Tamara laid Storme down carefully on the sofa. She went into the bathroom to do her make-up. She examined her face in the magnifying mirror that was on the ledge propped up against the window. She wished that she looked older, like a woman instead of a girl, and that her face wasn’t so thin. She would ask Crackle if she could grow her hair. It didn’t suit her so short. She looked like those Bosnians she’d seen on the television. The hole in her nose where the ring had been inserted was sore. Yellow pus came out when she poked at it with a piece of tissue. She wetted the corner of a towel and dabbed it on to a sliver of soap that was stuck to the recess on the washbasin; then she wiped the towel under her eyes, removing the evidence of last night’s mascara-stained tears. She opened the bottle of liquid eye-liner and, using a brush, drew two thick black lines around each eye. Then, using the little finger of her right hand, she dabbed the purple eye-shadow to the lids, mauve to the sockets, and pink to the expanse of shaven flesh under the eyebrows. She then spotted dots of pale liquid foundation over her face, and rubbed it in. Finally, she covered her lips with lipstick so dark that at first glance it appeared to be black.
The bath was full of dirty clothing. She sorted through it, looking for something to wear. She pulled out a pair of knickers that weren’t too bad, but rejected the black jeans that no longer met round her waist. She found the red bra with the padded inserts that made her small breasts wobble slightly. In the past this effect had excited Crackle, but not lately. He’d gone off sex since he’d been on crack.
She tiptoed into the bedroom where Crackle was sleeping with one hand curled around his mouth. He looked so beautiful when he was sleeping; like a little boy. She drew the stained duvet over his thin back, covering the Satan tattoo and causing him to moan in his sleep, and move his head on the greasy pillow. She gazed down at him, enchanted by his long black eyelashes and his face that was prettier than hers when he smiled. She picked up from the floor some leggings and the baggy black sweater she’d been wearing since the weather turned cold, and put them on. As she crept back out, she saw the little red boots in a tangle of blankets at the foot of the cot. She searched through various piles of dirty clothing for something decent for Storme to wear. Something was telling her to take Storme to the doctor’s. She looked at her watch, it was eleven—too late for morning surgery. She would have to wait now until four.
She found a pink stretch babygrow. It had been in the washing pile for a week, but after she’d scraped a patch of sick from around the neck with a long black varnished fingernail it didn’t look too bad. She took a disposable nappy from the packet and began to dress Storme for her visit to the doctor. The baby slept throughout, which worried Tamara. When she was dressed, Tamara brought the towel with the wet corner from the bathroom and washed her daughter’s face and hands. She noticed that the child’s fingernails were rimmed with black, so she bit the end of a matchstick into a point, and used it to ease the greasy dirt from beneath each small nail. The fan heater stopped and the overhead light went out, which meant the electricity had gone. She hadn’t got a card to insert into the meter. The room quickly grew cold, so Tamara covered herself and Storme with her red cloth coat that she wouldn’t be seen dead in now, and they waited for Crackle, provider of money and electricity, to wake up.
When he shouted for his coffee, Tamara glanced at the Mickey Mouse clock that stood on top of the television—12.15. She unwrapped herself from the coat and went through into the bedroom, taking Storme with her. He was lying on his back, smoking his first cigarette of the day—the one he enjoyed most. The ashtray on the floor next to the bed held a mound of ash and brown speckled filter tips. “What’s up?” he said, when he saw her face.
“She’s not very well,” she said, sitting beside him on the bed, causing the blankets to tighten around him, outlining his thin body. He shifted irritably.
“What’s up with her?” he said, flicking ash in the direction of the ashtray.
“She won’t wake up properly,” she said. “An’ she’s got a bruise.”
She undid the poppers on Storme’s babygrow and showed him.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he said, when he saw its green vividness. “How did she do that?” he said, looking into Tamara’s black-rimmed eyes. She looked back at him. It was like looking at herself. They were like twins, except that Crackle was clever, so clever that his teachers at school couldn’t teach him anything. She loved him. They had married each other in the middle of a wood at midnight in September, on Friday the 13th. Crackle had said that the devil would be their witness. They had drunk two cans of Special Brew each, and dropped some Es and Crackle had fucked her up against a tree, and afterwards he had said they would be together for ever.
“How did she do it, Tamara?” he repeated.
“She done it falling out of her cot,” she said, and started to refasten the poppers. “I’ll tell the doctor that, shall I, this afternoon?”
“Yeah, tell him that, it’s only the truth,” he said. “Tell him the truth. Honesty’s the best policy,” he said, recalling something somebody had once said to him. A teacher at school probably, or a solicitor, one of those stupid fuckers who believed it, anyway.
He got dressed and went out and bought an electric card. As good as gold, thought Tamara. He came back with a packet of Jaffa cakes, and they ate them, and drank Nescafe, and smoked cigarettes and watched a film about the olden days until it was time for afternoon surgery. Storme didn’t wake up, her breath now came in a series of little gasps. Tamara tried her with a bottle of warm milk at half-past two, but she wouldn’t take it.
“Stubborn in’t she?” said Crackle affectionately.
“She takes after you,” said Tamara, and she stroked his bristly hair with a loving hand. Together they zipped Storme into the snowsuit that Christopher had bought the day before. They each took one of the little red boots and pushed them on to her feet. Crackle lowered her gently into her pushchair and they left the flat and carried her between them down the three flights of stone steps, as though they were children playing Mummies and Daddies. As they went out into the street snow was falling.
Crackle took a delight in pushing the pushchair through the virgin snow on the pavement. Tamara laughed out loud as she tried to fit her own feet into his fresh snowy footprints. When the surgery came into sight Crackle said, “What time did she fall out her cot, Tam?”
“Last night; I don’t know what time,” she replied, not looking at him.
“About midnight, weren’t it?” he said, pulling her round to face him. In the fading light her face was eyes and mouth only. He kissed her black lips and thrust his tongue between them, possessing her on the pavement as thoroughly as if they were alone, in the dirty bed, at home.
♦
The doctor’s receptionist recognised immediately that Storme was very ill, and ushered Crackle and Tamara through the waiting room with its silent crowd of patients and into the doctor’s surgery. Dr Indu, a tiny Asian woman, asked Tamara to undress Storme. The doctor’s thin hands felt the swelling on the back of the baby’s head first, then she lifted the vest and saw the turquoise bruise on her back.
“What has happened to her?” she said.
“She fell out her cot, last night, about midnight,” said Tamara, looking at Crackle.
“Why didn’t you call me out?” said the doctor, feeling the baby’s pulse.
“We thought she would be all right,” said Crackle.
The doctor picked up the internal telephone and said, “Mrs Parker, ring for an ambulance and put a call out also for Mr Parker-Wright at casualty.” When she had finished examining the baby’s dirty body, the doctor could hardly bring herself to look at the baby’s parents, with their sour-smelling black clothes, and their ridiculous barbaric ornaments. But she said, as evenly as she could, “Mr Parker-Wright is a consultant paediatrician. Your baby is very ill.” She said again, “Why didn’t you call me?”
“She just went back to sleep,” said Crackle. “Like she is now.”
“She is not sleeping, she is in a coma! Can’t you tell the difference?”
The doctor was angry and sick of talking to such low-class people. They were as ignorant, despite their advantages, as the peasants she had cared for in the Indian villages where she had been sent after completing her training.
The receptionist came in and handed the doctor Storme’s medical notes. The doctor read through quickly. Her colleague in the group practice, Andrew Wilson, had written three months before: “The child shows signs of neglect, she is failing to thrive.”
“You have not brought her for her inoculations,” she said when she looked up.
“I kept getting the days wrong,” said Tamara.
They heard the ambulance coming towards the surgery. The doctor took a blanket from the examination couch and wrapped Storme up against the cold air outside. Crackle lit a cigarette when they were outside on the pavement. He dragged greedily on it, then threw it down regretfully before climbing into the back of the ambulance with Tamara. The doctor held Storme tightly to her as they rode through the streets towards the hospital. Tamara could not take her eyes off the red boots dangling from beneath the blanket. They could have been worn by a puppet whose strings had been cut.