by Karen Clarke
Inside was an array of fancy scarves in various colours. Who the hell needed so many? I closed a drawer, and made my way to what was clearly Sophy’s side of the bed. A framed photo of her with Finn was on the cabinet, along with a paperback and a glass of water. I opened the drawer to find a diary with no entries, and a couple of photos that seemed to be of Sophy when she was much younger with her mother, and an older woman, a grandmother, perhaps. I closed the drawer and rose once more.
A cream cashmere jumper hung on the front of the wardrobe. I picked up the sleeve and rubbed it against my face. I couldn’t recall ever owning something so soft. I picked up my mug, and dipped my fingers in it, and with a wicked smile, splashed tea over the front of it. ‘Oh dear, Sophy, how did you manage to get tea all over your best jumper? What will Dom think?’
Sophy’s dressing gown was draped across the foot of the bed. I picked it up and rummaged in the pockets, and smiled as my hand touched a crumpled piece of paper. I pulled it out, and flattened the note. Watch Elizabeth. I shoved it in my pocket, and was about to carry on snooping, when the landline phone rang. I dashed downstairs and picked it up. ‘Hello?’ I smiled down at Finn, who was now sucking a rattle.
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Liv.’
‘Oh. Right. It’s Dom. Can I have a word with Sophy?’
‘She’s not here right now. I thought she was with you. She’s just left for London.’
‘Did she seem OK?’ He sounded anxious.
‘Fine.’
‘And she’s left Finn with you?’
‘Yes. Hang on.’ I placed the phone next to Finn. ‘Say hello to Daddy.’ Finn smiled, gurgled, and turned his head away. ‘Sorry, Dom.’ I pinned the phone to my ear once more. ‘That’s all you’re going to get, I’m afraid.’
‘He’s not much of a talker. Is he behaving himself?’
‘He’s as good as gold.’
‘That’s what my mum always says.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. I’ve got meetings all day, and need to make a call.’
The line went dead, and as I hung up the receiver, I knew exactly what I needed to do. ‘Right,’ I said to Finn. ‘We’re going to take a trip to London, my little friend, to see what your mummy’s up to.’
I headed through Islington, checking in the windows of every Italian restaurant, pushing a sleeping Finn in his buggy, finally spotting Sophy at the back of a pretty place, with hanging baskets outside, and a red and white chequered awning. She was sitting opposite a man wearing glasses and a burgundy polo shirt, with curly, dark hair. It was clear she liked him. Her smile was so natural. I stood outside for some time, staring in, mesmerised by the couple, before pulling out my phone.
I brought up my camera, knowing I’d found, quite by chance, the perfect way to ruin Sophy’s life.
Chapter 16
Sophy
‘I miss you.’ Isaac filled my glass from a bottle of sparkling water before digging into an enormous plate of pasta. Behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his dark eyes were sincere and I realised how much I’d missed him too. ‘I still can’t believe you’re not coming back to Apex.’
‘I might have, if I hadn’t been replaced,’ I said, raising my voice above a burst of laughter from a nearby table. Our favourite lunch spot, Luigi’s, was even busier than I remembered. Colours, scents and sounds seemed heightened, as though I’d been living underground for months. ‘How’s Harriet working out?’
‘She’s fine, but it’s not the same.’
I knew he was just being kind; that my successor was lovely and good at her job – we’d worked together briefly – but Isaac and I had made a good team. We clicked from the moment we started working together on Back in Time, bonding in a brother-and-sister way that made going into work every day a pleasure. He was tall and solid with dark, curly hair and a love of plaid shirts that gave him the air of a lumberjack. He was also utterly obsessed with history. When he introduced his girlfriend, she joked he’d only asked her out because her name was Anne, like his favourite monarch.
‘I’m thinking of looking for a new job,’ I said, pushing my salad around my plate, butterflies in my stomach making it hard to eat. I kept thinking how upset Elizabeth would be that I hadn’t left Finn with her, knowing she’d have loved the opportunity to have him to herself for a few hours. ‘Something closer to home,’ I added. Home. It used to be the little house in Stevenage with Mum, then a flat-share in London when I was offered the job with Apex after a work placement there, and then the apartment with Dom. I still didn’t think of The Avenue as my home, despite spending every day there for the past three months.
‘What sort of job?’
‘Maybe retrain as a history teacher.’
Isaac screwed up his nose, his mouth turned down.
‘What?’
‘The history part’s fine, but there’ll be pupils involved, probably bored and more interested in their phones?’
‘It would be my job to make them interested.’ He had a point, though. It was the research element I loved, not so much dealing with other people, particularly young, impressionable people from a position of authority. The idea was suddenly ridiculous. ‘Maybe not,’ I said.
‘If you really want a job, I could put some work your way.’ Isaac expertly twirled linguine round his fork. ‘We’re working on a new programme for next year, a quiz show for history buffs. We need someone to write and research the questions.’
‘Isaac, that would be great.’ Suddenly, it felt as if a window had opened in my mind, letting in fresh air. ‘Would you have mentioned this if I hadn’t replied to your email?’
His gaze dipped to his plate. ‘I mentioned it to Dom, but he said he thought it was too soon, that you were still struggling a bit since … you know.’
Flushing, I recalled Isaac and Anne coming to visit me in hospital before I was discharged – their thinly veiled shock that rather than a tired but glowing new mum, cradling her newborn, they were greeted by a vision of white-faced, lank-haired apathy with painful stitches, too exhausted to sit up and greet them properly while Dom paced with the baby, who we hadn’t yet named as I’d been sure I was having a girl.
‘I think he was worried it would be too much pressure right now.’
My flush deepened. I’d known in an abstract way that as Dom still went to work every day, he was bound to see my ex colleagues and that they would ask about me, perhaps talk about me, but it hadn’t really made an impact. Now, I wondered what on earth he’d been saying. Dom liked Isaac and I knew he was looking out for me, but I wanted to make my own decisions. Maybe having something besides Finn to focus on would make me feel better and more alert. ‘I think I can cope,’ I said, keeping my tone light. ‘I’d love to give it a go.’
‘Sure?’ Isaac gave me a frank look. ‘Dom said you’re exhausted all the time and to be honest, you do look tired.’
‘Thanks for that.’ I’d looked a bit clownish in make-up so had swiped it off and made do with mascara and lip gloss, before pulling on an olive-green dress that skimmed my stomach, but I clearly looked different to the version of me Isaac was used to. Namely, someone who didn’t think much about what she wore, but was better put together and generally smiling. ‘This is me on a good day,’ I said.
I’d been on a high, leaving the house after showing Liv around, making sure she knew Finn’s routine and where everything was with a promise to call if anything cropped up, but now my spirits were drooping. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. Dom didn’t even know where I was. What had I been thinking? I’d left our son with a virtual stranger to have lunch in London after barely setting foot outside for months.
‘You’ve probably got the new-mum blues,’ Isaac said, eliciting a puff of laughter from me.
‘I took some tablets for that. If anything, they made me feel worse.’
‘Maybe you should go back to your doctor.’
‘That’s what Dom says.’ I took a sip of water. ‘I’m taking a course of vitamins, which are
starting to kick in.’ It was true that I felt less tired than I had in a while, though that might have been due to me dozing on the train, lulled by the rhythmic rocking of the carriage.
‘Thirty per cent of new mothers can have postnatal depression for up to a year after giving birth.’
Pushing aside my misgivings, I grinned and grabbed my napkin. Reaching over, I dabbed spaghetti sauce off his chin before scooping a forkful of his lunch into my mouth. ‘Have you been reading parenting websites?’
He gave a bashful smile, nudging his glasses further up on his nose. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I got worried when you didn’t reply to any of my texts.’
Momentarily distracted by a figure hurrying past the restaurant, shoulders hunched inside a black coat, it took a second for his words to sink in. ‘Texts?’ I pulled my head back. ‘I haven’t had any texts from you, just that email,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t reply.’ I ate some more of my salad, suddenly starving. ‘I’m a terrible friend.’
Putting his fork down, Isaac leant back and rootled his phone out of his jeans pocket and jabbed the screen. ‘See?’ He twisted his wrist so I could see a list of sent messages on the screen – to me. ‘Nothing major.’ He put his phone on the table with a little shrug. ‘Just checking how you were doing because you weren’t answering calls and I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘You made one call since we moved, which I answered,’ I said, still puzzling over the texts. ‘You rang the landline and asked how I was enjoying life in suburbia.’
‘I rang another time, but your mother-in-law said you wanted to be left alone.’
I stared. ‘She never even told me you’d called.’ Or had she and I’d forgotten? Those early days at The Avenue had blurred into each other – I’d spent a lot of time in our bedroom and the newly decorated nursery, which Natasha had worked on before we moved in – not that they’d got much better. ‘She must have forgotten.’ The note bobbed into my mind and I pushed it down. I wasn’t going to start doubting Elizabeth’s intentions because someone had an axe to grind.
‘At least she’s got your back,’ said Isaac, echoing my thoughts. I remembered he’d met my mother-in-law at our wedding, where she’d gone out of her way to be charming to everyone, and I hated that the note was putting ridiculous thoughts into my head. ‘I decided texting would be better and when you didn’t reply resorted to emailing.’
‘I thought it was a bit odd,’ I admitted. ‘But I definitely didn’t get any texts.’ Unless I’d deleted them without reading in one of my befuddled states. I hadn’t replied to a couple of WhatsApp messages from Mum, now I thought about it, but when she called me I’d looked to check and they were there – I’d just forgotten about them.
‘Anyway, I’m here now, so tell me what’s been going on since I left.’
For the next fifteen minutes, I felt almost normal as Isaac filled me in on the comings and goings at the TV station: who’d been promoted, who’d left, a proposed strike as a protest against pay cuts. Dom must surely be involved in that. He hadn’t told me about it. Or perhaps he had and I wasn’t listening properly.
I was finishing my lunch when my phone rang.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Isaac, interrupting him midway through telling me about the latest Back in Time episode he was working on, featuring Thomas Cromwell who was ‘one of the most corrupt ministers to ever hold power in England’.
‘Sophy, where are you?’
I felt an odd sense of déjà vu at the sound of Dom’s voice, asking the exact same question he had when I was with Liv at The Busy Bean.
‘In Luigi’s with Isaac,’ I said. ‘Come and join us if you like.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going out?’
‘I … I forgot.’ My smile faded. ‘When you said you weren’t free, I asked Isaac to meet me instead.’
There was a moment’s pause as he absorbed this information. ‘Have you heard from Liv?’
‘Liv?’ My heart turned over. ‘No, why?’
‘She’s not at home.’
I let out my breath, aware of Isaac’s concerned gaze. ‘She was taking Finn to the park.’ A thought struck. ‘How do you know she’s not at home?’
I knew what the answer would be before he said it. ‘Mum popped round to the house to see if everything was OK.’
Something tightened inside my chest. ‘Did you ask her to check up on me?’
‘They’re not at the park,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘Mum said she saw them heading to the station.’
‘She followed them?’
‘Why would Liv be going to the station?’
His words cut through my flare of anxiety. Why was Liv going to the station? ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, my pulse beginning to race. ‘I’ll call her.’
‘Ring me straight back.’
‘What’s going on?’ Isaac’s face was creased with alarm.
‘It’s the nanny I told you about.’ I pressed in Liv’s number and jammed my phone to my ear.
‘Sophy, hi—’
‘Where are you?’ I said sharply.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My … someone saw you going to the station.’
‘Oh, right.’ She exhaled a small laugh. ‘Well, Finn wouldn’t stop crying and I remembered that if Evie was upset, she always settled down if we went on the train. Not very far, just a stop or two. I thought it might work for Finn.’
Relief mingled with something else. ‘Did it?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Did it work?’
‘It did.’ Her tone became jolly. ‘You loved it, didn’t you, Finny?’ I imagined her bouncing my baby, beaming down at him, his eyes shining up at her. ‘He went very quiet and we looked out of the window for a while and then he became sleepy so I put him back in his pushchair. He’s been as quiet as a mouse ever since.’
Envy coursed through my veins at the thought of my baby having a new experience without me, even though getting on a train with him would never have occurred to me. ‘That’s great, Liv.’ My tone was cool. ‘I just wish you’d asked me first if it was OK.’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was subdued. ‘I suppose it was second nature. I wanted to make him feel better and …’ She sounded close to crying. ‘I’m so sorry, Sophy.’
I immediately felt bad. ‘No, no, it’s fine. I’m sorry.’ I caught a frown from Isaac and tried to smile. ‘I’m glad Finn’s OK. It’s hard when he cries all the time.’
‘He really is happy. I’ll send you a picture.’
‘That would be lovely,’ I said, feeling silly.
‘He phoned to see where you were.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Dom,’ Liv said carefully. ‘It sounded as if he didn’t know you were going out.’
I swallowed, feeling my face heat up. ‘It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.’ What must she think of me? ‘Listen, Liv, I’d like you to meet him. You don’t have to rush off later, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ she said without hesitating. ‘I was going to suggest it anyway. It’ll be good to meet Finn’s daddy.’
‘I’ll see you soon.’
‘No rush.’
I ended the call and stared at my phone for a few seconds, jumping when it alerted me to a message. Liv had snapped a photo of Finn in his woolly hat with the teddy-bear ears, his head cocked to one side. His cheeks were pink, his eyes bright, mouth curved into a smile. He was smiling for her. Tears rose. All of a sudden, everything felt wrong. I wanted to be with my baby. Liv had said she wanted to get to know Finn. Well, I wanted to get to know him. I could hardly do that when I wasn’t even there.
‘Everything all right?’ Isaac asked, putting down his empty glass once I’d called Dom to tell him Finn and Liv were fine and that I was about to head home.
‘I shouldn’t have come.’ I picked up my bag, fighting the tears back. ‘I’ve never left Finn before. I’m a terrible mother.’
&nbs
p; ‘Of course you’re not.’ Isaac looked shocked at my outburst. ‘It’s been nine months, Sophy. You’re allowed to have a couple of hours to yourself.’
‘But even when I’m there, I’m not really there.’ I thrust my hair back with a shaking hand. I was too hot, the restaurant too loud, the smell of food overwhelming. ‘I have to do better. I was getting better before we moved out of London, but now I’m worse.’ I thought again of the note about Elizabeth, shoved in my dressing gown pocket at home, and nearly told him just how bad things had been, but Isaac was pulling his credit card out and waving the waiter over.
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ll get this and then walk you to the station.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. You should get back to work.’ I pushed my arms into my coat and stood, sick and dizzy with the need to escape. ‘It was good to see you.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he called after me as I weaved between tables on rubbery legs towards the exit, not caring that several diners were staring, probably thinking Isaac was my boyfriend and we’d had an argument.
All I cared about was getting home to my son.
Chapter 17
Liv
I’d been caught out. Chastised like a naughty child, by Sophy. And even forty-five minutes later, as I sat in the park, under a grey sky, a bitter wind blasting my cheeks, trying to calm down, I couldn’t pop the anger bubbles rising inside me.
Finn had fallen asleep in my arms on the train back from London. And even when I’d moved him to his buggy at St Albans’ Station, he’d barely stirred. He was such a good little boy. Sophy didn’t deserve him.
Now, I opened my phone and stared at the photo I’d taken of Sophy and her friend laughing as they’d enjoyed their meal. Though I wasn’t totally convinced she was having an affair. It didn’t fit with someone who could barely keep awake. Where would she find the energy for a start? But even if they weren’t having an affair, surely this photo would cast doubts in Dom’s mind. I would print a copy at Mum’s later. Post it through the door with another note. No smoke without fire, as they say.