The Pact

by Dawn Goodwin

  The only thing that seemed to raise her heartbeat now was the sound of a child laughing, the sight of a wide, innocent grin and the feeling of a tiny hand clasped in hers. That was why spending time with Jemima and Ben was so important. That was why she would do anything to spend time with them. It frightened her to think about the lengths she would go to to have even five more minutes in their company.

  Perhaps that was what annoyed Gemma the most. On the surface, Maddie had assumed it was her relationship with Greg, but perhaps it was the threat of her being in Jemima’s life, a woman who wanted to be there, to spend time with her, unlike Gemma who seemed to resent her daughter’s reliance on her.

  Maddie looked at each and every card, tracing the names with her fingers, remembering each and every one. At the very bottom of the pile, the drawing was an ink impression of a tiny hand and a tiny foot.

  Archie.

  The boy who breathed.

  For a moment, she held Archie’s card in her hands, feeling its smoothness against her fingertips, stroking her thumb over the ink impressions, not breathing.

  After Archie, she was so far down in herself that for a while she couldn’t see any light at all. Greg had learnt over the years how to reach down and drag her back up, but after Archie, even he couldn’t reach her, his fingers barely grazing the heavy air between them. Even so, he never stopped trying.

  Maybe it was time to let him go. She didn’t need someone to reach for her anymore because she had survived.

  Maybe it was her turn to reach out to someone new.

  She put the card down and picked up her phone before sending a Snapchat to Jade.

  Can we talk? M x

  Then she got to her feet, poured herself a large glass of wine and waited.

  THEN

  Something is wrong.

  ‘Greg?’ I call out.

  He doesn’t answer. He’s in his study again. Muted conversations and hushed tones behind a closed door. I drag myself from the bed, but it is difficult to move at any speed now with my huge, distended stomach. For such a tiny thing, the weight of the baby is astonishing, pushing down on the floor of my stomach and pinching my sciatic nerve.

  I had to stop driving weeks ago because I couldn’t reach the pedals any longer and now walking is agony as the baby rests on my sciatic nerve, causing shooting pains down my leg.

  But oh, how it’s worth it.

  I would take ten times more discomfort and pain if I had to.

  I limp to the study and I’m about to knock when I hear his voice through the door. He’s talking in a low voice, but he sounds agitated.

  ‘No, you can’t. She’s nearly due and I won’t let anything jeopardise this for her. For us. I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but she has to come first now.’

  There is a pause, then he mumbles something that sounds a little like, ‘I miss you too.’

  Perhaps it’s his mother, threatening to come and visit. She lives in the Algarve with her second husband, a plumber called Gary with lambchop sideburns and a penchant for wearing T-shirts that say things like ‘Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult’ and ‘Fart Now Loading – Please Wait’. Greg dislikes him immensely; I can tolerate him in small doses. As far as grandparents go, they’re not ideal but the only ones this little one will have.

  I can feel the tugging again, deep and urgent inside my belly. ‘Greg!’ I burst in just as he is hanging up.

  He takes one look at my face and says, ‘What is it?’ I register the fear and I’m pleased in a small, sadistic way. He’s come back to me in the last few months and it’s almost like we’re the way we used to be. This pregnancy has brought us closer again and I like that he’s worried. It means he’s still here.

  It hasn’t been an easy pregnancy at all. Weekly scans at the hospital in London have meant lots of time off work. He has had to learn to cook while I have been mostly on bed rest. When he hasn’t been at work, he’s been at my beck and call, caring for me, meeting my every need, all without complaint. He’s even been working from home more often, leaving the running of the office to his PA, Gemma. She has turned out to be a lifesaver in all this, a necessary cog in the business, keeping everything running smoothly in my complete absence. Surprising, considering her earlier incompetence. It’s like she’s trying to impress Greg. Maybe she’s looking for a promotion. She’s welcome to my job. I won’t be needing it once the baby is born.

  Throughout the last few months, despite the anxiety and nerves, Greg and I have laughed, joked, planned and experienced every moment of it together – at least once the pregnancy stretched past the twelve-week stage. Before that, it was like Greg was in denial, but looking back, I understand why he responded the way he did. Everyone handles things differently and for him, denial is the best policy. We’ve tried not to stress or worry and as the pregnancy progressed, we began to relax and enjoy it more.

  ‘I think there’s something wrong.’

  ‘What? Are you in pain?’

  ‘No, it’s just… I don’t know. It feels like something is tugging on me and my back is aching.’

  ‘Maybe you were lying at a funny angle? There’s still three weeks to go. It’s probably nothing.’

  I can feel tears building. ‘I think we should go to the hospital.’

  *

  The rest of that day is a scattered collection of images in my head, like a kaleidoscope, at once moving into my brain, then hurtling away, as if I won’t let myself fix on any one moment long enough for fear that I won’t be able to come back from it.

  There are flashes of doctors, eyes and frown lines above surgical masks. At one point Greg is looming over me, a surgical mask clamped over his mouth, but his eyes are recognisable as they peer into mine, tears dripping from his lashes.

  There is pain, both physical and emotional, raw, open and searing, then retreating to a dull, throbbing ache.

  Then a tiny baby is placed in my arms, all mottled and pink with the tiniest hands and feet I have ever seen. Out of all of it, this image is clear and crisp, as though I am looking down on myself. I can feel the weight of him, barely there, in my arms. I can smell the blood iron on his skin. I can taste the sweat on my lips. His hands are splayed and I expect them to flail at me in anger at being ejected from safety so brutally, but the hands are motionless.

  There is not a sound in the room except for the beep of machines. Everyone is standing around me, watching, waiting like a held breath.

  Then a sob escapes from Greg and I am dropped back into my body and I realise that while Greg and I are crying, the baby is not.

  His tiny hands are still. His eyes are closed. His heart is not beating.

  *

  We named him Archie.

  He was my last baby. The twelfth pregnancy.

  He was the boy who breathed.

  Just once.

  Then no more.

  9

  Maddie felt raw. The scan photos and cards lay spread out in front of them on the kitchen counter. All twelve children, all named. Seven boys and five girls.

  Every single one remembered and mourned.

  ‘Fuck,’ Jade said poetically.

  She’d kept quiet while Maddie talked, getting up only to refill their wineglasses and then to open another bottle when they’d emptied the first.

  She didn’t ask questions or push for details. She just listened – and for that Maddie was grateful. Her face was unreadable. Maddie couldn’t tell if Jade felt pity, sadness or anything at all. Maddie supposed not everyone would find this as heart-breaking as she had. Perhaps Jade would think it all a lucky escape, would wonder why Maddie had persevered for so long. She knew Jade struggled with Ben, after all.

  Jade got to her feet, grabbed her cigarettes from her handbag and disappeared through the door to the garden.

  Maddie put her head in her hands for a moment, feeling wrung out, her mouth cloying from the wine and words. This was the first time she had ever sat and detailed all of it, said the words o
ut loud from start to finish. It made it all so much more tangible again. She hadn’t even discussed it as plainly with Greg before – but then, he’d been there with her and it had seemed fruitless for her to talk to him so candidly about how she felt each and every time they lost another one.

  And a loss was exactly what it was. Maddie had no idea where those tiny souls had gone or why they’d been taken. They were indeed lost to her, not even leaving behind a memory she could hold onto.

  Just gone.

  Therapists and counsellors had offered her advice in the past, saying things like it was God’s way, that maybe He needed them for a higher purpose, that they were angels looking down on her, and she had wanted to rant that it wasn’t fair. Why did He get to choose who He wanted? Why couldn’t He let her just have one of them?

  She took a breath and gathered together all of the scans and cards into a neat pile again before carefully tying them with the ribbon. She tucked them back into the tissue paper and replaced the lid. She rested her hand on the box for a moment, then went to find Jade.

  The air outside was crisp, the evening having set in on them without them realising. Jade was standing with her back to the door, a cloud of smoke around her head as she pulled hard on the cigarette.

  Maddie came to stand next to her and handed her her wine.

  They stood in silence, staring out at the sky. It was a clear night, the moon full and open. Maddie thought she could just make out a face in it if she squinted.

  ‘It sucks… what you’ve been through,’ Jade said.

  ‘Yeah, I guess it does,’ Maddie replied.

  Jade was quiet again and Maddie watched the end of her cigarette glow an angry orange as she took drag after drag, like a warning sign flashing on and off.

  ‘I get it – why you haven’t wanted to talk about it much.’

  Maddie nodded, although she doubted if Jade noticed in the dark. Maddie drank her wine and folded her arms around herself.

  ‘What happened afterwards? You know, after Archie?’

  Maddie thought back to those long months afterwards, but it was like one eternal white canvas of nothingness in her mind. She couldn’t remember actually being present for any given moment.

  ‘I went to bed. Because I was so tired of it all, you know? I felt like every tiny shred of life and joy had been stripped from the bones of me. So I pulled the covers up over my head and stayed there. For a long time.’ She paused, thinking back to that time, that emptiness. ‘Greg came and went. But he had a focus, a distraction. He had the business to throw himself into – and he made a lot of money that year. Of course, I wasn’t spending it on IVF treatments as quickly as he was making it, like in previous years, but he was also so much more single-minded. We never discussed it, but we both knew that Archie would be our last.’ Her voice broke as she said his name. It still had a way of taking her breath away.

  Maddie looked out at the moon again. ‘I was operating on autopilot every day, doing very little, saying even less. And then one day, Greg had left the radio on in the kitchen when he left for work and I was making a cup of tea, not really listening to it, but it was an interview with an artist, who was talking about his depression and how one day he had an epiphany of sorts. He said that he had opened his bedroom curtains for the first time in a week and the sun had shone through the window and he realised that although there had been clouds there before, on that day the sky was back – and that actually the sky had never gone away in the first place. It was just that he couldn’t see it.’ She sipped on her wine, thinking back to that day. ‘That made sense to me. How grief and depression are a little bit like that. Sometimes you can’t see past the thing that is holding you down, stopping you from wanting to take your next breath, but that doesn’t mean that thing will always be as suffocating or as big and powerful. You just have to hold on and wait it out in a way. He said that running had diminished his depression in his head, weakened it enough for him to push back at it. So I packed a bag and went to the swimming pool. It was the first time I’d left the house in weeks. But I had this urge to swim, to pull myself through the water, stretch myself out and feel weightless for a while, let myself float. After being hunched by the weight of my grief for so long, it felt liberating to reach out and pull myself forward. I started feeling like I was swimming away from the depression and then after a while I felt like I was actually swimming towards a future for myself.’

  She wasn’t sure if she was making any sense to Jade, but it made sense to her.

  ‘So when did Gemma appear?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention. She had worked for us for years and, thinking back now, I think their affair began before I was pregnant with Archie.’

  ‘What a dick.’

  ‘Yes – and no. I wasn’t there for a lot of our marriage. But finding out about Gemma being pregnant helped in a weird way. A baby – any baby – helped to fill the void. And Greg has been amazing at letting me spend time with Jemima, as have you with Ben.’

  ‘How did you find out about them?’

  Maddie pulled her cardigan tighter around her, the air like a cold breath on her face. She felt wrung out from her monologue – and a little embarrassed. As though she’d exposed herself and was waiting for her audience to laugh at her. Maddie had expected more empathy from her, but Jade just seemed to want gossip. ‘Let’s go inside. I’m cold.’

  Jade followed her in, plopping herself on the couch and helping herself to more wine.

  ‘Then you understand why I can’t let Mark win, right?’ Jade said, bringing the conversation back to herself again. ‘I can’t let him just waltz in and take Ben away from me.’

  Maddie sighed. ‘I get it, I do. I can understand how desperate you feel. But I also think it may not be as terrible as you think it will be. There may be joint custody or he may want you to have custody and him to have visitational rights or something. I think you and him should discuss it properly before it gets to court. Look at me and Jemima – she is not mine and I don’t see her every day, much as I wish I could, but I feel whole when I’m with her and I will always be her Aunty Mads. Families come in all shapes and sizes.’

  ‘But is that enough for you?’

  Maddie thought about it, thought about the ache when she said goodbye, thought about how she almost hadn’t brought Ben home earlier that day, how her feet had itched to keep walking and not look back.

  ‘Most days it is,’ she replied.

  Jade sat forward and clutched onto Maddie’s leg, her long talons digging into Maddie’s thigh. ‘Don’t lie to yourself, Maddie. It’s not enough for you and it’s not enough for me.’ Jade chewed on her lip. ‘I can’t afford the legal stuff, so he needs to be out of the picture altogether.’

  ‘But maybe I could help with money? I could speak to Greg, see if we could come to some sort of arrangement for a loan or something if it would help you with the legal fees?’

  Jade sat back against the cushions and looked at her closely. ‘How much money?’

  Maddie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’d have to talk to him about it.’

  Jade looked thoughtful, then drained her glass again. ‘Ok, but in the meantime we work to the original plan. If Mark is out of the picture, then I don’t have anything to worry about. We can get them both out of the picture so that we are set for the future. Maybe we could even look at moving in together afterwards, the three of us – you, me and Ben. Imagine all of us living in that lovely big house of yours. You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Seeing Ben every day?’ Her eyes were manic discs, spinning and sparking, as she sat forward again. ‘You must want to be free of Greg? A constant reminder of what you’ve lost. Him cheating on you after everything you’ve been through. That woman taunting you, parading her child in front of you. I saw your face that day when we broke in. You would love to be back there. For me, knowing that I am free of Mark, that I can live without worrying about it every day. That’s what I want. And you need a clean break. Living your li
fe vicariously through Greg’s child with another woman is weird.’

  Maddie could feel unease creeping up her throat. ‘I don’t know if I do want to be free of Greg. I’ve known him all my adult life, he’s a part of me. And I quite like my life now, this place.’

  ‘God, you’re such a sap! Have some balls. Stand up for yourself! And stop lying to yourself.’ Spittle flew from her lips. ‘Where’s your pride?’

  Maddie could feel her own anger bubbling. ‘What do you want from me? You keep saying you want me to help you, but it’s only on your terms. It’s so black and white to you. There is a solution and we will find it. You just have to slow down, take a breath and think rationally about it all.’

  ‘But you’ve just offered his money! Are you saying you aren’t going to ask him for me now?’

  Maddie realised there was no talking to her tonight. She was drunk, contradictory and irrational, lurching from one thing to the next.

  ‘That’s not what I said. Look, let’s talk about it when we’re sober. I’m tired.’

  ‘Oh right, so you want me to leave?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Fine, I know when I’m not wanted.’ Jade heaved to her feet and stormed from the flat, slamming the door behind her.

  Minutes later, loud music started blasting from the flat above, the bass vibrating through the floor.

  Maddie sighed, thinking over what had just happened, trying to understand Jade, make sense of it all. Part of her brain was telling her that Jade had a point. What if the three of them could move into the big house that was built for a family? She and Greg weren’t divorced yet. Half of that house was still hers.