‘Sorry, what?’ I turn to face a thin man in a black beanie hat standing next to my seat. ‘What were you saying?’
The man points a bony finger at the seat Kathryn has just vacated, her rucksack left behind next to it.
‘Is that free?’ He’s holding up all the other passengers trying to move down the carriage but seems oblivious.
‘She just had to make a phone call,’ I say. ‘She’s coming back in a minute. Sorry.’
He stares at me for a moment and then asks the same question of the red-faced businessman at the table opposite, who grunts a reluctant affirmative. The thin man settles himself into the seat, folding his long legs beneath him and taking a laptop out of his rucksack.
The hum of the engine rises as the train begins to move again. Rolling slowly at first, the platform at Seer Green starts to slide by, past a blue-painted steel fence separating the station from the car park beyond, massed ranks of vehicles side by side. Passengers carry bags and clutch tickets as they walk towards the station exit. I catch a glimpse of a couple of men shaking hands, two middle-aged women embracing; a station worker in a high-vis jacket; a man in a parka, a couple of teenagers walking in; a single figure in a raincoat. I stare out of the window, disbelief fogging my thoughts, as if the train might stop at any moment, as if the situation will put itself right if I just wait a few more seconds. The red-faced man across the aisle is glaring at me with undisguised irritation, his brows knitted together. I return his stare with one of my own, and he drops his eyes back to his laptop.
I throw one last look back at the platform. Perhaps Kathryn was meeting someone here. Then my view is blocked by trees as the train angles away from the station, picking up speed. For a split second I think about standing up and pulling the emergency cord before we’ve got too far out of the station. Is it a genuine emergency? Is anyone in danger? What’s the best thing for Mia?
The baby whimpers in my arms.
‘Shh,’ I say in a soft voice, rocking her gently. ‘Did I startle you? Shh, it’s OK.’
Mia settles again and stares up at me with big blue eyes. A long lazy blink and a small smile that makes my heart swell. I’m a calm person; I need to stay calm for the baby’s sake. Mia doesn’t seem to need anything right now, she isn’t crying to be fed or changed or rubbing her eyes for a sleep; she seems happy enough to be held for the time being.
No one else in the carriage seems to be aware of what’s just happened. I am on my own with a stranger’s baby. Where’s the guard or the ticket inspector when you need one? I should find one of them, get them to radio back to the previous station and tell them to keep Kathryn there. The next station’s the end of the line – Marylebone – and I can wait there with Mia until Kathryn comes in on the next train. They run every half hour and I have nothing else in my diary for today, nothing calling me home. I could even offer to get straight onto the next train back to Seer Green. Reunite mother and daughter, put all of this right.
There’s only one problem with all of that, one doubt niggling at the back of my mind: I’m assuming that Kathryn wants to get the little girl back. That she wants to be reunited. That this is all some terrible mistake, a momentary lapse of concentration, an exhausted young mother at the end of her tether. A cry for help, perhaps. Postnatal depression?
But what’s just happened seemed entirely deliberate. Calculated. Planned, almost. And I saw the look on Kathryn’s face as she walked away. A single glance as she hurried down the platform.
I knew that look; I’ve seen it before. A long way from here, many years ago, in a different life.
Fear.
Fear for herself, or for her baby? Fear of what she’d just done, or what she might be about to do?
I scramble to make sense of the fragments I’ve gathered in the last ten minutes. A young mother travelling alone. Bruises on her arm. Phone ringing constantly. A brittle, tearful unease she was struggling to disguise, just beneath the surface. Her child left with a total stranger. There doesn’t seem to be anything accidental about it: she’d done it to protect the child, somehow. And now that child is my responsibility, for the time being, at least.
Taking Mia straight back to her might mean putting her right into harm’s way. Into contact with the father who left Kathryn with those bruises on her arm. Perhaps social services would be able to keep her safe, or perhaps Mia and her mother would end up as two more statistics, two more casualties of a violent, controlling man taking out his rage on a partner who dared to leave him. It’s a depressingly familiar story, as old as marriage itself. But what other choice do I have? It’s not as if I can take Mia home, back to my little house in South Greenford, is it?
I let the thought sit for a moment, like a forbidden taste on my tongue.
Then I dismiss it. Mia has a mother, and she belongs with her.
The train picks up speed as it pushes deeper into north-west London, streets and shops and houses passing by. My phone vibrates with a text and I shift Mia to one arm as I wrestle it out of my handbag.
How you doing? You OK? Xx
Which is Tara’s coded way of asking: how did this morning go with the specialist? Do you want to talk about it?
I put my phone face down on the table. Tara can wait. I look up and see the thin man across the aisle staring at me. As soon as I make eye contact with him, he looks down at his phone again. He’s wearing black fingerless gloves and is holding the phone at a strange angle, almost vertical.
Did he just take a picture of me and the baby? Or did I imagine it?
He shifts in his seat under the weight of my stare, angling the phone away from me. His laptop is open in front of him. There’s something strange about his fingertips, the skin wrinkled and pale. His black beanie cap has ridden up slightly and I notice for the first time that he has no eyebrows at all, the skin above his eyes a strange, mottled-red blank. There’s something weird about him altogether, as if he doesn’t belong here and doesn’t quite know how to act.
I feel my left arm stiffening around Mia’s small body, tucking her in a little closer. Now that we’re alone together, she feels as delicate as porcelain in my arms, as if any bump or jolt might break her perfect skin, fracture her tiny bones. Every stranger turning into a potential threat.
I tell myself to relax. For the next ten minutes at least, there is nothing that is going to hurt her, nothing will happen to her. I’ll take care of her until we get to the next stop – the end of the line – and then find someone responsible, someone in authority, explain what’s happened and make sure Mia’s in safe hands. I’ll do the right thing.
I flip my phone over. I could call 101, ask for the British Transport Police and get them on the case. They’d have officers at Marylebone or nearby, close enough to respond and reunite mother and baby. But – again – that’s assuming that Kathryn actually wants her baby back. Maybe it is postnatal depression, and she was worried she might harm her baby. It would be better to talk to the police in person.
I touch a gentle fingertip to the baby’s cheek in what I hope is a soothing gesture.
‘What are we going to do with you, little one?’
Mia gives me another gummy smile, a little chuckle. There’s something about a baby’s laugh that defies words – something perfect and pure and joyful – this human thing she has only just learned to do, an expression of happiness in its original form. It has to be the best sound in the world.