But where was her baby? Where did he go? He was there on her chest, warm and mucky, ice-blue skin, dry lips parted for a nipple, black shining eyes searching for hers. Where has he gone? He was there a minute ago. He was there.
‘Where is he?’ she cried, patting her chest, straightening upright on her knees.
‘Are you okay, Mrs E?’
‘Where is my baby?’
‘What baby?’
A little girl was standing next to her. Wide-eyed, tear-stained. She grabbed the girl around her head, feeling the warmth of her young cheek on her chest.
‘Are you okay?’ the girl repeated.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ Mira panted, coming to, releasing the past, enduring a surge of love for the baby she had lost. She clung to Rosie as though she was he.
Rosie pushed Mira’s arms away. ‘You’re squeezing me to death.’
‘Sorry, pet,’ Mira said, suddenly revolted by her, the imposter who was not her baby. ‘Off you trot. Mrs E’s got a bit of seeding to do. Off you trot,’ Mira said, shooing Rosie out.
Chapter Forty-Eight
We were lying next to each other staring at the ceiling. The radio alarm clock was muttering away in the background. Neither of us had had a wink of sleep. Rosie had woken up twice in the night after complaining of a headache.
‘You’re still worried?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘As I keep saying, I really don’t think she hit it hard enough.’
‘You’re sure.’
‘Yes, honestly.’ But I was feeling jaded, infected by his worry and I began to doubt myself. ‘But if she’s still got a headache this morning, we should probably get it looked at.’
The second time Rosie had woken, at about two in the morning, I had talked Peter down from taking her to A & E, guessing that her wakefulness had been emotional rather than physical.
When I had come in from work yesterday evening, having missed her on the morning after our big blow-up, she had been grumpy and tearful over her maths homework – not surprisingly – and, rightly or wrongly, I had not talked to her about our row and my exit, unable to bear a face-off. I had known it was the wimp’s way out to pretend nothing had happened, but I had been in a volatile mood too. After very little sleep, I was too tired for Rosie’s hysteria.
‘Symptoms of concussion can appear days after the accident, you know.’
‘Yes, so you’ve said a hundred times.’
‘I didn’t see what happened clearly enough.’
‘All I wanted was the diary and she just wouldn’t move off it...’ I stopped. Did he really want me to go through it again?
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Peter, I really think she’s fine. It’s more likely she was anxious after our fight. I should have talked to her last night. I was just too bloody knackered.’
‘Maybe book an appointment anyway.’
I thought of Miranda Slater and DC Miles.
‘It will look bad if she goes to the doctor’s.’
Peter frowned at me. ‘I don’t bloody well care.’
‘Of course. I didn’t mean...’ I trailed off, realising how awful that had sounded.
‘Hmmm,’ he mumbled, climbing out of bed.
Without uttering another word to me, Peter dressed and left the bedroom. His bad mood unsettled me profoundly. If Peter wasn’t on my side, who would be? I had a palpitation, a precursor to all-out, blinding panic. Peter was the only one who understood me and loved me and defended me and put up with me. And we were having another baby together. I couldn’t survive all this without his support.
Stiff with self-loathing, I lay in bed until I heard my mother next door, turning on taps in her bathroom, which usually meant she would go straight in to wake up Noah and Rosie.
I wanted to see Rosie first.
‘Rosie?’ I whispered, sitting on her bed. ‘Rosie? Time to wake up, poppet.’
A smile appeared on her face. Her eyes fluttered open and the scowl appeared instantly. The duvet was yanked from under me to cover her head.
‘Can we talk?’
No reply.
‘How’s your head?’
Again, nothing.
‘Rosie, do you want to take the morning off school today? I’ll call and tell them you’ve got a doctor’s appointment or something.’
‘You’re going to lie?’ she mumbled from under the duvet.
‘Well if your head doesn’t feel any better we’re going to have to go anyway. So it’s not really a lie.’
‘A little white lie.’
‘For now, yes.’
‘I don’t want to go to the doctor’s.’
‘Either way it’d be nice to stay at home for a bit, wouldn’t it?’
‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I thought we could cosy up with a hot choccy. Just me and you.’
I imagined Miranda Slater peering in through the window, spying us alone together during school hours, and calling the police.
‘But you have to go to work like always.’
‘I’ll tell Lisa I’m working from home.’
‘Another lie.’
‘It’s up to you,’ I sighed, standing up. Her uniform skirt was crumpled on the floor. While I waited for her answer, I picked it up, plucked off the odd leaf, and placed it back neatly into the drawer. Her tights were muddied at the knees. I wished she would change into her scruffy clothes when she was den-building, but I would not be saying anything about it this morning. I stuffed them in the laundry basket.
She piped up finally. ‘Hot chocolate’s got sugar in it by the way.’
‘I know. It doesn’t matter.’
I stuck a few loose pencils into her pen-pot, feigning nonchalance.
‘Can I have frothy-coffee milk in it too?’
‘Sure.’ I smiled, rescued. ‘After Daddy and Noah are gone we’ll get it on the go. You can stay in your jammies if you like.’
* * *
Downstairs, I frothed the milk in our coffee machine and heated up two chocolate croissants from the freezer.
Upstairs, my mother remained in the house, in her room ‘reading’, just in case Miranda Slater paid us a surprise visit.
I laid the table for two and sat down with the photograph album under my drumming fingers.
The album cover was embossed with silver: 2006–2009. The Baby Years: Rosie and Noah Bradley. At great expense, I had hired a company to collate all of our photographs from our computers to make hard copy albums. It was like looking through the book of a life perfectly lived. There weren’t any unfortunate photographs of post-pregnancy tummies or of broken cots in bad holiday rentals or of pooey nappies around ankles or of double-chinned snoozers in the sun. All of those rejects were on a memory stick somewhere long lost.
When Rosie came in, I jumped up. Her ponytail from last night was still in her hair, scrunched round by one ear and her pyjama top was back-to-front. I noticed the raw skin under her bottom lip and resisted the urge to get some balm. No nagging or picking or neatening allowed, I told myself sternly. Anyway, her cheeks were bright as though she had slept much better than Peter and me.
‘My head doesn’t hurt any more,’ she said, sitting down. ‘I don’t need to go to the doctor.’
‘Oh phew, good, I’m so glad it’s better,’ I said, kissing where she had hit it. ‘I’m so sorry, so, so sorry,’ I added, knowing how inadequate my apology was, wishing with every fibre of my being that I could take back our fight. The guilt was sliding around inside me like a black serpent.
She let me hug her, but she didn’t reciprocate. ‘That’s okay.’
When I brought out a chocolate lollipop stir-in from the treat jar, she gasped, ‘Am I allowed one of those?’
‘Yup.’ I placed the lollipop and a mug of frothy milk in front of her.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing at the album as she stirred the lollipop into her milk.
‘I want to show you some photos.’
She frowned, looking like Peter had earlier. ‘Of what?’
‘Me, when I had you in my tummy.’
Her whole face lit up. ‘You have photographs of me in your tummy?’
‘Yes, of course I do, darling.’ I reached for her hand and held it. ‘You’ve seen them before. When you were little.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Can I see?’
‘Don’t you want to finish your drink?’