Chapter 23
23
W ith every mile she drove Caro felt lighter. Her fingertips on the steering wheel, even the hair at the nape of her neck, everything carried less weight. As if the gravity of her world had relaxed. Trees were greener; the sky was bluer. With her elbow resting on the armrest of her car door and warm tears pricking at her eyes, she felt astonished to find herself understanding that the feeling was real, was not fading and that it really was possible she might be moving towards a happier state of being.
Cliché or not, it had helped to talk. Especially as her mother hadn’t heard a word. Because with every confession made, a measure of darkness had left her soul. All the hurt and anger, the shameful envy and bitter regrets that had consumed her for so long, she had tweezered out, one by one by one. Dropping them on the floor by her mother’s bedside.
She had been a jealous, tunnel-visioned, ambitious woman.
She would never be anyone’s mother.
She had betrayed a friend, and not just once, because her betrayal of Helen couldn’t be contained in that one night with Lawrence. What about all those times, under Helen’s roof, when she had allowed herself to be used like a pawn? Returning secret smiles, standing close enough to allow his snatched and clumsy gropes. Ah, Caro. These moments stung the worst as they were finally prised loose.
And what better place than a hospital floor to leave them? Where someone would come along and sweep them away, burn them to ashes so that they could never ever be heard again?
It was over. She’d pulled out black hurt after black hurt and now she was exhausted and relieved and lighter than she remembered being for the longest time. One hand on the wheel, she ran the other hand through her hair, feeling a strand come free and curl around her fingers. Her mother hadn’t heard her and never would. And the most astounding fact of all was that this didn’t matter. In fact, some divine influence may have ordered it precisely so. Because the kiss she’d been able to give her mother, the whispered I love you, was nothing short of a miracle. All her life, all her life, hadn’t she yearned to be able to do just that? And now she had.
She pressed the window switch and holding her hand out to let the strand of hair blow free, she did a double take. On the opposite side of the road, sitting in the garden of a pub, she thought she saw Helen and Kay. Had she? She strained in her rear-view mirror, but a lorry had pulled up close behind her blocking the view and the street was busy, with nowhere to pull over. By the time the street had widened out, with space enough to ease out of the traffic flow, the pub was long out of sight. Never mind. She’d catch up with them soon enough.
From Kay and Helen, her thoughts turned to Libby, and she frowned, idly tugging down on her bottom lip. How rude of her not to acknowledge Libby’s baby. How selfish.
She followed the road out of the city centre and stopped at an out-of-town supermarket. Ten minutes later she was back in her car, with an enormous bouquet and a gorgeous pair of baby dungarees.
And yes, it stung. Badly. So bad she had to sit for a full ten minutes crying silent painful tears. But it had to be done. She had to stop by Helen’s house on the way home and drop these gifts off. She started the engine and pulled away, blinking hard.
Ninety minutes later, just before six, as she pulled into the driveway of Helen’s house, Caro took a moment to look around. How jealous she’d once been of this house and its occupants. Every season seemed to boast happiness and fulfilment. White lights twinkling at Christmas and butter-yellow daffodils in spring. Countless times she’d driven past, hundreds and hundreds of times, on her way back to her own clean empty apartment, her imagination over-heating with sounds and imagery she could neither hear nor see but was absolutely certain existed.
Children’s footsteps, dinners cooking, voices of love and laughter and family, the sounds of a life well lived. Of Helen’s life. It had been torture. Created and served to her own exact liking. No wonder it had tasted so bitter. Ludicrous, she whispered now and shook her head. She leaned forward and was surprised to see the front door open. Stepping out of the car, the sound hit her immediately. The sound of a baby crying.
Scooping up bag and keys and flowers, Caro hurried across the drive. She’d drop the gifts and leave. Get out of the way. ‘Hello,’ she called, leaning into the hallway.
No one answered.
‘Hello?’ she tried again.
There was a moment of silence and then the baby started up again. Wild, high cries, pitched at the same note over and over. It was distressing from this distance, let alone close up. Caro stepped inside. ‘Libby?’
And from deep within the darkened interior, she thought she heard another type of cry. An adult cry. ‘Help me. Someone, for God’s sake, please help me.’
‘Libby?’ Panicked now, Caro moved quickly along the hall and into the kitchen.
There was Libby, slumped at the table, hands clamped over her ears, shoulders moving up and down as her chest heaved out great ragged sobs. And there on the floor, pushed into the corner but strapped safely into a bouncy chair, was Libby’s baby, Ben. His face was purple-red and his breath was as raggedy as his mother’s as he too sobbed and screamed and gasped for air.
It was a scene of such primitive and raw emotion that it stopped Caro in her tracks. Froze her in the doorway. ‘Libby?’ She looked from Libby to the baby and back to Libby. ‘Shall I…’
Libby didn’t move.
Caro took a hesitant step forward and then in the rush of an overwhelming impulse, dropped the flowers and the gift on the table, moved across to Ben, and, unclipping him, scooped him up in her arms. She pressed his tiny head to her chest with the back of her hand, softened her knees and jigged and bounced him. On he screamed. ‘Libby?’
Still Libby didn’t move.
‘OK, OK.’ Caro walked towards the window. ‘OK, OK,’ she whispered and suddenly Ben flayed backward, his little body spasmed in pain. Then his chin came up, his mouth opened wide and he let out an enormous burp.
With the screaming paused, Libby looked up. Her eyes were blank dark slits, her cheeks grotesquely swollen red. Snot dripped from her nose. She was unrecognisable.
And looking at her, everything about Caro went loose. Poor little Libby, such a baby herself. ‘Are you alright?’ she managed.
In response Libby shook her head, a choking sound coming from deep within. ‘Take him,’ she said in a voice so guttural it was barely human. ‘ Please , Caro, take him. I can’t stand it. He won’t stop and I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it.’ And she dropped her forehead to the table and pressed her hands over her ears.
Caro stood, Ben warm as toast against her shoulder. ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘There, there.’ And she looked at Libby. Briefly she thought of phoning Helen, but what could Helen do? She was miles away. And what could she do? She had no idea. Then Ben’s tiny body shuddered, he threw his head back and began again with the screaming. Same pitch, same length, again and again and it was impossible to think at all.
Caro bounced him.
Ben screamed.
And Libby yanked the hoodie of her sweatshirt up and over her head.
Soothing and bouncing and whispering, Caro turned away and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. Up and down and up and down and it took a few long minutes but eventually Ben’s screams quietened and his body became still, shuddering only now and then from the sheer effort of breathing. Apart from that, the house was quiet. No one else was home. She went back to the kitchen. ‘Is he hungry?’ she said quietly.
Libby raised her head. ‘He won’t take anything. I’ve tried.’
Caro nodded. She lowered her chin to Ben's shoulder. He smelled so clean.
‘I don’t know why he won’t stop.’ Libby’s voice was as dull as her eyes. ‘Every day he does this and I don’t know why and I’m so tired. I’m really, really tired. I just want to sleep.’
Rocking Ben on her shoulder, Caro stood in the doorway. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.
Libby didn’t hesitate. ‘Can you take him for a walk?’
‘I…’ Caro paused. That hadn’t been what she meant.
‘Please,’ Libby pleaded. ‘Mum’s been gone all day and… just half an hour so I can have a bath or something?’
Caro looked down at the baby in her arms. She could feel his warmth through her blouse. Her fingers stroked the top of his head and fibres of golden hair, fine as silk, rose up like waves. An odd and terrible feeling of excitement stirred, knotting her stomach as if it were a bag of dynamite she carried, not a helpless baby. She turned, ready to put Ben back in his seat. But behind her Libby was on her feet, scooping together a bag of nappies and creams. ‘Thank you,’ she was saying, handing Caro the bag. ‘Thank you, Caro. Thank you so much.’
Out in the driveway, Libby bent to tuck a blanket under Ben’s chin. His face was still red and he had started crying again. ‘He should take a dummy, when he’s calmed down a bit,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t drop off, or if you can’t take it, just bring him back.’
Caro smiled. Fresh air had banished that odd uncomfortable feeling she’d had in the kitchen. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said and leaned into the pram. ‘I’ve walked your mummy, haven’t I? I know what I’m doing.’
‘Have you?’
‘Once or twice.’ Caro smiled again. ‘When it got too much for your mum.’
At which Libby’s tears started again. ‘It’s really hard,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t know it was going to be so hard.’
‘I know.’ Caro waited. The last time she had seen Libby, which would have been at Christmas, she'd been radiant. Full of plans as to what she’d be doing after university, full of energy and uncomplicated optimism. Taking in her strained features and lumpy figure now, the change was astonishing and what Caro felt was a surge of pity. ‘I’ll keep walking until he’s asleep,’ she said. ‘You go and take a long hot bath. Take a magazine in and don’t fall asleep.’
‘Are you sure, Caro? I feel?—’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ And she was. Because it felt good being of use. Just as she had sometimes been of use when Helen and Kay’s children were tiny. Auntie Caro. It was a role she’d played before and she could do it again. ‘Go on now,’ she said, and she turned to walk away, pram wheels scrunching through gravel.
But Ben didn’t sleep. He cried all the way past the junction at the top of road and he was still crying as she reached the traffic lights that marked the beginning of the village. So she turned away from the lights and began walking in the opposite direction, where there was less traffic, more trees, the chance of silence. As she passed a bus stop, she leaned forward and popped the dummy in Ben’s still crying mouth and she kept walking.
The dummy came out. Caro popped it back in. Ben spat it out. Again and again. Until finally, the constant rocking of the pram began to lull him. His cheeks puffed in and out, like a bird in song; his enormous plate eyes watched suspiciously, and with every moment that passed his crying eased. The sun slipped lower, incremental changes in light and temperature that synchronised with his eyelids, which became heavier, shelling his eyes, like fruit re-skinning itself. Eventually as Caro reached the stone sign that marked the outskirts of the village, his head fell to one side, his chest heaved a last show of resistance, his fingers splayed open and he fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Triumphant, Caro kept walking. She’d done it! She’d gotten him to sleep. He was safe and warm and sleeping and that was because of her. A feeling of pride swelled in her chest. She sighed and carried on walking, smiling and beaming at everyone she passed. Never noticing the shift in the role she had created for herself.
The sun hadn’t quite set, it was still warm and nothing, she was certain, could feel better than to be out strolling in this beautiful evening, pushing a baby in a pram.
Across the road, the wide open fields of a sports ground opened up. Caro stopped at the pelican crossing and hit the button.
A woman holding the hand of a young boy came up alongside. As they waited for the lights to change, the woman leaned into the pram, her face creasing with a smile.
‘Ahh,’ she said. ‘How old?’
‘Four weeks,’ Caro replied proudly.
The lights changed and, without looking back, she stepped out and crossed the road.