The Child

by Fiona Barton

  Angela

  TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012

  She knew she was going to cry. She could feel it welling up, thickening her throat so she couldn’t speak, and went to sit on the bed for a minute to postpone it. Angela needed to be on her own when it came. She’d tried to fight it over the years—she never cried, normally. She wasn’t the sentimental sort—nursing and living the army life had trained that out of her a long time ago.

  But March 20 every year was the exception. It was Alice’s birthday, and she would cry. A private moment. She wouldn’t dream of doing it in front of anyone, like the people who stood there and wept in front of cameras. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like, to be on show like that. And the television people kept on filming as though it was some sort of entertainment.

  “They should turn off the camera,” she’d said to Nick, but he’d just grunted and kept on watching.

  It made her feel uncomfortable but apparently lots of people liked it. The sort of people who tried to be part of everything in the news.

  Anyway, she didn’t think anyone would understand why she was still crying all these years later. Decades later. They’d probably say she’d hardly known the baby. She’d had less than twenty-four hours with her.

  “But she was part of me. Flesh of my flesh,” she told the skeptics in her head. “I’ve tried to let go but . . .”

  The dread would begin in the days before the baby’s birthday and she’d get flashbacks to the silence. That bone-chilling silence in the empty room.

  Then, on the day, she would usually wake up with a headache, would make breakfast, and try to act normally until she was alone. This year, she was talking to Nick in the kitchen about the day ahead. He’d been complaining about the mountain of paperwork he had to deal with and about one of the new lads in the stores who kept taking days off sick.

  He ought to retire. He could have done it two or three years ago. But he can’t let go of the business. Neither of us can let go of things, I suppose. He says he needs a purpose, a routine. He doesn’t give any sign that he knows what day this is.

  Nick used to remember—in the early days. Of course he did. It was never far from anyone’s thoughts.

  People in the street used to ask about their baby. People they didn’t know from Adam would come up to them, squeeze their hands, and look tearful. But that was then. Nick was hopeless with dates—deliberately, Angela thought. He couldn’t even remember their other children’s birthdays, let alone Alice’s. And she’d stopped reminding him. She couldn’t bear the flash of panic in his eyes as he was forced to revisit that day. It was kinder if she did the remembering on her own.

  Nick kissed her on the top of her head as he left for work. And, when the door closed behind him, Angela sat on the sofa and let herself cry.

  • • •

  She’d tried to train herself to put the memories away. There wasn’t much help at the beginning. Just the family doctor—poor old Dr. Earnley—who’d patted her shoulder or knee and said: “You will get through this, my dear.”

  Then, later, support groups, but she’d got tired of hearing her own and other people’s misery. She felt they were just circling the pain, prodding at it, inflaming it, and then crying together. She upset the group when she announced that she’d discovered it didn’t help to know other people hurt, too. It didn’t take away her own grief, just added layers to it, somehow. She’d felt guilty, because when she’d been a nurse and someone had died, she used to give the grieving family a leaflet on bereavement.

  I hope it helped them more than it did me, she said to herself as she got off the sofa. Mustn’t be bitter. Everyone did what they could.

  In the kitchen, she filled the sink with water and started preparing vegetables for a casserole. The water was too cold and numbed her hands so she found it hard to hold the knife, but she continued to scrape mechanically at the carrots.

  She tried to summon up an image of what Alice would be like now but it was too hard. She had only one photograph of the baby. Of her and Alice. Nick had taken it with his little Instamatic but it was blurry. He’d taken it too quickly. Angela braced herself against the kitchen counter, as if physical effort could help her see her lost baby’s little face. But it wouldn’t come.

  She knew from the photo that Alice had a fuzz of dark hair, like her brother, Patrick, but Angela had lost a lot of blood during the delivery and she was still high as a kite from the drugs when they put her baby in her arms. She’d asked Nick afterwards—after Alice was gone—but he couldn’t tell her much more. He hadn’t studied her as Angela would’ve done, memorizing every feature of that face. He’d said she looked lovely but had no details.

  Angela didn’t think Alice looked like Patrick. He’d been a big baby and Alice had been so fragile. Barely five pounds in weight. But she’d still studied Paddy’s baby photos and the pictures they took when their second daughter, Louise, came along, ten years later. “Our surprise bonus baby, I call her,” Angela told people—willing herself to see Alice in them. But she wasn’t there. Louise was blond—she took after Nick’s side.

  Angela felt the familiar dull ache of grief round her ribs and in her chest and she tried to think happy thoughts like the self-help books had told her. She thought about Louise and Patrick.

  “At least I have them,” she said to the carrot tops, bobbing in the dirty water. She wondered if Lou would ring her that night, when she got in from work. Her youngest knew the story—of course she did—but she didn’t talk about it.

  And she hates it when I cry, Angela said to herself, wiping her eyes with a piece of paper towel. They all do, she thought. They like to pretend that everything is fine. I understand that. I should stop now. Put Alice away.

  “Happy birthday, my darling girl,” she murmured under her breath.

  FOUR

  Emma

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012

  The baby has kept me awake most of the night. I tore the story out of the paper and went to put it in the bin but ended up stuffing it in the pocket of my cardigan. I don’t know why. I’d decided I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I hoped it would go away.

  A small voice inside me whispered Not like last time, then.

  And today, the baby is still here. Insistent. Demanding to be acknowledged.

  Paul is dozing, almost awake and beginning to move his legs, as if he’s testing whether they’re still there. I wait for his eyes to open.

  I dread it. I dread the disappointment and exhaustion I’ll see when he realizes my Bad Days are back.

  It’s what we used to call it so it sounded like it wasn’t my fault. It has been so long since the last proper one and I know he thought that it was all over. He’ll try hard not to show it when he sees me but I’ll have to carry his anxiety, too. Sometimes I feel as though I’ll shatter under the weight.

  People say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. They say that when you’ve been through something terrible. My mum, Jude, used to say it. But it doesn’t. It breaks your bones, leaving everything splintered and held together with grubby bandages and yellowing sticky tape. Creaking along the fault lines. Fragile and exhausting to hold together. Sometimes you wish it had killed you.

  Paul wakes and fetches my pills and a glass of water from the bathroom without a word. Then he strokes my hair and sits on the bed while I take them. He hums under his breath as if everything is normal.

  I try to think All things will pass, but This will never end slips past my defenses.

  The problem is that a secret takes on a life of its own over time. I used to believe if I didn’t think about what happened, it would shrivel and die. But it didn’t. It sits in the middle of a growing tangle of lies and fabrications, like a fat fly trapped in a spider’s web. If I say anything now it will mean ripping everything apart. So I must say nothing. I have to protect it. The secret, that is. It’s what I’v
e done for as long as I can remember. Kept it safe.

  • • •

  Paul is talking to me at the breakfast table and I’ve missed what he was saying.

  “Sorry, darling, what was that?” I say, trying to focus on him across the table.

  “I said we’re almost out of toilet paper.”

  I can’t concentrate. Something about paper. Oh God, has he read it?

  “What?” I say, too loudly.

  “Toilet paper, Emma,” he says quietly. “Just reminding you, that’s all.”

  “Right, right. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. You get yourself ready for work while I finish my coffee.”

  He smiles at me, kisses me as he passes, and rustles around in his study for ten minutes while I throw away my breakfast and wipe the surfaces. I find myself cleaning more lately. Out damned spot.

  “Right,” he says at the kitchen door. “Are you sure you are all right? You still look very pale.”

  “I’m fine,” I say and get up. Come on, Paul. Just go, I think.

  “Have a good day, darling. Remember to be nice to the head of department. You know it makes sense,” I say, brushing some fluff off the shoulder of his overcoat.

  He sighs and picks up his briefcase.

  “I’ll try. Look, I can call in sick and stay with you,” he says.

  “Don’t be silly, Paul. I’ll have an easy day. Promise.”

  “Okay, but I’ll ring at lunchtime. Love you,” he says.

  I wave from the window, as I always do. He closes the gate and turns away, then I sink to my knees on the carpet. It’s the first time I have been alone since I read the story, and pretending that everything is fine has been shattering. The headline from the paper is like a neon sign everywhere I look. I just need five minutes to pull myself together. And I cry. Frightening crying. Uncontrollable. Not like English crying, where you fight it and try to swallow it. It goes on until there is nothing left and I sit quietly on the floor.

  When the phone rings, I realize an hour has passed and my legs are cramped and tingle with pins and needles when I try to pull myself up. I must’ve drifted off. I love the image that creates in my head, of lying in a boat and being carried by the current. Like Ophelia in the painting. But she was mad or dead. Stop it. Answer the phone.

  “Hello, Emma. It’s Lynda. Are you busy? Can I come for coffee?”

  I want to say no to the appalling Lynda but yes comes out instead. Ingrained politeness wins out again.

  “Lovely. Be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” I hear myself say, as if I am in a play.

  I rub my knees to get the feeling back and get a hairbrush out of my bag. Must look presentable or she’ll know.

  Lynda’s husband teaches at the same university as Paul—different departments but our two men often catch the same train in the morning. That, apparently, makes Lynda and me sisters under the skin.

  But I don’t like her. She has those teeth that slope backwards, like a shark, and an insistent manner.

  She and the other WOTAs—Wives of the Academics, as I christened them when I joined their ranks—gossip about me. I know they do. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Ignore them. Keep Calm and Carry On.

  Lynda breezes in as soon as I open the door. High energy this morning. Must be good news about Derek. I want her to leave immediately.

  “You look tired, Emma. Didn’t you have a good night?” she says, my attempt at grooming totally wasted, and takes over the coffee-making process. She leaves me standing like a spare part in my own kitchen.

  “Hmm. Tossed and turned a bit. Trying to work out a difficult bit in the book I’m editing,” I say.

  She bristles. She hates the fact that I have a job. Sees it as a personal insult if I mention it. Lynda doesn’t work. “I have too much to do at home to need a job,” she says when asked. Usually accompanied by a brittle laugh.

  Anyway, she decides to ignore the implied slight and plunges in with her news. Derek is getting a new title—with brackets, apparently. It will mean more importance and a bit of extra money. She is thrilled, the self-satisfaction coming off her in waves.

  “The HoD wants him to take on more responsibility. He’ll be Assistant Director of Student Welfare (Undergraduate) from next term,” she says as if reading from a press release.

  “Student Welfare? Goodness, he’ll be knee-deep in drugs and sexually transmitted diseases,” I say, relishing the idea of Derek, the most pompous man on earth, dealing with condom machines.

  She stiffens at the mention of sex and I disguise my enjoyment of this tiny triumph.

  “That’s great, Lynda,” I say. “The milk’s already out—on the draining board.”

  We sit at the kitchen table and I listen to her chatter about the goings-on in the department. I know she will eventually broach the subject of Paul’s “little difficulty”—his clashes with the head of department—but I’m not going to help her get there. I keep going off on tangents—world news, train delays, the price of coffee—in the hope it will exhaust her. But she is, apparently, inexhaustible.

  “So, is Paul getting on any better with the HoD?” she says, trying to smile kindly.

  “Oh, it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup,” I say.

  “Oh? I heard Dr. Beecham was taking it to the next level,” she says.

  “It’s all a bit silly. Dr. Beecham wants to cut Paul’s most popular courses to make way for one of his own. He’s being a bit of an arse, to be honest.”

  Lynda’s eyes widen at the word. Clearly not what she calls the HoD.

  “Well, you have to make compromises sometimes. Perhaps Paul’s course was getting a bit tired. Well, that’s what someone said.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true, Lynda. Would you like a ginger nut?”

  Placated, she munches through the plateful. We are now on her daughter, Joy—“she is our pride and joy so that’s what we named her”—and Joy’s children. They are a handful, it seems, and I notice Lynda doesn’t refer to them as her grandchildren when she is listing their faults and misdemeanors. They are Joy’s children. And they are, apparently, “too independent,” which, in her closely fenced world, is a terrible sin.

  “Josie told me to mind my own business the other day,” she says, the outrage still rankling. “Nine years old and telling her grandmother to mind her own business.”

  Go Josie, I think, and say, “Poor you.” Default position.

  “Of course, you haven’t got that worry,” Lynda says, “not having any children.”

  I gulp and cannot trust myself to reply. Instead, I look at my watch and mutter: “Sorry, Lynda. It’s been lovely catching up, but I’m on a deadline so must get back to work.”

  “Well, you working women,” she says gracelessly. She looks disappointed but smiles her Great White smile and puts her hands on my shoulders to kiss me good-bye. When she steps back, she says in an exaggeratedly caring voice, “You should go back to bed, Emma.”

  I bat her and her faux concern away.

  “Tell the new Assistant Director of Student Welfare brackets Undergraduates congratulations from us,” I say as I usher her out. “Have a good day,” I add.

  Stop it, I think. You sound like a shop assistant pretending to care.

  I go upstairs to my office and sit with the baby in the paper in my head, in my lap, and on my back.

  FIVE

  Kate

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012

  Howard Street on the edge of Woolwich was not looking its best. A herd of heavy machinery blotted out the houses, heaving clouds of smoke and dust into the air as it forced the transformation of this area of London.

  Kate stood at one end, an escapee from the office.

  She concentrated on picking out the houses that were still occupied. It looked as if there were only two or three l
eft. She knew from the local free newspaper that the homes had been compulsorily purchased after a long planning battle. Now work had begun to tear them down, leaving the street looking like a retouched photograph from the Blitz. Kate counted herself lucky that her own corner of east London had largely escaped the notice of the planners determined to reimagine the capital as a series of villages, and her terrace remained untouched.

  She and Steve had bought their ex-council house in Hackney in the early nineties, the first of the professional newcomers in the street. The night they moved in, next-door Bet had brought round a liver casserole in a flowered Pyrex dish, like the one Kate’s gran used to have. Bet had hovered in the kitchen, taking it all in—their matching kettle and toaster, the witty magnets on the fridge—and asking all sorts of nosey questions, but their worlds rarely collided after that beyond a warm “Hello, how are you doing?”

  When they’d invited their friends to noisy barbecues or pretentious dinner parties and popped corks in the garden, they felt rather than heard the sucking in of the neighbors’ breath. But, gradually, others of their kind arrived, lured by the affordable prices, and the street saw its first glossy black front door with a bay tree in a pot on the doorstep. The bay tree was nicked the second night but its message remained.

  Now, only next-door Bet and an old couple at the end of her street survived, surrounded by a rising tide of topiary and roman blinds. The recent arrival of a Marks and Spencer food emporium, on the corner where the dodgy video rental shop used to be, seemed to be the final straw for the old neighborhood.

  Thank goodness we don’t have to put up with this, Kate thought as she surveyed the scene. Here, the interiors of three-story houses gaped like life-size dollhouses, curtains flapping miserably. The only sign of human habitation, apart from the lorries, was a light in a front kitchen, shining through the industrial gloom.

  Kate walked up to the door and rang the bottom bell of three. The name written in biro beside it was Walker.

  An older woman opened the door, peering round it nervously. “Hello. Mrs. Walker?” Kate said, in performance mode. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m doing a piece for the Daily Post on the changes around here.” She’d decided not to bring up the baby immediately. Easy does it.