As if in slow motion she and Henry turned at the same time and looked out through the kitchen door again. Out to the fountain bowl, with its sloppy black plastic covering.
“Who put that there?” Esme asked as she floated toward the door. Her wet feet slid on the slippery tiles as she scrabbled toward the fountain, falling over on her knees just short of her little bit of Venolat. Clawing blindly at the overhanging polyethylene she pulled it away and dragged herself up to the lip of the fountain.
Teddy’s chubby, toddler body lay there, face down, his arms outstretched, his ginger curls indelibly brilliant against the murky darkness of the bowl. Did she scream or not? Certainly her mouth was stretched open in a dark raw hole as she frantically clawed at the icy water, reaching for him, turning him over, but she knew by his touch that she was too late. She pulled him from the water then sank back onto the ground, clutching his limp, sodden, freezing-cold little body to her chest, her mouth stuck in a frozen howl, her eyes staring into a future she did not want to contemplate.
The rain fell on the two of them, plastering her hair to her head and darkening it to the exact shade of her son’s, brilliant still against the blackness of everything else.
Esme’s eyes focused briefly on the sight of Rory, in the open kitchen door, struggling to get out of his grandfather’s arms and screaming at the sight of his twin, his eyes burning a hole in his mother that would never, ever be filled.
The bright yellow vest of an ambulanceman pushed past Henry and his grandson and was at Esme’s side in a flash. He took Teddy’s body from her—forced her to give it up—and then placed him gently on the soaking tiles, rain pinging off them as he tipped back his head, held his nose and blew into his twenty-six-month-old lungs.
It was into this tortured scene that Pog, having canceled his meeting after clearing his phone of similar messages from Henry, walked.
Esme looked over the body of the hopeful ambulanceman breathing into her lifeless son and met the eyes of her husband. He was wearing a red anorak that was blurred and out of focus, but not so the look on his face. She saw that perfectly clearly and what she felt then she knew she could never feel again. Like Rory before him, Pog emptied Esme with his pain. The world stood still. She wanted it to end.
And, in a way, it did.
A sleepy numbness started at Esme’s toes and crept slyly up her body as her brain registered what the rest of her could not: that Teddy was gone. The numbness crawled cleverly in and out all of the pockets of her mind, clutching her in its dark embrace, squeezing her heart so subtly that it could keep on beating but would never feel the same way about anything ever again.
Chapter 16
Esme walked into Rockwell cocktail bar on Trafalgar Square to find her friend sucking already on a watermelon and basil daiquiri. “You look bloody gorgeous!” squawked Alice. “Whatever you’re having,” she said, clunking her drink down on the table, “I want some, too.”
Esme hid her blush by rummaging in her bag, taking off her coat and getting settled on the chaise next to Alice. The truth was, she felt different.
Being with Louis, talking to Louis, had changed her. She had left him, reluctantly, in Marylebone High Street after sharing the kiss she had dreamed of all these long Louis-less years. Her heart, so scrubbed raw by relieving herself of the buried memories of losing Teddy, her beautiful baby Teddy, had swelled up with hope and desire as Louis had reached for her at the bottom of the stairs and pulled her into him.
“My poor Esme,” he had said, kissing her ear, her eyebrow, her cheek, the remains of her tears. “My poor Esme.” And it had been such a small movement, tilting her head back and making her lips available. She had had no doubt he would accept her offer of them. It was all unfolding so naturally in front of them. It felt like Louis was sloughing off the heavy, rotten layers that had built up over the past two years and the old fresh, shiny, brilliant Esme was emerging from underneath. She had groaned beneath the weight of his kiss, felt those hip bones once more against hers, tasted the salty sweetness of his mouth, felt his hand cupping her breast, thanked God her La Perla had stood the test of time.
Louis had drawn back, his eyes dark and wet, his lips glistening.
“I must go,” he said. “But I feel wrong to leave you like this.”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine.” And it was true, she was. She truly was. She felt light with the relief of unburdening the terrible tale of her darling Teddy, of saying his name, of picturing his face, alive and happy, of remembering the curve of his tiny fingernails, his throaty chuckle. These details that she had been incapable of sharing with her husband, her friends, even her grandmother, had come tumbling out of her like Grand Prix champagne as she stared into the deep, dark eyes of Louis Lapoine. She had poured out memories of her lost boy, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, but never choked or gridlocked. She felt drunk and weightless and liberated by the delight of being able to repeat his name, Ted, Teddy, Teddikins, without the air being sucked from her lungs and a fog clouding her head. Louis had done that. Louis had set her free.
“I do not know what it has been like for you since Teddy—” Louis had dropped his gaze yet Esme felt nothing but warmth now at the sound of that name. “You are a brave and remarkable woman, Esme.”
“I’m nothing of the sort,” Esme murmured, but she basked in his praise nonetheless. She felt more tied to him now than ever, but he was behind schedule and she had to meet Alice.
Alice. How was she going to keep Louis to herself? she wondered as she messed about, putting off the moment when she had to look her best friend in the eyes. How could she not spill the beans to her best friend, the one from whom she had never before held anything? How would Alice not notice that everything about her was different now?
“So,” Alice prompted, interrupting her thoughts, “are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?”
Esme was momentarily confused.
“Is it something that comes in a bottle or is it something Pog does to you before slipping on his Y-fronts and going to get your breakfast cuppa?” Alice persisted.
Confusion turned to understanding and at the mention of Pog slithered away to become shame and remorse. Of course, she could not tell Alice about Louis. What was she thinking? She might feel shiny and new but she was sailing in murky waters.
“I’ve changed my moisturizer,” she said brightly, caressing her cheeks dramatically and scaring herself with the smoothness at which the lie plopped out. “Some natural thingie with no greeblies in it from Neal’s Yard.”
“Stick with it, sweetheart,” Alice said, handing over the cocktail menu. “You look positively glowing.” Another obvious possibility occurred to her. “Hey, you’re not—”
Esme shook her head, thinking her friend couldn’t be more wrong if she tried. She looked away from Alice knowing that she would take this as a sign that no matter how much time had passed, she still did not want to discuss the subject of pregnancy. After Teddy died, people couldn’t be quick enough to suggest she conceive another baby to replace him. As if that were possible. As if she could stand to think about not having him, let alone replacing him. A wave of unadulterated grief cut through her euphoria.
Alice put down her drink and reached over to squeeze Esme’s hand. “I’m sorry, darling,” she said, and the sympathy in her voice made Esme feel sick with duplicity. How could she have just shared the contents of her heart, of her unmentionable loss with Louis, whom after all she hardly even knew, when she could not, had never been able to, with Alice, her soul sister? The subject of Teddy had been out of bounds since his funeral, a day so bleak and painful and raw she still could not conjure up its memory. Esme had been unable to speak her lost son’s name to anybody, even Pog, even Granny Mac, for goodness’ sake, until today. Until Louis and his big black searching eyes and strong brown breadmakers’ fingers.
Something in their shared history had made her able to unburden the awful details of Teddy’s loss i
n a way that she had found inconceivable up till now, and the truth was, the frightening, horrible truth was, that she felt on top of the world. Yes, it hurt. It hurt so deeply it was like burning in hell. And it would probably always hurt like that but at least now she could feel it. She could really, truly feel it. She had been numb for so long but now there was pain, and with it, pleasure.
Louis had unleashed—yet again—something in her that nobody else had been able to tap, and Esme felt so light with happiness and relief and horror and fear that she could barely even think about the fact she had agreed to meet him again the following week. At his hotel.
Despite the fireworks exploding in her head, she managed to trade the usual gossip and girl talk with Alice as they put away another cocktail.
Louis made her feel, she realized as Alice burbled about a failed singles’ dance, like the Esme she really was: the Esme he had discovered back in that salty little bakery so many years before. That’s why she could talk to him about Teddy. Because she was nothing to him apart from that collection of skin and flesh and juice that had so enraptured him despite the complication of his marriage. She was not his wife or his daughter-in-law or his granddaughter or his mother. She could not upset him or blame him or hurt him or herself by digging up the events of that terrible day in his presence. She did not have to be the person that terrible day had turned her into. She was Esme, plain and simple. So, in real life she had molded herself into another shape and added preservatives—she’d had to—but to Louis she was still Esme, plain and simple as sourdough.
“You are a million miles away today, missus.” Alice interrupted her thoughts. “That moisturizer certainly has sunk in. What’s the name of it again?”
“Do you know, I can’t remember,” Esme lied, again easily. “I’ll ring you when I get home. Speaking of which.” She gathered up her bag and her coat. “Do come and visit soon will you, Ali?” The thought of being home, in the House in the Clouds, suddenly scared her. Everything seemed different now.
“You know I’m allergic to the country,” said Alice, standing up to leave as well. “I need dirt and grime and rude people and men with not the right amount of testicles and appalling breath and vulgar tattoos or I just fall apart.”
Esme must have looked dismayed, although she had hardly even been listening to her friend, because Alice leaned in to kiss her good-bye.
“All right, all right,” she said. “I’ll come but you had better set me up with that gorgeous hunk next door or I’ll break out in a rash.”
“Jam-jar?” Esme marveled, repelled. “You are deeply disturbed,” she told her best friend as they parted.
In the train on the way home she replayed Louis’s kiss a thousand times in her mind, clawing at the memory of the way his lips felt on hers, of the way his hands felt on her ribs, his thumbs below the underwire of her bra. But her buzz of delight kept giving way to waves of dread and remorse. She thought of Pog and how much she loved him. But then she thought of Louis and the way he made her feel and there was so little comparison between the two that it frightened her. Then she thought of the photo albums she had been unable to look at since Teddy’s death. They had disappeared after his funeral from the second-floor living room, but with a hot flush Esme knew instantly where they were. She thought of Pog’s guilty face when she first infiltrated his shed, of the stack of redundant paperwork camouflaging the folders. Suddenly she could not get home quickly enough. She wanted to see those two little redheads lying on her breast at the hospital, peeing on their sheepskin rugs, sitting in their blow-up paddling pool, walking with Granny Mac before the stroke rendered her bedridden. A lump rose in her throat at the picture of a healthy Granny Mac, and Esme shook her head. What a day it had been. She was not ready for anything more.
The next couple of days passed in a whir of such domestic chaos that Esme barely had a chance to think about what had happened in London. Even when she wasn’t wrangling recalcitrant animals or cooking or cleaning, her head did not know whether to be full of her stolen kiss with Louis or of her mental home movies of Teddy, so long forbidden that now, when she let them, they played over and over and over again.
Deep down though, beneath the rubber gloves and cleaning fluids and flour, she felt a little burr of happiness that permeated everything. Pog sensed this immediately and put it down to going to London and meeting with Alice.
“You should do that more, you know,” he said the next night in bed in the few minutes he was still conscious before exhaustion claimed him.
“Do what?” Esme asked, wondering if it was shame she felt, or something else.
“Go for girlie drinks with Alice,” he said. “It’s done you the world of good.”
Esme was awake long after Pog had drifted off. Her hum of happiness waned and left guilt in its wake. She wondered how long it would be before she could say Teddy’s name to his father, this warm and precious man who slept such a deep, sound sleep beside her. She tried to imagine bringing it up, after everything they had been through, but could not see a way. Her heart pounded with love as his snuffles echoed around the room, then it ached, then it pounded again. She would not go to London and see Louis, she decided, as she tossed and turned. He had given her a precious gift that she was coming to see would clear the way to a real life, a real future, with her family here in the House in the Clouds. But she could not give him anything in return. One kiss would have to do. But by the time she got up to make her bread, she had changed her mind again, and again, and again, until she could not remember if she was going to see him or not and was so tired that she didn’t consider it would matter either way.
On Sunday Esme walked to the shop and got the paper herself. She didn’t even bother pretending that she wasn’t going to.
“Another gorgeous photo of the silly cow,” she said, settling herself on the end of Granny Mac’s bed, coughing at the ghosts of a thousand cigarettes. “The liposuction pipes of Harley Street will be well clogged this month, I’ll be bound.”
“Never mind you with your petty resentments,” Granny Mac said. “Tell me how little Cosmo is getting on with his nuclear physics lessons.”
“‘What a whirlwind!’” Esme started. “I can’t believe the Sunday Times allows so many exclamation marks. There should be a law.”
“Get on with it,” grumbled Granny Mac.
“‘My Manolos have barely had a chance to touch the ground and my diary is positively bulging with invitations. Please!’ Exclamation mark. ‘Enough!’ Exclamation mark. Do you see what I mean? It’s like there is no other punctuation in the universe.”
“For God’s sake!”
“‘The week started not terribly auspiciously,’” read Esme, “‘with the opening of Grayson McFadgeon’s much heralded art exhibition in some dreary, drafty loftesque space in Pimlico “borders.” I am astounded at what these smelly little ingenues get away with these days. I mean, I am sorry, but who is it that decided that three toenail clippings on a piece of wholemeal toast is art? It’s not good enough to look at, let alone eat. And if we could all charge two thousand pounds for a bottle full of our own saliva, I’m sure we all would. And it would probably taste better than Grayson McFadgeon’s, too, although might not have the alcohol content. By the look of him he’s not spending any of his easily earned cash on a square meal (or a deodorant, for that matter) but you should see the spotty little wretch put away the cabernet/merlot blend. I suggest he leaves the likes of Ear Wax on a Tampon well and truly behind him and concentrates on performance art instead. By the end of the evening his white shirt (no natural fibers there!) looked like something Jackson Pollock would be proud of.’”
“What?” Granny Mac interrupted. “No exclamation marks?”
“Oh, actually there was one,” Esme said, “after the natural fibers bit.”
“You sound put out, Esme,” Granny Mac said casually. “I believe you and Jemima have similar opinions on the matter of modern art, do you not?”
“Well, I wouldn’t
say similar,” Esme said. “Shall I continue?
“‘It was my great pleasure to be invited to the wedding of disgraced supermodel Evangeline Lithgow and her latest catch, Lord Lachlan Highfield, to be held in his family castle near Oxford this weekend. Evangeline has had such a difficult time since giving birth to her daughter, also Evangeline—the poor woman must have racked her tiny brain for weeks coming up with that name. Anyway, it was obviously as much of a shock to Evangeline as it was to her former fiancé, something-or-other heir Geordie White, when Young Evangeline emerged from her mother’s slender hips bearing an unmistakable resemblance to a certain premier league midfielder of a shall we say decidedly dusky persuasion. Geordie with his snowy blond hair and dull blue eyes only took a week or two to figure that one out and, naturally, headed for the hills. And it was but weeks before Old Evangeline was seen teetering around town on the arm of Lord Lachie, a confirmed bachelor, in every sense of the word I would have thought, of many years’ standing. Of course, like most people invited to the nuptial festivities, I did not exactly rush down to Versace and pick out a little something strappy. So while it was a great pleasure to be invited, it was no great surprise to get a phone call from a Highfield minion on Monday to say the wedding had been canceled due to, reading between the lines, lack of interest. Oh, the shame!’”
“Exclamation mark?” guessed Granny Mac.
“Exclamation mark,” Esme confirmed.
“‘As for the mobile phone launch at the Serpentine, I am sorry, but Princess Ferguson simply does not cut the mustard these days. And if you say you are going to serve Moët et Chandon, for God’s sake, serve it. If it comes in a thimble it just does not count.’
“I bet there was an exclamation mark there but the sub-editors took it out,” Esme said meanly, but only to deflect Granny Mac from pointing out that she had often whined herself that there was nothing worse than schlepping across town in rush hour traffic only to find your hosts had employed a mean-spirited drinks pourer.