Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

Maddie was giving me the silent treatment, which was rather overshadowed by the baby’s bleating.

‘I’ll come and read you a story as soon as Jamie’s gone down,’ I promised them.

‘Yippee!’ Tom dive-bombed into his bed, forgetting for the umpteenth time that he wasn’t allowed to. The cheap pine frame had already been mended with brackets where he’d cracked it. With his usual resilience and even temper, Tom had recovered from the upset over the TV. Unlike Maddie, who would remember it to her dying day and feel wronged, whether she had been or not.

‘No jumping on the bed,’ I told Tom. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

I put them a Ms Whiz story CD on and turned off the overhead light. If Jamie was Tom’s little sister, I expected he’d adapt to the situation equably. But Maddie? And me?

Jamie took some of a bottle, and while she fed I examined her for signs of Ray or Laura. Her eyes were greeny-brown, not conker coloured like Ray’s and his son’s. Laura had pale eyes, grey. Jamie’s hair was dark – what she had of it – but straight, not curly. It could change, of course, become curly or turn blonde like Laura’s. The baby’s skin was pale, rosy; closer to Laura’s shade than Ray’s olive complexion. I remembered Laura had a small brown birthmark on one cheek but there was nothing like that on Jamie. Then again, I wasn’t sure whether such marks were usually inherited.

Jamie fussed over the bottle now. I stopped feeding her and checked her nappy. It was damp and she squalled loudly while I changed her. I buttoned up her Babygro and took her with me to sit in the rocking chair in the kitchen. I rocked and sang to her all the nursery rhymes that came without effort: Old King Cole, The Grand Old Duke of York, Pop Goes the Weasel, Daisy Daisy, Lavender Blue and Bye Baby Bunting. I was focusing on the here and now, trying to quieten my chattering mind and lose myself in the sensations: the creak of the wooden runners, the heavy dull ache in my back and shoulder, the hot weight of the baby’s body against my chest, the creamy smell of her, her breath damp on my neck.

She fell asleep. I kept the rocking up for a while then slowed and stopped. Carefully as possible I struggled to my feet and tensed against her waking, but she slumbered on and stayed like that as I crept upstairs and stooped to put her in the travel cot.

The children were asleep, too. Tom on his tummy with one leg flung clear of the duvet and Maddie curled on her side; beside her on the bed was a book she must have picked out for me to read. She had tried to stay awake hoping I’d come, looking forward to something to redeem the lousy day. My eyes prickled and I felt a pang of guilt. Another black mark. It felt like everything was warping, turning sour, coming adrift.

Downstairs I poured myself a large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, an Australian brand that the Co-op had on offer at three for a tenner.

I ran a deep bath and sprinkled in some rose and geranium salts that Diane had bought me for my birthday. The water was hot and the scent was heady: the sweetness of the rose tempered by the darker, pungent scent of geranium.

In the bath, I took a huge swig of my wine, savouring the berry flavours, then lay back and tried to get things in perspective. It wasn’t easy: for every positive thought I had like ‘we’re all adults, we can work something out’ there was an equally negative one like ‘Ray will see Laura with his daughter and realize how wrong he’s been to let her go’.

I took another drink, then the first piercing wail reached me. Jamie was awake and I dragged myself out of the water to go and tend to her. If Ray is the father, I thought to myself, he can bloody well do the nights from now on.

It was eleven thirty and I was in bed but wide awake when I heard him come back. The door banged a second time; he’d be taking Digger for his walk.

I’d left a note on the kitchen table asking him to see me when he came in. I was taut with apprehension, my guts twisted in knots. Unable to stay still, I got out of bed and put my dressing gown and slippers on and went to wait on the stairs.

What would he say? I tried to imagine but failed. What would it mean? My eyes roamed over the pictures on the walls: a photograph of the city, some of the kids’ paintings, two of Diane’s silk-screen prints, and took in the carpet on the stairs, threadbare in places. I looked down at the hallway that needed a tidy up and a lick of paint. Home. And it all felt precious and tenuous. If Ray left, could I cope here? Rebuild a sense of family with someone new, a stranger? Only recently we’d talked about renting out the attic flat again – we could use the money. Our experience with lodgers had been mixed but more good than bad. But if Ray went, I’d need to let out Ray’s room as well as the flat. Perhaps convert the playroom into another bedroom as well. I’d be in a minority; the new people would invariable bring their own foibles and habits. New debates about the standard of housework and how we shared the kitchen. Could I face all that again? Maybe it was time to call it a day. To leave the lovely old house and the garden I’d spent hours creating and all the memories, and find somewhere manageable for Maddie and me. What could I get for the same rent? A rabbit hutch with a window box.

The sound of the door opening snapped me back to the present. Ray came in with Digger. He took the lead off the dog. He saw me sitting on the stairs and looked away while he shrugged off his jacket.

‘Well?’ My voice sounded small in the space.

‘No one there.’

‘What?’

‘No one in. No answer. No lights on.’

The anticlimax was infuriating. ‘Well, didn’t you try the neighbours? Ask if she’d moved or something?’

‘I’m not the bloody detective,’ he swore at me. ‘It’s still her name on the buzzer.’

‘Well, we can’t just leave it like this,’ I protested. ‘We need to know, Ray.’

‘I know!’ he shouted back at me, flinging his arms wide. ‘But there’s nothing I can do till tomorrow. I’ll go back then, all right?’

‘Shit.’ I got to my feet and stomped up the stairs. Then a thought hit me. I turned round and came down a few steps. ‘Where’ve you been?’ It was classic and could have been lifted from any movie – the nagging wife and the errant spouse. ‘You’d have been there by eight. So where did you go after?’

Ray shook his head slowly, mouth ajar, in a gesture that proclaimed how breathtakingly unacceptable my questions were.

‘You went to the pub!’ I accused him. ‘I’m sat here like an idiot, desperate to know if you’re the father of this baby and you swan off to watch the match. That’s how much it matters to you. You didn’t even call me!’

He walked away from me. I was livid. I whirled around and ran back to my room. As I opened my door, I realized there was something else he needed to know. I marched downstairs and into the kitchen. He was making coffee. He turned to look at me, his face closed, chin raised, ready to defend himself. Guilty as sin.

I wagged a finger in true harridan style. ‘And when that baby wakes up,’ I spat at him, ‘I’ll bring her to you and you can damn well sort her out.’ I jabbed my finger at him one final time, for emphasis.

Back in bed the frustration and sense of impotence seethed inside me like food poisoning. The froth of indignation rose high in my chest. I hoped he’d come and explain, ask for my understanding, comfort me. Soothe away the awful anger I felt and the fear that flickered beneath it. But before long I heard Ray go to bed and the snick of his door closing, like a reproach.

Sleep came at last with lurid, twisting dreams. Houses melting and merging, swept away by a raging torrent of water, corridors swaying and plunging, doorways shrinking and me dragging Maddie along, finding myself lost in unfamiliar rooms and hidden attics, as the building buckled and fractured, as the flood rose.