I dreamed someone was calling me and then blearily realised it wasn’t a dream. I slid out of bed, still half asleep, and went into Poppy’s room, turning on the bedside lamp. Poppy was sitting up, her hair wild and her face a tragic mask. I could smell and feel what had happened.
‘Don’t worry about that. Let’s get you clean and dry and I’ll put some new sheets on your bed.’
‘I did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘I did wet it.’
‘It’s just a little accident.’
Though Poppy hadn’t wet her bed for many months, I thought, as I pulled clean pyjamas onto her and stripped the bed.
‘Climb into my bed,’ I said, ‘while I get this done. Take Teddy and Milly with you.’
‘I did it. I did it.’ Her face puckered up and she started to sob.
‘Never you mind.’
‘Don’t hit me!’
‘Hit you! What are you saying? Of course I won’t hit you. I’ll never hit you, my darling one. Come with me.’
Poppy slept with me for the rest of the night. She pressed her strong hot body against mine and wriggled until she got comfortable. Her breath smelled like hay.
‘Are you still dead?’
I gave a splutter of startled laughter.
‘I’ve never been dead.’
‘You didn’t die?’
‘No. I didn’t die, my darling. I’m here. Go to sleep now.’
And Poppy did sleep until five in the morning, when a grey light was showing round the edges of the curtains, and then she woke with such a violent jerk that it woke me too. Her eyes were wide open and she stared at me as if I was a stranger.
‘Jason, sorry to call like this, but I just wanted to know if anything happened over the weekend. Anything that might have disturbed or distressed Poppy.’
I was downstairs in the conservatory – a room of glass and steel girders, and the reason I had bought this flat in the first place, in spite of its poky bedrooms and the miniature kitchen off to its side – speaking softly into the phone in case Poppy overheard. In the garden, there were two goldfinches on the feeder.
‘It’s not even half past six.’
‘I thought you’d be up. You always get up early.’
‘Nothing happened. Nothing disturbed her. She’s fine. You shouldn’t worry over every little thing.’
‘This isn’t a little thing. She’s acting strangely. And she wet her bed.’
‘She’s just a kid, Tess.’
I thought of the drawing, the words she had said. I thought of the way she had clung to me.
‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Right,’ I said tiredly. ‘I mean you’re right. I’m sorry. I do worry.’
I fed Sunny and emptied the dishwasher. I put clothes on Poppy (the stripy cotton trousers that I’d made for her a few weeks ago, a baggy tee shirt, her denim jacket and green pull-on plimsolls), and clothes on myself (rusty-coloured shirt dress, denim jacket, ankle boots). I brushed Poppy’s red hair and plaited it and Poppy yelled. I brushed my own not-quite-so-red hair and tied it back. I made us both porridge. I put Poppy’s lunch (sandwich, slices of raw carrot and cucumber, apple) into her lunch box and my own lunch (ditto) into mine. I cleaned Poppy’s teeth and cleaned my own. Just before leaving, I put the drawing into my backpack.
At a quarter to eight, I dropped Poppy off at Gina’s house. I’d known Gina since secondary school: we’d gone on holiday together, shared a house, shared secrets; we’d seen each other fall in love, go through break-ups, get spectacularly drunk or stoned; we’d argued and made up. For a while, Carlie had been part of our small friendship group as well, until she went off with my boyfriend – and then Gina had refused to have anything more to do with her and still spoke of her with an icy contempt. Gina and I had been pregnant at the same time and given birth a couple of months apart.
I sometimes thought we were more like sisters than friends, bound together by a shared past. She was part of the reason I’d moved to London Fields. Her son Jake was in the same nursery class as Poppy. She had another child too, six-month-old Nellie, with chunky legs, cheeks like red apples and a roar like a motorbike accelerating.
Gina worked for a charity and she had returned to work three months after giving birth. It was her husband, Laurie, who worked from home and did most of the childcare. Sometimes I wondered if he actually worked at all. He genuinely seemed to love looking after the children: he was always baking with them, or painting, or going on outings to strange events he’d read about online. Poppy and I had accompanied him to a surreal rabbit gymkhana in Barking a few months ago and watched solemn teenaged girls tow their bewildered rabbits on leads over, and mostly through, miniature jumps. He was a slight figure, but I was used to seeing him with Nellie in a sling and Jake on his hip. Two or three times a week, he or Gina – but almost always he – took Poppy and Jake to school and collected them. I did the same on my days off. While Jason had sailed upwards into his headship, I’d shifted sideways after Poppy was born, becoming a part-time primary school teacher on a salary that sometimes covered my outgoings and sometimes didn’t quite cover them. How had that happened, I wondered, when we’d started out as equals? How had I let it happen?
That morning, Poppy didn’t want to be left. She put her arms around my legs and hung on furiously. I had to prise her off me.
‘Don’t worry.’ Laurie gave me a little push out of the door. ‘She’ll be fine as soon as you’re out of sight.’
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said to Nadine as we ate our sandwiches together. Nadine was head of inclusion in the school in east London where I taught Year Threes. She was tall and strong and had dark, very short hair. She wore hooped earrings and leather jackets and biker boots. She had three sons and whenever I went to her house I was struck by the amount of noise and mess they made, and by how calm she remained, like she was in a space of her own. The children at the school were quite scared of her. I loved her, and I wanted to be more like her – solid, confident, safe, married.
I took the drawing out of my backpack.
‘She’s never done anything like it before.’
I told Nadine about what Poppy had said, about her wetting the bed, about her clinginess. Nadine listened attentively and then smiled.
‘It’s one drawing, one accident in the bed. Do you think that you might just be hyper-vigilant at the moment, because of everything you’ve been through with the divorce?’
‘It wasn’t actually a divorce.’
‘It was like a divorce. It was a crisis in your life and in hers. So one little thing triggers anxiety in you.’
‘What about “he did kill”?’
She laughed.
‘You should hear some of the stuff my boys come out with. They take everything in, things you didn’t even notice they’d heard or seen. Something someone said on the street as they were passing by, something on TV, whatever.’
I stood up.
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘If you go on feeling worried, you can always talk to Alex.’
Alex was Nadine’s partner and a psychotherapist.
‘He wouldn’t mind?’
‘You can ask him.’
‘It’s OK. I’ll just keep an eye on her.’
When I collected her from Gina and Laurie’s, Poppy was bright-eyed and excited, with yellow paint smeared on one cheek and grass in her hair. She hurled herself into my arms and then pulled away to show me the stickers she’d put on her tummy.
‘It looks like she’s had a lovely time.’
Laurie looked distracted.
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘Was everything all right?’
‘They had a little tiff. I’m sure it’s all sorted now.’
I put Poppy down and spoke to Laurie in a quieter tone. As a teacher, I’d always tried to deal with bullying wherever I saw it. I had always promised myself that I would never be one of those parents who refused to accept that their own children could do things like that.
‘What happened?’
‘Jake got a bit upset.’
‘Did Poppy hurt him?’
‘I don’t know. Jake was crying. I think Poppy said something.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I don’t know what it was exactly.’ Laurie gave a little shrug and smiled at me, a dimple in one cheek. ‘Jake just said it was something horrible. He was crying.’
‘Could I ask Jake about it?’
Laurie shook his head. ‘I’ve only just calmed him down. Don’t worry. He’s probably already forgotten about it. We both know what they’re like at that age.’
On the short walk back, I tried to let things be but I couldn’t. When we got to the little patch of green near the flat, I stopped and knelt down so that I could look Poppy right in the eyes.
‘Did you have fun with Jake?’
‘He cried,’ Poppy said, matter-of-factly.
‘Yes, I know. Why did he cry?’
‘He was crying.’
‘Did you say something to make him cry?’
‘I’m hungry,’ said Poppy. ‘Very hungry.’
There was no point in pursuing it.
‘That’s good,’ I said, ‘because we’re going to have a barbecue with Aidan. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’
I was being ridiculous, I thought. I was being just the kind of over-protective mother I promised myself I wouldn’t be.