The Stranger on the Train (15 page)

Emma yearned to have someone to share Ritchie with. Someone she could turn to and say:
Oh, look, did you see what he just did?
She had tried so hard to get over the breakup and move on, but with Ritchie there it was impossible; she was looking right at Oliver every day. In the end, the need to talk to him grew too strong to ignore.

It took a while for her to work up the nerve to call him. The first few times she tried, she got as far as dialing the first few digits of his number before hanging up again. The fifth time she did this, she banged the receiver down and ordered herself to get a grip.

“This is your son's father,” she said sternly to herself.

To settle her nerves, she got up and walked around the flat a few times. She pulled the curtains closed over the balcony doors, checked on Ritchie in his pram, wiped a smear off the glass table with a cloth. She even went to the bathroom to brush her hair. Her hair was well past her shoulders now; it was quite a while since she'd been to a hairdresser's. It was a bit thin to have this long. Straggly, she thought. Most days, she tied it back.

When she felt ready, she sat back down at the table and dialed again. The entire number this time. Heart thudding, she put the phone to her ear. Then she heard a woman's voice: “The customer you are calling is out of range.”

Over the next few days, Emma tried Oliver's number many more times, but each time she got the same out-of-range message. Now that she'd made up her mind to call him, the delay in reaching him was frustrating. Had he changed his number? Was he on holiday somewhere?

In the end, she decided to call his sister instead. She'd never spoken to Sasha before, but she had her phone number. Early on in their relationship, she'd copied it from the notice board in Oliver's kitchen, assuming a time would come one day when they'd all be friends and call each other all the time.

Making the call to Sasha meant having to work up her nerve all over again. It wasn't easy, contacting a complete stranger out of the blue. Although, as Emma reminded herself, Sasha was Ritchie's aunt! Still, though, a stranger.

To ensure some peace and quiet for the conversation, she chose an evening when Ritchie was in good form. She fed him before his bedtime, adding an extra couple of ounces to the bottle to make sure he wouldn't want more again in an hour. He was going through a hungry phase. Ritchie was delighted with the bonus; he sucked on the bottle until his eyes crossed with pleasure and his tummy grew tight and round. Emma patted it with satisfaction. No way would that go down for a while. She got him settled in his cot and pulled the bedroom door so it was just an inch or two open. Then she turned the TV right down, took her diary and the phone to the couch and dialed Sasha's number.

Brrr. Brrr.
Somewhere in Birmingham, on a table in a hall, maybe, or in a kitchen, a phone was ringing. Emma cleared her throat. She wondered what Sasha would sound like.

The phone clicked. A woman said: “Hello?”

Emma asked: “Is this Sasha?”

“Yes, it is.” A brisk, no-nonsense tone. The
t
in “it” was sharply pronounced.

Emma swallowed. She said: “My name is Emma Turner.”

She waited, but there was no sign of recognition.

She said: “Oliver, your brother, may have mentioned me?”

“I'm sorry,” Sasha said, “but what did you say your name was?”

“Emma. Emma Turner. I used to . . . I used go out with Oliver. A little while ago.”

“Oh. I see.”

Sasha didn't sound all that interested, or friendly. Emma's heart sank but she plowed on.

“I've been trying to reach him,” she said, “but his phone doesn't seem to be working.”

“I see,” Sasha said again. “Well, he's not in the country at the moment. He's gone to Indonesia with his girlfriend.”

So. Oliver was still with Sharmila, and they were traveling together. Emma kept her voice light.

“Do you know when they'll be back?”

“I've no idea,” Sasha said. “You know Oliver. He doesn't really tell people his plans. But I believe he's taken some time out from work, so they could be gone for a while.”

After a pause, she said: “Did you want to leave him a message?”

Emma had been trying to decide whether to tell Sasha why she was phoning. She took a breath.

“Yes,” she said. “I did. I mean, I do. The last time I spoke to Oliver . . . the last time I met him . . . I was pregnant.”

Sasha said nothing.

“I don't know if he told you,” Emma said. “But anyway, what I was phoning to tell him was that I . . .” She had to stop to swallow again, but continued: “I was phoning to tell him . . . I had it.”

Still Sasha didn't respond.

“I had the baby, and it's a boy.” Emma sat up straight. From the bedroom, the faint sound of snuffly breathing.

Still nothing from the phone, though.

“Hello?” Emma took the receiver away from her ear. “Hello?”

“I can hear you,” Sasha said from a distance. Emma put the phone back to her ear.

“I heard what you said,” Sasha repeated. “I'm still here.”

“It must be a shock, I know.”

“No, well, of course. I was just going to say. How wonderful for you.” Sasha added politely: “If it's what you wanted.”

“Oliver didn't tell you.” Emma fiddled with the cover of her diary.

“No,” Sasha said. “I'm sorry.”

The diary cover tore. A piece of it came off in Emma's hand.

“All right,” she said. “All right. Well, now you can see why I need to talk to him.”

“Of course I can,” Sasha said. “And if I do hear from him, I'll tell him you called.”

Despite her politeness, she seemed to be signaling the end of the conversation. Emma searched hard for some way to continue, to get a rapport going between them, but she couldn't think of anything, and Sasha didn't seem the slightest bit inclined to help her. After her initial surprise, that seemed to be the sum total of her interest in her new nephew. She didn't ask Emma one single thing about the baby. What he looked like, whether he was healthy. Nothing. How reserved she sounded, Emma thought, somewhat shaken, finally putting the phone down after a much shorter conversation than she'd expected. Much more like Oliver than the sparky girl Emma had imagined.

She waited and waited to hear from Oliver, but there was nothing. Maybe Sasha hadn't told him yet. Surely if he knew he had a son he would contact Emma, even if only out of curiosity? It was true that he hadn't wanted Ritchie. She couldn't forget that look of revulsion on his face when she'd stood there in his kitchen and told him she was pregnant. But Ritchie was here now. Emma imagined Oliver getting straight onto a ship or plane when he heard, the news making him realize at last what had been missing from his life. How could all these feelings, still there after so long, be coming only from her side? She missed him so desperately, especially at night; missed having his hand or foot to touch in the dark hours and feel the reassuring connection of another living being.

It was strange, though. When she pictured them together, it was always just the two of them, walking in the sun by the river. Oliver had never been to this drab cardboard flat, with a baby who cried to be fed. He had never stumped about searching for a clean shirt in the mornings, trying to get ready for work after another bawling, sleepless night. He didn't change nappies that smelled like rotting seaweed. Oliver had not watched Emma retch and vomit during childbirth. He had not seen her ruined stomach and stretched, crinkled skin. Emma couldn't imagine him doing any of those things, and she didn't want him to. She wanted to keep him as he was, and for him to remember her as she'd been. The girl who'd had so much potential; the freedom to be anyone and do anything. When the world was still hers, and she had made no decisions yet which could not be unmade.

After thinking it over for a while, she didn't put Oliver's name on the birth cert. Let the Child Support Agency come after her, or him, for the money. But she wouldn't be the one to force him to be a father if he didn't want to be.

“Looks like it's going to be just you and me, buddy,” she told Ritchie with a heavy heart.

Ritchie studied her gravely from his orange bouncy chair, his bald head making him look like an elderly professor thinking of writing her up for a conference. Young babies were like that, Emma had often thought. Wise. They couldn't move around by themselves so they had to sit where they were put and had nothing to do but observe. What did Ritchie think of her? she wondered. What sort of opinions went through his head when he gazed at her like that? She wanted him to think well of her, but was afraid he could see her for what she really was.

Impoverished single mother. Alone in the world.

Loser.

• • •

Money was tight. Ritchie seemed to grow out of his clothes every week, not to mention the mountain of bottles and nappies he got through every day. By the time Emma had finished buying things for him, there was very little left over for anything else. Even a latte in Starbucks, an old favorite treat, was almost the price of a new set of vests.

To get them out of the flat, she took instead to bringing them both on long walks. It was hard work sometimes, pushing the heavy buggy over curbs and across busy roads, but the exercise made her feel better afterwards. She set out most days determined to explore her new neighborhood, which she hadn't really got to know yet. Fulham was similar in many ways to Clapham. The people on the streets were a mixture of students, families and young professionals, dressed in the colored shirts and dark, trendy suits that Oliver's City workmates wore.

On the North End Road, Emma discovered a whole street full of market stalls selling cheap household goods, fruit and vegetables; even clothes. The stalls smelled of fresh fish and apples. The stall owners all seemed to know each other. They gathered in twos and threes to chat, keeping an eye on their own produce, dressed for the outdoors in thick jackets and woolen hats and gloves. Some of the women wore saris under their coats. At one stall, Emma found a bright red all-in-one snowsuit for Ritchie for only £2.99. That would do him nicely for the winter.

Though scruffy in parts, the area seemed a friendly enough community. Groups of mothers strolled together and chatted. Children ran ahead, shouting. Some of the families lived in blocks of flats, like Emma's. Others lived on the roads she came to think of as being characteristic of Fulham, with their rows of terraced houses, mainly gray or pale brown brick, with bay windows and pretty, pointed roofs. The nicest streets were the ones off Fulham Palace Road, near the river, or those around Fulham Broadway tube station.

But the really gorgeous houses, the jaw-droppingly beautiful ones, were the ones she saw when she walked along the Fulham Road towards Chelsea. Here, hidden away down quiet side streets, were some of the most magnificent houses Emma had ever seen, more impressive than even the poshest ones she'd seen in Bath. Glowing redbrick buildings, four or five storeys high, with huge windows; or spotless white mansions, with gleaming black railings, and steps up to pillars and polished doors. Emma stared up at them, wondering what sort of people lived there. She rarely saw anyone. The streets here were so hushed and quiet compared to the cheerful hubbub of Fulham. Once or twice she saw a child walking along with its nanny—or at least, she guessed it was a nanny when the child spoke with a London accent and the woman a foreign one. The school uniforms were bizarre. Some of the children wore quaint 1940s-style outfits: rust-colored shorts, and brown, sleeveless, V-neck jumpers, like posh versions of the Famous Five. Others flitted about in swingy coats and woolen hats with long bits pointing down the back: woodland elves or pixies in an Enid Blyton story. All very different from the navy skirts and sensible, shapeless, machine-washable anoraks Emma herself had worn to school.

“Well, what did you think?” she asked Ritchie as she turned him around to head for home. “Would you like a pair of those shorts?”

Ritchie looked bored. He sat scooched down as far as the straps would allow, both feet planted on the step of the buggy. He looked like the bad boy at the back of the class.

“What am I saying?” Emma sighed. “You'd bully those kids, I suppose.”

• • •

Ritchie's teeth came through, turning his cheeks hot and red. When he was cranky, the movement of the buggy soothed him better than anything else. On those days, Emma packed a bottle and a spare nappy for Ritchie, and some water for herself in the netting under the pushchair, and set off for an extra long walk along the river. She liked Chiswick Mall, with its brooding gray mansions overlooking the water, and cobbled streets and old lampposts, like something from a Charles Dickens novel. But the nicest walk was south of the river, heading west towards Barnes. Emma had been amazed when she'd discovered it. It was like having the countryside right in the middle of London. There were fields and fences, and people actually on horses, riding ahead of them through the trees. The track was muddy sometimes, and difficult to steer the buggy through, but it was worth it. The walk tired her out, took away some of the constant, gnawing worry inside. Ritchie leaned back, chewing his teething ring, watching everything in a hypnotized way with his eyes half closed. Now and then he made a lunge to grab at something: a horse clopping past, or a seagull perched on a wall.

Coming home again, there was Hammersmith Bridge, Emma's favorite of all the Thames bridges. When she'd first moved to the city, she'd thought that Hammersmith Bridge was in some way connected to Harrods, because of the green and gold being the same as the Harrods bags. It was worth navigating the gloomy underpass and life-threatening traffic around Hammersmith Broadway just to come down and glimpse the magnificent pointy turrets and lampposts against the yellow sky. In the evenings, from this angle, the sun set almost directly behind the bridge. Across the river, Castelnau village, with its old-fashioned shops and restaurants and swans gliding past on the Thames, was another homely slice of the countryside right in the middle of London.