Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t ask after her boy as I’d forgotten his name but she went on regardless. ‘Piers still asks after him. We’ll have to get them together. Tom must come for tea sometime.’

‘Yes, he’d like that.’ I hoped, if it ever came to pass. ‘Does Piers like the new school?’

‘Loves it, thank God. And we’re near enough so he can walk.’ She hefted her bag of shopping from one hand to the other. ‘So, how’s Laura?’

‘Laura?’ Ray’s ex. The one he’d finished with in order to start his dalliance with me. I’d felt bad about it; I liked her but at least Ray had been honest and not tried to deceive anyone.

Jenny grinned. ‘Did she have a boy or a girl?’

‘Sorry?’ I said stupidly. My throat felt dry and my stomach lurched.

‘I saw her at the open-air theatre – Wythenshawe Park. We must have had the only dry day in March. She looked fit to pop. Didn’t get chance to talk.’

My mind was fracturing. I heard myself speak, sounding quite normal: ‘They split up, Ray and Laura. I’ve not seen her.’ Meanwhile I was doing sums in my head, seeing that it added up and a voice was shouting: Laura’s pregnant, Laura’s had a baby. Ray’s baby. Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.

‘Oh, sorry, I’d no idea,’ Jenny said. ‘Can’t be easy for her.’

‘No.’ I wanted to push her out of the shop and shut her up.

‘Keep in touch.’ She nodded.

I mirrored her and stood back and watched her leave.

She reminds me of Tom , Ray had said about Jamie. My ears were buzzing, the strip light flickering above hurt my eyes and I felt sick and cold. The signature on the note: not Lisa or Lear but Laura . Oh, God.

The baby hadn’t been left for me, but for Ray. Jamie was Ray’s daughter. His and Laura’s. He was supposed to look after her, not me. It all fit.

And I began to shake.

My heart wouldn’t stop hammering as I raced to grab the formula then fumbled to find my purse and pay. I dropped my change, picked it up and knocked over the tub of baby milk. The checkout girl laughed sympathetically but my jaw was clenched too tight to smile back.

There was no way I could go straight home: I was too upset, too confused. My mind was humming and fuzzy with the news I’d heard.

Diane opened the door. ‘You’ve come for your drawing?’ Then she saw my face. She didn’t ask, didn’t say a word. Just opened her arms and drew me in.

She listened as I explained the situation. ‘So she’s Laura’s baby, and Ray’s,’ I finished. My phone rang. I knew it would be Ray, pacing the hall, eager to leave for the pub. I didn’t answer it.

‘You can’t be certain,’ she cautioned.

‘No. But it’s pretty bloody likely. Maybe I’m overreacting but it just feels like it’ll change everything. He’ll waltz off into the sunset with Laura and Tom and Jamie and… I can’t stand this!’ Suddenly I was angry rather than sad; the aching sensation in my guts replaced by a spike of rage. ‘When did I get to be so needy? I don’t want to depend on Ray for how I’m feeling; I don’t want my happiness, my sanity, to be in his hands.’

Diane just gave me one of her looks; the cynical one that reads ‘get real’. ‘Look, them ending up together isn’t likely, is it?’ She pointed out. ‘They’ve been apart for almost a year. She never even told him she was pregnant, or that he was going to be a father; not exactly happy-ever-after material. And he loves you, doesn’t he?’

‘But they’ve got a child together.’ I was thinking of how Ray was with Tom and couldn’t imagine him not wanting to be involved with Jamie once he knew.

‘Well, there isn’t a thing you can do about that but you don’t know how it’ll play out. You’re imagining the worst but anything could happen. Maybe she’ll give Ray custody and you two will raise the kid; maybe that’s why she’s left her with Ray now. Or maybe Laura will move away with the baby and Ray won’t ever see her again. It’s all maybes.’

‘We still don’t know why she left the baby,’ I conceded.

‘Exactly – or whether it is hers.’

My phone rang again. Ray would be tearing his hair out. Let him. I realized how cross I was with him, jealous as if he was culpable for this mess. Of course, biologically he was part of the equation but he was still ignorant that he had a daughter. I knew I wasn’t being fair or logical – it was beyond me at that point.

‘Coffee, cake?’ Diane stood up.

It would have been lovely to stay, drinking strong coffee made with hot milk and the rich, dark chocolate cake that she always had on the go. But I knew I had to pull myself together and get on with it.

‘You’ll be OK,’ Diane said as she saw me out. ‘It’ll work out. But anything you need…’

I nodded, gave her a farewell hug and got in the car.

Halfway home it hit me that I’d forgotten the sketch of Jamie. Again. Intentionally this time? Was I really that shallow? I was chastened to find that my attitude to the baby had shifted a little. No longer simple and instinctive but cluttered with complex, half understood emotions. Because she wasn’t a foundling without any background or parents but connected to Ray and Laura and to a prior relationship that threatened me.

Ray was in the hall, Jamie fretting in his arms when I came in the door. Father and daughter.

‘Finally.’ He gave me a disgusted look. ‘Here, she’s been grizzling since you left.’ He thrust her into my arms.

‘Ray-’

‘The match.’ He pulled his jacket on. ‘I’ve missed twenty minutes.’

‘Sod the match. This is important.’ My tone was steely and he halted momentarily.

‘What can possibly be more important? Tell me later.’ He moved to the door.

‘The baby. She’s yours,’ I blurted out. ‘Yours and Laura’s.’

He frowned, gave a little laugh as if I’d caught him out with a practical joke, then his grin collapsed in on itself and his eyes drilled into me. ‘What?’ His face was raw with disbelief, pale with shock.

‘Come and sit down.’

In the sitting room, I looked at the telly, at Ray’s expression and wondered flippantly what the third catastrophe would be. I settled Jamie on my lap, used a finger to rub at her gums. Ray didn’t speak while I recounted what the woman in the shop had said.

‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’ I asked him. ‘Dates-wise.’

‘Just.’ His voice sounded dry, dusty.

‘And remember you noticed that Jamie looked like Tom as a baby.’

He glanced sideways at Jamie.

‘You’d no idea Laura was pregnant?’

His face narrowed and his eyes blazed. ‘How can you ask me that? For chrissakes, Sal, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?’

‘The note.’ I slung Jamie over my shoulder and went and fetched the slip of paper; thrust it in front of him. ‘Is that Laura’s signature?’

‘No.’ But he didn’t sound certain.

‘Are you sure?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You’ll have to go see her, talk to her.’

He bent over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, his fingers grasping his curls, and groaned.

Jamie began to cry and I walked to and fro, patting her on the back.

Ray looked up at me. ‘I don’t know if I still have her number.’

‘Go round there, then,’ I said. ‘Go now, turn up on her doorstep. See how she likes it,’ I muttered. I gritted my teeth together, fighting the burning at the back of my eyes.

He gave a big sigh and got up. He looked tired and shaken. Jamie kept crying. Ray made no move towards me. Didn’t say anything as he walked out, leaving me holding the baby.

Preoccupied and finding it hard to settle Jamie, I let Maddie and Tom do the minimum to get ready for bed. A wipe of hands and face, brush teeth and change.