The Other Child (21 page)

‘But—’

‘Tess,’ he presses her hand, ‘I know. We’ll talk about everything tonight, I promise,
everything
. There are things I need to tell you too. Can you rest for a bit now? Go lie down till you have to go get Joe, OK? You look pale, you’ve had a shock. You need something sweet – can you eat a cookie? Have some tea.’ He takes her wrist and she realizes, after a second, that he is checking her pulse. She rips her hand away.

‘The moment you have finished – the very moment – you come back home. OK?’

‘I will, I will. Eight at the very latest. But remember, the woman is in the hospital, she’s in bad shape, she’s not a threat. Just hang on till I get home, OK? I’ll call you or have someone call you the moment I can get an update on her condition; the second I know anything, you’ll know too.’ He bends to pick up his scarf, then kisses her.

‘I don’t even know her name.’

‘What?’ He is making for the door.

She stands up, calling after him, ‘What’s her name, Greg?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it matters!’

‘Sarah,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Her name’s Sarah.’ But before she can ask for a surname, he has gone.

She waits for the sound of Greg’s feet coming up the basements steps. It is 8.55 p.m. and he has texted her twice in the last half hour: he is on his way. It is probably a good thing that he is later than he said he would be because Joe is, thankfully, asleep now – exhausted by whatever unspoken conflicts he has been through today.

The house is quiet. She has taken the bag containing the doll’s head down to the outdoor bin, but even now she can feel it down there, nestling in the darkness. The wind has dropped and snow is no longer tumbling, but it feels as if a great thumb is pressing down on the suburb, keeping everything still.

There is a persistent, burning ache in her lower back. The baby’s head rests heavy on her pelvis and from time to time her abdomen tightens – a Braxton Hicks contraction; she remembers these, but she also feels as if her body is bracing itself for Greg’s homecoming.

After she made the call to the hospital, her first impulse had been to call Nell – she picked up her phone, but then she hung up before the call could be connected. The conversation with the ER receptionist had only confirmed what she already knew: Greg is tangled in lies. Nell can’t help. The only person who can straighten this out is Greg.

She has had two updates from him on Sarah’s condition: a broken pelvis, broken tibia, smashed knee, three fractured ribs, but no internal or serious head injuries. She was very agitated and is now under sedation. They have traced her out-of-state records and the psychiatrist is with her. Greg was right, in other words: the poor woman is going nowhere. At least she is getting help.

Her phone vibrates on the marble countertop. She peers at the screen – not Greg this time but Alex Kingman. She waits for it stop ringing. It shudders to signal a voicemail has been left. She picks it up and deletes the message. She does not want to hear from Alex Kingman, she does not want to know what he has to say. He is the last person on earth whose voice she wants to listen to right now.

She hears the buzz of the garage doors beneath the kitchen and, after a moment, Greg’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

‘Tess?’ His voice at the basement door, his fingers tapping. ‘Honey? It’s just me. Can you open the door?’

Her belly contracts again as she gets up and unbolts it, letting him in. He looks uncertain, exhausted, and for a second everything falls away and it is just Greg: she has the urge to sink into his arms, feel his chest against her cheek, breathe him in, let all of this melt away.

But she will not allow herself to do that. If she does, he will somehow persuade her that the call she made to the ER this afternoon was a misunderstanding, that the photos and reports she has seen online are errors and muddles, that Alex Kingman is deluded.

She has to get answers now because whatever Greg is hiding it cannot be worse than the fact of its concealment.

He steps towards her, frowning. ‘Are you OK?’ He sounds nervous and the faint nausea she has been feeling all evening moves closer to the surface. He pulls off his coat. He is wearing a black roll-neck jumper that she doesn’t recognize. His body seems to expand to fill the space in front of her.

‘I’ve been calling you,’ he says. ‘Didn’t you hear your phone?’

‘I was probably reading Joe a story.’ Her belly clenches again. She has ignored his calls all evening – put her phone on silent, watched it buzz and vibrate angrily across the countertop.

‘Is he asleep now?’ Greg goes to the counter and reaches for the wine bottle. He pulls a glass down and sloshes some into it. She watches him take a swig, with his back to her.

Then he lowers the glass and turns to face her. ‘I am so, so sorry about what happened to you today, I’m so sorry she came into our house. It must have been scary for you.’ He reaches out a hand but she steps back. His fingers hover in the air then drop to his side. ‘Do you know how she got in?’

‘I left the door unlocked.’ She examines his face. Erase the lines, the shadows, the years and the bone structure is right there. It isn’t photographic trickery. She is looking at an older version of the face on the courtroom steps in Philadelphia: the medical student whose girlfriend accused him of killing their baby.

‘You have every right to be upset with me—’

She grips the breakfast bar that separates them. ‘I know who she is, Greg.’

The overhead lights form two tiny, glinting triangles in his dark eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ He tips his head back and takes another gulp of wine. His face has reddened. The wine stains his lips.

The ache spreads through her belly.

‘I know her name.’

‘What?’

‘Her name is Sarah Bannister.’

‘OK, listen. This sort of stress is really not good for you right now!’ He says it abruptly, almost madly. ‘It really isn’t good for the baby either.’ He puts down his wine glass. ‘I’m going to make you some hot chocolate. We both need to calm down. We have to sit down and talk about this. It’s been a rough day. We both need to calm down, sit down, talk.’

She grips the kitchen counter. He goes to the fridge, gets out the milk, a mug, a milk pan. His movements are taut and sprung.

‘I know who Sarah Bannister is,’ she says.

He doesn’t turn around. But his hands stop moving.

She tries to keep her voice low because they mustn’t wake Joe. Joe can’t witness this – whatever this is. ‘Almost thirty years ago in Philadelphia, Sarah Bannister accused a medical student called Carlo Novak of giving her drugs to abort their baby, then watching the baby die.’

Greg turns his head, quite slowly. His face is a mask. His jaw is clenched, his eyes small and unblinking.

She lets go of the countertop, steps back.

He moves around the breakfast bar towards her, very fast.

‘No!’ She holds up both hands. ‘Don’t – don’t.’ Her spine is pressed against the kitchen cupboard. He stops just in front of her. ‘Carlo Novak’s library card is in your box in the basement. And the medal, with his name on it. Alex Kingman recognized your face – right away. He thinks you’re Carlo. And I’ve seen an old picture outside the Philadelphia courtroom.’ She lifts her chin. ‘It’s your face. It’s your face in that photograph.’

He towers over her. ‘This is not what you think, it really isn’t.’

‘What? What do I think?’ She slides along the cupboard away from him. ‘My God, I have no idea what I think except that you’ve been hiding things from me, and lying. I called the ER this afternoon. I told them my sister had been hit by a car on Walnut Street – I asked for her by name, I asked for Sarah Bannister.’

‘They aren’t allowed to give out that sort of information.’

‘He didn’t; he said he couldn’t tell me. But I suppose he felt sorry for me, because when I begged him for information about my sister he said, ‘I’d urge you to come down here right away.’ And I said, ‘Is that a yes? Does that mean you have Sarah Bannister there?’ and he said, ‘Miss, you should come right now.’ So yes, Greg, yes, it’s Sarah Bannister who was hit by a car on Walnut Street – running away from you.’

A part of her wants him to say no – to explain this away, to make it all vanish. But he doesn’t. There is an awful silence.

‘Who is Carlo Novak, Greg?’

His mouth gives a panicky spasm, his brows lower. He moves towards her and all at once the fear that has been coiled in her belly all day explodes inside her. She ducks out of his way, her socks slipping on the tiles. He shoots out a hand – maybe to steady her, or maybe restrain her, she doesn’t know. She feels his fingers clamp onto her bone and twists her arm out of his grasp. She darts through the archway into the hall. He is coming after her. If she goes upstairs Joe will be brought into this and she can’t have that – she cannot have Joe wake up. She is at the front door so she wrenches it open, steps onto the porch and slams it behind her before he can follow her out. She feels it bounce off something – his fingers – and hears his brief bellow of pain. Then she runs into the bitter night, supporting her belly with both arms.

The snow needles the soles of her feet as she goes round the side of the house. She does not know what she’s doing. She can’t think clearly anymore. She ducks into the bushes and feels a sliver of ice slide from a branch down the back of her neck.

She can’t leave Joe – she has to go back in. The urge to run was instinctive but she has to calm down. Go back. Face this. Face him. She sees his dark shape over by the porch.

‘Tess?’ he calls – but not too loud. He wouldn’t want to involve the neighbours.

She crouches between the houses and her belly tightens. A persistent pain is spreading around her middle; she feels as if a huge hand is squeezing, tightening. She bends her head, tries to breathe, tries to think. The branches crowd closer. The fresh snow smells otherworldly beneath the earthy, darker smell of the frozen trees. The baby’s head presses onto her pelvis like a big metal bullet.

‘Tess?’ He is coming round the side of the house now. He can’t see her. ‘Tess, honey? Please, this is crazy – where are you?’

He is right. But she can’t move; it is as if she has frozen solid, with only the pain alive, burning low in her back. She hears his feet moving past, crunching down the snow. His shadowy shape flickers through the branches. She has to get up. She takes a breath. She has to get out of the shrubs.

She tries to rise, but nausea surges through her, sticky and grim. Her belly tightens again.

And then she understands what is happening.

It has been going for hours, if not all day – of course it has – but she has been so distracted that she has not allowed herself to tune into it. The low pains, the backache, the tightenings, the nausea. But it is far too soon. This baby is not ready to be born – there are still almost five weeks to go. This cannot possibly happen now.

She hears his feet in the snow again. She tries to think. First she has to go and get someone to look after Joe and then she has to get herself to the hospital. The pain builds, rakes through her, peaks to burning and for a while she can’t think anymore.

As the pain subsides she becomes aware of the cold again, the frozen branches by her face, Greg’s footsteps fading. She can’t have him holding her hand as she gives birth, not tonight. Sandra will help. But she might not make it across the road to the Schechters’ before another contraction comes, and Greg will see her if she tries to cross the road, he will catch her up.

She can hear him calling her name in a quiet, low voice, but he is further away now. Maybe he is going round the back of the house, under the deck and down to the garage. She crouches, clutching her sides, trying to breathe, waiting for the last of the pain to ease off. This baby isn’t ready to be born. Its lungs might not be fully developed, it will be far too small, too fragile, it will need medical help. Of course she must get up – she must get Greg. And then a terrible question rises in her mind: would he save this baby?

But of course he would. She is not thinking straight. She is confusing two men – Carlo Novak and Greg, her Greg, who would never harm their baby, no matter how complex his emotions towards it might be.

When the pain has gone she slithers out, staggers to her feet and calls for Greg, but before she can get to the front of the house the pressure begins to build again – already – to expand through her pelvis and intensify. It is far too close to the last one – almost on top of it. She knows what this means. She puts her head down and moans, swaying, trying to breathe. This is very bad indeed. She has to get to the hospital right now.

She manages to stand and then there is a sensation of falling and warmth spreads down both thighs. Her waters soak the snow. Her leggings are sodden and the baby is screwing itself against her pelvis even harder, bone grinding against bone. She has to get Joe to the Schechters’ and herself to the hospital. These two tasks feel both simple and overwhelming.

She shouts for Greg, as loud as she can. She takes a step or two forwards, and shouts again. She can hear her own breathing bouncing off the snow. The weight in her pelvis is enormous now. She tries to waddle, her legs slightly apart. A bright security lights flashes on and she is spot-lit, bewildered. She realizes she is on Helena and Josh’s front lawn. She both longs for and dreads the sight of Greg pushing through the bushes.

She drops to her hands and knees; she isn’t cold anymore, she is sweating. She needs Greg, because this baby is going to be born and it is going to be too small and she doesn’t even know if she will make it to the hospital. She tries to call out again, but instead of his name a long moan rises from her chest as the pain swells. Then, somewhere far off, she hears a rhythmic sound.

At first she thinks it is her own heartbeat and then she realizes it is the crunch of feet on snow. She sways as the fog closes in and the pain spreads, and she is dimly aware of hands closing on her shoulders.

‘Tess? Tess? Honey?’

She peers up. Greg’s face wavers into focus. She bends her head and vomits over his shoes. ‘Call an ambulance’ she spits. ‘Now.’