The Night Village

by Zoe Deleuil

On the way back to London, Rachel slept beside the baby in the back seat. Had she been with Paul last night? Or when I was in hospital? They were cousins, but more like brother and sister, according to him. Surely it was illegal? We hadn’t slept together since the birth, and I wondered if he was one of those traditional blokes who compartmentalised his needs once a baby came along – the partner for childbearing, the girlfriend for sex. Except that she wasn’t a girlfriend, she was his family. I felt queasy at the thought of them, telling myself it wasn’t possible. But maybe it was some old pattern from their teenage years that they were falling back into?

  I looked at him as he drove fast along the M3. Again, I had that lonely feeling that I didn’t really know him, knew very little about his past, and that what he said to me might be totally different to what he was saying to Rachel. I wished there was a sign, some way of knowing – but perhaps that was the sign. It was all there, when I made myself look at it. His attentiveness to her. His willingness to accommodate her. We weren’t actually that close at all. It had just felt like we were, for a while, because of what we’d done together, and because we shared a bed.

  And something else was happening too. As I felt more sure of the baby, that he was really here, that he was going to stay, Paul and Rachel seemed to recede. There was something infantile about them, going out drinking and sneaking around. Did I even care if they slept together? A little. My pride was wounded, and I hated the dishonesty and the lack of respect. The fact that I was having the role of cheated-on girlfriend foisted upon me was unpleasant. But perhaps it was a message. Maybe Paul was mirroring my own growing certainty that we needed to go our separate ways, that this baby’s arrival had revealed to us just how little we meant to each other, how temporary our attachment was?

  ‘You okay?’ he said, reaching for my hand, and simultaneously looking in the rear-view mirror at Rachel.

  ‘I’m fine, Paul,’ I said, and his hand retreated.

  I stared out the window and practised my hypnobirthing breathing technique, which had been useless during labour but was surprisingly helpful now. What a disaster I’d made of things. Again I remembered landing at Heathrow, so certain of everything, so full of plans. Yet somehow I’d ended up here, with these people I didn’t understand or particularly like. At some point soon I had to fix things up, to make Paul understand that I wasn’t going to play the role of docile Australian girlfriend for much longer, that this arrangement couldn’t go on. Ahead of us and on both sides, cars crawled towards London, and for the first time ever I dreaded going back there.

  19

  The next morning, back in the concrete warmth of the Barbican, I got up to an empty apartment. I felt different, a sense of relief at the prospect of freedom, as if I had caught a glimpse of my old self, and I might be able to somehow reclaim her while also moving forward into a new life with the baby. I decided to go to the mothers group at the child health centre again, and on the way back I stopped off at the Museum of Childhood to feed the baby. I settled in a quiet spot on the first floor, where the village of nighttime dollhouses was gathered. And then to my left I saw a flicker of movement, the height and dark hair unmistakable. Rachel.

  The one place I felt safe, the one place I thought she wouldn’t turn up at, and here she was. That familiar stance, and now she was looking at me, heading over, her face set, as if to say, Wherever you are, I can be there too. If I want to.

  She smiled at me.

  ‘Hello! I thought I’d go out, and happened to end up here. I remember you mentioning this place, and so I took the baby here when you were in hospital, because I thought perhaps he liked it, too.’

  ‘Why would you come here now, though? There are so many other places you could go without a baby to look after,’ I answered her rudely, before I could stop myself.

  ‘I don’t know. Because I like it? Are you okay?’

  ‘Well, not really.’ I rubbed my eyes, knowing that as soon as I opened my mouth it would all come out. ‘I feel so trapped. Things aren’t great with Paul and it kind of feels like we need some space, like it’s too much having you to stay, to be honest.’ I lifted the wakeful baby from the pram and forced myself to meet her eyes. ‘It’s not really your fault. It’s just not a great time right now.’

  ‘All I wanted was to help you. I don’t know what I’ve done.’ She looked at me with a confused expression. She suddenly seemed so fragile, more fragile than me in some way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps I’d been too harsh.

  ‘Look, I know you’re trying to help,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s just that I’m trying to get used to everything, looking after a baby and all. But I do think, perhaps, that it’s probably time …’

  She looked at me and her expression changed again, from tears into something else.

  ‘It’s probably time you – I don’t know – maybe went to stay somewhere else. Found somewhere else to live, I mean.’

  She was moving about now, agitated, leaning towards me, muttering quietly as if to herself.

  ‘I want to help you, and you won’t let me. You make it so difficult. But you need help, with a newborn. And the baby cares for me now. He’s attached to me, too, you know. And you don’t really have anyone else, do you?’

  I felt exhausted. The words repeated in my head. You don’t really have anyone else. And maybe she was right.

  ‘I don’t need anyone else. I have the baby.’

  She said nothing, just looked at me as I got up, put the restless baby back into the pram and walked away from her.

  Back at home, the rooms appeared untouched, and there was nothing to eat apart from a stale loaf of bread, so I made toast then put some washing on from the weekend and cleaned the bathroom, the baby kicking his legs up in the air on a towel beside me. Later, while he slept, I wrote an email to my parents, asking what their plans were for visiting, and then I watched TV as the day faded outside. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, my phone rang.

  ‘Simone. How are you? It’s Christine.’

  ‘Oh, Christine! Hi – how are you?’

  ‘We’re fine. Congratulations, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I was wondering if you could come in next week? We’d love to see you, and we need to have a talk about what’s happening here going forward. Only if it’s convenient, of course.’

  Seriously? Say no, I told myself.

  ‘Oh – sure, I can come in.’ I heard myself saying after an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘Great. Tuesday, ten am? See you then.’

  ‘Hi, Simone.’ Rachel appeared in the kitchen, put down her bag and keys on the bench. She looked pale and contrite, and I felt myself soften towards her.

  ‘Hello. How are you?’

  ‘I’m alright,’ she put the kettle on. ‘Who was on the phone just then?’

  ‘Oh, work. Calling to remind me I’ve got to go in for my check-in day or whatever it’s called. I think I’ve got three scheduled before I go back.’

  ‘So soon! When are you due back at work?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘In four months. Dreading it. Wish I could be off for longer.’

  ‘But what would you do if you didn’t go back to work?’

  ‘What I’m doing now. Looking after my baby. For a year or so, anyway. I need the money, though.’

  From the hall came the sound of keys in the lock. Paul, home earlier than usual. He let himself in, calling hello, and went to the bedroom, where the baby was starting to stir.

  ‘Would you be able to afford not to go back?’

  ‘I’ve got some savings. And I get a maternity allowance.’

  ‘But – what does Paul think? Paul?’ She looked animated, intrigued, and I wondered what she was up to. Well-slept people had so much energy, such curiosity in them.

  Paul reappeared from the bedroom, the baby tiny and awake against his blue work shirt. ‘Huh?’

  ‘We were talking about work, and I wondered what you thought about the fact that Simone’s thinking of not g
oing back.’

  ‘Oh. What? Well, she is working. She’s looking after the baby. And he’s still so little, we don’t have to think about that yet. Personally, though, I think she should quit. It’s a bit of a dead-end job, and the pay is terrible.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘You never told me that before.’ Aware that we were having this conversation in front of Rachel, I hesitated for a second, but then went on. ‘When did you decide all this?’

  ‘I was talking to Mum and Dad when we were back home. There’s a family trust, you know. We can draw on that, whenever we want to, and they were certainly open to you – well, us – drawing on it now, to give you the freedom to look after the baby, if you don’t want to go back to that place.’

  Was that freedom? I looked around the apartment – the leather couch, the mid-century wall units, the smooth-closing doors and soft lighting, the garbage disposal that carried all the rubbish away to some unseen location, leaving only a faint whiff to remind you that rotten things even existed. The expensive, brand-new pram in an impractical pale blue that his parents had ordered for us, which I was yet to take out, because I was used to the old one. Beneath my feet, the heated tiles warm against my bare soles.

  I thought back to the museum, how I’d suddenly sensed my former self. Giving up my job would be a step away from her, into the claustrophobia of Paul’s family. I liked them, but I didn’t really belong with them.

  ‘They are so generous, your parents,’ said Rachel fondly. And I wondered how much this mysterious family trust supported her lifestyle, too, all her courses. Imagine a family trust. Free money.

  ‘Christine rang,’ I said to Paul. ‘That’s why we were talking about my job. She wants me to come next week for a meeting.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I think I’ll go. I want to assume I’m going back, for now.’

  ‘Fine.’

  That simmering quiet again. Rachel played with her hair. ‘Do you want me to come in with you, Simone, to look after the baby while you go in? Or are you taking him into the office with you?’ she asked.

  I thought about it. The office was not in any way set up for children. It was an overheated, silent arena of strained adulthood. Sound carried across the desks. I could imagine the baby sensing the hostile environment and staging some kind of primal rejection.

  ‘I was going to take him with me, but maybe, if you don’t mind, I could leave him with you outside during the meeting. It wouldn’t be for long.’

  ‘I could travel there with you and take him for a walk in his pram when you go into the office?’

  ‘Only if you don’t mind. That would be good, thanks.’

  ‘I’m pretty good at it, pushing a baby round in a pram.’ She wasn’t looking at me, but at Paul as she said it, her face expressionless, while he stared back at her, as if frozen in place. In his eyes lurked something furtive and cold, and I looked away, wishing I could turn back time and unsee that expression.

  ‘And also I was thinking, do you want to go to the pool tomorrow? I could hold the baby while you do some laps, or we could leave the pram by the pool or something?’

  Rachel’s voice was pulling me away from what I had seen in his face, and I was relieved.

  ‘Simone? Do you want to do that?’ She looked very small, suddenly. She was trying, I realised. Maybe it would be better if I went, for the sake of peace. She’d be gone soon.

  ‘Yes. Let’s do it. A swim would be good.’

  As soon as I said the words a new movie premiered in my head – the pram rolling into the water and too many people trying to dive down and unbuckle the baby and getting in each other’s way until finally he was dragged out open-mouthed and blue and gone. Closing my eyes, I let the scene run through my head. It replayed, and then I was in the water, holding my breath, finding my way to the familiar seatbelt buckle, undoing it. Focused. Swimming to the surface, lifting the baby out. A lifeguard performing CPR on the poolside and shouting between breaths for someone to call an ambulance.

  And then I was back in our kitchen, looking at the baby, alive and undrowned in Paul’s arms. ‘You should go, Simone,’ said Paul. ‘He’s old enough, and you love swimming. It will be good for you to have some time to yourself.’

  20

  The night felt like it would never end – a cycle of falling asleep and being woken again, sometimes with only half an hour passing according to the bossy red numbers on the bedside clock. Paul eventually shuffled off to sleep elsewhere and at around five I gave up and simply lay there, staring at the ceiling.

  Around eight, Rachel appeared at my door, looking sleepy and relaxed.

  ‘Pool?’

  Too tired to resist, I got up and dressed the baby, found my swimming gear, my skull thumping with a headache.

  We walked to the Ironmonger Row Baths. The air was warm and chemical, a mix of chlorine and stinging cleaning fluids wafting up from the puddled tile floors. Signs shouted from the walls. The water was warm and relaxing, almost steamy. Before the baby, before Paul, I used to catch the tube from Finsbury Park to the pool at Highbury Fields on Sunday nights, where I’d swim off the weekend. The pool felt different at night, not so hectic and dirty, and the long swim would leave me tired and tranquil. The lifeguards would play music, and I’d go into the fridge-like white steam room and warm myself, or float in the warm water of the baby pool, listening to the deep rumble of Tube trains passing beneath me, taking their passengers all over London to their own beds. This place felt different, though. In the plain morning light I was noticing bandaids and dead skin in the water, and a man blowing his nose comprehensively in the main pool. Everything appeared grey and washed out, as if my eyes weren’t seeing colour as strongly as they used to.

  I looked over at the lap lanes, and remembered how it felt to be cut off from the noise and outside world, nothing but watery blue silence and a pair of white kicking legs ten metres ahead in the cloudy gloom. I used to swim for what felt like hours. With a baby, though, there was no retreating underwater, but instead sitting in the warm water, or at the benches littered with soft-drink cans and chip packets and soggy tissues.

  As we sat at the shallow end of the kids’ pool, the baby on Rachel’s lap, the conversation shifted to Paul and his family.

  ‘Me and Paul, we were pretty close as kids, you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I think it was because our mothers were both so distracted. Mine was living in Nigeria with my stepdad, that expat existence with the kids packed off to boarding school and servants and not really having to lift a finger, apart from to order another gin-sling. So in the summer holidays I’d go stay with Paul’s family in Dorset and we’d run wild together. And as teenagers, too, you know.’

  ‘So you’d stay at Paul’s family house?’

  ‘Well, not in the main house, no. I was in that little hut out the back with the bunk beds. You’ve probably seen it. We’d be out there doing God knows what and the parents would be inside drinking. We did a lot of our growing up together. Is this okay?’ She gestured at the baby. ‘He’s just sitting here. Does he look cold?’

  ‘He’s fine. The water is warm.’

  ‘And we didn’t get that much attention from our parents, you know? They weren’t demonstrative at all. Sometimes when I look back on my teenage years, all that happened – I don’t know what Paul’s told you – but I think that maybe all I needed was a bit of affection, so I didn’t need to go looking for it.’

  What did she mean by that? What was she trying to tell me? Paul seemed uneasy around her. Too eager to please, and unwilling to stand up to her, even when it was at my expense. Did she have something over him? He would never, ever tell me. I knew him well enough to know that if there was something between them, some secret past, I would never hear about it from him. From her, maybe – she seemed itching to talk about their shared childhood. But from him, never. I sat quietly, waiting for her to tell me more, but she moved on to talking about Paul.

  ‘… An
d it’s weird – when I see Paul now, he’s not how I remember him. He seems kind of jaded, exhausted. I don’t know if it’s London or the baby or what. Have you noticed that, how tired he seems?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s tired. Of course he is. We’re both exhausted.’

  ‘Is he being supportive, or is he sort of going into his own head? He does that, sometimes.’

  Our conversation was interrupted by some children getting into the pool – a girl, about fourteen, a bikini barely covering her rounded, pale body, and what looked like her two younger brothers. She too was holding a tiny baby. The two boys surrounded her protectively, both of them smiling into the baby’s face, as she stepped into the warm water. All of them had a faint but noticeable air of nervous excitement as she settled down into the water, the baby on her lap. The girl appeared proud, responsible, and for a moment I was confused, looking around but not seeing an older woman, a mother, looking burdened and tired, in search of coffee or a place to sit down or a rubbish bin for a dirty nappy.

  The girl had sat down beside Rachel, who was still holding my baby on her lap, so that the two tiny boys were now side by side, slumped in the water with their sloping shoulders and round bellies like miniature old men, unaware of each other. I noticed, through the water, stretch marks, still raw and red, on her bare white belly. Her teenage body had been rushed into motherhood, and I wondered how her birth was. I remembered my GP saying that young mothers were usually more relaxed than later ones: they got on with it, didn’t obsess over every rash or elevated temperature, and they had more energy. I wanted to talk to her, swap notes about sleep and feeding, but Rachel was sitting between us.

  ‘What’s his name?’ she asked Rachel, and Rachel told her, neglecting to clarify that I was his mother, not her.

  ‘This one is Albert,’ the girl said, looking down at him. ‘He’s six weeks old. He likes it here, we bring him quite a lot. Have you brought him before?’

  ‘No, it’s his first time swimming. He seems to like it, too.’