The Killing in the Café

TEN

She couldn’t eat any more and said she had to get back to High Tor in case the phone rang. Jude’s argument that if Stephen had contacted her on the mobile once he could do so again did not hold any sway. Carole needed to be alone. Alone with her fears.

She spent a terrible night. She had been nervous when Gaby was in labour with Lily, but the sheer gorgeousness of her granddaughter had dulled and sanitized the memory of that. This time she was paranoid with worry. And she knew why.

She didn’t even attempt to go to bed. She knew there was no possibility of sleep. Instead she sat downstairs in her antiseptically clean sitting room, with her mobile on the table next to her landline phone, willing them both to ring. It was a very long night.

Gulliver, sensing her distress, sat by her feet, seeming to wish there was something he could bring her by way of comfort. But there wasn’t anything.

Eventually, at six in the morning, Carole willed herself to have a shower and change into fresh clothes. She wondered whether she should pack a bag in readiness for a summons to Fulham, but no. That would be tempting providence.

In such a bad state was she that, for the second morning running, Carole found herself ringing Woodside Cottage on the dot of seven.

‘Any news?’ Jude immediately asked.

‘Nothing,’ Carole replied desolately. ‘I was thinking I should take Gulliver out for his walk, but I don’t want to leave the house.’

‘You’ve got your mobile,’ Jude reassured her, ‘and the signal on Fethering Beach is pretty good.’

‘Yes.’ There was an empty silence. ‘You wouldn’t mind taking him, would you, Jude?’

‘No, that’s fine. Just give me time to get some clothes on and I’ll be right round.’

They sat in the hygienic anonymity of Carole’s kitchen. She had offered coffee in a knee-jerk hospitable gesture and been a little surprised when Jude said yes. All her neighbour had needed to do was to pick up Gulliver and take him down to Fethering Beach. But Gulliver had decided that wasn’t about to happen straight away and snuggled down into his usual place beside the Aga.

Once they were both sitting at the table with coffee cups, Carole was surprised to find she was comforted. She felt so vulnerable that Jude’s presence was infinitely reassuring.

‘What is the matter?’ her neighbour asked.

‘My daughter-in-law’s in labour. That’s what’s the matter. You know that.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t justify the state you’re in, Carole.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. Look, I know you pretty well by now.’ Carole didn’t like that idea of anyone knowing her ‘pretty well’, but she still found perverse comfort in Jude’s words. ‘And I know you keep a tight control on your emotions. But right now you’re in a really bad way.’

‘Maybe.’ It was more than Carole would usually admit.

‘Is it because it’s the second baby?’

Carole looked at her neighbour sharply. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jude wasn’t about to claim any psychic powers. She knew the contemptuous reaction she’d get to anything of that kind. ‘It just seemed, the state you’ve been in the last few months, compared to how you were during Gaby’s first pregnancy.’

‘I didn’t realize it showed so much.’

‘It did. It does.’

There was a silence. Then, slowly, Carole said, ‘If you really want to know …’

‘I’m not pushing you. If you’d rather not talk about it …’

But Carole was under way and not to be deflected. Her voice sounded very even as she made the confession. ‘After Stephen was born, a couple of years after I did get pregnant again. The baby went to term and was stillborn. It was a girl. I felt very guilty.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault. Just incredibly bad luck.’

‘Not guilty towards the baby. I felt guilty for the effect it had on Stephen. I became very withdrawn from everything after it happened. Withdrawn from Stephen. Withdrawn from David. I think that’s probably what ended the marriage. Neither of us could talk about it, talk about her. We just drew further apart.’

Carole wasn’t the kind of woman to cry, but Jude had no doubt about the level of emotion she was experiencing. She also knew that her neighbour would probably later regret how much she was opening up. She would feel embarrassed and never want the subject mentioned again. Jude was prepared for that. If her neighbour never again referred to this conversation, she would never raise it.

Jude reached across the table and put her hand on Carole’s. It flinched momentarily, but then let the hand stay there. Between the two women silence reigned.

It was broken by the ringing of the landline. Stephen announced that Gaby had just given birth to another girl. Mother and baby were both doing fine. She was going to be called Chloe ‘with no dots on the “e” – we don’t want to make life difficult for her when she gets to school.’