The Night Village
Page 22
Walking home along the back streets of Bethnal Green towards Hackney Road, I passed a young child at the window of a terrace house, staring down at me. He looked eerie and winter-pale, watching me. All the way home I thought about Jennifer. How calmly she’d appeared to live her life – peaceful, steady, getting on with her work and forming connections with people. Not creating drama, or skidding from one crisis to another. What a relief it would be, to live like that. A year ago I wouldn’t have even come across someone like her. Now I missed her.
My phone rang. Soraya.
‘Look. I’m just ringing to say, if the only thing keeping you in a shitty situation is money, then I have money. I have a spare bedroom. You can stay, for as long as you need to.’
‘What have you heard?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Rachel, I thought.
‘Should I leave?’ I had no idea what the right thing to do was. I knew Paul would talk me out of it, talk over me, confuse me with moments of kindness and insistent, endless sentences.
‘Of course you should. You’re not safe. If he hurt a tiny baby, he can hurt Thomas or he can hurt you. Maybe he already has?’
I was silent. On the other end of the line she waited patiently, then spoke in a clear voice, enunciating every word so they all went into my overloaded head.
‘Go home. Pack. Make yourself a cup of tea. I’ll be there in an hour.’
At Soraya’s flat in south London, the rooms were warm and cluttered with books and plants and framed photos. In her usual businesslike way she’d come up with a solution – a small, light-filled flat in Hackney, owned by a friend of hers who had moved up north, would be vacant in two weeks time, and I could rent it.
In the meantime, the days stretched ahead with no structure, no meals or predictable naps or breaks to hang the hours on. Somehow the baby and I got to the end of another windy March afternoon. We were both warmly dressed, the lamp was on and I’d made myself tea. Soon Soraya would be home, and she’d hold the baby and tell me about her day while I served up the dinner I’d made in stages throughout the day.
Ever since I’d left the Barbican for what I hoped was the last time, I’d been building a picture of my life with me in charge. Without Paul. He didn’t know it – he thought we were taking a break, that I was thinking things over – and something warned me not to tell him too soon. But slowly it grew more vivid. I had a small payout from work and the loan from my parents and a stack of university brochures and funding application forms to get through in the pockets of free time I had when the baby napped. My plan was to retrain in something useful. Maybe childcare, maybe midwifery, maybe teaching. I wanted to be like the people I’d met over the last few months, in the hospital and out in the world, people who solved ordinary problems, laughed, offered practical support.
I settled the baby in his bouncer and sat beside him, watching the news to see what was happening beyond this bubble we’d been living in. It was such a relief to see the old newsreaders, to lose myself in their stories again.
After a moment, I became aware of that pricking sensation of someone’s eyes on me. That odd jolt on the Tube or in a shop, when you realise that someone is observing you.
I looked down at the baby – Thomas – and his face was turned to me, with an expression of frank affection. He wasn’t smiling, exactly; it was all in his bright eyes. With his expression so alert, so quietly thrilled, it seemed rude not to respond.
I said hello, and laughed nervously. He was silent, apparently needing nothing more than to gaze fondly at me.
How strange it was to feel that I was enough for someone, simply by existing. It made me shy. It was as if I was being introduced to someone I’d admired from afar, whose approval I’d longed to win. A secretly loved teacher, or someone I’d gone to school with, but never known. We’d been travelling towards this ordinary dusk together for months, and now – with only a look to mark the moment – we’d arrived.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So many dedicated people work to open doors for aspiring authors, and I have many to thank – first of all, my editor Georgia Richter at Fremantle Press for seeing the potential in my manuscript, knowing all the right questions to ask, and calmly steering me and this book to publication. Thank you Armelle Davies for your encouragement and insightful copyediting, and to Alicia Lutz and Dr Morgane Davies for your close reading of the manuscript and helpful comments.
Thanks to Jane Fraser, Claire Miller, Tiffany Ko and everyone at Fremantle Press for your support and enthusiasm for this book. The Hungerford Award offers a unique and necessary opportunity to aspiring WA authors, and I thank Fremantle Press and Delys Bird, Cate Noske and Richard Rossiter for their time and energy in judging the 2018 awards and shortlisting my manuscript. Thanks to the City of Fremantle for supporting the prize. And thanks, again, to Cate Noske and Delys Bird for publishing in Westerly 61.2 my short story, ‘To the Motherland’, from which this novel then grew.
The Australian Society of Authors and Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre provided timely advice and practical support – thank you.
A nod to Perth’s wonderful writing community, too many of you to mention; to Fred Nenner, Laurie Steed, Alan Fyfe and Kyra Giorgi for writerly kinship, and to Bella Carlin and Mary Torjussen for reading and commenting on an early draft. I must also mention Marion May Campbell, whose brilliant creative writing workshops at Murdoch University have guided me ever since, and the dedicated creative writing staff and fellow students at Bath Spa University for a life-changing and illuminating year.
To my friends Kerry, Ben, Steph, Anna and Carly, thank you for many words of encouragement over many years, and to Melanie for being my Northern Hemisphere voice of reason through 2020 – I can’t wait to see you all again.
Thank you to my parents, Heather and Leon, for your lifelong support, and for raising me in a house full of books and dogs, allowing me to read whatever and whenever I wanted, and always letting me follow my own path. Thanks to my sisters, Ashe, Renee and Emily, for a lifelong four-way conversation that has schooled me in drama, intrigue and dark comedy like nothing else. And hugs to my nieces and nephews, Matilda, Jack, Grace, Maxi and Valentina – we’re so lucky you all showed up.
To my darling Felix, vielen Dank for taking the brave marital step of suggesting I put aside my first attempt at a novel and start something new, and for always providing the love, support and ideal light in which to do so. Finally, thank you to my beautiful boys, Tilo and Rafael, for blasting into our lives and bringing so much of everything with you.
MORE THRILLING READS
AVAILABLE AT FREMANTLEPRESS.COM.AU
FROM FREMANTLE PRESS
AND FROM ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES
First published 2021 by
FREMANTLE PRESS
Fremantle Press Inc. trading as Fremantle Press
25 Quarry Street, Fremantle,
Western Australia 6160
(PO Box 158, North Fremantle WA 6159)
www.fremantlepress.com.au
Copyright © Zoe Deleuil, 2021
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover photograph by Simone Hutsch / Unsplash
Cover design by Nada Backovic, www.nadabackovic.com
ISBN 9781925815634 (paperback)
ISBN 9781925815665 (ebook)
Fremantle Press is supported by the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.
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