She gives me a slow, serious nod of agreement.
‘So you are Alice. I knew you’d have an extra-pretty name. Do you come from Wonderland?’
Alice nods yes to this question and holds out the stuffed kitty, stretching both arms in front of her in one decisive move.
‘For me?’
Another nod.
I take the kitty and jiggle it until she laughs and snatches it back.
‘I love your dress, Alice.’ It is sunburst orange with pink and purple daisies.
Alice points to my head, and I remember that I took the white pom-pom from the Christmas hat Katarina gave me last December and tied it around my ponytail this morning. I touch the ball of fluffy yarn. ‘Do you like it?’
Alice nods, her eyes wide.
Alice’s mum returns, and I show her where she can wait with Alice. It’s the nicest part of the paediatric unit, with PVC-upholstered benches for parents and boxes of toys for children. As soon as she is freed from her buggy, Alice toddles off in her bright play dress to the toy oven, to make pretend cups of tea and bake pretend cakes, helped by her mum, who kneels beside her.
Trudy is preoccupied at the other end of the desk. The buzzer goes, signalling the arrival of a new patient. The last thing on Trudy’s mind is me – she has way too much to do, hitting the button to release the door lock, then signing in a little boy and answering his parents’ anxious questions.
I shouldn’t do it. I know it is irrational. But that eye. I have to check. A few keystrokes, and I have Alice’s computerised records on the screen. The address is on a very expensive street. When I see that her mother’s name is Eliza Wilmot I get an electric shock and my heart starts to beat faster.
Eliza was the name of a woman I glimpsed with Zac in a hotel bar on a horrible night two years ago. I never learned her surname. Is this the same Eliza? And the child. Could she be Zac’s? I shake my head at the possibility, then stop myself, self-conscious, though when I look around nobody is paying attention.
When I see that Alice was born on May eighteenth, just a few days after my own baby, I take a short, sharp breath. My throat tightens, and I am in the grip of grief and panic. There is a real risk I will cry. Last year, on May fourteenth, I pulled the comforter over my head and didn’t get out of bed at all. I think of my grandmother’s photo in the paper. Has Zac managed to find me, and dragged along a child I never knew about? The coincidences are too strong for me to imagine anything else.
I press on through Alice’s referral letter and medical notes. She has type 1 Waardenburg syndrome, which is a rare genetic condition that can cause hearing loss as well as changes to the pigmentation of the skin, hair, and eyes. So far, the medical notes say, Alice has three manifestations of the condition. The white forelock, the iris that is segmented into two different colours, and eyes that appear widely spaced, though in Alice the latter manifestation is so subtle I hadn’t noticed it. She is new to the area, and today is her initial appointment with the paediatrician who will be monitoring her. Tomorrow, I see, she is going to audiology for a hearing test.
For the first time, it occurs to me that Zac might have this condition, too. Could that be why he shaves his head, morning and night, to hide the white forelock? He led me to think the shaving was an aesthetic choice. That he preferred no hair at all to a bald spot. When I asked him about his eye, he said he was made that way. I try to picture his face. I think, though I am not certain, that perhaps his eyes, too, are a little widely spaced. But why would he keep the condition a secret, and try to cover it up, if he did have it? As soon as I silently pose the question, I know the answer. Zac hates anything that makes him appear vulnerable.
A sudden influx of newly arrived parents and children overwhelms me and Trudy. I catch sight of Alice’s mother, hovering nearby, handing Alice a biscuit and a sippy cup, then checking her phone. When the queue has finally cleared, she comes over to me. ‘Thank you so much for your help earlier.’
I give her an it-was-nothing shrug. Does she know who I am? Did Zac send her here? I can’t decide. The appointment is certainly genuine – Alice clearly needs it. I am praying my face isn’t drained of colour when I say, ‘Your daughter is gorgeous.’
‘She is, isn’t she?!’ Without looking at it, she grabs a flyer about MMR from a pile stacked on the counter, rummages in her bag for a pen, scribbles something on the flyer. ‘I’m Eliza. And this is Alice.’
It’s as if I have a hot sword running through the centre of my chest to the bottom of my stomach.
‘And you’re Helen, aren’t you?’ I nearly jump at her knowing my name, but then she lowers her voice and says, ‘The scary woman called you that.’
I manage a laugh. ‘Ah. Yes.’ I lift the flap in the reception counter to let myself through. I crouch in front of Alice. ‘Goodbye, Alice.’ I put out my hand, which she takes and shakes, imitating grown-ups. She holds her arms out, so that I lean closer in, and she giggles and tries to slide my glasses from my nose, then giggles some more. This child looks so like Zac, but his strong features are delicate and beautiful in her face.
‘I don’t normally do this.’ Eliza lifts her shoulders in pretend embarrassment. ‘I mean, pick up new friends in hospital clinics. But we’ve not long moved here, and I barely know anyone. Would you like to meet for coffee? I wrote down my name and number.’ She offers me the MMR sheet.
I take the sheet. ‘Coffee would be lovely.’ It is quiet here, a brief lull, and Trudy has gone on a break. Nobody will notice that I do not dutifully tell my would-be friend Eliza that I am not supposed to do this sort of thing with the parents of patients. I smile with what I think is perfect composure, though the fizzing electrical noises that are a constant in this place seem to be bleeping and pinging from inside my own body.
That night, I cannot sleep. I squirm beneath sheets that are sticky with my own sweat, feeling as alone as a lighthouse keeper trapped on a rock island in a storm so terrible no relief boat can get to him. I grab the phone from the floor by my bed and dial Peggy, with my number blocked and the mute button engaged, my heart beating so much faster than the ringtone.
Peggy is still half-asleep, sounding scared, thinking something has happened to Milly, repeating the word ‘Hello’ over and over, and Milly’s name as if it were a question. I can hear James in the background, asking who it is and what has happened. I disconnect, telling myself it was worth it just to hear their voices after almost two years. I feel dreadful that I’ve frightened them, but tell myself they will soon discover that Milly is fine.
I pull off the quilt and drag myself from the single bed beneath the crypt-like brick archway I’d painted bright yellow. I sit in a rocking chair I’d stained deep teal, and I sew the tiniest of tiny baby clothes for the most premature of premature babies. I am one of a handful of volunteers who make these so that hospitals can keep a few on hand. And though I hope they will never be worn, I know all too well that they will be. I prick my finger with the needle and feel certain that somewhere out in the world a bad thing is happening.
Two and a half years earlier
Cornwall, 14 October 2016
It was the Mermaid of Zennor who prompted my move into Zac’s rented farmhouse two months after we first slept together. We made the decision when I took him to see her in the village church.
The Mermaid is six centuries old, and carved into the side of a little bench, holding her looking glass and comb. The dark wood is scarred and scratched and discoloured. Some of it is peeling away. She has a rounded belly and breasts that you can’t help but want to touch, though countless hands have smoothed her features away through