Emma's Baby Read Free

Ritchie instead?
    But what if he wasn't there?
    The tunnel vanished. Emma's face was replaced by the outdoors: navy blue sky, brick walls, tracks converging on each other. Then they were in the station; lights and platforms and posters. Clunkety-clunk .
The train slowed; she whipped her head from side to side, searching the platform, her lungs heavy, struggling to fill with the weight. There was a woman on a seat with a baby and . . . It was her baby, it was Ritchie, it was her woman. Oh God, oh
God, oh God. She was going to fall. She managed to hold herself up until the train stopped and the doors opened, then she ran out and flew to the bench. Ritchie was sitting, quite unconcerned, on the woman's knee, chewing his sleeve, and the woman was looking at her and smiling. As Emma reached them, the woman rose to her feet, holding Ritchie up before her like a gift. Emma grabbed him and kissed all over his cheeks and forehead and ears, pulling his feathery head tight into her neck. She squeezed him to her until neither of them could breathe, and wept his name over and over again into the side of his silky little face.

Chapter Two
    'Ngg!'
    Ritchie wailed, arching his back and pushing Emma away with his fists. She was squashing him. His breath smelled of rusk, and orange lollipop. Emma's arms were too weak to hold him. She needed to sit down.
The sides of her vision were going dark.
    'Are you all right?' the woman asked. Her voice echoed from a long way away. 'Shall I take him for you?'
    Emma felt Ritchie being lifted from her arms; she felt the seat behind her with her knees and sank into it. A tide sound rushed at her ears. She closed her eyes and leaned forward.
    After a minute, the rushing noise receded. The platform returned to normal around her.
    Emma sat up.
    'Thank you,' she said, and burst into tears.
    She didn't know how long she cried. Probably no more than a few seconds, but when she looked up,
Ritchie, sitting on the woman's knee, was staring at her, open-mouthed. A long thread of drool hung from his lower lip, inches from the woman's expensive-looking sleeve. It was that which made Emma get herself under control.
    'I'm sorry.' She pressed the bases of her hands to her eyes. 'There's only the two of us – my little boy and me. It's so hard sometimes . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'
She shook her head. 'You don't want to hear this. You must think I'm a terrible mother.'
    'Nonsense,' the woman murmured. 'You've had a dreadful shock.'
    She was right. Emma longed to cuddle Ritchie, but her hands were trembling and her face was soaked with tears and mucus. There was blood on her lip as well. She must have bitten it. She looked around for something to wipe it with. This station was much busier than the last one. Where were they? She looked at the sign above the seats. Whitechapel. Another train was pulling into the platform. Two girls stood up to meet it.
    'Tissue?' The woman balanced Ritchie with one arm and rummaged in her bag. She did look the sort who would have a clean tissue with her at all times.
    Sensible, organized, like the headmistress of a school.
    She looked to be in her early forties, with blonde hair cut in layers to just below her ears. Tweedy trousers.
A short, fawn-coloured jacket, with fur at the cuffs and collar.
    'Here we are,' the woman said.
    'Thank you.' Emma took the tissue and wiped her eyes and face. The woman watched her in a sympathetic sort of way. Close up, she had tiny, spidery veins on her cheeks. It was an outdoor face, despite the pearl earrings and coiffed hair. A horse-rider's or gardener's face. Emma had seen plenty of women like her during her childhood in Bath. They were everywhere at Christmas, lunching in cosy teashops with their daughters, surrounded by shopping bags. Emma had waited on them during her school holidays.
    'Let me take him.' Emma finished drying her eyes and reached for Ritchie. Immediately he shook his head, leaned back into the woman's elbow and stuck his fist in his