by Helen Walsh
He’s dying to say something. There’s a hard-boiled glint in his eye. He holds it in with a dimple smile and, in doing so, gives off an air of superiority.
‘What?’ I snap.
He shakes his head, checks himself but then, seeing my face scowl over, thinks better and spits it out.
‘Darling . . . It’s just, I think . . . Babies need to get used to noise. Start creeping around and you’ll be creating a rod for your own back.’ He smiles softly, takes Joe from me, pulls his puffy dozing face close to his own. ‘Oh, I’m going to miss you so much. Couldn’t I just sneak you into my suitcase?’
The reminder that he’s really going sends my blood pressure surging again. Joe senses something, too. He snaps his eyes wide open, screws up his face, his cheeks darkening with blood, and starts to shriek.
Dad blanches and goes to hand him back. ‘Oh. I think someone is ready for brunch.’
I keep my hands firmly behind my back.
‘I’d just finished feeding him when you came.’ There’s nastiness in my voice. I try to rein it in but I can’t help myself. ‘All I do is feed him. It’s not normal for a baby to be this hungry. This bloody needy! He won’t give me a moment to myself.’
‘Why don’t you try him with a dummy, then?’
‘A dummy?’
‘Yeah,’ he chuckles, making like he’s amused by Joe’s fury. ‘Little fraud is obviously using you for comfort. Call his bluff!’ And that is as much as I can take from my exasperatingly upbeat father. I stride to the coat hooks and struggle into my raincoat. Dad follows, with Joe.
‘Where are you going?’ he laughs. But he’s worried.
‘To buy him a dummy.’
Dad’s smile vanishes, and a tremor creeps into his voice.
‘Is he . . . Are you sure he’s not hungry, pet lamb?’
‘You’re the bloody expert, Dad,’ I say and shut the door behind me, taking the stairs four at a time before he has the chance to shout me back.
26
It’s a gorgeous, crisp morning. Autumn leaves crunch underfoot, stiffened by an early winter’s frost. The sky is full of movement, clouds blown chewing-gum-thin across the city and out to the Irish Sea, and I drift aimlessly for a while, enjoying the unexpected boon of liberation. Having got the taste, I’m desperate for more coffee, and the best place in town is right ahead of me, already lurching into view as I kick my way through the Boulevard’s fall. The cathedral was one of our favourite places when Mum got ill. Perhaps it was too special, that cherished ritual of coffee on the vast terrace, the sunshine on her puffed, jaundiced face. Even in her situation, facing up to the inevitable, she loved to traipse through the graveyard. Many’s the time we’d sit outside with our coffees and swoon at the gorgeous swell of the city below us.
‘It all makes sense from up here,’ she’d say. ‘It all fits together just perfectly.’
And I would ache to tell her that I was sorry; for all the things I did, the things I said. I wanted her to know that, looking back, I wished I’d never traded those precious times with her for cheap thrills with Ruben. More than anything, I wanted her to know how much I loved her. She wasn’t trendy. She didn’t love cool, eclectic things. She was difficult and narrow-minded; and she was my Mum. I wanted, once and for all, to say that out loud, yet the moment was never quite right. We were too happy or too peaceful with each other to spoil the moment with confessions. But she got worse, quickly, and the chance was gone for ever.
I get to the end of the Boulevard and dip down into Parly and there it is, within throwing distance, the monstrous gothic majesty of the cathedral. I stop in awe to look at the tower; I follow it way, way up and I think myself right up there, right to the very top, so high above, looking down on all this space below. I’m suddenly scared of what I might do with it. I turn tail, gasping for breath, and make my way down to the river.
I stumble past the Arena, not really sure where I’m going any more, or where I want to go. Cyclists, skaters and the occasional jogger pound the river pathway. I slump back on a bench and watch the sky drain of colour and lower itself down on to the water. I crane my neck back downriver towards St Michael’s promenade. This time three weeks ago, I was full of it; tanked up on mad, blind excitement. It’s impossible to fathom, that my little mate who lurched and kicked inside me that morning, the Bean I felt such a potent love for, who I couldn’t wait to meet, is the baby I walked out on an hour ago. The baby my poor dad is trying to placate back home. But I can’t go back, not yet. I touch my flabby, empty stomach that once held him and swoon with nostalgia. How I wish he was still in there.
Rain starts to fall. I throw my head back, enjoying the smart of it on my skin. I should go back. Dad will be getting anxious. Joe needs me.
Soon. Five more minutes.
The rain intensifies. I pull my hood up, but instead of heading off back home I find myself trudging towards the docks.
There’s a throng of umbrellas bobbing around outside the Tate, and a line stretching all the way round the corner. There’s a buzz of chatter as the queue inches its way towards the entrance. No one seems to mind the slow revolving door painfully drip-feeding them through, one by one. People look on in silent horror as a young guy leans right back against the chain railings to snap a photo of the gallery. I follow the queue around to see what all the fuss is about. Of course! Picasso is in town. It’s up there with a Papal visit in Liverpool, or a home-coming for the victorious football team. A major art event is something of a Must See in this city; people will make a day of it, stay out for dinner afterwards, the works. Me, I never really got Picasso. Not that I think it’s the Emperor’s New Clothes, just . . . his work doesn’t move me. I stare and stare, and I feel nothing. Dad’s right. Philistines, Mum and I. If a piece of art or music or a book fails to speak to me immediately on impact then it’s dead to me. The number of books that have found their way to the elephant’s graveyard under my bed, discarded after two or three chapters, says more about my impulsive, instant-fix approach to culture than it does about the magnificence of those dust-clad novels. Picasso could hang in my hallway and I’d walk on by.
A couple of Japanese girls sidle up to me, start pointing at the sky and holding up the flats of their hands. I smile back, shrug that I don’t understand but I’m willing to try. They mutter to each other, seem to agree on something, then reach out and drag me under their massive umbrella, still chattering at me excitedly. I’m too weary now to explain that I’m not here for the exhibition, so I just say thank you and stand there beneath their shelter and enjoy the strange anticipation of a crowd inching towards a common goal.
I fade out for what could have been a minute or an hour. One of the girls lets out an excited squeal, and she’s hauling her umbrella in. The revolving door sucks us through, spits us out into a blinding white atrium. A bored Goth looks me up and down.
‘Second, third and fourth floors. Lift or stairs. You’ve got ninety minutes from now,’ she intones, already looking past me and through me to the next punter. Her black-painted mouth barely moves as she speaks. ‘That’s ten pounds, then.’
I cast my gaze back to the big glass gallery window, rain slamming into it now. Every time a new customer comes through the door, the wind howls in off the dock. There’s a stabbing pain in my breast. I really should be getting back to Joe.
I nod and hand over the money.
*
‘Hello . . . Miss? Excuse me?’
I prise one eye open. A young man is hovering above me; a boy, let’s face it. From his uniform – sleek, smart, informal – I see he works here. The Tate. I remember now, and sit up. My neck hurts and my face feels wet.
It takes me a moment.
I must have fallen asleep on the viewing bench. I wipe away a patch of saliva from my cheek, recoiling as I catch a whiff of my cancer breath, feel a patch of milk damp beneath my coat. The boy smiles diffidently.
‘I’m sorry. The gallery is closing now.’
He speaks with a
slight accent, Salford maybe.
‘Closing?’
He nods.
‘Crikey. What time is it?’
Behind him, people are staring over, all wearing the same embarrassed smile. A young couple is tittering to one another, speculating that my sleeping stunt is performance art.
Shit. Joe. Dad. I stand up too quickly, and the room tilts out of focus, my legs jelly beneath me. The Tate boy catches me, hooking an arm under my armpit and discreetly guiding me back to the viewing bench. He sits down next to me.
‘Are you okay? Shall I get you some water?’
I shake my head.
‘How long have I been here?’
I want to know; but I dread to hear. Whatever, I should get going. Now.
‘A little while. It’s fine, you know. It’s not as unusual as you might think. People are for ever dozing off in the gallery. I would have left you as long as possible, but . . .’ He tails off.
‘What?’
A sympathetic smile. ‘You were starting to shout things out.’
I try to grope back to my last memory, just before I dipped out and surrendered to the vacuous suck of sleep. I remember walking around the gallery, and the more I saw, the more I wanted to text Dad; not to enquire after Joe or to apologise for going walkabout, but simply to let him know where I was – and that I got it. All these years down the line and I finally got the point of Picasso. For the first time since Joe was born, I was overcome by the need to share something stupendous with Dad. I wanted to tell him about sleep, and women, and liberation – this riot of dislocated ideas that all made huge and sudden sense to me, I wanted to tell it all to Dad; make him see. But I didn’t. I pulled out my phone and saw the five missed calls and the smile emptied out of my heart. I was back once again at the edge of that yawning black sump, and I knew I could never turn away, never switch off, never let go. As long as Joe needed me, I would always be there; would have to be there. There was no other way. I stepped back from the pictures, switched off my phone, sat down on the bench and drifted out and under.
‘What time did you say it is?’
The boy looks at his watch.
‘Gone half five, now.’
‘Shit.’
I let out a slow sigh, gather myself together and get up to go.
Outside, it’s almost dark. In another two weeks it will be pitch black. I lean hard against a railing, let it take up my full weight as I look out beyond the still black depths of the dock. There’s home, there’s Joe beckoning from the other side of the city, the tower blocks by the park flickering into life. Each time I think about heading back my stomach flips over and my head starts to reel. I tell myself that if I just stay here looking at the water, holding time off, then I won’t have to go back at all.
‘Pretty magical, isn’t it?’ The boy from the gallery parks himself next to me, his back to the Chinese lantern rippling the water’s surface. I smile to myself. ‘I love this time of day. Of night . . .’
He thrusts himself off the railing. I can see him eyeing me closely, trying to make his mind up about something. I don’t care, either way. I stare straight ahead at the dock, but I can see him, perfectly. He’s wearing a bomber jacket and a little beanie hat. It frames his face, accentuating the jut of his cheekbones, the fullness of his mouth. He takes a packet of Camels from his trouser pocket, folds back the foil very carefully and offers me one.
‘I gave up . . .’
I stop, then reach out and take one. I stoop to the flame, feel his eyes all over me. He wants me. This man, this kid who must be, what, ten years younger than me? he wants to fuck me. I don’t look up, just suck deep and hard and fill my lungs till they hurt. He lights his own cigarette. Exhales. Turns back towards the bitumen black dock.
‘You want to grab a drink?’
I blast out a bar of smoke, nodding. Yes. I do. I want to spend a bit more time with you before I go back to the living death of ministering to the every wail and whimper of my baby.
There’s a little deli on the other side of the dock. It’s just about empty, except for a table of tourists laying out their spoils from the exhibition – notebooks, posters, mugs, a Picasso tea towel. We take one of the small red leather sofas, a window perch looking over to the glow of the Liver Birds shining out weird and yellow, high above the sudden darkness. How many times had I shuffled down here – three months pregnant, six months, seven, eight, nine – and told Joe the story of the cormorant-like sentinels standing guard over the Port of Liverpool? The day they fly away, the city will sink into the river. He loved that one. He always kicked as though saying ‘again’.
The boy comes back from the bar, sets two glasses of translucent white wine on the table.
‘I’m Elwyn,’ he says. ‘I know. Twat of a name. But I’m all right, really.’
He takes an immodest sip, knowing he’s funny. Knowing I fancy him like mad.
‘Rachel,’ I say. ‘Rache.’
We clink glasses and sip in silence for a moment. He nestles right back into the spine of the sofa, hooks one foot across the knee.
‘So. My money’s on . . . doctor. I was going to say nurse but that would be stereotyping.’
‘Stereotyping?’
‘Come on. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Oh. I’m wrong then.’
‘About what?’
‘Sorry. My mam was a nurse. She used to fall asleep wherever after she’d done a night shift, and woe betide us if we’d wake her.’ He grins at the recollection. He has a nice, generous smile. ‘She used to do things like that on her day off . . . go to galleries and that. Go see whatever film everyone was raving on about in case she missed out. Bless.’ He drifts out, smiles affectionately, brings his gaze back to me. ‘Sorry I just thought you might—’
‘No. Nothing so heroic. I’m just tired that’s all. I have trouble sleeping right now.’
Feeling more and more relaxed with Elwyn, I cross my legs and slide down deep into the sofa. The wine is going straight to my head, but I don’t care. I can make out the silhouette of a boat on the water, blindly wrapped by the dark. I’m feeling woozy, and I like it. I like having a man next to me. I like it that he’s attracted to me; that he wants me. I look at him properly for the first time.
‘What about you?’ I say. ‘Elwyn.’ He holds my stare for a second, then has to look away. I smile – half for him, half at him; at this. ‘Student, I’m guessing.’
‘If only. No. I’m a slave, sadly. I have two paying jobs, and one that I pursue out of love, compulsion and madness. I have pretensions to being an artist, see. So I have to keep grafting to fund my illusory – many would say delusory – career.’
‘That’s brilliant.’
‘Is it, though? You haven’t seen my work.’
‘Can I?’
‘Sure. The pub I’m about to start work in –’ He consults his watch – ‘in thirty-seven minutes – shit! – happens to be the most avant-garde platform for new art in the city.’
‘You sound like a PR.’
‘I do the PR for it, too.’
I laugh. I like you, I think. I could get to like you.
He starts to make leaving noises. We drink up.
‘So. Rachel.’ He looks at me very directly. ‘Are you going to come and see my etching?’
I laugh spontaneously, but to my mild surprise I find myself shaking my head.
‘I like you . . . a lot,’ I say.
He smiles, nods. A flicker of hurt around his eyes. ‘I think I worked it out. Joe, isn’t it?’
‘Joe?’
‘You were calling out his name before. When I woke you up.’
Out of nowhere, I crumble. I cry and cry and cry. I can’t stop. In the end I’m laughing, tear slime all over my face. Elwyn puts his arms around me.
‘Hey,’ he says, rubbing the small of my back like a parent might. ‘It’s all right. You’ve done nothing wrong. We just had a drink together. You’ve not got n
othing at all to feel bad about. Everything’s going to be fine with you and your fella.’
I nod to myself, so badly wanting to believe it’s all right, that it’s all going to be fine. I press my face tight to his chest and close my eyes, let him take the full, throbbing weight of me, and just for one moment, I allow myself to believe I’m safe. I’m protected. I’m somebody’s woman.
And finally that constant droning in my head whispers away to nothing. I close my eyes, relieved, grateful to hear other things again, things outside my head. The low distant roar of the river. Life before the big bang. I hold on to the moment, let it play until I’m finally able to pick myself up, step back away from him.
‘I should go now. Joe needs me.’
He gives me a gentle kiss on the nose.
‘Ta-ra.’
I pull up my hood and turn and run as fast as my aching, useless legs will carry me.
27
‘Where the hell have you been?’
My father is standing in my kitchen, the front of his shirt damp with baby sick, a shadow of stubble muddying his face. I don’t think I have ever seen him look so wounded, so . . . angry.
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Of all the selfish things you’ve ever done, Rachel!’
Slowly, I soak up the scene playing out behind him. Jan is feeding Joe, who is guzzling contently from a bottle, gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp. Faye is bagging up a nappy. There is formula all over the table, a brand-new steriliser steaming away in the corner. I just stand there, scolded and foolish. A horrible silence fills the room, broken only by Joe’s passionate slurping. I eye the tin of formula on the table with its reassuring pastels and its soft, florid font and I want to cry. I want to throw my face to the sky and howl. Half an hour ago I felt something like my previous, normal self. I was alive. Back here, they all want me dead again. Fuck them. Let them judge, if they want. I push past my father, hold out my hands to Jan.
‘Jan?’
