The Night Village Read online

  Give him to me now.

  ‘That’s okay. He’s hungry. He’s probably still a bit tired, too.’ I held out my hands. ‘Thanks.’

  She gave him back with a sigh and averted eyes, and his crying began to lessen, but still, I felt distress in his rigid body. I carried him to the living room, holding him close against me, trying to soothe him, but also myself. He was safe. I was safe. This will all be okay, I told myself, like my mother used to say to me when I was a child.

  Rachel sat down beside me and stared, looking confused and mildly disgusted, as I attempted to feed him.

  ‘Does it feel weird?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘A bit, at first. It’s getting easier.’

  ‘I heard of a woman who used to turn up at her son’s school to feed him on his lunch break. He was six.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I thought that was disgusting.’

  ‘Well, the World Health Organization says you should breastfeed until two?’ I told her, stumbling over the words and ending with an involuntary question mark. Which defeated the slim authority of something I half-remembered reading online.

  She looked dismissive and slightly irritated. ‘Do they? And didn’t they also say bacon causes cancer or something like that? Anyway, those guidelines are more for people in really poor countries, not here.’ She paused for a moment. ‘So how’s Paul going? Is he a very hands-on dad?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s great,’ I replied automatically. He had been helpful, during his brief paternity leave, but now that he’d gone back to work the baby would be with me for most of the time.

  ‘Because he did tend to disappear a bit, when we were younger.’

  ‘Oh, did he?’

  ‘He’s quite traditional, I suppose. Like his father.’

  ‘Is he?’ Where was this going?

  ‘Yes. That’s partly why I thought I’d come for a bit, to help you out. Make sure no-one is getting too tired. Is Paul tired?’

  ‘I guess so. We’re both tired.’

  Her gaze was fixed on the baby, who turned away and screwed up his face in frustration, trying to latch on, and I began to sweat, knowing I had less than a minute to get him feeding before he became inconsolable.

  ‘It’s so hard, at the very start. The baby needs you so much, but it will get better, you know.’

  Oh, how would you know? I wanted to snap. It was as if I was on the first chapter of a lengthy and unfamiliar book with very small print that required all my concentration to decipher and Rachel was standing over my shoulder, commenting on the plot, analysing my reactions. All I wanted was to carry on learning, to absorb any information I could from the signals the baby gave me. Nothing was particularly important right now except this new person I needed to understand.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ I said, getting awkwardly to my feet. ‘I think I’m going to have to lie down. Sometimes it works better if I go into a dark room.’

  ‘Wow, so primal.’ She said it jokingly, but her expression was distant, almost solemn.

  Lying in bed, the baby finally settled enough to feed. His jaw moved in a blissful rhythm and his eyes half-closed as his body relaxed against mine.

  A short story came back to me that I’d read online somewhere, about a Chinese woman who sits out an entire month in her bed with her newborn as the women of her family bring her warming soups of ginger and chicken and ginseng. How lovely it sounded now, to have women take care of me, bring me nourishing food so I didn’t have to shuffle to the kitchen for another muesli bar and a cup of tea. Maybe I could somehow encourage Rachel to be that kind of house guest, to convey to her what I needed, because she probably had no idea. Tactfully, I could suggest that she did some cooking, and then maybe I wouldn’t feel resentful of her presence.

  Footsteps down the hallway, and a single knock as she simultaneously pushed open the door.

  ‘Can I quickly use your laptop, Simone? I have one tiny email to send to a friend. My phone is out of charge and I can’t get into my email account without a code or something.’ She nodded quickly at me, impatient for a response.

  ‘Uh … okay.’

  I didn’t want her going into my email account, but the baby was finally settled, and that was all I really cared about. And it seemed rude to say no, now that she had offered the simplest solution, which was that she used my laptop. I told her my password and heard the familiar creak of my desk chair as she settled into it, and suddenly the flat didn’t feel big enough for the three of us. Today, as soon as I could, I’d go out. It was time.

  4

  By the time I was ready to go out, an hour had passed. I arranged the baby in his pram, made him snug beneath the soft zippered cocoon with a bonnet on and his hands tucked away, as he fell into what I thought of as his dead sleep, his face still and perfectly symmetrical. Again I noticed how self-possessed he was. It was in his face, his aura.

  I knocked on the closed door of Rachel’s room but there was no answer. Perhaps she was sleeping. I scribbled a note for her – Gone for a walk, back later – and left. The baby stayed asleep through the elevator ride, and out into the cold morning air, and I felt myself relax as I pushed the pram. This wasn’t so hard.

  I walked on, up City Road and past the hectic Old Street roundabout and along the narrow footpaths of Shoreditch until I reached the grey church at the start of Hackney Road. From there, I threaded my way through Columbia Road and then to Bethnal Green Road with its rows of fried chicken and one-pound shops, through the fragrant waft of kebabs and curry, with dusty winds blowing drink cans under the wheels of buses.

  The baby was stirring now, woken perhaps by the smells, and I kept walking, trying to think of somewhere I could take him and feed him quietly. Passing through the dank underpass, I was suddenly somewhere new, in that strange way that London has of linking places overland that you never realise are so close when you travel to them by Tube.

  I crossed the road and turned left, remembering that there was a museum here. And suddenly it was in front of me, a grand red-brick building with three gables like a children’s fairytale, enclosed by a tall, wrought-iron fence, where a single orange mitten with a white snowflake pattern had been placed on one of its black spikes, awaiting its owner’s return. The red bricks glowed like roses and the patchy London lawn was dotted with snowdrops, bunched in tree shadows and around the entrance. On the wall, a mosaic plaque spelled out the words Museum of Childhood in dark-red tiles.

  The winter solstice had passed now, so there were two minutes of extra light every day. Soon, I knew from last year, the leaves would start to form and by June would provide a wide green canopy. For now, though, it was all white sky and empty trees and the light falling straight through. January was a bare room, swept clean, that I had somehow to fill. Having nowhere else to go, I headed towards the museum entrance, thinking that the old me would have walked past this building on my way to somewhere more exciting, but now I was looking for different things – somewhere warm and quiet and free to anyone, where I could fill the baby’s belly undisturbed once he woke up.

  Inside was airy and softly lit, the walls painted a dusky mauve. I took the lift upstairs, to the dollhouses. I had always loved them as a child, but now their stillness disturbed me. Sealed away in antique glass display cases, with no-one playing with them, they looked creepy. My tired vision thought it saw a smile on the face of the baby doll, or a quick movement in a cluttered floral nursery. But at least it was dark up here, and I could sit quietly. The toy shop and the café were down below, busy with children, but here it was almost deserted and the baby slept on, halfway through now, I thought. Long enough left of his nap for me to sit and think. Except that a child came screaming past us, chased by his mother, and the baby startled and woke again. As I picked him up I felt the tension in his body – a bellyache, perhaps, or hunger. He began to fret and then scream, and I noticed a woman nearby looking over, and thought maybe she was irritated by the sound.
Alone within the thick concrete walls of the Barbican, the crying bothered only me. But here, suddenly, there was an audience, and all my fumbling settling techniques were on public display. I hadn’t factored this in when I’d left the apartment.

  Somehow, as his cries became louder, his distress infected me like a virus, rising up – a queasy blend of guilt and anxiety and the conviction that he needed to stop crying, he had to stop. Rocking him, patting his back, I felt a kind of fury at his persistence, and frustration at my inability to stop it. How long would this go on for? People nearby were glancing over now, their faces neutral but no doubt critical of my failure to look after my baby, and with their close attention I felt even more pressure to make him behave. But he didn’t. Sweat began to bead under my suffocating winter clothes as my breath became shallow.

  ‘Come on, go back to sleep.’ I rocked him and held him closer, hoping he would drift off again. I could try feeding him, but I knew he was still tired and that might not work.

  Could I put him down and run, get on a bus and become myself again? I couldn’t. There was no way out of this. But if he didn’t stop screaming soon, here in this public place where people were not supposed to scream, what would I do?

  It was as if he was hearing my panic and fearing for his safety. As well he should be. His raw, desperate wails filled the air until there was nothing else. I felt close to snapping, to shaking him, to simply throwing him against a wall to stop the noise. And I knew that if I did that, at least for one brief, deranged moment afterwards, before my actions had sunk in, there would be a clear moment of release. Because at least he would have stopped crying. I would no longer be listening to that sound: his terrible unhappiness, and my failure to relieve it.

  ‘Do you need some help? Do you want me to take him for you, for a moment?’

  A soft, friendly voice, speaking low enough that no-one but me could hear. A kind-faced woman was standing in front of me, holding out her hands. I shook my head at her.

  ‘He won’t settle. He’s so loud. And I know he wants to go back to sleep.’

  ‘Please. Let me have a try?’

  I looked at her, into her dark eyes. Like the baby, I was relying on instinct, steered by it, operating on some kind of Stone Age perception of the world. Reduced to an infantile state myself, trying to relate to this tiny being: Night. Day. Eat. Sleep. Loud. Quiet. Safe. Not safe.

  Safe. She’s safe.

  Handing the baby over, I sank back into the seat, horrified by the thoughts I’d been having. She took him with gentle, practised hands and held him against her, his head – so tiny – leaning into her chest in an obedient downward tilt, as if he was listening carefully to her. She began to sway very slightly, undeterred by his cries, her eyes half-closed, and I could see she had done this many times before, at all hours of night and day. As she rocked she smiled down towards him, tenderly and with such love, and he seemed to somehow receive it, becoming relaxed and still. And so did I.

  ‘How old is your baby?’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘So new. I’m amazed you’ve managed to get yourself out of the house.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s not as easy as it used to be, that’s for sure.’

  Still she held him and rocked, and I felt him falling into sleep, into complete relaxation. Eventually she laid him down in his pram, and stepped back as I drew the blanket over him.

  ‘And there you go.’

  ‘I feel so bad. I was getting so worked up by him crying.’

  ‘Well, it happens. It’s a terrible sound when it’s your own baby, but the funny thing is, it doesn’t bother anyone else nearly as much. Forgive yourself and move on. That was always what I used to tell myself.’

  We looked at the baby. He was so perfectly fitted into his pram, into his sleep, that light head with its downy golden hair fine and smooth along the soft scalp and ridged fontanelle.

  Back home, when Rachel had stroked his head constantly, I had felt like snatching her hand away and roaring in her face. But this lady simply looked at him, along with me, and I felt understood, not overpowered. After a minute or so she wandered away, and I stared into space, not thinking of anything in particular. Leaning my head back, I even dozed a little.

  After a while he woke up, hungry, and I picked him up and fed him. The woman reappeared with a glass of water. ‘I thought you might like this. I used to get so thirsty when I fed my babies.’ She smiled, tidying up some toys and placing them back into a basket. ‘And is the feeding going okay?’

  ‘Sort of. Getting easier.’

  ‘Someone described it to me as a relationship, once. I found that quite helpful. You kind of learn how to do it together.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it’s true. It’s a bit weird, getting used to it. And we’ve got someone staying with us at the moment who thinks it’s disgusting.’

  She laughed. ‘Well. Disgusting is a pretty strong word, isn’t it? A bit over the top, actually. I mean, the head of a charity stealing donations and spending it on … I don’t know, a private pony collection. That’s disgusting, isn’t it?’

  I laughed along with her. ‘It is. Especially ponies. I’ve always thought there’s something a bit warped about them.’

  We sat for a quiet moment, and for the first time in ages I felt somewhat normal, almost myself again.

  ‘So, this visitor. Will they be staying long?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s my boyfriend’s cousin; she’s come to London to find work. And it’s his apartment, so it’s sort of up to him. I don’t really have my own place at the moment.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘It didn’t bother me before I had the baby. I mean, I never even thought about it. And it’s not like I’m actually homeless. But I guess now I should be a bit more responsible.’

  I thought of the woman I saw sometimes, sitting outside the Barbican Tube station with straggly blond hair and a gaunt, spotted face, watched over by a man who always stood close by, yet appeared not to know her. My situation wasn’t as dire as hers, of course. But with a baby I was dependent on Paul in a way I hadn’t been beforehand. How had I not considered that?

  ‘But you can live there, obviously?’

  ‘Oh, of course. But it doesn’t feel like my home, in a way. I only noticed now that I’ve brought the baby there. It feels precarious. I only got to London two years ago and now I’m a mother.’

  She looked confused and I realised I was rambling. ‘Can you talk to your partner?’

  ‘Yeah. I can. I will do, when I see him.’

  ‘And your parents – where do they live? Somewhere in the Antipodes by the sounds of it?’

  I smiled. ‘Antipodes’ was something that especially polite British people said when they didn’t want to offend you by assuming you were Australian when you were actually from New Zealand.

  ‘Oh, my mum lives in Perth. She’ll come in the summer. My dad I’ll see when I get back.’

  ‘Oh.’

  We sat quietly for another moment. I wondered if I’d said too much, and made her uncomfortable. But she just smiled and stood up.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? My office is downstairs, and I’m going there now. Tea always helps – you’d know that after two years of living here. I’m Jennifer, by the way.’

  ‘I’m Simone. And this is Thomas.’

  I felt curious about her, and it was that, more than the offer of tea, that made me say yes. She was dressed in a long skirt and a warm-looking soot-coloured jumper. Around her neck was a fine silver necklace, and on her feet, polished leather ankle boots. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, and her hair was white, yet she looked attractive, well cared for and sharply intelligent, a wry, expectant look on her face as she waited for me to gather up my things and follow her. For some reason I felt drawn to her, like she was standing in a warm patch of sunlight in a dark room. I was curious to see where she worked, and I also felt drawn to her motherliness, as if it was something I could somehow absorb.
And the way she talked – so open and honest – I hadn’t talked like that with someone for a long time.

  She led me back downstairs and to the far end of the museum, where a heavy green door opened into a warren of rooms, dimly lit and stale smelling. As she fumbled with her key before a locked door I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. In my pelvis was a heavy, dragging feeling, with pain creeping up behind it, digging in.

  It was quieter here, in the bowels of the museum. It was like being deep in the belly of childhood itself, where rooms were sometimes scary for no good reason – a dark timber wardrobe hanging open a few centimetres would be enough to terrify me in an unfamiliar house – and sometimes safe havens, like my old bedroom at home in Perth, with its faded cotton sheets on the single bed and a fan spinning the air, the dusk light as furry as the wings of moths and the garden outside full of velvety damp flowers and warm dirt sprinkled with water from an old green hose as I drifted towards sleep …

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Opening my eyes, I saw that the woman was looking at me.

  No.

  ‘I’m fine, a bit tired. I feel like I could fall asleep on my feet.’

  ‘Come inside and sit down for a while, and we’ll get some good strong tea into you.’ She smiled. ‘You should actually be home in bed, you know.’

  A desk lamp was the only source of light, casting a glow on the room’s soft surfaces, and looking around I instantly knew that as a child I would have felt safe here, as I peered at every one of her abstract, shadowy pictures and looked through the children’s books that were piled up on the coffee table. Most of all, I would have loved the deep pink roses, spilling out of a glass vase on her bookshelf. Outside, on the window ledge, was another plant in a terracotta pot, a mass of dark shiny leaves and pale green flowers.

  ‘Hellebores,’ she said, seeing me staring at them. ‘Winter roses.’

  ‘So this is your office?’ I asked her. ‘It’s lovely.’