All the Good Things

by Clare Fisher

  It was Chantelle. Somehow, I got us out of bed and opened the door.

  As she walked in, she put her hand over her nose and made a face like she was going to puke and said, ‘Oh my God, why haven’t you answered my texts? Can’t believe you didn’t even put no pictures on Facebook. And why haven’t you chucked out any of her nappies?’

  ‘I lost my phone.’

  ‘I don’t know what that’s got to do with putting the bins out. Jesus Christ.’ Chantelle stomped around my flat, sweeping up the nappies and bottles and towels and bibs that even the bailiffs hadn’t bothered to pinch.

  ‘Stop,’ I mumbled.

  Her I’m-here-ness was poking holes in the cloud and if those holes got any bigger, I’d be in trouble. Big trouble. Because the feelings the cloud was hiding me from, they were bigger than big – too big to deal with when you had no person to hold you or hug you or remind you you were still you.

  ‘STOP.’

  Chantelle turned. ‘How’d you make such a mess everywhere?’

  ‘Please, just go. You’re the one messing things up.’

  Chantelle shook her head. ‘Girl, you need help. Get in the shower, I’ll watch the little one. When you’re done, this place will be back to normal.’

  But it was too late for normal. The bailiffs would be back in two days and, even if I told her about them and about the cloud and about my mum and everything else, there was no way she could change that.

  ‘No. Please get out.’

  ‘Beth . . .’ Chantelle walked towards me. Each step widened the hole in the cloud; by the time she reached for my arm, I had no choice but to push her away as fast as possible, i.e. to bite her.

  Yes, I bit the arm of the only person who cared about us.

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘Fine. I was just trying to help, but whatever.’

  ‘I don’t need your help,’ I shouted. ‘My boyfriend will be round soon anyway.’

  Chantelle shook her head at me. ‘It’s your life.’

  And then she was gone.

  But the holes were still here, they were flooding with pain, and then

  Then

  You screamed.

  You screamed and you screamed and you wouldn’t stop

  And your screams made the walls and the floor and the ceiling and the mould on the ceiling scream.

  Your screams made the soap dish and the shower and

  your bibs and your nappies

  my pants and my socks and

  the windows the sky trees concrete

  people

  on the other side

  of the windows

  scream, too.

  And I don’t know why

  But your screams

  scraped

  the good

  right out of me.

  They scraped and they scraped and they wouldn’t

  ‘Stop,’ I begged. ‘You can scream later, but not now. Not now.’

  In reply, you screamed some more, and so did all the other things inside and outside of me.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  But your screaming said that it was. It was that bad. It was worse.

  ‘You don’t even know what it’s about,’ I told you.

  Your eyes said that you knew all right – even if you didn’t have the words or the thoughts, you knew in your bones and your blood how much it hurt. Your eyes said there was a reason for every thing in this world, all the big things and all the little ones, including your scream-scream-scrape: you’d clocked this world for what it was, and already, you’d had enough.

  ‘Just stop. STOP.’

  You didn’t listen because you couldn’t and so I picked you up and jiggled you because this had worked in the recent yet gone-forever past of yesterday and the day before and all the times you screamed before that, but you weren’t falling for it this time. And so

  So

  I jiggled you harder.

  ‘STOP.’

  You carried on.

  ‘STOP STOP STOP STOP.’

  And so I jiggled you some more

  and somehow

  the jiggling of you closed up the holes

  and so I kept on jiggling

  and jiggling

  jiggling jiggling

  because jiggling

  is what all the bad things

  the things that weren’t me and weren’t you

  were telling me to do.

  You did stop screaming and so I laid you back down in your crib and lay down on the carpet next to your crib and closed my eyes and fell into a hole that was way deeper and darker and further away than the one where you go to sleep. How long I was down there, I’ve no idea; all I know is that when I woke up, you were still not crying. Maybe I was a good mum after all; maybe you’d decided the world was all right.

  But then I picked you up and when my skin touched yours, it was cold.

  Too cold.

  I picked you up and jiggled you and kissed you and told you it was not your fault, not one hole was your fault and neither was the cloud, and soon I’d get better, I’d get help, it was, after all, days and maybe even weeks since I’d had a proper sleep, this was a strange time, a hard time, our life wouldn’t be this way for ever, it was worth hanging on for, it was it was it is it is

  But you wouldn’t listen

  Because you couldn’t

  Not even with your bones

  Because crying wasn’t the only thing you’d stopped doing;

  You’d also stopped breathing.

  And peeing and pooing and blowing spit bubbles and gurgling and sucking and dribbling and wriggling and sleeping and waking up and blinking and wrinkling your already wrinkly nose and fingers and toes and stretching out your arms and kicking your legs and –

  And living. You’d stopped doing that too.

  The cloud had burst, and the pain was flooding into me, and I knew that if I didn’t run as fast and as far as I could, it would become me.

  I’ve been running from that pain ever since; even this book is a kind of running because all this time I’ve been kidding myself you’re out there living some other life when the truth is you’re not because the only life you lived was for eight weeks and six days and it was with me and it ended and the reason for that ending, whatever anyone says or thinks, is me.

  Yes, me.

  My hand is shaking as I write this.

  Pretty soon, my heart will be shaking, and my eyes and my toes and probably also the ground. But I’m not going to run because I can’t. Because this pain is all I have and I’m going to feel it until it’s 100% mine.

  21.

  I killed my baby. I’m a 100% TM certified bad thing.

  Clocks ticked, the nights filled with days, the days dulled into nights, and still these words blocked the smiles and the ‘swap your bread for my chips?’ and the winks and the ‘Beth, what do you think this chapter is about?’ and the sun and the birds and the kind little voice that told me it wasn’t all my fault, I’d done a bad thing but I wasn’t a bad person, I deserved to be here, I deserved to do the things that made me feel good.

  The bad voice worked out. It grew teeth and hair and bulging muscles: As if Erika’s really coming back. As if your mum will write back. You’re alone and that’s how you’re going to stay because that’s what you deserve. The only way to shut it up was to obey.

  ‘You not eating that?’

  ‘Got a bad stomach.’

  ‘Yeah, they never clean out the toilets properly.’

  At first, the Lee and Jeannie and the others fought over the beans and the peas and the pies I wouldn’t eat.

  Then they got worried: ‘You got to eat something, girl.’ ‘You’re already bare skinny.’ ‘I’m not hungry,’ I said.

  My belly didn’t even bother to grumble. Every mouthful sat in my belly, weighing me down, making me feel huge and heavy and 100% wrong. The emptier I got, the easier it was to float; float away from everything I w
as and wasn’t, everything I’d done, everything I’d lost; being empty was the good thing.

  One night the Lee pulled me aside in the corridor and grabbed my hand and said I needed to stop.

  ‘But I’m not doing anything. I’m not hurting anyone.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ she said. She shook her head and if there had been a window right there, she’d have stared out at it; instead, she just stared at the wall. ‘You’re hurting yourself.’

  ‘It’s what I deserve. For what I did. I –’

  ‘Kid, we know. We were hard on you to begin with, but hey, it was pretty obvious you’d already been through hell. You –’

  ‘I killed my own kid.’ There. I’d said it. I’d said it out loud.

  ‘There’s more to it than that and you know it. Listen.’ She shook her head again. ‘I’ve seen women. I’ve seen them come. Go. Get ghosted. Get out. Seen them top themselves, cut up, starve themselves. There was one woman used to bite herself so bad she got infected. But there’s no point to it. No point. If you don’t look after yourself, no one will. And you know how to, I know it.’ Then she pressed a Twix into my palm and left. I stared at the Twix. I knew I should eat it. I went into my cell and I did push-ups and sit-ups and stretches and lunges but it was too late; the part of me that knew the Lee was right, knew I should forgive myself, it was just out of reach.

  I don’t know how I kept running on the treadmill, but I did. At first, it was easy; the emptiness filled my legs with a strange, zingy energy. After the first week, it got hard. But I kept on. And on. And on. Until, one day, my heart began to judder. The room began to blur. My legs were wobbling, my head floating, and while somewhere, deep inside of me, a small voice whispered that maybe stopping would be a good idea, I kept going; I had to;

  Because for a second

  Or maybe

  Two

  All the things inside of me

  All the good and the bad

  All the outside-things

  They were calm

  Safe

  Still.

  ‘Beth.’

  There was a voice outside my head but it wasn’t yours; it was the screw’s. It got closer and louder but I couldn’t work out what it was saying because my eyes had stopped seeing but I didn’t mind because I was sure that any moment now, I’d be back with you.

  22. The promise of a blank page

  But I didn’t get to you: my heart messed up and so did my lungs and my head; I blacked out; my body crumpled and my head crashed against the treadmill.

  When I woke up in the hospital bed, my arms ached and my legs ached and my head ached and my heart ached and my back ached and my belly ached.

  ‘That’s quite a fall you had there,’ said the doctor. ‘You’re going to hurt for a while.’

  I nodded, even though I knew the aching wasn’t just because of the fall. The aching was my body’s way of telling me how much it missed you. How you were gone and I was here and nothing and no one could change that. It was time to let the rest of me miss you, too. I missed the way your toes curled tight when you sucked my nipple. Missed the soft skin at the back of your head and the way you frowned when you were about to shit. Missed the fluff on the top of your head and your ears and your earlobes and your soft, soft hands.

  ‘We have to run some tests on your heart. You’ve put it under a lot of strain with eating so little.’

  For the first time since I lost you, I cried.

  I cried and I cried.

  Everything ached. Everything missed you. Even the dirty white walls of the hospital ward seemed to miss you.

  I missed the life we were meant to live together. I missed watching your first steps, your second steps, your first words, second words, first questions, first insults, first opinions. I missed teaching you to brush your own teeth and tie your own shoelaces. I missed shouting at you for crawling on to my bed and pulling my eyelids apart to wake me up at 6 a.m. I missed wiping your nose until you got old enough to shout at me not to. I missed thinking up ways to entertain you at the bus stop. I missed you telling me crazy, funny weird things which 100% changed how I saw the world. I missed shouting at you to eat your greens and do your homework; I missed you stomping into your room and slamming the door and cranking your music up way too loud. I missed knocking on your door with a hot chocolate, you biting on your bottom lip to stop yourself admitting that you’d forgiven me, that in a few moments we’d be made up. I missed you telling me all about your day at school, your friends and your lessons and your teachers, and how lovely and irritating and stupid and clever they all were. I missed you growing bigger and taller and stronger than me; missed coming home from work to find you’d cooked me a meal, all on your own, for the first time; missed you sneaking in after midnight, your first proper boyfriend clasped to your hand. Missed you learning more, learning better about the world. Missed telling you the story of your name, missed you hating it, then accepting it, then loving it, then, finally, growing into it. Missed getting old while you marched off into the world, bright and new, young and strong, to make so much more of it than I ever could. Missed you ringing me in tears from your new, grown-up life: ‘Mum. Can I come round?’ And me: ‘Of course!’ Missed opening the door, my hand wrinkled, most of my life behind me, and knowing, because you’re my daughter and I’m your mum and there are things you don’t need words for, that a new life was sprouting inside you. ‘It’s fine. I’m here. You’ll be a great mum. You’ll be wonderful.’

  I missed you because, for the first time since losing you, this was a feeling I was allowed to feel. I missed you because I was beginning to wonder whether your death wasn’t 100% my fault.

  ‘I feel awful,’ said Erika. Her holiday was painted all over her face, in freckles and brown skin and a peeling patch of red raw skin at the very end of her nose. ‘I should’ve seen this coming. But. Well. I. I didn’t think. You were making such good progress . . .’ She leant her elbows on her knees and leant her head in her hands. I didn’t need to see her face to know how bad she felt. How harshly she’d be blaming herself.

  ‘Erika, it’s not your fault. I . . .’ My cheeks were twitching. So was my mouth. Then I clocked what was happening: a smile, that’s what. ‘I’m glad this happened, in a way.’

  She sat up. There was water in her eyes. ‘But you were already fragile. I put in requests for you to be monitored but I didn’t, I’ve never, I should’ve –’

  I scooted down the bed and laid my hand in hers. If a screw came in, I’d get in trouble. I didn’t care. I squeezed her hand. She looked up at me and squeezed back.

  ‘I needed to do it. I needed to push myself like that.’

  ‘No, Beth. No, that’s not right.’

  ‘I did. I needed to be sure.’

  She scratched the red patch on her nose. ‘Sure of what?’

  ‘That I wanted to be here. That there was a way I could be here. That I’d find it.’

  Slowly, slowly, she smiled. ‘But you should’ve –’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I thought you said no what ifs?’

  She threw her hands up in the air; they were soft and brown. The holiday had given her a break from the washing up; of this I was glad. I was glad that good things were happening to her as well as me. ‘You got me.’

  ‘It’s done now. And you know what, now I’m sure. I’m sure I want to be here.’

  ‘Really?’ She glanced at the pot of yoghurt which squatted, unopened, on my bedside table.

  ‘Those yoghurts are kind of disgusting.’

  ‘Actually . . . I bought you something. A present. From Canada.’

  She handed me a bright green packet. I popped it open. It was full of tiny chocolate balls.

  ‘Chocolate-covered beans,’ she said. ‘And I remembered you saying they were a thing you liked eating, so.’ Her cheeks were almost as red as her nose.

  ‘Thanks.’ I wasn’t hungry but I popped one in my mouth and I chewed. ‘That doesn’t taste anything like chocolate or beans but it�
��s good. Really good.’ My hand popped another in my mouth. And another and another.

  ‘They’re from this cute little deli right round the corner from my sister’s house. Spent a fortune there, buying all sorts of treats for the kids. When I saw these, I thought of you. I just had to get them.’

  Halfway through the packet, my belly began to rumble. ‘How come I only get hungry after I eat, not before?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why do you think it is?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I think you know.’

  I closed my eyes. I listened out for my aches; they were getting quieter all the time but I could still hear them. ‘I reckon, well, my body can’t be arsed with being hungry because it doesn’t believe it will ever get full. Like proper full. Good full. Happy. Satisfied.’

  She smiled. ‘So would it find that hope, if it didn’t eat?’

  I shook my head. She left soon after that but I’ve eaten and I’ve eaten since then. I’ve eaten right into the hunger and out of the other side. My heart is OK, they tell me, but I had a close one: I’ll need to make a ‘concerted effort’ to eat properly from now on. They’re going to send someone to sit with me at every meal until they can trust me to make this ‘concerted effort’. It’s a bit embarrassing, I’m not going to lie, but I don’t care; mostly what I care about is that I’ve got the energy to stand up straight and ask questions and answer questions and listen and look and touch and feel. Especially, to feel. I’m not scared to feel hunger or fullness or sadness or happiness or anger or any of the other feelings that whoosh through you at any moment, whether you want them to or not. I’m not even scared to feel proud of myself for doing well in here; I’m not scared to try.

  Do you know where I am now? I’m in my cell. I’m writing what I know will be my last note to you. Because you’re gone. And I’m here. And it’s time to look forward. I’ll leave a pen and paper on my pillow so that when I’m back in my cell this evening, I’ll remember to write to Chantelle.

  Any minute now, I’ll get unlocked; then I’ll walk over to the Visitors’ Centre. I’ll sit at a table and I’ll wait for the woman who is probably right now as I write getting her passport scanned or her armpits patted down to make 100% sure she’s safe to let in.