The Baby (10 page)

She sighs as she reaches the stile and inhales the scents of the moist meadow grass. The blades glisten with rain from last night. They look like frosted-up fingers, tilted up to the sunshine, wilting at the tips with silver sparkle. She cannot wait to walk through them. She knows that her jeans will be wet through within seconds. But she loves it all the same.

She thinks about her piano lessons. She enjoys them. She is an accomplished piano player and is shooting through the grades. Her teacher is a nice Polish lady with a funny-smelling house, who always claps her hands when Alice arrives at the front door as if she is surprised to see her, which is ridiculous because her mum has paid upfront, a term at a time, and consequently her Saturday-morning slots are booked well in advance.

They will do warm up exercises and then Alice will show her what she has been practising. Her teacher will either sigh in ecstasy or wag her finger if she has not done enough practice. Either way she will be happy by the end of the forty-five minutes. And as a treat, because Alice once requested it, she will play a piece for her. Alice loves these moments. Her teacher is excellent and the music – rather like the birds' singing in the hedges right now – hums through Alice's body, releasing something which is rarely set free in her stomach.

The only thing that she does not like about her piano teacher is the way that she closes her eyes when she plays. It always makes Alice feel slightly embarrassed to watch her and she is never sure where to look. At these moments she pretends to study the music in front of her.

She lets Sandy off the lead once she is over the stile. The dog bounds from one scent to the next, her tail wagging gloriously, her nose sniffing like she has found the dog equivalent of a chocolate fountain flowing over fudge. Alice lets Agate and Onyx off too and they dash into the wet grass in search of their horse friends who are over in the far corner.

It does not take Alice long to wade through the long grass to the corner. Her thighs become damp with rainwater, but it is all right because the weather is not as cold as it has been and also she has a spare pair of jeans draped over her chair in her bedroom.

She checks that she is alone, peering into every corner and looking by the hedge. When she is one hundred per cent sure, she shouts for Malachite, Amethyst and Quartz. She feels in
her pocket for the Polos which she buys every Saturday with her pocket money. She places three in the palm of her hand and holds them upturned and flat. Before long she is gratified to hear the thunder of enthusiastic hooves as her three horse friends come rumbling to her side. They stop hungrily at her palm and share the Polos between them, steam and snorts trumpeting through their nostrils. Alice cannot fail to feel a glow of happiness as she spots Agate and Onyx weave joyfully between the horses' legs.

From the corner of her eye she sees Sandy lift her nose for a moment at Alice's shout. But then the dog becomes distracted by something else and, head down, lumbers off in the opposite direction.

At these times, with the prospect of a piano lesson, with her six favourite friends by her side, in a meadow full of sunshine and birds, with no school for a full two days, Alice cannot fail to feel positively bursting with something like joy.

The piano lesson is alarming but good. Around three-quarters of the way through the lesson, her piano teacher is listening to Alice play. Her head tilts and her eyes are shut, but all of a sudden, out of the corner of her eye Alice spots Mrs Beilski put a finger to her cheek and brush something away. It takes Alice a while to realize that it is a tear. Alice has actually made her piano teacher cry. This is alarming and Alice is unsure what to do. She wonders if she is suffering with the same problem as Olivia. She has never had to console an adult before. So instead of doing anything, she just finishes her
piece and stares straight ahead, giving time, she hopes, for her teacher to compose herself. There are a few seconds of absolute silence where she begins to feel the hot prickles of shame, when suddenly Mrs Beilski touches her arm and whispers, ‘That was beautiful, Alice. Really moving.'

So these tears are not tears of unhappiness but instead of a strong emotion. She has experienced them herself on occasion. And she feels funny inside to think that she has done this to her teacher.

Sitting on her bed later on, having finished all of her tasks, Alice is suddenly listless. She is almost bored. She has done absolutely everything that she needed to do. She has cleaned out the stables and the kennels. She has groomed all three horses. The pigs and the dogs have been fed, watered and, in the case of the dogs, exercised. She has finished her title page for the Ancient Egypt project for Humanities. She has learnt the ten French words for various hobbies. She has written up her Science conclusion and she has even finished her Eoin Colfer novel. So now, with the prospect of nothing much else to do she decides to put her books away and go downstairs and see Olivia. Her mum and dad have gone to B&Q to buy a new toilet seat. She is not sure whether this has got anything to do with the fact that an illegitimate baby was born in the same room as the old one.

It is when she is packing her school books away that she notices something hard and heavy in the bottom of her bag that she was not expecting to see. For a few moments she does not know what it is. It feels alien and strange under her fingers between her Science folder and French book.

She has to check momentarily if she has the right bag. She does this by turning over the top. But there, sure enough, in her best writing, having used a laundry marker pen bought specifically for this task, are her initials: AW.

She finds herself scowling and reaching into the interior again. This time certain that she has the right bag. She grips the hard plastic tube-like thing and draws it out. It is green. It is plastic and it is a bottle. In a black Gothic-style font on the front of the bottle are the words ‘Anti-Dandruff Shampoo.'

She scowls once again. She has no idea why the bottle is in her bag. Perhaps it is a mistake. Perhaps someone went shopping during lunchtime and put it in her bag in error. Key Stage Four and the sixth form are allowed out of school at break so perhaps this is what happened. There is, after all, a chemist in the village.

She is not sure what to do with the bottle. It feels heavy in her hand and not especially nice. Alice and Olivia use Alberto Balsam Sun Kissed Raspberry shampoo, which her mother buys every fortnight from Tesco. The fragrance is lovely and the colour reminds her of the gemstone kunzite.

But now she happens to glance up. She happens to spot herself in the mirror. And this is when she feels a hot slick of shame. Because she has a sudden memory of some girls in her tutor group in the rear corner of the classroom. In the memory they are giggling and laughing at something concealed underneath the table. She did not take much notice because these four girls are almost always giggling and laughing at something. Instead she turned her head and concentrated on the
notices which her tutor was attempting to deliver. But then, towards the end of tutor time, Alice had to leave the room in order to deliver a message for the teacher. When she returned she was surprised to see that her bag was not where she had left it. Instead of being under her chair it was dumped untidily upon an empty table two rows down. At the time she did not think much of it. Perhaps, while she was gone, the teacher had wanted everyone to move their bags off the floor for some reason.

She remembers now how the girls were looking at her strangely and that Kimberley White in particular was almost bursting with laughter. Her mouth was pressed tightly together in an ugly line so as not to release the spurt of giggles which were ready to explode out.

So it is now, with a hot, itchy disgrace, that Alice peers at her shoulders in the bedroom mirror. There are light flecks of dusty dandruff.

She has never noticed this before.

Brushing at her shoulders she moves down the stairs to be near her sister. She has lots of questions to ask. But there is a noise from the lounge which stops her from pushing open the door. It is the voice of Jonty. She did not realize that he was here. She thought Olivia was alone.

‘Why didn't you answer my texts? You've not even opened them. Look!'

There is a scuffle. Alice imagines her sister moving quickly.

‘What were you even doing looking at my phone?'

Jonty laughs in an ugly way. She recognizes the tone. ‘You
left it lying around. It's not my fault.'

Olivia's voice wavers like a little girl's. ‘That wasn't an invitation for you to have a look.'

‘It doesn't matter. When somebody takes the time to text, the least you can do is open it.'

Alice's head throbs.

Jonty's voice is low and hard and bitter. ‘I can't believe you did such a thing. Leaving a baby like that. My nan was in a right state after you left.'

‘We've been through this, time and time again. She needed to know.' This is quiet.

‘Then it should have been me that told her, not you sticking your nose in like that.'

‘I'm not going over this again. It's stupid. Why do you keep going on about it all the time?'

There is a tremendous scuffle then and Alice cannot quite work out what is happening. She can tell there is a lot of movement. Something crashes and something sounds like it is being pushed off the coffee table. Alice's heart rattles at the noise. She chews at her little fingernail.

‘And I notice Nicola stuck her oar in. She's such a bitch.' These words are the loudest.

Olivia's next words are high and scared. ‘So why did you sleep with her then?'

There is a silence then. And for some reason this scares Alice more than the movements. She stares intently at the telephone next to her. It is black and there is one message. Now would not be a good time to see who the message is from.

‘Why then? Tell me why you slept with her.'

‘Because she begged me. Because girls like her make it difficult not to.'

‘And I'm supposed to just accept this? Just accept that she threw herself at my boyfriend and you couldn't stop yourself?'

There is another horrible crash and Olivia cries out.

‘Jonty stop it. You're hurting me.'

Alice thinks hard. He must be committing more domestic violence.

She should go in because she cannot stand to hear any more of this. If there is one thing that she does not like, it is the sound of her sister being hurt. It's becoming a habit. Olivia needs to stop letting Jonty into the house and Alice needs to get braver. Maybe try to help. But her knees tremble with fear and suddenly Alice is sitting on the floor.

Olivia's weeping now. Alice can hear the tears and the sobbing. Her words slur with wetness. ‘Go away, Jonty. You can't make me do anything any more. You can't hurt me. I won't let you.'

There's more movement. Horrible movement where something gets dragged. Then footsteps. And more footsteps.

‘Get out. Just leave me alone.' The words are really high now. Alice has never heard her sister sound so distressed. She hears something get thrown against the door. It is hard and brittle, it might be Olivia's phone.

Then there are steps coming to the door; harsh angry steps
which make Alice swallow. Before she can think too much about this, the door is swung wide and the powerful figure of Jonty stands in the doorway. His fists are tight and there is a vein which is throbbing in his neck. Alice sees all this in a flash. What she does not see however is the door itself which bangs painfully into her knee.

‘Ouch!' she shouts, shocked.

Jonty, who has been too intent on his own anger, looks down sharply to the floor and sees Alice. He frowns for a second as if he does not quite understand who she is. Then he glares at her and curls his lip as if she were a piece of spat-out chewing gum.

Alice has a terrible thought that he might be contemplating more domestic violence.

But in the fraction of a second that it takes for Alice to think this, he stamps past her, yanks at the front door and pushes his way out of the house.

Alice can smell the outside from where she's sitting on the hall floor.

The front door is slammed shut and there are several seconds of silence where both girls adjust to their solitude.

Alice coughs softly. She does not know why.

And then surprisingly, so that something catches in her throat, she feels her sister rush at her. She smells hot and moist and her hair is a mess. She flings herself into Alice's arms on the floor where she sobs loudly without restraint into Alice's neck.

Alice knows how to hug. She has hugged Sandy since she
was the sweetest puppy. So she puts her arms around her big sister and feels the judders and the sighs for a very long time.

Alice likes this – it hardly ever happens – but she feels upset for her sister.

She smoothes her fingers over Olivia's hair like it is Sandy's fur, which is lot coarser. But the effect is the same. It is soothing for them both. It's strange to feel her sister underneath her arms. Strange but really very nice.

It is funny how this is the second time today that somebody has cried in her presence. She wonders if she read her horoscope for the day whether this would be included.

Eventually the sobbing begins to subside. And her sister sniffs a bit and gradually pulls away.

She looks at Alice. She rubs her nose. ‘Sorry about that.'

Alice shrugs. She's relieved when Olivia tries a weak smile. ‘Bet I look a right mess.'

Alice assesses her and has to agree. ‘Your skin is a bit blotchy. And your mascara has run.' She scans her face. ‘Your red eyes and mouth don't look very nice and your hair is messy.'

She's surprised to see Olivia's mouth twitch into a small smile.

‘Olivia,' she says, thinking of something suddenly. She moves her hand to her shoulders. ‘Can you tell me what to do about dandruff?'

‘Can you stay here with Eliza, while I nip into the shop and get some nappies?'