The Secrets She Keeps, page 16
I make Jules go back to her bedroom and prop pillows behind her back. Once she’s breast-feeding, I put Leo’s drawings back on the wall, but I can’t quite remember the sequence. Hopefully Jules won’t remember either.
I’m returning the flowers to the kitchen when I spy Violet’s PCHR booklet. The personal health record is given to every newborn, listing details of the birth—weight, length, and head circumference, as well as the name of the midwife and family doctor. I’m going to need a booklet like this.
I begin photographing the pages. Jules appears. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I mean—I’m just looking. How’s Violet?”
“Full as a fat lady’s socks.”
“Cup of tea?”
“No.”
“How about a piece of toast?”
“Two.”
I get bread from the freezer and fill the slots of the toaster. “I didn’t get a picture of Violet,” I say. “Can I have one of yours?”
“Sure.”
Jules unlocks her phone and hands it to me. I scroll through the images and find one that I want. It shows the midwife weighing Violet. I send the picture to my phone, which chirrups in my pocket.
“Is there anything else I can do?” I ask. “I could make dinner for Leo.”
“No, you’ve been wonderful. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, I’m going downstairs to tell Hayden. He’s due to call me tonight.”
“Where is he now?”
“Eight days out of Cape Town. He’ll be home a week from Wednesday.”
“Well, tell him to hurry. He doesn’t want to miss this.”
MEGHAN
* * *
Today I phoned an old friend who works for a law firm in the City. Jocelyn made partner this year. I’m not really sure what that means, but she celebrated by throwing a party at the Savoy Grill, so I figured a lot more money.
She returns my call, shouting to be heard above the noise of traffic. “Sorry, Megs, I’m just out of court. Have you had the baby?”
“Not yet.”
“I want to see pictures.”
“You will.”
She whistles for a taxi. I hold the phone away from my ear.
Jocelyn and I were at school together—inseparable from the age of ten, doing all the usual stuff, graduating from hopscotch and jumping rope to dripping black eye makeup and stalking Oasis. Later her hobby was bulimia, while I became fixated on self-help books. We both pulled through.
She’s found a black cab and some silence. “What’s with the mysterious phone message?”
“I need some legal advice.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No, I’m calling for a friend.”
“Mmmm,” says Jocelyn, choosing her words carefully. “Because if this was about you, Megs, I would be obliged to warn you not to make any admissions or confessions of guilt to me because I cannot mislead a court. At the same time, I have a duty to keep whatever you tell me a secret.”
“Oh my God, I haven’t killed anyone!”
She laughs and I realize that she’s joking.
“I have a hypothetical situation for you.”
“Hypothetical.”
“Yes.”
This was a bad idea. I should hang up.
“Can a court order a woman to have a paternity test on her new baby?”
“That depends on the circumstances,” says Jocelyn.
“What if she’s happily married?”
“Is her husband demanding the test?”
“No.”
“Who then?”
“A third party.”
“Someone who thinks he might be the father?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck, Megs, what have you done?”
“Nothing. This isn’t about me.”
Why am I still talking?
Jocelyn begins thinking out loud. “I practice commercial law, so I’m not an expert in this area. Most paternity suits are filed to establish financial or moral responsibility. The mother wants money, or a father wants visitation rights. If both husband and wife agree they’re the parents, I doubt whether any court would order a test.”
“What if the husband doesn’t know there’s a question mark over the paternity?”
“He would have to be told.”
“Even if it puts the marriage in jeopardy?”
“The wife put the marriage in jeopardy the moment she slept with someone else.”
“What if she knows the baby is her husband’s?”
“So you’re saying this third party is making a completely baseless accusation?”
“Yes.”
“There was no affair?”
I hesitate. “No.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know—spite, jealousy, cruelty.”
“Are you being blackmailed?”
“This is not about me.”
“Right, of course. Well, my advice to your friend would be to come clean and tell her husband.”
“There’s no other way—no restraining orders or letters?”
“Not really.”
I can hear Jocelyn breathing down the phone. “Are you all right, Megs?”
“I’m fine. Forget I called.”
I hang up and take a deep breath, biting my bottom lip to stop myself from screaming. I am trapped. My past mistake is growing inside me, ticking like a time bomb that will go off unless I can stop Simon.
It doesn’t help that Jack is being so nice to me. He bought me flowers on Friday—arum lilies, which are my favorite—and he stayed home all weekend.
On Monday morning I wrote a blog piece:
Reflections
I had an ordinary Sunday. I don’t mean ordinary in terms of boring, but it was normal. I woke to the sound of two little people talking and giggling, having crawled into each other’s beds to read books. They played happily for almost an hour, letting me doze next to Hail Caesar.
Sunday morning means BBC Radio 2, plunger coffee, bacon and eggs, and the newspapers, of course. This was followed by swimming lessons—which I prefer to call “controlled not-drowning”—then lunch at the pub, before a long walk along the river, a bath, a cuddle, and a DVD (Frozen—again!).
Sunday is curry night and the house still reeks of chicken korma, no matter how many windows I open. Caesar drank half a bottle of wine. I fell asleep in front of a BBC costume drama. And at midnight I was ironing school clothes because I forgot to do it earlier.
It was an ordinary Sunday—except that Caesar said he loved me more than once. A more mistrustful wife might have been suspicious that he doth protest too much, but I’m not the skeptical type.
Men are so funny when it comes to understanding women. Caesar thinks my dream scenario for romance is a five-star hotel, a massage, champagne, a great dinner, fantastic sex, and falling asleep after an hour of him telling me how wonderful I am. In truth, I would settle for a Sunday like yesterday—a sleep-in, a cooked breakfast, a day with the kids, clumsy sex, and loads of voluntary cuddles and compliments.
Life doesn’t get much better than that.
AGATHA
* * *
At Euston I walk across the cavernous station concourse and wait in line to buy a ticket to Leeds. I’m wearing my best maternity dress with low black heels and a patent leather handbag over my shoulder. I make a point of messing up my request. The tickets are reprinted. I want people to see me. I want them to remember.
My train is on time. Pulling my suitcase along the platform, I ask a porter to help me lift it up the stairs and store it in the luggage bay. I find my seat. A businessman is sitting next to me, tapping on his laptop. I apologize for taking up so much room, using the royal “we,” pointing to my pregnancy.
“When are you due?”
“Any day now—that’s why I’m going home.”
“Home?”
“Leeds.” I notice his wedding ring. “Do you have children?”
“Two girls—six and four.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“Yes, I am.”
He’s looking for my wedding ring. Not seeing one, he won’t ask. When the conductor comes along to check on my ticket, I make a fuss about looking for it, growing anxious and apologetic.
“Take your time,” he says. “I can come back.”
I search my handbag and the pockets of my coat, sighing in relief when I find the ticket.
The businessman relaxes. The conductor makes light of the delay. Both will commit me to memory.
The train rattles through the Midlands into the north of England, past plowed fields and pastures dotted with wheels of hay covered in plastic. Beads of melting sleet run slantwise across the fogged windows. My stomach rumbles. I should have brought something to eat before I left Euston.
Arriving in Leeds, I drag my suitcase to the cab rank and give the driver an address in Holbeck. He takes New Station Street, Wellington, and Whitehall Road, skirting warehouses and railway yards that look abandoned in the gloom.
The cab drops me outside Ingram Road Primary School, where lights burn brightly from within. The windows are draped in Christmas decorations and little heads on hunched shoulders face the front of the class. A bell sounds and children stampede for the doors, filling the corridors with laughter and shouted good-byes.
I grew up five streets away from here. I walked to school every day from age seven to twelve, dodging cracks and playing hopscotch on the footpath. The intersection where Elijah died is three blocks ahead, but I take a different route because I don’t want to be reminded of the accident. Instead, I quicken my pace, splashing through puddles, dragging my suitcase.
In Colenso Grove every redbrick terrace looks identical, with matching satellite dishes bolted to the walls. The front doors have been painted different colors—blue, red, yellow, or green—which could be a sign of self-expression or suburban anarchy.
Reaching my mother’s house, I retrieve the spare key from beneath a loose brick at the side of the steps. Letting myself inside, I throw open the windows and pull drop cloths from the furniture. The beds have been stripped of bedding and the wardrobes are full of my mother’s clothes. I have never lived in this house and visited only once before, but my mother seems to inhabit every room. She has no photographs of my childhood displayed on the mantelpiece or hanging on the walls, nothing to show that I played a part.
I look at my watch. The courier company told me four o’clock. It’s after that now. I get changed into my work clothes and begin cleaning the house, dusting, polishing, and mopping the floors.
The truck pulls up just after five, when the sky is winter dark. The bearded driver is on his last delivery. He carries in a large box containing the birthing pool, inflation pump, pool liner, hose, tap adapters, floor sheet, submersible water pump, and thermometer.
Am I having a baby or cutting up a body?
The water-birthing kit is rented because I didn’t see the point of shelling out for a new one. I wonder how many babies have been delivered in the pool and how they disinfect it afterwards.
The driver has gone back to his van. This time he brings my super-absorbent bed pads, sanitary towels, lip balm, lavender oil, flannels, and raspberry-leaf tea.
“Do you need a hand putting up the pool?” he asks.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
He’s looking around for signs of my husband.
“My mother will be home soon,” I explain. “She’s at work.”
He taps his forehead in a casual salute and jogs to his truck. I sort through the paperwork that came with the delivery. There is a maternity certificate that must be signed by a registered midwife or GP, with a space for the patient’s name and details of the birth.
This is one of the gaps in my plan. I can forge a signature and registration number, but it won’t survive a check of the records or a phone call. Two thousand babies are born in Britain every day—that’s one every forty seconds—popping out, drawing breath, bawling. Surely records must occasionally get lost or misplaced. Parents forget. Infants die. Their births are never recorded. My baby will be overlooked. Time will hide him.
Going to the back garden, I light the incinerator, piling on progressively bigger logs until the heat forces me back. I burn my prosthetic pregnancy, watching as the silicone bubbles and melts, sending up plumes of thick black smoke that make the night seem darker.
Research is the key to good planning. I have gathered intelligence and studied my options until I’m confident that I can cover most contingencies apart from the unforeseen or the unforeseeable. I may not succeed, but I will limit the risk. Whatever happens, I don’t want to hurt Meg, but I reserve the right to use whatever means . . .
I go to my mother’s bedroom and open my suitcase. Inside I have a set of men’s overalls, work boots, and a baseball cap, along with several wigs that I’ve purchased over the past few months from eBay and a uniform shop. I pack these into a upright trolley, covered in a tartan fabric, with twin wheels and a U-shaped handle to pull it along.
Having checked everything twice, I go over the timetable, committing it to memory. Finally, I stand under the shower, washing away the soot and sweat and anxiety before stretching out on a bare mattress, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for sleep to steal my thoughts away.
MEGHAN
* * *
I recognize the woman on the doorstep, but it takes me a moment to place her. She’s the estate agent who sold us the house. I’ve seen her since, driving around Barnes in a BMW convertible, wearing her big sunglasses and silk scarves.
Handing me her business card, she gives me a practiced smile, all teeth no gums, calling me Mrs. Shaughnessy. Perfume seems to be lifting off her skin—the smell of overripe apricots and lime.
I look at the card. Rhea Bowden.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” she says. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop by.”
Her hair is tousled in an expensive, undeniably sexy way and brings to mind a former beauty queen ten years past her prime. Is that cruel? Probably.
“I’m checking to make sure you’re completely happy with the house.”
“Is this some sort of after-sales service?”
She smiles again. “That’s right. I normally contact people on the anniversary they moved in. It helps keep the channels open.”
“The channels?”
“It makes good business sense. Property prices have been rising. You’re probably not considering selling, but if you did want a valuation, I could give you one.”
“We’re not planning on selling.”
“Good. So you’re happy?”
“Yes.”
“How is Jack? Your husband, I mean. I tried to call him earlier to say I’d be dropping by.”
“He’s at work.”
“And is he also happy with the house?”
“We’re both happy.”
“Excellent.” She hesitates and looks past me along the hallway as though wanting to be invited inside. “Well, if you ever do contemplate selling, I hope you consider listing the property with me.”
“OK.”
“Right, then. Very good.”
I watch her saunter down the path and wrestle with the stiff latch on the gate. Cursing, she looks at her fingernail and sucks her finger. I wonder what that was about. Maybe nothing, but Rhea Bowden is the sort of woman who makes my protective senses hum. In the same breath I dismiss the notion because I have no right to be suspicious of Jack—not after what I’ve done.
Crumpling up the business card, I toss it in the rubbish and go back to packing my suitcase for the hospital. I have done it three times already because I keep changing my mind.
AGATHA
* * *
I wake up shivering, cocooned in a single blanket. The central heating hasn’t triggered and I can see my breath when I exhale. Dressing quickly, putting on layers, I go downstairs to the kitchen and hold my hands above the spout of the kettle as it boils.
There is nothing to eat in the cupboards so I make myself a black tea with extra sugar and wrap my hands around the mug, soaking up the warmth. My body feels lighter now that I’m not wearing a prosthetic, but I miss how secure and worthwhile it made me feel . . . as though I had a purpose.
Leaving the house, I raise the hood of my coat and walk to the nearest bus stop. Two old women with wrinkled faces are waiting, complaining about the cold. The traffic gasps and stops at the roundabout, never confident. Across the road I see a little boy holding his mother’s hand and begin to ache inside.
Having caught the No. 49 towards Bramley, I get off at Kirkstall Bridge Inn and walk across the River Aire and the railway line. A quarter mile farther on, I take the steps down to the towpath alongside the Leeds to the Bradford canal.
The creature has woken fully now, humming faintly, sensing where I’m going, telling me where to leave the path and when to stay hidden. Reaching a three-tier lock, I cross to the opposite side of the canal through open fields with bright green grass. I pass a man throwing a stick for his two dogs. The bigger dog always wins the race, but the smaller dog doesn’t seem to mind. A farmer on a red tractor is pulling a plow, turning the earth in neat rows.
When I reach a second lock I am deep in the forest, which smells of damp and ancient secrets. The ruined farmhouse is almost completely hidden by vines, apart from the brick chimney, which is darkened by moss and lichen. I’m close now.
I reach the clearing. The stone pyramids are visible in a carpet of dead leaves. The floral crowns are brittle and dry. I should have brought new flowers. I loosen my coat and crouch beside each cairn, putting my fingertips on the rocks, letting each baby know that I haven’t forgotten her. Chloe, Lizzie, and Emily.
I mourn all of them equally, the dead and the unborn and the one I gave away. Lizzie was my second baby. I was eighteen when I took her from outside a betting shop in Bradford. The father only went inside for a few minutes to place a bet on a horse running in the three thirty at Doncaster. The horse was called Baby Lizzie, which he thought was a good sign, so he put ten pounds on the nose. I know these details from the news coverage, which condemned him in the days that followed. The columnists asked, what sort of man leaves a baby outside a betting shop? The same sort of parent who leaves a five-year-old home alone, or locked in a hot car, or who feeds their entire wage into slot machines, or lets a baby lie in a filthy nappy while they’re smoking crack or shooting up. People like that don’t deserve to be parents, according to the Daily Mail.
