An Enormous Yes (19 page)

‘By the way, Mum,’ Amy said, throwing a crust for the pigeons, which were now flocking round their feet, ‘the midwife said I should be thinking about my birth-plan, but I’m confused by all the options. What did
you
do, when you had me?’

‘There were no such things as birth-plans then. You just lay on your back and did what you were told!’ She forbore to mention how completely unprepared she’d been for the extremes of pain and ensuing waves of panic that had rollercoastered through her body, along with the contractions, or
with the added stress of being left alone for such long and frightening periods. Her mother had been banished and, since the hospital was
understaffed
, her screams and writhings went largely unobserved. In the end, she had lost control entirely and become near-hysterical, until the strict,
censorious
matron shamed her into silence.

‘To tell the truth, I rather envy you your choices, Amy – birthing-pools and birthing-balls and being allowed to walk around and even listen to music.’
And
, she didn’t add, a loving, supportive husband permitted to be present and expected to play an active part throughout. ‘And all those new developments in pain relief.’

‘Yes, but it’s still hard to make up your mind. I mean, I’m tempted to go for an epidural, but apparently they can slow your labour down, or give you a raging headache, or leave you with backache afterwards, and I certainly don’t fancy any of that. Still—’ She shrugged ‘—let’s not discuss it now. I need a break from all the baby stuff.’ She fed her last crust to a squirrel, tame enough to take it from her hand.

‘Hey, remember that picnic Grandma brought for my Cambridge
graduation
, when I’d already booked a restaurant? I don’t think she ever forgave me for spurning her home-made pasties and cheese scones. But after your long journey, they were decidedly the worse for wear.’

‘She was so excited, though. We were both just bursting with pride. No one we knew had ever got into Oxbridge, let alone won a scholarship. I don’t know where you got the genes from.’

‘Silas?’ Amy suggested, reaching for an apple.

Maria didn’t contradict her. Having always stressed Silas’s intellectual gifts, she had no intention of denying them now. All at once, she rummaged in the carrier she was using as a handbag, removed a small brown envelope and withdrew from it a photograph – an old black-and-white one,
crisscrossed
with strips of yellowed Sellotape. ‘Amy, there’s something I want to show you, but I’m not sure if I should or not. I mean, it might upset you, which I’d hate.’

‘What
is
it, for heaven’s sake?’

Still Maria hesitated, before finally blurting out, ‘The only photo of Silas I possess.’

‘But you always said you didn’t have any,’ Amy said, indignantly.

‘I know. I’m really sorry. But I didn’t feel I could share it with you because I’d … I’d ripped it into pieces – you know, after he and I went our separate ways. But I’d barely finished tearing it up when I realized how precious it was, so I rescued it from the waste-bin and stuck it up again.’

Maria was still holding it, face down, on her lap, but Amy leaned across and took it. As she stared in silence at the handsome profile, the long dark hair and blazingly black eyes, she suddenly burst into tears.

‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I should have kept it private. I’ve been agonizing for ages about what was best to do, but when you said last night that now you’d never know what your father even looked like, I decided—’

‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Amy sobbed. ‘It’s just that he seems so … so special and I can’t bear the thought of never having met him.’

Maria’s guilt was so great there was nothing she could say. It was
her
fault Amy had no father,
her
fault Silas had refused to see his daughter, and the fractured state of the photo seemed to symbolize the relationship itself.

‘It’s worse for you, though,’ Amy said, wiping her eyes on the
handkerchief
. ‘I don’t know how I’d manage being pregnant without Hugo around to help – let alone through all the years to come of being parents – yet you did it on your own.’

‘Oh, I didn’t, Amy. Grandma was there from day one. And, considering what a strict Catholic she was, it’s a wonder she didn’t show me the door. You can’t imagine just how shameful it was to have a baby out of wedlock. One girl I knew miscarried and her family said it was the best thing that could have happened.’

‘OK, give Grandma her due but, whatever you say, a mother’s not the same as a husband. And, anyway, to have to lose a man like this …’ Amy was still gazing at Silas’s proud, alluring face. ‘He looks every inch the poet.’

Again, Maria failed to correct her. Some untruths were merciful.

‘Oh, I realize he was about to go abroad and couldn’t cope with a marriage and child, but even so …’ Amy retrieved her apple, as yet uneaten. ‘I just hope he didn’t leave you penniless.’

‘No,’ Maria lied. She had often wondered, since that time, if she should have taken a much tougher line. After all, he expected her to go through with an abortion, so shouldn’t he have tried a little harder to raise the wherewithal to pay for it? That cash would have helped her mother with the expense of an out-of-work daughter and of a newborn baby without a cot or pram to its name. But to take money under false pretences would have been a truly serious sin, resulting in an avalanche of guilt. Besides, she was so far from being tough back then, the question was purely academic.

‘Can I keep the photo, Mum?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Extraordinary that she should feel a pang at parting with it, yet, in light of her visit to Lewisham, this tiny, mutilated snapshot seemed the only remaining evidence that she had once loved a handsome poet, once been muse and mistress to a man of genius.

‘And we’d better make a move. It’s half past one already, but if we walk on to the Old Brompton Road, I can take a taxi back to the office and drop you off first at home.’

‘No, I’m coming with you, right to the door of your office. This morning’s been quite stressful for you, so you need your mum to hold your hand, OK?’

‘OK. And listen, Mum – thanks for everything, including having
had
me in the first place. That took courage, I bet.’

Yes, she thought, gigantic courage.

‘Goodbye, darling. Try not to stay too late.’

With a final wave, Amy shut her office door, leaving Maria to retrace her steps, back along the corridor, hung with expensive modern art. Then she took the mirrored lift again, down to the spacious reception area. She had been here only once before and had felt much the same unease at being in so daunting a place, with its marble floor, steel-and-glass coffee table and weirdly angled ultra-modern chairs. And no wonder Amy had to dress so well, when even the receptionist resembled a fashion model. She slunk past the snooty female, trying to make herself invisible. No one old or shabby or down-at-heel should surely be admitted to MacKendrick, Lowe and Partners.

As she walked briskly back to the house, her mind was still preoccupied with the problem of her handbag. She desperately needed money yet couldn’t withdraw it without a bank card. Even getting back from Lewisham had proved something of an ordeal. She’d had to plead with the ticket collector to let her through without her travel pass, and repeat the exercise at Charing Cross. In fact, that second time, she’d actually broken down in tears before the chap relented. Mercifully, she always kept a spare £10 note in her flat, so now she had a small reserve of cash, but after today’s expenses that was already down to a mere £4.35. Should she return to Silas’s flat this very minute and ring his bell so loud and long he’d be forced to open up from sheer annoyance? No, that would only alienate him more.

Once home, she walked miserably up to her flat, although the sight of her mini-studio did lift her spirits slightly. A battered junk-shop trolley now held her art supplies – most of them gifts from Felix. She had graded the brushes by size in a row of empty jam-jars and arranged the tubes of paint side by side in an old cigar-box, while her bottles of solvent and varnish stood on the shelf above. She relished the fact that the place now looked professional and even smelled the same as Felix’s studio. Poor pregnant Amy found the smells abhorrent, but to her they were consoling.

She picked up the finest sable brush, recalling the exquisite sensations when he had touched its tip against her nipples, then stroked her bush with the bristles of a badger-brush. Tomorrow, they would be making love again, immediately after the class – Felix had an engagement in the later
afternoon
. But, however pushed for time he was, maybe they could spend five or ten minutes, at least, working out a way to retrieve her missing bag.

Unable to settle to any painting, she went downstairs again, having decided to do some ironing for her daughter. It was pathetic to think that a few nicely ironed blouses or tea towels could compensate for Amy’s lack of a father; nonetheless, she felt the need to make some tiny gesture.

As she was setting up the ironing board, the phone extension in the kitchen rang. She was about to let it click through to the answerphone, as Amy and Hugo preferred, when, suddenly, she heard Silas’s voice, leaving a garbled message.

Racing over, she snatched up the receiver. ‘Silas, I’m
here
! Don’t ring off, I beg you. I must collect my bag. I’m completely lost without it.’

‘Calm down – your bag’s quite safe. In fact, I’m glad you left it behind, because otherwise I wouldn’t have found your phone number and I need to speak to you.’

‘Well, shall I come and fetch it right away, then we can talk in person?’

‘Look, forget the bag for a moment. What I’ve rung to say is that I’m sorry if I overreacted yesterday.’

Sorry
? Could she be hearing right? Silas had never apologized for anything in all the years she had known him.

‘But what you don’t understand is that Wednesday was a truly dreadful day for me. In fact, you couldn’t have chosen a worse time to come. You see, when I got up that morning, I discovered a lump in my groin and
immediately
assumed the worst.’

‘Oh, Silas, how ghastly! But why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

‘Well, however crazy it may sound, I felt that if I spelled out my fears to you, I’d make them a reality. And one part of me was still clinging to the hope that it might not
be
a tumour. All the same, I worked myself into such a state, I finally took to my bed, which is why, when you rang my bell, I didn’t answer straightaway. Anyway, this morning I saw my GP and he told me the lump was a hernia and therefore totally benign. It will have to be repaired, he said, but there’s no urgency about the operation and – far more important – no sign of the cancer returning. I was so relieved, I was able to eat, the first time since Tuesday evening.’

‘That’s really good news, Silas. In fact, if I came round now, we could have a drink to celebrate.’

‘No, I’m afraid I’m due for an eye test in an hour. Anyway, I haven’t finished yet, so will you listen, please? While I was sitting over lunch just now, I got to thinking that maybe I’d been too harsh – not just yesterday, but when you were pregnant, all those years ago. And it struck me, all of a sudden, that you were the only person who ever really cared.’

What about Camilla, she wondered, the gorgeous girl who’d supported him and housed him, stuck it out for ten whole years? ‘Well, yes, I did care, Silas, and I’m glad you haven’t forgotten. But about my bag,’ she persisted, as he clearly didn’t realize how inconvenienced she was without it. ‘Could I fetch it after your eye test?’

‘Sorry – I’ll be too tired. This last day and a half has been the most
god-awful
strain and I’m ready to collapse. But how about tomorrow lunchtime?’

Tomorrow lunchtime was her life class, not to mention the post-class sex, and Felix was annoyed enough with Silas as it was. But perhaps she could go to Lewisham first thing in the morning. No – she had offered to visit Chloe then and would hate to let her down.

‘I’m no great shakes at cooking, but I could buy a pizza or something and we could discuss the whole issue of your daughter.’

‘You mean you’ve changed your mind?’ she asked, incredulous.

‘Let’s put it this way – I have what I hope is a good idea.’

‘Can’t you tell me now?’ she pleaded, daring to feel a grain of hope.

‘I’d rather explain it face to face, so why don’t you come for lunch tomorrow, as I suggested in the first place? I’ll expect you about half past twelve, OK?’

He hadn’t lost his former dominance, she noted, yet if there was the slightest chance of Amy meeting her father before it was too late, she couldn’t afford to argue about dates or days or times. So, putting aside all thoughts of life-drawing and love-making, she accepted with a resolute, ‘OK!’

‘I
’
M SORRY
, M
ARIA
, I’ve been moaning on for hours and you’re probably sick and tired of me. But at least you understand now why I feel such a hopeless failure. I mean, first I lose Simon and then I’m useless with Sam. Every time I go to the hospital and see his pathetic little body, I just can’t stop crying – which is no help to him or anyone. The nurses like me to talk to him, so he gets to know my voice, but all I seem to do is bawl my eyes out.’

Edging closer on the immaculate dove-grey sofa, Maria reached for Chloe’s hand – although tentatively, as they were still comparative strangers to each other. ‘You mustn’t be so hard on yourself. It’s only natural to cry – any mother would. And, remember, you’ve been through a huge upheaval and suffered a terrible loss. Heaven knows,
I
was blubbing all the time, after Amy was born, and with far less reason than you.’

‘Honestly, Maria?’

‘Believe me, I was a complete and utter mess. But it does get better, I promise. This is the very worst time for you, Chloe, because you’re not only grieving for Simon, you’re bleeding and sore and scarred, and still reeling from the shock of all that’s happened to your mind and body.’

A shock manifest in Chloe’s whole appearance: her eyes puffy from fatigue, her expression one of defeat, and even her posture awkward, presumably reflecting the pain of the Caesarean. ‘Many women in your position would simply have collapsed, yet here you are, up and dressed and functioning.’

‘I’m not sure about the functioning.’ Chloe managed a weak smile. ‘You see, when I’m with Sam, I keep feeling I’m not coming up to scratch. I’m meant to continue expressing my milk, but I’ve come to detest using that damn breast pump. It’s not just uncomfortable, it reminds me all the time that I can’t feed Sam myself.’

‘But you will eventually – once he’s strong enough to go home. And,
meanwhile, think of the good it’s doing him, even with the pump.’ She had no intention of admitting her own sense of failure when it came to
breast-feeding
: the sore, cracked, swollen nipples, the tears streaming down her face – and the baby’s – as she wept in pain and frustration. And her mother’s obvious embarrassment about so intimate a subject had prevented them discussing it at all.

‘You need to give yourself a few pats on the back for coping so well in such a difficult situation. You see, it’s important that you keep strong enough and well enough to make those daily visits. And don’t worry if you cry. The crucial thing is that Sam knows you’re there and can feel your touch.’

‘Hell, I should be with him now!’ Chloe glanced at the mantel-clock: an elaborate antique one, with two gilded shepherdesses supporting an ornate dial. ‘I’d no idea how late it was.’ She stood up slowly and stiffly, as if she had aged a decade during the last few weeks. ‘I’m usually at the hospital by ten and it’s almost quarter to eleven.’

‘Right, off you go, but try not to rush and tear. And,’ Maria added, getting up herself, ‘if there’s anything I can do, you only have to say. Amy reckons I’m a dab hand at housework and ironing, so I could run round the house with the Hoover while you’re at the hospital, or iron Nicholas’s shirts and stuff. Or, if you’d both like a few dinners cooked, I can rustle them up in Amy’s kitchen, then come back later and put them in your freezer.’

‘You’re an angel, Maria, honestly, but there’s no need for any of that. Nicholas belongs to Shirt-Express, so they take care of his laundry, and we’ve signed up to a catering service, which delivers home-cooked meals each day. And, as for housework, our cleaner comes in daily. In fact, she should be here any minute.’

Maria felt almost foolish for having imagined such a wealthy couple would actually iron shirts, scrub floors or toil over a hot stove. Yet she was well aware that, for all their money, Nicholas and Chloe still faced a raft of pressures unknown to her at their age – or indeed, at any age: the necessity to look super-gorgeous, super-slim and super-groomed, to pursue
super-successful
careers, and possess super-stylish homes. All that took its toll. Indeed, earlier in their conversation, Chloe had been fretting about the weight she had gained in pregnancy, and saying she couldn’t imagine ever feeling fit enough to return to her demanding job, even when Sam was back from hospital and the full-time nanny ensconced.

‘Thanks for everything, Maria, including those croissants and peaches. I know I wouldn’t have bothered with breakfast if you hadn’t actually put
them down in front of me! I’m just sorry I was in such a state when you first arrived.’

‘Don’t worry. Amy told me you were feeling low.’

‘She’s jolly lucky to have a live-in grandma,’ Chloe observed, as they walked to the front door together. ‘
My
mother’s a top barrister and so
high-powered
she’s almost too busy to see us, let alone stay and lend a hand. And Nicholas’s poor mother has been or less inoperative since she had her stroke.’

‘Well, I can pop in any time you like and when Sam’s well enough maybe you’d let me take him out in his pram. After all, I need some practice with babies.’

‘I’d love that, Maria. In fact, you can be his honorary grandma, if you like.’

Maria gave her a hug, feeling mingled apprehension and excitement at the prospect of a relationship with
two
babies. At twenty-eight weeks, Amy’s child had an 85 per cent chance of surviving even it if were born today and, by its due date of 16 August, Sam would be over three months old and, with any luck, a strong and healthy child. Perhaps she could bring her grandchild to Chloe’s in its carrycot and wheel both babies round Regent’s Park. She had already noticed the elegant twin-pram parked, sadly, in the hall.

Once she had left the house and set out towards the tube, her mind returned to Simon’s tragic death, and to the item on the news last week, claiming the UK was a far riskier place for childbirth than most other
first-world
countries. Even if her grandchild was delivered alive and well, she still worried about how Amy would cope with the pressures Chloe was facing: the shock of the birth itself, the problems around breast-feeding, the constant pull between home and work and – most daunting of all – the frightening sense of responsibility for a new and fragile life, a responsibility so fiercely compelling it was as if the umbilical cord had never been cut. Sometimes, as a young mother, she had felt overwhelmed by the sheer temerity of having brought another person into the world, when that person faced the all-too-human risks of illness, addiction, depravity and despair.

In fact, the visit to Chloe had been sobering altogether and, although she was more than willing to help – indeed, ached to lessen Chloe’s grief, she just had to clear her mind before the all-important lunch with Silas. It was essential that it didn’t prove as disastrous as her first visit, so she decided to take a walk until it was time to leave for Lewisham. Perhaps today’s serene and sunny weather would dispel her gloom and even leave her calm and well prepared.

Silas removed the pizza from the microwave and placed it on the stained Formica worktop. ‘But what you never understood, Maria, is why I didn’t want kids.’

‘Yes, I did.’ She was standing against the wall, since there was barely room for the two of them in the cramped and gloomy kitchen. ‘You valued your freedom and hated being tied down. And you had plans to go abroad and—’

‘Yes, all that—’ He gave an impatient wave of the oven-cloth ‘—but something else I never divulged, although it was the main reason, actually. You see, my own childhood was so wretched, I vowed when I was just sixteen never to inflict that level of misery on anybody else. Safer not to have children if you couldn’t guarantee them a decent sort of life. And, to put it frankly, I wasn’t sure I could ever give any such guarantee.’

She stared at him, astonished. This was a very different Silas, concerned about others rather than himself. ‘So what happened in your childhood? Weren’t your parents there?’

‘Oh, they were there all right, but useless. My father was a drinker and my mother suffered appalling bouts of depression. And, being the only child, I bore the brunt of my father’s rages and my mother’s constant
mood-swings
. But I’d rather not go into it. It was such a painful time, what’s the point of raking it all up again? All I’ll say is that it changed the way I regarded family life, which for me became abhorrent.’

She was not only jolted by the revelation; she also began to wonder if
she
had been as self-absorbed as him, by failing ever to consider that his
intransigent
adult character might have been forged by a traumatic childhood. Yet, mingled with her sympathy was a worry about the genes he might pass on to Amy’s child: alcoholism, mood-swings and depression.

‘Anyway, the pizza’s getting cold, so we’d better have our lunch.’ He cut two large slices and placed them on mismatched plates, which he carried into the sitting-room. He appeared to have no table, so they had to eat on their laps, and the only drink on offer was plain tap-water. His poverty distressed her, especially the contrast with her own situation: living in a house with a well-stocked wine cellar and a table seating twelve. Yet at least he had made an effort in sprucing up the flat. All Wednesday’s clutter had disappeared and he, too, looked distinctly smarter, in a clean white shirt and decent tailored trousers. She was still surprised, however, by how
conventionally
he dressed these days, compared with in the past.

When she came to think of it, though, she too had changed in that
respect. Her natural inclination back then had been to go for drably muted clothes, to avoid attracting any attention to herself. Yet, here she was, in her sixties, wearing a multi-coloured velvet top and eye-catching earrings, set with glittery fake stones – both charity-shop purchases, and both due to Felix’s influence. He encouraged her to dress with panache and actually liked her to stand out in a crowd – the very opposite of how she had been in her youth. Her mind leapfrogged to the life class – the tuition she was missing; the sense of camaraderie with her lively fellow students; the kick it gave her to imagine their astonishment were they to see her, afterwards, disporting naked in the tutor’s bed.

‘It’s a good thing I like pizzas,’ Silas remarked, with a wry smile. ‘They’re usually two-for-one, and a couple last me for at least six meals, so you could say they’re my staple diet.’

‘And this one’s delicious,’ she said, politely, forcing her attention back to the food. In fact, bought-in pizzas were hardly economical, compared with cooking from scratch – and hardly healthy, either. Just as well she had brought some fruit for dessert, since she doubted if he could afford his
five-a
-day, even cheap, from a market. She was also struck by his cultural poverty. Where were the books, the records, which, even without a
permanent
home, he had lugged from one friend’s pad to the next? And where were the challenging views on movies, music, theatre, art? So far, they had talked of little save the deficiencies of the NHS and the dire state of the economy. Yet, however narrow his present outlook, she acknowledged the debt she owed him in having widened her horizons and hugely stretched her mind. Without him, she might never have been introduced to a whole wealth of new opinions, provocative philosophies, daring writers, way-out jazz.

‘Well,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair, having finished his pizza slice, ‘I asked you here to tell you my idea, so maybe now’s the time.’

She looked up, encouragingly, determined to respond as positively as possible to whatever he might say.

‘To put it in a nutshell, I’ve been reconsidering this business of our daughter. I admit I overreacted and allowed the past to carry too much weight. I should have moved on from my childhood by now, considering how long ago it was.’

She smiled approvingly. The obdurate Silas of Wednesday had changed beyond recognition. And the fact he had used the phrase ‘our daughter’ was nothing short of a miracle. ‘So would you be willing to meet her? Of course, we’d make it as easy as possible – both come
here
, so you wouldn’t have to travel, and choose a day and time to suit you.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want just one meeting.’

‘Oh, Silas!’ she exclaimed, incredulous yet jubilant. ‘Are you actually saying you want to be part of her life?’

‘No, that’s not quite what I mean.’ He looked up and met her gaze. His emphatically dark eyes seemed to have burned two holes in the ashes of his face. ‘I want
you
to be part of
my
life.’

Confused, she failed to catch his drift. Perhaps she hadn’t heard right, on account of the noise from the flat above. Someone had started hammering and the sound echoed through the ceiling.

‘You see,’ he said, raising his voice to compete with it, ‘yesterday evening, I began thinking back to those years we spent together and I realized they were the happiest of my life.’

Happiest? He had seemed anything but happy at that time; rather
impatient
and belligerent – not to her, admittedly, but towards the world in general.

He reached out a hand towards her – an old man’s hand, swollen and blue-veined. ‘Oh, I know it all went wrong because of the baby, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t start again. And things would be easier this time, because we wouldn’t need to keep shifting from pillar to post, as we did when we were young. If you moved into my flat, at least we’d have a place to call our own. And we’d both have our pensions, of course, and …’

She was rendered all but speechless by so preposterous a notion. He was indulging in total fantasy – further depressing proof of his total self-
absorption
. Clearly, he hadn’t given the slightest consideration to
her
viewpoint in this plan; that she might already have a relationship, for instance, or already made her own plans for the future. And how could he fail to see that the prospect of giving up a stylish and substantial house to move into a tiny flat with a man not far off eighty and facing a likely death sentence wasn’t wildly attractive?