My stomach is raw and distended. Run my hands across my belly and imagine an alien life form in there, eating me from the inside out. Some otherworldly force has made its headquarters inside me and is issuing instructions I’m powerless to resist. I look above the mantelpiece at my reflection in the mirror and see a bloated face, red, mascara-streaked （when did I bother to apply the last slick from my dried-out wand?）， blackened lines running in rivulets down my cheeks, evidence of my tears inked in black. My eyes move to the form of my little boy, his trousers smeared with ice cream, his T-shirt rumpled and grimy at the neck, odd socks, one of them mine, his tiny foot swimming in all that space. I sit at the edge of the couch. Herbie’s eyes open and his big tongue reaches out to lick my hand. ‘What are we going to do, Woofter?’ His head tilts to the side, his eyes huge and shining. I imagine myself reflected in them, in a much more favourable light than the mirror’s cold glass. In his eyes I am goodness incarnate, his life prior to coming to me one of neglect and wilful cruelty. Oh, Herbie, old boy, I don’t know if I’m up to the job. I can still see the scars underneath his thick coat, the round cigarette burns on his neck, hidden by his collar. What kind of a person, what kind of a world—？
‘You need to learn to control yourself,’ my father used to say after my mother died, when I’d taken to slamming doors just to get some kind of a reaction, a habit that was resurrected with great gusto in my teenage years, after Lara came to live with us. ‘I hate…’ my favourite starting point for any sentence, followed by ‘I love…’ ‘There is somewhere in between, Sonya. You just need to learn to calm yourself down, be less extreme.’
Tommy turns himself in his sleep and I hear him muttering gibberish interspersed with some intelligible words: Herbie, Yaya, Herbie, Yaya, on a loop. He’s holding his stomach in his sleep and I wonder if his is sore too. I reach out a hand to lay on it and feel a bloating, bend to kiss him lightly on his belly button and go into the bathroom, where I step into a scalding shower, full of resolve. I can do this. I rub Clarins body lotion on my skin, a present from Howard four Christmases ago, just before he left for good, and step into a long-sleeved below-the-knee dress that’s only been worn once, a cardigan that’s fraying at the seams and pumps that are seven years old but have held their shape. Relics from a former life: an outfit for an audition for the ‘demure’ part. I towel-dry my hair, smear some cold cream on my face and neck and curl my eyelashes with a metal contraption I’d forgotten I had. It doesn’t take much. I wink at myself in the mirror, run my hands over my hips.
‘Beeootiful,’ Tommy announces brightly at the door.
‘Shall we go out to lunch, sweetiekins? Just you and me?’
‘And Hewbie?’
‘Ok. We’ll have to sit outside somewhere but that’s ok ‘cause Mr Sunshine is back. Now, let’s get you into the shower.’
He backs away from me, as if he’s terrified at the thought. Funny little thing, knowing how much he loves speed, and thunder and lightning, and jumping in the sea, even with high waves, and hanging upside down and spinning round and round. ‘Come on, will we bring Herbie in too?’ Tommy nods and holds on to Herbie’s collar, his eyes screwed shut, as the water cascades on both their bodies, Herbie stoically shaking, Tommy wriggling and sticking his tongue out to catch the spray. ‘There now, it’s not so bad, is it, lovie?’ I really should do this more often, get him used to it.
Once they’re dried and Tommy is dressed, I head into the kitchen and pour cornflakes for us all, soaking them in soya milk. I empty the dregs from the third bottle of white down the drain. The two remaining full bottles stand defiantly, whispering threats and dares and assurances. Fuck you. I put them in a black sack, tying it firmly before dumping it outside. Fuck you. Tommy claps. ‘You can have MiWadi owange, like me, Yaya. It doesn’t smell and won’t make you go all flop or your voice go gooey.’ I go to him and tickle him, rubbing my nose to his. ‘Eskimo kiss?’ He rubs my nose back. ‘Let’s go to the park before we have lunch?’ I say, although it’s already three o’clock and way past lunchtime.
He jumps up and down. ‘Can we feed the duckies?’
‘We’ll have to get some bread from Spar.’
‘Okey-dokey, super-duper,’ he says, and goes to get the lead that’s hanging on a hook under the stairs. How did I produce such a brilliant boy? Herbie throws his head back and barks in delight.