‘I just wanted to see you,’ Marisa says plaintively. ‘Because I’m having your baby.’
‘You are,’ Jake says.
Kate is relieved. He is going along with it, even if he doesn’t yet understand why. His jaw is stiff, the tendons in his neck sticking out.He doesn’t like it, but she can’t do anything about that. Not yet. Her priority has to be the baby’s safety and, by extension, Marisa’s too.
‘I’m going to get us all a cup of tea,’ Kate says. She slowly levers herself up to standing. One of her legs has gone numb and she has to shake the pins and needles from her right foot, but otherwise she is relatively unscathed. She wipes the sweat from her face and when she looks at her hand, she notices blood. The blood seems almost totally removed from her physical self. She walks to the kitchen in a daze, detached from the reality of the situation. She watches herself as she fills the kettle from the tap and presses the button to make it boil. Then she picks up the cordless telephone they keep by the bread bin and takes the garden door keys from the top drawer and slides open the glass doors as quietly as she can. She steps onto the patio.
She does not want to call the police or an ambulance or anyone in authority who will endanger the future of this pregnancy. What if Marisa is arrested? What if the stress causes her to miscarry? What if too many questions are asked and Marisa ends up keeping the baby? The agreement the three of them have signed isn’t legally binding. It can’t be until Marisa signs over legal parenthood to them after the baby is born.
Nor does Kate want to call Carol or the surrogacy charity in case they, too, insist on reporting what has happened. Kate isn’t clear on what the protocol would be, but she refuses to take the risk. This needs to be dealt with quickly, calmly and privately, with someone who has medical expertise and whose discretion they can rely on. And so she thinks of Chris. Retired GP. He would be able to advise them on Marisa’s medical condition and check up on the baby, wouldn’t he? He would know what to do. But to get to Chris, she will have to call Annabelle and explain everything. It isn’t ideal, but it will have to do. There isn’t much time. She can hear the kettle coming to the boil behind her. She needs to act fast.
She holds the phone in one hand, and dials Annabelle’s number.
After she makes the call, Kate comes back inside and mechanically puts teabags in mugs and pours in boiled water and milk, adding extra sugar for everyone. She washes her face in the sink, patting it dry with the tea-towel. She catches sight of her reflection in the mirrored splashback. Her hair is sticking out at odd angles and her mascara has left the suggestion of dark trails across her face. There is dried blood at the corner of her mouth and a cut on her forehead. She rubs at the marks, and the tips of her fingers become grey. When she smooths her hair down, she looks almost normal again, apart from the blankness behind her eyes. She places the mugs on a tray and limps back out to the hallway. Her legs are shaky now, the muscles aching.
Jake and Marisa are still sitting on the floor. He has his arms around her and Marisa is calmer and no longer crying.
‘Tea!’ Kate says with a brightness she does not feel. She sets the tray down next to them.
‘Thanks,’ Jake says. ‘Are we—’
Kate shakes her head, the movement so small it would be missed by anyone else.
‘Marisa,’ she says. ‘Have some tea. It’ll be good for you. It’ll make you feel better.’
She holds out a mug to her, and Marisa takes it, looking up at Kate from the floor and tilting her head towards the light. She looks wary, untrusting, but she sips the tea as she is told, then turns back and rests her cheek against Jake’s chest.
‘I’m so tired,’ Marisa says.
‘Close your eyes for a bit,’ Kate says. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about any more. You need to conserve your energy. Are you comfortable there or do you want to move to the sofa?’
‘Here,’ Marisa says. ‘I want to stay here.’
She slides her head down so that it rests on Jake’s lap. He unfolds his legs, straightening them across the narrow hallway, his shoes touching the opposite wall.
‘Are you OK?’ he mouths to Kate, above Marisa’s resting head.
She nods. Her mobile phone is still in her handbag on the table. She reaches for it now, trying to be quiet. She doesn’t want to do anythingto startle Marisa. If the other woman can fall asleep, then so much the better. She opens her Notes app and starts writing and when she is done, she holds it in front of Jake’s face so he can read it.
‘M attacked me when I got home. She’s lost it. Properly crazy. Thinks that you and her are together. Thinks we’ve been having affair. I’ve called your parents. They’re coming. Chris has sedatives. We need to keep her calm for next three hours.’
Jake reads, his mouth setting in a grim line as he takes it in. Kate takes the phone back and types again: ‘Best to go along with her until we can discuss?’
Jake nods, then he grips Kate’s hand. Kate squeezes him back, then goes upstairs. She doesn’t have time for emotion. She leaves Jake gently patting Marisa’s shoulder. Marisa is calmer now, soothed by Jake’s presence.Good, Kate thinks,that’s what we need.
In airport detective novels or cheap made-for-TV films, Kate has repeatedly come across the line that mothers will do anything for their children. There were those fabled stories about women finding superhuman strength to lift overturned cars off the wounded bodies of their progeny; about mums fighting for justice and campaigning for changes in the law after their beloved child died at the hands of a criminal on early release. But Kate has never fully understood the power of this concept until this moment. She realises, with acute and undeniable conviction, that she will do anything for her child, even when her child is not yet born. It is this that saw her through those gruelling rounds of fertility treatment. It is this that made her put up with Marisa’s erratic, scary behaviour for so long, turning a blind eye because she wanted motherhood so badly. It is this which now gives her the strength to pretend to Marisa that everything is all right, even when she has been attacked, even when the side of her head has a dull, splitting ache where Marisa knocked her out, even when she has washed the blood off her face and seen the reddened water in the sink. It is this that enables Kate to bury both her anger and her terror in these crucial minutes. It is this unspoken force that shows her exactly what she has to do. The irrefutable clarity makes all decisions easy.
She goes to Marisa’s room. She hasn’t been in here for weeks. Marisa mostly keeps the door closed. When Kate asked if she wanted the cleaner to give it the once-over, Marisa said that she would rather do it herself. Kate assumed Marisa was working and sleeping and didn’t want to disturb her. Latterly, it felt easier that way.
She turns the doorknob and walks into the room. The curtains are drawn, so at first she doesn’t see the mess. When she switches on the light, Kate gasps. The floor is covered with balled-up clothes and used tissues and cotton buds and old fast-food cartons. A half-drunk mug of tea is growing mould across the surface. In the corner, by the plug sockets, is what looks like a thick beige snake. When she gets closer, Kate realises it’s a twisting clump of rotting takeaway noodles. She gags. The room smells of turpentine and sweat and stale food mixed with an indefinable rotten sweetness as cloying as pear drops. She puts a hand over her mouth, making her breathing more shallow. She picks her way across to the window and when she opens it, fresh air rushes in.
What has Marisa been doing? Kate wonders. She is scared again, this time not for what has happened to her but for what has happened to Marisa. This is the sign of someone profoundly unbalanced. This is a breakdown.
Then she sees the desk. On the old architect’s table are several jam jars filled with paintbrushes in dirty water the colour of silt. But there is no evidence of any painting. Instead, there are sheets and sheets of paper covered with scrawling handwriting in permanent marker. The words are so close together they make no sense at first. When Kate peers closer, she notices that they are not, in fact, words but names. Kate and Jake and Marisa written over and over again, looping through and under each other like a thicket of weeds, spreading their roots across all the available space until the paper is more black than white.
The cork-board above the desk, where Marisa used to pin the photos of children she paints into her fairytales, is covered with photographs of Jake. They are taken from a high angle, showing him working out in the garden, his chest slick with sweat, and she realises that Marisa has been photographing him from her bedroom window. Jake isunaware he is being photographed apart from one where he is squinting up towards the camera lens, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand. Another photo, at first glance, seems to be a picture of Marisa and Jake together, both of them laughing. On closer inspection, Kate notices a ripped edge and realises that it is two separate photos that have been stuck together, to give the impression of a closeness that doesn’t exist.
She rips the cork-board off the wall and, without thinking, throws it out of the window where it lands with a solid thud on the lawn below. She is angry. And at the same time as she is angry, she is also aware that this anger must be contained. That fucking crazy bitch, she thinks. And then: that fucking crazy bitch is carrying our baby.
