by Carrie Adams
“Osmosis,” I replied.
“It’s weird.”
“Not really. Everyone I know has had, or is having, babies. I’m a walking encyclopedia of this stuff. Cracked nipples? Use Kamillosan—also a very good lip gloss. Cradle cap? Olive oil. Talcum powder is now a no-no, the fine particles get on to their lungs. Pacifiers are now encouraged. I don’t want to know any of this stuff, I certainly don’t need it, but, bless ’em, they tell me anyway, and, for some reason that I will never understand, think that what they’re telling me is gripping.”
“I’m doing it too, aren’t I?”
“I don’t mind it from you,” I said. “Maybe I’m being a tad defensive. I guess I file it away in the hope that it will become gripping some day.”
“Oh Tessa, it will. You’ve just got to meet somebody.”
“Haven’t you heard? It’s not about meeting somebody any more.”
“Huh?”
“No, it’s that I’ve put my career ahead of my biological clock. Apparently there is now some machine that all career women like me can pee on to find out how many eggs we have left. Just in case I go to a meeting one day and miss my opportunity to have a baby.”
“I’m lost.”
I leaned against a dry piece of wall. I was lost too, to be honest. The article had enraged me. “All this time, I thought I was working to pay off my mortgage, the bills, feed and water myself, since no one else is going to do it for me. Turns out I’ve been selfishly pursuing a career instead. I have to work. I’m not not having kids because of my job, I’m not having kids because I haven’t met anyone to have kids with. Now if they invent a machine that I can pee on and a blue telephone number of my ideal partner appears on a stick, then I’ll purchase.”
“You don’t need a machine, you’ll meet someone soon. No one knows what’s round the corner.”
“How many corners, Claudia? Because I feel like I’ve turned them all.” This conversation depressed me. I was better at not thinking about all of this. “I meet people all the time. It never works out. I don’t know why.”
“Hmm,” said Claudia.
“Why, what do you think I’m doing wrong?”
“Do you really want to have this conversation?” she asked, a more serious tone creeping into her voice.
“Yes. I need all the help I can get. Claudia, I want this to be me soon. I really do. Tell me, what am I doing wrong?”
Claudia put her brush down. I did the same.
“I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong,” said Claudia, turning the radio down.
“But…?”
“But, then again, you don’t really let anyone close enough to you for you to have to do something wrong. You don’t blow it. But you don’t grab hold of it either. I’ve seen boys drift away from you because you give them nothing to hold on to.”
I picked up my paintbrush again.
“That’s yellow,” said Claudia.
“Sorry.” I put it down again.
“Do you disagree?”
I exhaled loudly. “I feel like I’m out there grabbing at things. I know last year wasn’t great, but that was understandable. I shagged a guy two weeks ago, if that helps.”
“That doesn’t count, you’re never going to see him again.”
“It’s not my fault I like the bad ones.”
“Whose fault is it then? And anyway, that’s bollocks because you don’t just like the bad ones.”
I ducked the question. “I met a nice bloke last weekend. It got quite heated on the dance floor but then I had to go and make sure Caspar didn’t drown in his own vomit.”
“But you didn’t really need to look after Caspar, you could have called Fran.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could have. You chose not to.”
“He needed my help—trust me, dobbing Caspar in to his parents would have been worse, and anyway, he didn’t ask for my number.”
“You should have given him yours.”
“Not possible. Remember how that bloke was with you at the christening?” Claudia nodded. “He snubbed you just for saying hello. You just can’t go around looking like you’re interested these days. People write you off as a stalker if you so much as mention a number…” I paused for dramatic effect. But thinking about it, what I was saying was real. It was tough out there. Whether it was being done to me, or I was doing it to myself, I couldn’t tell, but I was beginning to feel like a failure just for thinking that maybe I wanted a husband and some kids. Was it so bad to want what everyone else had? Why did I have to do everything for myself when everyone else was getting help? When was someone going to look after me? I picked up a stick and stirred some paint absent-mindedly. I didn’t like these conversations. “I’ve been hurt. I guess I’ve got more barriers up now.”
“Don’t pull out that stock answer. Everyone has been hurt; it’s not a good enough reason to barricade yourself in. And it’s not about your boss either.”
“Ex-boss.”
“Whatever. Tessa, I’m talking about something that has been going on for a long, long time, and you know it.”
“Since when?”
“Tessa…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me.”
Claudia looked at me intently. I played dumb. An act I’d perfected so well I convinced myself most of the time that I had no idea what she was insinuating.
“You’re gay.”
There was a second of silence before we both burst out laughing.
“You silly old tart,” I spluttered.
“Had you.” She laughed again.
“What if I was? This could have been a very difficult thing for me.”
Claudia laughed again. The woman had a heart of stone. “Bollocks. I’ve often wished you were. I know some great gay women who’d be perfect for you.”
“And this I’m supposed to thank you for? Mind you, I did snog a girl once, and it wasn’t bad.”
“Maybe you could go to see an acupuncturist and ask her to bring out your feminine side.”
“Masculine side, you idiot.”
“Depending on whether you wanted to be the bloke or the girl in the relationship.”
“The girl. No, the bloke. No, the girl. I’m not doing away with my girly products and I don’t really want a blokey girl shaving in the bath, so she’d have to be a live-out lover. So I’m the girl, I’d still earn—must have my own money—live on my own, and just call in my bitch, who’s a bloke in disguise, for the occasional shag. Hang on, isn’t that my life?”
Claudia laughed again. “Stop, I’m going to pee in my pants.”
She left the room. I heard her laughing up the stairs to the little bathroom on the landing. Silly old cow. I sighed with relief. Claudia was a wise woman. She knew better than to open that old can of worms. But for a second there, I thought she was calling my bluff—and I don’t know if I could lie as easily to Claudia as I frequently did to myself.
I turned up the radio and moved on to the pot of biro-top blue. The bunting was beginning to look real. It was during my A level year that I realized I was in trouble. Perhaps it was Mary, talking about the plans she and Ben were making, or perhaps I was a late starter and my hormones only kicked in at seventeen, or perhaps I had always liked him more than I should have. It wouldn’t have been hard. At fourteen, Ben opened the door for girls. He wasn’t a bully and he knew how to talk to women, and though he went through the girls, he always let them down gently. Everyone, even teachers, had a crush on him, but it was me that he chose to be his friend. Me. Nothing ever happened between us, but a lot of people imagined it had. I got grief from girls who liked him and saw me as a threat. And I suppose I was the greatest threat of all. I was his best friend and that gave me the edge. It terrified me when I realized I wanted to be more than friends. Not only did I risk losing our friendship, I had become just like everyone else and I knew exactly how he felt about all of them.
I never told anyone I liked him.
Not even Claudia, though I suspect she and Al have discussed the possibility of “us” at great length. It would make a neat ending, wouldn’t it? But they don’t know what happened the day Ben broke his leg. The only person who knows is Helen. And I only told her because when we met on a beach in Vietnam, I never thought I’d see her again.
I heard another song end. That made it four since Claudia had gone to the loo. “Claudia? Are you coming back, or what?”
There was no answer. I put down my brush and wiped my hands on Al’s shirt. I opened the door. “Oi, you lazy cow, you can’t get me over here to work while you have a little nap.”
Still there was no reply. Have I mentioned this wasn’t a large house? You could hear the cat-flap flap from the top landing.
The bathroom was only half a staircase in front of me. The door was a fraction ajar.
“Claud, are you in there?”
She didn’t reply. But I knew she was there. I could feel the density of her behind the door. I carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside. I would rather be blind than have seen what I saw that day. Claudia sat on the loo with her pregnancy jeans around her ankles. Her knees were parted wide open. I couldn’t see her face because she was staring into the toilet bowl, but her arm was stretched up towards me. In the palm of her hand was tissue sodden with blood. It had seeped through her fingers, and dropped on to the white wooden floor boards around her feet. Floating in the palm of her hand was…I still to this day don’t know what it was. It looked like an old grey piece of rotten sponge. The fact that it wasn’t red scared me, it was the color of a tombstone.
The smell of blood coming off Claudia was intense—earthy, sweet and thick. I could hear dripping sounds. One was rapid, high-pitched, as if a metronome had been set with the weight at the base. The other was set to a slower, heavier beat. It wasn’t until Claudia looked up at me through the trestles of her long, dark hair that I realized what it was. Bright red blood was spilling out of her. Intermittently her body hacked up viscous-blackened globules and spat them into the toilet. They sank through the red water and congealed on the base of the bowl.
“I can’t get the red paint off,” she said, staring at her hand.
“OK, sweetheart.” I took the thing out of her hand and physically shuddered as I felt it slip like raw liver through my fingers. I threw it into the bath. “I need you to lie down, honey, OK? Can you do that?”
“I can’t get the red paint off,” she said again.
“It’s OK, we’ll clear it up later. You lean on me. Lean on me.” The moment she was standing I realized I should have taken her jeans off. But it was too late, I couldn’t stop. I saw a rivulet of blood run down her inside leg. I wrapped a towel around her waist, held on to her and it, and we shuffled like geriatrics to her room. I didn’t give a second thought to her hand-embroidered sheets. I pulled them back, lay her down and covered up that awful, awful mess between her legs. Then I left her, because I had to talk to her doctor and I didn’t want her to hear. I would have called 999 but I didn’t want her being carted off to the nearest hospital. She had specialists, people who’d understand what she was really losing.
“118 118, this is Craig speak—”
“The Lister Hospital, London.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“The Lister Hospital. Please, this is an emergency.”
“What town is that?”
“London. Jesus, please—”
“I cannot get you a number if I don’t know—”
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sorry. I wanted to punch him.
“Would you like to be put through directly?”
“Yes.”
“There will be an addit—”
“I don’t fucking care.”
There was silence, and for a terrible moment, I thought he’d cut me off. Then the phone started ringing. I don’t know what I said to the woman who answered the phone, but very quickly I was talking to someone who knew Claudia and said her name softly. He wanted to know what I’d seen, how much blood she was losing and what color it was. I told him.
“She’s losing the baby,” said the voice.
“I fucking know that,” I screamed. “Tell me how to stop it, just tell me, tell me how to stop it, please, please tell me how to stop it…” My voice had cracked the first time I asked him, but I couldn’t stop repeating the words because I knew that when I stopped asking I would have to come to terms with the fact that there was no answer. Claudia was losing her baby girl and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The bunting was coming down.
8
pretending to forget
I ran back upstairs to Claudia’s room. She hadn’t moved. I told her what the doctor had told me. “An ambulance is coming. They’ll get you to the hospital and run some tests. Even a dramatic amount of blood loss doesn’t mean a person is losing their baby.”
She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. She just looked at me. Her hair still sticking to her face. I lifted the sheets off her. The towel had slipped. There was blood everywhere. Too much, I knew that, but I kept the reassuring smile stapled to my face. I peeled her trousers off, wiped her down as best I could, then put her into a clean pair of underpants. I’d found large sanitary pads in the bathroom, a half-empty pack. Too much blood had been soaked up in this household over the last nine years. I put two pads into her underpants, and pulled them up her legs. I got a flannel and wiped up what I could on her hands and legs. Everything was going pink. I eased her up, put a skirt over her head and got it down around her waist. I wanted to hide as much as I could, but I couldn’t hide the truth.
Claudia didn’t say anything, she just kept shaking her head from side to side. It was a small movement, with enormous meaning. I got her to her feet. She cried out, cramped over, and fell back down on the bed with her head between her knees, her breath coming in short, staccato pants. We waited for the pain to pass. Slowly I watched her face loosen from its contorted position. Then she retched. She was sick all over the floor.
“I think it just came out,” she said, looking back up at me.
“OK. It’s OK.” It’s not fucking OK, stop saying it’s OK. I peeled her underpants down again. I felt sick and had to screw up my face to stop myself from retching. I tried not to look.
“Is it my baby?” asked Claudia. I took the sodden underwear away and threw it in the bath. It was more of the same. Grey sponge. Like placenta with no blood. Dead.
“No, honey,” I called back, “just more blood.” Like that was OK? I walked back into the bedroom. Claudia was staring at me.
“Too much blood?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. But I did. I repeated the process with the pads and the underwear and got Claudia downstairs. The ambulance was fast. I went with her. She lay down on the gurney and let a medic pull up her top. She was still wearing Al’s shirt. We both were. I’m used to bargaining with a God I don’t know if I believe in; when my mother’s MS rears its ugly head, I start hedging my bets and offering deals to any God who’ll listen. But while I watched the technician squirt clear jelly on to Claudia’s stomach, I prayed harder than I’d ever prayed in my life. The inside of the ambulance went very quiet. I didn’t breathe as the medic rolled the ultrasound through the jelly, over her belly. We waited for the sound of life to come out of the amplifier. A hectic heartbeat, racing to grow. There was nothing but static. I saw the medic’s shoulders droop. I reached over and took Claudia’s hand.
“There are more advanced machines in the hospital,” he said. “The baby may be in a strange position. How many weeks are you?”
“Fourteen,” I said.
“We’ll get you there as soon as we can. It’s possible I’m not picking up the heartbeat.”
Claudia smiled weakly. The medic radioed through to the driver, the ambulance lurched forward and sirens filled the air. I couldn’t get the image of that grey, sponge-like matter from my mind. My tiny, perfect, thumb-sucking goddaughter was dead. I kn
ew it.
The bleeding eased up when we got to hospital, almost stopped, and we were suddenly hopeful. Claudia was rushed through to the scanning room where she was given more jelly. More false hope. They turned the sound off the machine, and turned it away from Claudia. Only I saw the baby’s outline. Floating in the dark. Still. There’d been more vitality in the picture that Claudia had given me than there was on the screen. At one moment the technician moved the device and it looked like the baby moved. I gasped, but the technician rapidly shook her head. She removed the stick, wiped off the jelly, pulled Claudia’s top down then wheeled her chair to Claudia’s side.
“I am so sorry, Mrs. Harding. The fetus is dead.”
Jesus, did she have to be so brutal? I saw Claudia bite down on her lip. Maybe she did. Maybe that was the only way to get a mother to believe that the invisible life force she’d been carrying around inside her had gone. She hadn’t even been feeling ill.
“We’ll get you cleaned up and then your consultant will come and talk to you about your options.”
I took Claudia’s hand. We both nodded numbly.
They tried to put Claudia in a wheelchair, but she refused. She climbed off the bed, stood up tall and walked out of the room.
There was nothing to say. After a while, Claudia looked at me.
“Al,” she said.
I let go of her hand. “I’ll leave a message.”
“Don’t tell him.”
“I won’t. I’ll just tell him to call. Claudia, I am so sorry.”
“I know,” she said, then went back to staring at her lap. When I returned she was talking to the consultant. He offered her two options: let the miscarriage continue naturally, or have a D and C, which involved a general anesthetic during which time her uterus would be cleared out. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than more of what I’d witnessed back at Claudia’s house.
“How long would it take to happen without the D and C?”