She’d tried to keep her chin up. Really, she had.
In the weeks following the lost pregnancy, Leila was as cheerful and efficient at Kirkaldie’s as ever. She had time for everybody. She covered for another pharmacist whose mother had died, arranged birthday drinks for the boss, and mediated between two technicians who loathed one another. She even flirted valiantly with the mechanic at the local MOT garage, but he still failed her car.
But the bleakness slithered in, a chill draught under the door. It didn’t lift; it didn’t lessen. It drained her energy. It engulfed her in the dark hours and stole her sleep. She did her best to hide it from David— after all, he was bereft as well. He didn’t need to have her burdens dumped on him.
When she looked at him she felt guilt. David would make the perfect father; but he was childless. And time was running out for him.
One Thursday, the pharmacy was ridiculously busy. Leila worked all day with barely a break, just a hurried sandwich for lunch, and there was still a queue at closing time. She managed to appear upbeat and energetic until the doors were locked behind her, but by the time she reached New Street Station she felt as though she had lead weights in her shoes. She trudged along the platform, past metal seats and timetables, towards the arch of tired light at the far end. There were the tracks, stretching away into open space, their paths ever parallel but never touching.
The station heaved with commuters. Leila leaned against her usual pillar, turning up her collar against the wind, winding her scarf around her ears. An ungainly figure came hurrying along the platform towards her. With a sigh, Leila recognised Jodie, a genial, frizzy-haired school leaver who worked at Kirkaldie’s.
‘Hi, Jodie.’ She forced a smile of welcome as the girl skidded to a halt, bent double, gasping for breath. ‘You nearly missed it this time. The train’s just coming in, look.’
‘Thought I had missed it.’ Jodie sold shampoo and photo frames and sparkly lipstick. At seventeen, she was an odd mix of patronising maturity and irritating childishness. She lived with her parents in a suburb two stations beyond Leila’s, and had adopted Leila as her train friend.
‘Had to stop for passport photos,’ she panted.
‘Sounds glamorous.’
‘I’m sodding off to Spain when I’ve saved up enough money, getting out of this dump. Going to get a job in a bar.’
Leila offered the girl a polo mint, shouting above the exuberant bellow of their train as it slid alongside them. ‘Alone?’
‘That depends on whether my useless boyfriend gets his act together.’
‘What does your mum think?’
‘Doing her nut.’ Jodie pushed her tongue through the hole in her mint. ‘Thinks I’ll get trafficked as a prostitute.’
The carriage was rank and steamy. There was only one pair of empty seats, a little distance from the door, but Jodie was a very competent young woman. Aiming for the valuable spot with her elbows out, she barged past less determined commuters, plonked herself down in triumph, and signalled to Leila by furiously patting the space beside her. Leila slipped apologetically between her fellow travellers and sat down.
Jodie grinned. ‘Got a seat, for once.’
‘You certainly did. Another mint?’
Jodie pulled off her anorak as the train gathered speed, and continued to talk. Leila let her mind wander, features set in listening mode, as they rattled towards the suburbs. Sitting next to Jodie was like having your head in a metal dustbin while someone hammered on the outside with a spanner. Leila felt wearied by the sheer irrelevance of it. Mind you, the whole world seemed irrelevant, nowadays.
As they reached the high school playing fields, Leila hoisted her handbag, ready to stand up. Jodie seemed to have been waiting for this moment. She leaned closer, determination dimpling the cushioned expanse of her face.
‘I saw you selling yourself a test a while ago,’ she muttered conspiratorially.
Leila’s fingers tightened on her bag, but she feigned blank incomprehension. ‘A test?’
‘You know. Pregnancy test. Sorry, I’ve been dying to ask.’ Jodie was blushing now, a flood of mottled mauve seeping down her neck, and Leila felt a sudden fondness for her.
‘Oh, that,’ she exclaimed, as though light had finally dawned. She swept the back of her hand across her brow as if to show she’d had a near miss. ‘Negative. Whew! Big relief!’
‘Oh.’ Jodie pouted. ‘I was hoping you was banged up.’
‘Blimey.’ Leila forced a merry laugh, rolling her eyes at the narrowness of her escape. ‘A rugrat! That’s the last thing I need.’
The train swayed past the canal bridge and began to slow down. Leila stood and staggered, gripping the back of a seat. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Jodie took out her iPod. ‘Aren’t you going to have kids, then?’
‘Well.’ Leila blinked. ‘I’ve got a career.’
‘I am.’ Jodie stuffed in her earphones. ‘Two. A boy and a girl.’
As soon as the doors opened, Leila fell out and into the blessed quiet of the evening. Jodie’s moon face appeared briefly at the window, and then the train slid away.
Dusk was falling. Gloomy, and spitting with rain. The shortest way home was through the housing estate, and then across the canal and around the churchyard. Leila left the station, negotiated the main road and turned into the concrete desolation of Priory Park Farm. Pulling on her gloves, she made her way across the wretched play park with its defiant graffiti, threading a trail among dancing crisp packets and other detritus. The place looked like the set of a futuristic film. It was impossible to imagine that any child had ever played on the empty swings. Someone had systematically dug up the ground and thrown broken cement down the slide; the metal would be no good at all for sliding on ever again. It was pockmarked, twisted, hopelessly dented, with broken bottles scattered around its base.
She walked slowly. She mustn’t cheat by hurrying past. On every side, despairing tower blocks reared over her with blank eyes, whispering, What are you doing here? Only a smattering of lights gleamed among the windows. These flats were half-empty, she knew, the glass broken and boarded up, and the smell of urine on the staircases made your eyes water. David came often, dutifully climbing the concrete stairs and visiting people whose doors opened onto bleak and windswept balconies.
As she passed beneath the furthest tower, she could make out a small child watching her from high up. Little hands gripped the bars and a pale, pinched face jutted forwards, jammed between them. She stopped, hopefully, and called to this other soul in empty space, but he turned away as if bored. And so did she.
The canal bordered the estate and touched one corner of the churchyard. She could smell the water before she could see it, oozing under the bridge. Plastic bags and shopping trolleys littered the grimy brambles on both banks. There were more miles of canal in the West Midlands, she’d read, than in Venice. It had sounded funny at the time. She paused halfway across the bridge and leaned on its cast-iron parapet, gazing down at the unmoving green.
What am I doing here?
The roadmap of her life bore no resemblance whatsoever to the reality of its landscape. Pregnancy used to be something inevitable, something for later. Fola, Rose and Ben. So careless. So arrogant. Precious years were wasted, waiting for the right time. The realisation that David and she were disastrously different—faulty—had trickled only gradually into their complacency, freezing the smiles on their faces. The thing they’d postponed so casually became their most desperate need.
Then began the frantic search for help: specialists and tests; diets, charts and thermometers. Scanning women’s magazines, self-help books, medical journals; poring over the wackiest websites. When nothing else worked they invested their hopes in IVF, which for months dominated their lives. It would be their saviour. But it failed.
So they had whirled around and headed for adoption—sprinting now. A bewildering process. More waiting (No, we won’t consider you so soon after fertility treatment, come back in six months), then a preparation group. And yet more waiting.
Time passing, squandered in the slowly turning wheels of the system. Birthdays celebrated with tight, frantic smiles. Friends peeling away, losing contact except for the guilty Christmas cards with their scribbled apologies. Must try and get together this year. So busy. Molly’s doing the ballet thing, Flynn’s started school, loves soccer.
Then the assessment: nerve-racking visits and complex, detailed forms; referees, as though they were applying for a job. Every aspect of their life was on show. Social workers poking and prying, as though David and she were criminals. Other people just had babies. They didn’t need permission. They didn’t have to be superheroes.
More waiting. Finally, the news came. They were accepted. They were in!
Or perhaps not.
‘Prepare for a very long wait,’ the social worker warned, sighing. ‘You’re on a good wicket, as a mixed race couple, but even so . . . Only about five percent of adopted children are babies, and only a fraction of those share your racial heritage.’
So they continued to wait, while the months and the years screamed belligerently past like express trains. Waiting became their obsession. Waiting, and waiting, imprisoned in limbo. Four years of waiting. At this moment, it seemed to Leila that the thing was hopeless. They were too old. They had missed their chance. She would never take her children to playgroup, never snuggle with them in front of Postman Pat. Never watch her son be a shepherd in the nativity play. Never go shopping with her daughter: hot chocolate and new shoes. Never, never, never. Her children were lost. Perhaps they were wandering somewhere in a hinterland, crying for her to find them.
The mushy-pea water under the bridge didn’t even flow. It, too, was trapped in this sordid place. It looked solid. If you opened your eyes under there, you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. You could slide under the slime with barely a ripple, and it would close over your head. It wouldn’t be difficult. You’d simply disappear.
The terrifying thought hung in her mind, wheedling and cajoling: easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. It would only take a moment, and she’d be off the rollercoaster forever. No more crashing down, down, sick and screaming.
It obviously isn’t meant to be . . . there’s more to life than children, dear; find yourself a hobby.
David. She felt a choking sadness at the thought of his bewilderment. But he would be better off without her, in the end. For him there were years to marry again, have a family, do birthday cakes and bicycles and tiny pairs of wellington boots. She leaned a little further over the parapet, stretching her neck to glimpse the murky shadows under the bridge. Her feet lifted up from the pavement and hung, toes clicking together in a vague little dance, as she wondered idly what it would be like, not breathing. It was said to be quite pleasant, once you gave in. Small lumps of stone broke off under her hands, sliding down the curve of the parapet and dropping noiselessly into the scum.
It won’t take a moment. Over in a jiffy.
The world hung, suspended.
A lorry thundered across the bridge. The juddering blast of it shook the elegant old arches. Leila flinched, clutching the parapet and dropping her feet swiftly onto the ground. She watched the monster turn onto the main road. Then she slapped herself smartly on the wrist.
‘That was bloody self-indulgent,’ she scolded. ‘Get a grip.’
‘I agree,’ came a dry, deep voice. ‘But we’ve all been there.’
Leila whirled around, a hand to her chest. ‘Elizabeth! Good Lord, woman, you just about gave me a heart attack.’
Elizabeth led a fluffy black dog on an extendable lead. ‘Dora’s mother’s,’ she explained calmly. ‘Dora, at the off-licence? Her mother’s back in hospital, and Dora’s allergic to dogs. Guess which mug volunteered to take the hound?’
Leila bent to pat the black, snuffling creature, taking the opportunity to recover her cheerful mask. ‘He’s so cute.’
‘Yes. But he smells worse than a sewage farm. And what drives Leila Edmunds to the parapet of the canal bridge?’
Leila tried to laugh. ‘I wasn’t on the parapet.’
They turned and started walking together across the churchyard, where mist spun and danced among the ranks of stones. Elizabeth took Leila’s arm. The dog genially cocked his leg against a lichen-covered angel.
Eventually, Elizabeth spoke. ‘David adores you, Leila—come on, Frodo! He doesn’t want a brood mare. He wants you.’
It was some time before Leila could answer. She swallowed. ‘It says in the marriage service, for the procreation of children. I’ve failed to deliver.’
‘Oh, rubbish.’
After a minute’s quiet strolling, Leila said, ‘Perhaps we should look at international adoption.’
They’d come to the rectory gate. Elizabeth wound Frodo’s lead around her hand. Her grey eyes were stern. ‘Or perhaps you have to plan a life without children.’
‘No! I can’t imagine it . . . David’s wonderful with children. He’s meant to be a father.’
‘Is he? David has much to offer the world. And so have you.’ Elizabeth pursed her mouth severely. ‘As a childless couple you have more to give, not less.’
Leila smiled.
‘I haven’t convinced you, have I?’ Elizabeth looked exasperated.
‘Not really.’
Elizabeth squeezed the younger woman’s arm. ‘Have a bloody big drink, Leila, and drown your sorrows. Sometimes oblivion is the only way out.’