Magpie

  Jake nods, then he grips Kate’s hand. Kate squeezes him back, then goes upstairs. She doesn’t have time for emotion. She leaves Jake gently patting Marisa’s shoulder. Marisa is calmer now, soothed by Jake’s presence. Good, Kate thinks, that’s what we need.

  In airport detective novels or cheap made-for-TV films, Kate has repeatedly come across the line that mothers will do anything for their children. There were those fabled stories about women finding superhuman strength to lift overturned cars off the wounded bodies of their progeny; about mums fighting for justice and campaigning for changes in the law after their beloved child died at the hands of a criminal on early release. But Kate has never fully understood the power of this concept until this moment. She realises, with acute and undeniable conviction, that she will do anything for her child, even when her child is not yet born. It is this that saw her through those gruelling rounds of fertility treatment. It is this that made her put up with Marisa’s erratic, scary behaviour for so long, turning a blind eye because she wanted motherhood so badly. It is this which now gives her the strength to pretend to Marisa that everything is all right, even when she has been attacked, even when the side of her head has a dull, splitting ache where Marisa knocked her out, even when she has washed the blood off her face and seen the reddened water in the sink. It is this that enables Kate to bury both her anger and her terror in these crucial minutes. It is this unspoken force that shows her exactly what she has to do. The irrefutable clarity makes all decisions easy.

  She goes to Marisa’s room. She hasn’t been in here for weeks. Marisa mostly keeps the door closed. When Kate asked if she wanted the cleaner to give it the once-over, Marisa said that she would rather do it herself. Kate assumed Marisa was working and sleeping and didn’t want to disturb her. Latterly, it felt easier that way.

  She turns the doorknob and walks into the room. The curtains are drawn, so at first she doesn’t see the mess. When she switches on the light, Kate gasps. The floor is covered with balled-up clothes and used tissues and cotton buds and old fast-food cartons. A half-drunk mug of tea is growing mould across the surface. In the corner, by the plug sockets, is what looks like a thick beige snake. When she gets closer, Kate realises it’s a twisting clump of rotting takeaway noodles. She gags. The room smells of turpentine and sweat and stale food mixed with an indefinable rotten sweetness as cloying as pear drops. She puts a hand over her mouth, making her breathing more shallow. She picks her way across to the window and when she opens it, fresh air rushes in.

  What has Marisa been doing? Kate wonders. She is scared again, this time not for what has happened to her but for what has happened to Marisa. This is the sign of someone profoundly unbalanced. This is a breakdown.

  Then she sees the desk. On the old architect’s table are several jam jars filled with paintbrushes in dirty water the colour of silt. But there is no evidence of any painting. Instead, there are sheets and sheets of paper covered with scrawling handwriting in permanent marker. The words are so close together they make no sense at first. When Kate peers closer, she notices that they are not, in fact, words but names. Kate and Jake and Marisa written over and over again, looping through and under each other like a thicket of weeds, spreading their roots across all the available space until the paper is more black than white.

  The cork-board above the desk, where Marisa used to pin the photos of children she paints into her fairytales, is covered with photographs of Jake. They are taken from a high angle, showing him working out in the garden, his chest slick with sweat, and she realises that Marisa has been photographing him from her bedroom window. Jake is unaware he is being photographed apart from one where he is squinting up towards the camera lens, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand. Another photo, at first glance, seems to be a picture of Marisa and Jake together, both of them laughing. On closer inspection, Kate notices a ripped edge and realises that it is two separate photos that have been stuck together, to give the impression of a closeness that doesn’t exist.

  She rips the cork-board off the wall and, without thinking, throws it out of the window where it lands with a solid thud on the lawn below. She is angry. And at the same time as she is angry, she is also aware that this anger must be contained. That fucking crazy bitch, she thinks. And then: that fucking crazy bitch is carrying our baby.

  How have they been so deceived? At first, Marisa seemed so perfect. She seemed sweet and willing to help; a pure rural milkmaid with a wide-eyed wonder about the world. She even wrote fairytales for a living, for Christ’s sake. And the whole process has been smooth, as though it is somehow meant to be. How could this be happening? Why did they not step in sooner, when she started acting oddly?

  But it has been tricky trying to pinpoint why her behaviour has been weird, Kate reasons with herself. And they’ve wanted it so badly, haven’t they? As if, through the strength of their desire, they could make it all right. If they just went along with some of Marisa’s eccentricity and explained it away to each other, then it was OK, wasn’t it?

  Maybe they haven’t questioned her motives as deeply as they should have done. Maybe they didn’t do as much due diligence as the agency suggested. Maybe they didn’t want to listen to Carol when she kept sounding a note of caution about how quickly they were moving. But was that so wrong? With everything they had been through, was it so wrong to allow hope to silence any passing moment of doubt? Why shouldn’t something be easy for once? Why should they be the ones forever forced to pick away at the surface certainty? Why did they have to despair when other couples had their self-satisfied faith rewarded with easy pregnancies and straightforward births and happy families? Why couldn’t they too believe that Marisa was the answer to their prayers. This time, why couldn’t it be them?

  By now Kate is crying, wiping the tears away with the cuff of her jumper. She reminds herself of why she came into this room. She knows exactly what she’s looking for. It’s not on the desk. So Kate gets down on her hands and knees and turns her face to search under the bed. It is the most basic and obvious of hiding places, and Kate already knows it is where Marisa will have put her diary. For weeks, she has noticed Marisa writing furtively in a black Moleskine notebook and Kate is driven by a forceful need to know what the diary contains.

  The carpet under the bed is covered at irregular intervals with dust balls. It is dark down there and Kate can’t see clearly, so she reaches out her arm and starts to sweep it along the floor. Nothing. She is about to stand when she has another thought. This time, instead of sweeping her arm against the carpet, she repeats the same movement against the mattress and the bed frame. Her fingers brush against the soft edges of something trapped in between the bottom of the mattress and the wooden slats of the frame. Kate levers it out and it drops onto the floor. There it is. The notebook.

  She takes it with her out of the room, leaning over the landing banister to check on Jake. He sees her and smiles. She gives him a thumbs-up sign and he nods. Marisa is still lying on his lap, her breathing more regular. He is stroking her hair with one hand and although this is exactly what he should be doing, Kate feels a pang of jealousy so sharp it startles her. She brushes it aside, sits on the top stair, and starts flicking through the pages of Marisa’s diary.

  It starts: ‘The house is perfect’ and as Kate reads, she realises Marisa is recounting the day that she came to visit Richborne Terrace and Kate showed her around, and they’d been interrupted by a magpie flying in through the kitchen doors. Except for this incident, Marisa remembers the event differently. She barely mentions Kate or the surrogacy, and does not use her name. Turning the pages, Kate sees the pattern repeating itself again and again: entire scenes from their life told from Marisa’s warped perspective, where she has written Kate out of the narrative, referring to her as ‘the lodger’ in her own home. Marisa has invented a whole relationship with Jake that doesn’t exist. Their meeting in the cafe is depicted as though it were a date. Marisa has
even written about Jake fucking her, which can’t be true given that she is sure, even without checking, that every single night she refers to in the diary, Jake was in bed with Kate, not Marisa.

  The more she reads, the more Kate feels the ground disappearing beneath her. She is appalled by what she discovers, and simultaneously compelled to read on. There is a ghoulishness to her fascination. She cannot believe the lengths Marisa has gone to in order to protect the integrity of her lies. Her story is so convincing that at one point, Kate begins to question whether some of it might be true. Maybe Jake did fall in love with her, she thinks. Maybe they were having an affair? But she banishes that thought too, almost as quickly as it floats to the surface. Nonsense, she tells herself. It’s the melodrama of the situation that is making her think this way. Jake would never do that. He’s a good man. Besides, where and how would he have found either the time or the opportunity? Kate and Jake were always together.

  No, it is Marisa who is the dangerous one, the unhinged one, the hysterical one. These were the hallucinations of a mad woman. She flicks through the remaining pages and her mood shifts from shock to pity. How unhappy Marisa must be to have done this. Not just unhappy, Kate corrects herself, but unwell. They need to get her help and make her better. Or if not better, then reliably stable for the remaining five months of her pregnancy. And they need to do this privately, with the least amount of outside interference possible.

  Kate checks her watch. 9.30 p.m. Annabelle and Chris should be here in the next hour. She is about to put the diary aside and go downstairs when something falls out of the back pages. Kate retrieves it from the floorboards. It is a pressed daisy, its petals mottled and flattened, turning brown at the edges. It touches her, this little flower and the value someone has accorded it and the memories it must inspire. She wonders, then, about Marisa’s past and whether anything she told them is true. Marisa said that she was close to her parents, and that her own mother suffered several miscarriages before giving birth to her sister, who is seven years younger. Kate and Jake were moved by this story and reassured that Marisa, despite her relative youth, knew first-hand what infertility meant and the cost it exacted from a couple. Marisa said that she and her mother had talked about it as adults. But perhaps that was invented too? Perhaps nothing they thought they knew about her, or the agency thought they knew about her, was true? Perhaps she lied on all the forms and forged all the documents detailing her upbringing, her education and her medical history? Perhaps they have invited an unbalanced stranger into their home to carry their baby and now there is no retreating from the terrible mistake they have made?

  Bile rises in her throat and she feels she is about to be sick. She slides the daisy back into the notebook and as she does so, the pages fall open again. She notices a small pocket inside the back cover, which expands when she pulls it to reveal a square of paper, folded over several times. When she unfolds it and spreads it out, Kate sees it is a prescription. She squints to make out the typed letters.

  Risperidone, it reads, 1mg tablets.

  It is not a drug she has heard of, so Kate looks it up on her phone. Her fingers are clumsy and she is short of breath as she taps on the search engine icon. Then the results come up: ‘Risperidone is licensed to treat the following conditions: schizophrenia, psychosis, mania.’ She checks the name on the prescription. It is made out to Miss Marisa Grover and dated six months before.

  ‘Fuck,’ Kate says.

  The prescription is unused. They did the embryo transfer just over four months ago and when Marisa’s behaviour became more volatile, Kate and Jake attributed it – naively, she now realises – to pregnancy hormones. Could it be that Marisa was on these anti-psychotic drugs but stopped taking them so that they did not interfere with the pregnancy?

  ‘Fuck,’ she says again.

  The doorbell rings.

  Jake’s parents are here.

  25

  Kate runs downstairs, with the notebook still in her hand. The sound of the doorbell has agitated Marisa, who is now fully awake and sitting up, whimpering and screeching, asking Jake repeatedly what’s happening.

  When Kate walks gingerly past them, Marisa flings her arms around Jake’s neck.

  ‘Don’t let her hurt me, don’t let her hurt me.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Kate says, as calmly as her fear and fury will allow. ‘You hurt me, remember?’

  Jake makes a shushing sound, although whether it is directed towards her or Marisa, she isn’t sure. Kate opens the door. Chris is standing there in his familiar tweed jacket, a half-smile on his face as he sees her, and she experiences a rush of gratitude and relief so acute she feels her legs buckle.

  ‘Come in, come in.’

  He steps inside.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks, his voice low. ‘That gash looks nasty.’ He points at her forehead.

  ‘Oh this – no, it’s fine. Looks worse than it is. Where’s Annabelle?’

  ‘Parking. I thought I should leave her to it and come straight here. Sounded urgent from what you said on the phone.’

  In the porch, Kate reaches out and holds the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘Thank you, Chris.’

  He pats her hand.

  ‘Don’t mention it. This is what family is for. We’ll calm her down and keep her stable and your baby safe, don’t you worry.’

  She tells him quickly about the prescription she’s found and the diary and Marisa’s current state of mind and he nods.

  ‘Mmm. That makes sense. All right. We’ll sort this out soon enough.’

  She leads him into the hallway, where he takes in the scene in one practised gaze. Jake, still holding Marisa’s head close to his chest, says, ‘Hi Dad. Sorry about all this.’ Chris shakes his head and puts his fingers to his lips, motioning to Jake to stay quiet.

  ‘Marisa?’ Chris says and his voice is kind but firm. Kate realises it is the most she has ever heard him speak. ‘My name is Dr Sturridge and I’m going to look after you now, OK?’

  Marisa turns to look at him. Her pupils are dilated, her skin waxy with sweat. Her expression is trusting, a hint of wonder in her eyes. She seems calmer again now, willing to be taken care of by this new, older man who has crouched down to her level and is checking her pulse with his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘We’re going to take good care of you. Nothing for you to worry about. Now, first things first, how about another cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please,’ Marisa says, her voice hoarse.

  Chris signals to Kate who goes back to the kitchen, leaving the three of them there. She hears the doorbell ring again. Annabelle. Someone lets her in, and immediately Kate can hear Marisa shrieking and crying, the volume of it getting louder and more shrill. Chris is keeping up his calming patter, his voice a bass note to Marisa’s soprano, and as Kate makes this second cup of tea, she hears the noise gradually subside until there is almost total silence.

  She carries the mug through to the hallway. Annabelle is standing by the door, her hair wrapped up in a silk headscarf, a faded brown coat belted around her waist. She has no make-up on. Her face, denuded of its normal armour, looks scrubbed bare and defenceless, her pale lashes giving the impression of a mole blinking into the light. Kate realises she must have been getting ready for bed. Annabelle had dropped everything to be here, despite her disapproval of what they were doing.

  ‘Some things are more important than petty disagreements,’ Annabelle said on the phone. ‘We’ll do anything for you and Jakey and the baby, you must know that.’

  Kate didn’t know, but now she does. She smiles shakily at Annabelle who nods as if she understands and nothing more needs to be said.

  On the hallway floor, Jake is carefully positioning Marisa’s head on his rolled-up suit jacket. Chris is still holding her wrist, monitoring her pulse and looking at his watch to count the beats. Marisa is breathing long, heavy br
eaths. Her eyes are closed. The agitation has subsided.

  Jake slides away from her prone form, and then comes straight over to Kate. He hugs her tightly, whispering into her ear how much he loves her and asking if she’s OK over and over again and she starts to cry and tells him she’s fine, she just wants this to be dealt with and for their baby to be safe.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ Jake says. ‘Dad has it under control, don’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Yup,’ Chris says. ‘I’ve given her 2mg of lorazepam and it seems to have taken the edge off. We’ll wait an hour and then see what happens and give her another dose.’

  ‘Should we move her?’ Kate starts. ‘To the sofa or a bed or something?”

  ‘No. Best leave her here rather than risk …’ He leaves a small gap. ‘… disturbing her.’

  ‘Right,’ Annabelle says briskly. ‘The three of us have some talking to do. We have a plan,’ she tells Jake. ‘Kate and I have already talked about it, haven’t we, dear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘First things first, I’m going to pop a bandage on that scratch.’ Annabelle reaches into Chris’s medicine bag and takes out a bottle of TCP, some cotton wool and a large square of sticking plaster. She walks over to Kate, takes her hand and ushers her through to the sitting room, where she tells her to sit on the sofa. Annabelle dabs at Kate’s forehead with the TCP, which stings, and then she places the plaster on top and she does it all with such maternal tenderness that Kate finds herself wanting to weep again.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says.

  ‘Not at all, dear. That looks much better.’ Annabelle undoes the belt on her coat and sits on the armchair by the bay window. She slides her headscarf down and her hair looks wispy in the lamplight. ‘Jake, do you have any whisky? I think we all need a stiff drink.’

  Jake goes to the sideboard where they keep the drinks. It is just under the speaker and Kate is reminded of that Sunday, three weeks ago, when they had been playing music and Marisa had stormed in complaining it was too loud. It made sense now. An irrational kind of sense. How she must have hated me, Kate thinks, and she shivers.