Baby Love

‘But the baby …?’

‘Fine. Early, but fine.’

‘And Jim?’

‘Neil, we haven’t seen him. I don’t know if he knows. But Neil – you mustn’t tell him. They had a row … Look, come and see me. Please.’

‘Yes, yes … of course.’

‘I’m in hospital.’

‘Oh, God – are you all right?’

I burst out laughing. Then crying. ‘Come this afternoon. This morning. Come now.’

When he came he said the only thing to do was to get the baby out of hospital as soon as it was safe to do so, take her home, and hold tight. Apply for parental responsibility. If Jim showed an interest, fight it out. ‘Get her home and love her and be a good parent,’ he said. ‘Any judge will respect that. And get married.’

*

You see why I find it hard to be mean to Neil. The petunias gleamed at me like clear thoughts in a mist of confusion. It’s been three years and for those three years Jim has not turned up. I kept track of him. He is well off and well respected, and his nature remains better known to me than to the police or to anyone with any influence over the situation. It’s up to me to make sure he never sees Lily again.

Therefore I don’t need anything on my record. Anything at all. I could make a living without the car, that’s not the problem. The licence itself hardly matters. What matters is the good name. I need my good name to keep her.

I’d been balancing it up. Seventeen unreported black eyes that he gave her (I kept count) and one injunction that she never brought versus several thousand quids’ – worth of lawyers saying that I’m a drunkard, irresponsible, incapable, single and not the child’s parent. That’s what I was thinking about. That and the fact that that morning, the morning of the night I was out with Neil, Jim had rung up and left a message saying he wanted to talk to me.

*

I slept a little because you have to. At around seven I came out of a bleak doze to find that my mind was made up. An hour later I got on the telephone to a certain police station. I didn’t think Ben Cooper would be there but it was possible and I felt I should move as quickly as I could. I was in luck, I suppose. He was there.

Ben Cooper. We first met when we were both instructors on a motorbike road safety course – he as a young cop, me in one of many attempts to prove myself normal, fit, helpful, a credit to the community and in steady employment. Ben Cooper the Bent Copper.

‘Hello, stranger,’ he said when he came on the line. He always said that. It was his little joke. In fact we saw each other occasionally. Not by design, but just because he made a point of never letting anyone go, just in case. I’d been trying to let go of him because I don’t like the guy, and in fact I don’t think I’d seen him to talk to since Janie died.

I didn’t want to ask him, but I honestly thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps my thinking was screwed. Perhaps the cold light of dawn that you see things clearly by is meant to come with sobriety after a good night’s sleep, not still half-drunk after a night of fretting. Whatever.

‘Ben,’ I said. ‘Can we meet?’

‘Mmm,’ he said.

‘Slight problem,’ I said.

‘Want to cry on my shoulder?’ he said.

‘Mmm,’ I said.

‘Professional shoulder?’ he said.

‘Mmm,’ I said.

‘Anything you want to tell me now?’ he said.

‘Can I?’ I said.

‘I’ll call you right back,’ he said.

Two minutes later he had the gist. He took the arresting officer’s number and my registration number and the case number and a load of other numbers and I took the number 500, which was how many quid his professional advice cost these days. Cheap at the price if he could do it.

‘Oh, I can do it,’ he said. ‘You get some sleep. You sound terrible.’ I didn’t tell him Lily was due at nursery in an hour and a half.

TWO (#ub48330bd-c5fd-5b1d-97fe-5ea89185924b)

In the Pub with Ben (#ub48330bd-c5fd-5b1d-97fe-5ea89185924b)

I took Lily into nursery on the bus. It seemed years since I’d been on one. It smelt the same; grimy London Transport smell, like coins. The day was getting ready to be warm. The clippie gave Lily the dog-end of the ticket roll and told her it was toilet paper for her dolly. Lily went bug-eyed with delight and the clippie crooned at her. I was impressed. A nice old-fashioned bit of London-ness on the Uxbridge Road.

I left Lily with the hamsters and wax crayons and went up west to fetch the car (yes I know the West End is east of west London but the West End is Up West, it has to be). My blood alcohol level was probably not much lower than it had been when they pulled me, but no one was counting at nine in the morning. I drove back to Shepherd’s Bush and slept for two hours.

The phone woke me. Usually I’d just roll over and let the machine take it but I was nervous and so I found that I had answered it before I was even awake. It was Jim.

‘I want to see my daughter,’ he said.

‘Fuck off,’ I said.

‘Angie, listen,’ he said. Arrgghhh! Don’t want to listen won’t listen why should I listen?

He went into a speech. He must have prepared it carefully but its niceties were wasted on me, drowned in hangover, sleeplessness and anger. I could hardly hear his voice for the NO NO NO ringing in my head.

Then I woke up. Woke up too to the fact that he was being reasonable and I wasn’t; he was being civil and I wasn’t; that everything from here on in can be taken and used in evidence.

‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello? Who is that?’

‘Angie? It’s Jim.’

‘Jim! God – hello. Oh …’ I tried to convey double confusion: natural confusion at it being him, and further confusion to give the impression that I had thought that it wasn’t him.

‘Jim, I’m sorry, you woke me up …’ Shite, should I admit that? Bad mother sleeps late in morning, answers phone when incompetent, what if it had been an emergency call from the school?

‘What? Er … did you hear what I was saying?’

‘No. I mean. Jim – why are you calling? What do you want?’

He relaunched. He sounded nervous – not surprisingly – and somehow well-intentioned. He was breathing as if he was reminding himself to.

‘Angie. Um. I know it’s been a long time and I know this is going to come as a shock to you but as you know I never intended that my separation from my daughter should be permanent and the time has now come when I think it would be the right thing for … for us to meet. I want to meet her. To see her. Meet her …’ His voice fizzled out. He’s as nervous as me, I thought. He really wants this.

Fear took my heart in both its hands and squeezed.

‘I don’t think I can say anything about this until I’ve had some advice,’ I said finally.