The Apartment - K. L. Slater Page 0,21

public places. It’s another sign of a world obsessed with correctness at the price of almost everything else.

You sit on the bench which some bright spark in the local planning department decided to situate under the canopy of a very old oak tree. The gnarled and sap-marked trunk, of some considerable girth, sits right in front of the bench, blocking the view but affording unrivalled privacy, right next to the wire-fenced playground of the school.

The package was delivered about half an hour ago. You watched as the courier took it inside and you received the emailed confirmation that it had been signed for at the front desk.

Only when you’re satisfied there is nobody else around and nobody observing you, do you take out the camera. And then you wait for a long four and a half minutes until the classes begin to emerge, one by one, from the main school building.

The children come out in twos and threes and group together in bigger numbers when they get out into the space of the school yard.

Soon there seem to be hundreds of them, although you can’t see the girl at all. Your nails are digging into your palm. Have they kept her inside for some reason, you wonder? Is she distressed?

You push away the disappointment of not being able to observe her reaction as you had hoped.

Instead, you slip on your soft gloves, reach into your bag and take out the hand-stitched journal that’s filled with Beatrice’s own thoughts. It is written in her neat and surprisingly eloquent hand, and you never tire of looking at it.

You calculate you must have read her words a thousand times, but this time feels special.

This time, everything means so much more because the woman and her child are finally here, at Adder House.

You turn back to the very beginning of Beatrice’s journal, dated June 1920, and begin to read . . .

‘Beatrice?’

As I walk down the corridor, I feel myself freeze at the sound of Dr Rosalie Rayner’s voice. The cold walls and stark floor seem to reverberate around me as every fibre of my being urges me to carry on walking as if I hadn’t heard the doctor speak.

But of course my manners stop me from doing so.

I twist my hands together before wiping my brow. I feel old-fashioned next to Rosalie with her modern look, her neat bun and small white cap.

Rosalie places her hand on my arm.

‘I wondered if you have given consideration to Professor Watson’s request, my dear?’

I feel such a heat in my cheeks. A damp spot collects in the slight dip at the bottom of my spine but I try to appear unflustered.

Professor Watson’s request has been looming large in my head. It has robbed me of sleep on a few nights, in fact.

‘I’m sure you’d agree that it is such an honour to have an eminent professional, such as Professor Watson, interested in your child. It is, without doubt, an astonishing opportunity.’

‘I – I’m very grateful for Professor Watson’s interest in my son, Rosalie, but . . . he’s a rather sensitive boy and I don’t think—’ I stammer. I can’t help it, she is so bold and insistent.

‘Why, the child has such a pleasant temperament! I’ve seen him around the hospital with others, so sociable and content.’

‘He might seem that way, but as his mother, I—’

‘Of course, Professor Watson is a very influential man. You know he sits on the hospital board and has the ear of all the decision makers? I assume you’ve heard the rumours concerning the reorganisation of the hospital’s maternity wing?’

I have indeed heard the rumour, which had begun quietly and grown with troubling speed until all the employees of the maternity wing were bracing themselves for an announcement any day.

I, together with many other people, have endured sleepless nights and fretful days, imagining what life might be like without my job. How we would survive.

My wages as a wet nurse in the maternity wing are minimal but adequate for our meagre lifestyle.

When a baby’s mother sadly dies or, for whatever reason, is unable or unwilling to feed her child, myself, or one of my colleagues, is allocated responsibility for the child.

My job is to feed and nurture my tiny charges until such a time as they are able to thrive independently. In my humble opinion, it is certainly a healthier choice than the dubious use of infant formula milk that the hospital’s doctors generally disapprove of.

It is true that I gain