by Jane Shemilt
Nigel Arkwright, a forty-year-old insurance broker, pushed his insurer’s medical report across the desk at me. ‘They’re on about how I’ve got blood pressure.’ He grinned.
As I wrapped the cuff round his curdy white upper arm, his thick fingers tapped the table; they looked like shiny pink sausages, the cheap kind with thin skin that split open with one touch of the knife. His blood pressure was high but not dangerously so. He took the lifestyle booklet and blood test forms, then left to make a follow-up appointment, muttering to himself.
The air in my little room seemed used up. I was grateful when Jo, our receptionist, brought me a cup of tea between patients. She wore her fair hair piled high on her head, but by this time of day little strands were straggling loose. She set the white china cup gently down in a space on the desk between notes. As I took the first sips I looked at the framed photographs on the wall. I hadn’t changed any of them for a long time. There was one of Naomi at five, smiling so broadly her eyes had disappeared, tightly holding Bertie, then a new puppy. The boys were leaning in, half hidden, grinning down at her. There was another from a party the previous New Year’s Eve. Ted’s arm was round us all; he must have said something funny because we were all laughing except Naomi; she was staring at the camera so intently she seemed to scowl. I pulled my attention back and called the next patient in.
The dark afternoon eased into evening. Patient followed patient in a steady rhythm and for a while I felt I was winning. Then Jo put her head round the door, her eyes wide with worry: little Tom had just been brought in with an asthma attack. His mother, a pretty teenager with dreadlocks, was silent with fear. Tom was sweating, his skin tugged in between his ribs, the wheeze ominously quiet. I switched into automatic mode and soon he was breathing in Ventolin bubbled with oxygen through a paediatric mask, too tired to resist. His head began to loll and he slept deeply. The ambulance arrived soon afterwards to take them both to hospital so he could be stabilized overnight.
The room was quiet after they had left. My stethoscope lay on top of tattered envelopes with notes spilling out. Blood forms were jumbled together and a wooden tongue depressor was on the floor. The beige surface of the tea was ringed with a milky white circle. I did all the end-of-surgery things, tidied notes and recorded letters on the dictaphone to the paediatrician and social workers.
No visits. Jo left for home, her goodbyes echoing in the empty waiting room. I made a list of things to do in the morning and stuck it on the black face of the computer.
The street was empty. Orange lights shimmered in the oily puddles. The pine furniture shop was shuttered and faint noises and shouting laughter came from the pub. My old Peugeot was alone in the car park; with my back to the dark space behind me, I fumbled for the keys, fear briefly prickling in my mouth. Once inside, my other life was instantly present in the smell of dog, mud and wetsuits; it reminded me of the fullness of our lives. What we had was hard won, but most of the time I knew we were lucky. There was a tattered sheet of maths homework on the floor and a pair of trainers stuffed under the front seat. I found a jelly sweet in a crumpled cellophane bag jammed into the side pocket. It tasted sugary and sharp. I turned on the ignition and eased the car forward.
4
DORSET 2010
ONE YEAR LATER
In the fields near the cottage the dense scent of earth, sharply cut with grass, brings the memory of children playing late in a darkening garden, or is it the smell of funerals? Naomi’s face floats in the grey space in front of me, her cheeks shadowy as if in a box. Quick, think of the sea, whose sound is following us. But the distant suck and splash becomes a heartbeat. At six weeks she was all heart. I’d sneaked an early scan but the translucent throbbing muscle on the screen had made me tense even then. How could it not get exhausted? Later, checking some childhood cough, my ear pressed against her perfect skin, I had heard that fast bird-beat. Was it conceivable that she realized at the end, if there had been an end, that her heart was slowing? Is there enough blood in a dying brain to register that the heart has stopped? My feet catch against the jutting root of a tree and my head hits hard against the roughened trunk. I’d forgotten the shock of physical pain. Chilli in the elephant’s eye.
I used to keep a supply of bandages in the airing cupboard. The dusty shelves are full of old blankets, but at the back my fingers close over the little cloth bag. Once she fell off the garden wall, tearing her scalp. When I brushed her silky hair at five I could see the tiny scar on her scalp.
Was she hit on the head? Scalp wounds can be fatal so quickly. I thought I was done with this torture, but this is a bad day when thoughts slide along memories, sharpening them like knives.
I quickly clean the cut, pat it dry and pull the edges together with Steri-Strips. As I finish, Bertie noses into my leg, whining softly. I’ve forgotten to feed him and the steadying little ritual of opening the tin, spooning dog food into his bowl, mixing in biscuits, restores the evening’s normality. It was the same back then.
BRISTOL 2009
SEVENTEEN DAYS BEFORE
The pile of ironing on the stove was warm under my hand, and the fat orange heads of a bunch of chrysanthemums glowed against the black outside the windows. A peppery smell of meat scented the kitchen from the casserole I had left to cook slowly all day. Bertie pushed his head against my leg and the day began to lose its grip. I fed him and took him out. As he scuffed in the blown leaves and drank from puddles, lights glowed from the windows of the houses we passed; I caught the gleaming edge of a bookcase in one, in another a table set with shining glasses. It was hard to imagine that these perfect houses had cupboards somewhere like the one we had at home, stuffed with bits of alarm clocks, old keys, computer leads and mugs with broken handles. As I passed the last house, someone inside closed the tall wooden shutters.
The Downs at the end of our road led to a grassy stretch above the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The steel girders had vanished in the dark and the fragile light-beaded strands looked as if they were floating. A memory glittered like the river far below: the bright sea in Corfu had shone with a million broken points of sun last summer. Swimming, I had glimpsed darkness beneath me shelving down into depths, and terror had crawled at the edges of my scalp. If I forgot how to make the automatic movements that kept me afloat I would sink, drifting unseen and helpless into darkness, hands grasping on emptiness. I had turned on my back and swum to the rocks; sitting on the rough grey surface surrounded by the rasp of cicadas and the scent of thyme, the heat had seared away the fear. Pulling Bertie after me, I began to hurry home, my feet echoing on the pavement; it wasn’t possible to forget automatic movements, that was the point. Your body remembered.
The twins were playing their guitars, sprawled on the window seat. Ed nodded briefly, his shoulders hunched, his long fingers flicking over the strings. He had grown this year, thinning out so the bones of his face were angular under the skin, his cheeks becoming hollow. As I stared at him, absorbing the changes that still surprised me, his eyes looked quickly away from mine and I remembered that he had tried to call me.
‘Sorry I missed your call, darling. I wanted to phone back but there was an emergency. Maybe leave a message at reception another time, or wait till I get home?’
Ed shrugged. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but then I hadn’t for a while now. I couldn’t even remember when we’d last had a conversation. Naomi had been quieter too. I paused as I took my coat off. Was that what happened as children grew? A process so gradual that in the future I would never be able to pinpoint the exact moment when I became just a figure in their hinterland, watching from a distance. My eyes went to Theo; head back and eyes closed, he was strumming and singing loudly, tie half off, his art books scattered over the floor amid toast crumbs. He looked up suddenly and grinned, his wide mouth splitting his freckled face. I wanted to hug him. Theo at least was still Theo, jokey, uncomplicated and happy. Ed was watching so I smiled at both of them. They had always been different though they�
�d had exactly the same love and attention. Perhaps it proved the point that character is predetermined. I liked that explanation; it let me off the hook.
Four ounces of butter and four ounces of sugar, soft drift of flour, brilliant-yellow egg yolks. Sharp white apple flesh cut into the tin, batter poured on top, into the oven. Another kind of automatic; coloured in and scented.
The back door crashed open.
‘Hey, doggie.’ Naomi in a belted black coat bent over Bertie. ‘Did you miss me, then?’ Her fair hair fell forward in a shining sheet onto his nose, and he sneezed noisily. She looked up but her smile faded when she saw me by the stove and she didn’t return mine. Her voice was sharp.
‘I know what you’re going to say, but don’t bother. I’ll do homework backstage. I can’t miss rehearsals. Going to change.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything about homework.’ I was stung. ‘But if you’ve got lots …’
She turned silently and then she was climbing upstairs with dragging footsteps. A distant door slammed. She used to race up those stairs. She was tired. I sliced the tops off beans; they were still her favourite, tossed in butter with a sprinkling of roasted almonds. Tired and edgy. The play rehearsals were relentless on top of GCSEs. The boys gathered books, drifted to the stairs, talking. Theo quietly mocking Ed, something about girls, low-voiced so I wouldn’t hear.
Peace then. The safe feeling of children home and doors shut against the night. I drained the potatoes and beat them into soft clouds, made Naomi sandwiches to keep her going and prepared a Thermos of hot chocolate. I’d save her some supper. Jade Price’s image hovered in the warm kitchen for a moment; she’d looked so thin this afternoon. I wondered whether anyone would be giving her supper.
The back doorbell rang: Naomi’s friends collecting her on the way to rehearsal. She came back through the kitchen and then disappeared amidst a welter of young voices.
Upstairs the front door opened. Car keys rattled onto a table, quick footsteps came down the stairs into the kitchen.
‘You smell of hospitals,’ I murmured, my cheek against Ted’s rough cold one. The sharp tang of disinfectant always clung to him when he first came home, layered under the faintest scent of lavender from the theatre scrub. I wanted to stay close, but he drew back and smiled, looking over my shoulder.
‘Hey, that looks good.’
He leant past me to break off a fragment of warm sponge, and then bent to pull a wine bottle off the rack. He poured two glasses and held one out.
‘How was your day?’ he asked.
There was a shine of excitement on him so I didn’t tell him about the bruised child, Naomi’s irritation, or that I had remembered how it felt to be in the sea, out of my depth.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘What about yours?’
‘Fantastic. The child’s completely better. Lots of international interest, the press has been phoning the hospital all day.’
He started pacing, unable to keep still, running his fingers through his hair so it stuck up in blond clumps. As I watched him, the Thermos on the table caught my eye, left behind with the neat little packet of sandwiches.
‘She’s stopped screaming. No more hallucinations.’ He looked at me, blue eyes shining. ‘An operation to cure psychotic symptoms – it’s a groundbreaker.’
At supper Theo’s freckled face and Ed’s darker one lifted, dipped and lifted, eating, looking up at Ted. He took us through the tense moments of delicate probing to destroy disordered cells deep in the brain. The child had presented classic symptoms of psychosis with paranoid delusions. On the ward she had thrown scalding water on other children and bitten nurses. Today, after the operation, she was drawing flowers.
The phone rang, the Daily Mail wanting to know about this new miracle cure. Ted took the phone upstairs to talk.
Theo pretended to drill Ed’s head with the blunt end of the fork. ‘I’m going to cure you, once and for all.’
Before Ed could escape, Theo had pushed him off the chair and wrestled him to the ground, shouting, ‘The voices in my head are telling me to kill you.’
‘If you go away now and do your homework, I’ll let you off the washing-up.’ That kind of deal usually worked. ‘Theo, have you shown Dad your art project yet?’
‘Which one?’
‘“Man’s Place in Nature”. He’s bound to see it in the exhibition.’
‘I can’t, he’ll kill me.’
‘Darling, just get it over with.’
Once they had gone, the kitchen felt drained of noise. I began to gather the smeared plates. Ed had left most of his. Too much toast earlier. I was still there when Naomi came slowly through the door, an hour later than I thought she would.
‘How did it go?’ I asked, looking at the dark shadows under her eyes.
‘Fine.’ A smile hovered. I waited for a little story about someone joking around; maybe the director was pleased with her singing or the way she said her lines. I watched her pull off her coat, pour herself a glass of milk and lean against the stove to drink it.
She seemed to be somewhere very far away; she looked sideways at me, not fully meeting my gaze.
As she headed towards the stairs, I couldn’t help myself: ‘So what happened?’
‘Stuff. I’m tired.’
Once she would have followed me around, a flow of talk, questions, doubts, jokes. I would have had to tell her I needed space to sort emails but she would have followed me to my desk, sat on the arm of the sofa, carried on talking. Now that seemed a long time ago.
As she brushed past me, there was the faintest scent of something acrid. Tobacco.
‘Naomi?’
She turned impatiently.
‘You haven’t been smoking, have you?’
Her blue gaze seemed clearer than usual. She shook her head. ‘Izzy was smoking in the changing room afterwards. She was upset because Mrs Mears kept going on at her about her lines, so …’ Naomi shrugged. ‘Where’s Dad?’
I stared at her for a moment. I didn’t believe her, but I would know if she was habitually smoking: her clothes would smell of tobacco. She would be coughing. One cigarette really wasn’t a big deal. I let it pass.
‘The great neurosurgeon is in his study, fielding the world’s press,’ I replied.
She started going up the stairs.
‘Aren’t you hungry, sweetie? You forgot –’
But she’d disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stairs.
5
DORSET 2010
ONE YEAR LATER
I forget when I last touched anyone or was touched. I kissed Naomi’s hand in the kitchen a year ago. The warmth of Theo’s rough hug last Christmas has long faded. I see Ed every month but he avoids the slightest brush against me. Ted and I shared a bed till I left, but we lay apart, facing away from each other. In the nursing homes I used to visit on my rounds, the residents sat beached at the rim of a room, old hands reaching for mine, greedy for contact; now I’ve turned it round. Not touching has become a scrupulous act. I take care to avoid the accidental touch of fingers in the shop as the man gives me my change. If someone comes to the door I step back. So when I see the old lady lying across the steps of her bungalow as I come back up the lane one afternoon, I am surprised how automatic it is to reach out to her. Her skin is white but her pulse is full and regular, my hand on her chest lifts and falls. Beneath her eyelids the pupils are equal in size. She looks so peaceful that I hesitate, wondering how to rouse her without startling her. I know that jolt into reality; though sometimes I was glad of it.
BRISTOL 2009
SIXTEEN DAYS BEFORE
I woke with a sudden start. In my dreams I had been tumbling through space full of harsh voices, and the relentless fall of water. There had been tapping, coming closer. Jade was crying somewhere. The relief of morning seeped into me gradually. The crying became the call of gulls, blown inland by the wind. There was a magpie outside our window, chattering as he swayed in the empty lime-tree branches; the twiggy end
s were tapping against the window. Somewhere in the house above me Naomi must have been having her morning shower. The water would be falling around her in a shining column.
I curled my feet around Ted’s and watched him as he drifted lighter in sleep. His cheeks were looser than they used to be, the light picked out grey flecks in the blond where the hair feathered into his neck. I moved closer, shaping myself round him. Our bodies felt warm and safe together. The frightening dream melted away.
We’d planted two lime trees close together, eighteen years ago, when we knew I was pregnant with twins. We had a competition to see whose grew the fastest, but in the end they had twisted together into one huge trunk. Even the branches were entwined. In the summer the morning light in our room was stained green, but at this time of year twigs filled the space with black crossing lines.
Ted made a content waking sound. He always woke happy. His hand felt hot on my shoulder and moved slowly down my arm, then to my back, pulling me close in. Our faces touched, his mouth on my cheek.
The radio switched itself on, cued to start at seven. Tuesday, the third of November, the voice told me. I had to get up now. I needed to catch the paediatrician and I was on call. Regret and guilt slipped round me like a familiar coat.
‘Sorry.’ I kicked back the duvet. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’