by Sam Hayes
‘Oh,’ said the secretary. She was clutching an armful of files. Robert blocked the doorway.
‘So sorry to invade your office,’ Louisa chirped, easing Robert out of the way. She slipped the piece of paper into her leather shoulder bag. ‘We were after a school prospectus. Do you have one?’
After a cautious beat, a quick glance to each of their hands to confirm they hadn’t lifted anything from her office, the secretary managed a small smile. ‘Of course,’ she said and handed them a bundle of brochures and forms from a rack in the corner.
After Robert and Louisa had left, when the secretary sat down on her chair, she noticed that it was warm.
Louisa entered the postcode into the satnav and Robert pulled away from Greywood College, narrowly missing a large van.
‘Same to you too,’ he yelled and swung the Mercedes in a wide U-turn. ‘Of course,’ he said in his normal voice, ‘we don’t know that she’ll be at Art’s house. Next stop Brighton, otherwise.’
They drove through London for twenty minutes, heading south of the river to a part of town neither of them knew. About a hundred years ago, Meakin Avenue would have been a desirable place to live. Dilapidated and derelict Edwardian houses sat neglected in a wide street.
‘You should look at buying here,’ Louisa commented, scanning the once-impressive buildings. ‘Really,’ she added seriously although she knew that Robert couldn’t think of investments at a time like this. ‘There, number twenty-three.’ She pointed to a house with hundreds of candles burning in the tall windows. Their light was virtually unnoticeable in the solstice sun.
It’s the longest day, Robert thought. The longest day of my life.
They parked, walked up the short, weed-littered path and banged on the front door.
‘Hardly surprising,’ Robert commented when no one answered. Loud music made the windows rattle, the foundations shift. The landslide of voices indicating a party in full swing prompted Robert to try the handle of the weathered front door. It gave and opened.
Louisa followed close behind Robert as they entered the darkened domain. They waded through a sea of bodies, some upright, some sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. Others were slumped on the stairs, drinking from cans, smoking reefers, oblivious, apart from a casual glance, of the strangers who had just entered the house.
Robert would have called out Ruby’s name but knew it was futile amid the mess of sound. As they went deeper into the house, part of him wanted to pick up a drink, take hold of a second-hand joint, let his body fuse into the crowd and forget Erin forever. He reached behind him and took Louisa’s hand.
Forgetting Erin, even for a second, was impossible.
‘Do you know where Art is?’ Robert yelled at a youth sprawled on a dirty sofa. The boy shrugged and grinned inanely. Someone turned up the volume of the music. Robert trawled on, studying each person they passed. There were all sorts at this party, young and old, most of them travellers or drop-outs, New Age types with congealed hair and flowing clothes.
With his heart quickening and still towing Louisa, Robert went into the kitchen. There was a spread of food on an old pine table, interspersed with tea lights. Two men were filling their plates with bean salads and flatbread.
‘Rob, look.’ Louisa tugged Robert’s fingers. He turned to where she was pointing.
In the back garden, Robert saw a cluster of teenagers, some embracing, some dancing with their hands high above their heads, and some swigging from cans, sucking on cigarettes. Ruby tossed back her hair and laughed before wrapping her arms round Art’s neck. Robert marched outside.
‘Ruby!’ He pulled the pair apart. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Hey, Pops,’ Art said. ‘Weren’t you young once?’ He buried a hand in his pocket. Robert tensed.
‘It’s OK,’ Louisa interrupted. ‘Just leave it, Rob. At least we’ve found her.’
‘Time to go, young lady.’ Simple words that Robert never had the chance to practise, making him feel even more of a fake father. What right did he have to order her to do anything? She didn’t even belong to her mother, let alone him.
‘Go where?’ Ruby struggled like a fish being landed.
‘To see your mother,’ Robert replied.
It was only when they were all in the car that Robert wondered which one.
THIRTY
I was right. Jo-Jo’s bottom is sodden. She is lying completely naked on the soft carpet in the bedroom I’d reserved for Sarah’s baby. She’s a little padded prawn, the colour of lightly boiled shellfish.
I really don’t know what has happened to Sarah. She promised that she’d stop by and show me her new baby. But no matter now. Jo-Jo dribbles pale yellow pee on the carpet. I scoop her up and take her to the bathroom. One hand is pressed under her puckered bottom, the other spread across her weak back. Like I used to hold Natasha.
I turn on the bath taps, drizzle in a dose of bubble bath and prop her on my lap while we wait. I just want to get her clean.
When she’s in the bath, Jo-Jo begins to scream. She’s obviously not used to being washed. I’m kneeling down, my back aching over the side of the bath, swishing water over her protruding belly and supporting her head with my other hand. I take a face cloth and begin to scrub at the lines of dirt on her neck.
Her mother hasn’t taken very good care of her and that’s why I don’t feel bad that I’ve taken Jo-Jo. The woman has four other children, probably all dirty as well, so I bet she’s relieved that I’ve unburdened her. It’s one less baby to smack.
Jo-Jo is shrieking and howling, her little milk-furred tongue quivering inside her red mouth. Her cry warbles through my head, bringing back memories. Nightmares.
After her bath, I wrap her in a warm towel and hug her to my chest. I dance about until she stops crying and then take her back into her bedroom. It’s Jo-Jo’s room now. I tape her into a nappy and wriggle her into one of the velvet sleep suits from the stash I made ready for Sarah’s baby. The sleep suit’s a bit of a tight squeeze because it’s meant for a newborn. So her toes don’t curl, I snip the seam of the foot open.
She screams again. I think she’s hungry so I lay her in the straw basinet and go to the kitchen to see what I’ve got. The cake that I spat out is still on the floor. Something smells bad. I think it’s the rubbish bin. I have some semi-skimmed milk in the fridge, showing use-by yesterday. It will have to do for now, until I can buy some proper baby milk. I haven’t got a bottle so I pour some into a bowl, warm it in the microwave and then take the bowl and a teaspoon back up to Jo-Jo’s room. She is still screaming.
I pick her up and balance her on my knee, supporting her back in the crook of my arm. I spoon up a tiny bit of milk and brush it against her lips. She’s silent for a second and then bats the spoon away, spilling the milk down her clean suit.
‘Oh, Natasha!’
The baby stares up at me silently, big wet eyes. She gums a grin and then squeals. I reach for a soft fluffy duck and press it against her palm. She grapples for it, holds the toy for a second but then drops it. She screams. I try another spoonful of milk but the same thing happens. This goes on for another ten minutes and the baby consumes none of the milk. I have to change her suit because she’s in such a mess. The whole time, she is bawling.
‘Shut up!’ I shriek. I clap my hand over my mouth when I realise this was not a nice thing to say. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I press her face against my shoulder so that her wails are smothered. ‘Let’s go into the garden. The fresh air and sunshine will do you good.’
That’s what Sheila always used to say. Fresh air is good for babies. I mull over all the advice she gave me when I was pregnant and soon after Natasha was born. I wish I’d taken it. It’s not just the guilt from losing my baby that torments me but the little things, the things I could have done better that haunt me. But none of it seems so bad any more, now that I have another baby. I scoop her up and carry her into the garden.
The grass needs cutting. It�
��s knee high and I’m not one for flowers or shrubs. There’s a craggy old apple tree down the end but I never eat the fruit. The apples are sour and full of maggots or mottled with scaly brown patches. My garden is only as wide as my house, about twelve feet, although nearly a hundred feet long and has a wire fence on either side separating it from my neighbours’ neat strips.
‘One day, Tash, I’ll get it sorted. We’ll have to nag Daddy into getting the mower out, won’t we?’ I tickle her cheeks and for the first time she laughs. Her eyes are slits from the sun.
I pick my way through the long grass, tracking a wide arc around the concrete slab covering the old well, and sit down in the shade of the apple tree.
The baby nestles in my crossed legs, on her back, staring up at me, gnawing on her hand. Thick, clear saliva coats her chin. I wipe it off with the hem of my long skirt.
The sun is warm on my back. My neck is stiff from having slept on the floor and no amount of fingering the knotted muscles makes the pain ease. I gaze down my long garden to the house and smile as I notice the pale yellow curtains in the open bedroom window snapping in the breeze.
But my peace is shattered by the baby’s wails. She squirms on my legs and plops off into the grass. Her cries are even more frantic so I pick her up by the shoulders and march her back indoors.
‘I think you need a sleep, Miss Natasha.’ I deposit her upstairs in the basinet and bang the door shut.
She screams and screams and I slump down on the landing, my back against the wall, my legs and hands aquiver because I’ve finally got my baby back.
THIRTY-ONE
Robert bundled Ruby into the Mercedes. She spat and cussed at being dragged from the party.
‘Quit the wild-cat routine, Rube.’ He adjusted the rear-view mirror so he didn’t have to witness her poisoned expression. He deflected the ‘I hate you’ and ‘You’ve ruined my life’ with an imaginary squash racquet. She was thirteen. It was normal.
‘Just take me back to the party, yeah?’ Ruby poked a knee into the back of Robert’s seat. ‘I’m allowed to go to a freaking party. Do you know how much you embarrassed me?’ But the remark that hit Robert’s jaw hardest was when she spat, ‘You’re not my real father. You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘Where are we going, Rob?’ Louisa asked when she realised they were several miles off course to return to Robert’s house.
‘I’m taking Ruby to her mother. It’s about time she met her.’ Robert gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. He wanted to voice his feelings about the Bowman case, about children being with the right parent but he knew it would come out wrong. Besides, while he was paying Louisa for her time, he didn’t expect her to doubt his motives.
Robert swiftly negotiated the traffic and soon joined the beginning of the M1. For the second time in two days, he steered the Mercedes towards Northampton. Part of him didn’t feel real, while part of him felt like he was playing God.
He stole a quick glance at Louisa. She was sitting calmly, looking elegant even in jeans and a T-shirt. On her feet she wore leather sandals. Her toes were long and straight, the nails painted deep burgundy. How he wished it was Erin sitting next to him, perhaps returning from their weekend in Somerset, life as normal, then climbing into bed to curl against her slender back, Ruby content and asleep in the next bedroom.
‘Don’t you think we should wait for the DNA results?’ Louisa spoke quietly even though Robert had tossed his MP3 player into the back and Ruby’s ears were plugged. The girl’s head bobbed in time with the music. Robert’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel, snapping back to reality.
‘No,’ Robert replied. ‘The results will confirm what I already know. And I can’t wait any more. I want my life back. Besides, the police will have to conduct their own genetic investigations.’
‘Police?’ Louisa asked but did not receive a reply.
Robert drove in silence, thinking, trying to keep Jenna from attacking the inside of his mind, begging him not to do it all over again. He made a deal with her. If she stopped ghosting his thoughts, he would steer away from the paranoia that had eventually killed her. It was as he left the motorway at the exit for Northampton, Jenna’s voice echoing inside his head like a bee, that Robert realised he could switch her on and off at will. For now, he clicked her gently into silence.
Ruby, having removed the headphones and slept for most of the journey, exhausted from no sleep the previous night, squirmed on the rear seat. ‘Where are we going, Dad?’ she asked, dragging the back of her hand across her cheeks. The slowing of the car had woken her.
‘To see someone who’s been dying to meet you for thirteen years.’
Ruby didn’t ask any more.
They cruised through the town and turned into the street of terraced houses. The evening sun sent jagged daggers of light from the windscreens and bonnets of parked cars. Robert pulled down the sun visor and searched for a space.
He reversed into a tight gap, cut the engine and got out of the car. When Ruby didn’t get out, he opened the rear door and, leaning inside, gently stroked her head. She was sweating and black hair was stuck to her forehead – the same black hair as her mother, Cheryl. Slowed by her sleepy state, Ruby searched the street with dark eyes and Robert could see that she was wondering where she was.
Home, he thought. I’ve brought you home.
He watched Ruby peel her sticky skin off the leather seat. She must never be without a mother, he thought. At no point did he want Ruby to feel she wasn’t loved, owned or cherished by whichever woman she ended up with. Considering that it might be anyone other than Erin nearly killed him. Knowing the pain that Cheryl had suffered sent his guts into spasm.
Over the last couple of days, he’d become used to imagining the emotions that Cheryl would have spent thirteen years stage-managing. He’d guessed at her guilt, her sense of loss, her self-loathing and anger. Now he would have to imagine the feelings of his wife when she was arrested, prosecuted, tried. The two women would be swapping lives.
The jail sentence wouldn’t be Erin’s punishment. It would be losing Ruby, and Robert couldn’t stand the thought.
As for Ruby, well, she would eventually understand. When the open wounds had knitted together in a cross-hatch of mistrust and new beginnings, she would tentatively ask when her real birthday was, what the weather was like as she’d burst into the world, what her father had said when he first held her. But the answers would stop at week eight. When she was taken. After that, only Erin knew.
‘Hop out, love.’ If they take her away, I can still see her, he thought. I can appeal for visiting rights. Fleetingly, it occurred to him to offer to represent Cheryl in court but it would be too similar to the Bowman case, only this time Erin would be Mary Bowman and he would be no better than Jed.
‘Where are we?’ Ruby climbed out of the car. She frowned at Louisa. ‘I want Mum.’
Robert sighed, wondering if she realised how laden her words were. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’ Robert took Ruby’s hand and guided her to the door of number 18. Cheryl’s house. The house where Ruby had once lived. He closed his eyes, breathed in and knocked.
An old Ford Escort screamed past, windows down, loud music rippling the air. Cheryl didn’t answer. He knocked again and looked at his watch. It was nearly eight thirty, still light, the air warm and thick.
‘The Stag’s Head,’ he whispered when no one answered after a few minutes.
It was a long shot but he didn’t know where else to look. It hadn’t occurred to him that Cheryl wouldn’t be home.
He parked the car right outside the pub on double yellow lines. Leaving Louisa and Ruby to wait, he went into the bar.
‘Is Cheryl Varney here tonight?’ The barmaid was calmer, with only a few customers drinking. She ran a towel across the polished bar.
‘Nope. She only comes in once a month.’ The young woman reached down behind the bar and retrieved something. ‘But she left this last night. Don’t supp
ose you’ll be seeing her any time soon?’ The barmaid held up a brown leather bag.
Robert stared at it as if it was a limb that Cheryl had left behind. ‘I will. Yes, as a matter of fact I will be seeing her tonight.’ The woman shrugged and handed it across the counter to Robert. ‘Cheers, then,’ he said casually and left the pub before she had a chance to change her mind.
Leaning against the rear of the Mercedes, Robert unzipped the bag. It was a glimpse into the life of the woman who had been destroyed by Erin. It was probably the closest he would ever come to her once Ruby had been taken away.
Robert removed a small purse. He unfastened it to reveal the photograph of a baby. It was the same picture that had appeared in the newspaper after Ruby’s abduction. He tucked it back inside the bag as if he was saying goodnight to an infant. There was a chequebook, a driver’s licence, a hairbrush entwined with long black hairs and two lipsticks. Underneath a packet of tissues, Robert pulled out a set of keys. The key fob was a small picture holder containing another baby photograph.
He slipped them into his top pocket and smiled. He had the keys to Cheryl Varney’s house. They would go inside and wait.
THIRTY-TWO
We went Italian – that same night. I didn’t want to sound too keen when he asked but in the end it was him who suggested it. I shut up the shop half an hour early so that I could take extra time to get ready. Truly, I’d never been on a proper date before. I was twenty-eight – although the whole world thought I was thirty-two because I’d got by with the stolen passport – and I’d never been with a man who might end up loving me. I would have to remember not to ask for my payment at the end of the evening.
I arranged for the lady in the flat below to sit with Ruby. She was kind and had been friendly since we moved in. She didn’t ask questions.
‘So, who was the first bunch of flowers for?’ I tipped my head sideways, giving him a playful grin. I forked my food, not really hungry.