Lullaby

by Claire Seeber

  ‘Sorry. Yes.’ Slowly my brain kicked back in. ‘Thanks so much, Jenny. How stupid of me. I knew it’d be something like that. He’s just—he’s so useless at recharging his phone, it must have run out again.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I just panicked when I couldn’t reach him.’

  ‘No problem. He’s always a bit all over the shop when Pauline’s away, isn’t he?’ She giggled shyly, as if she’d slightly overstepped the mark.

  Yes, I agreed, of course he was. Lost without the indomitable Pauline, head of Mickey’s stable of capable women.

  I was about to ring 118 for the hotel’s number when a car pulled up outside. I went running to the front window, skidding across Jean’s sparkling hall. Mickey! It was Mickey—it must be him.

  But it wasn’t—it was just a delivery for next door. Wine. Boxes and boxes of wine piling up beneath their sagging buddleia as they laughed and joked with the driver; as I prayed for my son’s return.

  The phone rang and my stomach swooped. Finally! I dashed back across the hall again. It would be him now, out of his meeting, slightly pissed, buoyant about sealing the deal on a huge new account. I could practically hear Louis chuckling down the line—

  But it was Jenny. She sounded apprehensive.

  ‘Um, Mrs Finnegan, I just checked Mickey’s voice-mail. There was a message from Mr Goldsmith wondering where Mickey had got to. I’ve just spoken to him and he—well, he did wait apparently, for over an hour. Mickey never turned up.’

  The most important thing was not to panic.

  ‘Oh. Oh, right. Thanks, Jenny. Will you—’ I forced myself to say it ‘—can you let me know if you hear anything else please?’

  The most important thing was to remember to keep breathing.

  ‘Of course, but I won’t be here much longer. Shall I just quickly ring the hotel for you and double-check?’

  ‘Please,’ I accepted gratefully. ‘I’d appreciate it. Thanks, Jenny.’

  I hung up, paced the floor, chewing my lip. I checked the answer-phone. Nothing but me, and then the plumber, whose call I’d been awaiting for weeks.

  Jenny didn’t ring back.

  I stood in the middle of the house, which had never felt so alien and cold, despite the day’s raw heat, and wondered what the hell to do next. I must keep moving or terror would take over. I kept trying to think what I’d forgotten, replaying the scene over and over as Mickey had wandered off. What had he said that I hadn’t caught? Louis’s face cartwheeled through my head; how he must be crying for me now, his sooty lashes separating into damp little spikes, his bottom lip curling out to sob his little seagull cry. He wouldn’t understand why I wasn’t there, why I’d abandoned him, and would Mickey pick him up and comfort him like he should? Of course he would. Wouldn’t he? Was Mickey even there—and then I stopped, clawing my palms with my own nails at the horror of my thoughts. Oh God, it was all my fault; I should never have let Louis leave my grasp.

  So I did it. I did what I’d been holding back from ever since the start. I dialled 999, and when I got through I said, rather frantically, that I had missing people to report. Missing persons. My missing baby.

  But of course the police thought I was ridiculous, though they were too polite to actually say it. An officer with a smoker’s wheeze talked calmly to me; he seemed quite patient but I couldn’t concentrate on what he said; I was imagining his stained teeth, I was jumping on ahead. When he said it was too early to call them missing, I asked quite tersely, ‘How long do they have to be gone to call them missing then?’ and he said something about twenty-four hours but as it was a baby they might make it earlier, but not this early, eh? And he tried to laugh with me, but why would I laugh? And so he coughed instead, and cleared his throat and said, ‘Friends, family? Have you checked with them?’

  A match flared down the line. I thought of my father-in-law, going slowly senile in a care home west of Belfast. Of Mickey’s only sister Maeve, pregnant with her fifth child on the Californian coast. Tentatively, Stained Teeth went on.

  ‘I should ask, madam, did you argue with your husband today?’

  I wondered dimly whether he’d count almost-rows about chocolate cake and being fat, and so I replied, ‘Yes, well sort of, well—actually no, not really. Well, not about anything serious, you know. Just a silly sort of row.’

  And there was rather a fraught pause, in which I felt quite daft, and then the policeman said he’d take my details anyway, though he was sure it would all be fine, but just in case…and when I said goodbye, I knew the policeman thought I was just being neurotic, only I wasn’t, you know, I really wasn’t. It’s just that deep in the pit of my stomach I felt that something was wrong, very wrong, and what I really wanted to do was scream, but I didn’t, because that’s not what we do. Not what I did then, of course.

  Blindly I stumbled to the bathroom. I splashed my face with freezing water and then I leant back and shut my eyes. I needed to have a plan, that’s what I needed.

  I went up to Louis’s room. Shaded by the old ash tree behind the house, it was cool in there, very cool and silent. I felt a sudden urge to lie on the floor, prostrate myself beneath the dangling star mobile, but I pushed the impulse down. Instead I walked across the big white rug with all the blue giraffes on, and walked up to Louis’s cot. And though I could see he wasn’t there, though I knew he couldn’t be there, I stood for a minute looking down. I held on to the cot bars very tight, and then I moved his soft bear to the end where I always laid his head. To where his head had left a little dent. I walked out very fast.

  Outside Mickey’s study I stood for a moment, feeling like a five-year-old awaiting her dad’s approval; took one deep breath and pushed back the door.

  Dust danced in the slatted light the blinds threw forth as the evening closed in outside, and the room smelt kind of weird. Of my husband, perhaps; a familiar, rather sensual smell. Like some kind of clumsy spy I rifled through the diary on his desk, turning the pages ever quicker—but hope faded fast. Today hadn’t warranted an entry at all. I pulled down the huge Rolodex that lurked on the shelf like some great metal spider, next to Mickey’s scotch. It made me realise suddenly how dry-mouthed I was; I looked quickly over my shoulder and then unscrewed the lid, took a swift gulp of the fiery liquid. It brought tears to my eyes—but I had another slug anyway. Fortified a little bit, one by one I began to call his friends. I rang everyone whose names I recognised, and then those I’d never heard of. The people I reached were most polite—polite and rather disconcerted. And of course no one could shed any light on Mickey’s whereabouts, although, as Greg said with a great woof of a laugh, trust the old bugger to vanish without a trace! Probably down the boozer. I had another go at the scotch and resisted telling Greg what I really thought of him. The Mickey I knew never did ‘boozers’.

  Finally I rang my sister. I took the handset, kicked Mickey’s door firmly shut behind me.

  ‘Honestly, Jess, I’m quite sure he’ll walk through that door any second now.’

  Was there a trace of exasperation in her tone? ‘Leigh, I haven’t fed Louis since about two and it’s nearly seven now. My boobs are about to explode, Mickey’s phone’s dead, I can’t think where he’d be, and the police already think I’m insane. Yeah, I’m sure he will walk through the door soon, but if I don’t do something in the meantime, I really will go stark raving mad.’

  A voice behind her muttered; Gary, no doubt. She covered the receiver to muffle him. ‘It’s a bit early to start panicking, Jess.’

  ‘I’m really trying not to, believe me. I just want the baby back here, that’s all. I don’t understand where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Look,’ her sigh was almost inaudible. ‘Do you want me to come round and keep you company while you wait? I can if you want.’

  I wished she sounded like she meant it. ‘It’s up to you,’ I replied, ‘but I wouldn’t mind the company.’

  ‘He’s probably, I don’t know. Gone for a drink with a mate.’

  ‘What—with Loui
s? Why?’

  ‘Oh come on, Jessica. You know what Mickey’s like. I mean, it’s usually you who’s saying—’ Her sentence hung heavy, open-ended in the air.

  ‘What?’ I hunted for hope in her words.

  ‘You know. He likes to do his own thing, I thought.’

  ‘Not like this, though. This is a bit odd, even for him. Isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t want to speak out of turn.’ She was cool. She’d been cool for weeks.

  ‘Please, Leigh. There isn’t time for this now. Just say what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, well, normally I would, Jessica. Only, since the other day when I said you’d lost your bounce a bit, I seem to remember that you told me—’

  I nearly laughed. ‘You made me sound like a shampoo commercial, that was all. Anyway, look, it’s not important now, is it?’ I was as level as I could manage. ‘If the girls don’t need you, would you mind—will you come round, just for a bit?’ She said she’d try.

  Alone in the kitchen’s gathering gloom, I contemplated my sister’s words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I was over-dramatising things. Oh God, I hoped so. I mean, I should have been used to Mickey’s erratic behaviour by now. He hated being tied down, you know, liked to come and go as he pleased, that type of loner thing. I stared at the white wall opposite, where the huge picture of a four-month-old sleeping Louis hung, the photo Mickey had taken while I lay on the sofa in the nursery, knackered from the newness of it all, watching my feather-haired son sleep. And I looked at that photo and I remembered that I was happier then than I’d ever been. I remembered how I thought that after all the recent months of angst I was finally at peace.

  Jean popped her wispy head round the door and said she was going now, and I started to look for some money when suddenly it came to me. Of course! Why the hell hadn’t I thought of this before? I cursed myself for being so slow as I scrabbled on the table for the handset I’d just flung down, and I sliced my finger on some of Mickey’s sketches that weren’t filed, but ignored the dripping blood as frantically I dialled my own mobile phone. I pictured it flashing bright in the pushchair pocket where I’d left it, my phone with a little photo of a day-old Louis on the user screen.

  And it rang and rang and I was praying, Mickey, answer it, please answer it, but it just kept ringing-and then suddenly, just as I was about to give up, to sink back down, somebody answered. Someone answered my phone. Whoever it was didn’t speak, but I could hear them breathing, and somehow it didn’t sound like Mickey, though how the hell I could tell, I didn’t know. But someone was on the end of my phone, and so I said in a quick tight voice before I started screaming, I said,

  ‘Hello, who is this? Can you hear me? Mickey—’ but then, before I could say anything else, whoever it was hung up. They wouldn’t talk to me. They just switched off my phone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Leigh arrived as I was putting the phone down after talking to the police again. I watched the elephantine manoeuvres of her huge car as she tried to park and I thought of Mickey scoffing rudely at my sister, at her burly husband. What does she need that tractor for, he always said—just to do her shopping? Mall rat, Mickey called her, Bluewater rat.

  Her perfect streaks swayed precisely up the path, and as I let her in I was trying not to gibber. I told her the police were coming over soon, they finally seemed to be taking notice, and she put an arm around me and suddenly I was crying; and I found I couldn’t stop. I dissolved into tears so hot they scalded me because I was chilled to the very bone. And in the middle of all this horrible emotion, Maxine arrived home. She trod lightly into the room, as done-up as a Christmas tree, and randomly I thought I really must help her out sometime, teach her not to look quite so obvious.

  Then I was thrust back into my hideous reality as I sensed how thrown the girl was by my tears. She looked away again, as if she was embarrassed—only I’d never, not in the three months she’d been here—known her to be thrown by anything. Maxine was the kind of girl who would walk stark naked from bedroom to shower every day if she could get away with it, the kind of girl who didn’t mind who got a jolly good eyeful. Early on she’d paid the price for her insouciance, though, reckoning without Mickey’s foul morning temper: he’d finally bollocked her as I listened with some relief behind the bedroom door. He gave her short shrift indeed about her skimpy little towels—although apparently she’d just shrugged.

  Leigh took Maxine into the other room as I attempted to pull myself together a bit. I got through a packet of tissues, and my eyes were all puffy and sore, but eventually my wheezing calmed. After a while they appeared in the doorway together, Maxine towering over Leigh, her shadow all lengthy down the hall.

  ‘I’m sure Mr Finnegan, he will return soon, no?’ she said. ‘I just come back to get my purse, but—si tu veux— you want me to stay?’ and her funny plasticine face almost trembled with the effort. And I saw her crooning to Louis in French, rocking him gently to and fro, so natural when I’d been so scared at first, crushed beneath the weighty terror of my new responsibility. I shuddered at my jealousy as she sang him old songs like ‘Frère Jacques’ and he beamed up at her; remembered painfully how my tummy had squirmed and I’d felt like such a failure. Now the guilt lacerated me, and I clenched my fists as all my petty jealousies came back to punish me. If Louis could just come home now, Maxine could sing to him anytime she liked and I’d never ever feel envious again.

  And then another car pulled up outside and beeped, once, and then again, and I rushed to quiet it because of the baby, and then I remembered the baby wasn’t here, and I rammed my nails into my palm again, and then I thought perhaps it might be Mickey, so I threw the window open, but it wasn’t, it was just Maxine’s date. He beeped again, all arrogance, dark brows and silly phone headset as he tapped an impatient gold-bracelet rhythm against his shiny red car, and he wouldn’t catch my eye though I was sure he saw me, but slicked his hair back in the mirror instead.

  ‘Oh no, Maxine. Don’t worry.’ I sniffed hard, hating the fact she’d seen me cry. ‘New bloke?’ I said, too brightly. ‘Nice motor. But whatever happened to the lovely Leo?’ and Maxine flushed beneath her peroxide hair, and muttered something about him still being around. The fug of perfume that she left behind her probably belonged to me. With discomfort I remembered that sometimes—often, if I was honest—I’d felt left behind, by Mickey, by my friends, even by Maxine—jealous of their exciting, carefree lives, my freedom truly finished by motherhood. I was tied to Louis and the house. But someone else had Louis now—and I’d kill them for that tie.

  Leigh got me a glass of water, and then she changed her mind and found some brandy instead, which I’d never normally drink—but now I downed it in one.

  ‘You might want to sort that out, Jess,’ she said rather stiffly, and I realised that my poor over-full boobs had leaked all over my new T-shirt, staining it. What with my dirty skirt I was looking a right old state. Not that I cared.

  ‘Go and get changed. You’ll feel better. I’ll hold the fort,’ she said, but I shook my head.

  ‘I can’t. The police—’ I mumbled. But she prodded me upstairs anyway and stuck me in the shower, where I leant against the tiles and sobbed and sobbed, watching the blue-white milk dribble from my swollen bosom. I looked over at the framed sketch of Louis I’d only hung the other day—a sketch I was quite proud of for once—and I felt like I was unravelling, like one of Louis’s teddy bears all my stuffing was coming out and I was deflating in a little limp pile, and suddenly I wanted to howl, like I’d been ripped apart.

  I cried till I simply didn’t know what to do with myself any more. The only thing in the whole wide world I wanted now was to hold my baby, and I’d never want for anything again, never let him go again, never take my eyes from him, never curse the sleepless nights—if he could just come home now. I fought the feeling that this was all my fault, my just deserts for those first bad days.

  And then just when I felt like I couldn’t cry any more, Leigh came
in. And I didn’t mind, even though we’d never been the type to wander nude in front of one another, because I guessed the police had finally come. I looked at her face and suddenly I was scared, but before I could speak, she said in a gruff voice,

  ‘Put something on and come downstairs. Quickly,’ and the urgency of her tone shot through me like a red-hot poker in my guts, and before she could go on I leapt out of the shower and grabbed her arm. I must have pulled the skin too tight because she winced and I said, ‘What? Tell me now, Leigh—what is it?’ and she said, still in that funny voice, ‘They’ve found Mickey.’ And I felt a kind of relief, just for a second, but then I said,

  ‘Mickey? What about Louis? Where’s my baby?’ and she couldn’t look at me, she wouldn’t look at me; she just handed me my dressing-gown and then turned away and went towards the door. And whether it was the brandy meeting emptiness and Mickey’s scotch, or me moving too fast, or just the pure, pure horrid shock—but I passed out—went down like a tree, apparently. For a while I knew nothing, which, as it turned out later, was bliss.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Louis was crying; I could hear him. He was crying quietly; still, I shouldn’t be so lazy. I must get out of bed and see to him. But something pressed me into the bed. I struggled hard against it.

  Awake. It was dark outside, and my head was throbbing badly. Louis wasn’t here; I was mistaken. The cries I heard weren’t Louis’s cries at all; they were the gentle coos of pigeons hiding in the eaves. A deep pain clamped my body, squeezed the air slowly from my gasping lungs.

  Gradually, Leigh came into focus. She was gazing out the window, the wide-open window, the curtain ruffling gently in the lazy breeze. A woman I’d never seen before sat near my bed. It seemed like they were both waiting. I looked away, listened to the light summer rain, rain that carried smells of dust and the honeysuckle that clambered up the sill, spindly fingers beseeching. I lingered in those last seconds of not knowing.