The Second Child Page 15

  There’s so much of the past that has drifted out of my reach. I lean against Lauren’s pillows, remembering one daughter and breathing in another. The whales drift slowly above my head.

  At the sound of footsteps in the hallway I push myself upright on Lauren’s bed, feeling guilty for invading her space. I tuck the rabbit carefully back into its place in the pile, straighten the covers and sneak out of her room, leaving it just as I found it.

  PHIL

  Rosie appears downstairs just after her mother disappears upstairs. It’s a decent trade-off. She avoids the sofa, too high a risk that someone might come and sit next to her, and instead folds herself into the chair in the corner of the lounge. She immediately starts messing about on her phone. James is self-consciously sprawled out on the floor, his long legs taking up most of the space, some territorial thing probably. I perch, like a nervy lifeguard, between the two of them. They both seem to be silently drowning in the sheer awkwardness of it all.

  There’s a Liverpool v. Arsenal game on the TV; the Liverpool defence is driving James mad, I can tell by all the huffing and puffing and cushion-thumping. I give up on expecting conversation and half-heartedly watch the game. It’s scrappy. James grunts in disgust at a particularly poorly defended corner kick, but he’s too inhibited by Rosie’s presence to swear like he normally does, when Sarah is out of the room. It goes from bad to worse when a defender tackles the latest Liverpool wunderkind, fairly, in midfield, and he flies to the ground clutching his face.

  ‘Dive!’ Rosie’s voice is clear and adamant.

  ‘Foul!’ James decrees, watching the replay.

  ‘Complete and utter dive.’

  ‘Bookable offence.’

  And in that instant the course of the afternoon – in fact the whole weekend – changes. It starts with single-syllable exchanges about the game. Neither of them looks at the other, but their comments build and within ten minutes they’ve taken up their entrenched positions of opposing fans. As the match progresses, they shift into the familiar territory of needling and wind-up. When the game ends and Sarah announces a walk to the park, James counter-offers with FIFA on his Xbox, and Rosie immediately agrees. Sarah has the good sense to back off. As much as I’d love to stay and shout encouragement and abuse in the background, I know I’m expected to go on the walk. With Anne. So we leave them to it and take Lauren out for a thoroughly boring three loops of the local park. As we amble along I quiz Anne about Rosie’s interest in football.

  Anne doesn’t sound that enthused. ‘She started at junior school, at an after-school club. I thought she’d grow out of it.’

  ‘She’s playing with a girls’ team?’

  ‘Yes, I wasn’t happy with her playing on the boys’ team, after junior school. A teacher at her high school recommended Redbourn Girls.’

  ‘What position?’

  Anne pauses. ‘She was a defender, but I believe she plays in the middle now.’

  ‘Believe’ – her lack of involvement with her own daughter is shocking, though her abject ignorance of football is just what I expected. I can’t imagine Anne standing on a touchline in the slashing rain, getting mud on her immaculate boots, but I do have a clear image of Rosie, slogging away on the pitch with no one there to support her. No one warning her when there’s a ‘man on’ and shouting, ‘Come on, Rosie’ when her legs have gone and her lungs are bursting. No one, that is, until now.

  ‘So she’s a midfield player?’

  ‘Yes.’ Anne obviously isn’t certain. She turns away, seeking out Sarah and a change of topic. ‘What a pretty park.’

  Anne’s indifference shocks me, but it does little to puncture my elation. Rosie’s passion for the game proves that she is my daughter. Somehow a love of football has passed from me to her. Why else would she be interested in it? Anne clearly isn’t.

  ‘Was her father into sport?’ It’s a blurted question that provokes a warning frown from Sarah.

  Anne stiffens. ‘Nathan wasn’t around long enough to influence Rosie’s likes or dislikes, sporting or otherwise.’ She falls out of step with me and joins Sarah for the last lap of the park.

  So it must be genetic. Rosie and James and I have a bond. I feel absurdly happy. I can’t wait to get back to the house.

  ANNE

  On our last lap of the park Sarah asks if I’d like to push Lauren. Of course I say ‘yes’, though I’m nervous of doing something wrong. I grip the handles of her wheelchair tightly, for fear of letting her go. On the flat it’s okay, but up the low rise in front of the bird-house the push makes me breathless and on the slope down the chair drags me forward. The weight of her throws me off-balance. Sarah, seeing me struggle, merely smiles encouragement. ‘It’s get easier once you’re used to it.’ It’s not until we’re following the path through the flowerbeds that I actually relax. The park is pretty, in an old-fashioned kind of way, the beds are formal and very bright, but attractive. Sarah chatters away. The sun shines weakly. Lauren seems content watching the people and the trees. I look down at the vulnerable pale skin at the nape of her neck and feel protective. She is so vulnerable.

  On our way out of the park I misjudge the step and the chair jolts forward. Phil immediately takes over.

  27

  Together at the Start

  SARAH

  ON SATURDAY evening, after everyone else has gone to bed, Anne seeks me out and we have a confusing conversation made worse by too much booze. Having drained the dregs of one bottle of red, I open another, wanting the anaesthetising effect. Anne covers her glass with her hand at first, but, without any prompting, changes her mind and joins me. I fill our smeary glasses to the rim and we sit in the kitchen surrounded by the messy aftermath of dinner.

  ‘Thank you.’ She takes a drink. I don’t try to force a conversation. After a while she says, ‘They’re a nice idea.’ She points at the digital photo frame on the side. We both watch as the pictures change.

  It’s impossible for me to sit and watch the parade of happy family shots without feeling awkward… guilty. That’s what I feel, guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, standing up and going to lie the frame facedown. ‘That was thoughtless. I should’ve put it away.’

  ‘No – don’t. Why should you? It’s a lovely record of your life together.’

  ‘It’s Ali, she’s always liked taking pictures. Something about her not having kids of her own, I think. It was a present from her. We didn’t—’

  She cuts me off. ‘You don’t have to keep apologising, Sarah… for the pictures, for the way it is, for any of it. It’s not your fault. I can see you’re a good mum, and Phil’s a good dad. A proper dad. You’ve both been fantastic with her.’ She sounds a bit drunk, rushing her words.

  ‘Photos only show the good times, though.’ I respond. ‘It’s not all holidays and birthdays.’ Maybe I’m a little drunk, too, because I can feel a familiar resistance rising in me.

  But Anne’s not to be shaken in her rose-tinted view of us. ‘You’re good at it, though, at being parents. James obviously loves you both, he’s so at ease with you, and Lauren seems so content.’

  Anne’s doing what everyone else does. Summing us up on the basis of a quick glance. I push back at her. ‘There’ve been some very tough times.’ Tough times that, in a different life, would have been hers. The hospital stays, the unsuccessful physio, the broken nights, the sheer tedium of it. There are no photographs of all that.

  ‘I’m sure, but you have a better relationship with both of them than I have with Rosie.’

  I’m not so drunk that I can’t recognise a painful admission when I hear one. I force myself to think about her and her life; somehow Anne and I have to build some bridges to support the intolerable. ‘It’s bound to be rough at the moment. Rosie’s kicking out at the person closest to her.’ I’m talking in platitudes. I know nothing about their relationship.

  She laughs, without humour. ‘It’s not just at the moment.’ She takes another swallow of wine. ‘It’s been
like this for a while. She hates spending time with me.’

  ‘Like any normal teenager.’

  ‘Um.’ Compressed into that small noise is a world of disappointment. Neither of us says anything for a while. We both watch the scroll of pictures: a recent one of Dad arm-wrestling with James; Christmas lunch with us all, the year it snowed; Lauren in the baby swing at the park when she was about three; then the one of the four of us on the sofa, me holding a newborn Lauren, a pink helium Congratulations balloon in the background.

  ‘I keep thinking about the maternity ward.’ Anne blinks and the picture changes to one of James with his football team.

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘I remember us talking before she was born, in that awful room with all the chairs.’ I nod. I remember.

  Anne walked into the deserted TV room at about two in the morning. I’d been walking loops around it for hours. She had the telltale, shell-shocked look of new mum, but she’d also made an effort, her hair was shiny and brushed and she had some lipstick on; attempts at grooming that looked odd, in the circumstances. ‘Oh, sorry.’ A soft, educated voice. She turned to leave.

  ‘No, it’s fine. Come in. I just can’t sleep.’

  ‘Me neither.’ She seemed at a loss where to sit, faced with so many empty chairs, and in a very English way she finally chose a seat about as far away from me as possible. I carried on pacing. At first I didn’t hear her properly. I caught a question aimed at me, but not what she said. I circled round back to her. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I was just commiserating.’

  I lowered myself into a chair near her. ‘I came in yesterday. I thought it would be over by now. It was all going to plan, then my contractions just stopped. They were supposed to be inducing me tonight, but it seems they can’t until tomorrow.’

  ‘They do seem very understaffed.’

  We both stared at the darkened glass. It reflected us back at ourselves. ‘Do you know what you’re having?’ she asked.

  ‘A little girl.’

  ‘Ah.’ She didn’t volunteer any more information about herself. ‘Is it your first?’

  ‘No. We already have a little boy, James. That’s why I thought it would be easier this time.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘No, just fed up and a bit scared.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine, once it starts properly.’ She turned to face the blank window again and I studied her profile. She was attractive beneath the post-baby puffiness. I was caught out when she spoke again. She didn’t turn to look at me, but talked to the dark night. ‘I had a little girl. Today… yesterday. She came early. I was visiting my in-laws. It was quite a shock. I wasn’t due until the thirtieth. My husband’s not even here.’ How awful for her. ‘She’s asleep in the nursery… my daughter. They’ve told me I should rest, but I can’t. I can’t get over that she’s here when she shouldn’t be.’ Then she turned towards me and the intimacy of the past few moments disap-peared. ‘Shall I go and see if it’s possible to fetch us a cup of tea?’ And somehow, on a ward with too few staff and too many patients, she managed to rustle up two mugs of hot tea, which we drank sitting together in the depressing, tatty TV room…

  ‘That we talked to each other while you were still carrying her, it’s bizarre.’ Anne’s voice slices through the memory I’ve been fixated on ever since we found out. She twists the stem of her glass between her fingers. ‘I just can’t stop thinking about it, the chances… it doesn’t seem possible. If I hadn’t been up in Harrogate with Nathan’s parents, if I hadn’t gone into labour early, if they hadn’t been put into the nursery.’ She’s doing the same as me, trying to rethread the past to try and make it make sense. We sit in silence again, our thoughts on the same page: both girls in the nursery, without their mums, both of them in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  They still can’t establish how the identity bands got switched. They’re claiming that there aren’t detailed enough records for them to audit, and that staff ‘testimony’ hasn’t, so far, ‘shed any light’ on how the impossible became possible. No one is accepting respon-sibility for it, nor is it likely they ever will. It beggars belief. And yet there’s a part of me that almost doesn’t care any more, because whatever happened, it doesn’t change the massive mess it’s caused, a mess that has brought Anne and Rosie into our lives.

  Another picture of Lauren as a baby fades up on the screen, this time one of Phil holding her, a classic proud-new-dad photo, a pastel blur of flowers in the background. I look across at Anne and feel such a swirl of emotion that I have to push my palms down hard against the tabletop to root myself. I’m conscious that this woman and her daughter have the power to decide what happens to my family. Whatever the facts, I know that Rosie can never be my daughter. Lauren is, and always will be. We are fused together. Nothing can ever change that. I suddenly feel uncomfortable having Anne in my house, in my kitchen, sleeping in James’s room. She’s seeing too much of us. Ali is right – we knew nothing about her, not really. In that moment I don’t even want Rosie anywhere near us, getting under Phil’s skin and turning James’s head with her prettiness and sportiness. I drain my glass.

  Anne stays quite still, watching the changing glow of the photos, her expression so melancholy that my emotions jerk again in a completely different direction. I feel a sudden rush of pity for her; what has happened has shattered her as well. She’s obviously envious of what she can see in the photos. I’m acutely aware that, despite appearances, life can’t be easy for Anne. For all our troubles, I have Phil and James and Lauren and Ali and Dad. We are a family, and somehow Anne and Rosie aren’t.

  And I remember her kindness in the hospital. She kept me company that night, sat with me until my contractions started up again, and afterwards she came to see me to say goodbye. We were together at the start of our daughters’ lives. We have both been robbed and we are both guilty. We both took another woman’s child home and raised it without question, and that is something both of us will have to bear for the rest of our lives.

  But then she confuses me again with a rush of words that I can’t immediately make sense of. ‘I appreciate that it’s none of my business. I’m not sure they’d even want us talking to each other about it, but I wondered if you’d had any news on your claim?’

  The bond evaporates. ‘I haven’t really thought about it. It’s in the hands of the lawyers.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. I don’t want to overstep the line, but I want you to know that we’re trying very hard to get a response from Nathan. He’s been estranged from us for so long that it’s difficult. It all has to be done in writing, through his legal representatives. I just didn’t want you to think we weren’t making every effort on that front. I’m thoroughly ashamed of how he’s behaving.’

  Nathan is irrelevant. I can’t see what he has to do with the claim against the hospital. In fact I can’t see why she’s bringing him up at all, given his absolute indifference to both his daughters. I have no interest in her ex-husband, or the claim or the money. I’ve had enough of trying to decipher her. ‘Anne, if you don’t mind, I think I’d better head up to bed. It’s getting late, and Lauren tends to wake quite early.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry.’ She gets to her feet. ‘I’m glad we’ve had a talk. I feel better for it. Thank you. Goodnight, Sarah.’ There’s a fraction of a hesitation when she seems about to hug me, but she turns away.

  After she leaves I don’t move, not straight away. Nothing is resolved. Anne might feel better for our conversation, but I don’t. I sit and watch the photos change. There’s a rare shot of Lauren standing, before her leg surgery and her first wheelchair; James holding a grinning baby Lauren on his lap, both of them wearing light-up Santa hats; one of Phil hanging the whale mobile up in her room just after we’d finished decorating. As I watch I become aware of a heavy, sweet smell filling the room. It takes me a few moments to realise that it’s coming from the plant Anne gave us. ‘A jasmine, just a little thank you for welco
ming us into your home.’ It sits on the windowsill, a thread of waxy green leaves twisted into a perfect circle around a hoop of thick wire. In the heat of the kitchen the tight white buds have begun to open up into a flush of small, star-shaped flowers. It’s these that are perfuming the room, masking the normal smells of food and family.