The Peacock Emporium(132)

“You know, it’s lovely to see you looking so well,” she said bravely, wondering whether she should just get up and go. She could run now, snatch Suzanna from the horrid old pram and disappear. Nobody would have to know. They could go to Brighton, perhaps. Borrow the money and go abroad. To Italy. They loved babies in Italy. Her voice emerged from her mouth, as if it belonged to someone else, as her thoughts scrambled in her head: “You always did look marvelous in that suit.”

She could hear Suzanna now, in the distance, making everything else irrelevant.

“Athene!” he protested.

And then the fat girl was there, standing in front of her with her insolent face, taking in the lack of a wedding ring, the untouched meal in front of her. “I’m sorry, madam,” she said, “but your baby’s crying. You’ll have to come and get her.”

Afterward, she found she could remember little of the next minutes. She vaguely remembered Douglas’s shocked face, the color draining from it almost as she watched; she remembered being handed Suzanna’s pram and realizing as she held her, for what she knew to be the last time, that she could no longer look at her face. Suzanna, perhaps with some terrible foreboding of her own, had been fretting, and Athene had been glad of the need to jiggle her—it disguised the trembling of her own hands.

Then the bit that she wished she could forget, the bit that would haunt her waking moments, her dreams, that would leave her arms empty, a child-size hole next to her heart.

Almost unable to believe she was doing it, Athene Fairley-Hulme took the child she loved with a pure uncomplicated passion of which she had not believed herself capable, and thrust her small, soft weight, her blanket-wrapped limbs, at the man opposite.

He held her carefully, she noted, with a faint, piercing gratitude. She had known he would. Oh, God, forgive me for this, she said silently, and wondered, briefly, if she might faint.

“Athene, I can’t just—”

She felt the dim panic then, that he might refuse. There was no alternative. Tony had told her so, many times.

She had made her bed.

She placed her hand on his arm, trying to convey everything in one pleading look. “Douglas, darling, have I ever asked you for anything? Really?”

He had gazed back at her then, his faltering confusion, the brief nakedness of his expression telling her she had him. That he would care for her. Love her, as he, in his own childhood, had been loved. It’s better this way, she told herself silently, repeatedly. It’s better this way. As if by saying it enough times she could make herself believe it. She forced herself to stand then, and began to walk, trying to stop herself from falling over, trying to keep her head up. Trying to keep her mind blank so that she didn’t have to think about what was behind her, just focusing on making one foot move in front of the other, as the sounds of the restaurant receded into nothingness. She had wanted to leave Suzanna something—a small sign that she had been loved. But they had nothing. Everything had been sold for the simple necessity of eating.

Bye-bye, darling, she said silently, as the restaurant door loomed closer, her heels echoing on the tiled floor. I will come back for you, when things are better. Promise.

“Don’t you even want to say goodbye?” His voice came from behind her. And Athene, feeling the last of her resolve begin to crumble, fled.

It was the strangest thing, the hatcheck girl said to the wine waiter afterward. That snobby girl, the one with dark hair, had walked around the corner, sat down on the pavement, and cried as if her heart would break. She had seen her when she went out for a breather. All crumpled up against the wall, howling like a dog, not even caring who saw her.



* * *



—

When she returned Tony was lying on the bed. It was not surprising, although it was only late afternoon: there was nowhere to sit in the little room.

Athene opened the door. He startled, as if he had been asleep, and pushed himself into an upright position, blinking as he scanned her face. The room smelled musty: they hadn’t had the money to take the sheets to the launderette for several weeks, and the window didn’t open enough to air it properly. She watched as he rubbed at his hair with his broad, even hands.

“Well?” he said.

She couldn’t speak. She walked toward the bed, not bothering to move the newspaper from the crumpled candlewick bedspread, and lay down, her back to him, her shoes slipping from her bloodied heels.

He placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezed it hesitantly. “You okay?”

She said nothing. She stared at the wall opposite, at the green flocked wallpaper that had started to peel from the skirting, at the bar heater they didn’t have the coins to feed, at the chest of drawers, the bottom one padded with Athene’s old jumpers, lined with her one silk blouse, the softest thing she could think of to lay next to Suzanna’s skin.

“You did the right thing, you know,” Tony murmured. “I know it’s hard, but you did the right thing.”

She didn’t think she would ever be able to lift her head from the pillow again. She felt so tired, as if she had never previously understood what tiredness was.

She was dimly aware of Tony kissing her ear. Her reticence had made him needy. “Sweetheart?” She could not respond. “Sweetheart?” he said again.

“Yes,” she whispered. She could think of nothing else to say.