‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing much, just left a month’s rent on the table. He seemed pretty keen to go actually.’
I called Dan’s old office, but in vain. No one knew; it seemed no one cared. Dan clearly had let his boss down. I reread his old texts. ‘Sorry, running late. Got some exciting news! Something to ask you! Be with you soon. D x’.
I’m certain now that this news had something to do with his career. I looked up top journalism courses abroad, but it was hard to know where to begin when I didn’t even have a country to go on. I realised then that Dan was going to tell me that night about some amazing opportunity that he had been given; maybe he was going to ask me to move abroad with him. His extreme reaction made more sense now. All he could think about was not only how much he didn’t want a baby, but a baby getting in the way of his dreams. ‘I like you, January… maybe at some stage…’ Over the next few months, each time I thought about him, it reopened the wound and questioned my belief that I could have a child on my own. I even went so far as booking an abortion. Lizzie had offered to come with me, she would take the morning off work, but I cancelled the appointment the next day. ‘There’s your answer,’ she had said. So, I made my decision, knowing that Dan wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want to be found. He had done everything in his power to obliterate us from his memory.
Isla is a happy baby. She laughs a lot, as if someone has just told her the funniest joke about bogeymen. I remember her first smile; she must have been about six weeks old. It was a real proper smile, not a wind one. Her whole face had lit up, the smile reaching her dark-blue eyes. I saw something of Dan in that smile for the first time and I felt sorry for the bastard. He was the one missing out, not me.
I am jolted from my thoughts when Lizzie comes in with a glass of wine, medicine at the end of the day. She says she’ll put on the potatoes for the cottage pie. ‘Will you marry me?’ I say.
‘Have a rest, dear,’ she jokes. ‘Put your feet up. I’ll call when it’s ready.’
I take a large sip of wine. And another. Maybe I’m worrying too much. Isla is eating well and it is true that some children develop later than others, and the tightness, well… ‘Babies need to cry, it’s good for their lungs,’ Granny had kept on reassuring me in the early months when I used to call saying she wouldn’t stop. At eight months old, Isla had a hip scan, but, of course, the results came back normal, and by nine months old she was sitting upright in her chair. ‘She’s eating well,’ my GP had said. ‘Everything is on track.’
His promise felt good at the time, but over the next few months I began to worry again. Worry is like ivy; it keeps on creeping up on you until it reaches the point when it becomes uncontrollable. Only today I was with a group of mothers I’d met during my antenatal classes. At Isla’s age children don’t really play together, they sit side-by-side doing their own thing. One was stacking colourfulbricks into a pile; another was playing with a baby shop till. I kept on watching Isla, willing her to slot the pieces of her animal puzzle into the right places. I am sure her movements are delayed, it’s as if she is one step behind the beat. ‘Isn’t she beautiful,’ said one of my friends as I watched her staring ahead, almost as if she were in a trance, or an outsider, observing.
It’s not right. It’s not right. I take my glass of wine and join Lizzie in the kitchen, deciding to confide in her about Isla’s playgroup today. ‘I was the strangest child,’ she says, mashing the potatoes as I grate some cheese. ‘I never wanted to play. All I wanted to do was sleep and eat. Mum said I was the easiest baby in the world. As long as I had my pasta and my blanket I was happy.’
I remain quiet.
‘Every child is different, Jan, don’t worry.’
The following morning I feel brighter, deciding Lizzie is right. Doctors must get so fed up with neurotic first-time mothers beating themselves up over the tiniest detail and wanting unnecessary tests for this and that. I head into Isla’s bedroom. She looks so peaceful, content. I lift her out of her cot. ‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ I say, holding her close, before wrinkling my nose. Lizzie enters the room in her stripy pyjamas and cardigan, hair scooped into a messy ponytail. ‘Do your godmother duties extend to changing her nappy?’
‘Nah, I think I’ll leave that to the expert. I’ll stick the kettle on.’
As I lay Isla on her changing mat I look down at her leg again. One is definitely a fraction longer than the other.
‘Mumma.’ Isla wriggles.
‘This won’t take long.’ I reach for a nappy on the shelf underneath.
The tightness in Isla’s legs doesn’t make life easy when changing nappies. Surely it shouldn’t be this hard? She looks up at me with those innocent eyes as if she wants to tell me something.
Why can’t I shake this feeling? Something is wrong. Iknowit is. It’s wrong and no one is going to convince me otherwise. Not Lizzie, not Granny and certainly not my GP. I’m taking her back to the doctor’s first thing on Monday, and I won’t leave until they tell me what it is troubling my little girl.
16
2014
It’s early June and Lizzie and I are eating out at my local Thai; Ruki is at home with Isla. I left them building a Roman home out of an old cardboard box.
‘How’s the new job going?’ I ask, helping myself to another prawn cracker. Lizzie set up a decluttering company a year ago. ‘You’re setting upa what?’I’d asked when she told me.
It’s far from full-time since she still works for the travel agency, but she has cut down to four days a week to give her a chance to grow the business. The idea came to her when one of her work colleagues was going through a divorce. Lizzie had visited her one weekend and was so shocked by the squalor that she had to do something about it. Like the angel she is, she sacrificed almost her entire weekend sorting out the mess. ‘I’ve moved around so much, Jan,’ she’d said when explaining why she wanted to do it. ‘I have a first-class degree in travelling, packing and organising, so I can’t help thinking I can earn a wage doing it for others.’
‘You still can’t get your head round it, can you?’ she says, watching my face dissolve into a smile when she tells me she has just joined the Association of Declutterers, which has an excellent website.
‘I think it’s fantastic,’ I say, meaning every word. I admit to being sceptical at the beginning, along with many others who couldn’t understand anyone paying someone to sort out their rubbish. But finally I realised how valuable her work was when she’d told me about one of her older clients, in her eighties, who lived alone, needing help to prepare her house for when she died. ‘Let’s face it, I’m in the departure lounge,’ she had said to Lizzie with a wry smile. In many ways it reminded me of Grandad and the way he says he doesn’t want Lucas and me to be left with so much clutter when he dies. This client didn’t want her children to be burdened with the task because they all had full-time jobs. And yet she couldn’t do it on her own. She was old and had severe back pain that didn’t go well with heavy lifting. Together they had catalogued paintings, books and plays, and sent clothes and china to various charities. Lizzie had helped her auction the furniture that none of her children wanted. This client had been an actress, and like my grandfather, had worked in the theatre and travelled round the world. The two of them had laughed and cried sharingstories and by the end of the job, had learned much from one another and become firm friends.
Lizzie tells me she had a terrible experience today. She gives me the background as our food arrives. She was at a house in Barnes. Secretly the wife had called her to say she couldn’t stand her husband’s mess anymore. ‘There are piles of ancient newspapers everywhere,’ she’d said, ‘that he won’t throw away and food that is years past its sell-by-date. I feel as if I’m living in a skip. Forget that! A skip would be insulted.’
‘Poor woman,’ I say, thoroughly agreeing with Lizzie that this was indeed a time when a professional declutterer needed to come in on the case.
‘You know my three rules for this job, Jan.’ Lizzie tucks into her chicken curry. ‘No children around, no mobiles and no husbands until coming-home time.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I say, sensing a disaster.
