Diane just gave me one of her looks; the cynical one that reads ‘get real’. ‘Look, them ending up together isn’t likely, is it?’ She pointed out. ‘They’ve been apart for almost a year. She never even told him she was pregnant, or that he was going to be a father; not exactly happy-ever-after material. And he loves you, doesn’t he?’
‘But they’ve got a child together.’ I was thinking of how Ray was with Tom and couldn’t imagine him not wanting to be involved with Jamie once he knew.
‘Well, there isn’t a thing you can do about that but you don’t know how it’ll play out. You’re imagining the worst but anything could happen. Maybe she’ll give Ray custody and you two will raise the kid; maybe that’s why she’s left her with Ray now. Or maybe Laura will move away with the baby and Ray won’t ever see her again. It’s all maybes.’
‘We still don’t know why she left the baby,’ I conceded.
‘Exactly – or whether it is hers.’
My phone rang again. Ray would be tearing his hair out. Let him. I realized how cross I was with him, jealous as if he was culpable for this mess. Of course, biologically he was part of the equation but he was still ignorant that he had a daughter. I knew I wasn’t being fair or logical – it was beyond me at that point.
‘Coffee, cake?’ Diane stood up.
It would have been lovely to stay, drinking strong coffee made with hot milk and the rich, dark chocolate cake that she always had on the go. But I knew I had to pull myself together and get on with it.
‘You’ll be OK,’ Diane said as she saw me out. ‘It’ll work out. But anything you need…’
I nodded, gave her a farewell hug and got in the car.
Halfway home it hit me that I’d forgotten the sketch of Jamie. Again. Intentionally this time? Was I really that shallow? I was chastened to find that my attitude to the baby had shifted a little. No longer simple and instinctive but cluttered with complex, half understood emotions. Because she wasn’t a foundling without any background or parents but connected to Ray and Laura and to a prior relationship that threatened me.
Ray was in the hall, Jamie fretting in his arms when I came in the door. Father and daughter.
‘Finally.’ He gave me a disgusted look. ‘Here, she’s been grizzling since you left.’ He thrust her into my arms.
‘Ray-’
‘The match.’ He pulled his jacket on. ‘I’ve missed twenty minutes.’
‘Sod the match. This is important.’ My tone was steely and he halted momentarily.
‘What can possibly be more important? Tell me later.’ He moved to the door.
‘The baby. She’s yours,’ I blurted out. ‘Yours and Laura’s.’
He frowned, gave a little laugh as if I’d caught him out with a practical joke, then his grin collapsed in on itself and his eyes drilled into me. ‘What?’ His face was raw with disbelief, pale with shock.
‘Come and sit down.’
In the sitting room, I looked at the telly, at Ray’s expression and wondered flippantly what the third catastrophe would be. I settled Jamie on my lap, used a finger to rub at her gums. Ray didn’t speak while I recounted what the woman in the shop had said.
‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’ I asked him. ‘Dates-wise.’
‘Just.’ His voice sounded dry, dusty.
‘And remember you noticed that Jamie looked like Tom as a baby.’
He glanced sideways at Jamie.
‘You’d no idea Laura was pregnant?’
His face narrowed and his eyes blazed. ‘How can you ask me that? For chrissakes, Sal, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?’
‘The note.’ I slung Jamie over my shoulder and went and fetched the slip of paper; thrust it in front of him. ‘Is that Laura’s signature?’
‘No.’ But he didn’t sound certain.
‘Are you sure?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You’ll have to go see her, talk to her.’
He bent over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, his fingers grasping his curls, and groaned.
Jamie began to cry and I walked to and fro, patting her on the back.
Ray looked up at me. ‘I don’t know if I still have her number.’
‘Go round there, then,’ I said. ‘Go now, turn up on her doorstep. See how she likes it,’ I muttered. I gritted my teeth together, fighting the burning at the back of my eyes.
He gave a big sigh and got up. He looked tired and shaken. Jamie kept crying. Ray made no move towards me. Didn’t say anything as he walked out, leaving me holding the baby.
Preoccupied and finding it hard to settle Jamie, I let Maddie and Tom do the minimum to get ready for bed. A wipe of hands and face, brush teeth and change.
Maddie was giving me the silent treatment, which was rather overshadowed by the baby’s bleating.
‘I’ll come and read you a story as soon as Jamie’s gone down,’ I promised them.
‘Yippee!’ Tom dive-bombed into his bed, forgetting for the umpteenth time that he wasn’t allowed to. The cheap pine frame had already been mended with brackets where he’d cracked it. With his usual resilience and even temper, Tom had recovered from the upset over the TV. Unlike Maddie, who would remember it to her dying day and feel wronged, whether she had been or not.
‘No jumping on the bed,’ I told Tom. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
I put them a Ms Whiz story CD on and turned off the overhead light. If Jamie was Tom’s little sister, I expected he’d adapt to the situation equably. But Maddie? And me?
Jamie took some of a bottle, and while she fed I examined her for signs of Ray or Laura. Her eyes were greeny-brown, not conker coloured like Ray’s and his son’s. Laura had pale eyes, grey. Jamie’s hair was dark – what she had of it – but straight, not curly. It could change, of course, become curly or turn blonde like Laura’s. The baby’s skin was pale, rosy; closer to Laura’s shade than Ray’s olive complexion. I remembered Laura had a small brown birthmark on one cheek but there was nothing like that on Jamie. Then again, I wasn’t sure whether such marks were usually inherited.
Jamie fussed over the bottle now. I stopped feeding her and checked her nappy. It was damp and she squalled loudly while I changed her. I buttoned up her Babygro and took her with me to sit in the rocking chair in the kitchen. I rocked and sang to her all the nursery rhymes that came without effort: Old King Cole, The Grand Old Duke of York, Pop Goes the Weasel, Daisy Daisy, Lavender Blue and Bye Baby Bunting. I was focusing on the here and now, trying to quieten my chattering mind and lose myself in the sensations: the creak of the wooden runners, the heavy dull ache in my back and shoulder, the hot weight of the baby’s body against my chest, the creamy smell of her, her breath damp on my neck.
She fell asleep. I kept the rocking up for a while then slowed and stopped. Carefully as possible I struggled to my feet and tensed against her waking, but she slumbered on and stayed like that as I crept upstairs and stooped to put her in the travel cot.
The children were asleep, too. Tom on his tummy with one leg flung clear of the duvet and Maddie curled on her side; beside her on the bed was a book she must have picked out for me to read. She had tried to stay awake hoping I’d come, looking forward to something to redeem the lousy day. My eyes prickled and I felt a pang of guilt. Another black mark. It felt like everything was warping, turning sour, coming adrift.
Downstairs I poured myself a large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, an Australian brand that the Co-op had on offer at three for a tenner.
I ran a deep bath and sprinkled in some rose and geranium salts that Diane had bought me for my birthday. The water was hot and the scent was heady: the sweetness of the rose tempered by the darker, pungent scent of geranium.
In the bath, I took a huge swig of my wine, savouring the berry flavours, then lay back and tried to get things in perspective. It wasn’t easy: for every positive thought I had like ‘we’re all adults, we can work something out’ there was an equally negative one like ‘Ray will see Laura with his daughter and realize how wrong he’s been to let her go’.