A Part of Me (21 page)

T
HE SUN WAS
beating in through the wooden slats of my lounge blinds, throwing long slivers of light across the buffed floorboards, further warming an already stuffy room. It hadn’t taken Anna long before the pleasantries had tailed off into questioning looks.

I kept my sights firmly on the little black buttons of her jacket, so she couldn’t see how empty I knew my eyes were. Her drink was sitting forgotten on the new wooden coffee table.

‘You’ve done the right thing, Amy. You’re thinking like a parent. Putting the needs of a child before your own,’ she said quietly. She had a softness about her. She reminded me of the bereavement counsellor James and I had seen all those years ago.

I’d already removed the kid-proofing from everything. The kitchen door locks had been the first to go, then the corner guards and socket covers. Anna placed her hands lightly in her lap. ‘I know that couldn’t have been easy for you, Amy. For what it’s worth, I’m so sorry.’

Perhaps she thought I would cry. That I needed to. But
there was nothing left. James’s callousness had killed it. How could he be so indifferent? After everything we’d endured, how could he be so cruel? This was his own flesh and blood. I didn’t need to hear it from his lying mouth, I’d already seen it burnished onto Sadie’s face. He’d abandoned them, like they were disposable, beneath him. And then he’d had the gall to pitch that as some twisted testament to his commitment to ‘us’. To ‘the family we could be’. The pain bit into my chest again. He made me sick.

I’d given myself the rest of Wednesday and all day yesterday to lie in bed, imprisoned by the finality of it all, and now Anna knew the truth too. She was trying to think of something else to carve up the heavy silence in the room. She looked so disappointed. Everything that she’d invested in us, gone. I wondered if she really thought I’d done the right thing, or whether she thought I was just a fool for not doing what so many couples did all the time, and papered over the cracks.

She nimbly slipped the white file she’d pulled from her bag earlier back into its slot. I’d jumped in and told her the gory details, before I lost my nerve – before she had a chance to share a single aspect of the paperwork she’d so eagerly wielded. It was like watching a balloon slip from my fingers, climbing impossibly and irretrievably through the infinite sky. Gone.

I looked at the case on the sofa beside her. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

Anna shifted uneasily, an apology in her face. ‘Amy, I don’t think it’s going to help to go into it now.’

‘You matched us, didn’t you? Please, I came this close. Was that their CPR?’

Anna looked stricken with the growing weight of my question. ‘Amy, I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling right now. But given what you’ve told me, and how your application has been impacted, it would be wrong of me to share with you the contents of that file. I have to protect this child’s privacy; above all else, they have to come first. You understand that.’

A new sticky heat flowed under the surface of my skin. Anna looked pained, sorry for me. Sorry for the position I was putting her in. She sighed, pressing her teeth together, her jaw flexing with the movement.

‘He’s a little boy, Amy. Two years old. He’s lovely.’

The heat burnt me up, my windpipe shrinking down to a withered stem.

It’s a boy
. Again.

I could feel myself shutting down. I couldn’t breathe.
Don’t ask anything else, Amy, don’t ask
. But the questions were already there, jostling for position on my tongue. What colour were his eyes? His hair? How would his features change when he smiled? What would his laughter sound like? The same questions that had plagued me before, years ago, as I’d pretended to sleep in my room while my mother had busied herself in the kitchen.

And then there was the other question. Why did this little
boy, this lovely two-year-old child, even need somebody to love him? Somebody more worthy than me, who wouldn’t mess it all up so close to the finish line. What series of events had led him into care? I tried to ask, but my throat was so tight I couldn’t force the sound out.

‘Oh, Amy,’ Anna soothed, leaping from the sofa and engulfing me as best she could in her reassuring embrace. But I was gone. Washed away, drowning in my own living room.

‘Shh,’ she soothed. ‘It’s okay, Amy, it’s okay. You’ll work it out. There are other ways. I’ll do everything I can to help you.’

Already, a toddler had taken shape in my mind. A little boy with a face I’d never know now.

‘Will he be okay?’ I sobbed into Anna’s stumpy blonde ponytail. ‘Will he … have to … wait for … very long … for another … family now?’ I stammered over the judders in my chest. I knew this feeling. Knew the heavy pull of grief. Another loss, but this time I could have made the difference. I’d let this little boy down, taken his forever home from his reach only to send him back like an unwanted commodity in the front pouch of Anna’s bag.

But I wanted him. So much.

Anna was holding my hand and patting my back as best she could. ‘He won’t, I don’t think, Amy,’ she said cautiously. ‘There’s another couple, a real possibility for him. They’re good people too, Amy. Good people like you. Now’s not the right time for this little boy to come into
another unsettled environment. That’s exactly what this child does not need, Amy, and you’ve protected him from that.’

I nodded against her, trying to resist the desire to beg her to forget all that I’d just said.
How can this be so hard?
Was I unreasonable? Did I want too much? Two parents and a child to love each other – it didn’t seem so impossible once.

Anna was still watching me with a pained expression when I emerged from my wad of tissue. I wiped my nose stealthily and smiled my defeat. I knew she probably felt that James was the linchpin missing in action, but strangely I’d felt something like relief ending our relationship. It had felt like finally kicking off a pair of shoes that had been pinching a little, after spending too long convincing myself that tight shoes were better than no shoes at all.

Anna squeezed my hand. ‘Amy, I can’t even begin to think what it’s taken for you to be upfront with me. But you can bounce back from this. There are other ways. You’ll be an amazing mother one day, I’m sure of it.’

‘When, Anna?’ Another breath juddered from my chest. ‘When I’ve found another man who’ll accept an adopted child over the biological ones he could have with someone else? Do you know how fragile that plan is?’

‘People adopt alone, Amy. There are a lot of children out there waiting for a parent to love and protect them. To give them a home, somewhere that they’ll be safe from
harm, and nurtured. Where
their
needs will be put
first
,’ she said, rubbing my forearm. ‘You could provide all of that, Amy, you’ve just demonstrated that more in this meeting than at any other stage of this process.’

‘Do it alone?’ I shook my head. I couldn’t. It had been hard enough.

‘You’re from a single-parent family, Amy. You turned out okay.’ Anna smiled hopefully. ‘Talk to your mum about it. She’s got the experience.’

I already knew how hard Mum had found it. She didn’t need to tell me, I’d been there. Anna squeezed my hand again, a new determination in her. She stood, rounding over the coffee table, pulling a pen and a small rectangular card from one of her bag’s pockets. ‘You can’t make these sorts of decisions now. You need to take some time, Amy.’ She scribbled down a number then came back to sit by me. ‘This is my private mobile. Reassess how you feel in a few months and call me on this, any time. I promise, I’ll do whatever I can to help. Do you know what you’re going to do about your job?’ Anna’s expression was sisterly, genuine. I slipped the card into my jean pocket.

‘I’ve given notice.’

‘Do you know what you’re planning on doing then?’

Where did she want to start? New job. New home. New life.

T
HE
A
TTIC HADN’T
changed much since the last time I’d been here. It still wasn’t actually an attic, and it still had the same graffitied NO UNDER 21s sign next to the cavernous entry door. This was the grunge mecca of the city. I watched Phil slipping out of her black mac, revealing yet more vampishness in her black lace bodycon as she paid the girl with the piercings and ice-white hair behind the Perspex kiosk. I felt like a baby sister being dragged out by her funkier, more popular, older sister, because this was Phil’s version of
sisterhood
. The boost others tried to provide with cuddles and unfounded optimism, Phil offered gloss-free with tequila and ‘screw ‘em’ philosophy. When she’d stopped by the house earlier this evening, she’d taken one look at me and prescribed a non-negotiable session of sorrow-drowning. Or
celebration
, as she was trying to spin it. Sticky flooring and brick walls enamelled in layers of paint led us along a corridor towards the melodic thrum of something soft and acoustic, beckoning us into the main bar. Phil stalked straight in through the doors like she owned the place, her eyes fixed on the stage, where a
pretty brunette with a slender face and tumbling curls sat straddling a harp, cradling her instrument as if one of them were in danger of weeping. An equally beautiful man was accompanying her on the guitar..

‘Open mic night?’ I asked, taking in the publicity signage. ‘Since when?’ Despite James’s attempts to ‘re-educate’ me, I still liked folk and indie music. Phil, on the other hand, hated anything that wouldn’t help a mojito down at an Ibizan sunset party. She ignored me, leading us to an awkward standstill beside an upturned keg barrel littered with empty bottles. I didn’t want to come out, I wanted to sit at home with wine and chocolate. All I really cared about tonight was drinking enough cheap spirits to sedate a small shire horse.

‘I take it we’re hoping to stumble into someone while we’re here, then?’

Phil turned sultry eyes on me. ‘You need a night out, Ame. By all means, drink yourself into a wailing mess if you’d rather do that than celebrate the back of him but, either way, you’re not doing it alone.’

This was not Phil’s type of place. It was making me suspicious. ‘Phil. Please tell me this isn’t your attempt to get me back in the saddle. Because honestly, I’d rather walk.’ I began darting eyes warily around us. Phil was in The Attic for a reason, that much was obvious, but the term
double date
had me breaking into a faint sweat.

A petite waitress with a severe fringe squeezed past us with a tray of shots. Drink. That was the answer. And
plenty of it. The sooner Phil hooked up with her guy, the sooner I could make my apologies and get back home to obscurity.

‘Relax, hon. I haven’t set you up. Let’s just have a few here. I like this,’ she said, bobbing her head towards the band sat beneath the atmospheric effect of some fifty or so hanging light bulbs.

‘I’ll get the drinks then,’ I said, turning to bump straight into another waitress with knobbly pigtails and scarlet lipstick. She began pulling bottles of Corona from the pockets of her waistcoat. I say waistcoat, but it was more of a fisherman’s jacket, every pocket crammed with spirits and beers. Phil already had four bottles of Corona in her hands, each stoppered with a slice of lime I was guessing had come from one of the pockets too.

‘Saves us going to the bar,’ she said, huddling the bottles into her chest while she rooted around for her cash.

‘I’ve got it,’ I said, pulling a couple of notes from my purse. The waitress opened out her waistcoat for my change, displaying a line of empty shot glasses like a magazine of bullets. As far as I could see, they all had my name on them.

I nodded at the ready empties. ‘What do you have?’

‘Tequila … sambuca …’

‘Sambuca. Four please.’

‘Why don’t you just ask for absinthe?’ Phil asked, ‘Then the Green Fairy could help us hold them.’

I took the first two shots the waitress poured and
downed them. I smiled at Phil, a reminder that it was she who had insisted on making me leave the house. ‘Are you going to swap me two of those beers for these, or am I the only one doing shots tonight?’ Phil took a little too long to offer me the Coronas, so I downed shot number three.

‘Whoa, okay, okay. Here,’ she said, swapping for the last shot. She knocked it down, chasing it with a sip from one of the bottles. The waitress sat my change in the palm of my hand and left us to it. ‘So drinking yourself until you’re a snotty mess on the floor
is
actually the plan, then?’ Phil asked, poking a slice of lime further down the bottleneck.

I shrugged. I only had one plan from now on:
no more useless plans
.

‘Do you think I’m boring, Phil?’ I asked, watching her carefully over the top of my bottle.

Phil’s face changed. ‘Boring? Course not. You’re just … safe.’

‘Safe as in … boring?’

‘No. Safe as in … careful how much control you’ll give up.’ Background music – more guitars and intense drumming – had begun filling the void between the night’s stage acts.

‘You think I’m controlling?’ I surmised, knocking back another sip.

‘No, Ame. I think you’re
controlled
. You have been since …’

‘Since when? Since when have I been a control-freak, Phil?’

Phil shook her head, turning to face me square on and do what she did best: deliver a blow swift and straight.

‘Look. I’ve never said this to you, Ame, because I know you. Know you don’t want to hear it, but … what happened, with Jacob … it was awful, Amy. Unfair. Heartbreaking. I understand why you became so
careful
after that, but you can’t factor out bad things from happening in your life, Ame. No matter how meticulously you plan and work and control every last detail, those things are at their own mercy, not yours.’

I hadn’t expected to hear his name spoken out loud in this place. The name that stayed safely tucked inside the firebox with his cards and mittens.

‘I know.’ I smiled, uselessly.

Phil’s eyes narrowed as she sized me up.

‘You’ve had a shitty run, Amy. No one could say you haven’t. But I worry that … you’re so preoccupied with going through the motions, trying to paint your future by numbers, you’re going to miss out on the other good stuff that’s happening around you.’

Phil had actually been planning this conversation.

‘Struggling to see a lot of
good stuff
right now, Phil. Sorry.’ The sambuca was beginning to take warming effect, it was also helping me to slide into self-pity territory. ‘So, what have I been missing? While my partner of eight years had an affair, trashed our hopes of adopting
and got my boss’s niece – and fellow happy-camper at the company I’ve dedicated my entire career to – knocked up?’

There wasn’t much coming back from that.

‘Rohan Bywater. Now there’s something good, right there.’

‘What?’

‘Go on, say you haven’t thought about it. I know he’s thought about it.’

‘Thought what?’

‘What, you want me to say it out loud for you? Okay … I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Trying to work you out. I don’t think a guy like that gets intrigued by much, Ame, but he’s intrigued by you.’

Phil had just pulled a head-flip on me.

‘What do you mean?’ I blurted.

‘You like him. I know you do. But you won’t even consider him because he doesn’t conform to your “plan”.’

‘I’ve just separated from James, Phil! At least let the bed cool off!’ Across the heads bobbing around during the musical interval, an old gent dressed in a white hat and overcoat was weaving through the crowd.

‘And do what? Wait around like your mum has? For something to come along and fit the old gap? Amy! Try something new! Would that really be so bad?’

‘If you like him so much, why don’t
you
make a play for him?’ I said, throwing my free hand in the air. The old chap thought I’d signalled him and nodded back at me.

‘I thought about it, but then I saw how awkward you were around him that first day I dropped you off. I threw a few comments in the air for you to sweat on, thinking it’d give you a bit of a push or something. But nada. Super controlled, as usual. Even when I tried to push your buttons with the disability thing, you just went on lockdown, Ame. You can’t go through your life being so …
careful
.’

‘Don’t, Phil. We all have different set-ups, okay? And Rohan’s …’

‘What? Too unconventional for you? How’s the conventional route been working out for you, hon? He’s gorgeous, funny—’

‘We’re nothing alike.’

‘So?’

‘He likes his own company.’

‘So?’

‘I want a family!’

‘He has a daughter.’

‘Who he doesn’t want to be a full-time parent to!’

‘He looks pretty smitten with her to me.’

‘He doesn’t go in for commitment, Phil. Megan told me as much.’

‘And you’re taking council from his ex? There are reasons he’s reluctant to have Lily more often, Ame.’

‘And who are
you
taking council from, Phil? You know a lot about him all of a sudden!’

Phil looked away from me then, at the movement on stage where the next act was being prepared. ‘I’m trying
something new, Ame. And you know what? I’m having a blast,’ she said tartly.

The man in fishmonger gear appeared next to us, waggling his basket of wares. ‘Ladies? Anything from the cockle man?’ he said with a grin. I wondered if he liked to bite straight into the shells, he was missing enough teeth. I looked down onto the basket of jarred curiosities. I wasn’t a shellfish person. Not since a school trip to France in the first year of secondary school when one of the boys had had trouble keeping an oyster down. Three times that thing had slipped back up his throat, only for him to catch it on the shell and try again. My stomach rolled at the memory.

‘No thank you,’ we both said. The cockle man shrugged and moved on.

‘Well, I suppose you won’t be seeing that much more of him anyway. How much notice has Adrian said you’ve got to work out?’

‘A month. But I’m owed three weeks’ holiday so I’ll be finished up at the mill next week. It’ll give me time to hunt for more jobs.’

‘Well, I hope you find something. York’s a long way away, Ame,’ she said, her features softening. Claire Farrel didn’t think so. She’d nearly worked out her notice period at Cyan and was raring to get started with the rivals over at Devlin Raines. I guess we were both behind enemy lines now. Claire had been there when I’d walked out of the toilets at Cyan. She hadn’t said anything to me at the
time but had left me a voicemail that night, telling me that Devlin’s were actively recruiting a new interiors team for their York practice, too. A hundred and fifty miles away sounded about perfect.

‘I haven’t even contacted them yet.’

‘But you will. And they’ll offer you an interview and then they’ll see your work and fall in love with you, Ame. It’s a done deal.’

‘Nothing’s a done deal, Phil. Trust me, I know all about deals falling through at the last minute.’ I was out of alcohol.

A new mic stand had found its way centre stage. The music in the club had started to fade and bodies were once again turning their focus towards the empty set.

‘He’s been asking about you,’ Phil said, pursing her lips to one side. ‘He said you helped him out the other night, with Lily. I told him why you weren’t at work, Ame.’

‘What? Why, Phil?’

She shrugged unapologetically. ‘I just thought he should know what was going on with you.’

‘Great, Phil. I still have to work another week there!’ Why the hell had Phil dragged me all the way here to pull my head to pieces when she could have just done it back in my lounge? The crowd began whooping, the lights dimming again for the next performer, the compere’s voice echoing over the heads behind me.

Phil looked to the stage. ‘Shh. Moan after.’ I looked around the crowd for another stockpiled waitress.

‘Ladies and gents, please put your hands together and give a warm welcome to one of The Attic’s most loyal talents … The Troubadour With The Tache, The Messy-Haired Minstrel … Isaac Carter!’