Slowly, gradually, like a laborious mathematical equation, everything began to add together then multiply and square to infinity. It explained the dissimilarity between mother and daughter in looks. It explained why Ruby was often so distant and far removed in thought. Deep down the girl knew she didn’t belong. There was no genetic link to hold her steady in her place in the world. When the results came back from the lab, they would show Ruby’s genetic heritage, and somewhere in the world was the mother it came from. That someone, Robert was convinced, was Cheryl.
Aside from gut instincts locking together, it was clear to Robert that Erin never had any intention of allowing Ruby to go on the school trip to Vienna. How could she get a passport without a birth certificate? How can a mother register the birth of a baby she has kidnapped? Robert guessed that the out-of-date passport he had discovered in Erin’s study must either be a fake or stolen. Thinking about it, the small photo was a sketchy likeness and of course the little mole on her cheek that he assumed she had covered with make-up for the photograph wasn’t even present. He wondered who the young woman in the photo was.
A car hummed down the street. A cone of light momentarily flickered through the voile drapes and then the clunk of doors, low voices, the jangle of keys in a lock. Robert sat up in bed, praying that his finally groggy mind hadn’t conjured another symptom of guilt; another do-good visit from Jenna, laughing, breezing her way through, rectifying his life. He looked at the digital clock. 2:12 a.m.
He padded across to the window and saw a black cab drive off. He threw on some clothes and went to the landing and peered between the banisters down into the dim light of the hallway. A duffel bag was dumped on the tiles.
Ruby stood alone, staring up at him. Robert took a breath and held it, feeling he’d never be able to let go.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I run home. I forget my takings. I don’t tell anyone I’m leaving. I trip on the stupid long skirt that I wear to make me look more gypsy-like, spiritual, and now I can’t see because of the tears. The air outside is as cloying as the pub but without the stench of cigarette smoke and beer. I suck in the humid night but the air doesn’t want to come into my lungs. I can’t breathe. I am choking. I stop and lean against a brick wall, knowing I have to keep running in case he catches up with me.
What does he know?
A man walking his dog stops and stares at me and asks if I’m all right. He asks if I’m having an asthma attack. An attack, yes, but not from asthma. He walks away. My chest heaves in and out but I still can’t get enough oxygen. I force my body to carry on, taking me home so I can be alone and never come out into the world again. Finally, I arrive at my front door, having survived on micro breaths, and realise my handbag is at the pub. It contains my keys.
I creep through the tunnel a little way down the street, leading to my rear garden. I have a pain in my chest, or maybe my heart. There’s nothing to be heard except my frightened, short breaths and the indignant howl of a cat as it skittles off down my long garden.
What does he know about my baby?
I know the kitchen window catch will be undone – it never closes properly. I jam it open with a garden cane and slide through it. I end up standing in the sink. I climb out and stare at the cakes that are still on the table. The cakes I made for Sarah.
I take a bite from one but spit it onto the floor. There is no saliva in my mouth so it sticks to my tongue. In the living room, I trip over the baby basket filled with clothes. I switch on a lamp and kneel down beside my gift to Sarah. I wonder if she ever came knocking and I glance at the front door to see if a note has been slipped onto the mat. There’s nothing.
I bury my face in the basket of clothes, as if I’m trying to climb in to be a baby myself, and eventually I fall asleep. I dream of that man from the pub finding Natasha and wake in a cold sweat and with a pain in my neck. The milkman is clinking bottles in the street. I’ve been on the floor all night.
It’s best that I do something so I begin folding the little baby clothes. Because I fell asleep on them, they are creased and one side of the straw basinet is squashed. When they’re all neat, I take them upstairs and pop them in the painted chest of drawers. I stencilled rabbits and flowers on it to match the ones on the wall.
I think of Sarah giving birth and it hurts me to picture her cinnamon face screwed up in pain and her belly heaving and the midwife yelling at her to push, no don’t push, pant, pant.
When Sarah still doesn’t come to show me her new baby and eat the cakes, I decide to go out and look for her. I put on my sandals and run my fingers through my tangled hair, not caring that my make-up from the night before is smudged like bruises underneath my eyes or that there are muddy streaks down my cheeks. After all, a baby doesn’t care what its mother looks like. It just wants love and milk and warmth.
In the park, it seems like all the world has a child. There are mothers and fathers and grandparents everywhere pushing prams or holding the hand of a toddler or watching a little one’s eyeballs spin as they cling to the roundabout. It’s a nice day for the park.
I sit on a bench and watch all the grubby brothers and candy-pink sisters playing on the equipment. When a swing becomes free, I sit on it and go as high as the clouds. Perhaps from up here I will spot Sarah and her new baby out for a morning stroll. The wind swipes across my face and the sun makes me squint. I laugh out loud.
Then, in the distance, crossing the road, I think I see her. Her bump has gone and she’s cradling a bundle in her arms. Then I swear I see the Knight man from the Stag’s Head, laughing beside her and pointing up at me as I fly high, high on my swing.
I could tell your fortune
, I yell at him in my head but he doesn’t hear.
I could tell you my fortune, too
. But I don’t and the next time I swing up high, they are gone.
I jump off and go back to the bench. There is a woman sitting in my place but she smiles and shoves up. She smells of fried food and cigarettes and has a grubby little boy whining at her and tugging her sleeve while she wrestles a baby back into its pram. The pram is old, as if it has held many infants. It is made of grey cloth and has stains on the edges that could be old sick or food. It’s not a very nice pram and the little boy has his laces undone and his knees have scabs that he’s picked.
‘Bloody hell, Nathan. Give it up.’ The woman looks at me and pulls a weary face. She is thin and worn out. The human equivalent of the pram. Her baby is screaming now it’s been put flat on its back. She’s after some sympathy.
‘Is he a handful?’ I ask, having to clear my throat because I haven’t spoken yet today and I’m clogged with regret.
‘Terrible twos.’ She says ‘twos’ like ‘toes’. A bird squawks and flaps out of a branch above, making us curl up our shoulders for a second.
‘Is it just the pair that you have?’ A boy and a girl, I deduce. The baby is wearing pink.
‘I got three more at school,’ she reveals. She says ‘three’ like ‘free’. The woman takes a packet of Embassy from the concertina hood of the pram and lights a cigarette. The smoke blows directly over the baby. ‘You got kids?’ she asks. Nathan kicks the wheel of the pram, sending the baby into another screaming fit.
‘No,’ I say as she belts Nathan’s legs. I look at the baby’s little legs kicking within the pink cotton sleep suit and think that one day those legs will get slapped too.
‘Need a wee-wee.’ Nathan is jiggling beside his mother, clutching his groin with one hand then the other. His face is flushed and already I can see a damp patch circling the front of his shorts.
‘Oh bloody hell, Nathe. You’ve just been.’ The woman squints across the play area to a concrete toilet block. ‘Just go behind a tree,’ she tells him. ‘I’ve got Jo-Jo in her pram.’
Nathan shakes his head and points to his bottom. His cheeks are crimson now and he’s fighting everything back. The woman grabs his arm. Her fingers sink easily into his flesh. It’s as if they are sinking into the knot of my heart.
‘Can I help?’ I ask.
The woman stops, half standing, Nathan jiggling frantically beside her, and looks at the pram. ‘You could watch her for a tick. I won’t be a minute.’ She drops her cigarette on the ground, leaving it burning. Smoke twists up underneath Jo-Jo’s pram.
‘Of course,’ I say. I already have my hand on the pram’s handle, rocking it gently. The baby’s shrieks change to curious shouts, as if she’s never been rocked before. The woman drags Nathan across the playground and they disappear into the graffiti-covered concrete building.
‘There, there.’ I lean forward and peer at Jo-Jo. For a second, she stops shouting and stares at me, gumming a half smile before stuffing her fist into her soft mouth. She stretches back her head and I see a necklace of dirt. I reach into the pram and slip my hands under her little armpits. Her head lolls slightly before she stiffens, eyeing me warily. I glance across at the toilet building.
She said she’d only be a minute.
I press Jo-Jo to my front. She smells of stale milk and her nappy is soggy and full.
‘You need changing, little one,’ I tell her.
Only a minute
.
I stand up. My legs don’t belong to me. I can hear Natasha crying. No one is paying me any attention. Jo-Jo dribbles on my collar and I can hear her fist squelching in her sore mouth.
Crying, crying, I can hear Natasha crying as again I stare over to the toilet block. The sun sprinkles down on us through the tree above, dappling the grass. I press my foot on the woman’s smouldering dog-end and still Natasha screams at me.
To get away from her noise, I sprint across the playground with wide-eyed Jo-Jo.
TWENTY-NINE
Ruby sipped hot chocolate and if things hadn’t been the way they were, Robert would have made a joke about her brown, milky moustache. As it was, he hardly dared breathe in case she shattered into pieces and floated away.
He asked her again. ‘Your mum’s in Brighton?’ It figured, he thought.
Ruby nodded. Her fingers were laced round the mug.
‘And your train got into Victoria at one o’clock?’
Another nod, her hair unwashed and clumped in heavy strands around her face.
‘So what have you been doing for the last hour?’
Ruby carried her mug to the sink and splashed in some cold water. ‘Sitting. Thinking. Stuff.’ Her body folded into the kitchen chair again, barely containing the will to bring the drink to her lips. ‘I called Art.’
‘You were out in London after midnight doing . . . stuff ?’ Robert couldn’t stand to think of what might have happened. ‘Does your mother realise how worried I’ve been about you both?’ An understatement. ‘And now she’ll be worried about you.’
‘I left a note at Baxter’s house.’ Ruby’s voice was even.
Robert tried to coax her chin up with his finger. Her head hung, forehead parallel to the table. ‘Why did you leave me?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘It was Mum’s idea. I didn’t want to.’ She was a kid again, avoiding blame for breaking something.
‘Well, did Mum say why she wanted to?’
Ruby sighed. ‘She said it was a holiday. When we got to Baxter’s place, I heard them talking about finding us a flat, getting Mum a job. She mentioned running away for the last time.’ She lifted her head. Her eyes were liquid. ‘Some holiday. I didn’t even get a walk on the beach or coins to take down to the pier.’
‘So it’s permanent? You and Mum are leaving for good?’ Robert suddenly wished Ruby hadn’t come home. Then there would still be some hope.
‘As permanent as we ever do things.’ And Ruby silently drained her mug.
It was 4 a.m. when Louisa arrived. On the telephone, she’d told Robert that there was little point in her coming over but his persuasion skills far outweighed her ability to say no at that time in the morning. Besides, he offered to pay an extra fee for the inconvenience.
‘Ruby’s in bed.’ Robert had tucked her up, protecting his precious catch from predators. She was his only link to what he could barely remember as normal life.
‘I doubt she’s enjoying this any more than you are.’ Louisa slipped her wedding ring on and off. ‘By coming back, she’s telling you where she wants to be.’
‘Try telling her mother that.’ Robert wasn’t sure whether to offer alcohol or tea or bacon. He noticed a pale streak low in the eastern sky.
‘What exactly did you want me to do,’ Louisa glanced at her wrist before realising she hadn’t put her watch on, ‘at this hour?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re paying me to do nothing in the early hours of the morning?’
‘Yep. You can help me wait.’ When she looked puzzled, Robert added, ‘For the DNA test results.’
They drank coffee and Robert beat some eggs. Louisa sat with her back to where he was cooking. ‘You realise that if the results show Erin is not Ruby’s biological mother, things are only just getting started.’ She swivelled round.
‘That’s why I’m cooking eggs,’ he said flatly, signalling with the spatula. ‘Mine are the best.’
Later, when the blackness outside had stretched into pink, blue and orange and the traffic had kicked up, they stood in the garden while Robert smoked.
‘Must stop soon.’ He held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and sucked deeply. Then, remembering, he pulled the tarot card from his jeans pocket and turned it over and over between his fingers.
‘What’s that?’
The face of Justice flashed at him, grinned at him, teased him, but most of all the card of Justice, dealt by Cheryl herself, told him he was doing the right thing.
‘The answer,’ he replied, squinting somewhere beyond the rising sun and taking another long draw.
The fuss started mid-morning. Robert decided to let Ruby sleep in but when Louisa prised her bedroom door open to check she was OK, he wished he hadn’t.