Atlantic Shift

by Emily Barr

  ‘How are you doing?’ I ask her, as gently as I can.

  Her face is contorted. ‘Crap.’ She pushes me away as I try to reach for her. It is impossible to comfort someone at a time like this. I know that anything I say will be wrong. She sits down on my sofa, picking up Ron’s note of Darcey’s details and balancing it on the arm of the sofa without looking at it.

  ‘Tea?’ I say hopefully. ‘Coffee? Alcohol?’

  She nods. I try to examine her face, to see whether she’s been crying, but there is nothing there but bitterness. Previously, when fertility treatment hasn’t worked, she has been in floods of tears and I have comforted her with platitudes like ‘your time will come’, or ‘it will happen, I promise’, or ‘you’ll be a wonderful mother’. Before, she has nodded weakly and agreed not to give up. Today, she would clearly be enraged by such clichés.

  ‘Was that a nod to alcohol?’ I ask her.

  ‘Why not? Nothing to lose. Lost it all already.’

  ‘Kate,’ I say, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  She waves my words away. ‘I know. Everyone’s sorry. I’ve been speaking to my family and I’ve had it with the platitudes. Everyone says it’ll work next time and that it’s nature’s way and all that. No one has the faintest idea how it feels.’

  ‘I know. And I would never say that I know how it feels.’

  ‘You want to know how it feels, though? It feels like God has just told me to fuck off. It feels like I am the hugest, most enormous failure ever to have walked this earth. What can everyone else do that I can’t? For thousands of years, the women in my family have had babies. Every single woman ancestor of mine, from my mother to my grandmother to some girl in a cave wearing a mammoth skin, they’ve all been able to do it, and I have a direct line back to all of them. And now I can’t carry it on. And that’s it: no more family. Ian and I can’t even make a baby. And when Ron made some for us, and put them in the exact place where they needed to stay for nine months, my body can’t even look after them.’ She is staring straight ahead, and her tone is flat. ‘He told Ian he was implanting some of our embryos in someone else. We said he could, ages ago. It got us cheaper treatment. But I bet she manages to carry them. Not only can I not have my own baby, but someone else can. I’m not a real woman, Evie. I can’t function.’

  ‘Of course you’re a real woman. Didn’t you tell me that one in six couples has fertility problems? You would never look at them and say that they’re not real women, and the men aren’t real men. You wouldn’t say that about Ian, either.’

  ‘I know. It’s personal. I had my babies inside me, and I was so certain that that was it. I actually let myself believe that we’d done it, and that now I would nurture them for eight more months and we’d be a family. I always thought that if I could only get pregnant, I could do it. I didn’t mind if it was three babies or two or one, but I was so certain that it was going to work. I bought myself maternity clothes the other day. And while I was buying them, all three babies were dead inside me.’ She laughs bitterly. I open the fridge and take out two beers. Kate takes hers and twists the top off.

  ‘And the worst thing,’ she continues, in expressionless tones, after a long gulp from the bottle, ‘is the anger. I’m furious that we can’t do it. We’d be good parents and now we’re not getting a chance. We’re broke now, because of Ron, but we’d be able to provide for a family. We’d give them a fantastic home. I’d stay at home with them and they would have all the stimulation, everything a child could want. And yet I’m not able to do that. And at the same time you see teenagers with great big pregnant bellies, and you know it’s happened by accident, and that just makes me mad. And the thought of someone else having our actual genetic babies . . .’

  Even now her voice is flat. I’ve never seen Kate like this. She has always managed to be optimistic, or to pretend to be optimistic, before, and now she has lost all hope. I remember my conversation with Ian in the bar, and try to approach the subject gently.

  ‘I know it’s very different from having your own baby, but have you thought about adoption?’

  She takes a huge swig from her bottle. ‘Yeah,’ she says harshly. ‘Adoption. Of course. Everyone says that. Never mind, dear, there’s always adoption. Ian’s all for it. I’m not ready. We’re going to have another IVF cycle with Ron first. Not that I can find it in myself to be excited about it this time round. I think I’d like to give it a break. Maybe six months. Only I’m thirty-one and every day that goes past decreases my chances. So we’ll probably just take two or three months off and then start again with the bloody injections. It’s a joy, Evie, it really is. You should try it sometime.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘You’re right, you’ll just get pregnant at the drop of a hat. Please don’t, though. Not yet.’

  I go to the window and adjust the curtain. ‘OK,’ I say and hope she leaves the subject alone. When I look round, Kate has picked up the piece of paper.

  ‘Is this Ron’s writing?’ she asks. ‘Who’s Darcey D’Angelo? A porn star?’

  ‘No,’ I say, too quickly. ‘A kid he knows.’ I think on my feet. ‘A girl who plays the cello. He wanted me to maybe give her some advice. I might go up to Vermont and do a workshop at her school.’ This, I realise, is a brilliant idea. I will get Alexis to arrange something. It’ll be easy to find out where her school is. Of course, she is unlikely actually to play the cello, but I might meet her. She might have music lessons of some sort, though I won’t mind if she doesn’t. ‘Good for my image, apparently, to be seen encouraging kids. Particularly if it makes its way into a press release. Apparently it’s also good for my image to be seen with Dan again. So I’m supposed to be ambushing him at his hotel.’

  ‘Right.’ She drops the paper, no longer interested. ‘Nice for Jack to see all that phoney crap in the papers again.’

  Kate is a different person this afternoon, and I struggle to know how to handle her. We drink two beers each, and then I suggest an outing.

  ‘Where?’ she asks dully.

  ‘I don’t know. The park?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Let’s just stay here. Sometimes it’s better to hide.’

  ‘Does Ian know you’re here?’

  ‘He knows I went out.’

  ‘Do you want to ring him? He’s probably worried.’

  ‘Let him worry. He’d be better off without me anyway. There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s all me. He could have children of his own if he was with someone healthy.’

  ‘Kate! You are not unhealthy. Let me ring him, please?’

  ‘If he was that worried he’d have rung you. You know this is the first place he would try.’

  Immediately the buzzer goes again. We look at each other, and Kate returns my smile thinly as I get up and pick up the handset.

  ‘Hello?’ I say, fully expecting Ian.

  ‘Evie!’ says Ron, faintly. ‘Is this a good moment?’

  ‘Come on up,’ I tell him.

  ‘Ron,’ I tell Kate. She pulls her legs up and buries her face in her knees.

  ‘Ron?’ she asks. ‘What the fuck is he doing here? You’re not shagging him too, are you?’

  ‘No I’m not,’ I tell her.

  ‘Do you want me to leave?’

  ‘No.’ In fact, I do, but I can’t tell her that, not today. ‘I’ll get rid of him as quick as I can.’

  He is surprised to see Kate, and they greet each other nervously. Kate gets up and announces that she’s going to the deli to get some food for us. She insists it’s what she wants to do, so I give her my keys.

  ‘You haven’t run away to Vermont then,’ Ron says with a small smile, as soon as the door closes behind her. He sits next to me on the sofa and moves his leg slightly so our knees are touching. I don’t pull away.

  ‘It seems not.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘This is where I’m supposed to say “I’m not”, isn’t it?’

  ‘Humour me.’

  ‘I’m not.
’

  ‘Good. Evie, the police have found Annie’s car.’

  I sit up, then slump back down because I liked the touch of his leg on mine. ‘Found it? Where?’

  ‘In New Jersey. And in it they found the letter from Guy.’

  ‘Which said?’

  ‘He says a lot of things, Evie.’

  ‘Enough to make Annie walk out on her whole life?’

  Ron sighs. ‘It appears so. It’s all happened very suddenly. Aurora discovered that her passport’s gone. She never uses it from one year to the next, and Annie knew that. This morning Aurora went to look for it to check it was valid, because she was planning a holiday in the Caribbean. And instead of the passport, she found a note from Annie, saying she’d received some information about me, and that she needed some time alone to think about it, and that no one should worry about her.’

  ‘Now she tells us! Has she gone abroad?’

  ‘They’re working on that as we speak.’

  ‘What did Guy tell her?’

  ‘That I’m the Antichrist. That I’m a Dr Frankenstein character who wants to create armies of clones. That I experiment on those closest to me and that . . .’ He stops.

  ‘That what?’

  ‘I think you might have felt this, a little, over your baby. Though you have nothing to be ashamed of. You know the slightly sick feeling when you know there’s something in your past that you don’t want anyone to know, and you are absolutely certain that everybody will find out one day?’

  ‘And every time you think about it you feel sick and you try to convince yourself it won’t happen?’

  ‘Guy’s never said anything about this to you?’

  ‘He implied that you have some dodgy practices, and I ignored him, assumed he was jealous. But it was clear there was something else going on. What, Ron? What is it between you and Guy?’

  ‘I suppose I’d better tell you. It’s very hard for me to speak about this.’

  He pauses, then launches into his story. I sit down on the floor and lean back against the wall. ‘Thirty-one years ago, Guy and I were obsessed with reproductive technology. We were the most focused, the brightest in our class, and that was the area that obsessed us both. We knew there was going to be a test-tube baby and a huge future for the manipulation of human reproduction. Whatever either of us has told you, we were the best of friends. We were partners. We shared a flat in Bristol, and we were going to be at the vanguard, together. Guy and Marianne were solid as a rock - I was very envious of them. I wanted that for myself. So, one day Guy told me that Marianne was pregnant. It wasn’t planned, but they were over the moon, planning the wedding and so on. Sure enough, they were married in a trice, because that’s what you did back then, you sorted it out before she was showing. He moved out of our cosy little flatshare and they set up home together. I do remember your mother, Evie, from that time. Anna Shaw, she was a lovely girl. Stunning. I may well have propositioned her and suffered a rebuff myself.’

  ‘She was married to my dad and about to have me, surely?’

  ‘Hence the rebuff, I imagine. Or maybe she simply found me repulsive. It took more than that to deter me at that point in my life. I remember her legs. She wore tiny little minidresses—’

  ‘Ron! Shut up!’

  ‘Sorry. It’s not healthy to fancy both mother and daughter, is it?’ I smile to myself. This is the first time he has actually said that he fancies me, and even though I can see the fling I had envisaged receding over the horizon, I am glad to be flattered. ‘So. We carried on with our researches. I’d go to their house to eat a couple of times a week, and I’d bring different girls with me, almost for Marianne’s approval. All I wanted in the world was a setup like theirs. I wanted Guy and me to make a test-tube baby, and I wanted a beautiful pregnant wife.

  ‘So of course it all went wrong. One night we were late at the lab, and then we went for a drink. Marianne was thirty-five weeks, so Guy wasn’t going to stay out late, but one drink led to another and we were still there and it was nearly midnight. I dropped Guy home, because drink-driving wasn’t such a big deal back then. I was blind drunk. What we didn’t know was that Marianne had gone into labour early, and that she’d been waiting for us to come back. For Guy to come back. As soon as she saw the car from the window she came running out across the road to get to us. I never even saw her. Or I did. But it was too late.’

  He stops talking. I try to prompt him. ‘Did you hit her?’

  He gives a little sound which is almost a laugh. ‘Of course I did, Evie. You know I did. I ran her right over. Too drunk to stop. I went right over her and the baby.’

  ‘Fuck. Ron.’

  He looks me in the eye. ‘So as you can appreciate, Guy has some fairly strong opinions about me.’

  ‘What about the police? How come you didn’t go to prison?’

  ‘I got off by saying it was a medical emergency and we were about to take her to hospital. A tragic accident. Guy backed me up. He wasn’t pressing charges. He didn’t care about anything. He’d have said anything.’

  ‘Was the baby a boy or a girl?’

  ‘Boy. Guy didn’t want to give him a name, but he did in the end because people kept saying it would help him. He called him Angus. It didn’t help him, though.’

  ‘He’s never come close to getting over it.’

  ‘I know. And he told the whole story to Annie in this letter.’

  I look into his eyes. ‘Ron.’

  He strokes my hair. ‘Bad tactics of me to spill it out to you.’

  ‘He will never forgive you.’

  ‘He wouldn’t let me go to the funerals. We finished our training together and never really spoke again. I came over here as soon as I could, to get away from all the memories and all the guilt, and I’ve stayed here ever since. But I’ve never forgotten Marianne and the baby. Every life I bring into the world now is some kind of atonement.’

  ‘Right.’ I can’t help feeling cynical about this. If he was trying to atone, he wouldn’t be charging quite so much money. He would be working with pregnant women in the slums of India. ‘So now what?’

  He sounds uncertain. ‘How do you feel about what I’ve told you?’

  ‘I think it was a mistake that you’ve paid for. And I think it could just as easily have been Guy as you. He knows it was his fault too. He was happy for you to drive him home like that. You were in it together. So he has to demonise you.’

  ‘I did it, Evie. I was at the wheel. I was so drunk I could hardly see.’

  ‘What did the police say about his letter to Annie?’

  ‘I told them it wasn’t true. They weren’t that interested in something that happened thousands of miles away, thousands of years ago. They’re interested in finding Anneka now. As am I. I’m sure she’s alive.’

  A key turns in the lock, and Kate appears with a brown paper bag.

  ‘What?’ she says at once, looking from me to Ron and back again.

  ‘Evie can tell you when I’ve gone,’ Ron says quickly. ‘Bye, Evie.’ He stands up and kisses Kate on each cheek. She pulls away from him. ‘Bye, Kate,’ he says. ‘I really am so sorry that it hasn’t worked this time. You know where to find me when you’re ready to try again.’

  He leaves. Kate frowns at me. She is pale, her face still set angrily. I wonder whether she’s miles away in her own painful world.

  ‘What was that?’ she demands.

  ‘It was Ron,’ I tell her, ‘explaining what happened with him and Guy, and Marianne. Years ago, before we were even born.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Have you got me a muffin?’

  She dumps the bag on my lap and sits down. ‘Double chocolate. Come on then. Distract me.’

  chapter twenty-two

  Friday

  Elizabeth lives in a wooden house, on a hillside, not far from the residence of, of all people, the von Trapp family, from The Sound of Music. The house is not huge, but is beautiful. It is painted white, and has a m
anicured lawn and a spectacular view of mountains. It is shaped a little like a chalet. I’m not surprised the von Trapps like it here. It is a little piece of Austria in New England. The air is fresh, there is a breeze, and I am so relieved that my daughter has grown up here, in the safest and most wholesome place I have ever been, that I can’t stop smiling.

  I am also unable to stop shaking. I am overwhelmed by a mass of contradictory emotions. I love my baby. I hate myself for giving her up. I’m terrified of seeing her, terrified of not seeing her. I am jealous of Frank and Carla D’Angelo. I am empty. Since they took her away and refused to give her back even for five more minutes, I have not felt her loss this keenly.

  I take her photo from my purse and look at it. This is something I have stopped myself doing for years. I have barely ever looked at the little pink face, the eyes, nose, mouth and ears that were made inside my body. In the photo, Elizabeth is wrapped in a blanket. She is asleep. She is perfect.

  In being here, I am absconding from The Late Show with David Letterman and from a party where I was supposed to reintroduce myself to Dan. I couldn’t care less. Alexis must be furious with me: I informed him that I was going away for a few days by leaving a message on his work voicemail in the middle of the night. I had too much else to think about: I could not bear to speak to him. This morning I left far too early for the airport, just to avoid taking his call when he got my message.

  The only person I wanted to come with me was Ron. Now that we know each other’s secrets, we belong together. I wanted to ask him more about Guy, to try to work out, with him, why Guy has been writing to me. If he has. His letter to Anneka was completely different from the letter I expected him to have written her. Ron, however, refused to leave the city. He wants to be there when they find Anneka and bring her back. He is obsessed with resolving his story as I am with my own.

  I haven’t brought my cello with me. I should be playing it every day, but I’m only going to be here for a short time, and I don’t want to annoy the people in the Stowe Inn by playing it in my hotel room. I can’t draw attention to myself in any way.