Hide and Seek

by Amy Bird

  “Mum, Dad, what do you think? I don’t have my baby ones, obviously but – ”

  Mum cuts in. “We’re so sorry about that, Will. I keep replaying the moment we closed the door on the Dartington house – I was sure we had everything. And I called up the new owners about the albums, but nothing.”

  “Probably paedos,” jokes Ellie. “Wanted to ogle photos of Will in his little bathtub.”

  I’m not sure Mum gets that it’s a joke because she looks a bit appalled.

  “Yep, thanks for that Ellie,” I say. “Now, Mum, Dad, in a non-paedo way, would you like to look at photos of baby Ellie?”

  “Why not?” says Mum brightly. “Let’s go through to the living room. It will be more comfortable in there for Ellie.”

  “Fine. You go through. We’ll make some tea and bring in the albums.”

  So Mum and Dad potter off into the front room, taking the scan picture with them. In the kitchen, I fill the kettle. Ellie is springing around in excitement. I wonder if Leo enjoys that or if it’s like being inside a mad rollercoaster.

  “You know who else lives in Dartington?” she asks me in a whisper. “Max Reigate!”

  “Damnit, so he’s the paedophile who’s busy looking at my baby photos! And here’s me thinking he was just into music.”

  Ellie sticks her tongue out at me.

  “Anyway, how do you know?” I ask. “Have you been Googling him? Trying to find a better photo? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you fancied him.”

  Ellie leans forward to kiss me. “I fancy you,” she says, saucily. Then she breaks away. “So it figures I’d fancy your doppelganger.”

  “Hey!” I say, hitting her lightly on the arm.

  “Will, you’re not meant to hit pregnant women, you know,” she says.

  “You’re not meant to talk about other men in front of our son. Or above or around our son, whatever it counts as now. Anyway, you’re distracting me, you minx. What’s the deal with Mr Doppelganger and Dartington? How many sites have you stalked him on?”

  “I’ve just seen the evidence, Mr Un-forensic Scientist. On the CD case?”

  As I pour the now boiled water into the teapot, Ellie goes back into the dining room and returns a moment (ok, maybe a few moments – give the pregnant lady a chance) later with the CD case.

  “There – recorded in Dartington. 1978.”

  “Well done, Sherlock. Actually, we should so watch that again. The second series.”

  “1978 – the year before you were born, yes?”

  “Yes, what of it? Seriously, though, can we watch that again?”

  Ellie rolls her eyes. “Forget your boy crush on Benedict Cumberbatch for a moment, and focus on the real-life mystery.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Bit peculiar, right, your Mum, your Dad, Max Reigate, all hanging out in Dartington? Your Mum getting all misty-eyed over his music?”

  “Just because they lived in the same place, doesn’t mean they knew each other.”

  “Come on, it was the 70s. Everyone knew each other, man!”

  I flick her on the forehead. “And whatever they were smoking back in the 70s got into your brain. While you drool over Max Reigate, the rest of us are going to look at your baby photos.”

  I take the tea tray into the front room, and leave Ellie there while I go up to get her albums from the bedroom, where we keep them. Sorry, from our bedroom – there’s another one now, that we’re assembling. I know exactly where they are, but I sit down on the bed and take some breaths first.

  Why would Mum act like that? It was properly weird. I mean, it was just a CD. One of her CDs, it turns out, thanks to Ellie acting like some kind of magpie, apparently (still not sure of the story there). But even so. Crying? When your son has the happiest news ever, that your family line will be continued? I shake my head. Really odd. Beyond odd.

  “Sweetie, are you coming?” I hear from downstairs. Ah, Ellie. Never has liked being alone with my parents for long.

  I exhale and push myself off the bed. Ellie’s little pseudo-mysteries are all very amusing but no reason for me to start sharing her hormone-addled nonsense. I lean under the bed and pull out the albums, from next to our keepsake box. The box is full of anniversary cards and an array of other mementos from our lives, stretching back years. We should look through it again some day. But not now. I return downstairs with the albums.

  I sit on the floor beneath the sofa, albums on my lap.

  “Here we go,” I say, opening up the first of her albums.

  I turn over page after page of Ellie looking like a small otter, lying on a woollen blanket, just after she was born. Mum gives the obligatory oohs and aahs. Dad stays silent but does a little nod of his head in acknowledgement every so often. About ten of those new-born photos. Ellie at her mother’s breast. Move on from that. A bit dodgy to stare at your mother-in-law’s chest. Then Ellie naked in a bath, Ellie naked in a paddling pool, Ellie (amazingly, with clothes on) propped up on some swings. Ellie, when a little older, chasing some ducks. All the things that babies are meant to do. And all the things that proud parents are meant to capture and treasure forever. I feel a bit let down with Mum and Dad. I glance at them, and Mum squeezes my shoulder.

  “You’re so lucky – you’ve got all of this to come!” she says. And there are the misty eyes again. Jesus. What’s with her today?

  She’s a whole lot soppier than I ever imagined. So I just smile and squeeze her hand back. Can’t be doing with those tears over-spilling. Although I wouldn’t mind gently berating her over the photos. There’s a bit of me that’s missing forever. I don’t remember chasing ducks. I don’t remember much before the age of, I guess, three or four. The first memory I can pin down is of sitting eating a daffodil in our garden in Kingston, when I was about four. Because that’s where the albums that we still have start. I vow that if we ever move, I will not entrust something so precious into the hands of removal men. I will carry the albums myself, swaddled in tissue, as precious as if they were the baby itself.

  But at least I still have my parents, unlike Ellie. I should be grateful. I turn to Ellie, to see how she is dealing with looking at her parents’ faces (and her mother’s breasts) again. Whether she is wishing she could have told her parents the news, that they might have known of their grandson’s soon-to-be existence. But no. My Ellie is sleeping, a little bit of drool coming down from the edge of her mouth. She must have been like that for a little while, with none of us noticing. Good job she has the knack of day-sleeping. We’ll need that when the baby is born. Or Leo, as he now seems to be called.

  I tap Mum and Dad to get their attention and nod towards Ellie.

  They give little amused smiles and gesture their heads to the door, showing they realise they should leave. I close the photo album softly, take the half-eaten cupcake from Ellie’s lap, and pull the sofa-throw over her. I tiptoe from the room, Mum and Dad behind me.

  Out in the hall, they whisper their renewed congratulations and we make future plans.

  “You’re still on for dinner tomorrow night, are you?” Mum asks. “It won’t be too much for Ellie?”

  I nod my head. “It’ll be fine. She just missed her after-lunch nap earlier.” No reason to tell them why.

  “Great,” says Mum. “See you at seven tomorrow.”

  I nod and give her a hug. There’s another big handshake from Dad. “Really proud, Will. Can’t wait to meet your little son.”

  There’s no mention of the earlier tears. We’re in happy land again.

  Dad takes their proudness out into the street. Going to the window, I see him shepherd Mum into the car. Why they’ve driven, I don’t know – it’s so close and there’s a lovely walk by the river. Maybe Mum is ill. Maybe that’s it. She was looking a little green around the gills, unless that was just the jacket reflecting off her.

  After they’ve left, I realise we didn’t ask about the hammer. I could shout after them, but that would wake Ellie. Never mind. There’s always tomorrow.

&nbs
p; Chapter Six

  -Ellie-

  It’s pretty obvious why Gillian was on the verge of crying yesterday, I think to myself, as I get ready to go out to Will’s parents for dinner (because, of course, we are seeing them again). Like, not specifically why she chose that moment, over the CD. But generally.

  Jealousy.

  Or over-cotton-woolling, non-chopping of apron stringsing, over-mummy’s-boying. You get my drift. Not letting go. Even her jacket – that dreadful, 80s power-shoulder-pad thing – was green. That says a lot, right?

  She was like that before we got married, me and Will, three years ago. Took me to one side, did the ‘are your intentions honourable?’ bit on me. OK, not quite in those words. But she actually said: “You do understand the phrase ‘in sickness and in health’, don’t you? You’ll have to look after him, if things don’t go right. Like I’ve always looked after him.” Classic jealousy. Classic not wanting another woman in the life of her precious son. When my father gave me away, I half-expected her to tell Will to give me back again. She knew I knew her game, though, because she covered her tracks. “And give him a family,” she said. “That’s what he needs.” Presumptuous. What if I wanted to put my career first, like everyone else? I knew she didn’t really mean it. Otherwise why would she be getting all teary now?

  Although, to be fair, she had looked after him. My God, she had. Over looked after him. Like, he won’t do any of his own admin, ever. When we got married, I was trying to get all our papers together, prove to the registrar we were able to get married. I had this little pack of documents, and I asked Will for his birth certificate, and he was like “Oh, Mum does all that stuff.” So I was like, what do you mean, and he said “Yeah, she looks after that, for all the ID stuff, she just takes care of it.” First time, apparently, that he needed all the ID things, he was away with school and so his mum did it, and she’s just kept doing it since. So, yeah – over-mothered.

  And I know where she keeps it all too. In that study of hers. All those lockable little drawers. As if she’s got all these secrets, neatly filed away. I bet that’s where she keeps Will’s baby pictures: it’s like an emblem of filial closeness. If she can keep baby Will locked away, he’ll forever be her little boy.

  That’s where I got the Max Reigate CD from. Not our house. Obviously. No, from her witchy little study. Actually, it’s quite a nice study. Green, wood, armchairs, all that stuff. After all, this is Surrey, darling. But it’s still witchy because it just has this air of ‘do not touch the secrets’. So one day, as I told her, I was there looking after the plants, and even though I’d been told not to bother about the spider plants in the study, I was like, who is she to decide when they need water? So I went in and watered them, and – just while they were absorbing the water, obviously – I had a little look round. Tested a few drawers, see if they would open. Didn’t, of course. But the bureau lid came open. Miraculous, because Will says it was always locked when he was little. He puts that down to the fact he kept trying to make origami models out of her writing paper. I think she just wanted to control what he had access to in this world. Either way, when he was little, it was locked. When I was in the room, it was open. So I pulled up the lid (to admire the fine craftsmanship of the interior, obviously) and what caught my eye, because of its redness, was the Max Reigate CD case. Underneath that was a Max Reigate LP. Weird, right, having both? And then of course I saw the resemblance to Will, so I had to bring it home to show him, and then Will’s parents came back from holiday so there was no way to slip it into the study again, so…we kind of kept it.

  And yes, so, this is what her tears were all about. Not the missing CD. That would be odd, particularly as she still has the LP. Although I have a theory about that CD. I’m not telling Will yet, because he is still totally puzzled by mummy’s almost-tears. He’s not admitting it, but look at him now, reading his lecture notes while he waits for me. He is drumming his fingers, drum, drum, drum, the way he always does when he’s stressed. Was doing it in his sleep last night. Really annoying – don’t need to wait until we have this baby for unbroken sleep. But yes, the baby – that’s why Gillian was crying. Because if your son has his own son with his wife, that’s him gone, right? He has this whole other family, that he’s co-head of (not head: things have moved on since Gillian was a girl). Never again can she put him over her knee and smack him, literally or figuratively. She becomes less and less relevant, slips away, into a kind of outsourced childcare provider.

  “Shall we drive?” Will asks me, taking a break from his drumming and his notes. “Looks a bit dark out there. Forbidding.”

  I follow Will’s nod to the windows. Yes, it is dark. That’s because it’s night. It happens.

  “If my master plan were to allow my arse to take over the entire bed, maybe,” I retort. “But as it’s not, let’s walk.”

  And I predict that when we get there, there will be more fun and games with Mrs S. Because when I have a theory, you see, as I do, I don’t let it go. Not until I’ve explored it thoroughly. Will may be the scientific breadwinner, but I can be just as forensic as him.

  Chapter Seven

  -Will-

  Ah, of course, the walking thing. Ellie has informed me that this is the best way not to put on too much baby weight, and to lose it again quickly. It told her this in some magazine. It also told her to do pregnancy yoga. She bought all the kit, went to one session, and came back scowling. We didn’t speak of it again. But the walking is a lot easier. Not that I am thinking about her weight. All I generally think when I look at her is how much the pregnancy folklore about shining hair and glowing skin is true – look at it now, that dark-brown mane swishing as she brushes it. And if she’s pale, that only emphasises the line of her lips. But she seems convinced that I’m worrying about some post-baby age in which she is all pudgy and round – so anything that will reduce the chances of that is QED. The automatically right thing to do. But I’m not thinking about that at all. Not much, anyway.

  So we grab a bottle of wine from the wine rack, I lock up the house, and away we go into the night.

  “Let’s take the scenic route,” says Ellie. “Along the river.”

  We go that route in the day, but I’m not so sure about night. I think of muggers and bandits and ghouls. Ellie is clearly just thinking of calories. Then her real reason becomes clear. The road we turn down takes us past a nursery, its sign covered with pictures of butterflies and smiling children (the chrysalis experience?). Sod a ghosts walking-tour. It’s clear Ellie is the chief tour guide for the ‘we’ll soon be parents’ walk.

  “Doesn’t it look cute?” says Ellie, pointing at the nursery. “And it would be so handy, wouldn’t it? You can drop him off before work.”

  I’d kind of like to know why she still won’t be going to work. Or if she’s not, why we need a nursery school.

  “Is it expensive, do you reckon?” I ask, thinking maybe it will prompt the discussion.

  Ellie just shrugs. “Childcare is expensive. We’ll have to deal with it. But anyway, imagine how cute he’ll look, our little Leo, with his father’s – ”

  “Watch it,” I say, detecting a new poor taste in-joke.

  “– appendage, all dressed up in his uniform, with a little briefcase.”

  “Like I used to have, when I was in juniors? In the photos?”

  “Exactly like that. I want to look at that later, it’s so sweet. Anyway, we’ll need to register Leo, like, as soon as he pops out. That can be your job. You can literally catch him, then sprint along here and register him.”

  “Nah, I’m gonna be too busy smoking a cigar. Take my fatherhood traditions very seriously, I do.”

  “My God, you’re such a cliché! I bet your father did that, didn’t he?”

  I shrug. I’m yet to have the conversation. “I’ll ask him.”

  The road leads us on past Tiffin Girls’ School.

  “Ah, and here’s where he’ll spend much of his later years, I imagine!” says Ellie.r />
  “What, cross-dresser is he, our son?”

  “Don’t play the innocent. I bet you spent hours here, eyeing up the girls, as they all paraded out, with their skirts rolled up.”

  “Think that’s a Northern thing, Ellie. No evidence of skirts being rolled up here.”

  “Did they have short skirts?”

  “Maybe. If you were looking. Mum always turned up to walk me home so I didn’t get much of a chance.”

  “Didn’t like you getting into cars with strange leggy girls, I bet. And do you think you, as a parent, would allow the skirt-rolling?”

  “As the father of a son, I would go further. I would advocate it!”

  Ellie nudges me affectionately with her shoulder, pushing me off the pavement. “You old lech,” she says. “You just want to eye up Leo’s girlfriends. You’ll say: ‘see that there appendage he’s got, I’ve got one much – ’”

  “Enough with the appendages! Besides, I’ll be too busy knocking you up with our little daughter to be worrying about Leo’s girls,” I say, nudging her back, taking a quick squeeze of her not-at-all-expanded backside as I do so.

  “Will you now?” she asks.

  “I will,” I return, kissing her. It was a good idea to walk. Out in the open, all the worries start to fall away. This is territory that I know. Apart from those four years in Dartington, before we moved, all my life has been here. I know these streets. It has the feel of my childhood.

  “I used to walk along this road to the park,” I say. “Mum would collect me, and then we’d go feed the ducks, play on the swings. I’d have to drag along to the supermarket, afterwards. But then Mum would buy me a treat.”

  “Such a mummy’s boy,” she says.

  “Meh,” I say shrugging. “Daddy bought me sweets and took me places too.”

  “You were spoilt rotten. We are so not going to spoil little Leo, are we hey, Leo?” Ellie has a small chat with her stomach before we continue.

  “Spoilt for who?” I ask. “Not you. I’m perfect for you,” I say, expecting a kiss. I don’t get one.