‘How about Mummy puts Eric through the wash?’ Kathy said.
Ellie shook her head, squeezing the teddy to her face. Kathy tugged and cajoled but Ellie started crying, her eyes squeezed shut as she tucked her chin into her neck, hushed tears coursing over her flushed cheeks. That was often the way with Ellie; her anger was silent, tantrums were not her style. Kathy found it unnerving, more so since her father Eric’s death.
‘Okay,’ Kathy said, getting up from beside the bed. ‘If it means that much to you.’
But it unsettled her enough to mention it to Chris on the phone later that evening.
‘You think she’s figured it out? About us?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’ Kathy sighed. ‘We’ve been so careful.’
It had been over a year since the funeral and Kathy’s therapist had said there was no need to keep her relationship with Chris under wraps. But Ellie was so sensitive and Kathy had only been seeing Chris for a few months. It didn’t feel right for him to stay overnight, not yet at least. A year wasn’t long in the grand scheme of things, Kathy thought, given the traumatic circumstances of Eric’s death. Because despite his faults, he’d been tender with Ellie in a way that he’d never been with her. Ellie had been so little after all, too little to answer back.
‘You’re a good mother,’ Chris said.
‘Am I? I’m not sure. I want to move on but I don’t know how to take her with me.’
‘You always put her first. That makes you a good mother.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry for you. Sorry I’m forcing this on you too.’
There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘It’s fine,’ Chris said. ‘It’s . . . fine.’ She pictured him leaning forward, the phone at his ear, dragging his hand through his hair. She could love this man, she thought. Yes, she could.
But she still felt uneasy as she climbed the stairs to bed that night. Turning at the top step, she caught sight of Eric through the open bedroom door, propped up against the wall next to her daughter’s sleeping head. She went in, listening to Ellie’s damp breathing and for a moment she felt observed, as if Eric’s black button eyes were following her every move. She rubbed her hand over her face, feeling suddenly tired and heavy. It was Friday and it had been a long week, too long.
On Saturday, Ellie perched Eric on the table during breakfast but Kathy drew the line at Ellie taking him along to her playdate. When it was time to go, Ellie stood stock still, hands rigid at her side, as Kathy buttoned up her coat.
‘Mummy,’ she said and Kathy felt herself tense up. It was a voice her daughter only ever used when she was about to blindside her.
‘Yes, sweetie.’
‘Promise me.’
‘Promise you what, sugar?’
‘Promise you won’t put Eric in the wash while I’m away.’ Kathy kept her eyes lowered, focusing on the top button.
‘’Course not,’ Kathy said, her fingers slipping over its smooth edges.
‘Pinky promise, Mummy?’
Ellie smiled as they hooked their small fingers and Kathy had really meant it then. She had other plans for the afternoon anyway.
She was thinking of those plans, of Chris coming over, as she struggled to stretch the vacuum cleaner’s nozzle into the far corners of Ellie’s room. There was always some fluff you couldn’t quite catch. She reached down under the bed, pulling out a forgotten pyjama top and stray pieces of Lego. And there was something else, something stuffed away to the far side: Gerald the Giraffe, her gift to Ellie after the funeral. He must have fallen out of favour.
She pulled him out by his long neck and positioned the nozzle to suck the grey dust off his body, watching the yellow and brown spots recover their colour. Where to put Gerald?
A collection of glazed, plastic eyes looked back at her from the top of Ellie’s bed, where the soft toys were gathered as if in amiable conference. Ellie had brought Eric back up to her room before going out and had given him pride of place, separate from the rest. He was laid out on her pillow, his face turned up to the ceiling.
‘How about some company, Eric?’ she said, placing Gerald’s thick snout next to Eric’s head.
‘Gerald, meet Eric. Eric, meet Gerald.’
Christ, she sounded like Ellie. Fantasy play, the therapist called it. It helped process difficult emotions, apparently. Kathy gazed at the face of each in turn. She dropped the nozzle and picked up Eric by the scruff of his neck, holding him in front of her, next to Gerald.
‘Nice to meet you, Eric,’ she said in a gruff voice. Gerald’s neck drooped to one side.
‘Now look what you’ve done.’ She turned Eric’s face towards her own and scowled.
‘You bastard,’ she said between tight lips. She paused, looking at Eric’s scrunched-up face and lifeless eyes. He really was quite ugly, his pug-like snout giving him a permanently disgruntled expression. She brought him close to her nose, daring herself to smell, and made a face.
‘Here, take that, stinky,’ she said, using one of Gerald’s front legs to hit Eric in his middle.
Good grief, what was she doing? She threw both stuffed toys on the bed and moved backward towards the door, dragging the vacuum cleaner with her. The other soft toys crowded the bed with their benign shaggy aura but Eric was practically pouting. She squared her shoulders and put her hands on her hips. ‘You know what, Eric?’ she said. ‘You’re going in the wash.’
The washing machine whirred in the kitchen downstairs as Chris and Kathy lay in bed. The curtains were closed and only a pale afternoon light filtered through the gaps at the side. Kathy nestled into the curve of Chris’s side and ran a finger over his profile. He smiled and kissed her forehead, and then rattling shook the floorboards beneath them.
‘What’s that noise?’ he said, sniffing a strand of her hair.
‘Just the washing machine.’
‘Sounds like someone’s wrestling with it.’
‘It’s old. I should replace it, I just haven’t got round to it yet.’ She brushed her lips over Chris’s cheek, near his ear. ‘It’s on the to-do list.’
‘The to-do list?’ He chuckled.
‘Yeah, what’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. You’re so organised.’ He squeezed her breast.
‘You don’t like that?’ Kathy said, inclining her head.
His finger ran down her navel to the fuzz below. ‘I love it.’
‘Oh, no!’ Kathy said, sitting up and pushing his hand away.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got to dry the teddy before Ellie gets back!’ She threw her legs over the side of the bed and reached for the shirt Chris had discarded in a hurry earlier.
‘The dryer,’ she said, glancing back at him, still splayed on the bed. ‘I forgot to programme it.’
In the kitchen, the machine was ticking down the last of its cycle. Eric’s face was distorted and angry through the damp of its glass. The black paint on his button eyes had chipped and for a moment she thought he might be blinking at her. No, it had to be a trick of the light. She turned the dials and the machine churned as it started up again, as if gathering strength.
She peered through the glass into the drum. Eric stared back at her.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Got a problem?’ She knocked on the glass, scowling, unaware that a naked Chris had padded in behind her on his bare feet.
‘Who are you talking to?’ he said, circling his arms round her waist from behind, his fingers pressing into her soft middle.
‘Him,’ she said, pointing at the drum where Eric was being thrown round and round.
‘You need to get out more,’ Chris said, laughing and kissing the back of her neck. She shrugged, smoothing down the hair on his arm. He turned her round to face him, pushed her up against the kitchen counter and gave her a long, wet kiss.