The Donor Read online

  It’s ridiculous.

  Isn’t it?

  ‘PJs and teeth,’ I tell Meg, catching sight of the clock. ‘School tomorrow.’

  ‘Inset day,’ she says, gleefully.

  ‘Since when?’

  She looks sheepish. ‘Um, since the letter they sent home that might still be in my bag …’

  ‘Meg!’ I look at Steve. ‘I’ve got a double shift tomorrow. We need—’ I bite off the end of my sentence, not wanting to let Karen know that money is tight. ‘I can’t let them down,’ I finish, instead.

  ‘I can’t take a day off, love, not halfway through a build.’

  ‘Meg can come to me,’ Karen says. ‘It would be no trouble – I’m not doing anything I can’t re-arrange.’

  ‘I really don’t think …’ I look at Steve, expecting him to back me up, but he’s looking at Karen as if she’s offered him a million pounds.

  ‘That’s really generous of you, Karen,’ he says.

  ‘We can go shopping! What do you think, Meg?’

  It’s obvious from Meg’s face what her answer is going to be, even before she shouts ‘Yes please!’ And then she starts planning the shops they could visit and the clothes they could try on.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ Karen says, with a smile, and we thank her.

  Later, when she gets in her car to go home, we stand in the hall with the door open.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ I say to Steve, while Meg’s out front, saying goodbye again.

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know what I was worried about. She’s really nice.’

  But I can’t shake the unease I feel. Karen gave Meg her son’s heart. She bought us lunch. Now she’s helping us out with childcare.

  What will she want in return?

  Chapter 4

  Coming Between Us

  Meg has a great day with Karen. When I get home from the factory, my feet aching, she’s still buzzing. I’ve brought her back some chocolates – paid extra for the posh ones with cream filling and shards of ginger on top. But, when I see the heap of plastic bags on Meg’s bed, I drop the battered box back into my bag.

  ‘Karen bought you clothes?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, I promise.’ Meg pulls on a black denim jacket and gives me a twirl. ‘She insisted.’ The jacket looks expensive, with artful rips at the elbows and careful fraying around the collar. ‘And there’s this to go with it, and this …’ She holds up a series of garments – a patterned dress, a pair of boots, a soft grey vest top with THIS GIRL CAN across the front in neon letters.

  ‘It’s too much,’ I tell Steve, when I’m back downstairs. I don’t trust myself to say what I want to say if I call Karen, so I text her instead. I compose the message carefully, reading and re-reading to make sure the balance is right. Grateful, but firm.

  Thank you so much for today – it really helped us out. Meg had a lovely day. Please let me know what the clothes came to and I’ll give you the money x

  The answer comes swiftly. My treat! X

  I can’t let you do that, I text back.

  This time there’s a longer pause. I don’t have a child to spoil any more, she says eventually. Please let me spoil yours instead xx

  How can I say no to that?

  Meg wears her new clothes until they practically walk into the washing machine on their own. She stops watching X Factor with me and Steve, and instead downloads old black-and-white Westerns onto her laptop and watches them in her room.

  ‘I’m worried about her,’ I tell Steve. ‘She seems so … different.’

  ‘She’s happy, though,’ he says. And I can’t argue with that.

  Over the next few weeks I manage to put Karen out of my mind. The leaves are starting to fall and, with them, my thoughts turn to Christmas. It’s still weeks away, but presents won’t buy themselves, and if we want a decent tree and a turkey I’ll need to put in some more hours at work. The shorter days mean Steve stops work at four, every job taking twice as many days as it would have in the summer, so I take evening shifts to make ends meet. It’s not ideal – I race out of the door just as Steve comes in – but at least Meg gets one of us at home all the time.

  On Thursday, I come home at ten-thirty p.m. to find a car in my spot outside the house. A sleek black Audi, with leather seats and a stitched steering wheel. I recognise it instantly, and my stomach twists into knots.

  Karen is on the sofa, a mug of tea in her hand, and her feet curled up beneath her. She’s wearing a black wrap dress, and has her hair tied in a loose knot on one side of her neck. Steve is in his armchair, turned to face her, and although the TV is on, the sound is off. I stand in the hall, watching them for a moment, feeling like a spy.

  ‘Here she is!’ Karen says, making me wonder if they’ve been talking about me. ‘How was the chocolate factory?’ She makes it sound like a joke – like it’s a place I’ve made up.

  ‘It was … fine. I … I wasn’t expecting company tonight.’ It’s Steve I’m really talking to, but when I look at him he won’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Karen brought something round for Meg,’ he says.

  More presents? ‘That’s really kind of you, but—’

  ‘She won’t thank me for this one!’ Karen laughs. She picks up a Boots carrier bag from the cushion next to her and holds it open so I can see the contents. ‘Multivitamins, extra iron, vitamin K and arnica. Good for blood flow. Poor Meg will rattle when she walks.’ She laughs again, and this time Steve joins in.

  ‘She’s taking a lot of pills already,’ I say. The bottles are in the bathroom, their labels filled with long names I can’t pronounce.

  ‘These are supplements. They’ll help Meg stay healthy.’

  ‘She is healthy. She’s doing really well. The consultant said so.’ I don’t mean to sound so abrupt, but Steve turns to look at me, a shocked expression on his face.

  ‘Lizzie!’

  ‘I got another present too.’ Karen is less sure of herself now. She moves her legs from beneath her and sits upright. She takes a postcard-sized envelope from the carrier bag and hands it to me. I open it. Inside is a picture of vegetables – carrots, potatoes, beans.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s an organic vegetable box. It’ll come once a week – it’s all paid for.’

  Rage builds inside me, and I fight to contain it. ‘You don’t think I feed my family properly?’

  ‘Of course! I just—’

  ‘We don’t need charity!’

  ‘It’s not—’

  ‘Lizzie! Karen has done a lovely thing – the least you can do is say thank you.’ I’ve never seen Steve like this, flushed and angry, his jaw tight with tension. Karen stands, slipping on her shoes and picking up her bag. She leaves the Boots bag on the sofa.

  ‘I was just doing what we mums do best,’ she says quietly, looking at me squarely. I’m shocked to see tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Taking good care of our kids.’

  Steve follows her to the front door, and I hear him saying sorry, and her telling him it’s fine, don’t worry, she’s been through a lot.

  Guilt seeps into me like water into a sponge. I might have been through a lot, but Karen has been through worse. I pick up Steve’s glass of wine and drain it. When I turn round, he’s standing in the doorway, watching me.

  ‘She’s a nice woman,’ he says. ‘She did a nice thing – and God knows, we could do with the help right now.’

  ‘We’re doing all right.’

  ‘We’re barely scraping by!’ He follows me to the kitchen.

  ‘You didn’t even want me to meet her,’ I say, refilling the empty glass.

  ‘I was worried, that’s all. About going against Samira’s advice. But Karen is nice – I like her.’

  ‘Clearly! I come home from work, and the two of you are cosying up on the sofa!’ My voice rises until I’m almost shouting, and I wait for Steve to shout back. But he doesn’t. Instead he looks at me sadly.

  ‘Can you even imagine what that woma
n has been through?’ he says. ‘What it must be like to see Meg, smiling, laughing, going shopping? Can you imagine the strength Karen has to be a friend to us, when all the time she must be thinking “Jake should be here”?’

  I open my mouth to defend myself, but can’t find the words.

  Steve turns and leaves the room, and I hear his soft tread on the stairs. And for the first time in the twenty years we’ve been married, he sleeps in the spare room.

  Chapter 5

  From Bad to Worse

  When I get up the next day, Steve has already left for work. Meg surfaces at eight, and I chivvy her through breakfast and into her school uniform.

  ‘Did you and Dad have a row last night?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I heard shouting.’

  ‘You should have been asleep.’

  ‘So you did have a row.’

  ‘Eat your cereal,’ I say, putting a bowl in front of her. On the counter, next to the kettle, Steve has laid out the vitamins Karen brought round. I think about sweeping the whole lot into the bin. But she didn’t bring them for me, did she? She brought them for Meg. To keep her healthy. What kind of mum would get in the way of that?

  ‘Earth to Lizzie …’ Samira taps my arm.

  ‘Sorry – what were you saying?’ We’re grabbing a coffee between my factory shift and Samira’s hospital one, and I know I haven’t been my usual self. I keep running over everything I said to Karen last night – everything Steve said to me. Did I over-react? Was Steve right to be angry with me? I’ve tried calling him twice, but he hasn’t picked up. That’s not unusual – it’s hard to take calls when you’re on a roof with a stack of tiles – but today it feels personal.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Are you all right?’

  I pause, working out what I can safely say. ‘Steve slept in the spare room last night.’

  Samira raises an eyebrow.

  ‘It’ll blow over,’ I say. ‘It’s not like you two to argue.’

  It isn’t. Life’s too short. We, of all people, know that. I can count the rows Steve and I have had on two hands, but it isn’t the harsh words that have upset me the most. It’s the sadness I saw in Steve’s eyes when I threw Karen’s gift back in her face. He thought I was a horrible person.

  Am I?

  ‘How’s work?’ I ask Samira, keen to change the subject.

  ‘Same old. I’ve been roped in to running a fundraising evening – because I’ve got loads of spare time on my hands, right?’ She grins.

  ‘I’ll help,’ I say quickly. ‘I could make cakes? Maybe ask my boss for a raffle prize?’ I’m making amends for last night’s behaviour, although Samira isn’t to know that.

  ‘You’re a star. Thank you.’

  When I get home there’s a parcel in the porch. I frown as I pick it up, wondering what it is. As I carry it inside, I realise. It’s Karen’s organic veg box.

  I have to admit, it’s impressive. The thick cardboard box is stuffed full of fresh fruit – crisp apples and ripe bananas, and something I think is a mango. The vegetables are huge, and just as fresh. There’s a bunch of carrots, with trailing green tops, and a huge onion, sitting on top of a bag of spinach. There’s garlic and beetroot, and a load of salad – it’ll do us for a week, easy.

  I roll up my sleeves and set to work. By the time Meg’s home from school – Steve following not long after – the kitchen is filled with the smell of vegetable curry simmering. A pan of rice waits in cold water on the hob.

  ‘Something smells good.’ Steve’s tone is wary. He doesn’t kiss me, the way he usually does, and I see Meg glance anxiously between us.

  ‘How was your day?’ I ask her.

  ‘Good. I’m going to try out for hockey. Karen says I can have Jake’s stick.’

  ‘Hockey?’ I wipe my hands on a tea towel. ‘I think it’s a bit soon to be doing sport, love.’

  ‘It’s been almost eight months!’

  ‘Wait till we see the consultant again, then we can talk to him about—’

  ‘Dad!’ Meg turns to Steve, who looks at me.

  ‘She’s doing well. Even Samira says so. You can’t wrap her up in cotton wool for ever, Lizzie.’

  ‘Cotton …’ The words die on my lips as hot tears well in my eyes. I can’t win. If I reject Karen’s gifts because I feel she is butting into our lives, I don’t care enough about my daughter. If I care too much, I’m wrapping her up in cotton wool. I throw the tea towel on the table. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  I walk from the narrow streets of the estate where we live, to the wide, tree-lined avenues further out of town. Houses worth half a million – more. I bet Karen lives in a house like this, I think. I bet she’s home now, wondering if her veg box arrived, and mentally ticking off her good deed for the day.

  She lost her son and her husband.

  The thought of that startles me, and I stop walking. What am I doing? Filled with resentment towards a woman who must be eaten up with grief. A woman who must cry herself to sleep at night?

  I need to get over this.

  I walk back faster, shivering as dusk falls, and I realise I walked out of the house without a coat.

  When I get home, Steve says nothing. He dishes up the supper I made, and the rice he cooked, and we eat in silence at the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, this is fun,’ Meg says, her voice thick with sarcasm. She excuses herself as soon as possible, scraping her plate – with most of the vegetables, I notice – into the food bin, before going to her room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, just as Steve’s phone pings with a text message. I glance at the phone as he picks it up, but he angles the screen away. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No one.’ He taps out a response.

  No one? I almost laugh. I expect that from Meg, but from Steve? I reach for the phone. He resists for a second, as my fingers wrap around it, then he shrugs and lets go.

  He is texting Karen.

  How is everything? she’s written.

  Not brilliant, is Steve’s reply.

  ‘You’re telling her our business?’ I can hardly get the words out.

  Steve rubs his face and sighs, as if this is all very boring. ‘She asked how things were, I told her. That’s hardly “our business”.’ He makes air quotes with his fingers.

  I push back my chair and it scrapes against the tiled floor. ‘I hope you were comfortable in the spare room last night, because guess where you’re sleeping tonight?’

  *

  I’m glad when the pale morning sun filters through the curtains in my bedroom, and I can finally give up on the pretence of sleep. I pad across the landing to Meg’s room, and shake her gently.

  ‘Time to get up, love.’

  I pause by the closed door to the spare bedroom, wondering if Steve lay awake all night, if he’s awake now. But when I get downstairs, he’s in the kitchen, an empty cereal bowl in the sink, and a coffee mug rinsed out on the drainer. He’s been up for a while.

  ‘I’ll take that apology any time you’re ready,’ he says.

  My jaw drops. ‘You what? You’ve got that the wrong way round. You’re the one messaging Karen behind my back.’

  ‘Behind your back?’ Steve gives a bark of laughter. ‘I text lots of people, Lizzie. Graham from footy. Sharon on payroll. My brother. Do you want me to run all those by you first, too?’

  ‘You tried to hide it from me.’

  ‘And you wonder why?’ Steve waves an arm at me. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately, Lizzie. You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about Karen, and it’s turned you loopy.’

  ‘If anyone is loopy,’ I say, ‘it’s Karen. She’s obsessed with Meg – can’t you see?’

  ‘She’s missing her son.’

  ‘That doesn’t give her the right to mess with our lives!’ I shout at him, blood rushing to my head. ‘I wish we’d never met her, I wish she and her perfect bloody son were never even born—’

  ‘Then Meg wouldn’t have got a heart,’ Ste
ve starts, but I’m out of control, and I scream into his face.

  ‘Better no heart than a heart from a family of crazies!’

  I hear a noise behind me, like a stifled cry, and turn around to find Meg standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her eyes full of tears.

  What am I doing?

  My rage for Karen has made me say things I don’t even mean.

  ‘Meg—’ I take a step towards her but she backs away, stumbling then turning around and running from the house, slamming the front door behind her.

  ‘Let her go,’ Steve says. ‘School is probably the best place for her.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of her upset all day.’

  Steve opens his mouth, as if he’s about to say Well, whose fault is that? Then he closes it again, perhaps thinking better of it. ‘Call the head. Make sure she’s okay. But leave her be for a bit, yeah?’

  I nod, feeling numb with guilt.

  Meg’s teacher confirms she arrived safely in school. She promises to call me if there are any problems, or if Meg seems upset. I don’t have work today, so I clean the house from top to bottom, and make Meg’s favourite pasta dish for tea. I even text Karen to tell her the veg box arrived – so yummy, thank you! x

  At four p.m., twenty minutes after Meg normally gets home from school, I call her mobile. It’s switched off – or out of battery, which isn’t unusual. By four-fifteen, I’m pacing the kitchen, and by the time Steve gets in, at half four, I’m frantic with fear.

  ‘Have you been out looking for her?’ he says.

  ‘I wanted to be here if she got back. Oh Steve, where is she? It’ll be dark before too long.’

  ‘Try her friends. Call me the second you hear anything.’ He picks up his keys again and heads out. I scroll through my phone, calling the mums of friends Meg has had since primary school. I curse the nature of secondary school because I don’t know half of the kids she hangs around with now. I text Karen, in case Meg has been in touch, but she doesn’t reply.

  Steve comes back an hour later, and I know from his face that he hasn’t found her. ‘I spoke to some kids hanging out at the park,’ he said. ‘I showed them a photo and gave them my number.’ His face creases with worry. ‘What if something has happened to her, Lizzie?’