by Zoe Deleuil
‘I will be.’ She smiled at me. ‘I’m having a bit of treatment, but I will be.’ I noticed a needle positioned in her hand, and taped into place. Seeing me looking at it, she turned her hand so that it was out of sight and asked, ‘Where are you off to, anyway?’
‘I thought I’d go to the library, to get out of the house. I caught the Tube here.’
An older man came out of the hospital’s sliding doors, looking around until he spotted her, and she nodded at him.
‘Look, I need to go back in – I’m here for an appointment and it’s been a long wait, so I was getting some fresh air. Now you have a lovely day and take care, and maybe I’ll see you soon at the museum.’
That evening, Paul and I cooked dinner while Rachel sat at my computer.
‘Remember I was saying before you got sick that maybe we should go away for a few nights down to Dorset,’ he said, ‘to give you a chance to rest? Maybe we should go this weekend? Head down early Saturday morning. I’ve booked Monday off work.’
‘That’s such a great idea,’ I said gratefully, thinking of sleeping in, of two long, undisturbed mornings in bed while Paul got up with the baby instead of disappearing at dawn to the gym and then the office. Walks around the estate, or into the village. Home-cooked meals in the big farmhouse kitchen, and early bedtimes in the deep black nights of the countryside. The air there was different, so rich and oxygenated you could almost chew on it. The picture in my head expanded, bucolic and golden-tinged, a chance to start again, to finally enjoy my baby and my new life. Our new life.
‘Oh, Paul, do you think I could squeeze in if you’re driving?’ called Rachel from the next room. ‘I have a few friends to catch up with down there and was thinking of heading down this weekend anyway.’
‘Er … okay,’ said Paul, not looking at me.
‘Great. It’s been so crazy here,’ said Rachel. ‘Do I have time for a shower before dinner?’
‘Yep – it’ll be ready in fifteen minutes or so.’
‘Why does she have to come?’ I asked Paul, as soon as I heard the shower running.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s like her family home too. She spent all her holidays there. It would be weird, telling her she can’t come.’ He looked tense. ‘It’s only for the car ride.’
‘But why? She’s been here for so long already. It’s too much. And why does she only ask you? She should ask both of us.’
He looked tired, and I felt bad for making things harder for him. We were both exhausted, after all, and he had to go to work every day, too.
‘We won’t see her, honestly. She’ll go out hunting, she’ll do her own stuff, in the village, at the pub. She’s got lots of friends down there. You’ll see less of her there than you do here.’
Before I could answer, the baby woke, and I went to pick him up.
Paul avoided my eyes as the three of us ate in silence, and when it was over I put my plate in the dishwasher and went straight to bed with the baby.
On Saturday morning, Rachel’s leather bag was by the front door.
18
We arrived in Cerne Abbas around lunchtime, after a four-hour drive during which I sat in the back and watched the baby while Rachel and Paul listened to music and chatted in the front seat.
The house was quiet when we arrived, and Paul said his parents were visiting friends nearby. We weren’t sleeping in the attic this time, but in a large bedroom on the first floor with green walls and tall windows looking out over the orchard. By the bed was an old wooden cradle that looked like a family heirloom.
Once I’d unpacked I went down to the kitchen, where the big Aga stove was left on constantly through the winter, emitting steady warmth. I huddled close to it, rocking the baby to sleep, while Paul went for a run and Rachel disappeared for the afternoon. Despite the Aga, the house was freezing and the baby seemed to press himself against me, his eyes huge when I looked down at him. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would notice a change in location, let alone be unsettled by it, but he was.
Paul’s parents arrived home a little later, and within ten minutes his mother had somehow produced a whole meal of ham and cheese and boiled potatoes and salad, with big mugs of tea and fruit cake to finish. The baby was still fretful so I paced with him in my arms, trying to soothe him, as Paul and Rachel sat at the table, eating and drinking and gossiping with Paul’s parents. Afterwards, Paul and I went upstairs, the baby sleeping between us, and ending up falling asleep before Penny called us down for yet more food, a huge cast-iron pot of rabbit stew, the tiny bones unfamiliar on my plate.
I was starving and ate quickly while Paul held the baby, before giving him back to me so he could eat. I felt Penny and George watching us, observing our parenting and seeming to approve of what they saw. Paul even jumped up to change a nappy, and held the baby afterwards while I sipped strong black tea and he and his father shared another bottle of dark ale.
The first night’s sleep was fretful and broken by the baby’s frequent cries and Paul coming in later on, smelling of beer. He woke me up and began kissing my neck and working his hands under my clothes.
‘Do you feel ready to … you know?’ he murmured, kissing my ear.
‘Not really,’ I replied, wanting to push his hands away. Thinking, not at all. Never again, in fact. Sorry about that.
‘Really? Come on …’
‘I can’t. I’m not ready yet. Soon. Just go to sleep.’
Still, he persisted, and I was relieved when the baby woke up with a cry.
‘Great,’ he said with a sigh, rolling away from me. I fed the baby then lay still, pretending to be asleep, as he rolled over and started snoring. For some reason I had thought a new location would make everything feel new and fresh: the word holiday still retained its old associations of freedom and exploration and afternoon naps, followed by relaxed evenings of food and wine and talk. But the baby was still here, needing me. I was still tired, and presumably my sleep would still be broken, and I’d still wake in the dark, except here it was freezing cold at night, the heating barely warming the room before escaping through ancient window frames and under doors, out into the night.
The following morning I woke early, got up while the others slept and strolled to the village with the baby in a sling and tucked beneath my coat like a hot water bottle. On the way, I passed another mother pushing a spotless twin pram. Our eyes met briefly as we passed each other, and I saw in her eyes that familiar anxiety.
Back at home, Paul and Rachel were in the kitchen, drinking coffee and gossiping about old friends as Paul’s mother cooked bacon and eggs.
‘We’re all going to meet up at the New Inn tonight. You should come along,’ she said to Paul. ‘If that’s okay with you, Simone, of course,’ she added quickly.
He looked at me. ‘Oh, I should stay here with the baby,’ he said, ‘and help out a bit.’
‘What’s the New Inn?’ I asked, and Rachel laughed in disbelief.
‘The local pub. It’s been here for – maybe five hundred years?’ she replied.
Paul looked at me, kindly, but I wished that for once he would stand up for me, instead of being the nice guy in the middle, always keeping the peace.
‘Do you want me to take him for a bit, Simone?’ he said, and I handed the baby over. Against Paul’s flat chest, he was still and quiet, unbothered by the smell of milk that made him restless when I held him. Fully awake, yet content, as if Paul was a warm resting place, a dry timber cabin on level ground.
The morning passed quietly, with Paul’s mother taking the baby for a long walk while I read a book and Paul and his father cleaned the glasshouse and pruned the collapsed, soggy remains of last summer’s flower beds. Around noon, Rachel returned from visiting a friend, holding a newspaper-lined basket full of dead birds. She threw them down on the zinc-topped kitchen table. They were beautiful, with delicate, dove-like heads and dark brown feathers with intricate lacy patterns, white fluffy feathers beneath the shiny outer ones. She laughed at m
y horrified expression.
‘They’re partridges – game birds, Simone! A delicacy. I’ll cook them later on and you’ll see how delicious they are,’ she said.
In the afternoon Paul dozed on the couch with the baby asleep on his chest, and I napped upstairs. The air coming in through the half-open window was cold, but it was warm under the flannel sheet and heavy red quilt, and I could hear a bird calling, long and sweet and trilling, that tipped me into a deeper, softer sleep as the afternoon faded.
When I woke up it was freezing, the room grey and creaky in the dusk gloom. In search of the baby and warmth, I went downstairs to the kitchen, where Rachel was preparing the birds, now plucked and gutted, their heads and feet gone. She told me that Paul and his mother had taken the baby to visit a friend, so I pulled up a seat by the stove and watched her butcher the small bodies, boning the legs with quick, sure movements and carving each breast off in one smooth, unhurried slice.
‘So have they been refrigerated? Do we know they’re okay to eat?’ I asked her, feeling queasy.
‘They’ve been hung for two days. To help the flavour.’
‘Where did you learn to do that? To prepare them, I mean.’
‘Leiths. A cooking school in West London.’ She looked at me. ‘You haven’t heard of it?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at me again, a long, appraising look. ‘It’s a very prestigious cooking school. All the top chefs go there. I went a few years ago, thinking I might open my own café. I learned so much. We did the same recipes, over and over, all the classics. Until they were perfect.’
‘But didn’t you also study nursing?’ I asked her, confused. She was two years older than me, yet she seemed to have started three different careers already. How did she find the time? And where did she get the money?
‘I’ve done a few things.’ She sighed. ‘More than a few, in fact. You have no idea.’
Was she having a dig at me? I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up and locate the energy for a cup of tea and perhaps a warm shower. Her hands were small and pale and fast, and she seemed unbothered by the freshness of death on her fingers as she piled the meat into a china bowl and put it into the fridge, then swept out of the room.
For dinner we ate the partridge cooked with apples and cream and cider, the pale meat covered in a layer of pinkish sauce. I was so hungry I finished my plate first and had another helping. The soft meat tasted unfamiliar in my mouth, chewier and earthier than supermarket chicken. We ate it in chipped antique bowls, with soft white bread and glasses of pale cider, which Paul drank fast, Rachel constantly topping up his glass. Afterwards, Paul’s mother pulled a rhubarb crumble out of the Aga that had been cooking there all afternoon.
They were so comfortable with each other, so happy to be here, and I tried to join in but felt myself getting irritated at Paul’s drinking, noticing with cool, sober eyes that he was starting to slur his words and bang on the table and laugh too loudly at things that weren’t especially funny. London was full of high-functioning alcoholics, and his drinking had seemed unremarkable there, but now I found myself wishing he’d slow down a bit. I noticed Paul’s mother glancing over at me now and then, and each time I fussed over the baby to avoid her questioning gaze.
‘Do you mind if I go down to the pub with Rachel?’ Paul asked me, bleary-eyed, as we cleared the table.
‘Not at all,’ I said shortly, and I meant it. I was so tired I wanted only to fall into bed, and hopefully be asleep by the time he got back so I didn’t have to listen to his snoring.
‘Simone can stay and have a cup of tea with me, darling,’ said Paul’s mother, smoothing over the tension between us. ‘We need to catch up on everything. Go and get ready, if you like. We’re almost done here.’
A few minutes later, the dishes washed and in the rack, she sat down with me, a pot of tea and two cups between us.
‘So, how is it all going?’
‘You know … I’m tired. It will get easier,’ I replied vaguely, not wanting to sound too negative.
‘Is it going okay with Rachel? She mentioned that you’re still quite worn out after the pneumonia and she’s helping as much as she can.’
‘Oh. I guess so. Yeah, she did help look after the baby when I was in hospital so Paul could work. That was lucky.’
‘We wanted to come and see you, but Paul told me you were all coping fine and not to worry. He said that Rachel was very good with the baby while you were in hospital.’
She poured me some more tea and I felt her kindness, her desire to help. Maybe there was some way of explaining to her that I didn’t quite trust Rachel, that she made me uneasy in a way I didn’t understand.
‘She was. And it was great that she could stay, it meant Paul could keep working and not use up all his leave.’ I cleared my throat. ‘But I am a little surprised she still wants to stay with us. It’s not the most exciting share house in London right now, that’s for sure.’
‘Well, she and Paul have always been close.’
‘Yes. She has mentioned that.’
She looked at me as if she was trying to work something out.
‘And Paul’s okay? Not too stressed or anything?’
‘He’s – I think so. I feel like I haven’t seen him much recently, what with his work and me in hospital.’
‘He does tend to bottle things up sometimes. I worry about him. But you can always call on us. You know that.’ She looked suddenly grief-stricken as she leaned over and stroked the baby’s head. For a moment I thought she might cry.
‘Are you alright, Penny?’
She nodded and reached for my hand, then took a deep breath.
‘I’m fine, Simone. I never thought – I’m happy, that’s all. I’m happy you’ve come along. We’ve worried about Paul for so long, but with you …’ She squeezed my hand and smiled at me.
I felt like I should clear things up, perhaps break it to her that I barely knew him, and he barely knew me. That the baby was an accident, and this wasn’t a love story. But she clearly wanted it to be one, so it was easier to keep quiet.
Paul’s father suddenly appeared in the doorway. ‘Come on, Penny. Come to bed. You should get some sleep, Simone.’
Something passed between them, a warning or unspoken message, and I suddenly felt like an intruder.
‘Okay. Well, goodnight.’ I headed upstairs with the baby. Our room was warmer now, and I laid him down on our bed, wrapped in my cardigan, and went to the bathroom.
As soon as I shut the door and looked around, at the wooden-seated toilet, the fifties lemon-coloured tiles on the walls and the pale grey carpet on the floor, I felt nauseous. Kneeling in front of the toilet, trying not to think about the stained carpet beneath me, it all poured out – the dead partridge and the cream and the apple cider, my body rejecting it all as if I’d been poisoned. Something about the memory of the soft gamey flesh under the creamy sauce made me retch, again and again, into the stained china bowl, until my stomach was sore and empty. Afterwards, I stood under the shower, scrubbing my teeth and gargling with hot water.
The hallway was dark and the house was quiet. I made my way back to our bedroom and closed the door behind me. It was a lovely room, with its high ceiling and old floral rug and the light of the bedside lamp gentle on my tired eyes. I took my time getting ready for bed, sorting through the baby’s things in our suitcase, finding my book and brushing my hair, grateful for the solitude, the quiet of Paul and Rachel being elsewhere, and the relief of finally being alone.
When I turned back from my suitcase I saw the baby lying on the high pine bed, and startled at the sight of him, at how beautiful he looked. For a moment I’d forgotten he existed, that he was in the room with me. Fast asleep, he wasn’t a source of constant worry, but a living person. I loved him in a way I had never expected to love anyone. No matter how weird the situation was, no matter what happened between me and Paul, he was real, and maybe in his own way, he loved me too. I breathed him in, basking i
n his warmth, and felt comforted to realise that I wasn’t alone in the room, that he had been there all along.
Sometime later I awoke to darkness. The house was quiet and the mattress beside me was cool and empty. I thought for a moment I heard the rumble of Paul’s voice outside and I got up and looked out the window. The back garden was dark and I could make out the shapes of the chicken coop and tall hedgerows and the little wooden hut. I saw there in the window a sudden flash, like a lighter, but then it was gone.
The baby stirred behind me and I laid a hand on his back until he stilled and breathed deeply again. Where was Paul? I thought about going looking for him, but something told me to leave him, to stay with the baby. Eventually, I fell back to sleep.
In the morning, the bed was still empty and I wondered if Paul had been and gone. When I went downstairs, I found him and Rachel in the kitchen, close to the Aga, a pan of bacon and eggs sizzling on the stove and the aromas of coffee and toast drawing me in.
‘Hi,’ I said, uncertainly.
Paul jumped up when he saw me and found me a chair. He seemed different, somehow. Too attentive, too kind. Rachel, meanwhile, was avoiding my eyes.
The last time we’d all been here together, for his sister’s wedding, I’d also woken up alone, I realised. A sharp, sinking nausea dug into my belly as I looked at the two of them and realised there was so much I didn’t know about their teenage summers here, their shared history. That strange chemistry between them – how sometimes they appeared to dislike each other, while on other days they were like a long-married couple.
‘How was your night?’ I asked Paul, while Rachel watched me steadily.
‘Oh, good. We went to the pub, then came back here. Nothing big.’
‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘You were fast asleep.’ He brought me a plate of food, set a cup of coffee down in front of me, and sat back. ‘Eat. Before the baby wakes. We should get going after breakfast.’