Free The Child Inside by Suzanne Bugler Page B

herself come to this? Vanessa’s mother with her beautiful clothes and her expensive perfume, the skin on her face and on her arms so polished and smooth, like a film star, always on show.
    I sit down on that old leather sofa again, and she sits herself opposite me. I am careful not to appear as if I am staring as I look at her face. She wears no make-up, and her skin, as well as her hair, is badly neglected: dry and flaking, almost powder-like, across her cheekbones. And her lips are cracked and sore; there are tiny red lines bleeding into the corners of her mouth. I try not to stare, but it’s hard not to, and my heart is wrenched to see such neglect.
    She really isn’t that old. Certainly not much older than my own mother, who runs about Ashcroft still, busying herself with the bridge club and the Women’s Guild and gets her hair done, without fail, once a week. Age is a state of mind, my mother says. Behave like an old person and you’ll become one.
    ‘Perhaps you would like a cup of tea,’ Mrs Reiber says, and I wonder by her tone if maybe I have been staring.
    ‘No, no, please,’ I say, ‘I don’t want to put you to the trouble.’ And my heart starts speeding up. ‘Mrs Reiber,’ I say, I have to say, ‘if there is anything I can do for you, anything at all while I am here, then please, I would be so glad to help. Do you need any shopping or – or can I help you prepare some lunch?’ I feel the colour flooding into my face. She is sitting perfectly still and is staring at me with those stony blue eyes.
    ‘I am quite capable of looking after myself, thank you,’ she says.
    ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I say, though I think that quite clearly she isn’t. ‘But if there is anything – I would love to help, that’s all . . .’ There is a long, awkward pause.
    ‘Kew is very convenient,’ she says at last. ‘I can get everything that I need from the shops nearby.’ Her voice is cold, and defensive, and so I tread more carefully.
    ‘It’s lovely around here,’ I agree. And the shops by the station are gorgeous. My son has a friend who lives just near here,’ I say. ‘Kew is a very nice place.’ She doesn’t respond, but I carry on. I try to make chat. ‘The Gardens are lovely, of course, although I haven’t been to them for a few years. We used to come with our son, Jonathan, sometimes, when he was small. He loved the greenhouse.’ I am waffling on; is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. She is so closed, and unreadable. She invited me in, but she isn’t exactly friendly. ‘Do you have a son?’ I ask, and I catch her off guard.
    ‘Oh yes, I have a son,’ she says and I hear the bitterness, sharpening her words. My heart starts to thump.
    ‘Will you be seeing him over Christmas?’ I ask tentatively.
    ‘Oh, I expect so,’ she says somewhat coolly. ‘I believe that is what he has in mind.’
    ‘Mrs Reiber,’ I dare to say, ‘is your son called Simon?’
    ‘Why do you ask?’ She stares at me now, her eyes flashing, intense. She sits up on that sofa, her body rigid, and her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
    I feel the skin under my hair start to prickle and my heart starts to pound. ‘It’s just that . . . Vanessa had a brother called Simon,’ I say and it comes out on a whisper almost, my throat dry suddenly, and tight.
    And she turns on me.
    ‘Who are you?’ she demands. ‘Who are you?’ Her voice is shrill and angry and she unlocks her hands from her lap and starts clutching around on the sofa beside her, as if searching for something to grab.
    ‘Mrs Reiber, I told you; I’m Rachel.’
    ‘I know what you told me, but who are you really? Coming here with all these questions!’ She snatches up a leaflet, advertising takeaway pizzas of all things, that was lying on the end of her sofa, and starts scrunching it and ripping it between her fingers.
    ‘Mrs Reiber, I’m a friend of Vanessa’s. Please, won’t you just tell me: are you Vanessa’s