if I want to. And I want to …’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘Much more than playing stupid games with Miss Know-It-All and the runts!’
‘Violet!’ Juliet’s reply was terse but not explosive; even so, she felt the rage beginning to boil inside her, making her stomach quiver and her fingertips itchy. ‘I do not have time for this now!’
Violet flounced from the room, and Juliet continued to hunt for her lost earring, all the while feeling like a pressure cooker just about to blow. Eventually she gave up searching, yanked the first earring out and threw it on her dressing table, then shoved her feet in the first pair of heels she found in her wardrobe and clomped downstairs to say goodnight to the kids.
She was met at the bottom of the stairs by Jake, trailing the blanket she’d covered him with, puffing his cheeks out and trying to keep his mouth closed. The way his eyes were popping was slightly alarming.
She kept her voice low, soothing. ‘Jake … where’s the bucket, sweetie?’
He just shook his head and she saw the panic in his eyes.
‘Jake,’ she screamed, forgetting all about low and soothing, ‘where’s the bucket?’
Half a second after that the bucket was a moot point and Juliet was trying not to look at her shoes.
Juliet tried to work out what to do first – comfort Jake, clean up the hall for a second time or shout ‘Ewww’ about the slightly warm and squishy stuff that was seeping into her left shoe. She opted for the former and hugged her snivelling six-year-old to her, never minding what else was transferring itself onto her best black trousers.
She guided him upstairs, stood him in the bath and washed him down, and she was just tucking him into bed when the phone rang. She ignored it.
But then the distant cry came from downstairs. ‘Mum! It’s for you!’
Not wanting to yell so close to her poorly son, Juliet stuck her head out of the twins’ bedroom door before she yelled back her answer. ‘Tell them to call back later! I’m busy with your brother.’
Violet’s clumping steps came closer and then Juliet could see her face as she rounded the corner in the staircase. Instead of looking mildly put-upon, as she usually did when required to answer the phone, she was wide-eyed. ‘It’s a policeman,’ she said quietly. ‘He says he needs to talk to you.’
Juliet motioned for her eldest to go and keep an eye on one of her youngest and took the handset from Violet as she passed her on the landing.
‘Hello …?’ she said, as she stared down over the banisters at the ugly-looking puddle in the middle of her otherwise pristine entrance hall. Twice in one day. That had to be some kind of record.
‘Mrs Taylor?’
Juliet’s stomach dropped. She knew that voice, and she was having a horrible sense of déjà vu. ‘What has she done this time?’
There was a weary sigh and then PC Graham asked if she could come and talk to her great-aunt. Apparently, she had installed herself on the back seat of a bus and wasn’t inclined to get off again. She’d got on earlier in the afternoon and had been riding the 281 round its route ever since and was now loudly complaining about the lack of a tour guide.
Juliet closed her eyes and shook her head. That pressure-cooker feeling was back, so bad her ears were threatening to pop. ‘I can’t …’ she mumbled weakly. ‘I just can’t …’
She couldn’t do any of this. Not any more. It was all too much – the driving, the organising, the chasing round after everyone and never having any time for herself.
‘It would really help if you could—’
‘I can’t!’ she said louder. Didn’t the man understand English? ‘I’m on my own and I have a sick child and I just … can’t.’ And then she pressed the button to hang up the phone.
She stared at the handset for a couple of moments, and then she walked into her bedroom and shoved it under the stack of pillows and cushions she always arranged nicely at the head of the bed. It might have made a noise under there, but she couldn’t tell if it was a call coming in or the ringing in her ears.
She felt like an inflatable raft on a deep and churning river that was desperately trying to stay above the surface as it headed for the rapids. All she could do was cling on and hope she survived the ride. But instead of the sound of roaring water in her ears, all she could hear was ‘Happy Holidays.’
It was coming.
She could feel it coming.
Juliet picked up the nearest pillow, buried her face in it and screamed for all she was worth.
Violet stood in the doorway of Juliet’s bedroom, biting her lip.
Juliet began to shake. It started deep down and reverberated through her limbs. She hadn’t been aware of it, but she’d sunk to the floor and now her top half was draped over the edge of the bed, her legs crumpled beneath her. She steadied herself by placing a hand on the mattress and pushed herself to her feet.
It hadn’t been easy to keep a lid on it all before, but it had been do-able. However, since that chat – that argument – with Gemma a couple of days ago, she was starting to think she was losing her mind. From the look on Violet’s face, her daughter was starting to think so too.
Get a grip, Juliet. You can’t have that. You will not turn into your mother. You will not pile all the things on this sweet girl that she piled on you.
She pulled oxygen into her lungs as best she could, considering her ribs felt as if they were being squeezed in a vice and she was finding it strangely difficult to breathe properly. ‘Is Jake okay? He hasn’t been sick again, has he?’ Her voice was high and soft, much like Violet’s, actually. Much like her own when she’d been that age.
Violet shook her head. ‘He says he’s feeling better now it’s out. He wants to watch TV.’
Juliet shrugged. ‘Okay.’
Violet frowned. ‘But you always say no TV before bedtime.’
She just kept on staring at Violet, too weary to even say she didn’t care about that rule tonight.
Violet stepped forward. ‘Are you okay, Mum?’
Juliet pressed the fingers of one hand against her forehead and rubbed gently. Was she all right? She really didn’t know. She swallowed. ‘Um … I think I’m just a bit stressed, actually. I’m not feeling … not feeling very well. I think I’ll give the party a miss and just go to bed early.’
She looked longingly at the bed. She’d love to dive in it now, but there were children to be reassured and a puddle of sick to be cleared up still. She fancied she could catch a whiff of it, even up here in the bedroom.
