‘There was a man.’ I cross my arms around my waist. ‘Hanging around outside the house. I’ve seen him before.’
‘Perhaps he’s visiting someone. Look, Kat,’ Nick places his hand on my shoulder, ‘it’s been a horribly stressful time, moving house, the adoptions and now the surrogacy.’
I shrug him off. ‘I’m not cracking up.’
‘I didn’t say you were. I’m just… worried. Your boots were in the middle of the road, for Christ’s sake.’ He runs his fingers through his hair. His curls have got so long. He looks gaunt, and I feel terrible that I’ve only been thinking how this affects me. But I count the things that have gone wrong lately and paranoia pounces again.
‘Nick, I think someone has been in the house. Yesterday, my purse—’
‘There’s a message on the answerphone,’ Nick says before I can bring up the missing money from the safe. ‘The community centre rang. A workman found your purse in the toilet. He was in there fixing the faulty lock.’
‘But I didn’t even open my bag,’ I say, but even as I speak, I remember pulling my hairbrush from my handbag.
‘What’s going on, Kat? Talk to me.’ He looks despairing and everything seems broken between us, and there’s a big part of me that wants to fall against him, let it all pour out, but I remain silent.
You mustn’t tell, Kat.
I’m a keeper of secrets, a guardian of the truth.
Nick crouches and begins to gather the large pieces of glass and, quietly, I leave the room.
My mind tick-tick-ticks as I stalk into our bedroom, my eyes scanning everything. Did I leave the decorative cushions on the bed at that angle? Didn’t I smooth down the patchwork throw before I left? I’m perturbed. Something is off – I can sense it. The air feels thicker somehow. I slide open our storage unit, and lift out my jewellery box. Popping open the lid I run my finger over necklaces, rings, bracelets. Nothing is missing. My handbags are hanging where I left them. My shoes all lined up. I am sliding the door closed again when I notice Nick’s leather messenger bag. I bought it for him on our first Christmas, and I feel wistful as I remember the turkey I cooked. Nick didn’t complain once that it was dry and tasteless, or that the Brussels sprouts were like bullets. He drenched the unappetising food with lumpy gravy and ate every single mouthful. How young we were. How hopeful. We thought we’d effortlessly have it all. The family. The happily ever after.
Emotion gathers inside as I lift the bag off the hanger and draw it to my nose, breathing in the leather. Almost smelling the fir tree that had stood in the corner of our lounge. The mulled wine that was warming in the kitchen. A family. That’s all I ever wanted but at what cost? Lisa coming back into my life has been like uncorking a bottle of memories, and I can’t jam the stopper back in. The truth is a black swirling mass with a pointed tail and snapping jaws. I’m tired of running. Permanently stressed and edgy. Nick looks exhausted and unhappy. He never really wanted children, did he? He wasn’t bothered when I told him I couldn’t have them. At once I feel the burden of everything heavy on my shoulders. Have I ruined us? Pushing. Wanting. A few more months and we’ll be a three and yet, even now I’m looking further than that, wanting us to be a four. But in my mind a baby cries, needing a mum, and I know I cannot lose one again. I release my grip, the messenger bag thuds to the floor and a piece of paper flutters out. A bank statement. I frown. Nick keeps all the paperwork in his study but this account is in his name solely. Inside the bag are more statements. The same amount going in each month. The exact same amount being paid out to an account number I don’t recognise.
I pace the room. Struggling to make sense of it. What is Nick paying for? What is he keeping from me? I reach the back window. Turn. A rat in a cage. The front window. I glance outside. Clare is closing her front door. Ada in her arms.
Ada.
I drink in her black curly hair, so like Nick’s. Her fair skin. Think of the way Akhil disappeared. Not paying maintenance. The papers flutter from my hands. Clare manages in that big house all alone in this cul-de-sac Nick was so desperate for us to move to. Oh God. My stomach churns and churns. The flowers from ‘N’. His scarf in her hall. The overnight trips. The text message. Could Ada be his daughter? Are these maintenance payments? Clare comes from Cornwall where Nick’s grandad, Basil, lived. Could they have known each other as kids? Reconnected as adults? Had an affair? The carpet seems to sink below my feet as thoughts streak through my mind, and none of them are the things I want to be thinking. I have to be wrong, don’t I?
All at once I don’t know who to trust. Nick. Clare. I long to talk to Lisa. The person who knows me better than anyone. The person who won’t tell me I’m going mad.
Lisa’s phone rings and rings until reluctantly I cut the call. I pace the room, tapping the handset against my chin. I shouldn’t ring her at work, I know. Hospitals are busy and she won’t have time to chat, and yet just hearing a familiar voice, a friendly voice, would calm me. Perhaps I can arrange to meet her after her shift. I google the number for Farncaster General and ask to speak to Lisa Sullivan.
‘I can’t find her on the staff list. What ward?’
‘Stonehill,’ I say, and the ringing tone starts once more before I am connected to the right department.
‘Lisa Sullivan,’ I repeat for the second time.
‘I am sorry,’ says a harried voice. She sounds anything but sorry. ‘No one works here with that name.’
‘Are you?—’ I begin but the call has been cut.
I dial again and this time I speak to a different receptionist who confirms what I’ve already been told. There is no record of a Lisa Sullivan.
Agitated I return to the nursery, as though to convince myself it’s real. There is a baby coming. As the soft pile swallows my feet a slither of glass pierces the skin of my big toe and I crouch down and remove it. Under the changing table is a green box I store nick-knacks in and seeing it sparks a memory. With a sinking feeling I slide the box towards me. There’s a thrumming in my ears growing louder and louder.
My hands rest on the lid. I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to see what I know is inside, but almost mechanically, I remove the lid. Lift out the contents slowly, reluctantly, until I find what I am looking for. A silver picture frame I’d bought from Mothercare last year; inside rests the stock photo of the baby in the pink polka dot sleepsuit starfishing in her cot. A baby familiar to me.
Gabrielle.
The baby Lisa showed me on her phone. The baby Lisa had for Stella. The tug I’d felt on my heart when I first saw it wasn’t emotion. It was recognition.
This can’t be Gabrielle.
The child Lisa said was her baby.
Stella’s baby.
Except she isn’t, is she?
She’s a stock photograph.
Only as real as the baby that now cries in my mind louder and louder until I clasp my hands over my eyes and fold myself in two.
38
Now
In the shower I scrub at my body with lemon shower gel as though I can wash away the things I have learned. The things I now know. After seeing the photo I hadn’t wanted to believe Lisa had lied. I had felt her bump. The first scan photo was on my fridge. I had heard the baby’s heart. I googled and found a heartbeat on YouTube sounding exactly the same. My shaking fingers kept pressing the wrong keys as I googled again. ‘You wouldn’t believe half the stuff you can buy on eBay,’ Lisa had said, and she was right, I thought, as I stared in disbelief at a prosthetic baby bump with the ‘Buy Now’ option.