“Is the rash contagious?”
“No,” she says, and the day ahead of me shifts, like blocks dropping into view. After this appointment, I’ll drop him at day care, rush into work, finish the running order, produce our live broadcast, and return home to the babysitter around eight, none of which sounds feasible. I want to sit holding my baby for the next six to twelve hours.
“Can I feed him in here?”
“Of course.”
Finn nurses with his eyes wide open, like he doesn’t trust either of us at the moment. The doctor says, “How’re things otherwise?”
“Fine. Grand.”
“Any problems with feeding?”
“No.”
“Do you have much support? Any family in the area?”
“My mother.” Though I haven’t seen her since last week. She and Marian have been spending time together, meeting outside the city, and I feel left out by these visits.
The doctor waits, aware something is wrong. I look down, adjusting the nursing muslin draped over my shoulder. I could tell her. I could say, I’m informing on the IRA. Once she leaves, I’ll have lost my chance. I want to ask her opinion about informing, the way I’d ask for her opinion on, say, mastitis. I want to be prescribed a treatment, like ice packs and lanolin ointment, rest.
“You can ring me up anytime,” she says, and I nod furiously, wanting to thank her for her kindness. “And I’ll see you at his ten-month checkup.”
It might be over by then, by October. I would like to stay here with Finn until then, for some other version of myself to leave the clinic and deal with whatever is coming.
* * *
—
When I finally return home from work, the babysitter is watching Bake Off on the sofa. Finn has already fallen asleep, and I am bereft at having missed his bath and bottle.
“How was he?” I ask.
“Good,” says Olivia, yawning. “He went down at seven thirty.”
I wait for more detail, none forthcoming. “Did you get enough to eat?” I’d left cash for a takeaway, if she didn’t fancy anything in the fridge.
“I ordered from Golden Wok, there’s some left in the kitchen.”
“Grand, I’m starving.”
At the front door, Olivia says, “You don’t have many things for him. You’ve only two baby bowls and two spoons.”
“Oh. Well, he only ever uses one at a time.”
“He could use more socks, too.”
“Right, okay. I’ll pick some up. Night, Olivia.”
“Night.”
Olivia babysits for other families in Greyabbey, who are apparently more organized. They never run out of clean laundry for the baby, or Calpol, or sticking plasters. They own bottle sterilizers, white-noise machines, wipe warmers. They make homemade fruit compotes and pour them into serving-size glass pots. They don’t ever long for unfiltered cigarettes or music festivals.
Though it’s not a fair comparison, given that all of them are married. I want to hear what the other parents in Greyabbey talk about after their baby is asleep. I want to know if they have calendars pinned to the walls of their kitchens, and what’s on them, what should be on mine.
Two weeks before my due date, over dinner, Colette told me all the tricks to induce labor—spicy curries, fizzy drinks, raspberry-leaf tea. “You’re ready?” she asked, and I nodded, resting my hand on my huge stomach. “I just want to meet him.”
A couple near us had a pram parked next to their table. The baby woke during their dessert, and the father lifted her into his arms. She looked between her smiling parents, and I thought, My son will never do that. No matter how amicable Tom and I are, he won’t have that. Colette must have seen the look on my face, because she said, “He’ll be lucky to have you, Tessa.”
* * *
—
My mother hadn’t told me why she couldn’t mind him tonight. She might have had to work late, too.
The babysitter cost forty quid. I stay up late, eating Chinese food straight from the container with chopsticks, sorting out the month’s gas and electric bills. Thinking about money at the moment feels like tripping at the top of a flight of stairs, but I’ve already decided to refuse if Eamonn offers to pay me, like the money would compromise me—which is stupid, since the IRA has the same punishment for paid and unpaid informers. I think of MI5 filling a numbered bank account in Switzerland for Marian, a pledge account. She didn’t tell me the balance.
I push myself back from the table. Finn’s room has a different smell than the rest of the house, like calendula lotion and cotton crib sheets. In his sleep, he stretches his arms above his head and rolls onto his side. One of his feet pokes through the slats of the crib, and I tuck it back inside. I rest my hand on his chest, feeling his ribs swell as he breathes, and wonder what exactly I’m doing.