Hide and Seek (28 page)

And Ellie, Ellie does not need to get a job. Have I really, for the sake of a piano, been making her schlep around Kingston and London looking for work? Has she really been willing to do that? Who am I, that she would do that for me?

The train screeches into St Pancras. Will the Tube be quicker than a cab? Maybe, maybe not. But I cannot risk to be delayed, stuck underground, when I need to be on the surface, in the air, pushing quickly forward on my way to Leo. Because who knows? With every moment that passes, he may be growing weaker. Any moment might be the moment that he dies.

Chapter Fourteen

-Ellie–

I stare at Gillian and the pillow. But I don’t know what I am seeing. Am I seeing a woman who is just about to put a pillow over my son’s face? Or one who already has? Or just a woman holding a pillow?

Gillian looks up. “You remember what you swore, Ellie?”

Oh no. Oh no, I’m right. The pillow was meant for my son. For little Leo.

I rush towards the incubator, expecting to see Leo blue, or purple. Airless.

But no. There he is. Breathing. Alive, just. As he was before. Or is he looking a little frailer, since I saw him last? More troubled? The little hat on his head slightly out of place?

I look at Gillian. At the pillow. Am I imagining things? Am I tired from the birth? Or has she really been trying to… No. Surely not. Even for Gillian, that would be insane.

Gillian leans down to Leo, pillow behind her back. I want to push her away. But why? Some newfound mother instinct? She plants a gentle kiss on his forehead. Then she stands up again and starts rubbing the pillow, kneading it almost. Gently, at first, them more forcefully.

“I remember it too, Ellie,” says Gillian. Her voice is low, but powerful. “If you promise me something, to protect Will, and you breach that promise, you need to know I’ll call it in. Sometime.”

And before I can respond, she simply walks away.

Straight into Will.

Will is back. Daddy is home.

Gillian and Will stand facing each other. They don’t speak for a moment. Then Gillian places one hand on Will’s shoulder.

“Congratulations, Will,” she says. “You’re a father.”

Gillian’s hand is on Will’s shoulder still. I see him look at it. I wonder if he will brush it aside. Or whether he still has the hammer.

But there is no need for violence because Gillian removes her hand.

“I’ll leave you, for now, then,” she says. “But I’ll see you soon.”

Will nods his head. I want to tell him to stop. To tell him about what Gillian has nearly done. Or maybe nearly done. Or at least, what she refused to stop him from doing. “Perhaps,” Will says.

And Gillian walks from the room. Or almost does. When she gets to the door, she turns. She puts her fingers to her eyes and then to me and Leo. Like the gesture I made when we left the house, when we found out Will was adopted. When I heard what I heard. To show she’ll be watching us.

Will has his back to her, so he doesn’t see this display. I gesture to him to turn round. He does, but too late. Gillian is smart. She just gives a little wave, winks at me, then leaves.

Will turns back towards me.

“What?” he asks.

“She’s always going to be watching us,” I tell him.

He shrugs. “Maybe she can help us. Make up for the past.”

I shake my head. He doesn’t understand. “When I came in, before, she had a pillow over the incubator. I thought she was going to… Well, I thought maybe she would smother him.”

Will frowns at me.

“What! Why on earth would she do that?”

I don’t want to tell him that I swore on our son’s life. So instead I ask the big question. “I don’t know, Will. Why do people walk in off the street and try to murder someone?”

Will blinks and swallows. He looks offended. He doesn’t look like a man who kills people with hammers. Or tries to. He just looks like my Will. Pale, tired, maybe. But my Will. Old Will. And yet… He has done what he has done.

“I wasn’t well, Ellie. It was just, the grief, and the anger, and I was confused. And you know, you should hear, the blood, what it’s like, when it pumps in your ears.”

I clasp my arms across my chest. I can understand more, the less he explains. His reality is too other. Too much from an ill mind.

“But it’s gone,” he says. “I’m better now. It was just…a…I don’t know. An episode. But I’m better.”

So. He was just a bit fucked up, confused. Like I told Gillian. And I get it, in my heart. If I don’t think about it too much. He was going through a lot. He was in crisis. But he’s shocked himself out of it. And it’s over. He says.

“Can I see Leo?” Will asks.

I cannot keep a boy from his father. Even though the father will need close scrutiny. For a while, at least. Until we see if this was just an isolated incident. Two isolated incidents.

“Of course,” I say. I put out my hand. Will takes it, and kisses it. Then I lead him to the incubator.

Will leans over it, and stares down.

“Gillian was right,” he says, very gently. “I’m a father.”

I look into the incubator too. There he is, our son. He has even opened the other eye. A special treat, for Daddy. Will bends down and kisses him gently on his little hatted head. When Will pulls away, there is a little bead of moisture, like a tear, left on Leo’s face. I pretend not to notice. Instead, I enjoy a moment of standing united as parents. Whatever the future may bring, for now I have brought Will back. Engaged, interested, loving Will. I have kept – and I will keep, oh yes, I will – Leo alive. I imagine my SuperMum cape flapping out behind me, and Mum standing next to me, hers doing the same. Perhaps I would live up to her standard, after all. We don’t need Sophie now.

Will is staring into the incubator. There isn’t the doting look on his face I would expect. The look that I am sure has been on mine these past hours. No, it is the look that there was, those times, with the hammer. The fear look. The look that started it all.

I squeeze his arm. “It’s natural to be frightened,” I say.

“Is it?” He looks at me. “Of something so small?”

“Not frightened
of
him. Frightened
for
him. Frightened about being his father.”

Will nods.

“Unless there’s something, you know, genetic, that should frighten me? Do I need to defend myself, from this?”

I try to understand Will’s question. I think maybe he is getting at what he did to his father. To what he may have – and I pray to God he hasn’t – done to his mother. But it sounds like his question is: will I one day need to harm my son, if he tries to harm me?

I hope that isn’t his question. Because if it is, I will be ready with an answer. Will is not the only one round here who can wield a hammer. Leo’s life will never again be risked to Will’s.

But it probably wouldn’t do to tell him that. About the shifting loyalties. That the need to protect has layers. And that while I hate Gillian, I can understand her.

So instead, I just say: “You are defenceless now, Will. You are a father. Surrender to it.”

And he seems to understand. Because he gazes down into the incubator. The doting look is there now. In the shadow of a frown.

Chapter Fifteen

-Will-

Apparently I am not allowed to take home my own son unless I have a car seat. If someone had told me this, in the days we stood over Leo’s incubator, that I could have been doing something useful, I would have got one then. Or at least brought something here to put a car seat in. Maybe I was supposed to know all this stuff. Perhaps I would have learnt it at the antenatal classes I made Ellie cancel for the sake of the piano. But I didn’t. So at the moment we don’t even have a car at the hospital – it is back in Kingston. I head out of St Thomas’ intent on public transport back home, then in again, via some kind of baby car seat warehouse. I haven’t bought one yet, you see. I’ve been distracted.

The first thing I do when I get outside the hospital is check my phone. I’ve managed to hide the nervous tic from Sophie. But out here, I will check it all the time. I can already feel the OCD developing. It’s combined with a sort of tinnitus that makes me hear my phone ringing, even when it’s not. Because it may ring at any moment. With news. From Paris. About whether I’m a double murderer. Whether I killed both my parents. Or just the one. And even if I didn’t, whether Sophie is going to press charges, or whatever they do in France. Still nothing, though.

The second thing I do is almost walk straight into Gillian’s Audi. It’s sitting there, on the curb, engine running. How can it possibly still be here? It’s been days. I daren’t walk past the car. I’m not sure that I could control myself, now Ellie isn’t here – once a mother killer, always a mother killer, right? Or not. Not a killer, I hope. But there doesn’t seem to be a route round. Plus I see I have been spotted. A waving hand is protruding from a wound-down window. But it doesn’t look like Gillian’s hand. I take a step closer.

John. Relief seeps through me, and I feel my shoulders sink back to their natural level. Safe, reliable John. John, who tried to be the stable father that I never had, but who bought into Gillian’s desire for lies. But then the shoulders go up again. I haven’t had any contact with him since the night I found out I was adopted. We haven’t talked since I learnt the truth about Max. What I did to my other father. Does he even know that I know? How do we begin to have that conversation? I don’t know, but it’s probably one we need to have.

I lean down to the open window.

“I’d like to offer my congratulations, if I may,” says John. I have a moment of thinking ‘congratulations for what? Killing everyone?’ But no. Of course. Leo.

He puts his hand through the window. I shake it.

“Thank you,” I say. Then, “How did you know I’d be coming out?”

“Gillian phoned the hospital,” says John. “Found out Leo was ready to be discharged.”

So, Gillian sent him. I nod my head. After all, she would still want to be involved. But I remember what Ellie said. Ellie, who has proved always to be right. “Do you know what Ellie thought Gillian tried to do?” I ask John. “That she tried – ” But then I stop. Does he really need to know? Since when does everyone get immediate access to the truth in this family? If it is even the truth. Because Ellie can’t be sure. And shouldn’t I still keep some secrets from my ‘father’?

“She says she’ll always be there, to protect you,” John tells me.

What do I need protecting from? Sophie’s words still chill me. ‘Look how you turned out.’ And the talk of tantrums, before I knew what I’d done. A tantrum, that leads to…
that
. Are they hereditary? I shake my head. Leo is a little baby. A little fragile baby. I don’t need Gillian’s protection.

“I’ve got to go and get the car,” I tell John. “And a car seat.”

“Let me give you a lift,” says John.

I hesitate. I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him yet. And there’s also the risk that Gillian is hidden somewhere in the car, with her protective instincts in full swing. But there are some things it would be good to discuss.

So I take the risk. I climb into the car.

For the first few minutes we drive in silence. I consider talking about how Ellie is doing, about Leo. But I have other questions on my mind. Some of which, I suppose, concern Leo.

“Were you ever frightened of me, John?” I ask. “Because of Max?”

There’s a long silence.

“Gillian said you knew,” he says. He’s avoiding my question.

“Were you ever, you know, worried I might do something similar, to you?”

Again, the pause. You’d think John would have been planning answers to these questions for the last thirty years. Although I suppose he never expected me to find out. I use the silence to check my phone. You never know – I might have missed its ring over the noise of the engine. No. Still nothing.

“Gillian and I both loved Max,” he finally says. “And Sophie.”

I wasn’t expecting this. Is this a reproach? Am I being told off now, for killing Max? Is it anger and resentment that has kept him silent, distant, over the years, not adoptive zeal to give me a safe upbringing?

“I’m… sorry?” I say. And of course I am. But this is not what I expected from John. I expected unconditional love. Whether I’m entitled to it or not.

He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant. When you love people, you do things for them. Sophie needed not to be your mother any more. So we took you in. And that brings certain obligations.”

So. It was an act of charity, of generosity, to Sophie and Max. Not the desire for a child.

“And so,” I say, repeating my question, “were you ever frightened of me?”

Again, the silence.

“You had a lot of tantrums,” he said. “That wasn’t easy.”

“And I guess you didn’t let me help with the DIY!” I joke, lamely.

“No,” John says, no mirth in his voice. “No, I didn’t.”

I nod. “So these tantrums, how did you deal with them? You know, in case Leo has them.”

He flicks his eyes at me, away from the road for a moment. I wonder if he understands my point.

“I took you out of the house a lot. I figured that if you were going to have tantrums outside, it would be…” He trails off.

“Safer?” I ask.

“There would be more room for you to express yourself,” he finishes.

So. The trips – to Sainsbury’s, to the zoo, to galleries. They weren’t to keep me safe. They were to keep me and John out in the open. Where he felt I was less of a threat. The answer to my question is yes. He was frightened of me.

“Is that why Gillian removed the hammer from the toolkit? She was frightened I’d use it on you?”

John shrugs. “She was probably more worried about protecting you from making another mistake than protecting me,” he says. His words aren’t bitter, but they speak of a lifetime of coming second. I wonder how much of Gillian’s love John has had to give up for me.

“And I gave you attention when you needed it,” he continues, in his explanation of his parenting. “From what I knew of Max, I’m guessing maybe he didn’t.”

Yes, I understand that sort of attention. It’s the attention you give someone when you are frightened that if you don’t, they will kill you. A model father. Perhaps I should adopt that approach with Leo. Hey, son, here’s a big kiss on your forehead, just in case you decide to murder me in my sleep.