48
Sylvie
Elliot and Annie are sitting a continent apart on the sofa, their eyes drilling into the floor. “How’s it going?” I ask unnecessarily.
“Great,” Elliot answers when Annie says nothing. The air crackles.
I’ve given them an hour’s privacy: a fake mission to buy a pint of milk. “Did Annie tell you we’ve bought a cot?” I slide the milk carton I don’t need into the fridge. “Two, actually. One for here. One for her dad’s. Hugely reduced. A bargain.” Still a fortune. Annie made me buy them. I’m a softer touch than Steve. “Didn’t expect them to arrive quite so soon, though, did we, Annie?”
“No,” Annie says quietly, coloring.
If it were up to Annie, she’d have bought everything by now. Maybe all new mothers try to buy a bit of confidence, not realizing that when the baby’s screaming at four in the morning, the brand of changing mat really won’t matter. But for Annie I think it’s also a way of staving off her fears for Mum, whose condition remains perilous. Partly for this reason, I haven’t told Annie about my trip to the forest last week, not wanting to add Marge or Jo to the mix. “A beer, Elliot? I’ve got some cold ones here.”
Annie shoots me an eye-widening look that says, “Mum.” Okay, perhaps the meeting to discuss “practicalities” hasn’t gone so brilliantly. And I’m making it worse.
“Annie can’t drink, so I’ll do the same.” He shoots a cautious glance at Annie, who looks regally unmoved by such sacrifice. A moment later she glances back at him, pretending not to. I’m aware of a certain hormonal heat in the room.
Elliot stands up, pulls on his shirt cuffs nervously. “Guess I better shoot, then.” He waits for Annie to say, No, do stay.
She doesn’t. “I’m off too.”
They both leap up from the sofa with awkward synchrony. “Bye then,” murmurs Annie, not meeting his eye.
To my surprise, and Annie’s, Elliot reaches out and hugs her. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he whispers into her hair.
Annie closes her eyes—I’m about to creep away, discreetly—then pulls back roughly, as if coming to her senses. “I’m pregnant, not disabled.”
Christ. “He is trying,” I mouth to her as he shuffles dejectedly to the front door. My heart aches for them both.
“It’s Elliot’s baby in there too, Annie,” I say afterward.
Annie picks up her handbag. “It’s going to be a Broom, not a Latham.”
“I just wonder . . .” I say carefully.
“What?” Annie’s nostrils flare, alert for any disloyalty.
“There is a palpable energy between you two. I can feel it.”
“A sort of you-screwed-my-life sort of energy?”
“No. A spark. An attraction. The way he hugged you, Annie . . .”
She scoffs. But her eyes fill with tears. She looks away, trying to hide them from me.
“Could you not try to make it work, sweetheart?”
She bites down on her lip and shakes her head, muttering something about Elliot not wanting the baby, Elliot wasting no time moving on to someone else.
I wonder if it’s the same girl Helen described on the phone to me. “Family friend, works at Christie’s. Very tolerant of the Situation,” she’d said. “Maybe you could have a little chat with Annie about it.” The cheek.
“Anyway, it’s much better for the baby to have always known their parents separated, than to try and fail and psychologically damage them with a split,” she says. “All the experts say so.”
Ouch. I bite my tongue, trying not to take it personally.
“I’m going to see Granny.” She walks to the front door and opens it. London rushes in, humid and heavy. “Play her the forest recording again. The woodpecker.”
My thoughts run, screaming, arms in the air, back in the direction of the forest. Marge. Fingers. “Okay, Annie. Good luck.”
I can’t stop thinking about Marge’s ramblings. Muddled, Fingers said. But she’s certainly not gaga. In fact, she seemed relatively lucid, albeit off message. I don’t know what to believe.
I’ve picked up the phone to call Caroline many times, then put it down again. I don’t want to send her loopy too. Also, old habits die hard: I can’t shift the belief that if I keep all this secret, I can contain it, shape it, stop the past spewing onto the present. And the present is growing more urgent. Every day, Annie’s unborn baby journeys closer to the cot in the bedroom, over which the tree mobile hangs, quivering, waiting.
I’ve done my bit, haven’t I? Taken Annie to the forest, at least. Why risk digging deeper? Mum was protecting us from something, I’m sure of that now. In this strange hinterland between life and death, a place where I cannot grieve for her or move on, I make a decision to leave it alone. Right now, my focus needs to be on the baby. Annie. Mum. Work.
I write an email to my agent, trying to sound dynamic: Dear Pippa, How are things? Can we have a catch-up on the phone this week? I press send. The doorbell rings.
“Sylvie.” Helen marches into my apartment. Intense. Wearing flats. Something’s up. Has Elliot reported back already? Maybe he doesn’t want his firstborn sleeping in an end-of-line bargain cot but instead in something festooned with antique Parisian lace. “How was the cold war summit?”
I hesitate. Settle on optimism. “They’ll get there.” She looks worried at such a prospect. “Helen, come and see the nursery.” For once, Annie’s room is scrupulously tidy due to Elliot’s visit. I can risk it.
“Very early to do the nursery, Sylvie. You don’t want to tempt Fate.” For a moment she seems frightened, as if the worst thing wouldn’t be Annie’s having the baby but Annie’s losing it.
“God, I know. But the cot arrived yesterday and Annie insisted we erect it and see what it looked like. I spent hours in flat-pack purgatory last night. You’ve no idea. Have a peep. Annie’s out. She won’t mind.” She will. But I want to reassure Helen that we’re more together than we appear. Also, she suggested Elliot coming over today. Her razor edges appear to be blunting a little.
I open Annie’s bedroom door. The light from the canal is wavering on the walls. The room is aglitter. “Sweet, isn’t it?”
She stands in the doorway, her hands steepled over her nose. I wait for her to say something. She simply points to the windowsill, where the terrarium basks in the sunlight.
“Oh, Annie loves that.”
“It’s one of mine. I . . . I have a company. A small terrarium company.”
The hairs on my arms prickle. “Someone gave it to my mum. She’s in hospital . . .” I stop, seeing the expression on her face.
“Good Lord. That . . . that.” She points at the forest mobile over the cot, slowly spinning in the breeze from the open window. “Where did you get that?”
“Oh, it’s very old. My father made it.”
“Your father?” she splutters.
“He was a carpenter.” Pride swells my voice. “A very good one.”
At this news Helen appears to short-circuit, her mouth opening and closing, her eyes bugging. “Who was he?” She clicks her fingers. “Name. Name!”
“Robbie Rigby. His stuff’s quite collectible now. Have you heard of him?”