‘Who is he?’

Ellen leaned back in her seat. ‘Are you interested?’

‘I might be,’ Bobbie admitted, a vein in her neck beginning to throb. ‘How quickly could he get me a child?’

‘Within days.’

Bobbie’s eyebrows rose. ‘Is it legal?’

‘Does that matter?’ Ellen countered, leaning back over the table. ‘You want a baby, Bobbie, and I don’t believe that postponement story of yours. No one does really. We all think you were let down.’ She paused, her tone sympathetic. ‘Everyone knows how difficult the adoption services are. All that paperwork, even for someone like you. And there’s a shortage of American babies. Children that would be more likely to go to a proper family. Or at least a couple.’ The words hit deep and Bobbie pushed her glass away from her.

‘I know all this.’

‘So let me help you to cut through all the red tape.’

‘I don’t want to get involved in anything illegal, Ellen. It wouldn’t do for the Feldenchrist name.’

‘How badly do you want a baby?’

‘You know how badly.’

‘Then take this help.’ Ellen smiled, hurrying on. ‘Oh, Bobbie, you have a score of lawyers on your side. If anything went wrong you could bury this man without breaking into a sweat. You’ve got a name that no one would go up against.’

Pausing, Bobbie allowed the waiter to lay down her meal in front of her. The steam rose up from the poached salmon, the scent of the fresh fish suddenly intoxicating. As she stared at the plate, every portion seemed brighter, the colours psychedelic, vegetables humming with vibrancy, white sauce ethereal, pale as a goose feather.

Excitement made her hand shake as she reached for her fork. ‘Does this man work on his own?’

‘Of course.’

‘Where does he come from?’

‘Africa.’

‘Oh … Would the baby be African?’

‘I believe so.’

Pausing, Bobbie was about to refuse the offer and then considered the idea further. A black child was not something she had imagined for herself, but then again, why not? How magnanimous would she appear adopting not some healthy WASP child but a baby from an impoverished country? Mentally Bobbie rewrote her previous scenario, tried it on to see if she could accommodate it, and decided that she could. An African child, a black baby – how radical, how modern, how like Madonna. How free-thinking of her.

‘You said this man could get me a baby within days?’

‘By the weekend.’

So the party could still go ahead, Bobbie thought, her spirits lifting. She would have her baby, just as she had said. And more than that, she would make a real statement about adoption. Stop her detractors short and prove herself again … No one denied Bobbie Feldenchrist what she wanted. Not some Puerto Rican slut or some by-the-book adoption society.

‘I would want the child to be healthy. And it would have to be a boy.’

‘I know that.’

‘Who is this African man? What do you know about him?’

‘Not much.’

‘You’re making me nervous now.’ Her tone hardened ‘Is he a criminal?’

‘I don’t know much about him. It was Marty who suggested him. Apparently he’s helped a couple of other women who wanted to adopt. I suppose Africa’s no different to here. Girls get in trouble and need a way out, so they give their babies up.’

‘They have a choice?’

‘Oh, Bobbie,’ Ellen said, chiding her gently. ‘You do worry about things so much. The girls get their lives back so they can move on – and they get paid well.’

‘I suppose this man takes a commission?’

‘It is a business, honey.’

‘So how do I do business with him?’

Ellen dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘He’ll call and see you about the money.’

‘Then what?’

‘He’ll have the baby brought to you. After that, you won’t ever have to see him again.’

Bobbie’s tongue ran over her dry bottom lip. She was suddenly nervous, terrified about her decision. But she wouldn’t go back on it. She wanted a child, and now she was going to get one.

‘Just one thing,’ Ellen said suddenly. ‘You can’t mention where or how you got the baby. Or tell anyone about this man.’

‘Is he …’ Bobbie paused, wanting to ask the question and at the same time not wanting to hear the answer. ‘… is he dangerous?’

‘You want a baby, don’t you?’ Ellen asked steadily. ‘Well, sometimes we have to go about things in ways we wouldn’t usually choose.’ She patted Bobbie’s hand maternally and changed the subject. ‘Now, eat up. A new mother needs all her strength.’

29

The next day it rained. And it kept raining, right through the afternoon and into the turn of dusk. It rained so hard that the traffic slowed down on the New York streets, the headlights bouncing off the slick roads. The clouds rained down like they hadn’t rained for years, as if they wanted to get rid of all the collected water which was making their white froth heavy. Downspouts overflowed, drains choked and were smothered under the onslaught, and a million American pigeons hunched up against the windows of a thousand office blocks. Along the sidewalk, people hurried under awnings and into doorways, a sulky moon dozing in a gap between the clouds. At the Guggenheim Museum they were having a Roy Lichtenstein show, and in Central Park the drivers with their pony traps waited for customers under the dripping trees.

Emile Dwappa watched the rain with indifference. Standing across the street from Roberta Feldenchrist’s apartment block, he watched the comings and goings of the wealthy and their cars. He wondered, fleetingly, which car he would buy when he was rich, and decided that he would go for an English Jaguar. Class, he thought solemnly, was everything. Who wanted a BMW – the Brixton drug-runners’ car? Or some flashy pimp Cadillac? He didn’t want to be noticed, he wanted to be rich. And if nobody else noticed how rich he was, that was fine by him.

Glancing at his watch, he looked up at the penthouse apartment, its lights shining out into the driving rain. Even from street level, the place looked big. He wondered what it would be like to have so much space for yourself. Space up above the masses, away from the dog shit on the streets and the drains which crept down into the sewers below. He wondered then if he would like to live in New York and realised instantly how much he disliked the place. There was no sun, for one thing. Oh, it was raining at the moment, but the previous day it had been fine. And still no sun had got down into the crazy paving of the streets. And all the shadows, he thought, shaking his head. What was the point of walking among buildings so tall that you were always in half-darkness?

Turning his face upwards, he let the rain fall on his skin for a moment and moved into the shelter of a doorway. Roberta Feldenchrist was expecting him … the thought was amusing. One of the richest women on earth needed him. She wanted what he could give her. Only him … He had already worked out what he would charge her. She would baulk at the sum, of course, but she would pay. She had no choice. He thought of the cuttings he had read in the society pages, about how Ms Feldenchrist was giving a baby shower at the weekend for her adopted son

… It amused him to think of the expression ‘baby shower’. Sounded like they were going to drown the poor bastard.

Dwappa had done his research meticulously after his brother had tipped him the wink about Bobbie Feldenchrist. And now he had a very clear picture of a rich cow who had always got her own way – until Mother Nature had slowed up her progress. No amount of money could make a barren woman fertile again. The chemotherapy, he thought idly, had stopped the Feldenchrist line short. But Ms Feldenchrist wasn’t going to let fate, or nature, stand in her way. Even when her first attempt at adoption failed.

But that, he decided, was what you got for doing things the right way. Bureaucracy could topple the mightiest plans. Exhaling, Dwappa ducked out from the doorway and walked across the road, dodging a yellow cab and making for the entrance to the apartment block.