Matilda Next Door

by Kelly Hunter

  A knock on the door had him reaching for the pyjama trousers he’d shed in the middle of the night. It was scorching hot in summer and his grandparents still didn’t have aircon for the bedrooms. ‘I’m up,’ he murmured, feeling all of eight years old again. He reached for his phone in an attempt to find out what time it was, but it was dead. Why was it dead? ‘Come in.’

  The door cracked open and his grandfather’s head appeared. ‘Matilda’s on the phone and asking for you.’

  Tilly? ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six.’

  Meaning early evening in London. ‘Thanks.’ He shoved his sheet back, headed for the bedroom door and claimed the handset. He wasn’t dressed for company, but Tilly would never know. He’d not only been using his old bedroom for this visit, he’d started wearing some of his old clothes around the place as well. His London clothes looked so out of place here. Too crisp. Too posh. All wrong.

  ‘Hot coffee in the kitchen when you’re ready,’ his grandfather offered. His grandfather was always up first, with the sun, putting wood on the fire and breakfast on. Such a startling concept when he’d arrived here all those years ago to find breakfast cooking and a mug of milky tea waiting for him at the kitchen table. His mother hadn’t believed in breakfast. She hadn’t put much emphasis on lunch and dinner either.

  God, why was the thought of his mother so strong in his head this morning?

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured to his grandfather, thinking of all those times he’d sat in stunned silence as the older man had filled his plate with perfectly poached eggs on toast, and bacon. Tomatoes and onion on the side. Sometimes even mushrooms.

  He put the phone to his ear and attempted to stop wallowing around in memories.

  ‘Evening, Matilda.’ It sounded like Tilly was out and about, given the screaming baby in the background. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Your daughter for one. Not that she sleeps, because she doesn’t.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t hear you properly.’ He changed ears, thinking that might help. What was she saying about Len not getting enough sleep? ‘My doorman what?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’ Now it seemed like her turn to be confused. ‘Let me just—can I hang up, and you video call me back?’

  ‘Course.’ He grabbed his computer, which was charged, and headed out onto the verandah. ‘Fair warning, I’m just out of bed. No shirt, but I do have pyjama bottoms on.’

  ‘If only you’d kept them on,’ she muttered, and suddenly there she was on his screen, looking far from serene. She wasn’t alone. She had a little bundle tucked in the crook of one arm. A noisy screaming baby bundle. ‘Let me just—can you see her?’

  ‘Why are you babysitting?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Frustration roared along the airwaves, cloaked in Tilly’s voice. ‘Exactly my question! Did you know about this?’

  ‘Your babysitting gig?’ No.

  ‘Your daughter.’

  His what?

  But Tilly had barely drawn breath. ‘Because apparently you have one, and now she’s motherless, and if you could be genius enough to charge your phone, you might take the time to look at all the paperwork that came with her. And after that, I would very much appreciate your help when it comes to trying to care for her. Because I am doing a very bad job of that, Henry. A very bad job.’

  Her dire words were accompanied by a wail from the baby that seemed to prove her point. ‘Hey,’ he murmured. ‘Shhh. Easy, there.’ Hard to say who exactly he was trying to soothe. Tilly most likely.

  Because the baby in her arms? His baby?

  He knew not one damn thing about that.

  He’d been single for so long now. Not since his ill-considered one-night stand with a colleague who’d up and left the think tank altogether a short time later.

  Last he’d heard she was battling cancer. He’d been meaning to get in touch, if only to see how she was.

  Meaning to.

  ‘Tilly. If you could just—’ What was she doing to that baby to make it cry so much? Nothing that he could see, and he had no advice for her anyway. ‘What’s the mother’s name?’

  Instead of speaking, she picked up a sheet of paper and pasted it to the screen, effectively shutting out his view of anything else, but unfortunately doing nothing to mute the sound.

  ‘Henry, I have to go. Maybe she needs a walk, fresh air, the light of the moon—although heaven knows that’s not likely around here. Maybe I need to go and buy a pram, and I would, Henry, I would if I thought I could (a) find one, and (b) find one with a shop attendant who didn’t think I was kidnapping this screaming, unhappy child and, oh, blast.’

  Blast? ‘What kind of blast?’

  ‘There goes dinner, straight down my shirt, and to be fair it’s not my shirt it’s your shirt, but still. I am standing here holding your windy baby, Henry, and you need to rethink your life choices and turn on your goddamn phone and read the paperwork and figure something out. Because I can get comfortable wearing your crispy business shirts, if I have to. I can admire your sock drawer and make fun of the contents of your fridge. But I will not, repeat, will not be left holding the baby.’

  Chapter Six

  Tilly was still holding the baby an hour-and-a-half later. The baby was sleeping—that was the good news. The bad news was that Tilly was lying on the sofa, too scared to move in case she woke the angelic cherub and the screaming started again.

  Henry’s neighbours had come through for her with a portable bassinet and feeding chair. They’d also left a plastic mat with bolsters either side, which made changing nappies a snack if one discounted the stomach-churning mess of it all.

  Tilly liked babies. Honest. She did. Other people’s quiet babies especially. She liked to think she could rise to this particular occasion, give it her best and succeed, but it had taken old Mr Clark’s dab hand to gently pat baby Rowan to sleep while Mrs Clark sorted through the baby things in the carryall and showed Tilly how to use the bottle steriliser, and make formula, and line bottles of baby milk up in the fridge for use throughout the night.

  ‘Don’t wake her to feed her,’ Mrs Clark had advised on her way out the door, and Tilly was behind that directive one thousand per cent.

  Of course, the older woman had also advised Tilly to put the baby in the bassinet and let her fuss a little because ‘the poor wee thing will settle soon enough,’ and Tilly had tried that, she really had.

  It hadn’t worked.

  So she’d picked the baby up and settled down on the couch and closed her eyes and wondered what Henry would do now he had a fussy baby in his oh-so-organised life. Would he hire a nanny and put the child in boarding school as soon as possible? Out of sight, out of mind?

  She tried to imagine him doing that, and couldn’t. He was a strange fish, Henry, but he’d always seemed so grateful to his grandparents for taking him in. He’d worked hard on the farm in his teen years and showed his grandparents the respect they deserved. He hadn’t caused them any trouble.

  And then he’d up and left mere weeks after he’d finished high school, and rarely looked back. So maybe baby Rowan would have a boarding school future after all.

  It wasn’t her problem. Not in the long term. Tilly was nothing but a guest in Henry’s life. She had no business getting attached to the tiny bundle of misery with the big set of lungs, and to that end she eased into a sit and then a stand, and this time when Rowan fussed, she shushed her and whispered reassurances no baby would understand and then resolutely put her down in the perfectly good baby bed and tucked the blanket in tight and tip-toed from the room.

  It was well past midnight and she could either have a cup of tea, which would keep her awake, or open one of Henry’s fancy bottles of wine and put her feet up and the music on low and relax for a few minutes before she started checking the phone for calls.

  And, oh boy were there calls. Sixteen of them—all but one of them from Henry.

  The other one was from her mother, and she started with it, only to shake her at the sound
of her mother’s voice telling her to give Henry a call when she had a spare moment. And she would. She absolutely would. Just as soon as she poured the fancy wine into a crystal glass etched with frolicking stags and took a sip.

  Could she even finish the glass she’d poured? What with responsibility for a baby resting firmly on her shoulders?

  Damn.

  She set the glass on the wide arm of the chair, looked at her phone and thought, five minutes more before I tackle all those Henry calls.

  She closed her eyes and tried to remember some of the meditation breathing techniques Holly had tried to teach them at the last Smart Ladies’ Supper Club meeting. Holly was a midwife so, seriously, the woman should know her breathing techniques, right?

  Breathe in, palm to her torso just below her breasts and make that palm rise. Hold for the count of one, two, three. And breathe out to the count of five.

  Breathe in …

  As her body grew heavier and she reached for her pretty blue scarf and draped it over her body like a blanket.

  And out …

  *

  Henry was having a bad morning. By the time he’d printed out and muttered his way through the information Tilly had sent him, the only thing he was sure of was that someone, somewhere, had bribed, cajoled, pleaded or otherwise forged his signature on a whole lot of paperwork. How else could there be a legal birth certificate for one Rowan Aurelia Church, born on August the third in the maternity wing of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to one Amanda Ava Murphy and one Henry Robert Church?

  There was a will. Amanda hadn’t died destitute—a brilliant mind and various patents had seen to that—and the child had inherited the lot. But the estate was to be managed by Henry until the child’s majority, and until Henry took control it was being administered by the solicitors who’d prepared the will.

  There was the Dear Henry letter, brief and to the point, and it had been enough to make his legs buckle and his hands shake. He hadn’t found a brain compartment for it yet, but he would. He’d label it terror and lock it down hard, never to see the light of day again.

  Dear Henry,

  I know this is not what you want from me.

  Death wasn’t exactly part of my plan either. Not now. Not yet.

  If I had my way, I’d be there for all my daughter’s tears and joys. I’d be crying on her first day of school, but I’d never let her see me do it. I’d be puffed with pride years later when she accomplished her shiniest goals. I would love her so thoroughly throughout the years that she would never, ever feel unworthy or unwanted.

  Remember when we talked about mothers that day, and I said I wouldn’t know how to be a good one because I’d never had one? Wouldn’t even know where to begin. And you said—I remember it so clearly, Henry—you looked me up and down and said ‘Who better to know how to be an excellent mother than someone who’d only ever known the absence of one? All those times you wept for want of one, or reached for a blanket to wrap around your loneliness and pretended it was your mother’s arms … Who better to know exactly what is needed from a mother, and when, than a girl who never had one?’

  I like to think I’d have made a great parent and justified your belief in me, but I’m dying and I’m so afraid that if I don’t reach out to you, my daughter will become a ward of the state. I’ve been there and done that and it is no place for a child.

  Rowan’s yours.

  For what it’s worth, I didn’t think I could get pregnant. The odds were so long.

  And although you never considered our night together the start of a proper relationship, for me it was a tender, intense and loving experience. You did not disappoint. That’s how I choose to remember it. A magical night with a man I know I could have loved.

  You’re a good man, Henry. I know you’ll do your best by our daughter and your best will be enough.

  Yours,

  Amanda A. Murphy

  When he could see without the blur again, when he could stand, he’d taken the printouts to the kitchen table and laid out the situation for his grandparents. There’d been coffee, and plenty of it. Bacon and eggs pushed aside and gone cold, and so much silence between carefully constructed questions that he’d abandoned his chair and taken to pacing the room. He tried to get hold of Matilda, but his attempts were going to message bank.

  ‘So where’s the baby now?’ his grandfather asked finally.

  ‘With Tilly.’

  His grandfather blinked.

  ‘What? What does that blink mean?’ he demanded. ‘Do you think she can’t cope with a crying baby for one night?’ A baby who would probably be missing her mother, and he really didn’t want to think about that. ‘Does she need help? Should I call a nanny service?’ For all his authority in his everyday life, he felt utterly out of his depth when it came to this. ‘She sounded stressed on the phone. It’s been crying a lot.’ It. ‘The baby.’ His baby. What was her name again? ‘Rowan.’

  His grandfather pressed two fingers to the space between his eyebrows and gently massaged the area. ‘Tilly’s a capable, sensible girl. She’ll cope.’

  But Tilly hadn’t been coping. Not with London. Not with being an intrepid solo explorer.

  ‘We need a plan.’ His grandfather’s words grounded him and he was grateful. A plan, yes. A workflow chart would help set the direction. He had a daughter. A daughter called Rowan and Tilly was currently taking care of her and it was a start. A pivot point.

  ‘She could come here,’ his grandfather offered calmly, but he wasn’t looking at Henry, he was watching his wife of over sixty years. They’d done it before, taken an unwanted child in—taken him in—but that was well over twenty years ago and it wasn’t an option. Not when this time yesterday his thoughts had been firmly fixed on how to best care for them.

  He opened his mouth to say as much, but his grandfather spoke first.

  ‘She could come here, no question, but you’d have to stay too.’ His grandfather eyed him steadily. ‘There’s room. We could help you find your feet as a father, take some of the load. Not all, but some. Even if you only wanted to stay here for a little while. That much we can do. Right, Beth?’

  ‘What baby are we talking about?’

  ‘Henry’s.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He tried to clarify his thoughts without offending. His grandfather already stretched thin, and his grandmother … ‘Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I—’ What? Had other plans? ‘—I need to think on it.’

  ‘Why does Tilly have her?’ his grandmother asked suddenly. ‘Is it Tilly’s girl?’

  ‘No, Beth.’ His grandfather covered Beth’s hand with his own. ‘Tilly’s just looking after her for now. It’s Henry’s child.’

  ‘Get Tilly to bring her back,’ his grandmother said next. ‘She’s only next door.’

  But Tilly wasn’t next door. Henry passed a hand over his face. ‘Do they have baby couriers? I’m sure they do.’ The baby wouldn’t know the difference. The grieving, crying baby would be handed off to yet another pair of unfamiliar hands, but at least those hands would know what they were doing. ‘Couriers can deliver anything these days.’ He was sure he could find a specialised service that could accommodate his request. ‘I need Tilly’s help in the short term, obviously. But it doesn’t have to derail her holiday completely.’

  His grandmother pursed her lips, but Henry ignored her in favour of getting more words out. ‘I need more information. Amanda—the baby’s mother—was a colleague and a good person, but there was no—’ Thought of an ongoing relationship, he wanted to say. ‘It was one night. We parted ways amicably. The probability of me being the father is actually—’

  ‘Henry,’ his grandfather interjected. ‘Quit now.’

  His grandmother rose. ‘I’ll ring the Moores.’

  ‘Why?’

  He remembered that look his grandfather was now giving him. It meant he wasn’t picking up on something that was obvious to everyone but him. And, okay, his people skills weren’t stellar, but
he’d improved on his utterly self-absorbed teenage years.

  Or so he’d thought.

  But he still remembered the way things were done around here, particularly when it involved his grandmother. She and subtle coercion were old friends. Assuming she was even comprehending the current conversation. ‘Just so we’re clear—I have no intention of asking Tilly to cut her trip short and bring that baby to me, so don’t seed that thought with her parents. I’ll clean up my own mess.’

  His grandmother left the room in a huff. His grandfather’s frown was harder to ignore. ‘Do you have something to say as well?’ Henry demanded.

  ‘Only that I think you’re dead right about leaving Tilly out of this. You’re going to need help. Tilly’s been raised to help those in need.’ His grandfather tapped his index finger to his temple. ‘That particular compulsion is up here, and in her heart as well, that’s how she’s built. And that girl always has been sweet on you. Followed you around like a puppy and never would hear a word against you. Even now, when you can barely remember to wish her happy birthday, she’s so proud of all you’ve achieved. And I’m proud of you too, and all the money you’ve made along the way, but it doesn’t blind me to your faults.’

  ‘And what are my faults? That I don’t do birthdays?’

  ‘You don’t do women, Henry. You don’t trust them. You don’t love them. Not even Beth. In all the years I’ve known you, that hasn’t changed.’

  Henry had nothing to say to that. Possibly because it was true. His mother had been a hard woman to love, but he’d done his best. By the time he’d reached his grandmother and she’d started in on him, he hadn’t even felt like offering love in return. He’d offered obedience and hard work, and tried not to let her criticisms take hold. ‘So?’

  His grandfather picked up the Dear Henry letter and raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘So, pretty soon you’re going to be a man in need of a wife and mother for your child. I’d hate for you to encourage Tilly to pick up those roles if you can’t bring yourself to love her back.’ His grandfather’s faded blue gaze pinned him to the spot. ‘Because that won’t work. She deserves better than that.’