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From her position on the low couch under the windowsill in the front room, the sky was all Lauren could see, a wild blue, fading dusty at the edges, swept with wisps of white cloud and etched with vapour trails.
The tide of visitors had ebbed away with the passing of time – a flood on the first day to a trickle yesterday, and this morning, no one. It was quiet in the house. The babies dozed lightly, side by side in their shared Moses basket placed in the middle of the carpet. Flawless, beautiful creatures; the way their lips pursed and smacked as they slept thrilled her, so that she was glowing with pride and adoration. She felt sorry for all those other mothers she’d seen in the hospital whose babies were so average and unremarkable. They were probably jealous. It made sense, when you saw Morgan and Riley, how perfect they were, how desirable.
Exhaustion flooded her then. She allowed her mind to drift, her eyes to drop shut. Though she could have slipped easily into sleep, Lauren forced her stinging eyelids apart. There was danger in falling asleep, especially when the babies were quiet: a silent thief could seize the opportunity to sneak in, lift the basket and be away, with nothing to alert her as she slumbered, peacefully unaware. Then, when the boys opened their eyes it would be to a stranger, and when she opened her own it would be to a blank space where her heart once was. She heaved herself from the couch and up the step to the kitchen, over to the back door to check again that it was locked. For good measure, she took the key out of the lock and placed it in a cupboard. Then, she went back into the front room and checked the bolts on the front door before sitting down again. Her thoughts roamed the windows of the house. None were open downstairs. What about upstairs – was the bathroom window ajar? Could a person, should they go to the trouble of using a ladder, even fit through it? Lauren attempted to have a word with herself. You’re safe now, she told herself. You can sleep. Patrick’s upstairs, anyway. Just a few minutes’ nap. No one can get in. She lay down on the carpet and draped an arm over the Moses basket. Her wrist throbbed where the wounds she’d got in hospital still hadn’t healed, but her body settled. The throbbing receded. Her eyes closed.
Footsteps approached along the pavement outside, and Lauren sighed, knowing she’d soon be making small talk with a neighbour, or accepting gifts from one of Patrick’s office buddies’ wives. She didn’t want to be ungrateful but she really did not feel like being sociable; maybe she’d just ignore the door this time. She stayed very still, listening to the twins breathing, not quite at the same time, in-in, out-out. The footsteps slowed and stopped, and Lauren heard the crinkling of paper. Then, whoever it was must have turned and hurried away; she heard hasty percussive heels on concrete and by the time she unbolted and opened the door there was no one to be seen. Only a gift-wrapped parcel on the step, which she picked up and brought inside.
Patrick appeared and began fussing in the kitchen, looking for something among the mounds of detritus.
‘Have you seen my phone charger?’ he said, finding it a second later under a pizza box.
‘Weird thing just happened,’ said Lauren. ‘Someone left a parcel but didn’t knock. I heard them running away.’ She held up the package, with its blue dinosaur-patterned paper.
‘Let’s see,’ said Patrick, taking it and turning it over, finding a card taped to the underside. While Patrick opened the card, Lauren opened the present.
‘Well,’ she said, examining the gift, ‘that’s, um, different.’
In her hands, there was a model that appeared at first glance to be of the kind her grandmother favoured: a supposed-to-be-quirky scene in which a family of animals dressed up like people were all sitting around a little table having tea. Taking a closer look, she recoiled, held it away from her; the surface of it was tacky with something, and gave off a faint, upsetting smell she thought might have been urine. The modelled animals were rodents, with long sinister faces: rats. The mother-rat wore a pinny with a scalloped edge while the father wore a business suit and smoked a pipe. The mother was caught in the act of serving the father a slice of cake as the child-rats looked on. Matching child-rats. Twin boys. All of them were grinning with sideways eyes, as if they were planning something nasty and were very much looking forward to it. The thing was cast in resin, and the sticker on the bottom had been signed by the artist who’d hand-painted it. A limited edition of one hundred. Not limited enough, thought Lauren.
Patrick was on a chair, reaching up to add the card to the others, arranged like bunting, strung on lengths of fishing line across the far wall.
‘Let me see the card,’ she said, and he sighed with annoyance as he got it down again. The card also had a rat motif, but this was a photograph of the inside of a nest of baby rats. They were wrinkled and downy, just opening their eyes, cupping their tiny noses with pink paws. Inside, no message, just a name.
‘Who’s Natasha?’ said Lauren.
Patrick frowned, as he thought about it. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she’s a new girl at work. Only been there a few weeks. I suppose she must think we like mice.’
‘Rats,’ said Lauren. ‘I think they’re meant to be rats, Patrick. I think she’s a big fan of rats, looking at this.’ Lauren laughed nervously, but Patrick didn’t seem to find it very funny. ‘I wonder why she didn’t knock, though?’
‘She’s shy, I guess. And sort of weird, actually.’
‘I can see that.’
Just then, someone knocked on the door. Lauren put the model on the countertop and went to answer it, expecting to see the shy weird girl from Patrick’s office, but finding instead Cindy and Rosa, two of the other mums from their antenatal class. Both Cindy and Rosa were still pregnant – hugely so. Their due dates were imminent. She invited them in for a cup of tea, and to her slight dismay, they accepted. Patrick swept away a pile of papers and washing from the couch so that they could sit. He then made tea for them all and said he was going for a lie down, ‘to let you ladies catch up’.
‘Before you do,’ said Cindy, ‘could you look outside and see if I’ve left the presents somewhere? I was holding a gift bag when I got out of the car but I must have put it down.’
Patrick opened the front door. On the step, to the side, was a green foil gift bag.
‘That’s the one,’ said Cindy. ‘I’m so forgetful these days. It’s only a small thing, something for each of them. And a little thing for you, too.’ Patrick handed the bag to Lauren, then disappeared upstairs, firmly closing the bedroom door. Inside the bag were two wrapped gifts, and tucked in next to them, what looked like an old book, the pages edged in gold.
‘You didn’t have to bring a present,’ said Lauren. ‘Thanks so much.’
She put her hand in the bag but Cindy said, ‘Don’t open them now. It’s really only a couple of small things. Embarrassing, really.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s so kind of you to give anything at all. I’ll open them later, when Patrick comes down.’
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