Hide and Seek

by Amy Bird

  I bring both my hands down onto the piano in a crash. There. I can do that. Again and again, I thump them down. The piano, my beauty, responds. And if I stand, and lift the top lid of the piano, I can crash my hands down on the keys and see the little hammers smash onto the strings at the same time. Crash, smash. Crash, smash. CRASH, SMASH.

  Absurd. Absurd. I play like a toddler. I play like I must have played with him. If we’d had more time, he’d have taught me properly. I’d be somewhere else now, some piano stool in some drawing room, doing a rendition of my father’s first concerto. Rather than sitting here in this answerless room murdering the opening bar. Thanks, Sophie. Thanks very much for denying me my heritage.

  I stand up from the piano and look at my papers scattered on the floor. Only a few weeks, now, until the rescheduled lecture. They will not move it further. And nor should they. Paternity leave is fast approaching. Not the sort I need, the sort they give you in order to find the secrets of your father’s death. The sort when you become a father yourself. And I must resolve all this by then. Find the Max answer. Solve the Sophie question.

  Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. Perhaps the books don’t have the answer. But I’ve tried to find the inquest that should have been held into Max’s death, and no joy. I found plenty of others from the time, and from the coroner’s court that would have had jurisdiction. But not his. Again, vanished from history. Perhaps I’ve been going about it the wrong way. Perhaps it’s people, not records, who can tell me. After all, I’m not just some random researcher, some student or hobbyist. I am Dr William Spears – or maybe Reigate now? Yes, I am Dr William Reigate, lecturer in neurological trauma at one of the most prominent medical schools in the country. If not the world. I can make some calls, can’t I? Find the medics who dealt with it. They can’t all be dead or vanished, too. I will explain who I am, why I need to know. I get out my phone and look for the nearest hospital to Dartington. Looks like Torbay. Who do I know round there? There must be someone, one of my fellow students from when I was training, who spent time there, or works there now? Who can point me in the direction of the right person, make things happen.

  Who, who, who?

  I go into my Facebook app and scroll through my friends (/random acquaintances). Who?

  And then, there it is. Of course. How could I forget? Felicity Stephens.

  Chapter Twelve

  -Will-

  It would be Felicity, wouldn’t it? Flick. Ellie’s only ever rival. In that department. Not that Ellie ever acknowledged it. Even when I was about to de-friend Flick, when Ellie and I had started going out, Ellie stopped me. ‘No,’ she’d said, as we lay in bed with my laptop. ‘I’m not the jealous type. Besides, she’s got nothing on me.’ And then, as I recall, I got the best blowjob of my existence. Ellie always knew how to get one over on the competition.

  But now that old flickering flame has the key to my knowledge. I always thought I was too young for an old flame. Maybe it’s a coming of age. Because there’s nothing else I can think of calling her. Flick, the old flame who I dated for three months. Flick, the old flame who I abandoned for Ellie. Flick, the old flame who continued to flirt with me, right up until she moved to Devon. Where she became a consultant. At Paignton hospital. As she repeatedly told me in those drunken ‘screw you’ voice messages. Which means she must work in the same NHS Trust area as the Torbay hospital.

  Right. So. Am I really going here?

  I look at the scattered papers around the room.

  I feel the piano under my hands.

  I think of the childhood I lost. And the woman who is to blame.

  Yes, I really am going here.

  The question is, how? What tactic should I take? If Flick now is still the same Flick I knew then, she is all ego. Not arrogant. Just needy. Liked to be romanced, valued, made to feel worthwhile. A whole load of emotional foreplay before you could go anywhere near the bedroom.

  I look at her photos on Facebook. Yes, these are the same old Flick. Beautiful, of course. Tiny and slim as ever. If you hit her with one of those piano hammers, she would snap in two like a string. The same abundant dark-brown, almost black, long hair. And of course, that same camera pout, looking all ‘sexy’, but with the look of a scared, frightened child in her eyes. A slightly wild child. But definitely a frightened one. The same old Flick.

  So it’s no good just messaging her with a simple factual query. She probably wouldn’t respond. Or if she did, it wouldn’t be quite on point. No, I need a more sophisticated message. An emotional one. One that will make her think I want to rekindle what was so firmly burnt out. One that makes me hope Ellie never ever hacks my account.

  Should I sleep on it?

  Again, the papers, the piano, the loss. The Sophie.

  No.

  Act now.

  So I ask Facebook to let me message her. And in the window that comes up, I write:

  ‘Find myself thinking of you. Of the old times.’

  Then I send it. The 2am Facebook booty call.

  And before I can lock up my office, there is a response.

  ‘Are you sending that from your bed, lying next to your wife?’

  So. She is awake. And lonely. And drunk?

  ‘I’m working late tonight.’

  ‘Oh right. “Working late.” Why do I suspect you make a habit of that?’

  This is all very well, but I don’t need insinuations of infidelity, I need a date. Sort of.

  ‘Fancy helping me out of my workaholic tendencies? If I buy you a drink, maybe you’ll do me a favour.’

  And send. There’s a pause. A long pause. Damn. I’ve blown it. Too forthright. She probably thinks I mean a sexual favour. For the purposes of that message, I probably did.

  And it looks like she did too. Because finally I get another message.

  ‘Cheeky. As in, the cheek of it. Are you in a time-warp? Did 12 years not just go by?’

  Hmm. Not going so well. I have one more chance, I reckon, to try to make this meeting. Maybe some flattering line?

  ‘Not from the looks of your photo.’

  Send.

  Now we’ll see if it’s still the same Flick.

  ‘Oh, charmer… OK, one drink. And one favour ;)’

  And yes, it is. Same old Flick. Needy, vulnerable, gullible Flick. I pause. I shouldn’t be doing this. Not because of Ellie – I have no intention of doing anything to dishonour her. A little flirty drink, but nothing more than that. She’s pregnant with my son, for God’s sake! But to Flick. Using her. It’s not what she needs.

  But then, abandoning the venture now will do more harm. I can imagine the spiral she’ll go into, the glasses of wine she’ll drink, to try to understand how she managed to turn me off when I was about to ask for a date. So I just type:

  ‘Thursday? 7pm? Café Royal hotel bar?’

  And before I’ve thought about what the hotel bit means, I’ve pressed send. I just picked it because me and Ellie went there once, and it’s the most ‘I’m treating a girl’ place I could think of. Then and now.

  Which is probably why I get the response from Flick that she is very much looking forward to it (wink).

  Flick, I really hope you have the answers. And that you’ll tell them to me down in that bar. Otherwise, I may for once be very glad that my father isn’t alive. So that he can’t judge me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  -Ellie-

  So she’s resurfaced. She had to eventually. Gillian, that is. I guess it was to be expected. I just wish it wasn’t today. The day of the field trip. The day I reclaim Sophie – and hopefully also Will. Because, you know, there’s still not much change. For the better. If anything he’s even more tense, more distant. When I asked him earlier what time he’d be home, I had to repeat myself twice, before he’d answer me. Of course, he doesn’t know what time he’ll be back. Perhaps he’ll pull an all-nighter. His knee kept jiggling under the breakfast table as he spoke. We could share some of that nervous energy, some of that frustrat
ion. But before I could offer, he’d gone.

  I get a phone call, early. Much earlier than is civilised when you’re phoning a household with a six-month pregnant woman in it. Much later than Will has left the house. Then again, Gillian never has been particularly civil to me.

  She doesn’t even bother to ask to speak to Will, now, when she phones. Just ‘Is he there?’ as if somehow, him being in the house is a victory, that she’s won access to him. But of course, he isn’t there. And he won’t be there tonight, either, I tell her. Throwing himself into his work because of her betrayal. And she tries to tell me, of course, that it wasn’t a betrayal, that she knows what’s best for him etc, etc, bollocks. I hold up one hand to cut her off, even though I know she can’t see me.

  “You know what, Gillian?” I say. “Don’t even bother. Because today I’m finding Will’s real mother. I’ll be in that car in ten minutes, on my way to her.”

  It’s a lie, of course, because I’m not driving. I’m not convinced my belly would fit under the steering wheel. No, it’s a minicab and a first-class train ticket all the way, thank you very much.

  There’s a gasp from Gillian, then silence. It’s like she’s thinking down the phone at me. Finally she speaks. It’s a strangled voice, like in the silence she’s been winding the phone cord round her own neck. “You can’t be,” she says. Which is odd, because she doesn’t know I’m lying about the driving. And pretty bloody annoying, actually. Again, like she knows best, when she really bloody doesn’t. So I say:

  “I damn well am, Gillian. I’ve found the Reigates’ old house in Dartington and I’m going there. Getting some local intelligence. And I’ll find out where she is now.”

  And that shuts Gillian up for a moment. Before her next outburst of nonsense.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, Eleanor,” she says. Still strangled, but at a higher pitch. “Just stop. Nothing good is going to come of this. You’re having your own little family. Be happy with that.”

  And I can hear her add in her head ‘Like I was happy with mine, before you came along.’

  But she doesn’t know anything about happiness. All hers, all Will’s, was faked for so long. I want real happiness. Real, solid relationships. Which is what today might bring. So I just hang up. That’s the thing: I don’t need to give an answer to Gillian, because I don’t answer to her. I answer to myself, and to Will, and to little Leo inside me. And if we all want a nice new mother to make us complete, that’s what I’m going to get.

  Of course, the phone goes again and again and again. But then I get a text saying my cab is outside, so I leave Gillian’s nonsense behind and start on the journey.

  I’ve told Will I’m going job-hunting today. Just in case, you know, he phones me or something and the phone is off. Unlikely, given his current lack of interest. But I live in hope. Given it was his idea, he could have looked more pleased about it. Actually, I was half-minded just to abandon the whole Sophie exercise, when I told him. I said there was this great little publisher I’d found, publishing science books for kids, and that I was going to speak with them today. And, you know, I have found one. In case he wants to Google them. But I don’t think that’s likely. Because he just nodded and said ‘Good. We could do with the extra money.’ No ‘oh how lovely that sounds like a super job for you’. Or ‘oh good luck honey I hope that goes well’. Though if it did exist, it could hardly go well, could it? I would turn up with my pregnancy belly masquerading as the elephant in the room. I can imagine it now, this made up job interview: them all staring at my belly, but not mentioning it, just asking about my short- to medium-term plans and hoping I won’t sue them if they don’t shortlist me. Sure, I know I have rights. But right now, I don’t want to use them. We have money. Will makes it. I’m finding his mother, and I’m finding myself as a mother. End of. But if Will starts about the job hunt again, the search for Sophie is off. Which would be a shame. Because if I can just find her, he might notice again what it is to have a family.

  I’m pretty pleased with myself for getting here. For finding it. Turns out they have this ancestry site on-line where you can access historic phone books. Didn’t even need to phone any estate agents at all. Just looked up 1984 Reigates in Dartington, got an address, and now here I am. Where they used to live. To quiz the current occupants.

  It’s a sweet little housing estate. I can imagine Will running around here as a toddler, tottering up and down the paths. That’s the house there. Number 11. I pay the cab driver and lever myself out of the cab. It speeds off, leaving me standing on the red brick path facing the white front door. I take a photo on my phone, for the little ‘This is your mum’ photobook I’m going to make for Will. I can see it now. I will present the book with all the field trip snaps, then in a great choreographed move, the doorbell will ring. ‘Who can that be?’ I will say. And of course – da da dah! – it’s Will’s Mum! The real one. Sophie Travers! And we’ll all embrace. Will, he’ll look at me again with that look of wonder. Like back when I first told him I was pregnant. Like after the twenty-week scan. Not since.

  It’s a good job it won’t be this door. The doorbell has an ‘out of order’ sign taped to it. So I lift the gilt doorknocker and slam it up and down a few times. No response. I should have phoned ahead, I guess. But I had the opportunity and needed to seize it; not delay with phone calls, not give people the chance to fob me off with reasons why I can’t visit for another three weeks. How can you explain the urgency? How can you say: in another three weeks my husband might forget I live with him at all. Because that’s what I’m faced with. The silence in the bedroom replicated throughout the house. Apart, of course, from the sounds of Max Reigate.

  I leave the doorway and peer in at the bay windows. I see a face peering back at me. I dart back and so does the face. I’d feel like a baby seeing its reflection for the first time, were it not for the fact that I’m a brunette and the reflection has red hair. I bang on the window slightly, then go back and hammer on the front door. It would be very rude not to answer it now.

  The redhead evidently realises this too, because she opens the door. But she keeps it on the chain.

  “Hello?” she asks. She is about forty-five, I guess. Freckly.

  “I guess you didn’t hear the door first time?” I ask, sweetly.

  “It’s not a great time,” she says. She looks over my shoulder into the distance, as if she is expecting someone. “Could you come back later?”

  “Well, seeing as I’ve schlepped here all the way from London and I’m six months pregnant, I don’t think so, do you?”

  The woman’s eyes widen and she looks at my belly. She closes the door and I hear the chain being slid across. She opens the door again.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know…” she says, which is odd, because why would she know? “What do you want?” she continues. Arms crossed. Not exactly inviting.

  “It’s a bit of a long story. Do you mind if I come in? Sit down?” I ask, stroking my belly for emphasis.

  Again, there is the look over my shoulder. I turn round to look where she is looking but I don’t see anything. I turn to face her again.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” she says.

  “Fine.” Maybe she’ll be more inviting once she knows the full story. “Well, it’s like this. My husband, he recently discovered he was adopted.” I pause to allow her to gasp but there is nothing. Maybe they adopt a lot in this part of the world. “And that his birth father died about thirty years ago.” I pause. Again, nothing. The woman just hugs her arms closer to her chest. “While he lived in this house. Maybe he was even attacked while he was in this house.” Still nothing. You would expect her to at least raise her eyebrows. Shiver, or something. “He was, like, this world-renowned pianist. Super-talented. Anyway, my husband’s really sad right now and I want to cheer him up by finding his birth mother. So I thought I’d come here, to her last known address, see if you had any intel about where she might be now?”

  I wait. But I don�
�t have to wait long. Because almost immediately she is shaking her head and starting to close the door. Her eyes are darting from left to right, fixating on the middle distance. There’s a car, a little way away, on the other side of the estate, but apart from that, I can’t see anything else. Maybe the woman is just agoraphobic. Or a bit mentally or emotionally lacking. Fine. I’ve got a trick for that.

  “You don’t know anything at – ” I interrupt myself, do a sudden intake of breath, put one hand under my bump and lean the other hand on the doorframe. Immediately the woman’s static demeanour changes. She unfolds her arms and puts them out to support me.

  “Are you OK?” she asks.

  I answer her in my best shaky voice. “I just, you know, sometimes get these pains.” Which is true. I’m just not getting one now. “I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t come in and – ”

  Before I’ve even mentioned sitting down or having a glass of water, I’m being ushered in to early Willsville, the land of my husband’s childhood. We go through an entrance hall, the floor lined with all these pretty black and white tiles, in a diamond formation. As we go into the kitchen, I see they are there, too. Must be one of the house’s ‘features’. It can’t have been built much before 1970. I wonder if Sophie and Max bought it off plan, requested the floors to be like that.