by A. J. Elwood
After the baby is born, I needn’t see Mrs Favell again. I’ll never be her keyworker now; I don’t need to know anything more about her or even come back here. She won’t be able to put odd thoughts into my head and by then I’ll have forgotten it all. I’ll be far too busy with other things: changing nappies, feeding, wiping milk-spit from my clothes and raising mushy food on a spoon and other things I don’t even know of yet.
And I will love my baby.
I think of times gone by, all the suggestions I read about for safeguarding an infant. Maybe I’ll put an old iron horseshoe over the door to protect us from evil, telling Paul it’s decorative. Maybe I’ll open a pair of iron scissors into a cross and place it beneath the crib or keep a Bible wrapped in my daughter’s baby blanket. It strikes me that such precautions aren’t so very different from those used by people who feared devils and demons and possession; that the methods for casting a fairy out are a little like exorcisms in the kind of films Paul likes to watch.
But of course I won’t do anything of the kind. I remind myself that those things are nothing but stories, not evidence, and shake away the strange tide of thoughts. I’m hormonal, not quite myself. I should listen to Paul, not Mrs Favell. He’s the one full of stories now, of what it will be like. He got up first this morning to make breakfast, guiding me into a chair as if I’d become some delicate, brittle thing. His eyes were clear and bright and full of the future and I suspect he’d been awake for hours, waiting for me to stir so that he could lavish attention on me. His smile was different too, not a fleeting thing signifying nothing, but broad and full of the joy inside him. I could see the crow’s feet forming around his eyes, and I wanted to kiss them. They’re a sign that he smiles more readily than he frowns. The world rests lightly on his shoulders. Things don’t implant themselves on him.
I am brought back to the present when a cry of unhappiness sounds from somewhere along the empty corridor. It’s an odd sound, more raw than I’m used to hearing, and I can’t tell if it was a man or a woman. I rush along it and almost collide with Nisha as she emerges from one of the rooms.
It’s Edie Dawson’s. Nisha doesn’t say a word, just stands back against the wall to let me pass. What I see is almost exactly what I expect and sadness swells like something solid within my chest.
Edie sits in her high-seat armchair, her head bowed to reveal the scalp through her cloud of white hair. She wasn’t knitting, or trying to. She has a book in her lap, though her head hangs so low she can’t possibly be looking at it. The pages have slipped from her grasp, her place lost, and it strikes me as terribly sad to go in the middle of a book like that, to never know the end of the story. But I suppose there were worse things than that, for Edie. She will not now see her daughter again. She will not hold her grandchild. And Edie had known her hands would remain empty, no matter how she tried to occupy them.
Why linger, like this?
Perhaps she had accepted those words at last, and here was the result. I have a rush of feeling – not hatred of Mrs Favell, though that is there too – more a momentary longing for my own child, mingled with a pang of loss for my mother.
Mandy pushes past me into the room, closely followed by Nisha, who must have gone to fetch her while I stood staring. They make the expected noises and go through the expected motions, none of it any use now. Edie sits there, her small room crowded with visitors at last, and yet more alone than anyone could ever be. She is beyond any of us and I try to reach out to her with my feelings, but I know she’s already gone.
The words that echo in my mind are the ones Mrs Favell gave to me:
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I touch my cheek. I suppose this is all it comes to in the end. Summer gives way to winter; sedge withers from the lake. Even birdsong has its end. Only hollow rooms remain, people going through the motions, the rituals of death, because that’s all there is to do.
Mandy leaves the body – that’s all it is now, a body – and goes to the window. She throws it wide, pushing the curtains back. When she sees me watching she looks away as if she’s been caught doing something embarrassing and tells me to go downstairs and check on things in the residents’ lounge.
I turn to leave, but Nisha catches up with me in the corridor. I’ve never seen her so rattled, but everyone loved Edie. I try to imagine Sunnyside without her in it and can’t. It already feels odd, the atmosphere subtly changed somehow.
‘It’s to let the soul out,’ she says. ‘That’s why they open the window.’
I stare after her as she hurries away. How long is it since anyone believed in such things? And yet the image is so vivid: Edie freed of her arthritic hands and bent spine, spreading her arms like a child playing aeroplanes and whooshing out of the open window, into the clean air and scent of flowers, leaving behind a trail of silver laughter that only she can hear. Maybe she’ll go and live with the fairies, wherever they are. Maybe there really is some spiritual realm where they can exist, along with the dead. A sense of longing closes in on me and for a moment I can’t breathe. When I close my eyes, it’s my mother’s face I see.
I hurry down the stairs, though as I go it strikes me that I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell the other residents what happened or if I should leave that to Patricia. I feel like I’ll be lying if I don’t, but I’m not sure I ought to, so I imagine Edie somewhere free and happy, only those left behind with tears in our eyes any longer, and I paste a smile over my features.
When I walk in, Mrs Favell is standing in the middle of the lounge and I don’t know how she knows or why it should fall to her, but I can tell by her expression that she’s told them all already. Everyone turns towards me, a roomful of downcast faces, and my expression falters under their gaze; all of them knowing, and wondering how it is that only I can smile.
19
That evening I go upstairs alone, stooping to run my fingers over my mother’s books, and I enter our room and sit down on the bed. The atmosphere of Sunnyside clings to me like grease on my skin: unhappy, drab, dismal with the knowledge of the thing that waits for us all. I wish we could simply reach out and touch the other side, as Arthur Conan Doyle had tried to do. I wish I could speak to my mum. I want to tell her that I’m afraid. There are no big bad wolves, I know that now; there’s nothing hiding in the dark. It’s all here and it’s real and I’m not ready for it. But I have to be.
People die. They leave and they fail each other. They just aren’t good enough. Stories don’t turn out how anyone would have wanted.
I haven’t mentioned Edie’s death to Paul. He’s circling job ads in the local papers, thinking of the future – our future. He’s already polished up his CV. I doubt that even the depressed job market could stand in the way of his enthusiasm and I know it should make me feel better but I can sense him moving away from me. I had once thought that, with my influence, he would change; and now he has, though none of it is how I expected.
I’m letting things get to me. Feeling sorry for myself. Failing. I can’t allow that. I’m the one who believes, aren’t I? I’m the one who will move beyond this place. We both will. I should be glad that Paul’s so focused. I breathe in deep, closing my eyes, picturing not a mansion or a castle but a simple, smart house in a nice, smart town. My life will still be an adventure. It’s simply going to be a different one.
And there will be love. Isn’t that all anyone should want? Look at Edie. All she had wished for was her family.
I reach into my bedside table drawer and take out the photograph of the scan. I don’t look at it yet. I simply hold it, gently and by its edges, as if with reverence. I wonder if the little shape at its centre will visit me when I’m old. Maybe I’ll learn how to knit and I’ll make bootees and cluck over other people’s babies. Would that be so bad? Many people would call that peace. They’d call it a happy ending. Family should be what remains after everything else has passed away, any number of jobs and experiences and adventures.
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I lie back onto the pillow, raise the photograph before my face. And for a moment I can’t breathe.
The dark ocean of my womb, revealed in speckled pixels like stars, is still there. It’s definitely my picture. It couldn’t have been replaced with anyone else’s – why would it? But I know it’s changed. The knowledge comes upon me all at once and gradually, seeping into my bones. Cold puts its hands inside me, as if the doctors are doing their scan after all, the embarrassing one, the uncomfortable one.
The thing curled up at the centre of the image is still there but it’s different: flat and lifeless and unmoving. I try to tell myself it always was. How can a picture move, after all? But it’s as if the letters were a warning, Lawrence Fenton’s talk of living lights that faded, arms and legs reduced to nothing but clumsy lines. That’s all that remains in front of me and I feel the emotion that binds me to it evaporate. It’s nothing but ink. It’s a clumsy rendering of something that might have been and nothing more.
The baby curls in upon itself like an insect or a bird. It is tiny and raw with fragile bones, like something desiccated. The head is too large with only the merest indication of an eye, and there is something old in its expression. It can’t be a part of me. It can’t be my baby.
I think of the Harriet in the letters, a little girl seeking out the fairies. I think of the other Harriet putting her hand to my belly, reaching for what lay inside. Words come to me: The milk is free, and all shall see! Except I don’t, I don’t see at all, and nor would anyone else. They’d think I was mad if I told them. I imagine taking greenish-smelling milk to Charlotte Favell and pouring it out in front of her at Sunnyside, soaking the carpet, the look on her face not one of disgust but amusement. But that’s easy for her. She knows she’s won already, doesn’t she?
Tell me. Do you want it?
I clutch my hands to my belly, willing whatever was inside me to be all right, to come back to me. I won’t complain again. I won’t mourn the things I’m leaving behind. I’ll never say I don’t want it, not for anyone or anything.
I feel hands on my own, holding them tight. It takes me a moment to realise the voice that’s murmuring is mine: I’m sorry, I’m saying, as if that will help. I open my eyes and Paul is there. He’s looking down on me, his face crumpled with concern. His lips are moving, and I hear, ‘Why are you sorry?’
I shake my head and tears well at my eyes. How to explain? I only say, ‘I don’t know,’ because there isn’t anything else.
He holds me and I lean into him. I feel his strength. He’s better than me, I know. He’s a good person.
And he starts to tell me a story. He speaks in soothing tones of how wonderful it will be when the baby comes. He says we’ll be a family, mum and dad and little one, and we’ll love each other for ever and ever. We’ll play football in the park and eat ice cream and laugh.
I no longer know which story is the fairy tale.
He holds my hands as he talks and kisses the ends of my fingers. I pull free, looking down at the scan, which has fallen to the floor. It’s blurred now; everything is.
‘Hey,’ he says, stooping to retrieve it. ‘That’s our baby, you see? Right there. My little boy or little girl.’
I can’t focus on the dead pixels. I can’t think. I only say, ‘How do you know that, Paul?’
It’s his silence that tells me something is wrong. His body is still pressed against me and he doesn’t pull away, but tension spreads through him, from his torso, along his arms. Finally he moves away from me and the cold creeps into the space between us.
When I raise my head, he is looking at me with a blank expression. Even his eyes are empty, but something is forming there: a new knowledge, an awareness that wasn’t there before, a new kind of hurt. It takes me a moment to realise what I’ve done, to recognise this thing I’ve created.
No trace of a smile touches his lips. No crow’s feet crease the corners of his eyes. His forehead appears lined and I see the way his face could be sculpted in a new way, by new emotions.
I feel as if I’ve become transparent again, a woman made of glass, that he’s examining me anew and doesn’t much like what he sees. I hear my words again, this time the way he must have heard them. He doesn’t know about Mrs Favell, the letters, the way I renounced our child, Harriet pressing greedy hands to my belly. He hasn’t noticed how the scan has changed. I reach for it, suddenly desperate to show him, to make him see, but he jerks away from me as if I’m poison and it slips from his fingers.
He walks out of the room. He doesn’t slam the door. I hear footsteps on the stairs and then there’s nothing.
Is this what he thinks of me – that I’ve slept around? That the baby I’m carrying is someone else’s, in the oldest and simplest and most faithless of ways?
He was with me through everything, through the death of my mother. And I stayed here to be with him, giving up everything I wanted to be, that she wanted me to be: all of the dreams, all of the stories.
The scan lies discarded on the floor. I try not to look at it directly. It is as Lawrence Fenton said – how can I prove the photograph has changed? The camera never lies, they say, and yet cameras lie all the time. The Cottingley photographs showed that, if nothing else.
I scoop it up, turn it upside down – gone – and open the bedside drawer, moving aside old lipsticks and boxes of hair clips and other stuff I never use, and shove it in deep. When I push the detritus back over the top I hear the metallic crackle of something I had used, at least until recently. Without looking, I pull the object free: a foil strip of contraceptive pills. I had taken one every day, I was sure of it, but they still hadn’t worked. The thought comes to me, spiteful and no doubt unworthy, that Paul could have stolen one away, fooling me into thinking I hadn’t missed any, so that he could get what he wanted. Maybe he replaced one with something that only looked the same.
In that moment I hear the scraping of the door against carpet as it opens once more. I don’t turn but I hear Paul’s voice. Is it Paul? He sounds different. Everything is different.
‘I don’t understand this,’ he says. His step comes closer and the light changes as a shadow falls across my eyes. He bends and lifts the pills from my hands.
His tone, when he speaks again, is lower. ‘What are you doing? Have you taken one of these?’
I find my voice. ‘Of course not.’
The bed shifts under me as he sits down, making me lean into him. He’s strong and warm, just as I know him to be, and I wish he’d put his arm around me and make everything the way it was before.
My fears melt and reality returns. My ideas have been ridiculous, my selfishness monstrous. The things I desired didn’t mean anything. What were they, really – a new home, a new life? A house in a forest? I don’t even know where such a happily-ever-after might be found. They’re fading in my mind, those things, becoming smaller as they recede.
Paul says, ‘Are you seeing someone else?’
I twitch.
‘I never would have thought that of you – I mean, I don’t think it. But why would you say…’ His voice tails off.
I shudder. ‘It’s no one else’s.’ I can’t quite bring myself to say, It’s yours. I can’t even say it’s mine. I wonder suddenly if I’m ill. My mind must have slipped, giving way under whatever pressure I’m putting on myself. Who could think the baby growing inside them isn’t their own?
‘Are you leaving, Rosie?’ Paul leaves his hand where it is, close to mine. Only his little finger moves as he strokes the side of my wrist. ‘Is that it?’
I shake my head, barely.
I think that’s all, but he draws in a breath, preparing to speak. ‘I can’t live like this.’
It’s my turn to freeze.
‘I can’t be afraid of you. Not – of you. I mean I can’t be afraid that one day you’ll up and leave. We’re having a baby, Rose. I know that’s not what you wanted. But we’ll be together, and I’ll help you. I’ll do anything for the both of you, you
know that, don’t you? But if you’re even thinking of going – I need to know. I have to be with someone who wants this too. I need someone who’ll love me – us – and stay with us, someone I can rely on. Rose, if you want to go, I’ll try and live with that. But if you do, if that’s what you really want, we can’t ever go back to how things are now. It’ll be over for good. I can’t live my life wondering all the time if you’re really with me.’
The words sink in deep. I get that feeling again that he can make out every thought going through my head and I don’t like to imagine what he sees. I want to cry, but I know he’s right; he’s right and I’m wrong and always have been. I agreed to this. I moved into his house. I got pregnant. It’s been my choice all along, not consciously perhaps, but that doesn’t make any of this his fault.
Almost imperceptibly, I nod. He deserves more but I can’t give it, not yet.
He says one more thing before he puts his arm around me, touching my cheek, inclining his head towards mine. ‘Rose, I love you, yeah?’
And I lean into him, and I know that he does.
1
I wake and the baby is there. I blink against the fluorescent lights and feel the flailing limbs on my chest, the globe of a head. I don’t at first recognise it; it’s heavy – surely too heavy – with wisps of almost transparent hair, not as easy to make out as the web of blue veins running beneath the skin. Here and there it’s streaked with blood, smeared with something white. My mind is full of fog. I don’t know where I am and I breathe in and detect antiseptic, and something else: an animal smell, like something left under a hedgerow. I tell myself it’s only blood and it comes back: the rush to the hospital, Paul clutching my bag and calling out soothing words and laughing, the sheer excitement of it bubbling up and out of him.