‘But I didn’t even open my bag,’ I say, but even as I speak, I remember pulling my hairbrush from my handbag.
‘What’s going on, Kat? Talk to me.’ He looks despairing and everything seems broken between us, and there’s a big part of me that wants to fall against him, let it all pour out, but I remain silent.
You mustn’t tell, Kat.
I’m a keeper of secrets, a guardian of the truth.
Nick crouches and begins to gather the large pieces of glass and, quietly, I leave the room.
* * *
My mind tick-tick-ticks as I stalk into our bedroom, my eyes scanning everything. Did I leave the decorative cushions on the bed at that angle? Didn’t I smooth down the patchwork throw before I left? I’m perturbed. Something is off – I can sense it. The air feels thicker somehow. I slide open our storage unit, and lift out my jewellery box. Popping open the lid I run my finger over necklaces, rings, bracelets. Nothing is missing. My handbags are hanging where I left them. My shoes all lined up. I am sliding the door closed again when I notice Nick’s leather messenger bag. I bought it for him on our first Christmas, and I feel wistful as I remember the turkey I cooked. Nick didn’t complain once that it was dry and tasteless, or that the Brussels sprouts were like bullets. He drenched the unappetising food with lumpy gravy and ate every single mouthful. How young we were. How hopeful. We thought we’d effortlessly have it all. The family. The happily ever after.
Emotion gathers inside as I lift the bag off the hanger and draw it to my nose, breathing in the leather. Almost smelling the fir tree that had stood in the corner of our lounge. The mulled wine that was warming in the kitchen. A family. That’s all I ever wanted but at what cost? Lisa coming back into my life has been like uncorking a bottle of memories, and I can’t jam the stopper back in. The truth is a black swirling mass with a pointed tail and snapping jaws. I’m tired of running. Permanently stressed and edgy. Nick looks exhausted and unhappy. He never really wanted children, did he? He wasn’t bothered when I told him I couldn’t have them. At once I feel the burden of everything heavy on my shoulders. Have I ruined us? Pushing. Wanting. A few more months and we’ll be a three and yet, even now I’m looking further than that, wanting us to be a four. But in my mind a baby cries, needing a mum, and I know I cannot lose one again. I release my grip, the messenger bag thuds to the floor and a piece of paper flutters out. A bank statement. I frown. Nick keeps all the paperwork in his study but this account is in his name solely. Inside the bag are more statements. The same amount going in each month. The exact same amount being paid out to an account number I don’t recognise.
I pace the room. Struggling to make sense of it. What is Nick paying for? What is he keeping from me? I reach the back window. Turn. A rat in a cage. The front window. I glance outside. Clare is closing her front door. Ada in her arms.
Ada.
I drink in her black curly hair, so like Nick’s. Her fair skin. Think of the way Akhil disappeared. Not paying maintenance. The papers flutter from my hands. Clare manages in that big house all alone in this cul-de-sac Nick was so desperate for us to move to. Oh God. My stomach churns and churns. The flowers from ‘N’. His scarf in her hall. The overnight trips. The text message. Could Ada be his daughter? Are these maintenance payments? Clare comes from Cornwall where Nick’s grandad, Basil, lived. Could they have known each other as kids? Reconnected as adults? Had an affair? The carpet seems to sink below my feet as thoughts streak through my mind, and none of them are the things I want to be thinking. I have to be wrong, don’t I?
All at once I don’t know who to trust. Nick. Clare. I long to talk to Lisa. The person who knows me better than anyone. The person who won’t tell me I’m going mad.
Lisa’s phone rings and rings until reluctantly I cut the call. I pace the room, tapping the handset against my chin. I shouldn’t ring her at work, I know. Hospitals are busy and she won’t have time to chat, and yet just hearing a familiar voice, a friendly voice, would calm me. Perhaps I can arrange to meet her after her shift. I google the number for Farncaster General and ask to speak to Lisa Sullivan.
‘I can’t find her on the staff list. What ward?’
‘Stonehill,’ I say, and the ringing tone starts once more before I am connected to the right department.
‘Lisa Sullivan,’ I repeat for the second time.
‘I am sorry,’ says a harried voice. She sounds anything but sorry. ‘No one works here with that name.’
‘Are you?—’ I begin but the call has been cut.
I dial again and this time I speak to a different receptionist who confirms what I’ve already been told. There is no record of a Lisa Sullivan.
* * *
Agitated I return to the nursery, as though to convince myself it’s real. There is a baby coming. As the soft pile swallows my feet a slither of glass pierces the skin of my big toe and I crouch down and remove it. Under the changing table is a green box I store nick-knacks in and seeing it sparks a memory. With a sinking feeling I slide the box towards me. There’s a thrumming in my ears growing louder and louder.
My hands rest on the lid. I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to see what I know is inside, but almost mechanically, I remove the lid. Lift out the contents slowly, reluctantly, until I find what I am looking for. A silver picture frame I’d bought from Mothercare last year; inside rests the stock photo of the baby in the pink polka dot sleepsuit starfishing in her cot. A baby familiar to me.
Gabrielle.
The baby Lisa showed me on her phone. The baby Lisa had for Stella. The tug I’d felt on my heart when I first saw it wasn’t emotion. It was recognition.
This can’t be Gabrielle.
The child Lisa said was her baby.
Stella’s baby.
Except she isn’t, is she?
She’s a stock photograph.
Only as real as the baby that now cries in my mind louder and louder until I clasp my hands over my eyes and fold myself in two.
38
Now
In the shower I scrub at my body with lemon shower gel as though I can wash away the things I have learned. The things I now know. After seeing the photo I hadn’t wanted to believe Lisa had lied. I had felt her bump. The first scan photo was on my fridge. I had heard the baby’s heart. I googled and found a heartbeat on YouTube sounding exactly the same. My shaking fingers kept pressing the wrong keys as I googled again. ‘You wouldn’t believe half the stuff you can buy on eBay,’ Lisa had said, and she was right, I thought, as I stared in disbelief at a prosthetic baby bump with the ‘Buy Now’ option.
Inside my head I hear the sound of laughter. Stupid. I’m so stupid.
There is no baby. How could Lisa do this to me? The water is too hot. The steam rises, and my hopes sink. I feel angry, betrayed, but overriding all of those things is a thought that this is what I deserve. Payback. I’m a terrible, terrible person. A wave of dizziness washes over me and I place my palms against the tiles to steady myself. I’m not going to be a mum. I’m dragging in short, sharp breaths through my nose. I’m never going to be a mum. My knees buckle and I sink to the floor. The water cascades over me. But I know no matter how long I stay in the shower I will never feel clean again. How could I not have known? The money she demanded. The appointments she kept me away from. The bump I never felt move. ‘We believe what we want to,’ Lisa had said. Oh, how she must have laughed at the way I sucked it all up.
The sun is dipping behind the rooftops and the sky looks like fire. I wrap myself in a towel, my damp hair tangled around my shoulders, and perch on the edge of the bed as though I don’t belong here. As though this isn’t where my husband and I made love. Made plans for our future. I don’t know what to do. Say. How to act. I’ve lost everything. Nick is moving around downstairs, and it’s almost as though I’ve been suddenly placed in some weird reality TV show, watching myself from high above. Waiting to see what I’ll do.
Lisa.
She has broken my heart, just like
I broke hers when I fell in love with her twin. How could I have thought she’d have forgiven me for loving him? For being the one who was there as his life ebbed away.
I need to speak to her. I find her in my favourites list; her smiling face transforms my sorrow to anger.
I need to see her. Face-to-face. I already know she will find another excuse to avoid having the scan this week. I think long and hard before I send the text.
We need to talk about money.
The reply is almost instant.
I’m at work. Call you later? X
Liar – I want to punch out, but instead I say:
Would rather go through everything face-to-face. Know I’m meeting you on Friday anyway but I’ve been thinking and I’m not sure we’re giving you enough for expenses. Feeling terrible.
That last bit, at least, is true.
You are sweet!
Bile rises, stinging my throat.
I could come over tomorrow – I’m off?
Look forward to it.
I say, and I find that somehow I am.
39
Now
I’d drunk too much wine last night. Wanting to blunt the sharp edges of the truth. Nick and I had skirted around each other, pretending everything was fine as we’d prepared a lasagne neither of us could eat, draining a bottle and a half of Shiraz between us, as though this was normal Monday night behaviour. Nick was edgy. Distracted. We dined amongst the ruins of our marriage, staring at Nick’s mobile, which sat between us, dark and silent, along with the Parmesan cheese and the secrets. A last supper, of sorts. As I was getting ready for bed the back garden was suddenly bright. Something had triggered the security light. Or someone. I had stared out of the window watching the bushes sway. A shadow move. But rather than fear I’d felt a certain inevitability. It was always going to fall apart. I was only surprised it had taken ten years.
‘Morning.’ Nick shuffles into the kitchen, smelling of stale alcohol, as I probably do, yawning although he seemed to sleep far better than me. Each time I drifted off, the sound of laughter, of a baby crying, grew louder and louder until I rolled over and pressed my mouth against the pillow and screamed. Nick didn’t stir. Now, he runs a hand over his chin, as though he can’t quite remember whether he has shaved. He hasn’t.
‘Morning. I feel rough.’ That, perhaps, is the only truth I will speak today.
‘Me too. Don’t know what possessed us. On a school night, as well!’ he says as he drops bread into the toaster.
His throwaway comment sets my teeth on edge. There will never be a school run for me. The early morning panic. Pulling together PE kits, locating homework.
Outside, a plane trails a frothy white tail across a clear blue sky, and in the cold light of day I’m beginning to doubt myself. Have I got it wrong? It seems incredible to think Lisa has lied. Growing up there were times she was mischievous, secretive, sometimes, but never malicious. Never cruel. And yet grief bends and breaks the people we were. Moulds us into the people we never wanted to be. Soon I will know, one way or the other, and if Lisa has lied, I don’t know what I’ll be driven to. After all, I’ll have nothing to lose.
‘What are your plans today?’ Nick asks.
It’s a perfectly innocent question but concern bubbles under every word, and I wonder if he wants me out of the way so he can see Clare. See Ada. It stings to think I am no longer the centre of his world, if I ever was. I need to confront him, I know, but I can only deal with one thing at a time.
‘Lisa is coming.’
The toast pops and Nick spreads peanut butter on a slice, thick and crunchy. ‘That’s nice. I’ll try and get home early. Look, I know I’ve been distracted lately but I’m happy about the baby, really. Excited even. It’s getting nearer now. It seems more real somehow.’ He turns to face me. ‘I’m sorry I’ve not been as involved as I should have been. The problems with work… they’re over now. It’s over now.’ He says it with such regret and, as he crosses the room and wraps his arms around me tightly, my resolve crumbles. I find myself hugging him back, hard, and our embrace shouldn’t feel so full of love, but somehow it does.
My skin is pale, tired. I dab foundation on with a sponge. Colour my cheeks a little too pink. Make my lips a little too glossy. Painting on a veneer. The doorbell rings. This is it. Don’t let your mask slip.
Lisa waddles through the door, and I hug her hello, trying not to recoil as I feel her bump hard and round. I can’t believe it is real.
Fake.
Everything about her is fake, I think, as she recounts her journey, the renegade sheep that brought the traffic to a standstill. Her laughter peals as she tells me about the overweight businessman who tried to shoo it back into the field, face beet red, turning on his heels and running back to the safety of the car when the sheep started to chase him.
‘Of course I couldn’t help,’ she says, and I nod my agreement as I fill the kettle. Spoon coffee into mugs.
I study her as we sip our drinks.
‘How’s work?’ I ask, and she nods.
‘Good.’ But she doesn’t elaborate further, and when I ask her to tell me about her favourite patient she changes the subject. Why have I never noticed how evasive she is? She shifts in her seat and the chair creaks.
‘Hope the legs don’t break.’ She grimaces. ‘I’m like a baby elephant now.’ She tells me how she can’t stop eating at the moment. Savoury things. Salty. I wait for her to slip up. Waiting for a sign. But she speaks about the pregnancy as though it is real, and it isn’t until I mention money her eyes bounce around the room, as she looks at everything but me.
‘Do you need more? Are you okay?’ I lean forward. Rubbing her arm reassuringly.
She cups her bump, shaking away my touch. Wincing.
‘He’s kicking like mad!’
Quickly I move to her side. Place both hands on her bump, ignoring her attempts to brush me off. There’s nothing to be felt. No movement. Just this solid, unnatural, mound.
We wait for a moment, trapped in this pretence, until she sighs and says: ‘He’s settled down again now.’
I jerk my hands away as though her words have hurt me, and in a way, they have.
She yawns. Rubs her eyes. ‘Sorry. I’m shattered. Work is so busy. I need to get back this afternoon.’
‘Can’t you stay?’ I pull a face. ‘I miss you.’ Something tugs at my heart as I say this and I know I miss the person she was. Not the person she is now. This Lisa I do not know.
‘I wish I could…’ She looks wistful, and something passes between us. An undercurrent. An understanding? A flicker of what might have been if things had turned out differently.
‘Why don’t you go and have a bath while I make some lunch. It will relax you after your drive.’
‘Oh no. I couldn’t—’
‘Of course you could. I’ve got some Jo Malone bath oil and body lotion I’ve never used. We can catch up properly this afternoon.’
‘It’s tempting. Everything aches.’
‘That’s settled then.’ I stand, urging her to do the same. ‘There’s plenty of hot water so keep topping it up. Lunch won’t be ready for a couple of hours so take your time. You can get changed in the guest bedroom. There’s a spare robe on the back of the door.’
‘You might regret saying that. I could stay in there all day’ Her hands move to the small of her back as though it is sore. ‘Thanks, Kat. You do spoil me.’ She hefts herself to her feet.
‘Oh, Lisa.’ I smile warmth into my words. ‘What was it you said to me? We always get what we deserve.’
* * *
My ear presses against the bathroom door and, once I hear the water slosh, Lisa’s groan of relief as she lowers her body into the tub, I hurry into the spare room and locate her handbag amongst her discarded clothes and tip the contents out on the bed. Tissues, purse, brush, lipstick, car keys, phone. I press the button on the top of the handset and am invited to use touch ID or enter my password. Without consciously thinking I
key in ‘0509’ – her birthday – Jake’s birthday – and for a second I am transported back to candle wax on paper plates, mouth crammed full of chocolate sponge with too-sweet-icing, the pass-the-parcel Lisa would always win.
Perching on the bed I open up Lisa’s emails and type ‘Stella’ in the search bar. She’d said Stella sends her updates of Gabrielle and surely she wouldn’t have deleted those. No results are found. My stomach sinks a little lower and I realise I’d still been holding on to a kernel of hope that I am wrong. I open up the photos and type baby in the search bar. The image springs up that Lisa first showed us. The baby in the pink polka dot sleepsuit, starfishing in her cot and there is not a smidgen of doubt in my mind she is the same baby as in the frame upstairs. Next, I scroll through her texts. Names I don’t recognise. A name I do. Aaron. I open the message.
Lisa had texted:
I have to tell Kat. I can’t do this any more.
You can’t! Not now.
Aaron’s reply.
I can’t live with myself.
You haven’t told the truth in 10 years. Don’t fucking start now. You’ll ruin everything.
What has Lisa been lying about since Jake died? I know what she is lying about now: pretending to be pregnant. Her and Aaron must be in it together. How they must have laughed as I blindly handed money over each month, forking out for extras, never questioning what it was for. Or has Aaron forced her somehow? Blackmailed her? What has she been keeping a secret? I think back to these past few months. The times when Lisa has let her guard down and we have reminisced over Desperate Housewives and Curly Wurlys. Bacardi Breezers and Snow Patrol. I can’t believe all this is borne of spite. If I ask her why, she’s not likely to tell me, and I need to know. I need to know what was worth destroying me over, because the bottom has dropped out of my world and destroyed is what I feel. I must keep it together. I don’t have much time.
The Surrogate Page 21