Lullaby

by Claire Seeber

  ‘All right, big eyes?’ he whispered. I nodded, shy; felt the kick of lust that I’d suppressed when Louis arrived.

  ‘God, you’re sweet, Jessica,’ he groaned, tucking a curl behind my ear. Then he gathered up my hair in the nape of my neck and, pulling me to him, kissed me gently. I was about to mutter that I hadn’t cleaned my teeth yet, but before I could speak he drew me against him and kissed me harder now, like he hadn’t in a long time, and finally I let go. The dawn heat slid down me like melted chocolate, and I forgot my fear, my anxiety, my very different body. I just felt the utter longing I always felt for him. I dissolved into him; I let myself enjoy it.

  And afterwards he fell back to sleep and finally light began to bleed around the heavy curtains I hated so, and in the end I thought, sod it, I might as well get up and have a cup of tea; an hour to myself before the baby wakes up. And then of course the baby woke up.

  It was funny, because after that odd woman and my poor ruined skirt, and all those peculiar nerves, I suddenly found myself enjoying the exhibition.

  I turned a corner into one room and there was a little painting of a woman just leaning out of a window, looking off into some kind of field, and I suddenly felt all sort of, I don’t know—serene. It’s a good word, serene. All the anxiety of earlier started floating away, and I just stood and contemplated the picture. Like, I forgot where I was, forgot all about my baby fat and how flipping tired I always seemed to be, and that Mickey and I had been bickering recently. And instead, I felt really happy, like I was where I was meant to be, with my son whom I’d finally come to love so much, and the husband whom I still longed to get to know. Who loved me really—even if I did once call him British; who’d made love to me this morning just like the old days. The not-very-long-ago days. And then I thought, I just want to be with my little family now, and before I walked off I thanked that woman in the painting. I know it sounds quite soppy, quite strange, but I did. I thought, yeah, that’s it, that’s why we come here, and look at art, etc.—because it puts a different perspective on our lives. Lives that seem so humdrum sometimes.

  And I looked around for Mickey and Louis, so I could share my grand thoughts with them. Only they weren’t in sight. I thought they must be ahead of me, and I walked on through the next rooms, but they weren’t there either; so I retraced my steps, thinking Mickey must have gone back to look at a picture. He could be a real slow-coach, Mickey, sometimes. I’d known him to stand in front of one painting for a quarter of an hour, whereas I’d just get bored, wanted to keep moving, on to the next thing.

  Only he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere in the gallery. My heart started to beat a little bit faster, but I thought he must have just gone out; perhaps Louis was crying and I didn’t hear; they’re probably in the small exhibition shop, buying postcards. So I rushed to check, but he wasn’t there either. Or in the café. And now I started to feel a cold sweat prickling above my lip. He could be changing the baby. Or maybe down in the big shop on the ground floor. Perhaps he’d gone back into the exhibition, gone round the other way, and I’d missed them. So I explained to the po-faced woman on the door that I’d lost my husband and my baby and could I go in and look. For a minute she seemed dubious because I didn’t have my ticket any more, like I was lying to get in for free, and I thought, she’s going to be a real jobsworth about this, but something about my manner must have convinced her that I was telling the truth, because she finally let me. Fruitlessly, I looked. Oh God, I looked so hard, so hopefully.

  And then suddenly I felt a big rush of relief, and I thought, Of course, you silly cow, just ring his mobile— why didn’t I think of that first? But with a sickening lurch I realised that my phone was in the back of the pushchair, that my bag was hanging over its handles, that I had nothing on me, no phone, no money. Nothing.

  For the next forty minutes I hunted around that enormous building. Up and down escalators I went, barging past happy, chatting tourists like some mad woman; in and out of lifts. Like some stupid scene from a French farce. Up to the members’ room to see if Mickey had blagged his way in there for a view over the Thames and that wobbly bridge. Typical Mickey. He’d be sitting in a deckchair on the roof terrace, sunning himself above the grey river, above the half-empty pleasure boats, Louis blowing bubbles next to him. Showing off to all the girls.

  But there were just scruffy academic types discussing art, pushing worn-out specs up spindly noses, flip-flopped students sharing cappuccinos, well-bred ladies with little else to do but lunch. No Mickey. No baby. And all the time I was hunting, I was preparing what to say, how I would tell Mickey off, how I would cuddle Louis, how we’d laugh about it later. But eventually as I felt more panicked I started to get angry, and I stopped thinking about laughing, and started thinking about shouting.

  Suddenly, coming up the main escalator for about the fifth time, I saw my pushchair. Oh God—the surge of relief was immense, overwhelming. Whooshed through me and made my knees shake for a minute.

  ‘Louis,’ I croaked. Thank Christ! My heart soared-until I saw this strange man lifting my son high into the air, chucking him under the chin, spinning him round above his head, and the baby was laughing, giggling, and they both turned round, and it wasn’t Louis. It wasn’t my pushchair. And then I felt sick, sicker than I could ever remember feeling, sick to my stomach, like they say; sick right down to the soles of my aching feet.

  Please, Mickey, you fool, please just be here this time, I silently intoned, going back downstairs again. People were starting to give me funny looks. I was gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. I was so furious now, furious that he could be so inconsiderate, that he could just vanish like this and not even think about me. So furious I was nearly crying with frustration. It was so bloody typical. And I was furious with everyone else here too, for having such a nice time, for not being worried and frantic like me, for not being the ones who’d lost their family. For not being inadvertently alone.

  They must have gone for a walk. Of course! I went running outside, and I mean properly running, through the crowd I went. Past the sweet burning smells of the peanut stall, past the bloke with his silly bird whistles, running through shots badly framed by indignant Germans, who tutted, and humble Japanese who cast their eyes down at their cameras rather than complain. Gulls wheeled above, crying mournfully for scraps, and I nearly sent some small girl’s ice cream flying because I was looking around for Louis all the time I ran.

  ‘Sorry, darling, I’m so sorry.’ I wanted to reach down and hug her just for the touch but her parents were glaring at me like I was some sort of nutter, so I turned and headed back inside.

  I was out of breath now. My chest hurt, and my inhaler—I scrabbled for it. It was in my missing bag, of course. I must not panic. I sat down for a minute on a leather pouffe thing and, head in hands, tried to collect my thoughts. To be practical. I searched my pockets—I had 6p in change, my train ticket and a baby sock. Just one little bobbly sock. I thought about reversing the charges—could you do that to a mobile? I thought about ringing my sister, getting her to phone Mickey. I found a guard and asked about payphones.

  ‘Downstairs,’ he said tersely, waving a vague hand.

  ‘Is there a missing persons’ point, a meeting point or something? A Tannoy? I’ve lost my husband,’ I said. ‘He’s got my baby, you see. Our baby.’ Was I having trouble forming words? He didn’t seem to understand me. Frankly, he looked bored.

  ‘Walkie-talkie,’ he mimed eventually, gesturing off into the distance. I tried to pull myself together. This was ridiculous. People must get lost here every day, it was so vast, so bloody anonymous. I thought about Louis and that he must be getting hungry by now, and I felt my eyes prickle, fill up with tears. I decided to go and find the payphones before I started wailing right there in the middle of the Tate Modern, and then I saw this nice friendly man who looked official, holding a walkie-talkie, and coming towards me.

  ‘Everything all right, miss?’ he said, and I used every fib
re of my being not to cry. He was such a nice man, he had hair growing out of his ears in little tufts just like my granddad used to, and his nose was a bit red as if he liked a whisky now and again, and he let me use his own mobile phone to ring Mickey, and I was so relieved; and in the end I stopped the tears before they came.

  Only the phone just rang and rang. I looked out at St Paul’s, at that great dome, and I prayed again. Really hard. I tried to ring three times, and the first time I got the number wrong because my hand was shaking so much. The next time, it just rang and rang until the voicemail picked up and Mickey’s disembodied voice floated down the airwaves. I left a rambling message that started off angry and ended up pleading. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘just ring this number back, quickly.’ And then the third time, it was dead. Mickey’s phone line had gone dead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The rattle of the train battled the hiss of my tight breath. I automatically reached for my inhaler again, but of course it was still missing. Just the sock, the bobbly little sock, and a fingernail of fluff.

  In the carriage, which stank of pee, I tried to relax, but I couldn’t sit back even for one small second because I was squeezed into the corner by the world’s largest man. He sweated on me all fatly, pores oozing in the stifling heat, squashing his huge nylon leg fully along my thigh, but I didn’t care. I crossed my arms over my poor bosoms that were as hard as crash helmets now, and I willed the train on with every piece of me, because by now I was quite sure that Mickey was back home; would be there when I arrived; that Louis was safe; and I banished thoughts of his tearful little face firmly from my mind. I stamped them down and replaced them with his fuzzy-peach head, his chubby smile.

  And all the way I played that stupid game, the one I played incessantly as a kid. I was gambling with myself, making promises I couldn’t keep. If that bald man got off at the next station, Louis would be home; if that woman turned her page before the old lady beside her nodded off, Mickey would be so apologetic, would kiss and hug me and beg for my forgiveness, and I would be serene, oh yes, serene, bestowing a gracious kiss.

  And when the train pulled into Blackheath, I was like the kids from my old school, the daredevil ones; like Robbie used to be. Like I used to be. I jumped before we even stopped, running beside the still-moving train, about to fall. I was falling but then I caught myself and righted myself, and before I hit the tarmac I was running safely again.

  I had sat in the Tate until I could bear to sit no more. The nice man, whose name was Mr Norland, let me ring my house—but the answer-phone picked up. I left a brief, burbling message, told Mickey to stay put if he came home, and then Mr Norland suggested tea. When he heard I had no money, he pressed handfuls of warm change into my hot, damp hands and propelled me to the café.

  And so I sat alone and waited, sat very still and watched the world go by. My drink went cold, left a scummy tidemark on the shiny china as happy tourists bustled round me. People joined my table and left again. One couple had a muttered row about what film to see that night, and the bloke got really quite irate and went all pink, so I looked the other way and tried hard not to listen.

  A brisk German lady in a khaki cagoule sat beside me eating carrot cake, and then forgot her postcards. I called after her but she’d already gone, so I wiped a blob of buttery icing from the bag, and thumbed through her selection. She’d bought the one of the woman looking out over the field, the one I liked so much, and it made me want to cry again. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t cry. I just kept searching for Louis in the crowds and kicking myself for letting them vanish from my sight.

  An hour passed, the slowest of my life. Mr Norland came to say his shift was over, but his colleagues had my details. And then, very gently, he suggested that perhaps I should go home.

  ‘Can I borrow your phone again?’ I asked, and one final useless time I rang Mickey’s mobile and home. Still nothing whatsoever on Mickey’s line, and just my silly jolly voice at home, with Louis’s gurgle in the background recorded for all time.

  ‘They must be on their way back home, d’you think?’ I said, and Mr Norland nodded and shakily I thanked him, stuck my chin in the air, much braver than I felt. As the sun slid down the creamy summer sky, I headed out for home.

  Exploding into the dawdling rush-hour crowd the train had just spewed out, I pushed up through the village like a bullet from a gun. Natalie from my antenatal class waved merrily from outside the pub, her posh pram tucked all safe behind her, but I wouldn’t stop to talk; I couldn’t talk. On and up the hill I forced myself until I hit the great humid heath. Normally I’d feel relief here, pause to savour the space surrounding me, but there wasn’t time for any of that now. I desperately needed my inhaler to breathe in this stagnant dusk, but at least the house was in view, and the light was on in the front window, and I promised God that I’d do anything, anything whatsoever, I’d never swear or lie or row with Mickey ever, ever again if he could just be home with Louis and everything would be normal once more.

  I rang the bell. I could hear voices—thank Christ, there were voices! But no one came. I rang again, stuck my finger on the gold-plated doorbell that Mickey hated, kept swearing he’d replace, and I left it there until eventually the talking stopped. A silence fell, and that unnerved me more. Then footsteps pattered down the parquet floor, and the front door swung open-and it wasn’t Mickey at all. It was just the cleaner, Jean. I pushed past her into the house I so rarely called my own, past her into the kitchen, but I could see, oh God I saw, that no one else was there.

  For a moment I nearly lost control. I put my head back and I almost howled ‘Louis? Mickey?’ Resounding silence met me.

  ‘Mickey, is he here? I heard voices?’ I croaked, leaning over the table, head bowed, trying to catch my breath. Sweat trickled down my back uncomfortably; the air hung thick around us and I knew the answer before it came.

  ‘No, dear, I haven’t seen him, I’m sorry.’

  I stared at her. ‘But—the voices?’

  ‘The radio was on. I’ve switched it off now.’ Apologetic, timid voice, breathy as a child’s. White hair blending into chalky cheeks, my ‘diamond’ Jean might have spent her whole life underground. I knew she was a diamond because my neighbours told me so when I moved in. Only I’d never really felt that she was mine, you know. Jean belonged to the old regime.

  ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not quite sure, dear.’ Jean’s timekeeping was always a little hazy; a true hourly-paid conspirator.

  ‘Please do try to remember.’

  My frantic tone seemed to drive her backwards. ‘I was late from Mrs Hamilton’s today, on account of her delivery, you see.’ A whisper, very fast, as if I might scold her; her pale face working hard. ‘I got here about three, I think. Is everything—’ she gulped at me like a goldfish out of water ‘—is everything all right, dear?’

  ‘Have you answered the phone at all? Are there any messages?’

  ‘No, dear. Well, actually,’ nervously she paused for thought, ‘actually, I did hear your voice on the machine, dear, when I was coming in. No one else, though, I don’t think. Not since I got here anyway.’

  My chest contracted painfully. I scrabbled in the drawer for my spare inhaler, fingers curling round it gratefully like a drowning man’s. I breathed the spray in, and then very carefully I replaced the lid. With a huge effort to keep my voice from trembling, I tried to explain.

  ‘I’m just a bit worried because I got separated from Mr Finnegan and the baby at the gallery, where we’ve just been, you see, and I’m not sure—well, it’s just—’ oh God, it hurt me to admit it ‘—I just don’t know where they are right now, that’s all.’

  That’s all.

  ‘Oh dear. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll be back soon, won’t they?’ She looked at me with hope.

  I ignored the doubting inner voice; I said quickly, ‘Yes. Yes, of course they’ll be home soon.’ She was still waiting. ‘I’m going to make a few calls now, see if I can trac
k them down.’

  ‘I’ll get on then, shall I, dear?’

  Her heels tapped busily away as I searched through the junk on the kitchen table for my address book. Then I sensed a shadow in the hall. My head snapped up.

  ‘You could try ringing his office, Mrs Finnegan. Do you think—perhaps he needed to pop in there for something?’

  ‘Yes, good idea, Jean. I’ll do that.’

  She smiled proudly, and tapped off again.

  So I sat rigid as a tent-peg at the table and dialled Pauline’s direct line. She’d know where he was, surely, if anyone would? Leaden with exhaustion, I laid my head down, closed my eyes for just a second as I listened to the ring.

  ‘Pauline Gosforth is out of the office. If you need to reach Mickey Finnegan, please call Jenny Brown on extension four six five seven.’

  Fuck! I redialled. Three rings in, friendly Jenny answered, thank God. She offered to check Mickey’s diary.

  ‘You know, I’ve got a feeling he did have a meeting this afternoon. I was a bit surprised actually when he said he wasn’t coming in.’ She was enthusiastic. Did she feel complicit in something now, helping the boss’s wife? ‘Hang on, can you?’

  I waited, stared unseeing at the folder of negatives Mickey had chucked on the table late last night when we’d got home. ‘Idyllic Ideals, Romantic Retreats’ the italics boasted, all swirly typed and grand. I clicked a pen between my teeth, up, down, up, down, up…

  An eager Jenny was back on the line. ‘Yes, I thought so. Four p.m. drinks at one the Aldwych with Martin Goldsmith from Genesis. It’s a massive new account. Mickey must have forgotten when he took his day off.’

  For a moment, the relief rendered me speechless.

  ‘Hello—Mrs Finnegan? Are you still—’