I told him all about Billie. Then I said we were down in Sherborne. There were plenty of trains back to London. We could delay our departure a couple of hours. Might there be time for a get-together?
‘Extraordinary,’ he said at once. ‘The one day you make it down here, I’m off the plot.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Indisposed, otherwise engaged. In fact, old thing, it’s even worse than that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, you’ve caught me in bloody London. Hell’s teeth, you should have phoned earlier. Yesterday maybe. I’m sure we could have sorted something out.’
I said I was sorry I hadn’t. I checked my watch. It wasn’t three o’clock yet.
‘We could be back in London by six,’ I suggested. ‘Why don’t you pop round for a drink before you come back down here? It would be nice to meet you. Billie, too. She loves all those things you bought her.’
‘She does?’
‘Yes.’
There was a long silence. I wondered whether he was looking for excuses to turn the invite down. Meeting after all this time would, for both of us, be a strange experience.
‘What do you think?’ I said at last. ‘Nice idea?’
‘Very nice.’
‘You’ll come? Eight o’clock, say? Have something to eat?’
‘Of course I will.’
He checked the address and mumbled something about having to be away before the last train out of Waterloo. Then he rang off.
Billie and I were back in Napier Road by seven. I’d bought a bagful of stuff from the local deli, and two bottles of good Rioja. I strapped Billie into her little rocker in the kitchen and she watched me while I found bowls for the various dips. I was polishing the glasses when it occurred to me that I ought to ask Gilbert, as well. The two of them were brothers, for God’s sake. One social evening a year wouldn’t over-stretch the family ties.
I went into the hall, meaning to call up to Gilbert, but then I had second thoughts. One of the reasons I wanted to talk to Tom face to face was to try and sort something out about this brother of his. Things between us were fine just now but if anything happened again it would be nice to know that Gilbert had somewhere to go to. Better, therefore, to keep Tom to myself for an hour or so and then invite Gilbert down afterwards. That way, I told myself, it would be a nice surprise.
Tom was due around eight. By half past, Billie was asleep and there was still no sign of him. I’d already been to the window twice, peering up the street. I was about to try his mobile number when I heard a light tap at my door. It made me jump. I got to my feet and crossed the room. It was Gilbert. He was carrying a wicker basket.
I invited him in, knowing that he’d seen the food and glasses already. With Tom due any minute, I could hardly pretend I was expecting anyone else.
‘Have a drink,’ I said, stepping back.
Gilbert put the basket on the floor. Already I could see something fluffy moving around inside. Gilbert was looking down at the carrycot. Billie was still asleep.
‘May I wake her up?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got a little present.’
I could see the kitten now, tiny little paws reaching out through the wickerwork. Gilbert knelt on the floor, undoing the straps that secured the flap at one end. He reached in, extraordinarily gentle. The kitten was the sweetest thing you ever saw, tabby with a white blaze on its face. Gilbert was looking at the bottle of wine I’d uncorked beside the gas fire.
‘You could call it Rioja,’ he suggested.
Gilbert stayed for the rest of the evening while we waited for Tom. Billie was entranced by the kitten and Gilbert hovered over the pair of them, making sure that neither came to any harm. When Tom didn’t turn up, we piled hummus and taramasalata onto biscuits and ate our way through the egg and anchovy rolls I’d prepared. Gilbert was even quieter than usual but when I asked if anything was wrong he said no. Around ten o’clock he fetched his flute from upstairs and played some of the lullabies I remembered from that first night I moved in. One in particular, Billie seemed to love. Gilbert played it again and again, drawing the notes out longer each time, a strange, far-away look in his eyes. He said it was his own favourite. He said it was called Nocturne.
Finally, past midnight, I tried Tom’s number. Gilbert was still cradling the baby, the kitten curled in his lap. Billie, by now, was fast asleep. I keyed in the last of the numbers for Tom’s mobile. This time there wasn’t even a recorded message. Just silence.
Clewson phoned two days later. As soon as I heard his voice I could smell the tobacco in that office of his. He asked me about Billie. I said she was fine.
I’ve been talking to the family,’ he said. ‘As I expected, they want to put a proposal to you.’
He mentioned an intermediary. For reasons he wasn’t prepared to discuss, they were insisting on keeping themselves at arm’s length from anything, as he put it, ‘pertaining to 31 Napier Road’. Halfway through trying to change Billie, I was trying to prevent her rolling off the mat.
‘I thought you were the intermediary,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that what solicitors do?’
He told me he was too busy to make it up to London. There was someone else they were happy to use, a name he thought I’d recognise.
‘Who?’
Billie had caught the corner of her soiled nappy. She began to drag it towards her.
‘Morris Fairweather,’ I heard Clewson say. ‘I believe he’s an MP.’
Fairweather arranged for us to meet at the House of Commons. My days on Members Only had given me a working knowledge of the geography of the place and I had no problem finding the big Central Lobby where the public can mill around, waiting for a word with their MP. I gave my name to one of the policemen on duty at the desk. He winked at Billie and made a phone call. By the time Fairweather came down from his office, we were sitting on one of the benches across the other side of the lobby.
I don’t think he expected the baby to have come too.
‘Name?’
‘Billie.’
‘Billie? I thought it was a girl?’
‘She is.’
‘So what kind of name is that?’
He was as bluff and direct as ever. I hadn’t seen him since I’d tempted him onto Members Only but the intervening months hadn’t changed him at all. We agreed that the lobby was a lousy place to talk. Getting us passes for his office might be a pain so I suggested a turn or two around St James’s Park. At first, he looked horrified. Like most MPs, he had a deep mistrust of physical exercise but he fetched his coat, and a funny little pork pie hat, and when we got outside he even volunteered to push the pram.
St James’s Park was a trailer for early spring. There were drifts of snowdrops and crocuses, white and mauve against the pale grass, and I propped Billie up in the pram, giving her a chance to see the ducks on the lake. Fairweather had recently made a return appearance on the first of the new series of Members Only, and he amused me with a couple of behind-the-camera stories. Brendan, it seemed, had just added the programme to his private collection, another of the office goodies he was smuggling out to his new life.
‘He was always crazy about you,’ Fairweather said. ‘You know that, don’t you? I always told him he had no chance. I said you had taste.’
He was looking rather pointedly at Billie. I told him that Brendan and I were no longer together.
‘So I gather.’ He brought the pram to a halt beside a bench. ‘Does that mean I was right all along?’
I smiled but said nothing. I wanted to know what the family planned for Gilbert. And I wanted to know why on earth they’d chosen Morris Fairweather to pass the message on.
‘Old friends,’ he said briskly.
‘Is that the only clue I get?’
‘Dead bloody right.’
‘But you kno
w them well?’
‘Well enough.’
‘So why didn’t you let on before?’
‘When?’
‘When I first told you? That night we went to the Caprice, and then the club afterwards?’
Fairweather shot me a sideways look. He’d obviously spent less time preparing for this conversation than I had.
‘You gave me a name,’ he said carefully. ‘Maybe I didn’t recognise it.’
‘You’re telling me Gilbert Phillips isn’t Gilbert Phillips?’
‘I’m saying nothing of the sort. I’m merely speculating.’
It was a political answer and try as I might I couldn’t budge him an inch further. The implication was pretty clear - that Phillips wasn’t Gilbert’s family name at all - but Fairweather hadn’t come here for anything as helpful as a candid chat. On the contrary, as he kept pointing out, he was only the messenger boy, the bearer - he hoped - of good news.
‘They want to make you an offer,’ he said. ‘And frankly you’d be daft not to say yes.’
I had Billie in my lap. We were surrounded by ducks now and I wished I’d brought some bread.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘They’d like you to move out.’
I’d already told him about last time, with Mark, but he shook his head.
‘They’d buy it,’ he said. ‘Take it off your hands.’
‘They would?’
‘Yes. Decent price, too. I managed to get them up to £65,000.’ I glanced sideways at him. He was looking pleased with himself. ‘But what about Gilbert?’ I asked.
‘Bugger Gilbert. It’s you you should be thinking about. You and little Willie here.’
For the first time he tried to touch the baby. She watched his big fat finger waving in front of her face.
‘Gilbert needs help,’ I said. ‘That’s what I thought this was all about. I thought they were going to get him treatment of some kind. I don’t know, drugs, counselling, whatever it is he needs.’
‘You really think that would help?’
‘Of course I do. He’s in a real mess sometimes. You can see it coming on, once you get to know him.’
Fairweather had a packet of fruit gums. He tossed one towards the nearest duck. The duck ignored it.
‘Clewson was right,’ he frowned. ‘He said you were naive, very nice but very naive. Gilbert’s not your problem, it’s theirs, the family’s.’
‘But they’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing, not even that brother of his, Tom. They’ve cut him adrift, they won’t even invite him down. They just leave him there, stewing in his own juices. What kind of family’s that? To just abandon him?’
Fairweather looked unimpressed.
‘Happens all the time,’ he said. ‘Families splitting up, fathers, mothers…’ He nodded at Billie. ‘Christ, girl, you should know.’
I objected to that. Very strongly indeed. Billie, as far as I knew, was normal. She’d grow up strong, protected, ready to make her way in the world. Gilbert, on the other hand, was completely at sea, hopelessly vulnerable to the next passing squall. His attempts to make a name for himself - like the LP he’d paid the earth for - had come to nothing, and he’d ended up with half a house in N17 and a telescope to keep him company on cloudless nights.
My outburst stung Fairweather into defending himself.
‘I’m told he’s happy enough.’
‘Who says?’
‘His father, for one.’
‘His father?’ I stared at him. ‘But his father’s dead.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, Tom told me, his brother. You don’t believe me?’
Fairweather gave himself a moment or two to compose his thoughts. Then he put a gloved hand on mine.
‘It’s a good offer,’ he said. ‘I’d take it. I’d find another place, move out, forget all about Gilbert. Clewson told me about what happened to your kitchen ceiling. If that doesn’t make your mind up, God knows what will.’
I looked down at Billie, wondering whether to bother with my little speech about causes and effects, about the pattern I’d detected behind Gilbert’s wilder excesses, about what it was that tipped him into madness. Fairweather, like Clewson, didn’t want to know. They thought my concern and my sympathy were quaint, and wholly wonderful, but their sole responsibility was to get me out of Napier Road. Gilbert could look after himself. Always had. Always would.
Fairweather was still watching me, still waiting for an answer.
‘In the nicest possible way,’ he said, ‘they’re giving you a deadline.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ He stood up, looking at his watch. ‘They want a decision within forty-eight hours. I make that Wednesday.’
As good as his word, Fairweather phoned me at home two days later. All three of us had taken the bus over to Whipp’s Cross and walked around the ponds across from the hospital. Gilbert, unlike me, had thought to bring nuts for the squirrels and Billie had been entranced. Now, still in his duffle coat, Gilbert was out in the kitchen making us tea.
I took Fairweather’s call in the front room, tip-toeing to the door and closing it.
‘Well?’ he said.
He wanted an answer. I did my best to postpone the decision. Two days’ thinking had led me to certain conclusions.
‘He’s an MP,’ I suggested. ‘Like you.’
‘Who?’
‘Gilbert’s father.’
‘How do you make that out?’
I told him I’d been asking around, using the contacts I’d made on Members Only. It wasn’t true but I thought it was a reasonable guess. Politicians, like any caste, tend to mix amongst themselves.
‘He’s quite well known,’ I went on. ‘And I expect he wants to keep the skeletons in the cupboard.’
‘What skeletons?’
‘Gilbert, for a start.’
Fairweather’s voice was beginning to harden. The bonhomie had gone. He was getting irritated.
‘Who he is doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘All he’s after is a bloody decision. Do you want the sixty-five grand or not?’
I heard Gilbert’s footsteps falter outside the door. I visualised him trying to juggle plates and a tray of tea. I got up to open the door.
‘I’ll phone you later,’ I said to Fairweather. ‘I’m still thinking about it.’
I didn’t phone, not that night and not next day either. Partly because I objected to being backed into a corner, and partly because I simply hadn’t made up my mind. Of course a move had its attractions. Of course the money would come in handy. But there were other factors, too, and I judged them equally important. For one thing, we were happy in Napier Road, all three of us, and for another I felt very sorry for Gilbert. Moving out would be a gross betrayal. He had very serious problems, no question about it, but just now I’d never seen him happier.
At the end of the week, after non-stop rain for two days, the weather cheered up again. After lunch, I slipped Billie into the papoose and settled her in the pram. When there was no answer at Gilbert’s door, we left without him, walking the mile or so to the park off Lordship Lane.
It happened to be half term and the place was full of kids. I parked the pram outside the cafe, as usual, and went in to get a sticky bun and a can of Diet Coke. I always left Billie where I could see her, but this particular afternoon the heat of all the bodies inside the cafe had misted the windows. To be honest, as well, I probably spent a second or two longer than usual in the queue for the cash till.
I paid for the bun and the drink, then picked my way out between the bodies. I remember the air being cold on my face as I pushed out through the door. I’d left the pram a couple of paces to the left. It was empty.
I dialled 999 from a phone in the cafe. The police were there in minutes, two men and a woman. I was hysterical by no
w, howling my eyes out, and the woman did her best to calm me down while they tried to get to the bottom of what had actually happened. It’s incredibly hard to be rational when you’ve just lost the most important thing in your life, ever, but they were very patient, coaxing the facts out of me, and afterwards we all drove back to Napier Road where I found some photos that Nikki had taken around Christmas. Handing over those photos triggered another flood of tears. It was as if I’d lost her twice. My fault. My baby. Gone.
Nikki came round and stayed with me that evening. I couldn’t stop talking about it, going over those minutes I’d spent in the cafe time and time again. Why had I ever developed a taste for sticky buns? Why had I ever dreamt of leaving Billie, even for the time it took to go into the cafe, and point at the cabinet, and take the paper bag, and pay? Didn’t I know about the world outside? The kind of monsters who lurked round every corner? Where on earth had I been all my life?
Nikki, of course, was all sympathy, telling me I shouldn’t blame myself, telling me it could have happened to any mother, but I knew this was nonsense. I’d lost her. It had been my fault. I sat by the phone, my hand ready to snatch it up, and all the time I was wondering where Billie might be, whether she’d be hungry or not, fed or not, changed or not, whether she’d even realise what had happened. A couple of times, journalists rang up or came to the door. They wanted to talk to me, to find out how I felt, but Nikki chased them away. She’d brought a bottle of vodka from her flat. Just looking at it made me feel physically ill.
At length, I summoned the energy to go upstairs and break the news to Gilbert. When I told him that Billie had gone, been stolen, he stared at me. At first I thought he hadn’t understood but as soon as I started the story again he reached out, putting his hand on my arm, appalled. The park had been a place of safety, our place, Billie’s place. There was no room in this little corner of Gilbert’s world for news like this.
Around midnight, Nikki went home. She’d offered to stay but I’d said no. I was cold by this time, colder than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Losing Billie had walled me off. I was a hopeless mother. The fault was all mine. If she was hurt, if she was dead, then I’d as good as killed her.
Nocturne Page 26
