by Dawn French
Why weren’t the cops outside arresting every single woman in the street to see if they had Florence? They needed to search every house in London. They needed to bring every single baby in the world to her, so that she could see if it was Florence.
Why were they still talking?
‘Right, sir, I think we have all the facts as they stand,’ said DI Thripshaw, ‘I think we have apprehended the situation to our best abilities thus far. We are presently conducting an initial search of the hospital, but to be honest, we’re closing the door after the cows have gone home, clearly … It’s less than hopeless … to be honest …’
Constable Debbie Cheese was looking at the ground. She’d worked with Thripshaw for three years now, and it didn’t get any better. In her opinion, he was an adequate detective, but whenever he spoke, a swarm of confused word wasps came sizzing out of his mouth. He was insensitive and befuddled. He should never really have been allowed near live humans, especially not a grieving mother such as Anna. Debbie was standing right next to Anna and she decided to risk putting a comforting hand on Anna’s shoulder. It might have been considered unprofessional, but no one else seemed to be being gentle near her. Anna felt it, and looked up at her briefly. She couldn’t smile, even in pathetic gratitude, which she most certainly felt – there were simply no smiles available in Anna’s top drawer of stock reactions. She was empty. The constable saw only a haunted face, pleading for help.
Julius ploughed on, ‘Surely we need to sort out some kind of press conference? Make a public plea? Quick as?’
‘Yes, Mr Lindon-Clarke. That is being set up as we speak, which is why we pacifically requested you remain in situ, for all intensive purposes. We have to set it up according to due process or it’s proven to be next to useless, so please calm down and trust us on this. We’re not making it up on the fly, y’know. This ain’t my first rodeo …’
Julius’s knuckles were itching. His desire to make physical contact with DI Thripshaw’s potato face was powerful, especially since he had brought his punch-worthy mush so very close, in an attempt to calm Julius down. He was having the opposite effect. Julius liked to be in charge; he liked it when people snapped to it. This maddening fool was a huge challenge, but he was their only hope at this point.
‘Please remain calm. No point beating a dead horse …’ Thripshaw kept stumbling on. ‘We need to be uber-careful we choose the right tact here.’
‘Please …’
The room went quiet as they all turned to Anna, who was attempting to speak, but very quietly, which was all the volume she could summon.
‘Please find Florence. Please,’ she whispered urgently, using all the breath she had. ‘She’s gone.’
‘Of course, Mrs Lindon-Clarke. We will,’ assured Constable Debbie, who was the only genuinely composed person in the room.
‘We will come and collect you when we’re all set up and hunky-dory. There’s a room downstairs we can utilize …’ said Thripshaw as he shuffled awkwardly in his concrete boots out of the room, his head firmly between his tail.
‘Would you like me to stay with you for a moment?’ offered Constable Debbie.
‘No, no. I’m wanting to … be quiet now … with Jules … until you’re ready,’ Anna told her, and so she respectfully retreated, ushering anyone else other than Julius out of the room.
Julius was fuming and kept bellowing at various people on his treasured Nokia. He called his lawyer friend, Piers; he called another contact high up in police echelons in Manchester to see if he could mobilize anything quicker from there, only to find out that Manchester is Manchester and nothing to do with the Met. He called a couple of Westminster front-bench bods he knew. He repeated the tale of woe to each and every one, with the emphasis on how shocking and painful this all was FOR HIM. He hardly turned back from the window as Anna watched him react to the situation. It occurred to her that his main thrust was fury at the lack of speedy action, not shock at the fact that Florence was missing. He seemed to have absorbed that awful, unthinkable information quite quickly and was swiftly moving on to tactics. He wanted to place himself at the helm of the operations ship; he needed to be captain. This was MASSIVE and his compulsion was to be in charge. He was almost slavering at the immensity of the opportunity. It was a chance to be masterful.
Anna observed him as he noisily talked to person after important person with hardly a break for air, in his element, striding up and down in front of the window. She was saddened to see that he was regularly pausing to check his reflection in the glass. It was as if Julius wanted to reassure himself that he looked as heroic as he felt. On and on and on he went, blaming everyone he could think of. From the midwives to the police. Julius was at his maximum testosterone level, a loud bull.
A loud vain bull.
She was suddenly reminded of a time, years before, when she’d been crying about the loss of a dear friend. She’d noticed that he also started to cry. For a second she was touched, until she noticed him move to the mirror above their fireplace to check out his own crying face. To see if it was impressive. Anna remembered how she’d felt chunks of respect for him crumble away. She felt the same again now.
Anna sat still and didn’t know who to be. She had been a mother for a fleeting moment, the very thing she’d wanted to be so desperately for so long. Was she still a mother? Was that over now? If you don’t have your baby with you, are you still her mother? Maybe she’s the mother to nothing now? Had it actually even happened?
Anna knew in her deepest heart that what had happened was real, but what HAD actually happened? Whatever it was had happened when she was fast asleep. She KNEW it was her fault. Yes, she knew that for absolute sure; it had to be, didn’t it? If somehow, somehow, somehow that little baby girl could be returned to her, she would 100 per cent promise never to fall asleep ever again. Even Julius’s back to her and his seeming refusal to look her in the eye confirmed to her that this mess was all down to her. There was no one else it could be. She had clearly fallen spectacularly at the very first hurdle in the perfect-mother race.
Perhaps she was being punished by some kind of cruel God? She didn’t even really believe in God, but she was definitely prepared to believe in Satan if this was what could happen to a good person like her. She dared to believe that she was a good person. Wasn’t she? She knew Julius wasn’t. Not really. Not ‘good’. Not kind or thoughtful or selfless or anything like that. She had come to realize that when his time came, one day, to be weighed in the balance, he would be found severely wanting.
But Julius was probably going to be the key to finding Florence. He was the one with the contacts and the power, of sorts, and he would be the effective one in front of the camera in a minute …
Oh God. She was going to have to endure that. To think that only a few hours before she had been considering what kind of make-up to put on for their big announcement … now she was wondering if she could face it at all.
What would she say?
What, actually, did she feel? Was it nothing? She closed her eyes. She could see Florence’s flawless little new face looking up at her, just as she had last seen her. Anna was astonished by how utterly beautiful she was. Unsurpassably lovely. Anna couldn’t believe they had made such a sublime little human.
Anna wasn’t a sentimental person. She didn’t care for all that guff about babies being little miracles and the suchlike, but it had all become utterly authentic when she held Florence in her arms. She had longed for that baby skin on her skin, and the reality of it had surpassed anything she’d imagined. The giant need she’d felt was finally met, and Anna’s unspoken promises, heart to tiny heart, were the greatest oaths she’d ever made.
Now she was gone, and Anna’s world had stopped. People seemed to be moving about in it, but it was all senseless until she was reunited with her tot. Where was she?
Where was she?
She had to be somewhere.
In a crazy desperate moment, Anna stood up and walked to the window nea
r Julius, who moved away to keep his space free of her. Anna pressed her face against the window as hard as she could. It was warm. It was a winter day but the persistent daytime sunshine was peeping into their sad room, hell bent on cheering her up, but incapable of doing so.
She pressed even harder against the glass in the hope that she might break through it and be able to more easily look straight down into the streets directly below, where, of course, she would see someone moving along carrying Florence. She would see it and she would swoop down and she would pluck up that baby like a giant mother eagle and she would bring her back to her rightful place with Anna and Julius. Tears started to well up in Anna’s eyes. She wanted her baby very badly. She pulled back from the window, and she realized that her breasts had joined in with the crying. She was lactating.
Isaac’s Big Decision
As Quiet Isaac clomped into Hope’s flat, he couldn’t wait to drop all the cumbersome bags off his shoulders and out of his hands on to her kitchen floor with a thump. She had clearly done the same, as her bag was wide open on the table. He could see her nightie inside, on top of a crumpled pile of clothes, and her soft washbag stuffed down the side. Once he had offloaded, he walked straight to the sink and took a glass from the cupboard above and turned on the cold tap. He was parched. Then he heard it again. Unmistakeably this time. A baby’s gurgle …
Isaac put down his glass and followed the sound up the hallway to the small living room at the front of the house. When he entered the room, he simply couldn’t understand what he was looking at. Hope was sitting in the big chair in the corner with Minnie in her arms. She had somehow smuggled the poor dead baby home from the hospital and was holding her so tenderly, looking straight at Isaac with pleading, tearful eyes.
Then Isaac gradually realized that the baby was wriggling, moving her arms and kicking her legs out. And she was making contented happy sucky noises, because she was latched on to Hope’s right breast, and she was feeding.
Isaac was convinced he was hallucinating. In his total confusion, he decided he must be seeing something he WISHED was true rather than anything that was real. Like a mirage, just as nomads in the desert see an oasis of palm trees and cool fountains on the hazy horizon because they are so very thirsty. So Isaac was surely conjuring up the sight he would most wish to see in all the world, his girl and his daughter together, happy and healthy, just as it was supposed to be, just as he thought it WOULD be when they left this flat together yesterday to go to the hospital.
He stood rooted to the floor, waiting for the chimera to dissolve and for real life to kick back in. His eyes locked on to the lovely baby. If it was going to be fleeting, he wanted to cherish the memory of her as long as possible. He was afraid to move for fear of causing her to disappear. If this was a dream, he wanted to be right in it.
Hope broke the moment. ‘Isaac. Come close and see her, she’s amazing …’
The illusion didn’t shatter. Hope spoke, the baby cooed and still they remained, as tangible as any real thing could possibly be.
But how COULD it be …?
It just couldn’t. He’d held the lifeless child in his arms; he knew she’d gone. He’d brought Hope home in the car. There was no baby. The baby seat was in his boot because it was so singularly unused. What was going on?
Isaac felt as though he hadn’t blinked for years. His eyes were dry and scratchy and his knees had somehow locked, rooting him to the spot where he stood. He felt himself shaking.
Hope tried again: ‘Don’t be scared, come here …’
Isaac followed her direction and edged closer slowly. The baby was in a cosy pink Babygro and was wearing the yellow and pink stripey hat Hope had valiantly knitted. Her face was turned towards Hope’s body while she was happily suckling away, but he could see her bonny brown cheeks pulsing with each gulp, and her big eyes darting about, trying to see EVERYTHING. He could see a shock of straightish black hair peeping out from under the beloved hat, and he could see her miraculous, busy little hands reaching up and grasping at Hope’s breast. She was a contented little soul. Isaac was silenced. He couldn’t speak. He had no words appropriate for this moment. He lowered himself on to the sofa next to her. He realized his mouth was agape, and probably had been for a good five minutes. He was parched and had been deep-breathing since he saw her. That glass of water he abandoned in the kitchen was a distant memory.
At long long last, after a million confused years, he summoned some words, ‘What’s happening, Bubs? How is … Who …’ They weren’t the most eloquent words he’d ever uttered, but then again, he was in a nightmare, and his broken heart was thumping in his chest.
‘OK. Now, listen,’ Hope attempted to answer him, ‘I need to tell you something, and I need you to stay calm. Isaac, do you hear me …?’
‘Yes. Yes. I’m calm,’ he replied. He wasn’t. Far from it.
‘OK. Today was the day our baby died.’
‘Yes.’
‘And today was the day God gave me back my baby.’
‘Gave back? I don’t understand … is this …?’
‘She isn’t our Minnie. But she is Minnie. Now.’
‘Hope. Where did this baby come from?’ He held his breath; he felt clammy. His dread was heavy.
‘She wanted me, Isaac. She reached up to me. And no one was watching out for her. No one. She was awake, and … she was hungry … and no one was noticing …’
‘Did you take her, Hope?’
‘She needed me, Isaac.’
‘Did you take her? From the hospital?’
Hope paused. She didn’t like this question. It sounded aggressive and criminal, and she knew for sure that she was neither. Isaac’s gaze was penetrating. He was going nowhere until he had the answer, but the answer could mean the end. Hope absolutely HAD to be honest. She knew that.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her voice so small.
‘Pardon?’
‘Yes!’ Louder this time. ‘Don’t say it, Isaac.’
‘This. Baby. Must. Go. Back.’ He made it clear.
‘No.’
‘Now, Hope.’
‘No. No. No. Please listen. I know she wants to be here with us. I know it.’
‘She needs to be with her mother, Hope.’
‘She is … with her mother.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Isaac. Listen. Please listen. It went wrong at the hospital. I know it did. I don’t wish anything bad on those poor people, but the wrong baby … died. Minnie wasn’t supposed to. I know it sounds crazy …’
‘Yes, Hope, it does.’
‘I know, I know, but look at what happened. She reached out to me, she knew I would be her mum, and honestly, hear me out, from the second I picked her up, I gave her a choice, I told her, heart to heart, if you are my daughter, if you want to be mine, then …’ Hope started to cry very quietly; she was telling her raw painful truth, and it was so hard. ‘… if you want to be mine, then you must stay quiet, my own little darling, you must shush, not a peep.’
‘I see,’ he said, gently stroking Hope’s arm, pitying her in her desperate delusion.
‘And she … she … she didn’t, she didn’t make a sound, she stayed quiet. No babies do that – they can’t. It’s Minnie, Isaac, it’s her, and she wanted to come home with us. She beckoned me. It’s Minnie.’
‘It can’t be. She can’t be …’ Now Isaac was faltering. The longing for a baby and the terrible, unbearable memory of the tiny dead mite conspired to make this tangible wriggling opportunity staring him in the face so very tempting.
Hope saw the crack. It was make or break.
‘She didn’t make a sound, did she? You didn’t know she was there in the bag all the way home. Seriously, even by then, if she’d wanted to go back, if she’d cried out, or anything, I promise you, I would’ve asked you to turn around. But she didn’t. She trusts us, she needs us, she’s asking you to be her dad …’
Baby Minnie, for that’s who she now was, was full and finished with
Hope’s milk, so she slurpily detached from Hope’s nipple and looked around. Hope decided to chance it. She handed the baby over to Isaac, gathering up a batik cloth throw she had on the back of the chair and hugging it around Minnie while she was in his strong arms, to keep her snuggly warm.
He looked down at Minnie looking back up at him, and all the euphoria he had hoped for but was so cruelly denied to him came gushing over him in a flood of dopamine. Minnie was seeing him, seeing her father, that’s what Quiet Isaac saw reflected back in her wonderful deep dark eyes. He saw himself, a worthy father, and his desire to be so was immense. He was ready, he had been ever since the pregnancy test, he was like a coiled spring, waiting to hurtle into dad-action the second it was required. It was required NOW. This morning he had tipped into a dark place of no hope, but now he was seeing light in the exquisite face of this little daughter girl.
A daughter.
His daughter.
Oh, it was so painfully tangible. He was touching the very chance. Yet, deep in his being, he knew all of it was forbidden, he couldn’t, he shouldn’t, allow it. He looked up into Hope’s beautiful pleading face; she was begging him to say yes, to keep the baby, to accept Minnie, to share the secret. How could he deny her? He only ever wanted to make her happy, to fix her, to please her. That’s where his joy and his purpose lay. Here she was, asking him the most momentous question ever. How could he say no?
Yet he KNEW KNEW KNEW he should.
There was right and there was wrong.
He’d been raised well. He knew the difference. Poor Hope was in hell and he desperately wanted to rescue her. It was a powerful need in him, to be her hero. And now, he also wanted to be the hero for this little girl.
At exactly that key, precipitous moment, there was a slamming of a car door outside.
There were many cars in their street. There were many car doors. There were many slammings. It was nothing unusual, but for some reason, both Hope and Quiet Isaac stopped in their tracks, dead still for a dreaded moment, then Hope jumped up to go to the window and look out.
