“HEY, HELEN, GUESS where I’m off to next weekend?”
On her way out the door, Helen turned and fixed twenty-one-year-old Tom Russell with a look that almost cut him in half. “Hay is something one generally finds under a horse, Tom.”
Tom swallowed nervously, and at this, Helen grinned.
“Where are you off to then?” she asked easily.
He was relieved. Sometimes you just didn’t know what way the wind blew with the boss. One minute she was all smiles and chat, and the next she was cold as ice. He supposed that was why some of the others on their team were more than a little afraid of her, which in turn meant that they tended to perform well, and Helen’s monthly sales figures tended to be better than most.
“Anfield. Two tickets, Kop Stand, corner flag,” he grinned.
“You’re kidding!” Helen was definitely interested now. “For the pre-season game with Madrid? The one where our ace striker will be back to cause havoc in their defence? Should be some game!”
“The very one.” Tom looked mightily pleased with himself. Football was the one thing that always got Helen Jackson’s motor running. Her eyes lit up in the same way most other women’s did when they stumbled across a bargain in the sales. Tom thought she was the sexiest woman alive. And even better, she was a Liverpool fan.
“How did you manage that? Those tickets are almost impossible to get!”
“Not when you have a mate who’s well in with the ticket office over there.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked. Anyway, myself and my mate are going over this weekend – but if you ever fancy going sometime . . .”
Helen laughed. “I might hold you to that, Tom.”
Tom had to stop himself from actually drooling as Helen eased smoothly past his desk and out the door. Even her bleedin’ walk was erotic! He checked his watch, debating whether or not to follow her out and spend a few minutes longer chatting on the way downstairs. Maybe she might even offer him a lift home. Tom picked up his jacket and said goodbye to the others, but when he reached the lift, she was already gone.
Tom sighed. God, what he wouldn’t do to take Helen Jackson to a football match. That would be a different kind of heaven altogether.
* * *
Helen turned out of the XL car park and drove towards Cornelscourt. Tom’s ‘invitation’, God love him, had reminded her of just how long it was since she’d been to a football match. Four years at least, she thought grimacing. Good old Kerry had put paid to that, as she’d done to most things her mother enjoyed.
When was the last time she had taken a holiday abroad? Not since Kerry was born, that was for sure. She and Jamie used to have at least two holidays a year – winter in the Canaries, and then two weeks somewhere further afield – the Caribbean, the Red Sea and one wonderful time in the Maldives. And of course the odd soccer weekend in England. She and Jamie’s shared passion for football meant that they went to a game at least three times a year.
But one fateful morning had changed all that, the morning that Helen discovered the blue line on her pregnancy test.
Throughout their six-year relationship, she and Jamie had never spoken seriously about children. At their age, there was no need. Anyway, they were too busy spending their healthy salaries on impulsive weekends away, romantic meals and nights out in the pub with other equally childless couples. Nobody in their circle of friends had even discussed children. Why would they? There was too much fun to be had, they were all in their mid-twenties and enjoying life to the full. Who in their right mind would trade in all that they had for a life of dirty nappies, sleepless nights and shapeless clothes?
Not Helen, that was for sure. She had never been particularly maternal, unlike Laura and Nicola, who could stand cooing over a newborn baby for hours on end. It wasn’t that she didn’t like children, it was just that to her they represented an entirely different way of life, one that Helen wasn’t partial to. Yes, babies were cute and cuddly and all the rest of it, but they were also loud, demanding and had a tendency to – without warning – projectile vomit three feet across a room. She and Jamie could start thinking about that kind of thing after they were married, long after. Luckily Jamie felt the same way.
Yet, a few months after she and Jamie bought the apartment together (and had spent one glorious week christening every piece of furniture, never mind every room), Helen began feeling different. She felt faint, light-headed and weak and, even worse, Jamie pointed out that she had put on weight. At work, she was uninterested, listless and couldn’t make a sale to save her life. Helen then confessed to Laura that at the age of twenty-five, she worried she was heading for burn-out.
“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Laura had offered artlessly and Helen nearly had a stroke there and then.
As did Jamie, when Helen did a positive home-pregnancy test and soon after a doctor cheerfully informed him that his girlfriend was nearly three months gone.
“What the fuck happened?” he accused her, as they left the surgery.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” answered a distraught Helen.
And that was the beginning of the end.
Helen immediately considered abortion, but knew that she would never be able to go through with it. Anyway, she told herself, in time maybe they might get used to the idea. Maybe it might be the best thing that ever happened to them. They might even end up getting married as a result. So, Helen resolved to get on with it and hope for the best.
Jamie, however, had other ideas. There was no question of him getting used to the idea. Throughout her pregnancy he couldn’t even look at Helen, let alone get close to her.
She had had a difficult pregnancy, which to her felt more like a terminal illness than a so-called ‘blessing’. The last few months of her pregnancy were spent in bed able to do little else but watch Jamie become more and more resentful towards her, and what she had become.
He began to go out in the evenings, leaving her alone in the apartment, and on the evening Helen rang him in the middle of a poker game with the lads, to announce that her waters had broken, she knew by his face when he came home that he had begun to hate her.
It wasn’t any better after Kerry was born. The baby had some sort of problem with her oesophagus, which meant that she couldn’t keep any milk down, and spent most of the day – and night – screaming. For the first four months of her daughter’s existence, Helen recalled getting only a few hours’ ‘real’ sleep a night. By the fifth month, and just when Kerry had begun to improve, Jamie was gone.
“This isn’t what I wanted for us,” he said. “I feel tied down.”
At the time, she hadn’t had the energy to convince him to stay. Knowing Jamie as well as she did, she knew she would be fighting a losing battle.
Kerry’s arrival signalled the end of Helen’s social life – the spontaneous nights out, the romantic evenings in, the much-anticipated holidays abroad. The only holidays Helen had to anticipate these days were in dull, grey Glengarrah, where she and Kerry would spend the odd weekend at her dad’s farm. Kerry loved the farm animals, and got a great kick out of collecting hens’ eggs each morning with her grandfather.
Good for Kerry.
Helen parked outside the childminder’s house, and berated herself for the thoughts she had been having lately. She hated feeling down like this, but sometimes she just couldn’t help it. Things got on top of her now and again. Things like her non-existent life.
“Hi, Helen!” Kerry’s childminder stood at the door, awaiting Helen’s arrival. Jo was a rotund, kindly, earth-mother type, who had been looking after Kerry for almost three years now.
Uh-oh, Helen thought, realising instantly that Jo wanted to have ‘a little chat’. Jo often wanted ‘little chats’. Helen supposed it was a good thing that she was interested in Kerry’s welfare but sometimes . . .
“Is something the matter?” she asked. “Where’s Kerry?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. She’s in the garden playing with little Mark from next door.” Jo stood back and ushered Helen into the hallway. “Look, Helen, tell me to mind my own business but . . .” the childminder apologetically wrung her hands together, “it’s been a couple of months now and there’s been little improvement. If anything, she’s getting worse.”
Helen looked at her. “Jo, I’m sorry, but what more do you expect me to do?”
“Look, I don’t mean to sound forward but . . .”
Perish the thought, Helen thought unkindly.
“Are you still doing the exercises with her?”
“Well, I’m doing what I can, but I don’t always have the time to do them with her,” Helen said. “By the time I get home, have dinner and clean up, the evenings just seem to disappear.”
Jo looked troubled. “Helen, I know it’s none of my business, and I really wouldn’t say anything if I wasn’t worried. Just keep on eye on her, OK?”
Jesus! What kind of a mother does she think I am? Helen thought, her pulse quickening with anger.
“I will.” Helen didn’t have the energy to argue about it today. “Now, if she’s ready . . . ?”
“Of course.”
She followed Jo into the living-room, where Kerry sat playing happily on the ground with one of the neighbour’s children.
Immediately catching sight of Helen, Kerry beamed. “Mommy!”
“Hi, hon, are you ready to go home?”
“Yep!” Kerry nodded enthusiastically, racing to her mother’s side.
“OK, now get your things and say goodbye to Mark and Jo.”
Kerry looked from one to the other. “Bye, M-m-m-m-m . . .” The little girl reddened and glanced at her mother for support, but Helen couldn’t look her in the eye.
“Take a breath, Kerry,” she said.
She tried again. “Bye, M-m-m . . .”
Jo took her hand. “It’s all right, pet. He knows you’re going. We’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”
Kerry nodded again but looked upset.
In the hallway, Helen caught Jo’s ‘I told you so’ look, and it really annoyed her.
She was getting a little tired of the childminder’s interference in Kerry’s upbringing. Yes, her daughter was a slow developer, but what could Helen do about it? Didn’t she do her best for Kerry, working all day every day to keep them going? They now lived in a much nicer apartment than the one she and Jamie had, she always got the best of clothes, the best of toys, the best of everything.
Hadn’t Helen taken her to the bloody speech therapist when Jo noticed her speech blockages a while back? Hadn’t she bought her that talking-book software that the speech therapist recommended? The idea was that Kerry would improve her speech through looking at pictures onscreen, and listening to the correct pronunciations of the words. The software was for her computer. Her computer! How many three-and-a-half-year-olds had their own bloody computer?
Even though Helen had noticed some repetitions in her daughter’s speech, she wasn’t overly concerned. Kerry wasn’t even four years old, for goodness sake. The problem would undoubtedly sort itself out with age. What did Jo expect – that she be able to recite the entire works of Shakespeare? She had been sure that Jo was overreacting, but to get the childminder off her back she had agreed to take Kerry to a speech therapist recommended by her GP.
A very expensive speech therapist.
They had their first consultation a few months back and the therapist had advocated that each day Helen allot a ‘selective listening’ period, a relaxed time allowing Kerry to chatter away at her own comfortable pace.
“Try not to place time-burdens on her speech, Ms Jackson. All adults, especially working mothers like yourself, are on constant time-demands, and tend to speak almost as quickly as is physically possible. As Kerry is just learning how to coordinate her speech mechanisms, she needs to speak slowly.”
“You’re saying that my rate of speech can affect Kerry’s progress?”
“In a way, yes. Some days you might come home from work, tired and frazzled and with possibly a pile of housework to tackle. There is an immediate demand on your time. Kerry, of course, will sense this, and may interpret it as a message that she is not interesting, or not worth listening to.”
Helen shook her head. Selective listening? Where was she supposed to find time for that?
Their first consultation with Dr Davis had been over two hours long, the therapist almost immediately diagnosing Kerry with a ‘moderate-to-severe disfluency’.
Well, which was it, Helen had thought at the time – moderate or severe?
And of course Kerry had a problem, Helen thought sceptically. If she didn’t have a problem, how on earth would the doctor afford her next holiday in the South Pacific?
Dr Davis had droned on about how Helen would have to take time out to spend some quality conversation time with Kerry, and help her develop ‘healthy and appropriate communication attitudes’.
If there was one thing Helen abhorred, it was psychobabble. There was nothing wrong with Kerry that time couldn’t cure. Admittedly, Kerry was shy and nervous, and didn’t nervous children always have trouble expressing themselves?
“Kerry doesn’t stutter because she’s nervous,” Dr Davis had explained. “Rather she is nervous because she stutters. It’s a vicious cycle. Even a child as young as Kerry will realise that she isn’t speaking as well as everybody else, but what is most important is that she does not acquire a negative self-image, or be ashamed or embarrassed about it. If she feels badly about her speech, she is more likely to struggle in attempts to be fluent, and if this happens, the problem will almost certainly escalate. This is where you come in, Ms Jackson. As a parent, Kerry will look to you for a reaction. If you show any signs of frustration, fear or annoyance when Kerry struggles, it won’t be long before she begins to show similar reactions. So, as well as increasing Kerry’s concerns about her speech, these reactions may also increase the severity of her stuttering. Your own approach, and indeed your childminder’s approach towards stuttering, will play a critical role in Kerry’s development of a healthy attitude.”
“Look, I’m really not sure that Kerry has all that much of a problem,” Helen said defensively. “I mean, she doesn’t stutter all the time, very rarely in fact.” Rarely around me anyway, Helen thought.
“Well, a person with epilepsy doesn’t have seizures all the time either, Ms Jackson. Stuttering by definition is simply a breakdown in our inbuilt speaking mechanisms, and the system does not break down all of the time. However, I would caution against taking this problem lightly – intervention at an early age is crucial.”
Crucial for your bank account maybe, Helen thought uncharitably. She shook her head. “I just don’t know – perhaps we should just wait and see.”
The doctor looked at her. “Ms Jackson, believe me, stuttering is too awful a problem to just ‘wait and see’. Your own efforts are crucial in preventing this from becoming a chronic problem.”
In Helen’s opinion the whole thing had been an expensive waste of time.
Jo however, had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the programme Dr Davis had advised. She was careful never to react overtly to Kerry’s repetitions, and never to interrupt, or finish a sentence for her.
Helen still believed that dramatising and paying too much attention to Kerry’s so-called problem was only contributing to it. Kerry usually only stuttered when she was over-excited or surprised by something. What toddler didn’t have problems getting sentences out when they were excited?
What the hell was she supposed to do, she asked herself, as she settled Kerry in the backseat of the Golf. She could hardly force the words out of her, could she? The way Jo went on, you’d swear Kerry’s problems were all Helen’s fault. Couldn’t she see that she was just doing her best? Anyway, Kerry had just started attending pre-school, so mixing with other kids would probably sort out the so-called ‘problem’ once and for all. Nothing like a narky teacher to get you learning properly, she thought, remembering her own school days.
She glanced in her rear-view mirror to where Kerry was sitting in silence.
“So what did you do at Jo’s today?” she asked, then idly remembered Dr Davis mentioning something about trying not to ask questions that required a lengthy response.
“We made Wice Kwispie buns,” Kerry answered without stumbling.
There, Helen thought, she knew Jo was overreacting. The woman overreacted to everything. She could just imagine Jo trying to force Kerry to say various things throughout the day. No wonder her daughter struggled at times.
“And did Mark help with the Rice Krispie buns?” she asked.
“Yep,” Kerry said quickly, “buh-buh-buh-buh . . .” She hesitated and caught her mother’s eye in the rear-view mirror.
Unbeknownst to herself, Helen was frowning. “But what?” she finished for her.
Kerry looked uncomfortable. “Sometimes the w-w-w-words get s-s-s-stuck in my mouth, Mommy,” she said mournfully. “Jo says it’s called b-b-b-bumpy talk.”
“What? There’s no such thing, Kerry. You’re still only a little girl, that’s all.”
Kerry looked away and out of the window, her mother’s dismissive explanation not sitting well with her.
Helen was livid. Jo had obviously been putting ideas in her daughter’s head. What kind of a thing was that to do? Now Kerry believed she had some kind of a problem.
That was all Helen needed!
She felt a familiar impatience rise up from the pit of her stomach. It was hard enough as it was, doing a hard day’s work, without having to play up to Kerry as well. It was all right for Jo, she had a husband to share the domestics and cater for her every whim, with nothing to trouble her but what to watch on television every evening. She didn’t have to face a mountain of washing and an untidy apartment to clean. She didn’t have to spend the next few hours working on a presentation for a client, and then be expected to ‘listen selectively’ to a three-and-a-half-year-old.
Jo had really annoyed her with the suggestion that she wasn’t doing enough to help Kerry with her speech. What did she know about raising a child?
Helen sighed. Everything seemed to be getting on top of her these days. She knew that she had been unfairly negative with Laura that time about her plans for her new business, and she was being especially impatient and impossible at work. Normally she took a hardline approach with her sales team, believing that respect and a little bit of fear would get better results than treating them all like babies. But today, one of the newer girls on her sales team had asked Helen for advice, and she had nearly bitten off the poor girl’s head. How could anyone be expected to get results if Helen carried on like that?
Glancing in the rear-view mirror, she indicated right and drove towards her apartment in Monkstown.
She needed a break. Even a decent night out would do, but when was the last time she’d had one of those? As expected, the delectable Richard Moore hadn’t been in contact. In the same way that all the promising men she had gone out with had never again been seen or heard from, once they learnt of Kerry’s existence.
It wasn’t fair. Why should she be doomed to a lifetime of spinsterhood just because she was a single mother? She had done her best for Kerry, was always doing her best for Kerry and what thanks did she get for it all? Absolutely none. Kerry was clingy, tearful and needy and now, thanks to Jo, she was becoming increasingly aware of her speech difficulty. She always made Helen feel guilty for going out at night without her, although she loved staying at Auntie Nicola’s where she could play with Barney or sometimes Auntie Laura’s where she was fussed over by Neil.
But what about Helen? Who the hell would fuss over her?
Helen let herself and Kerry into the building, then checked the postbox in the hallway. There was only one envelope addressed to her and she recognised the handwriting immediately. Great – Jamie’s guilt money. At least that might help pay some of these speech-therapy bills.
She put the key in the door of their modern, expensive ground-floor apartment. What was wrong with her lately? Why was she so down all the time? But she didn’t need to look very far for an answer.
She was desperately lonely. She wanted – no, she needed someone – someone to share the gossip when she came home after a long hard day in the office, someone to get excited as she did over the football results. She needed intelligent, exciting conversation, something more stimulating than babbling and questions from a three-and-a-half-year-old. She needed someone to cuddle up to when she was feeling down, someone to share her problems and tell her that everything would be all right.
Someone who didn’t leave a mess in the kitchen, and toys all over the living-room.
Helen just needed someone to love her, to fulfil her, to make her happy.
In the same way Jamie had before Kerry had come along and ruined everything.