The Child Page 10

  And when she trudged damply back to her room, the baby had gone.

  By the time the nurses arrived, skittering down the linoleum of the corridor at the sound of her howl, the cot was cold.

  Her kitchen was silent. All she could hear was the tick of the electric clock. Angela looked down at the table. She could feel the surge of panic as if for the first time, the hot prickling of her skin, the sudden nausea, the paralysis. She clenched her fists into her lap and went on, desperate to get to the end without collapsing.

  “I was telling myself that a nurse must have taken her. I was trying to stay calm. I remember saying out loud, ‘She’s been taken back to the nursery.’ I thought I called out, ‘Nurse!’ But the staff told the police that they heard me scream and came running.”

  “The baby,” she’d said to them. “Where is the baby?” and she’d known from their pale faces and the way they turned to each other, as if lost, that they didn’t know. No one knew. Except the person who’d taken her.

  She told Kate about the frantic search of all the rooms and wards, which produced nothing but general terror. No one had seen anything. It was evening and the first-time mums had been curled against their stitches and cramps, gazing fearfully at their new sons and daughters while the old hands gossiped and clucked with each other on the subject of childbirth. Curtains between the beds in the wards had begun to be drawn to allow some sleep, and the visitors had almost all been ushered out.

  “And while all that was going on, someone came into the room. Just walked in and took her.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Kate

  MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

  Kate wrote quickly, jotting it all down in shorthand, while never taking her eyes off the woman across the table. She hardly needed to ask a question, just the occasional nudge when more details were needed. Angela’s narrative started to slow when the story reached their return home from the hospital.

  “It must have been very hard to come back to an empty nursery,” Kate said.

  Angela nodded, dumbly. “We stood in Alice’s room for a long time. But she wasn’t there. She’d never been there. There was just a cot and a mobile of zoo animals. I felt so empty inside.”

  “What were the police doing to try to find her, Angela?” Kate said.

  “All the usual things,” Angela said, her voice exhausted by the tale. “Searches, news conferences, chasing all over the country.”

  “No real suspects?” Kate asked. “There must have been loads of people walking about the hospital.”

  “There were, but no one saw anything,” Angela said. “It was like she’d disappeared into thin air.”

  She waited a beat and added: “You know, of course, they came to the house after a couple of weeks and asked about my feelings towards Alice.”

  “Your feelings? Why? What was that about?” Kate said, knowing full well what it was about. “How awful for you.”

  Angela looked grateful for the comment and nodded. “I thought so, too. But I think one of the nurses must have said something about me. I was so drugged up after the birth I didn’t know what I was doing, really. Maybe I didn’t appear maternal enough. The police kept asking why I had left her alone.”

  “What did you say?” Kate asked.

  “I said she was asleep and I thought she was safe.”

  “Of course,” Kate said. “God, if your baby isn’t safe in a maternity hospital, where would she be?”

  Tears were running down Angela’s face and Joe fished a packet of tissues from his bag and offered them to her.

  “What do you think happened to her, Angela?” Kate said.

  The older woman wrapped the tissue round her knuckles and closed her eyes. “Someone took her. In the ten minutes I was out of the room, someone came in, lifted her out of her cot, and took her away.”

  “Who do you think would have done such a thing?” Kate asked.

  “I don’t know,” Angela breathed. “You hear about sad women and evil men taking children. But I don’t know who took her. I would give anything to know.”

  The two women sat in silence for a moment, focusing on their drinks.

  To Kate’s astonishment, Joe suddenly spoke.

  “Why do you think the Building Site Baby is Alice, Mrs. Irving?”

  Kate bit back her annoyance. She’d wanted to ask that question but she couldn’t say anything to Joe in front of the interviewee. She tried to give him a look, but he was staring at Angela intently, mirroring Kate’s approach. And Angela was looking at the youngster kindly.

  “Did you have any links to Woolwich?” he continued. “People who knew you?”

  “I wish I could say yes, Joe,” Angela replied. “But I have never been to Woolwich. All I can say is that I had a feeling when I read the story in the newspaper. A strong feeling that this was about Alice. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but there it is,” she said.

  Kate groaned in her head. No connections, no leads. It didn’t sound likely that this was the baby in Howard Street.

  But she didn’t want Angela to see her disappointment. She touched her arm again. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all,” she said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Emma

  MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

  It’s been two weeks and no one has come to my door. I spend a lot of time—far too much time—looking out of the window, watching for my accusers to arrive. The police, I suppose, but there are other possibilities. Funny, when I think about the police, I have an old-fashioned image of a bobby, striding up the path, an arrest warrant in his hand. Like they were then.

  Sometimes I wish they would just come. Put me out of my misery. But no one has. I stand by the window and try to force myself to go back upstairs to work. My body won’t obey. I am rooted to this spot. My place of shame. Back to the beginning.

  Paul is worried about me. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.

  “When did you last see Dr. Gorgeous?” he asked me this morning. Our little joke. Dr. Gorgeous is Dr. Brenton—my wonderful GP—but giving him a funny nickname makes it easier to talk about my “condition.”

  “Not for a while, I suppose,” I said. “Maybe I’ll make an appointment.”

  “Good idea, Em. You’ve been so much better lately, but perhaps your pills need tweaking.”

  That’s the way we talk about my anxiety. Like it’s a headache or something. Nothing to be ashamed of.

  I’m not going to call the doctor’s practice. I’m not being difficult, but Dr. Gorgeous likes to talk about my feelings when I go to see him for a repeat prescription and I’m not up to that at the moment. Last time I had a Bad Day, he said he’d like me to see someone—“a specialist,” he said—but I told him I didn’t need to. I’m happy seeing him because I only have to sit chatting for the allotted eight minutes and he gives me a prescription.

  A specialist would want to know about my relationships. About how I feel about Jude and my absent father.

  I’d have to tell him I’d gone looking for my dad as a teenager—but I can’t say that. Because I can’t tell the whole story. One thing would lead to another and it would mean unpicking the web.

  I try it out, just in case. I can hear myself saying: “It began with Will. Well, it began before that, but the arrival of Will started the unraveling.” But that is as far as I get before I am in the danger zone.

  The day I decided to begin the search for my father, I’d had a row with Jude. Our life had been turned upside down by Will. Jude had become completely obsessed. He’d taken over her life. And, so, my life. We couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without asking Will what he thought or if he wanted to come, too.

  There was a lot more singing in the bath, I remember, the smell of her Aqua Manda bath oil making the air thick outside the door. But I’d learned to ignore her calls to come in—peace offerings I was ha
ppy to reject. He was all she talked about, and I wondered how many of her clients were still in prison because of her ridiculous fixation.

  I told Harry and she said Jude was acting like a groupie. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like her calling my mum that. It was all right if I said mean things, but not anyone else.

  I didn’t tell Harry that I’d heard Jude telling our new flatmate—Barbara from her office—how she’d first slept with Will at a May Ball. Barbara said it sounded romantic, but I thought it sounded cheap. My mum was too old to be talking like that.

  Jude was changing. She’d been so serious and focused on “the important things in life,” and I’d assumed I was included in that category.

  She certainly had big plans for me—cabinet minister, surgeon, Nobel Prize winner were all bandied about in a jokey way, but I knew she expected a lot.

  We had what Jude liked to call an adult relationship. That meant we talked about politics and new books and films she’d seen, and she told me about her legal cases and the terrible situations people were forced into by authoritarian states. We didn’t talk about pop stars or boys or sports. That was my other world. In my bedroom or the phone box. The kitchen was where I interacted with my mother.

  • • •

  But suddenly she wasn’t interested in me anymore. She was busy shaving her legs and searching for matching underwear in her chest of drawers, scrabbling through layers of faithful old pants and tired bras.

  One night, she presented herself in the kitchen for inspection in a new dress while I was doing my homework.

  “What do you think, Emma?” Jude had asked me.

  “Aren’t you a bit old to be going out without a bra, Mum?” I’d said, using the forbidden M word. I hated her at that moment. She looked so beautiful and happy and it had nothing to do with me.

  “The woman up the road—the one Will likes—never wears one and she looks awful,” I added.

  “You little bitch,” Jude had snapped at me. She’d never used that word to me before. Never had to, I suppose. I was changing, too.

  • • •

  After Jude left, slamming the door behind her, I headed for the telephone box at the end of the road. It was almost eight o’clock and the box lurked in the dark pool between two streetlights. It was lit only by an ancient lightbulb that cast a nicotine yellow pall over the interior and stank of pee and joints. The concrete floor seemed permanently wet and stained in the corners as if the last user had just zipped up his jeans and left. But I loved that phone box.

  It was my private space. There was a phone at home, on the wall in the hallway, but every conversation felt like a public event, with Jude listening and even joining in if she felt like it.

  I lined up my coins on the metal shelf, picked up the receiver, and began dialing.

  I asked Harry’s father if I could talk to her. I was always polite, using my most suitable-for-adults voice. He hated me disturbing her when she was doing her homework, but I would pretend it was about some schoolwork.

  He used to say he didn’t know what we could have to talk about after being at school together all day. But he always gave in.

  I’d hear the sound of Harry’s feet thundering downstairs and then her voice, high and cross. “Dad, stop listening to my calls. This is private.”

  I told her about Jude calling me a bitch, and Harry was thrilled. She loved a bit of other people’s trouble.

  “I’m sick of Jude and Will,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, but I knew she had misgivings. The trouble was she was secretly—or sometimes not so secretly—in love with Will. She said he was sexy.

  “Harry! He’s so old,” I said, outraged when she’d first told me. I didn’t tell her that the word “sexy” made my stomach go all watery. I was trying to hate Will for barging into our lives, but I still liked it when he winked or smiled at me. I couldn’t help it.

  The pips crashed into my thoughts, signaling that another three minutes had passed, and I pushed the remaining ten-pence piece into the slot so we could discuss Harry’s social life. I just tagged along.

  I remember she’d nicked a five-pound note from her dad’s trousers to buy a new top. Her theft was all in aid of impressing Malcolm Baker, her latest crush. He had apparently smiled at Harry on the bus and her heart was clearly set on slow dancing with him at the youth club disco.

  For me, romance stayed in the pages of my notebooks and diaries. I hadn’t ventured into love—or lust—in the flesh, uncertain of my looks and charms and unwilling to test the waters. There had been some smudged innocent kisses behind the youth club, informed by the stories in Jackie, but I preferred to write about the longing and imagined lovers. There was safety in my stories. And less saliva.

  And I’d had Harry’s terrifying lecture on losing your virginity. I’d asked her what it was like when she told me she’d done it with Malcolm Baker’s friend after the Christmas disco.

  “Did it hurt?” I said.

  “Agony. Bloody agony, but it gets better,” Harry had said, puffing on a No. 6 on the top of the double-decker. I knew she’d probably only done it once but let it go. She liked being my older, more sophisticated friend.

  “Agony? Really? God, maybe I’ll wait a bit longer. Do you want one?” I’d offered her a Cheese and Onion crisp and we’d moved seamlessly on to our favorite crisp flavors.

  Then Harry had rung the bell and skipped down the stairs to get off the bus. She looked up and waved as the bus lumbered off.

  • • •

  Harry had long thought my failure to get a boyfriend was down to having no dad.

  “Where are the men in your life, Emma? No wonder you are shy around boys,” she’d said when we’d last broached the subject, months before.

  It had been her idea to bring up the subject at home, so I had. I tried to keep calm and pointed out that half my DNA was my mystery father’s. Jude had reacted with horror.

  “But you’ve got me,” she’d cried. “And he wouldn’t be interested.”

  She’d pointed out that he probably had another family by now and I would be making problems for him if I turned up. “He’d have to explain you to his new wife.”

  That night, the night of the row, Harry said: “Sod them, Emma. You need a proper parent. Let’s go and find your dad.”

  And I agreed.

  We waited until the next time Jude was out and went up to her room to look through her things for letters and photos of old boyfriends. I was so worried she’d catch us, I stood by the door while Harry did the digging around. I was nagging Harry to put everything away when she found a scribbled note at the back of 1968’s diary. It said “Charlie,” and there was an address in Brighton.

  “We should go there,” Harry said. “It’s around the right time and it’s not too far,” she added, practical as ever.

  It was all moving too fast for me, but I’d agreed to start down the path and it felt too late to turn back now.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Emma

  MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

  I’m supposed to be polishing the book I’m editing, but I keep drifting away from the sentence I’m reading. My boss has e-mailed to say the subject is about to be exposed in a Sunday paper as a cokehead and I need to get a wiggle on so the publishers can sell the serial rights to the press.

  I’ve e-mailed back to say I’ll get it to her by the end of tomorrow, but I can’t concentrate. It’s as if my eyes keep sliding off the screen. I get up, make myself a cup of tea, and sit down again, determined to get on with it. But my tea goes cold beside me and my screen locks while I sit wondering if everything would have turned out differently if Harry and I had found my father back in 1984. If the story had ended in Brighton.

  But of course it didn’t.

  I almost laugh when I remember how it began—like some silly schoolgirl adventure—but there is nothing to
laugh at, really.

  Harry had it all planned back then. We forged a note for school, saying I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon, and she pretended to be ill.

  “Since we’re in different classes, they shouldn’t put two and two together,” she said. “I’ll say period pains because Mrs. Carr hates talking about that stuff.” Poor Mrs. Carr, she was about a hundred years old, and being Harry’s form teacher must have been a terrible cross for her to bear.

  Harry had chosen a Thursday because it was gym so we could leave at lunchtime. And there we were, at the railway station, about to make it all real.

  I can see us, standing there. Two kids. I’m the one not talking, concentrating on the plan and trying not to think about what I’ll say. So many questions running through my head. Making me feel faint.

  Harry said this was just the first step and not to build my hopes up. I said I wasn’t, but it was hard not to.

  The thing was, my dad had existed in my head for so long, it was hard not to think of him as a real person. I used to wonder if I looked like him, examining my features in the mirror and wondering which bits of me were his.

  Some people say I look like Jude, but I’ve never thought so. Her friends said we had the same eyes. Well, we both have blue eyes.

  I didn’t know how I felt about finding my dad. Excited but really, really scared. I didn’t tell Harry. She used to pull this face when she thought people were being immature.

  I was so frightened he wouldn’t want to know me, like Jude said, but I let myself imagine him hugging me, like in those stories about people being reunited. Like in Heidi. When I thought about it I felt tingly and wanted to cry, so I wrote about it in my diary. It made me feel better when it was written down. Safe on the page.

  Harry never did “safe.” She loved a bit of excitement, a bit of trouble. And it was okay, normally, because I just watched and was the shoulder to cry on when it all went wrong. Like when she started seeing that horrible biker in the precinct. Her parents went mad and her dad went to see the biker at his house and said he would go to the police if he went near his fourteen-year-old daughter again. Harry cried for two days.