Caryl Phillips - The Lost Child

Monica soon ran out of books that she wished to take out of the local library. She had methodically worked her way through the small poetry section, and she had also read most of the contemporary novels that she thought might interest her, but having moved on to short stories, which was a form she particularly loved, she had to admit that none of the collections aroused any elation in her, and more often than not, the volumes were returned unread. Monica knew what the problem was — discussion, somebody to talk with about the books — and once she had accepted that such exchanges were unlikely to occur she fell into the habit of going out into the world without her borrowing card. Sitting by the Serpentine watching the ducks seemed to amuse her young son, until she realized that it mattered little to the child whether he was looking at a duck or a double-decker bus, for all he saw was movement. She had discovered the free museums and tourist attractions of central London, but the hardship of navigating such a vast city with a child, and with precious little money, did nothing to increase her affection for the capital, whose thunderous indifference to her, now that she no longer looked like an expectant mother, was matched only by her progressively detached husband, who, with each passing month, seemed to be investing greater amounts of time attending to his efforts on behalf of Dr. Lloyd Samuels.

One afternoon, while sitting on a crowded Metropolitan Line train with her sleeping son in her arms, she abruptly opened her eyes and was shocked to discover that she had missed her stop. She quickly gathered her belongings, but when she tried to stand up in order to get off at the next station, she felt as though two hands were pushing down on her shoulders and pinning her and the child to the seat. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to five, then opened them, and as soon as she heard the unoiled grating of the doors, she shoved her way off the train and up the escalator and out into the daylight. The sun was blazing hot, but the thought of reentering the underground or getting on a bus made her head spin. She threaded her slow way through the seemingly endless maze of pedestrians, but the torment of drumming in her head receded only when she came to a junction and could momentarily feel space around her. The child began to cry with an initial whimper that soon grew into a wail, and by the time she turned into her street Ben’s arms and legs were thrashing, which suggested he was in the throes of a fully fledged panic attack. Her eyes began to brim with frustration, and although she could clearly see the scruffy house that held the room in which they lived, with every step she took the building seemed to be receding farther.

The sweet-smelling man guided her gently into one of the café’s metal chairs and placed a glass of water before her. She relinquished the squirmy child without protest and watched as her son looked into the foreigner’s face and stopped kicking.

“I think it is too hot to be carrying a child.”

“I’m sorry.”

She tried to guess the man’s accent, but she immediately gave up. No doubt he hailed from some exotic location, but having never travelled abroad she couldn’t pretend to know more than this. He was staring directly at her with an overly kind smile that she knew was meant to reassure her that there was no need to say anything further. She imagined that perhaps the man already understood that she was pregnant again. If so, maybe he wanted her to come and live with him in his country, and if he did, why didn’t he just ask her?

Monica was lying full length on the settee, and letting the hot air and noises of London wash over her through the open window, when Julius ambled through the door. He had long ago given up insisting that she listen to his boring talks about the future of his nonsensical stupid country, but as he sat down, she found herself once again dismayed by the gaudy African shirt and leather sandals he had taken to wearing. Why on earth had he not sought her advice before adopting this costume? His once trim and neat hair was now wide and ludicrous, and when it first began to assume this unshapely form, he had quizzed her as to whether she thought it suited him. Not really believing that he could be asking this of her, she simply laughed and then asked him why he had started to wear sunglasses when there was no sun in the sky? In fact, why did he sometimes wear them inside of the house?

As Julius slipped his feet out of his sandals, she understood that her husband didn’t actually care what she thought of his hair, or his attire, or anything, for it was all part of a larger transformation that was taking place that neither required nor depended on her approval. Julius appeared to be casting aside his studious aspect and making some clownish attempt to entertain worldliness. Last week she had found some rumpled notepaper in the wastepaper basket and could see he had been trying out a new name. The evidence pointed to two preferred options: Dr. J. Livingstone T. Wilson or Dr. Julius L. Terrance Wilson. Of course, she didn’t know either man. She watched him bend over and begin to ransack the canvas bag that he had deposited on the floor. He finally discovered what he was searching for and plucked an LP out of the bag, which he then nudged unceremoniously out of his path with the outside of one foot. He took two short steps to the record player and, as he slipped the disc out of its inner sleeve, handed her the LP cover and urged her to read the notes on the back. His laughter seemed to bubble up from deep inside, and it was punctuated with his constant repetition of “Oh, man, you’ve got to hear this.” Jazz was a new passion of Julius’s, although he had balked when she called it a passion.

“Monica, jazz is the only category of music that you can really study. It has a theoretical intent.”

She had looked at him but didn’t want to argue. Perhaps he had forgotten, but once upon a time she had been regarded as musically proficient. However, as her father’s pride in her achievements increased, her interest in playing the piano had fallen away to the point where it had now been many years since she had perched herself on a piano stool.

“Anyhow, just because you can theorize about the music doesn’t mean that you can’t also be passionate about it.”

“And miss seventy-five per cent of what’s going on?”

Julius had looked at her with palpable contempt, and Monica couldn’t help herself as she began to laugh. These days the ponderous weight of self-regard seemed to infuse Julius’s whole body; it affected how he stood, how he walked, and how he held himself when he was getting ready to make an announcement.

He took the LP cover from Monica without giving her a chance to read the notes, and then he closed his eyes as the shrill saxophone opening began to blare out. “Oh, man.” Monica stood up and went to the fridge for a bottle of beer, which she handed to him, hoping he might understand that small gestures like this were about all she had left to offer in the way of a deposit on some kind of continued future together. But it was beginning to feel futile. As he took the beer, she picked his bag up off the floor and stared at her ridiculous husband. She had been waiting a long time for them to perhaps turn a corner in their relationship, but she now realized that they both were navigating a long, hopelessly unforgiving bend, and she was tired.

“I bought this LP at a new secondhand place on Baker Street.”

“Can I have some too?”

He looked puzzled, and so she pointed at the bottle of beer, which he then handed to her.

“Well, do you like it?” he asked. “Are you digging it?”

“Julius, please give Ben a kiss.”

“Jesus, you act as if I’ve forgotten my own son.” He looked at her as though she disgusted him. “Just let me finish listening to the music, okay?”