Owning Jacob - SA (5 page)

was on its way.' She lifted her chin fractional y, staring him down. 'Besides, there was no need for her to go to hospital.

I was there.'

"You were only a student, though. What if there'd been any problems?'

"Then I'd have sent for help. But there weren't.'

'Didn't you send for a doctor?'

'I told you, there was no point. We cal ed for one the next morning, he came and made sure they were both okay, and then went. I knew more about childbirth than any GP would have.

Or her mother, though you wouldn't have thought it to hear her.' She gave an angry shake of her head. 'She insisted her little daughter had to go back home with them. As if I couldn't have given her everything she needed.' She was no longer looking at him, lost in the anger of six years ago, and Ben felt sorry for her. And sorry he had come. He felt more and more that he was wasting his time.

There was only one thing left he had to ask.

'Sarah's father told me Jacob was a big baby. Over six pounds.'

'Six pounds three ounces.'

The figure was thrown at him. He accepted its accuracy.

He said he didn't look premature at al .'

'So?'

'Isn't that unusual?' Jessica's look was ful of contempt "Not particularly. He might not even have been very much premature anyway. Sarah's periods weren't regular, so it was difficult to know how far into her term she was. And some babies are bigger than others, you know. Like anything else.' There was derision in her voice. 'Is diere anything else you want to ask?'

He didn't even feel relieved. Just stupid. 'No.'

'Good. In that case you might as wel go.' She went and stood by the lounge door. Shamefaced, Ben went past her into the hal way. Another doorway led off it into a kitchen that was as barren and dean as the rest of the flat. A solitary place mat was set out on the smal table, with a stainless-steel salt-and-pepper cruet and glass vinegar bottle positioned at its top. They had the look of permanent fixtures.

A newspaper lay neatly folded to one side of them, face up.

Ben walked past, then stopped and went back.r

1 haven't forgotten. I just can't see why she would have saved them.' Jessica gave a derisive snort. 'Is that what al this is about? You think she took somebody else's baby? What's the matter, are you tired of looking after him already?'

'I just want to know the truth, that's al .'

'The truth? The truth is that Sarah gave birth to an autistic child, and now she's dead you've decided you don't want the responsibility. Wel , you married her,' she spat. 'Now live with it!'

'So Jacob is hers?'

'Of course he's hers! I delivered him! Or are you going to cal me a liar as wel ?' Ben was never sure if he'd planned what he said next or not. But the fabrication came smoothly, as if rehearsed. 'So how come they've both got the same birthmark?' Jessica frowned. "What?'

'The newspaper said the baby had a birthmark on his right shoulder. Jacob's got one there as wel .' He expected scorn for the transparent fabrication. Jessica's gaze went blank for a moment. Then it snapped back into focus.

'That doesn't prove a thing. Lots of children have birthmarks,' she went on, but the hesitation had been too long. He felt a horror begin to uncurl in him.

'Oh Christ,' he said.I Tve told you, it's just a coincidence. It doesn't mean anything.'

'She did it, didn't she? She took the baby.'

'Don't be ridiculous! Just because two babies have similar birthmarks-'

'There isn't any fucking birthmark!' She blinked. Her eyes broke away from his gaze. 'Look, you're going to have to leave now. I've got to … I've got to go to work.' The bluster lacked conviction. Her hands fluttered, then

fel limply to her side. Ben felt himself swaying. His legs barely supported him as he went unsteadily to the nearest kitchen chair and sank on to it. In spite of everything, he hadn't real y believed it. He realised he hadn't come to be told this; he'd come to be reassured.

Jessica hadn't moved from the doorway. Her face was sul en and resigned, the colour leeched from it The midwife's uniform leemed like a costume.

'Why?' he asked. 'What made her do it?'

'She lost the baby.' Her voice was lifeless and flat. 'I came home one night, and found her sitting in the dark. She'd ipontaneously aborted that afternoon. In a public toilet.' She came to the table and sat down herself. She looked ihapeless, as if only the starched fabric was holding her together.

I wanted to cal for a doctor, but she got hysterical when I tried.

So I didn't, I made sure she wasn't stil bleeding or anything. It wasn't as if they could do any good anyway. They'd only want

:o know where the foetus was, and then the police would've had

:o be cal ed in. She'd been through enough already after that

… that bastard left her when she was pregnant.' She looked it him, viciously. 'Did you know she tried to kil herself?' She gave a nod of triumph when she saw he hadn't. 'No, '. didn't think so. Wel , she did. She took an overdose not ong after she came to live with me. I found her and made ler sick before she was too far gone. I thought she might niscarry then, but she didn't, I wanted to spare her anything ilse. I thought … I thought if I could find the baby and bring it back I could say she'd lost it in the house, and that way there'd be no police, no fuss about it,' Her fingers teased at her skirt, pinching a fold of it, then moothing it down and repeating the process.

'She wouldn't talk at al , at first, but eventual y she told tie she'd left it in a bin near Piccadil y Tube station. I put ler to bed, but it was late by then. I thought I'd have a couple' of hours'

sleep and go to Piccadil y first thing. She was stil

sleeping when I went. I wanted to be back before she woke up, but when I got to the station I couldn't find the right bin. I started looking in al of them, until the streets started getting busier and I had to stop. I never did find out where it was. There was no mention of it being found, so I suppose it just got taken away when the bins were emptied. I couldn't do anything except go back home, and when I got there Sarah had gone. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't cal the police, so I just waited and hoped she'd come back. But when she did she'd got a baby with her.' A corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. 'She looked so happy. Like the day before hadn't happened. Like Sarah should look. I tried to get her to tel me where she'd got it from, but she didn't seem to know what I was talking about. And when I asked whose baby it was, she just said, "Mine." I tried to make her realise what she'd done, but it only made her confused. I was frightened she'd sink back into the state she'd been in earlier. I couldn't think what to do. And then, al of a sudden, it came to me. I didn't have to do anything. Sarah had been pregnant, and now she'd got a baby. It was big for a premature one, but not so big that it'd cause problems.' He couldn't keep quiet any longer. 'Problems? It wasn't hers! Jesus Christ, she stoh it!' Jessica gave him a look of contempt. 'What did you expect me to do? Go to the police?'

'Yes! Yes, you should have gone to the fucking police! They wouldn't have prosecuted, not for something like that' She'd have been given psychiatric help!'

'Put away somewhere, you mean? You think I'd have let them do that to her?'

'It would have been better than what you did!' He felt he had fal en through to another, less rational pocket of reality.

'Did she know? What she'd done, I mean? Did she know afterwards?' Jessica raised her shoulders, listlessly. 1 don't know. She might have, at some level. I'd cut out the reports from the newspaper and saved them in a drawer, but when I looked after she'd gone back with her parents they'd gone. She never said she'd taken them, and I never asked her.'

'You never spoke to her about it?' She shook her head, but for the first time there was something subtly defensive about her. Ben thought he understood why Jessica had kept the cuttings. And why Sarah had been uneasy discussing their relationship.

The woman had wanted to tie Sarah to her.

He didn't bother to keep the disgust from his voice.

'Didn't you worry that someone might have found out?'

'Who was going to find out? I was nearly a qualified midwife, no one would doubt what I said. The doctor hardly even examined her when we cal ed him out the next day. If I'd been based at the hospital the baby had been taken from somebody might have wondered, but I wasn't. There wasn't any risk.'

'No risk? She'd taken somebody else's baby! Al right, she was il , she didn't know what she was doing. But you're supposed to be a … a fucking midwife, for God's sake! How could you do it?'

'Because it was for Sarah.' Jessica stared back at him, defiant and serene. 'I'd have done anything if I thought it would help her.'

'Help her! That wasn't helping her! You were just letting her hide from what happened! And what about its real parents? Didn't you care about what they must have gone through?'

"Why should I?' she flashed. 'Some pathetic squaddie and his stupid breeding-cow? Why should I care more about them than Sarah? I see their kind every day, squeezing out one brat after another! They've probably got three or four by now.

They'd get over it, but Sarah wouldn't have! Care about them) I'd have taken it myself if she'd asked!' Her eyes were bright and moist. 'Have I shocked you?'

she sneered. 'Didn't you think plain old Jessica was capable of something like that? God, you make me sick. You married her, you fucked her, but you never loved her. You don't know what love is.' Ben couldn't bear to stay there any longer. The smal kitchen was suddenly airless, dense with the possibility of violence. He stood up, startling himself with the sound of the chair legs scraping across the lino-covered floor.

'I don't know what you'd cal what you did,' he said, thickly, 'but it wasn't love.' He got as far as the door, then stopped. 1 can't pretend I don't know about this. I can't just ignore it.'

Jessica didn't look up. 'Do what you like,' she said, dul y.

'I don't care any more.' She was stil staring at nothing when he went out.

I Jacob selected a piece of jigsaw puzzle, held it in his hand for la second, then exchanged it for another and pressed it neatly I into place. The puzzle, a scene from Star Wars, was nearly half I completed. The box for it lay open close by, but Jacob never lio much as glanced at the picture of the finished jigsaw on I the lid. It wouldn't have helped if he did, because he was I assembling it face down. He would sit through the whole of Ithe Star Wars trilogy time and time again, entranced by the I fast-moving images and sounds coming from the TV

screen, Ibut a static photograph from it held no interest for him.

Ben was pretty sure that he recognised what it was, could Imake the association between one and the other, although The wasn't entirely certain. It was more likely that he simply egarded the picture itself as incidental. It was fitting together fie little cardboard shapes which engrossed him, not what was Dn them when he had finished. He could assemble them with he picture upside down or sideways on with equal dexterity.

: seemed to be al the same to him.

Ben watched from the other side of the lounge as he broke off from the puzzle and gazed at something out of the window, perhaps at the window itself. Ben couldn't see what had ught his eye, but he could guess. Jacob would scrutinise a ked windowpane, a broken piece of glass, the chipped rim of a milk bottle in the sun; anything that refracted light and split it into an unexpected jewel of colour. They had realised what he was doing only after they saw him squinting into the spray of a lawn sprinkler, moving his head about to catch sight of an indistinct rainbow in the haze. Sometimes, general y after a joint, Ben wondered if he saw something in the refractions invisible to a less fractured mind.

Whatever he'd seen now failed to hold his attention, though. Jacob went back to the jigsaw. He gave no sign of being aware of either Ben's scrutiny or his presence. Normal y he would have tried to encourage the boy to talk, asked him about school, anything to steer him towards some sort of communication. Now he couldn't find it in himself to make the effort.

Jacob didn't mind. Jacob was locked in his own world, as usual. Sometimes Ben wondered if he wasn't happier there than when he was forced to acknowledge an exterior one that made little sense to him.

What am I going to do? Jacob's elbow brushed the pile of unassembled pieces and ' knocked several to the floor. His face creased up as they pattered to the carpet. He looked down at where they'd landed, his breathing growing faster as he became more agitated, but made no attempt to pick them up. Sometimes it was difficult to know what would upset him, or see why it should. Jacob was general y placid, but if he became frightened or disturbed it could take a long time to calm him down. Once, when Sarah had misguidedly taken him to another little boy's birthday party, he'd become hysterical when a bal oon burst behind him, rocking and screeching so violently with his hands clasped to his ears that he had set al the other children crying as wel , i That had been the last party she'd insisted he go to.

He stopped himself from thinking about Sarah. Jacob had I begun banging himself about in the chair in frustration. Ben i went over and picked up the fal en pieces of jigsaw. Jacob I subsided as he dropped them back on the table, gathering I I

them back into the pile as if nothing had happened. Ben stared down at the back of his head as he bowed over the puzzle. Normal y he would have ruffled his hair, made some sort of contact. This time he didn't touch him. He went back to where he'd been sitting without a word.

What the fuck am I going to do? Jacob's head shot up as the doorbel rang. He looked in the direction of the hal way. 'Mummy?' Oh, Christ. 'No, Jacob,' Ben said. He felt ful of ashes.

It isn't Mummy.'

'Mummy.' It isn't bloody Mummy! 'No. It's someone else.' Jacob remained in the same attitude for a second or two, then went back to his jigsaw. When the doorbel rang again he took no notice. He didn't so much as glance up as Ben left the room to answer it.