Without Lucia, the house seems very quiet, until Reggie decides to have a full-scale screaming bout and won’t be soothed by anything or anybody.
‘I don’t know what to do with him,’ whispers Polly during a short lull, her eyes wild and her hair tangled and messy. ‘He’s been like this for ages now, and it’s even upsetting the cat.’
‘I know,’ Isaac says, ‘it’s hard to work with all the noise.’
As soon as the words pop out of his mouth, he realises they were unwise. Why can’t he learn to think before he speaks? It’s true though, and he’s on a mission to get the updated game version to Nick later today. But Polly doesn’t want to know about deadlines. She takes Reggie out of the kitchen and bangs the door behind her. Isaac sighs. He had been trying to make some lunch for a while, but the wailing made it hard to concentrate. He thought if he had a break and cooked a big Spanish omelette, they could all have some and it’d distract Reg, but now it’s burnt.
‘Polly, come back down,’ Isaac shouts up the stairs. ‘I’ll make something else instead.’ But she can’t hear for the howling. What can he do to put things right?
In desperation, Isaac throws the ruined omelette in the bin and slumps down at the table, leaning his head in his hands.
‘Oh Mum, I wish you were here to help me. What shall I do?’ he whispers. ‘Should I go upstairs to try and help Polly or keep out of her way to let her calm down? Please, just give me a clue. I don’t know how to read her. I really thought I was getting better at this.’
Isaac focuses all his energy on trying to imagine what Lucia would say if she were here. He works hard to make his breathing calm and even, and to think about nothing but Polly. He knows without a doubt that he loves her, but surely she’s never going to want to be with him if he carries on being so emotionally stunted. The counsellor he’d been sent to in his latter school years had told him over and over again that none of this was his fault, but life has always seemed tough. After what happened at university, he’s accepted he’s not the sort of person to have a proper relationship with a girl.
Before he can stop the flow, Isaac’s treacherous mind catapults him back to the worst two months of his life. Settling into a new place had been hard enough, but when he found himself getting obsessed with one of the girls on his campus, Isaac had known for sure that he was totally out of his depth. The pain of that abortive relationship, his headlong dash for home and his refusal to communicate with the few university contacts who tried to keep in touch afterwards have left him emotionally battered and bruised. He forces his thoughts away from those dark times and back to the matter in hand.
After a few moments, when no inspiration is forthcoming, Isaac has to accept this is entirely up to him. He has to take charge for once in his life. Trembling slightly, he stands up and heads for the stairs.
Polly’s door is closed, so he knocks gently and waits. Maybe she can’t hear him over the noise. He tries again, more forcefully.
‘Oh, you’d better come in if you can stand the row,’ she shouts, above Reg’s cries.
Polly’s sitting on the bed with the baby clutched to her chest, and she’s crying too now.
Isaac’s stomach flips. He’s always been useless with tears.
‘Sorry, Poll, I didn’t mean to be rude,’ he mumbles, staring at the floor.
‘It’s okay, I know you can’t help it.’ Polly sounds so exhausted that Isaac looks up in alarm.
‘Why don’t I take Reggie for a walk to the park?’ he hears himself saying.
Her face brightens and then she shakes her head. ‘What will you do if he won’t stop crying though?’
Isaac thinks back to everything he’s ever heard Mum say about babies, which isn’t much, and only stems from them accidentally watching one of those super-nanny type documentaries while they were waiting for Morse to come on.
‘The first thing to do is this,’ he says, trying to sound as if he knows what he’s talking about. ‘Eliminate the obvious causes for Reg to be making this godawful row … I mean, crying,’ he adds, seeing her expression. She doesn’t comment but she doesn’t tell him to shut up, so Isaac perseveres doggedly, willing himself to get it right for once.
‘Is he hungry?’
‘No.’
‘Is his nappy dirty?’
She sniffs the baby. Yuck, thinks Isaac. ‘No.’
‘Do you think he’s got a tummy ache?’
‘How do I know?’
Polly bites her lip. Strangely, the little boy chooses this moment to stop howling and fall suddenly asleep, still hiccoughing. Reggie’s long eyelashes make delicate half-moons across his rosy cheeks. Polly waits for a moment to make sure he’s really out for the count, then gets up and places him gently into his cot. She rubs her lower back and winces, motions for Isaac to follow her onto the landing and takes a deep breath.
‘I am completely rubbish at this, aren’t I?’
Polly’s face is pale now, and she sways slightly. Emboldened by the way she’s looking at him so pleadingly for reassurance, he puts his hands on her shoulders and brings her round to face him. She doesn’t resist, so he nerves himself to try and get to the bottom of the mystery of Reggie.
‘Definitely not rubbish, the opposite of that, but how do you feel about having to look after him because he has no mother?’ That didn’t come out how it was supposed to, and Isaac can feel Polly’s whole body tense.
‘I don’t have to, I want to. My mum took charge to begin with but she’s not very well at the moment. I can usually cope. He’s not normally this noisy, is he? I think he must be teething, or something.’
Isaac struggles with burning questions, but he’s got to ask. ‘Um … but what I still don’t know is … who is Reggie’s dad?’ he says, when the silence becomes unbearable even to him. ‘And why isn’t he getting involved with all this?’
The silence that follows this goes on for far too long and Isaac’s almost ready to give up and go downstairs when the answer comes. It certainly wasn’t one he was expecting and it shakes him to his core.
‘Well, that’s the thing, Isaac, and it’s why I came to Chandlebury in the first place. I’m pretty sure Reggie’s dad is … you.’
‘What? Are you joking?’
‘Would I joke about something a serious as this? What do you take me for? I think you’re the most likely person to be Reggie’s father.’
‘But … no! That’s not possible …’
‘Oh come on, don’t try and wriggle out of it. The evidence is all there. I’ve tried to make excuses for you, but I can’t do it any more. You need to be honest with me now.’
‘Honest? I don’t understand …’
‘Neither do I. You don’t seem like the sort of person to leave someone in the lurch like that, but all the people I’ve spoken to since say you were most likely to be the one.’
‘Polly, this is stupid. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Isaac rubs his eyes. Is this some sort of mad nightmare? He’ll wake up in a minute, surely? But Polly hasn’t finished.
‘When I first arrived here, I was absolutely sure you must have known my sister was pregnant at the time when you were together at uni.’
‘Together? I wasn’t with anyone when I was in Leeds. Well, not in a baby-making kind of way.’
Isaac gestures to the sleeping baby, his mind whirling. He can’t think straight. Why on earth would Polly think that he was anyone’s dad? Chance would be a fine thing, he though bitterly.
Polly’s eyes are narrowed now as she glares up at him, hands on hips. ‘I’ve been doing my hardest to think of a logical reason for what you did, Isaac, ever since I came here and started getting to know you. I told myself you weren’t the kind of man to do the dirty on Alice and the others must have been wrong, but …’
‘Hang on a minute. Did you say Alice?’
‘Of course I did. Who did you imagine I was talking about? You know very well what my sister’s name is … was …’ she corrected herself.
‘But … but I’ve never heard you say her name.’
‘You must have done.’
‘No, I definitely didn’t. I know you think I’m slow on the uptake sometimes, but it’s not that common a name. It would have rung a bell. Does my mum know where your sister was at uni?’
‘I’ve tried not to mention it, but I guess I could have accidentally let it slip.’ Polly stops for a moment, as if unsure. ‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t, she’d have asked more questions, wouldn’t she? Anyway, all Alice’s gang say you were involved with her. I can’t believe you didn’t know she’d died if you were such close friends.’
Isaac’s mind flinches away from the time after his escape from Leeds. He’d cut himself off from every possible link with the place, even changed his email address and mobile number. There was nobody there he’d wanted to keep in touch with. Especially not Alice.
‘The more I get to know you, the less you seem like a man who’d do such a thing to my sister, but if you did know she was pregnant, how could you leave her high and dry like that?’ Polly says, her voice breaking. ‘Have you any idea … any idea at all what that did to her?’
‘But Alice was …’
‘Alice was what?’
This is the moment when most people would have had the sense to shut up. Polly’s voice is icy, but Isaac has never been able to read the signs. He stumbles on, and the words that pour out of his mouth have the effect of seeming to turn Polly to stone. When he grinds to a halt, breathless, she gives herself a little shake and turns away.
‘Well, thank you for that, Isaac,’ she says.
Isaac watches helplessly as Polly goes back into her room. ‘Can’t we just discuss this?’ he says, as she’s closing the door.
‘No, we can’t. I’ve heard more than enough for one day. Just give me some space tonight. Maybe tomorrow we can talk. But really, what else is there to say?’
Isaac is about to say he’s sorry for making her look so sad but it’s too late. It feels as if there’s an awful lot more than a door between them now.