Chapter 87
Rachel
I dreamt about something important last night.
So important, in fact, that my brain was churning with urgency when I woke.
But by the time I’d remembered where I was, and the whole palaver of washing and going to the toilet and eating breakfast had been dealt with, the dream had vanished entirely from my mind.
But it was to do with Emma. I’m sure of it. Emma, and her father.
Why didn’t I write it down? Do I have a notebook anywhere?
We are in the living room, where I always feel safe, and warm. Someone has lit the fire, though it wasn’t me, because I’m not allowed.
There is a fir tree standing by the window. I quite like it. Lights are winking softly from its branches. But they are not winking the way eyes do, watchful and sinister. These lights are more like stars. Beyond the glass, the world creaks with cold, the ground and trees newly stiff with frost.
‘I have something to tell you,’ I say to Emma. Perhaps if I just start talking, what I need to remember will come to me.
‘Okay,’ she says, smiling brightly. ‘What’s that, Mum?’
I stare at her for a long time, trying to squeeze out the memory from wherever it has lodged, in some dark recess of my brain. The effort makes me frown. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Well, not to worry,’ she says gently. ‘We’ve actually got something we wanted to tell you too.’
I don’t recognise the fair-haired man sitting next to her. He’s not been here before, I don’t think.
‘Mum, Kai and I are expecting twins. You’re going to be a grandmother.’
Expecting twins? I think. What does that mean?
‘We can’t wait for you to meet them.’
I straighten up a little. ‘Who? Who’s coming?’
There is a knock at the living-room door. It opens, and another man puts his head around it.
My heart leaps with certainty. Dark, calm, kind. It is him. I am sure of it.
They begin to spark in my brain – fresh little static shocks of memory.
That bottle of brandy. The clamour of the rain. A kiss we couldn’t stop. Paint samples on a bedroom wall, those five funny flavours of vanilla.
‘I wore your T-shirt,’ I gasp, grabbing on to the final image before it wriggles forever from my mind. ‘Teenage Fanclub.’
The dark-haired man goes very still.
‘She’s a bit confused. We’ve just told her,’ Emma whispers.
The words, at last, shoot out of me. ‘We had a baby.’
‘Well, we’re having twins, Mum,’ Emma says, infuriatingly calm, almost talking over me. ‘You’re going to be a grandmother.’
Why does no one ever listen to me?
I feel frustration hammer against my ribcage like a fist. It’s not impossible that I will scream.
‘No. We had a baby,’ I insist, looking right at the dark-haired man, making my words into bullets, because it is the only way. ‘You and me.’
Emma’s jaw inches open, and her blue eyes seem somehow to take over her entire face. Then she snaps her head around, blonde hair swinging fiercely with the motion, and stares at the man too.
Without saying anything, she gets to her feet, and together they leave the room.
It is quite unbelievable, really.
‘How rude,’ I say with a headshake to the other man, who remains where he is. ‘Didn’t they hear me?’
But he doesn’t reply. He seems a bit shocked. And I must confess, it’s quite an unusual and pleasant feeling, to for once not be the only one who is lost for words.