The Place Where Love Should Be

by Elizabeth Ellis

I do, he said, just not yet, that’s all.

  Mark, I’m pushing forty, I don’t have much choice. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon – we’re just lucky it’s been so easy.

  That’s one way of looking at it.

  Look at your brother – what they’ve been through. Mark’s brother and his wife spent a fortune on IVF, without success.

  Mark said nothing but twirled the cigarette packet round and round between his fingers. He’s trying not to smoke so much now. Once it was warm and comforting, part of Mark, his musky magic, but recently, that’s changed too. We’ll manage, I said again, turning away from him and switching off the light. It wasn’t the only thing we switched off that night.

  It’s dark now. I didn’t get outside and I’ve eaten nothing since a bowl of cereal around dawn. I take a lump of cheese from the fridge and make a sandwich. The bread’s a bit off and half way through I give up and eat a tub of ice cream instead.

  Edward’s due another feed and he should really have a bath. I’ve done it a few times since he went under but I try and avoid it if I can. When Mark’s home he does it. I never told him what happened, I’m not sure how he’d take it.

  At ten o’clock I’m still pacing with Edward. I’m still in pyjamas too but at least he’s fed and changed, his cries are less desperate and this evening for once, he settles. Maybe I’ll manage some sleep. I switch my phone to silent and flake out on the couch but I’m empty and wired from the ice cream and sleep doesn’t come.

  It’s been a week since meeting my mother. I haven’t told Mark about that either. I find I cannot use her name yet, cannot think of her as Helena, cannot reconcile the real woman with the ghost mother I’ve been carrying. But the shock is fading now and I’m not sure what to do next, how to play it. I’ll leave it up to you, she said. No pressure. But it’s not just up to me – there’s my father and Joanna too. How will that work? What do I tell them, and when? Then I realise how much I want to see her. To agonise over what might happen is like standing before a tidal wave and worrying that your feet will get wet.

  It’s very late by the time I muster the courage to phone. I’ve no idea of her routine, her habits, whether I’m intruding. I apologise and ask if this is a good time.

  ‘Yes, this is fine.’ She sounds surprised. ‘I’m something of a night owl too. I’m pleased you phoned. I didn’t know whether you would – not yet anyway.’

  This catches me. I swallow hard, stifle a sob.

  ‘Evie, are you okay?’

  I’m not, but I won’t unravel in front of her. ‘I just wondered if we could meet up again, if that’s okay? We didn’t really manage much last time, did we?’

  ‘It’s a start – we have a lot catch up on. And, yes, I’d love to see you too. Just tell me where and when. My time is…, well I’m quite free these days.’

  Now that I’ve made the move, I’m not sure what to do next.

  ‘Shall I come up again?’ she offers. ‘We could have a coffee.’ There’s a pause, then she adds. ‘Or would you rather come here?’

  I try to think of her at home, in a living room or a bedroom, but nothing comes. She’s a blank. ‘Is it far?’ I ask.

  ‘I live in Ware now, I have a flat by the river. It’s on the second floor – used to be a warehouse. There’s a balcony overlooking the water. It’s not very large, but I like it – it’s home.’

  Ware is miles away, I can’t go that far, even to fill in some blanks. Not yet, not at the moment.

  ‘It might be better if you come here. If that’s alright? It’s just a bit awkward, with the baby and things.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll do that. Where’s a good place? Maybe not the crematorium this time?’

  And not the tea shop either. I don’t want to be seen, don’t want anyone clocking a second meeting. ‘There’s a coffee shop up a little side street by the Post Office, further down from the last place. A bit less…’

  ‘Quaint?’

  ‘I was going to say public.’

  ‘So, when shall we do this? When can you get away?’

  I need to arrange things with Rose. She’s on afternoon shifts this week so a morning might do.

  ‘I’ll try for Thursday? Is that any good?’

  ‘Perfect. Text me a time.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’ Then she adds, ‘Don’t worry Evie, it’ll be alright.’

  Sixteen

  Helena is even smaller than I remember. She stands up to greet me, leaning across the table to kiss my cheek. She smells of shampoo, a trace of Burberry. It’s late morning and I’m late too. I’m not sure how I managed to get dressed.

  The room is crowded. The din of voices, crockery and gurgling steam echoes around the room, bouncing off granite tables, the ceramic floor. Not a good place, I realise. My head is thumping already.

  ‘There you are!’ Helena says. ‘I’d almost given up.’

  ‘You’ve had to wait, I’m sorry.’

  We sit studying the menu, though I can’t take much in.

  ‘I’ll have a salad with quiche,’ Helena says, discreetly wiping the remnants of someone’s morning pastry onto the floor.

  ‘I’ll just have soup.’ I say. ‘I’m not eating much at the moment. Trying to shift the baby-weight.’ I don’t have any baby-weight but Helena doesn’t know this and I don’t want alarm bells to ring.

  Helena orders the food, fetches a cappuccino for me and a large glass of Merlot for herself, though it’s only midday.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ I say as she settles herself again.

  ‘So, how are things?’

  ‘Oh, they’re fine.’ My current stock response.

  Helena looks at me over the glass. ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m… it’s… hard.’

  ‘And the baby? How’s Edward?’ Helena is looking at me, her large brown eyes intense. I shift in my seat, searching for another stock response.

  ‘He’s fine too. Not sleeping much, but that’s normal, so they tell me.’

  ‘It’s early days. Two months is not long. He will settle.’ Helena looks away then, sips her wine, surveys the room. It’s filling up with bodies, with heat and noise. ‘And Mark?’ she says. ‘It is Mark isn’t it – your partner?’

  I have a mental picture of Mark three days ago, 5.30 in the morning, late for work again, dark shadows around his chin, under his eyes, clutching the baby, while I tried to have a shower. Then thrusting him into my arms as he tramped down the hall, his boots dropping mud on the stone floor. At the door, he flared again, something livid in his face – a bluish tinge. Instinct turned me away from him and I took the baby into the kitchen. He shouted after me. For God’s sake Evie, get your fucking act together! This has gone on long enough. Then he left, slamming the front door. I heard his van start up, an angry splutter in the damp morning, a grinding of gears as he screamed off up the quiet road.

  ‘Mark’s working in Yorkshire, on a project. He’s a landscape gardener. Business is a bit slow around us so he’s had to move away for a while.’

  ‘But he’s home at the weekend?’

  ‘Yes – he finishes Friday lunchtime.’

  ‘That’s a long week for you.’

  I nod, drink my coffee, hold my tongue. I realise there’s a lot I want to say.

  ‘Where’s the baby now?’ Helena asks.

  ‘He’s with Rose, my neighbour. I can’t be long though, she goes to work at three.’

  The waiter brings our lunch and puts it on the table. ‘Anything else for you today?’ he says, not looking at either of us, looking away through the window at a young girl floating down the street, her long hair flying. ‘Enjoy,’ he says to the window. I want to smack him.

  I ask Helena about her flat, how long she’s lived there. She tells me about her life in London, her work in retail
, how she ended up in a bookshop in Hackney. ‘It’s hard for the independents at the moment. I was managing the store but they laid me off two years ago.’

  I wonder about her personal life, does she have a partner, but it’s too soon for confidences and I stick to the banal.

  ‘How’s your salad?’ I ask.

  ‘Rather tired. The quiche is ok.’ Helena’s lipstick has bled into the furrows of her top lip. I want it not to be there. I don’t want her ageing before my eyes, each time we meet a little older, her hair more rigorously coloured, a widening sliver of white at the parting. So many years I’ve missed.

  Then she abandons her quiche, folds her hands and sits as if waiting to explain. Can you explain a lifetime over lunch in a crowded coffee shop? I have no plan, no strategy to deal with this. There’s much I wish to say, to ask, even to challenge, but it cannot be done in haste. Besides, since Edward came, I’m not the person I want her to know. I try to sound capable, to reconnect with the rational, functioning being that deserted me with the afterbirth. I tell her about our home, about my business and the flower farm we’ve started, and she nods and listens without speaking. But then she stuns me with a question and I start to come undone.

  ‘How long have you been unwell, Evie?’

  I pull my bread roll into pieces and drop them in the cold soup, chasing them round and round the bowl with a spoon. I’m close to tears. She doesn’t know me, yet she’s found me out. Like my father and Francine and Mark. Even Joanna has guessed something’s up.

  I shouldn’t be here. I have no idea why I asked Helena to come – it’s not as if she can come to the house, that would be far too risky and besides, there’s nothing I really need to know, not yet. It’s all too much. And now she’s started to poke and pry and I have to go. Things will be sorted soon. In time. With some sleep. I stand up, knock the table and scrape my chair on the loud tiled floor.

  Helena stands up too, tugs my arm gently and I sink back onto my chair. She places her hand over mine on the table. ‘Let me help you, Evie. Just tell me what you want me to do. I can’t help if you don’t talk to me. Is it the baby? Do you need help with him?’

  I shake my head. A lock of hair has come loose. I can feel a greasy comma on my cheek and shove it away behind my ear. ‘No, really,’ I say, swallowing hard, ‘It’s all good. I just wanted to see you, that’s all. To tell you about Edward.’

  ‘But you haven’t really done that, have you?’ Helena says, reasonably enough. ‘Not even a photo.’

  No. There are no photos – or very few. Mark took some to begin with, early on when Edward was in the baby unit but I couldn’t bear to look at them. He was so tiny and wrinkled and cross looking – so helpless – a specimen in a tank, on show to be poked and prodded. You can pick him up, the nurse said, he needs to know you’re near. But it was hard to be near him, to ignore the knot inside, the kernel of fear. I did try to pick him up once, soon after he was born, traipsing down from the ward still dopey and sore from eighteen hours of labour. But I mixed up the tubes and his mouth opened and closed like a tiny fish and the nurse had to put him back so he could breathe properly again. You go and get some rest, the nurse said, tucking him in. We’ll look after things down here. So I left and didn’t pick him up again until he came home a week later and the fear had grown so that in the place where love should be, was a vast and empty void.

  ‘You keep telling me you’re fine,’ Helena says, ‘but I can see that you’re not. It’s okay to ask for help, you know. There’s no shame in it.’

  I tell her that I did ask Francine, that I thought she might be able to help a bit, like she did when Joanna’s children were born.

  ‘That would be different though, wouldn’t it?’ she says.

  ‘She couldn’t come anyway because she’s gone back to France.’

  Helena studies her hands carefully. ‘I see.’

  ‘Her mother died recently, just after Edward was born. Now there’s the house to clear, a business to wrap up.’

  ‘Evie, why are you telling me this?’

  I have a sudden image of my father left alone in the house. I’m here with my birth mother yet this, clandestine as it is, now also feels like betrayal.

  Then she says, ‘You know, I could come and give you a hand for a while, if you like. Just until you’re more settled. Perhaps while Mark’s away? I’ve plenty of time.’ She smiles then, a sad smile, defeated almost. It says: I’ve nothing much else to do. It says: I’ve a lot to make up for.

  My head spins. ‘I’m not sure…’ but then I remember that with Mark away, no-one would know, except perhaps Rose and I can deal with that.

  ‘Could you?’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Just tell me when.’

  My phone buzzes in my bag. It’s Mark, checking up on me. I put the phone away and gather my things. ‘I’ll have to go in a minute,’ I say.

  ‘How about next week? Say Monday?’

  ‘Monday? Yes, that’s fine.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’ Helena catches the waiter’s eye and makes scribbling gestures on her hand. He comes over and drops the bill onto the table as she pulls notes from her purse.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I say, too late.

  ‘Next time,’ Helena says, but she will pay next time too. She will pay for the rest of her life.

  Seventeen

  Monday. I must have fallen deeply asleep. Edward too has finally settled after a fitful period around midnight and another lengthy feed from two until four. Mark left for Yorkshire at 5 o’clock. I vaguely heard him get up, though for once he was quiet, less thumping around. At one point I felt his hand brush my hair. I hadn’t the energy to open my eyes but wondered in a half-awake state, whether he was pleased to be going, to be away from the mess, the lethargy, my weeping outbursts.

  Since seeing Helena, my load has lightened a little, knowing it’s now shared, that there is a promise of help. But I will need to be careful, will have to make excuses to others, especially Joanna, put her off with a story about not being around much this week. A visit to Mark’s mother could be invented – even Joanna is unlikely to check up on that. It will all be fine.

  When Helena arrives, I’ve managed to feed and change Edward and eat a small bowl of cereal. I haven’t yet managed to get dressed, and am conscious my pyjamas are beginning to smell. There are no clean ones; all my clothes seem to be piled on the bedroom floor.

  In the cluttered room, Helena and I stand side by side. She casts an eye around and lets it fall upon the pram in the corner where Edward is lying.

  ‘Can I?’ she says.

  I nod, aware of what this moment will mean. She approaches the pram, holds the handle rocking it gently, then moves to the side and folds back the blanket.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, and in that syllable, says it all. She reaches in and picks Edward up, a bundle of blankets and soft warmth. I drop onto the arm of the sofa and watch her with him, a simple domestic scene, deceptive in all it conceals. It’s been a long week, a long few months, too many years.

  Helena puts Edward back in the pram, straightens the blanket and turns to face me. ‘Right, what would you like me to do?’

  I can’t think where to begin. ‘I don’t mind,’ I say. ‘It’s just good to have you here.’

  ‘I’ll make a start in the kitchen, shall I? You go and get dressed while the baby’s asleep. Have a bath if you like.’

  ‘But what if he wakes up while I’m away? He always does.’

  Helena steers me from the room. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Now go,’

  Upstairs in the bathroom, I take off my dressing gown, hang it behind the door and start to run a bath. The room still smells of Mark, his soap – industrial stuff he uses to clean the earth from his body. I think of Mark’s body, thick-set, heavy against me. So much of him compared with Edward’s minute torso. Too much of him to deal with.

&n
bsp; I run a bath and pull off my faded check pyjamas. For a moment I worry what will happen if someone comes to the door, what Helena will say to explain herself, her presence here. Then I climb into the water, close my eyes and let the warmth envelope me, covering the stretched, loose skin and empty breasts, the folds on my stomach all pursed and wrinkled like the mouth of a toothless crone. Is it any wonder that Mark cannot bear to touch me?

  I wake to a gentle knock on the door. The water’s gone cold. I scramble up and reach for a towel as Helena slips in and puts a mug of coffee on the side of the bath.

  ‘Take your time,’ she says. ‘All’s quiet downstairs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say again. It seems inadequate, a nicety, and not at all what’s in my heart. I hear Helena’s footsteps echo on the bare wooden staircase.

  When I emerge, Helena is busy in the living room. She’s ironing some sheets, though I can’t remember having washed them. Perhaps it was Mark.

  ‘Better?’ she asks.

  ‘Much better, thank you.’ I take my empty coffee mug into the kitchen, only now it doesn’t resemble my kitchen at all. A small room with little natural light, I see it as if for the first time, cleared and clean, dishes washed and put away, the old chipped work surfaces wiped and wholesome. Even the yellowing pine units with their decades-old veneer of grease, seem somehow brighter. Helena has worked a small miracle in the time it took me to have a bath. And still Edward sleeps on.

  Stunned, I gaze around the room. ‘How did you do it? All this, settling Edward? He’s been asleep for ages. I can never finish anything, so I don’t bother to start. I’ve given up trying.’

  ‘He took a good feed, he was just ready for a nap.’

  I straighten up and rock the pram gently. ‘You know, some days I can hardly bring myself to pick him up.’

  Helena rests the iron in the rack. ‘Do you know why? Is it because you’re afraid?’

  ‘I think so. Afraid that I’ll harm him, or something else will and I can’t protect him, can’t keep him safe.’