Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell

by Debbie Carbin

  I glance at him with a smile, then pat my bump. ‘Listen, Plum, I’m going to open this for you, seeing as you still haven’t tidied up your room,’ and I rip open the paper.

  Have you ever seen anything so perfect? Inside is a gorgeous white velveteen sleepsuit, with tiny silver stars all over it. It has five-centimetre feet on the end of the legs. I hold it still in my hands for a few seconds, just staring at it; then I lay it out flat on the table. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I whisper. On impulse, I pick it up again and lay it down in the crook of my elbow and along my forearm. ‘Look, it fits.’

  ‘You like it?’

  I look up at him but he’s gone all blurry. ‘It’s perfect.’ I look down again at the suit slumbering peacefully in my arms, waiting to be filled. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  ‘You are? Well then, I’m really glad I bought that, and not a Sodastream.’

  ‘Hector, tell me something?’ Subconsciously I have begun rocking the sleepsuit in my arms. ‘Why did you have to bring me down here to give it to me?’

  ‘Truthfully? Truthfully, I just wanted to see you. On your own. I missed you.’

  ‘I only saw you yesterday.’

  He nods solemnly. ‘Yes. Well. I . . . love you.’

  Oh, God, I love hearing that. Those words just float out of his mouth, almost without him even saying them.

  ‘I love you too.’

  See him swell a bit when he hears me say it? It looks like he can’t quite get his breath.

  We watch each other sip our drinks, and I remember that it’s my last day at work today and I still haven’t told Nick about Plum.

  ‘You never answered my question at the pool the other day.’

  ‘What question was that?’

  ‘About whether or not I should tell Nick – Plum’s father.’

  He exhales deeply. ‘Ah yes. I remember. It just seems so odd thinking that he doesn’t know about it yet.’

  ‘Yet?’

  He leans forward on the table. ‘Rachel, he’s the baby’s father. He has a right to know about it. And his family should know about their grandchild, nephew, cousin . . . brother or sister, even.’

  Ah yes, of course. Nick’s other children. Well, I don’t know for sure that there are others, but with a wife it’s a possibility. Plum, of course, will want to know his brothers and sisters, which will mean I will have to meet the wife at some point. There are going to be rows and unpleasantness about where Plum goes for Christmas every year, probably for the next sixteen years or so, until he’s old enough to decide for himself. Years of resentment will build up and finally explode in a nasty punch-up at Plum’s wedding when Nick gets drunk and his wife calls me a filthy name. That’s if she comes. Well, she can be invited, just to keep the peace. Whether she accepts the invite or not is up to her.

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ve thought about them more thoroughly than you can imagine. I pretty much knew I’d have to tell him, sooner or later; I just wanted to know what you thought. I . . . respect your opinion more than anyone else’s.’

  He’s swelling again.

  We drain our cups and stand up, me still clutching the sleepsuit to my chest. ‘Have dinner with me tonight?’ he says suddenly.

  ‘Yep. Where?’

  ‘I’ll meet you after work.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for the drink and this beautiful thing. I love it.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  Back upstairs, I want to show everyone what I’ve got, but they’re all busy on the phone. Paris is watching me blankly, so I smile sweetly in her direction. Val’s absent, presumably in the loo or paying one of her bi-daily visits to Marketing so I fold up the sleepsuit and tuck it safely into my handbag.

  At five o’clock I shut down my terminal for the last time. I think I might have sold two holidays today but compared to the carnivorous dinosaur rampaging around downstairs in Data Processing, it hardly matters. I pick up everything that belongs to me, which is one magazine from my desk drawer and my Betty Boop mug, and turn round to find Val standing there with everyone else crowding round. She’s got a huge box balanced on the desk in front of her, with a big pink bow on top.

  ‘Rachel, we had a collection and got you some things for the baby. There’s some nappies, blankets, bottles, a bouncy chair – it’s flat packed – and a few things for it to wear.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I put my hand on my mouth and feel too full of emotion to speak.

  ‘Just about everyone from Telesales wanted to contribute, and quite a few people from other departments, which I think is a measure of how much people wish you well. Good luck, Rachel. We’ll all be thinking of you.’ She leans forward and kisses my cheek and rubs my arm. And after she’s gone, everyone I’ve worked with for the past seven years comes to say goodbye and give me a kiss. Simon, Siân, Penny, Marion, Jean, Graham, Mike (who’s short and fat), Martin (tall and fat), and even Paris comes over. She doesn’t kiss me and barely cracks a smile, but she does shake my hand and wish me good luck. Well, good luck to her. I just hope she’s using condoms, otherwise we might be seeing an awful lot more of each other in the future.

  For old times’ sake I do one last pathetic female act and ask Martin to bring the box out to the car for me. I think on this occasion it’s justified, though. It’s bloody heavy, and I’m already carrying something. Duh, a baby, remember?

  As we approach my car, I see there’s a gorgeous tall person leaning against it. It’s Hector, of course, and as we draw nearer he stands up and I can see that he’s watching Martin with narrowed eyes, frowning.

  Martin puts the box down on the bonnet. ‘Do you want me to put it in the boot for you?’

  ‘No, it’s fine there, thanks, Martin. Hector can move it for me now. I really appreciate you bringing it out here, though.’

  Martin glances at Hector and nods at him. ‘OK, well, I’ll be off then. Best of luck, Rach. Come back soon.’ After a quick peck on the cheek, he hurries off towards his own car.

  ‘Who’s that then?’ Hector asks immediately.

  ‘It’s just Martin.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says, still watching Martin walking away. ‘And what’s this?’ he nods towards the box.

  ‘It’s my leaving gift. I haven’t even had a chance to look inside yet, but they’ve bought me a whole load of baby stuff.’

  ‘Oh, have they?’ He sniffs as he picks up the box, feeling its bulky weight. ‘I see.’

  ‘Oh, Hector McCarthy, you’re not . . .’ Suddenly the breath is sucked out of me as an iron clamp tightens around me and my stomach clenches like a fist. ‘Umph.’

  Hector is at the back of the car, putting my box into the boot. His head jerks up. ‘What is it?’

  I can’t answer. The tightness isn’t painful but it’s making my heart pound loudly in my ears and throat. It feels like something is wrapped around my whole body, gripping me so tightly that the blood can’t move any more and my heart is beating harder and harder to move it on.

  Hector appears at my side. ‘Are you all right?’ I nod and try to smile. ‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ he says decisively, but doesn’t. ‘Shall I?’

  I shake my head, although I feel like machinery that’s had a metal bar shoved into it. I stand, frozen, for several seconds. Eventually, the hardness dissolves and I can release the breath that was stuck inside me. Hector’s gripping both my upper arms, his face bent towards me.

  ‘Wow, that was weird,’ I say, trying to produce a reassuring smile.

  ‘What was? What happened?’

  ‘I think it was just Braxton Hicks. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Braxton Hicks. False labour pains. It’s perfectly normal, apparently.’

  He blows out a long breath. ‘False . . . Jesus. So what did . . .? I mean, how is . . .? How are you going to know whether it’s false labour or real labour, then?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘I know.’

  He stares at m
e in horror for a few minutes. ‘Right, you’re not going further than five minutes away from the hospital for the next six days.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Now. Dinner. You ready to eat?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  I follow him in my car along the bypass to the outskirts of town where it becomes very rural and villagey suddenly. After turning off the roundabout the road narrows dramatically and runs between low hedgerows with fields behind them and large farmhouse-style dwellings in the distance. Every so often an opening in the hedgerow shows a fleeting glimpse of a huge stone-built house with three storeys, four cars and a huge front garden accommodating a curved driveway and sculpted hedges.

  After about fifteen minutes along this road, Hector signals and pulls into a dirt road on the right. It’s a very odd place for a restaurant to be situated – I can’t imagine that they get many customers down here. Unless it’s one of those really expensive exclusive places that’s only known to a select few, where all the staff know the clients’ first names and everyone has a regular table. God, I’m not dressed for a place like that. I’m wearing black leggings and outsize skin.

  A few minutes along the track there’s a sudden large opening in the hedge on the left and Hector pulls in. I follow him and find myself driving up to one of the enormous stone farmhouses, complete with gravel drive and crisp circular lawn. He parks and gets out, smiling at me as I approach. I’m fairly sure that this is no restaurant.

  Inside, his hallway is about the same size as my living room. It has a solid wood floor and a wide staircase, which curves up out of sight. He takes my hand and leads me into the kitchen, which is roughly the size of Old Trafford.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asks.

  ‘If you set out now, I will do by the time you get back,’ I say, staring around me in wonder. He’s got one of those rack things with herbs and plants hanging from it over an island in the middle of the room that has stools round it. I climb on to one. At one end of the room is a large chunky wooden table with six chairs round it and a big bowl of green apples in the middle. Beyond the table the wall is made entirely of glass, which opens out over something that looks like a sports field. It’s almost six o’clock so the light is fading fast, but the sun is still clearly visible, dark salmon pink and melting on to the horizon. The sky above and around it is still lit but beyond the reach of the weak rays the sky is indigo. The field, though darkening rapidly, is gilded briefly and the low golden light slants through the window in bars, glinting off the gold dust floating in the air.

  ‘Just water, is it?’ he says, heading across the room.

  ‘Lovely.’ He brings a glass over to the fridge, which is about the same size as my car and fills it from a tap that’s set into the door. He adds a slice of lemon and ice cubes and puts it in front of me.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asks me, leaning his elbows on the counter where I’m sitting.

  I sip the water. ‘The lemon adds a certain—’

  ‘I mean the kitchen, you sorceress. The house. What do you think?’

  ‘I knew that. I’m stunned, Hector. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  He grins, obviously pleased with my answer. ‘Thanks. I spent a long time slaving over the Yellow Pages to get this effect.’

  We talk about the house as he prepares the food. Apparently it was nothing like this when he bought it five years ago and he’s done a lot of the designing himself, including that amazing window. While we eat, Glenn puts his head round the door with a small, white aromatic bag in his hand. I glance at Hector as the familiar tune starts up in my head. Da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da . . .

  ‘All right, Hec. Oh, hi, Rachel.’ He doesn’t seem at all surprised to see me there. ‘Chinese,’ he says, holding up the bag.

  ‘Great,’ Hector says, and Glenn disappears. Hector turns to me. ‘See what I mean? That flaccid face everywhere I look. It’s driving me . . . Rachel, are you all right?’

  The tightening is happening again, robbing me of breath, clamping my lungs. I put my hand on my tummy and it feels like concrete, with a thin layer of skin stretched over it. I nod, not able to speak for a moment. Hector puts his hand on the back of my neck. When it eases I sit up again and breathe more easily.

  ‘False or real?’ he says straight away.

  ‘Only one way to know,’ I say, going back to my food.

  ‘Really? Well, what is it?’

  I chew for a moment. ‘Well, if a baby comes out, it was probably a real one.’

  ‘Uh, Rachel. I’m trying to be serious. I’m worried about you.’

  I smile. ‘You don’t need to be. There’ll be plenty of time if it is real labour. I’ve read magazine articles.’

  ‘Oh, good, that’s very reassuring.’ He eats for a while then says, ‘What does it feel like?’

  ‘What, the false labour?’

  ‘Yeah, what you just had, false, real, whatever. What’s it like?’

  ‘Hmm. Let me think a minute. Ooh, I know. Did you ever see that old film about gorgons or titans or something? Had a character in it with snakes for hair? What’s her name?’

  He frowns. ‘Medusa?’

  ‘That’s it. Well, in this film, Medusa is so ugly, apparently, that it’s said that if you look once into her eyes, you’ll be turned instantly to stone . . .’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘So, the film builds up to the point where the hero has to face Medusa and fight her, but he can’t look into her eyes.’

  ‘Otherwise he’ll be—’

  ‘Turned to stone. Right. So he holds up his shiny shield instead, and Medusa looks into it and sees her own reflection.’

  ‘I remember that!’

  ‘And then in the film do you remember they did some kind of poor, sixties-style special effects to show her gradually turning grey, like water soaking into a sponge, and the hardness creeps up her legs and down her arms and gradually spreads all over her body as little by little she turns into stone?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, that’s what it feels like.’

  There’s a stunned silence. Then Hec says, ‘Wow.’

  The telephone rings from the table in the hallway. ‘Excuse me,’ Hector says, getting up and going to answer it. He’s got such beautiful manners, hasn’t he? He brings the handset back into the kitchen and sits back on his stool before pressing the button. He reaches out to touch my hair as he speaks.

  ‘Hello? . . . Oh, hi, Sar—’ I watch as his relaxed, smiling face hardens, and gradually greyness soaks into it. He removes his hand from my hair and turns partially away from me, eyes widening in horror. ‘Hold on, hold on, say that again, only slower . . .’ He puts his free hand on the back of his head, begins to rub it, stands up, takes two steps, turns, walks back. He looks at me – his eyes are wild. And I know, from that look, that something truly terrible has happened.

  ‘All right, look, we’ll be there as soon as we can.’ He curls his free hand around the mouthpiece of the phone as if to comfort the person at the other end. ‘Try to hang on, Sarah, OK? Just hang on.’

  He hangs up the phone and dashes into the hallway where he shouts, in a voice that sounds like it has been clawed from raw stone, ‘Glenn! Glenn, come down, come on, now.’

  He strides quickly back to me in the kitchen and takes my hand, pulling me to my feet. ‘Come on, Rachel, quickly, we’ve got to go. Come on.’

  ‘My God, Hector, what’s happened?’

  As we rush into the hallway to find Glenn halfway down the stairs with a quizzical look on his face, Hector lays his hand on the banister, looks up at his brother and says softly, ‘Glenn, it’s Jake. He’s gone missing.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  RUNNING FEET; PALE, shocked faces; doors slamming; paralysing, sickening, terror; unwelcome images that pour into my head no matter how hard I try to stop them. We’re in Hector’s car, the three of us, heading too fast and not fast enough to Sarah’s house. We’re in silence, Hector and Glenn in the fron
t, the tension in the car so enormous I almost expect to see lightning crackle from the head of one brother across to the other.

  I can’t look at Glenn for long. The sight of him hurts my eyes. Even the back of his head is raw and agonized, his shoulders tense and hunched, one hand pressed permanently over his mouth. He is like an enormous open wound, as if someone has flayed the skin off him.

  A lorry joins the road in front of us and we are forced to slow down. Glenn and Hector both lean forward slightly, urging the car, the traffic, to move faster. ‘Come on,’ Hector says quietly. ‘Move . . .’

  We arrive at Sarah’s. Every light is on, the house glowing like a beacon in the dark for a lost child. Glenn leaps from the car and rushes to the door, which is pulled open and Sarah collapses into his arms, sobbing, talking, gasping out words, her voice high and mostly unintelligible.

  ‘Out there . . . didn’t come . . . didn’t know what . . . Dark . . . hasn’t come . . .’ Glenn supports her back into the house, Hector and me following on behind.

  Inside, Sarah sits on the edge of the sofa, hunched over, picking at the skin around her fingernails. Look at her face – she’s got the same wild look that I’ve seen in photographs of Holocaust survivors, like she’s witnessed a horror. Glenn sits next to her, their sides pressing together, holding hands. Hector crouches in front of them.

  ‘Now, Sarah, can you tell me what happened?’

  She nods, swallows, takes a breath, pressing down her voice so that it doesn’t shriek with hysteria. When she speaks she sounds like she’s desperately holding the two edges of herself together, but they’re slipping from her grip.

  ‘We . . . ate our tea . . . about half past five. I – I cleared the plates . . . Jakey . . .’ She gasps, covers her mouths, closes her eyes, then recovers enough to go on. ‘Jakey . . . went upstairs to his room. I . . . I was reading . . . I was just reading. I didn’t think . . . I just didn’t think. After maybe . . . an hour, I went up to see if he was . . . But . . . he wasn’t . . . he wasn’t in his room, Glenn, he wasn’t in his room. Oh God, where is he? Where’s my little Jakey? He’s so small, Glenn, he’s just a baby . . .’