The Family Upstairs(59)
But lately I’d noticed other things too.
I heard doors opening and closing late at night. I saw a flush upon my mother’s neck, felt loaded moments, heard things whispered urgently, smelled his smell on her hair. I saw Birdie regard my mother watchfully, saw David’s eyes upon parts of mother’s body that should be no concern of his. Whatever was happening between my mother and David was feral and alive and was spreading into every corner of the house.
The announcement was made as all announcements were made, over the dinner table. David made the announcement of course, and as he made it he sat between Birdie and my mother holding one of their hands each. You could almost see the proud swell of the blood under his epidermis. He was so pleased with himself. What a guy. Two birds on the go and now a bun in the oven. What. A. Guy.
My sister immediately burst into tears and Clemency ran from the table and could be heard throwing up in the toilet by the back door.
I stared at my mother in utter horror. While I wasn’t entirely surprised by the development, I was surprised that she had allowed it to be announced so publicly, so happily. I could not believe that she hadn’t felt that maybe a quiet tête-à-tête in a dark corner might not have been a better way to break such news to her children. Was she not embarrassed? Was she not ashamed?
It appeared not. She grabbed my sister’s hand and said, ‘Darling, you always wanted a little brother or sister.’
‘Yes. But not like this! Not like this!’
So dramatic, my little sister. But on this occasion I couldn’t say I blamed her.
‘What about Dad?’ I piped up hopelessly.
‘Dad knows,’ she said, now clutching my hand and squeezing that too. ‘Dad understands. Dad wants me to be happy.’
David sat between Birdie and my mother watching us carefully. I could tell he was simply humouring our mother by allowing her to comfort us. I could tell he did not care one iota what we thought about him and his repulsive act of penetrating and impregnating our mother. He cared nothing about anything other than himself.
I looked at Birdie. She looked oddly triumphant, as if this was the result of some great masterplan of hers.
‘I’m not able to bear children,’ she said, as though reading my mind.
‘So my mother is – what?’ I found myself asking quite sharply. ‘A human incubator?’
David sighed. He touched his lips with the side of his finger, a pose he affected frequently and which to this day still unnerves me when I see other people doing it. ‘This family needs a focus,’ he said. ‘A heart. A reason. This house needs a baby. Your amazing mother is doing this for all of us. She is a goddess.’
Birdie nodded sagely in agreement.
Clemency returned at this point looking ashen and unwell. She flopped heavily into her chair and shuddered.
‘Darling,’ David said to her. ‘Try to look at it this way. This will bring our two families together. You four will all have a little brother or sister in common. Two families’ – he reached for their hands across the table – ‘united.’
My sister burst into fresh tears and Clemency kept her hand pulled into a fist.
Birdie sighed. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you two,’ she hissed, ‘grow up.’
I saw David throw her a warning look. She returned the look with a petulant toss of her head.
‘It will take a few days to get used to the idea. I understand,’ said David. ‘But you have to trust me. This will be the making of us all. It really will be. This baby will be the future of our community. This baby will be everything.’
My mother grew in a way I could not have imagined was possible. She, who had always been so slender with her jutting hip bones and long narrow waist, was suddenly the biggest person in the house. She was fed constantly and told to do nothing.
The ‘baby’ apparently needed a thousand extra calories a day and while we all sat picking over mushroom biryanis and carrot soups, my mother gorged on spaghetti and chocolate mousse. Have I mentioned how thin we all were by this point? Not that any of us had been particularly overweight to begin with, apart from my father. But we were virtually emaciated by the time my mother was being fattened up like a ceremonial goat. I was still wearing clothes that had fitted me when I was eleven, and I was nearly fifteen. Clemency and my sister looked as though they had eating disorders and Birdie was basically a twig. I’ll tell you for nothing that vegan food goes straight through you; nothing sticks to the sides. But when that food is offered in mean portions and you are constantly told not to be greedy by asking for seconds, when one cook hates butter, so there is never enough fat (and children must eat fat), another hates salt, so there is never enough flavour, and another refuses to eat wheat because it causes their stomach to swell like a whoopee cushion, so there is never enough starch or stodge, well, that makes for very thin, malnourished people.
One of our neighbours, shortly after the bodies were found and the press were buzzing around our house with microphones and handheld cameras, appeared on the news one night talking about how thin we had all looked. ‘I did wonder’, said the neighbour (whom I had never before seen in my life), ‘if they were being looked after properly. I did worry a bit. They were all so terribly thin. But you don’t like to interfere, do you?’
No, mysterious neighbour lady, no, you clearly do not.
But while we wasted away my mother grew and grew. Birdie made her maternity tunics out of black cotton, bales of which she’d bought cheap from a fabric sale months earlier, in order to make shoulder bags to sell at Camden Market. She had sold a grand total of two before being chased away by other stallholders who all had licences to sell, and had instantly given up on the project. But now she was sewing with a fervour, desperate to be a part of what was happening to my mother. David and Birdie soon took to wearing Birdie’s black tunics too. They gave all their other clothes to charity. They looked utterly ridiculous.