Page 53 of Postscript

‘Come to Dee Nee.’

Jewel actually holds out her arms and goes to her, but as soon as she’s in Denise’s arms she realises what she has done. She looks to her mother uncertainly and the frown appears, the flared nostrils, the obvious distaste and disgust of anyone and anything that is not her mother. The irritated sounds start. Denise stands up. The legs start to kick out, frantically. Socks hang on for dear life off the tips of her toes.

‘Look there’s Mama. Mama’s still there.’

Jewel’s sounds of irritation and distress stop, but the face is still on, in full force. She’s not sure about what’s happening here but she’s quite sure she doesn’t like it. Maybe.

‘Hi, Mama.’ Denise waves, and encourages Jewel to do the same. Jewel waves. She brings her on a little walk around the dining room. And then to the TV room. But as soon as she goes to the kitchen out of Ginika’s eyeline, the horror movie screaming starts. Ginika stands up.

‘Leave her for a moment,’ I say. ‘Let Denise deal with it.’ It pains Ginika to leave her but I’m firm. ‘We can finish this section off tonight.’

The screams, the yells, the absolute piercing hysteria echo around the house interwoven with Denise’s gentle soothing voice, songs, and chatter, and I can tell that Ginika’s barely able to concentrate on what I’m saying or the textbook in front of her. But I continue, push through the wall of noise hoping we can get past it.

I call out some words and Ginika writes them down.

‘Where did you and Gerry go on honeymoon?’ Ginika asks suddenly.

‘I think we need to focus on the work, Ginika,’ I say brusquely. But she won’t. I have taken her child from her and she is irritated by the lack of control. I push her forward. She pushes back.

‘You said in the podcast that Gerry sent you and your friends to Lanzarote because you were going to go there on your honeymoon.’

‘Yes.’

She puts the pencil down. ‘So why didn’t you go there? Where did you actually go?’

‘Somewhere else,’ I say, handing her back the pencil.

She fixes me with a strange look, unhappy with my response. Here she is raw and vulnerable and I won’t answer her questions. I sigh and begin to explain, when she holds her hand up to stop me. She cocks her ear and listens.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

It takes me a moment to realise that Jewel has stopped crying, that in fact it has been silent for a few minutes. Ginika jumps out of her seat.

‘It’s OK, Ginika, I’m sure she’s fine,’ I say, reaching out to her, but she moves quickly, away from the table, through the kitchen and straight upstairs. I follow her, holding on to the banister and hopping behind her as fast as I can. Ginika doesn’t wait, she rushes ahead of me up the stairs. I find her standing at the door of the small spare bedroom, blocking my view. Breathless, I peek inside. Denise is sitting up on the bed, against the headboard, her legs out before her, staring out the window, with Jewel fast asleep on her chest, wrapped in a blanket. The room is dark, lit only by the street lamps that shine inside. Denise looks at us, confused as to why we’re staring at her.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Was she not supposed to sleep? It’s late, she seemed tired.’ She looks at Ginika and then to me, worried she’s upset the mother.

‘No, it’s great,’ I say, grinning. ‘Perfect, Denise, well done.’

I go to lead Ginika away, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t seem pleased.

‘We have to go,’ Ginika says loudly and Jewel stirs.

‘What? But why?’ I ask, whispering. ‘We can get a lot of work done now.’

‘No,’ Ginika says, distressed, and going for her baby. ‘We have to go home.’ She lifts Jewel from Denise’s body, and leaves the room.

22

Despite the awkwardness of Ginika grabbing Jewel from Denise’s arms and announcing she’d like to leave, Denise offers to drive Ginika home, and Ginika accepts. It could be for one of two reasons; to further stamp her authority on her place as mother, or because she feels bad putting me out again. Alone, with a frazzled head, I sit on the couch in silence. Ginika’s question about my honeymoon stirs my thoughts.

‘I want to go somewhere relaxing, Gerry,’ I say, massaging my temples as he opens another adventure magazine. ‘After all the wedding arrangements, after the big day, I honestly just want to go to a beach and lay there all day drinking cocktails and never get up.’

He looks at me, bored. ‘I don’t want to lie on a beach all day, Holly. We can do that for a few days but not every day. I want to do something. I want to see the world.’

‘Look, we’re seeing the world right now,’ I say, flicking through the pages. ‘Hello Iceland, hello Argentina, hello Brazil, hello Thailand. Oh, hi there, Mount Everest, don’t think there’s a beach near you.’