The Way Out (10 page)

‘Human testing is just the last hoop they've got to jump through before they can license stuff. They've already blinded a whole shedload of bunnies before they get to me, if that makes you feel any better.'

She flops onto the unmade bed and tugs him down to lie beside her. And he buckles, just like that, down onto rumpled sheets, breathes in the familiar scent of her skin, now overlaid with unseasonal coconut oil.

‘You worry too much. All that happens is they stencil some gunk on me and point a sun lamp at it for a couple of hours while I lie there reading a book. Then they give me money. Anyway, I think it looks cool. You should salute me, Private.'

‘You look like a paint swatch.'

Ari giggles. ‘Let's name them. Come on. We'll take turns. I'll go first.'

She presses one fingertip precisely on a pale yellowish rectangle in the hollow below her collarbone.

‘
Morning Light
. This is the first morning we woke up
together. Remember? That first night you stayed over and when we woke it was already past ten and we laughed because neither of us normally slept that late or that well. We said we'd have to start sleeping together all the time, purely for health reasons. Your turn.'

He chooses a darker rectangle from the row below and brushes it lightly, surprised to find her skin cool to the touch.

‘
Toasted Almond
. This one is the colour of the cake I made for your birthday. You said it tasted of cat piss, in a nice way, as if there's a nice way for cake to taste like cat piss. But we ate it all anyway. Every last crumb. Now you.'

‘
Champagne
. This is the colour of champagne stains on Egyptian cotton sheets. That bottle we liberated from your pal's wedding reception and drank in bed back at the hotel. It wasn't real champagne, but we pretended we were decadent aristos and poured it into each other's belly buttons. Woke up all sticky. You.'

He is moving along the spectrum of pinks and browns towards the redder hues, testing their temperature with a fingertip as he goes. They are getting warmer.

‘
Peach Blush
. This is the colour of…' He can't do this. ‘This is the colour… No, I'm not… I can't. Sorry.' He can't concentrate. He hears his wife calling from ten years into what is now his future, latches on to the sound of her voice and drags himself hand-over-hand back to her side, to their present in that small unpainted room.

‘Well you have a think about it. I need to pee. Again!' His wife sighs and stretches her arms above her head, her pregnant belly pushing out in front and for a moment it looks as if she is standing behind it and is about to walk off, leaving it draped in cloth and hovering in mid-air like a levitating crystal ball. But when she leaves she takes it with her.

He looks again at the paint swatches. Small rectangles of
creams, browns, pinks and reds rise and fall before his eyes, to the rhythm of Ari's breathing. Neutrals. Naturals. Warm Earth Tones. And again, he comes unstuck.

Ari says, ‘
Alabaster
. This is the colour of your face when I told you the test was positive.'

‘I'm sorry.'

Ari says, ‘
Sugar Egg Pink
. This is the colour of the crappy carnations you gave me after you didn't come home that night. You couldn't understand why I was so worried and upset. I told you how love is carrying the other person around inside you so you're always with them even when you're not. You didn't understand. You still don't.'

‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Yeah, you said.'

‘This one,' Ari says, now all the way into the reds.

‘Please don't. Ari. Please. No.'

‘
Sangria
. This is the colour of what you called The Only Sensible Option. This is the blood. Such a lot of blood. And you weren't there. You made me go through that alone.'

He bites his lip and tries to remember the future. If he could will himself there, be fully present in that small room with the smell of bare plaster. If he was only strong enough.

Ari says, ‘
Chilli Pepper
. You know this one. This is the colour of the mark my hand left on your face when you said afterwards
It's for the best
and
It wasn't meant to be
and
You'll get over it in time
. This is the colour of never getting over it, of never forgetting.'

His hands shake and his vision blurs as he tries to focus on the paint swatches he knows are there. He's looking for something now, searching for a shade definite enough to pull him back to the present and anchor himself there.

Ari says, ‘This one?' She places her finger on the last shade, which looks sore and shows signs of blistering. ‘That one will
never heal. Even when it looks like it's gone, if it's exposed to the right conditions it'll blister up again, and weep.'

He takes a ragged breath and lets the paint swatches fall from his hand and leans his head against the plaster wall of what will be the baby's room. His baby's room. Now. Here, in the future.

His wife picks them up, straightening with a grunt of effort. ‘Let's forget these,' she says. ‘Let's go for blue instead. A nice strong colour.'

He can't speak so nods and wraps his arms around her and they stand with the future round and full between them, her belly pressed into his. When the kick comes he feels it almost as if it came from inside his own body. And he is helpless. Helpless as his wife laughs and brushes the tears from his face.

Ladies' Day

A wet, gusty wind barges across the race track. The women, the
ladies
, are woefully exposed to the elements in thin dresses that flick and snap around goose-bumped fake tan, not a coat to be seen, clinging on to head gear, reinserting clips and pins, trying to hold it all together. Three of us from the baby group – me, Kaz and Ashley – shelter behind a bookies' booth.

‘Remind me again why we're here,' says Ashley, leaning on my shoulder for balance as she picks a wad of muddy grass from the heel of her stiletto.

Kaz glares at her. ‘We're here to have a day off. We're going to have fun, right?' She scowls at the two of us until we nod agreement. ‘Anyway, the tickets cost a bomb so at least pretend like you are.'

Ashley examines the muddy streaks on her fingers. ‘I need a drink,' she says.

I give her a baby-wipe from the packet in my bag.

I should've phoned Kaz and said I'd got a cold, or Sean's shifts had been changed at the last minute. Something. Anything.

Sean had come up behind me as I fiddled with my hair in the hall mirror. ‘Mmhmm. Looking good,' he said, wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed in against my back. His hands travelled upwards as he nuzzled into my neck.

I steadied myself against the wall. I'm not used to heels so my balance wasn't great to start with. I peeled his fingers off and wriggled out of his grip.

‘Thanks, that really helps.' I tried a laugh to soften the sarcasm in my voice but it came out bent. I don't know what's wrong with me. My reflection frowned at us both from the mirror.

‘What?' The mirror-Sean raised his open palms behind me. ‘Well, you look sexy,' he pretend huffed, stepping back.

‘No I don't. I look like someone's mum.'

The dress was bought for a wedding last year and was supposed to be
floaty
to blur the edges of my post-baby figure, but it just hung on me like a worn-out flowery dishcloth.

Sean smiled. ‘You
are
someone's mum, pet.'

‘I know that.' There was that irritability again, showing through like a spot under too much concealer. ‘I meant someone older. Someone… else.'

A moment of silence opened up and out of it poured this sadness, like the sky had just emptied straight down on me. The anger washed away but I was drenched, the stupid dress drooping and dripping. I jerked in a breath and blinked a couple of times. Sean squeezed my shoulder and for a second I thought maybe he understood but I didn't have time to find out because there was a cry from upstairs. We both froze and tilted our heads to listen. A couple more whimpers and then silence. We looked at each other and nodded.

I went back to jabbing at my hair clips. Had I done them right? We were all supposed to have hats for today and I did try but hats make me look fake. I even tried a few of those feathery things Kaz showed me. ‘It's a
fascinator
,' she said. ‘Like I'm not fascinating enough already,' and laughed that loud laugh she's got, daring anyone to contradict her. All the time, this phrase,
morbid fascination
, kept pushing into my head and the fascinators, the
morbid
fascinators, started to look like exactly what they were: bits of dead bird. So, I compromised with
these tiny enamel flowers, three of them in different purples. Hopefully they're enough to show I made the effort.

We make our way to the line of bars and food stalls strung out behind the betting ring, backing on to the red brick pavilion. Two plastic cups of fizzy wine pretending to be champagne and a double vodka later, the weather isn't so bad.

‘Another?' I wave my empty cup at the others. I'd be feeling quite relaxed if it wasn't for these heels.

‘Nah. Those prices are ridiculous,' says Kaz. ‘Ashley, phone your Barry and get him to pass something over the fence for us.'

When the rumour had first gone round about security guards at the gates searching handbags and confiscating any alcohol, the options were discussed at our Tuesday afternoon baby group.

‘You know if you open up boxes of wine, they have plastic bags inside?' Kaz had said. ‘I could get a couple of them, strap one to each leg, up high so they couldn't be seen. They're not going to actually frisk me, are they?'

The other mums looked sceptical but cracked up laughing when Kaz stood up and waded around the hall like a fat gunslinger.

Liz, an old hand on baby number three, came up with another scheme. ‘Those blue bricks you freeze for coolbags? Empty them out, fill them with whatever and stick them in with the picnic. You'd get a fair bit in that way.'

In the end, we didn't put any of the plans into action. We did get our bags searched though, which was just rude.

The Barry plan is a good one. If we keep buying drinks in here, I'll run out of cash before I manage to place a bet. I wouldn't bother, but it's not, strictly speaking, my own money.

Sean lifted his jacket off the banister and pulled his wallet from the inside pocket. ‘You got enough?'

‘I took some out of my account,' I muttered, looking at my shoes.

He knew as well as I did, there's nothing left in there. I've not worked since Tom. That was the deal and it isn't like what I do at home, looking after Tom, cleaning, cooking, all that, isn't work. We both agreed. It's fine. It's only times like this, not that they happen often, when there's something just for me and it takes money. I can't ask. Cannot force the words out my mouth. I'd rather go without than have to ask. I know Sean would never grudge me a few quid for myself, and I shouldn't feel this way. But I still do.

‘Take it,' he said. ‘Put a few bets on for me.' He was trying to make it okay by turning it into something I could do for him, like a favour, or a job. He understood that much. ‘I'll expect a share of your winnings when you get back.'

He pressed the money into my hand and I took it, said thanks and shoved it into my handbag. There was an awkward silence and I turned towards the stairs. ‘I'll just—'

‘You'd best not,' Sean said. ‘Don't want to wake him.'

‘I'll be careful,' I whispered, already half-way up.

Tom lay on his back, arms thrown up above his head, as if the afternoon nap had taken him by surprise. His sleep breath snuffled in and out in a steady rhythm. I leant over the cot and felt that familiar desperate lurch in my stomach. Despite the satisfaction of seeing him grow, I can't help wishing he'd never change, that I could protect him from time and everything it'll bring, even though I know it's impossible and I've already failed. I reached a hand out to brush his curls but stopped short. Leaving would be much harder if he woke.

I stepped slowly backwards towards the door, in the pattern
dictated by which floorboards creak and which don't. Almost there, my heel came down on the soft toy from hell. It started up, high-pitched and insistent:

It's a small world after all

Christ, bloody thing.

It's a small world after all

I hear that tune in my sleep. I snatched it up,

It's a small world after all

and fumbled with the off switch.

It's a small, small
—

Finally!

Tom turned his head and raised one arm, like he was waving, but his eyes were still closed and he puffed out a sigh and settled back to sleep.

Me and Kaz stand near the paddock, waiting for Ashley to get back, watching the horses being led in circles, snorting and stamping, manes knotted in bumpy braids, tails wound up tight. Women drift in and out of the betting booths and bars, carrying drinks and fluttering betting slips. The rain has gone off and a weak sun is making the grass sparkle. The scene looks almost like it was supposed to.

‘That one!' Kaz shouts. ‘We should bet on that one.' She's pointing to a brown mare skipping nervously around the paddock. The horse's skin looks tight and thin, every sinew and vein visible, eyes rolling, nostrils flared. As she goes past I catch a sharp whiff of sweat and earth and hot grassy breath. She's making a horrendous sound, chewing at the metal bar between her teeth. Flecks of white froth collect at the soft corners of her mouth.

‘Why that one?' I ask.

‘It just had a shit. I heard they go faster if they have a shit
first.' Kaz folds her arms and looks knowledgeable.

‘Well, less weight I suppose.' She might have a point.