Magpie
Page 33
‘I honestly have no idea. I just know that everything I do seems to annoy you in some way and I’m on the verge of giving up altogether. Apparently nothing I do can ever be good enough. You see,’ Annabelle shifts on her feet, directing her next comment to Jake, ‘this is exactly what I’ve been telling you about.’
So there have been countless conversations about her behind her back, Kate thinks. Untold opportunities to sow the seeds of suspicion and mistrust. How Annabelle must have enjoyed the manipulation, placing her chips on green baize like a gambler who is cheating the house. She can imagine it all now: how Annabelle, with her evangelical zeal for ‘family’ and the genetic importance of its biology, must have plotted carefully to exclude Kate and bring Marisa into the fold; how she has probably been telling her son that Kate shouldn’t visit, in order to avoid upsetting the surrogate; how she no doubt told Marisa all sorts of things about Kate’s unfit mental state.
‘What’s she been telling you?’ Kate asks Jake, her chin jutting upwards.
He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out. He looks hapless and lost, like the small boy his mother still wishes he was. Annabelle’s power over him is more firmly embedded than Kate ever imagined. She sees now that he is scared of her. That he needs Kate to stand up to her for him.
‘Annabelle,’ Kate says. ‘It’s over. The game’s up. You’ve been found out.’
‘What nonsense—’
‘And if I have anything to do with it, you’ll never see your grandson.’ The words gather and brew with a boiling ferocity. ‘I won’t let you get near him, you poisonous old witch.’
Annabelle takes two steps towards her, hands knotted into fists, teeth bared. For a moment, Kate thinks she’s going to punch her but Chris leaps to his feet, knocking his drink to the floor and rests his hand lightly on Annabelle’s elbow.
‘Come now,’ he says, trying to sit her down as if to avoid an unsightly fracas.
Annabelle bats away his hand.
‘Leave it,’ she says, spitting out the words. Chris sits back down and his face looks as crumpled as his shirt. He raises his eyebrows at Kate and she knows this is his way of apologising, but it’s not enough. None of it is enough to compensate for how malicious Annabelle has been, how odiously superior and unfriendly since the first day they met.
‘You told me, in the kitchen, that Jake and Marisa were better off without me,’ Kate says. ‘That Marisa’s the biological mother. That I’ve been impossible and it’s no wonder Jake’s been spending so much time here behind my back.’
A beat of silence. Kate’s cheeks are hot. Chris, lifting the glass from the floor, suspends his arm mid-air. Jake walks towards her, his face pale.
‘Kate, I—’
‘I don’t want to hear it right now,’ she says.
He stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, and she keeps staring at Annabelle, refusing to look away from that blue, blue gaze. Annabelle blinks. Kate thinks she’s going to cry, but then Annabelle tilts her head to one side, showing off the white vulnerability of her neck. She is looking out of the window to the front garden and the driveway and the thinning patch of woodland and then the room is filled with a strange sound, like a rustling of leaves or a rushing of water, and Kate realises with horror that Annabelle is laughing. Her laughter is loud and potent and jarring against the quiet. Annabelle’s eyes are unmoving. They are silvery, glinting, dead-fish eyes. She is laughing but the laughter does not reach the rest of her face and this makes her more frightening than she was before.
‘What utter nonsense,’ Annabelle says. ‘Jake, I’ve been trying to tell you for some time that I’ve been worried about Kate’s mental health, haven’t I? What further proof do you need?’
‘Mum, that’s not—’
‘I just can’t believe that you’ve invented this ludicrous … conspiracy,’ Annabelle continues. ‘And you’re lashing out at me – me! I’ve done so much for you, even if I haven’t always understood you. I … I … just don’t know what more I could have done.’ Annabelle’s eyes are moist now, welling with self-pity.
Oh she’s good, Kate thinks, she’s very good.
Annabelle wobbles backwards, as though she is about to faint, but she collects herself just in time to ensure she collapses onto the sofa where she leans against the cushions, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead.
‘Mum, please don’t do this,’ Jake says.
‘Annabelle, there’s no need to get so upset,’ Chris adds.
But neither of them, Kate notices, moves towards her. Kate bends closer to Annabelle so that there can be no escaping what she is about to say.
‘I am perfectly sane, Annabelle,’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘How fucking dare you suggest otherwise.’
Annabelle is clutching her necklace now, pushing her head further into the sofa cushions, trying to turn away from the intensity of Kate’s face, trying to imply it’s Kate who she needs protection from rather than the other way round.
‘Chris,’ Annabelle is whimpering. ‘Help me, please. I don’t know what she’s going to do to me.’
Then, out of nowhere, a voice.
‘She’s not going to do anything to you,’ the voice says.
Annabelle flinches and her eyes flicker to the left. A shadow passes over her face. When Kate looks in the direction of Annabelle’s gaze, she sees Marisa standing in the doorway.
‘What was that?’ Kate asks.
‘I said that you’re not going to do anything to Annabelle,’ Marisa repeats. ‘Because I heard exactly what she said to you back there.’
Marisa’s face is calm. She is lit up from behind, golden hair glowing.
‘In the kitchen,’ Marisa explains. ‘I heard exactly what Annabelle said to you.’
On the sofa, Annabelle goes very still.
‘I came out into the corridor. You can hear everything there. It’s why we always close the kitchen door, isn’t it, Annabelle? That and to keep the draught out.’
Marisa’s voice is flat but clear, like a teacher wanting to make herself heard at the back of the class.
‘And you did say all those things, Annabelle,’ Marisa says, mouth twisting. ‘I’m sorry, but you did.’
Annabelle doesn’t speak. Her necklace glints in the light.
‘You said that Jake and I had been getting close and that we were going to be together with the baby. You said the baby was mine and that I was better suited to Jake.’
Annabelle emits a low noise, halfway between a growl and a sob.
‘But the truth is, Jake has been coming here on his own because I’ve felt so ashamed of what I did to Kate. I’m the one who hasn’t been able to face her.’
Jake reaches for Kate’s hand. She allows him to take it.
‘I’m sorry about that, Kate,’ Marisa says, head bowed and still unable to look at her. ‘Annabelle told me it was better that way. She told me you weren’t—’
‘It’s OK,’ Kate says. And then again: ‘It’s OK.’
Relief surges through Kate like a cold wave. So Jake didn’t betray her. He has been doing it to protect her. She turns to meet his gaze. His face is so stricken that she knows Marisa is telling the truth.
Jake shakes his head. ‘I would never …’ he starts, then stops, then starts again, his voice hoarse. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you … I was just … trying to manage it all …’
He lapses into silence. She rests her head against his solid, comforting shoulder and exhales.
‘I know,’ she murmurs. ‘I know that now.’
‘Jakey,’ Annabelle says, ‘don’t listen to this rubbish. She’s talking nonsense. I never said—’
‘You can’t dismiss both of us as mad,’ Kate replies. ‘You might just get away with one. But two begins to look a lot like carelessness.’ And then, looking straight at her, she adds, ‘Don’t you think, d
ear?’
On the sofa, Annabelle is withered, her cheeks sunken. Her eyes radiate anger.
‘Oh come on,’ Annabelle says, looking at Chris now. ‘Marisa’s drugged up to the eyeballs. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.’
Chris says nothing. He looks ashamed.
‘I know what I’m saying,’ Marisa says, coming to stand next to Kate. She knocks one of the helium balloons out of the way as she does so, and then this woman who has caused Kate so much angst and sadness, who has also given her so much hope and optimism, who has scared her and mystified her in equal measure, does something wholly unexpected. She takes Kate’s hand in hers.
‘What you’ve said about me and Jake, about me being the real mother – none of that’s true, Annabelle,’ Marisa says. ‘You know that, don’t you?’ She talks slowly. ‘This is Kate’s baby. It always has been. It always will be. Jake and Kate are the parents.’
Kate squeezes Marisa’s hand so strongly it feels as though she might never let go and then Kate begins to cry again. Jake places his arm around her shoulders. Finally he speaks.
‘Mum,’ Jake says, his voice tight and throttled. ‘This is outrageous. I came up here without Kate because you told me it was the best way to protect her and protect our baby.’
Annabelle turns to her son. Her hands are clasped in her lap and she raises them, palms cupped, beseeching.
‘Oh, Jakey,’ she says. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted. You and Marisa were getting on so well, you see, and I … well, I …’
‘You what? You tried to manipulate us,’ he cries. ‘I’ve always defended you, always done what you wanted.’
His voice is cracking. He sounds so helpless that Kate wants to defend him. But this is something Jake has to do for himself.
‘You’ve gone too far this time,’ he says. ‘Too far. How could you? How could you do this?’
‘Now steady on, old chap,’ Chris says, and his mildness is absurd. Kate wants to take Chris by the shoulders and shake him until he is forced to reckon with life as it actually is, rather than choosing to believe in the fabricated reality his wife has created.
‘This is why your daughters don’t talk to you,’ Jake is saying to his mother now, his voice rising to a shout. ‘This is why they can’t fucking stand the sight of you. They always said to me I’d see it one day, that you’re a raging narcissist who treats us all like fucking chess pieces.’
‘Shush, Jake, shush,’ Chris says. ‘There’s no need to bring all that up. You know how much it hurts your mother.’
‘I don’t care!’ he shouts and then he is kicking the coffee table so that it upends and the sickly blue cake lands in a messy gloop on the red-threaded rug. ‘She’s hurt me! She’s hurt us! She’s hurt Kate in the most unimaginable way …’
Kate tries to grab his arm and lead him out of this claustrophobic house but he frees himself from her grip, walks to the shelves by the fireplace and before she can stop him, he slams his arm onto the sideboard and with one violent sweep, he clears the surface of all its silver and wooden-framed photographs. They clatter and smash to the ground. All the shared moments of grinning, gap-toothed toddlers and sepia-tinted weddings and first days at school and official graduation portraits and the silent, smiling sisters and a long-ago family summer holiday spent on a boat near the Scilly Isles, the wind whipping their cheeks pink, a younger Annabelle’s hair tied up in a patterned silk scarf, her eyes obscured by dark glasses, her smile fixed and lipsticked as though nothing would ever go wrong under her watch.
Chris and Annabelle are huddled together now on the sofa, Annabelle softly sobbing into a handkerchief, Chris shaking his head with confusion. Outside, it has grown dark. Kate takes Jake by the hand. He is sweating and has a faraway look on his face. She strokes the back of his neck and sees him come back to her with a flick of a switch. They leave the room. They tell Marisa to pack her bags. They are taking her back to London with them.
Annabelle makes no protest. She and Chris stay seated, their features gradually obscured by the falling dusk, two flawed people, fitted into each other’s failings like ivy burrowing into the loosening gaps between brick. You couldn’t cut back the ivy without risking the house falling down. But the stone would crumble eventually, weakened by the insistent force of the plant pushing its thickening stem into every soft place. And then there would be collapse; a cloud of imploded stone. That was how it ended.
Kate closes the door to the drawing room behind her. When Marisa re-emerges with her wheeled suitcase in tow, Kate hugs her tightly. No further words need to be said. They understand each other now.
The three of them get into the car. Kate sits in the back so Marisa can take the front passenger seat. She watches as Jake slots the key into the ignition and pulls out into the driveway. There is a muffled moon in the sky and condensation on the windscreen. He turns the heating up and the radio on. She does not twist her head back to look at the red-brick house as they go. She lets it disappear and recede in her mind, imagines a watery tide rising up to claim it, sees the white pediments and the grey roof tiles and the sooted chimney turrets overlapped by a deepening sea. She lets it sink. She breathes.
She watches the two people sitting in front of her. Two blonde heads, side by side.
Kate’s limbs are heavy. She could fall asleep now if she wanted and she knows Marisa and Jake would talk quietly so as not to disturb her and that Jake would dial down the radio volume and take extra care not to judder the car when he brakes and she knows that he would wake her up when they arrived back home and the three of them would walk into the house and have a cup of tea together around the kitchen table and talk about everything that has happened today.
It would feel safe.
It would feel right.
It would feel like family.
32
At the birth, they played 1990s hip-hop.
‘Most people choose Mozart,’ Mr Abadi said, with a curious smile. ‘They want something calming.’
‘Marisa says she wants music that makes her feel strong, like she can do anything,’ Kate explained. ‘It’s her idea. And we like it, don’t we?’ She turned to Jake, sitting beside her in the now familiar chrome-framed chairs of Mr Abadi’s office.
‘We do,’ he replied, grinning.
Mr Abadi gave a quick twitch of the head, but he was amused rather than disapproving.
‘We aim to please,’ he said, making a note with his gold pen in the medical records.
So it was that Leo Christopher Sturridge made his entrance into the world accompanied by the frenetic vocals of Busta Rhymes rapping ‘Thank You’. When Jake and Kate were invited to cut the umbilical cord and when they heard their baby cry for the first time and when the midwife handed Kate her son, it was Snoop Dogg. Jay-Z accompanied the moment when Jake took Marisa’s hand and squeezed it tightly, crying tears that came from somewhere beyond his conscious mind. As Kate held her baby, Marisa looking on with a tired smile, the playlist segued into TLC. The whole thing was stupidly beautiful.
‘Hello,’ Kate said, peering into her son’s mottled, querying face as Jake cupped the baby’s velvety head with his hand. ‘We’ve been through a lot to get to meet you.’
On the bed behind them, Marisa rested back on the pillow, her body bloodied and sweaty with exhaustion.
Kate turned to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Thank you so much.’
By the time Kate held Leo to her bare chest in the next-door room, the music had stopped and there was a calm so solid it felt like certainty. She and Jake craned forwards to hear Leo’s tiny sniffles and squeaks, each noise signifying the barely credible fact of his existence. The baby’s fists were scrunched shut and the crease of his barely formed fingers and nails struck her as something prehistoric and inexplicable. She was astonished by him, at once so miraculous and yet so fully theirs.
Jake kissed her gently. Soon he, too, would hold Leo close, pressing his skin against the baby’s newness, but she wasn’t ready to give up her son just yet. She felt fiercely that she would never be able to let him go, not fully. She felt a momentous current ricocheting through her blood cells. She was stronger than anything on earth, capable of everything it would take to protect her son. She was fizzing – crazed, even – with motherhood.
‘He’s got dark hair,’ she said. It was true – Leo’s head was dusted dark brown, so that when she lowered her lips to his face, and her hair fell forward, she and her son were a perfect match.
At weekends, they walk along the riverside path. Today, it is sunny and windy, one of those London days that looks deceptively warm from inside the house but which requires jackets and jumpers outside of it. Jake has the baby strapped to his chest in a sling and Kate, wrapped up in a parka and hoodie, walks alongside, holding his hand and checking occasionally to see whether Leo is dropping off to sleep. He’s ten months now, and they’ve almost got him into a routine. Leo mewls gently.
‘Sh-sh-sh,’ Kate says. ‘You know you want a nap, poppet. Come on, have a nice little sleep.’
She cajoles him in a soft voice, the same one that she uses when Jake is at the office and she spends long hours chatting to Leo as if he understands. For two days a week, she works from home with the help of a nanny and often she will find herself treating Leo like a particularly receptive colleague. As long as she keeps her voice light, as though she is reading from his favourite storybook, Leo is entranced by whatever she says.
On Friday, Leo had been sitting in his high chair, pompous as an emperor with a plastic spoon in his chubby fist, seemingly indignant at having a bib around his neck, his face smeared with mashed carrot, and she knew he was about to lose it. She could tell from the particular tension in his neck, the slight flare of his nostrils, that he was gathering up his efforts for a momentous caterwaul.