From the Outside

by Clare Johnston

  ‘I’d better get over to the studio now before Emily comes looking for me.’ Jason got to his feet.

  ‘Is she a hard taskmaster?’ Ben smiled.

  ‘Aye.’ said Jason. ‘But at least she cares, eh.’

  Sarah admired her growing bump as she stood sideways on in front of the mirror, her sweater pulled up to reveal the curve of her tummy. People were starting to guess now – and one of the staff in Waitrose the other day had even asked if she needed help carrying her bags to the car. People were so much sweeter when you’re expecting, she thought. Why can’t they always be like that?

  There had been no one more considerate towards her needs than Ben, who was never more than a phone call away and seemed genuinely happy just to fuss around her and make sure she was alright. He’d agreed to come to her twenty-week scan and, after Sarah had given his name to the hospital ahead of the appointment, they had both laughed as they predicted the radiographer would ask for Mr and Mrs Melville in the waiting room. How very convenient that was, she thought. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to the hospital staff. They could just wrongly assume that she was a happily married mother-to-be, expecting a child in the most uncomplicated of situations.

  Sarah didn’t want to have to tell anyone her baby’s father was dead; that she was a single parent. Most of all she didn’t want to have to break that sorry story to her child. And that was where Ben came in. He would make up for my absence, filling the void that had been created with such abrupt finality just three months earlier.

  She thought of how her view of Ben had changed beyond recognition now, to the point where she couldn’t even remember what he was like before my death. She couldn’t help but feel too, that it was wonderful to have someone around who had time to listen to her, to ask how her day had gone and how she was feeling. I had always been in a hurry. In truth I probably thought she should be grateful to be the wife of someone so successful, and I’d get frustrated when she complained about how little time I spent at home.

  ‘Where do you think all this comes from, Sarah?’ she recalled me snapping at her one day. ‘New Town houses don’t come cheap – and neither does the Veuve Clicquot you like to dish out to your friends,’ I’d added, fixing her with a steely glare and a raised eyebrow. Then, just to make sure I’d drummed home my point – purely to rid myself of any sense of guilt – I threw in: ‘You may think you’re Miss Independent, but you’d soon feel the pinch if you had to pay the bills.’

  Sarah winced at the memory. She felt horribly guilty thinking any negative thoughts about me now, but the truth was we had become distant and our marriage was beginning to show the kind of cracks that couldn’t just be papered over. In short, I was neglecting her.

  She realised, with not a small degree of shame, that the night with Paul had been a subconscious toe in the water – and a desperate cry to me that unless things changed, our marriage wouldn’t survive. She’d even considered dropping clues by leaving incriminating emails open on her laptop. A small part of her had wanted me to find Paul’s messages, get hideously angry and threaten to rip his head off before forbidding her from even returning to the office. But instead, all that followed her unfulfilling night with Paul, was an even louder silence between us. She deleted his messages in which he pleaded to see her again. She knew there was no point leaving them open on her laptop, as I simply wouldn’t have noticed.

  Sarah checked my picture on her bedside table again. It was her favourite of me. I was relaxed and smiling warmly up at her and, in that moment, she missed me terribly. The old me. The me she had married but later lost.

  There had been those darker hours during which she’d wondered if my early death had actually been for the best. She couldn’t imagine having to tell me she was carrying someone else’s baby. It would have broken us. But what she still couldn’t figure out, was whether she had wanted to break us.

  And all I could be certain of was that I had failed her.

  CHAPTER eight

  THINGS AT THE CENTRE hadn’t always gone well, and there were times I wondered why I’d even bothered starting the thing up in the first place. The very worst of times though had happened early on. One Spring morning, just weeks after we’d opened the centre, I dropped in to pick up some files first thing before any of the staff arrived. I was just on my way out again when the front door swung open and a shaven-headed, hollow-eyed, gaunt-faced youth walked into the office as though he were staff, slung himself into a chair in front of me and propped his feet up on the meeting table. His skin was covered in a fiery acne that was hard to take your eyes off. I sensed this boy, though only sixteen, was trouble from the start, but still I chose to believe him when he said he was there to straighten himself out. ‘I’m frae Muirhouse, eh. It’s not a walk in the park growing up there, but I want tae sort myself out and make ma mum and da proud.’

  ‘Well, we’ll help you in whatever way we can,’ I’d said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Luke.’ He was laughing now. ‘You’ll no forget it either.’

  And he was right. I didn’t.

  From that point on, Luke had arrived at the centre on an almost daily basis; telling the staff he was there to try and work out what he wanted to do with his life, although whenever a suggestion was put to him he would always bat it away with the same line: ‘Naw, that’s no for me, man.’

  Sensing that Luke was using the centre for some alternative reason, one of our earliest youth workers, Tony, confronted him one day and asked: ‘Are you really looking for career help, Luke, or do you just want a place to hang out for a few hours each day?’

  At that, according to Tony, Luke had reared up, clearly rattled by the truth, and after hurling a wooden chair across the room began shouting, ‘You’ve no idea man. You shouldn’ae be in a job like this if you cannae even be nice tae the kids who come in here. You’re the one who’s wasting time. You’re wasting ma time.’ By chance, I happened to walk in the front door, just in time to find Luke closing in on Tony in the recreation room, shouting: ‘What’s your fucking problem? Think you’re better than me? You’re a fucking nobody.’

  ‘What’s going on here, Luke?’ I intervened.

  ‘He’s calling me a fucking liar,’ Luke bellowed, jabbing his finger in Tony’s direction.

  I turned to Tony, looking for answers.

  ‘He doesn’t seem interested in finding a career. I was just trying to get to the bottom of it that’s all.’ Tony shrugged, white with terror from his ordeal.

  ‘You go into the office, Tony. I’d like to speak to Luke.’

  He didn’t stop to argue, and made quickly for the door.

  ‘Why are you here, Luke?’ I made sure to stare him directly in the eyes as I spoke – a kind of primitive action that I sensed would in some way impress or intimidate my opponent. Hopefully both.

  ‘I’m here tae find a job. What d’you think?’ Luke was pacing the room now, agitated and looking as though he could charge again.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ I said, trying to placate him. ‘Where we going wrong then?’

  ‘You’re just no coming up with anything I’m interested in, that’s all.’

  ‘And what do you think you’d be interested in?’

  Luke stopped pacing for a moment while he dug his right hand into his trouser pocket. I backed swiftly away and prepared my defence tactics if he came at me with a knife. But it wasn’t a weapon Luke was pulling out, but a piece of paper. He unfolded it quickly before thrusting it in my hands. So taken aback was I by its contents that it took me several moments to digest what I was actually looking at; an extremely skillful black pencil drawing of an old man whose world-weary and alcohol-worn features gave an instant life history.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘I drew it,’ Luke said, unable to look me in the eye. ‘Just dinnae make a big issue out of it.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I dinnae want people around here knowing I draw.’r />
  ‘But you do want to take this further, is that right?’

  ‘Aye,’ Luke replied. Head still bowed. ‘If you think I’m any good.’

  ‘I do, Luke, think you’re good. Seriously good.’

  Sarah and Ben sat nervously in the reception of the clinic, waiting to be called for her scan. Even though Sarah had been scanned at twelve weeks and assured everything was normal, she still felt apprehensive after reading about some of the conditions they were seeking to rule out at this stage. All she wanted to do was speed through the next twenty weeks so she could meet her – hopefully – happy, healthy baby.

  Ben repeatedly cleared his throat and shuffled in the seat next to her. After what seemed like the hundredth time he’d done it, she finally snapped.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked, spinning round swiftly to look at him.

  Ben shrugged, bewildered by her aggressive questioning. ‘I’m a little nervous that’s all.’

  She turned away from him again to check for signs of a midwife or radiographer coming but, irritatingly for her, Ben carried on talking.

  ‘We’ve got this launch night coming up as well and we don’t have a bloody clue where to begin when it comes to inviting newspaper journalists along, and what we’ll do with them when they get there.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Sarah replied dismissively. All she could think about right now was the scan. Looking at her, Ben could see she was distracted – and more than a little uptight, so he decided to drop the subject.

  Just a few seconds later, the radiographer appeared clutching her file and – as Sarah had predicted – asked for: ‘Mr and Mrs Melville.’

  Ben stood up and gave Sarah a goofy grin that she assumed was meant to be reassuring.

  They walked briskly to catch up with the radiographer who introduced herself as Karen whilst holding the door open to the room where the scan would be carried out.

  Once they were inside and Sarah was settled on the treatment chair, Karen set about putting the cold gel on her patient’s tummy before beginning the ultrasound.

  Sarah and Ben watched with a mixture of amazement and confusion as they saw various body parts flash before them on the radiographer’s screen.

  ‘What are we looking at now?’ asked Ben.

  ‘You should just about be able to make out the baby’s head,’ said Karen, ‘right here.’

  Sure enough, the curves of a forehead and a tiny nose and mouth came into view. Continuing with the scan she reassured them, ‘The heartbeat is still strong.’

  Before he’d had even a chance to control himself, the tears started to flow down Ben’s face as he saw this new life before him. He fought in equal measure his raw feelings of grief for a brother whose heart would never beat again and who wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet his child; and the pure joy too, of seeing this little person who would soon change their lives forever.

  ‘It’s nice to see a dad let the emotions out,’ Karen smiled, clearly impressed with what must have appeared to be the ultimate modern man.

  He noticed Sarah glaring coldly at him now with a look that said she understood exactly what he was thinking, but there was no room for sadness and mourning around her child.

  She turned her head back to the screen once Ben had begun to show signs of regaining his composure.

  Suddenly, he felt like a fraud sitting in the seat that I should have been filling. He tried to listen carefully as Karen pointed out every little detail of his niece or nephew’s tiny anatomy, but he couldn’t take any of it in. He was using every ounce of his energy to suppress the overwhelming sadness that was threatening to spill out of him. He wanted to shout at the top of his voice and run from the room, but instead he sat in silent agony.

  Slowly, he became conscious of a debate between Sarah and Karen.

  ‘I’m very sure of my dates,’ Sarah was saying.

  ‘Well, there’s not much in it, but I think because of the measurements we should move the due date back a little, just by a week.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sarah bristled. ‘I don’t suppose it matters anyway,’ she added while the radiographer altered the date on the front of her file.

  Once outside the room, Sarah and Ben walked in silence along the corridor until Sarah finally stopped him as they neared the exit.

  ‘You’re not here to replace Harry,’ she said, fixing him again with that icy stare. ‘But I do need you to represent him. You’re the closest thing this child has got to its father and we need you.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said defensively. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Good,’ Sarah said stiffly. ‘I need to know we can rely on you – and you’re not going to go all.. flaky on us again.’

  She turned away and continued walking, leaving Ben to follow a few steps behind and wonder just what had turned her mood so suddenly.

  For the first time in over three months, Ben bought a bottle of whisky on the way home and he was looking forward to drinking it. Over and over again as he walked, he played out the same thought – that he must have been fooling himself if he believed he could run a youth centre inspiring young people to fulfill their potential when he’d done absolutely nothing with his own life. And this bizarre situation where Sarah was trying to shoehorn him into becoming me was taking its toll. Not that it wouldn’t have been tempting to play the part of her husband. Ben had long wondered what it would be like to be married to a woman as vibrant and beautiful as Sarah. She had intrigued him from the first day he met her, when I’d suggested we all take Dad for a meal out. Ben had been desperately struggling with his grief over Mum’s death. She had been his rock, always there to support and guide him. Somehow being with Dad and I made his sense of loss even worse, because we were so closely associated with her.

  For Ben, at least having another person there to fill that all-important fourth chair made the idea of dinner together more bearable.

  Sarah had been late – because of a client meeting that had overrun. Ben had been sitting facing the entrance on the other side of the table from Dad and I. He was in the middle of telling us about a bad fall he’d seen an elderly neighbour have that day when the door had flung open and a slight but striking woman rushed in from the street, all bags and work files and flustered.

  Ben knew before I even got the chance to tell him that this was my girlfriend. I always landed prize catches, and Sarah was surely the greatest prize of them all.

  ‘God, I’m so sorry I’m late. I just couldn’t get away,’ she’d announced dramatically.

  ‘Don’t worry about it young lady,’ Dad said standing up and looking altogether much brighter. ‘You must be Sarah.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said through flushed cheeks. She held out her hand to Dad who gave it a lingering shake. He always was a flirt. Then she had turned to my brother.

  ‘And you must be Ben,’ she smiled.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he’d replied, making minimal eye contact as he followed Dad in shaking her hand.

  With that she dropped her assortment of legal folders to the floor and threw herself into the evening with gusto, delighting John with tales of her obnoxious clients and colleagues – all of whom were invariably classed as overpaid fools. Ben had listened and laughed, and from time to time stole a look in my direction to find me vaguely amused, but ultimately distracted. Because, as Ben saw that night, although I was clearly very fond of my new girlfriend, I was not quite as captivated as he was.

  As Ben quickly paced the streets towards home, he played mind games with himself in which he pretended there was a choice over whether he would drink the bottle of whisky or not. He could just have a small glass to relax, he reasoned, though a louder voice told him that one would lead to many more.

  By the time he reached his flat, his pulse was racing at the thought of that first drink. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and struggled to get them in the lock, his saliva glands in overdrive with anticipation. As soon as the door opened he made a dash for the kitchen,
but was stopped in his tracks by a voice from the living room.

  ‘Alright mate. How was the scan?’

  ‘Oh shit’, he thought. He’d completely forgotten that Jason was staying with him. He could hardly fill his face with whisky in front of a youth he was supposed to be setting a good example to. He stuffed the bottle in a cupboard before turning to face Jason who was entering the kitchen behind him.

  ‘The scan?’ said Ben, as if he’d had trouble hearing Jason.

  ‘Aye. Was everything okay?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ben tried to sound relaxed. ‘Everything’s good. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘No bother. The footie’s on in a minute if you want to watch the game?’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Ben, who was starting to feel restored by the thought of watching a good game. ‘You sit down and I’ll make us something to eat.’

  Ben thought if he’d just told Jason he’d won the Lottery the young lad couldn’t have looked happier than at that moment. He stopped only to say two words – ‘You beauty’ – before speeding back through to the sitting room.

  Alone again, Ben opened the cupboard door, picked up the bottle of whisky, unscrewed the lid, took a deep breath and poured the liquid down the sink.

  Sarah tried to stifle her laughter as Rosa crawled around the floor after her fifteen-month-old daughter, Esther, who refused to lie still to have her nappy changed. Looking at Rosa trying to stick down the seal with one hand, whilst attempting to keep Esther in one place with the other was like watching someone trying to tag an eel.

  ‘Just you wait,’ panted Rosa as she finally got the second nappy seal stuck down, ‘this will be you soon and I’ll be the one looking on smugly’.

  ‘At least you’re not bitter,’ laughed Sarah.

  Seeing her old friend was always a real tonic and worth the car journey through to Glasgow. Rosa’s house was just like the one Sarah had grown up in; large but homely and full of love.

  Exhausted from her nappy-changing ordeal, and with Esther and her elder sister Maddie now happily watching children’s TV, Rosa threw herself back onto the sofa, savouring every second of rest she was granted.