Lullaby

by Claire Seeber

  She kept the gun pointed at me, but her hands were shaking now and it seemed to weigh her down. Her face and body spoke of utter exhaustion and defeat. It had begun to rain; a thin harsh drizzle stung my face, and I almost savoured getting wet.

  ‘Why did you do it, Agnes?’ I asked quietly, and I took a little step towards her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s a bollocks answer, and you know it.’

  ‘Because, okay? Why should I explain to you?’ and she was spitting venom now, pushing her hood back, the rain drenching her angular face. I sensed an internal battle in her head, but she looked me squarely in the eye. ‘Because you had it all, and I had nothing any more, okay? Because I wanted Mickey’s baby and I wasn’t—I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Why?’ I scoffed. ‘Because you didn’t want to give up your designer lifestyle?’

  She looked at me like I was mad, drew herself up. ‘What are you talking about? I would have given anything to have his child.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you then?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t.’ Her lip curled. ‘Surely he told you that?’

  I thought back, my mind scrambling over the obstacle course of recent events. ‘No. He said you didn’t want to.’

  She looked like she was going to cry. She straightened up the gun. ‘He never said that, you liar. He never would have said that.’

  I didn’t like the steady gun, and the look on her face was quite mad now. ‘No, all right, he didn’t say exactly that,’ I agreed quickly.

  ‘I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But I couldn’t do it. I was—unwell.’

  ‘Unwell?’ I shook my head uncomprehendingly.

  ‘We tried for years. I couldn’t. In the end, I had to—’ she glared at me ‘—I had an operation.’

  I remembered the folder in the attic. The Harley Street doctor. The advice on recuperation after major surgery. The penny finally dropped.

  ‘I had a hysterectomy. So that was that. You see. Nothing. No child of my own. Impossible.’

  ‘But,’ I tried to gather my thoughts, ‘Mickey said that you—you wouldn’t give him kids.’

  I thought back to that horrible scene in the Soho restaurant and my heart sank. I realised it was only how I’d read his words, not what he’d actually said. I saw his angry face, unusually flushed, his dark eyes snapping with pain, his long fingers crumbling the bread-roll into a thousand tiny crumbs.

  ‘And you said they—weren’t your thing. You told me that yourself,’ I persisted, but I was wincing at my naivety now. ‘When I met you at the hotel.’

  ‘Why should I tell you the truth? I hated you. Why would I tell my enemy the thing I wanted most?’ She dashed back rain—or tears, I couldn’t tell—with the back of her hand, and I felt a sudden and unexpected sorrow for her. Poor, perfect Agnes, who had everything money could buy and more, defeated by the one thing she desired more than life itself. My anger finally dissipated.

  ‘But this isn’t the right way to get a child,’ I said, and I hoped desperately that I sounded soothing. ‘It’s mad, Agnes. It was hardly your only option, surely? I mean—you didn’t have to do this—this stupid thing, did you?’

  ‘But I didn’t want a child. Not any child. I wanted Mickey’s baby—and that was all.’

  ‘Yes, okay. I understand it must have been horrible for you.’

  ‘You don’t understand. You became pregnant without even trying—apparently.’ Her tragic eyes flooded with tears again.

  ‘Okay, you’re right.’ Instinctively, I put my hands out, trying to placate her. ‘But I can sympathise.’

  ‘I don’t want your sympathy. You know, I’d worked so hard to make everything so perfect, but it wasn’t. Because in the end, well—I knew Mickey, you see. Oh God, you have no idea how well I know that man.’ She pushed her hair out of her face, and I saw that her nails were chewed down to the quick now. The gun-hand was wavering again, tired and unsure. ‘Mickey would never take another man’s child into his house. He’s not like that, you must know that yourself. He is too—proud.’

  My frown deepened. ‘I suppose I don’t know really. I guess he might be.’

  ‘Well, I did know. By getting pregnant, you gave him the thing he craved. That I craved. The thing I could never manage. He wouldn’t even discuss adoption, you know.’

  ‘You had his love,’ I said quietly, and it was true. Mickey had never loved me like he’d loved her. I felt it in my bones; I’d known it from the start. Right in the very heart of me, I’d recognised the truth—and chosen to ignore it. He would never love me like he loved this woman, this crazy, maddened woman.

  ‘But I didn’t think that I could keep it,’ she said, and she was crying properly now. ‘I couldn’t keep his love, not on my own. It was tearing us apart. I had to give him more. He needed his own family. He was always searching to replace his little brother.’

  I thought of my own little brother. Had she—

  Agnes went on. ‘It ruined us in the end. The emptiness. Our house; it was so empty.’

  ‘So you thought you’d just take mine? My family.’

  She was racked with sobs, shaking, the hair whipping round her face. Slowly I put my hand to my bruised head.

  ‘Did you hit me, Agnes? Was that you?’

  ‘I am sorry. I needed Louis’s passport; Maxine couldn’t find it when she looked. I thought it must be in the house. And then I was worried how much I’d hurt you. I didn’t mean to do it so hard, I just panicked when I heard you.’

  ‘So you came back?’

  ‘So I came back. You know, I didn’t understand real love until I had your Louis,’ she whispered, and I craned a little nearer so I could hear above the wind, above the gulls. The boat pitched sickeningly, pushing us closer together.

  ‘I could only imagine it,’ and she looked me in the eye, above the quaking gun. ‘If I’d realised how much anyone could love a baby, I don’t think I could have done it. I didn’t know how much it would hurt you, Jessica, taking your child.’

  And I realised that she meant she loved my son, and for one strange out-of-body moment I was almost glad she’d had the chance to. And then I heard a small cry, and I tensed up; for a tiny second I thought my ears were playing tricks, I thought it was another needy gull. But there it was again, and my heart literally flooded with joy. It had to be my son. Every tiny hair I owned stood up on end.

  ‘So,’ and I took a final minute step; I couldn’t get much nearer without swallowing the gun, ‘can I have him back now, please? Can I have my baby back?’

  Her face quite literally collapsed—quite ravaged, it became. I’d never seen such desperation in my life; I don’t want to see it again. Her beautiful features were etched with grief so pure, and her eyes went sort of blank, emptying themselves suddenly of life. It was like a cloud had passed before the sun, draining her of light and being. Her soul was being sucked out as I watched. We stood there on that creaking deck for what seemed like an eternity, and I felt her frantically calculate. I saw her lose all hope, grow old before my eyes, like a crumpled shadow of her former self.

  And I was just debating grabbing the gun, and preparing myself to do it—when suddenly she found strength from somewhere deep, and she gathered it all up. She levelled the gun right at my head, and her hands, I saw they weren’t shaking any more.

  ‘So, let’s see now,’ she said, and she seemed very calm. She took a step towards me; my heart was about to bang right through my aching chest. ‘Should it be you or me then?’

  Don’t kill me before I see my son once more, I prayed, that’s all I ask. I tried to speak but I was truly terrified, frightened to my very core and I found my voice had shrunk to nothing. Feverishly I tried to think of something—anything—conciliatory to say, but my mind was blank—and then it was too late.

  ‘Who gets the baby, hey, Jessica? Who should have him now?’ She pushed her hair out of her eyes with one free hand, the other still trained at me. ‘He needs yo
u, I see that now—much more than he needs me. More even than I need him,’ she said.

  And then very fast and with such elegance, she pointed the gun back towards herself, slipped it in her mouth before I knew what she was doing, and I shouted ‘Agnes’, but before I could move to stop her, before I could even look away, she blew her beautiful tortured brains out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Louis was sleeping as I bent to pick him up. There was a huge commotion outside, but still he slept, just like a baby, as they say.

  Malloy and his team were on the deck in seconds, but Agnes was already gone; there was nothing anyone could do for her. And I trod carefully round her, concentrating on what came next, stepping down into the cabin, and there was my little baby, sleeping on a stained old camp-bed, beneath a cashmere blanket.

  I was about to scoop him up, but first I stared at him and I couldn’t quite believe his beauty, his perfection. One chubby hand was flung behind his head, and in his sleep he made little sucking motions with his rosebud mouth, and I wanted to stroke the tiny curve of his top lip, just where the pink met the pale of his creamy skin, and I wanted to hold him to me so tight that he’d become part of me again, but I didn’t. I just stared and stared at him, because I couldn’t believe he was mine.

  And then the boat jerked again, and I could hear the water slapping harder against the bow, the wind wasn’t dropping and I knew it was time to get him safely out of here. Gingerly I lifted him, and he muttered, and at last he woke. His gold-tipped lashes fluttered against his fat cheeks and then his dark eyes opened and I could have sworn he smiled at me like he knew I was his mother. He was so warm and solid and he smelt of milk. He rested his heavy little head on my shoulder, all feathery, still half-asleep he was, and I breathed him in. I stuck my face into the curve of his smooth neck, and I absorbed him through my pores. I’d got my son again, and that was all that mattered.

  By the time I got back up on deck, they’d covered Agnes up. On the quayside Deb was smiling, fit to burst, as she helped me down the plank that had finally been secured. She chucked Louis under the chin like some fond aunt, and I smiled and smiled at her, at him, I held him in my arms like some precious china doll, and I was looking round for Silver; I wanted to show Louis to my new friend Silver.

  But I couldn’t see him, though I kept looking all the time, and eventually I began to panic. I clutched Louis a little tighter, and then I spotted a dripping, trembling Maxine sitting on an ambulance step, wrapped up in blankets. As if it were a dream, I saw Egg-belly handcuff her, and the man who was on the speedboat was talking French very fast and loud to him. The mild-mannered policeman just looked back at him, bemused, and I heard her say ‘Papa’ imploringly, over and again, and I wondered if the poor man understood just what his daughter had involved him in. But I found I couldn’t bear to look at her. I turned away as her betrayal smacked me between the eyes, and I hunted for Silver in the throng. Oh God. What if he’d drowned?

  And then a car sped down the road just as I spotted a dark-haired figure who was also sopping wet, rubbing his short hair with a pathetically small towel, his fine suit all untucked and ruined, seaweed like boiled spinach draped around his collar. Barefoot. Nice feet, I thought disjointedly; they were long and thin and handsome. I felt a rush of relief so huge it almost bowed my knees, and I moved towards him smiling, and he was smiling back and unbuttoning his soggy shirt and he said, ‘So this is the famous Louis, eh? Suits you, Jess, a baby on your hip,’ and I clutched my son tighter and said, ‘Thanks very much for abandoning me out there,’ and I felt simultaneously cross and shy and so happy I couldn’t stop the smiles.

  Silver removed a bit of seaweed from his cuff and said, ‘You had ten marksmen backing you, kiddo, guns all trained on Agnes. Anyway, I knew you could handle her,’ and I didn’t know whether to punch him for being so bloody complacent about my life, or kiss him for just being alive—but before I could decide, suddenly there was Mickey coming full-tilt from the car; he was running up towards us and he reached me and Louis and drew us clumsily into his arms.

  I knew I should be happy that my family was back together, but over Mickey’s shoulder I kept staring at Silver. And he stared back, just for a minute, and we locked eyes, and then Silver stooped a bit, and fished in his pocket for his gum, but of course it was sodden too. So he chucked it into the gutter, and this time I knew he winked. Then he turned away, and I closed my eyes and succumbed to Mickey’s hug. I pushed the sort-of-bereft feeling down, and just thanked God for my Louis.

  It was me who had to tell Mickey that Agnes was dead. I don’t know what I expected really, but he took it stoically. At first he kept saying, ‘I never realised she was so desperate,’ but after a while he didn’t mention his ex-wife again.

  There were lots of unanswered questions, of course, now Agnes was gone. In custody, Maxine had apparently tipped over into complete hysteria, and was little help to the police. I spent the next few days in a complete haze of unadulterated love for my baby son, mixed with utter grief for my brother—and in a strange way for Agnes too. I had never warmed to her, it was true, even before I knew what she’d done, but I felt sorrow for the lengths her desperation had driven her to. I found I could forgive her, could be benevolent, now I had my Louis back.

  Leigh had opened Louis’s room up again, and let in all the light. She’d thrown back all the windows, pulled up the blinds and put flowers everywhere. And so I retreated to the old rocking-chair in Louis’s room and licked my wounds, both physical and mental, and held on to my son. Though it did have to be said that pretty soon he was bored of all the clutching, and the crooned inanities. He began to wriggle, trying to get down, to explore his old world on his own.

  And though I searched intently for the slightest scratch or bruise on his plump and downy skin, there was little doubt he’d been treated properly. Agnes had taken good care of him: the best, perhaps? Louis was wearing expensive new clothes when I got him back; the stripy cashmere blanket I’d found him under even had his initials embroidered in gold thread, I noticed—before throwing it in the bin. He seemed fatter than when I’d last seen him, his little tummy gently rounded above his nappy like a miniature beer-belly I imagined Agnes carefully ordering things for him online; pretending he was her own. I saw her feeding him, looking down at him with painful, aching love while he guzzled a bottle in their hiding place. Unable to show him off as her own, hidden away, her love had been, through desperate necessity, hidden right away. Overwrought, I found myself sobbing in the bath one evening at the thought of poor wretched Agnes; my own agony distilled by time.

  For a while the press turned up outside again, looking for an angle, but eventually they tired of us and disappeared to the next tragedy. My mum and George flew into London the day after we got home, but they went to stay with Leigh. Robbie’s funeral would take place when the police released his body. I spoke to my mum on the phone; I promised to visit soon. Her lack of support had affected me more deeply than I’d realised—and I felt the yearning void between us that meant she didn’t mind not seeing me yet. I had to prepare myself properly for my mother’s loss; I couldn’t quite envisage her pain. It was too near what I’d dreaded, what I’d just about staved off for those two weeks.

  Silver turned up unannounced one cool September evening. I was upstairs putting Louis to bed when he arrived, and Mickey let him in. By the time I came down, the two men had sat themselves as far apart as they could politely manage; my husband had found his offer of a celebratory drink refused, of course. Mickey himself swirled a glass of heavy golden scotch in his hand as I wandered into the room without realising who else was there.

  ‘So, when did the girl get involved?’ Mickey was asking, leaning back to turn Puccini down with some reluctance. Silver’s unexpected presence made me feel quite flustered, unable to meet his eye as I grinned hello at him. I crossed the room as casually as I could. Some white roses Mickey had bought me when we’d all come home were losing their petals in a mini-
snowstorm, and I busied myself with collecting them, my back towards both men.

  ‘Sit down, Jessica, will you,’ Mickey said, and automatically I obeyed, hovering on the edge of the sofa near my husband.

  ‘We’re not absolutely sure to be honest, Mr Finnegan. It’s proving hard to get a straight answer from Maxine, especially since her English seems to have abandoned her entirely since her arrest.’ Silver took a gulp of his orange juice. ‘One thing’s for sure, though. Her poor old dad didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. Seems Agnes had splashed out some unholy amount to hire the speedboat, and for him to bring it over to Newhaven. What’s most difficult—’ he finished the drink and shoved it on the coffee table, where it left a big wet mark. I suppressed a smile as Mickey flinched. ‘Yeah, what’s most difficult,’ Silver went on, apparently oblivious, ‘is the Robbie scenario, I’m afraid, Jess.’

  Did Mickey turn his head slightly at the small intimacy of my name? Silver fished gum out of his pocket, offered it around. Mickey refused it, hardly able to hide his disapproval.

  ‘Yes, please.’ I felt a surge of loyalty for the predictable Silver. My voice seemed rather loud. ‘What do you mean about Robbie?’

  He handed me the packet, and his fingers grazed my hand. I shot back on the sofa.

  ‘It’s proving very difficult for pathology to tell if he administered that dose of heroin himself. There’s no doubt, like we said, that the levels were inordinately high. There’s also little doubt that he could have injected himself. But’, he shrugged very slightly, ‘there was definitely something odd about the way he was lying when he was found. Awkward. Like he’d almost been placed there. And the huge dose seemed strange—unless he was definitely suicidal. Do you think he was, Jessica?’