Page 105 of Magpie
They have reached the edge of Battersea Park. The sun is low in the sky, casting a misty light over the surface of the Thames. On the river, two long rowing boats sweep past, eight silhouetted people sitting low in the water, their bodies flexing and straightening in unison. The boats edge back and forth for advantage. The dipping oars make a light splashing sound as they enter the water.
Kate checks on the baby, whose eyes are flickering shut, his small fingers slowly uncurling. She speaks softly when she replies.
‘I was just thinking about a mother’s love.’
‘Wow. OK. Deep.’
She brings her hand up to her forehead to shield her squinting eyes from the sunlight as she looks into Jake’s face.
‘It’s not that I’ve forgiven Annabelle, exactly,’ she starts.
‘I should hope not,’ he says.
‘It’s more that I think I can understand a bit better.’
He turns his head to the river.
‘You’re a more generous person than I am.’
She places her hand on his cheek, bringing his face back to hers, and she stretches up on tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth.
‘I understand why she loves you so much. I couldn’t stand it if I felt Leo was being taken away from me by someone who didn’t like me.’
Jake smiles at her, but his face is shuttered.
‘Let’s not talk about it,’ he says. ‘I want to have a nice afternoon.’
‘OK.’ She snuggles closer to him, winding her arm around his waist. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Kate always thought that, out of the two of them, she was the angrier one. She had certainly been furious with Annabelle for a long time after the baby shower. But when Leo was born, it seemed such a waste of energy to keep the fire of her outrage burning from afar. There was no focus for it now that Jake had cut his parents out of their lives. He had been horrified by Annabelle’s schemes, and ashamed of how he had – unwittingly – taken part in them. He told her that his sisters were estranged from their mother because Annabelle had meddled in their lives to such an extent that they couldn’t take it any more. Toad had developed an eating disorder. Millie was a workaholic. Julia had married an abusive man simply to placate their mother.
‘Mum thought he was “the right sort”,’ Jake explained. ‘You know, double-barrelled surname, country shooting weekends, public school, that kind of crap. They’re divorced now. But it’s why all three of themhave moved so far away. I should have told you, but I suppose I didn’t want you to think badly of Mum. Which is stupid, I know, because no one thinks more badly of her now than I do. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
He had apologised repeatedly to Kate for his ‘weakness’ and his ‘disloyalty’ until she told him to stop. She couldn’t take the constant re-hashing of the past, the awareness of what he could have done differently. It was pointless.
‘Annabelle can be very convincing,’ she said to him. ‘You stood up to her in the end and that’s what matters.’
Besides, she asked, hadn’t Annabelle and Chris helped them when they most needed it? Did it matter what the ulterior motive had been? When they were in crisis, and had feared losing everything, it was Jake’s parents who had shown up. She is grateful for that, in spite of everything.
Annabelle had sent a pair of blue knitted booties when Leo was born. The envelope was addressed to Jake, and when he opened it, he threw the card away unopened and stuffed the booties in the kitchen drawer where they kept the spare batteries and elastic bands. The booties are still there in their plastic gift box, long outgrown. Whenever Kate catches sight of them, she thinks of how Annabelle remembered their due date.
She knows not to press the issue with Jake. It is his pain to carry and his to reconcile, not hers. In time, maybe they will allow Leo’s grandparents back into their lives. For now, though, there is no need. They are complete, the three of them. A perfect family, just as they are.
They reach the Peace Pagoda at the edge of the park. Its two layered roofs remind Kate of a Victorian lady lifting her skirts. She read somewhere that the pagoda was presented to London as a gift by a Japanese monk who, after the atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had vowed to spend the rest of his life building shrines to peace. She looks at the golden Buddha shining out from the centre, its clean brightness like a fresh, new coin. Peace, she thinks. She understands it now. She rests her hand against Leo’s head and feels the sleeping warmth of him.
‘Shall we go home?’ she asks.
‘Sure,’ he says.
The baby is swaddled in his sling. Jake’s arm is around her shoulders. They walk back to where they came from, and the golden Buddha watches them go.
