These Days of Ours

by Juliet Ashton

  Sleep began to steal over her. Kate felt obliged to fight it. She should get up, shake herself, and root around for the photograph of Dad. Kate was always careful with the treasured snap and she remembered, or thought she did, slipping it in the side pocket of her suitcase. It hadn’t been there when she unpacked.

  The missing photograph played on her mind. It’ll turn up. Dread nibbled at her. She referred to – deferred to – the snap every day. I need it.

  Sleep proved too seductive. Her eyelids closed, her limbs liquefied. Her head lolled back on the armchair.

  A sudden noise.

  Kate was alert. Dribble cooled on her chin. On the television screen a quiz show had been supplanted by a black and white movie.

  That noise again. This time Kate was awake enough to recognise the doorbell.

  The broken outline of the lone figure beyond the crazed glass in the front door drew nearer as Kate approached. She patted her hair, which was staging an eighties revival on her head.

  ‘Welcome home, wanderer!’ Charlie held up wine, chocolates and a sheaf of roses; a cliché guest, but none the worse for that. ‘Oh,’ he said, deflated, taking in Kate’s outfit of laundered-too-many-times hoodie and yoga pants. ‘Why aren’t you all trussed up in an uncomfortable dress?’

  ‘Because the party was cancelled.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ The flowers and the bottle and the be-ribboned box went to his sides, as if Charlie was a knight dropping his shield.

  ‘Didn’t you get my email?’ Kate didn’t stand aside. Her house was her castle and nobody was getting over her drawbridge. There was much to do, not least finding the mislaid photo. Not even Charlie was welcome tonight.

  ‘What email?’ Charlie opened his pinstripe jacket to show off the lining. ‘I bought this jacket especially. A tenner from Oxfam.’

  ‘That book advance has gone to your head.’ Kate rolled her eyes, giving in. Turning away she called over her shoulder, ‘Come in if you’re coming, you gatecrasher.’

  ‘Ah, that famous Irish hospitality.’ Charlie followed her to the kitchen, where Kate was already plundering cupboards for glasses and a vase. ‘Let’s have an un-party.’

  ‘Very Alice in Wonderland.’ Kate kept the table between her and Charlie as she opened the chocolates, placing the box between them.

  ‘You look well,’ said Charlie, settling back on a kitchen chair. ‘China agrees with you.’

  ‘I look like a tramp, Charlie.’ Kate wondered if she’d been institutionalised at the orphanage: this had all the requisites for a relaxing evening yet she was edgy. It was Charlie’s fault for appearing without warning, like a genie. A genie with thick dark hair and soft eyes and a new chip in his front tooth.

  Dismayed at such corn, Kate blamed the shock of being catapulted out of sleep. Charlie was just the same as he always was: untidy; in need of a haircut; in love with somebody else.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’ Charlie said it shyly, as if unsure how she would react.

  ‘Me too. I mean, I’ve missed you. Obviously. Otherwise I’d be missing myself. Which would be a bit . . .’

  They laughed together and it felt significant. One of those out-of-the-ordinary moments that stand out from the mundane, the way photographs emerge like silver ghosts in the chemicals of the darkroom. ‘I did miss you, Charlie. Loads.’

  ‘Good.’ He said it again. ‘Good.’ He sat up and gently slapped away her hand hovering over the chocolates. ‘Not that one. It’s a raspberry creme.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate. ‘For saving me from the dreaded raspberry creme.’

  ‘I couldn’t take the fuss if you bit into it.’

  Kate stretched her arms over her head, trying to wake up, trying to shake the presentiment she felt of something trying to happen if only she’d let it. This is just me and Charlie in my kitchen. It had happened dozens of times and would happen many times more. If God spares us. She parroted the phrase Mum compulsively murmured if any of them invoked the future. ‘You know me so well,’ she said.

  As if to prove this, Charlie ticked off a list on his fingers. ‘Praline, caramel, yes. Hazelnut, no. Yes, however, for its fellow nut, the almond. All cremes – raspberry, orange, whatever – are out. But you’d sell your soul for a fudge.’ He held out a sweet cube between thumb and forefinger. ‘Which is what I happen to have here.’ Charlie put his head on one side. ‘What will you swap me for it? Can I have your soul?’

  You can have all of me. Kate coughed, as if she’d said it out loud. The techniques she relied on to jam the thoughts that assailed her around Charlie were malfunctioning. ‘You wouldn’t want my soul. It’s a tatty old thing.’

  ‘In that case, just take the fudge.’ Charlie leaned over, as if to pop it into Kate’s mouth, and Kate realised that he wasn’t his usual self either. He hesitated, the chocolate in mid-air, before thinking better of the playful gesture and setting it down awkwardly in front of her. ‘Eat up.’

  They’d only been apart for seven months. There was no reason for this first-date stiffness. It was tense. It was stimulating.

  Kate stood up. She’d deduced the reason for the atmosphere. ‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘Come upstairs.’

  Charlie rose. He asked no questions, just held out his hand.

  Leading him upstairs, Charlie’s fingers felt warm and strong in Kate’s grasp.

  The landing was dark. Kate heard him swallow. ‘In here.’ She pushed open a door.

  The room was under-lit, intimate. Like a church. A mobile of fluffy clouds twirled.

  ‘You did get my email cancelling tonight, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Charlie. ‘But I couldn’t stay away.’ He seemed unsure what to do; if he’d had a cap he would have been wringing it in his hands.

  Kate led him to the cot. ‘Charlie, meet Song.’

  ‘Hello, Song.’ Charlie made a noise that could have passed for both a laugh and a sob, as if he was witnessing something glorious and hard to believe. As if Song was a unicorn and not a snuffling, sleepy baby with a quiff of jet black hair. ‘I’m your Uncle Charlie.’ He turned to Kate. ‘That’s OK to say, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s exactly who you are.’

  Charlie knew Song’s backstory. Kate had told him how the little girl was abandoned in Bawangfen bus station. Just a few weeks old and already alone. Perhaps Song’s cleft palate was the reason her desperate mother had felt unable to care for her.

  ‘The operation,’ whispered Kate, ‘was a success.’ The scar would flatten and fade but never completely disappear.

  ‘She’s so cute,’ said Charlie, getting close. ‘She’s, like, super cute.’

  ‘Wait until she wakes up. Her eyes are like shiny buttons.’ Kate could look at Song all day. Song liked to stare back, gurgling. Gurgling and staring. Staring and gurgling. The two of them wasted a lot of time that way. ‘She took so long to drop off, let’s leave her to sleep. You can get better acquainted on Sunday.’

  The clouds above the cot trembled as they closed the door behind them.

  As if sunbathing in the lamplit room, Charlie was stretched out on the rug, hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as he listened to Kate, who was prostrate on the sofa, parallel to her guest but higher up.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me what having a child is like?’ Kate gesticulated and wine splashed on her hoodie. ‘It’s incredible, but a different sort of incredible every day. She’s the same but different each morning. She changes in teeny tiny ways that nobody but me would notice.’ Like a wholesome stalker, Kate was obsessed with the baby. She was Song’s number one fan, her groupie, her disciple, a conscientious Boswell to Song’s Dr Johnson.

  Quelling a hiccup, Charlie said, ‘Surely it was at the back of your mind when you volunteered at an orphanage that you might adopt? Not even a sneaky suspicion that you’d bring a baby home?’

  ‘You make it sound as if I popped out to the supermarket for a pint of milk and came back with a pizza as well.’ Drunk Kate couldn’t be an
gry with drunk Charlie; he was only expressing what everybody else would surely think.

  ‘Becca’s been proph . . . prophes . . . saying you’d bring a child back from China.’

  ‘I hate it when she’s right.’

  ‘Go on. Tell me how it happened.’ Charlie fidgeted on the rug until he was comfortable, as if settling down for a bedtime story.

  ‘I’ve never had a deep need for a baby.’ Kate unpicked her thoughts as she went along, content for Charlie to hear the unalloyed truths about her attitude towards parenthood. ‘I believe there’s more than one way to live a life. Not just one proper way and all the other options are making do.’

  ‘Damn right.’ Charlie concurred from the floor. ‘So no burning deshire?’ he slurred.

  ‘Exactly. Although I’ve always had this spooky feeling that a baby was in my stars. As if somewhere out there a tiny somebody was drawing closer and closer, at its own pace, in no hurry but determined.’ Kate stole a glance down at Charlie to see how he was taking this whimsy. She chose the wrong moment; he was stealing a glance up at Kate.

  ‘Go on.’

  Kate’s quiet belief in her own eventual motherhood had much in common with her philosophy about herself and Charlie. Except – she needed to be honest; the wine helped – there’s always been a futility mixed with my longing for Charlie. The hushed confidence was entirely missing. Her belief in a love between herself and Charlie was exposed as something she’d concocted out of loneliness. Kate dragged herself back to her tale. ‘I was drawn to Yulan House, not because of all the little babies I could kidnap, but because of Dad.’ She felt a stab of fear about the missing photograph. ‘And because I wanted to do something . . . good. That sounds revoltingly noble but—’

  ‘Oh but you are noble.’

  ‘Shut up. I didn’t go there just to honour Dad, or whatever, but also to feel close to him. It’s been hard, sometimes, to feel him . . .’ She took a moment. Charlie allowed her the silence. ‘When I got there, I loved the work. Just for its own sake. Nothing to do with Dad or giving something back or any of that. It was proper, hard work and it had meaning. I was needed.’ She described her typical day as an ayi, waking the children, supervising splashy baths, feeding, cuddling, mopping up, telling off, consoling. Her smile as she spoke was unquashable.

  Charlie said dreamily, ‘Bet it put life back here in perspective.’

  ‘It did.’ Kate was looking forward to serving customers at the shop once more, but Jia Tang’s example had illuminated the repetition of commerce. ‘We do the same things over and over, for the purpose of . . . what? To buy a bigger house, a faster car, go on more expensive holidays? I had a bigger house and a faster car, and I got rid of them. I haven’t flown first class since I left Julian.’ That name brought Kate up short. It hadn’t occurred to her to get in touch and tell him about Song. Kate wondered if he’d care. She hoped he would, although it wouldn’t damage her if he didn’t. How odd to spend a chunk of my life with somebody and then neglect to involve him in something so profound.

  ‘Are you asleep? Don’t be asleep,’ begged Charlie from his spot below.

  ‘I’m wide awake.’ Kate drained her glass, not easy in a supine position. ‘I got to know so many children out there. Caring for somebody, looking after them, means you get close.’

  ‘It sounds bloody tough. But you’re making me want to set off for China.’

  ‘You don’t have time. You’ll be too busy being a rich and famous writer man. BLOKE needs a sequel.’ Kate described some of the kids, each short musical name jabbing her with sadness at being so far away from them. ‘I loved them. I really did. Do. But one morning . . .’ Kate felt the day again in all her senses. Early September, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. The skinny little cook had been making Moon Cakes all morning. The sky was a polished blue and the colours of summer were muted to browns and golds. ‘A bus driver came to the compound. He was still in his military style uniform.’ She digressed for a moment. ‘Their bus drivers are fancy, Charlie. Epaulettes, and everything.’

  ‘I like epaulettes,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It was just chance that I was by the gates when he drove up. He shouted through the bars. He was really agitated but I kept shaking my head, shrugging, trying to communicate that I’d fetch somebody to help him. He had something in his arms, a baby all wrapped up in blankets, and he was shouting the name of a big bus station in Beijing. People turned up like this occasionally, with babies they’d found just left on a bench.’

  ‘Who could do something like that?’

  ‘It’s complicated, Charlie.’ Jia Tang had taught Kate never to judge too hastily. The Chinese government’s one child policy had created a culture of fear, where women were scared of their own fertility. ‘It’s hard to imagine living in a country where a second baby could mean ruin. The parents might lose their jobs, have their houses seized. There are hatches, you know, in each major city, for babies to be abandoned, no questions asked. The little boxes are heated and lit, and nobody chases down the adult who leaves the child.’ Kate sighed. ‘More girls than boys are abandoned.’ She returned to her tale. ‘I opened up the gates and asked him to come to the main house. At least, I tried to. My few words of Chinese are woeful; I might have asked him to marry me. I half turned . . .’ Kate slowed down. The memory was glistening bright: probably because she buffed it every day. ‘But he dodged forward, stuffed the bundle into my arms and stomped back to his bus. I stood there like an idiot, watching him. Then I teased back the blanket to look at the baby.’ A fissure in the space between the lip and nose, a shocking absence where the flesh should have formed a tidy covering, registered. But Kate noticed something far more important. ‘I recognised her,’ said Kate, experiencing some of the wonder all over again. ‘Hello, I said. You’re mine.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Charlie’s voice was small. ‘Bloody hell,’ he repeated. ‘You did it, Kate. You kept her. That’s so brave. No, stop squawking. Let me say it. Brave isn’t the wrong word.’ He rebutted her rebuttal. ‘You’re brave and compassionate and independent and I’m proud of you. You’re the bestest one-that-got-away a man could have.’

  ‘Is that how you think of me?’ A-tingle, as if tiny scorpions high-stepped up and down her body, Kate knew what she was doing and she knew it could go very wrong. This was sky diving. Bungee jumping. All without leaving the comfort of her own sofa and under the influence of alcohol. ‘The one who got away?’

  After a pause, Charlie said, ‘You know it is.’

  They lay still, like a Lord and his Lady on a medieval tomb. Kate didn’t dare look down. The dedication to Anna on the front page of his manuscript reared up at her, only to be rinsed clean away by wine, adrenaline and lust.

  Kate spoke without drawing breath. ‘Sometimes I think we might still have something so I avoid touching you, like tonight when you came in and I should have hugged you, I would have hugged any other visitor but I didn’t hug you because it felt like something explosive might happen if I put my arms around you.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Did you notice?’

  As if responding via satellite link-up, there was a hiatus before Charlie said, ‘Yeah, I noticed.’

  Is that a green light? Kate felt the atmosphere thicken, as if they were both staying as still as possible. Are we on a threshold?

  When Charlie spoke it was as if a cannon crashed. ‘I knew you cancelled the party. I had to come here. I . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I just had to.’

  There were so many questions. They crowded, demanding to be asked first. What’s going on with you and Anna? How long have you felt like this? Is it the drink talking? Or the jet lag? Am I so desperate you have no choice? Could we have a future? Is it happening for us at last? She weighed them all up, feeling the clock ticking on this new and strange honesty, as if they were both enchanted by a fairy godmother and would turn back into pumpkins at midnight.

  In the end, none of the questions won. They would only lead to more talk, and Kate didn’t want to talk. She rolled over
and dropped off the sofa, landing to kneel neatly astride Charlie. If she kissed him now and there was nothing, no fireworks, just a standard kiss, then she would, finally, know. They could shake hands, walk away.

  ‘Kate, yes.’ Charlie’s whole body seemed to reach upwards for her and Kate bent, angling her head slightly, and her hair made a curtain around both their faces as she placed her mouth gently on Charlie’s.

  His lips were cushioned, soft, then busy as they responded to the feel of Kate’s mouth. Charlie let out a soft groan and lifted his arms to embrace her, but Kate swiftly pinned them down. This was just a kiss.

  Their lips ground together until Kate parted his with her tongue.

  The experiment was an abject failure; the kiss was far more than the sum of its parts.

  Intimate, familiar, Charlie’s mouth was a drug. Kate collapsed onto him. They rolled and he was above her, his hands in her hair, his lips greedy.

  Kate pulled away, just long enough to say, ‘Not here.’

  Glued together, a many limbed creature, Kate and Charlie grappled their way up the staircase, stumbling, staggering, devouring.

  They crashed through her bedroom door. Charlie pulled down the zip of Kate’s top with a gratifying zzzp!

  ‘Cheeky!’ Kate held the top together and darted into her en-suite. ‘Hold that thought.’

  ‘Hurry up, woman!’

  Kate leaned against the back of the door, breathing hard. Her mind was popping candy. Her skin was thinking for her and it cried out for Charlie.

  It was dicey to apply the handbrake to passion but the last time Charlie had seen Kate without clothes, she’d been nineteen years old and in the full glory of her youth. She needed to prepare herself.

  Charlie would be confronted with the flesh of middle age. Kate’s bra straps had dug into her shoulders. The mysterious rash by her belly button had spread. Since she’d realised her left breast was slightly larger than her right one she couldn’t stop noticing the difference.

  ‘Kate . . .’ called Charlie in a low voice, through the crack of the door.