That night,as Zora cuddled Sparebitty, too excited to sleep till she knew whether she was getting a brother or a sister, Coralie and Adam whispered one of the worst fights in the two years they’d spent together. “You chose to go to the concert—nobody made you!” Adam said. “You knew I had a book to finish. What am I supposed to do, not write the book?” He was passive, sullen. He refused to meet her eye. “I have acontractto write the book. Should I give the money back?” She became hysterical; she sobbed that he was ruining her life. “It’s good to know you feel this way before we try tohave a kid,” he said. “If we’re ruining each other’s lives, we should stop.”What do you mean?she almost screamed.Tell me what you mean!“Coralie,” he said blankly. “You can decide what I mean.” He was a stranger.
At 3 a.m. she stopped crying. At 4 a.m. they had sex. At five, Adam left to catch the train to Manchester. At six, she got a text from Tom with a picture of Zora’s new brother, Rupert, to be known as Rup. At seven, she promised a very excited Zora to take her to the hospital to see him. Immediately after she emailed in sick, a full complement of builders arrived, reminding her she’d be without power for much of the day. By nine, Antoinette had sent back a scary one-word reply:Noted.
But just as she and Zora were getting ready to leave, there came a knock on the door. It was Sally. Behind her, in the car, Anne sat looking annoyed. Adam had issued a predawn SOS, and they’d come to take Zora off her hands. Coralie surprised all of them, and herself, by bursting into sobs of despair.
•••
At a week old,Rup was already too big for his white John Lewis newborn sleepsuit. He lay stretched across Marina’s lap like a witchetty grub. “He’s lovely and relaxed,” Coralie said.
Tom gave her an anguished look, and Marina actually snorted.
In the corner, Geraldine Amin glanced up from her sudoku. “He’snotlike this in the night.”
Adam looked around for Zora. “Are you ready, poppet?” She was: Her backpack was on.
“Have a lovely weekend,” Coralie said.
“Don’t worry,” Marina replied, “we won’t.”
“Oh?”
“Tom’s campaigning in Eastbourne. Totally exhausting politics. An absolute waste of my time.”
“Hormones. Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Tom squeezed her hand. “I’m probably going to lose.”
“Oh, don’tyouworry.” Marina was grim. “You will.”
On the train, Zora said she’d always imagined feeding the baby with a bottle, but Granny Geraldine wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to read to him, but if he ever “got awake,” he just wanted to eat or cry. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t play, and did they know he didn’t have teeth? “Granny Geraldine says I love Rupey, really.”
“And do you?” Adam asked.
Zora put on Marina’s face and mangled one of her phrases. “Let me get back on you to that.”
•••
Adam was onthe road most of the time. On the rare occasions he was at home, they huddled close, almost wordless, recovering from the fight. They had made up, they werein love, but Coralie had been so harrowed she seemed to have lost part of her brain. It was the part she normally liked best, the companionable bit, jollying the rest of her along with observations, witticisms, analysis, and—sure!—a bit of overthinking. To lose it was depressing but helpful in a way. She became a person who did one thing at a time. At work, she was at work. Antoinette was pleased with her. At home, she was at home. The bespoke glazing was installed, the renovation not even late. She felt confident to schedule the redelivery of the books, kitchen things, and ground-floor stuff that had languished for months in storage. Their lives would be back to normal after the election, almost to the day.
And thank God, because toward the end of April, the campaignhad gone what Adam would call a bit “bonkers.” David Cameron caused an outcry by forgetting he supported Aston Villa.This has to cost Cameron the election, surely? How can anyone “forget” which football team they support? Unforgivable, Piers Morgan had tweeted. Meanwhile, Ed Miliband had some unlikely support from teenage girls, who called him “Milibae” and themselves “Milifans.” With less than two weeks to go, the word on the street was that the nation was heading for a hung Parliament and another coalition government—but whether Labour or the Conservatives would be the larger party, nobody really knew.
Ultimately, however, the fate of the UK’s democracy turned out not to be her problem. In the first week of May, just as life was as close as possible to normality, Coralie’s brother summoned her home.
Sorry, Cor, Daniel’s email said.Mum’s in the Last Chance Saloon.
7
She emerged from Darwin Airport in a daze. The air hummed with insects. Everywhere, birds were calling. Her first flight home in nearly three years. Had it existed the whole time—Australia? All this warmth? The early-morning sun was an affront.
“Cor? You look shocking.” Daniel took the handle of her suitcase. “Get in the car quick; I don’t want to pay for parking.”
He told her the story driving with one hand on the steering wheel. Their mother had gone into chemo like any other day. She’d got new bloods done. The doctor had checked the scans, then checked them with someone more senior. The nurses had been whispering and staring. Mum had realized, once they’d mentioned it, she wasn’t feeling that great. They’d admitted her to the ward for pain relief and fluids. After a few days, the surgeon (her personal hero Dr. Ainslie) “went in” to make “a few minor adjustments.”
“What does that mean?” Coralie asked.
“Major stomach surgery,” Dan said. “Her fourth. Dr. Ainslie reckoned it would be a small job. A bit of untangling—that’s what he said. That’s why I didn’t tell you before.”
There was a high-pitched tone in Coralie’s ear. She leaned herhead against the window. “So Mum didn’t think anything was wrong. But somethingwaswrong. And now it’s been fixed?”
“Sorry, am I telling the story badly?” Dan’s anxious eyes roamed the wide, empty road lined with palm trees. He got all the luck—lashes that stayed dark until the ends, not fading to blonde like her own.
