‘She’s in the back row,’ said Con. ‘In the funeral dress.’
I took a deep breath and looked again. To see her for the first time. It was what I had wanted for so long. A girl, smiling like the others, but with her mouth closed, a hesitancy to her expression. Perhaps she had not been ready for the camera. Her eyes looked determined, almost rageful. Her hair was dark. She looked very young in her black dress, and amidst this group, in their anachronistic markings of fashion, she looked almost timeless. Her face was made for the camera, and even in this amateur snap her unusual beauty was obvious. She was holding on to something round her neck, like a talisman to banish evil spirits.
‘That’s her,’ said Connie. ‘That’s Elise.’
The truth is, I didn’t recognize my mother. For some reason, I thought I would – but now I’d been presented with her, it felt shocking to put a face to the endless idea of her, to the name Elise, to the hope and the fear I had poured into her. All I could see was that she was so young. It struck me then, that soon after this photo, she would find herself pregnant with me. I wanted so desperately to know what she might have been thinking about that.
‘This was taken before you came along,’ said Connie, and it unsettled me to think she was so in tune with my thoughts. ‘At her birthday party.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Los Angeles,’ said Connie.
‘Los Angeles?’
‘She was twenty-three. May I?’ She put out her hand in request and I passed the photo over. She stared at it. ‘This was the night everything started to go wrong,’ she said.
‘Go wrong?’
She looked up at me. ‘Are you waiting for a happy ending?’
‘I don’t believe in happy endings, Con.’
Connie smiled. ‘Maybe we should.’ She sighed, handing me back the picture. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all week,’ she said. ‘The lengths you’ve gone to. And I’ve been thinking about her. I know you want answers, Rose. I’ve been trying to work out how best to give them to you. What to say, how to say it. And then I realized. I’ve actually been thinking about this for thirty-odd years.’
I clasped my fingers round my Birdworld mug. ‘So have I.’
‘It might have been easier not to call you,’ said Connie.
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘I don’t hide. I’m not that person. Neither are you.’
I wanted to ask her that if she didn’t hide, then what had she been doing these last thirty years? – but I knew that was unwise. As if she sensed the paradox in her statement, Connie turned her attention to me. ‘You’re strong, Rose. As strong as Laura was—’
‘Con, don’t—’
‘– so I’m going to tell you about your mother. Everything I know. Because you deserve to hear this story.’
1983
43
After the hospital sent her home, the true melting of time began. The apartment had no time. Elise felt that whatever time had been before birth, it was now swollen into a solar system beyond her reach, whilst she sat on a tiny mushroom in a giant forest, feeding tiny Rose. And changing her, changing her, changing her, day and night. If there was grace to be found in this repetition, Elise was rapidly too tired to appreciate it. The hours made no sense.
Matt went back to work a week later, because of money. Yoli came round after her shift, her eyes shining as she met the child for the first time.
‘So this is Rosa,’ she said. ‘Bienvenida, little one.’ She held the baby in her hands as if she was weighing her at a market. Rose stared blindly up at Yolanda, her tiny fingers moving slowly. ‘She’s light.’
‘She’s fine,’ said Elise.
Yolanda shrugged. ‘She loud?’
‘Not really.’
‘That might come.’
Elise resisted the urge to ask Yolanda where exactly she was assuming all this authority, given she’d never had a child herself. She didn’t want the exhaustion to get the better of her. Instead, she leaned against the faded couch and closed her eyes.
‘Go take a shower, Elise,’ said Yolanda. ‘Wash off that sweat. I’ll hold Rosa.’
Elise let the hot water run over her body, staring down at the empty pouch of her stomach. She came out from the bathroom to see Yolanda sitting framed by the afternoon light from the street coming in through the window, offering a reverential stroke of one finger upon the span of Rose’s cheek.
Yolanda and Elise watched the aquatic movements of the child’s arms with wonder, as if Rose still wanted to be floating in her mother’s waters. ‘She’s swimming,’ said Yolanda. ‘She’s going to be a good swimmer.’ Elise fell asleep with her head on Yoli’s shoulder, as the older woman sat up watching TV with Rose in her arms till Matt came home.
*
Two weeks passed in this strange and timeless way, punctuated only by feeding, changing, sleeping in snatches. Elise and the baby had still not left the apartment. When Matt or Yolanda suggested to Elise that she should take the baby out, Elise began to be plagued by visions of catastrophe. Rose, her pram hit by a car. Rose, snatched at a traffic light as Elise rummaged in her bag. But indoors, the visions began too. Rose, poisoned by a misplaced bottle of bleach instead of milk. Rose, left on the floor of the kitchen, a coffee pot flying off the counter to douse her in boiling liquid. Whether they were indoors or out, the act of keeping Rose alive forever began to feel too much to bear.
Elise was paralysed in her attempts to conceptualize a future where she could be a good and strong guardian. She couldn’t sleep, dreading the moment when Rose would start to wail for her. Exhausted and grimy from New York’s humid summer, she dragged herself to the cot and stared at the creature within it, lifting the tiny beating thing to her breast, her body pummelled by a force she’d not anticipated, her mind assaulted by an experience she was struggling to articulate.
She began to beg Yolanda to stay over, as if Yolanda’s presence would keep her from doing something to her baby. She couldn’t admit the thoughts inside her; the nightmares that had crept into the day – that she had this power over a helpless baby, and she did not deserve it. That she had a daughter who she could not care for. That she had love – from Matt, and from Yolanda – so much love, and she did not know how to receive it. She could not be relied upon. She could not do this, could not do this. Could not do this. She could not do this.
*
One morning, Elise heard murmurs between Yolanda and Matt coming from the living room. Urgent whispers, Matt’s voice pained, saying, I don’t know what to do, but I can’t leave my job. We need the money.
She’s not right, Yolanda said. This isn’t right.
Why are you even here? he said.
Because you’re not.
After he’d gone to work and whilst Rose slept, Yolanda practically forced Elise into the bathroom. She peeled off her dirty clothes, guiding her into the bath, pressing down her shoulders until Elise was on her knees, and she washed Elise’s sweaty body. Foaming Elise’s hair with hot water and shampoo, Yolanda rinsed it clean.
*
On coming in again one mid-morning to find Elise staring out of the window in just her bra and knickers as Rose screamed her head off, Yolanda burst out with frustration, ‘Is a child bringing up a child here, Elisa?’
Elise turned to her. ‘You tell me.’
‘You slept?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what the baby wants.’
‘She wants you,’ said Yolanda, softening.
‘She doesn’t like me,’ said Elise.
‘That’s crazy.’
‘She’s always quiet with you.’
This was true. Yolanda had a forceful yet tender handling of the child, and she talked to her constantly, walking her round the apartment while Elise tried to sleep. Sometimes, Elise would watch them and think Rose was more Yolanda’s baby. Yolanda was playing the part with more aplomb. But then again, Elise thought: it’s always easier to love someone from a distance.
*
It was staggering to Elise how much there was for Rose to do, to see, to hear and taste and smell for the first time. And to have to do it again and again and again. ‘She has no choice,’ Elise said to Matt as they stood by the cot looking down at their daughter. Rose had her knees bent, her tiny feet moving like slow and miniature maracas.
‘What do you mean?’ said Matt, looking wary. This wariness when he talked with Elise was new, but already becoming familiar to her.
‘I’ve brought her into this situation and she didn’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘Rose is going to have to live in this world.’
‘She’ll be all right.’
‘But there’s so far to go,’ said Elise. ‘And she’s only six weeks old.’
Matt tried to embrace her, but she stood there, rigid as a mannequin.
And after all you fight for, Elise went on thinking, after Matt had left – all you do to live a good life – you never remember yourself truly. You think you will know yourself when something big happens: a birth, a death. But you will never remember yourself truly.
There would be Rose’s first word. Her first understanding of how her body would be placed in water, that liquid full of bubbles which would distort her brand-new skin. She would find the sea, with pebbles pressing painfully into the soles of her feet. Her first thrill of ice cream. An illustration that might stalk her childhood dreams, to be experienced as oblique longing when she saw a certain colour as an adult. The peril of a dog bark, its bulk a wolf to her small size, its endless reams of fur so different to her own skin. Jewellery, jangling on women with many different faces. Her father’s stubble like a strange field he would let her pat, over and over, animal-rough, vanishing one day only to grow back as the days passed through. The warm perfume of a favoured teacher. All sensations and certainties that would happen for the first time, and then be gone.
Maybe that’s why people have children, she thought. So that they can remember what once happened to them. It’s a recipe for madness, but we just accept it, and go on accepting it, because there’s no other option. Well, there is. But I don’t want to think about that.
She walked away from the cot slowly. She felt as if she was drowning. She’d never felt like this – never known love or fear like this. Not when she’d seen Connie by the pool with Barbara. Not even when her mother died.
Sometimes, in her exhaustion, Elise thought she’d crossed over into a different kind of madness. Some days, she could barely move.
*
‘You have got to get dressed,’ said Yolanda. ‘Sunshine, Elisa. I am coming with you,’ she added, seeing the fear in the younger woman’s eyes.
So Elise did as she was told, taking Rose with her to Irving Square Park. Rose lay on her back in the pram, dwarfed by its size. They walked through the dappled shade created by the full-leaved trees. ‘Rosita is healthy. Rosa is all right,’ said Yolanda. ‘So what is wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Elise. ‘Let’s have a sorbet.’
Sorbet, sawbay, a beach cut in two, just like her mind, slowly fracturing. I could just leave the pram here, Elise thought, as they stood by the sorbet stall. This monumental, unearned power you were given as a parent, that no one talked about. It was almost beyond comprehension! I could just do that to her, and it’s horrendous that no law, no test, no procedure can prevent me. If I really wanted.
She gripped the handles and closed her eyes. Yolanda spoke down into the pram – ‘Look at the sunshine, Rosita. Can you see how bright it is?’
*
So the days went on. Elise managed to pull herself together in time for Matt to come home, so that he didn’t worry too much, but when Yoli was at the diner in the daytime, or when she was unable to be around – they were the hardest times. Rose wouldn’t take the breast, so Elise fed her with formula, and saw no one, for hours. ‘Why don’t we find a mother and baby group?’ Matt said one night as they sat together on the sofa. He looked very tired and his face was a frown of concern.
‘A what?’ she said.
‘You know. Where you can go and be with other new mothers.’
‘OK,’ said Elise.
*
They found her a group in Fort Greene, and she got on the bus and went with Rose in a sling. The women sat on the floor on mats, with their babies next to them, and they played with them, and they talked with each other. Elise felt a lot younger than many of them. They smiled at her. They looked normal. The organizer, a bright, warm woman called Francine, welcomed Elise and Rose. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘Would you like a juice? A coffee?’
‘Water, please,’ said Elise. She felt dry-mouthed, shipwrecked.
They started singing songs about farmyard animals. The women scooped up their babies and sang with them, happy to be cows and pigs and roosters and sheep. Elise marvelled at their ventriloquism, their ingenuity, their tired beams of love. The babies were mesmerized. Their small mouths were hung open, their new eyes gauging the big mouths of their mothers. Elise tried to sing too, but no good sound would come. She was out of tune. Croaking, weird. She glanced fearfully at Francine, who she noticed with alarm was already looking at her. Francine smiled encouragingly. Elise could feel a tidal sob inside herself, and wondered how much longer she could keep it in. She felt so useless, so wrong, so out of control. It had been so much easier when it was just her – surfing, walking, modelling, sitting very still with no one who needed her, no one to love. She bowed her head and felt a hand on her shoulder. Francine, speaking gently in her ear. ‘Come with me, Elise.’
*
She sat opposite Francine in a small office off the communal hall, Rose on her lap. ‘I’m scared,’ she heard herself saying. ‘I’m scared.’
‘What are you scared of?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Elise,’ said Francine. ‘I think you need to see a doctor. Get your husband to take you to a doctor.’
‘OK,’ said Elise.
*
No one told her that it was OK to feel like this. That it might pass. Instead, they were always trying to suggest places she should go. Soon after the failed attempt at the baby group in Fort Greene, Elise decided to go deep into Manhattan – to Times Square, because Rose hadn’t seen Times Square. She thought it would be good for her to see the inside of someone’s head turned out, pictures, flashing lights, people in their thousands; a little bit of madness to touch then flee. She could take her out of the pram and hold her up, show her what this corner of the world was like.
Elise turned the pram into the mass of people, and kept pushing through the crowds. Good! she thought. She’s OK with crowds.
And then she looked up and stopped moving. Above their heads, Barbara Lowden’s picture loomed enormously. Barbara’s head was nearly twenty times bigger than a normal head, her eyes like plates – beautiful dark, shining plates! – deep and brown and framed by perfect lashes. Her mouth – that mouth – a goddess mouth, slick with red gloss, gleaming; cheekbones lightly bronzed, that overall impression of self-knowledge and power. She didn’t look human at all. She was so big. Elise thought she was going to be sick.
Thousands of people streamed round them, but only Barbara, up there, felt real.
HEARTLANDS – starring Barbara Lowden and Don Gullick, the poster said. In theaters from September 3. Underneath, someone in the marketing department had come up with the line: A Heart Was Where Her Home Was, which Elise thought Connie would have loathed and laughed at in equal measure.
Don Gullick’s face was next to Barbara’s. They looked like members of a military organization, shoulder to shoulder, ready to weather the world. It was a sophisticated, challenging image, because even though they were love interests, Barbara and Don weren’t looking at each other, gooey-eyed. It was as it should be, because Wax Heart was not a book about married love. It was a bachelorette book, a feminist tract – you could even argue it was a subtextual lesbian paean – but perhaps that little detail had passed Hollywood by.
&nb
sp; Really, it should have been a poster of Barbara alone – but even Barbara Lowden in her beauty and power wouldn’t swing the box office by herself. Elise remembered Con saying it would never happen. She needed the man beside her.
Connie, Elise thought. Where are you?
She stood there for several minutes, staring at Barbara’s face, a grief welling inside her at how the world just never stopped moving on. She wanted to tell Connie she’d seen the poster. She wanted to tell Connie how alone she felt, how sad, how small, how scared. She wanted to tell her she’d called her baby Rose. How Rose was everything, but at the same time how everything had gone.
‘Hey lady, you a zombie?’ said a voice. Someone was tapping her to get out of the way. Elise jumped, pushed the wheels of the stroller and headed in the direction of the apartment.
44
The doctor was based in rooms six storeys up in a grand old building in Midtown, in an office preceded by an antechamber of dark panelling, heavy magazines and no natural light due to shutters which kept out the sun. The only decoration was a plain white clock. Once in the office, the walls too were white, everything was, and Elise wondered if the decision was deliberate. Here she was, a bug exposed, reluctant and defenceless against all comers.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ said the doctor, who might have been called Doctor Barrios, but Elise wasn’t sure, nor what she was a doctor of. Matt had hurriedly booked her in, the desperation writ across his face.
‘Have you read Green Rabbit?’ Elise countered.
The doctor inclined her head. She glanced at the door, behind which lay the dark and panelled antechamber, and Matt, and little Rose.
‘Read what, Elise?’
‘Green Rabbit.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You should,’ said Elise. She wondered if the doctor could see the grease on her scalp. She was not interested in giving answers. She didn’t have them. She had Green Rabbit in her handbag. She was re-reading it, every day. Matt had seen her reading it and was furious. He thought it was a bad idea for her to read Connie’s words. It’s about me, she said to him. It’s about Connie losing me.
The Confession Page 30