Sixty pounds. I hand over my debit card. We’ve waited long enough and I won’t be able to do anything until I know. The price no longer even makes me swallow. I put the pregnancy tests in my pocket. I’ll do it tonight, when I’m with Dom. I feel on edge. When I get back to the gallery, I scan my desk, but there is nothing there, nothing out of the ordinary. Could Dominic be right? The cut on my index fingers thrums. I put a new plaster on this morning, threw the wet curl of the old one into the bathroom bin. The skin on my hand is white, softer, as though it is dying. I think of the objects I have found in the last few weeks: the chimney pot, the little door, the tiny rocking horse. I have seen them all with my own eyes, I have felt them in my hands. I wish someone would believe me. At this stage, anyone would do.
I spend the afternoon in the little side room of the gallery, where the lighting is soft and warm. When I first started here I loved this room, used to come in here with my morning coffee and rearrange the paintings, making different displays every time another one sold. The lighting makes all of them look beautiful. The effect of it is sometimes soporific but today I feel alert, aware of every tiny sound. My brain won’t switch off, it is whirring over and over my mum’s face in the restaurant, her eyes staring out of the window.
I know she is very sad about Dad, and I suppose coming to London would make things hard. But to leave like that? In the middle of our meal?
I try to concentrate on the work, give my thoughts a rest. I arrange a stack of landscape prints on the far wall, trying to angle them so that the light catches the colours, reds and golds depicting autumn trees. Cornsilk gold, currant red. I touch the print, feel the ridges of the brushstrokes under my fingers. They’re beautiful. The trees remind me of our old garden in Hampstead; Ashley and I used to play hide and seek for hours, dart away amongst the trees while our parents counted to twenty. When the leaves fell down we’d gather them up, make life-sized birds’ nests and sit in the middle of the dry orange piles. In the wintertime we made snow angels, fanning our arms out in the powdery snow, Dad laughing, showing us how to throw ourselves onto the ground so that it didn’t hurt. The memory makes me smile and for a minute or two I lose myself in the pictures, in the nostalgic pull of our childhood. We were happy, weren’t we? Maybe we had it too good, maybe the amount of luck you get in one lifetime is finite.
‘Corinne?’
Marjorie calls me and I have to go to the till, put the memories aside. I remember when I first began at the gallery, I used to get lost in thought staring at the paintings, wondering about the artists behind them. I’d research them all obsessively, and after a while I felt like I could see their personalities shining through the paint. I was that close to it all, before the IVF began. I loved it.
Still. Things are different now. Art and the gallery are no longer my top priority. I leave bang on time at five o’clock and start home, the pregnancy tests bouncing against my side. I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up and I’m trying not to, really I am, but I can’t wait to take one.
Just as I round the corner to Finsbury Park, I feel the sharp pain of a stone inside my shoe, and bend down to adjust my boot. As I straighten up, I feel a strange sensation, a prickling feeling. Leaves rustle behind me and I spin around, clutching the Boots bag in my pocket between my fingers. My heart begins to thump. The street is quiet; a couple stroll past, their hands in each other’s back pocket. I see an elderly woman coming towards me; moving slowly, her stick tapping on the pavement. She shuffles past, head down. I think she’s one of our neighbours but I don’t say hello.
The space directly around me is empty, save for sweet wrappers blowing in the wind.
‘Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there?’ I call out, feeling foolish. I swallow hard. The giddy feelings are vanishing; I feel suddenly alone. I can hear the traffic from the main road, the horns of taxis and the hiss of buses. A police siren cuts through the evening, wailing and fading. There is a loud bang behind me – my heart leaps and my legs go weak, as though they are made of water. A rubbish bin has blown to its side; the wooden barrel rolls on the tarmac and litter spills out; the rotten curl of a banana skin, the bright orange of a can.
A group of men around my age are approaching, dressed in dark office clothing. Four of them, bundled up against the cold in scarves that obscure their faces. They jostle each other, smiling and laughing. As they get closer, I feel an irrational burst of panic uncurl itself in my chest. I am sick of feeling scared.
Without thinking, I break into a run. My feet grow wet as I sprint through puddles, but I don’t stop until I am outside our flat, bent over, panting and wheezing. I put my key in the lock with shaking hands and go to slam the door shut behind me. It bounces back in my face and I force my entire weight against it in frustration. There is a tight pain in my chest and my eyes are stinging. The lock finally catches and the door shuts. Outside the flat the wind roars, defeated.
*
Dominic has come back early and cooked us a meal. The smell of it pricks my nostrils. I’m glad not to be alone in the flat and I stand in the hallway for a moment, amongst the old newspapers, trapped in the midst of their headlines. I make myself take deep breaths, in through my nose, out through my mouth, in through my nose, out through my mouth, counting to three in my head.
As soon as he smiles at me I can tell he feels bad for not believing me earlier. He has had a new key cut; I see the silvery new one is lying on the dresser. I feel a flash of frustration. He said we should change the locks completely.
‘Dom,’ I say, ‘I wanted the locks changed. Not just a new key.’
He pauses, looks up from the stove. ‘What?’
‘I think we should have the locks to the door altered. So that nobody can get in. Remember, I asked you?’
‘Corinne,’ he says, ‘come on. There’s nothing to worry about – there really isn’t. I don’t think anyone’s been inside this flat. The only people who can get inside our house are already in it.’
He smiles at me. I stare back at him.
‘Us, you ninny. There’s no one else getting in.’
I smile weakly. He’s put the stub of a candle in the centre of the table, its flame casting a ring of light on the wooden surface. For a moment the fire seems to circle around us both, joining us together. The only people who can get inside our house are already in it.
I watch him start to scoop together a salad dressing, mixing mustard with pools of olive oil. He looks up at me again, smiles. I can’t see his eyes properly, the lids flicker down over them as he mixes the leaves together, turning the spoon over and over rhythmically.
I wriggle past him to the tiny bathroom, the Boots bag tucked under my arm. This moment suddenly feels so private and I am not sure I can handle my own hope, let alone his too. So I don’t tell him about the tests, don’t tell him that this might be it. I don’t say anything at all.
The tap is dripping; cold water circles the plughole. I turn it off with a shaking hand. I tug down my jeans, fumbling with the buckle, and pull out the first box. In my fingers, it hums as though alive.
I unwrap the blue packet, biting the plastic with my teeth. There is no need to read the instructions, I know them by heart. Step 1: Remove the test stick . . . Reaching underneath myself, I awkwardly push the stick into the warm liquid, trying not to think of all the times that I have done this before, have tensed my legs and prayed for a miracle. Afterwards, I lie the stick flat next to the tap, my eyes slipping to the display window even though it’s way too soon, and then I pull up my jeans and pants, put down the toilet lid, then sit back with my eyes gently closed. Breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, in through my nose, out through my mouth.
The minutes tick by. I wait, thinking about the park, the horrible sensation that there was someone behind me, following me back here. There can’t have been, can there? My thoughts feel slippery, elastic as the seconds slide by. I didn’t actually see anyone, did I? I just felt it. It isn’t enough. It isn’t proof. I wish he’d ha
d the locks changed. I wish he’d done as I asked.
I open my eyes and stare at the white face of my watch, tight on my wrist like a talisman. One more minute. I wanted my father’s old watch after he died, a big brown face with tiny golden hands, held by a navy strap. I used to try it on, parade around the house in it as other girls wore their mother’s high heels. It was far too big for me but I loved it, whirled it around my tiny wrist like a spinning fairground wheel. I asked Mum about it after the funeral, but she told me that it must have been lost, that she hadn’t seen it.
‘Corinne! Dinner is served!’ Dominic calls in a silly posh voice.
I sit on the toilet, my underwear tying my ankles together, my head in my hands. I think suddenly of my father last year, sick and exhausted, pulling me towards him in the hospital, clasping my hand between his own. Had he been wearing the watch then?
‘I’m sorry, Corinne,’ he had said, and I had leaned over him, puzzled.
‘What for, Daddy? What for?’ Instead of an answer there was the drone of the monitor flatlining, and the shouts of my sister and the white figures that appeared around the bedside. That was the worst day of my life.
Thirty seconds.
I shut my eyes again and wish as hard as I ever have in my life.
When I open them, the stick shows two blue lines, one faint and struggling, but there. Undoubtedly there. I stare at it for a few seconds and my eyes fill and the lines blur and I can’t believe it, and then I scream, a high-pitched yelp that causes Dominic to come running to the bathroom, spilt olive oil on his shirt. I can only keep yelping, my breath coming in short blasts, as the look of panic on his face disappears when he sees my grin.
‘I’m pregnant, Dominic! We’re pregnant,’ I cry, and he is grabbing me and we are dancing, hitting the toilet wall with the palms of our hands, slapping the wallpaper in excitement.
He never washes the oil from his shirt, keeps it instead in the back of the wardrobe, a dirty talisman. The day we finally got pregnant. I forget about the silvery key lying on the dresser, I forget my annoyance that he hasn’t changed the locks. I forget everything. I’m pregnant.
25
London
Corinne
The first thing I want to do, after I have called Ashley with the news, is go to visit Dad’s grave. He is buried near Hampstead Heath, near the house where we grew up. I need to tell him. I need him to know. He’d be so happy. I am so happy! For all of Thursday evening, it is as though the fear I’ve been feeling over the last week seems to die down, just as Dominic said. We have dinner together and go to bed early, lie like spoons with my stomach between us. For the first time in ages, I sleep properly, right through the night. I forget about Mum, I forget about the rocking horse, I forget about everything. All I can think about is that I’m pregnant, that there is a tiny scrap of life inside me. At last. Stay safe, little one.
When I call Ashley on Friday morning, she screams down the telephone. I can hear her voice get all teary and then I can feel myself going, emotion shaking in my voice.
‘I’ve got to be careful,’ I tell her, ‘I know I have, and I still need to have the blood test at the doctors but I’m pregnant, Ashley. I really am. And it’s down to you, we could never have afforded IVF again on our own. Thank you. I mean it.’
She ignores my thanks, goes unusually quiet.
‘How are things with James?’ I ask then. I’m a bad sister. I should have asked before.
She sighs. ‘I’m not sure. This week hasn’t been great.’
‘Are you OK?’ I say gently.
‘Yes, I’m sorry, this is your time. Ignore me.’ She sounds on the edge of tears and I swallow.
‘Come on, Ash, just tell me. Is it James? And your, well, your worries?’
‘No, yes, oh, it’s everything. But it’s not specifically that, whatever that is.’ She huffs a fake laugh and I hold the phone a little tighter. ‘James hasn’t told me anything and I had another phone call the other day, this time in the morning and I know it was a woman. She was laughing, there was laughter coming down the phone.’
The way she says it gives me a little shiver. ‘Laughter?’
‘Yes. It made me feel sick, I got—’ she lowers her voice ‘—I got a bit paranoid then. I . . . oh God, I’m embarrassed even telling you . . . I tried to get into his computer.’
‘Ashley!’
‘I know.’
‘I really, really don’t think he’d do this to you, Ash,’ I tell her. ‘You just need to speak to him.’
‘I was going to ask him this week,’ Ashley says, ‘but Lucy came home drunk, I mean really, really drunk. She could hardly stand. It’s the first time that’s ever happened, it was horrible.’
‘She’s a teenager, I guess.’
‘I know, but. She’s usually fairly sensible, or so I thought. I think she must have gone out with someone older, someone new to the school. I’m going to try to get more out of her.’
I don’t know whether to tell Ashley about seeing Mum or not. I haven’t told her about the little rocking horse either. When I say the sentence in my head, it sounds absurd. She didn’t think the little door looked like it was from the doll house, did she? It sounds like she has a lot on her plate already. I don’t want to make it worse.
‘Benji was sent home from school as well on Tuesday,’ Ashley says, and she tells me about the child in the playground calling Lucy a slut. I gasp.
‘Ash, that’s awful! You need to have it out with her. ASAP, I’d say.’
‘I know,’ she says, ‘I know I do. And that’s not all. The doctor thinks Holly’s having night terrors. She’s up screaming nearly every hour, I can hardly close my eyes. They did a blood test as well, said she seemed a bit floppy . . . I don’t know what that means, he said he reckons its exhaustion, from her being up all night. We get the results in a week or two, they said. But he only did it to be thorough, I think.’ There’s a pause. ‘It’s night terrors, he said.’
‘Shit, Ash. You’re having the week from hell. I’m so sorry!’ I desperately want to be there with her, to give her a hug. The urge is so strong it feels almost uncomfortable. ‘I’m sure the doctor is right, though,’ I say. ‘If it was something more serious they’d have told you on the spot.’
She sighs loudly; I can hear the air of her breath crackle through the phone. ‘I hope so. Anyway, God, you don’t need to know all of this right now. Your news is amazing, Cor, it’s wonderful. The best.’
‘Forget about me,’ I tell her softly. ‘Just try to stay calm and get to the bottom of what’s going on with Lucy, I think. It’s so unlike her.’ And it is, I really can’t imagine her behaving like that, but then I don’t live with her, I suppose. The teenage years, what a nightmare. I roll the words around in my head, they feel so alien, but perhaps one day I’ll be able to say them to a stroppy teen of my own. The tiny glimmer of hope, as small as the tiny bundle of cells inside me, flares softly. My flash of excitement is followed quickly by a wave of guilt.
‘Is everything else OK?’ Ashley is asking.
Feeling caught out, I stutter slightly before replying. ‘Yes, sure. Why?’
‘You seemed a bit worked up the other week at Mum’s; I mean, I know what happened with the car was horrible, but apart from that. Are you feeling better now?’
I take a breath. One thing is for certain; I can’t burden her any more right now. Not after she’s told me all that. If I find something else, I think, if something else happens then I’ll tell her.
‘No, I’m fine! I think it was just the nerves with the treatment and the wait. I let it get the better of me, I guess.’
‘And the wait’s over!’ Ashley says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
‘I should do some more tests, and we need to wait to see the doctor, but maybe, Ash. Maybe it is.’
*
On Friday afternoon, I tell Marjorie I’ve got another appointment and instead I get the bus over to Hampstead. Every time the bus jolts I put my hands to
my stomach. Already people feel like they’re too close to me, to my tiny precious load. I stare out of the window as we pass the BBC building, towering on the side of the road.
I wipe the glass with my fingers so I can get a better look. It was one of Dad’s greatest projects. Ashley and I went with him to the site a few times. I must have been around eleven, Ashley just turned fifteen. There were a lot of problems with the stairs, I think – my father said the details of stairs are one of the hardest aspects of any building.
‘They take up twice the amount of time as anything else. Bit of a nightmare, though you wouldn’t guess. Look, see these joins? See how smooth they are?’ He got down on his hands and knees after supper once and showed Ashley and I how the three storeys of our house worked and the levels slotted together, crawling around for hours like an excitable bear. When he made us the doll house, the stairs were exactly the same, a miniature replica of our own family home. ‘What can I say?’ Dad laughed. ‘I’m a perfectionist.’ I caught him looking at Mum, as if for approval, and she beamed back at him, eyes shining with pride.
We got the Tube together at the start of the BBC project; my father spent the journey looking over his plans one more time. He spread his blueprint out across his knees, adjusting and tweaking the diagrams with the black marker pen he always carried in the upper left pocket of his jacket. I remember eating a Kinder egg on the train, which melted all over my hands, meaning that the director of the BBC ended up incorporating smears of milk chocolate into his design. Dad told me I’d only improved it.
The building itself was an old redbrick, a Grade II listed monastery which Dad told us used to be home to the monks of Whitefriars. After that, whenever we visited I imagined white-clad men walking around, heads bowed, when in reality all I ever saw were blue overalled construction workers who drank endless mugs of tea and smoked roll-up cigarettes out of the half-finished windows.
The Doll House Page 15