Ricochet Baby (15 page)

‘W
HY EVER DIDN’T
you tell me you were coming?’ Fay says, when she sees Roberta coming up the path. ‘You’re lucky to catch me in. They cancelled staff meeting this afternoon, so many people are away on courses. I don’t usually get home until five on a Tuesday, and then we often have drinks after work that day It is lovely to see you, though,’ she thinks to exclaim, and reaches for Nathan.

The Cooksleys have seen little of Nathan so far. Fay is still shocked by the manner of his arrival. She doesn’t say I told you so to Paul, or that Roberta is at fault or disorganised, but Roberta feels that she might think these things. And who can blame Fay?

‘Life hurries on by,’ Fay says, as she is fond of saying.

‘How was Fiji?’ asks Roberta, although she thinks that it is a long time now since Fay and Milton had their trip. Perhaps they have already talked about this. Had she seen some photographs of lagoons and palm trees and Fay and Milton sitting on a beach
wearing
silly hats and goofy grins?

‘Fine,’ says Fay, glancing at her oddly. ‘Just fine. Where did you leave your car? Oh look, he’s smiling at me.’

‘I didn’t feel like driving,’ says Roberta. ‘Well, I thought it would be good for Nathan to try out the train. I used to love trains when I was a child.’

‘Oh, what a good idea.’ Fay sounds doubtful. ‘I suppose he’ll remember, like reading to babies in the womb.’

‘He’s growing,’ Roberta says. ‘He’s put on six kilos.’

‘Wonderful. Tell me, did you check the train timetable for
getting
back? Well, dear, I’d love to run you back to town, but I’ve got a meeting tonight. Or Paul? Is Paul coming to pick you up? Oh well, he knows where to find things in the fridge. He and Daddy could put a meal together, couldn’t they? How are you managing, by the way?’

‘I’m really fine.’

‘That’s our girl.’

A shadow has crossed the lawn. There is no sound, but both women are aware of it. They glance up and see an older woman standing near the gate, her back turned to them. Fay’s hands flutter to her throat.

‘Who is she?’ asks Roberta.

‘I don’t know,’ says Fay, handing Nathan back. All the same, Roberta feels there is something familiar about the woman. Another time, she might have cared to think about it.

Fay walks outside, trying to look brisk, but there is
nervousness
in her manner.

‘I’ve told you not to come here,’ Roberta hears her say. Fay closes the courtyard gate behind her and the two women are obscured from her view.

‘It would be better if we talked about it,’ says the visitor.

‘We really don’t have anything to talk about. If you don’t go away I’ll call the police.’ Fay speaks in a loud, bossy voice.

‘It’ll be on your conscience.’

‘I’m going to write to the authorities about you,’ says Fay. ‘You’re a public nuisance.’

Fay can manage anything, Roberta thinks, and places Nathan on his rug, in a patch of sunlight by the door. Beside him she places two letters. The back door is open and she closes it quietly behind her when she leaves.

E
DITH’S EYES ARE
puffy and tired. Teacups scatter the kitchen table among the litter of farm mail and accounts Glass has been working on during the evening. Bernard notices how speckled his mothers hair has become; tonight he sees that it is nearly white in the wings above her ears. Edith holds a letter, and as soon as he is seated she begins to read it aloud to him.

‘Now comes the moment of truth, when I must tell you what I have decided.’

‘It’s from Orla,’ says Bernard dully.

Edith blinks. ‘No, it’s from Roberta. Milton Cooksley faxed it to us an hour ago.’ The Nichols have moved into the world of
technology
as Glass keeps up with dairy company politics and now that Edith, herself, runs a business.

‘Go on,’ Bernard says, but his heart has lifted a fraction.

‘I know you have done up a room for Nathan, and made plans, but it isn’t going to be like that. When you get this letter, I won’t be looking after Nathan any more. It’s not because I don’t love him, it’s because I want to do the best I can for him. I am planning to leave him with Fay and Milton this afternoon, because I am sure they will help Paul to look after him. I’m not
worthy of a beautiful son like Nathan. There has been too much trouble and unhappiness over his birth, and I am sure Paul will be a good father.’

‘Where is she?’ asks Bernard.

‘We don’t know.’

‘She’ll be dead, I expect. That’s what people do.’

Edith lowers her head into her hands.

‘What do the police say?’

‘They haven’t been in touch with them yet. They’re hoping she’ll turn up.’

‘That’s ridiculous — they should be out looking for her.’

Edith turns her haggard face towards her son. ‘It’s not a crime to leave your baby at your mother-in-law’s house. Besides, what
difference
does it make? If she’s dead it can’t be undone, and if she’s not we can deal with it.’

‘They could stop her from doing something to herself.’

‘You go to the police then,’ says Glass, with more than a touch of malice. ‘You go right over and have a chat with them.’

‘Mate, is that all you’ve got to say?’ Bernard says.

‘Perhaps she’ll come here.’ Glass ignores the bitterness in his son’s voice. He tastes cold stones under his tongue.

‘Clearly that’s not what she had in mind,’ says Edith, ‘or she wouldn’t have written to us.’

‘She might, though.’ Bernard reasserts himself. ‘I could start looking around the barns and places like that. If she’s still alive, she’ll change her mind about this.’

Edith reads again from the letter. ‘I know I am right, so please do not think that I will have some sudden change of heart. You know me, if I say I can’t do it, well I just can’t.’

‘She always was a dropout,’ says Bernard.

P
AUL FINDS
R
OBERTA
at dawn, sitting in a bus shelter. Roberta is cold, because rain is falling over the city, and she has walked through it; sitting down in the shelter with her clothes dripping.

‘I meant to go further,’ she says, ‘but I was too tired. I wanted to have a rest first.’

‘Come home, Roberta,’ says Paul. ‘We can talk about it there.’

‘I don’t want to. Please don’t make me see Nathan.’

‘He’s at my mother’s place. Remember, you left him there yesterday?’

‘I left him there for you.’

‘I can’t look after him on my own.’

‘It’ll work out for the best. You’ll see, Paul, it will.’

‘Are you leaving me, Roberta?’

Roberta looks confused. ‘I suppose I must be, I hadn’t thought about that.’

‘But hon, you said just a minute ago … well, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I suppose I must mean that. Silly, I hadn’t thought about it like that.’

‘Roberta, you can’t stay here.’ People stream past them,
walking
from the railway station towards the city and work. His wife looks shabby and abandoned, and he looks like someone trying to pick her up. ‘Please, the car’s just round the corner. We can go somewhere and talk about it.’

‘Where will you take me?’ Even in her distracted state, Roberta can see that it won’t do, sitting here arguing like this. If she makes a run for it he will catch her and it will all get much worse.

A bus completely covered with an advertisement for house movers pulls up alongside them. The windows are painted over to look like curtains. The driver is one of those fast ones who veers into the kerb, barely waiting for people to leap on.

Roberta steps on to the bus and the driver pulls out while she is still taking money from her wallet. She can see Paul behind the curtains, but she doesn’t think he can see her, as she makes her way to the exit near the back and takes a seat.

She stares at the inside of the bus. On the wall, a poem is written in big letters. It is by a young poet whose photograph she has seen in the papers and it is called ‘Instructions for how to get ahead of yourself while the light still shines’ — about riding a bike at night from the top of Brooklyn Hill. It might have been written for her, if she had had the nerve to do something like that; she would like to have been as daring. Especially, she likes the way the poem draws to a close:

But she is scared and before she has completed a section, she gets off the bus and shelters inside a hat shop that is just opening its doors. The last two lines of the poem stay with her:

Even though it’s morning. Although the racing day will soon be night again and, in the meantime, she doesn’t know where she will be when darkness comes. She likes the idea of sailing past herself. She buys a dull, grape-coloured cloche hat made of a woollen felt material with a small brim that can be slouched down over her forehead, or curled up or down all the way round. She puts it on, pulling it over her hair and, when she is sure she is not being
followed
by Paul, she makes her way up the street.

I
BOOK MYSELF
into into a bed and breakfast at the top end of town.

‘I’ve been on the train all night,’ I tell the woman at the desk. ‘My luggage is down at the station, it’s being dropped off later.’ She doesn’t give me a second glance.

It is not too late for breakfast; her husband, the proprietor, a man with a limp and soft hands, serves me sausages and eggs and hot coffee in the square little dining room. The table is covered with a green and white striped cloth. I trace the stripes up and down, and try not to show how hungry I am. Around me, travellers make plans for the day, calling out to each other, asking for routes and destinations and possibilities.

Where are you going? they ask me. I tell them I am still
deciding
, and try to disarm them with a smile. Normal behaviour.

When I have finished breakfast, I carry the key lovingly up to my room; my new home, as I am thinking of it even before I open the door. The room has plain deal furniture and a floral duvet, just as I imagined. I’ve cleaned rooms like this in my student days, put my hand down the loos, pulled hair out of the shower ducts. As a matter of routine, I check the sheets and run my finger along a ledge; I find it very clean. I unlace my damp sneakers and lie down on the bed without taking off any more clothes.

P
AUL PULLS THE
single chair across the room and sits down with his back to the door. He crosses his arms and dozes. When he wakes up,
Roberta’s position is exactly the same as it was when he arrived; her breathing, if anything, is deeper. He checks her pulse and the
fineness
of the bones in her hand touches him, reminds him of his son.

They stay like this all day. The room is on the second storey of the bed and breakfast, close to the iron roof. Rain has begun to fall in earnest over the city, making a loud metallic rattle, and with it comes a humid, rising heat, so stifling that he feels he cannot breathe.

He has followed her progress through the city. When she turned into the boarding house his head was filled with silly ideas. Sitting here, like this, he sees how foolish they are, because Roberta is not the kind of woman whom he expects to have a lover. He has never thought about her in this way before. He doesn’t see her as being ravished by Josh Thwaite; he regards her only as peculiar. He can’t remember when he wanted, really wanted, Roberta and it is difficult to imagine anyone else feeling the same. And yet, he had thought her beautiful.

‘I’m looking for my wife,’ he had said at the reception desk. ‘Medium height — wearing a hat.’

In another, less casual, hotel, they might not have told him. ‘Second floor, two on the right,’ the woman had said. ‘She’s expecting her luggage.’ He hadn’t even had to knock; the key was still in the door.

He wants to shake her awake and tell her how irresponsible she has been, but he doesn’t. He sits here and studies her, and
wonders
what to do. He leaves the room only once, to slip down to the lobby and make a phone call to his mother.

He wants to get away from the dazed air of the room, but he is held there, hoping that if he just sits it out, answers will come. He might escape in the end. Other couples must do more than he and Roberta do, which is sleep — or she seems to sleep and sleep and when he nods off she is awake, so that their lives never quite coincide. This is what happens when she does wake up, towards five o’clock in the afternoon. Roberta turns wide, barely surprised eyes on him as if she has hardly been asleep at all, and speaks to him when he is half stupefied with drowsiness.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘What about you?’

‘I was wondering,’ Roberta says, choosing her words with care, ‘if people could go on like this. If it could be enough to go to sleep and wake up and not ask anything of each other.’

‘Of course it’s not,’ he says. ‘You know it’s not. We’ve got Nathan to think about.’

‘You’ve got Nathan,’ says Roberta.

‘Come home,’ Paul urges her.

‘I’d like to stay here another night.’

‘I can’t leave Nathan with my mother any longer. She’s already out of her mind.’

‘Poor Fay.’

‘You don’t have to be like that — it’s not her fault.’

‘I’ll go down town soon and get Kentucky Fried and a drink and come back here and sleep some more,’ Roberta says. ‘I like it here.’

‘You won’t go away?’

‘Not tonight.’

Leaving her here is practically the last kind thing Paul does for Roberta, and soon he will regret it.

F
AY RINGS
E
DITH
to let her know that Roberta is safe for the moment.