The Seduction by Joanna Briscoe

Author:Joanna Briscoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408873526
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

‘You don’t need to stay in with me any more in the evenings,’ said Fern three days later. Her mouth was a tight pout, baby giraffe legs in tracksuit bottoms. She had largely stayed in her room while Sol was away.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Then you don’t need to put me to bed.’

‘Oh?’ said Beth. She made herself turn around. Her voice seemed too loud. Ducks suddenly chattered. A lorry roared somewhere further off.

She turned back. Fern seemed to be eyeing her thoughtfully.

‘I only really come up and kiss you goodnight now,’ said Beth, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, then hummed, unnecessarily moving some papers.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘You’d rather I didn’t.’ She focused on the table. There was camera equipment Sol had left behind, Fern’s Kindle by the perpetual pile of paperwork at the end, Fern’s felt tips.

The tense shoulder blades turned, emanating something close to disgust.

Fern shrugged, nodded.

Beth’s neck tightened. ‘OK.’

Fern blushed a little. ‘Then you can be dreaming with your pencil held in the air while you’re doing Mice,’ she said. ‘Or on your phone. Don’t worry, you can.’

‘Oh, Fern. Don’t be ridiculous.’

Fern watched her, as though through a coating of ice.

That body had been wrapped in Beth’s arms, head rubbing, finding patterns in the luminous stars on her ceiling, Fern begging for more time, kisses sipped, scalp warm, cheeks almost downy: the earth-shaking pouring of maternal love. At the same time, in truth, Beth’s neck aching, fighting through the tiredness of the day, dinner calling, wine if they let themselves, adult chat with Sol, but always the wonder of the human beside her whose voice tone, skin smell, was boundlessly pleasing.

‘OK,’ said Beth with apparent calm, her heart racing, ‘I’ll say goodnight down here. Of course.’

***

‘Are you all right?’ was the first thing Beth had said when her estranged mother had appeared in Hackney over a decade before. ‘Why are you in London?’

Lizzie stood there on Beck Road by the buggy, as poised as an ageing ballerina. She hesitated, then nodded. ‘Can I see?’ she said, and didn’t wait for permission, but dance-plunged as she always had to the buggy head and bent over to look at the two-month-old Fern.

Beth gripped the handles.

‘Oh, Bethy,’ Lizzie said, on a draining out-breath. ‘So beautiful.’

Beth stood there. Certainty was quite gone. Seconds were shunting past.

‘A boy or a girl?’

Beth paused. ‘A girl,’ she said stiffly. Lizzie’s looks were softening into old age; she seemed to be alone. No wedding ring. There had always been a man attached to her.

‘Beautiful. A beautiful baby, Bethy,’ said Lizzie, peering into the pram, and Beth stared at her mother’s head with the defenceless spray of a crown, and fury started to rise: a storm of uncryable tears.

‘I’d love—’ said Lizzie, reaching out to Fern’s cheek, a witch’s finger on the peach skin. ‘Please can I see her?’

‘Well, no—’ Beth began. She pulled the buggy towards her. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Lizzie stared at her, all eyes of need, assessing and age-clouded.

Everything in Beth

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