Her Sister's Child Read online

  The crying continues intermittently all afternoon, worsening as the day goes on. Saffron’s face is bright red, and contorted with rage. Marian phones NHS Direct again.

  ‘It’s almost certainly three-month colic,’ the nurse tells her. ‘Most parents find their baby is worst in the early evening.’

  ‘Does that mean it lasts three months?’ Marian bought books on pregnancy but none on parenting, and is having to rely on the occasional foray into online forums.

  ‘It means it’s usually over by the time the baby is three months old. Six to twelve weeks is usually the worst time. How old is your daughter?’

  ‘Eight weeks. Nearly nine.’

  ‘Well, there you are then; it’ll likely not last much longer.’

  This fact – even assuming it is true – is of little comfort to Marian at two in the morning when she has not yet had the chance to fall asleep. Saffron seems incapable of settling for more than twenty or thirty minutes before shuddering into wakefulness and launching into a high-pitched shriek. Every time Marian is just drifting over the threshold into oblivion, she is jolted awake. Over and over again. She remembers that they use a similar technique to torture prisoners of war. Makes perfect sense.

  ‘What do you want?’ she hisses at the squirming figure in the Moses basket. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Saffron gulps, hiccups, then roars again. Marian lifts the little velour-clad bundle against her shoulder and jiggles her up and down, pacing. It makes no difference. She holds her sideways and rocks her horizontally. The roars persist.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ Normally she would have laughed at this poor choice of words, but Marian’s sense of humour has long since abandoned her. She drops rather than places Saffron back in the basket, gripping the sides of it and shaking it violently to and fro so that the little body jolts from side to side.

  ‘Will. You. Stop. Please.’

  As if Marian’s desperate screech has shocked her, Saffron’s eyes widen and her sobs subside to a hiccup. Marian jostles the basket roughly again, and strangely Saffron seems calmed by it. Eventually, her eyelids droop, her fists uncurl. Marian gives the basket another tentative jiggle. Nothing. She’s sleeping.

  Crawling into her own bed, Marian rolls onto her side, dizzy with exhaustion and reaches for the light switch.

  And then she hears it. A newborn baby’s cry.

  She glances down beside the bed, but Saffron is still asleep. And this cry is different: higher, thinner. It’s Noah’s cry.

  She jerks herself upright. There it is again, that distinctive sound. But it can’t be; it’s not possible. It must be the Burmese cat. Or she must be so sleep deprived, she’s starting to hallucinate. That can happen, can’t it? People hearing or seeing things that aren’t there when they’ve been under severe stress.

  Marian tries closing her eyes, but she is unable to rid her brain of the sound. Pulling on her dressing gown, she creeps out of the bedroom and heads down the stairs. She slides open the French windows and tiptoes out onto the moonlit lawn. A fox trots past her, barely paying attention. The crying is still there in her head, fainter now but still unmistakable. Still Noah.

  The ceanothus bush is nothing but a looming black shape, throwing sinister shadows across the lawn. But the grave is still there, still undisturbed; just the faintest mound of fresh-looking earth betraying its existence.

  The crying in her head stops. Marian sinks to the ground and gives way to tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I’m so sorry, Noah. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t do things right.’

  The thoughts tumble through her head, accusing, unforgiving. She should have sought help sooner. She should have taken him to be seen by a doctor. She should never have taken the babies at all.

  This is what the crying means, she realises. This is Noah’s way of getting her to make a decision about her future. And make a decision she must.

  36

  Marian

  ‘Mrs Glynn?’

  It’s 8.45 a.m. and Marian has just woken. She fed and changed Saffron at five thirty and managed to coax her to sleep again before dropping off herself.

  ‘Yes,’ she croaks.

  ‘It’s Tamara. Tamara Granger, from Hendricks.’

  The estate agent. She doesn’t wait for Marian to reply, but goes on. ‘Only I left a message yesterday afternoon, but no one got back to me… I’ve booked in viewings for ten, twelve fifteen and two. Hope that’s okay?’

  ‘Well, no, not really.’

  ‘The thing is, two of these are second viewings and I think there’s a very good chance of them offering on the property today. But obviously they’re keen to come back and take another look. I know one of them wants to measure for curtains.’

  Marian sighs, and pushes herself up on her elbows. The appointment times mean she will have to be out most of the day. On the other hand, if the house is under offer at the end of it, she will be able to halt the viewings entirely.

  ‘All right then.’

  She drags her weary body out of bed, and stumbles downstairs to make coffee, just as Saffron wakes and begins to demand feeding again. The mild September weather seems to have come to an abrupt end, with the house feeling chilly and heavy drizzle running down the window panes.

  On autopilot, Marian feeds and changes the baby, makes extra bottles and dresses herself in jeans and a shapeless sweater. She tidies away all evidence of motherhood and loads Saffron into her new car seat, with the carrycot and changing bag stowed in the boot. Instead of being calmed by the movement of the car, Saffron seems enraged by it and protests loudly, squirming and kicking in her seat. Driving in heavy London traffic with screams in her ears sends Marian’s blood pressure soaring, and she drums her fingernails on the steering wheel. She tries putting the radio on, but that only serves to make the screams louder.

  ‘Will you shut up!’ She turns her head and shouts at Saffron while the car is idling at a red light. The driver of the car in the adjacent lane stares at her in alarm, but Marian ignores him. It’s still raining, so going for a long walk in Highgate Wood or on Hampstead Heath is out of the question. An indoor option will have to be found. She turns the car onto the A41 and heads for Brent Cross.

  Five hours in the shopping centre are all that she can bear.

  They’re more than she can bear, really, but she has no choice. She pushes the grumbling Saffron around and around shops she has no interest in until her feet are aching. At intervals she sits on a hard bench to feed her. The bottles of formula have gone cold, and Saffron protests by turning her head away from the teat and whimpering. After changing her nappy in a dirty toilet cubicle for the third time, Marian decides to cut her losses and head home.

  When they arrive in Ranmoor Road, it’s clear the three o’clock viewing is still going on, even though it’s now three forty-five. The car with the Hendricks logo is parked outside, and through the sitting room window Marian glimpses a woman with a clipboard in her arms and two other people, deep in conversation. Swearing under her breath, she drives around the block and parks, twisting in her seat to try and pacify the squirming baby.

  Please buy the house. Please just buy the sodding house.

  Twenty minutes later, when Saffron is building up to a full-blown meltdown, Marian drives back to Ranmoor Road. The agent and her clients are gone. She is so relieved that she doesn’t even bother trying to be discreet, carrying baby and changing bag into the house without checking for onlookers.

  The NHS Direct nurse said that typically infant colic started in the evening, but as ever Saffron has her own timetable, and starts her chorus of angry screams as soon as they are inside the house. Marian makes up a fresh bottle of milk – warm this time – but after sucking on it hungrily for a few seconds, the milk is regurgitated in a projectile stream, and the screams resume. Subsequent attempts to feed her result in more vomiting, yet after every time Saffron protests that she is hungry. Marian’s clothes and the carpet are covered in sour-smelling white curds.
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  In desperation she tries a bath, but it makes the baby even more distressed. She cries if she’s held, she cries if she’s put down. Marian’s head is filled with nothing but crying. It feels like the middle of the night, but is only seven thirty. Leaving Saffron squirming in her basket, she goes downstairs and pours herself a large glass of wine. She’s about to go back upstairs to the scene of the battle when the front door bell rings.

  Marian freezes. It rings again. Then again, more insistently. She’s intent on ignoring it, but then there is a firm hammering on the front door. It could be Tom. And Tom has a key.

  Tossing a milk-stained muslin onto the foot of the stairs, she opens the door a crack, wine glass clutched to her chest. It’s Kate, from next door.

  ‘Is everything all right, Marian?’

  Marian blinks, takes a sip. ‘Yes, why wouldn’t it be?’ She tries to position the edge of the door so that it hides the huge milk vomit stain on the front of her sweater.

  ‘Only, I…’ Kate Fletcher is a neatly dressed, deeply conformist woman who used to work as an accountant and is now, in her own words, ‘a full-time homemaker’. She seems embarrassed. ‘The thing is, I couldn’t help hearing it. The crying.’

  ‘Crying?’ Marian feels her cheeks glowing red.

  ‘Yes. Like… like a small baby’s crying.’

  Marian frowns, feigning confusion. ‘A baby?’

  ‘Have you got someone staying with you perhaps, who has a baby?’

  Marian shakes her head, starts pulling the door closed.

  ‘But I saw you, Marian.’ Kate is flushed now, deeply uncomfortable. ‘This afternoon. I saw you come back in the car, and carry a baby inside.’

  Marian feels a cold, tightening sensation in her chest. ‘I don’t know what you think you saw, Kate, but it definitely wasn’t that. And I think you must have misheard. There’s no baby here.’ She slams the door shut with more force than she intended.

  Shit. She knows. She’ll tell someone.

  Saffron is making the little hiccupping noises that precede a full-blown roar, but before Marian can deal with her, the doorbell rings again. She pulls open the door a crack. This time it’s a man, one she doesn’t recognise.

  ‘Are you from Hendricks?’

  He shows a warrant card. ‘DC Gary Marsden. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘It’s not all that convenient, actually.’

  Shit. Whatever he wants, she can’t let him come in.

  He smiles. ‘Sorry, I should have given you a bit of warning. How about we fix a time for you to come down to the station? Or I could call back? I just need to take a statement from you.’

  A statement?

  ‘What is this regarding?’

  ‘Your client through social services, Elizabeth Armitage. Now deceased. At the inquest the coroner requested an investigation into some matters… surrounding her passing.’

  ‘Fine. How about you give me your number and I’ll arrange a time.’ She accepts one of his business cards and closes the door.

  This is it. This is a sign. I have to do it now.

  Upstairs, Saffron screams angrily.

  After she’s finished her wine and managed to get Saffron to keep some milk down, Marian looks out of her bedroom window, onto the street.

  It’s dusk now, with a gauzy autumn mist hanging in the air. Kate’s little red hatchback is parked directly outside, with her husband Michael’s car behind it. They’re unlikely to be going out for the evening now; it’s too late. She’ll just have to wait until they, and everyone else, have gone to bed.

  Saffron dozes on and off for the next few hours, between periods of grizzling. Her crying is half-hearted as if now that Marian has given up, she’s giving up too. Marian picks her up and holds her across her lap, admiring the curve of her cheek, the delicate perfection of her eyelashes, the golden glow of her skin. She feels a lot heavier now than she did on the day she was carried out of Lizzie Armitage’s grotty flat in Tottenham. Despite the colic, she’s thriving.

  Lifting her gently onto her changing mat, Marian puts on a clean nappy and onesie and dresses the baby in her favourite babygro: white, dotted with little coral-coloured starfish. She fetches a piece of paper from the desk in the spare room and writes on it in clear capital letters.

  MY NAME IS SAFFRON, BORN 18th JULY

  She wraps Saffron in a white cotton blanket then lays her in the Moses basket that she originally took the twins in. The second bassinet she bought for Noah is bigger and sturdier, but since his death she hasn’t liked using it. She tucks a thicker cot quilt over the white blanket. Finally, the piece of paper is slipped down the side of the mattress, and Saffron’s favourite yellow stuffed duckling placed by her feet. She stretches and then settles into sleep, as though enjoying the extra warmth.

  It’s midnight now. This feels like the right time. Marian tucks her hair into a beanie hat, picks up her coat and keys, then takes the basket out to the car.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ she says out loud into the rear-view mirror. There’s no answering flutter of a hand or even a cry. ‘Why couldn’t you have behaved like this all along?’ Marian asks, her voice thick with tears. ‘Then that busybody Kate would never have come round.’

  She parks a short distance from Whittington Hospital, not wanting anyone to see her car and trace its number plate. With the hood of her coat pulled down low so her face is obscured, she carries the basket to the entrance of the maternity unit. Through the glass doors, the lobby is in half-darkness, but there’s a bell for mothers arriving in labour after hours. Marian places the basket in front of the door, rings the bell then darts around the side of the building, and down the path that skirts the car park. Instinctively she listens for Saffron’s cry. There is no cry.

  Don’t look back, she tells herself, stumbling out onto Highgate Hill. Whatever you do, don’t look back.

  37

  Marian

  For the past two months, Marian has not slept for more than four hours in a night. All she has wanted, for the whole of that time, is to sleep.

  Now, finally, she is alone in a silent house. No babies. Just her. And yet, still she can’t sleep. She switches off her phone, then showers, puts on clean pyjamas and crawls under the duvet. Lies there for hours, staring at the ceiling. Listening. She can’t make her brain stop listening for the babies, even though they’re not there. Even when her eyelids become heavy and she starts to drift off, she hears it again. The sound of Noah’s cry.

  Eventually, at 5 a.m., she falls into a deep sleep and sleeps until after midday. When she wakes, she still feels tired. But not that hallucinatory brain fog of a person whose sleep is constantly interrupted. Not the prison camp torture tiredness. She makes scrambled eggs, toast and coffee and eats it slowly and with enjoyment.

  For the first time in what feels like weeks, Marian washes her hair and dries it properly. She even puts on a bit of make-up. Once she’s dressed, she strips off the greasy sheets that have been on her bed for at least a month and puts them in the machine. Despite feeling rested, she moves slowly, her limbs leaden, as though weighed down with sorrow. Every cell in her body longs for Saffron; the smell of her, the softness of her skin. The magical, miraculous smiles she bestowed on Marian when the attacks of colic abated. The way she had learned to clutch her fluffy duckling toy between her fingers and stare at it in amazement.

  Eventually, once the house is clean, she gathers the larger items of baby equipment, toys and clothes, and takes them up into the loft. Bottles, nappies and formula are thrown into a bin bag and taken out to the dustbin. With rubber gloves on, she washes down the kitchen surfaces and mops the floor. Keeping the rubber gloves on, she positions herself on the sitting room window seat and waits. Having sacrificed Saffron to prevent discovery, she needs to make sure it pays off somehow. To vindicate herself.

  Kate Fletcher pulls up outside just before three o’clock, dressed in gym gear, fresh from her weekly Pilates class. She’ll be heading off on the school run shortly.
Nothing if not predictable.

  Marian grabs a duster and a bottle of Brasso and, opening the front door wide, gets to work on the brass door knocker and numbers ‘2’ and ‘1’. She glances up as though she has only just noticed her neighbour.

  ‘Hi, Kate!’ She waves the duster brightly, despite feeling hollow inside. ‘Got time for a cuppa?’

  Kate hesitates, glancing through the open front door.

  Look, you nosy bitch. And listen. No babies here. See?

  ‘Thanks, Marian, that’s very kind, but I’d better get on.’ She continues looking past Marian’s shoulder and into the hallway. ‘How’s everything with you?’

  ‘Fine,’ says Marian briskly.

  ‘Only, we heard… we couldn’t help noticing that Tom’s not here.’ She gives an awkward grimace. ‘That he’s moved out. And obviously…’ She gives a meaningful nod in the direction of the sale board.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Marian, with more sangfroid than she has ever felt about her husband’s defection. ‘Things change. People change. But I’m moving on. And at least we don’t have children.’

  ‘No,’ concedes Kate. ‘At least there’s that.’

  That night, Marian takes a sleeping pill and passes out for nearly eleven hours.

  Although she feels slow and groggy when she first wakes up, the feeling eases once she’s had coffee. Physically she feels like a human being again, even though her heart is a void.

  After hoovering all the carpets in the house, she’s just about to tackle the bathroom with bleach and scouring pads when her phone rings.