Dear Thing

by Julie Cohen

  There was a yell from the car and Jarvis jumped out. He scooped up a handful of snow and immediately started throwing snowballs at Posie, who shrieked and returned fire.

  ‘The thing is,’ Romily continued, ‘that even though you have a good reason to hate me, you still helped me. You were amazing, Claire. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  ‘I think you would have done it whether I was there or not.’

  ‘But with you there, I wasn’t afraid. Not for a single minute. I knew you were there, and I knew that you cared about what happened. I knew that you loved that baby as much as I did.’ Romily’s voice broke, but she recovered herself quickly. ‘And I know that right now, you’re the only person in the world who feels exactly the same way as I do.’

  This time, her gaze definitely did not waver. And Claire could see all the pain in her eyes, all the emptiness and loss that Claire knew so well.

  From a distance, Claire heard the wet thump of a snowball hitting its target, followed by triumphant laughter from Posie. ‘Good shot, Miss Mariposa,’ called Jarvis.

  ‘You have a family,’ Claire said to Romily.

  ‘So do you. They’re waiting for you.’ Romily held out the bag to her.

  ‘I can’t take a husband and child from you like a gift,’ Claire said. ‘That’s not how things work.’

  ‘They’re yours already. You just have to go to them.’ Romily shrugged. ‘Or don’t. It’s up to you. But it looks to me like you’ve got a car full of baby furniture, and there’s a baby in a flat in Brickham without a cot.’

  ‘Those are things.’

  ‘Well, yes. Ben could buy another one. But he probably wants this one.’

  A snowball sailed by their heads.

  ‘Listen,’ said Romily. ‘Someone needs to deliver this breast milk, and I’m not going to do it. What’s more, Jarvis and Posie are going to be absolutely soaked after this and they’ll need a hot bath and a bit of calming down. You’re the best person to go.’

  ‘Romily—’

  ‘Just try it. See what happens. All those books you gave me strongly recommend breast milk during the first few days of life. This is the colostrum, which is specially tailored for a baby’s first days. It can help with immunity and some studies say it leads to better brain development. It’s the most perfect food on earth for a baby, especially with all these organic vegetables I’ve been eating. But hey, you can leave this to spoil and let the baby have the powdered artificial stuff. Lots of babies do fine on that.’

  ‘You’re trying to manipulate me.’

  ‘I’m doing whatever might work to get you your happy ending.’ Romily put the bag down on the snow between them. ‘It’s in your hands. Right now I have to stop my daughter from killing her father.’

  She turned and walked away. Posie ran over to give Claire another swift, snowy hug and Jarvis waved to her, too. Then they all got back into the car and drove off, slipping down the drive. She heard their tyres on the wet road.

  Inside the bag, her phone beeped. It was probably a message from Romily, trying to get her to look. Trying whatever might work.

  She looked. It was from Ben.

  We miss you.

  46

  Natural

  THE DOOR TO number 4 looked like all the others in the block of flats – beech, with gold numbers and a small Yale lock. Claire knocked.

  Ben opened the door a little way. He was unshaven and more rumpled than he’d been yesterday. He appeared to have neither showered nor slept.

  He looked unbelievably happy and calm. The way he’d looked on their honeymoon, when they’d gone to Venice and stayed out late watching the lights on the canals and then spent all night making love.

  ‘Claire,’ he said, and his face creased into a tired smile. ‘I’m so glad it’s you.’

  ‘I … got all your messages.’ Half an hour’s worth, when she’d listened to them. And a text for every hour that Thing had been alive.

  ‘Good. Come in.’ He stepped back and Claire saw for the first time that he had his shirt unbuttoned halfway and that the baby was nestled inside against his bare chest. The shirt formed a sort of pouch. Thing’s eyes were closed, his hands in fists near his face.

  ‘It’s good for him to have skin-to-skin contact,’ Ben explained. ‘The midwife told me.’

  ‘I know,’ said Claire. ‘I read about it.’

  ‘I keep thinking he’ll get tickled by my chest hair and have to sneeze. But he seems okay with it. He likes it. He wants to be held.’

  ‘Have you slept at all?’

  ‘A little while. Maybe an hour. I know I’ll regret it later, but I’m too excited.’ He laughed and rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t want to miss anything. Which is silly, because mostly he’s been sleeping. I’ve just been watching him sleep.’

  The baby heaved in a deep breath and then let it out. His eyes were wrinkled, his eyebrows little pencil sketches. Claire could understand how Ben had spent hours watching him sleep. He had described it, in one of his phone messages, in hushed tones. As if the experience was so wonderful that he couldn’t bear not to share it with her.

  ‘You could probably use some coffee,’ she said.

  ‘God yes. I haven’t got it together enough to make any.’

  ‘You probably haven’t eaten either.’ The practicality, the immediate task to be done, allowed her to look away from the baby and realize they were still standing in the tiny entranceway between the door and the living room. She stepped into the flat proper and went to the kitchenette to put the kettle on. Ben followed her.

  ‘Romily gave me some expressed milk,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know whether to wake him up or let him sleep.’ Ben looked from the baby to her and back again. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘God.’ Ben sank down into a chair. ‘It’s such a responsibility. Every decision is entirely yours, and it affects this little person. I don’t think I really appreciated before how huge it is.’

  ‘What’s— what’s his name?’ She tried to keep her voice neutral, cheerful. It was a question you asked of a stranger.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s something else that’s a responsibility.’

  She thought back to all their discussions about names over the years. They’d bandied them back and forth as if they were words, rather than a person’s identity.

  Claire got down mugs. He kept his coffee in the same place they did at home, in the cabinet to the left of the cooker. She spooned it into the cafetière, good and strong.

  Ben watched her. ‘So you got my messages?’ he said. ‘You didn’t call back.’

  ‘I left my phone at Romily’s flat. I … thought you were there.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to be with Romily. I want to be with you. I was so mixed up with love for this baby that I didn’t know what to think. And I was feeling guilty, too, about Romily. But being away from you made me realize that I’d wanted a baby so badly I’d forgotten that I wanted it with you. I’m sorry, Claire.’

  The baby stirred. Ben adjusted him in his shirt.

  She remembered Ben walking around with Posie when she’d been an infant. He’d lain her down the length of his arm; it was a position that seemed to alleviate her colic. She remembered feeling her heart melt a little bit inside and thinking, This is what he will be like with our own child, one day.

  ‘He’s awake,’ said Ben. ‘Do you want to hold him?’

  Claire stepped back. ‘I can’t, Ben. Not yet.’

  ‘But soon?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She went to the door and put her hand on the knob. ‘You’ve got the milk, anyway. For when you need it.’

  ‘Come back later,’ he said. ‘Or tomorrow.’

  Thing’s face peeped out of the gap in Ben’s shirt. He was looking up at his father.

  ‘I will,’ she said.

  Romily got down on her hands and knees, grunting, to look underneath the sofa and pulled out Posie’s school bag. It had d
ust balls clinging to it. Romily dumped out the contents: homework folder, reading book and a crumpled envelope.

  ‘Pose?’ she called. ‘You didn’t tell me you had any letters home?’ They had had a discussion about this.

  ‘What?’ Posie’s voice was muffled, as if she was also clearing out underneath something. Romily opened the envelope.

  It was an invitation to a Christmas party for Emily and Daniel, for today. Written at the bottom in an untidy hand was a message: Dear Posie, please make sure your mum comes to the party, too. There will be chocolate. Eleanor x

  Romily jumped up. It was the first time she’d done that in a while, and it felt pretty good. She was getting stronger. ‘Posie!’ she called. ‘Hurry up! We’ve got to go to a party.’ She checked the time on the invitation. ‘Now!’

  Posie trailed out of her room. She was wearing a princess dress and a woollen hat. ‘What party?’ she said.

  ‘Emily’s having a Christmas party. The invitation was in your bag.’

  ‘Oh. But I don’t really know Emily.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. You need friends, Posie. Real friends. You need to spend time with children your own age.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to.’

  ‘You’ve got a choice. You can go to a party, or I can stand over you while you clean that bedroom properly.’

  Posie twisted her toe on the carpet. ‘All right, we can go to the party.’

  The address was only ten minutes’ walk from their flat, and was two terraced houses both identically decorated for Christmas. Romily knocked on the blue door, number 14, and the red door at number 16 opened. Eleanor beckoned them in with a big smile.

  ‘I’m so pleased you could make it!’ she said, taking their coats and the bottle of orange juice that Romily had brought from her refrigerator. ‘I was going to pop by and make sure you got the invitation, but I wasn’t certain where you lived. Posie, the children are in the next room making Christmas decorations. Romily, come through to the kitchen for the grown-up activities.’

  The terraces had been knocked together inside, and the kitchen took up what would have been one entire reception room. Pastries covered the table and lots of people crowded together, holding glasses and talking. Cinnamon and mulled wine scented the air and, in the background, a tall man circulated with a bottle in one hand and a plate in the other.

  ‘Are you drinking?’ Eleanor hesitated over a vat of mulled wine and a similar one of hot chocolate. Romily shook her head and Eleanor ladled up a mug of the chocolate.

  ‘You’ve had the baby!’ One of the Mummies from school sidled up to Romily. ‘That’s wonderful! How is— I mean, how are the parents doing? Do you know?’

  ‘They’re doing pretty well,’ Romily said.

  ‘We think you are so brave,’ said another Mummy. Eleanor handed Romily her mug, and winked.

  ‘Not brave,’ said Romily. ‘Sort of foolish, really. I’d for gotten how tough pregnancy is.’

  ‘So what’s this I hear about you working at the museum?’ Eleanor cut in deftly. ‘We love it there. Daniel goes in every week to stroke the stuffed badger.’

  A chorus of praise for the stuffed badger.

  ‘He’s called Gavin the Badger,’ said Romily. She tapped her nose. ‘Insider knowledge.’

  Some time later when Posie didn’t reappear asking to go home, Romily went to find her. She was sitting next to Emily halfway up the stairs, their hands over their eyes, counting.

  ‘Hide and Seek?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re busy.’

  Giggles from upstairs. ‘Ready or not, here we come!’ cried Emily, and she and Posie both dropped their hands and stood up at the same time.

  Romily couldn’t help it. She grabbed Posie and hugged her.

  ‘I am your mother and I love you,’ she said to her, her face buried in her hair.

  ‘Yes, I know, you keep saying that. Go back to the parents where you belong.’

  But Romily held on to her for a moment more, while Emily started up the stairs. ‘Are you and Emily friends now?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s all right. Do you know she has two daddies? One who really made her and one who lives with her? I told her about Thing and she wants to come and visit him sometime.’

  ‘That sounds great.’

  Posie gave her a swift kiss back and then she ran away up the stairs, after her friend.

  You give birth to children so that they will go away from you, Romily thought. So that they’ll grow up and have their own lives with people they’ve chosen. It’s natural. And the hurting is natural, too.

  47

  A Window Out

  BY THE MORNING of Christmas Eve the snow had melted to patches here and there in Claire’s front garden, and it was already gone in Brickham. When Claire got to the door of Ben’s flat, balancing the shopping bags and the live little tree in its pot, she found a stack of wrapped gifts waiting on the doormat. She recognized Posie’s handwriting on the tags.

  Through the door she could hear the baby wailing.

  Ben had given her a key; she opened the door and slipped inside. The flat looked as if a bomb had exploded in it. Every light was on and the television played Christmas carols. Among the wreckage, Ben strode with Thing on his shoulder, patting his back and gently bouncing his body.

  ‘He’s been crying all night,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t know what to do. I nearly called A&E. What if something is wrong?’

  The baby’s face was red, screwed up into a tight little ball of anger with an open toothless mouth.

  Claire put down the bags: a small turkey, potatoes, vegetables. She didn’t think Ben should be without Christmas dinner. She hadn’t decided yet whether she would cook it for him, or if she was going to her parents’ house. ‘Does he have a fever?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The health visitor was here yesterday and she said he was fine. He started crying at about two this morning and he hasn’t stopped. Nothing works. He won’t eat, he won’t sleep, he just cries.’ Ben kept walking in circles round the perimeter of the flat, kept bouncing, skirting nappies and cuddly animals. The television was playing ‘Silent Night’.

  The flat smelled of stale coffee and posset. The central heating was on high. Ben was in the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday. And, come to think of it, the day before. ‘When was the last time you were outside?’ she asked.

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk. It always used to work with Posie.’

  ‘Isn’t it too cold?’

  She rummaged through the untidy piles of clothing, finding socks, a hat, a sleep suit, the green cardigan and tiny white shoes she’d bought with Romily. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Layer him up. I’ll pack a bag.’

  She’d noticed that Ben had become practised at changing the baby, but with Thing shouting and curling up his limbs it took some time to get him dressed. By the time he was, Claire had found the sling and was untangling its long straps. ‘Let me put this on you so you can carry him.’

  ‘Do you remember how it works?’

  ‘It’s marketed for new parents, how hard can it be?’

  She looped the straps around his arms and connected them in front, making a pocket ready to hold the baby. Fastened up, Thing lay against Ben’s chest, legs dangling like a frog’s, crying into the front of his shirt. Ben wrapped his coat around the baby and they went out of the flat together, downstairs and outside.

  The baby paused for a moment, sensing the fresh air, but then began crying again. ‘Do you think he’s in pain?’ Ben asked her.

  She understood Ben’s anguish. Every cry wrenched her insides, called on all her instincts to soothe and protect. ‘Let’s walk for a little while and see if he settles down. If he doesn’t, we can ring the health visitor or go to the hospital.’

  Without discussing it they headed for the town centre. Brickham was crowded with people clutching bags and parcels; coloured lights dripped from the buildings. ‘I’d forgotten that all of thi
s was going on without us,’ said Ben.

  A couple pushing a pram passed them. The mother, hearing the baby crying and seeing Ben with the sling, smiled at Ben and then at Claire. A smile of sympathy and complicity, the sort of smile Claire had seen mothers giving each other.

  This woman thought Ben and Claire were normal parents with their normal newborn. A normal family.

  As simple and as complicated, as everyday and as extraordinary, as that.

  They entered Brickham’s main pedestrianized shopping area. The shop windows sparkled with artificial snow and gleamed with goods for sale. Claire smelled coffee and baking bread.

  ‘I haven’t got you a present,’ said Ben. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I think,’ said Claire, ‘that if we’re going to be a family, you’re going to have to stop saying you’re sorry.’

  He stopped walking and looked at her over the down of the baby’s head.

  ‘Claire,’ he said, reaching for her. The volume of the baby’s cries suddenly rose up into a scream, and then subsided into a grunt. And then silence.

  Alarmed, they both bent towards him. His cheeks were pink, not red, and he gazed calmly back at them, as if wondering why they were making such a fuss.

  ‘What happened—’ Claire began, but then the scent struck both of them at the same time.

  ‘Ugh, that smells like a big one,’ said Ben. ‘No wonder you were shouting about it, mate.’ He began to laugh. ‘Imagine if I’d gone to A&E.’

  ‘We should get him changed.’ She pointed at the café on the corner. He held the door open for her, as he always did.

  She gave him a nappy, wipes and a change of clothing from the bag she’d packed and he headed to the baby changing room. She bought them each a coffee and a mince pie and found the last unoccupied table, squeezed against the window between a group of squabbling children and four pensioners with their wheeled shopping bags. Over the speakers, Slade was singing about Christmas and looking to the future. She wiped sugar and coffee off the table with a paper napkin and when she spotted Ben coming out of the changing room she raised her hand so he’d find her.