Dear Thing (39 page)

Painting, as always, had its own momentum: you finished doing one edge, and then you couldn’t resist doing the next, and the next. The fiddly bits around the window and the light switches were particularly satisfying, and Claire was stooping on the floor, doing the last stretch above the skirting board, when the doorbell rang.

She could not imagine who it was. No one had rung her or texted her since she’d left Romily’s flat. She glanced at her watch: 9 a.m. Somehow it had become the next morning
after the baby’s birthday without her noticing it. It had seemed like for ever and like no time at all, without other people to measure it against.

The doorbell rang again. It could be the postman, she supposed. No, it was Sunday. Maybe it was her mother, who had somehow sensed that Claire needed her, and come. Hope surged at the thought and made Claire stand up, push her hair behind her ears and go downstairs, still holding the paintbrush.

It was not her mother; it was an unfamiliar woman, her hair scraped back from her forehead and trapped in a plait, her face stretched in a smile. She held a big vase of flowers. ‘Phew, the roads are a bugger out there. Delivery for Claire Lawrence?’

Claire took them, using her wrist to keep them steady as she held the paintbrush. They’d sent her flowers? Ben? As a sort of consolation prize for not becoming a mother?

‘Wish someone would send me a bunch of these,’ said the delivery woman cheerfully. Her chuckle faltered when Claire didn’t respond at all. ‘Well, anyway, have a nice day.’

Without bothering to shut the door to keep the cold air out, Claire put the bouquet on the hall table. She shoved the paintbrush under her arm, unmindful of the stains on her clothes, and opened the tiny attached envelope.

Thank you so much for being there for me. I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope you liked your song. Max

Incredibly, Claire smiled. He’d noticed. He’d remembered. Two days late, maybe, but he was a teenager. Even with his father there, even with the parental attention and approval he’d always wanted, Max had thought of her, too.

She was not irrelevant.

Holding the card in her hand, she walked out through the open door without a coat. The air was fresh and cold. Snow
lay over the garden, broken only by the footsteps of the delivery woman. It clung to the branches of the trees in a soft filigree.

In this moment she was not a wife, nor a mother. She was a person, a piece in the puzzle.

She remembered Romily’s hand clamped on hers so hard it hurt. She remembered breathing with her, answering the door for the midwife. Seeing that small head emerging. She remembered the baby, perfect and beautiful, calming in his father’s arms.

She wasn’t the baby’s mother. But he existed, in part, because of her. He had been conceived because she wanted him. She had helped him to be born. She had given him to a person who would love him and keep him safe. Even her failures had led, ultimately, to his birth. Wasn’t that part of creating life?

And he was out there, somewhere in this vast quiet and calm. He was healthy and he would grow. He was a new, complete person. He was a marvel of the world, like this innocent snow.

He wasn’t hers. But he
existed
.

Claire cupped the card in her hand and she smiled upwards to the sky.

The battered green Golf braked and skidded a few inches on the drive. The back door opened almost before it had stopped and Posie jumped out and ran across the snow to Claire. ‘He’s so gorgeous!’ the little girl cried, barrelling into her and wrapping her arms around her waist. ‘You have to see him, Auntie Claire, it’s just incredible!’

Claire put her hands on either side of Posie’s face and lifted it. ‘You must be so excited about the baby.’

‘He can hold your finger and everything, and he has funny toes just like mine!’

Claire’s smile had faltered, but it came back at this, the simple reminder that the baby had toes. ‘You’re a wonderful big sister, do you know that?’

‘I know! I’m going to do everything with him. I’m going to teach him how to read.’

The passenger door opened and Romily climbed out. Claire couldn’t help it; she immediately looked past her to see whether Ben was driving the car; whether the baby was in the back seat. Instead she saw Jarvis’s blond hair.

‘How are you doing?’ Romily asked her. Even wrapped in her navy duffel coat, she was noticeably slimmer than the last time Claire had seen her.

‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?’

Romily shrugged. ‘The birth wasn’t the difficult bit. As you know.’

‘How is the baby?’

‘Ben says he’s doing really well. He’s been sleeping and he’s fed a bit, too.’

‘Ben says?’

‘Romily won’t go over to see them,’ said Posie. ‘I think it’s silly. But Jarvis took me over to the flat last night.’

Claire’s heart thumped. ‘The baby’s with Ben in his flat? They’re not with you?’

Romily shook her head.

‘He— I haven’t heard from him,’ Claire said.

Romily held out a canvas shopping bag to Claire. ‘That’s probably because you left your mobile at my flat. It’s been ringing nonstop. Don’t you ever answer your landline?’

‘I …’ She couldn’t recall if the house phone had rung at all. She couldn’t say she would have heard it from upstairs if
it had. She was still trying to process the information that Ben and the baby weren’t with Romily.

She glanced at the bag. ‘It’s not just my phone in here.’

‘No. There’s a Cool Bag with expressed breast milk.’

‘She uses this icky pump-type thing,’ said Posie. ‘It looks like a loudhailer with a bottle attached. Jarvis says it reminds him of what you attach to a dairy cow. There isn’t that much milk coming out right now, but Romily says that’s normal because the baby ate so much when he was inside her that he doesn’t need lots, he just needs little bits of the good stuff, and later on there will be plenty of milk.’

‘Posie,’ said Romily, ‘I dare you to make a snowball without Jarvis seeing and then get him to wind down his window so you can throw it at him.’

‘Yeah!’ cried Posie and ran off back towards the car.

‘The baby isn’t with you,’ said Claire. ‘You’re not breast-feeding him.’

‘No, I’ve been experiencing an intimate relationship with a plastic pump.’

‘Why— why aren’t you together?’

‘Ben doesn’t love me. He loves you.’

‘But he said—’

‘I don’t know what he said. But any fool, including me, can see that Ben and you are meant to be together.’

Claire stared at Romily. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold; she looked as if she had probably been crying. ‘Ben would have stayed with you,’ Claire said. ‘He wouldn’t have left you, not after you’d just had his baby.’

‘He doesn’t love me.’

Claire hesitated, not able to believe it.

‘I was stupid to fall in love with your husband,’ said Romily. ‘And I did deceive you, Claire, about how I felt
about him. I’m sorry about that. I never meant you and Ben to split up because of it. I never meant for anyone to know.’

There was a yell from the car and Jarvis jumped out. He scooped up a handful of snow and immediately started throwing snowballs at Posie, who shrieked and returned fire.

‘The thing is,’ Romily continued, ‘that even though you have a good reason to hate me, you still helped me. You were amazing, Claire. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘I think you would have done it whether I was there or not.’

‘But with you there, I wasn’t afraid. Not for a single minute. I knew you were there, and I knew that you cared about what happened. I knew that you loved that baby as much as I did.’ Romily’s voice broke, but she recovered herself quickly. ‘And I know that right now, you’re the only person in the world who feels exactly the same way as I do.’

This time, her gaze definitely did not waver. And Claire could see all the pain in her eyes, all the emptiness and loss that Claire knew so well.

From a distance, Claire heard the wet thump of a snowball hitting its target, followed by triumphant laughter from Posie. ‘Good shot, Miss Mariposa,’ called Jarvis.

‘You have a family,’ Claire said to Romily.

‘So do you. They’re waiting for you.’ Romily held out the bag to her.

‘I can’t take a husband and child from you like a gift,’ Claire said. ‘That’s not how things work.’

‘They’re yours already. You just have to go to them.’ Romily shrugged. ‘Or don’t. It’s up to you. But it looks to me like you’ve got a car full of baby furniture, and there’s a baby in a flat in Brickham without a cot.’

‘Those are things.’

‘Well, yes. Ben could buy another one. But he probably wants this one.’

A snowball sailed by their heads.

‘Listen,’ said Romily. ‘Someone needs to deliver this breast milk, and I’m not going to do it. What’s more, Jarvis and Posie are going to be absolutely soaked after this and they’ll need a hot bath and a bit of calming down. You’re the best person to go.’

‘Romily—’

‘Just try it. See what happens. All those books you gave me strongly recommend breast milk during the first few days of life. This is the colostrum, which is specially tailored for a baby’s first days. It can help with immunity and some studies say it leads to better brain development. It’s the most perfect food on earth for a baby, especially with all these organic vegetables I’ve been eating. But hey, you can leave this to spoil and let the baby have the powdered artificial stuff. Lots of babies do fine on that.’

‘You’re trying to manipulate me.’

‘I’m doing whatever might work to get you your happy ending.’ Romily put the bag down on the snow between them. ‘It’s in your hands. Right now I have to stop my daughter from killing her father.’

She turned and walked away. Posie ran over to give Claire another swift, snowy hug and Jarvis waved to her, too. Then they all got back into the car and drove off, slipping down the drive. She heard their tyres on the wet road.

Inside the bag, her phone beeped. It was probably a message from Romily, trying to get her to look. Trying whatever might work.

She looked. It was from Ben.

We miss you.

THE DOOR TO
number 4 looked like all the others in the block of flats – beech, with gold numbers and a small Yale lock. Claire knocked.

Ben opened the door a little way. He was unshaven and more rumpled than he’d been yesterday. He appeared to have neither showered nor slept.

He looked unbelievably happy and calm. The way he’d looked on their honeymoon, when they’d gone to Venice and stayed out late watching the lights on the canals and then spent all night making love.

‘Claire,’ he said, and his face creased into a tired smile. ‘I’m so glad it’s you.’

‘I … got all your messages.’ Half an hour’s worth, when she’d listened to them. And a text for every hour that Thing had been alive.

‘Good. Come in.’ He stepped back and Claire saw for the first time that he had his shirt unbuttoned halfway and that the baby was nestled inside against his bare chest. The shirt formed a sort of pouch. Thing’s eyes were closed, his hands in fists near his face.

‘It’s good for him to have skin-to-skin contact,’ Ben explained. ‘The midwife told me.’

‘I know,’ said Claire. ‘I read about it.’

‘I keep thinking he’ll get tickled by my chest hair and have to sneeze. But he seems okay with it. He likes it. He wants to be held.’

‘Have you slept at all?’

‘A little while. Maybe an hour. I know I’ll regret it later, but I’m too excited.’ He laughed and rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t want to miss anything. Which is silly, because mostly he’s been sleeping. I’ve just been watching him sleep.’

The baby heaved in a deep breath and then let it out. His eyes were wrinkled, his eyebrows little pencil sketches. Claire could understand how Ben had spent hours watching him sleep. He had described it, in one of his phone messages, in hushed tones. As if the experience was so wonderful that he couldn’t bear not to share it with her.

‘You could probably use some coffee,’ she said.

‘God yes. I haven’t got it together enough to make any.’

‘You probably haven’t eaten either.’ The practicality, the immediate task to be done, allowed her to look away from the baby and realize they were still standing in the tiny entranceway between the door and the living room. She stepped into the flat proper and went to the kitchenette to put the kettle on. Ben followed her.

‘Romily gave me some expressed milk,’ she said.

‘I don’t know whether to wake him up or let him sleep.’ Ben looked from the baby to her and back again. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘God.’ Ben sank down into a chair. ‘It’s such a responsibility. Every decision is entirely yours, and it affects this little
person. I don’t think I really appreciated before how huge it is.’

‘What’s— what’s his name?’ She tried to keep her voice neutral, cheerful. It was a question you asked of a stranger.

‘I don’t know. That’s something else that’s a responsibility.’

She thought back to all their discussions about names over the years. They’d bandied them back and forth as if they were words, rather than a person’s identity.

Claire got down mugs. He kept his coffee in the same place they did at home, in the cabinet to the left of the cooker. She spooned it into the cafetière, good and strong.

Ben watched her. ‘So you got my messages?’ he said. ‘You didn’t call back.’

‘I left my phone at Romily’s flat. I … thought you were there.’

‘No. I don’t want to be with Romily. I want to be with you. I was so mixed up with love for this baby that I didn’t know what to think. And I was feeling guilty, too, about Romily. But being away from you made me realize that I’d wanted a baby so badly I’d forgotten that I wanted it with you. I’m sorry, Claire.’

The baby stirred. Ben adjusted him in his shirt.

She remembered Ben walking around with Posie when she’d been an infant. He’d lain her down the length of his arm; it was a position that seemed to alleviate her colic. She remembered feeling her heart melt a little bit inside and thinking,
This is what he will be like with our own child, one day
.