by Karen Perry
Years crash away, all the layers stripped back, old feelings flooding to the surface. Hilary crouches there in the shadows, the blood pounding in her ears, feeling the build of those dark emotions inside her, loud and threatening.
9
Leah
‘I don’t believe it,’ Jake says.
Leah watches him carefully. He is still standing by the door but his face has drained of colour.
‘You’re sure?’ he asks then, and she nods, waiting for him to say something more now that she has finally told him.
They are in the kitchen of their flat on Saturday afternoon. Jake wears his soccer gear, having just come from training with Matthew, who’s now flopped on the bed in the little room he has made his own. The mindless electronic drone of music from the Xbox reaches them. Jake closes the door on it before pulling out a chair from the kitchen table and sitting down. He looks stunned.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you like this …’
‘No. No, it’s fine.’
Moments earlier, he had found her, hunched over the sink, dry-retching. The nausea came upon her so suddenly. She was going to wait until the end of the weekend, after he had dropped Matthew home to his mother, to break the news to Jake. But once he had discovered her like that, she had no choice other than to make her announcement.
And now he is sitting at the table, not looking at her, his concentration fixed on some inward point she can’t see.
‘Jake?’
‘How far along are you?’
‘Not that far. I’m three weeks late, maybe a month.’
‘Right.’
She’s still by the sink where he found her, her hip pressed against it, the coolness of the stainless steel coming through the thin cotton of her skirt. Outside, she can hear seagulls screaming. The sky is a perfect shade of blue.
His shock is to be expected. This is not something either of them has planned or even discussed. Having a baby had never seemed a possibility for her, the chances of it so remote, given the way she had set up her life, keeping people at arm’s length, until Jake came along. He loves Matthew, that much is clear; he is a devoted and affectionate father. But whether he has any desire for further children has never occurred to her. Their relationship is still so new. And it comes to Leah now how precarious their situation is. She loves Jake, but watching him, his hands cupping his cheeks while he scours the wooden surface of the table as if the answer could be read there, it occurs to her that she doesn’t really know him at all.
‘How did this happen?’ he asks, bewildered. ‘You’ve been taking the pill, right?’
He glances up at her, and the nerves she felt about telling him crystallize into something colder and harder. The look he gives her is distrustful. She can’t remember him ever looking at her that way before.
‘Of course I have.’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry – I didn’t mean it like that. This is all just a shock.’
She sits at the table with him then, reaching out to take his hand.
‘It must have been that tummy bug I had,’ she explains nervously. ‘A few weeks back – do you remember? It must have interfered with the pill.’
‘Christ.’ He rubs his spare hand over his hair, the other lying inert beneath her grip.
‘Please, Jake,’ she says, and something gives way in her voice – the break of emotion. She needs him to be happy about this, but she can’t express it: the tears are too close.
Only then does he see how deeply he has hurt her. Immediately regretful, he reaches for her across the table and they hug awkwardly. He strokes her hair and her cheek, kisses her firmly, passionately. ‘I’m a thoughtless dick,’ he says.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘It’s just the shock. Hey, I was the same when Jenna told me she was expecting Matthew. Come here.’ He gets to his feet, and pulls her up so that she’s standing against him, holding his gaze.
‘A baby,’ he says, beaming at her.
Reassured that he wants her to be happy, some of the coldness melts away. ‘Our baby,’ she tells him, hope beginning to hum inside her.
‘Promise me you’ll forget my reaction just now?’
‘It’s forgotten.’
‘This will turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to us,’ he says, with warm conviction. ‘Right?’
And she laughs away her fears and nods, inwardly turning away from the notion that he’s trying to persuade himself. She manages to convince herself that it is enough.
‘How long have you known?’ he asks, and she shrugs.
‘I began to wonder about two weeks ago. I finally did a test last weekend.’
‘Last weekend?’ He draws back and stares at her. ‘You kept it from me for a whole week?’
‘I was nervous about telling you. I wanted to wait for the right time.’
Her voice trembles and he seems to read within it the depth of her insecurity. He kisses her then and she feels reassured by his affection.
‘You mustn’t keep things to yourself,’ he says. ‘We’re together now. We’ve got to be able to tell each other things, right? No more secrets.’
Now is the moment, she thinks. The opening she’s been waiting for, the invitation she’s been dreading. This is when she should tell him. The secret buried so deep inside her that unearthing it would feel like an act of violence.
But then his right hand moves around her waist, coming to rest on her tummy. She feels the tentative pressure of it, the tender movement of his thumb across the surface of her skin. There is a queasy pleasure to the newness of this gesture. She is used to the weight of his arm around her shoulders, or the soft pressure of his hand around the curve of her bum, gestures that are sexual and proprietary by nature, but this is different. Tender in a way that makes her avoid his eyes.
She can’t tell him. Not now. She just wants to keep him there with his hand on her belly. She doesn’t want to break the spell.
But then he pulls away his hand abruptly, as if suddenly embarrassed by the intensity of his tenderness. And there is Matthew behind them at the door, his eyes casting from one to the other, suspicion on his face.
‘There’s a funny smell in my room,’ he says, his nose wrinkling with disgust.
Jake sighs with resignation, the moment over. He ruffles the boy’s hair, and says: ‘Come on. Let’s all go to Teddy’s for ice-cream.’
The pavement bakes in the sunlight as they emerge from the flat. Across the road, the green is swarming with people, queues of kids lining up to use the tennis courts. A tent has appeared beneath the tall trees at one end of the park, laundry hanging on a makeshift line strung between the trunks of two sycamores. Jake nods towards it. ‘Poor sods,’ he mutters, taking Matthew’s hand.
She’s reminded of how lucky they are to have their own place now.
They walk around to the People’s Park, Jake marvelling aloud over an amenity like this only minutes from their front door. The railed-in grounds are thronged on this sunny late-afternoon, picnic blankets spread over the grass, teenagers sprawling in packs beneath the trees, screams rising from the playground beyond. Matthew has gone ahead of them on his scooter. Leah and Jake follow, holding hands, watching him as he weaves his way along the path between jaunty flower beds, the fountains spouting, sending out bright arcs of sparkling water.
A couple walk past, a baby strapped to the man’s chest, little legs vigorously kicking, and Leah squeezes Jake’s hand. How extraordinary this is! She feels the newness of everything, their secret lending a freshness to the afternoon, the clipped lawns, the blue swathe of the sea in the harbour beyond. A year ago, she could not have imagined this turn her life would take, and the thought fills her with hope.
‘You wait here,’ Jake says, directing her to a bench in the sunlight, while he takes Matthew around the corner to Teddy’s where a queue has formed.
She closes her eyes, feeling the heat on her face as she lifts it to the sun. For just a moment, s
he feels perfectly relaxed. Untroubled. Serene.
‘Hello there.’
She hears the voice and opens her eyes, squints in the bright glare of the sun at the silhouetted figure before her.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve startled you,’ Anton says, and she sits up straighter, looks down quickly, smoothing her skirt across her thighs.
‘No, that’s all right. I was just soaking up the sun.’
‘It’s a glorious day.’
He smiles down at her, and for some reason Leah feels shy under his gaze. Carrying a plastic bag of oranges, he looks different in the daylight. His clothes for a start – a light blue linen shirt, a white golf-cap that’s seen better days. He appears more relaxed, and younger than she remembered. It is only now that the similarities between Anton and his son Mark become apparent to her. It’s there in the eyes, the same expressive quality, the direct gaze. Anton, though, is less serious than his son. His smile comes readily, and she feels the warmth of it now as she says, ‘It’s busy here today,’ making small-talk.
He nods. ‘It has ever been so. A hint of good weather, and this place is thronged.’
She likes the way he speaks – the occasional old-fashioned formality within it.
‘I was going through some things in the house,’ he tells her now, ‘earlier on today and I came upon some old sheet music of Charlotte’s that I wondered if you might like.’
‘Oh?’ she says, unease creeping in.
‘John Field’s nocturnes,’ he says, with an air of apology. ‘Perhaps you’ll think them old-fashioned.’
‘No, not at all. I love them.’
‘I could drop them down to you later. Or perhaps you could call up, maybe even try out the piano. It’s been such a long time since –’
‘Look, no. I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.’
She’s not sure why she says no, but it’s got something to do with the oddness of meeting him here like this, outside the confines of the garden. In the evenings, she’s noticed him sitting on the steps while smoking his cigarette and gazing out over the trees and shrubs – a benign and unthreatening presence. But now, the thought of going upstairs into his house – of being alone with him in a room – makes her feel instinctively nervous. His words from that first conversation linger in her mind: ‘I prefer not to go out of the house, not if I can avoid it.’ And even though he is standing here among the crowds in broad daylight, she is troubled by his admission. Why not? she wants to ask. What are you hiding from?
‘Yes. Well, that’s quite all right.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just that –’
‘No, no! No need to apologize. I understand.’
He is backing away from her now, about to join the slipstream of people.
‘Well, goodbye,’ he says, and as he turns, a man walking past bangs against his shoulder and pushes him off-balance. The bag slips from Anton’s hand, oranges rolling around his feet.
‘Hey!’ Leah shouts after the passer-by, appalled when he doesn’t even look back.
Anton is bending to retrieve the oranges, and she hunkers down to help him, feeding the fruit back into the bag.
‘Thank you,’ he says.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, dear.’ But there’s something distracted about him, his face serious and intent on his shopping.
‘He didn’t even stop to see if you needed help.’
Her voice is breathy and indignant, and when she gets to her feet, she sees the way he is looking at her, his expression softening.
‘You’re lovely,’ he tells her, the words spoken so clearly and tenderly as to make her awkward. She has never been easy with compliments, but there is something in the way he is staring at her that makes her deeply uncomfortable.
‘I’m not lovely,’ she says quietly, her eyes sweeping the pavement in front of her, and when she looks up again, he’s still gazing at her in that way.
‘Jake will be back in a minute,’ she says, and he nods in understanding.
‘Goodbye,’ he tells her, then breaks eye contact and moves away.
She notes the manner in which he walks, head down and thoughtful, taking his time, sauntering towards the traffic lights. But just as he crosses the road, he puts a hand to his head, lifts his hat, and wipes the sweat from his brow with a hankie. That one gesture gives her pause, reminding her of her father in a way that is painful.
She thinks of how she turned him down about trying out his piano, wishing she hadn’t sounded so hard, so unfriendly. He’s just a lonely man who had been kind to her. Why had she sounded so mean?
‘Is that who I think it was?’ Jake asks.
She looks around and sees him standing there with Matthew. Distractedly, he hands her an ice-cream, his gaze still fixed on the dark figure hurrying up the hill towards the church. ‘He was just saying hello,’ she says, as he settles himself on the bench next to her, untwisting paper from the cone of his Cornetto.
‘Oh, yeah?’ He licks at the ice-cream. ‘I don’t know about that bloke. I’ve heard some things.’
‘What things?’ She tries to keep her voice neutral, concentrates on the ice-cream’s sugary taste on her tongue.
‘Something Ian said. They’re a weird family, apparently.’
‘I thought he was friends with Mark?’
‘Nah. They know each other, but I wouldn’t call them friends. Ian says Mark didn’t grow up with his dad. That he lived with his aunt.’
‘I lived with my aunt.’
‘Yeah, but that was for school, right?’
She nods but doesn’t look him in the eye.
‘He and the dad don’t get on, apparently,’ Jake continues. ‘Some kind of trouble there.’
‘Well, it must have been hard for him after his wife died. Perhaps he couldn’t cope,’ she says reasonably, thinking of her conversation in the garden with Anton. How quiet and reassuring he had seemed.
‘Yeah, but his kids? I mean, surely he’d hold them closer, not push them away.’
You don’t know how it is, she thinks darkly in her head. You don’t know how you’ll react when tragedy strikes. You don’t know to what lengths you’ll go just to cope.
‘And have you noticed the way nobody ever calls to see him, and how he hardly ever goes out? I’m surprised to see him out here in the daylight.’
‘He’s not a vampire, Jake.’
He smiles at the notion, and says: ‘So what were you two talking about?’
‘Nothing. Just saying hello. He’d heard me playing piano. Says he’s got a piano upstairs.’
‘Oh, yeah? I’d better watch out or he’ll be luring you up there to have his wicked way with you.’
She shoves against him playfully, her temper dissipating.
‘Anyway. Best keep away from him,’ Jake says, distracted by the beeping of his phone.
Leah watches as he reads the screen.
‘Listen, I’ve got to go,’ he tells her. Then, seeing her confusion, he explains: ‘It’s Ian. We’re meeting to discuss things. Remember, I told you?’
‘I thought that was later.’
‘He’s free now,’ Jake says, pocketing his phone and getting to his feet.
‘But what about Matthew?’
‘You’ll be all right with him, won’t you?’
Her heart pounds with fear. She’s never been alone with Matthew before. The thought of being left in charge of Jake’s son – having sole responsibility – shakes her a little. All these years she’s spent safeguarding herself against such a situation, and now here she is, desperately thinking of a way out.
‘I don’t know, Jake. I mean, it’s not as if Matthew and I know each other well. You’re his dad – he’s here to see you, not me.’
He leans forward and kisses her on the mouth, makes it last, and when he draws back he’s giving her the grin she finds impossible to resist. He says softly: ‘Relax. It’ll be fine. Take him home and stick a movie on for him.’
She watches then, as he g
oes to the boy, bends to speak to him, gives his shoulders a squeeze. Her eyes stay on Matthew, his disappointed slump, the way he keeps his gaze on his father, watching him walk away.
A feeling of dissatisfaction lingers in her mind as they walk home together. Matthew is tired and unhappy now that his father has deserted him. Leah carries the scooter, while the boy trails along behind her. She tries to push down her unease at Jake’s decision to leave her for the evening. Since they have moved in together, she has been struck by the blitheness with which Jake flits in and out of the flat, working to his own timetable, his own social obligations. She doesn’t mind being alone, but wonders what it says about his commitment to her.
Now, as they stand at the traffic lights, she takes Matthew’s hand. In front of her, a woman pushes a pram with a baby in it, another child next to her in the throes of a tantrum. The woman turns her attention to the screaming toddler, bending down to coax him into compliance, but Leah keeps her eyes hawk-like on the woman’s unsteady grasp of the pram’s handle, the loose, distracted manner with which she holds it.
Something happens inside Leah. Waves of panic threaten. Bile rises up to her throat.
‘You’re hurting me!’ Matthew wails, and she realizes she is clutching his hand so hard that her nails are digging into his flesh.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ she says, her heart beating wildly. But when she looks back, the lights have changed, and the woman is pushing the pram across the road, safely moving her two children along.
Matthew holds his hand to his chest, refuses to let her have it again. Back at the flat, he retreats into his room, claiming not to be hungry. She sits on the patio, tired and unsettled by the afternoon’s events. Why isn’t Jake here with me? she wonders. After the news she has broken to him, surely he should be at her side, celebrating, or at least reassuring her.
Movement at the top of the steps makes her start. She has forgotten about Anton, about the earlier awkwardness, but now as she sees him retreating back into the house, having spied her on the patio, she feels a stab of shame at the hostility in her manner earlier.
