The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (3 page)

‘I’ll make it,’ he said.

‘God, I don’t need pampering yet!’

‘I just want to make it a bit stronger than the last lot.’

He frowned at the packet of supermarket ground coffee and then spooned a lot of it into the funnel and pressed it down hard.

‘So you have decided you want the baby?’ he said quietly.

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.

‘Your remark just now, about being pampered...’

‘Oh.’

After he’d gone the next morning I walked slowly around the flat and looked into each room with new eyes. It was strange how things worked out. This flat had been my refuge, my safe port in a storm, and now I could see that it would be a good home for a baby too, this solid, roomy, old-fashioned flat. I found that I did want the baby. I didn’t want to tell my parents or my friends just yet; I needed to nurse the idea quietly and peacefully for a few weeks while I absorbed what it would mean.

Markus has a strong puritanical streak and he hates waste and conspicuous consumption. In fact, good coffee is one of the few luxuries he allows himself. A few months after we decided to have the baby he moved in with me and I noticed how little he brought with him. He must have lived like a monk in his East End flat. He has an ancient Saab, a good drawing table and a plan chest, boxes and boxes of books, some diving gear and a few very fine, much-washed shirts.

We were happy together during the months of my pregnancy. We rarely went out in the evenings. Markus was working on a project and said we needed to be quiet, and I welcomed this new found domesticity. Eddie would always get claustrophobic if we stayed in two nights in a row. He would talk me into going to his local where his friends would be gathered and where he had a willing audience to listen to his funny stories. Too many nights we had rolled back late and drunk to our flat. Now my life had changed so much. I had given up alcohol during the pregnancy and I got into cooking healthy meals for us and I felt content.

When I was five months pregnant Markus and I spent a long weekend at Portland in Dorset. I think this was our happiest weekend together, even though it is a rather bleak and windswept place. I’ve noticed that Markus likes these stark coastal landscapes – Portland Bill, Spurn Point, Selsey Bill. He dislikes anything chocolate box or picturesque. So he has taken me, the native, to places all over England that I would never have thought to visit. We were staying in a bed and breakfast in the village of Southwell, and on the first day we walked the coastal path to Portland Bill. It was a glorious June morning with a soft breeze and I felt healthy and hopeful; my pregnancy was going well. As we set off through the village we passed a sweet shop, which had row upon row of those old-style confectionary jars filled with loose sweets.

‘Let’s go in here,’ I said.

I pointed out my favourites to him.

‘They look disgusting,’ he said.

‘They taste of nail-varnish remover. And I’m craving some right now.’

He laughed and asked the woman in the shop for some pear-drops, which she measured out and put into a small paper bag.

‘Tell your wife she’ll have an easy time giving birth,’ she said to him.

‘Really?’

‘I was a midwife before and your wife has big feet, always a sign of an easy delivery.’

‘Thank you.’

We were giggling about her remark as we followed the coastal path towards the main lighthouse, a resplendent white tower with a large red stripe around its middle. The landscape was striking with great ledges of limestone, which are softened in the summer by the grasses and the sea-pinks. There was barely a tree in sight. We sat down on the grass and I sucked contentedly on my pear-drops.

‘I love it here,’ he said.

‘It looks wonderful today in the sun but it would be awfully bleak in the winter. There are no trees!’

‘That’s what I love about it; just sea and sky and not much evidence of man, except for the quarries.’

He pointed out Pulpit Rock to me.

‘That was created by quarrying. And there are steps cut into it so you can climb to the top. The local kids jump off that into the sea.’

‘It’s a long way to jump! How did you find this place?’

‘Through my diving club; there are some good dives here, around the sea caves. We can walk over and look at them in a bit if you feel up to it.’

‘I feel great.’

He helped me up and we walked east to look at the caves in the cliffs. Markus was holding on to my arm in a protective way as the ground was a bit uneven and then we reached the cliffs and there were these huge, echoing caverns. There were large piles of seaweed that had collected in the gullies and they gave off a distinctive rotting, salty smell. We sat down again outside the caves and Markus threw pebbles into the sea. He looked as happy as I had seen him.

‘One day I want to build a house by the sea,’ he said.

That night I told him that my big feet were obviously a mixed blessing and we laughed as we hugged, curled up in the lumpy B & B bed, my bump against his stomach, my big feet keeping warm against his.

The next morning I woke up at six-thirty to see Markus standing naked by the window of our room, which had a sea view. I lay in bed gazing at him, feeling languorous and happy and admiring his broad shoulders and shapely bottom. He was looking out of the window with the kind of intensity that you see in children, as if caught up in the wonder of the moment. I wanted to make love again, as we had the night before. He turned round then and saw me watching him.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘You didn’t.’

I patted the bed and he sat down next to me and pulled back the covers and started to stroke my bump gently.

‘You should sleep a bit more. I think I’ll go out for an early morning walk.’

‘I was admiring your bum!’

He laughed.

‘I bet you have loads of women admirers.’

He bent down and kissed me lightly.

‘I’m a one-woman man. Now rest and I’ll be back for breakfast.’

As he dressed quickly I mused that even then, when we were at our most happy and relaxed, he did not want to talk about his past, about any attachments he had had. And I already knew that it was best not to push it with Markus.

Later, over a big fried breakfast, I took the plunge and suggested he move in with me, and he agreed.

The woman in the sweet shop was wrong. My labour lasted thirty-six hours because my contractions were ineffectual. Eventually, after many hours, the doctor injected me with something to speed up the birth as the baby was getting distressed. Billy’s head was large and I tore badly as he came out and needed many stitches. And childbirth has changed me, more than I would have thought possible. Before Billy came I was very focused on my work and ambitious too. I was determined to become an editor, perhaps one day even to launch my own magazine. And then I split open with Billy and I lost something. Yes, I lost my dedication to getting on and gained the secret sensual world of my beloved boy.

Billy was born in October. On New Year’s Eve Markus was keen that we should go and watch the fireworks that would welcome in the year. Billy was only three months old and I was so tired I wondered if I would be able to stay awake until midnight. Markus said it was important that we share this moment together – our first New Year as a family. I bundled Billy up in a woolly hat and fleece jumpsuit and Markus strapped on the baby sling and we put him into it. We went to wait for a bus to take us to Clerkenwell. There was to be a big firework display there, near where he worked.

While we were waiting for our bus at Baker Street an old man standing in the queue in front of us dropped his shopping bag. There was a crack of something breaking and the contents rolled out of the bag. I knelt down and started to pick up his groceries for him. Among them was a half-bottle of whisky and this had smashed when the bag hit the pavement. The old man was tearful when he saw that his bottle of whisky had broken. This was probably his treat for that special night. I salvaged the rest of his shopping for him and put the broken glass into a bin, wrapped in paper.

Markus was watching all this and he saw the old man’s evident distress. He took out a twenty-pound note discreetly and handed it to the old man, saying quietly, ‘Please, have a New Year’s Eve drink on me.’

The old man looked so pleased and he thanked Markus warmly as our bus arrived. We went up to the top of the bus and I sat next to Markus and Billy and was happy he had done that because it was a kind thing to do. Sometimes I had to remind myself that I was building a life with this gorgeous man. I felt blessed; I felt I had so much.

MAY

At lunchtime I sometimes drive to the street and sit outside the block where she lives. My colleagues make a big thing of going out to lunch together. They are a close-knit group. I do not like to go with them. They go to a pub on the corner of Primrose Hill, or to a café, which is hot and noisy. When I first joined the magazine Stephanie would invite me to come along. Now they know that I prefer to be on my own at lunchtime.

It takes me less than ten minutes to get to her flat from work. The block she lives in is near Baker Street and it is red brick, four storeys high and well kept. The flats look solid, safe and comfortable, a bit dull. The street is quiet in the middle of the day. There is a private dental practice there and I see people coming and going to their appointments. Sometimes there is a delivery van from Harrods or John Lewis. It took me a while to establish who their childminder was. After watching the building for several weeks I now know who she is. She is a young woman, in her early twenties, I would think. On one or two occasions I have seen her come out of the block with Billy in his buggy. She must take him for a walk somewhere. Or maybe she goes shopping.

Today I had only been sitting in my car for a few minutes when I saw her coming out of the block with Billy. I decided to follow her. I got out of my car and put money in the meter. I walked behind her. She stopped to put her shoulder bag into the tray under the buggy. She is quite short and big-breasted. She was wearing tight jeans that emphasized her round buttocks, white trainers and a bright blue top with white buttons down its side. She crossed the Marylebone Road and waited on the traffic island in the middle. I caught up with her there. The cars were three deep and the air was heavy with pollution. A rubbish truck drove by, emitting a sour smell from its back. I saw how it brushed against a cherry-blossom tree and unloosed a fall of washed-out petals.

She bent over the buggy. ‘Ooh, look at that big truck, Billy.’

Leaving the main road, she headed up a side road away from the shops. Perhaps there was a park around there? I stayed a few feet behind her, keeping quite close. She walked on past a grimy, unloved-looking church. I saw that she was turning into a large housing estate with four tower blocks grouped around a central square. The tower blocks were about ten storeys high and badly maintained. They had balconies on their inner sides looking onto a central patch of dried-up grass. Washing was strung along lines on some of the balconies. On every level black and white satellite dishes were screwed to the walls and pointed skywards. A dog sniffed around the outer perimeter of the square then lifted his leg to urinate.

This was her destination? What could she be doing here? She pushed the buggy confidently into the estate, under some concrete walkways, covered in graffiti, and over to a shabby little play area beyond the square of grass. Here there were two swings, a battered see-saw and a metal bench against the railings. No one else was there. I did not follow her into the play area, as it would have been too obvious. What would I be doing in such a place? So I walked into the estate as far as the walkway and watched her from the shadows. She settled herself on the bench and took her bag out. Then she adjusted the buggy so that it leant back more and arranged a shade over Billy’s face. He had fallen asleep.

She sat there for a few minutes, looking around. Then I saw a young man approach her. He must have come out of one of the flats. She stood up and they kissed. He put his hands on her bottom and gave it a squeeze. She pulled away, giggling. Then he sat down next to her. She offered him a cigarette, which he took. He was dark haired, unshaven and had olive skin. He looked as if he had just woken up. I thought he might be Greek Cypriot. They smoked and talked in a desultory way.

So this was how Kathy’s childminder spent her days – on trysts with her unemployed boyfriend. I wondered if Kathy knew that Billy was being brought to this estate for his daily walk. Almost certainly not; she would be the over-protective type. There would be all kinds of rules about no smoking in the flat or near the baby; instructions about his diet and sleeping regime. How trusting she was. How little she knew.

It was time to go. I walked back to my car and drove to the office. As I parked in the office car park I saw Philip Parr getting out of his big, flashy Mercedes. He walked over to me and did that thing of looking me up and down, which he always does.

‘Hi. How’s it going, Heja?’

‘Good, thank you. And you?’

‘I just went to a press launch at RIBA. They’re launching a new website of all the civic buildings of Britain. The photographs were so dull.’

‘Who did them?’

‘They’re getting enthusiasts all over the country to record their local buildings. I think they’ve been given some kind of style guide because they all looked the same: dreary.’

He pushed the office doors open for me and we walked up the stairs together.

‘I guess we’ll have to give the website some coverage, however second-rate the material. Need to keep RIBA happy! I’ll speak to Kathy.’

At the top of the stairs we parted. I went to my desk and he walked over to Kathy’s office. She was standing next to Aisha and I saw that she had seen us walk in together. I have noticed that Philip makes her nervous. She pulled herself up as he approached her and they both went into her room.