I nearly let loose and gave her a piece of my mind, but you’d have been proud of me, Percy. I bit my tongue. Instead I sat back in my seat, arms crossed, and watched the show.
Her face was getting redder and redder as she tried to force the back wheel to make it fit round the pole, and of course it wouldn’t go but she kept on trying. It was like you always say: you can buy yourself a fancy education, but you can’t buy common sense. And then the woman started swearing under her breath and suddenly she kicks the wheel of the pram. Well, of course the thing doesn’t budge, but the jolt wakes up her baby, who lets out a howl of rage. I’m not going to lie. I did have a little smile to myself at that. What was it Maisie used to say that always made us laugh?Karma’s a bitch, baby.
So now the baby’s crying and the pram is still sticking out into the aisle, blocking everyone’s way, and then from the top seat, the toddler pipes up.
“Mummy, I’m hungry.”
This kid must have been at least three years old and far too big to still be in a pushchair, in my opinion. And he’s got one of those really annoying whingy voices.
“In a minute, darling,” the woman says, sounding like the Duchess of bleedin’ Cambridge.
“But I need a snacknoooow,” the kid shouts, and he starts swinging his legs backward and forward so he’s kicking the end of the baby’s bassinet, which makes the little one scream louder.
Well, what that child needed was a smack, not a snack. But of course she doesn’t tell him off; instead she bends down and lifts the baby out of the pram.
I have to tell you, love, when I saw the little one, my heart stopped.
She was absolutely tiny; looked like she couldn’t have been more than a few days old. And the woman is balancing the baby in one arm while she’s bending down to rummage under the pram to find something, and the boy is still chanting, “Snack! Snack! Snack!” and the baby is howling her head off and the woman’s scrabbling around, looking like she’s about to explode.
So do you know what I did?
I leant forward and I held out my arms, and I said to her, “Give the baby to me.”
Well, she turns and looks at me then, and I could see her doing the mental calculation of whether I looked like a serial killer or not. And then she handed this baby over to me.
Honestly, love, the thing was so small, I could barely feel her in my arms. And do you know what it made me think of?
Jack.
After all these years, it made me think of Jack.
I remembered holding him in the hospital when he was so tiny, he could almost fit in the palm of my hand.
Do you remember the hat I’d knitted for him, which was so big it covered his whole upper body?
This baby was larger than Jack, of course; otherwise they’d never have let her out of hospital. But still, holding her I felt like I was back there with you and him in the hospital that day he was born.
Finally, the woman finds a packet of crisps and she hands them to the boy, who stops shouting and starts shoveling them into his mouth, the greedy little brat. And this woman collapses down onto the seat next to me, and I think she’s going to ask for her baby back, but she doesn’t. She lets out this long sigh and closes her eyes and just sits there, not moving.
And as I’m watching her, do you know what I see?
Tears.
And I remembered you, on the bus back from the hospital, sitting next to me crying. It was such a shock to see, love. I was always the crier, but there you were, not making a sound, your shoulders shaking with the sobs. And I didn’t know what to do; I was in so much pain myself that I didn’t know whether to comfort you or pretend I hadn’t seen. So I just sat there, staring out the bus window at gray London, and by the time I turned back, you’d stopped.
I’m not sure I ever saw you cry again, after that. It was like there were no tears left.
CHAPTER
30
The following Tuesday, Libby sat outside the Parliament Hill café, waiting for Frank to arrive. It had been a week since their trip on the bus to meet Ingrid Stokes, and Libby had been worrying about him nonstop. Dylan had been texting her updates and said that Frank was okay but subdued and avoiding talking about what happened on the bus. What was more, he’d apparently stopped going out on the 88, giving tenuous excuses each time as to why he couldn’t go. Frank himself had ignored all of Libby’s messages suggesting they meet up, until yesterday, when he’d finally replied and agreed to join her for a walk.
Libby saw him heading slowly up the path toward her, dressed in his usual velvet jacket, and she hurried over to meet him.
“Hi, Frank.”
“Hello, Libby.” He smiled at her, but Libby couldn’t help noticing he’d lost some of the sparkle in his eyes.
