Chapter Four
I curled up on the sofa and stared into my glass of wine. ‘D’you think I did the right thing?’ I asked Rosie who was leaning over the table, glueing dried leaves onto card fascias. ‘Leaving my stuff, I mean. He could flog the lot for stupid money and run off.’
‘Mmmm. Do you trust him?’ She looked up, her eyes bulgily magnified behind the glasses she wore for close work.
‘Yes. No. He’s a bastard.’ I gulped some more cheap Chardonnay. I was really thinking about that forced kiss and my reaction to it, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Rosie.
‘Sexy?’ Rosie stuck on a pink-tinted oak leaf, concentrating so hard that her glasses started to slip down her face.
‘He’s so skinny, I mean, it’d be like . . . I dunno, shagging a pogo stick or something. And his clothes! You should have seen them, today he’d got these jeans, right—’
‘I should warn you, Jem, I’m taking this as a yes.’
‘Huh.’ I held up the bottle. ‘You sure you don’t want a glass?’
Rosie joggled her bosom at me. ‘Breast feeding.’
‘Yes, but you don’t have to swear off everything you enjoy, do you?’
‘Believe me, when you’ve got a tiny baby there’s not much that you do enjoy. Or can even bear the thought of.’ She jerked her head up towards the ceiling, as though her chin was on string. ‘Oh, he’s awake again.’
‘I didn’t hear him.’ But two seconds later I did, as Harry’s wails floated through the substantial structure of the cottage. ‘Do you want me to go?’
‘No.’ Rosie sighed and took her glasses off. ‘I’ll try another feed, that might settle him.’
‘Anything I can do on the card front while you’re gone?’
She gave a long, slow blink as though her eyes were tired. ‘It’s all fine. I’ll get Harry off again and come and finish these. Saskia wants them all by the day after tomorrow, so I’ll have to make it a late one tonight.’
‘Woah, I thought you said she wanted them by the weekend — even that would be going some.’
‘She changed her mind.’ Rubbing her back wearily, Rosie began climbing the stairs. I heard her go in to Harry with a rather curt, ‘ Now what do you want?’ and then the rocking sound of Harry being fetched from his cot. There was a loud creak as she sat on the edge of her bed, and then a silence which lasted until I’d finished my wine. I went up and peeped through her door. Rosie was stretched on the bed, fully dressed and fast asleep, with Harry alongside her, nipple still in mouth. His eyes were screwed tight shut and his tiny starfish hands had relaxed into sleep. I picked him up gently and laid him in the cot. Apart from a momentary jerk as the cool sheets touched the back of his head, he didn’t move. I covered him and then his mother, although I drew the line at tucking her boob back into her dress. I pulled her duvet up and turned out the light. Then I went into my own room and flopped down on the divan.
Wine buzzed pleasantly around my head and gave rise to a pretty little fantasy, where my jewellery was discovered by a hugely wealthy woman — make that Madonna — who dragged me from obscurity to follow her around the circuit as her personal designer. Reality tried to intrude by asking what the hell Madonna would be doing hanging around Ben Davies’ backstreet establishment, but I ignored it, and fell asleep to pleasant imaginings of a villa in Portugal, returning to Britain only to annoy Saskia with my new, famous friends.
At three o’clock in the morning I was woken by Harry. I pulled my pillow across my ears and reminded myself how lucky I was to have a roof over my head. Did a few nights of disturbed sleep really matter that much, in the scheme of things?
Harry let rip with another screaming bellow. How did Rosie stand it? In fact . . . I took the pillow away from my ears to check . . . why hadn’t she gone to him? Rosie hated to hear Harry cry; she’d normally haul him up onto her shoulder at the merest hint of a grizzle.
‘Rosie?’ I got out of bed and whispered against the wall. ‘Hello?’
Harry, hearing me, redoubled his efforts. I went across the landing and into the room in case Rosie had been stricken and confined to bed or something. She wasn’t there.
‘Rosie?’ Picking Harry’s warm, wet body out of his cot, I held him against me. He shuddered with the force of his crying, twisting his head away from me in rejection. ‘Sssshh. It’s all right.’ I tried to soothe the baby, but all I could think was that something was very wrong. Rosie never let Harry cry himself into a state.
I tiptoed down the stairs, Harry’s little fists clenched in my hair and his forehead banging against me like a heavy metal music fan listening to Motorhead. Rosie was downstairs, hunched over the table brushing powder paint over seed heads.
‘Rosie? What’s up, couldn’t you hear him?’ I touched her on the shoulder and went to pass Harry over, but she cringed away, holding up her camel-hair brush to ward me off.
‘I . . . I just can’t cope with him right now, Jem. That’s all. I thought . . . I thought he’d go back off to sleep after a while. I really need to get these cards done.’
Her face was blotchy and streaked in the miserable light from the table lamp. ‘Are you OK?’
A frantic, desperate nod. ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly. I just need to do these cards otherwise Saskia won’t let me keep supplying her. If I get all this done tonight I’ve only got the last bits to finish off before I deliver them.’ She was avoiding looking at Harry. ‘There’s a bottle in the fridge, will you warm it up and feed him? He should go straight back down afterwards, and then I—’
‘Rosie.’ I spoke carefully but insistently until she met my eye. ‘I’ll gladly feed Harry and change him and settle him and anything else his little heart desires. But, and I want you to listen to me, but, I will only do it if you agree to go back to bed. Now.’
‘Jem, I—’
‘NOW, Rosie!’
I’m not usually this stern. Hell, I’m not usually stern at all. In fact I’m Miss Pussycat Pushover, but it had the desired effect. Rosie went all kind of limp and turned for the stairs as if she’d had a run in with a stage hypnotist. Harry stopped crying and gaped at me, with his mouth all round and just the right size and shape for the bottle teat I shoved between his lips a few moments later.
I stared down at his blissful little face as he sucked and wondered what the hell I was doing. Middle of the night and I’m feeding someone else’s baby while they go and sleep. When did I get so altruistic? Although I had to admit it was nice, snuggled up while Harry fed, watching his body relax. Like being a mother without all the tedious nine months being sick and getting fat stuff. And no saggy belly or enormous tits either.
As though even the merest thought of enormous tits had beamed out through the ether, there came a tap at the window and Jason’s shifty profile pressed itself against the glass. ‘Anyone up in there?’ he hissed.
‘Only me.’
‘Oh. I just finished pulling an all-nighter, saw the light was on. Got any coffee that doesn’t taste like it’s already passed seven sets of kidneys?’
I shuffled to open the door, Harry tucked under my arm. ‘All right, but can you whisper? I’ve sent Rosie off to bed and I don’t want her to find any excuse to come back down.’
‘’Kay.’ Jason kicked his boots off and came in. ‘I’ll put the kettle on then, yeah?’
Harry’s eyes began to close and his sucking eased off. He became a warm, damp weight in the crook of my arm and by the time Jason came back into the tiny living room bearing two steaming mugs and a spare packet of biscuits, Harry was fast asleep.
‘Rosie been working then?’
I laid Harry down on the sofa so that I could take my mug. I’d only once attempted to hold a hot drink whilst cuddling him, and Rosie’s resultant screech had been audible in Dorset.
‘You know what Rosie’s like for not wanting to let anyone down, if she’s told Saskia that the cards will be ready tomorrow then she’ll kill herself in the attempt.’ I stared at Harry’s downy little head. ‘I’m a bit worried about Rosie, actually.’
‘Mmm?’ Jason looked at me over the rim of his mug. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s just so tired. Is it natural?’
Jason lowered his eyes, giving me a glimpse of his fantastic long eyelashes. They were one of his major pulling attractions, apparently, although I had pointed out to him that camels have beautiful eyelashes despite smelling like a suitcase of offal. ‘When Viv had her kids, she was knackered most of the time. I remember Lance — that’s the brother-in-law — told me he hadn’t had a decent shag in four years.’
‘Jason, please!’
‘You asked.’ Jason blew steam. ‘So, yeah. Reckon it’s natural. But if she can get plenty of rest she’ll be fine.’
I yawned a huge yawn that made my jaws creak. ‘So you won’t mind keeping an eye on Harry for what’s left of the night then? Since you’re awake anyway.’
He slumped down on the sofa next to Harry. ‘OK. Seeing as you’re so persuasive and all, I’ll watch him ’til one of you gets up. Can I help myself to your cornflakes?’
I yawned again. ‘Sure. They’re Rosie’s anyway.’
‘By the way.’ Jason began rummaging in the pocket of his overalls. ‘You got another e-mail from your man. I printed it out so you wouldn’t have to yomp over to the workshop.’
‘Privacy, Jason? It’s not just a word that means being alone long enough for a wank, you know. Anyway, I thought I changed my password.’
‘You did. I watched. Honest, Jem, “Christian”? What kinda password is that? Never figured you for a God-botherer.’
‘I didn’t know one of your sisters had children.’ I took the much-folded piece of paper from him, resisting the urge to start reading.
‘Yeah. Jasper and Freddie. Names right out of the lost-puppy handbook, but they’re okay. How about you, Jem, you’re not an only child are you?’
‘How do you know that?’ I sounded frosty but Jason didn’t seem to notice.
‘Rosie and I, we got talking about you. Just after you come here it was. What with you bein’ all mysterious and all. She said you couldn’t be an only, ’cos you’re too good at arguing.’
‘I bet she didn’t say it like that though.’ I forced myself to relax, uncurling my fists.
‘Nah. I’m just translating her words into the lingua franca. It means the language we have in common,’ he added, seeing my face.
‘Yes, I know what it means . . .’
‘. . . but you’re surprised I do? Yeah, I know a thing or two, I went to Roedean.’
‘Jason, Roedean is a girls’ school.’
Jason gave me a wicked smile. ‘Yeah it’s amazing what you can pick up from those posh bints when you’re giving ’em one up the Pavilion.’
I shuddered. ‘That had better not be a euphemism, and if it is, please don’t tell me.’
His wicked smile widened and his eyebrows waggled. He was reaching for the digestive biscuits as I took myself off up the stairs back to bed.