The Woman at Number 24

by Juliet Ashton

  Helena waggled her finger at Sarah. ‘You’re a naughty girl, Sarah.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Going behind my back like that.’

  Sarah swayed a little.

  Helena laughed. ‘Finding a buyer for this flat without telling us. Ah well,’ she sighed prettily. ‘Our little plot has fallen apart. If we can’t buy your place we’ll just have to turn the spare room into a nursery.’

  Sarah couldn’t look at Leo. It was all true. Sarah’s stomach lurched.

  ‘You can be aunty!’ Helena’s joy made her generous.

  Sarah found and held Leo’s gaze. ‘I’m so happy for you both. Funnily enough, yours isn’t the only baby on the way at number twenty-four.’

  Leo put his fist in his mouth.

  ‘Jane’s pregnant too,’ said Sarah.

  Helena attempted the right noises, evidently miffed at sharing the spotlight.

  ‘It wasn’t planned,’ said Sarah. ‘Totally out of the blue.’ She turned to Leo. ‘Jane even did a second test up here, just to be sure.’

  Leo looked as if he might never speak again. He moved only when Helena tugged his arm and said, ‘Come on, Daddy. Let’s go and check out buggies.’ She told Sarah that she wanted the model used by the Duchess of Cambridge.

  ‘What else?’ smiled Sarah.

  ‘May I use your loo? I spend half my life in there at the moment!’ As Helena swanned off, precious passenger on board, Sarah let out a short Oof.

  ‘Period pains,’ she explained, when Leo frowned. ‘Just period pains.’

  He looked as if he might collapse with relief.

  ‘Leo,’ whispered Sarah. ‘Do you love Helena?’

  He nodded, still wild-eyed.

  ‘Then be good to her.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ said Sarah.

  An invitation from Zelda to ‘pop downstairs’ softened the hard edges of Sunday evening. ‘I’ve got a call to make,’ said Sarah. ‘Then I’ll be right down.’

  Scrolling through her contacts, Sarah’s thumb paused over ‘Mum’.

  While married to Leo, Sarah had twisted her own arm to believe his motives for banishing her mother. There was no need to pretend any longer; Leo excommunicated Mum to make his already easy life even easier. Tom was right.

  Sarah paced as a phone rang in some distant room, and stiffened when it was answered. ‘Mum. It’s me.’

  ‘Sarah. Hello.’ The tone was artfully casual. ‘I was napping. You woke me.’

  The lack of a welcome, or at least some surprise, threw Sarah.

  What did I expect?

  ‘How are you, Mum? I’ve been thinking about you.’

  I can turn this around.

  A snort, then, ‘I’m fine.’ After a moment, her mother upgraded this to, ‘I’m brilliant. Everything’s come up roses at last.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Sarah had dreaded an illness, something irreversible. Pretending that her mother had asked the same question, she said, ‘I’m well, Mum. In good shape. Nothing’s fallen off. Yet.’

  ‘You have my genes.’

  ‘Leo and me, we broke up. We’re divorced, Mum.’

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’

  Choosing to ignore that, choosing to build, choosing to keep chasing that sliver of beauty her father insisted on, Sarah said, ‘I’m getting over it. You know how it is, Mum. No need to tell you that divorce takes some getting used to.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  Oh God.

  That small noise took Sarah back to when she’d lived in fear of her mother’s ‘Hmm’, never able to translate it. ‘In a way, the divorce helped me understand how you felt when I was a child.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘What I mean is . . .’ Sarah’s self-possession wavered. ‘You went through hell but I was too young to see it. Now I know how tough it is. I wasn’t sympathetic, but I am now, Mum. I really am.’

  ‘About time. I remarried. Did you know?’

  How would I know if you didn’t tell me?

  ‘Remarried?’

  ‘Don’t sound so shocked. Your father didn’t want me but there are plenty of men who do, Sarah. And before you make a fuss about not being invited, it was a tiny ceremony. Just me, John and the boys.’

  ‘Boys?’

  ‘I’m stepmother to three of the most wonderful young men you could hope to meet. A real credit to John. Maybe if you’d been a boy, things would have turned out differently.’

  ‘Well, I’d have a willy for a start.’

  ‘Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?’

  When I’m as nervous as this, yes.

  ‘I’m glad you’re happy, Mum.’

  ‘Never. Been. Happier.’ Sarah’s mother underlined each word with a snap of her veneers. ‘I’m a step-grandmother, too. The little ones adore me. They prefer me to their real granny. Second time lucky, after that disaster of a marriage to your father.’

  ‘Dad wasn’t so bad, Mum.’

  ‘You always did take his side. I barely think of him now. Perhaps you’ll make a better second marriage, Sarah.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No. I’m just . . .’

  ‘See? Two minutes talking to you and I’m upset.’

  ‘Mum, I—’

  ‘I get all the blame, when . . . I’m sorry to tell you this, Sarah, but that precious father of yours never wanted you. He wouldn’t say it to your face, but he said it to me.’

  Sarah sat down. She felt as if a train had hurtled past her face. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t I? Before we got married your dad said, loud and clear, “no babies”. I begged. I cried. But no. The man was a tyrant. He didn’t want a child, even if it meant robbing me of my chance to be a mother.’

  ‘Hang on, if he said that before you got married . . .’ began Sarah.

  ‘I played along at first. Any normal chap would change his mind. Not that brute. So I took matters into my own hands. He had no idea I’d stopped taking the pill. I fooled him, Sarah. I won that round!’

  Brand new, freshly minted in the vault of family secrets, the story of her own conception dazed Sarah. ‘You tricked Dad into having a baby?’

  ‘Everybody does it.’ Her mother was brisk. ‘I never hear a “thank you” from you for that!’

  ‘So that’s what you meant when you said I ruined everything.’ Sarah had taken the accusation personally; it had cost her her voice. ‘All these years I’ve assumed I was some sort of demon child, so unlovable that I chased Dad away.’

  ‘Are you still blaming me for everything? When all I did was give birth to you, feed you, wash you, clothe you?’ Sarah’s mother sucked on a cigarette, the sound a rasping punctuation to a conversation that had gone the way of all their mother/daughter conversations: into the mud.

  Sarah kept the phone to her ear, listening to her mother’s breathing.

  Her father was two people. To Sarah’s mother, he was the womaniser who’d left her. To Sarah, he was a disappointed man who’d been duped into fatherhood, but had never blamed the child. The marriage had collapsed – and no wonder! – but after he left he shouldered his responsibilities with love and thoughtfulness. ‘Mum, Dad did want me.’ She heard another vicious drag on a cigarette, and clasped her phone hard. ‘Please don’t say that ever again.’ The continuing silence conveyed brittle, damaged feelings. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sarah, who was an old hand at apologising to her mother, even when – especially when – she’d done nothing wrong. ‘Can we start again? I didn’t call to make things worse.’

  ‘You expect too much of me, Sarah.’

  ‘I only want to talk.’

  You’re my mum! Act like a mum!

  ‘Talk about what? About how you stood by as your shit of a husband threw me onto the street?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I should’ve—’

  ‘You’re not sorry. You’re just like your father. You do exactly as you please
and sod the rest of us. I’ve put all this in a box, Sarah.’

  ‘All what? Me?’

  ‘You. Your father. All that nonsense.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mum?’

  ‘Don’t jump down my throat!’

  ‘I’m not, honestly. I just want—’

  ‘What about what I want, Sarah?’

  ‘Do you want . . . me?’

  ‘Is that why you called? To badger me?’

  ‘What if we meet for a coffee and take it from there?’

  ‘John’ll be back any minute. I can’t spend all evening arguing with you, missy. See? See what you do to me? Now I’ll be jittery for hours.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s easy to say.’

  It’s not. Sorry is powerful, enormous.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Sarah, to thin air as the phone went down at the other end.

  Immediately, Sarah threw herself into vigorous mental gymnastics, trying to bend the short phone conversation into something less than disastrous.

  Until she gave up. Just gave up and admitted that her remnant of flesh-and-blood family was not in working order. She’d tried, and she’d try again.

  But for now, I won’t think about it.

  Trailing down to Flat E, Sarah met Tom. He was leaping up the stairs, three at a time, full of the energy she lacked.

  ‘I’ve got another part,’ he said, amazed. ‘A bloody movie.’

  Sarah congratulated him. ‘First Mikey, now this,’ she said. ‘What a weekend.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell the little feller.’ Tom looked down at his feet. ‘I just said I’d go and tell a hedgehog about my film role, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’m afraid you did,’ smiled Sarah, wanting to touch him. ‘But let’s draw a veil over it. Does this mean you won’t be doing voice-overs any more?’

  ‘Possibly. Vile Bodies is opening doors for me before I’ve even filmed it.’

  ‘Don’t go all starry on us.’

  ‘I promise.’ Tom winked, and Sarah’s beleaguered ovaries executed a perfect forward roll. ‘I keep my promises. Just ask Mikey.’ About to walk away, he said, ‘Hey, have you rung your mum yet?’

  ‘Are you a mind reader?’

  Tom listened and sighed and winced. ‘I should have kept my nose out. Camilla told me off for interfering.’

  It was reasonable for Tom to discuss Sarah with his girlfriend – presumably he’d had to explain why they were so deep in conversation at Mikey’s funeral – but it wasn’t reasonable for Sarah to be so dismayed about it. Despite having refused to take delivery of Tom when he was offered, Sarah stubbornly wished she could keep a tiny part of him for herself.

  Tut tut! Selfish! Her conscience had recent history on its side regarding the health risks of intruding on other people’s relationships.

  Proficient at multitasking, Sarah discussed one topic while thinking about quite another. ‘You didn’t interfere, you helped,’ she said, as she wished she’d returned that first kiss. Tom and Camilla are kind of a rebound relationship, she decided, wondering if normal rules applied in that case.

  ‘Sarah?’ Tom was waiting for an answer.

  I’m not that good at multitasking after all. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘I asked how you feel about your mum now.’

  ‘I feel, well, I don’t feel. I’m a bit numb. With Mum you expect the unexpected, but that was brusque even by her standards. It’s hard to say this about a parent, Tom, but she’s toxic. Yes, Leo went too far by cutting her off, and yes, his motives were narcissistic, but it’s probably best for me to have some distance from my mother.’

  ‘Not sure if I believe that stuff about the step-family adoring her.’

  ‘They probably string garlic around the babies’ necks to keep her away.’

  ‘The lines of communication are open. That’s something.’

  ‘It’s a big something.’ Sarah respected Tom’s willingness to leap feet first into muddy emotional waters. ‘I’m trying to be philosophical about it but, Jesus, not being invited to your own mother’s wedding is hard to swallow.’

  ‘As you get older – and that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it, like it or not? – you see your parents as people. My mum and dad have nothing in common. Nada. They barely speak, but they soldier on, in their so-called “good” marriage. Jane and I got out as soon as we could. I used to bang on about them whenever I got drunk, blame them for all my shortcomings, but, you know, they’re just two people, making mistakes, figuring it out, getting it royally wrong.’

  Sarah thought of her parents’ wedding photograph. Flares. A moustache. A snow-white minidress. Both of them smiling so broadly their faces were blurred. She’d had to ask, as a child, ‘Who’s that lady?’; her mother had been transfigured by happiness. ‘Yeah, they’re just ordinary people, God help them.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad I called her, and you were the catalyst for that, so thanks, Tom.’

  Accepting the gratitude graciously, Tom neither downplayed nor exaggerated the part he’d played. ‘I suppose . . . I’d better . . .’ He took a step around her, climbing a couple of steps.

  This reluctance of Tom to take his leave of her was something Sarah had noticed before. She tried not to construct a hope around it.

  On his way upstairs, Tom called over his shoulder, ‘Remind me to give you my new address.’

  ‘New address?’ said Sarah idiotically, some kindly section of her brain refusing to process his statement.

  ‘I’ve had an offer accepted on a two-bedder in Chiswick.’ Tom elucidated when Sarah looked gormless. ‘I can’t stick around here much longer. Jane’s spare room will be a nursery soon, and Jamie’s coming home earlier ’cos of the baby.’

  ‘Chiswick,’ repeated Sarah, as if he’d said ‘Antarctica’.

  ‘It’s not that far. No need for a passport when I visit.’

  ‘You’ll visit?’ Sarah sounded more nakedly hopeful than she meant to.

  ‘Yeah, well, my new little niece or nephew will be here,’ said Tom. He hesitated. ‘And my sister.’ He hesitated again. ‘And you.’

  ‘And me,’ said Sarah, as the shadowy stairway claimed him.

  Down in the basement, Zelda was supercharged, as if fitted with new batteries. ‘In! In!’ she said, ushering Sarah past Peck. ‘There’s a lot to do, Sarah.’

  ‘Is there?’ laughed Sarah.

  ‘Yes.’ Zelda closed her eyes, centring herself, then opened them again. They blazed. ‘I’m turning myself in.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Notting Hill, W11

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  Monday 12th September, 2016

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  Keeley slammed the iron drawer of the filing cabinet with her hip. ‘Seems like every time you walk into this office you’re asking for time off.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Sarah. ‘This is important.’

  ‘So important you can’t tell me about it?’

  ‘I made a promise.’ Sarah would take the afternoon off if it meant leaving St Chad’s forever.

  Perhaps Keeley smelled her determination because she relented. ‘I guess I can spare you. You wouldn’t want to be here this afternoon anyway.’ She hesitated, pursed her lips, lined up the papers on her desk. ‘I’ve got somebody coming in to discuss joining the team. As a senior psychologist.’

  They’re replacing me. ‘Oh,’ said Sarah stupidly.

  ‘I don’t want to do this,’ said Keeley. She spoke slowly, carefully, each word heavy with meaning. ‘It breaks my heart to lose you, Sarah. I’ve relied on you. You’ve inspired me. I miss you. But the children come first and we’re not operating at full strength. I hope you understand.’

  She did. ‘I do.’ She hated it, but Sarah understood. ‘Can I . . .’ She gestured behind her at the door.

  Keeley deflated, as if she’d expected something more. ‘Yeah. Go on.’

  Sarah walked br
iskly down the corridor, arms swinging, heels clicking, putting distance between herself and the pain.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A woman, mid-thirties, in a raincoat and jeans, stood in the middle of reception. ‘I’m not sure . . . I’m . . . this is Albie.’

  In front of the woman, leaning back on her and clutching a cloth rabbit, Albie was no more than six. He had straight shiny hair and his mouth was tightly closed, as if he was keeping something explosive behind it. Albie was a small, cute, frightened pressure cooker.

  Sarah exhaled. The tears made her eyes glisten, but they didn’t fall. Her unhappiness and uncertainty underwent a transformation; they became clear, cool resolve. She saw herself and Albie and his anxious mother as if they were suspended in amber. It was obvious. This woman needed information. This boy needed guidance. They both needed muscular love, the sort that moves mountains as if they were sandcastles. They needed her.

  And by God I need them.

  ‘Come this way,’ she said. Sarah felt tall and strong; she felt like herself. ‘I’ll find Albie’s notes and we’ll sit down somewhere quiet where we can have a chat. Is that OK with you, Albie?’

  Albie shrugged. He had a birthmark just above his eyebrow. He was special, this kid, just like every other child that came through St Chad’s doors.

  The other receptionist, cradling a mug in her hands, slowed down as she walked towards the desk. ‘Um . . .’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be all right on your own for an hour, won’t you?’ Sarah smiled at the surprised nod. ‘I’ll be with Albie.’

  Keeley looked up as they passed her door. Her face was impassive as Sarah said, ‘I’m taking Albie’s case, boss. Could you look out his file?’

  ‘You do love messing me about,’ said Keeley. Her eyes glistened too.

  The susurration of conversation, like a theatre audience before curtain-up, could be heard all the way down in Zelda’s flat.

  ‘Sounds like Tom did as you asked,’ Zelda’s voice rasped with nerves.

  When Sarah had asked him to assemble all the residents in the hallway at one thirty because Mavis had an announcement to make, Tom had agreed but added, ‘Mavis? An announcement? The mind boggles.’