‘Mia. She’s three months and one week old, today. And I’m Kathryn,’ she adds, with an embarrassed smile. ‘Hi.’
Her phone rings again and she silences it without answering. Looking closer, she’s young to have a baby, not much older than twenty, nearly half my own age. I’m old enough to behermother, I realise with a familiar pinch of sadness. She wears no wedding ring, and her ears are pierced twice – low and high – with unfussy studs in each. She looks like she might be more at home out clubbing than looking after a baby.
But there is something else too, a pulse of unease that she’s keeping just beneath the surface.
Her phone beeps with a message, and as she reaches for it the sleeve of her jacket rides up, revealing purple-black skin above her wrist, a line of ugly bruises spreading up towards her elbow.
She sees me looking and hurriedly pushes the sleeve back down again. I give her a sympathetic smile.
‘I’m Ellen,’ I say. Lowering my voice, I add, ‘Is everything . . . OK?’
‘Yeah.’ She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Actually, I don’t suppose you’d be able to hold her for a minute while I get myself sorted out, would you?’
Yes. No. I would love to hold her. More than anything. Please don’t ask me to.
‘Of course,’ I say, sitting forward in my seat.
Kathryn half stands, leaning over the grey plastic table between us, handing the baby to me. It feels awkward at first and for a moment I think I might drop the baby or she might wriggle free, but she seems quite content to lie back, nestled into the crook of my elbow. She’s not heavy, just a warm, solid presence, wonderfully and joyfully alive in my arms, her big blue eyes gazing up, her lips curling into a smile.Babies love faces, that was what all the books said. They were hardwired to respond to eye contact and smiles, their own eyes focusing to that first distance between mother and child. The distance between us now. How is it possible to feel a loss for something I’ve never had and probably never will have?
‘You’re a natural,’ Kathryn says, then immediately puts a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . That was a stupid thing to say.’
I shake my head, unable to take my eyes off the baby.
‘No need to apologise.’
Mia reaches out, the tips of her little fingers brushing my cheek with the lightest of touches, tiny points of warmth on my skin. She makes a happy gurgle of delight as I lean a little closer, allowing her fingers to touch my chin, my jawline. I reach over with my right hand and Mia’s fingers wrap around my index finger, a tiny clamp, as gentle as a feather. She has the smallest, most exquisite fingernails. I blow a raspberry onto her fingertips and she giggles, a hearty chuckle that warms my heart.
‘Nice to meet you, Mia.’ I smile down at her. ‘My name’s Ellen.’
Kathryn has pulled the white rucksack onto her lap. She has a pen in her hand and is busy digging through the contents, rearranging the bottles and nappies packed inside. As she zips it closed, her iPhone starts ringing again, vibrating against the plastic tabletop. The screen displays a man’s face, thirtyish, dark ginger hair, stubble, a kink in the bridge of his nose as though at some point it has been broken. The name below the image isDominic.
‘Sounds like he’s keen to get hold of you,’ I say.
‘I’d better answer.’ She nods distractedly, glancing again at the phone’s display. ‘Would you be all right with Mia just while I take this call? It’s . . . urgent.’
‘Sure. Go ahead, we’ll be fine for a minute.’
‘I’ll just be down there.’ She gestures over her shoulder, down the carriage. ‘I’ll be back.’
I look up again and I swear I see tears glistening in her eyes.
‘Kathryn, are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Yeah,’ she says, getting up out of her seat. ‘Thank you. I won’t be long.’
She reaches out and touches her fingertips gently to the crown of the baby’s head, as if reluctant to leave her even for a moment. Then she takes her phone down the aisle, towards the end of the carriage, mobile clamped to her ear.
Mia gazes up at me and yawns, blue eyes blinking shut for a moment. I rock her gently from side to side, her wonderful weight in the crook of my arm, the unfamiliar smile returning to my lips. My heart fills my chest, a powerful rush like the strongest drug, a tide of emotion I haven’t felt in so long that I’ve wondered whether it even still exists inside me.
I allow myself to imagine – just for a moment – what it would be like if this little one was mine. If I was returning from the hospital with a baby in my arms, instead of a prognosis even bleaker than the last time. To finally use the little box bedroom for what it had been intended for, saved for: a nursery. Instead of a quiet, empty corner of the house left in stasis like a shrine to a life unfulfilled, to something that will never be. I’ve imagined this for so long, dreamed of it, of night feeds and cuddles and tiny fingers, walks in the park and first words and bedtime stories. All the little things that parents take for granted. I lean closer to Mia’s forehead, breathing in that indefinable soft-sweet baby scent of pure, clean skin and talcum powder and new life. Wondering if Kathryn knows how lucky she is.
There’s a shift in the train’s momentum, its speed easing as it begins to decelerate into the next station, the last stop before Marylebone. Open countryside has been replaced by busy little villages and roads, church steeples and barn conversions, commuter land on the way into north-west London. I look up to see if Kathryn’s on her way back, but she’s still hidden from my view in the vestibule connecting the two carriages. How long has she been gone now? Two minutes? Three?
The next stop slides into view.Seer Green&Jordans, a little two-platform country station with a footbridge and a small wood-panelled waiting room, a handful of people waiting to board. Kathryn has not reappeared. The train wheezes to a stop in a shudder of brakes, three long beeps as the carriage doors slide open and a few passengers step down onto the platform. I raise myself carefully out of my seat and look around, checking the other way down the carriage in case Kathryn has somehow slipped past while I’ve been busy with Mia. But I can only see the football fans, all in identical red and white-striped shirts, with close-cropped hair and long legs sticking out into the aisle. The seats across from me are occupied by a small red-faced man in a pinstriped suit, who has managed to spread out his briefcase, laptop, newspaper and raincoat across five of the six seats, as well as the little table. He has not looked over at me once.
‘Excuse me,’ I say to him. ‘I don’t suppose you saw the woman sitting here? Did she come past us just now?’
The man glances up, gives a single irritated shake of his head, and goes back to his laptop. I’m about to stand up, to walk down the carriage in search of her, when movement outside catches my eye. A figure hurrying past, right by my window. A blonde woman in a rust-coloured jacket.
