Be Careful What You Hear

by Paul Pilkington

  ‘We’re okay, aren’t we?’ I said, looking right into James’ eyes. ‘We’re through the bad times.’

  James didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course. The bad times are behind us.’

  I smiled as I placed my head on his chest, closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming,’ he said, holding me close. ‘Of getting away from it all. Just the three of us. Alone with ourselves, where no one can find us.’

  My skin prickled and my body stiffened.

  We’re all going away…

  And that’s where it will all end.

  3

  James left at seven, his usual time for heading out to the practice by tube. The ten mile journey from our home in Balham to the practice in Tower Hamlets took around fifty minutes on a good day. But when there was trouble on the lines, which there frequently was, then it could be much longer. In summer, the journey underground would be hellishly hot, as well as packed. James had talked of buying a bicycle, but I’d managed to dissuade him – the fatalities in the capital over the last few years had been enough to convince me that the trek on the tube, although sometimes uncomfortable, was preferable to lying crushed beneath the wheels of a lorry. We did have a car, a six year old Volvo, but rarely used it for travel in and around the city – neither of us liked driving that much, and driving around the city streets was certainly not something we enjoyed. We had toyed with getting rid of the vehicle, but had decided we used it enough to warrant keeping it.

  I had woken with a new perspective on the evening’s events. In the cold light of day, it was easier to rationalise what had happened. I didn’t think I had been hallucinating, but neither did I think that what I’d heard had been anything sinister. By the time I had fed and changed Grace, then taken her downstairs, I’d decided that it had either been a dream, or I had misheard in my half-wakened state. Maybe James had been talking to Grace about wanting to get away, just as he had voiced to me just over an hour later, but my mind had confused the words.

  It was now just before nine. In an hour I was due to meet my good friend Sophie at one of our favourite cafes in the high street. Then it was on to Bounce and Rhyme, the singing group for parents and babies, which took place at the local library.

  I knelt down with Grace, who was lying on the play mat, and let her grasp gently at my fingers.

  ‘I know I’m incredibly biased, but you’re the most beautiful little person I’ve ever had the privilege to set eyes on.’

  She smiled at me, her blue eyes twinkling. With my free hand I stroked her super-smooth cheek. Nature knew what it was doing when babies were designed.

  Someone rang the doorbell.

  ‘You’ll have to come with me, poppet.’ I scooped up Grace and made my way to the door.

  ‘Hi, Georgina.’ It was our neighbour, Max. Recently retired from a job in banking, Max and his wife Audrey were back in town between holidays. They’d just returned from a cruise around the Mediterranean, and were due to fly out to Vancouver in three weeks’ time for a trip around the Rockies on the Rocky Mountaineer railroad.

  ‘Hi.’ Grace nuzzled up against my neck, as I watched Max struggle for the right words.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether to tell you now, or wait until James gets home. But I decided it was better to let you know as soon as possible.’

  Max’s manner set me on edge. Instinctively I held Grace closer. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing, but last night, I was looking out of our bedroom window, at the back, and I thought I might have seen someone in your back garden.’ He looked embarrassed at saying it, as if even then he was doubting himself.

  ‘You saw someone?’

  ‘Well, maybe, yes, I think so. I saw something. A figure, possibly. In your back garden. It was dark, I couldn’t really see. I only looked out of the window to see the full moon, and do a bit of star gazing.’

  ‘You could tell it was a person though?’ He meant well, but his hesitation was frustrating. You don’t tell someone you’ve seen an intruder in their back garden without being sure.

  ‘Yes, I think so. I’m as sure as I can be. Moving around, near to your back patio area.’

  I shuddered at the thought. ‘What time would it have been?’

  ‘Nine thirty.’

  It was when James and I had been upstairs, lying on the bed.

  Grace was trying to wriggle away from me, but I managed to bring her back under control. ‘Did you see what they did?’

  ‘No, I don’t know. I lost them in the dark. That’s one reason why I wanted to come around – so you can check if anything is missing from the back. They might have been after valuables in your shed. Maybe that lawn mower of yours. Sorry, I nearly called the police, but I wasn’t sure whether I’d just imagined it.’

  I knew how he felt. ‘Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take a look.’

  I said my goodbyes to Max and took Grace through to the back of the house. From the patio doors I couldn’t see that anything had been disturbed. The shed was closed and padlocked. The plants in their pots, dotted around the garden, were still arranged as normal.

  ‘He probably just imagined it,’ I said to Grace, who was reaching out for the glass of the door. I did a final sweep of the back. The garden was accessible via the side gate. But the gate too was locked. The only other way in was from a neighbouring property – and that seemed an unlikely route in. I shrugged off the possibility that someone had been prowling around our property, and got ready to go and meet Sophie. But I would tell James when he got home, just in case.

  ***

  Sophie was already seated in Allemandi’s, a lovely locally owned independent café on the high street. It had been around for decades, and was still thriving in spite of the competition from the big coffee chains that had muscled in during the past few years. It did the most wonderful cakes, and the owners, third generation Italians, were masters in the art of coffee making.

  I nodded a hello to Carl behind the counter as I negotiated the tables and chairs to where Sophie was sitting. She’d already ordered a latte and lovely looking slice of coffee and walnut cake.

  ‘I’ll get that,’ Sophie said, jumping up and lifting a chair out of my path. ‘Sorry, I should have sat nearer to the door. I made a beeline for the heater.’

  It was a cold and frosty morning, and Allemandi’s did have its cold spots, so I didn’t disagree with her choice of table.

  ‘Aw, she’s looking beautiful, as usual,’ Sophie said, admiring a sleeping Grace as she pulled back the cover of her pram. ‘She’s growing so quickly. She’ll be in the pushchair before you know it.’

  ‘Hopefully not too soon,’ I said, ordering a coffee and pastry at the table from Carl. ‘I want this time to go on for a while yet.’

  Sophie smiled. She was looking great, sporting her recently cropped hair that she now wore in a blonde bob. It took a few years off her, and I must admit it made me slightly envious because I felt older than my years, even though I had recently treated myself to a hair makeover that had replaced the increasing grey with brown. Sophie was also much more fashionable than me, always wearing the latest styles, while I was content to keep my wardrobe fairly static. The fashionable jacket and handmade skirt that she was wearing was brand new, while my woollen top and skirt had been around since the nineteen nineties. I didn’t normally wear them, but I’d still not quite lost all my weight after the pregnancy, and the fashion in the late 1990s was a bit baggier. ‘It’s good to see you happy, Georgina.’

  ‘In no small part down to you.’

  Sophie sipped at her coffee, seemingly embarrassed by the compliment. But she had no right to be. In those first four months after Grace arrived, Sophie had been a massive support – not just for Grace and me, but also James. Sophie and James were old school friends – they’d been through the school system together in Islington, North London, from four years old until eighteen during the nineteen eighties and early nineties. Their families had
been close for a time too, as their mothers knew one another from night school. They’d even holidayed together as families during their youth, and Sophie had delighted in pulling out a photo of a six year old James wearing swimming trunks and beaming at the camera, huge vanilla ice cream in hand and smeared around his mouth.

  They’d lost touch after going to university, but had been reunited again at the first meeting of our antenatal group. Sophie and her husband, Michael, had been at the same early stage of pregnancy as us. We hit it off as a foursome straight away, and soon began socialising outside of the official group – visiting each other’s homes, going out for coffees, planning for the arrival of our babies.

  And then, at twenty-one weeks, Sophie miscarried.

  They were, of course, devastated at the loss of their first child. Not just the loss of the baby, but the future that they had mapped out ahead of them. James and I were naturally cautious people, and had restrained ourselves from buying too much baby paraphernalia, in case it tempted fate. We still didn’t have a pram, or a cot, and we hadn’t prepared the house in any way for an impending arrival. The most we had done was to shop around, considering what we might buy. But Sophie and Michael had gone all out. The top of the range pram/pushchair combo was already bought and assembled, the spare room was filled with unopened packs of nappies, blankets, clothes and cuddly toys, and the nursery was complete.

  While Michael closed up on his grief, Sophie threw herself into being my new best friend. And when Grace arrived, and I began to sink into depression, she kept things afloat. She took Grace out for walks, helped with our meals, comforted me, and supported James by doing errands such as shopping for essential supplies. Her self-employed career allowed her to be there for me in a way that she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to be. She ran a successful sewing website and blog, and made money from selling patterns and running classes, as well as bringing in income via advertising on her site and referrals to companies that provided fabric and other things for her creations. She had built up a wonderful business over the years, backed by a dedicated following – her posts to Instagram were devoured by her followers, and there would be hundreds of responses within an hour or so, not to mention even more “likes” and “shares”. She’d never told me how much money she made from the business, and I would certainly never ask, but once she did mention that it was more than she had earned in her previous role as a communications officer for a major clothing company.

  My mother and father had passed away five and three years ago respectively, and James’ parents now lived in Scotland, so Sophie’s availability and unstinting support filled a gaping hole in my support network.

  ‘Before I forget,’ Sophie said. ‘The meal next week, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel. Michael’s got a deadline at work, so he needs to go into the office. Sorry.’ She smiled apologetically. We’d arranged to go for lunch in town a week on Saturday, to a new vegetarian restaurant that had been getting rave reviews – you had to book two weeks in advance to be confident of getting a place at the weekend.

  ‘Is Michael okay?’ I asked. ‘He looked worn out the other day.’ That was an understatement. He had looked awful when we bumped into them in the street – washed out, drained, and down. Michael was a shadow of the man who had beamed with excitement at that first antenatal class.

  Sophie waved it away. ‘Oh, just the usual. Work getting him down.’ He was a financial manager at Aspire Insurance, the Anglo-American multinational. ‘That last round of redundancies has really set him on edge,’ she added. ‘He says he can feel the Grim Reaper over his shoulder.’

  I didn’t dispute that work strain might be a factor, but I wondered whether the miscarriage was a factor in his decline. I had wondered more than once whether Sophie’s focus on me might have resulted in her neglecting Michael. ‘Both our men are suffering then,’ I said, taking a gulp of coffee.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘James is really stressed. I found him crying on the bed last night.’

  Sophie’s brow knotted, as she toyed with her cake. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Margaret’s cancer diagnosis.’

  She nodded at the realisation. ‘Right, of course.’

  ‘Although, something weird happened last night.’

  ‘Go on…’

  I hesitated. I thought I’d dealt with this already – so why tell Sophie? But I valued her judgement, and she knew James. I guess I’d come to lean on her, maybe too much. ‘I thought I heard him say something strange over the baby monitor last night.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I glanced down at Grace, feeling as though I was betraying her daddy. ‘I thought he said that he wanted us to all go away somewhere, and he was going to end things.’

  Sophie looked incredibly serious, saying nothing.

  ‘I was half-asleep,’ I added, filling the void. ‘I think I either imagined it, or I got the words mixed up in my head as I was waking.’

  Still she didn’t say anything. But I suddenly knew what she was thinking.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said, fishing around frantically for change in my purse. I dropped the coins on the table and wheeled Grace away.

  ‘Georgina!’ Sophie called as I reached the door. ‘Please don’t go.’

  But I was already outside, and heading for the library.

  4

  My premature departure from Allemandi’s meant that I was too early for the Bounce and Rhyme session at the library, which started at 11 o’clock. Grace was still asleep, so I decided to head across to the nearest park.

  I stood at the edge of the lake, looking out across the water at the birds that were floating on its surface. It was a pity that Grace was asleep, as she loved to watch birds and animals – seemingly fascinated by their movements and behaviour. We would often walk down to the park and circle the lake, trying to spot the heron that frequented the bank on the far side. That side of the lake was reserved for the anglers, and it seemed the heron assumed that as a master fisherman, he had the right to be there.

  Grace was particularly taken by the pair of swans who called the lake home, and she had perfected the art of signing “bird” whenever she saw them swimming past. Baby sign language was a bit of a fad, and I wasn’t convinced of its value, but after attending a class at our local community centre for a few weeks, Grace had already begun to communicate using it. As well as signing bird, she could also tell us when she wanted milk, and even when she wanted to go home. This was well before she could speak, so I’d been converted to the baby-signing cause.

  ‘Thomas, watch out!’

  I turned as a toddler on a balance bike – a small wooden bicycle without pedals – wobbled past, coming precariously close to the water’s edge. He righted himself, wheeling back onto the path that encircled all but the restricted area of the lake. His concerned mother, pushing a baby in a pram, rushed past and caught up, grabbing him by the arm.

  ‘You shouldn’t go off like that,’ she said, crouching down to give him a hug.

  I turned back to the lake, thinking about how I had run out on Sophie. She hadn’t deserved that – not after all the support she had given me. But my reaction had been instinctive, not premeditated. And I knew she would understand. I would call her after Bounce and Rhyme to apologise.

  I checked the time. It was now just twenty minutes until the beginning of the session, and I was starting to feel the cold. I could wait out the rest of the time in the library. Who knows, maybe I’d find a good book.

  ***

  As it happened, arriving early was a good idea. I didn’t have any time to browse the shelves for a trashy novel, as there was already a large crowd of parents, babies, and accompanying prams in the part of the library that hosted the singing session. The previous week had been so popular that staff had been forced to turn away several disappointed parents. Its popularity was understandable – it was free, warm, and welcoming.

  I parked the pram in an outside area over to the far left – a bicy
cle shed for prams – and lifted Grace out. She stirred against my cheek. It was time for her to wake up anyway. I positioned myself on the floor, off to the far side of the carpeted area, some way towards the back, being careful not to step on the numerous babies that were exploring the surroundings on all fours. I nodded a hello at a mother whom I recognised from previous weeks.

  ‘Getting busier each week,’ she said, in a broad Scottish accent – outer Edinburgh if I wasn’t mistaken. Some of my extended family had lived in the city, including a great aunt, and I’d visited them a few times during my early childhood. It was still one of my favourite places to visit – I loved the atmosphere, with the castle, the extinct volcano of Arthur’s Seat, and the sheer history of the place. James fully understood my love for it, and proposed to me during a weekend away there. He brought the ring out while we were standing at the castle wall, overlooking the city, as the sun was just setting. I said yes, and we celebrated with a superb meal of Wild Salmon at The Witchery by the Castle, a nearby restaurant.

  I looked over as another four mothers arrived. ‘Yes, it certainly is.’

  ‘How old is your little one?’

  ‘Six months old. I can’t believe she’s reached that age already.’ I looked at her child properly for the first time. He was a lovely little boy, with a cheeky smile and a shock of red hair. ‘How about your son?’

  ‘Just a little older. Archie is eight months.’

  ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘Thank you. So is…’

  ‘Grace.’

  ‘Beautiful name for a beautiful girl,’ she said. She then looked at me again. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘This class?’ I tried. ‘I’ve been coming here for a few weeks now.’