Dear Thing (33 page)

‘This is strange,’ said Ben. ‘It’s awful.’

Since he’d said it, she couldn’t agree with it, even though it was what she’d been thinking too. She’d been the one to kick him out, after all.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I can’t stay at the George for ever. The breakfast is horrible.’

It was meant to be a little joke. It would be so easy to smile.

‘I could come back here,’ he said. ‘If you wanted. It doesn’t feel right without you. Please let me come back, Claire. I love you. This thing with Romily … I said it all
wrong. I was taken by surprise. I didn’t mean what I said about an affair being more honest. I wouldn’t have an affair with her. It never even occurred to me. It’s you that I love.’

‘But you do have feelings for her.’

‘They don’t count. I swear to you, they don’t.’

‘What if you had to choose between me, or Romily and the baby?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s her baby. She wants to keep it.’

‘She does?’

She had thought he looked just the same. But at that, he changed. He became somehow less, as if something inside him, something holding him up, had collapsed.

‘I didn’t know that. She said that she wants to keep it? She said that to you?’

‘She wrote it in the letters.’

‘What did she say? Do you remember, exactly?’

‘She wrote that she was in love with him, with the baby. That he was her baby who was meant to be. Half her and half of the man she loves.’

‘And when you asked her about it she said—’

‘She didn’t deny it. How could she give him up if she loves him?’

‘If she says she’ll give the baby to us, she will,’ Ben said. But his voice was shaky.

‘I don’t see how she could. She wrote it all down. It was how she really felt.’

‘It’s a boy?’ Ben said. ‘Is it a boy? Does she know?’

‘They must have told her when she had the scan after her fall. She never showed us the photo.’

‘I have a son,’ he said quietly.

‘Who would you choose?’ she asked him again. ‘I need to
know, Ben. If she keeps the baby, who would you choose?’

‘I can’t choose between my wife and my son.’

‘So you’d choose to be with her and the baby.’

‘Don’t make me choose,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

It was so wrong to see him hurting and not go to him, not hold him.

‘Then you’ve already chosen,’ she said.

‘Romily? Why can’t we see Ben and Claire this weekend?’

‘I think they’re busy, Pose.’

‘But we haven’t seen them since last week. And Claire promised to play me some more ballet music. I’ve been practising.’

‘I know you have. You look very graceful. I’m proud of you. It’s your turn to deal.’

‘I’m bored with this game.’

‘We can go to the park if you want.’

‘Is Jarvis coming?’

‘I think he’s busy, too.’

‘Everyone is busy except for us.’

‘I’m sorry, Pose.’

‘And you look sick. Have you been throwing up again?’

‘No. It’s the baby. I can’t sleep properly. It’s okay. Don’t worry, please.’

‘Is Thing close to being born?’

‘Not too far off now. After Christmas, in the New Year.’

‘Are we all going to be there, in the hospital, with you? Does it get all yucky when a baby is born? Do you poo if you’re pushing really hard?’

‘Are you going to deal, or should we go to the park?’

‘What are we doing for Christmas Day, anyway?’

‘I don’t know yet, Posie. Why don’t we plan on one of
those lazy days, just you and me together. The way we like it.’

‘Maybe all of us can go to Ben and Claire’s house. Jarvis says he has lots of brothers and sisters. Maybe they can come, too. Do you think Claire knows how to make figgy pudding?’

‘I don’t know. But I’ll get a special pudding from Marks. One of the ones we can do in the microwave.’

‘I think I should call Claire and ask her.’

‘No! Don’t do that. Why don’t you and I just spend some time together? Isn’t that enough?’

ROMILY HAD TURNED
off her phone before for quite long periods when she was working, or more recently, when she’d been dreading Jarvis getting in touch. But she had never quite reached the level of phone-turned-offedness that she reached now. She carried it with her – she’d be foolish not to, in this stage of pregnancy and with the scare she’d had on the beach. In an emergency she could turn it on and be ringing a midwife on the maternity ward within seconds. In a different kind of emergency, she could have a pizza delivered to her flat within twenty minutes.

She knew that Claire would have told Ben what she’d discovered. That the two of them would be talking, horrified, trying to figure out how they would get through this latest threat to their having a child. The thought of it made her panicky and sick. If she knew Ben and Claire, they’d have come up with several strategies by now.

She didn’t want to be part of a strategy. She wanted all this to be over. She wanted to be able to hop on a ship to Madagascar, for her and Posie to disappear off together and have wonderful mother-and-daughter adventures of the type
you read about in travel magazines. Of the type Amity would have had if she’d had an intrepid offspring.

But she was thirty-six weeks pregnant. The baby weighed down everything that she did. Her ankles were swollen and she couldn’t tie the laces of her Converses. She had the concentration of a— well, of a woman most of whose bodily resources were going to the child curled up in her womb. She was useless in almost every way except for being an incubator.

She was trapped here in this situation, at least until she gave birth. And what was going to happen after she gave birth was so huge and unbearable that she couldn’t look forward to that, either.

Her only choice was to keep her head down. Quite literally, when it came to dropping off and picking up Posie from school. She hunched her shoulders up around her and looked at the pavement. Today, she was wearing a hat.

She imagined that Eleanor would have told everyone by now that the baby wasn’t hers. That she wasn’t really one of them and that she had lied, if only by omission. So they were probably keeping their distance, too. In any case she avoided their eyes and she hovered outside the school gates, not going in, waiting for Posie to emerge. She was pretty sure they were looking at her. She was pretty sure they were talking about her.

She bit her lip and thought about a documentary she’d seen about caves in Borneo, piled with bat guano, seething with all those lovely, lovely cockroaches. Now
there
was a creature which could survive anything. A lot to admire there.

‘Romily.’ A hand touched her shoulder and she turned around.

It was Jarvis. He looked angry.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘You’re not answering your phone. I’ve left messages.’

‘I don’t feel like talking.’

‘What’s wrong?’

She folded her arms. ‘You mean besides your turning up uninvited?’

‘I want to see my daughter. You said I could whenever I liked. Ergo, I’m turning up to collect her from school and take her to the park.’

‘Ergo.’ Romily snorted.

‘I don’t understand. You haven’t talked to me for days. What’s going on?’

She felt the weight of attention from the school playground. Here she was with another man, a different man from the one the mothers had seen with Posie before. She shouldn’t care – who were these people, after all, to judge her? But the fact was, she was guilty. She couldn’t think of a single thing she’d done right.

‘She’ll be glad to see you,’ she said grudgingly. ‘She’s been asking.’

‘So why have you got your phone turned off?’

‘Jarvis!’

She saw Jarvis’s face light up at the sight of Posie. Their daughter tripped, smiling, into his arms.

‘I thought we’d go to the park, Butterfly,’ said Jarvis, taking her hand.

‘Scintillating.’

‘Pardon me, are you Posie’s parents?’ A young woman stood just inside the school gates, wearing a staff security pass around her neck.

‘Yes,’ said Jarvis.

‘I’m Posie’s teacher, Mrs Kapoor. I wonder if I could have a quick word?’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Romily turned to Posie. ‘Is there something you need to tell me, Posie?’

But Posie had scooted behind Jarvis, and only the hem of her skirt was visible. ‘I’ll take her to the park,’ Jarvis said, ‘and you can meet us there.’

Romily followed the teacher into the school, trying not to notice the staring mothers, and into the classroom. Brightly coloured paper displays plastered the walls. ‘Please have a seat, Mrs Summer,’ said Mrs Kapoor.

‘Dr Summer,’ said Romily, to cover up. She didn’t even recognize her daughter’s class teacher; she’d never made an effort to meet her. Yet another thing she’d done wrong. The only seats were child-size plastic chairs. She took one. It made her about half a foot shorter than the teacher, which she supposed was the point.

‘I know we have a parents’ evening coming up after the holidays but I thought this was important enough to warrant a little chat. I’m concerned about Posie’s behaviour.’

‘She’s always been quite an … individualistic child.’

‘She’s very bright. At the beginning of the year her work was in many ways outstanding. She’s very creative.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘I think she spends a lot of time in her own imaginary world. Am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she’s very shy.’

‘Shy? No, I wouldn’t call her shy.’

‘She finds it difficult to work in groups. When I ask her to work with another child, she refuses. Not in a rude way, you understand. She just carries on as if the other child isn’t there. Does she have an active social life outside of school?’

‘You mean, does she have any friends.’ Romily sighed. ‘I’ve
tried to encourage her, and she did use to have some. They’ve sort of … faded away. She prefers to spend her time with grown-ups, or doing her own thing. I used to be the same when I was little.’

‘Some children are more naturally solitary, but over the past week or so Posie has completely withdrawn into herself. She doesn’t interact with any of the other children and when I ask her a question she acts as if she hasn’t heard me. She’s not done any schoolwork at all. She gives in blank sheets, or with a doodle on them at most. Her homework is non-existent.’

‘She tells me she’s done it.’

‘Don’t you check?’

Romily began to know what the parents of that teenager at Claire’s school must have felt like, told by a teacher that they were doing a horrible job. ‘It’s sort of fallen by the wayside recently. I’ll do better.’

‘The homework is the least of it. She’s almost unresponsive. Sometimes this can happen in cases of bullying so I’ve made some discreet enquiries, but I haven’t uncovered anything so far. Has Posie said anything to you?’

‘No.’ Would she even have been listening if Posie had said something?

‘Is there something going on at home?’

Romily wondered how much of playground gossip made it to the teachers. She swallowed. ‘There are one or two things. I didn’t think Posie was affected.’

‘That might be what’s causing it. She may be worried. Children often know more than we think they do.’

‘I’ll talk with her.’

‘It would be good if we could get to the bottom of it. It’s disrupting a lot of lessons.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And she seems like a very unhappy little girl at the moment.’

A very unhappy little girl.

Posie sat on the swings, her feet drooping. She dragged her toes in the dirt as Jarvis pushed her. Her fringe, which Romily had let get even longer than usual, flopped over her face, hiding it.

‘What’s up?’ asked Jarvis as soon as Romily got close enough. Posie stopped the swing and began twisting it round. Romily took hold of the chains and held it still, so she could see Posie’s face.

‘Mrs Kapoor says you’ve stopped talking to everyone at school,’ she said. ‘She thinks something is wrong. Can you tell me what’s wrong, Posie?’

Posie kicked. ‘Nobody has anything interesting to say.’

‘I think it’s more than that,’ Romily said gently. ‘Are you worried about something?’

‘It’s more fun just to think things. Like today I was thinking, you know when the sun shines off the water and it looks like a ladder or a path? What do you think it would be like to walk on that? A sparkly path of light all the way to the sun?’

‘Pose.’ Romily cupped Posie’s face in her hand, but Posie turned away.

‘I just don’t feel like talking. Nobody wants to talk about anything except for what’s real. And I don’t like what’s real.’

‘What about it don’t you like?’ asked Jarvis. His eyes met Romily’s briefly before they both focused on Posie.

‘I don’t like, I don’t like … why do you think it’s called December? It sounds a little like a decent cucumber, don’t you think?’

‘Posie. Please tell us.’ Although Romily knew. Of course she knew. It was a small flat; Posie had probably woken up long before she appeared in the room that night, the night that Claire had found Romily’s notebook. She’d probably heard every word of Claire and Romily’s argument.

‘It was Ben’s text.’ Posie mumbled it into her lap.

‘What are you talking about?’ Romily asked.

‘I used your phone. I know you’ve had it turned off but I turned it on and sent him a text to ask when we were going to see him.’

‘Oh.’ Cold flooded Romily. ‘Did you sign it, Posie? Did he know it was from you or did he think it was from me?’

‘Romily,’ said Jarvis, ‘what is going on?’

‘I don’t remember if I signed it,’ said Posie. ‘I just borrowed your phone one night when you were in the shower and he texted back and then I turned your phone off again.’

Romily dug in her bag for her phone.

‘What did his text say that’s upset you so much?’ asked Jarvis.

‘He said he’d moved out of Auntie Claire’s and his house. And that they had a big argument and that he thinks they’ve split up. And that he’s got a flat by himself, and Romily, does this mean that Ben and Claire aren’t married any more? Does this mean they’re not my godparents and they’re going to sell their house and move away?’