Dear Thing (22 page)

‘I can’t feel anything.’

Oh dear Lord, of course he couldn’t have seen. He had his hand on his friend’s stomach because he wanted to feel his child move. He had no idea he was touching Romily’s deepest desire.

‘It … might take a while before it does it again.’

‘Do you think it might help if I talked to it? They say babies can hear.’

‘I don’t know.’

Ben leaned over so his face was inches from her stomach. His hand stayed where it was. ‘Hello, little dear Thing,’ he said. ‘It’s your daddy speaking.’

His words made caresses of warm air on her skin. She had stretchmarks from Posie there, silvery-white, waiting to blossom again. She didn’t know what was worse: watching
him with his mouth so close to her, or closing her eyes and merely feeling. She wished she’d pulled down her top. She wished she were a million miles away, up a tree somewhere, in a jungle – anywhere so she wouldn’t have to feel the thing she wanted most to feel in the world.

In the beginning, she used to dream about it. Ben would touch her, by mistake maybe, and the two of them would fall together, heedless, starving for each other. The dreams, during waking hours and during sleep, were so vivid that in reality, once he was Claire’s, she kept half a foot’s distance from him at all times. Six inches of clear air. No handshakes, no air-kisses, no embraces when their football team scored a goal.

Through years the dreams had faded. She had been able to be less strict about avoiding casual touches. She had felt safer, protected by the knowledge that he had no idea of what she really wanted.

They had still never touched like this. All alone, in her flat, with Posie asleep.

‘I can’t wait to meet you,’ Ben told the baby inside her. ‘I can’t wait to hold you and kiss you.’ He glanced up at Romily’s face, and she did her best to smile. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, to think that it’s already a little person. But until we see the baby we won’t know who it is.’

‘Funny,’ agreed Romily. Her throat was dry, but she couldn’t make herself move enough to pick up her glass. She wondered if Ben could hear her heart beating.

‘There it is!’ His head shot up, his eyes wide with surprise and awe. ‘The baby moved!’

She hadn’t felt it. ‘The talking must have worked.’

‘Either that or it’s very interested in
A Question of Sport
.’ He addressed her belly. ‘That’s my kid.’

The baby distinctly kicked. Ben laughed.

‘That’s amazing,’ he said. ‘Will it do it any more?’

‘I don’t know.’

He straightened up. ‘I’m not taking my hand off it, then. I don’t want to miss a single bit.’ He arranged himself on the sofa beside Romily, so his arm lay alongside her and his hand stayed spread on her stomach. ‘Is that okay with you?’

Yes. No. ‘It’s your baby.’ She wondered if she should pull down her top, but then that would call attention to the fact that it had been up. That she’d noticed he was touching her naked skin. ‘I’m a little cold though.’

‘Here, then.’ He pulled a flap of her dressing-gown over her stomach and his hand. Which was worse, because now it felt as if he was touching her in secret. Romily swallowed.

‘You’re not going to be sick, are you?’

If she said yes, he would stop. She should say yes and end the torture. ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I seem to be done with the morning sickness now.’

‘Good. I’ll watch this with you and then I’ll go. The baby moved!’ He laughed again and held up his lager. ‘That’s worth a toast.’

She groped for her glass and clinked it with his. ‘To a kicking baby.’

‘I can’t wait to tell Claire.’

Romily took a long, long drink. She tried to focus on the television.

SHE’D REACHED THE
next to last drawer.

Romily stood in the little slope-ceilinged room with its noisy fan and its mothball smell and contemplated the rosewood cabinet. It wasn’t just Amity’s collection that was nearing its end; her funding wasn’t going to last much longer, either. She’d have to look for a new job in the New Year. It might mean commuting to London, maybe, with all the juggling of childcare and school runs that that entailed. It might mean moving herself and Posie away.

Once upon a time she’d pictured herself as an explorer, just like Posie wanted to be. She saw herself tramping through jungles. Discovering a species no one had seen before. Amity had had the same dream, and for years Romily had been living it vicariously through her.

When the project finished she’d have to say goodbye to Amity and go back to real life. Maybe there weren’t any jobs out there, not for single mothers with a PhD in invasive ladybirds who had to work their hours around their childcare. Maybe her future lay in making lattes in Starbucks.

Then again, maybe a move to Brazil would be a good
option. Posie would certainly love it, and it might be best for Romily’s own peace of mind to be far away from Ben.

Romily sighed. Delaying work on drawer No. 71 wasn’t going to solve anything. And to be honest, she was excited about it. She slid the drawer out. It was full of wasps, each one pinned to a tiny label in Amity’s faded handwriting, referring to a catalogue that no longer existed. Faintly she heard the phone in the study room ringing so she brought the drawer downstairs and answered it.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ Hal told her. ‘I’m taking her to the staff kitchen.’

‘Who is—’ she started to say, but Hal had rung off. She made her way down to the staff kitchen. Hal was outside it.

‘I think she has cake,’ he said. He followed her into the kitchen, where Claire was standing holding a flowered tin.

‘Hi,’ Romily said, more than a little surprised.

‘What’s in the tin?’ Hal asked, eyeing it and not going away.

‘I made some cupcakes.’ Claire was looking around the kitchen. She seemed nervous, though she was covering it with a smile.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Hal. ‘We don’t let her bring her horrible dead bugs down here.’

‘Shut up, Hal. Claire, this is my supportive and knowledgeable colleague, Hal Watson, the museum manager. I suspect he wants to get his greasy mitts on your cupcakes.’

‘I like cupcakes.’ He edged closer.

‘Are you fond of bugs too?’ Claire asked him.

‘Give me the creeps. My degree’s in geology.’

‘He prefers dirt,’ said Romily. ‘What brings you here with cupcakes?’

‘Oh, it’s the summer holidays and I have some free time. I
thought you might like these.’ She put the tin on the cleared table and opened it.

It was full of beetles. Hal actually jumped back. Romily leaned forward.

There were a dozen cupcakes, each iced white, each with a beetle on it. Romily picked one up. The Stag Beetle was beautifully executed in icing and liquorice. Its mandibles jutted out and there was even a faint green sheen on its elytra.

‘This is incredible. You made these?’

‘Yes. I … had some spare time, as I said. I found the pictures on the internet. I’m sorry if they’re not very accurate.’

‘For something that’s edible, it’s remarkably correct.’ Romily looked at it from all angles. It smelled delicious, like sugar and vanilla. ‘I thought you hated insects.’

‘It was a good challenge to make them out of icing.’

Hal reached into the tin and took a cupcake with a Tiger Beetle on it. He checked it carefully to make sure it was just decoration before he shoved it into his mouth. ‘Good,’ he said through crumbs and icing.

‘Of course, Hal,’ said Romily, ‘you may have one of the cakes that Claire made especially for me. Thank you,’ she added to Claire, genuinely touched. ‘That’s a really nice thing for you to do.’

‘Oh,’ said Claire, and she smiled and shrugged. ‘I love making cakes.’

Romily bit into her cupcake. Hal was right; it was good. ‘Are you going to have one?’

‘Oh no, not right before lunch. Besides, they’re for you.’

‘Hear that?’ Romily said to Hal, and put the lid on the cupcakes and moved them away from Hal’s hand before he
snatched another one. ‘Actually, do you want to have lunch with me? My treat, to thank you for the cupcakes. The café here has decent sandwiches and homemade soup.’

‘That would be nice.’

‘I’ll look after the cakes,’ said Hal. ‘Lock them away in my drawer. Otherwise these jackals around here will scoff them all.’ He took the tin and bore it away with him.

‘Ben says he felt the baby move,’ Claire said as they went down the twisting stairs.

Romily ducked her head. ‘Er. Yes. It’s a squirmy little thing sometimes.’

‘It’s so exciting. I can’t imagine it.’

‘If it starts up I’ll let you know so you can feel. Before long it’ll be keeping me up at night. I remember Posie used to get the hiccups as soon as I went to bed.’

‘That must feel strange.’

They came out onto the museum floor just as three kids ran past, trailing paper Roman helmets and swords made out of cardboard tubes. There was a reason Romily usually had her lunch at her desk. Still, she didn’t think that Claire would want to share her cheese and pickle sandwich and broken Ryvitas.

‘You must love the summer holidays, as a teacher,’ Romily said. ‘All that spare time.’

‘Yes, well, there’s a bit too much of it sometimes.’ Claire laughed lightly. ‘Ben’s got a lot of work on, so he’s off early and home late. Of course, that’s understandable, and he’d prefer to take the time off while I’m off, but it doesn’t always happen. So I’ve got the house to myself.’

Imagine having time like that. Endless time to sleep if you wanted, or read, or just do nothing. Not having to worry about what to feed a child or how to keep it entertained or
about doing the laundry at the last minute because nobody had any pants or socks clean. And all that big house to wander around in, bright and beautifully decorated, knowing that when you were asleep, your husband would slip into bed beside you.

‘Wait till you have the baby,’ Romily said. ‘You won’t even have enough time to use the toilet.’

‘I can’t imagine,’ Claire said again. They reached the café. During term time it was filled with the staid murmur of pensioners but today it was pandemonium. The kids with helmets and swords massed around the big tables in the corner, their parents shouting at each other over the noise. Three tables under the window were taken up by a gang of mothers and babies. Prams barricaded them in, along with a litter of bottles and baby-wipes and small plastic containers of baby-approved snacks.

There was a single table in the middle that was free except for two empty cups. ‘Shall we—’ began Romily, pointing at it, but then she saw Claire’s face.

She’d gone pale; her blue eyes had tight lines around them and she was gnawing, worrying at her lower lip. Her hands clutched the strap of her bag. Romily followed her gaze to a woman inside the pram barricade who had draped her baby over her shoulder and was rubbing its back. The baby’s face was visible: milk-drunk eyes, pouted mouth, peg of a chin.

‘On second thoughts,’ Romily said, ‘it’s too noisy to hear ourselves think in here. Let’s go somewhere else.’

‘Yes,’ said Claire. She sounded grateful. ‘Let’s.’

Only when they reached the pavement outside did Claire release her death grip on her handbag.

‘You must hate me,’ said Romily.

‘Sorry? No, of course not. Why would I hate you?’

‘Because you want to be pregnant like me. You want to have a baby of your own. And you tried so hard for so many years and then I push the plunger on a syringe of sperm – and whoops! There I am, knocked up. And then you send me all this lovely food and gifts to help me feel better, to show there’s no hard feelings, and I take it as a criticism and throw it in your face.’

‘I’m grateful to you,’ said Claire.

‘Then you’re a better person than I am. Does it … is it hard every time you see a baby?’

Claire was silent and Romily was afraid she’d offended her. ‘It won’t always be this way,’ Claire said at last. ‘It’ll be much easier once this baby is born and I can hold it.’

‘I think you’re very brave.’

‘No. Not brave. It’s just coping. Haven’t you ever wanted something and not been able to have it?’

‘I … oh look, here’s a pub.’ They went inside. The scent of beer wasn’t too bad; they stood at the bar and took menus. ‘I wanted to travel the world,’ said Romily. ‘But I had a baby instead.’

‘You can do it when she’s grown.’

‘At this point, it looks like Posie’s going to do it for me. It isn’t as difficult for Ben to see babies, is it?’

‘It’s not his failure.’ Claire gazed down at her menu, and Romily thought the topic was finished. But then she said, ‘I did hate you.’

Romily put down her menu.

‘That was why I didn’t come and see you at first,’ said Claire. ‘I was jealous. I’m not proud of it.’

‘You shouldn’t be jealous of me. My life is a mess.’

‘I don’t think you can truly be jealous of someone you understand,’ said Claire. ‘And I can see that you’ve been
struggling too. Posie’s father, and all those big decisions. Your life hasn’t turned out exactly how you’d planned it either. But that’s okay.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, the cupcakes were to say all that. I’m sorry I hated you. You didn’t deserve it.’

Romily felt her cheeks flushing. ‘It’s all right. I don’t blame you.’

‘In the end,’ said Claire, ‘I think we want the same things.’

That night, alone in her bed, with the baby quiet inside her and her daughter asleep next door, Romily took out her green notebook. She opened to a blank page.

DON’T LOVE BEN LAWRENCE,
she wrote. Again and again, down the entire page, as if writing it could make it come true.

DON’T LOVE BEN LAWRENCE.

CLAIRE COULD HARDLY
believe that this picture here on the screen in front of her was of her baby. Snub nose, delicate, intricate spine, legs curled up to fit into the womb.

‘The baby seems so big,’ she whispered. Ben took her hand in the darkened room and they gazed at this window into Romily’s body.

‘It looks like a little person already, doesn’t it?’ he said.

‘At twenty weeks, Baby’s about the size of a banana,’ said the technician cheerfully. ‘The measurements look good. Everything looks good. Would you like to know what the sex is?’