Maddy.

She could have laughed—her daughter, a mother. Madeline had been a fat baby. A happy baby with a heart like a sounding harp. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking and tickling her in bed until she begged for mercy. Her chubby little fingers in hers when they went for a walk. Her endless chatter, creating their own aviary. Tangled in all colours, before they closed down and ended in the grey silence of growing up.  

‘Yeh did well,’ Vicky quietly whispered to reassure her daughter. ‘Yeh did really well.’  

The little one woke in Madeline’s arms and cried. Vicky grew practical, looking around the room for something to feed the baby. Madeline lay full length on the double bed. Her brilliant red hair had created its own forest, in which her pale freckled face and hazel eyes peeked out like a frightened song thrush. She hadn’t bothered dressing. An old-fashioned flannel nightgown over her nightdress. The baby crocked on her arm, beside her breasts, where she’d fallen asleep. The television flashed MTV seduction scenes and gangsters, but the sound was mercifully on mute. A cheap kettle, and two cups, and two saucers. A cane chair at the window. Curtains closed, keeping out sunlight, but the noise of London traffic seeped inside, bringing the city clutter. She wanted to dress her in clean white clothes and change the bed. Open the window and let out the musty smell.

She bent over and kissed the top of Madeline’s head. Holding her for an instant in her arms, she closed her eyes.

Then she turned her attention to the baby’s crying. It stirred rememberings from the beginning and starting again. All thoughts balled up until her brain stopped, and she’d find a way to feed and hush her granddaughter. She shoogled her, rubbed her chest and back and made clucking noises that fell between them. The baby took a breath to stop and stared, and she couldn’t help rubbing her forehead into its stomach and breathing in the slightly sour smell like dough.

‘Have you been breastfeeding her?’ She took the baby over to the window and peeled the curtain apart to look into the street. A corner shop was near the canal, which at least offered some space and greenery, a pregnant pause from the traffic. She could buy whatever they needed.

‘It’s no my baby!’ Madeline laughed. ‘Look at her fat little legs and hands and little fingernails. It’s nothing like me. Listen to her screaming. She always does that. Musa said he heard her from the bottom of the stairs. And the neighbours are always banging on the walls and shouting things.’

‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Vicky’s gaze remained on the crying baby’s face. ‘Yeh ur feeding the wain, urn’t yeh, Madeline?

‘Oh, Musa woulda have been the proudest man in the world if it had been a little boy.’ Her face glowed when she said his name. ‘A little scamp like him.’ She bit her bottom lip, ‘Whit does daddy think?’

Vicky closed the gap between them, thrusting her whimpering granddaughter towards her mother’s arms to hold. ‘Look Maddy, yeh huv got tae be sensible and feed yer baby.’ She muttered. ‘Yeh, know whit he hinks. He’s set in his ways. Old fashioned. Doesnae like darkies.’  

Musa stood in the doorway, listening. He was taller than Vicky imagined him to be. Somehow the way Maddy talked about him on the phone, she thought her partner would be leprechaun sized, not so well built. Wear such a fine shirt with such a sky-blue tie. But he was darker than she’d thought. She could almost hear her husband’s,  fuckin  black as the Ace of Spades in her ear, and his cackling laughter.  

He strode into the room, and Maddy called to him ‘Musa’. Getting up from the bed, she handled the crying baby to Vicky and tottered towards him. Clutched at his arm.

He gently loosened her fingers from his fancy jacket and thrust her hand away. He went to the sink and poured himself a mug of water, and sipped at it. Watching them watch him.

‘Why are yeh acting like this Musa?’

He held a hand up to stop her from coming closer. ‘That child has no black blood in it. Not one drop. I’ve asked about and it’s true. My father, my mother, all my generations stand together. Black trumps white. Yet, you’ve brought a ghost into the world. And tried to pass it off as mine!’

Maddy flung herself at him, but she held her off. Vicky looked down at the bawling baby’s face.

‘It’s got yer nose,’ Vicky said.

The child stopped crying. It seemed miraculous. They summoned up enough memory to look at each other. To call a truce. Arrange themselves gently around what might have been. But it was lost and just out of reach, when she started blaring again.

‘It’s got a nose,’ Musa admitted. ‘But not a real nose. A white button nose that always smells trouble.’ He pushed Maddy away again, more forcibly. She sprawled onto the bed. ‘Your daughter is a fruitcake and a slut.’  He spoke as if clearing things up, and left as if he’d parted the Red Sea, not looking behind him.

‘Don’t worry about im,’ said Vicky, rocking the child. ‘He’s nothin. Get yer stuff. Yeh can come hame wae us. Good riddance tae bad rubbish.’

Maddy sunk into a low groan. ‘He’s no nothing. He’s everything.’ She propped herself up against the side of the bed. ‘You don’t understand mum, he’s gone.’

‘Aye, an yeh’ve got a wain to take care o.’

Her granddaughter was pressed up against her neck, making sucking noises. She thought she’d seen sense and was going to feed her. She wanted to clutch that time to herself again. Maddy took her from her, a fiery gleam to her hair, but without proper shoes on.

Amid sighs and folded hands, the comings and goings of the night bus, she dozed and fed dainty little silk dresses and soft cotton to the maw of the bin. Added an embroidered bunnet that had been handed down over the years and became the family joke a handful understood. A little bundle of cards, some of them jokey. She unclipped the gold chain from her neck with a lock of golden hair and the word ‘Angel’ on it. It was too heavy an anchor for her to carry. It slipped between her fingers and joined the layette in municipal rot.