The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

  She looks up at him now, his dark hair framed by a pewter sky. He is waiting for her to agree with him that the death of this child is not the point.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘For them and for you.’

  He looks away. ‘I sound like a monster, but I’m not. I know they’re in agony, they need to be angry with someone and that someone has to be me.’ His voice is strained, and she realizes that of course he is nowhere near as cut off from this as he wants to appear.

  She reaches for his hand. ‘This must be horrible for you, no wonder you’re upset and distracted.’

  ‘I’m upset about losing the boy, not about their reaction. I’m a little annoyed, that’s all, to be part of a system where people can sue me for making a perfectly legitimate surgical decision.’

  ‘But I don’t really understand how they can they sue you.’

  ‘Well, surgically it’s kind of a grey area.’

  ‘A grey area? What do your colleagues say? Are they supporting you?’ This must, she realizes, be a massive loss of face so early in his new job.

  ‘I sent an email out to the whole department yesterday, laying it all out. I told them this litigation threat is nonsense and there was no error whatsoever on my part, and I pointed out that I’m the best there is – nobody else would have had the skill to do what I did. I hope that’s the end of it, as far as they’re all concerned.’

  ‘You actually emailed that out to your colleagues?’

  ‘Listen.’ His voice softens a little. ‘I know it sounds arrogant, but it’s necessary in this context. If I shrank away, I’d look weak – I’d look guilty, to be honest. It’s much better to come out with your head up. They all get that. And they’ll all know that most top surgeons in my position would have tried the procedure too.’

  ‘But they could turn against you?’

  ‘OK, Tess, see, this is exactly why I didn’t tell you – I didn’t want to ruin our weekend. You aren’t a surgeon, you aren’t in the medical world – you need to trust me when I tell you that it’ll be fine. I’m not worried, I’m just unhappy at the amount of time this is going to suck up. I really don’t need to talk about this – not for myself. In fact, right now I’d kind of like to not talk about it – I’d kind of like to get away from this and forget about it for the next twenty-four hours, if that’s OK by you? I just need a break, honey. It’s not a big deal, it’s just an administrative pain in the ass and it’s going to go on for months, if not years.’

  A dead child is surely the biggest deal of all, but she does not say so. A gust of wind pushes between them and his hand tightens around hers; it feels like a restraint. He can rationalize all he likes, but deep down he must feel responsible for the death of this little boy. She cannot imagine what it must be like to carry that around inside you every day.

  They walk up the main street towards a lemon-yellow town hall, built on a triangle where two roads converge. It has stairs leading up to a double door that is decorated with lavish Thanksgiving wreaths. This is one of the most historic towns in Massachusetts but she feels as if she has stumbled into the set of a Hollywood romantic comedy. They pass shop windows displaying storm lanterns and cashmere throws, dog collars decorated with stars and stripes, Adirondack chairs and sea-glass earrings. She thinks about the poor parents of the boy. She would be the same if it happened to Joe, she would need someone to demonize. She looks up at Greg again. His chin is lifted, his shoulders thrown back, his dark hair swept off his strong brow. His lack of self-doubt really can be breathtaking.

  They pass other weekenders – smart Bostonians holding takeout coffee cups, with copies of the New York Times tucked under their arms. He can’t really be this sure of himself. He must be questioning every moment of that operation. This might, at least, explain his recent behaviour: his outburst with Joe, his remoteness, his inability to talk to her, and of course last night’s horrible mood. He must be under phenomenal pressure.

  Pebble-coloured clouds skate overhead and gulls cry, a lonely, heart-hollow sound. It is bitterly cold and her hands, without gloves, feel stiff and sore. The seasons are so much more brutal here, more definite and delineated: summer was sweltering, broken by the occasional wild storm, and then autumn kicked in and everything exploded into hysterical colours, and now winter is closing in, sweeping punishing winds across everything and – Greg says – soon there will be snow, blankets of it: white-outs, snow days, blizzards. This assertive cyclical progression ought to feel reassuring in some way, but it does not. These stamping, huge East Coast seasons only make her feel small, exposed, far from home. She never thought she’d miss the dithering English wetness, but she does, on an almost cellular level.

  Greg guides her down an alley that smells of dog pee. He has never been to Marblehead before, but he seems to know exactly where he is going. He always knows where he is going. His chin, unshaven, square, juts out, the tip of his nose is red and his breath rises, dragon-like, from his carved nostrils. His eyes are fixed straight ahead. Greg would never allow himself to look lost.

  It is almost impossible to imagine him making a clinical mistake. He may make lightning decisions but they will be based on a watertight series of judgements and micro-analyses. His decision to try that particular technique on that little boy at that moment will have been perfectly calibrated. The chances of anyone successfully suing Greg must be extremely small.

  What she can’t understand is why he couldn’t talk to her about this. Why keep it all to himself? They emerge onto a grassy, windblown slope and he puts his arm around her. She inhales sharply, and the freezing air stings her lungs. It is almost a hostile act, to have kept this litigation threat to himself. The Atlantic wind bowls in at them, shoving at her face and body, biting through the thin wool of her coat. Ahead of them, the gunmetal sea flexes towards the horizon. Despite the cold it is a relief to be looking out at something bigger and louder than the thoughts inside her head.

  She tugs her hat down and shakes herself free of Greg’s arm. But he takes her hand again. They walk up the grass and stand above the ocean. There is a lighthouse on a promontory far over to the right. The sun appears from behind a cloud and the sea glitters as if there is a spark on the tip of each wave.

  She watches a boat grow smaller and smaller until it is swallowed up by the horizon. She thinks about England, across these miles and miles of ocean, and she feels a pull deep down, as if there is an invisible umbilical cord, stretched whisper-thin, attaching her to home. Inside her, the baby somersaults. She feels light-headed, hungry, empty. Greg’s hand, gripping hers, is as hard and cold as granite. He starts walking again. He is half a step ahead of her, but the space between them feels vast. She remembers him telling her once that the human heart is the size of a fist and hers feels like that now, a fist thumping against her ribs, angry and trapped.

  He drops her hand and climbs up onto a big flat rock, then turns and holds out his hand for hers again. She looks up at his face, all planes and angles, tarmacked with stubble, his cheekbones picked out by the light. He is so certain that she will follow, take his hand, scramble up there after him – he looks at her expectantly, and suddenly she feels as if she doesn’t know him; he is a stranger, expecting her to follow him onto the slippery rock, without question.

  She turns and walks away, leaving him there. She needs to get away. She needs to be alone, to think. She supports her belly with both hands and walks very fast, head down. She hears him calling her, his voice booming across the grass.

  The wind thumps her eardrums. She stumbles over a hillock and reaches the edge, teetering for a moment above a magnificent, glittering sea, the sky streaked with grey clouds, sweeping out to the horizon. There is a path through some scrubby trees to her right. She hesitates, then heads towards it, pushing through scraggly branches, leaning backwards to stop herself toppling over rocks. Her ankles wobble as the path plunges towards a beach, which is no more than twenty metres of dark sand littered with grey stones. She reaches the bottom and jumps
down onto it, feeling the jolt of the baby against her spine. Waves crash and flatten, hissing towards her, and she hears Greg’s feet following her.

  The wind shoves at her face; she turns. His eyes are anxious but dark, too, angry, demanding. ‘What’s gotten into you? Why did you run off like that?’ Her belly feels taut, her limbs shaky, and suddenly she can’t get enough air in; it feels like drowning. His hands grasp her upper arms but a mist is oozing around her eyeballs – the sea, his blackened eyes, the stones, the sky are saturated in grey mist, and she is alone in space, her heart softening, beating more slowly, its chambers unfolding like wings.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The first thing she sees is a single cloud, rushing overhead. She smells seaweed. The light is white and it cramps her eyes. Waves hush and suck nearby and a fat gull glides overhead, peering down at her with a pebble eye. There are stones pressing against her spine, but she feels rested and warm, as if she has slept like this, undisturbed, for hours and hours. Only her fingers are cold, spread on sand and her toes too – she cannot feel her toes. Greg’s face appears, blocking out the light.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he soothes her. ‘You’re OK. You passed out. You’re fine. Just lie still for a moment, come round slowly, then we’ll get you somewhere warmer.’ She lifts her head. His jacket is spread over her, protecting her body from the wind. He is kneeling by her thighs with her legs raised on his lap. She tries to sit up, but he eases her shoulders back down.

  ‘Don’t try to get up just yet, give yourself a moment, OK?’

  Her right hipbone aches and her leg feels itchy. She touches her belly, beneath his jacket, with both hands. The baby is very still.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ He presses her shoulder gently. ‘Just take a moment.’

  She thinks of her body thudding onto the beach.

  ‘I want to sit up.’

  ‘OK, but take it slow … take it easy … easy …’

  The sun comes out from behind another cloud, much too bright. She blinks and then out of the corner of her eye she sees a movement on the cliff path, behind Greg. She cranes her neck. A man with a black dog jumps onto the beach and crunches across to them, moving purposefully, hands in the pockets of his dark pea coat. The dog gallops off towards the sea. The man has a bushy beard and cropped hair. He stops above her.

  ‘I saw you go down,’ he says. ‘Are you OK?’ He looks right at her as if Greg isn’t there.

  Greg’s face adopts an urbane smile. He eases her legs off his lap and stands up, facing the man. He is an inch or two taller.

  ‘She’s fine, thanks. My wife’s pregnant, she felt a little faint for a moment, but she’s going to be just fine.’

  The man steps closer. He is about the same age as Greg, with wind-stung cheeks and eyes as grey as the rocks behind him.

  ‘You really OK?’

  ‘I’m a doctor.’ Greg’s voice is brittle. ‘And I’m telling you, she’s fine.’ But the man still does not look at Greg; he is waiting for her answer.

  ‘Yes, honestly, I’m completely fine.’ She tries to sound normal. ‘Thanks.’

  The black Labrador bounds up the beach and stuffs its nose into her face; she smells salt water on its wet fur, fishy dog breath. ‘Off.’ The man grabs his dog’s collar. ‘Sorry. Go on, go!’ He sends the dog away. Only then does he look at Greg. His eyes are hard and, she realizes, hostile. She wonders if she should reassure him that Greg has done her no harm, that nothing threatening is happening here.

  ‘She’s just resting for a moment.’ Greg’s voice is suddenly tense. The man’s eyes are still fixed on Greg’s face.

  ‘I know you,’ he says.

  ‘You know what,’ Greg cuts him off, ‘maybe you could take her other arm because I need to get her somewhere warmer – can you stand up now, honey? Come on, let’s go.’

  He takes one of Tess’s arms and tugs as if she is a stubborn donkey. The ground slides away, but she feels the stranger’s hand around her other elbow and forces herself to stand up. Then she twists herself out of the men’s hands and looks from one to the other. Greg’s jacket has fallen onto the stones at her feet. He bends, slowly, to pick it up, taking slightly too long.

  The dog is back in the water behind them – foam splashes around it in great, hilarious arcs. Greg straightens. The two men are looking at each other again, over her head. Greg slides one arm into his jacket. This is not about her anymore; this is something else.

  The man opens his mouth but Greg speaks over him. ‘So we’re good to go. Thanks for stopping. Bye.’ He turns, taking her arm, pulling her away.

  ‘No. Wait,’ the man shouts after them, suddenly furious. ‘What the hell are you doing here? What are you doing here? Don’t you walk away from me! I know who you are! I know you!’

  Greg pulls her arm; she stumbles on the stones.

  ‘You know me too, don’t you?’ He is following them, a few paces behind. ‘I’m Alex Kingman. I know you recognize me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Greg stops and turns, abruptly, ‘I don’t know you. You have the wrong man.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Listen, buddy.’ Greg’s voice booms, making her jump. ‘You’re making a mistake here. We’ve never met and I need to get my wife inside now, so thanks for stopping, but we have to go. Goodbye.’

  She has never heard Greg call an adult ‘buddy’ before. He puts his arm around her, steering her towards the path.

  The stranger says nothing more, but as they head up the cliff path she can feel his fury unfurling behind them like a lurid banner.

  She looks up at Greg. He is staring straight ahead, his bottom jaw jutting.

  ‘What on earth was that about?’ she says. ‘Who was that man?’

  ‘I have no idea. Come on, let’s get you out of here.’

  Her shoulder hurts where Greg is gripping it. She shakes him off. She must have bruised herself as she fell because her hipbone feels sore. ‘Did I hit the beach hard?’

  ‘No,’ Greg growls. ‘I caught you.’

  They walk through the back alleys and emerge again on the main street. She is shivering. It is the sort of cold that burrows deep inside the bone marrow. She remembers Helena saying, ‘You’ll be freezing your ass off before you know it,’ and all at once she realizes that Helena is irrelevant. She is not a threat, she is just a distraction, a stone skimming the surface, catching their attention, then bouncing onwards. Something else is going on here – something that has nothing to do with infidelity, something much less obvious than that. Helena is not the point.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ he says. ‘Come on, let’s go in here and get you a hot chocolate. We need to get your blood sugar and body temp up. Doctor’s orders.’ His voice is falsely cheerful, as if they’ve enjoyed lovely stroll together along the coastal path. He steers her into a café, to a scuffed leather armchair, then goes off to the counter for drinks.

  It is the sort of café that Americans do so well, with sofas and bright paintings, an old piano, big jars jammed with cookies, different types of tea. The air is a mess of steam, cinnamon, sugar and discordant sounds – a folksy soundtrack, the squeak and hiss of a coffee machine, chatter, a feral laugh, the squeal of a chair leg on the wooden floor.

  She struggles out of her coat and unwraps her scarf, suddenly sweating. She tries to push her hair back into its ponytail, but it feels static and wild. She puts her hands on her belly. There it is: a little shift, and there – again, the poke of a knee, an elbow, a foot. Relief shimmers through her. The baby is fine. Nothing is wrong with the baby.

  She thinks suddenly about the report from the Philadelphia Inquirer – the baby girl, born alive at thirty-two weeks, possibly killed by this man, this Carlo Novak. It didn’t say how. She touches her belly. An elegant woman on the next table catches her eye and gives a fond smile. The smell of the woman’s latte wafts over and wave of nausea rises in her throat. She pushes her hair off her forehead, taking slow breaths until the clammy feeling passes. There is a dull, tight ache
in her stomach. Lack of food. She must eat. All she has had today is the tea Greg made her in bed that morning and a thin slice of toast in the breakfast room.

  She has only ever passed out twice before – once, aged twelve at a German petrol station, when her mother took her out of school and drove her to Newhaven, crossing the Channel at night in a storm, and then driving on, taking an inexplicable road trip to Nuremberg. They forgot to eat for two days. She passed out, and when she came to her mother was holding her, weeping, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ and they called her father. He was distraught, not knowing where they’d gone, whether they were even alive. The second time was more mundane, at the GP’s surgery when she was pregnant with Joe and having a blood test. Both times the predominant emotion had been embarrassment. But this time all she can think about is how exposed she must have been on the beach. She imagines Greg laying her out, arranging her limbs, tilting her chin, lifting her knees, one by one.

  He comes back to the table. ‘I got you hot chocolate and a scone.’ He places it in front of her. ‘Fig and orange, your favourite, right?’

  She tries to smile.

  ‘This hasn’t been the best start, has it?’ He unwinds his scarf. ‘I was a complete pig last night and now you’re freaking out on the beach. Shall we just stay in bed for the rest of the weekend? It might be a lot more fun.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t know that man?’

  The smile freezes on Greg’s face.

  ‘He said his name, didn’t he? Alex something. Kingston? Kingman? Alex Kingman.’

  Greg picks up his espresso cup and takes a sip. ‘I just wanted you off that beach.’

  The painful knot in her stomach tightens. ‘But he seemed completely certain that he knows you.’

  He looks away. ‘Well, he doesn’t.’

  It is a lie. She can hear the tension in his voice, she feels it radiating from him. And he knows that she knows it – he can’t look at her, he looks just past her. A sharp disc of panic begins to spin in her chest. He is still trying to smile but his eyes are too tight in his head, his jaw too tense. The pain in her stomach cramps and then saliva gushes into her mouth: she is going to be sick. She leaps out of the chair, pushes past Greg and looks for the toilets, covering her mouth with both hands, feeling everybody’s eyes on her, all the concerned strangers, as she hurtles across the crowded room.