Mother and Child

by Annie Murray

  ‘You’re not still doing that, are you?’ he says, a few days later when I mention that we have been out for our morning jog. I don’t say too much about it but he asked – although not as if he really wanted to know – what I’ve been doing all day. I try not to take that as a criticism of my not working at the moment. He wants me to be there for Dorrie, after all. And I know he’s grateful that I can be there for her.

  ‘Well, we’re training,’ I tell him, as I dish up food at the table – chicken stew, potatoes. He’s already showered and changed. It’s not as if I’m throwing information at him the second he’s stepped through the door. And he asked, didn’t he?

  ‘We’ve got to be able to run ten kilometres. It’s a quarter of a marathon – just over six miles.’

  He picks up his knife and fork, shaking his head as if I’m saying something absolutely ridiculous. I feel myself getting more and more annoyed, but I swallow it down and manage to say:

  ‘D’you have a problem with me doing it for some reason?’

  He shrugs off the question. ‘No.’

  ‘So what about a bit of encouragement? It’s in a good cause.’

  ‘India?’ He says that too, as if it’s something absurd, distasteful almost.

  ‘Well, your mother’s sponsored me, anyway.’ Generously too, I think. Five pounds a mile. And she’s listened to me telling her what it’s all about, tutted when I say what’s still happening with the children in that area of Bhopal.

  ‘Wicked,’ she said. ‘Absolutely wicked. It’s always been the same with rich bosses.’

  As she wrote her name shakily on the sponsorship form, she said, ‘There’s suffering everywhere, bab. None of us can do much really – but if this helps do summat about a single thing, then good for you.’

  ‘I just think . . .’ Ian puts his knife and fork down. But he can’t seem to think what it is he just thinks and picks them up again.

  ‘Why don’t you come down and watch?’ I say, still trying to hold on to being positive when I feel hurt and undermined. ‘Some of the others’ve got their families coming. They’re making a day of it.’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘I’ve told you – the twelfth of July. It’s a Sunday.’

  Without looking up, he says, ‘I dunno – I’ll have to think.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘You do that.’

  Later, when I come out of the bathroom to get into bed, he seems to be asleep. The light’s still burning on my side of the bed and as I climb in, he rolls over and looks at me. His face appears more textured than I remember it ever being: bags under his eyes, the cleft between his nose and top lip deeper, lines round his mouth. We are all more textured – by the years, by Paul. He looks anxious, almost afraid.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘About earlier.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ I hold back, still hurt. I’m not just going to say, It’s all right, and let it go straight away.

  ‘I’m just not . . . I don’t get why you’re doing it. I mean, you don’t know any of those people . . .’

  ‘OK,’ I say, still curbing my impatience. I’ve told him several times what it’s about. ‘Imagine it was you, there – like now, just getting into bed, asleep maybe. And you find you’re waking up and the house is full of poisonous gas and you get up and try and get away and find that maybe all your family die on the way. Or some of you survive and you can never work again because you can hardly breathe and you’re in constant pain. And on top of that you find that the water you’re drinking is poisoning you and your family day after day because no one will take the trouble to clear the place up . . .’

  I’m crying, great heaving sobs. Ian shifts closer and takes me in his arms. Tightly, rocking me, making comforting noises. When I’m a bit calmer, he says:

  ‘You’re hardly cried. Before, I mean.’

  ‘Nor you.’

  We lie close for a moment and I can feel his heart beating against my shoulder.

  ‘I just don’t know why you’re getting so upset about people over there – so far away. It’s their government should be sorting it out, not us.’

  ‘The Indian government have been rubbish as well,’ I say. My nose is blocked and I sit up for a moment and reach for a tissue. ‘Pretty much everyone has been. But in the end, the Americans designed it and had the biggest share in it. They wanted all the court cases to be held in India – and then every time there’s any kind of hearing they just don’t turn up because they won’t recognize the jurisdiction of the Indian courts. What really gets to me is companies using poorer countries to make profits and do just what they like without giving a toss about the people.’

  ‘That’s business, I suppose.’

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be, does it?’ I’m almost shouting. ‘Who says it has to be that cruel, ridiculous way and why do we all go along with it?’

  Suddenly I remember all that Dorrie has told me. Ian’s dad – his own father’s life devastated by an industry taking short cuts, gambling with people’s lives. Should I tell him – now?

  ‘But why them?’ he’s saying. ‘Of all the things to get upset about?’ He has pushed up on his elbow.

  I almost tell him about the boy, the boy from Bhopal who looks like Paul. But then I realize I have hardly thought of him in these past weeks – that it’s not about him any more – it’s about them, the people there who I have read about, what they’re going through . . . More tears find their way out, surprising even me.

  ‘I suppose I just feel for them,’ I end up saying.

  Ian hugs me again and even if he doesn’t really understand, he strokes my hair.

  ‘Will you come?’ I say eventually.

  After a hesitation, he says, ‘Yeah – OK then.’

  And at the time I think he means it.

  Twenty-Seven

  July 2015

  The last few weeks of training have been bittersweet. I feel better for it; much better. I run, talking to Paul – he is beside me for so much of the day. But something has shifted – I can smile, I am making friends. Stronger threads of light are warming the dark, lonely place into which I had crawled. I like Pat a lot. I have begun to feel a kind of love for these women I am running with. That’s what it does, I suppose, struggling for something together like that. We’ve even managed, last week, to run 10K for the first time – with little bits of walking along the way.

  But when it comes to the men, things have not been so easy.

  Pat had to get on and tell Fred about the run because Fred plays golf with Roy, Sheila’s husband, so he would have found out in any case.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked her, when she popped round to see me afterwards. I couldn’t believe he could say much, really. What was there to make a fuss about?

  Pat pulled a face. ‘He wasn’t too happy. D’you know – I’ve only just realized this myself, but Fred and I have never had a night apart.’

  ‘What – never?’ I was gobsmacked. ‘In how many years?’

  Pat blushed. ‘Forty-four.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’ I just sat there gaping at her.

  ‘Oh, no, come to think of it, there was one night, when his mom was dying – he spent it in the hospital.’ Smiling, she shook her head. ‘Met him when I was sixteen, married at seventeen. That was that. Where else would either of us go?’

  ‘You do realize we’re going to have to go down the night before – we wouldn’t make it from Birmingham in time, not by train.’

  ‘I know,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve told him. He’ll come round. Basically, he’s going to have to.’

  We looked at each other as if to say, How hard can this be?

  And for me, while I may have been out running, at home we’ve been limping from week to week. There have been a few moments of closeness, glimpses of something better, more like old times, brief and hopeful. But Ian also seems resentful of me running, of what I am getting into, as if in opening a door for myself I am closing another one on him.

  There is a
lso something going on at his work and I can’t make sense of it. First Gideon left, and now he has Carl. Carl is older, experienced. This, you would think, was a good thing. On the face of it, Ian agrees that it is, but something is bothering him. I can’t get him to say anything about it. Maybe he doesn’t even know himself. I try – I don’t know what else to do. He moves further away from me again, so that I feel I can’t reach him.

  When I told him that we will have to go to London the night before the race, he looked really put out.

  ‘Come on,’ I tried to joke. We were just finishing breakfast. ‘I’m talking about one night. Since when have you been a Victorian patriarch?’

  ‘Where will you stay?’ He sounded really suspicious. Men, honestly. Who exactly does he think I might hook up with for the evening in a city where I know precisely no one? Since when has he been such a control freak? He never used to be like this.

  ‘Sunita’s brother lives there – they’ve got a house in Wembley and she says they’ll put us up. We can go in on the Tube then. We have to be there by about nine-thirty at the latest.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, putting his plate in the sink. He still hasn’t met Sunita or any of them, except Pat.

  ‘They’ve sent us a race pack with a race number and safety pins to put it on with and everything!’ I told him, wanting him to share the excitement.

  ‘Right – nice,’ he said, sounding anything but interested. He looked as if he was about to leave the room, so I went up to him, put my arms round him. He stood stiffly, not responding. ‘So if you come down early in the morning, from Euston, you should be able to make it in time for the end of the race at least . . .’ I give him a gentle squeeze. ‘It’ll mean such a lot having you there, love. This is for Bhopal – but it’s for Paul as well.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, with flat sarcasm. ‘Seems like it’s for you and your mates more than anything.’

  This stung me into such anger that I recoiled from him, turned away and folded my arms tightly to stop myself lashing out.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, after a few seconds. ‘I didn’t mean it – not to come out like that.’

  ‘I should bloody well think you are sorry.’ I turn back to face him, my jaw clenched as I speak. ‘Yes, it’s for me too. Yes, I’m getting something out of it – like some point to my stupid little life, like friends. Is there something wrong in that?’

  He was looking warily at me, as if he sort of didn’t know who I was any more.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I s’pose not.’

  And so we go on.

  The Thursday before the race, we all meet at Sheila’s and sit out in the garden. Sheila, having been a little bit sniffy about what we are doing at the beginning, has confessed to going online, reading about the children of Bhopal. She is upset and appalled. And, besides that, she’s excited about coming down for the race.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it. Roy’s booked us into a hotel, says why don’t we make a weekend of it? We’re going to see a show if we can, on the Saturday night!’

  ‘Good for you,’ Pat says. She makes a wry face at me. ‘Fred suddenly announced this morning that he’d decided he’d drive me down on Sunday morning – no need for me to stay with Sunita’s family. If we start off at six the roads’ll be quiet and we’ll get there in plenty of time, etc. etc.’

  We all look at her.

  ‘So?’ Sunita says.

  ‘I just realized, when he said it . . .’ Pat plays up her excitement, almost like a little girl. ‘I’m really, really looking forward to it. It’ll be like a girls’ night out. I’ve hardly been anywhere except the cottage in Wales for years. So I said, “Fred, love – I’m sorry but I’m going and that’s that. You come and join me the next day.” ’

  ‘Yay, good for you!’ I say and the others clap her – all of us laughing at ourselves at the same time.

  ‘Are your brother’s family still OK with it?’ I ask Sunita.

  ‘Yes, yes, all fine,’ she says. ‘They are very happy.’

  A moment later, Hayley arrives and we can all see immediately that something’s wrong. We watch her sink into a chair as if her body hurts and she has dark rings under her eyes.

  ‘What is it, love?’ Sheila asks eventually.

  Hayley looks up, obviously upset. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to be able to come on Sunday.’

  ‘What?’ we all cry. ‘You’ve got to – you’re our leader. Our trainer. You can’t not come!’

  ‘The trouble is –’ she looks down – ‘my manager’s being difficult. Saturday night’s our busiest time at work, you see, and he doesn’t want me taking the night off then . . .’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Sheila says. ‘You’re entitled to time off, surely?’

  Hayley looks up and her face is tense. ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’

  We all stare at her, bewildered.

  ‘It’s just a pub job – why don’t you go and work somewhere else?’ Pat says, her tone gentle, motherly.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s complicated.’ Hayley’s looking really uncomfortable now. ‘I just . . . I just really need this job.’

  I look at her, wanting to ask what exactly is wrong, but she seems so uncomfortable I don’t like to. Hayley’s become like a kind of daughter to me as well and if we were on our own I might ask, but it doesn’t seem right now.

  We carry on chatting about the race, about plans for travelling down together, having a meal somewhere – curry, pizza?

  ‘I don’t think curry the night before a race,’ Pat says, with a comical raise to her eyebrows.

  Sheila makes a face. ‘Rather you than me. Come on, ladies –’ She lifts the plate in front of her which holds a big chocolate cake Pat has made. ‘You need to build up your energy.’

  After a while, as we all tuck into the cake, Hayley bursts out with, ‘Oh, I can’t not come! I just can’t!’

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I say. ‘You won’t be there much longer anyway, will you, if you’re going to college?’

  She looks at me as if seeking reassurance. ‘No. I s’pose not.’ She gathers herself. ‘It’s just . . . I’m not even sure if . . .’ She pushes her doubts away. ‘No – you’re right. I’ll tell him. If he fires me I’ll just have to . . . Well, I’ll find something. I’ve got to come and do it – and I’ve got people who’ve sponsored me, like my nan, for a start.’

  Twenty-Eight

  MILK STREET

  Walking home afterwards, part of the way with Pat, I feel happy and excited for the first time in as long as I can remember. It’s a warm afternoon, the sun is on our backs and my body feels stronger and at one with itself.

  At this thought the guilt crashes in for a moment. I haven’t forgotten you, Paul. I love you – I’ll always love you and I’m thinking of you, always . . .

  But I am here with a friend, someone who wants to be with me, and who I know, to some extent, understands. We have talked about her little girl: at least, I let her talk and talk about the birth and how she held her and called her by her name. She needed to tell me, in every detail she could recall, how lovely her little Becky was, pale and perfect as if she was asleep, though not a breath ever passed through her.

  ‘I was lucky, I suppose – they let me hold her. And the nurse was so kind. She washed her and wrapped her in a little white blanket. She was upset herself.’ Her eyes fill as she looks back. ‘I know with some mothers, they snatched their babies away and they never got to see them.’

  There is a quiet, kind understanding between Pat and me. When we reach the corner where we part she says:

  ‘Well, this is it. See you on Saturday!’

  ‘I can’t believe we’re really doing it,’ I say. ‘And I’m so impressed with the way you’ve all just joined in and seen it through.’

  ‘It’s in a good cause,’ Pat says seriously. With a wave she takes off towards home.

  I pop in and visit Dorrie, who seems to be all right. Each time I’ve been lately I hedge around, s
eeing if there’s any more she wants to talk to me about, but last time I visited, she said:

  ‘I’ve got things off my chest, Jo. What happened to my Tom should never’ve happened – people should be better taken care of. And our mother . . . Well, it’s all over now. I don’t need to keep harping on it. You’re a good girl, listening to me maundering on.’

  ‘Dorrie,’ I say seriously. ‘You’ve really been there for me – through all this. It’s the least I can do.’

  And exactly what she has done is be there. Not saying much or doing much – simply being, especially in those early days after the accident when all I could do was sit there and she let me. Like an old, loving tree, as Paul said. And it’s meant the world to me.

  After I’ve sorted out a bit of tea for her I go home and cook for us. Fish and chips, cutting up potatoes, watching them turn a lovely golden brown, lifting them to drain. I’ll save the last fry until Ian gets home.

  In the meantime I go into the living room, kick off my flip-flops and take out the magazine I found at the dentist’s. I sit for a long time looking at the boy, at his sad, shadowy face. It seems a face full of pain and I want to make it better, make everything better. Suddenly I’m crying, as if pain is invading me from everywhere, and not just my own. I sit sobbing for a time – I don’t really know how long, immersed in both my own grief and theirs, those faraway mothers. And then, having felt it, I find I can stop. I go upstairs and rinse my face, looking in the mirror at my blotchy cheeks. But I feel better for crying, as if each time I do it empties something more out of me, just a little.

  Ian is usually home by seven. At ten to I start cooking the chips again, put the fish under the grill. The house fills with nice smells. Air breezes in from the open window.

  By half past, I text him. Are you nearly home?

  There is no reply.

  After another fifteen minutes: Can you let me know how long you’re going to be, love? Xx

  Nothing.

  Eight o’clock: Ian, where are you? Can you text me back please?

  I try ringing his phone and keep getting his voicemail. I call the landline at the garage although it’s now after eight and they surely must have shut up and gone home? I’m trying hard not to get annoyed or worried, but this is just not like Ian, this not getting in touch. I tell myself that maybe he and Carl have gone for a drink. After all, that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It would be good if Ian would socialize with someone – I’ve been encouraging him to – although it would have been nice if he’d bothered to let me know.