Page 72 of Days You Were Mine

‘A letter is a good idea. There’s so much to explain.’

‘Are you my mother, Alice? Or is that a lie too?’

‘Of course I am!’

‘I don’t understand why you would lie to me about Rick.’

‘Because your real father had gone by the time you were born and Rick stepped in and cared for you and loved you as if you were his. He was like your father.’

‘So he left you? My dad? Your lover?’

‘He did. And I never got over it.’

‘Who was he, Alice?’

‘I’ll write you a letter, Luke. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. I’ll do it tonight.’

‘Thank you. I’m sorry for shouting. I only want …’ I hesitate, unsure of how to continue.

Alice says, ‘Go on.’

‘I want things between us to improve.’

She nods, but I see that again she is on the edge of tears.

‘I hope that your knowing the truth is the right thing, then.’

‘Let’s start again. Can we do that?’

I remember now I’ve said it where this phrase comes from:my other mother, Christina, the words she always used when we’d had a fight: ‘Shall we start again?’

And perhaps Alice recognises its childish connotations too, for she laughs and holds out her hand for me to shake.

‘I’m on for that,’ she says.

We smile at each other, and there’s a glimmer of understanding; you might call it progress.

‘I should probably get back to the office.’

And that might have been it, the most constructive, bonding talk we’ve had for weeks. The promise that at last I’m going to find out the truth.

I stand up and peer over the top of Samuel’s bouncy chair at my sleeping son. And, in that moment, everything slides, my world pivots and this momentary warmth between us is replaced with the bone-freezing suspicion of old. For Samuel is dressed not in the Gap T-shirt and combat trousers we favour, nor even in one of his sleepsuits, but in old-fashioned orange and yellow striped dungarees that seem too small for him. Clothes that are old, dated, hand-made. Clothes that belong to another time, another era. Another baby.

‘His clothes,’ I say, and I find that Alice is watching me intently.

‘Just for the drawing,’ she says, but I know with a gut punch of instinct that this is not the truth.

She is dressing up my baby like her baby. This little chat we’ve just had means nothing. All she wants is for Samuel to be me, to be hers. Alice wants her baby back.

Then

Alice

Had my father been watching the flat, waiting for Jake to leave, witness to our long-drawn-out goodbye on the doorstep as he headed off for the European tour? Did he see the way he crouched down to kiss my eight-months-pregnant belly – ‘Goodbye, baby, be good, don’t come out before I’m back’ – or our final kiss, which lasted longer than any I can ever remember?

The prospect of being apart is unbearable to both of us. Jake because he is obsessed with every aspect of this, my third trimester of pregnancy, the final countdown until our baby is born. Me because despite his efforts to hide it, I sense a creeping darkness in him, silences that last too long, a listlessness that is entirely out of character. Apart from the gig at St Moritz, he’s managed to stay away from alcohol. But I can’t help worrying about the damage he could do to himself without me to keep him stable.

After he’s gone, I walk around our flat picking up things thatbelong to him. The half-finished book by his side of the bed –Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, Hunter S. Thompson’s vitriolic coverage of Nixon’s second win. Jake, Eddie, Tom, Rick and me – in fact everyone I know – are violently opposed to Nixon, to the continuation of the Vietnam War, its senseless wasting of life. Jake’s black army boots, discarded at right angles to one another, still seem to contain his essence. I’m staring at them, wondering if I should sketch them, when the doorbell rings. It takes a moment for me to register it. Another pressing of the bell, longer, more insistent.

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