you just run and get us some more milk before you leave,’ Marjorie instructs me. ‘We’ve got a buyer coming in this afternoon for a meeting. I can’t give him water.’
I force myself not to snap; she’s always asking me to do things at the last minute.
‘Sure.’ I smile. Positive, positive.
In the off-licence there’s a queue so I grab the milk and line up. I’ve got an hour until I need to meet Dominic at the hospital. The queue moves slowly forward; there’s an old lady at the front, fumbling with her basket. The cashier catches my eye and rolls her own in apology.
As I push open the gallery’s glass door, I notice the old lady a few shops down, staring through the window. She looks so lonely I feel a pang or sympathy, no, more than that, understanding. It’s how I imagine I must look to the world sometimes, when the days are really bad. After the second round of IVF failed I used to wander around during my lunch hours, staring into space, no idea where I was going. She looks a bit like that.
I’m so distracted by her that as I walk across the polished wooden floor to my desk I don’t see anything different at first. My desk is really the till and there are always things scattered around the computer and keypad; pens, Post-it notes, receipts and tags. But my eyes pick up on the object before my brain does, they linger on it, notice how it is laid across my keypad, carefully, deliberately.
This time the recognition is faster, the image pops straight into my head. It is small and blue, exactly as I remembered. A little door, broken off from its hinges, the edges of it sharp and splintered. I pause, look around the gallery. It is empty; the paintings stare back at me blankly, giving nothing away. My heart quickens in my chest and I pick up the door, lift it gently as though it might break. The wood is cold and slightly damp in my fingers, as if it has been out in the rain. The tiny golden handle is still there, glinting under the soft lighting of the gallery. It winks up at me as I stand at my desk, the milk forgotten on the side. I can remember Dad fixing it on, showing me how it actually turned on its axis so that the dolls could use it. I’d been delighted, had spent hours walking them through the door, into the house and back out again. In and out, in and out. That’s what I did.
Marjorie comes in, frowns at me when she sees the milk abandoned.
‘Has anyone been in here, Marjorie?’ I ask her. My voice is a bit too high and my fingers are shaking slightly around the tiny door. It looks suddenly forlorn, as if it might have been torn from the hinges pretty roughly. I can’t help it; I feel a tiny bit spooked.
‘No,’ she tells me. ‘Don’t think so in the last ten minutes. Why, who were you expecting?’
I’m too thrown to reply. How could this even get here? I think of the chimney pot at home. I must be wrong. It must be a coincidence. I haven’t seen the house in years, we don’t even know where it is. I’m imagining things, the way I do when I’m anxious. Marjorie is staring at me and I realise that I’m shaking my head; over and over from side to side as though trying to dislodge my thoughts.
‘Oh, nobody,’ I tell her. ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’ I put my hand to my forehead; it is clammy despite the cold. My brain is scrambling, filled with thoughts of Dad, of us sitting with the doll house, the door opening and closing. In my mind a parade of dolls come in and out, their dresses swishing between my fingers. Their faces are hidden beneath great swathes of hair.
‘Corinne?’
‘Sorry.’ I take a deep breath. I need to pull myself together, get to the hospital on time. I make a big effort, force myself to push the thoughts of the past to the back of my mind. I pull open my desk drawer and place the little door inside, closing it into the darkness. There.
Then an idea occurs to me. I could find it. I could look for the doll house at Mum’s this weekend. That way I’ll know, I’ll be certain that it’s my imagination and nothing else. Besides, what else could it be?
*
Dominic is shaking his head. I walked to meet him at University College Hospital along the back roads, and now we’re sitting in the waiting room, ready for the appointment. I’ve just finished telling him about the little door on my desk.
‘I felt as though the chimney pot was a nice reminder,’ I say. ‘I know that sounds odd but I liked it, it was like a little good luck charm. But it’s weird to find the door as well. Don’t you think? Are you listening, Dom?’ I tug on his arm, feeling like a child.
He doesn’t believe me anyway, I can tell.
‘Are you sure, Cor?’ he says, frowning at me. ‘I mean, seriously, why would it be there? It’s probably just something Marjorie’s left lying around. Come on!’ He pulls me towards him, puts an arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze.
‘I know you’re feeling stressed out. You’ll feel better when this is over, you know you will. We can go to Jubilee Café and get you a cup of mint tea. I think you’re probably just projecting a bit, you’re thinking about your childhood because of everything we’re going through, and because the anniversary is coming up. That’s all it’ll be. All right?’
I smile at him uncertainly, pull out my hand cream and massage my hands, watching the cream absorb itself into the cracks. I try to stop thinking about the sight of the little door, try not to imagine it now, sitting in my desk drawer, pulsing quietly in the dark like a heartbeat. I might bring it home from work tomorrow, show it to Ashley at the weekend.
The nurse comes to get us and it is time. The insemination. My leg muscles contract, tighten in anticipation of the soreness. Funny how the memory of that goes away. Even if it is painful, I can always go again. I feel a surge of excitement as we walk down the corridor, and Dominic squeezes my hand. This could be it. This might be my chance to have a child, this might be the time that everything works, my body co-operates and it all slots into place like perfect clockwork. I can be a good mother. I just need the chance. I think of myself placing dolls in their cradles, rocking them gently to sleep in the miniature bedrooms of the house. The little blue door opening and closing, trapping them inside. I’d do anything to have a child of my own. Anything.
Then
Today’s a bad day. Mummy didn’t seem to want to get out of bed this morning, so I had to go to school without breakfast. All that was left in the cupboard was her jar of pills, but she says she isn’t taking those ones any more. They looked almost like they could be sweets and I was so hungry I almost ate one, but there was a big sticky label saying not to and anyway the top was really hard to open. So I had nothing.
In Maths, my stomach growls and Toby Newton laughs at me.
‘Poor little rich girl,’ he says, and I don’t understand what he means. It happens a lot after that though, as though it’s catching on, spreading like a disease through the school. They hiss it at me in the corridors, whisper it as I walk past. I’ve started to just keep my head down, focus on my shoes. I need new ones. I’m not a rich girl, I want to say. Rich girls have shoes without holes.
Mummy says she’ll buy me some, when she’s feeling better. On the way home today my feet got wet, the puddles soaked through into my socks. When I get home she wants to go straight away, she says we’re going to do an all-nighter. I don’t want to go. Not tonight.
But she makes me. We get in the car and drive until we’re outside, and then we go round the back and hunch down in the usual place. There are lots of stars
