The Night Village

by Zoe Deleuil

  ‘But – I thought I was coming back,’ I said, faint with shock. ‘Isn’t that what we agreed?’

  She blinked as if mildly surprised. ‘Do you have an email saying that? Anything in writing?’

  ‘Uh, I don’t think so. No.’ And even if I did, I was locked out of my email account. Although I had asked her several times, she’d never quite got around to renewing my contract before I went on maternity leave, and I’d forgotten to chase it up once the baby arrived.

  ‘Look, I am sorry to do this to you when you’ve just had a baby. But it’s out of my hands. The circulation is down, so are the ads. We’ve had to make some very difficult decisions. Obviously we’ll pay you everything you’re owed, holiday leave and so on, and I’ll ask for a little extra given the circumstances. I thought it was better to tell you now so you’ve got time to work out what you want to do next.’ She looked at me for a beat, head tilted, clearly expecting me to thank her for this kindness.

  ‘Thank you, Christine.’

  ‘You’re welcome. And I will give you a glowing reference, of course, and we’ll get you in for some freelancing at some point. You’ve been excellent. It’s not personal.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have another meeting. We’ll be in touch.’

  I went back to my desk to gather up my things. Samuel was on the phone to someone, probably his best friend Seb in marketing. ‘If you get a chance, do check out Dom’s outfit today. He’s absolutely embraced dress-down Friday,’ he said, in a stage whisper that only I heard beneath the chatter of the editors going over the cover options.

  My phone lit up. Rachel. ‘I think you need to come down now. He’s really crying.’

  ‘I’m coming.’ I gathered up as much as I could of my work stuff, too shaken to say goodbye to anyone or share what had been said in that small room. I’d email everyone later, a measured and professional farewell, once I’d gotten over the shock. As I caught the elevator back to reception I tried to work out how I felt. A bit sad. Ready for something new. Free.

  As I arrived at Grosvenor Square, I saw Rachel pushing the pram absentmindedly and chatting on her phone as the baby howled within. I looked into the pram and his terrified, unblinking eyes locked with mine. Behind me, Rachel ended her call.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. He cried and cried, as soon as you left. He had the bottle but I think he was expecting more, and that may have started him off, and then I put him back in there.’

  ‘You need to hold him if he’s crying,’ I told her, reaching into the pram and grasping his tiny, stiff body. Lifting him up against my neck, I felt his gasps and warm tears against my skin. He’d been in this state the whole time I’d been gone, and I felt nauseous with guilt. Gradually, as I rocked him, he began to quiet.

  ‘I was reading somewhere that they need to learn to self-soothe,’ offered Rachel.

  ‘It’s okay. Sometimes he gets himself worked up and there’s not a lot you can do.’

  ‘Look, I tried everything.’

  ‘I know. Thank you for coming in.’

  ‘So, how did it all go?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They don’t want me back. She basically sacked me.’

  ‘What? But you sound so calm. Are you okay?’

  ‘I think I am. When I was in there, it all seemed so pointless. Magazines are a distraction, really. Fluff. I couldn’t quite be bothered with it all. I don’t want to be all, “Oh my God, everything is so meaningless compared with the wonder of a newborn baby,” but actually, quite a lot of things are quite pointless. Such as magazines filled with pictures of expensive crap that no-one actually needs.’

  She looked at me in confusion, like I was speaking a foreign language, and maybe to her I was. ‘So, what will you do for money? It’s not like you and Paul are married or anything, are you? You don’t want to be financially dependent on him.’

  ‘Well, I have to work out what to do next.’ I thought about Paul’s comments last week. The family trust. But I didn’t want to rely on him.

  ‘But you have a baby now. You can’t assume that everything will work out, that Paul will support you. You have responsibilities.’

  ‘Oh, I know I do. I just need to think about it.’ I walked away from her, towards a park bench, and sat down so I could feed the baby.

  ‘Wow. You are so relaxed. I envy you.’ She sat down beside me and smiled, watching closely as I tried to get the baby into the right position. ‘Is that an Australian thing? To be so laid-back about everything all the time?’

  Suddenly I remembered what Samuel used to say sometimes, in relation to a conversation with someone he didn’t particularly enjoy. I was like, I’m sorry, but you are literally sucking the life out of me.

  All I wanted was to go home, put the baby in the bath, feed it, feed myself, put it to bed, put myself to bed. And sleep. For days. Weeks. I was too tired to even refer to it as he. It was another obstacle – like Rachel, like this city park, and the train journey home – between me and my soft, undemanding pillow.

  As I settled the baby back in the pram, Rachel reached in and started stroking his face. I was still cooling off after the tense magazine environment, the shock of being turfed out without warning, the realisation that I hadn’t particularly wanted to go back to that job anyway and therefore needed to figure out what to do next. I looked around. It was all office workers about at this time of day, barking into their phones, looking ahead to their next meeting. An unfamiliar world. When I looked back down at the baby I saw that Rachel had somehow allowed her index finger to slide into his mouth. Confused, I stared at her finger, while I tried to work out what I should say, if anything. Wondering where that finger had been on our long journey here and why she had chosen to insert it into my tiny, not-yet-immunised baby’s mouth. Looking up at her, I saw again that she was staring at him, that small smile playing across her face. It was the smile of a clever little girl, tormenting someone quietly and skilfully, under the radar of everyone except her chosen target. Or was I imagining it? But I was simply too drained to question her, so I took hold of the pram and she removed her finger and I wondered what the hell that was all about.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said, no longer even trying to sound polite.

  22

  The next morning Paul’s parents rang and said they were staying in Camden and did we want to meet up? Paul said, ‘Yes, of course,’ nodding in my direction with his eyebrows raised.

  I washed my hair, then went into my room and sorted through a pile of clean, wrinkled clothes for something to wear that looked okay. The baby wasn’t in his cot so I went looking for him, assuming he was with Paul. But Paul was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal. Something dropped in my belly. He wasn’t in the apartment. I could feel it.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ I asked Paul, breathing as steadily as I could while I felt my panic rising.

  ‘Rachel went on ahead with him on the bus, in the new pram.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she wanted to save you the bother. She suggested it. They are only five minutes away. We can drive there as soon as you’re ready.’

  ‘We need to go find him. I can’t believe she left with him. He’s a newborn baby, Paul.’

  I still hadn’t asked him what the story was between him and Rachel. It was easier right now to bury it. But still it was there, in my clenched voice, in the sudden frustration I felt for him, for this situation I was in and couldn’t easily get out of, but knew deep in my belly that I needed to. He’d been nice about me getting fired, at least, promising to give me some money until I worked out what I was going to do next.

  I threw on jeans and an old navy blue sweater and my trainers, no longer caring about my appearance. As Paul drove towards Camden, I called Rachel.

  ‘Rachel, where are you? The baby is going to need to be fed soon.’

  ‘We’re in the markets. At some cafe. I just came here from the
Tube station.’

  I thought of the baby going down those long escalators at Angel and hoped she had strapped him in properly.

  ‘Is the baby okay?’

  ‘He’s fine, Simone, don’t worry. I know how to look after a baby. You’ll find us. I can’t really hear you, but give me a call when you get here.’ She hung up. A few minutes later my phone beeped and I saw that Rachel had sent me a photo of the baby, strapped in his pram at the very top of the escalator at Angel station. A text message followed.

  Here he is.

  When we got to Camden, Paul dropped me on the street next to the markets and kept driving to find a parking spot. My phone was almost dead, I realised, too late, as I dialled Rachel’s number. It rang and rang but went to voicemail. I tried again, and this time, with much fumbling, she answered.

  ‘Hello? Where are you guys?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re in a café. Sort of in the markets. Behind a record shop. Some clothes shops.’

  ‘Can you be a bit more specific? What’s the name of the café, so I can ask someone?’ I looked around frantically, hoping someone would help me; that a friendly policeman would materialise and show me the way. No-one was nearby apart from a skinny bloke lurking in a doorway of a closed bar, looking very much like he did not wish to be spoken to.

  ‘I think it’s called Wiltons or something. Wilsons? I don’t know.’

  I looked around me for the pale blue pram, hurrying through a food court selling noodles and massive fake-looking pizzas and ice cream, past a pub spilling drunks and a gyrating man dressed in a white fur coat, who didn’t appear to realise the night was long over. People stumbled onto the footpath, blocking my way, drunk and laughing. One of them snatched a hot dog off a man cooking them outside, shoved it into her mouth, then spat it straight out, close to my feet.

  Still I searched, down long canvas-covered pathways between shops selling hash pipes and miniature bicycles and pet hamsters. I was certain that if I didn’t find him this time, I would never see him again. He was too tiny, too vulnerable. I hadn’t kept him close enough. It would be my own fault. Even if I did find him, he would be altered, somehow. It was ruined. All ruined. People ambled along, taking their time, stopping to browse at stalls, and I stumbled into them, swearing under my breath but still maintaining a precarious cool because if I lost it here, surrounded by Led Zeppelin t-shirts and pornographic bumper stickers, I might never make it back again. Camden Market was the kind of place you might never come back from at the best of times. I couldn’t bear to think of my baby in here somewhere.

  A café appeared between two shops, and I stumbled down two steps and into the warmth and chat of the small room busy with people and newspapers and puzzles and the clatter of coffee cups and the roar of the espresso machine. A long, narrow central table was crammed with relatives of Paul’s: his jolly parents, his sister, some of their friends from Scotland.

  ‘Oh, here she is!’

  ‘Hello!’ I tried to smile, but failed, and didn’t take a seat. On the other side of the table I saw Penny holding the baby, his face hidden by an unfamiliar hat, and I made my way towards them, wilting in relief, resisting the urge to shove people out of the way in my need to have him back in my arms, folding into him and getting my breath back. The baby was crying, fussing, clearly hungry, and my bra filled yet again with milk at the sound of his cries. But when I looked closer I saw that it wasn’t my baby.

  ‘Hi, Simone,’ Penny said. ‘Look at this little fellow. It’s Sarah’s grandson.’

  As always, Penny was lovely, making an effort to be kind and gracious towards me, and I felt obliged to admire the baby, before asking, after a moment, ‘Do you know where Rachel is, with the baby?’

  ‘Oh – she took him, I think, for a walk. In the pram. He was crying. She said something about walking him to sleep, he was a bit upset. I don’t know where she would do that around here though – maybe down at the canal?’

  ‘He must be hungry. Is that where she said she was going?’

  ‘I don’t know, Simone. Are you alright?’ Finally, she was looking at me properly, seeing me, and for the first time I felt like she understood that things weren’t great. Not bothering to answer, I took off again, back onto the street, searching for the closest canal entrance.

  Passing a young man who looked both local and friendly, I said, ‘Have you seen a woman pushing a pram? A pale blue pram?’

  ‘A Bugaboo?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Only about fifty of them. You ladies sure do love your Bugaboos.’

  ‘Yes we do. Do you happen to know where the entrance to the canal is?’

  ‘It’s right down that street. Turn down there and you’ll see the steps on your right.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As I ran down the steps to the canal and onto the pathway, a man in front of me was blocking the path, pulling a thrashing fish on a line out of the water, then kneeling down on the ground with his catch. No concern about people trying to use the footpath, so focused was he on the small fish he’d pulled out, with its coarse, dirty-looking scales. He pulled a knife out and fell upon it, killing it quickly. Surely he wasn’t going to eat something so drab-looking? He avoided my eyes as I passed him, and there was something sordid or furtive about him. The canals were always a little haunted and seedy. And I’d never liked the tunnels, the cold, dripping damp of them.

  Then I saw Rachel, a hundred metres or so away, leaning into the pram and taking a photo, then turning away. The pram was right on the edge of the canal and she hadn’t fixed the brake, and as I watched, she released it, almost carelessly, and then turned away, hunching over her phone and shading her eyes as if sending a message to someone. It wasn’t safe, leaving it that close to the water, and as I ran towards her I pictured it rolling away from her, tipping into the canal, only the handle sticking out to show me where it was. Reaching down, pulling that tiny body out through that dark polluted water, his clothes clinging to fragile ribs.

  My phone beeped in my pocket but I ignored it.

  ‘Is he okay?’ I asked her, reaching into the pram and peering in, needing to see him. His wet eyes met mine and for a long moment we stared at each other.

  ‘He’s fine, Simone. Are you okay?’

  ‘What have you done to him? He looks strange.’ And he did, with a bluish tinge around his mouth, his eyes sunken and glassy.

  ‘Nothing. He’s fine. He’s been a bit crabby, but I think he’s just tired.’

  Was it just the light? Could it be that I was imagining the blue cast on his skin, his strange eyes?

  ‘There’s something wrong with him. I know it.’

  ‘You’re imagining things, Simone.’ She smiled at me, shaking her head. ‘He’s absolutely fine. You’re overreacting.’ She was looking at me too closely, and I didn’t want to waste valuable time on the conversation, so I cut her off.

  ‘I’m going to take him to a GP clinic, just in case. Can you tell Paul to meet me there?’ I searched my phone for a walk-in centre near Camden. ‘St Mary’s hospital is closest. Tell him I’ve gone there in a cab.’

  Seizing hold of the pram handle, I turned away from her and went in search of a taxi to take me to that hectic, public site of chaos and illness that was paradoxically the only place in this whole city that felt safe.

  In the paediatric waiting room, Paul stayed by my side but I barely registered him. He flicked through his phone and I saw that the last message he’d got was from Rachel, a photo of the baby and a single x.

  The baby was taken away from us and a nurse came in to tell me they were assessing him and we would be able to go in shortly. When she returned she guided us to what looked like a bad-news room, with its box of tissues and insipid floral prints on the walls.

  ‘So, what’s been happening?’ said the doctor, a young woman with a long dark ponytail and searching eyes. A gentle knock at the door, and another woman came in, holding the baby. As she passed him to me I thought th
at she looked familiar, and when she introduced herself I realised, with a sudden queasy understanding of how intricately the whole system was linked up, that she was the child health nurse who had come to our apartment.

  ‘Is he alright?’ I asked. ‘Did he look blue to you?’

  ‘He looks fine. I’m more interested in what you think, though,’ she said in a calm voice, her eyes curious and kind.

  I told them again about how he looked strange at the canal, his lips bluish and his eyes sunken and glassy, realising as I spoke that I was being assessed as much as the baby: for depression, postnatal psychosis, or something else.

  The child health nurse studied me with that same prying face and tilted head, and wrote things down in a file with my son’s name on it. But this time, I saw her not as the enemy but as an ally, someone who was on the baby’s side, with her eyes trained on everyone around him, even me, to keep him safe. He was lucky to have her looking out for him. Someone had to, I told myself angrily.

  The doctor cleared her throat. ‘So, we’ve tested his oxygen saturation levels and they are normal. And I’ve examined him and he seems completely healthy. Now, very young babies can look blue around the mouth temporarily. It may be that he was a little cold – you said that he was outside – but you can see now that he’s lovely and pink, and he’s breathing normally. But we would like to keep him here under observation for one night.’ She continued to look at me closely. ‘You can stay with him. So if you want to go back to the waiting room now, someone will take you up to the children’s ward in a little while.’

  Paul remained uncharacteristically quiet as we returned to the waiting room. The baby had fallen asleep in my arms, which gave me the opportunity to say what I should have made clear weeks ago.

  ‘Rachel has to go. Or I go. I don’t even know why she’s still here. Why is she a part of this?’

  For a long moment he said nothing.