Northern Spy(35)

It might be over by then, by October. I would like to stay here with Finn until then, for some other version of myself to leave the clinic and deal with whatever is coming.



* * *



—

When I finally return home from work, the babysitter is watching Bake Off on the sofa. Finn has already fallen asleep, and I am bereft at having missed his bath and bottle.

“How was he?” I ask.

“Good,” says Olivia, yawning. “He went down at seven thirty.”

I wait for more detail, none forthcoming. “Did you get enough to eat?” I’d left cash for a takeaway, if she didn’t fancy anything in the fridge.

“I ordered from Golden Wok, there’s some left in the kitchen.”

“Grand, I’m starving.”

At the front door, Olivia says, “You don’t have many things for him. You’ve only two baby bowls and two spoons.”

“Oh. Well, he only ever uses one at a time.”

“He could use more socks, too.”

“Right, okay. I’ll pick some up. Night, Olivia.”

“Night.”

Olivia babysits for other families in Greyabbey, who are apparently more organized. They never run out of clean laundry for the baby, or Calpol, or sticking plasters. They own bottle sterilizers, white-noise machines, wipe warmers. They make homemade fruit compotes and pour them into serving-size glass pots. They don’t ever long for unfiltered cigarettes or music festivals.

Though it’s not a fair comparison, given that all of them are married. I want to hear what the other parents in Greyabbey talk about after their baby is asleep. I want to know if they have calendars pinned to the walls of their kitchens, and what’s on them, what should be on mine.

Two weeks before my due date, over dinner, Colette told me all the tricks to induce labor—spicy curries, fizzy drinks, raspberry-leaf tea. “You’re ready?” she asked, and I nodded, resting my hand on my huge stomach. “I just want to meet him.”

A couple near us had a pram parked next to their table. The baby woke during their dessert, and the father lifted her into his arms. She looked between her smiling parents, and I thought, My son will never do that. No matter how amicable Tom and I are, he won’t have that. Colette must have seen the look on my face, because she said, “He’ll be lucky to have you, Tessa.”



* * *



—

My mother hadn’t told me why she couldn’t mind him tonight. She might have had to work late, too.

The babysitter cost forty quid. I stay up late, eating Chinese food straight from the container with chopsticks, sorting out the month’s gas and electric bills. Thinking about money at the moment feels like tripping at the top of a flight of stairs, but I’ve already decided to refuse if Eamonn offers to pay me, like the money would compromise me—which is stupid, since the IRA has the same punishment for paid and unpaid informers. I think of MI5 filling a numbered bank account in Switzerland for Marian, a pledge account. She didn’t tell me the balance.

I push myself back from the table. Finn’s room has a different smell than the rest of the house, like calendula lotion and cotton crib sheets. In his sleep, he stretches his arms above his head and rolls onto his side. One of his feet pokes through the slats of the crib, and I tuck it back inside. I rest my hand on his chest, feeling his ribs swell as he breathes, and wonder what exactly I’m doing.





21


MARIAN IS WAITING ALONE at the bus stop in Newtownards in a shift dress and high-heeled ankle boots. She walks easily in the boots, which is odd, since she never wears heels. I remember her saying medics should only wear shoes they can run in.

“Are those new?” I ask as the bus swerves back onto the road.

“No.”

My sister knows how to chamber a gun, how to transport explosives, how to perform unarmed combat. Who’s to say she doesn’t also know how to run in heels. These clothes must be camouflage for the Malone Road, so she can follow Charles Cavil into the expensive restaurants and shops around his house, while her unit performs surveillance on him. He lives in a modern glass mansion on Osborne Place.

“Have you found any kompromat yet?” I ask.

“Some tax dodges,” she says.

“So what happens now?”

“One of our lads will approach him,” she says. “MI5 will have told Cavil how to respond. I’m sure they’ve already briefed him.”

I think of Marian’s unit parked outside his house, and Cavil inside uncorking a bottle of wine or cooking dinner, knowing that he’s being watched. It all seems like a farce.

The bus slows to a crawl in the Friday evening traffic. “How well do you know Eamonn?” I ask.

“Not very.” She says they only had short meetings, rolling-car meetings. She’d offer him information, and then she’d be back on the road, continuing her walk, with barely an interruption.

“He told me he’s from Strabane, but I can’t tell if his accent is real.”

“Probably not,” she says. “Does it matter?”

“I want to know if he’s lying to me.”

“Don’t think of it as lying,” she says. “Think of it as another layer of protection.”