Greenwich Park

by Katherine Faulkner

  Rory looks up, flicking his head straight and pressing his hands on the table, as if the conversation is only just beginning now that he has started to pay attention to it.

  ‘So. I hope you guys are coming to my little birthday dinner?’

  I sigh. The birthday dinner is going to be anything but little. He just keeps inviting people. I think Rory thinks that things like dinners just happen on their own. But then, I suppose, why wouldn’t he?

  ‘Oh, definitely,’ says Helen, looking up and beaming. ‘We’re looking forward to it.’

  ‘Good,’ Rory beams back. ‘I saw our baby brother the other day, Helen. Asked him to come along too.’

  Helen pauses for a moment, her cutlery mid-air.

  ‘You saw Charlie?’

  ‘Yeah, we thought we’d try going to one of these DJ nights he’s always inviting us to. It was rather fun, wasn’t it, darling?’

  Helen raises her eyebrows and looks at me.

  ‘Yes, they dragged me along too.’ I smile. Roll my eyes in exaggerated forbearance. Hopefully Helen won’t be too cross that none of us mentioned it to her. She’d have hated it, but she also hates to be left out.

  ‘Yeah, we took the client,’ Rory is saying. ‘It was great, actually. Wasn’t it, Daniel?’

  Daniel shrugs. Helen is frowning – she obviously wasn’t told about this outing, much less invited. In any case, she always seems uncomfortable when anyone mentions Charlie. I don’t think she can understand why, when he is nearly thirty, her little brother is still living in some sort of scruffy flat in Hackney, working as a DJ in a club the authorities have repeatedly threatened to shut down.

  He’s a bit of a hopeless case, really, Charlie. A few years ago, he casually fathered a daughter with some Swedish girl, whose name I can’t remember. Then, last year, there was some trouble with the police – drugs, I think it was. I seem to remember Helen had to bail him out. I’m not sure of the details.

  Now, apparently, he and Katie are back together. I wonder how Helen feels about that. She hasn’t mentioned Katie in a while.

  ‘Oh, well. It’ll be nice to see Charlie.’ Helen laughs hesitantly.

  I fix my face in an expression of equanimity. ‘How’s Katie doing these days?’

  Helen frowns. ‘Actually, I haven’t seen her much lately,’ she says. I glance at Helen’s pained expression. It sounds like she and Katie have had some sort of falling-out.

  ‘I imagine she must be busy with her work,’ I offer. Katie is a journalist on a national newspaper – not a particularly upmarket one. She never tires of telling us all how busy she is.

  ‘Yes. She has been busy, I think,’ Helen nods, gratefully. ‘She’s up in Cambridge, covering that awful court case with the …’ Helen stops, blushes. ‘Well. I’m sure we’ve all read about it.’

  There is an exchange of grimaces. I drop my fork, pick up my napkin and press it to my mouth. Trust Katie to introduce inedible thoughts into a pleasant evening, even when she’s not actually invited.

  All of us know the case Helen means – there has been little else in the papers this week. The two accused of rape are both former public schoolboys, and – to add extra tabloid appeal – one is the son of a former Cabinet minister, and the other the son of some earl or other. The victim was young, a drunken eighteen-year-old student, in her first week at the university. There has been blanket coverage, with the boys’ families and their privileged upbringings referenced endlessly. Their parents have been photographed daily on the steps of the court, their mothers’ eyes haunted, their fathers’ faces a picture of blank devastation. I’m sure I’m not the only person at the table who is already sick of hearing about it.

  ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ Helen says carefully. ‘How … similar it all sounds.’

  For a moment, no one speaks. I glance at Daniel. He is staring at Rory.

  Rory clears his throat. ‘More drinks, anyone? Another Seedlip thingy, Helen?’

  ‘Let me get them,’ Helen says. ‘I need to go to the bathroom anyway.’ She hauls herself up, with an effort. Daniel is gazing into space, barely seeming to notice. Rory reaches to help her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Helen mutters.

  I smile at Rory, pleased he has changed the subject, that he is looking after Helen. He stands, winks at me, takes my glass and follows Helen into the kitchen.

  ‘Have you fed Cleo, darling?’ Rory calls back at me from the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  Moments later, I hear the clatter of kibble as Rory feeds the cat. The baby in my belly starts to stir, landing a single hard kick under my ribcage. I shift in my chair, and gaze at the twitching bump on my lap, feel the living wonder of it. I put my hands to the necklace around my neck and feel the cool silver charm between my fingertips, sliding it slowly up and down the chain.

  HELEN

  I am in Rory and Serena’s bathroom. I’ve been here longer than I should. Everyone is outside, waiting. I can’t take as long as I’d like. I settle for a condensed version of the usual routine.

  First, I dust a little of Serena’s face powder – middle drawer – on my cheeks. Then I spread on a thick layer of her hand cream from the silver tube – top-left drawer. I coat it on until my hands are slippery, right up to my wrists. It doesn’t take long to sink in. Then, I start opening cupboards. I breathe in the scent of her shampoo, read the prescription labels on her medications, smell her towels, pull the brushes out of her nail polishes to admire the colours in the light.

  The lights in the bathroom are turned down, and Serena has set two candles flickering by the sink. I make a mental note to find the same ones, for when our new bathroom is finished. On a driftwood shelf, I notice something I haven’t seen here before – a collection of bath oils in old apothecary bottles. Twigs of lavender in one, an unfurling hibiscus flower in another.

  I decide to try only the tallest bottle. It has a sprig of rosemary inside, the length of a cat’s tail. I pull out the glass stopper, close my eyes, and drink in the smell.

  As I do, the bottle stopper slips from my grasp. It falls with a clang against the bathroom tiles, the noise echoing around the walls. I look down just in time to see it roll under the legs of the bathroom cabinet.

  ‘Are you all right in there, Helen?’

  It’s Serena’s voice. ‘Just a second,’ I call back, glancing towards the frosted glass of the door. I bend down on all fours, my huge belly skimming the cold tiled floor. I feel the dust on my fingers as they close around the bottle top. I replace it, wash the dust off my hands and open the drawers to make sure everything is back where it was. As I replace the powder case, my hand brushes against something – a piece of paper, tucked right at the back of the drawer.

  I pull it out to examine it. It is one of those tiny envelopes – the ones you might find pinned in a bouquet of flowers, or with a receipt inside from an expensive shop. The envelope is a dark red, and it bears three letters: RRH. Rory’s initials – Rory Richard Haverstock.

  It looks like some sort of love note. Something from Serena? Even as I hesitate, I know I’m going to open it. I’m already anticipating the heady thrill of discovering a detail of Serena’s intimate life. I hear Serena’s laughter outside, and it makes me hurry, pushing a fingernail inside. A note on thick, cream card.

  Darling RRH

  Wear to show me

  For ever more

  W

  I frown. The handwriting doesn’t look anything like Serena’s. And when I read the last initial, my stomach lurches. W?

  I have a sickening sense that I have found something I wasn’t supposed to see, something bad. Is it a love note to Rory? What does it mean – to show me? Show me what? And who is W?

  My stomach tightens. I stuff the note back into the envelope, hide it in my bra. Decide to think about it later.

  When I go back out onto the terrace, the plates have been cleared away, and Serena and Rory are in the swing seat, snuggled up under the blanket. Serena’s little bump is as n
eat and round as a melon under her silk top. Silver twinkles in her ears, on her wrists, around her neck. I watch the two of them, as she smiles at me and buries her face in Rory’s jumper. Rory’s hand plays with the golden strands of her hair. Daniel is sitting on another chair. There is no room for me.

  I perch on the stool next to Serena.

  ‘We can scoot up.’ She unfolds her legs.

  ‘No, don’t, I’m fine.’

  Serena sits up anyway, lifting Rory’s arm up from around her neck. As she does so her necklace swings forward, a tiny figurine dangling on the end.

  ‘Lovely necklace,’ I tell her. ‘What’s that charm – a little dog?’

  ‘Think so,’ she says absent-mindedly. She leans in towards me, puts a cool hand on my arm. ‘Is everything all right with Katie? You haven’t fallen out, have you?’

  ‘What? With Katie? No, nothing like that,’ I say. ‘I think she’s just been busy with work.’ Something about the way Serena asks the question does make me wonder, though. Has Katie been a bit off with me lately? Is it odd that we haven’t seen each other in so long? ‘I’m seeing her soon,’ I add. ‘She’s got a day off, so we’re having lunch.’

  Serena smiles. ‘Good.’

  ‘You’ll have to take a day off from your new best friend.’

  I turn, realising Daniel is talking to me. Everyone stares at him. It occurs to me he has barely spoken all evening.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Serena says.

  I wish I hadn’t told Daniel about Rachel now, in the beginning, before I got to know her better. I wish I hadn’t gone on quite so much about her drinking, her smoking, her phone case, her clothes, her loud voice. Now we are here, it feels important to me to make it clear that I was fine at the antenatal course, on my own – that I coped perfectly well, without them all, and made a nice, normal friend.

  ‘He’s being silly,’ I tell Serena, feeling my face redden. ‘It’s just someone I met at the NCT class.’

  ‘Oh, is that the girl you mentioned? Rachel? What’s she like?’

  Daniel snorts. I stare at him.

  ‘What, Daniel?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything!’

  ‘You haven’t even met her.’

  Daniel touches his glasses, as if adjusting them so he can see me properly. ‘Hang on,’ he says. ‘I’m only going by what you told me. I thought you said she was a bit full-on?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ I say shortly, though it’s entirely possible I did. ‘I didn’t say that at all, Daniel. I like her.’ I turn to Serena. ‘Daniel is just annoyed because the other day, she came over and –’

  ‘Turned all our sofas upside down,’ Daniel finishes. Rory laughs. Serena shoots me a quizzical look.

  I pause, grasping for an explanation that Serena would understand, that would make Rachel sound like her sort of person.

  ‘We were making space for … yoga,’ I improvise.

  It was the first time I’d invited Rachel back to the house.

  ‘This is us,’ I’d said.

  ‘What – all of it?’

  She’d let out a low whistle as she’d shrugged her denim jacket off, walking around with her head tilted back, gawping at the chandeliers. ‘Bloody hell, it’s amazing.’ I couldn’t help enjoying it, just a little. I led her into the kitchen, started to fill the kettle.

  ‘Have you ever checked to see if there’s any gold under the floorboards?’

  I turned the tap off, thinking I’d misheard over the sound of the water. ‘Have I what, sorry?’

  ‘Checked for gold, under the floorboards. Loads have got it, the houses this side of the park.’

  I set the kettle back. I couldn’t tell if she was pulling my leg. I’ve been told I’m terribly gullible about things like this.

  ‘You really haven’t heard this story?’

  I shook my head.

  She hopped onto a stool, gestured up to the ceiling rose, squinting. ‘Back when these houses were built, it was all these wealthy merchants living in them.’ She spun a pointed finger around at the windows. ‘People were always travelling back and forth over the park with gold, jewels, money, cloth, all that sort of stuff.’

  She paused, then. Narrowed her eyes a little.

  ‘But on the other side of the park, Blackheath – that’s where the robbers were. The road to Woolwich was safe – it had these big high walls – no highwaymen. But sometimes you couldn’t avoid Blackheath. And the robbers were merciless.’

  She glanced out of the window, as if making sure none of them were watching us from the rose bushes.

  ‘There’s all these stories about it – how they’d tear the jewels from the throats of women, take an axe to a carriage if they thought there were gold coins inside. They’d slash at the harnesses, so they could steal your horses and ride away. No one could hear you there. If you screamed.’

  I tried to laugh, to show Rachel that I wasn’t taking it seriously, but I found I wanted to hear the rest, even if I didn’t believe her.

  ‘What the royal household didn’t know,’ she went on, spooning sugar into her tea, ‘was that the wealthy merchants of Greenwich were in league with the robbers on Blackheath. That’s why they got away with it all. The merchants protected them – and in return, they always took a share of the gold. Of course, they’d be hanged if the king found out, so they hid it in these houses. Usually, under the floorboards. Honestly! I read all about it somewhere.’ She stared at me. ‘I seriously can’t believe you haven’t heard about it. So many people round here have found stuff in their houses – jewellery, antiques, all sorts of stuff. A fortune, sometimes.’

  I thought for a moment. Did it ring a bell somewhere? Mummy saying something once, about some people down the road, finding a hoard of old coins?

  ‘Maybe,’ I said uncertainly.

  Rachel shrugged, threw me a wolfish grin. ‘You don’t want to look now?’

  I find myself blushing at the memory of it. How I’d pointed Rachel to places upstairs – away from the building work – where the floorboards might be loose. How I’d pulled up Mummy’s rug, turned the sofa over, both of us giddily intoxicated with the idea of finding hidden treasure. Rachel was so convinced – she’d insisted on looking for loose floorboards in the bedrooms, in the bathroom, all over the house. But of course, we didn’t find any that would come up on their own, and we couldn’t work out how we’d get them up without making a huge mess, so we didn’t bother in the end. Rachel seemed to lose interest in us having coffee after that. By the time Daniel got home, she was gone, and I hadn’t had the energy to put the furniture back.

  ‘She sounds perfectly normal to me, Helen,’ Serena says loyally, casting a wry look at Daniel. ‘I’m glad you met someone nice.’ She is so good at this: smoothing things out, like wrinkles in a tablecloth. Daniel smiles at her, then turns to me, speaks more gently.

  ‘I wasn’t annoyed. I was just a bit surprised about the furniture.’ He is slurring his words slightly, which makes me even more cross.

  ‘The sofa thing was one time,’ I hiss at him. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about it.’

  ‘Oh, relax, Helen,’ he says quietly. ‘I’m teasing.’ But the anger is gathering in my throat, and somehow I can’t let it drop.

  ‘It’s not as if our living room is a very pleasant place to be. Moving the sofa was hardly going to make much of a difference.’

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ says Daniel. He is cross now, too. ‘The building work. All my fault.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘It’s all you ever say.’

  Our words jab back and forth at each other and Rory and Serena start to avert their eyes from us, sitting in a tactful silence. I realise, to my mortification, that I have seen them do this before, when forced to witness one of our marital spats.

  I hold my tongue, determined not to let it escalate. Only when the heat dissipates do I risk a glance over the table. Daniel has filled his glass again, then pretends to study the label on the wine bot
tle. When I catch Serena’s eye, I grimace, mouth ‘sorry’ at her. She furrows her brow in a ‘don’t be silly’ gesture, shakes her head, telling me not to worry. Fills up our water glasses, and Rory’s.

  Later that night, Daniel passes out, drunkenly, on the bed, his eyes closed over flitting eyeballs. Soon he is making the little whistling breathing noise that means he is sleeping deeply. His glasses sit on his bedside table on top of his pile of books, as if keeping watch. Without his glasses on, Daniel’s sleeping face looks untethered, incomplete, sort of like a child’s drawing.

  I unfold the note I found in the bathroom. I press out the creases with my thumbnail, and stare at it for a long time. RRH. I wonder if W could be a nickname for Serena? But somehow, I know that’s not it. I have found something bad, something I shouldn’t have ever seen. Oh, Rory, I think. What are you up to?

  I stare and stare until the letters start to swim in front of my eyes, until they are not like letters any more, just shapes, symbols. Eventually, I give up. I slide the note into the back of the book I’m reading, turn the bedside light out.

  I listen to Daniel’s breathing, deep, rhythmic. I listen to the little bursts of laughter in the night, the hum of the washing machine on downstairs, the wind blowing on the hill, how it whistles past our window glass. It takes me a long time to fall asleep.

  30 WEEKS

  HELEN

  I seem to be bumping into Rachel all the time – in the market, or at the bandstand cafe, or walking across the scorched grass of the park. I suppose it’s no great surprise. She lives locally, and we’re both off work. But I never bump into Serena that much. Or Rory. Or even Daniel. But then, I suppose I have never been off work before. I’m constantly surprised by how many people are around in the day. What are they all doing?

  This time is odd in itself, this strange no man’s land between pregnancy and birth. I find myself constructing my entire day around a medical appointment, a trip into town to buy a baby monitor or a TENS machine. On the Tube, everyone else is glued to their smartphone, emailing and messaging, organising fuller lives than mine. Quite often no one looks up to see whether there is a pregnant woman needing a seat. I always feel too embarrassed to ask. Everyone keeps telling me to make the most of the time, to enjoy myself. I’m not sure what they mean. It feels like a dead time to me. A time defined by absence, by waiting.