Black Bread White Beer. Niven Govinden
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more. If, as she says, there is indeed a pair of brown eyes hidden within, he is either too short-sighted, or too thick-headed to find them. His silence is taken for zoological studiousness, something he does little to correct. If this is what makes her happy, let her be happy. They sit there together, seeing differently, finally comfortable.
She is hungry. They share a bacon roll and a choc ice from the van trading in the car park. The salt from the bacon and the sweet from the ketchup fill every pocket of the car, imbibing a sense of homeliness and safety which shows up the poor work of the wilting sunflowers.
‘If something like this doesn’t give you the excuse to eat junk food, I don’t know what does,’ she says, mid-mouthful. A drop of ketchup wobbles on her cheek. Ordinarily he would lick it off.
Claud has not touched pork for over two years. Not even long weekends in Grenada or Barcelona, touring time-worn Jamon bars could persuade her to accompany her glass of Olorosso with a slice of Serrano, Iberico, or Chorizo. She worried about the effect of too much red meat on their future offspring even then.
‘Mmm. This is great, love. Good thinking.’
Amal does not confess to his lapse at last night’s trashy restaurant, not wishing to break the fragile equilibrium. He paid with cash so she never need know. She devours her half of the roll in a flash, and then eats the bulk of his, making him buy another so that they can further indulge in the goodness of hot food. Pre-empting her, he comes back with doubles, piled with onions and extra condiments.
He needs to keep feeding her, he realizes. Fill her up with food. Stuff her guts until she has to sleep sitting up, too shot with cholesterol and bad sugars to think about the other cavernous spaces in her body. Claud is a fine cook, has looked after him well, but he is just as good when he gets on the stove. The range is the only gadget that really interests him, other than his iPhone. It is back to the Indian gene, the one that believes the kitchen is the heart. He will cook until food is coming out of her gullet, absorbing everything, including the need to feel.
The choc ices have been dredged from the bottom of the freezer where they have frozen solid, but after the greasy bacon they are still needed and devoured. Their taste is grainy and synthetic, recalling something conceived in laboratories rather than the cute provincial dairy pictured on the wrapper. If this is the kind of crap they feed kids, then theirs has had a lucky escape. God! If he had said that aloud, there would have been a repeat of last night, a series of choked sobs in the car after the restaurant. Him making a fool of himself in front of her; just what he has been trying to avoid. Jesus, it is hard. His foot is on the gas before he has finished his final mouthful. A bounce of the chassis as the wheels lightly skid over the gravel. It is better to drive than remember.
The house welcomes them. Mid-morning sunlight pours from windows and seeps through brick, making what was previously cold appear golden and pleasantly holiday-burnt. Maybe they are carne-drunk with the bacon and visions of feral deer, but it suddenly feels like a place worth staying in; their previous criticisms fading with every degree on the sundial. They are both pleased to be there.
The sun-blush makes her admit the obvious, that she is exhausted, and he is left to potter in the kitchen whilst she has an hour’s nap upstairs. He busies himself on the tasks he thoughtlessly missed earlier: hosing out the dustbin and cleaning the oven, though he questions how else he can distract himself once the house is completely clean.
England is playing India in the second Test. The commentary from the radio on the kitchen counter is low, making every exclamation and cry of disbelief sound halfhearted and whispered. He resists the lulling effect of hearing bat against ball, the slide of shoe across the crease, and the hoot and stagger of short, concentrated runs. England are having a good day, driving mercilessly at the Indian advantage. The team is working methodically, tirelessly, attempting with every duck and strike to erase the fortune and legacy of their hosts. They need to keep up this batting pace and level of attack for the rest of the day if they are to cause any great upset. The determination that is reported to him via the leathery-throated commentator and his mangled euphemisms suggests that this will be the case.
He thinks about Sam listening to the match down in Sussex, from the car probably, as he jealously guards his cheapest-of-the-range washing machine, and wonders whether he too will be drawing the same conclusions. In spite of his ignorance about what has happened to the baby, will he enjoy the sportsmanship of the first Test, or will he only think of what is happening on an Indian field as a reflection of his feelings towards Amal, a desire to drive him out?
She comes downstairs after half an hour, her face clouded with a familiar anxiety that sets his mind racing to yesterday.
‘We need to change the upstairs toilet. I can’t use that bathroom until we do.’
‘I can do that.’
‘I mean it. I can’t go there. Our baby died there.’
‘It’s ok. I’ll sort it. Soon as we get back from Lewes. Use the downstairs in the meantime.’
Like a child he trundles her in the direction of the second bathroom, inexplicably situated off the downstairs hall. When they bought the house they laughed at the planner’s logic of it, a whirlpool bath and bog just across from the living room when there was ample and more discreet square footage towards the back of the house. But they agreed about its practicality in anticipation of visiting in-laws and other guests. Situated almost centrally and therefore catching both morning and evening light, it would have made a fine office, or even a boys room, where they could have placed a dark leather sofa, a shamefully tacky beer fridge, and installed one of those pull-down screens to play games or watch DVDs. Now he is thankful that they did not.
He has a case of delayed reaction, flinching every time she talks about the baby. His moves are discreet, whilst she is behind the toilet door, or as now, once she is tucked-up in bed with a kiss on the forehead. This is the first time she has allowed his lips to touch her. Even in the hospital at her most fearful, she was only comfortable with the firm grip of his hand crushing hers, as if the connection between them was no more tenuous than neighbour, work colleague, or passer-by. But safely away from her he flinches, unguarded, like the holder of a nervous tic. The certainty of her words seems to visibly play before him as he waits for the plumber’s website to open on his laptop. He tries hard to concentrate, thinking that whatever he orders now can be delivered, installed even, by the time he gets back, so long as he leaves the keys next door and is able to persuade Claud that a night spent over in Lewes is the best medicine. But everything is overshadowed by b-a-b-y.
Unlike her he has no clarifying definition for what they have lost. Something which is not yet a baby but more than a cluster of cells, a mere six weeks of growth, and is responsible for an unseen, immeasurable emptiness. They themselves have only known for sure these past three weeks, so how can so much hope grow in that time? How does the work of twenty-one days so effectively decimate all the hurdles that stand before their vulnerability?
A complete miscarriage, the doctor called it, pleased with its neatness and lack of invasive surgery required. A complete miscarriage, more common than realized in the early stages of the first trimester: as if that explained everything, closed the lid on their bewilderment. But concrete fact, the overbearing weight of statistics, is a poor cover for soft tissue. It holds no weight against the physical ache he sees in Claud as well as the tightness he tries to ignore in his own chest. How does ten centimetres of cell and pliable bone get to do that?
Though it is not yet midday he has a good swig from one of the bottles in the cupboard, white rum or a flavoured vodka, cloudy but citrusy sharp, before forcing himself to swallow the remainder of the salmon and fennel salad in the fridge. Crisp, peppery, and heavy with garlic, it obliterates all evidence of his alcohol-driven weakness.
He has never been a big drinker. It is one of the things Claud liked about him from the start.
‘I only want to get serious with a guy who isn’t going to blow his salary on buying rounds for the boys, under the pretext of entertaining clients. I’ve been with twits like that before.’