The House of Hidden Mothers (48 page)

They eventually found a roadside café a mile or so off the motorway, and decided to stop for lunch. He had expected plastic chairs and microwaved chips. Instead it was a family-run restaurant with gingham tablecloths and home-made pies, with thick serrated crusts that they broke open with their fingers, releasing herby clouds of steam. Mala ate every meal she encountered in the same way she would eat chapatti and daal: she would fashion a piece of bread, a pie crust or a chip into a scoop to mop up whatever else was on the plate. Toby watched the way she walked to the Ladies, swaying from side to side to balance herself like a fat-sailed schooner setting off from shore. Whilst she was on her third toilet visit since they had arrived, Toby pulled out his dog-eared road map and checked the remainder of the route. The car had a built-in satnav but he preferred to calculate his own journeys, enjoying the challenge of finding a secret shortcut and not having to drive with a disembodied posh voice telling him when to turn left and right. By his reckoning, they were only an hour or so away.

The gunmetal sky was beginning to fragment near the horizon, in the direction they were heading. As Toby had hoped, by the time they pulled into the driveway, the sky was a pale midwinter blue.

‘
Acha!
' was all Mala said when Toby helped her out of the car. They stood for a moment on the gravelled path, taking in the red-bricked rectory with its casement windows framed by climbing ivy which covered most of the front of the house. Toby could tell from Mala's face that she remembered this place, from that evening when he had shared with her his dream of moving out of London, of running his own smallholding. It was meant to be Shyama standing with him now, listening to the big speech he had been rehearsing for weeks – how this all made sense for their new life together as parents, how happy they would be. But it was Mala who smiled back at him like a co-conspirator, Mala who stood by his side when the local estate agent, a hearty middle-aged man with a wind-reddened face, turned up in a muddy Land Rover and shook their hands in greeting, Mala who wandered round the warren of rooms with him, all fusty and dusty as houses without people are, but they could both see beyond the tired wallpaper and dirty windows, knew what a beautiful home it could be. He naturally offered her his arm for balance as they toured the outbuildings and stables, the estate agent warning them away from the iced-over potholes which pitted the main courtyard. It needed work, he agreed, a lot of work, but the potential was huge and he knew for a fact that the owners would take an offer, as it had been empty for some time and they were keen to sell.

‘Sadly, the couple in question have gone their separate ways, so …' The estate agent shrugged mock sympathetically, brushing a non-existent speck from his brightly patterned tie. ‘Why don't I leave you two alone for a while to have a think? Anything you want to view again … just give me a shout, I'll be in the car.'

Toby stood looking out over the paddock, one corner of it given over to a training ring; the four-bar fence around the grey sand was weathered, splintered in places. A few jumps remained, the red-and-white-striped poles lying on the ground beside the rusting steel drums on which they must have once balanced, whilst children wearing hard hats and nervous grins hugged their knees to the warm sides of their ponies and prayed for flight. His boy was going to grow up in the saddle – he'd make sure of that.

Mala joined him and they stood in silence for a while, enjoying the birdsong, the wide-open views. She had buttoned up her coat to her neck – or rather Shyama's coat, as Mala owned nothing warm enough that still fitted her any more. Toby remembered Shyama wearing this one, a smocky-type thing with three large buttons, the kind you might find on a toddler's coat, in a bold blue-and-black print. Shyama had told him it was sixties-style, based on a Mary Quant design. He had told her it made her look ‘six months gone'. She'd worn it defiantly for a while after that, enjoying the spark that passed between them every time she emerged from the house wearing it. But once they'd started trying for a baby and it became clear that there were problems, the coat had been consigned to the back of the wardrobe.

‘You like it so much, don't you?' Mala finally said.

Toby nodded. ‘I think Shyama will like it too, don't you?'

Toby looked at her. Her face was so still she looked as if she had been carved out of polished wood. He couldn't understand how she did not seem to know how beautiful she was.

‘Who would not like this place?' Mala shrugged. ‘You see, horses here … cows in that field, yes? With the gate and the high ground. And in this one,' she indicated a small overgrown meadow, ‘I would plant food. Not the same as my village. Here you must plant wheat, barley, sugar beet, carrots.'

‘You've just named the major crops grown in East Anglia,' Toby said, impressed.

‘I know, I googled it. And in this corner … just flowers.'

‘Flowers don't feed anyone,' smiled Toby.

‘When you are not hungry, then you have time for something beautiful.'

Toby jumped as his mobile buzzed in his pocket. He saw the caller ID and walked rapidly away from Mala, further up the dirt track. She saw the guilty twitch, a veil already filming his eyes as he left her behind.

‘Toby?' Shyama said, sounding as clear as if she was standing in the next field. ‘Are you out and about?'

‘Er … yep … just a few last-minute odds and sods.' He tried not to pant, slowing down his pace so she wouldn't hear the frosted crusts breaking under his boots. ‘How's your dad doing?'

‘Oh, Tobes …'

He wished the line had been less clear so he wouldn't have known she was crying. Shyama never wept loudly or with any great drama, her tears came from somewhere deep and private, unwillingly shed; she always feared seeming weak, appearing needy. He braced himself for bad news.

‘Shyams?'

‘Sorry.' She sniffed loudly. ‘He's … he seems so … normal. It may be temporary amnesia just from the stress … or it could be the beginning of something else. Mum's not coping well.'

Toby spun around at the sound of a loud horn. He saw the estate agent waving from his car window, miming a telephone receiver with his finger and thumb. Toby nodded back in a similarly clichéd manner, doing a thumbs-up Roger-Roger-understood gesture, wishing to Christ the man would just bugger off as quietly as possible.

‘Where are you? Is this a bad time?'

‘No, no … sorry, the traffic is … keep talking.'

She carried on while Toby listened, watching a huge flock of starlings swoop across the fields in wide synchonized arcs, tea leaves swirled by an invisible hand around the blue bowl of the sky. She missed him so much, she said, was being torn apart by her conflicting loyalties, tending he who had given her life, wanting to be with the one yet to take his first breath. But her father's final batch of test results would be discussed the day after tomorrow, so she still hoped she could be on a plane home before the baby's due date.

Toby finished the call and turned back towards the rectory. As he walked around the side of the black-painted barn he saw Mala lying on her side, one leg splayed out awkwardly revealing her pink winter sock, the shoe that had covered it a few inches away. The surface of the pothole was all ice and blood.

‘Mala?' he shouted, running now, knowing she would not lift her head to hear him.

After the stillness of the farmyard, there was so much noise. The men's voices shouting, and instructions in her ear so kind and calm, the
wa-wa
wail of a siren like keening women following a funeral and the sounds of a fat man puffing loudly in hissy breaths, tyres on tarmac, then the clanging of doors, cold air on her face, the sensation of being lifted as easily as a child, set down, swept away, then more voices, women this time: ‘Mrs Shaw? Can you hear me?'

Through her closed lids flashes of light alternated with darkness as she was wheeled through places where sound echoed and bounced back to her, far away, as if she could hear through a conch shell other lives, other worlds. But only one life existed for her, now lying still in her stomach; they were all satellites around a dead star.

‘Mr Shaw?' Dr Pardew led him into a small office and shut the door behind her. She looked risibly young at first glance, hair scraped back into a ponytail, a crumpled blouse under her white coat; the bags under her eyes made her look older – it must have been a long shift. In her hand she held a set of what looked like X-rays, except these were black grainy images printed out on thin white paper, a stark relief map that meant nothing to Toby.

‘The baby's not in any danger. There's been a slight bleed, but that's all under control and they're both stable.'

Toby felt as if he had been holding his breath for hours; only now could he let out a long exhale, which took all his energy with it. The doctor briefly consulted the form in front of her, checking with him the date of their last scan, how had the results been?

‘All fine, as far as we were told …' Toby said cautiously. ‘Is anything wrong?'

‘We are just a bit concerned that the baby seems a little small for its dates.'

Toby wanted to say
his
dates. It bothered him, the refusal to assign an identity to his son.

‘Or that … no, we were told he's a bit on the small side, but the doctor said he looked fine … We were told South Asian kids are generally smaller … you know, they're usually under that average weight line of those charts they show you. And maybe we got the dates wrong …'

He was aware fear was making him gabble. He wanted to tell her that he had finally read all the baby books Shyama had had piled up on her bedside table for months. He'd even remembered to say ‘South Asian' instead of just ‘Asian'.

‘OK, well that's good to know. Hopefully we can get hold of your last scan results. Do you happen to know if there were any queries then about the amniotic fluid around the baby?'

‘I … I don't think so.' Toby tried to recall, but his head felt packed with wet cotton wool.

‘And has your wife mentioned that the baby hasn't been moving as much recently?'

Toby hesitated, then confirmed that Mala had said something about that a couple of times the week before. They had assumed that he'd just slowed down, as there was less room in there for the little fella to tumble around. The doctor continued writing in rapid strokes until Toby's question made her look up.

‘Is there something wrong with him?' Toby's voice sounded high and strange to his ears.

Dr Pardew closed her file slowly. She knew she wasn't firing on all cylinders today. Her job's ridiculous hours helped her make swift decisions and sharp diagnoses, but occasionally did nothing for her people skills. ‘I do apologize, Mr Shaw. There are a couple of things which may need investigating.'

‘Things?'

‘Well, it's a combination of factors. The baby's weight—'

‘I already said—'

‘Yes, absolutely … but that combined with the slightly unusual amount of amniotic fluid and lack of movement … What we would like to do is rule out the slight possibility that there may be any chromosomal abnormalities, sometimes indicated by—'

‘What? But no one has ever mentioned— Chromosomal? Abnormal?'

‘I don't mean to alarm you.'

‘Well, you bloody are!' Toby stood up. ‘We've been under the best … very expensive doctor. How come this hasn't been picked up before?'

Dr Pardew came out from behind her desk and stood beside Toby. Her eyes felt gritty, she badly needed another coffee. ‘I am probably being over-cautious, and when I've seen your previous scans and talked with your own doctor, we can all relax.'

‘Relax?' Toby slumped back in his seat.

Dr Pardew perched awkwardly on the desk beside him. ‘Would you prefer to be under your own consultant? We can arrange—'

‘No,' Toby said calmly. ‘First tell me what you think is wrong and what you think we should do.'

Dr Pardew recognized the set jaw of the stoic in this young man and her explanation was swift and frank. The procedures were simple: an amniocentesis and parental blood tests would confirm or dismiss any suspicion of chromosomal issues. The only point at which Toby blanched was when she informed him that the test results would take at least ten days to come back. As his wife was still bleeding, Dr Pardew did not advise moving her until she and the baby were stable, but she could offer a transfer to a London hospital after that. She would of course discuss all of this with their own doctor in the morning. And in the meantime they should try not to worry. It was probably nothing.

Nothing.

Toby had been following everything pretty well until she started talking about translocations. The science of it was blandly comforting.

‘… if we find the translocation in either you or Mrs Shaw, that's fine. If it's present in both of you, there is a fifteen per cent risk of a genetically inherited flaw, and then we can look at further options …'

His mind was on the larger truth of what all these tests would reveal. That Mala was not Mrs Shaw, that she had no genetic connection to this child – only he did. But would they then refuse to treat her? Would they inform the authorities? All those nightmare stories whispered in the back of the clinic's people-carrier returned to him: surrogate children who ended up stateless, left to languish in foster care whilst red tape looped around them, strangling their futures. Shyama would know what to do; she had dealt the most with their lawyer. Maybe the minute they did the tests they would know the truth anyway. As he didn't know what he could and couldn't say at this moment, he simply nodded his head until the doctor was standing up again, clipboard under her arm and furtively checking her watch.

‘Mr Shaw? Is there anything else you need to ask me?'