Limestone and Clay (14 page)

Now he has to sink onto his hands and knees. Despite the padding on his knees it is a painful crawl, for the ground is uneven and sharp under the flowing water which has risen to several inches deep. He'll stop after this in the Ballroom. Roland gave this grotto its name. He has a sudden rush of memory, Roland's laugh, the dark glister of his beard, the constant stream of profanities thrown good-humouredly over his shoulder. He will stop there, rest, replenish himself, and then he will go back. He will be out of the cave and home while Nadia still sleeps. He'll creep into her warmth and in her sleepiness she'll enfold him. She forgets her anger in her sleep and he has tricked his way inside her that way many times, so that her body has woken and received him, responded to him, before her mind is awake, and by that time, by the time she's remembered her complaint, it is too late, he is too close, she cannot resist him and he is loved and forgiven. He hopes she hasn't rung Miles. He curses himself for leaving the note. What will she have done? She
will
have rung Miles, or even Celia, to check what he's doing. She isn't stupid. She
isn't
stupid, but she can be spiteful. He likes that about her, sometimes, the piquancy of her spite. It can be childishly, naively, transparent. It is endearing. But what, in this case, is spite likely to lead her to do: leave him to it, or chase after him and try and spoil his fun? Make a fool of him. He doesn't know. He cannot imagine her perspective. She is in another world. He forces back the cuff of his wetsuit and looks at his watch. The figures glow dim green. It is only eleven o'clock. She'll be watching TV still, sulking, drinking wine. Or maybe she's gone round to Sue's to moan.

That other world is going on up there, like another dimension of reality, all that buzzing crucial life balanced on the thin crust of this ball. The thought of the buildings clinging to the thin surface skin of the earth, the tall impudent constructions stretching their tops into the sky, straining at their foundations, makes him feel a momentary panic. What if they were to topple like trees, their foundations ripped from the earth like roots? He jerks his head too swiftly at the thought, and bangs his helmet on a sharp projection on the roof. The crack is sharp enough to jar his teeth. It stops the wild train of his thoughts. He pauses and listens. It is the solid silence he loves. Not utter silence of course, for there are the workings of the earth just like the workings of any machine. There is the trickle of the stream and the louder rush of the river he is approaching. There is the sound of dripping, the sound of his own breath and, when he moves, the echo of his own progress.

Sophie sleeps in Nadia's arms. It is an uneasy sleep and Nadia can hear the bubbles moving in her tummy. She lifts the baby against her shoulder and rubs her back to send the bubbles upwards. Her breasts are pressed against her ribcage by the baby. They are damp and raw, and her nipples sting. She puts Sophie down for a moment and reaches back to fasten her bra and pull down her top. She has a mouthful of drink to try and rid herself of the sickly milkish taste in her own mouth. She does feel sick. She holds Sophie up again and nuzzles her face into the comforting warmth of her neck. The clock on the mantelpiece gives a tinny chime. It is eleven o'clock. The jukebox is turned off abruptly. Nadia hadn't realised how much noise it had been making; now that the bassy thud has stopped it seems oddly quiet. The clock nibbles away at the minutes; there is the occasional sound of a raised voice from the bar. But the walls are thick. There is also the smell of beer and smoke which drifts through whenever the door into the bar is opened. Not a good atmosphere for a baby. Nadia feels a mother's indignation. Not good for her tiny lungs to breathe in smoke.

Sophie wakes and is quite violently sick, a sour yellow froth all down her front. Then she begins to cry again, a miserable weak cry. Nadia wipes away the worst of the sick with tissues. There is an acrid smell now, and Sophie feels cold. She should be changed out of the dirty sleep-suit. But perhaps she is still hungry. Nadia picks up the bottle, which has cooled now to blood heat. ‘Let's top you up,' she says. Sophie accepts the clear rubber teat happily, almost with relief. She looks earnestly up into Nadia's eyes as she sucks, a little puzzled frown on her brow. Occasionally she relaxes her mouth around the teat for long enough to answer Nadia's smile and then resumes her sucking more fervently than before, as if to make up for lost time. Nadia marvels at her purpose, the way she is so much
here
, so definite a person, so dignified even. She is more relaxed with the bottle than with Nadia's breast. There is less struggle, not so hungry now, Nadia thinks, proudly, guiltily. She looks at the steady beat of Sophie's fontanelle. The softness of her head is terrifying, the precious brain protected only by the soft pulsing membrane. Sophie flexes her toes against the tight material of her suit. Nadia holds her hand against them so they have something to push against. Sophie pauses in her sucking to give an appreciative gurgle.

‘Good girl,' Nadia says. ‘Clever Sophie.' She bends down her head and kisses the baby. How could any mother ever leave her baby for even an instant? She would never leave Sophie with another person, not with a grandparent, not even with … her father.

But her mind stops when it comes to Simon, for he is not part of the game. He is somewhere outside. The cold fish butts her in the belly with its blunt nose. No. Simon is not in the game. Or the hurt or the anger. No, that is the other thing. And she would not leave Sophie with anyone. Not trust anyone. Ever. Not Sophie's granny, not even if she begged. It is another presence now that nudges, another memory that rises to the surface. ‘You won't know what it's like till you're a mother yourself.' It is her own mother. Perhaps it is because she has this baby now that the memory of June is becoming so irresistible, emerging so irrepressibly. All the clichés that are always there on the tip of her tongue are her mother's clichés, they are what will bring her mother back unwelcome to her mind. All her adult life, Nadia has flinched away from the sayings and the clichés. But they are woven into the fabric of her own mind, together with her flinching, like a fault. And she has to admit there is truth in them, a depressing aptness, a truth that trivialises rather than dignifies her experience of life – but truth nevertheless.

Although she isn't dead, Nadia has pushed her mother into the area of her mind reserved for the dead or those gone for ever from her life. Sophie has fallen asleep. One of her eyes has not closed properly and Nadia pushes the lid firmly shut, as if Sophie is a doll. The bottle is empty and she has been sucking in her sleep on thin air. Nadia removes the bottle from her mouth, looks at the swollen lips, the little sucking blister on the top lip, then cradles Sophie close.

Once June must have held her like this, close and warm, her own tummy distended with milk. She reaches forward and drains her glass. She feels quite nauseous and fuzzy. She remembers a conversation. It took place in her first flat, shortly after she'd left home to begin art college. It was a huge flat, one wing of a mansion house which had been left stranded incongruously on the edge of a dual-carriageway. She shared it with several other students. She was proud of the flat, ignoring its seediness and focusing instead on the elegant windows that reached the floor, the long tasselled velvet curtains, the Persian carpets. ‘Persian
type
,' June had insisted, ‘and on their last legs at that.' Nadia's own room was a slice of another, so that the ornate coving on the ceiling was cut off at a sudden angle and almost one whole wall was taken up with a marble fireplace of surreal proportions. Nadia had spent her first few weeks concentrating on her room. She'd painted the walls dark blue and stencilled golden stars on them. She'd dyed sheets dark blue and appliqued them with moons and stars for a bed cover, and curtains that were only slightly too short. She had been proud of it, longing for her mother to visit so that she could show her how grown-up she was, how capable of making her own home. She'd spent an afternoon shopping, skipping a lecture to do so, and bought all her mother's favourite things, shrimps, flaky-pastry sausage rolls, Battenburg and chocolate éclairs.

Sophie wakes and cries. She is cold. Nadia reaches for a shawl from the carry-cot and wraps her up. She smells horrible in the sicky sleep-suit. ‘I'll change you in a minute,' Nadia promises. She turns up the gas fire and walks round with Sophie looking over her shoulder, holding her little fingers out stiffly, gazing sleepily at the garish roses.

June hadn't said a thing about the room. And it was not the sort of decor that could possibly pass unnoticed. If she'd wanted approval she should have chosen magnolia or muffin, she had thought bitterly, and flowery cushions and scatter rugs. June approved of the tea, though, and munched her way through it as they sat side by side on the edge of Nadia's sagging bed, talking about people Nadia had left behind in her home town. Nadia felt disgruntled that June didn't seem more interested in her, more regretful that she'd left. She didn't bring food like some of the other students' mothers did. She didn't ask to meet Nadia's new friends, or look around the rest of the flat. She didn't even ask about Nadia's course. Nadia felt that June had washed her hands of her and the crumbs of Battenburg dried in her mouth and she'd felt on the brink of self-pitying tears.

‘I want to talk to you,' June said then, not noticing Nadia's unhappiness. ‘There's no one else I can have a real heart-to-heart with.'

‘All right,' Nadia said unwillingly, and then she had been irritated when June started procrastinating, insisting on another cup of tea, which entailed a trip down to the kitchen.

‘Go on then,' Nadia said when they were eventually settled back on the bed.

June cleared her throat. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses bright and shifty. ‘I'm in a bit of a spot,' she said eventually, ‘well more than a spot, a … a
crisis
.'

Nadia was startled to hear June rising from euphemism to a real serious word.

‘
Crisis
? What? Is it Dad?'

‘No, not Dad. Not really.'

‘What then? Money?'

‘No.' June sipped her tea, put her cup down on the floor and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. ‘Nadia, I'm expecting.'

Nadia put her own cup down and there was a pause. She felt cold prickles travel all down her spine – Someone is walking on my grave, she thought and then shook her head, impatient at the way her imagination was so ensnared. She didn't know what to say. What does a nineteen-year-old say to her pregnant mother?

‘But you're fifty!' she said.

‘Forty-nine.'

‘I didn't think it was possible at your age.'

‘Well now you know,' June snapped. She picked up her cup again. ‘I found out last week. I'd been feeling off. Periods stopped. Assumed it was the change, well you would, wouldn't you, at my time of life …'

‘What does Dad think?' Nadia asked.

June blushed, a dark mottled flush on her neck, her crêpey ageing neck, Nadia noticed spitefully.

‘Your father doesn't know.'

‘Well you'd better tell him then, hadn't you? Unless you're planning to keep it a lovely surprise.'

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,' June retorted, nettled.

‘I think you'll find it's the pun actually.'

‘I'm confiding in you because I thought I might get a bit of sympathy.'

‘Sympathy!'

‘You see, I'm not keeping it. I'm having it … seen to.'

‘An abortion you mean?'

‘Horrible word.'

‘But still, that's what it is.'

‘All right, Nadia, abortion. I'm having an abortion. Satisfied?'

‘I suppose that's the best thing,' Nadia said. The idea repelled her, the whole idea: her mother – sex – abortion – blood. And the most sickening thing was that she had to know. She didn't need to know.

‘I didn't think Daddy was up to it,' she said cruelly.

‘Well, you see, it isn't his.' June said this quickly, looking down at her knees. Nadia looked down with her at the plump knees, white pleated skirt, sheer tights, thick ankles and black patent-leather shoes, high-heeled and pointed. She'd dressed up for this meeting in the scruffy student flat. How pathetic.

‘What do you mean?' She wondered if her mother's thick legs were sexy then, to men of a certain age. Her mother! Men!

‘I thought you'd have realised,' Jean continued quietly. ‘Your dad hasn't been … well, not capable, for years and years, not since his illness.'

‘I hadn't thought,' Nadia said honestly.

They sat without speaking for a short time, listening to the window rattle as traffic roared by on the road outside. Someone upstairs put Genesis on loudly in the room above. ‘So you had affairs?' she asked weakly. ‘Couldn't you have just … not?'

‘Not
affairs
, Nadia,' June said. ‘And for years and years I did “just not”. But then I met John last year at my French evening class and we got on like a house on fire. Introduced him to your father, him and his wife.'

‘Oh, so he's married too, this John.'

‘Oh don't worry, it was all above-board then. Just good friends. Daddy liked him very much. Likes. But then his wife went off last Christmas. Left him high and dry. On the cards apparently, but he's such a nice man, so discreet – and loyal. But it all poured out one night in the pub after French. She'd given him the run-around all their married life apparently. And …'

‘And?'

‘We started to go out. The pictures, that sort of thing. All quite innocent. Daddy didn't mind. Encouraged me. Well, he couldn't come to the cinema, could he, not with his wheelchair, not without a great song and dance and you know how he feels about a fuss.'