So when the doctor said that the baby was a boy, and showed me and Daniel the baby’s little willy on the scan, I was really happy. Daniel looked bemused though.
‘God,’ he said. ‘I never really thought about a boy.’
And then I told my mother, and that was the usual mess. She’s been slightly more animated recently and I almost thought she was excited about the baby. She even sometimes phones me just to ask how I’m feeling, and she never used to. So I got it in my head that maybe she was excited to know the baby’s sex, although I guessed she wouldn’t have a preference. Well, when I told her, she just turned away as if I’d been talking about the weather, and said something non-committal like ‘That’s nice then.’ I don’t know why I felt so disappointed – I should really know by now.
And then in the middle of all that’s going on – being pregnant, and feeling sick and inadequate all the time – the worst thing that can happen at work has happened: we have a new project with Steve’s company. And the last time I saw him was on that terrible date, and now I have to work with him again. Halfway through a pregnancy, with a baby bump twice the size the books say it should be, and spotty skin and greasy hair (because no matter how much I wash it, it somehow stays greasy) and swollen ankles. It’s not like I want him to be attracted to me or anything – I have Daniel, and things with Steve wouldn’t have worked anyway. Probably. But still, I don’t want him to look at me and wonder what he saw in me and want to vomit. That doesn’t mean I feel anything for him.
I even told Daniel I would be seeing him, because couples shouldn’t have secrets. My mum tells my dad everything, and he’s in a coma. I definitely don’t want to be one of those couples who skirt around issues. Except for the lying-about-therapy thing, but that’s different.
‘Just so you know, I’ve got to do some work with Steve again,’ I said, stroking my tummy as we were watching TV.
Daniel had his laptop balanced on his knees. ‘Who’s Steve?’
‘Oh, no one really. Just that guy I dated before I met you. Well, one date. One bad date. Nothing you should be jealous of.’
Daniel looked at me curiously. ‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘God, no,’ I said. ‘Of course not. What do you think I am?’
‘You’re a very sexual person, Julia. I can’t expect you to have no past.’
I suppressed a burp – reflux is a bitch. ‘Well, I didn’t sleep with him.’
But now Daniel had some idea in his head, and he put aside his laptop. ‘But you did sleep with other men before me,’ he said, slipping his hand into my shirt and squeezing my breast. Which was agonising because it was so tender. I concentrated on not swatting him.
His voice was husky. ‘You’re so hot and horny,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Maybe you should tell me about those other men. Tell me what they did to you. Tell me how many there were. Tell me how much you loved it.’ He was nuzzling my neck and making me feel like I couldn’t breathe, and then he looked up. ‘Maybe there were women too?’ He eyed me and tweaked my swollen nipple.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No women.’
‘You’re a vixen,’ he said, as if my answer was somehow sexy, and started pulling at my clothes. While he got on with things, I planned the baby’s room in my head. I’ve been thinking shades of cream with green edging, not the stereotypical blue. I sighed and moaned at opportune moments, and he didn’t seem to be able to tell the difference.
‘Christ, you are so hot,’ he said afterwards.
I nodded, feeling like I’d lost something and I didn’t know what.
The next morning at breakfast, I say, ‘So you’re okay about me working with Steve?’
‘Who’s Steve?’
‘No one. Forget it.’ Although clearly he already has.
Claire
I’m late again dropping Mackenzie at school and it’s the worst day for this to happen. Straight after drop-off I’m meeting the other mums involved in planning the school fete, and they’re all waiting, sipping their lattes, and I feel like they can look through me and know that I’m falling apart. But I say nothing, and they all leap up when I arrive and there’s a lot of air kissing and hugging and moving around the table making space for me.
I wonder what everyone knows about me and Daniel. On one hand, I think I’m going to die of embarrassment when people find out not only that Daniel has left me, but that I haven’t told anyone. I just couldn’t talk about it at first – and anyway, it was Christmas and who talks to anyone around that time – and then time passed, and suddenly it was awkward to tell people because so much time had passed, and I was embarrassed and inexplicably ashamed. And now I’m even more embarrassed about having said nothing. But I know rumours must be out there. It’s impossible that nobody has said anything, that nobody has seen Daniel and his pregnant girlfriend out and about, that people aren’t speculating. Joburg can be a very small town. But nobody has said anything to me, and I almost feel hurt. These women are supposed to be my friends, but they haven’t even broached the subject of my failing marriage. Nobody’s asked if I’m okay, if I want to talk, except that bloody Mrs Wood.
But I smile as I sit down, and I order a skinny latte, and Janice comments that I hardly need it to be skinny and I briefly consider throwing her own skinny latte in her face, but instead I laugh and say, ‘Habit,’ and the others all laugh too, like I’ve said something genuinely funny.
A woman called Tiffany is the head of the fete committee. Her daughter’s in a higher grade – I can never remember what grade or what the daughter’s name is. Daniel knows Tiffany’s husband, and over the years we’ve been at the same dinner parties. I should know her daughter’s name. And she probably knows that my husband is living with another woman. I smile at Tiffany and she seems to take that as a sign that we’re ready to begin.
‘Ahem,’ she says, tapping her knife on her latte cup, ‘let’s start, ladies.’ She laughs, a strange snort, and says, ‘I feel like a CEO,’ and then does the snorty laugh again. I remember that I quite like Tiffany.
‘So,’ she says, ‘who wants to kick off with some ideas?’
I sit back, because it’s always me with ideas and I worry that I dictate to people, that I don’t give other people a chance. But they all turn towards me.
‘Claire,’ says Tiffany, ‘please tell me you’ve had your trademark brilliant idea.’
I sigh. ‘I’m sure other people have lovely ideas. You all have such great taste and are so clever.’
The others look around and some shake their heads. Janice is suddenly fascinated by the sugar bowl. A woman called Marion who I know from the PTA has an urgent need to look for something in her bag. Nobody volunteers anything.
‘Okay,’ I say, bowing to the inevitable, and not sure if I’m pleased we’ll be using my ideas or irritated that nobody else has bothered to have any. I haul my laptop out of my bag and open it. ‘I’ve put together a Pinterest board, but the idea I had for our theme is “Old School Charm”. Old-fashioned sweet stalls with jars, lots of bunting, blackboards as stall labels . . .’ I start showing them the ideas I’ve pinned, and they all nod approvingly. Now that I’ve set the tone, other people contribute their thoughts, and Tiffany takes careful notes. By the end of the meeting we have a plan and a series of long to-do lists.
Afterwards, Tiffany hugs me warmly. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Claire,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what we would do without you.’
‘Oh, nonsense,’ I say. ‘Such a pleasure.’
As I turn to walk out, my phone beeps. It’s a message from Daniel. Given how often he messages me, he is apparently unable to remember our child-sharing arrangements from one second to the next. I open the message.
I thought you might want to know that Julia is having a boy.
I stop in my tracks.
A boy. A little boy with Julia’s beautiful hair and Daniel’s brooding eyes. He’ll be devastating. I feel sick.
I take a deep breath and push back my shoulders. The one good
thing about communicating with Daniel is that he’s the one person I don’t have to pretend with any more, the one person I literally could not care about hurting – he has hurt me so badly.
Tiffany is still watching me, so I give a little wave before I type my answer.
I don’t care if your husband-stealing mistress is giving birth to a two-headed elephant.
I push send and smile.
TUESDAY
Helen
I loved having dinner with Ewan and Okkie last night.
It was at their flat in a gentrified part of Newtown with spectacular views over the city, and furniture I didn’t realise actual people had in their homes. Okkie cooked a traditional Ugandan meal and we talked about everything – about Mike, about growing up gay, about growing up with albinism in Uganda, about studying medicine and practising medicine, about my years as an emergency nurse. Ewan couldn’t believe that I’d given it up, so I explained a bit about The Accident, but obviously not everything. Never everything.
Okkie and Ewan are one of those couples that bounce off each other – they are funny and clever and say smart things that make me laugh. And suddenly I was also funny – I also had smart comebacks and clever thoughts. At the beginning of the evening I had thought that they’d regret inviting an old bore like me. But at the end of the evening, Okkie stretched out his long body, pushing back from the table.
‘You are such fun, Helen,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad Ewan made friends with you.’
It’s been a long time since someone called me a friend. And even longer since I have been considered fun. But it’s true that once, long ago, in the time of Mike-and-Helen, I was a fun person. I was a person who had friends.
The last friend I had was after The Accident. It was a friendship born of grief.
The truck that hit us that night, that pinned us in the car for hours before help came, had a driver. A driver who, it emerged, was killed on impact. While I suffered through my private hell that night, a dead man I would never know lay near me. But he left a wife – a bright, clever, beautiful young wife who was bereft without him. And who carried, on his behalf, the guilt of what he’d done to me and my family.
The first time we met was at the hospital, when she came to my bedside and introduced herself, and then sat crying next to me.
‘It’s okay,’ I said, although it wasn’t. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was,’ she sobbed. ‘He was rushing to get home to me.’
I closed my eyes, unable to bear the idea that if this woman had not been loved, The Accident would not have happened.
‘I’ll never get over him,’ she said. ‘And I’ll never forgive him for what happened.’
And with those words she won me over – and ensnared me. She would never be the same and I would never be the same, so we would be each other’s friends. Our destroyed lives would degenerate together.
In the beginning it was exactly how I imagined. Nerina and I would meet, and we’d talk about how awful we felt and how we cried at night and how we hid our pain from our daughters – because Nerina also had a young daughter. We assured each other that we understood each other’s grief because nobody else did. We both refused to go to support groups in the beginning, because we had each other and we felt unique in our misery and loss – both coated with guilt and horror.
Nerina came to my house and I went to hers. We met each other’s daughters. We cried ourselves dry on each other’s sofas. I didn’t need other friends, because I had Nerina.
And then, about six months after The Accident, Nerina told me she was going to a support group, and she asked me to join her. I felt hurt that I wasn’t enough for her, that our friendship wasn’t the only support she needed. But I agreed to try.
The support group was full of people who had ghastly stories, terrible losses. We sat in the ubiquitous circle, and each person shared their pain and what they called their ‘journey’. And a pattern emerged – a pattern of recovery and healing. People talked about how, with time, it was getting easier. There was even a mother who’d lost two children, both to cancer, who said that she knew one day she’d be able to remember her children with peace, and she just wished that day would come. And I couldn’t understand them at all. I knew that for me there was no journey towards peace and healing and happiness. For me there was just learning to live with the pain well enough to take care of Julia. That was all I could do. Until that moment I’d thought there must be lots of people like me – going through the motions, but dead inside. All the support group showed me was that I was alone.
As the stories moved around the circle, I became petrified that Nerina would tell her story, because her story was my story and Nerina knew everything. Everything. I did not want my story to be shared with these people. I was relieved when a few people shook their heads and remained silent, and then it came to Nerina and she opened her mouth to speak and I felt suffused with dread. But she said, ‘Not this time,’ and the circle moved on.
When Nerina and I got into my car – she avoided driving whenever possible – I was about to say, ‘Well, that was ghastly. Never again,’ but Nerina spoke first.
‘That really helped,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘It helped hearing that people feel better. That I will feel better. It gave me hope.’
I turned to look at her.
‘Watch the road,’ she said calmly.
‘But what if we don’t feel better? Those people . . . It was weird.’ I couldn’t verbalise it.
‘We will feel better, Helen,’ she said. ‘That’s how grief works. We’ll always be changed, but one day we won’t wake up and want to die. I know that, and so do you.’
But I didn’t know that. I was pretty sure, even then, that I would never feel better.
‘Maybe it’s different for me with Mike . . .’ I said.
‘Maybe, but there was that guy whose wife had had dementia for so long, and he’s got a whole other life now.’
I didn’t want to be like that man. I didn’t want a whole other life. I wanted the life I’d had, the life Nerina’s husband had stolen from me.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m not going back.’
‘Okay,’ said Nerina. ‘But I am.’
It’s not that Nerina and I stopped being friends then and there. We still saw each other for a while, and she phoned crying just like she always had. But over the next few months she started talking about feeling better. She started using phrases like ‘moving on’ and ‘getting closure’. She went to a therapist, and I think the therapist told her I was bad for her, because she started contacting me less and less.
And I was glad. I didn’t need friends. I couldn’t have friends – I was too damaged. I had Julia, and I had Mike, and that would be enough.
And it was. Until now.
Suddenly I’m a person with friends again – not one set, but two. I know for other people this sounds like a poor allocation, but it’s a bounty I had never expected to enjoy again. It makes me feel good, but also strange and guilty.
It makes me think that other people might say I’m moving on. But I know it’s because of the baby; it’s because I know I can die soon that I’m free to relax and make friends.
Nobody said life made sense.
Claire
The day starts badly. Mackenzie’s school has a sports day so I’ll have to spend the afternoon watching. Which means less time to work, and I’d hoped to drop off a casserole for Ivy from the pottery class, because she’s had a hip replacement and I’m worried she has too few people – except the other pottery widows – to help her. I sigh, thinking how in the old days I could’ve asked Daniel to take Mackenzie to school to buy some time . . . and then I realise I still can.
I think about phoning, but I have an absolute fear of hearing Julia’s voice in the background or, even worse, having her pick up the phone – as unlikely a scenario as that is. So I message him and I’m really nice, remembering that my last message wasn’t exactly
supportive.
Any chance you could take Mackenzie to school this morning? Bit swamped, I type.
Within seconds, my phone beeps: Not today. Xx
What the hell? He hasn’t even given a reason, and he has the audacity to send kisses. But then I wonder why I’m even surprised. It’s typical Daniel – if something doesn’t suit him, he just doesn’t do it. He doesn’t explain – he just says no. There must be a million examples of me asking for his help and him – charmingly, sweetly – shrugging it off. Even if he still lived with us, he wouldn’t have taken Mackenzie. He would have smiled, and laughed maybe, and said, ‘Not today, babe,’ and it would have turned out that he wanted to go to the gym, or pick up a coffee, or he had a mad hankering for a scenic drive before work, or really just fancied a bit more sleep. Only occasionally was it an actual excuse – a meeting, or an appointment. I chose to see it as charming that he never lied. And I would shrug and smile, and rearrange my day to accommodate the task, telling myself that it wasn’t that big a deal.
And suddenly I’m furious about all those excuses, all that selfishness.
Daniel’s charm no longer affects me.
Julia is SO welcome to you, you selfish prick, I type.
I imagine Daniel’s incredulity – he won’t understand what’s just happened. He’ll look at his phone with his mouth slightly open, like a wounded puppy. I laugh out loud.
‘You’re so happy, Mummy,’ observes Mackenzie, dipping toast into her soft-boiled egg.
‘Of course I am, Kenz,’ I say. ‘I get to take you to school today.’
Mackenzie nods, as if that does indeed explain everything. ‘Poor Dad,’ she says. ‘He’s really missing out these days.’
This time my laugh has a slightly hysterical edge. ‘He really is,’ I say, deciding to stop by the delicatessen after dropping Mackenzie to buy Ivy a casserole. There’s no rule that says helping has to be hard work. In fact, I’ll also get one for my next-door neighbour, who was complaining how much she hates to cook the other day. Maybe I’ll discreetly leave the shop’s card in the bag. Give her an idea. And I’ll put it all on the credit card that Daniel still pays. I don’t even think he knows he pays it, because it goes through the business accountant. In the beginning I felt bad and only used it for Mackenzie’s things. But stuff that. In fact, I might take myself shopping for new clothes before sports this afternoon.
The Aftermath Page 10