The meeting had begun predictably with a number of complaints being raised that set almost everyone’s head nodding in agreement. I drank a glass of tepid wine that tasted vinegary and coated my mouth unpleasantly, but taking birdlike sips was the only thing I could do to stop my mind from wandering.
‘It’s disgusting, isn’t it?’ Marie muttered to me when the chairman was consulting with another neighbour about some trivial matter.
‘Awful,’ I agreed taking another sip and grimacing.
‘Not the wine!’ she said playfully. ‘The hypocrisy of it all. Of them all.’
Before I could reply we were called to vote on the shade of blue that maintenance were going to paint the walls of the corridors. The seriousness, the ceremony of the vote, overtook all else.
‘This is important?’ Marie had said to me before she was shushed by our neighbour who was taking the meeting notes.
Now, Marie pulled on a strand of hair unnecessarily; it had turned wavy, its ends were dry and frizzy, and so it would not stay in the place where she had tucked it.
Just then Tia’s bleats turned to wails that grew louder and louder with each cry. There was a moment where no one moved. Leo looked to Marie and then at me and then back at Marie again.
Marie jigged Tia in her arms a bit; I noticed how scrawny she was and how in some way, her newborn crying baby seemed plumper, had more life force than she did.
‘I’ll nurse her in the bedroom,’ Marie said. She turned to close the door behind her but with both hands holding Tia, she had to kick out with her foot to shut it. It closed with a slam.
‘Sorry,’ Leo said. He put his hands in his pockets as though he was not sure what to with them. ‘It’s been—’ He thought better of finishing the sentence.
‘You don’t need to apologise for anything.’
‘No, it’s just… it’s just been hard… so much harder than…’ He looked around him in a daze as if he were trying to find someone, something, to blame the difficulty on.
‘I can’t imagine, I really can’t. That’s why I came round. I wondered if I could do anything, something to help. Shopping maybe – anything you need.’
‘Oh, that’s so kind, that’d be great,’ Leo said in a rush. ‘We could do with some help. Our families don’t live close by and,’ he dropped his voice low, ‘Marie needs to see other people. People other than just me and—’
‘Leo!’ Marie called from the other room. ‘Leo, come here, would you?’
He started and rushed to the bedroom. Their living room was the same size as mine but it felt much smaller with all the baby paraphernalia that decorated the room – the muslins, the heap of baby-grows, the piles of rubbish and nappy sacks, the changing mat and nappies that were spread over the floor.
I waited for them to come back through from the bedroom for longer than was comfortable. I considered leaving, even glanced around for a scrap of paper and a pen and so I could leave a note and slip out without disturbing them.
When Leo walked back in, he seemed at first to have forgotten that I was still there, almost surprised to see me standing there.
‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘Feeding. It’s been – again – well, a minefield.’
‘It’s fine – sorry – I didn’t want to disturb you or…’
Leo’s disjointed way of speaking was catching.
Marie wandered back in too then, cradling Tia to her shoulder. Her eyes took me in blankly. I smiled towards her but her expression did not change.
‘Marie,’ Leo said a little too loudly. ‘Kit said she could help out with shopping and stuff. That would be good, wouldn’t it?’
She opened her mouth as though to speak but instead, her shoulders shook, she began to cry.
‘Oh, Rie!’ Leo rushed to her. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ He tried to hug her but because she was holding Tia he could only pat her on her back awkwardly.
‘I’ll come back another time,’ I said quickly. ‘But the offer’s there, whenever you need anything. I’m at number 227.’
‘Please don’t go,’ Leo said. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
‘No, no, it’s okay, honestly. I could come back though. If that’s okay?’ I said to Marie.
She nodded ever so slightly.
We agreed on a routine whereby Marie would slip a list of things that she needed under my door and I would take them round the next day, around noon. Leo said it was a good time because it broke up the day while he was at work and that it helped to have routines.
‘Don’t worry about the time too much,’ he added politely.
But I felt sure that the timing had come from Marie as a way of her preparing for a visitor and decided I must abide by it.
NOW
There’s a sign for a service station and I pull in and run from the car as soon as I’ve parked. When I am at the entrance, I stop abruptly in front of the Spheres. Someone who had paused to let me pass makes a sound of surprise.
I wait there for a few revolutions of articles, hearing the Spheres’ drone, but there is nothing more about what I heard last night.
After five minutes or so, I dash back to the car and drive away as rapidly as I dare. I thought I saw someone approaching me as I walked across the car park. Though I couldn’t be sure, it made me hurry on.
I chide myself for stopping, for wasting time, although I know that if I can prepare myself at all for what I’ll be walking into, then it won’t have been futile.
In fact I find it hard not to pull over at the next services but I make myself wait until I’ve driven more miles before I let myself
