The SECRET TO NOT DROWNING

by Colette Snowden

  3

  There are other women. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. Where else would He be on Wednesday nights? What else would He be up to when He disappears off to ‘visit friends’ for the weekend and I’m not invited? They are the man He has to see about a dog.

  Call it instinct if you like. Call it paranoia. Call it whatever you like, but I know there are other women.

  There’s a tall one. She’s a blonde. A blonde in the old-fashioned 1950s sense of it. Blonde straight from the bottle and not at all bothered who knows it. She’s high maintenance and He expects her to stay that way. Tells her off if her roots are showing. Loves to watch her put on her perfect make up and paint her filthy lips red like a whore. He has her stand naked in front of the full-length mirror while he watches her put her make-up on. And when she’s finished creating a perfect red pout He has her kneel on the carpet, unzip his flies and smudge her perfect lipstick as He watches Himself come in her mouth. And He brings those red lipstick rings home with Him and makes sure I see them.

  She’s beautiful, there’s no doubt about it. She turns heads wherever they go and He loves that. He keeps a close grip on her as other men leer at her and gives them a ‘fuck you, she’s mine’ look as they pass.

  She’s beautiful, but she’s not flawless. She brushes her peroxide hair forward to hide a mole on the side of her head. It’s on a level with her eye, and He thinks of it as a third eye. It’s like a kind of voodoo and He worries that she can see into his thoughts with it. She’s careful to keep it hidden and most of the time it is. But sometimes, when He calls her name and she turns her head suddenly, or when they’re busy fucking and she forgets to think about how she looks, her hair falls back and there it is.

  He tries not to wince when he sees it. He tries to pretend that He likes it. And sometimes He even kisses it because He thinks it’ll make her happy to know that He loves even her ugly mole. But when He kisses her on the mole on the side of her face she hates Him for making her admit that it’s there.

  Her name is Dorothy, after her grandmother. But she doesn’t like the name or the grandmother and she insists that people call her Dee. So He calls her Dee nearly all the time. Nearly all the time, apart from when they’re doing it. Then He calls her ‘Dor-o-thee, Dor-o-thee, Dor-o-thee.’

  Of course, she knows about me. She knows I exist, that is. She knows nothing about me though, only what He’s told her, which isn’t much and isn’t even true. She thinks I’m a sap who doesn’t understand Him. She thinks I’m some middle-aged frump that doesn’t excite Him and forces Him to seek solace between her thighs. She’s stupid, Dee for Dorothy. She doesn’t even know Him. She doesn’t even know that she’s one of many. She has no idea that she’s one in a long line. Not even the one of the moment. When He rings her to say He can’t make it tonight she thinks it’s me that’s getting in the way, not some other deluded pretty young thing that’s caught his eye.

  She thinks He’ll leave me one of these days. And maybe He will. But not for her. She thinks He’ll leave me and they’ll have a fairy tale wedding and babies and a perfect house with a kitchen-diner. She thinks He’ll love her forever. But that’s not what He does.

  I wonder how I’d feel if He did want to leave me for her, or for any of them. I wonder what I would do. Maybe I’d be hysterical and rant at them and the neighbours would call the police. But I don’t think so. I’d like to think that I’d just let them get on with it. I might even help Him pack. I might even make her a cup of tea and dig out a packet of biscuits so that we could have a civilised chat about how we were going to work it all out calmly. That would piss Him off. It would be worth making myself look like the pathetic sap she thinks I am just to piss Him off that much. It won’t ever happen, though. I try to imagine it happening but even in my head it doesn’t seem possible.

  With Dee for Dorothy I imagine her deciding that enough is enough, it’s time to force the issue. There’d be no clever games involved, just a this-is-what-I-want-and-this-is-how-I intend-to-get-it scene, something crass and obvious, like the red underwear she wears under her skin-tight jumpers.

  It would be his birthday. He and I would be getting ready to go out. He would be helping me choose what to wear and telling me what jewellery to put on with it. And she would turn up at the door with a bottle of Champagne and an I’ve-come-to-take-your-husband-and-there’s-not-a-thing-you-can-do-about-it grin.

  I’d answer, and she’d say something like “I’ve come to see the birthday boy,” and before I could reply He’d be there, pushing past me in the hallway in the hope of shooing her away before I worked out who she was.

  But she’s too quick for Him, old Dee for Dorothy. Way too quick. She’d be thrusting the bottle towards Him saying something like “happy birthday darling, I didn’t think you’d mind!” But He wouldn’t take it. He’d grab her arm and push her back towards the door and say something like “well I do mind you stupid bitch.” So then she’d say something clichéd and impossible for me to misinterpret. She’d say “But I thought you wanted us to be together.” And she’d sound pathetic and He’d hate her for it and be more angry than she’d ever seen Him. “Of course I mind, you stupid, selfish bitch,” He’d yell at her and He’d hit her across the face so that she fell to the floor and dropped the bottle.

  And He might even spit on her as He stepped over her and out of the house. And He wouldn’t even look at me or say a word to me the whole time. Then He could come back later and we could both pretend that I hadn’t seen any of it and it had never happened.

  But while He was out having a drink and deleting Dee for Dorothy from his mind, the house would be quiet and I would need to clear up the mess. So I’d pick Dee for Dorothy up off the floor and take her into the living room to sit down. I’d open her bottle of Champagne and bring two glasses and we’d have a drink together and she’d pour out her heart to me as though we were good friends, even though she’d still hate me and I’d still hate her. And she’d cry and we’d drink until the bottle was empty and I would pat her on the shoulder and get to be the smug one who knows everything and has seen it all before, for once.

  When she was ready to go, I’d like to think I’d pack a bag, ring a taxi for us both, ring the speaking clock in New York and disappear off into the sunset with her forever, leaving Him with the empty Champagne bottle and no note. That’d be great. That’d be perfect.

  But I know that’s not what I’d do in real life. I’d ring a taxi all right, but just for Dee for Dorothy. I’d put the bottle out with the recycling, wash the glasses and get on with some ironing, or something like that. And when He arrived back an hour later, I’d be ready to pretend that nothing had happened.

  4

  When we arrive at the hospital they’re not expecting me. The woman on reception takes my name and I start to explain why I’m here but I can feel myself losing track of what I’m trying to say and she stops me.

  “It’s OK love,” she says. “I’ll go and find out what’s happened to your file.”

  I hate it when people call me love, but I don’t say anything.

  And she seems nice, actually. She hands me a box of tissues and when I’ve taken one she pulls another couple out of the box and hands them to me. Then she gets up from behind the desk and comes round to lead me by the elbow.

  He stands beside me, looking round as though He’s weighing up whether the place could do with a coat of paint.

  “Come and have a sit down in here while I track down your notes,” she says. “Help yourself to water from the machine. The nurse will come through and see you as soon as she can.”

  So we sit down in this waiting-room-cum-living-room. It looks like a cross between the lounge in an old folks’ home and a student common room. There are unwashed coffee cups on the table, the odd chocolate wrapper and magazines that are weeks old with ‘shock break-up’ and ‘baby joy’ headlines attached to pictures of harassed celebrities
. I start tidying up. I can’t help myself, but I can’t find a bin to put the wrappers in and I don’t know where to put the cups.

  “Is there a bin?”

  He doesn’t answer me.

  “D’ya want some water?” He says, standing by the water cooler with a little paper cone in his hand.

  I don’t answer Him either. He’s not bothered. He’s found a machine and he wants to use it. He fills up a little cone and knocks it back. Then fills it again and drinks it again. He takes another cone and offers it to me and I have to take it because he can’t put it down, it’s pointy on the bottom. It’s a pointless, pointy thimbleful of water. But that’s not going to curb his enthusiasm. Far from it, the novelty of drinking water from a big upside down barrel out of a tiny paper cone is too much for Him to resist. He just stands there like a little kid filling it over and over again and drinking and filling and drinking again. And I remember how endearing I always found that kiddiness. He could never resist kicking a ball or anything he could kick instead of a ball, like an empty toilet roll tube or a packet of crisps. And I know that when I’m not looking he still takes the top off a custard cream and licks out all the cream from the middle before he eats the biscuit.

  While he’s drinking an ocean one tiny cone at a time, I can’t help joining the live TV audience in the corner of the room as they watch some know-it-all TV presenter put some hapless couple’s life in order while they squabble in public. I find myself needing to know whether he really is the father of her son. I sip my water while I and the studio audience wait to hear the lie detector results that will prove whether she has, in fact, been having an affair with his cousin.

  “I’m going to switch that drivel off,” He says, finally abandoning the water cooler to hunt for the TV remote. “You weren’t watching it were you?” He says as he switches it off.

  Silence.

  So we sit not watching the TV or reading magazines, or drinking water or talking or not talking and I try not to listen in to the woman talking on a pay phone just outside the room, but I can’t help it.

  She’s talking way too loud, like a pensioner on a mobile phone, as though the sound of her voice needs to reach the other person by travelling down the wire on the end of the receiver. She’s telling them in great detail about her fallopian tubes and what the doctor has said and what her options are and how she feels about it. Maybe she just doesn’t realise that we can all hear her. Or maybe she just wants to share her misery with as many people as possible, like the mismatched couple on TV.

  She’s totally matter-of-fact. If she was having this conversation in another language and I couldn’t understand the words, I might think she was talking about what she plans to cook for dinner. And the more she says the words ‘fallopian tubes’ the less real they are. They sound like some long-forgotten musical instrument from a Pacific Island and I can hear the advert for an album of fallopian tube classics on TV: “From the foothills of Fallopia, the haunting sound of the fallopian tubes brings alive all your favourite anthems from the world’s greatest artists....”

  “Is it Marion?”

  The nurse walks into the room and knocks quietly on the open door as she comes in.

  I start again trying to explain why I’m here but she stops me again. It seems that no-one actually wants to hear me talk about it. Maybe I need to go and use the payphone – but who would I ring? Perhaps there’s not even anyone on the other end. It’s just a prop so that fallopian tube woman can run through all the stuff that’s happening to her without being politely interrupted by people who’d rather she didn’t cry in public.

  “I’m Maxine,” the nurse says. “I’ll be looking after you today. I’m sorry about the mix-up,” she says, turning to Him as though putting us in a room with other people’s dirty coffee cups is more of an inconvenience to Him than to me. “I’ve got your file now though, and we were expecting you, it’s just been a bit crazy in here today. One of those days.” And she grimaces in the hope that we can all roll our eyes together about how crazy it’s been and how it’s all OK now though, because they’ve found my file.

  “We’ve got you your own room,” she says, smiling and gesturing with her arm for me to walk with her out into the corridor. “It’s a nice quiet one and it’s just near the nurses’ office so if you need anything just bob your head round and one of us will be along to help. As I say, I’m looking after you today but if I’m not around just ask any of the nurses.” She smiles at me and I follow her past the reception desk and round the corner. He follows behind us, carrying my bag with my pyjamas in it.

  “Here we are,” she says cheerily, as she opens a door with a number 4 on it and a sliding sign on the front that currently says ‘knock before entering’. I want to slide the sign back to see what the alternative message might be. I don’t want people to knock before entering I just want them to go away, but it seems unlikely that the alternative message on the sign will say ‘Fuck off and leave me alone’. Anyway, they’re both waiting for me to walk into the room first so I don’t mess with the sign on the door, I just go in and sit down on the bed as though I’m waiting for someone to finish using the bathroom so that I can go in and brush my teeth.

  He plonks my bag down on the bed next to me and she carries on talking in her cheery tone. I wonder if they have lessons in getting the cheery tone right. Perhaps she practices in front of a mirror at home to make sure it’s just the right side of keep-your-spirits-up and never tips over the edge into you’ll-look-back-on-this-and-have-a-good-laugh-one-of-these-days. But she’s nice though. Somewhere in the middle of telling me that I’ve got my own bathroom and I should run the hot water in the shower first because it can be a bit temperamental she stops talking.

  “I know it’s going to be tough,” she says, “but you will get through it and we’re here to help you. Honestly, if there’s anything you need just press the button and we’ll be here as quickly as we can.”

  And then she comes over to the bed and sits beside me and squeezes my hand. And I find myself wondering how she does this day in, day out.

  She pats me on the knee and gets up to fetch a tissue from the window ledge, except it’s not even a proper window, just a window onto the reception area. I am locked away here, I can’t see out and no-one can see in.

  “Tissues are just here,” she says, offering me a handful.

  “It’s like a hotel,” He chips in suddenly. “Where’s the mini bar?”

  Maxine forces a smile but I don’t bother. Why should I?

  “Hospitals make me nervous,” He starts to explain.

  “Everyone has their own way of dealing with things,” Maxine says, kindly. And I hate her for giving Him excuses. Why should it be down to this complete stranger to squeeze my hand or offer me a tissue?

  “I’ll let you get settled in,” Maxine says. “Would you both like a cup of tea?”

  I smile at her.

  “Coming right up,” she says, and she opens the door just wide enough for her to fit through and closes it super quietly as though leaving an infant to sleep.

  “Is the loo through here then?” He asks me, as though I know the place like the back of my hand.

  “I think so.”

  And while he’s in the toilet, I start unpacking my bag for something to do but there isn’t anywhere to put anything. This isn’t a room where they want you to spend very much time. It’s a quick in and out job. Don’t get settled, don’t make a meal of it. Let’s just sort it out and have done. I put my pyjamas under my pillow and line up my toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, face cream and towel on the bed ready to take them into the bathroom when He emerges. Then there are two books. The one I couldn’t get into when we were on holiday last summer and the one I bought when I went to get some new pyjamas for tonight. The blurb on the back says, ‘don’t buy this book unless you’re happy for people to stare at you when you laugh out loud’. Hmmm. I
can always leave it behind when I go. I won’t be here long and by the time I go it’ll all be over, the baby will be well and truly gone and I will be just the same. And so will He.

  I put the books on the chair next to the bed.

  He reappears from the bathroom.

  “Okay?” He asks.

  I nod. “Are you?”

  “Actually I feel I bit dodgy,” He says. And I think He might go on to tell me all about his symptoms and look for my sympathy, so I just pick up the things that I’ve laid out on the bed and take them into the bathroom.

  When I open the door to the room He’s sitting on the bed with my book in his hand but He’s not looking at it. He’s sobbing. His shoulders are shaking and, even though He has his back to me, I can tell there must be tears. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I slip back into the bathroom, flush the toilet and turn on the tap which shoots out water like a waterfall and splashes me all down my front.

  When I get back into the room again, the tea that Maxine promised us has arrived and He’s lying on the bed as though He’s just been snoozing the whole time.

  “Just checking it’s comfy enough for you,” He jokes. But He doesn’t get up and I just perch on the end of the bed with my cup of tea while he idly reaches for the books I left on the chair and reads the back of each of them, raising his eyebrows but saying nothing.

  “I might head off,” He says after a while.

  I look at Him and don’t know what to say.

  “You don’t need me here, do you?” He adds. “The doctor’ll be in to see you soon and I’ll just be in the way.”

  I can’t find the words to say ‘don’t leave me here alone’ so I just keep on saying nothing.

  “Unless you want me to get anything for you?” He asks hopefully. The perfect get-out: He can be caring and helpful but still be allowed to leave.