Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (ready to read books .txt) 📕

a handle on their emotions when you haven’t slept for longer than two hours at a stretch?

‘It won’t be long till the food’s ready,’ Evie trilled when the first of the guests appeared before her to say their goodbyes. The only person she’d let leave without a word was Dad, who’d made his exit almost as soon as Seb had spoken. Tears always had that effect on him.

Evie stood in front of the barbeque; holding a large silver kitchen knife in her hand that she was using to cut into the plastic packets of raw, pink sausages. It looked far too big, too murderous, for the job. She’d handed Jakob to an old work friend of hers, a matronly woman called Deborah, who sat in a deckchair not far away. Jakob slept without stirring on Deborah’s chest, although Evie’s eyes kept flitting back to him. I went to take the knife from her but before I could, a man I had never met before, with very short dark hair, put his hand over hers and gently took it.

Evie relinquished the job gratefully. She stepped away and peered around the crowded garden, searching for something or someone she could not find.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked her. ‘Can I do anything?’

Evie saw it was me and let her smile waver, falter.

‘It’s okay. I’m okay. It’s probably nothing…’

‘Tell me,’ I said simply, with a sisterly directness.

‘It’s Jakob. We got a warning from OSIP. Not an actual IPS, just a warning. But it shook us up. Especially Seb.’

‘When? What happened?’ OSIP had been around for as long as inductions had been implemented. Officers of OSIP, enforcers, monitored parenting, ensuring that the needs of every child born were met to the highest standard. The stories of neglect and abuse of the past were consigned to history; enforcers had far greater powers and reach than the Social Services that had preceded them. Now parents everywhere lived in fear of enforcers issuing them an IPS and ultimately extracting their child from their care.

‘It was nothing. We were just putting him back into the car after shopping for the food for today. Seb was getting the seat ready, I was holding Jakey, and then Seb said he was ready and so I passed Jakey to him and maybe because of the way Seb was standing, half in the car, he didn’t have him properly… that was when it happened.’

‘Did he drop him?’

‘No! Nothing like that. He just wasn’t supporting his neck fully. That was what the enforcer said.’

‘That’s nothing,’ I agreed. ‘Did you think it was okay?’

‘Well…’ Evie hesitated. ‘I suppose so. Until the enforcer came running up and pointed it out. I mean, I guess he could have been supporting his neck more.’

‘Put it out of your head,’ I said. ‘It was a one-off.’

‘I hope so,’ Evie said. ‘Seb blames himself, but like I said to him, I hadn’t noticed either. It was just as much my fault. The enforcer said that to me too. That I had been – what was the word she used? – complicit.’

‘What was she like – the enforcer?’

‘She looked like someone you would just walk past in the street, just like anybody else. Shortish hair, no make-up. A little bit… a little bit frumpy. I used to imagine that they would all wear suits and dark glasses, so you could see when one was close by, but you would have just walked straight past her. She was just normal, average.’

‘Imagine doing that job.’ I shivered. ‘Why would anyone do it?’

‘That was the thing. She was very worthy about it all. I could sense she really felt she was helping us when she pointed out how Seb was holding him. It was as though she was pleased with herself for noticing. Like she was doing us a favour.’

‘I suppose if it was just a warning and nothing will come of it, maybe she was, in a way. Now you know that you need to be super vigilant.’

‘Yes,’ Evie said and she smiled in a sad sort of way. ‘It’s going to be harder than I thought.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ I reassured her.

‘Maybe,’ Evie said. ‘Maybe not.’ She fiercely brushed away a tear that had started to trail down one of her cheeks.

‘Don’t think like that. Remember the inductions, everything you’ve learnt, everything you’ve been through. You’re a wonderful mum. And Seb’s so good with him. Jakey’s a lucky little boy.’

Evie swallowed hard. Her face flushed pink from trying to stop crying. There was the beginning of a rash visible upon her neck, creeping over her collarbone.

‘Stop it, you,’ she said gently.

‘Why don’t you go find Seb? I’ll help with the food.’ I gestured towards the dark-haired man who had taken the knife from her. He had emptied all the sausages out of their packets and made a rough pyramid with them on a plate and was now breaking up the foamy white block of a firelighter over the charcoal. ‘We’ll get these people fed. Who’s that guy at the barbecue?’

‘He works with Seb,’ Evie said. ‘Thomas.’

She looked like she was going to say something else but then thought better of it and instead a sound left her; a deflation, a sigh, a space.

NOW

Thomas sleeps next to me.

He lies on his side, facing the blank, white wall, a framed print of a blurry watercolour of a garden its only decoration. If he opened his eyes now, the first thing that he would see would be that painting.

Its shapes run into one another, dozy, green bushes that become flowers that become a person – a gardener wearing oversized boots and a floppy hat so that their face is obscured. It was chosen for being bland, innocuous, for its bleached-out colours, and wavering lines, but it offends me.

As though it is urging me to see life that way, through a haze, with soft edges. Out of focus and out of shape. To forget its prickle, stab and sting.

Thomas breathes steadily. I am sure