Claire was late to pick up her children from nursery. She worked on the tenth floor of a tall glass building in London Bridge and had watched the snow fall against the cold December sky, delicately at first, then thickly, flakes spinning, candyfloss white.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ she’d said to her team when the office had started to empty. They were working on a new campaign, a collaboration between a well-known interior designer and a high-street underwear brand, and she wanted to brief the art department before the Christmas break.
By two, she was the only person left. Her desk was awash with samples: gossamer knickers in jewel-toned florals and metallic leopard print, neon-bright lace mesh bralettes, and silk camisoles emblazoned with red cherries and purple hearts. She couldn’t imagine taking these home, laying them out on her kitchen table – her own underwear, cotton maternity knickers and stretchy nursing bras, all in shades of black and grey, drying on the radiator.
Glancing around to double-check that she was alone, she reached inside her blouse and unfastened her bra straps, freeing her breasts, which were hot and heavy with milk. As she began to circle them with her fingers, she thought about that scene in Succession when the youngest son jerks off onto a window overlooking New York. It had been a water cooler moment in their office. What a guy! Talk about a power trip!
She usually pumped in the disabled loo, or as a last resort in an empty cubicle in the communal bathroom, though she hated the sounds, the smells, the thought of what she was breathing in, the waste particles polluting her pure white milk. ‘Like a cow in a stall,’ she’d said to her husband Dom at the end of her first week back. ‘Why not stop?’ he’d replied. ‘Screw your mother and all that “breast is best” nonsense.’ She told him it wasn’t about her mother.
By four-thirty, she’d decided the campaign should centre on a girls’ weekend. Twenty-something women cavorting around an English country house in their underwear, traipsing through muddy fields in wellies, knickers peeking out from under billowing linen shirts – a celebration of sisterhood. It wasn’t original, but she could sell it.
As she left the office, Claire felt her stomach cramp with anxiety. It was dark already, and more than six inches of snow lay on the ground. Several Southeastern trains had been cancelled, and when she finally made it onto one, it was rammed. Now they were all stuck in a tunnel between Blackheath and Kidbrooke, waiting for a tree further along the line to be cleared.
Claire pictured Thomas clinging onto Anita, his key worker, sucking his thumb, tired after a long day, and Grace on a beanbag in the corner of the empty playroom, turning the pages of a story book while the staff tidied up around her. Her daughter would be wondering where she was, why she hadn’t come.
She wished she hadn’t messaged Dom at the station to say she’d managed to get on a train and would be fine for pick-up. She had no signal here, no way of letting him or the nursery know that she was going to be late. Dom, a surveyor, was in north London today, signing off a new build – and presumably having similar issues with trains (she hadn’t received a response to her message, not even the green double tick to show he’d read it).
What would the nursery staff think when neither of them showed up? She was already embarrassed most mornings, having forgotten Thomas’s bottle or to wipe Grace’s mouth after breakfast. When it dawned on Claire that her mother was still listed as their emergency contact, she knew she couldn’t just sit and wait.
A few years ago, she’d been on a train preparing to leave the platform, and some kids had held the doors open for their friend. If she could get out here and walked quickly, she’d arrive at the nursery in fifteen minutes.
She turned around in her seat and looked to the vestibule where a man and woman were leaning against the doors – he had his hands on her hips, steadying her, she realised, noting the bottle of wine at their feet. The woman laughed softly at something he said. She and Dom used to call this time out of time: it was something they didn’t have time for anymore.
The man next to her – a big man in a dark grey overcoat with thick knees pressed into the tray-table in front – was a better bet. She’d been annoyed when she sat down, the way he’d taken up space, forcing her to the edge of her seat. But he was younger than she’d thought: his face was plump and smooth, and his red cheeks reminded her of Thomas’s. She reached out and touched his arm.
He removed his right earbud.
She showed him a photo the nursery had sent through that morning, of Grace playing in the snow, arms raised to the sky. ‘I’m running late to pick her and my little one up. Do you think you could help me open the doors?’
‘Sorry?’
She half-stood, turned and pointed. He shifted in his seat, followed her gaze.
‘They might be locked but I thought we could at least try—’
‘You want me to help you get out?’
‘Please.’
‘No way.’
The couple were staring at them now. The guy used his foot to move the bottle into the corner. Claire raised her hand as if to say, no, you’re fine, then sat back down, lowered her voice. ‘I believe some trains are designed with doors that can open if the train isn’t moving.’
He shook his head ‘Where would you go? There’s no footpath. If you crossed the track and a train came the other way…’
‘Right.’ Her cheeks burned. ‘Of course, sorry.’
He replaced the earbud and shuffled closer to the window.
She realised how Grace must feel when they shouted at her for playing near the oven or jumping on the stairs. She looked again at the photo. Her eyes prickled.
The night before had been cold, minus three, and Grace had clambered into their bed just after midnight, her small feet, blocks of ice against Claire’s thighs. Claire had held them in her palms to get the blood flowing, but then Thomas had woken too, wanting a feed, and she couldn’t have Grace fidgeting and rolling on him, so she’d asked Dom to carry their daughter back to her room.
In the morning, Grace’s eyes had been swollen with sleep. She held on to her duvet as Claire tried to peel it back. No, she would not get up. She didn’t want to go to nursery. She was going to stay at home. Dom had left already, and Thomas was crying out for his breakfast. ‘I will not be late again,’ Claire warned her. It was the flicker of a smile that did it. Claire pinned her daughter down on the carpet, stripped off her nappy, forced a top over her head, and tugged up her leggings. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you,’ she said. Grace grabbed a fistful of Claire’s hair and sunk her teeth into her shoulder.
Claire remembered something her mother had said about Grace needing boundaries. That had been almost a year ago, after Grace threw a tantrum over some toy in the post office. ‘She’s only two,’ Claire had replied before buying her the toy.
Perhaps they had let Grace get her own way too often. She had been such a perfect newborn – smiling at six weeks and sleeping for long stretches, crying only when she wanted to be fed or changed or held. Claire missed those early days, when a cuddle would solve everything. She hadn’t realised the next bit would be harder, that in the decisions she made she could fail her daughter, ruin her sweet temperament.
Gathering her coat and bag, Claire stood up and started to make her way through the crowded carriage towards the front of the train. She’d knock on the door to the driver’s cabin, ask whether she could get off or use his radio to send a message to the nursery. She squeezed past people standing in the aisles, tripped over rucksacks and laptops, apologising as she went – but then, after three cars, she found the next one was linked externally. Drained of adrenaline and out of ideas, she leant against the wall and tried to resend the same message to Dom until her phone died. Then she pressed her fingernails, one by one, into the pad of her thumb. When the train finally lurched forwards, she didn’t know how much time had passed.
*
A thick blanket of snow lay over the city. Claire couldn’t tell where the pavement ended and the road began. She started down one street and had to backtrack, realising she’d turned off too soon. Her usual landmarks – wheelie bins, parked cars, post-boxes, the garden with the gnomes – were lost to her. It was eerily still. The suddenness of it frightened her.
Although it had stopped snowing, the wind sliced through her, and she made slow progress in her kitten-heeled boots. Her feet were numb, every step an effort. As she approached the Co-op, her stomach growled: she’d skipped lunch and was starving. She wanted hot sausage rolls, chocolate chip cookies, crisps, a can of coke – foods her mother, who’d spent years following some diet or other, had never allowed in the house. But she knew she couldn’t stop. Her breasts were aching, painfully full again. She thought about Thomas’s soft, pudgy arms reaching for her in the night, the warmth of him, the relief when he latched, sucking desperately, his eyes closing as he drifted away.
When she finally arrived at the nursery, she was breathless and shivering. She pressed the buzzer and waited. Stepping back, she noticed there were no lights on inside.
She’d read a piece online a while ago: a toddler left alone at daycare, locked in by the nursery staff. The girl had been able to push a chair up to the door and hold her mama’s hand through the letterbox.
She climbed over the low wall at the front of the building and crouched down to see if she could peer through the window into the basement – where Grace had her classroom. In the blackness, she thought she saw something move.
She took off her glove and rapped on the glass. ‘Grace?’
As she leant forwards, her bag pulled on her shoulder and she fell, scraping her hand against the brickwork. The pain was intense. She pressed her glove to the graze and took a deep steadying breath. It was unbearable to be alone.
She tried again, more loudly. ‘Grace?’
Nothing.
*
‘You won’t get these years back,’ her mother had said when Claire told her she was returning to work six months after having Thomas. Her mother was slicing carrots into rings for soup and didn’t look up from the chopping board. ‘They won’t stay little for long.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased for me,’ Claire had said, though she had thought no such thing. The promotion was ill-timed, but if she didn’t take it, someone else would. She listed their expenses: mortgage, gas, electricity, water, nursery. What she didn’t say was that she wanted to be out in the world again – away from the washing, the never-ending preparation of meals, the mother and baby groups and all the chat about nap schedules and poo. ‘I was always going to go back,’ she said. ‘You could do a bit more, have them for a couple days?’
Her mother threw the carrots into the pan with such force the hot stock splashed up onto her sleeve. ‘You know I sacrificed a lot for you and your brothers.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Claire said.
Her mother had dropped out of her law degree when she fell pregnant with Claire. Her brother Daniel had come along almost immediately, and then Callum two years after that. When Callum was finally ready for school, her mother had taken a receptionist job at the GP surgery as the hours fitted in. But Claire had always thought if she’d been serious about a legal career, she would have found a way. But she didn’t say that. She rarely argued with her mother, who had a sharp tongue but was quick to cry.
‘I just thought you might like to spend some time with them.’
‘Of course I want to spend time with them.’ Her mother clapped the lid on the pan and started to lay the table. ‘But what you want is free childcare.’
‘Don’t be like that.’
‘Like what? You’re taking advantage.’ Her mother’s voice was stern, scolding. She told her Grace was a handful, and now there was Thomas too. She had friends, her book group, yoga classes, she volunteered at the library and wanted to try wild swimming. Several years after nursing Claire’s father through a long illness, her life was full again. ‘I don’t know why you had them if you don’t want to look after them.’
Claire stiffened with anger. ‘How dare you say that to me?’
Her mother was tearing pieces of kitchen towel off the roll to serve as napkins. She shook her head. ‘I can’t do it. Don’t ask me again.’
Claire packed the children into the car and drove away. Neither of them said goodbye. When her mother died ten days later, Claire was still waiting for an apology. She couldn’t understand why her mother – who had a photo of Claire in her mortarboard on her dressing table – had wanted to hurt her. She had been raised to work, climb the ladder and have a family. She just hadn’t expected it to be so hard.
*
Claire arrived back to a cold, dark house. She tried the switch in the hallway several times, then the one in the kitchen. The clock on the cooker flashed with a series of noughts. They’d had a power cut.
‘Hello?’ she called. She wanted to believe they were hiding – Grace loved playing hide and seek in the dark.
She found the torch they kept for emergencies in the cupboard under the stairs, then checked the living room, Grace’s bedroom, the bathroom – all empty. There was no sign of them, and no sign Dom had been home and gone out again. Everything remained as she had left it that morning.
The torch flickered and died as she entered her and Dom’s bedroom. She tried the light switch – still nothing. Palms open, arms straight, she moved like a zombie towards the window. She clutched the heavy wool of the curtains – blackout, to preserve Thomas’s sleep – and pulled them apart, allowing a glow from the streetlamps to filter into the room. She hadn’t had time to make the bed. Her pink pyjamas were splayed across the mattress; the duvet lay heaped on the floor. She caught a flash of cobalt: Thomas’s elephant, trapped underneath – how had she forgotten that?
As she turned to leave, she saw a smear of red on the wall. For a second, her heart stopped. Then she remembered her hand. She removed her glove. The graze was worse than she’d thought. Feeling dizzy, she lowered herself to the floor and hugged her knees. Why couldn’t she shake the feeling they were one moment from disaster?
Then, a key in the lock.
‘Mummy?’ Grace called.
‘I’m here.’ Claire stumbled down the stairs, arms wide, and Grace jumped into them, pressing her cold cheek against hers. Dom had Thomas strapped to his chest and was using his phone to light the hallway. She stood and hugged them both. Everyone was safe.
‘Mummy, it’s snowing. Look what I made.’ Grace held up a paper snowflake.
‘It’s lovely. Wow.’
‘You OK?’ Dom said, releasing Thomas into her grasp. ‘We went to the station to look for you.’
‘I went to the nursery.’
‘Where were you, Mummy? Why didn’t you come?’ Grace was on the floor, pulling off her wellies. She looked up at Claire, her brown eyes searching.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie. We got stuck in a tunnel and I didn’t have any signal, and then my phone ran out of battery.’ She turned to Dom. ‘Did they ring you?’
‘About ten past. It was fine. They weren’t waiting long.’
‘I should have left earlier or at least charged my phone. I didn’t know it was going to be this bad.’ She unzipped Thomas from his pramsuit and squeezed him to her, breathing in his warm biscuity smell.
Dom took the suit, before helping her to remove her coat. ‘I thought you might have slipped.’
She held up her hand. ‘I did.’
While she found a plaster and poured Grace some juice, Dom fiddled with the fuse box and got the lights working. ‘Time for a bath,’ he said, herding them all upstairs. ‘Everyone in – you too,’ he said to her. ‘You look frozen.’
She felt self-conscious as she undressed. Her stomach, flat and toned when they’d met, was now soft and squishy, a cushion for the baby to lie on.
The water was hot and deep, and she sat at one end of the bath, cradling Thomas with her left arm so he could feed, while her legs curled around Grace who seemed happy to play with her ducks, winding them up so they could race through the bubbles. Dom slathered Grace in soap and washed her hair. When it was time to come out, he took Thomas from her and touched the bite mark on her shoulder. Claire shook her head; they’d talk about it later. Grace was happy, she’d forgotten about their morning struggle. The bite would fade and disappear, probably before the last of the snow.
As she dried the children and got them into pyjamas, Dom prepared cheese on toast. Claire knew how lucky they were. Her father had never bathed her or her brothers and the only times he’d ventured into the kitchen were when her mother was sick.
They ate huddled around the gas fire in the living room. Thomas, awake and boisterous after the bath, played with his blocks, while Grace twirled around the room with her snowflake.
Dom was worried how their neighbour, who was in his nineties, would be coping without power. ‘You go check,’ she said. ‘I’ll clear up.’
She returned their plates to the kitchen and was loading the dishwasher when she heard Grace scream. She had left them alone, a three-year-old looking after a baby by the open fire. She imagined Grace’s hands pressed against the hot coals, red raw and blistering. Another wail. She ran.
Grace was face down, fists pummelling the carpet. Thomas was watching her, open-mouthed, his bricks spilled in front of him, with the snowflake, torn and crumpled, between his chubby fingers.
Claire knelt before her daughter and used her sleeve to wipe away the tears.
‘He broke it. I hate him.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to.’
‘He did.’ Grace ripped the mangled snowflake from her brother’s hands and held it out to Claire. ‘Fix it.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
Grace shuddered and wailed again. Claire scooped her into her lap. She was a giant compared to Thomas, and Claire felt a wave of sadness as she tried to contain her daughter’s long limbs. It was hard to believe this girl was ever inside her. She stroked her hair, took in her long eyelashes, her button nose and pillowy cheeks. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I love you.’
Her mother had been out shopping when she collapsed. Claire left work and went straight to the hospital where she was shown to a small windowless room in A&E. There, her mother lay silently between white sheets, eyes closed as if asleep. Claire smoothed her mother’s hair away from her forehead and spent some time tucking each flyaway behind her ears. On the way out, a nurse gave her a carrier bag with apples, bananas, broccoli, almonds, rye bread – and a carton of chocolate milk, full of sugar and additives: Grace’s favourite.
‘Please, Mummy.’ Grace pushed the snowflake into her hands. Claire took it from her daughter, tossed it into the fire, then went in search of paper and scissors.
____
Jennifer Kerslake is a writer and editor based in Buckinghamshire. She spent several years as an editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the literary imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, before joining Curtis Brown Creative in 2019, where she is currently Head of Courses. She won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize in 2021.