Fly in the Ointment (9 page)

She didn't add, ‘In the shadow of that old biscuit factory,' but I knew where she meant. Better, I supposed, taking a detour in that direction on my way out, than being left in a box on a shelf in their storage room for eternity. But still, thin comfort for the only one who ever loved you.

That was the week I started to bring home extra
work. I didn't want Dana or Audrey to know, and even Mr Hanley would have expected some sort of explanation. So I took to slipping the more complicated of our clients' files into a capacious bag, smuggling them home and then back in the morning.

And still I didn't mention the death at work. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed! They were kind people so they hovered and probed. ‘Lois, you look very pale.' ‘You seem distracted. Something on your mind?'

Yes. Janie Gay. The house. The life he'd lived. The state that he'd been in. All of the things I'd so determinedly not thought about while Malachy was alive were causing my mind to unravel. I'm not the sort to let myself slide under without a struggle. And so as weeks turned into months and I still woke each morning feeling as limp as a chewed rag and wretchedly besieged by questions rattling round my head, I gradually hatched the sort of reckless courage you see in parents who will take on gangs, the medical profession, even a government, to learn the truth of how their children died. Except, in my case, of course, it wasn't the death that was haunting me. It was the life.

I made my plans. One Saturday, I forced myself to eat my usual breakfast and drove from Pickstone
to the Forth Hill estate. I didn't go as far as Janie Gay's, but parked in a place that I had worked out from the map would offer an uncomplicated getaway. Before I got out, I looked at myself in the mirror – an unremarkable woman with soft brown hair, dressed in a plain skirt and blouse. I rehearsed what I'd told myself over and over to stop myself turning back. This Janie Gay has no idea who you are. You're not in the bubbling red wig you wore at her husband's funeral. She's only seen you looking as you do today once in her life, over a year ago, through a car windscreen.

I set off down the street that led to her house.

It felt like learning to walk. That sounds ridiculous, but as I tried to tell myself ‘Walk normally,' it was as if I'd lost the gift of unthinkingly putting one leg in front of the other. I was no longer even sure what was a sensible pace. Would people look at me and wonder, ‘Why's
she
in such a hurry?' Or would they think, ‘She's clearly loitering. Up to no good'?

The house was semi-detached. If you were generous, you'd try to say it wasn't such a far cry – at least in design – from the home in which Malachy was raised. But, oh, the difference from Rosslyn Road! Where we'd had glossy paintwork, Janie Gay's last few grey paint peelings clung to rotting wood. We'd had a tidy bright garden. The patch of grass in front of this
house was scuffed to bare earth, fringed by the dying remnants of box hedging, and busy with whirligigs of litter spun in the breeze. Sun sparkled off our windows. The smears and grime on Janie Gay's glass panes must have seen off the daylight, let alone the sun. The gate – or what was left of it – swung on one hinge.

There was no sign of life behind the grey net curtain pinned across the upstairs window. The front door was ajar. In the dark of the hall I could make out a heap of refuse bags, and hanging from a shelf was—

‘Hey, you old fuckbag! Had your eyeful yet?'

I jumped a mile. I hadn't realized how my pace had slowed. And far from being hidden safely away behind her net curtains, Janie Gay had silently come up behind me in the street. Now she was leaning against next door's fence, a cigarette dangling, like some young opera singer practising her pose for Carmen. She looked like a cartoon slattern, but more dangerous.

‘Nosy fucking parker. Piss off!'

I forced myself not to run. Act
normal
, I urged myself. Tell her that it's a free country. People can stand in the street and look at other people's gardens. So she can go away
herself
.

Oh, very likely! There I stood, in my neat pleated skirt and sensible shoes. And I have never in my life
been rude to any stranger. I started twittering. ‘I am so sorry. I didn't realize that this was your house. You see, I heard a noise – like a small animal in pain. Or maybe a baby crying . . .'

‘Oh,
fuck
!'

Practically shoving me aside, she took off up the path. I saw the packet of cigarettes she'd just slipped out to buy clenched in her hand as she pushed at her door. It swung back further to reveal the baby – wide awake but quiet – strapped in his stroller.

Had he just woken? If not, why wasn't he already howling to find himself abandoned in that dark hall? If I'd left Malachy tethered like that in his pushchair, I would have heard his screams of outrage behind me all the way to the shop and all the way back. Was this child simply used to being left alone? Or did he know there was another person somewhere in the house, ready to pick him up and comfort him if he should panic?

Odd, though, that she'd not taken him along with her. After all, he was dressed. If there had been a struggle to get him into the stroller, it was already over. He was ready to go. And it was a dry bright morning. A bit of fresh air would have done him good – even the couple of moments it might have taken her to get to the end of the street, buy her fresh pack of cigarettes and then come back.

Except I hadn't noticed any shops as I was walking. Curious, I retraced my steps. I reached the corner. Nothing. No shops, no kiosk and no vending machine. A man walked past. The fingers of one hand were stained a fierce yellow. On an impulse I hurried up behind him. ‘Where is the nearest place I can buy cigarettes?'

‘Across the park.' He saw my blank look. ‘Down there. On the right.'

I went that way and, sure enough, between two buildings found an alley with a host of signs forbidding this and that. It opened up into a little park. It wasn't pretty, but there were trees and bushes and plenty of starlings scavenging among the chip wrappers and broken pizza boxes. Certainly it would have
done
. A child in a pushchair takes an interest in anything. Did Janie Gay not realize that, young as he was, her son was all ears, all eyes? Getting on for a year old. At that age you push them to the park to see what's there. You make a fool of yourself in front of strangers and tramps. ‘Look at the pretty ducks! Quack-quack! Quack-quack!'

The child stares solemnly, as if his ears are stopped with wax. No smile. No happy burbles. No response at all. But, three nights later, when you try to turn the page of the story book, down comes the chubby hand, spread like a starfish to stop you. A thumb's
uncorked to free the other hand, and down comes the pointy finger, straight to the crosspatch little duck stamping his feet in the sandpit, or riding her speedboat over the bright-blue waves.

‘Quack-quack! Quack-quack!'

Yes, they are listening to every word and watching each flicker of sunlight. Why would you ever leave them strapped in the dark of a hallway on such a morning? And how long had she been away? I'd crossed the park, and there was still no sign of any shop. I asked again. It was around the corner. I checked my watch and timed the walk back. Seven minutes. Four, maybe, at a run but Janie Gay had not been out of breath when she surprised me. And she'd had time to light a cigarette. If she could take time out to be offensive to a passing stranger, how long might she have lingered with friends she met on the way there or back?

So. Better call it ten.

I found the way back to my car. ‘And don't drive past again,' I told myself. ‘
Ever
. Keep well away. Pretend the Forth Hill estate doesn't exist.' A woman my age knows all her limitations, and the last thing in the world that I could bear was for that door to swing ajar again, and show me, strapped forlornly in his stroller in that drab hall, that solemn staring child.

STILL, THERE IS
duty. And with Malachy gone, and no one coming after me for debts he'd ratted on or deals he'd left undone, there seemed no reason not to get in touch with Mrs Kuperschmidt. I thanked her for her letter all those months ago. She asked about the funeral. I told her I was too upset to go, and she passed on a little of what the police officer who attended had told her after: ‘He said it was a very simple service. But someone gave a nice little talk about Malachy. And Janie Gay was very dignified.'

It offered me the chance to ask, ‘And do you know about the baby?'

She sounded guarded. ‘Know about the baby?'

‘If he's all right. If Janie Gay is looking after him.'

There was a pause as Mrs Kuperschmidt tried to work out where I was headed. Finally she said, a little
distantly, ‘As far as I'm aware, Lois, the Dewell family isn't on our books.'

‘Dewell?' I must admit I was startled. ‘Isn't her name Gay?'

‘Janie Gay. Janie Gay Dewell. Lois, I'm gathering you can't have met her properly. And yet you're obviously worried about her baby.'

Sensing Mrs Kuperschmidt's unease, I tried to sound robust. ‘Well, what with my Malachy being tangled up in drug deals, and the police officers seeming to know the child's mother so well, I just assumed that you'd be keeping a weather eye out. At least at the start. Just in case . . .'

I trailed off.

Mrs Kuperschmidt said sternly, ‘Lois, do you know something you're not telling me?'

‘No, no.' I stretched the truth, but only a little. ‘I've never so much as set eyes on this baby.' I almost added, ‘For all I know, he isn't even my son's child,' but realized just in time that that would make my phone call sound even more odd.

‘So you've no reason to suspect the child's in any danger?'

I was still fishing like mad. ‘It has to be danger, does it? Before you can step in to take a look?'

Mrs Kuperschmidt was as tactful as she could be in urging caution. ‘Lois, you know as well as I do these
things are subtle. The trouble is that everyone's an expert on other people's kids. So we get calls from neighbours and grandparents – even from absent fathers. We do the best we can. But all too often the problem amounts to little more than –' The phrase she used must have sprung straight from a text book. ‘– coming at child-raising from different cultural reference points.'

‘You mean, like living on chips? And watching telly day and night? That sort of thing?'

‘That sort of thing. And worse. Constantly being sworn at, or squashed or ignored. Cruelly teased, even. There have to be a million horrible ways of raising children without crossing the line. Sometimes we do step in to offer support to the family.' She gave a heavy sigh. ‘But we're so
limited
. It mostly boils down to pulling strings to get a child into a nursery, or giving a bit of advice about feeding it better.' Another sigh. ‘It's not as if the parents haven't been told it all before. They almost always ignore it.'

Just being so honest had depressed her utterly. Briskly she tried to wrap up the call to get away from me. ‘Honestly, Lois. I know you're worried. And if you should ever hear anything specific, we'd move at once to try to put things right. But from what I've heard, Janie Gay might have a temper but she's not vicious. And though by all accounts she won't win
any natty housekeeping awards, she's certainly not incapable. If you'd already been a large part of this baby's world there might have been some tack that we could take. But, in the circumstances –'

Mrs Kuperschmidt took a deep breath. ‘I hate to say it, Lois, but since there's nothing you can do to change this baby's home background, the best advice that I can give you is to be grateful you and the child weren't close.'

Now I was keener than Mrs Kuperschmidt to end the call. What's ‘close' to do with it? When I was in hospital losing my very first baby, a woman in a soft grey suit appeared on the ward. My bed was nearest the door. I watched her glance at the clipboard she was carrying, then tuck it under her arm and stroll to a bed at the end. She introduced herself, pulled up a chair, then, at a gesture of consent from the young woman propped against the pillows, tugged the privacy curtain around them. She was there long enough for me to forget about her. Ten minutes? An hour? I was in no state to pay attention. Next time I noticed her she was pulling a chair up close to the patient in the bed beside me and stretching out a hand to tug the flowery cotton curtain across to close the gap between us.

She flashed me a smile that meant nothing. ‘You don't mind?'

‘No. Go ahead.'

But I could not go deaf. And all I could assume was that these two patients' treatment could at some time in the future, if they gave permission, include the ‘harvesting' of eggs for other, infertile women. This time the lady with the clipboard didn't get far through her pitch. If she was on the verge of offering a host of assurances, I never got to hear them. All that came through the curtain was my neighbour's strained voice.

‘Let's get this right. You're asking me if I'll donate my
eggs
.' She cut off the woman's discreetly murmured response. ‘You want me to let someone else have a child that's half mine – half mine! – and go through the whole of the rest of my life not having the faintest idea who's looking after it, or what a pig's ear they might be making of the job?' Did the voice shoot higher, or was it simply that the whole of the rest of the ward had fallen silent? ‘I'm supposed to lie in bed at night and wonder if, out there, some child of mine I'll never know is cold, or crying, or being tormented by some bully?'

Now she was shrieking. ‘Listen to me, you stupid, stupid woman! Next time you go down a ward asking strangers to offer you eggs, try a test question first. Ask, “Have you ever in your whole life thought for a moment that you could hand a baby of your own out
for adoption?” And if the answer's “No”, then have the sensitivity to skip that person's bed out!'