I decide to take a walk around the neighbourhood, to soak up some of the atmosphere, but there is none. Up and down the length of Green Lanes, cars beep and lorries unload like normal. The snooker hall is shuttered at this time of the morning. I stopped going there a few months ago, when my belly got too big for the table. There are only so many trick shots you can take with a cue behind your back. The only clue an eclipse is imminent is not in the stars but in the gutter; a discarded Metro newspaper is open at the headline: taking selfie with the sun could blind you, scientists warn. There’s nothing dramatic overhead but a weird violet light that I might have put down to a coming storm if I noticed it at all. It’s only on Duckett’s Common, where a handful of people dangle goggles from their hands, that you’d know anything special was happening. I stand, feet planted firmly, both hands on my bump. The capital is not plunged into darkness; it’s barely plunged into dusk. Even the babies share my sense of anti-climax, sleeping through the whole thing.
Back at home, there’s a Bone/Bean bag on my doorstep and a note inside telling me that Juno and Piper came round with Mac to deliver my morning liquid diet. My heart dips for having missed them. The coffee is still warm enough to drink, but I pour the bone broth down the sink and fill the fridge with the juices. The computer upstairs is calling me – I have a reference to write – but I know I won’t settle to anything today. I keep checking my phone, waiting to hear from Kit and forcing myself to stay calm when I don’t. He’s told me half a dozen times that he will probably be out of signal all morning. I swipe to my messages and look again at his clean-shaven photograph; a sweet gesture meant to placate me but all it does is remind me why I was so angry with him in the first place.
I turn on the TV. The woman on the BBC says that conditions in Svalbard were perfect but that Tórshavn was a failure. I feel sorry for Kit but there’s a surging anger inside me too; what a waste. All this stress, all this churning up the past, all this money spent and one of the worst rows we’ve ever had. Without a clear eclipse to justify it all, I feel cheated. It’s all been for nothing.
The phone rings. ‘What a total bloody let-down,’ says Dad.
‘It was supposed to be good up North,’ I say.
‘It got very slightly darker,’ he concedes. ‘How’d Kit get on?’
I realise that Kit and I haven’t spoken since our argument. What if that was our last conversation? There’s a sudden swelling inside me, like someone’s inflating a balloon inside my mouth. I want to tell him how stupid Kit’s been, how he’s told Beth where to find him, but I can’t, because it’s all down to me.
‘Daddy?’ I say, to our mutual surprise.
‘You all right, darling?’ The concern in Dad’s voice pops the balloon. If I break even a little bit, the whole thing will come spilling out. ‘Fine,’ I reply. ‘Bit of heartburn. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but it doesn’t look good,’ I manage.
‘Shame,’ he says distractedly. ‘Listen: one across; the wrong thing for the right reason. Six, five, three.’
I don’t have a clue. The analytical part of my brain has been temporarily subsumed by the one responsible for paranoia and foreboding.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I say.
‘Make sure you do. It’s got the first letters of five other words locked up in it.’ He clears his throat. ‘How are my grandchildren doing?’
‘Good, I think.’ Right on cue, a little foot pushes at the wall of my stomach; I bring my hand down as if to tickle its toes. We arrange a day for Dad to visit next weekend; there’s a new ocakbasi restaurant on the corner I want to take him to. By the time I’ve briefed him on this afternoon’s scan, and heard the latest developments in his doomed election campaign, it’s time for me to go to hospital. My maternity notes are neatly bound and in a box file next to my computer.
At eleven o’clock, I check my phone but there’s still no contact from Kit. My arms start to prickle, even though he told me not to expect a call before lunchtime. I pull my sleeves down over my wrists and slide my maternity file into my bag.
The solution to one across hits me then. The wrong thing for the right reason, six, five four. Little white lie.
Chapter 36
LAURA
29 August 2000
Kit’s open, glowing laptop was usually a marker of his presence in the house, but it had been shut for five days – a record – and the pile of essays he had brought home to mark over a week ago lay by the front door where he had dropped them. After a string of failed interventions on our part, Mac had staged his own, of sorts, getting himself sectioned after crossing live railway tracks between two crack houses in Tottenham. He was currently undergoing treatment for minor burns, cuts and grazes and major addiction in the secure wing of the North Middlesex Hospital. Today, ten days into the treatment, was the first time Kit had been allowed to visit.
While he was out, Beth and I had worked our way through a crate of French beers. She had turned up unannounced, but I’d withheld the usual invitation to eat with us. I’d prioritised her for long enough; it was time to put Kit first again for a while. Although I was never going to turn her away, like he wanted, since the photograph I felt the need to keep her at a distance.
The three of us were dealing with the incident in a mature and responsible way, by pretending it had never happened.
If Kit had let me explain his state to Beth, perhaps she would have understood, and given us the space we so desperately needed. But, fiercely protective of his brother, he begged me not to let her know, and so she kept coming blithely to Clapham and I had neither the heart nor the words to send her away.
It was Tuesday, and in this morning’s letter, Jamie had wondered whether to address next week’s plea directly to Kit. I reached for another beer.
‘You’ve hardly used those candles I bought you,’ said Beth. The three glass lights were still lined up on the shelf, the wax in the middle one pooled a centimetre lower than the others. The truth was that I’d rather gone off the scent.
‘I’m saving them for a special occasion,’ I lied. ‘It’s more of a winter thing, burning candles. The evenings are still light, the window’s always open. Do you want one, for your place? It might take away the smell of damp.’
‘Only thing to take away that smell’d be if someone burned the whole shitpile to the ground,’ she said glumly, her fingernail edging the label off her beer. ‘Anyway, I bought them for you.’
I lit one, but placed it on the balcony, where most of the scent would be carried away.
Four storeys below, the street door slammed.