Lullaby

by Claire Seeber

  ‘That nice northern policeman was on the phone just now, asking more questions,’ she said eventually, looking back at me. ‘You’ve spoken to him, then, this morning?’

  I nodded. She went on.

  ‘They wanted copies of Mickey’s personal records-everything that only I had access to. I pulled it all off from here and faxed it over. And so you saw that—’ She reddened a little. God. I wasn’t used to Pauline being rattled. It freaked me out a bit.

  ‘I heard he was—he was meant to be meeting Agnes,’ I said bluntly.

  ‘Well, I mean, I don’t know if he did actually go that night, because I was in the middle of the Med by then, on that blinking boat.’ There was hope in her voice. ‘We’d already had words about it when—well, I thought it was such a crap idea, and I told him so.’

  ‘When did you tell him?’ I asked helplessly.

  ‘When—when Agnes came to see him at the office before, pet. I thought he was, you know. Being a bit of a nutter.’

  I plonked my coffee down and stood up; walked to the balcony door and pushed it back as far as it would go. I breathed in very deep, though there wasn’t very much air to breathe.

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ I said slowly, gazing down at the murky canal. A couple of Goth girls in inappropriate black swigged from beer cans as they passed below. ‘Not only is my son missing, presumed kidnapped, but my husband has been seeing his ex-wife? The woman he hates so much that he can’t even bear to say her name?’

  I turned back. Pauline was anxiously twisting the stone in her nose.

  ‘Look, pet, you’ve gotta try to understand. They had a very—tempestuous relationship. Very—what’s that word? Volatile. Bit like me and Claudia did, you know, before Freddie. You knew that, didn’t you, about Mickey and Agnes?’

  My dignity was down the drain already. ‘Do you know, Pauline, I didn’t really. I don’t know much about Agnes at all. Other than she was a ball-breaker at work, and came from somewhere cold.’

  ‘Norway.’

  ‘Norway, then.’

  I was trying to absorb the news, to work out what I felt. No, I knew what I felt. Fury. No, worse. Misery.

  ‘I mean,’ I went on. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘He just didn’t—doesn’t talk about her. Ever, really. It’s like it’s always been too painful. And I’m not—I don’t like pushing him. If he doesn’t want to talk about her, that’s fine.’

  ‘Well, Mickey’s hardly the type to wear his heart on his sleeve,’ she admitted.

  ‘You can say that again. But still—’ my brain was ticking furiously ‘–why—I don’t understand why he’d be seeing her now. After all this time?’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. I mean, there was no doubt they loved each other very much, but—’ she clocked my scowl, held out a fluorescent-nailed hand. ‘No, please—let me tell you, Jessica. It’s better that you understand. They loved each other, but they were destroying each other by the end. It was completely shite. All they did was argue, pet. The best thing they ever did was separate. I’m sure Mickey was just seeing her to tie up some loose ends. It’s just, he didn’t want to discuss it with me. Which’, she shrugged, and bit off a piece of nail, ‘was fair enough. I mean, the divorce only came through so recently, didn’t it?’

  Yeah, I knew exactly how recently. When I was seven months pregnant, vast as a small whale, waiting for Mickey to be free to marry me. Praying for him to be free. Flushed and occasionally ecstatic, my hormones bouncing happily on the good days when I wasn’t sinking beneath the enormity of what lay ahead; lolling in a state of love and sexuality, all bound up with my own clever fertility.

  ‘They had so much tied up in property and investments, you know.’ Pauline paused to sip her drink. She was playing for time. ‘I mean, Agnes—she’s got a ferocious business brain. Canny as you like—top of her game, pet, that one. Had Mickey tied up in all sorts of deals. I’m sure there’s probably still loads of paperwork and things to sort out, even now.’

  But I didn’t buy it. Mickey hated Agnes. She’d abandoned him, gone abroad, cleaned him out emotionally, so that when we met months later he was nothing but a walking husk of a man, although it was well-hidden beneath his facade. Fragile as an empty eggshell—although I didn’t realise it at first, I could have crushed him with a single stamp of my foot. All that sadness I’d first seen: it sprang mainly from losing Agnes. And he’d only ever mentioned her occasionally to curse her memory.

  I turned back from the window. I had to face facts.

  ‘Pauline, we both know that Agnes was the love of Mickey’s life.’ There was no point denying it. ‘Surely-surely if she’d said jump, he’d have done it?’

  She shook her head vehemently. The dog yawned massively at her toe-ringed feet and began to dribble.

  ‘No, Jessica, I don’t think so. I don’t believe he’s that much of a glutton for punishment. It was over. He’s an intelligent man—’

  I grimaced. ‘Yes, I know that. He’s the cleverest person I’ve ever met—unfortunately. But since when did intellect make you sensible in love? God, if anything, it’s likely to be the opposite.’

  Valiantly, she kept trying. ‘He loves you, pet. I know he does.’

  ‘Do you? Does he really? Or does he just love Louis and the fact that I’m his mother?’

  Pauline seemed to blanch a little as she leant down and petted her huge dog. Pain pricked my heart. It was what had worried me every night when I went to sleep, what had daily threatened to scar my happiness. I had been so in love with Mickey, and yet I felt I could never quite reach him.

  When I fell pregnant with Louis so quickly and was worried about going ahead with it, Mickey and I had a huge row. It was almost the only time he mentioned his ex-wife, the first time that he ever raised his voice to me. Sick and greasy with early pregnancy, I was utterly confused. In the middle of some trendy Soho restaurant, he’d started shouting—much to the scan-dalised delight of all the other diners—shouting that he was surrounded by heartless women, that I was just like ‘bloody Agnes. She’s always denied me a proper family too.’

  And it was that comparison almost more than anything that goaded me into having Louis. That persuaded me against my better judgement. Initially I kept the baby because I loved Mickey so much I’d have done anything to please him. Blinded by my desire for him, my unflagging adoration kept me going for months—never mind that I was in no way ready for a baby; that I was frankly terrified. At twenty-seven, kids were the last thing on my mind. Never mind that I hardly knew the father-to-be, however hard I tried; or that Mickey hid himself away from me, even when he was right there in front of me. My desire kept me going until I grew to love my expanding bump on its own terms.

  The pain and the pleasure of those days was the most intense I’d ever felt. It was like constantly pressing a huge knot in your neck; picking a scab on your knee that opened up again, all pink and shiny beneath the dark dried blood. The more I couldn’t reach Mickey, the more I clutched on. Though he professed to want me near, I don’t think I ever really believed him. And by the time Louis was six months old, by the time I was totally in love with my son, I was panicking that I’d made a huge mistake. That I’d married a man who’d never love me the way I loved him.

  Sometimes, I’d feel Mickey watching me, and when I looked up he’d smile and my heart would be warmed enough to continue; but deep down, deep, deep down, I felt like a charlatan, living a life I didn’t really fit. That didn’t really belong to me.

  And always there was Agnes, like a shadow in the hall, whispering through the rooms she used to live in, that she’d designed; the woman he’d hardly mentioned, whom he’d scrubbed religiously from his life. Who might almost never have existed, except in the dark autumn nights when I’d come down and find him hollow-eyed, drinking whisky on the back steps, staring out into the black. I wouldn’t speak, I’d just hold on to him, and then he’d take me back to bed, and make love to me like his life depended on it. And I pra
yed that he remembered it was me who moved beneath him in the dark, that he didn’t dream of her. And I never let him see the tears I cried in the early hours, first alone, then over Louis’s fuzzy head, cried because my husband didn’t seem to love me the way I needed him to. But at least by then I had my baby; I took comfort from the enormous love that, once it came, once I gave in to it, slowly grew and grew, until it threatened to burst me.

  And now, I looked at Pauline sitting so discomfited, the least composed I’d ever seen her; and I wondered what the hell I had left from all this. I almost wanted to hug her, her guilt was so tangible.

  ‘I suppose I should have told you. About Agnes, I mean.’ But we both knew she’d never have done that. Her loyalty to Mickey was absolute. She loved him like her own, and I’d always respected that.

  ‘Oh Pauline, it’s not your fault. Mickey’s a law unto himself, we both know that.’ I tried to look on the bright side. ‘And anyway, like you say, it’s probably nothing. Probably just official stuff. He probably just didn’t want to—you know, worry me.’ But we both knew I was lying.

  And then I thought I heard Freddie behind me again, and I turned quickly, embarrassed by Pauline’s revelations—but she wasn’t there. I must have imagined it. Only when I left, Freddie didn’t bother to come out or say goodbye, but, heading towards the lift with Pauline, from the corner of my eye I was sure I saw the bedroom door closing gently. I guessed Freddie couldn’t face me—but I went back down to Deb feeling somewhat perturbed. Something seemed a little strange; I just wasn’t sure exactly what.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I was drunk. Not falling-down drunk, but getting there. I was swaying-can’t-quite-right-myself drunk. Everything was rounded at the corners; nothing was quite where it should be. I was bendy, like a willow tree in a storm. I wanted to lean and keep leaning; all rubbery I was, like a jack-in-the-box.

  I was verging-on-hysteria drunk. Shirl was not quite so drunk, I thought, though my reality gauge had gone rather off-kilter. I got up from the sofa and nearly fell, tripping over the rug, saving myself on the coffee table. For some reason this was hilarious. I started to laugh and I only stopped when I saw that Shirl had not joined in.

  On the way home from Pauline’s, I’d known I should go and visit Mickey, but I just couldn’t face it quite yet. I didn’t want to hear him say he still loved Agnes; I really couldn’t bear it. I rang the ward from the car with apprehension, but when I spoke to the duty nurse she said he was asleep, and I was relieved. When I got home, I opened some wine; carefully making sure I was far too drunk to visit when he woke. I rang Mickey’s web designer to nag him about my ‘Looking for Louis’ site. The idea that strangers might have seen my son without realising he was stolen crucified me; I needed to flag it up in any way, beseech people everywhere to look for him. The stories about lost children on the net still chilled me to the bone, but some compulsion drew me back to check time and time again.

  Shirl came home and helped me through the bottle, and Deb tried not to look too disapproving; made me coffee, which went cold as I swigged away. I abandoned the computer after reading one horror story about a two-year-old who’d gone missing ten years ago; the mother was still looking, still posting desperate notes on her website. You’d look for all eternity, wouldn’t you? Destined to spend a lifetime wondering if that nine-year-old you just passed playing football, that teenager on a bike in the street, that grown-up in the supermarket, was once your little boy.

  Then Maxine came back and stomped up to her room, slamming the door behind her. I presumed the boyfriend wasn’t Moldovan. I half-hoped that Silver might have dropped her off, but the car pulling off didn’t look like his, even to my drunken eye.

  ‘Stroppy cow,’ Shirl said, ‘I don’t know why you put up with her.’ She was sorting out her expenses.

  ‘Oh, she’s all right.’ I was benevolent. ‘She’s got a good heart really. Somewhere. She loves Louis. And Mickey seems to like her.’

  ‘Oh, does he now?’ Shirl crooked a bushy brow. ‘Even more reason to get rid of her, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Not like that, you silly moo. I mean, Mickey thinks I need her.’ I pretended to laugh. I wasn’t going to let Shirl know how close to the truth she’d got. How I’d compared myself to the svelte Maxine as I struggled to get back to my old self; how I’d worried that my husband hankered after the freedom she represented.

  Shirl sniffed. ‘Mickey’s got ideas above his station, I’d say.’

  There was a pause, which went on until it became slightly uncomfortable. I wobbled over to put some music on; then I worried that it’d wake Louis. With a gut-punch, I remembered he wasn’t here. I slopped more wine into my glass, spilling at least half in the process, looking round with guilt until I remembered it was my own house. Sort of. So I mushed it into the carpet with my bare foot.

  ‘Shall we go out and look for Louis?’ I suggested hopefully, trying not to sway.

  ‘What—in that state? I think you’re better off here.’ Shirl sucked her teeth. ‘Char, Jess! Your taste in music hasn’t improved, I hear,’ she said, as Nirvana blared out of Mickey’s new-age speakers. I turned it up.

  ‘We can’t all be Bob Marley fans, now can we, Shirl?’

  ‘That’s a crass generalisation and a racial stereotype, my good woman.’

  ‘But you love a bit of Bob,’ I said, indignant.

  ‘That’s as maybe. But it’s still a stereotype,’ she replied regally, sipping her wine. ‘Talking of which, do you think that nice police lady’d notice if I skinned up?’ A nice fat joint. Just what the doctor didn’t order. Always made me sick.

  ‘It’s up to you.’ My wine seemed to be going down particularly fast. I eyed it warily as I swayed halfheartedly along to Kurt Cobain for a bit. Then I said, ‘Why don’t you like Mickey?’

  I’d finally asked the question I’d been scared to hear the answer to. My words came slipping, sliding sideways, from my disconnected mouth. I heard them from ten thousand miles away, not quite formed, unfinished. To her credit, Shirl didn’t look fazed—or perhaps that’s because I couldn’t focus any more. I squinted at her through one eye.

  ‘Well?’ I slurred.

  ‘I don’t think we should go there really, do you, Jess?’ she said, topping up her glass so she didn’t have to look at me. ‘I mean, he is your old man. There are some things that should remain unspoken, even between good friends. Know what I’m saying?’

  I laughed, incredulous. ‘But you make it perfectly obvious you don’t like him.’

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah, but the poor man’s in his bed, his sick bed at that. It’s like—speaking ill of the dead, you know?’

  ‘Oh come on, Shirl. Just say it. I mean, how long have we been mates?’ Forever and a day, I’d say; right back to nits at junior school. ‘You’d never normally bite your tongue. You never have before.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You went and married this one. You do know what I’m saying. I know you do.’ Shirl’s patois broadened with her stress. But I wouldn’t let it go, I was like a dog with a bone he’s not allowed to have.

  ‘Is it cos he can be a bit moody?’ I tried. She lined her receipts up very neatly. They seemed neat, anyway. It was quite hard to tell in my current state.

  ‘Cos he’s rich?’

  Her face was thunderous now. ‘Do me a favour. You can keep his money.’ But I’d got her goat now. ‘In fact, it’s gotta be the other way round, don’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s you who’s landed on your feet.’

  ‘What are you insinuating, Shirl?’ I was outraged.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I mean, if anything, I’d rather Mickey was poor.’

  ‘Oh pull the other one.’

  But it was true. Mickey’s wealth made me anxious and beholden. I’d been used to having nothing most of my life; I was used to earning my own crust. Blearily I changed the subject before we had a row
.

  ‘Is it cos he’s so bright?’

  ‘No, Jessica, if you really want to know, it’s because he doesn’t love you the right way. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?’

  ‘Oh.’ I deflated like a geriatric balloon. ‘That’s not very nice, is it?’ I drained my glass. ‘What do you mean—right?’ I began to feel like I was falling. According to the mirror opposite, I was still upright. Just about.

  ‘Right. I jus’ mean right. All right? You need a man who loves you for what you are, not what he wan’ you to be. Not what you think you should be for him. You change, man, around that Mickey. You know that. You’re not yourself at all. Now leave it, Jess, please. Before we have some words.’

  ‘But—what do you mean, “change”?’

  ‘Jus’ change. Not yourself. Too—deferential. Nervous. An’ you know, you’re a good-looking girl, you’re beautiful, but you don’ seem to know it. Any man worth his salt make you feel special, you know?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again. Fourteen Shirls sat on the sofa now, weaving back and forth.

  ‘Yeah—oh. I jus’ wanna see you with a man who loves you for the fabulous person I know you are. Not all these—misfits for you. All these stupi’ older men.’ She got up, shaking her skirt out. ‘You got a father complex, you know that, don’t you?’

  God knows why, I thought. I tried the one-eye trick again; apparently, it didn’t work.

  ‘And don’t you go getting ideas about that tasty copper, either.’

  ‘What?’ I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t actually focus any more. ‘Tha’s rubbish. How dare you.’ I tried to conjure up some venom.

  ‘I seen you, lady. I seen the way you looked at him the other day. Don’t go there, Jess. That’s the last thing you need.’ She headed to the door. ‘I’m going to bed, babe. I think you should too. You’ve had enough. You’re going to feel rough in the morning.’ She said ‘rough’ like a dog bark. Then she turned back. ‘And remember, tomorrow is a new day. Forget the men. Tomorrow they could find Louis, yeah? I got a good feeling, you know.’