by Jackie Kay
They all look astonish but too hungry to argue. All the women now sitting round the table, all the women from the House of Disrepute. I hear it call that and I repeat it. I say to the women, Let us raise a glass at the table in the House of Disrepute! And everyone laugh and say Thank You. Some say Cheers. Some say Chin Chin. Betty shout Slanjiva! I say, This is a godforsaken place, and everyone roar again. Nell say, Hadassah you have some sense of humour. I pour the women some more wine. It is the month of Adar. When the King come back I will make him save our people and I will have revenge for what the Pimps do, the words they make us say every day. I am strong in my head, and I will not forget the words we are force to say and the things we have to do with them. Steady on, Eunice say. We got to remember which side our bread is buttered on, Ruth say. We don’t have to remember, I say, and the deep anger in my voice even surprise me. We don’t have to remember what the King tell us to remember. We are our own people.
When the King come into his pad, he is going to have surprise, a big surprise. Perhaps even he will astonish. When Mordecai come back and the King been to Immigration to answer the question and our people leave the Holding, I get us out. I make a plan with the women, a plan to get the men who hurt us. They take their life in their hand when they ask for something, you see. I wait to see what the women say. Perhaps it is the wine but suddenly there is roaring round the table, roaring and cheering. Hannah bite her chicken leg; Eunice bite her chicken leg. Everyone laugh. Joanna can’t stop laughing till she splutter her wine out on the table. Chiamake say, ‘Hadassah, you are a brilliant cook.’ ‘Thank you,’ I say. I wait till everyone has her share, and then I say, ‘Lily, please pass me the rice,’ and I spoon a single spoon of jollof rice, a chicken thigh, a small spoon of coleslaw. ‘Today,’ I tell the girls, ‘today I break my fast.’ ‘You have no breakfast so you break your fast,’ Nell say because she like words like me, not the kind of word the King teach, but other words, a whole world of other words. Yes, I say, smiling to Nell with some elegance (another word I learn and like, elegance) my head held high. Today I break my fast. I am Hadassah. My name mean morning star.
The White Cot
It is seldom that Sam and I get away. Sam works long hours and is reluctant to take time off. This time, I think it was obvious I needed a break. I’d been feeling a little down, crying at the slightest thing, and had said often, I think I’m going through the change. I hadn’t actually stopped my monthlies, but they were becoming very sporadic.
We arrived at the house around eight in the evening. There was still light in the sky, a brooding light expecting rain. We drove down a long tree-lined driveway to find our cottage at the bottom on the left. Sam unlocked the front door into a large kitchen. At first the house was a disappointment; it struck us as soul-less. ‘Don’t worry,’ Sam said. ‘As soon as we’ve unpacked our things and hung them up, and got our books out, it will feel like ours.’ I hoped so. Rented houses often seemed as if they were never truly inhabited. You were too aware of the people who had cleared away all signs of themselves, as if they had never been here at all. There was a feeling of people vanishing that hung in the grotesque decor of the place. Each room was decorated with such purpose that it all felt unreal. I couldn’t imagine the mind of the person who had gone from innocent room to innocent room creating such strangeness.
‘Which room shall we pick for our bedroom?’ Sam shouted from the top of the stairs. ‘Come here and help me choose?’ I climbed the stairs slowly, heavily. Why did I think that coming away would make things better? There was a bedroom with pink and yellow wallpaper with a very strong geometric design. ‘That wallpaper would drive me mad,’ I said to Sam. ‘Look, the view from this window is lovely,’ Sam said. I looked out; ahead of me was a path, a path that somebody had cut through the long, long grass. The wild grass was full of buttercups and cow parsley and tiny purple flowers: the path cut stretched into the distance and curved towards the east. I could imagine myself walking down it, away into the distance and disappearing off the face of the earth. ‘No, not this room,’ I said to Sam. ‘You choose then, Dionne. I don’t mind which room we have. But don’t take all day. It’s late.’
The walls of the bedroom downstairs were painted a deep red. ‘Very sexy!’ Sam said, walking into the room. In the corner of the room was an empty cot, an old-fashioned one that had a lace awning over the top like a sun roof. The paint on the bars was scratched a little. The curtains were tied at the sides; it was like a mini-four-poster bed. Inside, there were two soft blankets neatly folded into squares. One was baby blue with a sandy coloured teddy bear stitched in relief. One was pink with a fat white rabbit. There was a tiny white pillow, a white towelling fitted sheet on the mattress and a minute lacy duvet. In the opposite corner of the room was a rocking horse. ‘Odd combination,’ Sam said. ‘We could move the horse out into the kitchen, but we couldn’t move the cot.’
‘Well, it’s this one or the one upstairs,’ Sam said and I nodded. I felt like I couldn’t speak. Sam went out to the car and brought in our case. ‘Why don’t you put your feet up and I’ll unpack for both of us?’ I went into the living room, painted bright yellow and with table lamps covered with feathers. I couldn’t shift the uneasy feeling. I sat down on the armchair, cream with red and grey flowers, and then stood up again. I went into the kitchen: yellow painted cupboards, pale blue painted Welsh dresser, black and white floor, navy blue and red small tiles. I stood staring, then put the kettle on. It sounded unnaturally loud. It seemed to go on and on and on, bubbling away furiously before boiling. I could see the water through a window in the kettle splattering against it like rain. I made us both a cup of tea and returned to the living room and sat down. Sam came through and laughed at the expression on my face. ‘Don’t look so miserable, you’re on holiday! Shall we have a leaf through these leaflets and plan our days?’ ‘Let’s leave it until tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Let’s not make plans.’
That night I got into the side of the bed near the window. Sam was already in bed on the other side, book in hand. No matter which house we sleep in, we always choose the same side of the bed; Sam has the left and I have the right. ‘You were ages,’ Sam said, putting the book down, and curling into me, turning off the bedside lamp. I lay facing out. I lay for the longest time with my eyes open and at some point in the night I felt as if someone had entered the room and gently closed my eyes, tiny fingers, pushing down the lids, pulling the covers over me. I woke up, disorientated with a dull ache in my abdomen. The space next to me was empty. I looked at my phone. It was already ten o’clock. I didn’t feel as if I’d been asleep, I felt as if I’d tossed and turned the whole night long, throwing the covers off, putting them back on. At one point in the night, I’d sat bolt upright, drenched in sweat, and full of dread.
Sam had the boiled eggs on; the coffee that we’d brought ourselves, ground with our own grinder, was already bubbling away in our coffeepot. The smell of fresh ground beans was in the air. The half-cut grapefruits were on the table, glasses of orange juice and a jar of our favourite vintage marmalade. There was even warmed milk in the microwave and it was sitting in a jug, painted with cherries and green apples. ‘Once you’ve had your breakfast, you’ll feel better. There’s nothing like boiling an egg in a place to make it feel your own.’ Sam had set the timer on the BlackBerry to get the eggs done to perfection. Sam liked eggs very runny and I liked mine just as they were about to go hard. ‘It’s one thing we are all allowed to be fussy about, eggs,’ Sam was often saying. ‘That and how we like our tea; any other fussiness is just neurotic.’ The first time this made me laugh, but when it kept being repeated, I wondered what it was really about. Did Sam think I was over-fussy, neurotic?
I sat down at the table and tapped on the shell of my brown egg. I picked the pieces of shell off the top and then broke in. Sam had already been out and got a newspaper. ‘Want a bit of the paper?’ ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘You should take an interest in what’s going on in the world, bloody hell; what a
mess they’ve made of Manchester!’
‘I’ve told you,’ I said. ‘I can’t read any more. The words just swim in front of me.’
‘You should go and get your eyes checked out, then,’ Sam said. ‘Often prescriptions change in middle age.’ Sam’s glasses were tilted on the end of her nose. ‘Your glasses aren’t right for your eyes,’ I said. ‘Or you wouldn’t be peering over them!’
‘At least I can still read,’ Sam said and returned to dipping her slice of toast into her queasily runny egg. ‘I don’t know how you can eat your egg that runny,’ I said. ‘Leave me and my egg alone,’ she said, and shook the newspaper out to find the article she had just been reading. ‘Clegg is a pain in the arse; he’s duped the lot of us.’ Sam sat reading the paper, eating her egg, slurping her coffee. Her thick black hair was a little tousled. She seemed quite content. She looked as if there was nothing the matter at all. I managed to finish my egg and spread some marmalade on a slice of toast and stare into space for quite some time before Sam said, ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’
She took my arm firmly and we went out through the pale blue wooden door at the bottom of the garden. We crossed the narrow country road and climbed a wall that had two wooden steps jutting out of it. Then we walked the path that we could see from the bedroom window. At one point we got to a place that we couldn’t see from the window, beyond the curve of the path, and I felt like we were suddenly free. ‘It’s as if that house has eyes,’ I said to Sam, ‘and now that we are out of its sight-line, I feel suddenly better! Let’s stay away. Let’s not go back there.’ ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ Sam said. ‘You get more and more bonkers every day. I didn’t have all this with the menopause you know. I never even noticed it.’
‘Well, you were one of the lucky ones,’ I said. ‘You got away with it. I feel as if I’ve been stolen and some other woman has been put in my place. I just feel so anxious all the time, like I’m on the edge of something.’ ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said as I smiled grimly. ‘Well, try and enjoy yourself, why don’t you?’ Sam said, irritated. ‘I mean I’ve taken all this time off. I’ve booked us a holiday house . . .’
‘It’s not work that you’re missing,’ I said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Sam said.
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ I said.
‘Oh, here we go! I give up. If you want to see things that are not there, that is your choice,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll give you top marks for imagination.’
She walked ahead on the path, big angry strides. I just stood on the spot staring after her, until she came back for me. I looped my arm through her arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, close to tears. ‘You seem so distant, half the time. I just keep thinking there is someone, even though of course I know there isn’t.’
‘You like saying it though, don’t you? You like bringing it up. It’s not funny any more, that one.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘So – what you’re saying is there isn’t anyone else?’ I was half-joking, but Sam took me seriously.
‘No, there isn’t anyone else,’ she said, and patted my arm. She stopped on the path and turned round and hugged me and kissed my lips, softly. ‘I just wish I’d had a baby,’ I blurted out. Sam pulled back. ‘What?’ Sam said. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘I can’t stop thinking what my life would have been like if I’d had my daughter. Do you remember what I wanted to call her?’ Sam shook her head, sadly. ‘Don’t go down this path,’ she said, ‘are you deliberately trying to ruin our holiday?’
I wanted her to listen, that’s all I wanted. ‘Here I am going through this mid-life Hell, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. You knew I wanted a baby.’
‘Dionne! What’s going on? Why are you bringing all that up? That was years ago,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s go back to the house! I knew we shouldn’t have chosen that room! Even for me, there’s something creepy about an empty cot!’
‘What do you mean, even for me, like you’re the reasonable one?’
‘I mean, I’m not the one who wanted a baby. Don’t read something into everything! We’re on holiday! We’re supposed to be relaxing.’ Sam took my arm again along the last of the path. We came to the bit where we had to climb over the wall. Sam went first, and then turned around to help me. I lifted my leg over and climbed down the wooden step.
‘You were the one who chose the house!’ I said to her and the thought startled me. ‘You were the one who looked at the rooms on the Internet. You knew what was in each room.’
Sam gave me a look that was half fear and half something I couldn’t name. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’
We walked back to the house. I’d taken my arm back. The sun was actually out and the sky was really blue with low-lying white clouds, sweet and innocent like a child’s drawing. ‘What kind of mother do you think you would have been?’ Sam said and her voice was low, and she said the words very slowly with a space between each word: ‘What kind of mother do you think you would have been?’ I said nothing. I walked behind her dragging my feet and she kept turning to stare. She looked unhappy; the optimism of the morning had already been knocked out of her. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Why do you have to make everything miserable, even a walk in the sunshine?’ When we got back to the cottage, Sam unlocked the door, got in a fluster about which key unlocked which bit of the door, finally got us in, and went to the bathroom and slammed the bathroom door shut. I think she cried in there, but when she’s like that it’s best to leave her alone.
I go and lie down in the bedroom. The more I look at the cot in the room, the more it disturbs me. I start to try and move it across the floor, to see if it will move out of the room altogether and into the other room. But it won’t move. It’s too solid. ‘What are you doing?’ Sam says, coming into the room, red-eyed. ‘I was just trying to see if this would move!’ ‘Why?’ she says. ‘You were the one that picked this room. Do you want to move rooms?’ she says. ‘We’ll change rooms if that will help?’ Her voice sounds gentle now; she is trying to make things better. Maybe she regrets her question; I don’t know. ‘No, that would just be silly,’ I say. ‘I’ll be fine when I feel rested. I’m just not sleeping; it doesn’t matter where I sleep with all these hot flushes in the night. I throw the covers off and then throw them back on.’ ‘Tell me about it,’ Sam says laughing. ‘I might have to go and sleep in the other room tonight. You were so restless last night; I hardly got any sleep either. I think we’re both a bit tetchy today. Shall we start again, darling?’ Sam hugs me in a half-hearted sort of a way, as if she must make the best of things.
All day it has felt like I’ve been waiting for the night, even though the night and the thought of the night frighten me, I’ve waited for it just the same. When Sam said she would sleep in the other room, I felt a little hurt, then liberated. It is when I am just about to have that sensation of somebody coming and shutting my eyelids with their tiny fingers that I hear it, the sound of the cot rocking back and forth, back and forth. It’s a creaking sound. I don’t dare move because I want it to go on. I want to hear it. Then, ever so softly and quite far away, I hear a baby’s gurgle and the sound of chimes, wind chimes. And a strange little laugh, a merry little baby’s laugh, a frothy high chuckle, delighted and surprised. I get up and walk to the cot. There’s nothing there. There is nothing there, nothing there at all. I creep back to my bed and listen carefully as if my life depended on every single sound. Upstairs, I can hear Sam pad around. It is late for her to be up. I look at my phone, which suddenly lights up. It is two in the morning. A bit later, I don’t know the time, I’m sure I hear the front door open.
When I wake in the morning the cot is empty and the blue and pink blankets are folded neatly in a square. I’m grateful for the daylight because for a minute I assume that with it comes normalcy, sanity. I’ve upset myself thinking of the baby girl I longed for those years ago. I even had a name for her, Lottie, a
nd a middle name, Daphne. Lottie Daphne Drake. I could picture her. I still can picture her: a head of floppy dark-brown curls, dark eyes, soft skin, tiny little feet; tiny hands. A sunny disposition, Lottie had, always gurgling and giggling, curious about everything. And she would have been very quick to learn to say Mama. I thought about her so deeply that I conceived her in my mind. It was a mistake for me to ever name her. I imagined my mornings and nights, my days and evenings, my life; I imagined my life lit up by her life, my daughter’s. I imagined how she, little Lottie, would have changed my life. I pictured her so vividly I almost feel that what I went through was like a miscarriage; something I can never get Sam to understand.
‘Morning,’ I say to Sam, and she looks at me a little warily. ‘Sleep well?’ ‘The minute my head hit the pillow,’ Sam says. ‘Out like a light.’ I wonder if this is really the truth, but I don’t ask her. I don’t dare say, ‘Is that really the truth?’
‘I’d quite like to catch up with my old school friend I was telling you about. She’s not far from here.’ I say.
‘I don’t think you’re up to seeing friends,’ Sam says. ‘You’re acting weird with me, what do you think you’ll be like with people you hardly see?’ ‘I’m making an effort,’ I say. ‘You told me I should make an effort.’ ‘Not that kind of effort!’ Sam says and laughs to herself, incredulously, a little snort of a laugh.
That day, Sam took me for a drive in the country and I stared out the window. It might yet be all right between us; I might just be going through this change which friends have told me has made them depressed or anxious, paranoid even. ‘If only I’d had a baby,’ I said to Sam in the car, ‘then it would feel worthwhile. I wouldn’t mind the hot flushes or the depression if I had a daughter now, a twenty year old daughter or a twenty year old son. Was it that you were jealous of Paul? Is that what it was?’ Sam ignored me as if I hadn’t spoken and we drove through the beautiful Somerset countryside in silence.