Chapter Twenty-four

TO THE NEONATAL unit for William Edward’s naming ceremony, laden with carrier bags. I’ve spent the morning preparing nourishing finger food. Soft textures, easily digested. Yet few of us are truly in the mood for celebration. William is not expected to last the week.

My heart is thumping, afraid of what I might see. I expect wailing and the beating of breasts, such as one sees on footage of Middle East funerals. Instead, the nurses move smoothly between pieces of equipment, adjusting tubes and cables; William’s paediatrician stands in the corner, monitoring us all, a father watching over the playroom. He has such a magnificent thatch of blond hair that he seems to be accompanied by his own portable sunbeam. It shines under the halogen lights like an emblem of God’s grace. My heart returns to its normal rhythm. This man, whose name tag reveals that he goes by the unbelievable name of Dr Piers Goodchild, seems infallible. His granting permission for this afternoon’s christening is tantamount, surely, to faith that William will survive.

As I approach the incubator, Louisa tears her eyes away briefly. Her overgrown fringe is scraped across one cheek. Her smile (with her lips, if not her eyes) is for the doctor, and then she returns to monitoring her tiny baby.

William’s wrinkled skin is maroon. He has Ed’s hair, apparently, underneath his tiny cotton beanie hat. The thin plastic tube disappearing up his right nostril makes my own nose ache, and I rub at the place.

‘Let me take those,’ Dr Goodchild says to me, reaching for the carrier bags.

I pull away from him. Like people with a flying phobia who imagine their thoughts keep planes aloft, I want this man to stay focused on William. I ask for an update. Apparently, ‘The respiratory distress caused by his immature lungs requires him to be given artificial surfactant to prevent the inner surfaces of his lungs sticking together.’ But William has recently picked up an infection, sabotaging this procedure. I think of Audrey having to listen to my father’s surgeon, and my sinuses prickle.

And then, just as I reckon things can’t get any bleaker, Dylan arrives. And immediately I know that he knows what I’ve done. My stomach lurches. How stupid to think I could keep it secret. It’s almost laughable. All the dips, and snacks, and neat arrangements on the plates, are no substitute for trust. And now witnessing Dylan’s tortured face, the beads of sweat on his brow, the dark crescents beneath his eyes, and hearing his weary apologies for lack of punctuality, I am cauterised with guilt.

We ask the doctor to join us after the ceremony, an invitation he accepts with such delight I suspect it might constitute his first social engagement for months. My sweet potato wedges, in particular, receive numerous plaudits, although Louisa eats not a thing. Her parents are trying to interest her in the helium balloons that bob lugubriously around her bed. Suddenly, Dylan grabs my arm and pulls me to the window. His eyes flash, and he whispers with urgency.

‘Thank God you’re here. I’ve had a dreadful time. The church has been vandalised in the last twenty-four hours. Nothing stolen, thank God – just loads of mess. The police reckon it’s queer-bashing.’

‘The police?’ My skin flushes. ‘Why are they—?’

But Dylan isn’t listening. ‘One of the churchwardens arrived early to set up for morning prayers, and found— found—’ His voice has gone squeaky. He rakes one hand through his ginger curls and clasps the back of his neck, his other hand at his hip, as he gazes out over the view of the hospital laundry. ‘It was horrific.’ He spits an ironic laugh. ‘And do you know who we were due to pray for this morning? The victims of violence. God, it’s enough to make you weep.’

‘But the police—?’ I repeat, touching Dylan’s arm.

‘Oh, they were fucking hopeless. Apparently, we’re not the first in the diocese to be targeted since this whole gay bishop thing caught the public attention. So, no fingerprints, no statements. Now, do you think their indifference could have anything to do with the fact that what we’re talking about here is a sexually motivated crime or, more specifically, a homosexually motivated crime? Surely not. They took one look at me and thought, He can take our investigation and shove it up his arse—’

The silence in the room is brittle. Dylan half turns from the window and takes in everyone looking at him. Not for him the shame of disclosure. What he sees is an audience! He is back in the pulpit, breaking bread behind the altar, selecting the winning ticket for the tombola. And as he embellishes the details (it’s the first time my churchwarden’s had his hands on a broken virgin), I take the opportunity to slip away.

*

‘You left these behind.’

‘Thanks for bringing them back, Dyl,’ I mumble. I take the plates and resealable boxes, and try to close the front door on him. ‘I felt a bit sick, that’s all. Bye.’

‘Maybe you are pregnant!’ laughs Dylan, squeezing past me and depositing the rest of the picnic things on the stairs. ‘Hello, my darling Tallulah-girl.’

Watching him fraternise with the cat makes my stomach churn. Any resolve to confess my sin to Dylan disappears. After all, if it wasn’t for his ridiculous announcement to adopt, I wouldn’t be in the free fall I am today. I take the dirty things downstairs.

‘That doctor’s rather lovely, don’t you think?’ says Dylan, descending, sneezing loudly. I put the kettle on.

‘He’s bound to be married,’ I retort. ‘How could any woman fail to be seduced by the idea of a doctor who cures sick babies? And anyway – you’re practically married yourself.’

Dylan sneezes again as Tallulah bolts from his arms and saunters through the catflap.

‘I most definitely am not! And he’s not, either.’

‘Don’t tell me. Your gaydar.’

‘No, I sort of checked after you’d left. Discreetly. He was married, but not any more.’

‘There you are, then. He was married. That means he’s not gay.’

‘David was married.’

Ah yes. David. ‘Is it me, or are you two seeing less of each other?’

Dylan accepts the cup of camomile and leads the way back up to the sitting room, where he makes for the piano stool.

‘It’s this bloody baby thing. It’s his only topic of conversation. Even when I rang this morning to tell him about the vandalism, he was like “Ooh, and did you see the Daily Mail today – they’ve got a whole piece on celebrity adoptions”. And I’m, like, my church has been ransacked by homophobes, I’ve got the Bishop breathing down my neck and, I mean, what the fuck’s he doing reading the Daily Mail anyway?’

Dylan spreads an arpeggio across an upper octave. ‘God, this is hard. I’m thinking about leaving the church, and David couldn’t care less. Not remotely. He wants another child, and that’s that. And because my father died so long ago, I don’t have any real role models of how to be a dad. I look at Harry and sometimes wonder whether I could be like him, but fundamentally I don’t envy what he has.’

Quizzically, I hold his gaze over the rim of my teacup. Dylan thumps down a chord, which makes his curls tremble. ‘Well, if you must know, I’m getting cold feet.’ More chords. ‘About this adoption business.’ My heart quickens. ‘It was always more David’s idea than mine. He has kids already. But I thought, Why not? I love him to bits, and it seemed the perfect way to express our commitment. And it might give my mother new focus. You can’t imagine how stifling it is to be an only child, the sole object of your mother’s adoration—’

I don’t remind him that I, too, lack siblings, since in all other respects Dylan’s assumption that I can’t imagine such suffocation is depressingly accurate.

‘But let’s just say attempts by the adoption agency to discourage you are very effective! And, given our respective ages, we’d be very unlikely to get a baby. Rather, a child from a broken home, someone who has suffered traumas, maybe even abuse. And one parent must give up work completely, at least for the first year; otherwise, they say, what’s the point?’ He swivels round on the stool. ‘So, do you think I should still go through with it?’

I shrug. ‘What did David say?’

‘About what?’

I roll my eyes. ‘About your diminishing convictions. I take it you’ve told him?’

‘You have to be joking!’ spits Dylan. ‘He never listens to anything I say. Parenting? Dave’s got the T-shirt. Leave the church? Yeah, it’s just changing jobs.’

‘What do you mean, he never listens to you?’

Dylan looks startled. In fact, I think he reddens. ‘Did I say that?’ Suddenly Dylan seems very young, like a friend at school who has left his lunch money at home.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders. ‘How did you and I get to be so alike?’

‘Hey,’ he laughs, grabbing my hands. ‘Maybe you and I should have sex, and then you could have the baby, and donate it to David, and then everybody’ll leave us alone!’

‘That sounds like my idea of living hell,’ I yelp, putting my hand over Dylan’s mouth. He tries to wriggle free, but I tighten my grip. He flings me to the floor, and I’m shrieking with laughter. He kneels over me and pins me to the carpet by my wrists.

‘Zo! I see. Vee vill haff to haff zee artificial insemination.’

We are gazing at each other. My heart is playing heavy chords in my chest. Dylan is gripping my wrists even more tightly. His face is so close, I can feel his warm breath, can smell the camomile on it. Some of his freckles are larger than others, which I’ve never noticed before; but then I’ve never been quite this close before. I imagine the weight of him on top of me. He leans down and our lips meet – his are soft, and seem to merge into mine. And then he pulls away slowly and we are back to looking into each other’s eyes. I think he’s about to kiss me again, deeper this time, the way a tentative kiss in a film is always followed by something faster, more intense, often up against a wall. Instinctively my insides are aching for that gear change, that moment of ecstasy, and the other part of me, the voice in my head, is screaming: You idiot, this is Dylan!

‘God, I forgot to say,’ he says quickly, scrambling up to sit on the piano stool. ‘You’ve got a part in the show.’ And he fans out a couple of arpeggios.

I sit up and hold my breath, so that I don’t say anything stupid. I feel dizzy. I have just kissed Dylan. Dylan has just kissed me. And I feel as though he has stepped inside me, taken a good look around and then stepped back out again. All my skin feels alert, unbearably sore. Physically, Dylan still looks the same. Yet when I look at him, the air between us jangles, and he seems blurred somehow. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said you’ve got a part in Company. Bea telephoned last night.’

I stand up slowly, still light-headed. ‘Gosh! Wow!’ I try to smile. ‘Really? Who?’

‘Amy.’

‘Amy who doesn’t want to get married?’

‘Played by Amber who doesn’t want kids. It’s perfect.’

‘You told Bea Whateverhernameis that I don’t want kids? What the fuck did you do that for?’ Oh Christ, that kiss has destroyed us. I bend over, a fierce stitch in my side.

Dylan holds up open palms. ‘Don’t blame me. She was asking after you, that’s all.’

‘She mentioned me?’

‘She caught you watching her. During the audition.’

I stand upright again. ‘I can’t have been the only one, surely? She is barking, after all.’

‘Yes, she’s used to scrutiny! The deputy head can’t make her out at all. It’s amazing how often Stanislavsky can be worked into a discussion about classroom refurbishments. But you were looking at her differently, she said. Not out of curiosity or derision. But as if you were sizing her up.’

‘What does she know? I thought her area was the stage, not the couch.’

‘I think when you’ve been in The Biz’ – here Dylan mimes quotation marks, like David always does, and I feel defeated – ‘as long as Bea has, it amounts to pretty much the same thing. She’s spent her whole life imagining what it’s like to be other people. Apparently, it’s one of the techniques she’s developed to get to the biographical truth of a role!’ He raises his eyebrows.

‘Good grief. So, what did this thespian psycho unearth about me?’

Dylan starts playing a song.

‘Tell me, Dylan. What did she say?’ Strident is how I’d describe my voice.

‘She said that damaged people see very clearly. That’s how they’ve survived.’

*

Dylan leaves soon after this revelation, to return to the neonatal unit, where he’d left his bottle of sacramental water. He gives me a rushed kiss, a clash of cheekbones; I thought fleetingly it might bruise. I don’t blame him for wanting to leave. The atmosphere between us since we were rolling around on the floor has been so pregnant – Christ, no, not pregnant – so awkward, we haven’t been able to look each other in the eye. Fifteen years, and nothing like that has ever happened before. Does this mean I fancy him; have always fancied him? Does Dylan fancy me? I feel I might cry, and reach up to press a fingertip to my right cheekbone.

I sit at my piano, and stroke its cool keys. I had a piano when I was younger but, when my parents separated my mother sold it. ‘I need more space,’ she said when I asked her what had happened to it. The fact that Mother now lived alone in a property that formerly housed three people was clearly an inconvenient inconsistency. She spoke of the sale as casually as brushing one’s hair. And I took the absence of any apology or remorse (such as one might offer had one genuinely acted in error) as evidence of my hunch that the disposal was motivated by spite. Part of me hated her for her indifference, and part of me hated myself for having left home and abandoned the piano to its fate.

The telephone trills and I stop playing mid-bar.

‘Dylan,’ I say, surprised. My heart starts playing a sort of ragtime. What on earth is he going to say? I feel again the warmth of his camomile breath on my face. I want to throw up. And I remember that I still haven’t confessed to yesterday’s crime; and it occurs to me that Dylan will somehow keep invading my space until I do.

‘Amber, I’m still at the hospital—’

I guess William. Oh, poor Louisa. And Prue. What an awful business. Another funeral. We could hold the wake here—

‘Amber, sweetheart. Are you sitting down?’

‘I know what you’re going to say. And I’m—’

‘Amber, listen to me. I’m coming to get you.’ Thus speaks my dear friend born for the pulpit, the voice of authority and unswerving conviction.

‘Now?’ I whisper. The tone of his voice makes me want to barricade the house and hibernate for ever.

‘Amber. It’s not what you think. I’ve seen your mother.’

It’s very tempting in that moment to get all nit-picky, to retort that ‘I’ve seen my mother, too – all my life.’ To protect myself behind a wall of flippant semantics. But already I can hear Dylan correcting himself, when he adds: ‘Amber, your mother’s in hospital, here in London.’