Random Acts of Unkindness

by Jacqueline Ward

  ‘Keep fillin’ ’em in, love. You never know.’

  It had been a secret message between us, a way of saying we’d escape together to the country. We’d laugh and nod and Colin’s eyebrows would go up and down. Now, he snorted and carried on with the crossing.

  He hadn’t looked at me or noticed my new haircut, a shorter bob. It was blonde and slightly wavy, a bit too young for me, I thought. The pools man arrived and Colin spent a lot of time talking to him on the doorstep. When he came back in I held out my hand for the new coupon so I could put it away safely in the sideboard. He looked at my feet.

  ‘I won’t be doing it any more. You know, the money.’

  ‘Are we short? I could get a job.’

  ‘No. No. It’s all right, Bess. I’m just not doing it anymore.’

  His voice was funny and he went out. I knew he’d been doing overtime, but I never thought we were short. Our house was on a mortgage loan from the bank and it would be ours one day, to pass on to Thomas. My insides had shuddered at the thought of not being able to pay the monthly bills, the shame, on top of everything else.

  I lit another cigarette and my mind wandered to the scrapbook. Tonight, on the eve of Thomas’s twenty-first, I’d sit here with it. If he came back, I’d be able to show him. I wouldn’t let myself think that he would knock on the door, in case it jinxed it.

  I looked through the pages and frowned at the reports, then the pictures of her. How could she? She had at least one answer that I needed. Even if it was a no, that would give me hope. But how could I know if she was telling the truth? She could say no and mean yes. After all, hadn’t she lied to the police, saying she was never there at the murders? Besides the photographs and the tape, it was obvious she was there. How could she?

  I took Thomas’s birthday cake out and mixed the icing. I’d even bought marzipan, and when the cake was cool, I draped the yellow sweetness over it, a mountain of a creation that looked professional. I stiffened the royal icing with corn flour and rolled it out. I cut around the bottom and I had the perfect canvas.

  I mixed blue icing and white icing, and I piped and intricate edging around the side, with elegant swirls. My hand shook as I piped the tiny dots into words: My Dearest Thomas—21 Today.

  A tear dropped onto the icing and I covered the pockmark it made with a blue dot. By midnight I’d put up all the bunting. Blue and white twists, all around the room. I’d made a collage of pictures from when he was a baby until when he disappeared. I’d already considered that if he did knock on the door, he probably wouldn’t stay, just visit, and he could take the collage, as some kind of history.

  I had a box of family photographs upstairs, and mementos from all through my life. It struck me as strange that someone could leave all that behind, as if they had no history, nowhere they belonged. I knew I shouldn’t judge. People were different.

  In the morning, early on, there was a knock at the door. I rushed downstairs, but it was Connie Rodger’s son, with a note from Colin. He wanted me to meet him outside the Gormont at eight, because he was working overtime. We’d go and see a film. I hadn’t been to the pictures before. I wondered what I’d do with the things I got for tea, and later in the day I cooked them anyway and laid the table for three as usual.

  No one knocked on the door. I sat at the table, facing the front door, for hours, willing Thomas to come home for his big birthday. No one knocked. None of the neighbours, not even Colin’s mum. A fly landed on the cake and I batted it off, loosening the icing on the top edge. I repaired it and sat again.

  The tension was pressing on the air, and eventually I went upstairs and put my new dress on. I brushed my hair out and crushed my feet into high heels. I’d seen women putting on modern makeup on the TV, and I carefully applied thick eyeliner and mascara. The result didn’t look like me at all. I was like the cake, covered in layers, invisible.

  I sat some more, waiting, then set off. It was a fifteen-minute walk, my shoes tip-tapping up the cobbled road, onto to the bus, where I watched couples getting on, hand in hand. I was older now, thirty-eight and I missed the days where me and Colin would link arms and walk into town, where he’d have his arm around my shoulder. It was like a dim memory now, hidden under a black cloud of pain.

  I got to the Gormont dead on eight, and he was waiting. It was like stepping back in time. He paid, I followed. We used to go dancing in this building when we were courting, and I felt a stirring of excitement as we clicked through the turnstile.

  Colin hadn’t spoken yet, or really looked at me. The film was To Sir with Love, with Sidney Portiere, and when it finished and we stepped outside into the night. I touched Colin’s arm. I remember him drawing it away quickly, not wanting to touch me.

  ‘Shall we go for a drink? Do you fancy a pint?’

  He looked sad and shook his head.

  ‘No, Bess, let’s go back to the house.’

  I dutifully followed him and we got the bus home. It seemed like I’d made a lot of effort to sit in a dark cinema, but maybe he’d get some cans in, or we could sit and talk like we used to.

  When we reached the door, I waited for him to get his bunch of keys out, but he just got the front door key and the back door key and let us in. I threw my bag on the chair and he stood looking around the room at the bunting. I went into the kitchen and heard him shout to me.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Thomas’s birthday. I made him a cake. Do you want a piece?’

  I brought the cake through. I’d expected him to have his shoes and coat off, sitting in his chair. He was standing near the door, reading the card I had written for Thomas from both of us. He put the card down and looked at me. I could see the man I married, the friendly face, but distanced now, wearing an expression he saved for gossips and gypsies.

  ‘Sit down, Bess.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  I stood in the middle of the room, still holding the cake. He took a deep breath in.

  ‘You know how I said I was going out searching for our Thomas, in the pubs and that, all over?’

  ‘Yes. Did you hear somat?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. Because I haven’t been.’

  I sat down and put the cake on the table between us.

  ‘Right. Have you been stopping at your mam’s then?’

  He gulped and looked at his hands.

  ‘No, Bess. I haven’t been living at me mam’s. I’ve been living with Lizzie Shufflebottom on Wood Lane.’

  I felt the blow to my stomach first, the shock wave from what he said. Then it rumbled to my head, penetrating the hard shell I built up and wiping out the little part of my heart that was still alive.

  ‘What do you mean? You live here with me. How’s this happened?’

  ‘Bessy, love, we haven’t been living together for a good while now. I haven’t eaten a meal here for over a year. I only come back to get changed and fill me pools in. I’ve been leaving for work from here to keep it decent, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m taking me stuff and moving in with Lizzie.’

  The tears threatened, but didn’t come.

  ‘What about me? About our marriage? Only a couple of years short of our silver wedding. Bloody hell, Colin, you’ve got a son here you need to keep.’

  ‘That’s just it, Bessy, I haven’t got a son. He’s gone. He’s not been here for four years. And you’re obsessed with him. There’s no room for me.’

  I jumped up.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m not. I make your tea every night and do your washing. I do everything for you.’

  ‘You don’t, Bess. We haven’t, you know, for ages. Not since he left. Your whole life is arranged around finding him, and he’s not going to be found.’

  I lit a cigarette.

  ‘So you haven’t been looking for him at all?’

  ‘No. Well, I did at first. Then I met Lizzie and we started going out. If I thought you’d ever get over this, Bess, that we’d ever be like we were before, I’d call it off now, but all you t
hink about is him. I know he’s your son, but you have to let go sometime.’

  ‘Our son, and I’ll do what I want.’

  ‘Just one word would have done, Bess, to show you still wanted me. Even now.’

  I tried, but it wouldn’t come.

  ‘What about the house? Where will I go?’

  He sat down again.

  ‘We’ll sell it. It’s a shame, it’s got a lot of happy memories. Me and you when we were first married, all that laughter and dancing, upstairs goings on.’

  I heard him, but the panic was growing inside me. I ran over to him and threw my arms round his neck.

  ‘Don’t go, Col, don’t leave. Don’t. I can’t bear it.’ He kissed the top of my head and held me, relaxing now. I sobbed into his jacket, deep, hard breaths. ‘I can’t bear it, I just can’t.’

  We collapsed into the familiar huddle where our bodies merged together. Rushing upstairs, we pulled the blankets back and climbed into our bed, familiar movements and a sweet routine taking over.

  When it was over I felt safe. Not because Colin’s arm was around me or his breath was on my face, but because I knew I would be able to stay in the house. Eventually, after falling in and out of sleep, he spoke.

  ‘I’ll go round to Lizzie’s and call it off. I’m sorry, Bess, I thought . . . Well, you know. But I’ll stay here with you. We’ll make a fresh start. We could go on holiday. Or better than that. We could move, out of the village, to the other side of Ashton and forget all this.’

  I waited a moment.

  ‘Forget it? I’ll never be able to forget it.’

  He sighed heavily.

  ‘All I’m saying, love, is that we need a change, get away from all this. A fresh start for us two, where we can be happy.’

  It was sinking in. He wanted me to leave this house. My home. Thomas’s home.

  ‘The house? Where will I go? What’ll happen if he comes back, if he knocks on the door, and I’m gone? He’ll think I forgot about him.’

  He pushed me away.

  ‘See? Even after all I’ve just said and what we’ve just done, it’s still all about Thomas. It’s not about our marriage. You’ve forgotten that. It’s about Thomas.’

  He jumped out of bed and pulled on his clothes, and I pulled my dress over my head. I ran downstairs after him,

  He stared around the room and pointed at the bunting. ‘Can’t you see, Bess, how mad this is? I’ve been living with someone else for a year and you haven’t noticed. I know a lot’s happened, but really it’s no different from the day he went, is it? We’re no nearer finding him, and you’re sitting here cooking his meals and washing his sheets. Do yourself a favour, love, and stop it. Have a good hard think about it, because if you don’t you’ll end up with nobody. I’m off now. I’ll send me mam round for the rest of my things.’

  The keys clattered on the table, the back door key spinning round. He stared at it until it came to a stop. I looked at him, and he looked at the table, all the years of our marriage, everything we had done together, hanging in the air between us.

  I knew that even if I did what I had to and played his game, I’d still be looking for Thomas and he’d still not. It would never be right.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  I threw my cigarette in the ashtray and lit another. The door shut behind him and I picked a piece of icing off the cake and ate it. My heart was broken, smashed into little sharp pieces, but the hurt wasn’t quite as bad as when Thomas left.

  So that was that then. Except it wasn’t quite. My monthlys stopped. I’d heard whispers about ‘The Change’ and wondered if that’s what was happening to me. Just after my birthday, after I treated myself to a cream bun in the inside market, and a milkshake, I went to the library and looked up women’s problems.

  It certainly seemed like I was on the change. Weight gain, funny thoughts, crying, no monthlys. Except I was a bit young, but the book said you could get it early. So I carried on and it wasn’t until about six or seven months after Colin went that I knew something was wrong.

  I’d decided to catch the bus up to Greenfield and have a walk in the village there. It was quiet, but maybe Thomas wanted to hide? Maybe he thought that, after all the fuss, he should go somewhere remote.

  I’d packed up a lunch, some butties, and a piece of cake and hurried to catch the number 9 bus. As I was running up the road I felt a cold drip on my leg and, when I looked at the ground, there was a pink puddle. Course, it stopped me dead in my tracks and I went home.

  I really thought I had cancer. I’d also heard that monthlys can stop when something was wrong down there, and I just lay on the bed, hoping it would be quick.

  I expect I’d dropped off for a bit, because when I wakened up I had a horrible pain in my stomach. I was ready to say goodbye to the world, I thought I was dying, I can tell you. But then, after a bit, I remembered when I’d had Thomas, and the similar pain I’d had then.

  By that time I was bearing down and clutching at the bedclothes. It couldn’t be, could it? Another kiddie, from when me and Colin had relations just before he went? I’d never even thought about it. We’d not taken precautions. Surely I was too old now, for God’s sake.

  I staggered downstairs and lit a ciggie. For once, through the sharp pain, I tried to imagine what would happen if I called an ambulance? If the midwife came? I looked around at the piles of papers everywhere, newspaper cuttings and bits of scrap all over the place. The carpet, matted with dirt—I’d not bothered to vac since Colin had gone. Why bother?

  I couldn’t even look after myself and now I had a kiddie on the way. The pain got worse and worse and my mind was jumbled. I thought I heard someone moaning and then I realised it was me. I was counting back, it was seven months since me and Colin had lain in this bed. Too soon for a baby. Maybe I was ill? Maybe I was dying?

  But, as daylight broke through the manky curtains, my body lurched and there was a slither between my legs. There it was. She. A tiny girl. She didn’t move or make any noise, and I picked her up and took her to the sink downstairs to wash her. I rubbed her and cut the cord with the bread knife, stemming the blood with an elastic band from the growing ball in the sideboard.

  She still didn’t move, and I wrapped her up in a tea towel, the cleanest I could find. Then I was crippled again. I fell to the greasy floor, still holding her, and felt another huge pain. Suddenly there was a loud cry, and I looked at the little girl in my arms, checking for movement there still was none.

  But there, on the dirty tiles between my legs, was another one. Another girl. I almost laughed, but even I knew this was no laughing matter. She was fatter and wriggly, and I put her dead sister on the table and picked her up. I was hypnotised by her and I somehow managed to cut the cord and tie it, and automatically put her to my breast, where she latched on and started drinking.

  I held her, and with my other hand, I rubbed the little girl on the table, and held her to my chest, listening for breath, there was none, and she was limp now. Lifeless. I managed to stagger upstairs, and put them both on the bed while I cleaned myself up. It felt great, buzzing around, seeing to a crying baby. Someone to look after again.

  I have to admit it, for that few hours, I didn’t think about Thomas. I’d been staring at the tiny girl, the one that was alive and kicking, for what seemed like hours, when I remembered the bundle of baby clothes I’d kept.

  Colin’s mam had kitted a lovely pink shawl, and stared at me accusingly when a boy popped out, as if it was another scheme I’d had against her. But I kept the shawl, just in case. Just in case me and Colin had another baby. Now we had.

  I started to wrap the kicking little girl in the lovely shawl, but then I looked at her sister. She was blue. I couldn’t bear it. It was no good. I wrapped her cold little body in the beautiful shawl. Her face was peaceful, and I put her between two pillows.

  I had to get someone. There was no way I could manage on my own with this. So I wrapped the live wire in a clean towel, one of Thomas’s
, and went downstairs. I looked at the clock—six o’clock. I thought it was later than that. Or earlier.

  I didn’t even know what day it was. Was it tomorrow? Had I been upstairs with my little girls a full day and night? I must have been. I looked in the cracked mirror and I was a right sight. I pulled on a long anorak over my nightie and opened the door, looking left and right.

  No one about as yet, and I sneaked up to the end of the road, then through the back ginnels to the phone box. When I got there she was crying. Probably hungry. I stood inside the red box, with my daughter on the metal shelf. I picked up the phone and dialled the first nine. Then I put the receiver down again. The crying was louder and I didn’t really know what to do.

  I had no nappies, no pram, no baby clothes. And the shame. No one to tell, no one to help me. I couldn’t tell Colin. It’d ruin his new life and he might come back, wanting us to move, and then how would Thomas find us? So I left her there. In the phone box.

  I put her on the floor and hurried back up the ginnels. I won’t say ran, because I was too exhausted. But I went as fast as could, away from the loud crying. But I had to go back. I couldn’t do it. As I got there I saw a few people standing around the phone box, and I hid around the corner. A woman was holding her.

  ‘Eyare, Jack, go and get one of them bottles and put some baby milk in it out of the fridge. Warm it up in a pan, and I’ll bring her.’

  A small woman with beady eyes turned around, scouring the alleyways.

  ‘Where’s her mam? She must be somewhere round here.’

  The other woman, the one holding my daughter, nodded.

  ‘Yeah. Best wait here a minute till she comes back.’

  I was frozen, watching them. The man brought the bottle and I watched these strangers feed her and check that she was all right. They were making baby noises and clucking as she drunk the milk. I remember thinking that she was better off with them, someone who can look after her. The man came back with a pram and the woman put her in it.

  ‘She’s not coming back, is she?’

  Everyone shook their heads.