Motherlove

by Thorne Moore

  Forget the buses. If they were going to have to wait, they might as well enjoy it. Walk through the park, give Bibs his half hour of playtime, and there was always the number 16, which ran down Buckingham Road. It didn’t go into the Hopcroft, but it stopped close to the roundabout, less than half a mile from Linden Close.

  Problem solved. Pleasanter than waiting here. They would go to the park.

  iii

  Lindy

  Gary was hungry. Lindy fried him eggs and bread, but they didn’t have any bacon or sausages. He curled his lip at that, but how was she to know he’d want a cooked breakfast? He usually rolled off the mattress at about midday and just groped for a can of beer and a cigarette.

  Today he was up by eight, looking important, like he had a proper job to go to. ‘Got things to do,’ he announced, rubbing the eggs off his mouth.

  ‘All right, Gary.’

  ‘I’ll be out. Mind you keep things quiet here, remember?’

  ‘Yes. Are you going to be out all day?’ It was good that he was going to be out early, because that Rothsay woman could come calling any time. Gary wouldn’t give her the time of day, probably just throw her out, but best if he weren’t here to see her. Or for her to see him.

  ‘What’s it to you? Mind your fucking business and keep your mouth shut.’ He was playing the big man, throwing his weight about. She knew, when he did that with her, he was worried, needed to give himself a boost. It was going to be very soon then, this job. Maybe today even. And who knew what would happen then? She wanted to put her arms round him and kiss him but he pushed her away. He was a man, about men’s business; no time for all that kissy stuff.

  As she watched him swaggering off down Nelson Road, her own criminal instincts told her he was doomed. Bound to muck up. And then he’d be answering to the police or to Carver. Which would be worse?

  It was sad but she had other things to think about. The Rothsay woman would be coming here demanding to see Kelly. If Lindy wasn’t in, she couldn’t see her, so Lindy would be out, with Kelly, till dark if she had to be.

  She picked up the shawl, donated by Baby Garden. Soft and white and lacy, with a fringe, so pretty. The weather wasn’t that warm. Kelly would need to be wrapped up.

  There was no Kelly. No baby to wrap up. Again that huge devouring emptiness. It only went away when she pretended it wasn’t true. All these baby clothes, dry now, ready for the baby that wasn’t here.

  Lindy took up a sleepsuit, hugged it to her, rolled it. Rolled another round it. A jacket, a dress, she wrapped the shawl round them all. It felt like a baby, wrapped and hooded in the shawl, clasped to her aching breast. She stood for a moment, rocking back and forth on her heels, soothing it to sleep.

  Better go, or they’d be here to take her baby away. She clomped down the bare dirty stairs, clasping Kelly to her as Tyler, with bloodshot eyes and four days growth of stubble, lurched across the hall.

  ‘C’m here.’

  ‘Geroff! Don’t you touch her!’ She edged past him, prepared to kick, and made it to the liberty of the front door. Out into Nelson Road. It stretched forever. Lindy didn’t want to be walking along it as Caroline Rothsay drove down. She ducked into a side road, kept walking, anywhere, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered as long as she wasn’t at home when the Rothsay woman called.

  Headed for town. It was okay except that nosy cows kept trying to look at her baby. She wasn’t having none of that. She was starving too, but stopping for something to eat was a problem. Women at counters, they wouldn’t keep their eyes to themselves.

  Maybe town wasn’t such a smart idea. She climbed up on the footbridge that crossed high over the Stapledon link road, with its roaring traffic. It was like being up in the sky up here. She’d stood up here with Gary once, when he was pissed. He’d dropped something on a car below. What had it been? Half a brick probably. She remembered the loud crash as it hit a car roof and they’d both run, haring off the bridge into the alleys beyond, before anyone could catch them.

  Seemed stupid now. Now she was here on her own and she didn’t have anything to drop. Except the baby. Supposing she dropped Kelly, down in all that traffic. It would be horrible. Better move on. Where? Where could she while away the day?

  The park maybe. She could hang around there and no one would notice. Sit on one of the benches. Or on the swings. No wardens any more. No nosy bastard in uniform yelling at her for playing on the swings because she was too old. There were the toilets. People hung around there, with stuff. Something to make the day pass easier. Except that she wasn’t supposed to be touching stuff any more because of Kelly. But she could sit on the swings.

  Like being a kid again, instead of a seventeen-year-old. She liked it, the feel of swaying backwards and forwards, the creak of the chains, letting her heels drag on the broken tarmac. Get up a nice rhythm. Twirl round even, winding the chains together until they were tight and she was on tiptoe, then lift her feet up and whiz round till she felt light-headed. That was great.

  But maybe not so good for the baby. And there was only so much you could do on a swing if you were holding a baby. You couldn’t go up really high because that needed both hands and she didn’t want to put Kelly down. So she left the swings and took a couple of turns on the roundabout. It would be good, sitting there with Kelly, watching the world go round and round, but she had to keep dropping down to push it on. The gears were rusty.

  What else? Round the lake maybe. The boatyard. That would be great, taking Kelly out on a paddle-boat. They could drift under one of the weeping willows and hide there like it was a fairy house, and snooze the day away. Except that the boat man would come prodding them with his long pole when their time was up. Anyway, she couldn’t afford a boat and they only ran the boats at the weekend. The yard would be locked up.

  Unless there was a way to sneak in. But the lock wasn’t smashed for once, the wire fencing was intact and all the boats were drawn up on the tarmac, upside down to drain. Lindy would never be able to drag one down to the water, not holding Kelly. And anyway, there were too many people around. Office people, eating their sandwiches, reading newspapers, finishing off their lunch break.

  There was the crazy golf, up the other end of the lake. She walked up but the kiosk was shut. She climbed over the fence – all the office workers had gone back to work – and mooched around on the empty course, littered with cigarette butts and empty cans, but it wasn’t any fun with no ball. You couldn’t pretend to hit a ball.

  You couldn’t pretend…

  She ran, like someone was after her, heart pounding. She might trip, running. Must be careful, with the baby. There was the summerhouse. She could sit in that. Sit and watch and wait. With her baby.

  She sat there for a bit, but it smelt too much of pee, so she went and lay down on the grass among the trees and she knew she was dead tired. She let herself doze off.

  She woke feeling stiff; the grass was damp. Better go back to the swings maybe. She walked round, through the trees, among the squirrels. Gary chucked stones at them; he got one once, killed it, and kept wanting to do it again. He made Lindy throw stones too, but she always missed. She was glad. She liked the squirrels, she liked anything furry, if it didn’t bare its teeth and snap at her, but she didn’t tell Gary that. She had hated seeing the squirrel dead, however proud Gary was.

  Plenty of squirrels today, dashing across the grass, darting up the trees, afraid of her. That was sad. She would have happily picked one up and cuddled it. Cuddled a squirrel. Cuddled her baby. Sadness twisted inside her.

  Out of the trees, onto the rolling grass, past a clump of bushes. Some of them had little red flowers. And there was the pram, and the baby.

  Blue eyes peeking open, the head stirring as the baby woke from contented sleep.

  Like a great slap, it winded her.

  Lindy held her Kelly closer, but she knew it was no baby at all. Just a shawl. Kelly had gone. Where?

  Panic filled her. Her baby was gone. No. No she wasn�
��t. She was here. Here in the pram. She must have slipped out of the shawl. Pick her up, wrap her up safely again. There she was, safe and sound, heavy against Lindy’s breast. Just where she belonged. So quiet. Such a good baby. She probably needed feeding and changing by now. Maybe it was time to go home.

  Yes, she’d do that. Take Kelly home. She’d had enough of the park.

  iv

  Heather

  They’d stopped at a Spar, one of the small shops on the periphery of the town centre. Bibs wanted sweets, and Heather was tempted to buy him his usual chocolate buttons, but she had just been to the dentist, and the threat of dental misery was still fresh in her thoughts. She shouldn’t be giving him sweets, should she? Fruit maybe. How about a banana? But Bibs didn’t want a banana. Never mind that he usually loved bananas, today he wanted sweets. Biscuits then. Were biscuits better for his teeth than sweets? At least they looked more wholesome, so she wouldn’t feel so bad. She could have bought him a Penguin or a Kitkat, but she knew that once it had been devoured he would have been pestering for more, so she bought a packet of chocolate digestives. Not intending to give him more, but as long as he knew they were there, in the bag slung from the pram handle, he could be bribed into good behaviour.

  A packet of chocolate digestives. Looking back, afterwards, she thought, why didn’t I buy him the chocolate buttons?

  The park was quiet, a few wanderers distant among the trees or across the lake. A weekday, lunch hour over. A couple of office workers lingered over the last crust of their sandwiches, before hurrying off. The playground was abandoned. She’d been afraid it might be occupied by a mob of truant teenagers, but today they were nowhere in sight. Bibs had it all to himself, the baby swings, the roundabout, the see-saw, the smaller slide.

  She was getting good at this, a uniquely maternal form of ambidexterity. Pushing a swing with one hand and rocking a pram with the other. Encouraging words to Bibs and coos to the baby. Wipe the chocolate from round Bibs’ mouth while tucking Abigail’s blanket round her.

  The baby was awake, but not fretful, blue eyes gazing on a world that as yet meant nothing to her. Was it wonder at the sight of the swings, the grass, the trees, the glint of water? Or was it merely contented incomprehension? At least she liked the rocking of the pram, Heather could see that.

  ‘Come on, Bibs.’ He had had his quota of fun, surely. A full half hour of swinging and sliding and spinning, and two biscuits.

  ‘No!’ He was running from her, back to the roundabout.

  ‘All right. Just this and we go.’ She heaved the roundabout into motion for him while he squealed in delight. Nothing else would make his life worthwhile. What would make mine worthwhile, she thought, was a cup of tea. She grabbed Bibs as the roundabout slowed and he prepared to dive off it for the slide.

  ‘That’s it. Time to go home now.’

  ‘No! No!’ Dragging her back.

  She wasn’t going to have it. ‘No, Bibs. That’s enough. You’ve had a nice play. Now we’re going home.’

  ‘I want—’ He was straining, pointing at the slide.

  ‘You’ve had plenty of goes on the slide. Now. Don’t make me cross. Be a good boy.’

  Petulantly, he fell into step beside her. Her grip loosened as he stopped yanking away from her. He was still pouting, but he was holding her hand and trotting beside her, accepting defeat.

  Abigail, drifting back into sleep, stirred a little, shifting the blanket, and Heather released Bibs’ hand to pat it smooth.

  Only a second, but it was enough. They were on the path leading to the back gate and the number 16 bus stop. Bibs had seen the lake, worse, the ducks on the lake, and all else was forgotten – swings, slides, going home. Released from her hold, he gave a shriek and ran tumbling down the grass to the lake’s edge.

  ‘Bibs! Come back! Come here now!’ She had a moment of panic. There were railings round the lake, but was he small enough to squeeze through? In a flash, she pictured him falling in, drowning. ‘Come back to Mummy, Bibs. Please. Not down there! Come back and you can have another biscuit.’

  But he was not listening. The ducks had his full attention and, seeing him approach, they turned in the water like a well-trained cavalry charge, heading for him and whatever bread, buns or bird food he might have to offer.

  She would have to fetch him back. She turned the pram, felt its wheels skid in the mud that edged the tarmac path. There had been so much rain lately. Today’s weak sun wasn’t enough to dry out the waterlogged grass. She didn’t want to get bogged down, wrestling with the pram as well as Bibs. Abigail was sleeping, peaceful and oblivious; she would be all right. Heather parked the pram up on the path, in the shelter of a bush, slipped the brake on, grabbed the packet of biscuits and hurried down the slippery grass to retrieve her son.

  Bibs was reaching through the railings offering grass to the ducks. A dozen were waddling out, up the bank to investigate. He laughed in delight. What child would not, at the absurd sight, the waddling bottoms, the thunderous chorus of quacks, the eagerness? Heather couldn’t be cross with him.

  ‘Come on now.’ She crouched down beside him. ‘They’ll nibble your fingers. You don’t want that, do you?’

  But there was nothing that Bibs wanted more than having his fingers nibbled by ducks.

  Heather glanced back. The pram, partly concealed by the bush, was safe enough. There was no sound of crying. Abigail would sleep on unaware. ‘All right, but they don’t want grass.’ The ducks were already telling Bibs that in no uncertain terms. ‘Here, see if they’d like this.’ She had brought the biscuits as a lure for her son, to bribe him to follow her back, but now she broke pieces off a digestive, and let him toss them through the bars to a raucous clientele. Grass no, biscuits yes. The ducks liked them. Oh yes, very much, indeed.

  ‘There.’ The biscuit was finished. And then another.

  Bibs stamped his foot and grabbed the railings. This spectacle was too good to leave.

  ‘All right, one more, but just one.’ She was going to make sure he understood this time. ‘Just two pieces, Bibs, and then we’re going.’ The armada of ducks was being followed by a small flotilla of swans, gliding disdainfully towards the source of the excitement. Ducks she could cope with, even in Hitchcock numbers, but swans were alarming. Beautiful at a distance, but far too frightening close up. ‘Last piece, Bibs. And I mean it, this is the last one. Who are you going to give it to? What about that poor one at the back?’ She held his hand, helped him throw the last crumb to a lone drake, and on cue the horde of ducks turned and speed-waddled in pursuit. That would do.

  ‘Come along now. No! No arguing. Be a good boy. I let you feed the ducks, now we’re going back to Gigi.’ A pout, a show of resistance, but he bowed to her superior strength, trotting with her back up the slope to the waiting pram.

  Afterwards, she thought, had there been a time warp down by the lake? Had hours flown past, while they had fed the ducks? She could have sworn it was a minute, two, three at most.

  The pram was where she had left it, brake still on, the bag suspended from its handle. Inside, the blanket was pulled loose, rumpled. There was no baby.

  v

  Lindy

  It was such a long way home, back to Nelson Road. It had seemed no distance this morning, but Kelly had grown heavier. And more fretful. Cradled in Lindy’s arms, she had slept at first, but now she was showing distress. She needed changing. Well, she’d have to wait until they got home.

  So long, Nelson Road! 128 was a million miles away. But she was there at last, as Kelly began to bawl in earnest. Let the door be open, please. She didn’t want to have to thump and get Tyler to open it.

  It was ajar.

  ‘Miss Crowe. Ah good, I caught you. I was disappointed to find you’d gone out. I said I’d call, remember?’

  That woman, Caroline Rothsay, with her smart jacket and her smart shoes. Wanting to take Kelly. Lindy clasped the baby tighter to her.

  ‘What you want?’

 
‘I just want to talk, my dear, to see how you’re coping with little Kelly there. To see what help we can offer.’

  ‘Well, I can’t talk now.’ Edge in through the door, hope the woman would go away. ‘She’s wet. I’ve got to change her.’

  ‘Of course, Rosalind.’ She was following. ‘You see to Kelly. Don’t worry about me. I can wait.’ Coming up the stairs after her. ‘When you’ve changed her, we’ll have our little talk.’

  Lindy knew women like this. No keeping them out. But she had to think about Kelly, poor wet little thing, still bawling. Lindy grabbed a clean nappy from the cupboard then took the baby upstairs, locked the bathroom door on them. Could she stay here until the woman had had enough and left? Maybe, if she took her time. Not that she wanted to linger here. She was the only one who ever gave the bathroom any sort of a clean, and it stank. The floor was wet with shaving water and pee. The bath was okay though. Old green stains under the tap and round the plughole, but no one ever used it, so it could be worse. Lindy laid the baby down in the bath, unwrapping the shawl to let her little arms thrash around. Stripped off her clothes. Lindy didn’t like those clothes. They looked all wrong. Stripped off the sodden nappy, dropped it into the plastic bag she left tucked out of sight.

  The baby was gurgling now. Was there any hot water? Sometimes, someone put money in the meter. She let it run. Not hot, but lukewarm. She’d have liked it hotter but it would have to do. Tenderly, she wiped the baby down. There was baby talc on the shelf. Just a tiny bit left. Where had the rest gone? Some wanker had been using her baby talc.

  Kelly was quiet now, letting Lindy dress her in the newly washed clothes that had been wrapped in the shawl with her. There, she was almost like her old self. A bit bigger. A little bit more fair fuzzy hair. But babies were like that. They changed every day.

  ‘There you are, Kelly. My little Kelly.’

  The baby looked at her. No recognition. Well, of course not, she was too young for that. But there was something she would recognise, surely. Lindy put the lid down and settled on the toilet, lifting the child to her breast. She still wasn’t used to this, the bottle felt more decent, but this would keep her here, in the bathroom, away from that woman.