baby.
Nappies were the last thing on Anna’s list, so after picking up a large economy bag of the three-month size, she began to make her way back towards the checkout, but stopped as her eye was caught by a display of chocolate sauces. She stood for a moment or two, adding up once more in her head the prices of the goods already in her trolley and considering half-heartedly whether a squeeze or two of chocolate would cheer up the quarter slab of vanilla ice cream she thought might be left over in the small iced-up freezer compartment of her fridge. In an effort to remember she tried to picture the open fridge but, instead of ice cream, saw the bowl of half-eaten baby cereal she had put there that morning, and started guiltily as it reminded her of Harry. As she turned to move on she glanced over again at the pram by the door and, as she did so, felt a spasm of shock roll up her body in a wave that broke at her throat in a little gasp of fear. She tried to identify what had caused it, and as she stood for a split second still staring at the pram, immobilised by anxiety, suddenly knew. It had moved. Only the smallest amount, but to Anna’s eye the change in angle was unmistakable. Unsure why this filled her with such foreboding, and praying that it had simply been knocked a little by a passing shopper, she left the trolley and raced down the aisle, her brain at first refusing to make sense of what her subconscious saw more clearly every second.
The baby’s face had changed colour.
It was flatter, creased – frightening.
By the time she recognised the empty bottom of the pram for what it was, she was screaming.
Michael Evans’ progression up the insurance firm where he had worked since leaving university had been fast and impressive, and the acquisition of a beautiful, clever wife at the age of thirty-four – a wife (as Michael hated himself for admitting he was a little impressed by) a notch or so above him in the social scale – had fitted neatly into a relatively smooth, happy and uneventful life. His Englishness, his emotional restraint – at that time enough to make some doubt that feelings of any real strength lurked under the dignified, correct exterior – attracted Juliet by its appearance of calmness and solidity. A man of few words, her mother had called him, not altogether disparagingly, and Juliet had loved that in him. His habit of thinking long and hard before replying to even the simplest question, bowing his head and placing his hands together against his lips like a praying saint in a mediaeval triptych, had amused her, and the reply that would eventually emerge was invariably coloured by a kindness and consideration for the questioner that contrasted comfortingly with Juliet’s less serene and more dissatisfied outlook on life. At their first meeting at a party in Kensington they had quickly homed in on each other, her elegant beauty and apparent confidence thrown up in shimmering relief against the background of city suits, sensible ties and brightly coloured frilled cocktail dresses that could have gone straight on to enjoy a few dances at Annabel’s before being gently but purposefully unzipped to allow a good grope in the taxi on the way home. Juliet’s naturally blonde hair, bobbed into a swinging, shining pelmet, her white silk suit and expensive but understated jewellery spoke of subtler and ultimately more satisfying delights. She looked stunning but – at least in the immediate future – unzippable. Michael was entranced, and she in her turn was drawn to the oasis of peace and wry amusement that he had hollowed out for himself among the loud, over-confident voices around him. They found themselves spending the whole evening together. Several more had quickly followed, including a few outings to the cinema and to small Chelsea restaurants, until there had come a night when, after a visit to the London Coliseum to indulge Michael’s taste for the less demanding operas, hesitant, respectful sex had followed in his small flat in Fulham. It soon seemed easier, and somehow the right thing to do, that Juliet should move in. Marriage followed within the year, and their lives settled into a predictable, comfortable routine.
Michael was a clever, honest and hard-working businessman, and Juliet’s job in an upmarket firm of estate agents was well suited to her good taste and persuasive manner. She was a popular and successful member of the team, but as she and Michael had known from shortly after their first serious conversation that they both wanted children, she only gave it a limited proportion of her attention and effort. She was quite prepared for a time when she would have to set her career aside – at least until the little Evanses were happily ensconced in the obligatory boarding schools – to concentrate on the important tasks of running a good home, nurturing an admirable, high-earning, respectable husband and bringing up a brood of future useful Englishmen – or women.
When they first moved into the neat terraced house in Battersea a few months after their wedding they both mentally set aside a small light room on the top floor as a future nursery, assuming its occupant would arrive within a few years as easily and comfortably as everything else had so far done in their short, enjoyable courtship and marriage. As time went by and no hint appeared of impending offspring, a tiny little feathery sensation of fear began to flutter occasionally deep within Juliet. After some nine years of conventionally happy, sexually active if unexciting marriage, the flutter had become the beat of heavy wings – and Juliet began to admit to herself that something unspeakable was hovering on the edges of her well-planned, smoothly run adult life, threatening to throw it off balance with the strong gusts of unease it created.
Although she herself was becoming increasingly aware of this shadow lurking at the edges of her everyday life, it was the reactions of those around her that made it difficult to carry on as if no problem existed.
Her mother, in particular, made her feel horribly awkward about the lack of babies and, never the most tactful of women, was extraordinarily accurate in pinpointing the most humiliating moments to drop heavy hints about this shortcoming in her daughter’s achievements. Juliet had once made the fatal mistake of quietly admitting to her that she and Michael were disappointed not to have so far produced any children, and she had regretted it ever since, sensing that – behind the show of sympathy and understanding – it had given her mother another little weapon to use against her.
‘Well, after all it’s not as if I had any grandchildren to leave it to when it comes to mine,’ Mrs Palmer volunteered in the middle of a discussion about wills at one of her dinner parties. As the average age of her guests, apart from Michael and Juliet, was as usual somewhere in the seventies, this jolly subject was fairly typical of those raised around the Palmer table.
‘Everyone should make one, of course,’ added Michael, carefully ignoring the reference to his lack of contribution to the family dynasty. ‘It’s surprising how many people don’t bother, and then leave their spouses with the most complicated situa—’
‘Yes, but I don’t have a spouse, you see. My daughter is all I’ve got,’ ploughed on Mrs Palmer, turning to smile sweetly at Juliet as she underlined her point with the subtlety for which she was famous, ‘all I’ve got. Apart from you, Michael dear, of course. It’s not as if there were any young ones to benefit from my savings. I’d always thought there might be schooling and so on to help with, of course. Even my dear dog isn’t with me any more.’
Michael and Juliet had adopted the Palmers’ black labrador three years previously. Mr Palmer’s death had meant a move for his widow from the large house in Hertfordshire to a London service flat, and to keep the family pet would have been impossible. Juliet, hating the idea of giving her away, had begged Michael to let the dog live with them, and in spite of it necessitating complicated arrangements for having her collected by a friend each day while they were at work, he had agreed. But Mrs Palmer saw the transferring of Lucy as entirely to their benefit, and had never once expressed any thanks for their having taken over the responsibility. At the time, Michael and Juliet had put it down to the recent bereavement, but as the years went by and Mrs Palmer still complained self-pityingly about the old dog’s. absence, Juliet found it increasingly irritating.
Her relationship with her mother was an extraordinary mixture of closeness and utter separateness, and it sometimes appeared to her that Mrs Palmer deliberately chose to hurt her in order to re-establish some kind of power over her. Juliet became adept at brushing aside the references to missing grandchildren, not only because she found them disturbing, but also because treating them with any seriousness made the awful possibility of a genuine problem more real.
But the afternoon she caught Michael looking longingly