The Cottingley Cuckoo

by A. J. Elwood

  ‘Paul?’

  He shakes his head and his lip curls.

  ‘Surely you can’t know yet.’

  ‘I can,’ he says. ‘They trashed my CV, then told me they were offering the job to someone in-house. Don’t know why they bothered asking me in. Probably just ticking boxes.’ He stares down at the floor as Alexander burps then makes little breathy sounds of satisfaction. ‘That’s my boy,’ he croons, settling the child’s head against his shoulder. And just like that, Alexander falls asleep.

  You have the touch. I remember his mother’s proud voice when she saw him with the baby, nestling against him in that same milk-sleepy way. She hadn’t said much to me on her visit, though I’d been exhausted from the operation, had slept through much of it. A sudden memory: waking at some unknown time in the afternoon, hearing their voices echoing in the empty stairway, whispering, whispering.

  Paul says, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ His tone takes me back to the moment he asked me if I was leaving him, and everything stops. I want to tell him I’ll try harder, be better, that it will be easier when everything settles down, when we can sleep again. When we’re ourselves again. I force myself to wait.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he repeats, more tentative this time. I smother the sound that rises in the back of my throat and he goes on. ‘With me finding it difficult to find a job and all, and you feeling a bit depressed.’

  A bit depressed. I try to hide my frown. No wonder I was thinking of his mother; I can feel her influence in the room, almost hear her whispers emerging from its corners. Baby blues – that’s what she’d accused me of, isn’t it?

  Paul goes on. ‘It might do you good. It is the twenty-first century, after all.’ His grin is weak, the ghost of a real smile hidden somewhere inside it. I can’t think what he means. I have absolutely no idea what he’s going to say and so it comes as a shock when he adds, ‘I could always look after the baby.’

  For several seconds, I don’t breathe. When I draw an audible gasp pain flashes across his features, his hopes already crushed.

  ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean it,’ he mutters, and I realise this has been bubbling inside him, something he has tried to smother, not quite daring to believe it might actually happen. Is this what he and his mother had planned? The idea hangs between us, light and fragile, and I try not to smile.

  I make myself pause, thinking of everything I’d be giving up. It isn’t as if I don’t love the baby. It isn’t as if I don’t love Paul. Somewhere, beneath everything, it is there: a pool of deep water, fathomless, full of layers and mysteries and things to discover, only obscured now and again by a film of unwholesome thoughts, coating the surface like oil.

  ‘It’s all right, Paul,’ I say. Again, I force myself not to smile. That wouldn’t be right, would it? It wouldn’t be natural. I’m sure Paul wouldn’t think so. I wonder if that will still be the case after a week, a month, a year. ‘It’s a good idea. We need the money. It makes sense. I’ll call work and talk to them about going back.’

  It’s his turn to take a breath, and then the dam breaks. A jumble of words spills out – do I mean it, and he’ll be so careful, and of course I’ll still see Alexander all the time – and now we’re allowed to smile, both of us, and Alexander lies there, peaceable for once, and he sleeps.

  After a while I look for my phone. It’s not on the sofa or under it. It’s not on the kitchen tops, not on the floor, not in the hall. In the end, Paul rings it for me. I hear the tone, so quietly I think there must be something wrong with it, and I realise it’s coming not from down here but upstairs. I follow the trail of sound into the bedroom. The tone grows louder. It leads me to my bedside table, to the top drawer, to a pile of make-up I don’t bother with any longer, a little crackling packet of pills I haven’t bothered with for a while either. I rummage beneath, find the phone, cancel Paul’s call and shout absent-mindedly that I’ve found it.

  And yet I didn’t put it there. I know I didn’t, and I wonder if I should be afraid. Even half dazed as I am, when could I have done so? And why would I hide it away like that? There’s nothing in this drawer I needed. I cast my mind back over the afternoon. I don’t think I went upstairs even once all the time I was waiting for Paul to come home.

  We need to stop them from being angry about the house.

  Charlotte cannot set down her needle without it seemingly vanishing into the air… Harriet constantly complains that her books have been moved.

  And there is a book here too, I realise. There is one left to me, after all: the little ruined volume of Keats.

  I shake my head. There’s nothing odd about any of it. The phone is here, so I must have misplaced it. I’m tired and bruised and worn out from the pregnancy and it’s made me forgetful. I’ve been distracted; I won’t be so again. I find the number for Sunnyside – no point in waiting – and make the call, my voice suddenly hoarse, as if I haven’t used it in a long time. I try not to sound desperate, keep it brief and professional. Patricia comes onto the line, sounding just as she always did, as if it might have been yesterday that we last spoke. She says she’ll come back to me with the details and I imagine walking back into Sunnyside, stepping over the threshold in my uniform, but somehow it’s the wrong one; it’s the one I wore during my pregnancy, stretched by my bump but empty, emptied, hanging off my bony frame.

  I shake away the image and grin. I don’t care, not about any of it.

  Downstairs, Alexander starts to cry. No: he’s screaming, settling into his angry wails, and I imagine him waving his little fists. Paul calls my name. We must be out of milk. It’s time to express more, but that’s all right; it won’t be for much longer. I start towards the stairs, wondering for a second how far my life has narrowed if the idea of returning to Sunnyside seems like such a breath of freedom.

  3

  The anticipated Monday breaks, and it’s time. I’m out of bed early but Paul’s up before me and he does everything, handing me a plate of scrambled eggs and toast when I go downstairs. He kisses me on the cheek and I know he feels guilty for getting the thing he wished for, but I don’t care. I kiss him back and eat standing at the counter.

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ he says, and I protest that there’s no need, but he’s all insistence and I picture how nice it will be, when my shift is over, to see him, to sink back and let him do the driving. So I grab my bag and I’m ready, though my muscles tighten with nerves. What will Mandy and the others think of me for going off and having a baby?

  Paul starts pulling on Alexander’s little jacket, one he doesn’t wear often because it’s so smart and babies are so messy. Paul’s brother bought it for him – Marcus thrust it into my hands when he visited just after the birth, our house and not the pub for a change. He cooed over Alexander for five minutes, laughed at the size of him – his father’s son – and went back to talking about football.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that if Paul’s going to drive me, of course the baby has to come too. What kind of a mother am I? I protest again that it’s too much bother, I’ll take the car, but it’s too late. Paul grins, says how much Alexander will enjoy his outing.

  I want to say I don’t think he’ll notice the difference, but I keep quiet as we step out into a day that looks like any other and yet isn’t, not for me. I’m not the same person who walked into Mrs Favell’s room, who held out my hand and processed down the stairs at her side. I feel much older than that. A hundred years might have passed since I last saw her.

  I shake my head. I won’t think of Mrs Favell, not before I’ve even arrived. Still, I find myself wondering whether Harriet’s given birth now too. I suppose she must have. I imagine her heating bottles in an ordered, neat, shining kitchen, her hair drawn back in a chignon, and pull a face.

  ‘Why don’t you drive?’ Paul says. ‘I’ll squeeze in the back with the nipper.’

  My eyes widen. Wasn’t he supposed to be driving me? But he places Alexander into the baby seat and climbs in after him, pulling the passenger seat
back into position. There’s nothing left to do but get into the driver’s side. I feel a twinge as I sink into the seat, the ghost of the caesarean. Knowing it would have been less comfortable for me in the back doesn’t make me any less irritated.

  I pull away sharply, ignoring Paul’s pointed soothing of Alexander. It didn’t bother the baby; he’s fine. He doesn’t start wailing until I pull up, oh so gently, into a parking space at Sunnyside. Is it because he knows I’m going to walk away from him? Does he think I don’t love him enough to stay all of the time? A nameless longing suddenly aches within me, surprising and deep.

  When I speak, my voice seems small. ‘Bye, Paul. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What? We’re coming in, aren’t we? It’s your first day back.’

  He’s lifting Alexander from the baby seat. I see at once what he has in mind: a big reunion of me and my work friends, everyone exclaiming over the baby, saying how beautiful he is, how well we’re doing, curious to see Paul, beaming over our budding family. It’s too unlikely to contemplate. I think of Edie pressing some woollen gift upon me before I remember that she’s gone, her soul flown from an open window.

  None of it fits, or perhaps it’s only me that doesn’t. Maybe everything’s fine and I should stop worrying, glide along with it all. For an instant an image rises: a painting, not of fairies but of Ophelia, lying in a stream; the one by Millais. Her face is white, her hands raised, her mind driven to madness and then left emptied, blank. She is surrounded by jewel-like flowers and I imagine tiny faces appearing from among them. I shake the thought away. That’s not me. I’m not going to sigh myself into madness, to wait for things to happen. I’m working again. I’m going to be happy; I am happy.

  Paul shushes his son, though Alexander isn’t grizzling any longer. The air rushes in and out of him and he waves his fists at the world. His rounded cheeks are pink with unshed tears. He doesn’t start to cry in earnest until we approach the door, though Paul shuffles with him so carefully towards it along the wheelchair ramp. And so it is on a tide of shrieks, loud as a fire alarm, that I re-enter Sunnyside for the first time in months, feeling like a stranger. I don’t know the receptionist. She must be new, or new to me, but she recognises my uniform and tells me Mrs Stott is in the residents’ lounge. I’m so used to calling ‘Mrs Stott’ Patricia that I have to think for a moment who she means. Paul follows at my heels. I’m conscious that he’s going to see, for the first time, that the other girls don’t like me. Will he gossip about that on the phone to his mother? At least if Alexander keeps squalling, he might be too distracted to notice.

  ‘Rose!’ I hear Patricia before I see her. There’s quite a crowd in the lounge; perhaps they’ve breakfasted early to allow for some activity. Mrs Favell is there too, her blouse a delicate sea green, her pearls lucent at her neck. She stands towards the back of the room but her presence demands notice, more imposing than anyone else’s. She doesn’t smile when she sees me. She has her back to the window, her face in shadow; it might almost be my first day, and this my first time of seeing her.

  Mandy is kneeling on the floor, arranging board games in the cupboard, taking them out or putting them away, I’m not sure which. She straightens, scowling at the din that’s pouring from the ball of fury that is Alexander. She smirks and I flush. It must be obvious to Paul what she thinks, but he’s busy talking to Patricia. They’re actually laughing together. She doesn’t seem to notice his hair, which is neatly tied back this morning, or his tattoos, boldly on show. It’s as if they’re instant friends. She reaches out to stroke Alexander’s cheek while Paul bounces him up and down. Still, he won’t stop crying.

  Jimmy whistles and calls out, ‘What a little cracker.’

  The residents shuffle into a circle around us or crane their necks from their seats, admiring as they’re meant to do. Paul bathes in the baby’s reflected glory. And a thinner voice cuts through it all, not loud but with a clarity that carries across the room, saying, ‘Do let me try, dear.’

  It’s Mrs Favell. She makes it sound as if she’s doing Paul a favour. I see the doubt in his eyes, probably worried for her immaculate blouse, and she adds, ‘I’m good with babies.’

  She looks like the last person in the world who’d want to hold one but Paul hands him over without a word. Mrs Favell’s arms look too thin to support him but she lifts him easily and everything falls quiet. Alexander gives one last sniff and puts his thumb in his mouth, staring up at her with his blue-grey eyes. It strikes me suddenly that they might change soon, darkening to hazel or brown. Who will he look like then?

  The baby’s lips twitch. Is he smiling?

  Mrs Favell doesn’t rock or bounce him. She stands perfectly still, looking at Paul with a knowing expression.

  He laughs, saying maybe she should take over because he isn’t very good at it. Everyone laughs, but I don’t. I try a smile but it doesn’t feel right on my lips.

  ‘Alexander,’ Mrs Favell says, trying it out. I don’t recall mentioning his name but I told it to Patricia when she asked on the phone and I suppose she’s told everyone. Mrs Favell doesn’t seem surprised that the child isn’t called Robin. She doesn’t accuse. There’s nothing hidden in her tone and I feel an unaccountable relief that she’s accepted his name, as if she knows he’s ours, not connected with her at all.

  Apart from the way he looks at her. Apart from the way he closes his eyes, quiescent at last, his skin luminous in the light from the windows, his face softening into peace. Maybe he’s lulled by her touch, or maybe it’s that fragrance she wears: lily of the valley. I can smell it from here. It crosses my mind that if he likes it so much, perhaps I should buy some.

  The French doors open. A shape coalesces in the light, one I recognise, though I have met her only once before. Her hair is golden and she steps inside and seems brighter by the contrast, or perhaps it’s the residents who have faded, with their grey hair and brown cardigans and beige trousers. With a start, I realise she’s carrying a baby. I don’t know how I failed to see it before; the child must have been hidden in her arms. It’s so small and dainty. Harriet doesn’t look at Alexander. She sees me and smiles, revealing perfect white teeth against her flawless skin, not a trace of tiredness on her.

  ‘Another visitor,’ she exclaims. ‘How charming!’

  I realise this is why everyone had gathered in here, to see Harriet and her child. They part to let her in and she approaches me. Her bundle is wrapped in snowy white wool: Edie’s work? The baby is sweetly sleeping. Wisps of fine blonde hair curl over her forehead – I don’t know how I know it’s a girl, but I do. Her lips are curled like a rosebud.

  Harriet leans towards me so that I can admire her better, one mother to another, but I haven’t any words. The baby is beautiful. Suddenly I don’t want her to see Alexander, don’t want to see her expression when she does, although he’s quiet now; content, in her arms.

  ‘Her name is Robyn,’ Harriet says, and I catch my breath. ‘Oh – whatever is the matter? Are you quite well?’

  Robyn. Of course that’s her baby’s name. Mrs Favell’s words were always intended for Harriet. Why would she have been talking about naming my baby? And yet that hadn’t been how it seemed.

  ‘Robyn,’ I whisper. I know it’s perfect. She’s perfect. I put out my hand and draw back the woollen blanket, just a little, and Robyn stirs with a breathy sigh. Her eyes open. I almost expect them to be like mine, dark brown, but of course they’re blue-grey, like Alexander’s, like any baby’s. Who knows what they will reveal as they change?

  Robyn lets out a cry; not so perfect then, just a baby, just like mine. Harriet adjusts her hold. ‘She’ll be hungry,’ she says, and then, ‘Oh!’

  She’s staring at me. Her expression changes: consternation? Disgust? I can’t read it but I’m diminished by it anyway and I feel the warmth flooding the front of my uniform, trickling down my skin. I look down and realise with horror that my breasts are leaking – it’s milk darkening my tunic, flowing in response to th
e baby’s cry: her baby’s cry.

  ‘Oh,’ is all I can manage, my tone different to hers. I hear the residents shuffling, some of them going back to their seats, the old men embarrassed, the old women embarrassed for me.

  ‘It happens.’ Harriet laughs brightly and the people around her laugh too, a rough echo. She’s covering it over, making it better. All I can do is cross my arms over my chest. I realise Paul is staring, just standing there, and I hear Patricia asking if I have a spare uniform. I tell her that yes, of course I do. I shoved one in my bag this morning, ready to hang in my locker, just in case. Dealing with the old can be messy, like dealing with the young. The staff here always have spares.

  Paul makes his apologies, exchanging goodbyes with everyone like old friends, and he’s gone before I realise he never said goodbye to me, never offered Alexander’s soft crown for one last kiss. Harriet has gone too; then I see her over in the corner, chatting with Maryam as if she’s known her all her life. Robyn lies peaceably in her arms.

  ‘You’d better change, Rose.’ Mrs Favell is at my shoulder. ‘Hadn’t you?’

  I don’t acknowledge her before I walk away, hurrying to the loos to make myself presentable before my shift begins, conscious of the stains spreading from my breasts. Once I’m in a cubicle I yank off my tunic, peeling it from my milky skin, revolted by the smell of it. I wipe myself with toilet paper that disintegrates and clings, then take the other uniform out of my bag.

  I realise my mistake as soon as I begin to pull it on. There’s too much material. It’s bigger than it should be, especially around the waist, and I close my eyes. It’s just as I had seen it in my mind’s eye: this is my maternity tunic. I grasp for the other, the milk-stained one, wondering if I can fix it using the hand-dryer, but I know it’s hopeless.

  My hands shake as I put on the tunic. I must have worn it when I was at my biggest because the tummy panel is stretched as wide as it will go and it bags into an empty belly of fabric in front of me. It feels like mockery. I’m the image of a woman who should be fruitful but isn’t; one whose bump has been stolen away, left with nothing in her arms, nothing but an absence where her baby should be.