‘Can you get away early? I’m locked out and no one with a spare key is home.’
Ray gave an exasperated sigh. Like getting locked out was some irritating habit I had developed just to annoy him.
‘Or we could all just sit on the step until you get back – it doesn’t look like rain,’ I prodded.
‘I’ll leave now,’ he replied, still an edge of tension in his tone. I didn’t mind. While he was bound up with his own reaction to my inconvenient demands, he wouldn’t pick out anything odd in my voice. I was afraid the stress was leaking out down the phone-wire. A gush of anxiety to match the gnawing sensation in my belly. If we kept talking surely it was only a matter of time before he’d pause and ask: ‘Is everything all right?’
I ended the call. ‘Thanks, see you soon.’
Ray has a lowly job in advertising now and it’s a fairly flexible set-up as long as he delivers the goods. We used to be platonic housemates – two single parents, a child apiece, but in the last few months we’d become lovers, to the amusement of our long-standing friends and acquaintances, my own astonishment and the despair of his mother. She had always been convinced we were sleeping together when we weren’t and never missed a chance to run me down. When Ray did get seriously involved with his last girlfriend, Laura, I couldn’t put a foot wrong as far as Nana Tello was concerned. But now she was back to being waspish and contrary. I was an inadequate woman with low morals and was seducing her precious son for my own ends. I was a gold-digger. I was a career woman neglecting her child to indulge in her own selfish pleasure. I was a vegetarian with all the lack of moral fibre that implied. She couched her criticisms in subtler ways when I was present, and Ray never passed on her spiky comments to me, but I had seen her in action when Laura was on the scene – I knew how it worked.
Anyway, I didn’t tell Ray about the baby over the phone. I didn’t have the words. It’s the sort of thing you need to see with your own eyes, really. And before he arrived I wanted to decide what on earth I was going to do about it.
TWO
Maddie stopped in her tracks halfway across the playground. Then she hurtled towards me, the scowl that she usually wore after school melting away, her mouth hanging open.
‘A baby,’ she breathed. She thrust her lunch box at me, never shifting her eyes from the infant. She crouched beside the buggy, scrutinizing the sleeping child intently.
‘See its nose.’ She turned and looked up at me. ‘It is so tiny.’
‘What’s that?’ Tom asked as he joined us. At such a crass question, Maddie would normally have fired off a put-down with all the sarcasm an eight-year-old could muster, but she was entranced.
‘A baby,’ I told him. ‘I’m looking after him for his mum.’
As I’d neared the school gates I’d worked on my cover story. I didn’t know what sex the child was; the white clothes were neutral, ditto the yellow blanket. The buggy was a dove-grey and white design. But the change bag was blue and white stripes so I used that slim clue to christen him as a boy. I’d never bothered colour-coding Maddie when she was little. I liked the notion that people would treat her like a male child – and therefore not constrict her sense of adventure and physical boldness. According to the studies of the time, this was what happened. My attempt at social engineering hadn’t been much of a success. Maddie developed into a timid girl, easily unnerved and prone to all sorts of fears. Not quite the little Amazon I‘d envisaged.
‘What’s his name?’ Tom gave the little creature a few friendly pats on the head. I winced, expecting the baby to wake, but it just gave a shudder and fluted its mouth.
‘Jamie,’ I ad-libbed.
‘Can I push him?’ Maddie straightened up.
‘I want a go, too,’ Tom jumped in.
‘You can take turns.’
They pushed the buggy back according to a strictly-timed rota, Maddie taking elaborate care over kerbs and uneven sections in the pavement, even though the rugged design meant the vehicle could cope with rough terrain. Tom went as fast as he dared and executed a few emergency stops, a wheelie and the buggy equivalent of a fishtail spin. The infant slept on.
Ray was home when we arrived. He opened the front door, spotted the new addition and raised his eyebrows.
‘He’s called Jamie.’ Tom was all excitement, his eyes bright as he raced to tell his dad the news before anyone else. ‘Sal’s looking after him. He doesn’t cry or anything.’
‘What, never?’ Ray said wryly. He looked at me, puzzled. ‘You didn’t say anything.’
‘I’ll explain later,’ I said quickly, echoing the words on the note in my pocket.
Digger, our ageing dog, strode into the hall, gave an uncertain bark and retreated back into the kitchen. Craven.
Jamie opened his eyes; they were hazel coloured. He began to twist his head this way and that, making little creaky cries.
‘He must be hungry.’ I grabbed the bottle and baby milk from under the buggy and held it out to Ray. ‘Can you do a bottle?’
He was speechless for a moment. I gave a grin; I don’t think it was a convincing one – sickly, probably. Anyway, Ray took the bottle and the tin of formula, grunted and went into the kitchen.
Jamie’s cries were increasing in volume and Tom pulled a face in dismay. Maddie put her hands over her ears. ‘Will he stop when he’s had his bottle?’
‘Yes.’ I hoped so. I undid the straps and lifted him up. He smelt of milk and some sort of fragrance, perhaps shampoo or washing powder, and faintly of smoke. He complained loudly as I unzipped the all-in-one and Maddie and Tom sloped off into the lounge. Jamie was wearing a lemon Babygro covered in grey teddy bears. He had a cap of fine dark hair, a longer spray of it at the front. I put him up against my left shoulder and jiggled him around, patting his back as I walked to the kitchen. There was a moment’s hiatus and I thought the motion had worked, but then he started again, louder than ever. Digger got to his feet with a whine and left the room.
Ray handed me the bottle and I sat down on the rocking chair by the kitchen window. The old house has large windows which make it feel light and airy. The rocking chair, with its view out into the back garden, is one of my favourite places to sit.
‘Other way,’ Ray shouted and gestured as I offered the teat to the baby, whose bawling had reached desperate proportions. I’d breastfed Maddie so didn’t really know my way around a feeding bottle, whereas Ray had raised Tom on his own and had done it all before. The teat looked enormous and was asymmetrical. I twisted the bottle about and slipped it into the baby’s mouth. The crying stopped mid-squeal and relief flooded through me; my shoulders dropped and I took a deep breath, savouring the peace.
The baby tugged away, his eyes greeny-brown, the colour of river water, fixed on my face. Maddie and Tom gravitated back into his orbit. Now they wanted a go at feeding him but I wouldn’t interrupt the baby. ‘Maybe later,’ I told them, ‘when he’s used to us.’
‘How long’s he here?’ Maddie’s voice rose with the thrill of it all.
‘Not sure, probably a day or two.’ I avoided Ray’s gaze. He knew something weird was going on.
‘Is he sleeping in our room?’ Tom looked anxious – ears still hurting, no doubt.
‘No, in mine,’ I assured him. Ray and I still had separate bedrooms and it seemed to suit us. We were each used to having our own space and our new status as lovers hadn’t led either of us to want to relinquish that.
Jamie had nearly emptied the bottle when he paused, his face creased and flushed dark red. A loud farting, bubbling sound came from his bottom.
‘That is so gross!’ Tom yelled.
‘I can smell it – yuk,’ Maddie chipped in.
‘Wait till we take his nappy off.’