It’s too hot to go into town. Dougie and I are on the Heath, and although it’s Saturday, we have the girls with us – all our charges. I’m glad to see Grace with other children. Dougie’s two are sweethearts, allowing her to join their games. We’ve had a swim in the crowded Mixed Pond. I stayed close to Grace as she spluttered her way round.
We find a bench to eat our picnic on. Not Sam’s bench. I don’t want to share that with anyone, not even Dougie. Grace is playing with the others, the three of them squatting together in the shade of a nearby tree.
Dougie and I spread out a rug, lying flat with eyes shut against the glare, the lilting murmur of the girls’ voices reassuringly close.
I yawn, covering my mouth, suppressing another one. ‘Sorry. Grace had nightmares again last night.’
‘Do you know what they’re about?’
‘She can’t explain. But sometimes she shouts “Mummy”. I guess she’s just still really missing her mom.’
‘Poor kid. Doesn’t Leo get up for her?’
‘Sometimes, but he has an early start and people’s eyes to fix. I’m fine about losing a little sleep.’
‘How are you getting on with him?’ he asks.
‘Good. He’s great.’
‘You know the premise, though, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Widower and young nanny … you’re kind of obliged to get together.’
‘Jeez, Dougie – this isn’t Jane Eyre!’ I feel for his wrist and give it a playful slap. ‘Leo’s not like that. He’s private and respectful. I like him a lot – he’s easy to talk to, and he’s read loads of the same novels I have. He treats me like an equal, makes me feel at home.’
‘Sounds like you have a connection.’
‘Guess I’m lucky.’ I smile to myself, remembering how he makes a joke of my cooking, telling me that I should be up for a Michelin star, or that Carrier himself will be wanting my recipes. He never gets mad about it. ‘I couldn’t have chosen a nicer employer. He is attractive, in that quiet, English way, but …’
‘He’s not your type?’
‘I don’t think I have a type.’
‘Okay then, if it’s not him, who is it that you’re pining for? Because I get the feeling there’s a man somewhere. Someone you don’t talk about. Even to me. Which, by the way, is a crime.’
My eyes snap open in shock. ‘What?’
He looks smug. ‘Thought so.’
‘Are you psychic or something?’
He laughs. ‘Not much gets past me, hen.’ He makes a woo-woo face at me, like a ghost. ‘I’m the seventh son of a seventh son. So naturally I have magic powers.’
‘Sure you do.’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘But … yeah, you’re right, there was someone …’
‘Ah ha!’ Dougie exclaims. ‘Who?’
‘I met him in Atlantic City. He was English. But after he left, I never heard from him again. He’s here, I think. Somewhere in London. But I have no way of getting in touch with him. I tried the telephone directory. He doesn’t seem to exist.’ I stare up into the glare, and it’s as though I see Sam there in the brilliance, the silhouette of him walking away with his guitar slung across his back.
‘So you followed him across an ocean. How romantic,’ Dougie sighs.
I nudge his arm with mine in acknowledgement; our skin, tacky with suntan oil, makes a tiny kissing noise. ‘Only it wasn’t romantic. It was stupid,’ I admit. ‘Turns out I didn’t really know anything about him. When we were together I thought I’d found “the one”, you know. I thought we had a future together. He invited me to London. He even read bench inscriptions, like me. He said there was a bench here on the Heath with an inscription he loved.’ I swallow. ‘I found the bench. I went there every day, but he never came.’
‘And he didn’t even tell you what he did for a living?’
‘He was a lawyer. But he was about to leave his firm. Really, he’s a singer. He’s talented. Writes his own stuff.’
‘Ooh.’ Dougie raises himself on his elbow. I feel the darkness of his shadow falling across my face. ‘Would I have heard of him?’
I turn my head from side to side against the picnic rug. ‘Uh uh.’
‘Shame.’ He settles himself on his back again. ‘Well, my advice is, find yourself another man. Plenty in this city. I’ll help.’
I lick my lips. ‘Maybe. But not just yet. I want to focus on Grace. She’s so unhappy. She needs all my attention.’
There’s a sudden wail. A child is crying. Instantly, Dougie and I sit up. ‘Lily? Phoebe?’ Dougie says. And then, in a sharper voice, ‘Where’s Grace?’
I stagger to my feet, swivelling my head, straining to see through the dazzle of picnickers, dogs, children in bright swimsuits. Dougie is examining Lily’s thin arm, the red welt rising against pale skin. ‘She bit me and then ran off,’ Lily sobs, as Dougie scoops her into a hug.
‘Where did she go?’ I shade my eyes with my hand. ‘Which direction?’
Phoebe points up the hill towards the woods. I look for a small, plump figure marching away, expecting to glimpse untidy dark curls, a yellow T-shirt over a blue costume. I can’t see her. She can’t have got far, but my heart crashes inside my ribs as I take off up the hill at a jog, stopping to ask people if they’ve seen a little girl. A girl in yellow and blue? They shake their heads. Mothers clasp their own children tighter, giving me pitying looks.
The heat is oppressive. There’s a sting of salt in my eyes. Tears or sweat or both, because now I’m scared. I’m stumbling barefoot over the rough grass of the hill, making my way around families sprawled on picnic rugs, couples stretched on towels. I enter the woods. Two lovers lie in each other’s arms on the ground, half hidden in long grass, oblivious to my footsteps trampling close. I shout her name. ‘Grace! Grace!’
The Heath is huge. How am I going to find her? The churning fear in my belly is getting worse. I retrace my steps, going downhill, still calling. My throat is sore from shouting. When I get closer to our spot, Dougie shakes his head.
‘She’s not back?’ I’m sick with disappointment. ‘Should I call the police? Her dad?’
‘Don’t panic yet,’ he says. ‘Come on, let’s all of us look.’
We make a plan. I’ll go and check the pond, in case she went back to it; and if she’s not there, I’ll look up the hill one more time. Dougie and the girls will go to the house, in case she went home. I have thorns in the soles of my feet. I don’t have time to deal with them; I just pull my sandals on. She has to be all right, I tell myself, scanning the landscape.
The Mixed Pond is busy with bathers. I ask the girl on the gate if she’s seen a small child, and she shakes her head. ‘But it’s been hectic. I suppose she could have slipped past …’
I stare out over the dark water, the bobbing heads and laughing mouths. I’m terrified I’ll see her floating face down. She’s not a strong swimmer. People are kind, once they understand. There’s a search. Nobody has seen her in or out of the water. ‘She’s not here,’ the girl tells me, her voice full of sympathy.
I nod, my chest tight. I need to stick to the plan. I hurry back up the slope again where she was last seen, shouting her name. In the woods, the lovers have gone. There’s a small figure sitting on the ground under a tree.
‘Grace!’ I sink onto my haunches next to her. ‘Thank God you’re all right!’
I pull her into my arms. She lies against me, heavy and inert. I rock her in my lap, murmuring her name, my lips in her hair. She starts to cry: shoulder-shuddering gulps that come from deep in her belly.
‘Sweetheart,’ I manage. ‘You’re okay. I’ve got you.’
Her arms slide around my neck, and she presses her hot cheek against mine. We sit in the glade, clutching each other. Her cries make my heart ache. When she stops, I find a tissue in my pocket to wipe her face, blow her nose. I kiss her hot forehead. We manage shaky smiles. ‘Come on,’ I say, helping her up. ‘We have to tell the others you’re okay.’
She jerks to a stop, snatching her hand away, her tear-streaked face reddening. ‘You’re not my mum. You can’t tell me what to do.’
I look at her small, quivering body. She’s confused by my role in her life. ‘Your dad’s asked me to look after you, though,’ I say firmly. ‘So you still need to follow some rules. Now,’ I give her an encouraging smile, ‘let’s go home.’ I hold out my hand again. ‘You need a bath, young lady. Looks like you’ve been rolling in dirt.’
I breathe a sigh of relief when she puts her fingers inside mine.
After Grace has had a bath, she slides in between her sheets meekly. ‘Will you tell me a story?’ she mumbles, thumb in her mouth. I pick up one of her many picture books, but she shakes her head. ‘You tell it.’
‘If you close your eyes. And promise to go to sleep.’ I smooth tangles of damp hair back from her forehead.
She nods, eyelids closing obediently. Her chubby hands rest on the sheet, linked like a thoughtful grown-up’s. A painful warmth swells in my chest. I lean down to kiss her flushed cheek. Seems that love has sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking. She opens her eyes, then closes them again.
I begin to tell her a story, about a little boy who’s afraid of the sea, even though he lives right on the coast, and how when a whale washes up on a beach, he saves her by his quick wits and his ability to get the whole village working together. ‘And do you know,’ I finish, ‘that little boy learnt to swim right after that. And he was never afraid of the water again, because he knew his friend the whale was somewhere close.’
Making up stories for Grace is a way of connecting with her. I’m going to think of more ideas, especially ones to make her laugh. I leave her lying with her mouth open, wet, wrinkled thumb slipping onto her chin, a string of saliva shining on her lip. Her breathing is slow and steady. She gives a whimper in her sleep and turns onto her side, facing away from me. I tiptoe out of the room, closing the door.
While I wait in my room for Leo to return, I open my diary and scribble across the page. As I describe the afternoon, how Grace went missing, and how empty and afraid I felt, it hits me that love comes with responsibility, and I don’t know if I’m the right person to care for her. I’m not a mom, or a qualified nanny. What if I’m messing up her childhood, doing everything wrong?
I raise my head, listening to Leo opening the front door downstairs. He changes out of his suit before going to find his meal in the kitchen. When I go down, he’s sitting at the table with a glass of wine. We smile at each other as he brings his plate to the sink. ‘Sorry I missed her bedtime again,’ he says. ‘Did you have a nice day?’
I clear my throat. ‘About that. I need to talk to you.’
‘Of course.’ He nods towards an empty chair. As I take my seat and he slides into his, I notice how tired he looks. He works such long hours. I can’t imagine how nerve-racking it must be to operate on people’s eyes.
‘Everything all right?’ He’s making an effort to sound cheerful. I notice his gaze shift past my head to the photographs on the dresser. Elizabeth smiling her brilliant smile.
I look down, pressing one finger against the grain of the wood. ‘I’m worried about Grace,’ I tell him. ‘I’m trying hard to get through to her, but … but I’m not managing. She bit a child at school, and she did it again to Lily today. Then she just ran off. I couldn’t find her. I thought … I thought I’d lost her.’ I glance up and catch the bleak expression on his face. ‘I’m sorry.’ I push on, determined to say what needs to be said. ‘I don’t think I’m the right person. Maybe you need a trained nanny. Someone who knows what they’re doing.’
He sits for a moment, his hands slack around the glass in front of him. Then he takes a long in-breath, exhaling slowly. ‘I need to tell you something.’ He looks at me, his blue eyes misty behind his glasses. ‘Elizabeth died here, in this house. She tripped and fell down the stairs.’
I gasp, sitting rigid in my chair.
‘It was just Elizabeth and Grace at home. So it was Grace who … who found her lying at the foot of the stairs,’ he continues in a low voice. ‘She had been playing in her room and then … she must have heard the scream. She was alone with her mum’s body for hours, trying to wake her. The whole experience … well, you can imagine the effect on her. It’s why she’s confused. Frightened. Angry. I’ve arranged for her to see a grief counsellor. But she needs you, Cat. She trusts you. If you leave now, it’ll be another loss. And … and I don’t think she could cope.’
I imagine Grace alone with the broken body of her mother. The thought fills me with horror. No wonder she’s having nightmares.
Leo reaches across and brushes my forearm lightly. ‘Please don’t go.’ He withdraws his hand. ‘Not unless you’re miserable with us.’ He leaves his hand lying on the table, fingers splayed, those intelligent fingers that negotiate the intricate workings of eyes. ‘I’m not a risk-taker, Cat. I’m someone who thinks things through carefully. And I promise you, I know what I’m doing when I say that you’re the only person I want looking after my daughter.’
I swallow, staring down at my lap. His words make me glow.
‘If there’s anything I can do to make things more comfortable … anything you need in your room …’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I love my room. This house.’ I swallow. ‘I just … want to do the right thing …’ I remember the book about grieving children, how it’s essential not to make any big changes. ‘I don’t want to leave.’
‘Then you’ll stay?’ He looks relieved. ‘I know you care about her. I couldn’t ask for anything else.’
In my room, I throw open the windows, wide as they’ll go, and stand in my bra and pants, hungry for a breeze, looking over the darkening garden towards the Heath. Below me, there’s a murmur of voices coming from neighbouring gardens, the chink and clatter of barbecued meals being eaten.
The thought of Sam is inside my head, but I can’t quite picture his features any more, can’t recall the exact smell of his skin. It was because I was thinking of him that I wasn’t focused on Grace. She could have been kidnapped, hurt, lost. And it would have been my fault. Sam’s gone. What I have is Grace, who needs me, and Leo, who’s becoming a friend as well as my employer. I have a home in this house, and I have my writing. These are the things to cherish, to look after. To fight for. I close my eyes, and from the garden comes a soft breeze at last, the sweet kiss of air on my skin.
TWENTY-FOUR
Sam, August 1985
Sam barges shoulder first through the swing doors, out of the steamy kitchen into the busy dining room, balancing a tray of plates on one arm. The chef – a bucolic Irishman who resembles a prizefighter – is in a particularly filthy mood this evening, and Sam doesn’t fancy his chances if he messes up the orders. He needs to concentrate.
He places the plates carefully in front of the right customers, before whisking out his notepad and pen and hovering over the next table: a grey-haired couple who have been prevaricating over the menu for ages. He stands waiting for their order.
There’s a tune in his head that he can’t quite catch. An idea he had for a song called ‘Cindy’, based on Cat’s short story, the tattered pages of which are locked away in a drawer along with the songs he wrote about her in Atlantic City. He’s still living at Ben’s. He’s inherited a room from someone who moved out. But they’re going to be evicted in a matter of months. ‘No worries,’ Ben said. ‘There’s a squat in Peckham with space.’ But Sam can’t face the unwashed crockery in the sink and the beer cans under the sofa, the endless uninvited guests. He needs space and quiet to work.
‘Did you get that?’ The man at the table frowns up at him.
Sam blinks. ‘Um
…’ He glances at his blank notebook. ‘Could you verify one more time?’
The man makes a tutting noise, shaking his head at his wife. ‘Thought the service here was supposed to be good.’
She looks aggrieved. ‘Should be, for the price.’
The man repeats their order in a sarcastic tone.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Sam snaps the notebook shut and hurries back to the kitchen. It’s humiliating having to be polite to rude people. But it’s the only thing paying his way right now. It’s a struggle to get pubs and clubs to book him when he’s using a payphone at the end of the street. He can’t see how he’ll ever make a living out of his music. In his head, he hears his father speaking the words that arrived in a letter after Sam left the law firm. You are a disgrace and a disappointment. You are no son of mine.
It’s gone ten o’clock on a Thursday evening. Polite applause tails away as the audience rush to the bar to get their orders in. He’s dismantling the mic when a dark, bone-thin man approaches, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, eyes narrowed against the smoke. ‘I liked your set. You’ve got potential,’ he says. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
The man introduces himself as he puts two beers on the table. ‘Marcus White. I know who you are,’ he says when Sam opens his mouth. ‘You don’t have a manager, I presume,’ he continues. ‘No agent?’
Sam shakes his head. ‘I’ve been writing my own stuff, playing pubs and clubs for a while, but I can’t seem to get a break.’ He takes a sip of his drink. ‘I’ve sent off demo tapes. Never heard anything back.’
‘You’ve got a great voice,’ Marcus says. ‘And your music’s got something. But it’s all about bands now.’ He drums his fingers on the table. ‘I manage a few acts, and I’d like to help. How would you feel about fronting a band? With your looks and your sound, I think we could put something together that would be right on the money.’
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