Baby Love

by Louisa Young

  I’d use her money to pay Neil.

  That wouldn’t take all of it.

  Can money be tainted?

  If Noor’s family had ever treated her decently I’d send some to them.

  So, what? Found a home for repentant whores? The Janie Gower Redemption Centre? Or for the female victims of Islamic fundamentalists? Or a brothel for women, with Eddie and Ben as the star attractions … but who would ever pay to sleep with Ben Cooper? Ha ha Eddie. For a second I was tempted to go back and do it again. Oh, he was good. He was unconscious, but he was good. I kept laughing. I’d had no idea I had that kind of pervy sexuality going on inside me. Good morning, my body! How nice to see you again! We must see more of each other!

  I just didn’t feel like using the money to feed and educate Lily.

  Then I got another coffee. Then I drove home.

  *

  Well, almost home. I stopped off at Zeinab’s. She was digging and fossicking in the garden, with a big skirt hitched up around her knees and a big hat on her head. Her boys were gambolling around her, baffing at each other like puppies.

  ‘Why aren’t they at school?’ I asked, as I greeted them.

  ‘Chicken pox,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

  Oh, God, I’m a shit friend.

  ‘Not like you to forget something like that,’ she said. ‘You look terrible. What are you wearing? Come and have a coffee.’

  Lovely warm milky coffee, made by a friend, given by a friend. The boys looked disgustingly well. ‘It’s an extra holiday for them,’ she said. ‘They are hardly itching. They want chicken pox for ever.’

  I was so happy, so quiet, so ordinary, I almost forgot what I’d come for.

  ‘Zeinab,’ I said. ‘Can we come and stay for a few days? Lily and me? There’s something that needs to blow over.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. She asked no questions and I told her nothing. She said did I want to sleep for a bit now. I said no, but that I would gladly borrow some clothes.

  ‘Anything you need,’ she said. God bless her.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour or two,’ I said, and drove home in a beautiful linen gallabeya, my feet bandaged, clutching the housecoat and apron and bloodstained sleeves in a plastic bag.

  *

  At home the machine was flashing away.

  Mum: Where was I, could I give her a ring?

  Dad: Where was I, could I give him a ring?

  Neil: Where was I, could I give him a ring?

  Cooper: Where was I, could I give him a ring?

  Cooper again: Where was I? There was no point trying to avoid him.

  Laetitia the social worker: she wanted to see us again, would it be all right if she came on Thursday afternoon, was she right in thinking that Lily wasn’t at school then, could I call her back if it’s not OK, otherwise she’ll just come.

  Shit. Today is Thursday. Today is when Jim is coming.

  Last was a message from Harry: if I got this presumably I was back: I was to leave again immediately and go and stay with a girlfriend or something, not my parents, and call him as soon as I was elsewhere, not now, just go. Please he said.

  Oh, I thought.

  It had of course crossed my mind to wonder why Harry’s own runabout had been handily sitting there in Bates’s drive with the keys in the ignition. It was just that my mind hadn’t been in a fit state to notice what was crossing it that morning. Was he still at Eddie’s?

  Well, my plan was to go away anyway.

  Shit. My handbag was still … wherever.

  But my address book was on my desk. I grabbed it, some clothes, some for Lily, and her eczema creams, and shoved them in a bag. Then I used the spare key to double lock everything I could think of to double lock and went out to the Pontiac. It had got a ticket. I laughed, and drove back to Zeinab’s.

  On the way I went past Lily’s school, and peered through the window, where I could see her splashing her hands in a plastic tub of water. Brigid had redone her plaits. She was concentrating hard. I knew she would be humming a little song to herself, with strange words, working through things in her mind, going over all the strange and seemingly inexplicable things that happen every day in a three-year-old’s life. Because a three-year-old knows so little, and learns so much, all the time. Coping away. My little sponge.

  I got to Zeinab’s at noon, slept for an hour, and then rang Harry.

  ‘Where are you?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘You work for the only person that you think I need to hide from,’ I said. ‘Why should I tell you where I am?’

  ‘Angel, trust me,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said. I was very happy.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Does Ben know where you are?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t tell him – don’t speak to him.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘Have you got my car?’

  ‘My car,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, for fuck … Where have you been?’

  ‘None of your damn business. Having fun.’

  ‘Do you know where Eddie is?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Angeline, are you drunk?’

  ‘Can’t tell,’ I said. ‘But listen … no, it’s all right …’

  ‘Angeline?’

  ‘I am going to go away. Don’t worry. It’s a good idea. But Harry …’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This afternoon I have Jim, and the social worker, and a million other people coming to tea.’

  ‘Cancel them.’

  ‘I have to keep my date. The woods are dark and wild and deep but I have promises to keep and miles and miles and miles and miles to go before I sleep.’

  ‘Cancel.’

  ‘The hearing is next week.’

  ‘Angel …’

  ‘I won’t see Ben and I won’t see Eddie. Not if I can help it. I’m not worried about anything else.’ I didn’t tell him I was worried I would fight Ben and kidnap Eddie. Hey, good idea! ‘I’ll try and cancel this afternoon.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Not telling you. Got to go and get Lily.’

  I hung up.

  All the mixed feelings were still there, and I just didn’t care about them. All the doubt and confusion, and I didn’t give a damn. Why did I spend so much time trying to pretend that everything was all right? It’s not and it won’t be, and it doesn’t matter. Fuck it. I’m dancing in the light of the flames on the battlements, going Ha ha ha. Harry’s all right. Everything is all right. I’m queen of the fucking May.

  I couldn’t get hold of Jim or Laetitia.

  I was so sleepy. I went to get Lily. She was happy, sweet, so pleased to see me she just yelled. At four, we all went to the flat: Zeinab, the boys and us.

  How could this whole mess fail to be noticed? It can’t! Ben can ruin us … just like that. And then Lily and I shall go off to Buenos Aires and live happily ever after with the psychotic gangster. How marvellous. I must mention it to him.

  SEVENTEEN

  Showtime

  The flat had been ransacked. Broken glass, books pulled out, furniture unravelled, my study awash with papers, and a bobby on the door. Beside him was a huge bouquet, just like the last one but half as big again. Presumably he had ordered it yesterday. I picked it up and cuddled it.

  ‘Angeline?’ said Zeinab. ‘Are you loved?’ I grinned at her.

  ‘Miss Gower?’ said the bobby.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ I recognized him. ‘You’re Liam’s friend, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, and immediately became human. ‘We couldn’t find you.’

  ‘I was hiding,’ I said. ‘I was expecting this.’ Which wasn’t true.

  Stupid Ben not to just do this to Bates’s in the first place. It would have made everything much simpler. But then I don’t have a burglar alarm, and Eddie does, rather.

  ‘We’ve fingerprinted and everything. Neighbour called us. Heard a noise and saw a fellow running off. Any ide
as?’

  ‘Ben Cooper,’ I said. ‘Detective Superintendent, either in person or employing some other cack-handed innocent under duress.’ Yes I’m sure he gave me a funny look. In exchange I gave him the name of the police station. He looked as if he knew he ought to look surprised, but wasn’t.

  ‘We’ll be needing to take a statement … can you see if anything’s missing?’

  ‘It won’t be,’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing he wants.’ The videos were still at Brigid’s – even if he knew they existed. Nothing else would interest him. He didn’t know I had anything anyway. Him and his off-chances. He must be desperate: raiding the straw’s flat. Now if the policeman would just go, I could get on.

  ‘Um … look, could you go?’ I said nicely.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I want to get tidied up. I’ve people coming round, including a social worker who can give evidence that my child should be taken away … please.’

  He looked at me. ‘Someone will have to take a statement,’ he said.

  ‘Later,’ I said. ‘Promise.’

  He shrugged. ‘This evening, probably,’ he said. ‘Any friend of Liam’s,’ and he wandered back down the balcony.

  Zeinab was giving me a very pure look.

  ‘I’ll tell you everything. Boys! Play football. Come on, let’s tidy.’

  Once the worst of the mess was shoved into the study, and the study door was shut, the flat didn’t look too bad. We sent Omar up the road for bread and milk, and I put Eddie’s flowers – old and new – in vases all along the wall of the balcony. My feet were bleeding again.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Showtime.’

  Brigid and Maireadh and Aisling and all were coming up the stairs. Behind them, Jim. Behind him Laetitia.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, as I let her in. ‘Everybody seems to have turned up at the same time, I hope you don’t mind.’

  It was mayhem, all through the flat and out on to the balcony. Six small boys and two small girls, three mothers, two Irish aunties, tea and toast, a penalty shootout competition against the end wall, Birnam wood all over everywhere, Brigid trying to find out what had happened, Zeinab taking pride in not asking, me glitter-eyed and madly courteous, trying not to talk to Brigid and apologizing with horrid falsity to Jim who sat there like a poor rabbit, a lone man in the world of women, a eunuch in the den of houris. Lily took no notice of him whatsoever, and greeted everybody else with zagareets of delight.

  Laetitia laughed and said what fun. I introduced her to Jim. He said, yes they’d met, she’d been round to see him and Nora too.

  ‘Oooh,’ I said. ‘What’s their place like? Do tell. Will Lily like it better than here? I don’t suppose they live in a flat, do they? I know Jim’s boss is a very wealthy man.’

  ‘What boss?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, maybe you don’t work for him any more. You know. Janie’s little friend.’

  Jim went white.

  Bull’s eye! Jim knows lots of things, but he didn’t know that I knew some too.

  ‘Tell me, Jim,’ I whispered, as Maireadh took Laetitia off to get a cup of tea. ‘Was it really you who used to knock her about or was it the punters? Or Bates? Or maybe Cooper?’

  He’d gone all stiff. Eddie was right. He wasn’t clever.

  ‘I never hurt her,’ he said at last. ‘I always told you that.’ It was true. He always had. I had always despised him for it.

  Hassan had fallen over. I directed Zeinab to the sticking plasters.

  ‘So you never hit her?’

  ‘Never,’ he said. ‘I loved her.’ As if that proved anything.

  ‘Why did she want to run away from you the whole time, then?’

  ‘She didn’t.’ He was outraged. ‘She bloody didn’t. I helped her. I was useful. I helped her with all sorts of things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘When those two got mad at her, I was always there. I was the only person who knew everything. I was always kind to her …’

  ‘Was she kind to you?’

  Lily wanted milk. Jim stared at her. I left them together while I went to fetch her a glass, hobbling on my sore feet.

  ‘Here you are, hon.’ She wrapped herself round my legs and wouldn’t be disentangled. I stroked her and picked her up and told her I loved her to bits. She kissed my nose, and then went away with Michael on a promise of chocolate biscuits Brigid had brought.

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Jim. ‘Kind. No she fucking wasn’t. She fucked everybody in sight, whether or not they paid her. Everybody. Oh, except for me, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Laetitia, coming back across to us.

  ‘Fucking Janie,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, am I intruding …?’ she said, which was quite funny coming from a social worker. ‘Is there something …?’

  Jim stood up. The doorbell went. Lily came back with her biscuit. I felt terribly happy. Imminent relief was all around me, in the air, palpable. This bloody mess was going to shatter to smithereens, and at the end of it either life would be not worth living or I would rise triumphant and transcendent from the wreckage, with Lily glowing in my arms. Either way, I would know; I would have moved on.

  ‘What’s the matter with your feet?’ said Jim.

  ‘Angeline!’ called Zeinab from the front of the flat. ‘There’s a man here.’

  ‘Why’d he ring the bell? The door’s open,’ said Maireadh.

  It was Cooper.

  ‘Come outside,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t possibly, Ben, I have guests.’ I was delighted to see him. This man, a pimp and pornographer, had sold my sister’s body, and masqueraded it as mine; had made a whore of me without my even knowing. The more of my sister’s disgrace that was due to him the better, as far as I was concerned. And he’d ransacked my flat. And he had a nasty hairy backside and fucked with his eyes closed and a look of pain on his face. I started to laugh.

  ‘Come,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Standoff.

  ‘We’re all friends here,’ I said. ‘You know Jim Guest, don’t you? I believe you were his girlfriend’s pimp. My daughter Lily? Go on out, darling, take the boys.’ I don’t want her to see everything fall apart. Not knowing where it will all land.

  Zeinab started to herd the children out again.

  ‘Go with them?’ I said, and she nodded, her black eyebrows very high.

  Maireadh and Brigid sat down, agog, ready to watch the fun. Laetitia was looking at me oddly, so I introduced her to Ben. Did I mention that I was mad with fatigue and pain? I was. Fatigue, pain, adrenaline, anger, and the knowledge that it can’t last much longer.

  ‘This is Laetitia Bailey. She’s a social worker. She’s assessing Jim and I, to see which would be the better parent for Lily. Laetitia, this is Detective Superintendent Ben Cooper. He’s a policeman,’ I added, unnecessarily. ‘Our hearing is next week, Ben, so we’re all rather busy with the case. Perhaps I could talk to you when it’s over, unless of course you have something to add?’

  It was so easy. I know I am in the right, I thought. Out of chaos comes clarity. Fitna! Beautiful woman, disaster, madness, chaos.

  Ben was watching me. He didn’t know what I was doing. But then he didn’t know that I didn’t know what I was doing either.

  ‘Angie,’ he said, cautiously.

  ‘Don’t call me Angie.’

  Brigid snorted.

  ‘If you can’t behave, Brigid, you’ll have to leave the room,’ I called, without looking at her. She snorted again. I love that woman.

  Jim had a very strange look on his face. He was starting to mutter.

  ‘Sorry, Jim?’ I said.

  ‘What the fuck is he doing here?’ he burst out. ‘I’m not going to sit here with that bastard …’

  ‘I don’t want him here either, Jim. I don’t like him either. Ben – why don’t you just go away?’ It occurred to me I was behaving a bit like Eddie: cheerful and mad.

  ‘Urn …’ said Laetitia. M
aybe she has some professional skills which could be useful here. Crisis management. But I don’t want it managed.

  Jim was beginning to sway from side to side. He may not ever have hit Janie, but Cooper looked in for one.

  Ben glanced around, then mobilized. ‘Come on, Jim, don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘Angeline, I want to talk to you, now.’

  Oh, such male assertion.

  ‘Oh, blah,’ I said. ‘I’m not talking to you.’

  It was at that point that Jim belted Ben, crying out that he’d lost everything before because of this bastard and he wasn’t going to lose everything this time. Brigid and Maireadh made some loose attempts to pull him off; the rest of us stood back. Bang crash wallop.

  ‘What did he lose last time?’ asked Laetitia. I was beginning to like her – her calm interest, as if we were beetles and she was David Attenborough.

  ‘Janie, my sister,’ I whispered. ‘Cooper made her a prostitute. He was her pimp, all the time Jim and she were together.’

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped.

  The fight was very small and pathetic and lasted about ten seconds. Ben pushed Jim off, Jim burst into tears. The rest of us stood around and watched. How silly, how human, how much too late.

  Zeinab called to me from outside in Arabic: ‘There’s more men coming up!’

  ‘Eddie!’ I thought.

  It wasn’t Eddie. Maybe it was worse, I didn’t know. Four men in suits. I’d never seen them before. And Harry.

  ‘Miss Gower,’ they nodded to me, each in turn. They were like funeral attendants or something. Time to stand back. I did so, giggling. I stood with Laetitia and Brigid, and nudged them with my elbows.

  ‘Detective Superintendent,’ one of them murmured.

  It was Cooper who looked aghast.

  ‘Come along,’ murmured the suit.

  Cooper stood like a sack.

  He wasn’t saying anything. How unlike him. Silence, from Ben Cooper.

  They moved round to stand two on either side of him. He looked up at me. ‘Bitch,’ he said. ‘Just like your sister.’ I stuck my tongue out at him.

  Jim started yelling at him again. Harry slapped Jim’s face sharply. ‘Sit down,’ he said.