‘Mm, that’s great, sweetie,’ I say brightly, squatting beside him on the carpet and running a hand over his soft, stubbly head. I’m already regretting my decision to have his beautiful black curls cropped. I thought it would make him look tougher, less of a target for bullies at his new school. But the barber went overboard with the clippers and the overall effect – his short bristles, puny body and huge eyes – makes him look more like a victim than ever.
‘Are you looking forward to your first day tomorrow?’ I ask anxiously. How will he cope with being separated from me? Will he make friends, or will the other kids tease him? Will his off-the-wall humour and strange, dreamy manner set him apart? I try to ignore a rogue image of him standing all alone and lost in the playground, a group of kids pointing and chanting insults at him.
‘Mm,’ he says, as he picks up a plastic dinosaur. ‘Look, they’re fighting.’ He smashes the dinosaur into the man with ten heads and the heads topple, scattering over the carpet. He doesn’t want to talk about tomorrow. Of course he doesn’t. He’s only five. Tomorrow barely exists for him. He’s living in the moment. Loving life. I could learn a lot from him.
‘Make sure you tidy all those up when you finish,’ I say, as I head back to the kitchen. I need to stop worrying. There’s no point in spending your life worrying. What good does it do? I ought to live in the moment like Dylan. I pull the medicine box out of the cupboard and root around for a plaster. Perhaps I should go back to that mindfulness course I started a while ago. What was it the coach told us? Pay attention to everything around you. Don’t judge, just be aware. I wrap the plaster around my finger, watching the way the red blood seeps through the fabric. I’m not judging, just observing. Then I stare out at the sky through the window. It stares back, grey, blank and indifferent. The garden is wet from the recent rain, the leaves dripping, the grass saturated. A sparrow hops across the lawn pecking for worms. The hedge needs trimming. Theo always used to do that. No, that’s a judgement. I mustn’t judge. I turn back to the cooking and tip the onions into the pan, watching them sizzle. Not judging them. I breathe deeply through my nose. Tomorrow will be okay, I tell myself. Everything will be okay.
After we’ve eaten and Dylan’s had a bath, he clambers into bed, clutching the fluffy Komodo dragon Harper bought him at London Zoo. They went about a month ago, all three of them: Theo, Dylan and Theo’s girlfriend, Harper. And Dylan came back, eyes shining, full of stories about funny monkeys and how they all laughed when Harper dropped her ice cream. That’s when I knew that Harper was probably a permanent fixture in Theo’s life. I hate to admit it, but there’s no way he would have introduced her to Dylan if he wasn’t serious about her.
‘Why’s your face all cross, Mummy?’ Dylan asks me, running his fingers along the Komodo dragon’s fur.
‘Is it?’ I look at my reflection in the mirror on his wardrobe door and catch a glimpse of my expression. He’s right. I do look cross. I look bitter, angry and old. In this light I look much older than my age, not to mention fat. A fat, bitter old hag, I think. With an effort I wipe the frown away and smile fondly at Dylan.
‘I’m just tired,’ I say.
‘I want to sleep in your bed, please, Mummy,’ Dylan begs, hopping up and down. His face is still flushed from the bath and his eyes are glittering with fatigue and excitement.
‘Big boys sleep in their own beds.’ I say, kissing his cheek. It’s soft and smooth and he smells of talcum powder and baby shampoo. ‘Now lie down.’
I sit next to him on the bed, propped against a pillow, his head resting against my belly, and read him our favourite story, ‘Naughty Nelly’s New Neighbours’. It’s a simple but clever story about a girl whose neighbours turn out to be monsters.
‘Do you think our neighbours are monsters?’ Dylan asks me, wide-eyed, when I’ve finished. He wriggles down under the covers and pops his thumb in his mouth. I think about Eileen, who lives next door – the way she yelled at Dylan the other day for accidentally throwing his ball into her garden and the malicious gleam in her eye when I told her about Theo leaving.
‘They could be,’ I say. Then, catching the alarm in his eyes, I add, ‘Friendly monsters, of course.’
Once Dylan’s asleep I make sure his things are packed for tomorrow and I make his lunch: cheese and Marmite sandwiches, some carrot sticks and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. Then I take a pack and eat it myself. One won’t do any harm. This is day two of my diet and I’m craving sugary and salty food. I sit down at my laptop and write. My target is a thousand words a day and the deadline is looming. I’m writing a young adult book – the second in a series about a teenage ghost.
When Theo and I first married, we lived in Bristol. He had a job at a nearby school, and I worked as a local news reporter at the Bristol Gazette. I loved my job, but I’d always harboured a secret ambition to write a book and I spent most of my evenings and weekends scribbling away and firing off short stories
