by Keane Jessie
‘To think we put up with that other one for so long,’ said Nula, getting back into the gym for stomach crunches and methodically watching her diet. Within months of the baby’s birth, her figure was back to normal and she could once again bear to look at herself in the mirror.
‘That was the last one,’ she told herself firmly, and she went on the pill to be absolutely sure. She went back on her other pills too, because she was still dogged by awful black moods. But she tried to cheer herself. Kept up her journal, which ought to help. It didn’t, but it was sort of satisfying, writing down all her gripes, all her anguish over her growing hatred of her husband.
Now there was the christening to get through. She wanted to look A1 again for that and she was right on target for it.
‘By the way,’ said Charlie. ‘Did I tell you? I bought a yacht. Thought it’d be nice for the holidays. Take us all off down to the Med. The kids and me and you.’
‘Sounds nice,’ said Nula. No, he hadn’t told her. Another of Charlie’s mad schemes. She was so used to them, she barely blinked when he said it. She was cold with him now, withdrawn. He’d shagged Jill. Raped the poor bint. All right, Nula had no time for Jill, but for Chrissakes! She was a woman, and as a woman Nula understood very well that an outrage had been committed and that it was awful – despicable. She couldn’t forgive it. The bastard.
‘And I’m taking flying lessons. Whirlybirds. Helicopters. You know.’
‘Yeah sure,’ said Nula. ‘Why not?’
She wrote that down in her journal under the heading More of Charlie’s crazy shit.
45
Nula got a new christening gown for Jake from Harvey Nicks, a beautiful long creation in cream lace with pearls sewn into the bib and all around the hem. She treated herself to a lilac outfit complete with hat and after the church ceremony the christening party went ahead. It was a bright sunny day. They had a marquee in the grounds and all their mates and their wives came and had a fantastic time that went on until two in the morning, when Plod showed up at the door with complaints from the neighbours over the field.
Nula and Charlie turned off David Essex promising he was going to make someone a star, fished a few over-partied revellers out of the heated pool at the back of the big house, and the whole lot of them turned in for what remained of the night.
‘Now that,’ said Charlie at breakfast, ‘was a proper party. A real old-fashioned East End knees-up like the old folks used to have, you remember, Nules?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking of her old home back in the Smoke, thinking regretfully of her sweet old-fashioned mum and dad. She felt a pang of sadness. They’d done their best for her, she knew that. Her parents, who could be dead by now for all she knew. And her brother Jimmy, who she hoped was dead, the arsehole. No happy memories there.
People were scared of her on the old manor now. No one reacted to her normally, no one passed the time of day with her when she went back there. She could see the difference, straight away. Even in the corner shop, everyone would fall silent when she stepped inside. She was ushered to the front of every queue. At first, she had enjoyed that. Now, she just wished that it didn’t happen, that life could be as simple as it once had been.
Charlie Stone’s manor covered a lot more than a few mean streets now; it covered the world, and he was its absolute ruler. She was Mrs Charlie Stone, and Charlie was such a big noise that even his wife made people nervous. She didn’t actually belong anywhere, not any more. She was shunned in the country as a common and rather dodgy interloper – and she was feared in London, on what had once been her own patch. She wrote about it, in her journal. About her deep feelings of disconnection, about her unhappiness and about what had happened to Jill at the hands of that fucker Charlie, about being trapped out here, caged in. But what could you do?
The morning after the christening party, she was picking her way through the lower floor of the house, hung-over and stumbling over bodies, people still spark out on the floor. Jesus, what a night they’d had. She looked at the enormous pile of christening presents on the end table. Everyone had brought gifts for little Jake. Of course they had. Everyone wanted to get in good with Charlie Stone.
She walked over to the half-unwrapped goodies and rummaged among the stuff there. A coral teething ring. A tiny silver bracelet. A huge snow-white stuffed polar bear wearing a purple velvet saddle trimmed with gold. Jesus, so much stuff.
Then at a tiny sound she looked around. Harlan was standing right there. Silent as a wraith, he’d often do that: pitch up and startle the shit out of you. Every time he did it, Nula jumped. Despite her banging head, she forced a smile onto her lips. The kids must have had a pretty rough night, with all the noise going on, even if they did sleep up on the top floor.
‘All right then, Harlan?’ she asked.
‘Chrissy said to fetch you,’ he said flatly.
‘Why, what is it?’ she asked him.
‘There’s something wrong with Jake.’
46
Nula wasn’t aware of anything until she crashed through the door of the nursery and saw Chrissy standing there by the cot beneath the window. The girl was white-faced and staring.
‘What’s happened?’ said Nula, coming to the cot and reaching for her baby.
Chrissy stretched out a restraining hand. ‘You shouldn’t,’ she said.
‘What? Get out of the way, I’ll have a look at him, what’s the . . . ?’ Nula’s voice seemed to run out of air then. Her eyes were on the child in the cradle, and . . . oh Christ! . . . he looked blue. He didn’t seem to be breathing.
‘I fed him at three, put him back down, he was fine. And then when I came in at seven – he’s usually awake then – I found him like this . . .’ Chrissy’s voice tailed away.
Nula reached down a trembling hand to touch Jake’s tiny hand. It was cold.
‘Oh no. No. No,’ she heard herself saying, over and over. She couldn’t seem to stop. She was staggering as if someone had hit her. Her legs turned to water and she fell sideways into a chair. She sat there, staring, her eyes wide with shock and terror.
Chrissy was still standing there, wringing her hands, saying words, but all Nula could think was: No. This can’t be happening.
Harlan stood beside Nula, watching her, silent.
Chrissy was still speaking, but all Nula could hear was white noise.
‘What?’ she said at last. ‘What?’
‘We have to call someone,’ said Chrissy, her voice trembling. ‘The doctor. Someone.’
Nula stumbled to her feet, approached the cradle once again. ‘No,’ she said, and her voice had a manic edge to it now. ‘No.’ She picked up the baby and he flopped horribly, lifeless, in her arms. ‘No, he’s just . . . he’s tired that’s all. All that noise last night, that would be it. The party. He’s just tired.’
Chrissy was shaking her head, holding out a hand to Nula. ‘Mrs Stone, we have to tell someone about this. It . . . I’m so sorry. It’s ghastly but it happens.’
‘What does?’ Nula was cuddling Jake, but he seemed so still and so cold. In a moment he would wake up. Or maybe this was all a dream. She was still asleep and she was dreaming. That was it.
‘Mrs Stone,’ said Chrissy gently. ‘I should fetch Mr Stone, shall I do that?’
‘No, don’t,’ said Nula. She was bouncing the dead baby in her arms. ‘He’s tired – aintcha, Jakey? That’s all. It’s nothing. Don’t bother Charlie. Not yet.’
Nula sank down onto the chair, still cuddling the lifeless baby. At any minute she knew that Jake would be OK and everything would be fine again. Fuck’s sake, they’d only had him christened yesterday!
‘Mrs Stone,’ said Chrissy.
Nula’s face twisted in a snarl. ‘I said no!’ she shouted. ‘Go on, leave us alone, we’ll be fine, we’ll be absolutely fine . . .’
Chrissy recoiled at Nula’s tone. She nodded and held out a hand to Harlan and together they left the room. To find Charlie, Nula supposed. To tell him .
. .
No!
She couldn’t even think it. Nula started to sob, her tears falling onto her baby.
47
Charlie couldn’t believe it. The daft mare surely had it wrong. And Harlan was just standing there beside the pale and shaking girl. The kid was blank-eyed like always, not reacting to what the girl was saying, and she was saying his little Jake was dead?
No. That couldn’t be right.
‘Nah, you got that wrong,’ said Charlie, standing up. He’d drunk a lot last night, but he could hold his drink. Nula might be hung-over; he wasn’t. But he swayed with shock.
‘It’s true, Mr Stone, I swear,’ said Chrissy.
‘No, I gotta . . .’ And Charlie was gone, out the door, up the staircase, brushing past Beezer and his other mates who were coming down for breakfast, not seeing them, not hearing what they said. He ran on, and burst into the second-floor nursery beside the master bedroom and there was Nula, cradling Jake, everything was fine, only . . .
Somehow, in his gut, Charlie knew that nothing was going to be fine, ever again. He dashed forward and stared into Nula’s ashen, tear-streaked face.
‘What the fuck, Nules?’ he said, and then he was reaching for the baby and she was clinging on to Jake, and it was almost funny, like they were doing a tug-of-war with the little kid in between them, and Charlie found himself remembering something from years ago, something he’d heard in Sunday school when his mum had with high hopes once sent him there. He’d stuck it out for a few weeks, but then he’d knocked it on the head. Refused to go back. Now he recalled the vicar’s words: ‘and Solomon said, cut the child in half, and each of the women claiming to be his mother will take a piece.’ At which the real mother had come forward and said, no! Let her take him.
At the time, Charlie had thought it was funny. Farcical, even. Who’d cut a baby in half anyway?
Now? Not funny at all.
Nula gave up the struggle and let the baby go. Charlie held the body gently against his chest, stared at the blue tone of the skin, and raised a trembling hand to the child’s soft cheek, feeling the stony coldness of it.
‘We should . . .’ he started, then his voice faltered and he tried again. ‘We should get him to the hospital, Nules. Right now.’
Nula stared up at him as if he was mad. Then she said: ‘Charlie . . . he’s gone.’
‘No, he’s just . . .’ Charlie stopped again, heaved in a breath, aware of the girl and Harlan watching from the doorway, aware that tears were falling down his own cheeks, and what the fuck? He never cried. Never. Now he was blubbing like a kid.
Charlie half-turned, stared at Chrissy. ‘What the fuck you done?’ he burst out.
‘Mr Stone . . .’ Chrissy flinched. She looked terrified.
‘Charlie . . . it’s not her fault,’ said Nula in a flat, emotionless voice. She was thinking of that first consultant, warning her about trying to have more children. Now she understood. This was her fault. ‘It happens. Sometimes. We’ve . . . we’ve been unlucky. That’s all.’
‘Unlucky?’ Charlie roared, clutching his son to him. His dead son. While Harlan stood there, breathing. Alive and well. ‘No. This don’t happen. I won’t let it happen.’
And he sank to his knees, still clutching the dead baby in his arms, and began to sob bitter, angry tears.
48
It was Chrissy who phoned the doctor; then in quick succession several things happened. The police arrived and strung tape up across the nursery door and then there were people in there taking photographs, examining the room like it was a crime scene. The coppers asked question after question. Who found the child? At what time, precisely? There was a party last night, was there anyone in the house who might want to harm a child?
‘What you saying?’ Charlie roared. ‘You think I got some stinking pervert among my friends? These people, I’d trust them with my life and with my son’s life too.’
‘Charlie,’ said Nula warningly, clutching at his arm as they sat side by side, shocked, in the sitting room, and answered these questions that were nothing more than an annoyance.
Then most horrible of all, the ambulance arrived and they took the baby away. It was Charlie, not Nula, who clung on to little Jake, who said no, they couldn’t take him. It was Nula who calmed him, who said, it was OK, this was what they had to do. That it wasn’t their fault.
‘Then whose fucking fault is it?’ Charlie demanded, crashing about the place like a fury, smashing glasses, turning over chairs, needing something, somebody, anything, to hurt.
Then he turned on Nula. ‘You never did care about the kid, did you?’
‘That isn’t fair, Charlie,’ she said, while watching their friends, the people they were closest to in all the world, vanish out the door, taking themselves away from this tragedy, out of reach of Charlie’s catastrophic temper.
Nula felt numb. She’d been so ill during Jake’s pregnancy, so tortured, so afraid, that when the baby had finally arrived, she’d seen Jake as a miracle. A gift from God. But now she knew she’d been wrong to think that. The Stones were cursed because of the evil trade they dealt in. Nothing good could ever come to them. Of course not. She’d been mad to ever think it would. They’d sold their souls to the devil years ago. All they had was Milly, poor plain little thing, who never seemed to be a part of their world, and Harlan, who had never been more than a substitute for the child they should have had.
So Jake had been taken from them. It was no more than they deserved. Certainly no more than her raping bastard of a husband deserved, doing that to Jill Barton. Now Charlie was hurting and in a dark secret corner of her heart Nula was glad.
The police with all their questions somehow made it even worse. It was already like knives were being dug into her, and those words, those suspicious eyes watching her, turned it into a waking nightmare.
‘Just keep out Charlie’s way,’ she told Chrissy. The girl nodded and left to tend to Harlan.
49
Time passed. It dragged by – minutes, hours, days. Horror upon horror hit the Stone household. The police came back, asked more questions. People in white plastic suits examined the nursery again. Then one of the plainclothes policemen told them grimly that there would be an autopsy.
‘This is a three thousand to one shot, cot death,’ he told them.
They were going to cut Jake open, abuse his innocent little body. Tormented by the images that were crowding into his brain, Charlie shouted at the copper to get the fuck out of his house. But the autopsy found nothing suspicious.
Days lost all meaning. Now there were things to organize. A funeral. Nula broached the subject to Charlie and was roared at. He was still pinwheeling around the house, snarling, smashing things. He was unshaven and almost unhinged, mad at the world that had robbed him of his son.
Finally it was Terry, coming over because Nula had tearfully phoned the gatehouse and asked him to, who told Charlie that he had to get a grip. Charlie grabbed hold of his oldest, dearest friend, his brother-in-arms, and smashed him back against the living room wall.
‘Get a grip?’ Charlie screamed in Terry’s face, spittle flying. ‘You tosser, I’ll grip you! I’ll grip you by your throat, then you’ll be fucking sorry!’
Terry offered no resistance. ‘All right. Go on then. Do it. Or smack me one, right on the chops, if it makes you feel better.’
Charlie drew back his fist. He stood there, quivering, sweating with stress, his eyes filling with tears. Then as suddenly as he’d raised it, he let his arm fall to his side and he shoved himself away from Terry and dragged his hands through his thinning hair, over and over, bending almost double, moaning: ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ, why’d this have to happen?’
Terry didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen Charlie in such a state. The loss of the baby was affecting Charlie in a way that Terry was sure nothing else ever had. He thought of his own kid. Lovely little Belle. Thought of losing her. It was a pain like no other, losing a child. One he hoped never
to experience.
Terry stepped forward and caught hold of Charlie. For a moment Charlie resisted, trying to push free of Terry’s grip, but suddenly, as if all the strength was gone from him, all the rage, all the useless, pointless aggression, Charlie was still, held in his friend’s arms, unresisting at last. And then he cried.
Quietly Nula came and stood in the open doorway, watching the pair of them. Over Charlie’s head, Terry’s eyes met hers. Ever since he knocked her back, she’d been trying to avoid being close to Terry. The memory of it still scalded her like a burn. She was Nula Stone. She was important. She was. But Terry had refused her and she found herself hating him for that now, hating him and his perfect little life with the lovely Jill and their gorgeous girl Belle. Now she’d lost one of her children, the best of her children, and what did she have left?
Milly.
And Harlan. Cold, detached little Harlan, who wasn’t really their child at all.
Nula drew back, away from the door, and left the two men alone. She knew that Terry could help Charlie with this, and she couldn’t. Didn’t want to.
Let the arsehole suffer.
50
The funeral was the worst thing Nula had ever lived through. Throughout the whole ceremony she tried not to look at the tiny white coffin on the dais in the church, tried not to take any of this in; it was too painful. She didn’t think she would ever wipe from her memory the sight of Charlie single-handedly carrying the coffin from the hearse and up the aisle to place it so carefully, so lovingly, on the dais.
Since that day with Terry when Charlie had cried his heart out, he seemed to have released his demons and regained some composure. Dry-eyed, he carried his dead son to be laid to rest. Dry-eyed, he listened to the prayers, the hymns, the solemn reassuring words of the vicar who said there was life beyond the grave. Charlie didn’t believe it. He clutched onto Milly’s hand while Nula, all in black, held on to Harlan. The Bartons sat beside them, Terry at Charlie’s right hand, then Belle, then Jill.