Writing in the Sand (23 page)

Mrs Kelly says, “I'll say what I was going to say. Amy is a wonderful girl, a girl who's come through the most difficult time imaginable.”

Mum says, “When was…” She falters. “When was Robbie born?”

“June…the third.” I can't help tears running down my cheeks. I lick them off my upper lip. “He was born at home, Mum. In the night. I left him at Mrs Kelly's.” I crumple. “I'm sorry.”

Mrs Kelly passes me tissues from the box beside Mum's bed.

I blow my nose. “I didn't know what was happening. I thought I'd got a bug. I didn't know there was a baby.”

Mum leans forward, her head in her hands. I'm scared. Could she be ill again? No, thank goodness; she lifts her head, looks at me. “I suppose I'll look silly if I ask who's the…?”

I say, “Mum, it was Liam. I—” But I can't go on. Thinking of everything I've kept from her makes me go numb.

Mrs Kelly says quietly, “Shall we leave it there for now, Amy?” She looks at her watch. “If you trot along, you'll catch the half-past bus. I'll stay – spend some more time with Mum.”

Mum reaches for her purse, but I say, “I've got change.”

Mrs Kelly says, “Is it all right if I stay for a bit, Lindy?”

“I'd appreciate that. Thanks.”

Mrs Kelly touches my arm. “Give Kirsty a call.”

“She knows, doesn't she?”

Mrs Kelly nods. “Yes, but I'm sure she'll want to hear it from you.”

Mum's eyes are like a magnet. I go to her. Put my arms round her. She pulls my head onto her shoulder. “I'm with you, sweetheart.” Her lips brush my ear. “Every inch of the way.”

Running down the stone stairs I'm already worrying about what I'll say to Kirsty, and thinking about Mum coming home tomorrow. I'll have to put pressure on Lisa, nag her into having Mum's room clean and tidy by the afternoon. I can manage the rest of the house. But I don't care, I'll need something to take my mind off the mess I've made of my life.

I barely notice people getting on and off the bus. My mind acts like a cinema screen. I rewind: watch myself telling Mum the enormous secret I never imagined I'd share with her. It's like my heart, just below my throat, is skittering with a strange kind of relief. As if I've jumped an enormous hurdle and landed safely. That's how I feel at the moment, though I'm not expecting it to last.

I'm right: even as the bus takes a sharp bend, the few minutes of calm start to evaporate and I'm wondering how Mum will cope with this bomb I've lobbed into her lap. In my mind, half of me sees her looking at me in shocked disbelief, while the other half sees Robbie in Mrs Kelly's arms, and I realize all over again how desperately I want to watch my child growing up.

At the very instant I'm jumping off the bus, thinking of how I'm going to face Kirsty – a car draws up. The driver's window rolls down. “Hi, Amy!” My heart plummets. It's Mrs Smith.

It's no use pretending I haven't seen her; she's only a couple of metres away. She leans across the passenger seat and opens the door. She smiles widely, and I wonder how she can be feeling inside. “What a nice day,” she says. “Better than yesterday!”

I think of her leaving Robbie out in all that rain.

She says, “Actually, Amy, this is a bit of luck…” The smile falters. “I badly need to talk to you.” She makes sure the car door stays open.

I don't respond like I'm too keen, but I get in because I need to know what she thinks she's going to do – now she knows I'm Robbie's mother.

Before I've had time to think any further, she puts the car in gear and we pull away from the bus stop. I hadn't reckoned on us
going
anywhere else to talk, but before I know it we've passed Dune Terrace, driven into town and out again, and are passing through a sprawl of local authority houses.

Now we're in open countryside, and I'm getting worried. “Where are we headed, Mrs Smith?”

“You'll see,” she says.

I'm exhausted. I'm not up for a mystery tour, and I wish she'd turn round and go back. To be honest, she scares me.

We're speeding along roads with high hedges. Now past fields of stubble and others already ploughed up. So far she's said nothing, and it makes me jump when she says, “How's Robbie?”

There's no hint in her voice of me being the cause of what she suffered yesterday, and it's a second or two before I say, “He's fine.”

“How many bottles a day is he having?”

I wish I actually knew. “I'm not sure – as many as he needs.”

“I've been thinking about how he's growing out of everything. Vests and babygrows, and so forth…”

“He's all right, he's got loads of stuff.” My God, I sound like a sulky kid.

She says kindly, “I don't suppose your mum knits, does she?”

“Not much.” Mum was never a knitter. Nana Kathleen was. If she was here she'd be knitting day and night.

“I'm knitting him a little waistcoat,” she says. “It's red, in a blackberry stitch. Very sweet.”

I feel sick. I ask her to stop the car. She slows down. Stops. I get out and lean against the door.

Looking worried, she switches off the engine. “Are you all right, Amy?”

“I'm not too good in cars. I sometimes get sick.”

“Poor you – take a few deep breaths.”

Staring through trees at a wildflower meadow, I tell her I'll be okay. Then I get back in the car.

“Better?” she says, and lets the handbrake off.

We leave the shady lane behind, and now there's open country with just a cottage here and there. We pass a church; now we're into a village – quite small. “Here we are,” says Gina. “Won't be a tick.” And she gets out to unlatch a gate. She swings it wide open, gets back in the car and parks up in front of a double garage.

She comes round to my door. “Welcome!” she says. “
Chez nous
!” I think this might be the name of their pretty house with lattice windows. (Rather like Nana Kathleen calling her bungalow
Bide-a-While
.) But it's not. The name over the door says
Orchard Cottage
.

I get out. There's nothing for it – I have to follow her to the house. She unlocks the front door. “Come in, Amy,” she says, “there's something I want to show you.”

All this is more than strange. Not telling me why I'm here,
and
she's acting odd – like she can't decide what voice to use. One minute she's edgy and tense, the next she's relaxed and happy.

“First though, come into the kitchen and I'll make some coffee.”

I wait while she fills a kettle. She presses the button, then says, “Come upstairs, Amy.” She smiles. “I've been longing to show it off… I'm so glad it's you.”

She leads the way and I guess, from the number of doors on the landing, there must be three bedrooms. One of the doors is open. She says, “You'll love this,” and I follow her inside. She waves an arm round the room. “The minute we moved here,” she says, “we knew this was the right room for a nursery. It's not finished of course.” She hesitates. “We played safe with colours.” She gives a little laugh, looks me in the eye. “We started before we knew the sex of the baby.”

Pots of pastel-coloured paint are stacked up, and rolls of nursery wallpaper lean against a wall. One is partly unwound and I see pictures of Jack and Jill and Little Bo-Peep. I'm not sure who I pity most. Me or Mrs Smith. Does she think this room will make me change my mind?

She smiles. “Don't you think any baby would be happy in here?”

You're not talking about any baby. You're talking about Robbie.

“Have a look,” she says, “there's a lovely view from the window.” I look out at a lawn, flower beds and, at the end of the garden, a small orchard. Beyond it there's a wood.

“Come downstairs,” she says, which I think is a bit odd as we haven't been up here long. Still, perhaps that was all. She's shown me the room and I have a good idea of how it'll look when it's finished.

“We'll have a cafetiere for two,” she says, and runs down ahead of me. She glances over her shoulder to make sure I'll follow. She smiles like she's a bit nervous, and I start coming down. In the kitchen she warms the glass jug and spoons ground coffee into it.

She lowers her voice. “I bought a carrot cake,” she says, as if this is especially significant. She pauses. “Andrew's simply mad about it, but he won't begrudge us a couple of slices.” She places pottery mugs ready on a tray, and pours hot water onto the coffee. Next minute, I'm following her back upstairs.

In the nursery, she puts the tray on the floor. “Would you close the door, please, Amy?” I do what she says, and we sit side by side on a roll of blue carpet. There's a brightly-coloured paper bag beside her. When she feels inside it, a jack-in-the-box jumps out. It's like one on TV that used to frighten me when I was little. She laughs. “Cute, isn't it!” she says, and pours me a mug of coffee.

When she starts cutting the carrot cake, the sight of the frosting makes me nauseous and I don't take the slice she offers me. However I have to do something, and though there's no sugar on the tray, I start sipping my coffee.

Like she's read my thoughts, she says, “Oh, sorry! Do you take sugar?”

“It's okay, thank you. I quite like it without.”

We're silent for a few moments before she says, “Amy, I know this is difficult for you.”

I want to tell her my mind's made up – as much as I'm allowed to make it up. But I know she won't want to listen. She confirms my thoughts: “I've asked you here,” she says quietly, “to what would be Robbie's nursery, to show you what a happy, tranquil start in life he'd have with me and Andrew.” She looks around the room, then at me. “How does this feel?”

The midday sun fills the room, making diamond patterns on the floorboards. I imagine it shining on the nursery-rhyme wallpaper. I can hardly trust myself to speak. It's all I can do to say, “It's a really sweet room, Mrs Smith—”

She says, “Please. Call me Gina.”

“It's lovely.”

Her hand is on my arm. “Amy, I want to make you a solemn promise.” She takes two slow breaths. “Andrew and I would
love
your little boy for the rest of our lives.”

“Mrs Smith, I—”

Her beautiful eyes are fixed on me. I can't speak. She says, “Andrew and I – we'd never blame you. Not for anything.”

“I had to—”

She shakes her head. “You don't have to explain.”

I need her to understand. “I took him because I love him!”

She puts an arm around my shoulders, turns me to face her. “Of course you did. That and the love you've shown him on your visits to the Kellys' will stay with him for ever.” Her eyes don't leave my face. “What better gift could you pass on…” She pauses. “…Before you give him up?”

This is more than I can cope with. Tripping over the jack-in-the-box, I stumble across the room and out onto the landing.

“Amy, love! I didn't mean to—”

I don't care what she did or didn't mean. I'm out of here.

I'm halfway down the stairs, and she's leaning over the banisters. “Amy—?”

I reach the bottom and try the front door but it won't open. I turn back and hurry along the hallway into the kitchen.

She's coming down the stairs. “Amy—”

I'm already on the back step. “I'm sorry – I need to get some air.”

“That's all right,” she says. “Of course. Have a look round the garden, it's Andrew's pride and joy. It'd be fantastic for Robbie. We'd put up a swing, and—”

Cutting her off, banging the kitchen door behind me, I want to
run
and keep on running, but I don't want to let her into my head, so I walk steadily across the lawn. I force myself to look at a vegetable patch and two compost heaps. I stop for a moment, take a deep breath of air – full of the scent of grass cuttings – then I walk, quite slowly, through the small orchard. Before I reach the wood at the end, I turn to look at the house. Mrs Smith is standing at the kitchen door. Even from here I can see the tension in her body.

She calls, “Amy! I—” but then I'm into a copse – running, and out of earshot before I hear what else she has to say. I swish through long grass, damp from yesterday. On the edge of the actual wood, the huge trees and ferny ground draw me in. Low-growing branches whip my jeans as I push my way through. I don't care if it's cool and sunless; it feels good here – away from Mrs Smith and her promise of Robbie's perfect future.

There's a rustle of leaves, but I can't see any sign of a bird and wonder what small animals live here. I imagine the wood coming alive at night with owls and badgers. The earth smells of walks I had with Liam – one especially, where we climbed a tree and sat hand in hand with our backs against a knobbly trunk. I was wearing a thin blouse, and sore marks showed up on my skin. Which afterwards he kissed. Remembering this blurs my eyes with tears.

I walk a little way along a barely visible narrow track. It's muddy, as if the sun never reaches it. When it comes to an end I stand still for a moment.

Just as I'm starting to wonder if I've been stupid enough to get lost, I hear Mrs Smith calling. Her voice is thin, like it can't find its way through the trees. “Amy! Where are you, Amy?” I stand stock-still and she stops calling. No way am I letting her take up where she left off; I can't cope with another word on the subject of my love for Robbie. Or his future with her and Mr Smith.

I push my way forward. The wood is getting darker, like the sun might have gone in. Brambles scratch my hand and I suck at beads of blood I can hardly see. For a few moments, while I don't move, it's wonderfully quiet. So peaceful. Until – quite close, though I can't see her – Mrs Smith calls again. “Amy! We need to talk!” Her voice causes a bird, high up, to squawk in panic and flap wildly in the treetops.