Owning Jacob

by Simon Beckett

  He didn't even feel relieved. Just stupid. 'No.'

  'Good. In that case you might as well go.' She went and stood by the lounge door.

  Shamefaced, Ben went past her into the hallway. Another doorway led off it into a kitchen that was as barren and clean as the rest of the flat. A solitary placemat was set out on the small table, with a stainless-steel salt-and-pepper cruet and glass vinegar bottle positioned at its top. They had the look of permanent fixtures. A newspaper lay neatly folded to one side of them, face up.

  Ben walked past, then stopped and went back. 'I haven't forgotten. I just can't see why she would have saved them.'

  Jessica gave a derisive snort. 'Is that what all this is about? You think she took somebody else's baby? What's the matter, are you tired of looking after him already?'

  'I just want to know the truth, that's all.'

  'The truth? The truth is that Sarah gave birth to an autistic child, and now she's dead you've decided you don't want the responsibility. Well, you married her,' she spat. 'Now live with it!'

  'So Jacob is hers?'

  'Of course he's hers! I delivered him! Or are you going to call me a liar as well?'

  Ben was never sure if he'd planned what he said next or not. But the fabrication came smoothly, as if rehearsed. 'So how come they've both got the same birthmark?'

  Jessica frowned. 'What?'

  'The newspaper said the baby had a birthmark on his right shoulder. Jacob's got one there as well.' He expected scorn for the transparent fabrication.

  Jessica's gaze went blank for a moment. Then it snapped back into focus. 'That doesn't prove a thing. Lots of children have birthmarks,' she went on, but the hesitation had been too long. He felt a horror begin to uncurl in him.

  'Oh Christ,' he said.

  'I've told you, it's just a coincidence. It doesn't mean anything.'

  'She did it, didn't she? She took that baby.'

  'Don't be ridiculous! Just because two babies have similar birthmarks—'

  'There isn't any fucking birthmark!'

  She blinked. Her eyes broke away from his gaze. 'Look, you're going to have to leave now. I've got to…I've got to go to work.'

  The bluster lacked conviction. Her hands fluttered, then fell limply to her side. Ben felt himself swaying. His legs barely supported him as he went unsteadily to the nearest kitchen chair and sank on to it. In spite of everything, he hadn't really believed it. He realised he hadn't come to be told this; he'd come to be reassured.

  Jessica hadn't moved from the doorway. Her face was sullen and resigned, the colour leeched from it. The midwife's uniform seemed like a costume.

  'Why?' he asked. 'What made her do it?'

  'She lost her baby.' Her voice was lifeless and flat. 'I came home one night, and found her sitting in the dark. She'd spontaneously aborted that afternoon. In a public toilet.' She came to the table and sat down herself. She looked shapeless, as if only the starched fabric was holding her together. 'I wanted to call for a doctor, but she got hysterical when I tried. So I didn't. I made sure she wasn't still bleeding or anything. It wasn't as if they could do any good anyway. They'd only want to know where the foetus was, and then the police would've had to be called in. She'd been through enough already after that…that bastard left her when she was pregnant.'

  She looked it him, viciously. 'Did you know she tried to kill herself?' She gave a nod of triumph when she saw he hadn't. 'No, I didn't think so. Well, she did. She took an overdose not long after she came to live with me. I found her and made her sick before she was too far gone. I thought she might miscarry then, but she didn't. I wanted to spare her anything else. I thought…I thought if I could find the baby and bring it back I could say she'd lost it in the house, and that way there'd be no police, no fuss about it.'

  Her fingers teased at her skirt, pinching a fold of it, then smoothing it down and repeating the process. 'She wouldn't talk at all, at first, but eventually she told me she'd left it in a bin near the Piccadilly tube station. I put her to bed, but it was late by then. I thought I'd have a couple of hours' sleep and go to Piccadilly first thing. She was still sleeping when I went. I wanted to be back before she woke up, but when I got to the station I couldn't find the right bin. I started looking in all of them, until the streets started getting busier and I had to stop. I never did find out where it was. There was no mention of it being found, so I suppose it just got taken away when the bins were emptied. I couldn't do anything except go back home, and when I got there Sarah had gone. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't call the police, so I just waited and hoped she'd come back. But when she did she'd got a baby with her.'

  A corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. 'She looked so happy. Like the day before hadn't happened. Like Sarah should look. I tried to get her to tell me where she'd got it from, but she didn't seem to know what I was talking about. And when I asked whose baby it was, she just said, "Mine." I tried to make her realise what she'd done, but it only made her confused. I was frightened she'd sink back into the state she'd been in earlier. I couldn't think what to do. And then, all of a sudden, it came to me. I didn't have to do anything. Sarah had been pregnant, and now she'd got a baby. It was big for a premature one, but not so big that it'd cause problems.'

  He couldn't keep quiet any longer. 'Problems? It wasn't hers! Jesus Christ, she stole it!'

  Jessica gave him a look of contempt. 'What did you expect me to do? Go to the police?'

  'Yes! Yes, you should have gone to the fucking police! They wouldn't have prosecuted—not for something like that. She'd have been given psychiatric help!'

  'Put away somewhere, you mean? You think I'd have let them do that to her?'

  'It would have been better than what you both did!' He felt he had fallen through to another, less rational pocket of reality. 'Did she know? What she'd done, I mean? Did she know afterwards?'

  Jessica raised her shoulders, listlessly. 'I don't know. She might have, at some level. I'd cut out the reports from the newspaper and saved them in a drawer, but when I looked after she'd gone back with her parents they'd gone. She never said she'd taken them, and I never asked her.'

  'You never spoke to her about it?'

  She shook her head, but for the first time there was something subtly defensive about her. Ben thought he understood why Jessica had kept the cuttings. And why Sarah had been uneasy discussing their relationship. The woman had wanted to tie Sarah to her.

  He didn't bother to keep the disgust from his voice. 'Didn't you worry that someone might have found out?'

  'Who was going to find out? I was nearly a qualified midwife, no one would doubt what I said. The doctor hardly even examined her when we called him out the next day. If I'd been based at the hospital the baby had been taken from somebody might have wondered, but I wasn't. There wasn't any risk.'

  'No risk? She'd taken somebody else's baby! All right, she was ill, she didn't know what she was doing. But you're supposed to be a…a fucking midwife, for God's sake! How could you do it?'

  'Because it was for Sarah.' Jessica stared back at him, defiant and serene. 'I'd have done anything if I thought it would help her.'

  'Help her! That wasn't helping her! You were just letting her hide from what happened! And what about its real parents? Didn't you care about what they must have gone through?'

  'Why should I?' she flashed. 'Some pathetic squaddie and his stupid breeding-cow? Why should I care more about them than Sarah? I see their kind every day, squeezing out one brat after another! They've probably got three or four by now. They'd get over it, but Sarah wouldn't have! Care about them? I'd have taken it myself if she'd asked!' Her eyes were bright and moist. 'Have I shocked you?' she sneered. 'Didn't you think plain old Jessica was capable of something like that? God, you make me sick. You married her, you fucked her, but you never loved her. You don't know what love is.'

  Ben couldn't bear to stay there any longer. The small kitchen was suddenly airless, dense with the possibility of violence. H
e stood up, startling himself with the sound of the chair legs scraping across the lino-covered floor.

  'I don't know what you'd call what you did,' he said, thickly, 'but it wasn't love.' He got as far as the door, then stopped. 'I can't pretend I don't know about this. I can't just ignore it.'

  Jessica didn't look up. 'Do what you like,' she said, dully. 'I don't care any more.' She was still staring at nothing when he went out.

  Chapter Four

  Jacob selected a piece of jigsaw puzzle, held it in his hand for a second, then exchanged it for another and pressed it neatly into place. The puzzle, a scene from Star Wars, was nearly half completed. The box for it lay open close by, but Jacob never so much as glanced at the picture of the finished jigsaw on the lid. It wouldn't have helped if he did, because he was assembling it face down. He would sit through the whole of the Star Wars trilogy time and time again, entranced by the fast-moving images and sounds coming from the TV screen, but a static photograph from it held no interest for him.

  Ben was pretty sure that he recognised what it was, could make the association between one and the other, although he wasn't entirely certain. It was more likely that he simply regarded the picture itself as incidental. It was fitting together the little cardboard shapes which engrossed him, not what was on them when he had finished. He could assemble them with the picture upside down or sideways with equal dexterity. It seemed to be all the same to him.

  Ben watched from the other side of the lounge as he broke off from the puzzle and gazed at something out of the window, perhaps at the window itself. Ben couldn't see what had caught his eye, but he could guess. Jacob would scrutinise a cracked windowpane, a broken piece of glass, the chipped rim of a milk bottle in the sun; anything that refracted light and split it into an unexpected jewel of colour. They had realised what he was doing only after they saw him squinting into the spray of a lawn sprinkler, moving his head about to catch sight of an indistinct rainbow in the haze. Sometimes, generally after a joint, Ben wondered if he saw something in the refractions invisible to a less fractured mind.

  Whatever he'd seen now failed to hold his attention, though. Jacob went back to the jigsaw. He gave no sign of being aware of either Ben's scrutiny or his presence. Normally he would have tried to encourage the boy to talk, asked him about school, anything to steer him towards some sort of communication. Now he couldn't find it in himself to make the effort.

  Jacob didn't mind. Jacob was locked in his own world, as usual. Sometimes Ben wondered if he wasn't happier there than when he was forced to acknowledge an exterior one that made little sense to him. What am I going to do?

  Jacob's elbow brushed the pile of unassembled pieces and knocked several to the floor. His face creased up as they pattered to the carpet. He looked down at where they'd landed, his breathing growing faster as he became more agitated, but made no attempt to pick them up.

  Sometimes it was difficult to know what would upset him, or see why it should. Jacob was generally placid, but if he became frightened or disturbed it could take a long time to calm him down. Once, when Sarah had misguidedly taken him to another little boy's birthday party, he'd become hysterical when a balloon burst behind him, rocking and screeching so violently with his hands clasped to his ears that he had set all the other children crying as well. That had been the last party she'd insisted he go to.

  He stopped himself from thinking about Sarah. Jacob had begun banging himself about in the chair in frustration. Ben went over and picked up the fallen pieces of jigsaw. Jacob subsided as he dropped them back on the table, gathering them back into the pile as if nothing had happened. Ben stared down at the back of his head as he bowed over the puzzle. Normally he would have ruffled his hair, made some sort of contact. This time he didn't touch him. He went back to where he'd been sitting without a word.

  What the fuck am I going to do?

  Jacob's head shot up as the doorbell rang. He looked in the direction of the hallway. 'Mummy?'

  Oh, Christ.

  'No, Jacob,' Ben said. He felt full of ashes. 'It isn't Mummy.'

  'Mummy.'

  It isn't bloody Mummy!

  'No. It's someone else.'

  Jacob remained in the same attitude for a second or two, then went back to his jigsaw. When the doorbell rang again he took no notice. He didn't so much as glance up as Ben left the room to answer it.

  Colin stood on the steps. He had obviously come straight from work, although the slightly loosened tie indicated that he was now officially in his own time. 'Sorry I'm late. Last-minute crisis.' He broke off, gawping at Ben. 'What's happened to your hair?'

  Ben resisted the urge to touch the stubble on his scalp. He'd stopped off at the barber's on the way back from seeing Jessica. He'd remembered Sarah running her fingers through it as he told the man to take it off. 'I've had it cut.'

  'I can see that' Colin tore his eyes from it, looking at him with concern. 'Are you okay?'

  'Yeah.' Ben closed the door. 'Did Maggie mind you coming?'

  'Naw, she's used to me being late. So long as I get back before it's time for Scott and Andrew to go to bed there's no problem.'

  Both Colin's sons were older than Jacob. On the few occasions when they 'played' together it was obvious they were under instructions from Maggie to be nice. It usually ended with Jacob sitting by himself while the two brothers did whatever they wanted.

  'Let's go in the kitchen,' Ben said, as Colin started towards the lounge. Colin looked surprised but made no comment.

  'I'll just say hello to Jacob first.' He always made an effort to treat Jacob normally, and if he tried a little too hard it was still better than Maggie's forced good humour.

  Stop being so hard on them. It isn't their fault.

  'Hi, Jake,' Colin said, striding over to the table. Jacob didn't look up from his jigsaw, but Ben could see him stiffen and knew what was coming next.

  'Hang on,' he began, but Colin had already bent down in front of the boy. Jacob tucked his head on to his chest and thrust his arms out at him in a pushing-away gesture. 'No! No no!'

  Startled, Colin slowly backed away. 'Okay, Jacob, sorry.' He raised his eyebrows at Ben.

  'He's been a bit edgy the past few days,' Ben told him.

  Jacob sat rigidly, head down, arms still held out. 'It's all right, it's only Uncle Colin. You know him, don't be silly.' The arms remained raised, warding off. 'Come on, stop it, Jacob!' he snapped.

  'Easy, Ben,' Colin said, shocked.

  Ben took a hold on himself. He tried to say something to reassure Jacob, but it was like digging in a dry well. He just stood there, unable to think of a single thing to do.

  Colin was looking from one of them to the other, worried.

  He came forward again, reaching into his pocket for a tube of Smarties. 'I've brought you some sweets, Jacob,' he said, giving it a little shake as he set it down on the table. Jacob's eyes flickered to it. After a moment he tentatively brought his arms down and picked it up.

  Ben felt some of the tension leave him as Jacob visibly relaxed. The boy turned the tube around in his hand, apparently soothed by the motion and the sliding rattle of the sweets.

  'Are you going to say thank you?' Ben asked.

  'It doesn't matter,' Colin said quickly, taking Ben's arm and leading him away. They went into the kitchen. Ben blocked open the door so he could see into the other room.

  Colin still looked upset. 'What was all that about?'

  'I told you, he's a bit touchy lately.'

  'I didn't mean Jacob.'

  Ben went to the fridge. 'Beer?'

  'If you're having one.'

  He handed Colin a can and a glass. He opened his own and drank straight from it.

  'So are you going to tell me?' Colin asked.

  Ben went to a kitchen drawer and took out the newspaper cuttings. He tossed them on the kitchen table. 'You don't have to read them all. The first one'll do.'

  Colin quickly scanned it, then looked up, puzzled. 'Sorry, I don't un
derstand.'

  'It's Jacob.' The words actually hurt, a real physical pain in his throat.

  Colin was frowning. 'I'm not with you.'

  'The baby that was stolen. It was Jacob. Sarah did it.'

  Colin stared at him, then looked at the cutting again. Ben could see him struggling not to show his disbelief. 'Ben—'

  'I'm not fucking fantasising. I'm serious.'

  He told Colin what had happened, from finding the cuttings to visiting Jessica. Telling it to someone else didn't help as much as he'd hoped. It just seemed to make it more real. When he had finished Colin glanced through the open doorway towards where Jacob was playing in the lounge.

  'Christ.'

  Ben gave a crooked smile. 'Yeah. That's what I thought.'

  He was shivering, although the house was warm. He drained the beer can and sat down.

  'Have you told anyone else about this?' Colin asked.

  'You're the first'

  'So no one else knows? You haven't mentioned it to your dad?'

  Ben's mother had died while he was at university. His father had remarried, a woman ten years his junior who made it clear she regarded Ben as competition for her husband's affections. Her presence came between them whether she was actually there or not, an intangible barrier that became harder to overcome as time went by. She hadn't gone to Sarah's funeral, and even through the numbing grief of the day he had heard his father's apologetic excuses and felt sorry for him. That had been the first time in a year they had seen each other, and the first time in six months they had spoken. His father was no longer someone in whom Ben confided.

  'What about Sarah's parents?' Colin asked. 'Do they know?'

  'I told you, I haven't told anybody.'

  'I didn't mean that. I meant do you think they've known all along? Could Sarah have told them?'

  'I doubt it. I don't think it was something she even acknowledged to herself. Not consciously. And if her parents ever suspected anything, I'm pretty sure I'd have picked something up from them before now.'