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‘No,’ I say. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
She sighs heavily, glances up at us both. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Forty-One
Neil
He gets in early, as usual. The Lovegoods are upstairs: the clank of crockery in the makeshift kitchen they’ve set up on the landing, the flush of water from the upstairs bathroom, the screech and sing-song of the girls. He’s fitting the boiler himself because Rick, his plumber, has let him down at the last minute. Adam is due later on, at which point they’ll concrete in the beams. He’s in the utility, minding his own business, concentrating. Strictly speaking, he’s not qualified to fit a boiler, but Rick will check it later in the week before signing it off. It’s silent in the little room. He works steadily, but after a while, he notices the silence. It starts to bug him; he could do with some tunes. He pats his overalls, realises he’s left his phone in the work site. Or at home – yeah, he can see it charging on the kitchen table. Not to worry. There’s a radio; he can use that – he’ll pop back for the phone once the boiler’s in.
He puts the screwdriver on the cistern and opens the door of the utility space.
Straight away, straight away, he sees it: he’s left the bloody kitchen door open.
A soft whistle leaves him, eyes rolling, checking the stairwell.
But they’re still upstairs. He can hear the buzz of an electric toothbrush.
Jennifer made him fit a lock to the kitchen door the day the building work started. Wouldn’t let work commence until that was done. Told him in the smiling, certain terms he’s used to from his clients that if she ever found that door open while the kids were in the house, she would fire him on the spot. Did he understand? Too right he did. He does.
But now, in the hallway, he can hear Jennifer and the kids upstairs, so at this point he’s only annoyed with himself. He’s been distracted. Bella got so upset last night and again this morning, and now he’s all over the place. He’s told her they’ll get there, that they’ll keep trying as many times as it takes, but it breaks his heart to see her like that, it really does.
The throaty purr of Johnnie’s Porsche reaches him from the drive. Sometimes he honks the horn to hurry Jennifer and the kids along, but Neil knows it’s not about that – it’s about wanting to show off to the neighbours, make sure they’ve seen him and know what a big cheese he is. Idiot.
He hurries into the site and kicks the door shut behind him. Danger over. No more sloppiness from here on in. This job is worth a fortune. It’ll pay for another round of IVF, and if Johnnie is pleased, he said he’ll recommend Neil to all his clients going forward. This job will be the making of him.
The radio is on top of the washing machine.
He takes a step, glancing down to judge where his feet are. Last thing he needs is to go falling into the trench.
Time slows.
Abi’s cuddly toy is on the ground. The one he and Bella bought and took into the hospital the day she was born. What the hell is it doing in here?
He swallows, takes one more step, and peers into the trench.
He tastes vomit, swallows it down. Falls. The shock of the fall sends pain shooting into his knees.
‘No,’ he whispers. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
Abi. Little Abi. His darling little girl. The set of her limbs, the slackness of her mouth, her skin. A cellophane bag lies by her head, just beyond her tiny fist – in it, two slices of bread. Two enormous plasters cover her little knees.
She’s dead; he knows it in his bones before he jumps in, before he jumps in and presses his fingers to her soft and tiny neck, to her impossibly thin white wrists, moaning, crying at her to be alive.
‘No, Abi. No, no, no, no. Come on, baby girl. Breathe. Breathe for your Uncle Nee. Come on, babe, come on.’
There is no pulse. No beat of her little heart. Head thumping, skin burning, he lifts her. Presses his face to her little blue coat, holds her in his arms.
‘Abi, darling. Darling, no.’
He can barely see. But he casts about, sees his tool bag against the wall and knows with a terrible clarity that will return to him over and over for the rest of his days that it is big enough. It will hide her.
Here in this cell, staring at the grey ceiling in his depthless misery, he knows that his panic was blind – morally blind, unthinking, a kind of deafening, reverberating buzz drowning out all but action. He knows that this is what happened. He wishes he could play it out again and do it differently, but he can’t. He can’t; he couldn’t then, even ten minutes later, and he can’t now and that’s that.
But that doesn’t stop him picking at it. Thinking about how, gladly, without a moment’s hesitation, he would give all that he owns to reverse time, to go back, to put it right. Bella, yes, even Bella. He would start his life again from scratch. He knows how to do it, knows he can. The castle he built is rubble at his feet. It wasn’t, was never, worth this. Every time he closes his eyes, he’s back there, back to that terrible morning, that dusty shell of a room, picking up Abi’s tiny body, running, cradling her, laying her gently in the bag. Her pale, lifeless face; the touch of her eyelids on the ends of his fingers. The worst is pulling the zip closed over her, half choking, her face blurring. That terrible, terrible morning.
‘Oh God. My little darling; my beautiful little girl.’
He stands, wipes his eyes, takes shallow breaths, over and over, gasping for air. He crosses the site and looks back. All he can see is a work site, tools, a tool bag. He will figure out what to do in a moment. He just needs the Lovegoods to leave.
