Someone was singing his name.
A pebble skittered off his bedroom window and his name was repeated in a harsh whisper.
Pulled from sleep, he opened his eyes on a thick darkness leavened only by the weak light from his Bart Simpson lamp.
He heard his name being whispered again. It was coming from the back garden, and he recognised the voice.
‘Mummy?’ What was she doing out in the garden in the middle of the night? He jumped out of bed, pushed his feet into his Ninja Turtle slippers and raced over to the window. Pulling open the curtain, he pressed his forehead against the cool glass and searched for her below.
There she was, in the middle of their back lawn, stepping from side to side with a graceful hop, her right arm trailing a sweeping arch to each side, her nightdress a slump of cotton in front of her feet.
Looking up, she spotted him and waved. ‘Come, sweetheart,’ she mouthed. ‘Come and dance with Mummy.’
He waved back, but kept silent. He may only have been six and three quarters but he knew this was one of those occasions he should not wake Daddy. The thought of his father stilled him for a moment. If he did join his mother outside, might Daddy be disappointed in him? If there was one thing he hated most in the world it was the look his father gave him when he did something silly.
But Mummy looked like she was having such amazing fun. So, without further thought, he raced down the stairs, across the kitchen and out the back door.
‘Aha,’ she beamed as he skipped across the cropped grass towards her. ‘The little faerie child is here.’ She held her hands out to grasp at his. ‘Have you travelled far? I hear the moon is a wonderful place at this time of the year.’ With that she looked up towards the hook of moon tucked into a far corner of the glittering night sky.
Then her attention returned to him. ‘You look cold, little faerie boy. We should dance to warm you up. Do you want to dance?’
He nodded. The part of him that desperately wanted to be a grown-up was not so sure, but this was one of those occasions when she was giving him her full attention. And that was something he craved. Often – too often – she was distant and sad, and acted like he wasn’t really there. He’d stand in front of her and say, ‘But Mummy, it’s me’, and she’d look at him, head cocked to the side. ‘I have a son?’ she’d ask, and he would feel tiny and invisible, and all the way back to his room he’d pinch at his arm, intoning, ‘But I’m real, aren’t I?’
So now, when he felt the warmth of her grip on his hands, he revelled in it.
‘We do this…’ She stepped to the side, and he followed. ‘…And then this…’ She held his right hand up in the air and sent him into a spin. Then she showed him a couple of other movements, which he duly copied. As he did so he couldn’t help but giggle; this was silly and fun. He loved it when he met this version of her.
And so, with the pattern of movement established, they danced and whirled across the lawn as light as moonbeams, to the music of a waltz that sounded deep in his mother’s head.
They spun and stepped and danced until his breath grew ragged, until he looked up at his mother, begging her to stop; until his father’s voice boomed out into the night.
Then all heat was taken out of the summer air and he felt a chill breeze stippling the skin across his back into goose bumps.
‘Go to bed, please, son,’ his father said.
‘But, Dad,’ he said trying to read his father’s expression. ‘Please don’t be angry. Mummy only wanted to have fun.’
‘Bed.’
He trudged back to the house. When he reached the door he heard a cry from his mother and turned. She was on the ground, and his father was on his knees behind her, gathering her to him, holding her nightdress against her breasts. Her head was thrown back, long hair trailing in the grass, the pale of her neck exposed to the sky and the beasts that lived there.
The boy’s heart tightened with pain and sorrow. He wanted nothing more than to run to her and bring back her smiles, but his father looked over at him with an expression that stopped him.
‘Bed … please … son,’ his father said.
Even though his father’s eyes were hidden under the shadow of his forehead, the boy could read his look. He’d seen it so many times. His father’s greatest fear was lurking there. Would the boy become as mad as the mother?