Simon Beckett - Owning Jacob - SA

He had been nearly four when he had been diagnosed as autistic. Not long after that Ben went to Antigua on a shoot.

The second night one of the models had come on to him after a group of them went to a bar together. She had a fa bull ous body, a golden tan, and he knew no word of it would ever get back to Sarah. He had seen the promise of suntanned and easy sex smiling in front of him and thought back over the strain of the previous few months. Taking Jacob to see specialists. Waiting for test results. Vainly trying to comfort Sarah as she cried, for the first time since he’d known her, when they were told. Did he really want to tie himself down to a woman with an autistic child that wasn’t even his? The answer hadn’t really surprised him.

He made his excuses to the girl and spent the night alone in his hotel room. The day he arrived back in London he’d asked Sarah to marry him.

Now he stood by Jacob’s bed and looked down at her son, searching for some resemblance that would put the question of parentage beyond doubt. There was nothing. The boy’s hair was a ruddy brown, not Sarah’s paler colour. His eyes were a pale, tawny brown, and his features had none of the fineness of her bone structure. Ben had always taken for granted that the boy took after his father.

Perhaps he does.

He left the bedroom and went downstairs. The house was quiet. He took an old tobacco tin from the bag that held his camera equipment, collected a beer from the fridge and went into the lounge to roll himself a joint. Sarah never liked him smoking them at home, but Jacob was in bed, and if ever there was a time when he needed one this was it. He lit up and drew on it, holding his breath. When he finally let it go it was explosively, as if he could expel everything else along with the used smoke.

Taking another drag from the joint, he crossed to the bookshelf and reached up for the strongbox. He carried it back to the settee and spread out the newspaper cuttings on the cushion next to him, where Jacob had been sitting earlier. He picked out the one that had a photograph of the baby’s parents. It was impossible to make out what John Kale looked like but at least, if Jacob didn’t take after Sarah, he didn’t resemble the newspaper picture of Jeanette Kale either. Ben tossed the cutting on to the rest. He had already gone through them countless times without learning anything else. A newborn baby had gone missing, and it happened to coincide with Jacob’s birth. So what? Hundreds of babies would have been born on the same day. It didn’t mean anything.

So why had she saved the cuttings? That was where all his reasoning, all his reassurances, fell apart. He could tell himself that it was ridiculous to be disturbed by a few pieces of old newsprint, that the dates were only a fluke. Reading about it on the same day she gave birth herself was probably what had prompted Sarah to save the reports in the first place. Then she’d put them to one side and typically forgotten to throw them away.

Simple.

Except it didn’t work. Sarah might have kept an entire newspaper, or even several, but he’d never known her cut out individual stories. That sort of neatness wasn’t part of her character. He couldn’t even begin to think why they’d been in a locked box with the birth certificate.

Or rather he could.

Confusion gouged at the rawness of his grief. He pushed his hand through his hair. Even that brought a pang — she had liked it long, liked running her fingers through it.

“Jesus, Sarah,” he said. The need to talk to her, to see and hear her again, was so vast it terrified him. He couldn’t believe he never would. It was as though someone had cut holes in the world where she should have been. He felt his throat begin to constrict and took a last steadying pull at the dying joint, welcoming the hotness of the smoke. He held his breath, but when he let it go it came out in a sob, and suddenly he was crying.

When it passed he felt drained but more himself. Sarah had been his wife and he had loved her. Jacob was her son, and that was all there was to it. He despised himself for doubting her. He stubbed out the roach and blew his nose.

The cuttings were still spread out on the settee, but now they had lost their potency. They were just scraps of paper. He felt slightly foolish for overreacting. And ashamed.

He gathered them together, intending to throw them away.

The phone rang as he was screwing them up. He sniffed and cleared his throat, banishing the last of the tears before answering. “Hello?”

“Hello, Ben. It’s Geoffrey.” Ben felt a twinge of conscience at the sound of his father-in-law’s voice. “Sorry, Geoffrey, I was supposed to call, wasn’t I?” It had been the last thing he’d said to Sarah’s parents after the funeral the day before.

“Not to worry. You’ve got enough on your plate at the moment without worrying about us. I just thought I’d ring and see how you were getting on.”

“Oh... okay.” He changed the subject. “You got back to Leicester all right?”

“No trouble at all.”

“You could have stayed here overnight, you know.” He knew Geoffrey didn’t like driving.

“I know we could, lad, but Alice wanted to get home. You know how she is.”

Ben did. She had never forgiven Sarah for moving to London twice, the first time to find work, the second after they had taken her back home when Jacob was born. “How’s she coping?”

“Not bad.” His tone said otherwise. “She’s in bed now. You’ve got to take these things a day at a time, haven’t you?”

An awkwardness came between them. Ben sensed the older man’s reluctance to end the conversation, even though there was nothing for either of them to say that hadn’t already been said. He knew how keenly his father-in-law felt Sarah’s death. Talking to her husband was a way of holding on to her, a cold comfort but all he had, and better than the lonely house with the mourning wife asleep upstairs.

It was as much to prolong the contact between them as to appease any final doubts that Ben said, “I’ve been thinking about when Sarah had Jacob. Only seems like two minutes ago. I can’t believe it’s six years. Was it a quick birth?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Two hours, that’s all. We always said he was in a rush. Poor Alice was hopping mad. We’d only just been down to London a day or two before, and if she’d known the baby was going to be born six weeks early you couldn’t have dragged her away in chains. Myself, I was just glad Jessica had been there.”

“There was no sign that Jacob was going to be premature, then?”

“None at all. No, that was why it was such a surprise. Sarah’d had cramps a few days before — that was why Alice insisted on going down to see her. But they’d stopped by the time we got there. Alice dragged her off to the doctor’s, but he said everything seemed fine.” A note of consternation entered his voice. “There isn’t a problem, is there? With Jacob, I mean?”

Ben felt the last trace of doubt slough away. “No, he’s fine. I was... well, I was just curious.”

Her father abruptly sounded tired and old. Whatever brief comfort he’d drawn from the reminiscence had gone. “I often wondered if Jacob being early had anything to do with... you know. The autism.”

“I don’t think so.” There were different ideas about what caused autism, but so far as Ben knew premature birth wasn’t one of them.

“No, I expect you’re right.” Geoffrey made an effort to sound cheerful. “Wasn’t as if he was a poor tiny thing, or anything.”

Later, Ben wished that he’d stopped the conversation there, with the question of Jacob’s birth resolved in his mind. But he didn’t.

“Wasn’t he?” he said, no longer really listening.