Quickly, Nina went and rescued Zoe’s cheap bag from the road, for which the late-running Aberdonian bus driver was extremely thankful, and placed it back on top of the pavement, whereupon Zoe knelt down and gathered Hari, who was now unutterably filthy, covered in diesel and goodness knows what, his hair plastered to his head and his mouth wide open, a grubby finger stabbing in it which meant undoubtedly ‘yes, I have considered this, and ice cream would be most acceptable’. The pace of the stabbing motion appeared to be speeding up, and he put his other grubby paw emphatically on Zoe’s face, to turn her head towards his.
The other woman stood there. Zoe blinked anxiously.
‘Um . . . are you . . . ?’ she began.
It was no good. A very long sleep; a very long journey; a small panic. She had completely and utterly forgotten the woman’s name she was meant to be meeting. It was in her phone, which was in her bag, which was by her feet, which meant it might as well be on the moon at this point.
The woman didn’t rush to fill the silence but instead regarded her with something akin to horror. In truth, Nina had felt very strongly, watching Zoe, that she had got caught up in her excitement at the idea of having a baby, the romance of it, whereas here was the pure grubby evidence of what it was actually going to be like. She was winded, and suddenly very frightened, and unable to think of poor Zoe much at all.
‘Um . . .’ said Zoe.
‘Sorry. I might be mistaken,’ said Nina, just in case she genuinely was mistaken and had somehow come across a tramp by accident. ‘Who are you looking for?’
Hari had now somehow got his hand entangled in Zoe’s hair, and was pulling on it, hard and painfully. The bag fell over again. Zoe looked at the Aberdeen bus, and considered getting on it.
* * *
‘Book . . . book person,’ Zoe managed finally and Nina did her absolute level best to smile.
‘Hello!’ she said. Then she recovered herself. ‘Hi. I’m Nina. You must be knackered.’
The woman looking up at Nina seemed far older than her twenty-eight years. Her dark hair was matted where she’d been sleeping on it, she had great shadows underneath her eyes and her clothes were stained. The child was still pulling on her in agitation.
This will be me, thought Nina in horror. This is going to be me.
* * *
Oh God, Zoe was thinking in horror. This was exactly . . . She wanted to cry. She thought of the lovely first impression she would have liked to have given: her beautiful child behaving immaculately; looking ready and professional. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to afford a haircut and had attempted to trim her hair with the kitchen scissors (never do this), plus she hadn’t had time when she’d woken up to have a clean-up in the bus toilet. Also, the bus toilet was absolutely and unutterably disgusting and there wasn’t anywhere to put Hari down while she tried to tidy them up. She’d gone after them both with a tissue but on balance she’d only kind of rubbed the filth around a little bit and Hari looked crusty.
And this woman, in her purple jumper and short tweed skirt over her bump matching her red hair beautifully . . . she just looked so right, part of the landscape, even as she was clearly trying to hide her horror.
Zoe shut her eyes. Well. Too late to back out now.
Nina picked up the bags decisively.
‘You’d better follow me,’ she said, picking her away along the pavements between the coach stands. Zoe felt bad about letting her carry the bags but didn’t see another way to manage it.
Hari sensed immediately that this meant no ice cream, and turned his head into Zoe’s T-shirt, stuck his hand down the front of it, a hangover from his breastfeeding days, and silently howled, soaking her top through with his tears. Nina stared briefly, then turned around and marched on, pulling Zoe’s tattered bag efficiently as Zoe puffed, trying to keep up with her handbag and an inconsolable and surprisingly heavy four-year-old and his buggy.
‘Get in the buggy, Hari?’ she whispered and the child shook his head fiercely. Frankly, Zoe couldn’t blame him. The fog was heavy and thick on the ground making it very difficult to get a good sense of where they were. Through the main doors of the bus station, she caught sight in the gloom of a large pillared sandstone building boldly proclaiming PUBLIC LIBRARY as Nina headed out towards an extraordinary-looking blue van.
‘Well, here we are,’ she said cheerfully, then looked worried. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I thought . . .’ She looked at Zoe once more. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you’d bring a car seat.’
‘I tried,’ Zoe attempted to explain. ‘But I ran out of hands.’
‘Of course! Of course you did. I’m so sorry! Will he be all right on your lap?’
‘Of course.’
Nina looked a little longer.
‘Or . . . hang on.’
She vanished into the back of the van with Nina’s luggage and reappeared with three heavy books.
‘We could boost him up a bit.’
Zoe looked at the books.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Nina. ‘They’re books about how to hide vegetables for children. I don’t like them. As long as he doesn’t pee on them we should be all right.’
And she smiled nervously, and Zoe smiled nervously back.
‘Okay, little man,’ she said. ‘Up you get.’
‘He’s quiet,’ observed Nina. Surinder hadn’t mentioned Hari’s mutism, considering it just shyness.
‘He doesn’t speak,’ said Zoe. ‘Yet, I mean. He probably will when he’s ready.’
Nina looked at the little boy properly for the first time. Once you ignored the crumbs and a bit of snot, he was a sweet-looking child. She could see a bit of Surinder in him.
‘Does he cry?’ she asked, curious.
‘Not loudly,’ said Zoe, doing what she normally did and pretending to be cheerful to cover up her worries. ‘You’re just perfect, aren’t you, Hari-boy?’
And Hari made a snuffling noise and wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked ready to start crying again and, frankly, anything but perfect, but they decided not to mention this as Nina, her bump touching the steering wheel, set the van to reverse and carefully manoeuvred away from the bus station.