Greenwich Park, Katherine Faulkner [ereader android .txt] 📗

on top of his pile of books, as if keeping watch. Without his glasses on, Daniel’s sleeping face looks untethered, incomplete, sort of like a child’s drawing.

I unfold the note I found in the bathroom. I press out the creases with my thumbnail, and stare at it for a long time. RRH. I wonder if W could be a nickname for Serena? But somehow, I know that’s not it. I have found something bad, something I shouldn’t have ever seen. Oh, Rory, I think. What are you up to?

I stare and stare until the letters start to swim in front of my eyes, until they are not like letters any more, just shapes, symbols. Eventually, I give up. I slide the note into the back of the book I’m reading, turn the bedside light out.

I listen to Daniel’s breathing, deep, rhythmic. I listen to the little bursts of laughter in the night, the hum of the washing machine on downstairs, the wind blowing on the hill, how it whistles past our window glass. It takes me a long time to fall asleep.

30 WEEKS

HELEN

I seem to be bumping into Rachel all the time – in the market, or at the bandstand cafe, or walking across the scorched grass of the park. I suppose it’s no great surprise. She lives locally, and we’re both off work. But I never bump into Serena that much. Or Rory. Or even Daniel. But then, I suppose I have never been off work before. I’m constantly surprised by how many people are around in the day. What are they all doing?

This time is odd in itself, this strange no man’s land between pregnancy and birth. I find myself constructing my entire day around a medical appointment, a trip into town to buy a baby monitor or a TENS machine. On the Tube, everyone else is glued to their smartphone, emailing and messaging, organising fuller lives than mine. Quite often no one looks up to see whether there is a pregnant woman needing a seat. I always feel too embarrassed to ask. Everyone keeps telling me to make the most of the time, to enjoy myself. I’m not sure what they mean. It feels like a dead time to me. A time defined by absence, by waiting.

When I finally manage to set a date for lunch with Katie, I find myself looking forward to it much more than I normally would, a little bright flag in my otherwise blank diary. Even so, I find myself a bit jangly on the morning of it, for some reason.

As I walk to the station, I wonder whether to tell Katie about the note I found in Rory and Serena’s bathroom. Katie is good at digging around, finding information. She’d be able to work out what Rory was up to.

As I walk past the bookshop I see Katie coming out of the station in her leather jacket, her headphones in, a coffee cup clutched in one hand and a faraway expression on her face. Katie is only eighteen months younger than me – the same age as Charlie. She was his little friend from down the road when we were growing up, and then she became mine, as the gap grew to feel less and less important in our teenage years, then university and beyond.

But looking at her now I have the sudden sense that she is much younger than me again. After all, there is so much more than a year and a half separating our ages – a marriage, a house, the babies, the pregnancy. Looking at her now, I feel old.

I wave and her face breaks into an astonished smile. She bounds over and hugs me.

‘Jesus, Helen. You’re huge!’

‘Oh, thanks!’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You look great. It’s just … I suppose it’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

The observation feels heavier than it should. I try to meet her eye and smile, to tell her it’s all right. She smiles back, a look of relief on her face.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ she says. ‘I’m starving.’

We walk through the park, where the giant horse chestnut trees are just starting to shed. An early smattering of golden leaves have sailed out of the iron gates and onto the pavements, collecting in rusty pools in drains and doorways. Some people are sitting on the outside tables at the pavilion, bathing in the disappearing warmth. They sit in coats, but with their faces to the sun, eyelids closed, enjoying every last drop. A waitress weaves around them, clearing the tables, balancing coffee cups and crumb-strewn plates on her tray, her pale grey apron tied in a little bow at her waist.

The inside looks full. I ask, but the waiter shakes his head. No tables free. Do we want to wait? Katie says she doesn’t mind. My feet are hurting, my stomach starting to groan. I cast my eye over the inside tables, try to work out if anyone will be leaving soon.

When I see her, my first instinct is to quickly avert my eyes, pretend I haven’t. But it is already too late: our eyes have met, and Rachel is grinning at us. She is sitting by the window, a newspaper spread out in front of her. She starts waving frantically.

‘You again!’ Rachel folds the newspaper up and rushes over, still carrying it, bumping into the backs of people’s chairs. She is wearing a gold sequinned skirt, oversized black T-shirt and green trainers. ‘How funny!’ She launches herself at me with a hug. I feel myself go slightly limp in her grip. Katie looks at me, expectantly.

‘This is Rachel,’ I say, when she releases me. ‘Rachel, this is my friend Katie.’ They smile at each other. I pause. ‘Rachel and I met at our antenatal class.’

‘And now we just seem to keep bumping into each other!’ Rachel laughs loudly at her own joke. In the cafe, heads turn to see what all the