The Push

by Claire McGowan

  Aisha blinked, as if snapping into the room. ‘Hmm? Oh. No. I haven’t seen him, sorry.’

  Vaguely, I wondered where he was. I’d assumed he was with the baby, who was outside in her bouncy chair. Hadn’t I said, stay with her? What if a bee came along and stung her? I knew I should move to check on her. But just for a second, I found I couldn’t. For once no one was asking anything of me, to be fed or held or taken care of, and the idea of going out there and perhaps causing storms of howling froze me. Just for a moment. That’s all it was. I would tell myself that a lot afterwards.

  As I went out the back door, I saw Aaron at the bottom of the garden, along with Ed and Jeremy. I had a vague idea that Ed’s shed or ‘man cave’ was down there. How ridiculous, a grown man with a playroom. Ed looked red-faced and somehow guilty, whereas Aaron and Jeremy both looked uneasy. ‘Where’s Hadley?’ I said, irritated. Why was it always down to me?

  ‘Is she not . . .’ Aaron looked past me, trailing off, and I followed his gaze. I saw the bouncy chair I had placed the baby in, when was it, not more than fifteen minutes ago surely? Or was it more? I saw that it was now empty.

  My reaction was oddly delayed. It was a bit like how my contractions had taken hold of me, slow at first, then tightening like a giant fist to utter agony, past the point where I felt I could bear it. In the same way, the terror was slow to arrive, pushing through the mist of my exhaustion and apathy. But then there it was. ‘Aaron. Where’s the baby?’ Ed, Aaron, Jeremy. Hazel. Rahul, Anita. In the kitchen, Aisha, Cathy, Monica. I realised there was one more person who’d been at the party. Frantically, I ran the count again. Maybe the baby was there, she had just rolled out or someone else had her or . . . No. There was Arthur and there was Hari, both in their mothers’ arms, and Isabella was upstairs, napping again. Hadley was not there. She just wasn’t there. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to let that feeling hit me, grab me in its fist. I didn’t want to say, the baby is gone. Kelly is gone and the baby is gone. I wasn’t ready to face that, the terror, the nauseous horrific reality of the empty chair.

  But it was Hazel who said it in the end, coming over to take control of the situation, a pair of barbecue tongs in her hand. ‘Has anyone seen Kelly?’

  Jax – seven weeks earlier

  I let Claudia in. Of course I did, what else? I was so shocked by her appearance that I worried it showed on my face, she who’d always been so stylish, so slender and polished. Still, I probably didn’t look as good as I had at twenty-three either.

  Her eyes roved everywhere, over me, my body, my house. ‘You’re pregnant.’

  I could hardly lie. ‘Yes. Due in five weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’ And between us was everything that had happened, swamping me with an overwhelming desire to apologise, but it hadn’t been my fault. This was how I’d sustained myself all this time, held the terrible guilt at bay like a dam. It wasn’t my fault.

  ‘Can I get you . . . tea? Coffee?’

  She shook her head, her hands in the pocket of her coat. I asked the most obvious question, which perhaps I should have asked first. ‘What are you . . . How did you know where I lived?’

  She gave me a quick look. ‘It’s not hard to find where people live. You’re on the electoral roll, that’s public. You haven’t changed your name.’

  ‘No.’ Why would I? I hadn’t done anything wrong, or so I told myself.

  ‘I’ve had to do both those things. And move, three times. People still think I must have known. That I . . . let it happen.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I swallowed hard. We were both standing up in the living room, the sofa between us. What did she want?

  ‘You were looking for me, I hear. Why?’

  ‘Um . . .’ How to explain. ‘Some weird things were happening, and I just thought, I wondered, who might . . . want to do a thing like that to me.’ It sounded so stupid now, just a few malicious messages, nothing concrete.

  ‘I see. And you thought, because you ruined my life, it might be me.’ I couldn’t read her tone. Mostly, she sounded worn out. I didn’t need to ask had she moved on, met someone else, had other children. I could see from her whole demeanour that she hadn’t. Disappointment, that was what she radiated. A life that had suddenly and irretrievably lurched off the rails, all thanks to me. ‘Well, it wasn’t. I’d done my best to forget it all until you came snooping round.’

  ‘I heard he got out.’ Meaning Mark. I couldn’t say his name out loud. I hadn’t done anything with what Chris had told me, hadn’t looked for him properly, because I was afraid. I knew I couldn’t face him, even after all this time.

  ‘Apparently so. I won’t be seeing him.’ She gave me that look again, and I saw the woman she used to be, poised, razor sharp, chair of multiple charity boards. In a different world, Claudia could have run a company herself. Her life would not have been so ruined by what her husband did. She would not have taken his name, probably, and would have been able to unyoke herself from him so much more easily. ‘Believe it or not, Jax, I did accept it. What you said. They found the evidence, after all. I’m not a fantasist. I know he did it.’

  ‘But you said . . .’ I thought back to the day in court, her screaming at me across the gallery. You lying bitch! This is all your fault!

  ‘I was upset. You can understand that, can’t you? After what happened. And the thought that the man you love, that you think you know, could do such things. I mean, you understand that, don’t you, Jax? After all, you were going to sleep with him too.’

  I could have protested that I was young, railroaded into it, just being polite. Instead I said what I had tried not to before. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ah well. It’s too late now. But I wanted you to know, none of this is me, whatever’s been happening. I highly doubt it’s him either. They watch him like a hawk. Waiting for him to do it again. Apparently, it’s just a matter of time.’ She shrugged, straightened her spine. I felt like coming to talk to me had helped her somehow, reminded her that she used to have poise and grace, that she wasn’t defined by what Mark had done. ‘I hope it all goes well with the baby.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I knew it must have cost her a lot to say that, considering what she’d lost. I shuffled behind her to the door, and watched until she disappeared from view at the end of the street. Claudia Jarvis, or whatever she called herself now. I wondered for the thousandth time if I had done the right thing back then.

  I was shaking when I closed the door to Claudia. I had liked her, that was the worst thing. She seemed broken down, grown up in a way Mark never had to me. I wondered had she always been like that, and I’d made her into a grouch, a killjoy. What a stupid kid I’d been. I felt myself swept with a deep and shattering shame. All your fault. All your fault. But I hadn’t meant for it to happen. I’d done the right thing – the only thing I could have done. Hadn’t I? But as I sat back down on the sofa, which already had a soft hollow from where I’d been slumped, bits of crisps collecting in it, I found that I wasn’t sure I had at all.

  After that first lunch, Mark began to stop by my desk most weeks. It got to be embarrassing – I could see my colleagues roll their eyes, and when Hillary the fundraising manager retired (not a moment too soon in my opinion, since she barely knew how to type, let alone use databases), he suggested I apply for her post. At twenty-three, this was quite a coup and I would have talked myself out of it, in classic female style, if not for his encouragement. On the day of the interview he was on the panel, as was standard, along with my boss, Veronica, the head of fundraising, who was good but in my opinion too taken up with her twin toddlers, and a service user, a girl called Nicky who’d come up through one of our programmes. Nicky didn’t say much, picking at some old scars on her arm and asking her assigned questions in a halting South London accent. Veronica, whose phone went off in the middle of the interview with a text from her nanny, was distracted, barely listening to what I said.

  Mark, who had coached me over lunch the day before, smiled enc
ouragingly as I fed him back my smooth answers. I felt we could diversify our income profile ahead of the possible coming recession. I’d involve service users at every level. I’d offer an internship to a former beneficiary. I’d develop our high-value donor programme. Five minutes after the last candidate was seen – a middle-aged woman in a stained suit, who kept dropping papers from the binder she carried – Mark came to my desk and laid a hand on my arm. I felt goosebumps run up me. ‘Congratulations, Fundraising Manager.’ I had never known anything to be so easy before. He whispered, ‘I have a few things to finish up, then how about a celebration drink?’

  I looked at the clock. ‘It’s only three.’

  ‘Never mind that. We’ll say I have to brief you.’ With a light squeeze of my arm he was gone. I looked up to see Karim, the database manager, watching me, and flushed with a shame I didn’t quite understand.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘I shouldn’t really, I’m tipsy.’ I was slight then, young, unused to drinking like Mark did, client dinners with £800 whisky and matchless wines, where he had to keep a clear head somehow. Three glasses of cheap sparkling wine and the world was swimming. I’d be fundraising manager. I’d call my mother later and tell her. Maybe I’d make it sound a bit more impressive than it was – she wouldn’t understand it was a big step forward for me. She’d ask what the salary was, then echo it back to me, incredulous. Darling, that seems like exploitation. Plus, I was fairly sure I sensed a coldness among the other fundraising team members, the ones who hadn’t been coached to a promotion, who’d been there longer. Susan had applied too, I thought, but I’d not seen her have an interview. Never mind all that. I was on my way. And this man, this suave grown-up man, seemed to like my company.

  I hadn’t interrogated it too closely. He was married – I’d glimpsed his wife at a donors’ event, slender and glamorous in a white silk dress and diamonds, though old to my eyes. He wouldn’t be interested in me if he was married. He was just helping me out. He reminded me of my father in some ways, the whisky, the suits, the fountain pen in the pocket. Veronica had once whispered to me that Mark and Claudia had no children, so sad, so that’s why he worked with the charity. To help the other kids, the ones that had no chance in life. Maybe he saw me as a kid in some ways.

  I was naive back then, but not that naive. What it had been was an excellent piece of self-deception. I’d taken note of his hand on my arm, his fingers on my lower back, steering me to a table. Now his leg brushing mine under the table. And the next question was a dead giveaway. ‘So, Jax, is there a young chap in the picture? Some rocker with a beard?’

  I laughed. ‘Oh no. Boys my age, they’re so . . . well, you have to mother them so much. I’m not up for that.’

  ‘You’d rather have a real man.’

  I took a sip of wine. ‘Maybe.’ My heart was racing. Something was happening. I didn’t know what. But it would happen. And that suspended moment, right before it did, was my favourite. It still is.

  That’s when I saw her. A woman was crossing the room, her eyes roving among the half-drunk pub-goers in suits. Dark hair, anxious face, expensive camel coat. It was Claudia. His wife. ‘Oh, there you are.’

  Mark jumped right away from me. ‘Darling! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I went to the office to find you. They said you might be here.’ She looked at me when she said it.

  ‘We’ve just promoted Jacqueline here. We thought we’d celebrate.’ I wanted to run. I understood that, even though I technically wasn’t doing anything wrong, I still was. I wanted to apologise to her.

  ‘Right. Well, I had a meeting nearby, I thought we could get a cab. I get so nervous on the Tube now, there’s never any seats.’ She turned slightly then, and I saw the swell under her coat. Mark’s wife was pregnant. She must be at least forty, I thought.

  ‘Of course.’ He got up, a small boy caught misbehaving, and put his coat on. ‘Sorry, Jax. You’ll be OK getting home?’

  ‘I’ll get the Tube.’ Taxis were for women like her, with handbags that cost more than my rent. Not for the likes of me, one step up from a student, for all my promotion. Although it was against my religion to leave alcohol behind, I waited until they’d left – Mark did not kiss me goodbye, and she said nothing to me – then got up, abandoning a full glass of Prosecco, and trailed off to the Underground. I wanted to cry suddenly, and for some reason I found myself blaming Claudia Jarvis, for the way she’d come in and pulled him out, taken him away from me. Jealous old woman, I thought to myself, standing up on the packed Tube. Pregnant at her age. It’s not right. Poor Mark. I suppose it was then that my thoughts began to turn towards the idea – maybe Mark wasn’t very happy. Maybe he needed someone younger. Someone like me.

  Alison

  Alison was standing in the office, looking at what was always portrayed on TV as a sophisticated whiteboard covered with clear, up-to-date pictures. This was more like a glorified cork board, and people were always stealing the pins so there were never enough to go around. She was looking at the pictures of the couples at the barbecue that day. This not being TV, they were not perfectly posed headshots, but rather whatever she could get off their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts, plus all the images actually taken that day (Monica alone had snapped dozens). The house. The garden. The rockery, still pristine, the glass balcony above. No useful clues, sadly, so she’d turned to their social media instead. In this day and age it almost felt rude when people didn’t have a readily accessible social-media presence, and apart from Aaron Cole, which was strange given his age, all the people at the party did. Almost all, anyway.

  Jax Culville’s feed was full of angry articles from the Guardian, with comments like We must pay attention to this now. Anita’s was limited to the odd holiday picture, her standing beside Jeremy with a strained smile, as if she knew what she ought to be doing but her heart wasn’t in it, and lots of posts about saving stray dogs. She had also made some tentative posts in adoption and fertility forums. Jeremy’s was all academic articles and links to his own occasional appearances on television.

  Monica, with a fully curated Instagram linked to her Facebook and Twitter, could have shown Anita how to do it. She’d already uploaded pictures of her baby, who could barely lift her head up, with signs saying one week old today and two weeks old today. How long this would go on for was anyone’s guess – I am one thousand weeks old today! Alison would not be that kind of mother. She would maybe not be any kind of mother, of course. One thing – she’d found wedding pictures from Monica and Ed’s ‘big day’, which had been more extensively photographed than Harry and Meghan’s, but the date clearly said it had taken place only six months ago, not a year. Why had Monica lied about something so small? Maybe she was just ashamed that she’d got pregnant before marriage, which seemed bizarre in a divorced forty-something. Daft cow. Alison still had to ring the ex-husband, Thomas Evans, but he was in Hong Kong and the time difference made it hard.

  She was aware that she was irritable, probably from her encounter with Becky the night before, who’d sent her a whole string of messages on her way home which managed to be both apologetic and accusatory, or the fact that Diana hadn’t even replied to her text, just greeted her that morning with a cool, ‘Oh, sorry I didn’t reply, I’d already gone to sleep.’ And she hadn’t wanted to go to a bar on her own in the end, so she’d drunk the rest of an old bottle of cheap rosé at home instead, and fallen asleep, so that when Tom came in from work she woke up stiff and cranky on the sofa. And these interviews, with these glowing new mothers, were not helping her mood. Why couldn’t one of them tell her the truth? Someone must have seen something.

  She moved on. Cathy’s feed was recipes, baby pics, warm comments on other people’s photos with lots of kisses, while Aisha did some of this too, and also posted in a lot of forums related to her physiotherapy job, and sometimes exchanged comments in another language that Alison assumed was Urdu. Facebook helpfully offered to translate these, and they were just the
usual classic auntie messages like lovely pic, hope u r enjoying ur holiday xx. Hazel’s was all run times from Strava and encouraging comments on people’s Ironman pictures, her personal-training clients, Alison assumed.

  Kelly Anderson was a prolific poster on Facebook, understandable given her age. Likewise, Ryan Samuels posted a lot about football, and was a fan of a site called LadBible. But he hadn’t been at the barbecue that day. If only he had, Alison would actually have a motive, someone she knew had clashed with the victim. She’d checked with Sainsbury’s though and he’d been at work in the warehouse all that day, even caught on CCTV unloading pallets on to shelves. Annoying.

  Among the other men, Ed Dunwood posted articles from the Economist or got into heated arguments with strangers on neighbourhood groups over things like cricket or parking or access rights. Rahul Farooq posted a lot online, which Alison was surprised about, given how taciturn he was in real life. She also noticed he had ‘liked’ a few online gambling sites, and made a mental note of that little red flag. It was almost depressing, how easy these were to find, especially given that everyone now voluntarily shared all their innermost secrets with the internet, a hungry shark gobbling up their data, using it against them. Alison barely used Facebook now, and the only reason she hadn’t deleted it was because her mother gave her grief about no longer being able to see her ‘holiday snaps’. Tom was an enthusiastic poster and commenter, and like Ed Dunwood sometimes got in rows about things online, especially people criticising the police. If they had a baby, she’d talk to Tom about a no-screens policy, no pictures of the kid online till they were older. Not that it was likely to happen. God, she had to stop thinking this way! Didn’t everyone say it made things worse to stress about them?