘Where are they?’

‘Playing on the computer upstairs.’

‘Anybody call?’ she asked.

‘No phone calls,’ she said. ‘The phone’s been very quiet.’ She frowned at something in her tapestry for some moments, then said absently, ‘We had a visitor, though, about an hour after you left.’

‘Oh?’ Naomi said.

‘A very pleasant young man. He was American, I think.’

‘American?’ Naomi echoed, a tad uneasily. ‘What did he want?’

‘Oh, he’d come to the wrong address – he was trying to find something farm – I can’t remember exactly – I’d never heard of it.’

‘What did he look like, this guy?’ John asked.

Her mother took some moments of careful thought, then said, ‘He was nicely dressed, very polite. He wore a shirt and tie, and a dark suit. But there was one thing – he did something your father did often, you know? Your father used to put on his tie, but forget in his hurry to do up some of the buttons on his shirt beneath. This young man had forgotten two buttons on his shirt and I could see, beneath his shirt, he was wearing one of those religious crosses – what are they called – gosh, my memory’s so bad these days, I keep forgetting words! What on earth are they called? Oh yes, of course, how silly of me – a crucifix.’