The Silent Tide
Page 29
Hugh’s mother was waiting in the hall with Mrs Catchpole and her daughter Lily to greet them. They all stood around as though uncertain what to do next.
‘She’s a funny little thing,’ Mrs Catchpole said doubtfully as she peeped into the bundle of blankets. The baby’s cries were no longer weak, but growing in volume and urgency.
‘She’s hungry,’ Isabel said despairingly. ‘But she’s not allowed anything more for two hours.’
‘Poor little mite,’ Mrs Catchpole said. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I ought to get on with lunch.’
‘Why don’t you take her upstairs?’ Hugh’s mother suggested. ‘Put her in her cradle. She’ll soon settle if you leave her. Babies need to learn who’s boss.’
But Lorna didn’t settle.
An hour of crying later, Mrs Catchpole was asked to warm a bottle of milk. Lorna drank it down quickly but still she cried. As the daylight faded, she cried more and louder. Isabel fed her again and winded her, changed her nappy, and put her down to sleep. She cried. Isabel picked up her again. She still cried. Mrs Catchpole filled the baby bath. Perhaps warm water would soothe her.
Naked, little Lorna looked sinister – like a witch’s manikin was Isabel’s unpleasant thought, her skin the colour of uncooked sausage. She wasn’t plump like the pictures of the blond babies in the doctor’s surgery in London. Her eyes were navy, not clear blue. When Isabel had first bathed her in hospital, there had been a crop of fine dark hair over her back, and although thankfully most of this had fallen off, patches of it remained, giving the impression of mange. The bruises were healing and the squeezed length of her head wasn’t so pronounced, though it was still an odd shape. Looking at her now, Isabel felt a swell of pity for this little creature. She waited for a rush of love. Nothing.
This was her secret, the secret she’d had to keep for the two weeks since Lorna had been born. She did not love her child. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, what to do about it. She couldn’t even tell anyone. During that fortnight she’d been cosseted at every turn. Nurses had helped her feed Lorna. They’d taught Isabel how to wind her after the feed, how to bath her and dress her. They’d packed Lorna away in her cot to sleep in another room so that Mother could rest or chat to the other women and generally bask in the wonderful aura of new motherhood. Life had passed very pleasantly, and yet she’d felt completely numb about the whole experience.
During visiting hours she’d received Hugh, and once or twice her mother-in-law who, on the second occasion, brought Jacqueline, whose London couture drew the interested eyes of the other new mothers. Once her own mother had come, travelling all the way from Kent by train, staying the night at the Mortons’ and returning the following day. Isabel had thought she looked grey and drawn, and didn’t dare speak of her own miserable secret. After her mother said goodbye, Isabel felt so completely alone that she cried for an hour.
The truth was, she felt there was something missing. She couldn’t be a proper woman , could she, if she didn’t love her child.
She looked around at the other mothers, nursing their babies or cradling them to show older brothers and sisters. She’d seen some who were anxious about whether they were doing things right, or weepy with hormones and tiredness, but what she hadn’t seen was indifference. Why did she , Isabel, feel no reaction at all to her child except pity?
‘Why were you unlucky enough to get me?’ she whispered now to the infant on the towel on the bathroom floor. The baby stared up at her, puzzled. She was a child with a perpetually puzzled expression.
Oh dear, she’d get cold. Isabel wrapped her carefully in her towel and picked her up to take into the other room and dress. She was halfway through doing so when she discovered that Lorna’s nappy needed changing again and had to take her back into the bathroom.
Never mind, she told herself dully. It’s not the baby’s fault. It’ll just have to be done.
Finally, Lorna was clothed in nappy, gown and jacket and laid in the bassinet to sleep. Isabel withdrew, closing the door, then went to her own room and lay down on the bed. She wasn’t tired exactly, just lacking in energy. She lay staring at the ceiling for some moments, thinking of nothing.
There came a short cry from the other room, but she hardly noticed it. Anyway, the nurses had told her crying was healthy. There came another cry, longer this time, and soon the baby was complaining lustily , then yelling at full volume. Still Isabel lay there.
Hugh opened the door and put his head round. ‘The baby’s crying,’ he said.
‘We’re to leave her,’ she replied. ‘That’s what they said at the hospital.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘How long for?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and withdrew. The baby cried on. Isabel stopped hearing it and slipped into sleep.
‘For God’s sake.’ Hugh had come in again. ‘I’m trying to read, Isabel, this noise is terrible.’
Isabel raised her head sleepily. She had no idea how much time had passed, but the baby was still crying.
‘I can’t do anything about it,’ she said. ‘Maybe your mother can help.’
‘My mother says she doesn’t remember about babies,’ he said, ruffling his hair. ‘I’m afraid it’s up to you.’
‘I suppose I’ll go then,’ she said, swinging her feet onto the floor.
‘Right. Thanks,’ he said. He held the door open for her, and while she went across the landing to the nursery he hurried away downstairs.
She opened the door. The noise immediately doubled in volume. She stared into the cradle . Lorna had kicked off her bedclothes and lay, fists clenched aside her head, her screaming mouth a great chasm in a purple face. Her whole body was convulsed.
Isabel stood watching, her arms crossed, feeling completely detached. It was how Hugh’s mother found her a few minutes later.
‘For pity’s sake,’ Lavinia said. She picked Lorna up, laid her against her shoulder and rubbed her back. Lorna gave a great belch, mewed a little and fell asleep.
Chapter 27
Emily
The day of the redundancies was horrible, as though an Angel of Death passed overhead. No one knew who would be chosen. Everybody sat at their desks pretending to be busy. All appointments had been cancelled. The office was abuzz with rumour. Two of the sales reps had lost their jobs, it was being whispered. There were fewer bookshops to visit these days. In Emily’s office, four pairs of frightened eyes looked up when Gillian’s assistant Becky came in, her small young face pale with shock; it was not to summon any of them to Gillian’s office, however, but to inform them that George had been made redundant.
‘Oh no – poor George!’ Emily was puzzled, and genuinely sorry. George had been the golden boy, the charming one. She wondered who he’d annoyed, or perhaps that wasn’t the way things worked. It was pointless speculating, but if George was gone it might be herself next.
But it wasn’t. As she stood with the rest of the department in the boardroom later, she felt a delirious relief, yes, but also anger and survivor’s guilt. They studied a chart on the plasma screen, full of boxes with people’s names, the company’s new reporting structure. Reference Books downstairs had suffered the worst. Emily didn’t know the people there. At one level it all made sense, as readers had moved online, but it must be awful for the staff and she wondered where they would find new jobs.
George, when she went to see him in his office – how he’d managed to get his own office had always been a mystery – tried to be philosophical. He lounged in his chair, feet on the desk, talking with his usual bluff about new opportunities and irons in the fire, but then the bluster petered to a halt.
‘I’m glad you’re all right,’ he told her, ruffling his blond curls. ‘You seem to be making your mark.’
‘Do I?’ she said, cautious, not sure if there was sarcasm in his tone, but she was surprised, too. She hadn’t for a single moment seen things this way.
‘You’ve brought in some good authors.
People like you.’ He did sound sincere. Then he spoiled it by adding, ‘I guess they couldn’t afford me any more.’
Typical George. Why did he need to bolster himself in this way? Still, it was probably true. They’d been doing a similar job, she and George, but she’d long suspected that he was paid more than her. Not that she had proof. She’d always felt she’d break some unspoken rule at Parchment if she discussed her salary with others. The company was quite old-fashioned in many ways. But other people dropped hints. Still, out of the two of them it was she who had a job.
‘How much longer will you be here?’ she asked.
‘End of the month,’ he said, starting to play with an annoying clicking-ball toy he kept on his desk.
‘Well, I am sorry. I hope they have given you a good package.’
‘Not at all bad,’ he said. ‘Once I’d mentioned the magic word “lawyer”. I’ll be all right for a while. Take a bit of a holiday, perhaps.’ The balls clicked slower and she saw past his bravura to the fear underneath. He didn’t want her sympathy, however. ‘I’ll hook up with you later,’ he said, picking up his mobile, and she nodded and opened the door.
Something stayed her. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t you who sent me flowers on Valentine’s, was it?’
He smiled at her as he put the phone to his ear. ‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’
Back in her office she found that several of her authors had telephoned. She rang them back to assure them her job was safe, and then spoke to Joel.
‘Phew!’ he said, when she imparted the news. ‘I told you you’d be all right, but it’s a relief, isn’t it, to have it confirmed.’ They talked about meeting up, but both of them were busy for the next couple of days and Joel was going away on Friday for what he called a ‘writing week’.
‘A friend of mine has a cottage in Gloucestershire. They’ve got a cat that’s allergic to catteries, so the deal is I stay there while they’re away and feed the mog. There’s no Wi-Fi and the mobile signal’s pathetic so I can just concentrate on my writing.’ He told her he aimed to write two chapters and draft the final two in the time, which struck Emily as an impressive feat.
‘I’ll be home Sunday week,’ he went on. ‘Would you like to come over for supper when I’m back? Tuesday perhaps?’
‘Tuesday would be great,’ she said.
‘You have my address, don’t you? I’ll give you directions. It’s very easy.’
Emily had plenty to keep her mind off waiting for Joel’s return. Tobias delivered some revisions to his novel. There was an auction for a brilliant new memoir by a Korean-American writer which involved a great deal of discussion and re-jigging of balance sheets, and which in the end she acquired for Parchment in a rush of terrific excitement. Concentrating on this meant that more routine work stacked up and she had to work late to clear it.
For the moment there were no more mysterious packages.
Emily gazed about the huge open-plan loft, Joel’s home, admiring the high Victorian windows, the soaring peaked ceiling.
‘Unicorn House used to be a printworks,’ Joel explained as he splashed white wine into big goblets and handed her one. The wine was chilled, fruity and delicious, the glass so fine it rang when she knocked it accidentally with her nail. ‘It closed down a few years ago and they turned it into flats.’
‘That makes sense of the decorations on the staircase!’ she exclaimed. Bits of old metal font had been set in patterns on the walls of the entrance hall and all the way up the stairs to the second floor. ‘I wondered if it spelled out anything.’ She’d tried to make out words as she climbed, but decided it was random.
‘I suppose it would have been too complicated,’ he said, ‘but some quote about the passing of time might have been appropriate, don’t you think?’
‘Mmm,’ she said, sipping her wine. They were standing in the kitchen area, which took up half one end of the flat. Halogen light reflected off grey metal and granite. A narrow dining table and six high-backed chairs in pale ash filled the other half, then there was a lounge area delineated by a long L-shaped sofa. The walls were lined with bookshelves, rows and rows of them, filled with books, floor to ceiling. In a corner, against a partition wall, a workstation was built in.
‘And here’s my bedroom,’ he said, showing her a neat spartan room with a large geometric painting over a low white bed. For a moment his hand brushed her shoulder in a way that might or might not have been an accident. ‘Next door’s the bathroom,’ he said, moving on swiftly, ‘and this bedroom’s the spare.’
‘It’s all really beautiful,’ she sighed, as they returned to the kitchen. She loved the skylights with their sunscreen glass. As he stood at the stove, frying chicken, she perched on a bar stool, drinking her wine and watching the changing patterns of the evening light.
‘So how was Gloucestershire? Did the cat behave itself?’ She liked the way he looked tonight, in a soft linen shirt, half-covered by a butcher’s apron, his sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned arms. He couldn’t have been inside the cottage working all the time then.
‘I hardly saw the blessed thing,’ he said. ‘It ate the food I put out, unless it was some other beast that came through the cat flap every night. The writing went really well. I started work at eight every morning, kept going till lunch, walked a mile to the shop and back, then got in another couple of hours’ work after tea.’
‘So you did your chapters?’
‘I did,’ he said with a satisfied grin. ‘I’m on the home straight.’
‘Wow!’ She was genuinely impressed.
Just then, the doorbell rang and they both looked up. ‘Who’s that?’ Joel said as he went to open the door. A young woman with a swathe of glossy blonde hair caught up in a pretty comb stepped inside.
‘Hi, I’m Anna.’ Her light voice had a transatlantic twang. ‘Oh my God, you guys are cooking dinner. I’m so sorry but I need help really badly,’ she said to Joel, tweaking a stray piece of hair back into the comb. ‘I’ve just moved in and there’s something wrong with the faucet in the kitchen. It won’t turn off and there’s going to be a flood any moment.’
‘I can have a go,’ Joel said. ‘Do you mind, Emily?’
‘No, of course not,’ Emily replied. ‘Poor you, I hope he can fix it,’ she told Anna.
‘That’s so kind,’ Anna said. ‘But can you please hurry?’
‘Back in a minute,’ Joel told Emily, pulling the door to behind him.
Alone in the flat, Emily checked the chicken, which looked nearly done, and measured rice into water simmering in a saucepan. A green salad waited ready on the side. She took it across to the table, already laid. Then she wandered around the room, touching the books and examining some prints of contemporary architecture on the partition wall. It was odd that there were no photographs of family or friends, she thought, looking about, just one of Joel by himself in a graduation gown.
On a shelf near Joel’s workstation was a row of books with Joel Richards printed on the spines. She hadn’t known he’d written so many: there was the one about the Angry Young Men, several histories of big companies, one copy leather-bound. She recognised a tie-in book of a television series about Britain in wartime from a couple of years ago. There was no author’s name on this one so she picked it up and found Joel Richards on the title page inside. All this confirmed to her that Hugh Morton’s book was an important one for his career, definitely a step up from all these others. She felt she understood him more as a result. He was further ahead in his ambitions than Matthew. All Matthew had so far were some poems in anthologies. She knew he longed to have a collection published, but this would be a while off for him. She put the book back on the shelf. Joel was being a long time, she thought. Perhaps the flood was quite bad.
She came to his desk and leaned across it to read the labels of some box-files on a shelf above. MORTON, each one said in neat capitals, giving dates or a subject: CHILDHOOD, CORRESPONDENCE WITH K. AMIS, PHOTOGRAPHS, JAPAN.
Amongst the array of icons on the computer’s desktop, one labelled Morton Biography First Draft caught her eye. It was very tempting to take a peek.
Just as she was moving the cursor towards it the flat door clicked open and she turned, caught in the act. But it must have been a draught, for there was no one there. Her relief was short-lived, for she heard voices on the stairwell, Joel’s low one and Anna’s high American drawl, and then approaching footsteps.
Quick as a wink she left the desk and by the time Joel walked in she was back at the stove, draining the rice.
‘Everything’s ready,’ she told him calmly.
‘Thanks,’ he said, slightly out of breath. ‘Mission accomplished. I’m sorry about the wait.’
She prodded the bits of chicken and said nothing.
‘The tap was just stiff, so I easily sorted that out, but Anna’s removal men had parked a chest of drawers in a stupid place so I had to shift that for her.’
‘I bet she was grateful.’ She suspected that it wouldn’t be the last time Anna would ask for help.
He came up close behind her now, so she felt the warmth of him – and her body was suddenly light, electric. There was a brief moment when she was sure he was going to touch her, and she was disappointed when he merely switched off the extractor fan, then moved past, opened a cupboard and reached for plates.
They sat opposite one another at the table and helped themselves to salad. He poured more wine and the tension she’d felt eased. Perhaps she’d imagined it. Joel talked about a new TV script he was being invited to write and Emily filled him in about the situation at work, and soon they began to play a game of looks and touches and gestures that needed no words. Beneath the table his foot brushed against her ankle. The food was delicious, though she didn’t eat much of it. There was something spicy in the chicken that made her lips feel hot and tender.