Who Are You? Read Online Free Page B

other – opposites creating sparks of friction which ignite passion. But then he used to say a lot of things. If it wasn’t for Ben, Juliet doesn’t know what she might do. Anyone looking in from the outside would probably tell her to leave. It just seems such a bloody waste of all the years she’s spent longing for this, for him finally to be out so that they can build something worthwhile together; now that she doesn’t have to worry about him every bloody waking minute, wondering if he’ll come back to her, and if he does what state he’ll be in. All the years she’s sacrificed to the bloody British Army … Yes, her – not just Alex. Years of anguish and fear and now he’s back. They’ve finally given him back to her.

CHAPTER
    2
    Juliet has always been good at distraction techniques, almost – she was once told – to the point of dissociation. It’s a coping mechanism which lets her escape from the bad things, and Ben is a marvellous distraction. She always uses the time Ben spends in the bath playing with his ducks and boats to give his room a tidy up. She moves around the bedroom quietly and efficiently, matching up a sock with its partner, picking up a pair of pants, screwing them into a ball together with the socks ready to throw into the dirty laundry basket. Next she replaces the earless rabbit on the shelf with a menagerie of other soft toys and makes a mental note to sew the ears back on. She straightens the spines of the books on the bookshelf, picks up some random pieces of Lego from the floor and stows them in a blue plastic box.
    ‘Mummy …’ she hears Ben calling from the bathroom at the end of the landing.
    ‘Just a minute …’ she calls back because she needs to finish her tidying before she gets him out of the bath.
    Juliet feels such a deep passion for Ben that it almost overwhelms her. The nursery, as they still call it even though Ben is five, is probably her favourite room in the house. It isn’t just showy-offy like the other rooms; it probably sounds silly but it’s like a material manifestation of the relationship between mother and son. Every prop demonstrates the degree of devotion which she lavishes upon Ben. Every thing is a symbol of shared memory between Juliet and her son. The map of their lives together thus far. Each item has a special significance, its own little history, a little story of which Juliet is the keeper on Ben’s behalf. It’s quite a thought. She feels a responsibility towards preserving this mental corkboard of memories because she has barely any memory of her own early childhood. There is no point in asking her mother to fill in the blanks because she’d only construct a fantasy, shutting out out all the bad stuff, including Juliet. Juliet has learned that guilt can do funny things to people; it can make them demonize the victim and defend the perpetrator. No, getting her mother to face up to reality is never going to happen. Not now, after all these years.
    Juliet is different. She is determined to make sure she can supplement Ben’s childhood memories. Juliet thinks that by reinforcing the positives and blanking out the negatives she can determine whether Ben is a happy, outgoing child, or a neurotic, unhappy, introvert. Without any doubt it is all down to her, especially until Alex sorts himself out.
    ‘Mummy … COME heeeere …’ Ben whines from the bathroom.
    ‘In a minute … just WAIT!’ She shouts back. Sometimes the weight of motherhood bears down on her so hard. And this is no rehearsal. If it all goes wrong it’s always the mother that gets the blame. You spoilt him, gave in to him, gave him too much love; or you were cold, unapproachable, not cuddly enough, too strict. Juliet is his guide, his keeper, his protector, the everything of Ben and for Ben. Who else other than Juliet can catalogue and caretake the small, seemingly inconsequential details that define the little space that Ben occupies in the world? Just look around the