The Godmother

by Carrie Adams

  “Anything up to ten days.”

  I looked at Claudia. “Don’t put yourself through that.”

  “Are there any risks?” she asked.

  “As far as conceiving again, a D and C is probably better; there is less risk of matter being left behind. It is often done as a precursor to IVF treatment, creates a nice clean environment, but it is invasive, and you’ve had a lot of invasive treatment.” Claudia once told me she’d had a film crew up her vagina. But at least she’d be out cold for this one.

  I don’t think Claudia was listening to the consultant, so I tried to think what Al would do if he were here. He’d want her to suffer as little as possible; he’d want it to be over. For the blood and gore to end. He wouldn’t want Claudia to feel chunks of herself falling out and for ever wonder what it was she’d held in her hand, which bit.

  “Can you do the D and C today?”

  “I can do it now.”

  Claudia looked at me again. I nodded. She turned back to the consultant. “Let’s get this over and done with,” she said. It was a futile comment. Things like this were never over and done with.

  I was with her right up to the time she counted backwards from ten. I watched the anesthetist open up the valve in her wrist and pour the opiate in. She didn’t make it past seven. I looked at the consultant. “Make sure you get it all. No complications. No infections. No more bleeding. And please come and get me when she comes round.”

  I was shown through to a small green waiting room. When I was sure I was alone, I opened my wallet and pulled out the twelve-week scan that Claudia had given me when she’d crossed the three-month line. I stared at the little head, the little thumb, the perfect lips and baby profile. I traced them all with my finger. When I started crying it was for Claudia, for that tiny baby I’d never meet, and I couldn’t stop. I wailed silently into my hands. I thought about the nine years, the previous failures, the innocent hope she’d had, who we’d been before all this, where we thought we’d be by now, where we were, where I was, my own childlessness, my own loneliness, and a fresh wave of tears over-ran me. I couldn’t be brave any more. Not for Claudia, not for myself. And that made me cry even more. How could I feel sorry for myself when I wasn’t the one losing a baby? A nurse came in, took in the scene and jumped to the wrong conclusions. I was a grieving mother. She put her arm around me and offered me a tissue. I don’t know why I didn’t correct her. But I didn’t. It felt nice to have someone’s arm around me for a change.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked at the number. I turned to the nurse.

  “It’s the father,” I said.

  She took her leave. I waited until the door closed then I answered the phone.

  “Tessa? Is Claudia OK?”

  “Yes. But—”

  “The baby.”

  “I’m so sorry, Al. She’s had a miscarriage.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s in theatre. They’re operating now.”

  “Jesus…”

  “It was very quick.”

  “Tell her I’m on the next plane back. Tell her I love her. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  The phone went silent. I imagined Al running through Singapore Airport, trying to find someone who’d help him get home. Not wanting to explain why, but being forced to by people who wouldn’t otherwise take him seriously. He may even have to exaggerate it, as if what was happening wasn’t bad enough. One in three women had miscarriages, what was the big deal, right? It wasn’t one, until it was your turn. There was a gentle knock on the door. Another nurse came through. “She’s back.”

  It had taken twenty-seven minutes to take out what had taken nine years and ninety-eight days to build.

  Claudia was just opening her eyes when I came into the recovery room. She was bleary-eyed and slurring her words. She smiled up at the consultant. Then me.

  “I spoke to Al. He’s on his way home.”

  “Tell him not to feel sorry for me,” said Claudia. “I have a beautiful daughter at home.”

  The consultant and I exchanged glances.

  “He wants you to know he loves you with all his heart,” I said.

  “He’ll leave me now.”

  “No. He’d never do that.”

  “Don’t let him leave me. Where’s my baby? Tessa, what have you done with my baby?”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Harding,” the consultant stepped up. “You’re a little confused. You’re at the hospital, remember? We’ve had to operate. You’ve lost the baby. But there will be more.”

  “No more,” said Claudia. “Don’t make me do it again. Don’t make me do it again. Please, Tessa, don’t make me…” Her voice trailed off. She fell asleep. I was alarmed.

  “It’s just the effects of the drugs,” said the consultant, reassuring me. “Let her sleep. You’ll be able to take her home at about six.”

  I left her to the hospital staff. Hailed a taxi and returned to Claudia and Al’s house.

  It was very still inside the house. I walked up past the photos without looking at them, and into the nursery. Our red and green flags stood out against the white wall. Our paintbrushes were stiff. I carried on up the stairs. The bathroom was a mess. I pulled on the washing-up gloves and picked up the items in the bath and put them into a plastic bag. I threw Claudia’s jeans and pants in with them. I flushed the loo without looking into it. When the water had stopped gurgling I checked everything had gone. It hadn’t. The thick, black, liver-like substance stuck to the bottom. I reached for the loo brush, pushed it around until the water went red, then flushed again. I did it three times before the sticky stuff went completely. I threw the loo brush into the bin liner, along with everything else. I stripped the bed and carried the blood-sodden sheets down to the laundry room. I put them all into a hot wash then went back upstairs to deal with the mattress and the vomit. I sponged down where the blood had soaked through and then tipped the mattress on to its side. I picked the contents of Claudia’s stomach out of the carpet and sponged that down too. Then I went back downstairs and watched the sheets spin inside the drum. I looked at my watch. I needed help.

  Twenty minutes later I opened the door to Ben. He was in his suit. He’d come out of a meeting to take my call and never gone back in. As soon as I’d told him what had happened he’d left the office. “I don’t know what to do, Ben, I don’t know whether to paint over it or not. But I can’t leave it and the white won’t hide it. I don’t want to use red, and pink has too many connotations…”

  He held his arms out wide. I simply fell forward into them. For a while I let him hold me. I had help now. Somehow we’d manage.

  “Ssh,” he said, stroking my hair.

  “I feel so awful for Claudia, Ben. It was horrific—one minute we’re painting away, laughing about stupid things, the next, she’s hemorrhaging. Blood everywhere. We’ve got to get that room repainted. She can come home tonight.”

  “Orange.” Ben let go of me and picked up two cans of paint from the doorstep. “It’s bright, but dark enough to cover what you’ve already put on the wall. I picked these up on the way.”

  “You’re amazing. Thank you.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is Al and Claudia we’re talking about. How long have we got?”

  “The hospital will ring me when they’re sure she’s stopped bleeding. But hopefully no more than two hours.”

  “Let’s get cracking.”

  We didn’t talk much while we painted. I was concentrating so much on slapping on the paint that I didn’t think about anything else. We covered the wall with most of the flags on first. Then I put down the paintbrush and went downstairs to put another load of sheets on. I pulled the first set out of the machine. There was a pink stain, with a darker red outline. I swore loudly. I had no choice but to throw them away. I stuffed them into another bin liner then went back upstairs. Ben was making good progress with the second wall.

  “You all right in here? I’ve just got to m
ake the bed up.”

  “Need help?”

  “No. You keep painting. You’ve got it in your hair, by the way.”

  “Sasha will think I’m having a mid-life crisis, and have taken to dyeing my hair.”

  “How many mid-life crises would that be now?” I said, trying to smile.

  “One too many,” he said, turning back to the wall.

  I pulled the mattress over on to its other side, found some fresh bed linen and started making the bed. When I’d finished I noticed a drop of blood on the carpet. I went down to the bathroom to wet a sponge when I saw the blood still in the bath. Suddenly it felt like there was blood everywhere. I could still see the faint echo of pink on the bottom of the toilet bowl. I couldn’t get rid of it. I felt very queasy all of a sudden and toppled over. I hit my head on the door handle as I fell forward and cried out in pain. I felt my head, it was slick with sweat. This was not the time to get flu. I tried to stand up, but I wobbled and fell back down with a thump.

  “Tess, you OK?” I heard Ben run up the stairs, push open the bathroom door and gasp at the sight of me on the floor, a bloody sponge in my hand.

  “I can’t get the blood out,” I cried. I thought I was going to be sick, but Ben grabbed me, pulled me up, put the lid of the loo down and sat me on it. He opened a window and told me to stay put. A few minutes later he returned with orange juice and a banana.

  “Eat, you’re having one of your funny turns.”

  I felt like an idiot. I am mildly hypoglycemic. Sometimes, if I’m stressed, tired or don’t eat, my blood sugar level drops through the floor. Or my insulin goes through the roof. That day, I was all three. I practically swallowed the banana whole and drank half the carton in a couple of glugs. I handed back the carton to Ben.

  “Come here,” he said and pulled me into his chest again. Tears overwhelmed me. I must stop crying like this, none of this is happening to me. He stroked my hair. “Hey, you, ssh. They’ll be all right. They’ve got each other, those two, they’ll be all right.”

  I mumbled into Ben’s chest. “When Claudia came round, she said Al would leave her now.”

  He held me away from him and looked at me. “Al would never leave Claudia. What they have is real. Based on a lifetime. I promise you, he would never leave her.”

  I sniffed. Ben offered his sleeve. Then he tucked my hair behind my ear. “Come on, funny face, we’ve got some painting to do.”

  I nodded. As we walked back down the stairs, I asked him how he knew Al would never leave.

  “Because I asked him once, after one of the IVF treatments had failed. Told him he could consider, you know, another route.”

  “You suggested he leave Claudia?” I asked, suddenly cross.

  “We were just discussing it. He jumped down my throat too. Said he’d never even considered it. I guess I was having a bad time with Sasha and was feeling disillusioned about marriage. Anyway, he was right. Women like you and Claud don’t come around very often.” He looked back up the stairs to me. “Actually, they don’t come around more than once.”

  I looked away, because he didn’t. There was the photo on the wall. The one of Ben in traction. His leg smashed to smithereens. Ben followed my gaze. We looked back at each other. He stood two steps below me, our eyes were level. Everything went very still. It made me think about Claudia’s baby.

  “The stain in the carpet,” I spluttered, and ran back upstairs.

  Ben was still painting the last wall when I left to get Claudia from the hospital. When we returned, not only was it finished, the paint pots had vanished, there was fresh soup and bread on the kitchen table, and a bottle of soft red that Claudia likes. Ben hugged her. In the absence of Al, he was the next best thing. Ben had spoken to Al just as he was about to board his plane home. Al hadn’t said any of the things that Ben said he had. Al was in total shock, he could barely speak, but Ben knew Al well enough to know what he would have wanted to say, and he did it perfectly.

  I heated the soup up for us all as I listened to Ben talk to Claudia. He didn’t try and make it better. He didn’t tell her it was for the best. He told her to mourn. He told her to think about having a small service. He told her to frame the picture of the scan if she wanted to. He held her when she sobbed and didn’t tell her to try and stop. I waited in the kitchen, stirring the soup until the crying had ended of its own accord. Afterwards, when we had tucked Claudia into bed, I kissed Ben on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said. We sat in the kitchen and finished the bottle of wine. We talked in circles about what Al and Claudia would do now. Would they go for it again? Would they go abroad to adopt? Russia? Sri Lanka? China? Would they travel? Move away? Collapse? Survive?

  “They’ll survive,” said Ben.

  I nodded.

  “They will, Tess.” Ben stood up and stretched. “Do you need a lift home?”

  “No. I’m going to stay here until Al gets back.”

  “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “On the sofa.”

  “Do you want me to stay with you?” asked Ben.

  “No. I’m OK. There’s no room, anyway.”

  “We’ve slept on that sofa before.”

  “Only when we’ve drunk so much I don’t register your snoring.”

  “And I don’t feel your bony elbows.”

  “I haven’t got bony elbows.”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Yes, you have. And you fart in your sleep.”

  I pushed him away and followed him to the front door. For a long time we hugged again. It had been that sort of day. He tucked my hair behind my ear again.

  “You are a great friend, Tess. It’s us who couldn’t do without you.”

  I was too tired to speak. Too tired to trust myself to speak. I just stared up at him through emotionally drained eyes. He held my face in his hand and gently stroked my cheek with his thumb.

  “Thank God you were here. Thank God you were back,” said Ben. Then he leaned closer and kissed me on my lips. It wasn’t that it was a fraction longer than usual that made the bolt of electricity shoot through me. It was because he still had his hand cupped over my cheek. I felt his fingers move around the side of my head and spread through my hair. Our faces were still inches from one another. Neither of us moved. All I could feel was the gentle massage of his thumb in my hair.

  “I missed you more than I should have, Tessa,” said Ben.

  I put my hand up to his cheek, expecting to move it away, but instead my hand glued to his and I found myself being pulled into his gravity. We moved closer so slowly that when our lips touched again it was like someone had burnt me with a flame. There was no salve but pressure. The kiss spread to every part of our lips. My heart was pounding in my chest as we stood there, stuck to one another, not daring to move. And then the dam burst and without any warning signal both our lips parted, our heads angled away from each other, our arms snaked around each other’s bodies and for a split second an invisible line was crossed and the kiss changed shape completely.

  “Al? Al? Help me!”

  The retraction was instant. We stood facing one another, breathing hard, for another second or two. I shook my head, I don’t know why—in disbelief, in warning, in shame? Claudia cried out again; I turned away and ran up the stairs.

  When I came back down, Ben had gone. I sat at the top of the stairs, staring out between my fingers, feeling foolish and confused. What had happened? Had anything happened? A kiss on the lips was no big deal; Ben always hugged me when things were bad. Surely my mind was playing tricks on me. That was all. Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. Ben was married, Ben was my friend; he would remain my friend. End of story. Eventually, my eyes rested on the photo of him with his leg in traction. I walked up to it and took it off the wall. I carried it through to the sitting room, lay on the sofa with the rest of my glass of wine and stared at the picture until my eyes w
atered.

  I never indulged myself with this old, locked away memory, but the day had been no ordinary day, and life seemed more magnified because of it. It was the summer. I had just got my A level results. They were better than expected and I had got into law school. Ben and I were in Camden alone. Al had gone up to Cheshire to see family, Claudia was doing work experience in Reading, Mary was away with her parents and Ben, for once, had decided not to go. His mother was in the west country celebrating the summer solstice and my parents were completely relaxed when I told them I was going to stay at Ben’s for a week. Why wouldn’t they be relaxed? It had happened so many times before. I don’t know whether I told them Ben’s mum was away, but as they didn’t have her down as the responsible type I don’t think it played a large part in their decision-making process. I’d worked hard and stuck to the rules. This was my reward.

  We didn’t see or speak to anyone else for four days. We watched Halloween 1 and 2 in bed together and freaked ourselves out. We cooked and drank wine in the sunshine and chatted constantly about our adult lives ahead. We spent a lot of time in the pub. I started to ache with longing on the second day. I would put myself in his path just to feel his hand on me as he maneuvered me out of the way. I would tickle him, punch him, put my arm through his, poke him in the ribs. I was addicted. I delighted in watching him go about doing normal things. Ordering a pint, picking out a T-shirt, making me a cup of tea. There was a cheap Italian near his house where you could eat spaghetti bolognaise for £1.99; we had dinner there on the third night. I must have drunk too much cheap red wine because I started making suggestive comments that had always been out of bounds in our friendship. He thought I was taking the piss.

  That night I lay awake next to him, consumed by lust and fear in equal measures. The brush of his skin along mine made the hairs on my arm bristle. I had to breathe with my mouth open, so suffocating was the sensation of being so close yet not able to touch him. At about four o’clock in the morning I reached out and took his hand. He squeezed it. I squeezed back. Neither of us let go. The squeeze got harder and harder, the blood in my fingers pulsated as my breath shortened. Sounds absurd now that holding someone’s hand could be so erotic, but it was. Every thought I’d had about him, every moment I’d nearly told him what I was feeling, every time I’d thought I’d caught him looking at me and dismissed it, raced through my hand to his. More was communicated in that tightening grip than I could have said, anyway. It was a physical declaration of desire. I think I reached orgasm during that clench; as the muscles in my hand burned with the exertion of holding on so hard, so did all the other muscles in my body. Perhaps it wasn’t a physical orgasm, perhaps it was more in my mind. Not that I imagined it, but that it happened at a deeper level than my simple flesh and blood could measure. I loved him. I loved him with all the energy I could muster, and all I could do was hold on. Not a word was spoken. We fell asleep holding hands. In the morning neither of us referred to what had happened and I began to wonder if it had all been in my imagination.