The Secrets She Keeps, page 36
MEGHAN
* * *
The rain has turned to sleet, angling across the windows of the cab like windblown gobs of spit. Tires swish beneath me and classical music plays on the cab radio, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: “Winter.” A different storm rages within me. We were sent to the wrong place. Did Hayden Cole do it on purpose or was it a mistake?
I am alone in the cab but it won’t take them long to realize I’m missing. They’ll send someone to the bathroom to search for me or Jack will raise the alarm. I told nobody about Agatha’s phone call. Instead I excused myself and managed to shake Lisa-Jayne as MacAteer stood his men down.
Hayden Cole was in the backseat of a police car being driven to the Imperial War Museum when he told police he was going to be sick. The escorting officers lowered a rear window. Hayden squeezed out before they could react. The police gave chase, but lost him in Fulham Palace Road Cemetery. I don’t know why Hayden ran, but he’s become a fugitive just like Agatha.
Right now, I’m certain of only one thing—my baby is in Greenwich. I promised Agatha I’d come alone. I am keeping this promise because I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but the doubts are creeping in. What if I’m wrong? What if Agatha and Hayden had this planned all along?
The cab is passing through South London. Outside, I see drab gray shopfronts and blocks of flats that no amount of Christmas decorations and colored lights can make cheerful. I used to love this city—the plane trees and bridges and cathedrals and monuments. I loved its narrow streets and quaint shops and grand gardens. That hasn’t changed, but I could leave London tomorrow and not miss it as long as I had my family with me. People, not places, make a life whole.
I roll my head against the glass.
“Are you all right, love?” asks the cabbie.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You look familiar.”
“I’m nobody.”
* * *
The cab drops me on Romney Road and I step over puddles to reach the footpath. Despite the rain, crowds of tourists are queuing to visit the Cutty Sark. A Japanese tour group marches past me carrying matching umbrellas, following a guide into Greenwich Park.
My mobile is ringing.
“Where the hell are you?” asks Jack.
“I’m getting Ben.”
“Are you crazy?”
He’s yelling to someone—MacAteer, most likely, whose blood pressure will be stratospheric. “Where are you? Tell me!”
“I’ll be fine. Agatha wants to give him back.”
“She has a gun, for God’s sake!”
“Nobody has to get hurt.”
“Listen to me, Meg, don’t do this. Tell me where you are.”
“I’ll call you when it’s over.”
I hang up and turn off my phone.
The woman at the ticket desk offers me a visitor’s map of the museum, but I ask for directions to the Special Exhibitions Gallery.
“It’s on the lower ground floor,” she says, before interrupting herself. “You’re that woman from the TV—the one whose baby got taken.”
“No, that’s not me.”
My knees are shaking as I take the stairs and cross the marble floor, looking between pillars and display cases of naval uniforms and artifacts. A lone figure sits on an island bench in the middle of a cavernous room. My shoes squeak on the polished floor. Agatha raises her eyes and blinks back tears. I notice the sling across her chest, but can’t see Ben.
“What took you so long?” she asks, looking behind me, as though expecting to see the police.
“There was a misunderstanding.”
“Hayden sent you to the wrong place.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
I feel the weight of the silence, but not the sadness, because I have eyes only for the sling around Agatha’s chest. She reaches across her body and pulls it aside. I see a small pale face with enormous eyes that seem to open at the sound of my voice. They trap us like that—babies—with one look they can take hold of our hearts because our hearts have no defenses against such beauty and fragility.
Ben utters a weak squawk and as if by magic my breasts begin to ache and my milk comes in. I forget everything Cyrus told me about keeping my distance and stumble forward, kneeling beside Agatha.
“He’s hungry,” she says. “I don’t have another bottle.”
“I could feed him,” I say hopefully.
She ponders this and nods.
Getting up, I begin to unbutton my coat. Agatha sees the Kevlar vest but doesn’t say anything.
“Can you help?” I ask.
She loosens the straps and I pull the vest over my head, dropping it on the floor. At that moment, I glimpse the handgun tucked into the pocket of her coat.
I look at Agatha, waiting for a sign.
She unties the knot behind her neck and lowers Ben into her lap. “You can take him.”
Unbuttoning my blouse and unclipping my nursing bra, I slide my hands across her thighs and lift Ben to my breast, watching his lips part. He doesn’t latch on. I brush the nipple against his top lip, encouraging him to open his mouth wider.
“It might take him a while,” says Agatha, who is now holding the gun on her lap.
At the fourth attempt, Ben locks on and sucks hard. His lips barely seem to move, but I can see him swallowing. Filled with joy and relief, my eyes brim over. I did not think, I dared not hope, I prayed, I wished, I did not give up, but now the emotion of the moment overwhelms me.
Agatha reaches into her bag and finds me a tissue.
“I want to say I’m sorry for what I did,” she says. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you should know that I’ve loved him as much as any mother could. It wasn’t personal, by the way. I didn’t take him because I wanted to hurt you or Jack. I idolized you. I wanted a life like yours.”
“Our life isn’t so perfect.”
“It was to me.”
“Jack and I let each other down all the time.”
“Have you forgiven him for Rhea Bowden?”
“I’m trying to,” I say. “Did you put the note on his windscreen?”
Agatha nods and gazes down at Ben. “When I was growing up, I used to sit around with my girlfriends and talk about who we’d like to marry. We decided how many children we wanted and gave them preppy names like Jacinta and Rocco. All of us took it for granted that we’d get married and have babies. It was an automatic progression—school, a career, boyfriends, marriage, a mortgage, and children.
“I would even draw sketches of myself and my perfect family, or cut out pictures from magazines and stick them in a scrapbook. I gave myself a chic haircut and self-satisfied look, a handsome husband, a boy and a girl, a nice house in London or the home counties.”
She could be describing my life.
“That was my fairy tale and I didn’t doubt it would come true, but I was wrong and there’s no one to blame. It wasn’t my fault, or Nicky’s.”
Agatha toys with the gun, turning it in her hands. “It’s not just the absence of a child, but everything that goes with it. The rites of parenthood—the mothers’ groups, school-gate chats, Saturday sports on the sidelines, class dinners, school fund-raisers, and speech days. For you, these things are so commonplace you don’t give them a second thought. For me they are everything I’ll never have. I am an outlier. I am the incredible disappearing woman. I am childless. Less of a person. Not in the club. You take those things for granted.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ve heard you complaining to the other wives. You’re all the same. You tell each other about daily dramas, sleepless nights, lazy husbands, fussy eaters, messy rooms, and food allergies. I used to hate you for that.” She pauses. “No, I’m sorry—‘hate’ is too strong a word. I thought you were ungrateful.”
“They’re just stories,” I say. “Everybody complains. I know I’m lucky. And I know I shouldn’t take my life for granted.”
“But you do. I bet when you see a woman my age without children you automatically wonder if she left it too long, or put her career first. You think maybe she was too selfish or too choosy.”
“I don’t think that,” I say, but in my heart I know she’s right.
Feeling lightheaded, I swap Ben between breasts. He belches quietly, leaving a thin trail of milk on my skin.
“I didn’t have children to make you feel bad, Agatha. And it’s not my fault that you couldn’t have a baby, or you lost one. I know it’s painful. I know you feel cheated. But you’re not the first woman who couldn’t fall pregnant, and infertility isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ll tell you what’s worse. Having a child go missing is worse. Lying awake at night, not knowing if he’s alive or dead. You have an empty womb. I had an empty cradle. Mine is worse.”
Agatha’s eyes flash. “Would you swap your life for mine?”
I shake my head.
“I thought so.”
My thumb brushes over Ben’s forehead. His eyes are open and he’s gazing at me, already falling in love.
Agatha is right. Up until a few weeks ago I had no idea what it was like to be infertile, or to lose a child. I understand that now.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
Agatha looks at the gun in her lap. “I haven’t decided.”
“You could give that to me.”
She shakes her head.
“Please, don’t do anything foolish, Agatha.”
She sighs tiredly. “I’ve been doing foolish things my entire life.”
AGATHA
* * *
Meg rearranges her bra and buttons her blouse. Rory has fallen asleep on her lap, his belly full.
“You should go,” I tell her.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to stay here for a little while.”
“You could come with me.”
“No.”
Meg hesitates, wanting to argue, but she has what she came for. She says she understands how I feel, but I know that’s not possible. She can sympathize, but not empathize. Few people can truly appreciate what it’s like to give up a child. I was fifteen when it happened to me and I didn’t just give up my newborn. I gave up the one-year-old and the two-year-old and the three-year-old and every other year-old that she became. I surrendered every Christmas morning, every visit from the tooth fairy and school concert, every Mother’s Day, birthday, and kiss good night.
How can Meg comprehend that? Maybe if she had miscarried, or woken next to the cold, marble-cold body of a baby girl, or lived with a cruel creature twisting inside her, she’d understand.
Why should she have three children when you have none?
That’s her good fortune.
She’s one of them—part of the chorus.
Meg isn’t like that.
She’s everything you hate. A smug mummy blogger who is pandered to by advertisers and politicians.
No!
She said an empty cradle was worse than an empty womb. What she meant was “You wouldn’t understand because you’re not a mother.” Arrogant bitch!
Meg is sliding her arms into her coat.
She thinks her experience invalidates yours. She thinks she’s better than you are.
No!
Stop her!
It’s too late.
“I’m going to leave now,” Meg says, holding Ben against her chest. “Thank you for bringing him back.”
I nod. She’s staring at the gun.
“Do you want to say good-bye?”
I shake my head. A single tear rolls down my cheek and falls onto my knuckles where I’m gripping the gun. The small clear teardrop looks like a jeweled bead, magnifying the skin beneath, creating a tiny curved reflection of the ceiling.
Each step takes Meg farther away.
She doesn’t love Rory like you do. She doesn’t know him. Take him back!
I can’t.
Yes, you can. Raise the gun. Pull the trigger. It’s easy.
She reaches the pillar and changes direction, heading towards the stairs.
I look down at the gun. The single tear has rolled along my forefinger and brushed against the trigger.
It is so strange, this life we lead. We search for happiness, but so much is about survival. Existence. We try to manage expectations, but really we’re treading water, wasting time, or contemplating lives we might have led. Pretty soon we’re like every other godless, money-hungry, backstabbing, jaded, jealous human being, wishing we were richer, prettier, younger, luckier, or could do it all over again.
For me there is no such thing as forgetting. I used to see a psychotherapist every week—Nicky’s idea—who told me that I had to take all my negative thoughts and low self-esteem and lock them in a metal box like a pirate’s chest with multiple chains and padlocks. I had to bury this box deep in a desert so big that I could dig for ten thousand years and never find it. I tried to do that, but the memories seeped out like nuclear waste with a half-life that lasts millennia.
No matter how hard I try, the creature will always be with me, skulking at the edges of every clearing, waiting for the fire to burn down or the lights to go off before creeping towards me. I can’t even be sure whether these are my thoughts or if the creature is thinking for me. I don’t know how much of me there is left.
Lowering the gun to my side, I walk slowly across the gallery until I’m standing in front of my favorite painting, Tahiti Revisited, looking at the palm trees and the warm river and the rocky peaks. I remember asking Hayden if one day he might take me there, but that won’t happen now.
Staring into the painting, I imagine myself dissolving into the canvas, appearing on the other side. Three Polynesian women are bathing in the river. Friends or sisters. One is swimming in the water, staring at the sky, while the others dry themselves on the shore, draping towels over a stone carving. The nearest woman has her back to me; her buttocks are heavy, her breasts hidden, her skin tattooed. Slowly, gradually, I imagine my way into her body. I feel the water drying on my skin and the warmth of the sunshine on my shoulders. I glance at the thatched hut in the middle distance and raise my eyes to the rocky peak bathed in light.
A little way off, just out of view, my babies are playing in the crushed coral sand, collecting shells and floating sticks on the tide. All of them are here: Lizzie, Emily, Chloe, and Rory—living in paradise, growing up and growing old, never being cold or hungry or lonely or scared. What is love if not a trick of the light?
Behind me I hear heavy boots on the stairs, but I will not leave my island. I want to smell the tropical flowers, taste the fruit, and feel the sand between my toes. I wade into the warm water, feeling it creep above my knees and thighs . . .
“DROP YOUR WEAPON!” says an amplified voice.
. . . above my chest, up to my shoulders, caressing my skin . . .
“DROP YOUR WEAPON!”
“You mean this old thing?” I say, raising the gun to my temple. “I would never—”
MEGHAN
* * *
We went to mass on Christmas morning, walking across Barnes Green to St. Osmund’s. It’s not that we’ve suddenly become religious or undergone any sort of spiritual conversion, but I wanted to thank Father George and the community for all their prayers and good wishes.
Maybe that’s what Agatha has done for me—she’s given me a reason to believe. I once dismissed faith because I viewed it from an intellectual standpoint, but faith has nothing to do with intellect. Equally, none of the kneeling and muttering of creeds provides any guarantee of contact with God. We can’t register our prayers like a parcel and get a signature on delivery.
After the Christmas service, we walk home, following the same path that we took on the evening of the candlelight vigil, along Church Road to Barnes Green. Jack pushes the pram with Ben while Lachlan and Lucy run ahead.
We’re having Christmas at our place and the house is already full of laughter and torn wrapping paper. My parents are here, along with Grace and her new boyfriend. Simon and Gina have also arrived, laden with presents for the kids.
I’m cooking turkey with all the trimmings: cranberry sauce, roasted chestnuts, brussels sprouts, orange-glazed carrots, pigs in blankets, and roasted potatoes. Brushing a damp hair from my forehead, I smile at Ben, who is sitting in a bassinet on the workbench, watching me make the bread sauce.
They’re playing charades in the sitting room. It’s Lucy’s turn and I know she’s doing Frozen because she does it every time, and Lachlan guesses it first go. He comes running into the kitchen. “Mummy, Mummy, I guessed it, I guessed it!”
“Good for you.” I wipe my hands on my apron. “Come here, sweetie. I want you to open your mouth really wide.”
“Why?”
“I’m just going to rub this cotton swab around your cheek. It won’t hurt.”
He shows me all his teeth and I run the small cotton stick twice across the inside of his cheek before popping it into a plastic tube and screwing on the lid.
“What’s that for?” he asks.
“Good luck,” I say, ruffling his hair. “Do you want some crisps?” I hand him a bowl. “Make sure you share them.”
Later, Simon comes in to see me. I know what he wants to ask. He leans over the bassinet, holding out a finger, which Ben reaches up and clasps tightly.
“That’s some grip,” he says, staring at the baby, trying to see some semblance of self or evidence of paternity.
I take another cotton swab and place it against Ben’s rosebud lips. He opens his mouth automatically and I rub the stick around his cheek. Turning my back on Simon, I palm the swab and hand him the sample I collected earlier from Lachlan.
“Here it is,” I say. “Remember our deal. If he’s yours, I tell Jack the truth. If he’s not yours, you leave us alone. So think carefully before you go ahead and risk my marriage and your friendship.”
“I have thought about it,” says Simon, holding the sample up to the light, as though amazed that something so small and ordinary could wield such power.
