‘She looked like she checks out of the window every night,’ was all I could say.
‘She does.’ Jeremy hunched uselessly against the rain.
‘Why? Have you two had some sort of trouble?’
Jeremy shook his head. ‘No trouble. Charlie’s perfectly safe. She’s just . . . She’s just been very anxious since we took him. She’s been really afraid you’d change your mind.’
‘So afraid she checks out of the window all the time?’
After a pause, Jeremy nodded. ‘She’s wonderful with Charlie,’ he said. ‘So you don’t need to worry about the effect this anxiety’s had, but . . . Anyway, now it’s all legalised I think she’ll be able to draw a line. Start to believe she really is a mother.’
I had not expected this. The scenes that played in my head had involved Janice and Jeremy smiling with joy at their sleeping toddler, coming downstairs to drink wine together and talk about all the funny things he’d done that day. It hadn’t crossed my mind that she could be anxious. Especially about me. About Emily Peel, who’d lain in bed for months on end, hardly able to take care of her most basic needs.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ I said. ‘This is the first time. And, obviously, the last.’
He started to say something but I interrupted.
‘I will never get over what I did,’ I said. ‘It’s ruined my life. But you don’t need to worry, Jeremy. I’m not stalking you. It was just a . . . I don’t know. The finality of the court order going through. I panicked.’
He nodded. ‘I understand. But it mustn’t happen again – Janice will call the police if you harass us, and I won’t stop her.’
I closed my eyes against the rain for a moment.
‘I’m so sorry, Jeremy. Please don’t tell her it was me. It’ll only cause unnecessary alarm.’
‘Absolutely. I’ll say it was a nutter.’
I nearly smiled. He nearly did, too.
‘Just . . . Just tell me Charlie’s OK,’ I said. It was rising up inside me, again; the longing. The deep sea swell of it. ‘Tell me he’s well, and happy.’
‘He is,’ Jeremy said, gently. A bus with steamed windows pulled in behind him. ‘Oh, Emily. He is very well, and very happy. You don’t need to worry about him at all.’
I couldn’t speak. Passengers spilled from the bowels of the bus.
‘We will never tell him what happened,’ he said, and his voice had become the kindest voice in the world. ‘We’ll just say that you were young and very challenged by life, and that you felt you couldn’t keep him. He won’t ever know about that day.’
‘Thank you.’
He nodded. ‘Is your grandmother looking after you?’
I jammed my hands in my pockets. ‘Not really. She’s had some virus, it’s kind of taken her out. I’m not sure how much longer she’s got, to be honest.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, I apologise. Sincerely. You won’t see me again.’
Without any particular plan, I turned and walked off into the rain.
My baby boy. My sweet tiny Charlie, now a little toddler with wealthy parents and a big house on the park. Kept from me by law.
And if I did one thing right in my life, I thought, walking on down the Holloway Road, if I really cared about him, I would never go near him again.
Chapter Forty-Five
EMILY