by Kate Hamer
On a weekday I might sit with Daniel on the balcony and we’ll have a cigarette and he’ll say, ‘Night then, early start,’ before kissing me on the cheek and disappearing downstairs. What other nineteen-year-old boy would understand the need for this? How Mum and I need our lives to carry on together separately because we know, despite how good it is right now, despite remission or whatever we choose to call it, that this time is limited. It won’t go on forever.
*
Mum and I both receive crisp white envelopes on the same morning. She opens it with stiff fingers and I realise with a chill that her symptoms are returning. I’ve been noticing it for several days now, the glass sliding from the hand and breaking on the kitchen floor, the speech where the slightly thickened tongue is noticeable, the slowness. I’ve been closing my mind to it up until now and I realise this time has been all about waiting for them to return. The miracle, the walking on water, Phoebe’s insane belief in wishes and predictions were all a beautiful glass bauble that captivated me for a time but that I always knew would shatter one day. The strange thing is, it’s almost a relief now it has. Fake beliefs are exhausting.
Mum holds the letter to the light so she can read it properly.
‘She’s done it. Well, I’ll be blowed.’
‘What? What?’ I ask, digging my thumb under the flap of the envelope and tearing it open any old how.
‘That woman at the hospital, what’s her name? The social worker?’
I scan my letter.
We are pleased to inform you that due to your circumstances at the present time, Mrs Jennifer Healy has been considered a suitable candidate for a respite break. There is considerable competition for these charitable places so we would be grateful if you could let us know as soon as possible if she is available to attend. We have written to you, as the primary carer, but have also let your mother know by letter. We have found from experience that these respite breaks have a considerable beneficial effect on everyone involved and would urge you to consider the offer very seriously.
It’s like Miss Kinsella got them to put that last bit in just for me. I can almost hear her reading the words out over my shoulder.
I shake out the sheet of paper properly, as if I could loosen the words there and send them scattering to the floor, and with a dry tearing sound rip it completely in half. There’s a brochure in the envelope too that I don’t even bother taking out. Mum was looking at hers as I read the letter.
‘There. That doesn’t need to worry us again. It’s a voluntary thing. They’re trying to make out in the letter that it isn’t but they can’t, so you don’t have to go.’
Mum sits completely still on her big flowered cushion that she likes when she’s on one of the hard kitchen chairs. Her clear blue eyes look over the top of the letter.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Grace, it could be a good idea, you know. You could have a week alone with Daniel. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?’
I pick up the bits of paper and jab my finger at them. ‘Those dates. He won’t be here anyway. I’ll be on my own. Forget about it. It’s not happening. We don’t have to worry.’
I notice she has not put the letter aside; she has simply lowered it slightly and her steady gaze doesn’t leave my face. An unexpected anxiety tingles at the back of my neck.
‘Listen, Grace.’ She finally puts down the letter and takes off her glasses and clicks them shut. ‘I don’t think we should miss this opportunity. Like they say, it might not come round again. They’ve obviously gone to a lot of trouble to try and organise this.’
‘No.’ I clasp my arms tight to my chest. ‘It’s not a good idea.’
‘Who says?’
‘I do. It’ll be the start of more interference. They won’t want to leave us alone after this, I guarantee.’
She sticks out her chin and her neck mottles red. ‘What if I want to go?’ I want her to stop. Strong emotion is not good for her condition. ‘It’s my decision too, not just yours. There’s a lovely garden there, and they’ve got a hairdresser that comes round to you. What chance do I have to be in a garden, stuck up here away from the bloody ground even? This was Dad’s choice and I got lumbered with it. I would’ve lived out in the country like my mum did. I can’t tell you how much I long to have the breeze on my face and see green grass and hear birds.’
‘I’ll take you to the park.’ My voice chokes. ‘We’ll go tomorrow, I promise.’
‘It’s not enough. I want to do this. It will do us both the world of good.’
‘No, don’t leave me.’ I startle both of us. ‘I mean, what’s the point? It’s just another hospital, another institution.’
‘Honestly, just calm yourself. It’s a good thing—’
‘I don’t need respite, and we don’t need respite from each other, we’re fine,’ I say, wiping the snot on my sleeve.
And I can tell it’s out of her mouth before she had time to think. That she didn’t mean to say it, but that’s not the same as not meaning it. ‘Maybe you don’t,’ she snaps. ‘But I bloody well do.’
29
Orla
I am ripening.
I really am. I wasn’t sure before but every day a little more, a little more, like a pumpkin in a field. I do a test anyway but really I don’t need to bother. The sickness, the missed period, the tender breasts, it’s all so obvious it practically screams ‘pregnant’. I can’t believe it – how stupid I was to actually wish for this to happen. I even went back to Kai’s house two days in a row to triple my chances before he got freaked out and told me he didn’t want to see me any more. He sensed that something was up and it wasn’t his unique charms I was after. What a shitty way for me to behave. It’s like I was in some sort of trance. Well, I’ve woken up now and the reality of it is like having cold water chucked in my face.
As if to test it out, despite the sickness, and the tenderness, despite the bloody pregnancy test itself, my fingers seek out my belly under the covers at night, checking over and over, and I feel the indisputable swelling there. I look around my room and I’m grateful I never got round to dismantling it. I need all those childish things now. I’d live inside that sunflower if I could. The glittery lace is a remnant of a magical land I want to revisit and stay in forever. My days and nights are tortures of indecision and worry.
On the one hand I’m greedy for this little life. I love it already. At other times I’m washed with doom and shame. How on earth could I even think of giving birth to this child, a child possibly conceived in a disgusting dirty pet cemetery with a sad-eyed boy in a leather coat and wearing mascara? It’s so revolting I can’t bear it.
Scenarios open up in my head like a succession of rooms. There’s me swaddling a baby in a blanket and nuzzling its cheek, the skin as healthy as rubber. Dad’s smiling at me, Mum’s come round now and he’s persuaded her to let him help me buy a flat. We’re happy, just the two of us there. Then a door opens on another room. Phoebe’s come to see me. I’m living with Mum and Dad. There’s sick down my front and my bedroom stinks of nappies. She wrinkles up her elegant nose. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her man’s raincoat and makes an excuse to leave. The baby starts crying and I’m alone with it, sobbing on the bed.
I shake my head as if this could loosen all the scenarios that constantly march through my head. I can’t think clearly. Mum comes into my room with an armful of clean washing and sits next to me on the bed. I’m overtaken by her warm comforting presence and I’m so tempted to tell her. I’m on a knife-edge about it. She puts her arm around me and I breathe in the lovely familiar scent of her Elnett hairspray, the one she’s been using ever since I can remember.
‘What is it, honey pie?’ she asks, using her childhood name for me.
I bury my head in her neck. ‘Nothing, I mean just being a teenager probably,’ I mumble.
‘Come on.’ She rubs my back. ‘If it’s about what happened before. Don’t worry about it. I just take things far too seriously and get het u
p and anxious about everything when Dad’s away. You’re a lovely girl. You’ll always be my lovely, lovely girl.’
I really, really want to cry then, but I won’t because I know if I do it’ll all come spilling out and they’ll take over, Mum and Dad, thinking they are doing their best but nothing will be in my hands any more. They will decide the outcome and I will have no say. I am utterly on my own. I’ve never felt it so much before; I’m stumbling through the days and every minute stretches into an hour as I try and decide what to do.
30
Phoebe
So the wheels have come off her Edinburgh trip.
I am the trouble. As always.
The problem does provoke a sort of hysterical glee in me despite the solace that a few days away from her would provide. The dress remains sheathed and hanging from her wardrobe door, haunting the house like a dark blue ghost.
Bertha speaks very loudly on the phone so I heard both sides of the conversation from where I was hiding outside the kitchen door. It did pass my mind how much time she and I spend listening to each other in this house. An unhealthy habit, but this conversation was proving so interesting not one I wanted to break at that moment. At the other end of the line Bertha sounded slightly agitated but determined to stay calm.
‘Much as I like Phoebe …’
Does she? Does she?
‘Much as I like Phoebe, those two nights just aren’t convenient. Paddle …’
… her little pedigree dog.
‘Paddle is to have a little op and he will need absolute rest and silence for a couple of days to recuperate.’
‘What?’ My mother was incredulous. ‘It’s just a bloody dog, Bertha.’
I stuffed my fingers in my mouth. Wrong thing to say! Wrong thing to say!
Bertha, however, remained unruffled. ‘Maybe to you, dear. But I’m not going to budge on this. Phoebe is perfectly capable of being on her own for a couple of days. Big grown-up girl like her.’
‘That’s what you think.’ I can tell by the sound of her voice that her mouth is set into a grim line. ‘Really, I was rather relying on you.’
‘You always do, Emma. I’m not quite sure why.’
There it was, that tone of dislike that I wondered about before. Clear as a bell this time.
‘I would’ve thought it’s been enriching for you, having Phoebe over the years. I mean, since you have no children of your own.’
A pang of fear penetrated my heart. Mum’s tone was cool and light but I could discern only too well the underlying menace there. She’s about to wound, I thought, she’s about to hurt. I felt terrible for Bertha, with her huge teeth and her kindness, and who didn’t deserve in any way what she was about to get.
‘Yes, over the years, Emma. I’ve been happy to do it because I like the girl. I think she has a lot of potential, given the right circumstances.’
Potential!
‘But honestly,’ I could tell Bertha was getting heated now and she began talking even louder, ‘I think you’ve traded on our rather slim college friendship a little too much. I have no children, it’s true, and although some women are happy with that situation, of course you know that it’s a source of regret that when I was married …’
She had a husband!?
‘… and we were never able to have any children despite trying fervently and for a long time. You know that but you don’t neglect to mention it.’
‘Oh, I can’t say anything now, can I?’ She’s taken aback. She is not used to people pinning her down on her lightly delivered veiled barbs.
‘It’s not a question of not being able to say anything. It’s a question of being deliberately hurtful when you don’t get your own way, like just now. You’ve done it too many times. No, it’s true. I don’t have children of my own. But looking after yours whenever it’s convenient for you isn’t really a substitute for that.’
There was a silence, dense and pulsating in my ears.
‘Never mind.’ My mother was hissing between her teeth now. ‘You’ll always have Paddle.’
There was the sound of the phone crashing back into its cradle.
*
My longing to be alone is so overwhelming I feel crucified by it. I want to pull up my plait, wrap myself in a soft woollen blanket, drink warm creamy drinks and rest deeply. I need to knit myself back together. Too much has happened that needs unravelling slowly and in silence. Lucas becomes more like a wound in my side day by day.
However, she is determined I am not left to be.
‘Can’t you stay with Orla?’
‘She has her family there, her grandparents. There’s no room.’
I don’t let on that we sleep curled up together in her three-quarter bed or in the truckle bed beneath. The thought of being there among the throng of her family is almost unbearable. Besides, I can’t imagine her mother would want yet another one at the dinner table.
‘What about the other one? What’s her name? Grace.’
‘Grace’s mother is very, very poorly. I told you that.’
‘Oh yes.’ She chews her lip.
‘Orla could stay here,’ I venture.
‘Mmmm.’
I can see her thinking about it. Looking at the idea and not liking it.
Finally she says, ‘Is that it? Don’t you have any other friends?’
There’s a sound of music from the street, tinkling through the open window, floating in on the warmth of the day. There’s voices, a man and children getting out of the car. That’s where the music’s coming from, from inside the car. A child’s tune to keep them from whining on a journey. The words of the song mention a mouse, then bedtime. I close my eyes and think about Lucas, fantasise it’s him arriving outside my front door. I try to forget about the sound of his leather soles sliding on stones as he made his escape. I try to remember his blue eyes, his strong shoulders and his warm loving masculine presence. If it truly was him outside, I’d lean out right now. I’d let down my hair and let him climb up it.
31
Orla
I wait until Mum and Dad are out of the house and look the number up in the Yellow Pages. I sit looking at the phone for a long time and when it rings it’s like an electric shock. I cry out and clasp my hands to my heart. I pick it up cautiously as if it’s intercepted my thoughts and is about to recount them to me.
‘Why aren’t you answering your mobile?’ Phoebe’s voice sounds breathy at the other end.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Who did you want it to be and why aren’t you answering your mobile?’
I’m aware I’m not sounding puppy-dog bright at the sound of her voice – my usual response.
‘You can talk! You never answer yours.’
She’s silent for a moment. ‘There’s something the matter.’
Phoebe is the last, the very last person I would confide in. She’d probably suggest keeping the baby locked up and secret in the garden shed or something.
‘I’m fine. Absolutely fine. What d’you want?’
‘Listen, will you come and stay the week after next? You’d be doing me a big favour. She won’t let me be on my own. I’d prefer to be, of course …’
‘Thanks.’
‘No, don’t be like that. You know how I mean. It’s like I’m not safe to be on my own or something. It’s ridiculous. I’m nearly eighteen. Say you will, please.’
‘All right.’ I want to get rid of her quickly now. She’s so curious. She’ll prod and pry further and further like a sharp worm until she’s found the core where the growing life inside me is tucked like a pip.
When she’s gone I sit looking at the phone again. My heart is so heavy it hurts. Almost like it doesn’t belong to me, I see my arm and the sleeve of my red jumper reaching out to pick it up. Something worries at my consciousness; the way she sounded, wasn’t right either but it’s just a tiny gnat of a thought that zooms away as soon as it’s arrived. I put all my efforts into dialling the number and each time I press a single button
it seems to take all my will and energy.
*
Later, it’s at the point of no return that I remember again what I wished for that day in the Spinney. Already, I can feel the tugging inside as if there’s puppet strings inside my womb that are being pulled. I remember it clearly: my prediction that day flashes through me just as the very thing I wished for is being scraped out of my body.
32
Phoebe
I am quite collapsed by everything.
Things have grown worse since I saw the vision of doom in the Roman Baths that day. It has bubbled into my being and now it follows me everywhere and I cannot shake off its sinister presence.
Symptoms abound.
Try as I might to pinch them out or keep them hidden, they heap up and grow. I have to sit on my hands when thoughts of cutting come in. Now I’m completely convinced I caused that man to be crushed that day, his blood and insides spread over the front bumper and the wall. It obsesses me. I turn the idea away only for it to return, multiplied in strength by ten, twenty, fifty, to haunt me again. The blood runs down the walls in streamers every night.