‘I’m not. I’m not going. I’m not going back.’
‘Well stay here in London then.’ Theo Ryan shook his head in exasperation. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ He drained his glass and, pulling up the sleeve of his Emmett of London navy chambray shirt, glanced at his Rolex. ‘I really can’t be doing with this, Lexia. I’m off, having a final drink with Darren and the lads. You make your mind up what you’re going to do – whether you’re moving north with me and Cillian or staying here in London by yourself.’ Theo glared at his wife, looking her up and down with what was tantamount to disdain – dislike even.
‘I’m staying here and Cillian is staying here. With me.’ Lexia Ryan reiterated what she’d been telling him for months. Ever since he’d dropped the bombshell that he’d signed with Midhope Town. Midhope Town, for heaven’s sake? OK, they were up there in the Premier League once again and flying high but what were the chances of his being taken on by the town where she’d been born and grown up? It was unbelievable that it had actually happened. Lexia rubbed away the tears that seemed to be ever-present and tried to control her breathing.
Theo turned and came back towards her, grabbing his wife’s shoulders with both hands. She could smell alcohol on his breath and see contempt in his small, shrewd eyes as his fingers dug into her flesh. ‘And you think you’d be able to look after a four-year-old by yourself? Look at you, you mad bitch. Just take a look at yourself.’ He moved her, none too carefully, towards the huge mirror hanging above the neo-classical marble fireplace. ‘You can’t even look after yourself.’
‘I’ll get help…’
‘Well, you certainly need it.’ Theo frowned down at her, wiping away the remains of yesterday’s mascara from underneath her eyes with the ball of his thumb. He bent slightly and sniffed. ‘You smell, Lexia. When was the last time you had a shower? And what the fuck are you wearing?’ He grimaced as he saw the stain on her sweatshirt. ‘You’re welcome to stay here in London, Lexia. I don’t want you to come with me. But don’t think for one minute my son is staying here with you. You’re not capable of looking after yourself or him. And come on…’ He paused and laughed dryly. ‘There’s absolutely no way Cillian would ever be parted from me; he has football in his blood…’ He looked her up and down once more, taking in the grubby maroon tracksuit bottoms and pink top, the mousy hair with the last hint of blonde highlights. ‘… While you, my darling girl, have enough Valium in yours to sedate the Pope finding himself in a mosque.’ His beautiful Irish burr belied the contempt in which he held her. Laughing at his own wit and without another backward glance, he snatched up the keys to his car from the now empty cut-glass fruit bowl and headed for the door.
She’d met Theo Ryan at a party in Knightsbridge in 2007, one of those parties she’d always dreamed of attending when she was a girl practising with a hairbrush for a microphone up in the attic at home, and where now she suddenly seemed to be the main event with everyone lining up to speak to her, to be seen talking to her.
Jaz Burnley, her new American PR, had taken her over completely since her split from the girl band Gals, reinventing her as Lexi and making sure she was not only at the top of every music chart going, both in the UK and in America, but insisting she attend all the parties and social events that would further her already burgeoning career. She was on the point of becoming the most successful UK female artist of all time, and it seemed everyone wanted a slice of the Lexi pie being offered.
Theo had approached her at the party, introducing himself simply as Theo and, not having any interest in or knowledge of football, Lexia had had no idea that he was an internationally famous premier-division player. She’d simply fallen for his lovely persuasive Irish accent, and was soon caught up in the whole idea of ‘Theo and Lexi’ as portrayed in the media and the press and particularly in the huge, colourful magazines that couldn’t get enough of the pair.
Theo had told her, on that very first evening, that he’d fallen in love with her after watching her on some TV programme where her singing had almost moved him to tears. He’d smooth-talked her, pursuing her with flowers, with presents and with the love she so desperately sought for herself now that she didn’t see her family anymore, and was quite open about his determination to have her for himself. One evening over dinner and rather a lot of wine, she’d told him she was estranged from her family up north.
‘You poor little darling,’ he’d crooned, kissed her fingers, one after the other. ‘Is it the singing and your being famous they don’t approve of?’
When she’d nodded, not knowing what other explanation to offer, Theo had smiled and said, ‘Don’t you be sad, my darlin’. I’m here to look after you now. It means I don’t have to share you with anybody else. You can be all mine.’
They’d married a year later in the Caribbean and, although Theo had wanted a huge, showy wedding in Ireland, Lexia told him she’d only marry him if they did it quietly without any fuss. He’d cajoled, sulked and argued but, on this, Lexia wouldn’t move. Such was his determination to have Lexia for himself, Theo had had to go along with the rules she’d stipulated but, on their honeymoon, after drinking too much rum, Lexia had seen a different side to him when he’d had a major strop over her refusal to allow the paparazzi access to the occasion.
As the wheels of Theo’s black Porsche now crunched and skittered up the pebbled drive, Lexia looked out of the window to where the gardeners had spent the afternoon clipping and tidying the already sterile garden, taking in the outlines of the bare winter trees, stark in the cold January evening air and then onto the crimson Sold sign triumphantly pasted across the burgundy and gold For Sale sign. She wasn’t a bit bothered about the house – it was just that: a house. An overheated interior-designed modern box with far too many rooms and not enough love. But although she actively disliked living in London, the very thought of making the move back to Midhope made her pulse race.
Lexia felt the beads of sweat on her top lip and between her breasts that always heralded the start of a panic attack. Moving away from the window, she walked up and down the ridiculously long sitting room, concentrating on the breathing exercises she’d been shown by her CBT therapist. Slowly, slowly, putting all her sustained effort into not allowing her body to hurtle her in the direction of, and down, Panic Alley where too often it had taken her, she felt her breathing ease itself down and the slight buzzing in her ears cease before it could take a hold.
Lexia caught sight of herself in the mirror once more. Jesus, she was a mess. She pulled a face, lifting up her long hair and pouting at her reflection as she had so often done for the paparazzi when they all wanted a piece of her. Were they still called paparazzi? She didn’t know. All she knew were the tabloid hacks, obviously with nothing better to report on, who would lie in wait beyond the hedge of the gated complex she’d called home for the last seven years or so, in order to snap her as she now was – too thin, too scruffy, without a bit of makeup – and convince their editors they were worthy of their salary as they compared her to Theo’s latest bit on the side. There was always one. There always had been – football groupies ready to drop their knickers for the superstar Theo Ryan had once been.
‘I make coffee. You want one?’ Nika, the present Croatian au-pair in a long line of au-pairs they’d employed to help with the running of the household and Cillian, appeared in Lexia’s line of vision as she struggled to bring her breathing under control. ‘You OK?’ she continued as she saw how drawn and pale Lexia had become. ‘You not look too hot, Lexia.’
‘I’m fine. Really. Is Cillian waiting for me upstairs?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ Nika grinned and went on, ‘He’s had bath and is shooting goals into wastepaper basket at the end of landing. I tell him you cross but, hey, he never take notice of what I say.’
‘Tell him his daddy won’t take him to football practice next week. That’ll soon have him in bed. Actually, don’t, I’ll go up and tell him myself. Make me a coffee – decaf – would you, Nika? I’ll be down in a while.’ Both Lexia and Nika knew that the coffee wouldn’t be drunk, that once on her own Lexia would pour herself a large glass of wine in its stead, but they both acted out the little charade as they did most evenings. It was only ever one glass – she certainly wasn’t a big drinker – but it had the capacity to numb the edges, to blur the reality of her life and to make what she’d done in the past – the thing that always came back to haunt her – that little less dreadful.
Relieved that the potential panic attack had receded, at least for the moment, Lexia made her way up the huge central staircase, turning left at the top and along the cream-coloured carpet until she came to the sixth door along. How ridiculous, she thought as her bare feet trod the soft thickness – seven bedrooms and just for the four of them. Nika had said she wouldn’t be leaving London to go to Yorkshire with them; she’d heard it was cold and wild up in the north. She wanted to be near Jo Malone and Harvey Nicks. When Lexia had protested that even Harvey Nicks was now in Leeds and Manchester, Nika had shaken her head and laughed and said she wasn’t venturing into the unknown. Anyway, she said, she was fed up of looking after kids – no disrespect to Cillian – and had already had a couple of interviews for work as a croupier which was much more up her street than wiping snotty noses and trying to force sprouts and broccoli down unwilling throats.
‘Goal!’ Cillian kicked the ball with force and the wastepaper bin flew in the air with a clatter. ‘See, Mum? See how good I am?’
‘Come on, darling, bed.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’ Lexia heard her voice rise. She mustn’t get into a confrontation with Cillian again. She must be fair but firm – show him she was in charge, but that she loved him at the same time. She’d read the books; she knew the theory.
‘No, means no. That’s what it means,’ Cillian said in a sing-song voice. ‘I’m going to be better even than Dad and I have to practise.’
‘Not when it’s bedtime. Right, have you cleaned your teeth?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, he hasn’t. Don’t you believe him.’ Nika, on the way up to her room, was listening. ‘Cillian, you know what happen to little boys that lie? They have their tongue cut out. And then because you no clean your teeth your teeth drop out too…’
‘Thanks, Nika, we’ll sort it,’ Lexia said hastily. It was perhaps a good job the au pair was going off to do her own thing; she suspected Cillian was already swearing like a Croat. What was it he was always muttering under his breath: Govno jedno? Theo thought it hilarious. But then, more than likely, her husband was shagging the au pair. God, she needed to get a grip and become a proper mother. She was so tired though. So tired of it all.
Lexia took a deep breath. ‘OK, Cillian, I’m going to count to five and then you’re off to your bathroom, clean those teeth in double quick time, and then it’s bed. One… two…’
‘No, no it’s not.’ Cillian stuck out his bottom lip mutinously. ‘Where’s Dad? I want Dad to put me to bed.’
‘Daddy’s gone out. He’ll come up and see you when he gets back. Now, I’m not going to tell you again.’
‘You always say that.’ Cillian turned his big brown eyes – her mother’s eyes, Lexia thought – and smiled sweetly.
‘OK, enough, govno dedno, I have enough of this. Don’t you talk to your mama like this. In my country you’d be having your backside slapped.’ Nika, towel wrapped round her well-endowed chest, exited her room and descended like a Valkyrie. She picked Cillian up in one swift movement, threw him over her shoulder and headed for his bedroom where she put him down not too gently and marched him to his en-suite bathroom. ‘Teeth, you clean them now. Properly. You hear? And don’t you paddy with me. You big boy? How you expect Jose Mourinho choose you for Man U if you not big boy? And no teeth? You ever see top footballer with no teeth?’
Cillian’s extended lip began to tremble. ‘It’s not Jose Mourinho… you don’t know anything… and I don’t want to have no teeth…’ Big fat tears began to fall down his face. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to not have no teeth.’ He flung himself into Lexia’s arms.
Lexia breathed in every bit of her son as she stroked his hair. She could feel Nika palpably bristling at her capitulation over Cillian, but she didn’t care. ‘Come on, Cilly, let’s clean those beautiful strong teeth together and then bed.’
‘Will you sing?’
‘Of course. What do you want?’
‘Hush, Little Baby.’ Cillian frowned. ‘But I’m not a little baby: I’m a big boy – I just like the words Mama’s gonna buy me a dog named Rover. Dad says when we get to Midhope, I can have a dog. I’m going to have a big dog and we’re going to call him Rover.’
Oh Jesus, was this Theo’s latest tack in getting Cillian to move with him up north? A bloody dog?
Behind her, Nika tutted and muttered to herself. ‘Krvavi pas sadu. Jebeš me…’
‘I know you’re being rude, Nika, so cut it out.’ This was more like the old Lexia, she thought to herself. More like the feisty kid who’d bunked off lessons, left school before she was sixteen and become the youngest singer ever to win TheBest. She could do this, stand up for herself. Become the proper mother she desperately wanted to be.
‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word…’ Lexia sang the first few words as Cillian climbed into bed and snuggled down under the crisp cotton sheets with Ronaldo, his stuffed penguin. Ron was desperately in need of a good bath – a bit like herself Lexia conceded as the ripe whiff of stale sweat drifted upwards from her armpit – but, the good intention she’d had that morning of putting Ronaldo in the washing machine had, as so often happened with most of her intentions, good or otherwise, gone by the wayside in a fog of Valium, wrapping its comforting arms around her anxieties until they receded back into the dark cave from which they habitually crawled.
‘Mummy?’ Cillian opened one sleepy eye.
‘Hmm?’
‘Why aren’t you on television anymore?’
‘That was a long, long time ago, darling. Before you were born.’
‘Mrs Sanderson said you were the best singer in the world.’ Cillian yawned and closed both eyes once more.
‘Mrs Sanderson?’
‘You know, the lady who helps in my class. She hears us read and puts pictures up on the wall?’
‘Oh, right.’ Lexia felt a pain so intense it threatened to floor her. She had been good. The best.
‘Mrs Sanderson says she’d like your augi…’
‘My augi?’
‘Your augi traff…’ Cillian trailed off, his mouth open, little fingers slipping from around Ron’s arm. Did penguins have arms? Wings that was it. But they couldn’t fly, could they? Just like her. They couldn’t fly away.
She loved Cillian so much. He was her total world. Without him she was… Well, what was she? Nothing. Could she keep him here in London with her? Buy a small house around here and have some continuity by keeping him at the school he’d only just started? Surely that was better for him than taking him up to a new school, a new town? Even as she put forward the arguments, the reasons that had been in her head for months now, Lexia knew it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t do it by herself. And even if she could, if she was as strong and, let’s face it, as sane as the next single mother wanting to bring up her child alone, Theo wouldn’t allow it. He’d drag her through the family court, bring in the most expensive legal advocates and put forward and expose every little thing that made her the crap mother she really was: the anxiety, the depression, the phobias… the list was endless. And Cillian adored his father. His behaviour was not the best now; what would it be like just her and him with no Nika to pass him over to and Cillian resentful of her, knowing it was her that was keeping him from his daddy?
Lexia bent and kissed her son’s sleeping face. She couldn’t be parted from him. Far better, surely, to go with Theo and Cillian back up to Yorkshire. She’d have her big sisters, Ariadne and Juno there. Juno was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. They’d both help her to get better. And her mum. She missed her mum so much. A big tear tolled down Lexia’s cheek, falling onto the stain on her sweatshirt where it glistened for a couple of seconds before sinking into the absorbent fabric.
She wanted her mum.