The Gap of Time Read online

  “But why would he do that?” said Pauline. “He’s been clean for years.”

  Cameron looked at Xeno. “He thinks you’re having an affair with MiMi.”

  Xeno and Pauline stood still like animals who’ve heard the hunter.

  “He told me so himself.”

  Xeno stood up. His face looked gaunt under the harsh low neon.

  “I’m not having an affair with MiMi.”

  “MiMi,” said Pauline. “Gevalt, where is she?”

  “At home, of course,” said Cameron. “I took her myself. Why? Where are you going?”

  —

  Leo threw the table lamp across the room. It broke against the wall. Xeno knew he knew. Knew he knew what he knew. And he had got away. Someone had helped him. That was why MiMi had been in a hurry to be gone.

  Leo went towards the house.

  —

  MiMi was sleeping.

  Leo opened the bedroom door. He had taken off his shoes. Now he took off his jacket.

  MiMi always slept with a night-light, a low, soft, child’s rectangle of moonlight. And she liked the curtains open. Leo could see her clearly, one arm across the pillow, her body curled on its side in a white kaftan.

  Leo stood over the bed. He loved her so much. His feelings were a mixture of tenderness and pleasure and wonderment that she loved him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He kept cuttings of all her press notices. It was him, not her, who had the awards lined up in his study at home.

  And she was so tiny, a bird of a woman—no, she wasn’t a bird because she had muscle—she was a flower—but she wasn’t a flower because she wasn’t for display—she was a jewel—but she wasn’t a jewel because he couldn’t buy her.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her sleeping, his mind moving over the past, or perhaps it was the past moving over his mind.

  Do you remember when Milo was a little boy and you were singing in Sydney and we went up to Byron Bay for the weekend and we were swimming near the lighthouse and there was a rip tide? I lost sight of you. I thought you had drowned. All that was in my head was that I would never see you again. It was all I could do with all my strength to get back to the beach. I crawled through the surf, my lungs half-full of water, and when I looked up you were there—as miraculous as a mermaid. I would have given my life to see you safe—and you were safe.

  Leo sat on the edge of the bed, taking off his socks. He knelt across MiMi’s sleeping body. Wake up, wake up, wake up, MiMi, wake up.

  —

  MiMi opened her eyes. Leo?

  Leo was pulling his shirt over his head. MiMi lifted her hand and touched his chest. He grabbed her hand like he was steadying himself from falling.

  “Too hard,” said MiMi, but Leo held her harder. He bent low over her, sliding his body flat, his other hand on her throat.

  For a second she thought it was a game and then she knew it was not.

  “LEO!”

  “Did you sleep with him before the show or did you have a quickie when you came back and helped him pack?”

  “Leo, laiche-moi!”

  Leo had unzipped his trousers. He needed both hands to get them off. MiMi moved to get out of bed. He pulled her down.

  “How long have you been having an affair with Xeno?”

  He saw her face. Disbelief. They never thought he’d find out.

  “You cheap slut.”

  Leo had MiMi on her side, one hand over her mouth. She was biting him like a dog. She was a dog. He tried to get his penis inside her from behind but she was struggling. He didn’t want to hit her.

  Leo got up, forced her legs open with his knee. “I know all about you,” he said.

  MiMi suddenly stopped struggling. She turned on her back, panting, one hand on her belly.

  You know nothing about me.

  Leo was low over her body, his weight on his arms either side of her. His face close to hers. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to cry.

  “You’re mine. Say you’re mine.”

  MiMi said nothing.

  “How does he touch you? Does he lie next to you? On top of you? Does he do oriental massage? Does he rub your temples? Does he go down on you like I do? Do you like that? Do you like it?”

  Leo shook her. She was floppy like a just-dead person. She didn’t move under him the way he liked, she didn’t whisper to him in French; he loved that. She lay still like an animal being beaten. He couldn’t come. He kept pumping but he couldn’t come.

  He leaned to kiss her. She bit his top lip. He felt the blood running into his mouth. BITCH. He hit her across the face.

  That’s when he saw the car headlights sweep over the wall above the bed.

  He jumped up, looked out of the window. Pauline’s Audi meant Pauline. Yes. The front doorbell started going like a fire alarm.

  Leo grabbed his trousers and left the bedroom, ran downstairs zipping his fly. A door opened on the landing. It was Milo in his Superman pyjamas. “Daddy? Where’s Mummy?”

  “She’s in the bedroom. Go back to bed. It’s only Pauline.”

  Milo moved to the top of the stairs as Leo opened the door. Leo tried to look calm—

  “Pauline! Are you all right?”

  Pauline pushed past him into the hall. He noticed her cardigan was buttoned up wrong.

  “Where’s MiMi?”

  “She’s asleep. We were all asleep.”

  Pauline glanced up the stairs and saw Milo. She smiled and waved at him. He waved back. Pauline hesitated. “Is everything all right?”

  “Sure, sure,” said Leo. “Let’s all get some sleep, shall we?”

  Pauline looked at Leo. She knew he was lying.

  There was a crash upstairs. Milo ran along the landing. “MUMMY!”

  Leo bounded up the stairs, Pauline coming after him. MiMi was on the floor, panting, a red weal across her face. Milo was kneeling next to her.

  “Bébé,” said MiMi, trying to reassure her son.

  “Her waters have broken,” said Pauline. “Leo! Help me to get her on the bed and phone an ambulance. It’s all right, Milo—Mummy’s having a baby, that’s all.”

  Leo scooped up MiMi and carried her easily into the bedroom. He put her on the bed. She was breathing heavily through her mouth. Pauline took her pulse.

  “Get hot water and towels.”

  Leo went into the bathroom. Milo was standing like a statue in the doorway. Pauline went to hug him. He was small for his age.

  “Milo! Don’t be frightened. This is how you were born—it’s how everyone is born. Go back to bed and have a little slufki. Daddy will come soon.”

  MiMi held out her hand to Milo. The boy ran forward and put his hand in hers, pressing his body against the bed, as Leo came out of the bathroom with a stainless-steel bucket of water and all the towels.

  “Take Milo,” said Pauline. “And call the doctor.”

  Leo nodded. MiMi didn’t look at him. When he had gone she held out her arms to Pauline.

  “It’s now,” she said, getting off the bed and kneeling on all fours, rocking slightly.

  “Just wait for the doctor,” said Pauline.

  —

  The baby came so fast that Pauline didn’t have time to panic. She was kneeling by MiMi as she saw the baby’s head appear, then the little red body, legs, tiny feet. She caught the child and laid it on the towels. Scissors; she needed scissors. “Dressing table,” said MiMi. Pauline cut the cord and took up the baby.

  “It’s a girl,” said Pauline, and there was a cry like life—it was life—raw and bloody and new. Pauline gave MiMi her baby and the two women sat smiling at each other, not saying anything, amazed in the presence of something as impossible and ordinary as a baby.

  Pauline gently wiped the baby’s head and face with warm water.

  The door opened. It was Milo.

  “Come and meet your little sister,” said MiMi. “Don’t be frightened.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to have babies in hospital?” asked M
ilo.

  “She came early,” said Pauline. “Look, here she is.”

  “Where’s Leo?”

  “Daddy’s sitting on the stairs,” said Milo. “Did I look like that?”

  Pauline went out to find Leo. She could see him at the bottom of the stairs as she turned round the landing. He had his head in his hands.

  “Mazel tov,” said Pauline, putting her arm round him as she came beside him. “What did the doctor say?”

  Leo shrugged her off. “I didn’t call the doctor.”

  “What?”

  “Xeno can call the doctor. It’s his child.”

  Pauline didn’t answer. She got up and went down to her handbag on the hall table. She started rootling around for her phone. Leo watched her a moment then turned and ran up the stairs.

  “LEO!”

  Pauline had to think. She had to call someone. Her phone wasn’t in her bag—had she left it at home? It was the middle of the night. Maybe it was in the car. She went to the office Leo kept at the front of the house; the door was locked. She could feel her heart overbeating. She went across the hall to the big, wide living room—there was a phone in there. She put on the light—saw the phone—pressed the call key. Nothing. And again. Nothing. What was going on?

  The kitchen—there was a phone on the wall. Pauline ran—she wasn’t good at running—into the basement kitchen; the low counter lights were still on. The remains of a sandwich by the bread bin. There was the phone. She punched in 999. Dead.

  The house had a four-line switchboard for Leo, MiMi and their assistants. Leo must have disabled the system.

  —

  Leo was sitting cross-legged opposite MiMi. His feet were bare. He hadn’t put on a shirt. He looked like a husband who had been with his wife through the birth of their child.

  MiMi was watching him the way you watch a dog that will spring. She was holding her baby against her, wrapped in a towel. Small noises came from the towel but Leo couldn’t see the baby.

  “How long has it been going on? Nine months, yes—but before that? Years? Did you ever really marry me?”

  MiMi didn’t answer.

  “The way you lift your face to him, the way you hold his hand, you giggle with him. Do you think I’m stupid? OK, I am stupid—not artsy like you two—I don’t read, don’t go to the opera, can’t play the piano; I’m no match for either of you, am I?”

  “I think I’m bleeding, Leo. Will you get a doctor?”

  “Just tell me the truth.”

  MiMi was still trying to clear the afterbirth. She lay back, legs open, pushing out the placenta. Leo felt ridiculous; his head hurt. There was his wife. There was a baby. What was the matter with him? MiMi was struggling. What if she died?

  —

  Downstairs Pauline found that she couldn’t get out of the house. The doors and windows were locked. She had tried every exit, every might-be-an-exit. She was back in the kitchen when Milo appeared in his pyjamas holding his Superman bear.

  “Mummy’s crying.”

  —

  In the bedroom the red, liverish afterbirth lay on the towel. MiMi was curled up on the carpet, very still, with her baby. The baby was sleeping. MiMi could feel her heartbeat. It seemed steady enough and she was warm. She’s strong, thought MiMi.

  “I should call Xeno,” said Leo. “Tell him to come and look at his kid. But I don’t know where in the world he is—shall I call him? Let’s call him. Do you want to talk to him? Yes you do you do you do.” Leo pushed his foot into MiMi’s back. Not hard but not soft either. He found his phone in his jacket. Speed-dialled Xeno. It went straight to answerphone…“Hi, this is Xeno…”

  Leo killed the phone, mimicking the message. “Hi, this is Xeno…You know he’s gay, don’t you? He’s so self-hating he has to fuck his best friend’s wife to feel like a man.”

  “He doesn’t fuck me,” said MiMi.

  “What’s that?” said Leo, raising his voice. “What’s that?” He shook her shoulder. She pulled her body away. He crouched over her. “The father doesn’t want to see his baby. The father leaves his bastard behind for his friend.”

  “You’re sick,” said MiMi. “No child is a bastard.”

  “My language offends you? Well, your behaviour offends me.”

  “Call the doctor, Leo.”

  —

  In the kitchen Pauline wrapped Milo in a throw and put him on the sofa with an iPad. She heated him some milk and told him not to worry. Then she had a thought. “Have you got your own phone, Milo?”

  “Yes, but just for texts—it’s in my school bag in my room. Why?”

  Pauline crept upstairs. Milo had left his door open. She found the phone. Cameron’s number was in there. COME TO LEO’S. AMBULANCE ASAP.

  —

  MiMi was sitting up now. Leo was silent and still.

  “I know you didn’t want this baby.”

  “I don’t want Xeno’s baby.”

  “She’s yours. Do you want to see her?”

  MiMi unwrapped the child and leaned forward to Leo. He was trembling. He couldn’t lift his head. He couldn’t look up. His body was not his.

  —

  When the ambulance came, Leo unlocked the door and let them in without a word. Cameron was behind them.

  “I’ve towed the Fiat.”

  “I suppose you towed Xeno too?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Coward.”

  “What’s got into you, Leo?”

  “You want to see some evidence? Come in here.”

  Leo pushed Cameron into the office and put the webcam footage on his screen. The men watched in silence. Neither of them heard Pauline come in behind them.

  “Is that it?” said Cameron.

  “Obviously that’s it—what more do you need?”

  “If MiMi has any sense she’ll divorce you,” said Pauline.

  Leo turned round—his body was slight-shaking like he was caught in an electric fence. “Divorce me? I’m taking this to my lawyer tomorrow.”

  “Why? You want to make him laugh?”

  “You’ve known from the beginning, haven’t you?”

  “Known what? That you can’t hold on to anything good? That you only know how to self-destruct? You’ve lost your wife and your closest friend on one night. Well done!”

  “Get out, you interfering bitch.”

  “I’m going,” said Pauline. “I’m going to the hospital with MiMi. Who’s going to look after Milo?”

  “Milo’s my son. I’ll take care of him.”

  “He’s your son,” said Pauline. “And you have a daughter, Leo.”

  —

  The house was quiet. Leo didn’t know what time it was or how many hours had passed since the night started. It seemed like it had been night forever. He wondered if it was possible for night to follow night without daytime, without sun.

  He was still in his trousers, no shirt. He was cold, but it wasn’t a feeling, more a knowing, because his skin was white and bumpy. He couldn’t feel anything. Why wasn’t it dawn yet?

  He went down into the kitchen. Someone had been heating milk—there was milk in the pan. Leo picked it up and drank what was left, not caring that it spilled down his chin onto his chest. Then he saw Milo, curled up on the sofa, sleeping deeply. He wondered if it was Milo, or a copy of Milo—or maybe it was Leo that was the copy of himself. Things looked the same but nothing was the same—not now.

  Milo’s iPad was still running. Leo bent to turn it off. Superman: The Movie. 1978. It was their favourite. Leo flicked back to the scene he loved—Superman reversing time. Lois Lane doesn’t die.

  Her car’s stalled in the canyon. She turns the engine over and over. Above her the dam is breaking. The rocks are coming down the cliff face. It’s too late.

  Light belts the globe three times a second. Can I not do the same?

  Take us back to a time where none of this has happened.

  There’s the world hanging in space. There’s Superman beating the s
peed of light—turning all his love into speed and light—and forcing time to defeat itself. He’s spinning the world so that the water is pulling back into the dam and the rocks are anchoring their rockness back into the cliff face. Slowly the red car rises from the ravine, the metal body undents, the windscreen unshatters. She’s turning over the engine again. It’s not too late.

  But you can’t reverse time, can you?

  —

  Leo went and picked up his son, who snuggled sleepily against him. Leo felt his breath on his neck. He had carried him like this when he had been a baby. He loved him uncomplicatedly. He never wondered about it or worried about it. It was love as regular as breathing.

  Leo carried them both through the shadows of the house. He was carrying Milo and he was carrying himself. He had to hold himself together. He had to remember what was happening. The party. The car park. Xeno. MiMi. When was all that? It felt like a long time ago. There was no one here. It must have happened a long time ago.

  Milo’s door was open. Leo went inside and pushed the door shut with his body. The night-light was on, casting its moonbeams across the wall.

  Leo laid Milo down in the rucked-up bed. He was suddenly tired. So tired. He eased Milo gently over to the wall and got in beside him, pulling the covers up over them both. His son put his arm across his father’s chest. The small, determined warmth of him was like sleep. It was sleep. Leo began to drift away, his eyes closing, his breath slowing.

  When he woke up it wouldn’t be night. When he woke up it would be different.

  Don’t be afraid.

  MiMi was lying in the hospital bed, looking at the ceiling.

  She knew she had to keep still. If she moved her wings she would topple the houses into the street. But the houses had toppled, hadn’t they?

  How had the angel fallen into the courtyard? That hadn’t been explained—the sudden drop, the sudden folding of wings to stop them breaking.

  And was the angel alone in the courtyard?

  They had given her an injection to make her sleepy. An opiate of some kind. She was part dream, part one who dreams.

  It is never fully dark in a hospital room. Never quiet. She heard the call bell from the room next door and the nurse coming down the corridor. The baby was breathing quietly.