Until You're Mine (12 page)

‘I see,’ said Adam, although Lorraine could tell that he didn’t.

‘To sum her up, I’d say she’s needy.’ Mary appeared pleased with her description.

‘When’s her baby due?’ Lorraine asked, recalling Liam Rider’s strange comment earlier. She glanced at Adam.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Mary said. ‘She’s not even pregnant. She comes to my classes because she thinks it will help her
get
pregnant.’ Then she said in a whisper, ‘I think they’re having a hard time, she and her partner. You know . . .’

‘Isn’t that a bit odd, coming to an antenatal class without actually being pregnant?’ Lorraine thought it was, anyway.

‘A little, perhaps, but not unheard of. I’ve had one or two ladies in the past who simply wanted the relaxation. I’m not going to turn them away.’

‘Pregnancy by proxy,’ Adam said insensitively.

‘Absolutely,’ was Mary’s reply. ‘That’s just the kind of woman she is. A wormer-inner. But it’s another fiver a week to have her in the class and her money’s as good as anyone else’s.’

‘Can you give us her address, please?’ Lorraine asked.

‘Certainly not,’ Mary replied. She gathered up the paper file on the table and stuffed it into an oversized shoulder bag. ‘My ladies’ details are confidential.’

‘Mary,’ Adam said, beating Lorraine to it, ‘we are the police. This is a murder inquiry.’

They both stared at her. Lorraine suddenly remembered that Grace had a driving lesson during her lunch break and she’d forgotten to give her a cheque that morning. Adam cleared his throat loudly, impatiently.

‘OK,’ Mary said as a slight look of fear swept over her face. ‘But don’t tell her I told you. I can’t afford to lose another lady.’

‘Another?’ Lorraine blurted out without thinking.

Mary pulled the folder from her bag. She flipped it open and scribbled an address on a notepad. She ripped out the page. ‘Well, Sally-Ann won’t be coming to class any more, will she?’

‘
SHE WAS
IN
our room
, James. Are you not hearing me correctly?’ I’m shaking. Is it anger or fear? I need a stiff drink but can’t have one.

‘So?’ James doesn’t see the problem. ‘She works for us, Claudia. She lives here now. You’ll have to get used to her popping up in weird places at weird times. Wait until I walk in on her when she’s in the bath or we find her snogging some chap on the doorstep.’ He is pan-frying lambs’ livers. They look and smell disgusting.

‘I sincerely hope she’s past
that
phase,’ I say, calming down a bit. ‘That’s why I went for someone a bit older and therefore, hopefully, more sensible.’

‘Exactly. Did you ask her what she was doing in our room?’

‘She was setting up the new Moses basket. It was delivered today.’

‘Oh no!’ James mocks. ‘Surely that’s worth an immediate sacking.’ He waves the wooden spatula at me and I poke out my tongue. He’s already made a caramelised red onion sauce, which smells delicious, and there’s a pot of creamy mash keeping warm, and some sprouting broccoli in the steamer. But those little slices of liver, they don’t look so good, all coated with flour and crisping at the edges as he slides them around in the butter.

‘Both boys out like lights!’ Zoe startles us by singing out her success. ‘They’re exhausted from that play session earlier.’ Her hands are shoved tightly in the front pockets of her grey skinny jeans. On top she’s wearing a faded green T-shirt with a zip-up fleece over the top. She looks a lot younger than her thirty-three years. Her skin is clear and smooth and still wrinkle-free, making me feel about twenty years older than her, not the six I actually am. I smooth down the creased grey jumper dress that I’ve stretched over my bump today. Along with thick tights and ankle boots, I didn’t look too bad early this morning. But a day of dragging-on-for-ever meetings and a particularly unsavoury home visit hasn’t helped my appearance, or mood. I feel tired and tetchy.

‘We went to Tumblz Play Zone with Pip and Lilly,’ she says proudly, as if she’s just taken a walk on the moon. ‘It was crazy fun. I ended up in the ball pit, completely buried.’ She laughs and swaggers into the kitchen. ‘Listen, I’m sorry if I upset you earlier, Claudia. I didn’t think it through. I shouldn’t have gone in your bedroom.’

James looks at me expectantly. I hold up my hands. ‘Hey, no problem,’ I say. ‘It was kind of you to carry the Moses basket up for me. It’s so pretty, James. I can hardly believe we’re going to have a daughter in just a couple of weeks.’ I swallow down the lump in my throat. I hate saying things like that, tempting fate. What if something goes wrong? With my history, I won’t breathe easy until I’m actually holding a healthy baby girl.

‘You could be late going into labour,’ Zoe says, as if she’s an expert on such things. ‘So it could be up to a month from now, couldn’t it? They’ll induce you if you go past forty-two weeks.’

‘You’re right,’ I say.

‘There’s increased danger of infant mortality both post- and antenatal in babies delivered following an extra-long gestation. Then there’s the risk of other complications, too, such as placental failure or hypertension.’

‘My midwife’s taking good care of me,’ I assure her, impressed with her knowledge of late pregnancy, although I can’t help wondering how she knows so much.

*

By the weekend, I’ve become a little more accustomed to Zoe’s presence. It’s a good job because from Monday onwards it’s just me, her and the boys. James suggests a day out for all of us, and immediately one of those corporate team-building places comes to mind where we have to build a raft together or make a bridge out of lollipop sticks strong enough to hold a man. I know he’s doing it for peace of mind before he leaves. One final check he’s not abandoning me to Psycho-Nanny.

‘But it’s bucketing down,’ I say. Bed is warm and cosy, and even though we haven’t opened the curtains yet, I can hear the drumming of the rain on the roof, the cars, the already sodden ground.

‘But quite mild, though.’

James rolls over and tries to sling an arm over my bump. I gently push him away. It’s just not comfortable like that. Or, I admit to myself, it’s not comfortable knowing we can’t finish what we start, and definitely not comfortable that he’s leaving so soon. I snuggle into the crook of his shoulder. He smells of sleep and deodorant and it pretty much kills me cold inside that we’re going to be apart for so long.

‘It was a nice surprise to find you here when I woke,’ he mumbles.

He’s referring to me crawling into bed beside him at four this morning. I’d been awake since three. My mind was racing with everything that lies ahead.

‘Do we have to go anywhere today? It’s so cold and miserable out.’ I just want to stay here for ever with James nestled at my side. I feel bigger than ever, bundled up against the sub-zero temperatures in my thick winter pyjamas and towelling robe. James always makes fun of me. One minute I’m complaining I’m too hot, the next I’m moaning that it’s freezing.

He lowers his voice even though there’s no way Zoe can hear. ‘I think we should all go out together. It’ll give me one final chance to make certain about her before I leave. I’m doing it to put your mind at rest.’

‘And what do we do if we’re not convinced?’ James doesn’t answer but I can almost hear him telling me that I’ll have to give up my job. ‘Look, I’ll be honest. Do you know why I really came in here so early?’

James emits a deep, resonant laugh. ‘To share your insomnia?’

‘I heard noises coming from the top floor.’ My turn to whisper.

‘That’ll be because we have our nanny living up there, Claud.’

‘She was banging about all over the place. I should know. The spare room’s directly below her.’

‘Perhaps she went to the loo. Or was hungry. Or perhaps, actually, she still feels a little unsettled having moved in with a new family and she couldn’t sleep either.’

‘No. It wasn’t any of those things.’

‘Rather certain, aren’t you?’ James rolls over and props himself up on his elbow.

‘I didn’t hear the toilet flushing. You know how loud the old pipes are. If she was hungry, she’d have come downstairs, and she didn’t. I know every sound in this house. And she’s certainly not fretting about living here. Far from it. She asked to stay here at the weekends, didn’t she?’ I’m already regretting agreeing to that. A couple of days alone with my children each weekend was what I’d envisaged.

‘You’re right, of course.’ He tries to grab me. ‘She’s undoubtedly a psychotic insomniac murderer who’s going to do away with all of us in the middle of the night.’

‘James, don’t.’ I roll away from him and slide my legs out of bed. I heave the rest of my body up before he can grab me again. Suddenly I’m not in the mood for cuddling.

I pull back the curtains and groan. The weather is not good for a day out. Straight shafts of rain pelt from a low, greeny-grey sky that seems to merge with the rooftops like a smudged painting. I glance up and down our street. Despite the weather, people are still going about their usual Saturday-morning business. Mr Ford, the old man who lives opposite, wanders down his front path with Ned, his terrier, on a long leash. He once told me he was born in that house; that everything in his whole life had happened there – deaths, marriages, divorces, fights, love stories, laughter and tears, he said with a sad glance at his feet. ‘This house was once so full of people, Claudia my dear.’ He’d made a point of introducing himself as soon as I moved in with James. ‘It was always so busy and vibrant and stuffed with noise and chatter – the scrape of a violin being practised or a piano being hammered to within an inch of its life.’ He’d laughed a toothless laugh, and I’d noticed a fat tear in each eye. He’d sniffed them back. ‘Now it’s just me and Ned.’

I imagine him rattling around the six-bedroom Victorian home with its brown-painted banisters, creaky doors and Fifties-style kitchen in which he prepares microwave meals for one.

‘All empty,’ he’d finished, banging his heart, and I knew exactly what he meant.

James is beside me, peering down the street. ‘Curtain twitcher,’ he says fondly. His arms are around me, hugging around my chest like a tight empire line. I can’t breathe so I ease him off.

‘Poor chap, he’s all alone,’ I say as the stooped body of Mr Ford wrapped in a brightly coloured sou’wester progresses slowly down the street in a yellow blur.

‘He’s all right. Off to get his paper, give Ned a bit of a walk. It’s all about routine at his age.’

‘I guess,’ I say, turning and kissing James. His mouth feels warm and deep and I feel so utterly lucky and grateful to be a part of this family.

*

Two hours later and I’m face to face with a hammerhead shark. I can’t help but be impressed and also a little scared of the two beady-eyed creatures that swim up close to the glass, making Oscar and Noah catch their breath at the absurdity of their faces and the proximity of danger. The sharks are ugly yet beautiful and have absolutely no idea that they are in the centre of Birmingham. They seem happy enough despite being far from home.

‘Can they see us?’ Oscar asks. He pushes two fingers inside a tiny box of raisins.

‘I don’t know. What do you think?’ Zoe is crouching beside the twins, alternating her look between them and the sharks. She pulls back slightly as one of them approaches the glass at speed then veers off at the last second.

‘Yeah, and they think we’re in a zoo,’ Noah replies quite intuitively. I slip my arm through James’s as our son giggles at the thought of us all being in captivity.

‘But what if they break out?’ Oscar asks.

‘Then we run!’ Zoe says with a silly face.

‘But why?’ Noah says, crushing his empty box of raisins. ‘They can’t chase us. They don’t have legs. I’d actually help them.’

‘That’s very kind of you, darling,’ James says. ‘Shall I take a photograph of you with the sharks?’

‘Yeah!’ both boys chant together. They huddle up against the glass.

‘Go on, Zoe, you get in too,’ James says. ‘One for the family album.’

‘Family Flickr now, isn’t it?’ I say. James has been scanning lots of old photos and putting them online so that the rest of the family can see the boys growing up.

‘Oh no, you don’t want me in it,’ Zoe says bashfully. Her cheeks go pink and she steps away.

‘Of course we want you in it,’ James reiterates. ‘Go on, get between the boys.’

‘No, really,’ she says. ‘I won’t.’

She’s pretty red-faced now, I notice, and breaking out in a sweat. ‘Don’t force her, James.’

‘I need the Ladies,’ she says, and scuttles off.

‘It was only a bloody photo, for Christ’s sake.’ James is feeling a bit embarrassed at having upset her. He snaps a couple more shots of Oscar and Noah.

‘Don’t be too harsh,’ I say. For some reason I want to defend Zoe, although her behaviour was rather odd.

‘You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you?’ James glances at me and then toggles through the photos with Oscar and Noah straining to see the camera’s screen. They jump about at his side.

‘Look, that’s us!’ Noah says excitedly.

‘But no sharks,’ Oscar notes. It’s true. There’s one blurry lump in the blue fuzzy background but nothing that could be identified as a hammerhead.

‘Take another one, Daddy,’ Noah demands, but Zoe returns and James silences him.

‘Well,’ I say. ‘Shall we go and find the squid?’

‘Is that cally-mary?’ Oscar asks, as if it might be a friend from school.

I’m still thinking what he means when Zoe realises. ‘You mean calamari?’ she says with a laugh. She seems fine now.

‘You have them with mayonnaise,’ Noah says, licking his lips.

‘The boys discovered them on holiday last year,’ I explain to Zoe. ‘They thought they were onion rings at first,’ I whisper, holding on to my bump as we make our way through the displays and tanks. The array of colours and water through the glass makes me dizzy so I take James’s arm.

‘Are you OK?’ he says, quietly concerned. I nod in reply.

‘Oh wow, look!’ Zoe grabs each of the boys by their hands and drags them off at top speed down the darkened walkway. I hear their gasps of shock as she points into a large glass tank. We amble up and arrive just as the largest crab I have ever seen pokes out a long skinny leg in our direction.