up. I was relieved when everyone had finished their starters and I could busy myself with clearing the plates and serving the main course.
Everything was forced – my contribution to the conversation, my smile, which stretched into a rictus across my face. I felt like a fraud. I was faking it, feigning an interest when I had no idea what was going on around me. After a while, I couldn’t keep up the pretence. When the baby monitor crackled, I leapt to my feet, seizing the opportunity to get away for a few minutes.
But Clémentine got there first. ‘It’s Ellie,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and get her.’
‘She’s terrific, isn’t she?’ Jenny said.
I was so grateful to Jenny for finding Clémentine to help with the twins and Irena to clean the house that I sat down again, nodded at Jenny and left Clémentine to it. I checked the baby monitor every few minutes, willing Amber to wake up, too. I turned up the volume, although it was unnecessary. Whenever Amber screamed with hunger, you could hear her even without the baby phone.
After the meal, Bella packed the dishwasher while Callum sloped off to his room, Sophia in tow, to play on his console. Blaming the wine, I popped to the toilet before flopping down on the sofa in the living room next to Jenny.
Clémentine was already sitting in an armchair holding Ellie. Her eyes fixed on the baby, she didn’t notice me studying her. She was wearing a low-cut white top and a short black skirt. Earlier I’d thought, rather unkindly, that she was a frilly apron short of a French maid’s outfit, but now I found myself jealous of the way her clothes showed off her cleavage and shapely legs to perfection.
Bella came into the living room to join us, perching on the arm of Clémentine’s chair. I observed my stepdaughter reaching across Clémentine to stroke her half-sister’s fair head. Bella was only a year or two younger than Clémentine and they got on well at the time.
Rob and Michael had been talking animatedly about something – I had no idea what – and there was one of those abrupt silences you sometimes get at parties when everyone stops speaking for a moment. It was broken by the noise of Ellie guzzling from her bottle.
‘I think we need our own bottle!’ Michael said, opening a bottle of Armagnac. He arched his eyebrows at me when I asked for a glass, but he poured me some without comment. It must have been a very small measure because when I picked up my glass a minute or so later, there was no brandy left in it.
Turning to Jenny, I whispered so Michael wouldn’t hear, ‘Have you got any fags?’
‘Of course,’ she said and stood up, grabbing her handbag from the floor by her feet and slinging it over her shoulder.
Jenny always carried a packet of cigarettes on her for emergencies and evenings out. I sometimes accompanied her outside and smoked passively while she puffed away, but it had been a while since I’d felt like a smoke myself. Holding the baby monitor in one hand and the cigarette in the other, I relaxed a little for the first time that evening.
When we came back in, stinking like ashtrays, Rob winked at us while Michael scowled at me.
‘I think I’ll go and check on Amber,’ I said. ‘It’s not like her to sleep through a feed.’
‘No, she ’asn’t cried for a while,’ Clémentine said, her French accent more pronounced than usual. ‘She’s usually so ’ungry.’ She turned to look at Michael with her dark brown eyes, and he chuckled.
Bella offered to go for me and Jenny offered to come with me, but I declined both of them and made my way across the room and up the stairs.
I walked along the landing on slightly wobbly legs, wondering if I was in a fit state to carry my baby and taking deep breaths to try and sober up. The door to the nursery was open and I froze on the threshold, my head suddenly clear, as if someone had just thrown a bucket of icy water over me.
I knew before I walked into the room that something was very wrong. I never told the police that, of course, or anyone else for that matter. But as I stood in the doorway, the room somehow seemed unnaturally still. I strained my ears, but I could hear none of the gentle grunting sounds Amber usually made when she slept.
I can’t recall walking towards the cot. I can’t remember looking down at my baby, if she was face down, or if her face was purplish or pallid. I obliterated those seconds from my memory and left it to my imagination to fill in the blanks.
I remember collapsing to the floor. I remember someone screaming. I didn’t realise it was me until everyone else rushed into the room. Kneeling down next to me, Bella, Jenny and Callum all held me. The colour had drained from Callum’s face and I thought he might need support more than I did. Bella made him sit down. She was pale, too.
Clémentine lifted Amber out of the cot and thrust her into Michael’s arms. I wanted to call out and tell Clémentine to be gentle with my baby, but I said nothing. I knew it was useless. So I just watched as Clémentine put her mouth over Amber’s mouth and nose, and then pushed down on her little sternum with two fingers. Rob rang the ambulance from his mobile, although I heard someone – I think it was Michael – say that there was no point. Amber had been dead for too long.
April 2018
‘She wouldn’t tell me her name,’ Kelly says. I’m standing behind her, leaning on the back of her chair as I read the article over her shoulder. ‘I found her at Pero’s Bridge on Harbourside begging for small change.’ I’ve just read this sentence word for word on Kelly’s laptop screen.
I start to quote aloud, mainly to prevent Kelly from commenting while I’m trying to read. ‘“I was abused at home by my father. When I flunked my exams, I started taking drugs. I even stole money from my mother to pay for them. Long story short, my mother eventually threw me out. Can’t blame her, really. I was a mess. I thought I’d get away from it all by leaving home, but I’ve been sexually assaulted several times since I’ve been on the streets, too.”’
‘That’s terribly sad,’ I say, looking at the photo Kelly has taken of a woman in her early twenties. She’s wearing clothes that have seen better days, and her black hair is either tangled or in dreadlocks – I can’t tell which.
‘She’s around the same age as me,’ Kelly says.
Kelly has also interviewed a busker called Rose. ‘She was playing the violin in an underpass in The Bearpit,’ Kelly informs me, although, again, I’ve just read that bit for myself. ‘She’s very good. I recorded her. Do you want to hear it?’
‘Er, maybe later. I’ll just finish—’
‘She’s got a bed in a hostel at the moment rather than sleeping rough.’ In the photo, Kelly has captured Rose, bow poised above her instrument, concentration displayed on her face alongside numerous nose and ear piercings. Her drab clothes – khaki trousers, black vest, black fingerless gloves and grey beanie – contrast sharply with the colourful graffiti on the walls behind her.
‘So, what do you think?’ Kelly asks, when I look up from the screen.
‘It’s excellent,’ I say, sitting down in my chair and rolling it towards Kelly’s workstation so that I can still see her computer screen. ‘I like the fact you’ve done a piece on three women – the one we saw at Cabot Circus and these two. Their different stories and circumstances make it an interesting read.’ Kelly seems encouraged by these remarks. ‘It needs a few nips and tucks, though. But I can help if you like. First up, that headline has to go.’
Kelly