Tiny Acts of Love

by Lucy Lawrie

  Jean gave a loud, huffy breath.

  I put a hand on her arm, and stood up.

  ‘May I presume you are talking about Miss Nina Deneuve?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Chantal-Marie’s voice was grave.

  ‘Have you ever met Miss Nina Deneuve?’

  ‘Er . . . not in person, no.’

  ‘So that’ll be why you haven’t noticed that she’s sitting next to me?’

  ‘Em—’

  ‘I’d like to ask Miss Deneuve to explain her position – to call her as a witness, if you like. Your disciplinary procedure provides for this at Paragraph 5.3(b).’

  ‘Miss Carlisle,’ said Chantal-Marie, with a deathly, apologetic smile. ‘As you will know yourself, while an employee is permitted to bring a representative along to a grievance hearing, that representative is not allowed to address the panel. If anyone is to question this witness, it will be myself, the grievance hearing fact-finder and facilitator.’

  I shrugged. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Mrs Forrester will have an opportunity to ask any supplementary questions afterwards, in accordance with the applicable procedures and best practice,’ went on Chantal-Marie, barely disguising her glee.

  ‘Miss Deneuve, would you be kind enough to step up here? Thank you so much. Thank you for coming today. Can I ask you to state your full name and address for the record?’

  You had to hand it to Chantal-Marie: she had some nerve, acting for all the world as though this was a witness she had pulled out of the hat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Radcliffe glance over at me.

  ‘Miss Nina Charlotte Deneuve, 91 West Links Avenue, Edinburgh.’ Her voice was soft with a neutral accent.

  ‘Thank you. And can you tell us in your own words why you first contacted Brand New You?’

  ‘I booked in for “The Works”. It was advertised as: A complete mind and body overhaul, guaranteed to reduce your perceived age by a minimum of six years, or your money back.’

  ‘And can I ask why you decided to book in for “The Works”?’

  ‘Because my husband left me for a girl of twenty-two.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sincerely sorry about that, Miss Deneuve. Please accept my condolences. Can you describe your experience on the day you came into the clinic to start your treatment?’

  ‘Yes. I arrived about ten minutes early. I gave my name to the receptionist, and sat in the waiting area.’

  ‘And did anybody approach you whilst you were in the waiting area?’

  ‘An elderly gentleman in a wheelchair approached me.’

  ‘Thank you. Can you see that gentleman anywhere in this room today?’

  For God’s sake. Was Chantal-Marie some kind of would-be Perry Mason?

  Nina pointed at Gerry and said, ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking that Mr Forrester engaged you in discussion about . . .’ – here she made a show of checking the notes on her clipboard – ‘. . . incontinence pants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you. Sorry, Miss Denueve, I realise that this must be difficult and embarrassing for you.’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘And at the end of your discussions with Mr Forrester, did you proceed with your scheduled appointment?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘No. I understand that you approached Mrs Forrester and asked to cancel your appointment, indeed, the entire course of treatment. You paid the cancellation fee, and then left the premises. Is that correct?’

  ‘It is, yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Chantal-Marie strutted round to the front of the panel’s table and perched her bum on the edge of it, crossing her legs. ‘And can you state for the benefit of the panel, in your own words, your reasons for doing so?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Forrester told me that I reminded him of a young Audrey Hepburn.’

  ‘What?’ A scarlet flush began to creep up Chantal-Marie’s neck.

  I sat back in my seat with a big smile. Even I knew the first rule of questioning a witness – never ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer.

  I glanced across at Gerry and Jean. She gave him a sharp poke in the ribs, looking rather peeved. He simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged, in a bewildered sort of a way.

  ‘And . . . you found this . . . offensive?’ Chantal-Marie was floundering, looking at her notes again.

  ‘Far from it. Would you?’

  ‘But you were . . . alarmed . . . to find yourself accosted by somebody who was clearly not of sound mind . . .’

  Keep digging, Chantal-Marie, I thought. Keep digging.

  ‘I didn’t consider Mr Forrester to be of unsound mind. I thought he was the most genuine person I had met in a long time. He had a spark about him, a charm, even when he was joking about incontinence pants. Age didn’t come into it. And I cancelled the treatment because he had achieved in ten minutes what your crew were going to charge me £2,435 for.’

  Gerry nodded sagely.

  Chantal-Marie stood for a minute, biting her lip and tapping her pen on her clipboard. Eventually, she turned her head round to Wilf and Mr Kishimoto, and hissed, ‘You see! He’s bad for business!’ and she scuttled back to her seat.

  We were asked to leave the room while the panel made their decision on the grievance. I went to order some coffees, but when I came back to the lounge area I saw that Jean had accosted Radcliffe and seemed to be delivering some sort of extended monologue. So I made myself scarce.

  When we returned to the meeting room, it was Mr Kishimoto who addressed us.

  ‘We recognise,’ he said in his heavily accented voice, ‘that Mr Forrester has been an integral part of the set-up at Brand New You and its predecessor, Healthy Mind, Healthy Feet, for many years. We recognise that it would be difficult for Mrs Forrester to attend work without Mr Forrester being accommodated. The conversion of the staff room must go ahead, in accordance with our business plan. However, we propose that one of the other smaller treatment rooms will be allocated as a staff room. Mr Forrester will be free to make use of this during Mrs Forrester’s working hours, if he desires. Will this arrangement be acceptable?’

  Jean nodded, her mouth falling open.

  ‘Will this room have access to the garden area?’ I demanded, ignoring the fact that I was forbidden to address the panel. I remembered that Gerry liked to wander around the garden and sit on the bench, and I could envisage problems ensuing if the only route to the garden, for the absent-minded Gerry, was through the midst of a live sex-therapy session.

  Mr Kishimoto leaned over and spoke to Wilf for a moment.

  ‘If we can obtain planning consent, we will knock a door through from the staff room into the garden. Will that be acceptable?’

  I nudged Jean.

  ‘Yes, it will indeed,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Mr Kishimoto.’

  She turned and enfolded me in a hug. Gerry shook my hand; he looked as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t get any words out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Radcliffe hurrying away.

  On the way out, after we’d thanked Nina and said goodbye, I asked Gerry why he hadn’t mentioned the Audrey Hepburn angle when initially questioned by Wilf.

  He looked sad, and old, for a moment. ‘It just slipped my mind, my dear. I just don’t know . . .’

  Jean took his old gnarled hand in her neat, gloved one. It was a protective gesture, and something about it made me uneasy.

  ‘Now don’t you be worrying, love. We’ll get this sorted. We’ll get this appointment over and then we’ll see.’

  ‘Yes, Jeanie. I know.’

  It was a private exchange, and I gazed into the middle distance, as though I hadn’t been listening. When Jean turned to me, the usual smile was back on her face. And we set off back to their flat for afternoon tea, since there was to be raspberry sponge today.

  28

  Sophie’s first birthday came round in February. She’d spent most of the night in bed beside me, and I woke to find her half on top of me, hands propped
on my chest, her wide eyes inches from my own. She pressed her open mouth against my face for a moment – she hadn’t yet learned to kiss but this was her approximation of it. I pulled her on top of me and covered her face in noisy kisses until she was helpless with giggles.

  ‘Happy birthday, my little love.’

  ‘La-d’la-d’la. Dada.’

  ‘Yes – shall we go and find him? He must be in the spare room.’

  ‘Here I am!’ He strode into the room in his dressing gown and seized Sophie, lifting her high in the air till she squealed. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Sophie, happy birthday to you! Hooray! Daddy’s taken the day off work and we’re going to do lovely things. Yes we are.’

  I got up and peeped through the curtains. It was a bright morning, pale sunlight casting long shadows on the lawn. The day of the birth itself had been bitterly cold, I recalled as I opened the window to let in some fresh air. Going down to the kitchen to get Sophie’s milk, my mind flashed back to those interminable hours of early labour: kneeling over the stairs, body twisted in pain, night slowly leaching into a drizzly grey morning. It had been about nine o’clock when the midwife, speaking on the phone from the hospital, finally agreed that we could go in.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ Jonathan kept saying, as he drove us to the maternity unit. ‘You’ll soon have something for the pain.’ But I wasn’t crying because of the pain – it was fear. Terror. My whole life closed in, contracting to a short dark space. And as the labour intensified in the stark hospital room, I seemed to feel echoes of the day – far into the future – when I would die. Dim images flickered through from another, too-close reality, like one reel of film stuck on top of another; unimaginable pain, acrid animal fear, people waiting and watching, whispering, ‘Not long now . . .’ as though I couldn’t hear. And most of all, the feeling that wherever I was going, I was going there utterly alone.

  Jonathan sat, white-faced, on a chair on the other side of the room as I screamed and wept, while a young midwife held my hands, rubbed my back and intoned calm words. Only when the epidural had finally been administered – hours later – did he creep to my side and hold one of my fingers – I suppose he was afraid to take my hand because of the needle attaching me to the drip. I smiled as the numbness spread through my lower body, and he smiled back.

  He interrupted my train of thought, now, as he came into the kitchen with Sophie.

  ‘Is that your birthday milk, Soph? Oh yummy.’

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Do you want to give it to her?’

  ‘Will Daddy give it to you? Ooh yes, please.’

  This was our default mode of communication now – I would speak, and he would respond through Sophie.

  ‘Happy birthday, little one,’ said Dita, coming into the kitchen in her dressing gown. ‘One year already!’ She tickled Sophie under the chin, eliciting a throaty chuckle. ‘You should see the cake I’m going to make for your little birthday tea – yes you should! I know it’s just going to be the four of us, but we’ve got to do something special for a one-year-old girl. Is she allowed chocolate buttons, Cassie?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so, just this once. It is her birthday, after all.’

  For Vichard’s recent birthday celebration, Jody had prepared a ‘birthday cake’ made up entirely of salt-and-sugar-free rice crackers, piled up on an ornamental cake stand. I’d felt so sorry for the babies – they didn’t know they should be disappointed, and that almost made it worse.

  ‘We’ll have a lovely day,’ said Jonathan to Sophie. ‘A walk to the swing park this morning, a nice nap after lunch, and then cake and presents.’

  *

  It was almost uncannily quiet as we set off on our walk along Ravelston Dykes. The only sounds were the gentle squeak of the buggy wheels, and a blackbird singing in somebody’s garden, its tune spilling through the bare branches.

  ‘Feels like spring’s coming,’ I said shyly.

  ‘La-d’la-d’la,’ said a little voice from the buggy.

  ‘What do you think, Soph?’ said Jonathan. ‘This is your second spring now – what a big girl.’

  We walked on until, suddenly, I realised that I could hear the clop of horses’ hooves coming from somewhere nearby. I unbuckled Sophie’s straps and hauled her out of the buggy.

  ‘Sophie, listen, can you hear the horsies?’ Beneath the woolly hat, her solemn eyes surveyed the street.

  Round the corner they came, looming up through the sunlight like a dream. The clip-clopping grew louder, echoing round the empty street. I thought at first it must be a wedding party – two horses pulling a plain white carriage. The carriage was overflowing with flowers, so much that they almost obscured the long, low white box in the midst of them all.

  Sophie was pointing at the horses, attempting to click her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  ‘They’re lovely, aren’t they Soph,’ I murmured into her ear. They really were. No finery or feathers, no plumes or drapes. Simply two white horses. But as I looked more closely, I could see that someone had haphazardly woven a few narrow lengths of pink ribbon through their manes.

  A stately white car crawled along behind the carriage. A diminutive figure stared out of the window, red curls pulled back from her porcelain face. On impulse, I lifted my hand and waved. Nestling against me, secured in my other arm, Sophie copied me, squeezing her fingers into a dimpled fist. After a short pause, there came a hesitant little wave in reply.

  And just like that, it can happen, I thought, as I watched Jonathan strap Sophie back in her buggy. A door swings open through the back of a sunny day.

  This time I was just a passer-by. I only had to glimpse through to that other world, that world Milly now inhabited, where everything is finished, because everything that matters is lost. But I knew that the door could open anywhere, at any time, and I was as powerless as Milly to stop it. It was a certainty that made me dizzy and weak; I thought my legs were going to buckle under me.

  ‘Oh . . . God.’

  Jonathan glanced at the carriage, then back at me, nervously.

  I reached for him, then. I hung my arms around his neck, and sobbed silently into the collar of his jacket, closing my eyes against the world as it spun round about me.

  *

  When we got back to the house, Jonathan parked the buggy in the hall – Sophie had fallen asleep – and followed me into the kitchen.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘I knew that little girl,’ I offered after a long pause.

  ‘What little girl?’

  ‘In the funeral car. I met her and her mum at Braid Hills Funeral Home.’

  ‘Poor Cassie,’ he said. ‘You must have got a shock. Sit down and I’ll make you some tea.’

  ‘No. That’s really not it, Jonathan. That’s not it at all.’

  ‘Well . . .’ I heard him swallow. ‘What, then?’

  I was quiet for a long time, trying to formulate the words.

  ‘How are you supposed to live in a world when that kind of thing happens?’ I hated the sound of my voice, thin and melodramatic. ‘I mean, how are you supposed to be strong enough? When a little girl has to be told she will never see Mummy again. When everything can be lost. Just gone in the blink of an eye.’

  I expected him to change the subject, to offer tea again or to say that Sophie needed waking up, but he came over and stood in front of me.

  ‘Cassie, I don’t think I can help you with any of this. This is beyond me, I’m afraid. But I’m concerned.’

  ‘Concerned?’

  He waited for several moments until I raised my eyes to his.

  ‘Yes. I’m fucking concerned.’ His gaze seemed to burn into me. ‘It’s like you’re somewhere else half the time. I feel like you’ve slipped out of my reach.’

  I looked down at my feet.

  ‘Maybe you should make an appointment with the doctor. Just tell them how you’re feeling. Tell them you’re crying a lot. Tel
l them you’re not sleeping.’

  So he had noticed. He’d never mentioned it before.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I want you back.’ Then his mobile went.

  He disappeared off into the hall. ‘Charles, my boy! What can I do for you?’

  I stood in the kitchen for several minutes, trying to put a name to the feelings swirling around inside me. Something had fizzed between us in that moment of eye contact. It had felt like love, and it had felt like fear. Maybe it was both.

  29

  To my horror, the doctor referred me to a ‘Discussion Group’. Chaired by a psychotherapist, the group offered a ‘safe place’ for new mums – and dads – to get together and discuss their feelings about parenthood and its challenges. Seeing, perhaps, the scepticism on my face, the doctor had assured me that this approach had been shown to be just as effective as medication or one-to-one counselling, in combating symptoms associated with mild post-natal depression. Although, of course, it wasn’t just for people with post-natal depression – oh no, anyone could go. Lots of people went just to meet other parents and chat. Yeah right.

  The first session was at nine a.m. on Wednesday morning. Jonathan walked with Sophie and me as far as Randolph Place, before heading towards his office. He’d offered to come to the Group too – the whole family was welcome! – but I had shuddered in response and he had shrugged, as if to say it was all the same to him.

  The first problem was getting Sophie and myself into the venue – a Georgian townhouse with steep steps up to the front door. I thought of leaving the pram at the bottom of the steps, but didn’t have anything with which to fix it to the wrought-iron railings, and was worried it might get stolen. So I had to yank the pram up the steps at a hair-raising angle, Sophie squealing in her seat, hanging from the straps.

  Once inside, I did abandon the pram at the bottom of the huge, curved stairway. It would have been a beautiful hallway, light flooding down from the ornamental cupola two floors above, but it had been rather spoiled by the brown hairy carpet and yellowish walls, replete with posters about breastfeeding, contraceptive implants and smoking cessation.