The new son, p.4
The New Son, page 4
I really mean ‘YES!!!’ I am so excited at the thought of seeing Liam again. We can get bags of chips from Felixstowe pier and wander along the promenade. Gary will be out on his round out of town. And Chloe and her gossipy friends will all be at school. I will be safe.
I think, as I lie here, about Ryan, my first boyfriend – and, if I am honest, my one true love. We first met in the school library one lunchtime when we were both doing homework. We did not speak for ages, just glances and looks at each other. I then forgot my packed lunch one day, and he shared his with me. Boiled eggs, which I hate – the smell of them – but I took one anyway, swallowing it down in two bites without breathing. He was nice and kind and gentle and shy and – I think, to be honest – so was I at that time. We were a perfect match.
We walked to school and back, hand in hand, to Trimley St Mary, where he lived, and on to the top of my lane in Trimley St Martin, where he’d watch me walking to my home. He’d then turn back to his on Trimley St Mary’s big housing estate. We made love in the fields near my home, just once, and it hurt so much but was over quickly, and I fell pregnant straightaway. It never occurred to me about being most fertile in the middle of my cycle. I was so young and naive.
Once I returned from Wales and learned Ryan and his family had moved to Ipswich, I was bereft. In the holidays, I would go and sit for hours in Ipswich town centre, hoping to see him. I never did. I messed up my GCSEs. I got five in all, including English and maths. Scraped a couple of A-levels too. I then went to work in offices in Ipswich, living my ordinary life. Dreary jobs. Boyfriends on and off. Happy now and then, but mostly sad. My mental health has been rocky. I then met Gary, got pregnant, and here we are. I still love Ryan, though. I’d like to somehow tell him about Liam. I’ve looked for him online, Instagram and so on, but he’s not there. I don’t know why.
Liam texts back a happy face emoji. I want to send him a heart or even a bulging heart emoji, but I reply with the same happy face he sent to me. I must be careful not to rush this.
I lie here a while longer in the bath, turning on the hot tap with my big toe and looking at my body. It is as though I was never pregnant. I don’t know why I should be envious of mums with veiny boobs and stretch marks, but I am.
I am hoping Liam will text again so that I can go and curl up in bed and we can just text each other all night. But he does not. I feel disappointed, cheated somehow, as I eventually turn off my phone.
I am in bed by the time Gary returns from his night at the pub. I pretend to be asleep. He is breathing heavily and clearing his throat repeatedly as he stands by the end of the bed, removing his shirt and pulling his trousers off and trying to step out of them without falling over. He is drunk, and I wonder, not for the first time, how he will manage not to fall off his ladder when window cleaning tomorrow.
He slumps forward onto the bed, on top of the duvet, in his tee shirt, pants and smelly old socks. I wait for a moment to see if he reaches out to paw at me as he sometimes does, whether he knows I am awake or not, but he doesn’t. Instead, he is asleep almost immediately. I lie here listening to a cacophony of sounds. An orchestra of trumpets.
Beyond that, I can also hear whoop-whoop noises, some infantile music from Chloe’s room – turned down a little, but still loud enough for me to hear. And I remember my life before all of this and wonder really if I am actually any happier than I was. I don’t think I am.
But, of course, I am happy now, and excited too, that I have Liam in my life. I switch my phone back on, and as the screen lights up, I turn and look at Gary to check he is asleep. He is and is now making blubbery wet noises with his lips. I have a photo of Liam on my phone, taken to the side, in profile, as he was walking away from the house. I gaze at it, realising suddenly that all my hopes of true happiness rely on him.
Lying in bed, before sleep, I try not to think about the baby and what happened. I missed a period. And I knew, straightaway, that I was pregnant. I did a test that confirmed it. Showed Gary the thin blue line on the stick. He was so excited. I let him and Chloe move in. We bought baby clothes and soft toys. Silly, really.
And then, weeks later, I had a period. The baby was gone. I tucked the stick away at the back of my jewellery box and tried not to think about it. Gary was so confused and angry. Chloe seemed indifferent. I did not grieve. I think, even then, I knew it was for the best. Gary being Gary.
And yet, somehow, even with Liam here, the son I’ve yearned for all these years, I mourn the loss of my baby. I can manage my thoughts in the day, but not at night. The baby comes to me sometimes in my dreams, breaking my heart. I lie here, recalling my last dream about my baby, going into it again as I sleep …
I am in a maze, a dusty path at my feet and high hedges rising up to either side. It is dusk, and I am on my own. No one else is in the maze.
I am filled with a sense of urgency. I am looking for something, and I know I have to find it, whatever it is, before a terrible thing happens.
I want to run hard, but don’t want anyone to see how desperate I feel, even though I know nobody else is in the maze. I hurry along, faster and faster.
I go up one dead end and around and up another. Then there is a long stretch that loops and returns me to where I was before.
I need to stop and somehow make sense of the maze. I think if I go left at every possible turning, it will bring me to where I want to go; the middle, I suppose.
To and fro, I go left-left-left-left, and I am certain I am back where I started again. Then right-right-right-right. I give up trying to be logical, and rush headlong every which way.
Eventually, soaked in sweat and stumbling with exhaustion, I come to the middle of the maze, a rectangular patch of grass, larger than I would have expected, with an old-fashioned street lamp in the middle.
Below, in the light of the lamp, there is a basket of some kind, made of wicker, and I can see blankets, soft white blankets, filling it to the top. Inside, I hear a baby gurgling.
I run forward, falling to my knees, my hands outstretched, ready to scoop the baby – my baby – up into my arms and to my breast.
But there is nothing, no baby, there. The basket is old and dirty and full of torn-up newspapers, like you’d put at the bottom of a cage for an animal.
I push the newspapers aside, tearing at them, to see what is at the bottom of the basket. There is just a deep, dark hole going down into the earth.
I reel back, a mix of disappointment and disgust – more than that, though. Much more. It is gut-wrenching. And I am inconsolable. The baby is not here because I was not good enough to save him.
And so I run, back the way I came, along the dark and dusty path, sobbing uncontrollably, stumbling and falling and going round and round, lost forever.
Beside myself with grief, and close to collapse, I push myself into the hedges that line the path, again and again, trying to force my way through.
And then I rest there, my face and arms and legs scratched and torn and bleeding, and the hedge kind of holds me up, my arms outstretched as though I am being crucified.
I awake into tears, as I do whenever I have this dream, turning away from Gary so that he does not see me weeping. I get up, go downstairs, make a cup of tea, trying to be practical.
Gary heard me once, when I was in the middle of the dream – this nightmare – as I must have been making a noise. He shook me awake, saying I was breathing badly, as though I were choking. So loudly that it had woken him up.
I feel utterly sad and broken whenever I have this dream. It’s partly because of the baby I lost, of course. It is not just that, though. It’s Gary’s reaction – it’s as if only he counts and nobody else. Not me. I’m nothing.
3
TUESDAY, 18 JULY, NOON
Iam sitting on a bench close to the pier, my phone on my lap, with the sound on, in case Liam messages me to say he’s late or cannot come. I feel as though I am holding my breath, hoping it does not beep. I keep checking just in case I’ve somehow missed a message.
It is a sunny day with a gentler breeze than usual. There is often a strong breeze here on this coast, even at this time of year. It is busy on the promenade, with people walking along the main stretch from the theatre to the pier and back again.
Once Liam arrives and we have our chips, we can sit on the beach and look out to sea, talking and getting to know each other better. It is relatively quiet on the beach itself, as the schools don’t break up for another week or two. There are just a few families with preschool children running about. I have earmarked a spot where we can sit.
I check the time on my phone, 11.53am, and then my appearance, wiping the corner of my right eye and pushing a stray strand of hair back into place. There, I am ready.
I fight the urge to look up and down the promenade, searching for Liam. I want him to see me looking calm and relaxed. I do not want to appear anxious or desperate. I feel so needy, and it is not a nice feeling.
Whilst I am worrying, I feel a presence, someone sitting down next to me, and smile as I see it is Liam, the hood of his fleece pulled over his head. He looks much the same as yesterday, but a little sweaty as though he has been running. I fight the urge to hug him. But then he leans forward and embraces me, and I am thrilled by the gesture.
“Hi, you,” I say, smiling widely at him. He has a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and it takes all my willpower not to take my handkerchief from a pocket and wipe it away. But I could not bear the thought of him recoiling from me.
He replies, “Hi, too.”
I signal towards the fish and chip unit by the pier. He gets up and strides ahead of me, full of confidence. I hurry to keep up.
There is a short queue, and I try to think of something to say, more profound than, “Do you want a piece of cod? Or a pasty? Battered sausages, maybe?” But before I can form a question in my mind, he is already buying chips and two bottles of water. He turns to me when the large middle-aged woman behind the counter asks if we want salt and vinegar on the chips, and I nod, and then again when he asks me if I want ketchup. He gives both bags of chips a good squirting.
I thank him, and he gives me such a warm smile that I could almost hug him again. I don’t. Just in case. Too much, too soon. Instead, I take his arm – he is happy with that – and lead the way to that quiet part of the beach, halfway between the promenade and the sea. He takes a small hand towel from his rucksack and lays it on the sand for me to sit on. Then he takes his hoodie off and puts it down next to the towel. And we sit beside each other, and I am bubbling over with joy. We talk, chatting away about nothing in particular – the weather, the pier, and other nonsense – as if we have always been together.
I ask him to tell me more about what he will study at Oxford in the autumn. He hesitates for a while, then answers, “Archaeology and anthropology.”
I say, “That’s good,” not being sure what else to say, and not being 100 per cent certain what anthropology is.
He talks a little about archaeology and this and that and says he has always been interested since “Mum and Dad” – I wince, but say nothing – took him to Stonehenge on the way to a holiday in Cornwall when he was ten years old. He talks more about Stonehenge and other places he has visited. Mounds and humps and lumps and things.
I really want to hear all about the adoptive parents, but do not ask anything, not yet. I know myself well enough to realise I am jealous of them and that it would be better if I feign indifference, or something close to it. So I ask instead why he took a year out, and he talks about his A-levels and the hard work he put in and then adds that he wanted to travel and “see the sights.”
I laugh and say, “What, Felixstowe Pier?”
And he answers with such wonderful words, “And, most of all, to find you.” He then adds, “And to be with you.”
We pick at our chips, and I ask him more questions, not about his childhood, but about the here and now and what he will do with his life. He says he is happy – “could not be happier” – and then, taking my breath away again, “Now that I have found you … everything is complete.” And I put my arm around him, and we have a little cuddle. I try not to cry, but I do not succeed!
He pulls away slightly, looks at me snuffling, and takes a cloth from his pocket. We both hesitate over who is going to wipe my eyes. I do. We both laugh. He then wants to know more about me, probing more than yesterday. I talk, meandering again, about my life to date, still making it sound as nice as possible. I mention Gary and Chloe briefly, but not that I lost a baby. He rests his hand gently on my arm. He has soft hands, long and slender, with clean nails. He’s not grubby, like many teenage boys.
He asks, if he may, to know more about the ‘other biological parent’. I hate the way he puts it, as though Ryan and I were no more than sperm and egg and a test tube. But I do not react. Instead, I talk a little more about Ryan, that it was first love, and what happened. I do not say Ryan is still round and about, and that I see him in passing now and then. I don’t know why. Liam glances at me, at what must be the wistful look on my face, and goes to say something, but stops himself. You still love him is what he was going to say, I’m sure of it. He is correct.
“What’s your happy-ever-after?” he asks, an unexpected question. I hesitate, formulating the words in my head, the order, the nuance of each sentence. In this moment, I want to say that, even though I am living with Gary and Chloe, I don’t want to be – there, I have thought it clearly at last – and I would love so much to be a family with Ryan and Liam. Madness, of course. I mumble something about Liam being my happy-ever-after. We laugh cheerfully enough.
Liam, having finished his chips, puts the empty packet to one side next to the bottle of water, and then lies down on the sand. He smiles up at me, and, in the moment, he has a look of Ryan about him. The same sort of smile.
I take his chips packet and put it in my own empty one and tuck them into my handbag. When I was young, my parents and I used to litter-pick the beach every Sunday morning. Old habits die hard. I still can’t bear seeing rubbish everywhere. I then lie down next to Liam, and partly to stop my hair getting sandy, I rest my head on his shoulder. I wish I hadn’t.
Suddenly, I see a shadow, a face, a body, leaning in above us. It is Chloe, who should really be in school, smirking at me. In the distance, on the promenade, I hear her friends calling, wanting her to go into the amusements with them, a magnet for teenagers for miles around. Instead, she says, “Hell-ooo, Nina, what are you doing here … with?” And she looks at Liam, expecting an introduction.
In this dreadful moment, Liam sits up oh so casually and smiles at Chloe as she moves around and crouches on the beach, facing us, the sea behind her. He has no idea what this means. But, already, I sense he is my co-conspirator.
I sit up too, unsure what to do or to say. Chloe must recognise Liam from yesterday, and she will know I lied at dinner last night. He is not a stranger. She will make the most of this.
The three of us look at each other. Liam, open and welcoming. Me – tense and scared of what Chloe will say, and where this conversation will go. Chloe, smug and ready to bring everything crashing down around me. “This is Chloe,” I say. I hesitate, but do not add, ‘my stepdaughter’ in case the implied closeness angers her. She triggers so easily.
“I’m Liam,” he says, holding out his hand in a polite, old-fashioned gesture. Chloe responds by raising her hand in a high-five motion, even though she’s not close enough for Liam to respond in kind. Liam continues speaking, “I’m from … Nina’s family … just passing through.”
“It was Liam who came round yesterday,” I continue. “I think you saw each other as you were leaving? I bought some tea towels from him.” I pray Liam will realise my predicament and help me. He does. My partner-in-crime.
“Yes,” he says, laughing and picking up on my discomfort. “If you want tea towels, I’m your man. Red … blue … yellow.” He stops and smiles. I wait to see if Chloe says something to push and pull at the flimsy lie. She does.
“Have you got any on you now, tea towels?” She gestures towards his rucksack. I am angered by the absurd question – as though she wants to buy one! – but stay quiet. I am fearful. He pulls a face and shrugs his shoulders as if to say, ‘I’m all out, sorry.’
She nods. I don’t know what to make of it.
“So,” she goes on, still talking to him and ignoring me, “are you Nina’s …” She pauses for dramatic effect.
I think she is going to say ‘niece’ – she is stupid enough – and that would make me laugh out loud, even in this awful moment. But she might say ‘son’, and that horrifies me.
“Cousin?” She smiles sweetly.
“Something like that,” he replies nonchalantly.
“You must come to tea tonight,” she says, smiling back at him. “Meet my dad.” And I feel I should say something at this point. To intervene. But I can’t think what to say, which way to go. Then Chloe’s friends are calling again – five of them, including Chloe, all bunking off school early, as it is getting so close to the end of term. I am distracted by their shouts and yells as Liam says something like, “We’ll see,” and she is up and away without a backwards glance.
Liam and I look at each other when Chloe’s back up on the promenade and away to the amusements with her friends. He says, “So that’s Chloe,” and pulls a ‘rather you than me’ sort of face. We both laugh, and he then adds, more seriously, “You’ve not been able to tell Gary … or Chloe … about me … just yet … I’d best not come for tea, then.”
I nod and then shake my head, feeling suddenly that he must be offended, so terribly hurt, that I have not revealed his existence to them – to anyone, really, over his lifetime. Like he means nothing to me. I feel ashamed of that, and scared, too. I also keep imagining Gary’s face when or if I tell him the truth. He does have a horrible temper. “I’m sorry,” I say to Liam.
