The Night Village

by Zoe Deleuil

  ‘Okay. I’ll talk to her.’

  ‘It would have been good if you’d had that conversation a while back.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I was worried about her, in London, on her own.’

  ‘I’ve done it. Lots of people have done it. You go and find a job and a room to rent somewhere and get on with it. It’s weird. Why did she take the baby without asking me? It’s starting to feel like she wants to hurt him. Or take him away from me.’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No. I don’t think that’s fair, Simone. She loves him like we do.’

  ‘She sent me a text message and a photo of him, at the top of the escalator. It said, Here he is. With a full stop on the end. A full stop. It was a sign.’

  He looked confused. ‘A sign of what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Of something ending.’

  He looked uneasy, almost embarrassed. ‘Maybe you need to rest, Simone,’ he said in a formal tone. ‘You’ve been through so much in the last six weeks.’

  ‘All along, she’s been wanting to take him away from me. Why is she like that? What is all this about?’

  I waited for him to tell me, to take the opportunity to be honest, but still he said nothing. We sat in silence, like two strangers. The baby slept on, warm in his blanket. After a while Paul’s phone rang, and he stood up and walked out as he took the call. A few minutes later he was back. ‘That was Rachel. She feels terrible about what happened, about upsetting you. She was in tears. I think – she really does care about him, Simone. More than you can imagine.’

  I stared at the baby. Safe, sleeping. Alive. That was all that mattered.

  ‘You need to talk to her. She has to leave.’

  That night, I slept in a fold-out bed next to the baby’s old-fashioned metal cot. Away from the apartment, the baby safe, the nurses at the front desk keeping watch through a glass window, I felt calm. By the early hours his warm body was close to mine, my t-shirt pushed up and my arms encircling him, feeling him breathing against my skin, feeding and sleeping, feeding and sleeping.

  When I woke I remembered where I was and relived the day, what had brought us here, but this time the baby was awake and alert beside me, and yesterday’s panic was absent. Already he was bigger than a newborn, getting stronger all the time. And as I lay with him, I thought back to the man at the canal with the fish. His meaningless kill, for the sport of it, because he had nothing better to do. The crack of the fish scales as his blunt knife carved into them, and how he’d turned away from me, not letting me see what was in his eyes.

  23

  A little later, I was in the ward playroom, staring out the window and holding the baby against me. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the moment. And maybe that was the lesson I needed to learn. To breathe, to be still and exist, like the baby did, in the present.

  ‘Simone?’

  I startled and turned around quickly. Penny stood in the doorway. She had come in so quietly.

  ‘I wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘I’m okay.’ And I was. If I had the baby close to me, if no one was trying to get him out of my arms, I was fine.

  ‘Have you spoken to Paul?’

  ‘He’s coming to pick us up at nine, once the doctor has seen the baby.’

  ‘Well, I won’t stay for long. I thought I should talk to you. Explain a few things. In confidence.’

  She sat down and I noticed how pale she looked, how unlike her usual groomed self. No makeup or chunky silver jewellery. Hair flat against her head. Her eyes roamed around the room as she started to speak, almost as if she was talking to herself.

  ‘Rachel was always wild. A beautiful little girl. So gorgeous. But she did go off the rails. The whole thing was terribly sad.’ She looked exhausted, her hands were trembling, and I hoped the social worker wouldn’t turn up.

  ‘The whole thing?’

  I needed to steer her. I knew, somehow, that if Paul arrived I would never hear this story. She looked like she’d come here in a daze after a bad night’s sleep, and if she didn’t say what she needed to right now that would be it, she wouldn’t let her guard down again.

  ‘The baby was too much for them.’ She looked at me, wincing slightly as if she instantly regretted saying the words. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This baby?’ I asked, knowing what she was telling me but resisting it at the same.

  ‘They had a baby together. As teenagers.’

  ‘You said it was too much for them? What happened?’ I asked, keeping my voice even.

  ‘The thing is, we have always believed Paul. And I always looked out for Rachel. It was no wonder she turned out as she did, with her parents neglecting her like they did, but we always helped her with her studies, gave her somewhere to live, supported her financially. It was – well, she’s been wandering for years.’

  Will you get to the point? I wanted to shout, but I also wanted to cover my ears. ‘What happened to the baby?’ I asked again, keeping my voice as calm and even as I could.

  ‘He died. A beautiful little boy. Eddie. Only seven weeks old. They – the doctors – at first, they thought he was shaken. That Paul shook him. But they were never able to prove it in court, and we managed to keep it out of the papers. And, of course, they were both so young. So that’s how we handled it.’

  I stared at her for a long moment, unable to speak.

  I’d known all along. How Rachel had turned up and taken hold of him like he belonged to her. How Paul had never asked her to leave. And those words inked across her skin – Only you return. Her avid interest in my baby – her own son’s half-brother. It had all been there.

  ‘You have to understand that Rachel – well, she never got past it. I think she came back to London in the hope that it might be healing for her. To help you with your baby, to forgive herself, and Paul. Another chance.’

  ‘Another chance?’

  ‘Well, to be with a baby, to be a part of it. To make sure Paul didn’t get so tired again. That’s what she hoped, I think.’ She shook her head. ‘But there’s nothing here for her except more pain.’

  She picked up a green car off the floor and held it in her hand like an amulet, and for a moment I saw her as a new mother, spending hours in bright, toy-filled rooms like this one, wondering as she held her babies if she could keep them from harm.

  She looked at her watch. ‘I should go. Please don’t mention to George that I was here. We feel differently, and he thought it was best to say nothing. He has always respected Paul’s wish to put it behind him. But as a mother myself, I thought it best that you know. To understand why things might seem a little … strained, at times.’

  A little strained? I thought of Paul’s hands, his younger hands. What they had done – what he had done – to a tiny baby. And how every time the baby cried he walked away, as if he was frightened of what he might do, as if he knew what he was capable of. I thought back to the doctor’s face in the emergency room, when I’d been admitted with pneumonia. His wary expression when Paul got angry. A trained wariness. He would see that anger often in his working day, and know how to handle it.

  ‘What you have to understand about Paul is that he will have his moments of anger. But he did love that baby. He never meant to hurt him. And you can always come to me for help, advice, support. He’s told you about the family trust. Sometimes – you know what it’s like, with men – you just have to be the forgiving one. Rachel has come to understand that.’

  I wanted to run from her, from this room. From the whole family. But I looked at her and nodded, the baby alert and content in my lap.

  ‘Rachel, at times she believed that Paul hurt the baby. They had a fight that night, you see. She left; he was alone with the baby. We were out – it was only one night, but I’ll never forgive myself – and Paul was too young, too inexperienced, to be left with a newborn. We came back, and the baby was injured, it was too late. Rachel eventually came round to our way of thinking, that it was a terrible accident, but I’m not sure what s
he’s said to you. Sometimes she doubts him. But we’ve always stood by her, and Paul. She’s family, after all. We look after her. Like we will you.’

  She came over to me and placed her hand on the baby’s back, for a moment, and then was gone, as suddenly as she had appeared.

  They had a fight that night. Paul and I hardly fought. But one night we did. That night I had been trying to remember, or perhaps forget. The night of the work drinks at Thea’s weird basement club in Soho. I had bumped into a boy from high school, Ben, and we’d ended up chatting away and laughing about old school friends, getting closer to each other as the volume in the room increased. And then Paul had materialised next to me. Somehow he’d tracked me down, and was leaning over me and telling me it was time to go home.

  Maybe I had been standing a little too close to Ben, and that’s why Paul had taken my arm, claiming me. He was smiling and being his usual jovial self, but all the time his hand tightened. Through a cushion of alcohol I felt his thumb pressing against my inner arm, the tendon or muscle beneath shifting. I was drunk and tired and also confused, because Paul was smiling so calmly, as if that cruel hand belonged to someone else, as if he didn’t even realise how much he was hurting me. Ben suddenly looked uneasy, and moved away, and Paul’s smile disappeared.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ he said, his voice so loud in my ear I jumped.

  Then we were outside on the dark street, the yellow of a taxi light gliding towards us.

  ‘Get in.’

  In the back of the cab, he pulled me against him and I was engulfed by his expensive, foresty smell.

  ‘Lucky I found you when I did.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Were you having a nice time?’ he asked, ignoring my question.

  Even in my drunken state I knew my answer needed to console him.

  ‘Not really. It was dragging on. I was about to leave.’

  ‘Who was that bloke you were talking to?’

  ‘Just someone from high school. He wanted to reminisce about home. Think he might be feeling a bit lost here.’

  When we pulled up outside the soaring concrete tower, he held open the door and helped me out of the car, his hand on my arm gentler now. We fell into bed, and though I was too drunk, really, and half-asleep, we had sex because he wanted to and it was easier to go along with him. That was the night I got pregnant. I knew it. And now here we were.

  If Paul hadn’t appeared, Ben and I might have swapped numbers and met up, though it was impossible to imagine an easy, tipsy night like that ever again. I had a new life now, rising up around me and looking more real by the day. The baby, who was a miracle. But also Paul and his parents, Rachel, the family trust, the fortress-like architecture of the Barbican, the expensive blue pram. Circling me, walling me in, making me forget who I used to be.

  Twenty minutes later Paul appeared. I understood now why he was on edge in hospitals, around healthcare workers and people trained to spot trouble. I couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t look at his hands. But he was oblivious. He was always oblivious.

  ‘Rachel is leaving,’ he told me.

  Despite myself, I felt a tug of grief for her.

  I remembered what she’d said to me that night in the bathroom, right before I’d got sick: I’m on your side.

  ‘I think it’s time, don’t you?’ he said, taking the baby from me and heading for the exit, and I followed him closely, watching his hands, watching the baby.

  When we got home she was there, waiting. She looked terrible – pale and red-eyed and haunted. How exhausting it must be to live in her head.

  What I needed to do was edge away, somehow. I couldn’t stay with Paul, now that I knew who he was. Would we even have stayed together past the winter if there wasn’t a baby?

  Rachel gathered her toiletries from the bathroom, packed her bags in her room and slowly dragged them out to the hallway.

  ‘So, where are you heading to?’ Paul asked her politely.

  ‘Oh, I’m going to go and visit a friend I studied with. I bumped into her the other day at Old Street and she ended up inviting me to stay with her for a bit. She’s in Hammersmith.’

  ‘Do you want a lift to the station?’

  ‘That would be great.’

  I went to the door with her, holding the baby, and when she reached out her hands I gave him to her. She held him against her for a long minute, breathing against his warm head, and for once I didn’t feel like snatching him back.

  ‘Do you have a coat?’ I asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  I took mine off the hook. ‘Here, have this. And take care of yourself.’ Then I held out my hands for the baby. ‘Come and see us soon.’

  She slipped the coat on, my grandmother’s diamante brooch bright against the grey wool.

  ‘Thank you for letting me stay so long,’ she said. ‘Part of me just needed to see him. And then when I got here, it was like I couldn’t leave.’

  ‘I know,’ I said quietly, and our eyes met.

  Paul shifted impatiently, looking at the two of us with a wary expression, and picked up her bag. ‘Okay. We should get a move on, Rachel.’

  And just like that, she was gone. Paul glanced at me as he shut the door and I saw something familiar in his eyes. Fury. He knew I could leave. And maybe I would, taking the baby with me.

  I made some dinner and when he returned we ate together, talking about nothing in particular. But my mind was active, more awake than it had been for months, as I tried to work out what to do next.

  24

  A week later I put the baby in his pram and went wandering down towards the East End, where I thought I’d like to live one day, out of the city a bit, closer to London Fields and the paddling pool, where I could take the baby on summer afternoons.

  At the apartment things were stilted between Paul and me, the atmosphere cool and empty. I knew that it was going to be harder, once I told him I was leaving and we became opponents, so I wanted to work out a plan first. My parents were lending me some money, and I knew how lucky I was to have that lifeline.

  London smelled like petrol puddles and road tar. The homes here were long, curved rows of Victorian terrace houses, with small gardens and tall windows. I walked through London Fields, a bare-treed triangle where daffodils in garish yellow were pushing their way through the ragged sodden grass – tiny glimpses of the warmer days to come. The children’s summer paddling pool was drained, the gate padlocked, but I could see the steam rising off the London Fields Lido.

  Feeling too underdressed for Broadway Market, with its crowded footpaths and stacks of Guardians, I turned down Westgate Street, passing the children’s centre and through the viaduct to Mare Street, and then Cambridge Heath Road.

  Eventually the museum came into view, filled with its stories from other childhoods, swiftly lived through and then abandoned as those boys and girls grew up and moved toward independence. Whatever happened next with Paul, I would do my best to keep the baby safe. To surround him with picture books and primary colours and playgrounds and a home where he felt secure and loved.

  I wanted to find Jennifer, to talk to her about everything that had happened since I’d last seen her. That fog of the early weeks had thinned a little, and I wanted to find out more about her, and how she somehow knew all the right things to say to me. She wasn’t around the museum displays, though. In the café I ordered a cup of tea and sat to drink it, the baby on my lap, slumped against me. I realised I was waiting for her, because the other times I’d visited she’d seemed to know I was there, and to find me. But this time, even as I ordered a second cup of tea, she did not appear.

  Eventually I wandered down to the back of the museum, and let myself through the unlocked heavy door into the dim hallway that led to her office. I was expecting to see a closed door, with the light shining out from under the bottom, but instead I found the door standing half-open, and no lights on inside. I peered in.

  All of her things were there in
the half-light – the furniture, the books, the leather armchair. But the paintings were stacked by a chair, and the flowers were dead in the vase. The green hellebores outside were still flowering lush and pale in the winter air, though. It was a room that had been abandoned in a hurry, its owner too distracted to clean it properly. I recognised the quality of the mess. There was something familiar about its look of unexpected abandonment.

  Someone was standing behind me.

  I turned, hoping it was her, but it was another woman, of around the same age, also with long grey hair and no makeup, wise blue eyes and a gentle expression.

  ‘Is Jennifer here today?’ I asked, knowing already what the answer would be.

  ‘She’s not, I’m sorry.’ She looked at me for a long moment. ‘Jennifer fought breast cancer for a long time. And only last week, she lost that battle.’

  I had no idea of what to say. I thought of her, standing outside the hospital that day I saw her on the way to the library, looking as small as a child against the huge building.

  ‘We are talking about setting this room up as a space for young mothers. She always befriended them when they came in here. She was a real help around the place, but she wasn’t working here, towards the end. Not technically employed, anyway. She kept her office, and she used to help people, by listening, giving them a space to talk.’

  I looked at the room again. Her beautiful books, her pot of winter flowers on the windowsill, those dark, scrawling pictures.

  ‘Would you like to take something?’ the woman asked me. ‘Maybe a plant, or one of her books?’

  ‘That’s okay.’ I didn’t like the thought of anything being removed, of her room being emptied. ‘I had no idea that she was so unwell. I liked talking to her.’

  ‘No-one realised. We thought we had a bit more time.’ She sighed. ‘She was a gift to a lot of people.’

  Gift. It was a strange image and I tried to focus on it so I didn’t burst into tears, picturing a box tied with a pink silk ribbon. I remembered the whiteness of her hands. Now, though, I saw what was familiar about the room’s state. It had been left by someone who was sick, suddenly very sick, and didn’t have the energy to clean up, or even shut the door.