Chapter 35 ~ Snares

Bella was asleep by eight-thirty. One minute, she was walking around, picking up the cards she’d found earlier, putting them down somewhere else, repeating the cycle over and again until the apartment was scattered with playing cards, and then she’d just laid down flat on the floor, asleep.

I left her for a while so that I could keep on staring at the television, flicking from news channel to news channel, expecting something, some flash, some picture, some headline, some ticker pointing its finger at me and letting me know the game was up. But there was nothing. Nothing.

Nothing.

Aside from here and now, in this apartment, it seemed Bella didn’t exist.

A little while later, in a gap within the aural backdrop provided by yet another pretty-boy anchor, I suddenly heard her breathing. It was like I hadn’t known she was there at all; not even like realizing I’d forgotten her. Adrenalin surged through my system. I looked down at her prone form. Checked my watch. An hour had gone past.

An hour.

I scooped her up and she didn’t bat an eyelid, sleeping through the whole manoeuvre.

I left pretty-boy behind, blathering on with some C-list interviewee about the state of celebrity in Hollywood, as I headed down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

Bella needed a t-shirt and, while one of mine would dwarf her, one of my mother’s would likely be a better fit, so I decided to put her to bed in my parents’ room.

In their bedroom, I rifled through her drawers, looking for t-shirts, light sweaters, anything that could be used as makeshift pyjamas for Bella. All I turned up was Chanel, Ferragamo and other designers whose names I hadn’t heard before. Nothing for my little girl, though. Nothing.

Then I struck pay-dirt.

Like any impression-conscious New Yorker, my mother had the requisite amount of work-out gear – little Nike t-shirts, all lycra and figure hugging. Not that she ever went to the gym, of course. One of these little tops looked like just the thing and I held it up against Bella’s sleeping form. It looked about right.

I stripped her, throwing her clothes to the floor, realizing for about the third time that day that she had a wet diaper, which I changed before pulling the t-shirt over her head. It was too big for her, but nowhere near as big as one of mine would have been.

As I laid Bella down in the middle of my parents’ bed, I remembered the previous night, when she’d tumbled to the floor. My mother unwittingly came to my rescue again; a mountain of throw cushions at the head of the bed. I arranged them, and the pillows, on either side of Bella, so that she wasn’t able to roll straight off the bed.

The telephone rang.

“Shit,” I looked at Bella, panicked that she would wake. No chance, she slept straight through the ringing of the phone.

I grabbed the handset off the bedside table and rushed through to the kitchen, certain that it was going to be Ivvy checking up on us both, keen to continue the charade of happy families we’d been playing earlier that morning.

“Shhhhh…” I hissed into the phone, “Bella’s…”

“Kenneth?”

My father was the last person I had expected to hear.

For a moment, the world swam in front of my eyes and I went cold all over.

“Ungh…”

“Kenny?” he sounded concerned. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Oh… You sounded… Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, just didn’t expect to hear your voice.”

There was silence for a moment. I was caught between wanting to avoid small talk and not wanting the silence to drag too long.

“How are things going, Dad?”

“Good,” he said, “just… Well, you know… Fine, given the circumstances. Your mother…”

Since when did I care? I thought, walking through to the lounge with the phone in hand, eyeing the news coverage.

Since when did you care?

“… has been… It’s been good for her, reconnecting with her family. There’s a lot of water under the bridge since she last saw them and…”

I suddenly found I couldn’t be bothered. With my father, or the news. It wasn’t as if I had to monitor the television religiously, the same talking heads were talking, talking, talking and not one mention of Bella anywhere.

“Dad, why are you calling?”

“Oh…”

Yes, ‘oh’, I thought.

“We’re on our way home, Kenny.”

I sat down on the couch. My legs began to quiver.

When I tried to speak, my throat was so dry that no words could claw their way out.

My thoughts scrambled, trying to find purchase on anything that made sense, anything that gave me a route forward.

“Kenny?”

“Sorry, Dad,” I said, gaining enough control to put in a stalling tactic, “connection’s not so good. When… Er… When are you coming back?”

“Oh… Well, your mother wants to stop off in London on the way through, touch base with some old friends. You know, keep an eye on the old country and I could do with checking in with… Old drinking buddies.”

I imagined the leer on his face; old haunts, old flames, old ghosts.

“So when do you think you’ll be back?”

“Why,” his voice was quick, only half jovial, “are you worried we’ll gate-crash your party?”

“Huh?”

“Well… While the cat’s away… You know?”

“No,” I protested and, all of a sudden it fell across me like a wave: play the role, just play the role.

“It’s not that, I just want to make sure Oliveria comes in before you get back, get the place clean, you know? You don’t want to come back to dirty dishes and my shit all over the place, do you?”

He laughed a little at his end, my make-believe enough to persuade him.

“Tuesday, I think,” he said, checking his mental calendar, “hang on a sec…”

The line went quiet for a little while, as he worked his smart-phone.

“Yes,” he said, “there’s a flight back in the early P.M. on Tuesday, gets us into JFK in the early evening. Should be back in the city by nine, ten at the latest.”

“OK,” I said, unsure whether I could say much more thanks to my whirling dervish thoughts, “I’ll get Oliveria in on Monday.”

“Sounds good, listen I’ve got to go, we’re heading down to the bar for a wee night-cap. Do you need the flight details?”

“Not really.”

“Yes, sure… Why would you? Not like you’d meet us at the airport, is it?”

There was no humour in this last, no vindictiveness either, it was a statement of fact.

“No, wasn’t planning on it.”

“OK. Bye, then.”

“Yeah,” I went to press the button but paused for a moment, “Dad?”

“Yes?”

“We’ll…” I caught myself, “I’ll… Er… I’ll be staying at a friend’s place when you get back.”

“So?”

“No, I mean staying there.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know her.”

“Her?”

“Yes… She’s… A friend. You don’t know her.”

“Oh… OK. Leave us a number when you go.”

And with that he put the phone down at his end, leaving me holding a dead lump of plastic and circuits.

As empty as the gulf between us.

*     *     *

It took me almost an hour to get up the courage to phone Ivvy.

When I did, I got her answering machine.

After the tone, I left my message.

“Ivvy,” I said, all purpose and clear intent, “we’re gonna have to stay with you for a few days. My parents are coming home. They’ll be here on Tuesday. We’ll give you a buzz tomorrow and work out times and all that shit. We need to go shopping for stuff for Bella if you want to come along? Anyway. I’m going to bed soon, so don’t call me tonight. Speak tomorrow.”

She’d be working still. On shift until the early hours. I planned to be dead asleep by then.

*     *     *

But as it was I wasn’t even in bed by then.

I was asleep on the sofa, the remains of a joint in an ashtray, finger still on the television remote where I’d been flicking through meaningless news channels.

My last thought before I crashed: I’m in the clear… I’m a Dad.

Chapter 36 ~ Void

Chapter 34 ~ Inside The Cat’s Eyes