“She left him,” said the man, looking up at me. “She locked him in and left him. What if something had happened to me? How long… ”
I sat down too then, right down on a stranger’s bed, and I could feel the stale close air of a stranger’s bedroom pressing in, the private smell of sleep and worn clothes.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s fine.” He really was too. In fact, the boy was in the best shape out of the three of us, actually, but he’d picked up enough of the feelings in the room to stop bouncing. He was standing still now with the end of the man’s finger in his mouth, looking at him with the same big dark eyes as his sister.
“Are you all right?” The man stretched out his other hand and touched my bare arm where I’d pushed my sleeves up for driving.
“Me?” I said. Yelped, really. “Don’t worry about me! Time like this. God!” And now I put a hand on him. It was a shock to feel him burning through his padded shirt, damp with sweat.
“You need… ” I said. What? He needed his wife back, was what he needed. Nothing that I could give him anyway. “Jeez, you’re roasting.”
“I’m… When she phoned,” he started. He had lowered his head and he was mumbling again. “All I could think was she’d left me. She’d left me. Didn’t even think of trying not to scare Ruby and I forgot-” His throat closed. He cleared it and spoke again. “Until you asked about the nappies. I forgot-” He was trembling.
“You’d had a shock,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I forgot him!” He was whispering. “What kind of dad am I?”
“A brilliant one,” I said. “You remembered the nappies. And you nearly broke the door down getting in here.”
I was trying to help, but what the hell did I know about any of this? Well, truth was, a bit more than I’d want to tell him. Luckily he wasn’t paying attention. He stood, stooped over the cot, and swiped the baby up into his arms. Buried his face into the fat little neck and blew raspberries, just like he had with the girl. The baby kicked against his chest, squealing. I could smell the sour stink of his nappy, overdue for changing.
“A brilliant dad?” he said, but he looked hopeful, like he just needed to hear it maybe one more time.
“For sure.” I tried to sound as definite as could be. “Or she wouldn’t have left them with you, would she?” Which didn’t come out the way I meant it, but he was okay. He nearly smiled.
“Roobs!” he shouted. “What are you doing so quiet through there, you wee monkey?” And he turned and left the room, clomped through the house, still shouting. I could hear her giggling somewhere.
Maybe it was just a fight. Maybe she’d gone round to a friend’s to give him a scare, bring him to his senses, stop him… coming in late or putting his boots on the couch. (Except he’d been wheeling a trolley round M &S, buying figs for the kid.) Or maybe the poor cow was happier in Caul View near her mum or her pals and had just had enough of the cottage-taken off, back by bedtime. (Except she had her own car, so how bad could it be?) Storm in a teacup. Someone needed to get her told about leaving the baby alone, right enough, but there was no harm done, so-
I’d been letting my eyes drift over the cosy mess of the bedroom, being quite brave really, now I knew the big dangers were behind me. The floor was littered with toys and clothes-but boys’ toys, quite safe. The dressing-table top was crowded with bottles and brushes and a row of Playmobil knights in armour ready for battle. I didn’t think much of them and looked away. Something was propped against the mirror. Something that didn’t belong. I stepped closer and read. It wasn’t in an envelope, wasn’t even folded.
I’m sorry, it said. I can’t go through it again. I can’t go on.
Four
“Hi!” he shouted as I slipped into the room. I let my breath go. There wasn’t a kitchen door off the hall. Two bedrooms on one side, bathroom at the back, and just one door opposite. So I knew the kitchen had to be off the living room, no other way to get there. I’d told myself they weren’t the type for those big Ikea couches. I was right; the three-piece suite was black and grey vinyl with red furry cushions. Only, a suite that old-fashioned made me think of a vase of bulrushes dyed different colours, and that made me think of pampas grass, and from pampas grass it wasn’t too far to-
So I sprang to the kitchen door-Jessica Constable: super hero-and slipped through and he shouted “Hi” right at me.
Pretty overwhelming, actually, because the kitchen was small. And his grin was too broad, like his voice was too loud. And his eyes were too wide. What big pain you’re in, Grandmamma. It was about to get worse too.
“Can I have a word?” I said. I had the note behind my back.
“PB &J for dinner!” he shouted. “Yeay!”
“Yeay!” shouted the kids. They were sitting at either end of a tiny table squeezed between the door and the larder-it was that kind of kitchen: no work space at all, but a table crammed in-the boy in a high chair and Ruby kneeling up on a stool, feet tucked under. The baby had a sippy cup, nearly empty, hanging from his mouth, the spout held in his teeth.
“And ice cream!” the man said.
“Yeay!” shouted the baby, letting the cup drop. He started banging his hands flat on the tray of his chair. But it had gone too far for Ruby now. She spoke up in a smaller voice.
“Is Mummy coming back?”
He didn’t answer, was still grinning that awful grin.
“Can I just have a quick word?” I said.
When he followed me back through, I closed the door on the kids and put the note in his hands.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “It was on the dressing table. And her purse was behind it. I mean-I didn’t look, but this is her purse, right?” I handed it over, fat, bulging with cards and receipts. A right mum purse. He unzipped it and I caught sight of a photograph in the plastic bit you put your travel card in if you live in a city. Two babies.
“She didn’t take anything,” he said, flicking though the compartments. Then he put it down and read the note again.
“I think you should call the police,” I told him.
He walked backwards, staring at the paper, until he bumped up against a sideboard-dark wood, but no carvings-and he leaned there.
“Where’s your phone?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, jerking his head up. “She didn’t mean it. She’ll come home.”
“Cos she can’t have had much of a head start, can she? They could look for her car.”
He was shaking his head. He had twisted his hair into a rope-maybe for hygiene, making the sandwiches-but it shook loose again now and he swiped at it. “Listen,” he said. “If I call the police and tell them this and they find her, they’ll take her to hospital.”
“But it sounds like that’s where she needs to be-”
“And she’ll never forgive me. It’ll all be ten times worse. If they find out she left the baby, she might get charged.”
“Not if she’s ill. If her doctor says she’s ill.”
“She won’t see a doctor. I’ve tried. Look, it’s not the first-”
“Daddeee!” A wail from the kitchen. “We’re hungreee! Where’s Mummeee?”
And then the little one started up too.
“Mummeeeeeee!” A peal of sound that rang in your teeth.
“Look,” I said. “I see this at work all the time. People just drowning because they think if they tell, it’ll jump up and bite them. It doesn’t. There’s help. No matter what’s wrong. There’s always help.”
“At work?” he said. “Wheesht, kids! One minute! What do you do, like? Are you a social worker?”
“No! God, no. This is just-just a friendly word.”
“Kids, shut up!” he shouted again. Then he smiled, as best he could. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s just a friend I’m needing.” The next smile was a bit better. “So what’s the name of this new friend then?”