Once she has had a shower, desperate to clear her mind, she heads back downstairs, leaving Layla sleeping in the cot at the end of her bed. On her way down, she puts her head around the door of Saoirse and Jim’s room and sees her older children side by side in the bed. Sadie’s arm is resting protectively over her brother’s body. For the first time it strikes her that there is no trace of Jim in the house.
In the kitchen, the kettle is warm to the touch and as she refills it at the sink, she spots Tom at the cliff edge at the end of the garden where the land gives way to the sea. Gabriela stands and watches for a while, through the small square frame of the window. His hair, mostly grey now, moves with the breeze and she has an overwhelming urge to reach out to him.
He must sense her approaching as she walks down the hill towards him, a pot of coffee and a mug in her hands, for as she takes a seat on the bench next to where he is standing, he doesn’t flinch.
‘Do you remember the first time we came here?’ he asks as she takes his cup from him and refills it, handing it to him before pouring one for herself.
‘Callum was a baby. It was just before you went back to work after your maternity leave; Sadie must have been nearly three. I remember thinking how lucky we were. Jim and Saoirse, they had this house, this freedom, but we had each other, the kids. A family. You know how much I wanted to move to the country, even then, but I remember looking out from the house and seeing you and the kids lying out on a rug down here and thinking fuck it, it doesn’t matter. I thought no matter what happened, so long as I had you, my family, I was the luckiest man in the world.’
She sighs, struggling to remember the holiday. There is a flash of recollection, but when she tries to hold it there in front of her the image moves away. There is so much from that time that she cannot remember.
He turns to look at her and she says, ‘But you’ve changed your mind?’
‘I just need you to tell me the truth,’ he says, and she tries to hold his eyes.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Tom continues to stare at her for a moment and then looks back towards the water.
‘Whose child is it, Gabriela?’
There is a note in his voice that stops her answering straight away.
‘I told you,’ she says, lifting the coffee cup to her lips.
Tom snorts quietly, ‘Of course you did.’
‘I don’t understand. What exactly do you want me to say?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I want anymore.’
‘Look, I can see you’re upset. I get it, obviously I get it, this whole thing is insane, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and you’re right, things haven’t been OK for a long time. Us, the kids … I want a fresh start. My job isn’t working, Sadie hates her school; Callum, well, Callum needs more time with his mother, you said it yourself. I think we should sell the house and move somewhere completely new. Start again. Like you said.’
There is silence as my words drift out to sea. Tom appears to have barely registered what I’ve said. But then he speaks. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Us, and that child.’
‘Yes.’
‘That baby that the authorities have so readily let you take, without ever meeting me or our children?’
‘These are exceptional circumstances, Tom. The government agencies are involved, they—’
‘Exceptional circumstances? Jesus, Gabriela, this isn’t a case of you getting a note for PE – we’re talking about you, about us, taking possession of another woman’s child!’
He turns and looks at her. ‘I mean, holy crap, give me some credit. Give me an ounce of fucking credit for once in my life, would you? Can you do that? You’re honestly telling me that I should risk putting our kids’ lives in danger for the child of a complete stranger based on absolutely no information about how it came to be in your possession?’
He is gathering speed now.
‘I mean, surely there is protocol, Gabriela? Basic checks, a safe house, for God’s sake? They can’t honestly think that—’
‘Jesus, Tom, what are you saying? Are you saying I’m making it up? That I’m lying? I mean, what the hell do you think – do you think I’ve kidnapped her? Do you think that I’ve stolen someone’s baby and I’ve—’
The sound of crying cuts across the garden suddenly and when she looks up, Sadie is standing in the doorway of the house, holding Layla in her arms. Gabriela runs to them, afraid Sadie might drop her.
‘She’s really sad, I think she wants her mum,’ Sadie says as Gabriela takes Layla in her arms and instantly her cries quieten. When she turns back Tom is watching them with a look that she knows she will never forget as long as she lives.
Telling Sadie to go inside, that they will be in in a minute, she turns back down the hill towards Tom, and she knows that it is over and wonders how she ever believed she would get away with it.
‘She’s your child,’ he says, and she holds his look, clutching Layla to her.
He takes a step back towards the cliff edge and she says, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What …?’ His face is ashen, the cup gripped tightly between his fingers.
‘Tom, I’m so sorry, I can—’
‘She isn’t mine,’ he says, as if working through the facts in his own mind.
She shakes her head, knowing she should take Layla back in, knowing she shouldn’t be witnessing this. But she can’t leave.
‘Whose is she? I mean, what the fuck?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It doesn’t matter?’
‘I didn’t mean that, I mean … Fuck, Tom, I can’t explain this now. In Moscow …’
Tom’s face falls a bit further and it’s as if the pieces of a jigsaw are slotting slowly into place.
‘Oh my God,’ he says, his words breathless.
‘Tom, we need to get away. I know this is insane – it is insane – but we have to leave. It’s not safe.’
‘You’re mad,’ Tom says, looking at her in a way that reminds her there is no route back from this. ‘You’re out of your fucking mind.’
She takes a step towards him and he throws his hand up, and Layla lets out a sharp cry.
‘It’s OK,’ she says, her mouth against her hair. ‘It’s OK, baby.’
‘You need to go,’ Tom says, pacing back and forth suddenly, as if the ground is threatening to fall away from him at any moment. His voice is trembling and she doesn’t know whether to reach out and touch him.
‘Tom,’ she says. ‘This doesn’t have to mean the end of us. You said it yourself, the kids need us together. They need stability.’
‘Stability?’ Tom stops now and looks up at her as if she has made a brilliant joke.
She moves Layla to her other hip, trying to keep her calm, bouncing her with such intensity that she starts to grizzle again.
When Tom talks again, it’s like he’s working through a thought process aloud. There is an edge of triumph in his voice, as though he’s made a brilliant discovery. ‘You know, actually I don’t think you are mad. I don’t. I think, in fact I would say I’m a 100 per cent certain, that it’s so much simpler than that. You’re completely selfish. That’s it. And actually, I can’t really blame you because the truth is you’ve always been like that. Ever since I’ve known you it’s just been about you. About what you want, what you need. At every single step, even after the kids … And I, I went along with it. I mean, did you even ask Saoirse about what happened with Jim?’
He reads her face like a book.
‘Course you didn’t. He’s left her. It happened months ago but, well, you’ve had other things on your mind. Obviously …’
She feels the sea air slapping her face and for a moment she fears she will drop Layla, that all the strength in her body has vanished. But then, presumably feeling herself slip, Layla pulls at her shoulder and she feels her body righting itself.
‘Now,’ he says, clarity coming to him in stages. ‘You and that baby need to go. You can write, when you work out where you’ll be. With the father, I presume? Are you in touch? Actually, spare me the details.’
For once in his life attempting to take charge. For a moment she nearly claps. How long has it taken to get to the point where he is actually attempting to assert some control? And then his words sink in.
‘Me?’ she says. ‘You’re asking me to go? Tom, come now, it’s my house.’
He looks at her with such astonishment that she looks away. ‘You’re telling me you want to leave and you want to turf your children out of their home? Classy, Gabriela.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying, Tom. We can all go, together … You’re the one saying it’s over. Besides, you can’t go back there – it’s not safe.’
For a moment he is frozen in disbelief, speechless, and then his face collapses.
‘Not safe? What the fuck are you even talking about? You’re a piece of work, you know that? Do you know how much I loved you?’ Hot tears are falling from his eyes now, his nostrils flared with a rage she has never seen him express before.
‘They’re my children, Tom. You can’t really think I would walk away from them?’
He looks up to the sky and howls with laughter, as she says, ‘I’m their mother!’
‘Oh,’ he sniffs. ‘Now you’re their mother?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And it’s my house and my money, and do you think the courts would side with you: barely employed, no savings, nowhere to live?’
Layla cries out and Gabriela realises her fingers are crushing her. The sound of her daughter’s discomfort snaps her out of her own head.
‘You shouldn’t be listening to this …’ she says, turning to take her back to the house, and then she sees Sadie, standing a metre behind her, her face streaming with silent tears.
Moving backwards, as if her mother’s gaze burns her, she says, ‘I hate you. I hate you.’