The Unheard

by Nicci French

‘What does it add up to?’

  ‘Something’s not right.’

  ‘After she was with us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All I can say is she was fine. It really doesn’t sound like anything to worry about.’

  ‘I am worried, though.’

  I thought of telling Jason about taking Poppy to see Alex and my conversation with the detective. I imagined the expression on his face changing to incredulity and then – what? Anger? Contempt?

  ‘Mothers.’ He shrugged.

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘You’re a worried mother. I see them every day.’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Jason. I’m not a worried mother. I’m your daughter’s mother, your ex-partner. Remember? This is Poppy we’re discussing, not some random child.’

  ‘You’ve got to let go. She’s at school now, out there in the world. You can’t protect her for ever.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Remember how when she was a baby you would crouch by her cot, making sure she was still breathing.’

  What I remembered was both of us doing that, grimy with exhaustion, sheepish with a shared sense of our own foolishness. The anger went out of me and I wanted to weep at what felt like a betrayal of our past tenderness.

  ‘Whatever you think about me and my anxiety, I thought you should know that Poppy seems a bit fragile right now. Keep an eye on her. Let me know how she is, yes?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I saw a tiny flicker in his eyes.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it? There’s something you’re not saying.’

  ‘I didn’t want to mention it yet.’

  ‘What?’

  But I knew. Of course I knew.

  ‘Emily’s pregnant.’

  ‘Oh. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s early days.’

  I looked past Jason, at the house we used to share. Now it belonged to Jason and Emily and Poppy and soon Poppy’s new sibling.

  ‘When’s she due?’

  ‘Mid to late October.’

  I did the calculation: not so very early days.

  ‘You must be happy.’

  He stared at me, his brows gathered together so that his face was almost ugly. He looked like he was about to say something, then changed his mind.

  ‘Does Poppy know?’

  ‘We haven’t told her.’ He hesitated. ‘She may have overheard us talking about it.’

  ‘Does that mean that she did?’

  ‘It means I think she heard us talking about it, but probably didn’t understand.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She’s fine, Tess. And Emily and I think it will be good for her not to be an only child, but be part of a proper family.’

  It felt like I had just been hit. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Tess—’

  ‘I said, forget it.’

  ‘Let’s not fall out. We’ve been doing so well.’

  I looked at his face. I’d seen it when it was tender, contrite, exhausted, distressed, irritated, angry, joyful, full of love and of desire. Now it was just a handsome, blank surface, closed to me and unreadable.

  ‘Another time,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk about this another time.’

  NINE

  Aidan and I had planned to see a film, but instead we went out for a meal. I wanted to talk; I needed to talk. We’d been to the local Italian several times before; in fact, it was where we’d had our first date almost three months ago, back when it was still winter. It was also where we’d gone on the day that Jason and Emily had married a few weeks later, and it had snowed so that when we stepped outside again it felt like a fresh new world had been summoned for them. We’d laughed and then kissed, our lips cold, and flakes caught on our lashes and melted in our hair. It had been like a bad movie.

  We sat at our usual table by the window and studied the menu. It was the middle of the week and the place was half empty.

  ‘Maybe I’ll have the pasta,’ I said. Aidan grinned. ‘What?’

  ‘Just that you can cook that at home,’ he said. ‘You do cook it at home.’

  I studied the menu. I felt hollow and wanted something comforting and filling.

  ‘Sorry. It has to be the pasta. With wild mushrooms.’

  When the food arrived and the waiter had ceremoniously ground black pepper from a giant pepper mill onto both dishes and we each had a glass of red wine in front of us, I took a deep breath.

  ‘Emily’s going to have a baby,’ I said.

  Aidan didn’t say anything at once, just studied me. I liked that about him. He never rushed: everything he did was patient, considered, scrupulous. When he cooked for me and Poppy, he did it just so, laying all the ingredients out in advance, washing things as he went along. I’d watched him when he brought his work to the flat, sitting at the laptop with his long pianist’s fingers on the keyboard and that steady look of concentration on his face. He looked at me like that sometimes, too: like he was taking me in. He was so different from Jason, who was forceful and impatient, insisting on things and sweeping everyone forward with him. Jason liked to be the leader.

  ‘Did you just find out?’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes. When I dropped Poppy off.’

  ‘How do you feel about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. A bit dejected.’

  I saw a barely visible wince tighten his face and put my hand over his.

  ‘This isn’t about me and Jason. Or not in the way you’re probably thinking. We spent a long time drifting apart, hardly even realising it was happening until it was too late, and then we separated by mutual agreement. People say separations are never really mutual, but honestly I think this one was. It would have happened sooner, if it wasn’t for Poppy.’

  Aidan nodded. I’d told him this before, of course.

  ‘It’s just a bit strange. We both said we didn’t particularly believe in marriage, and then he marries Emily a few months after he meets her. It took a long time for him to agree we should try for a child, and by the time I was pregnant, we’d lost our way and however much we tried we couldn’t find our way back. But with Emily, it took a matter of months. There’s not one bit of me that regrets not being with Jason. He already feels a long time ago. I’m not jealous of Emily. I expected this really. I just felt, today, when he told me, kind of sad and not so young anymore and a bit drab and bashed about by everything. And, if I’m honest, anxious that Poppy would want to be with him and Emily and their new baby more than with me, which is stupid but I can’t help it. I don’t know, life doesn’t go the way you think it will, does it?’ I put my chin on my hand and looked at him across the table. ‘I guess I’m tired,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a few bad nights. Poppy hasn’t been sleeping. I lie awake and you know what it’s like in the small hours, when all the windows are wide open for horrible thoughts to fly in.’

  Aidan was still waiting. He had a thin, clever face and eyes that sometimes looked grey and sometimes blue.

  ‘You’re very nice to me,’ I said. ‘I’ve been so happy these last months. But it’s been so quick.’

  ‘Please tell me this isn’t a break-up speech.’

  ‘It’s not a break-up speech.’

  ‘There’s a “but” coming.’

  ‘But I’m seriously worried about Poppy.’

  ‘Poppy? Why?’

  ‘In the last year, her parents have split up, we’ve moved into a new flat, she’s started nursery, there’s a new mother figure in her life and then I met you. Now she’s about to have a baby brother or sister. I wonder if it isn’t all too much for her.’

  ‘Do you remember how we met?’ asked Aidan.

  Of course I remembered how we met. And since that day, we’d told each other the story over and over, correcting each other, adding new details, shaping memory into a shared narrative that pleased us both. It had been in the deli near my flat, on a raw winter afternoon, already getting
dark and a cold rain falling. I had been buying fresh ravioli because a couple of friends were coming to supper and, as Aidan had just pointed out, pasta was what I cooked – especially when we hadn’t long moved into the new home and everything was still in boxes and I hadn’t made curtains yet, so the windows were hung with blankets.

  Poppy, frantic with tiredness and impatience, had thrown a spectacular tantrum. She had lain on the floor, barking like a sea lion and thrashing wildly. One of the women in the shop had thought she was having a fit and asked if she should call the emergency services. Another said something, under her breath but meaning to be heard, about not taking your children into shops if you couldn’t control them. I had bent over her, a writhing, heaving mass in her blue duffle coat, and tried to lift her from the floor, at which point Poppy kicked out, hit me in the face, and then sent a bottle of horribly expensive olive oil flying. It had shattered at the feet of Aidan, splattering his trousers. He hadn’t seemed surprised or even annoyed, but had crouched to collect the shards of glass, making sure Poppy didn’t get cut.

  ‘Can you manage?’ he’d asked, as I staggered out of the shop with Poppy a sobbing weight in my arms, and a bag of provisions gouging into my forearm and banging against my hip as I walked.

  He’d chased after us with the pasta I’d left behind and walked with us to the flat, carrying the bags. The next day he’d posted a note through the door, asking if I’d like to have a coffee.

  ‘You should have run a mile,’ I said. ‘In the opposite direction. As far as your feet could carry you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aidan, as if he was considering the idea. ‘There I was with my tidy life, buying supper for one, and this beautiful red-haired woman and her little red-haired daughter seemed to erupt into the shop. Into my world, actually. I met you both together. Poppy’s not an add-on; she’s part of you and part of why I fell for you. I know she comes first. We’ll do it at your pace, whatever that is.’

  I took his hand and lifted it to my lips, kissing the knuckles.

  ‘Even if I keep sending you away in the middle of the night or cancelling on you or getting distracted?’

  He made a face. ‘We aren’t teenagers. We both have baggage.’

  I knew about his: his bipolar father; the woman he’d lived with for nine years who’d had an affair for years under his nose; his subsequent immersion in the world of work.

  ‘It’s bound to be complicated, but you’re still allowed to be – what is it? Tess?’

  Because I was suddenly not looking at him, but out of the window, where a woman was standing quite still and staring in at us. She was small and slender, with a triangle of a face and short dark hair, and was wearing striped cotton dungarees and a white tee shirt and dangling what looked like a beret from her forefinger and thumb. She looked like a member of a circus troupe, I thought – or an elf: an elf who was smiling extravagantly at me and mouthing words. I looked around, thinking she might be looking beyond me at someone else, but no. It was definitely me.

  ‘Who is she?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Aidan looked away from her, back at me. He pulled a face. ‘Do you think there might be something wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Pay no attention. What were we talking about?’

  ‘Baggage,’ I said.

  But now the woman was making gestures, then she hurried away from the window. A few seconds later, she was standing by our table.

  ‘It is you!’ She laughed and pointed at me.

  I felt a sudden panic. Was she a mother from school? I sometimes bumped into one of them in the street and didn’t recognise them out of context. Was she someone from college or school? Or someone I’d met at a party?

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said and then was cross with myself. Tess Moreau, apologising again. ‘Do we know each other?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you say so?’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met. Have we?’

  The woman was still smiling, one hand on her hip like she was waiting for the penny to drop.

  ‘I think you know. Surely you do.’

  She looked young to be a mother of a seven- or eight-year-old. Perhaps she was a childminder. She was being so theatrically friendly I thought there was something faintly menacing about her manner.

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’ I said. ‘Maybe you’re mistaking me for someone else.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’ve got a little girl.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Red hair like yours.’

  ‘Stop.’ I felt more and more alarmed. ‘Who are you?’

  The woman, still staring and smiling at me, shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Incredible,’ she said, then swung round to Aidan. ‘She’s incredible, isn’t she? Not to know me?’

  Her smile was now so wide it seemed to take up her whole face.

  She turned and left and we saw her pass in front of the window. She looked towards me, put her hat on with a flourish and walked off.

  ‘What was that about?’ I sat back in my chair and took a large swallow of wine. I felt jangled by the encounter. I looked through the window to where she had been standing and then back at Aidan who had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes.

  ‘You weren’t much help,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You just sat there while that mad woman attacked me.’

  ‘She didn’t attack you. She just mistook you for someone, I suppose.’

  ‘I felt you just stood by.’

  ‘It was really nothing. Maybe she was on something.’

  ‘It didn’t feel like nothing to me. I felt under threat.’

  ‘What did you want? Did you want me to wrestle her to the ground?’ he said with a smile that looked forced.

  ‘Oh good,’ I said. ‘Our first argument.’

  ‘It’s not an argument,’ said Aidan. ‘And if it was, it wouldn’t be our first. Also, don’t let something like this worry you. It’s not important.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No. I think it is important.’

  * * *

  I woke in the early hours with a lurch. For a moment I thought I was in my old house in Brixton and the man lying peacefully in the darkness beside me was Jason. Then memory flowed back into the strange gaps that sleep leaves. The world took shape. I put a hand onto Aidan’s shoulder to feel his warmth. Sunny was heavy on my legs and I imagined his flanks rising and falling. I was in my home and I was safe. But still I was filled with a shapeless anxiety.

  I got softly out of bed and went downstairs. Emily had been Emily Carey before she married and changed her name. I opened my laptop and typed ‘Ben Carey’ into the search bar.

  Dozens, hundreds, of entries filled my screen. Ben Carey the actor. Ben Carey the company director. Ben Carey the schoolboy who had won some maths prize. Ben Carey the 103-year-old whose secret to a long life was half a pint of stout every lunchtime. Ben Carey who had died in 2013 in a fatal road accident. Too many Ben Careys. I clicked on the images and scrolled down through the faces, young and middle-aged and old, and none of them the one I was looking for.

  I went on Facebook and typed in his name. Again, there were lots of Ben Careys and as far as I could see none of them was him.

  I climbed back into bed at last and lay with my eyes open. I thought of that woman in the restaurant. Her beaming pixie face and the finger pointing.

  TEN

  There was something reassuring about reading the same stories to Poppy, night after night. The sleepy bear, the worried little owls, the Gruffalo. I’d almost never been to a church service, except for a couple of weddings and the funeral of a great-aunt, but I felt there must be a deep consolation in the familiar responses and rituals and hymns, day after day, year after year.

  Poppy had been tired and subdued when I picked her up from school, so now I sat by her bed and spoke the words she knew by heart with the same intonations and pauses, showing her the pict
ures, licking my forefinger to turn the thick pages, hearing the rustle of paper. Sunny lay at the end of her bed, curled up on himself.

  Gina was downstairs, baby-less and husband-less and waiting for a drink. Finally, the little bear was asleep for the second time under the big yellow moon, and although Poppy was not quite asleep, her eyes were starting to flutter and she was settling back on the pillow and wriggling under the duvet, finding a comfortable position.

  I heard a sound through the ceiling, then another, a few sharp cries and a series of groans. Poppy didn’t seem to notice. She was too tired. Was it time to do something? If I couldn’t bear to say it face to face, what about a note pushed under Bernie’s door? An anonymous note?

  I picked up the teddy and tucked him in beside Poppy and then looked around for the rag doll.

  ‘Where’s Milly?’

  Poppy just murmured something. She was drifting off to sleep. I knew that if she woke and found either her bear or Milly missing, she would get upset. I peered under the bed, pushed my hands behind the back of it, but came up with nothing except an old apple core. I looked under the covers, then stood up and tried to think. Could Poppy have left her rag doll at Jason’s? No. I’d definitely seen it since then.

  It wasn’t anywhere around the bed. It wasn’t in the crate where the less immediately desirable toys were kept. I was about to search elsewhere in the flat when, on an impulse, I looked in the wastepaper bin in the corner and there it was. Poppy must have dropped it in by mistake. I bent down to retrieve it and jerked back as if I’d suffered an electric shock. The torso was in pieces. The head and one of the arms and one of the legs had been torn off and the stuffing was coming out. The sight was horribly shocking, almost as if I had found a living creature dismembered in the bin. I knelt down by the bed and stroked Poppy’s forehead. She looked very peaceful.

  ‘Honey, what happened to Milly?’

  ‘She died,’ said Poppy sleepily, without opening her eyes.

  ‘But you—’ I stopped. I didn’t know how to describe what Poppy had done. ‘Why did you do that?’

  Her eyes snapped open.

  ‘She was naughty. She died.’