Oh Jesus, this is definitely a bloody plastic-surgery clinic – sure why else would they be offering an Irish package? I had read about them before in women’s magazines that I read at the hairdresser’s and they advertised them at the back of the English Sunday newspapers, with before and after photos. They advertised themselves as: A Whole New You– all-inclusive Irish package with flights, face, three nights’ accommodation, meals and refreshments included.
“And how many weeks pregnant are you, darling?” she enquired.
“I’ll be twenty-four weeks on Monday,” I answered, almost relieved.
She efficiently worked through other queries and then asked me if I’d had an amniocentesis.
“Yes, I had,” I replied.
“Good, that will make things easier. Now, Afric – I will need you to sign a little consent form allowing us to request your results from the lab in Scotland – we do this quite often – contact them directly once we have your consent – it means when the consultant sees you on Monday he or she will have all the information they need to make an informed decision – is that okay?”
I said yes – because I could not think of anything more to say.
“The consultant will see you and then we can take it from there. Do you have any questions?” Now her tone was even softer.
“No, I don’t at the moment, I don’t think so.” Was I meant to, I wondered.
“Okay, so we look forward to meeting you on Monday morning at ten. Afric, a lot of our Irish clients prefer to check in on the Sunday afternoon or evening – there’s an early afternoon flight from Dublin, or a later evening one. We can arrange to have a bed here for you on Sunday night. It might be easier for you – then you won’t be rushed on Monday morning, or concerned about finding the hospital.”
“I haven’t even looked at flights but, yes, I think that would be best. I’ll try to book that early afternoon flight.”
“Just let me know and I’ll arrange to have a bed available for you on Sunday evening. My name is Jane, by the way – when you get to reception, ask for Jane. I won’t be here tomorrow evening but I’ll be here on Monday morning first thing and I’ll look after you myself. Just bring yourself – we will look after everything else.”
“Thank you, see you Monday, Jane,” I managed to utter.
I hung up and set about booking the flight. That done, I phoned Liverpool to let Jane know.
Then I sat down at the window. The sea and the sky were a grey-blue; I could barely see the silhouette of the white-and-grey lighthouse perched on the edge of the headland today. It looked vulnerable, like it might fall off the cliff and into the sea. The gorse’s brilliant yellow seemed now more of a softer primrose colour. Odd, I thought, for a Saturday, that there were no coloured sails drifting past the eaves of the house at the end of the street. I looked at the ruby-coloured cherry tree below my window – its leaves were motionless – that was why the boats weren’t in the bay.
I turned on the radio for company, the one by my bedside locker. I had my little girl but I needed some adult company, or maybe it was a distraction that I required.
“We are celebrating a weekend of the Rolling Stones – yes, it’s a Rolling Stones love-in for the next forty-eight hours – listen every hour on the hour for a Rolling Stones classic – stay right here on Easy FM with Alison Dempsey all weekend for the best from the Stones! And now for one of the all-time Stones’ greats – do you recognise this?”
It was the same song I had heard in the car and this time I recognised it: “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday.”
I sat at the window and looked through the fingerprints that stained the inside of it. They made the sea look smudged and they obscured the outline of the lighthouse. A few sails now appeared just above the jagged slate eaves of the house at the end of the street – they were not inside the left-handed fingerprints so they were brighter, much brighter.
The cherry tree moved ever so slightly in the early-afternoon summer breeze. Luke was right – it was more of a ruby than a cherry colour.
I rubbed my little girl very gently in a soothing circular movement. I was tired after the shocking morning. I lay on the bed, with the window ajar, and I hummed the Stones’ song about the girl they were going to miss . . .
I drifted off to sleep, my hand on my doomed belly, my little girl’s gentle movements lulling me to sleep.
I woke up startled, not sure what time it was. The clock on the bedside radio announced it was 15.44. I needed to get organised for my outing to Liverpool. We needed to pack – we had a lot of things to do before leaving tomorrow.
Also I would need to talk to Luke.
Our little girl would need an outfit . . . and of course a name.
I walked down the threadbare stairs, out the yellow door and onto the street. I headed in the direction of the shops. When I walked I didn’t feel that my feet were touching the ground.
“Hi there, can I help you? Is it boys’ or girls’ things that you’re looking for? Do you want to tell me the age of the baby?” the over-eager sales assistant enquired.
I just looked blankly at her and remained motionless and speechless.
Then word for word she repeated her questions, this time a little bit slower – perhaps she thought that I didn’t speak English as a first language.
I smiled at her in acknowledgement of her presence and then walked to the back of the shop to escape her intrusive enquiries.
There, safely tucked away, I tried to figure out the answer. I thought I should say six months, because I was six months pregnant – was that correct? However, if it was a newborn baby, then it was the newborn clothes I needed to look at. The baby would be newborn but three months premature so maybe they had a premature section that operated in minus figures. I wandered around through aisles and rows of pretty colourful outfits. There were three to six months sizes but I needed minus six to minus three months.
Should I ask the over-efficient sales lady? No, that was drawing too much attention to my situation. I settled on describing my baby as newborn. Technically that was correct, and anyway she would be a newborn baby to me.
The sales assistant had sneaked down to the back of the shop and now stood only a few metres from me. I was cornered, trapped between her and a row of tiny babygros.
“It’s difficult to choose an outfit for a baby when you aren’t sure what they look like or even what sex they are, isn’t it?” she said.
Difficult to choose, assuming that the child is going to be normal, I thought. Even more difficult when you’re choosing an outfit for a baby whose deformities you are unsure of. Should I get two babygros in different sizes just in case she was more distorted than I hoped?
“Indeed,” I replied. I dug my nails into the palm of my hand and stared past her, then turned away. I squeezed my eyes shut, very hard, to stop the tears. I could feel my eyelids beginning to tremble; the tears were not far off pouring down my face.
Black would be an appropriate colour for her outfit, I thought. All the clothes were bright, happy, vibrant colours. There were no dull browns or blacks in this baby shop. Probably because having a baby is meant to be a joyous occasion. Nor was there a section for premature stillborn babies.
I selected a single blue outfit, for the saddest day of my life. Eighteen months previously I had selected a simple oyster-coloured outfit for the happiest day. The light-blue babygro had a picture of a cuddly elephant on the left-hand side. The elephant was a deeper blue – it made him look bigger. White buttons ran down the front. Also, dangling from the small padded hanger was a little hat. I looked at the baby outfit and down at my ruinous bump.
“Would that fit you? Would you like the colour blue for your big day?” I whispered to my baby. I looked out of the left-hand corner of my eye to see if the nosy assistant had heard me talking to my little girl but she had gone back to the cash register.
I went to pay.
“Is that for yourself?” She made it sound like I might be wearing it. “Aren�
�t you great to be getting organised so early – that’s what I always say to mums-to-be – get the shopping done early in case you go early.” The words were trotted out like she must have used this line thousands of time.
I just looked at her, expressionless, wishing the blue babygro was for someone else and not my fatally ill child.
She looked at my face, down at my bump, back at my eyes and then fixed her eyes on the task of folding the tiny blue piece of cloth.
“I see,” she said. She swiped my credit card, popped the baby-blue outfit in a brown-paper bag, folded it over, handed me a receipt. The once overeager assistant was now silent. “Good luck,” she said, but this time she didn’t look at me but beyond me.
That song popped into my head again – “Ruby Tuesday”. It just stuck there, refusing to move. I walked slowly up the street, humming it.
I pushed open the large yellow door and walked up the shabby stairs. I sat at the window, looking out on to Dublin bay. The sea was a steel grey. I could not see the lighthouse, and the outline of the headland across the bay was only barely visible. There were triangles of white on the sea; there was a yacht race on, the sails gliding across the white horses.
I poured myself a glass of white wine. There was no fear now that a few glasses of wine would damage our tiny baby’s brain development. God, I thought, we had got it so wrong,
My little girl began to kick and kick. I paced the room to settle her. I walked to the white wardrobe and then back to the window. Was she kicking me to remind me that she was there? So that when she was gone I would remember how it felt to have her inside me? Was she kicking me for her final thirty-six hours to torture me? Revenge for making her such a sick child, for making her imperfect in every way? Kicking me so that I could never forget carrying her? Or maybe she was saying a long goodbye, and this was part of her exit strategy.
I hoped that the wine might make her a little tipsy and she would nod off to sleep. She was in full flight now, kicking like hell. Mary was right; my baby had very long femurs and a powerful heart.
I drank, she kicked, she kicked and I drank. It was as if we were having our one and only mother-daughter battle. I cried and the kicking eased, the gentle motion of my sobs and the wine lulling her to sleep.
I lay the tiny clothes on our king-sized bed. They looked so minute there. They were lost lying there. I opened my red-and-black laptop. There in my Gmail account was a list of things that I needed to consider before tomorrow or latest Monday morning.
First, though, my tiny girl needed a name.
I had to give our baby a name that I had chosen for her, not one that we had chosen. There would not be any long discussions about names. No poring over top-ten lists of old or new Irish names. I wondered if it would be easier to name a baby that was going to survive. Yes, trying to name a baby that is going to die was more difficult. You don’t want to call the baby after anyone; well, no one is going to appreciate you naming your dead baby after them, are they? I wouldn’t be very impressed if someone named their deceased baby after me. To name a living baby after a person would be okay – but a dead one, no thanks.
I should try to find a name that had no connection or association to anybody, or to any place, a name that was free of connection. It needed to be free of emotions too. Whatever name I chose would be my tiny girl’s name forever, so it must not be chosen in an overemotional state. Also, if you know that the baby is not going to live you don’t want to use your favourite name, in case sometime in the future you may have a healthy living child. Her healthy sibling might not want to be named after her dead deformed sister.
I stared blankly out at the sea; I had about thirty-six hours to name our child.
Chapter 5
“Hello, darling, how are you feeling?” Luke sounded very upbeat.
“Grand, just a bit tired. I get lazy by the end of the day.” I concentrated my gaze on Howth Head. The sea was a dark charcoal colour, the lights of Howth separating the dark land from the grey sea. “How are things with you?”
“Fine, nothing too eventful – worked, swam, ate, slept – the same routine as always when I am away on business, nothing new,” he replied.
Thankfully, we were veering towards one of those Yes-No conversations. I was hoping it would be more of a formality than a full-scale chat, because I had to concentrate on the important thing: telling him about the trip to Liverpool.
“And what did you do today – anything exciting? Did you swim?” He appeared to be just going through the motions with the conversation.
“What did I do today?” I repeated back his question to him. “I got up this morning, didn’t do much, went for a stroll and then did a bit of shopping.”
“Oh great – did you buy anything nice?” he enquired, obviously trying to prolong the conversation.
I looked at the tiny blue babygro on the bed. “No, nothing nice, I just strolled around the shops,” I lied casually – I was getting better at it, the lying. “Luke, listen, I just had a call from work and the IT manager was due to go to a conference in Liverpool for two days, Monday and Tuesday, but he has come down with some type of a bug so he can’t make it – so they called me this morning and asked me could I go instead? Well, they didn’t really ask me, they told me, so I’m flying out late tomorrow night and I’ll be back late on Wednesday.” I paused, waiting for his reaction. I was also surprised how my lies designed for Luke rolled so easily off my tongue.
“Well, this is a bit much, isn’t it?” he responded, sounding annoyed.
“It is, I guess, but given that I’m always telling them they need to move into this century IT-wise, I couldn’t then say no when they had bothered to invest in the conference.”
“True,” he replied. “True. Where are you staying? Where is the conference?”
I hesitated. I glared at the sea, hoping my prepared answer would pass his scrutiny.
“Afric, can you hear me? Where did they say the conference was?”
“They didn’t say – somewhere in Liverpool – no doubt in some terrible conference hotel. They just wanted to check I would attend first. They said that they’d send me on all the details but nothing has come through yet.” I exhaled, almost proud of my subterfuge.
“Grand – just let me know where you’re staying – just for emergencies.”
“Sure.”
Then I told him I loved him and said goodbye.
“Are you sure everything is okay, Afric? You don’t seem yourself . . . you don’t seem to be in the best of form . . .”
“Yes, yes, honestly, I’m fine – it’s just these bloody hormones are driving me crazy – highs and low, that’s all it is. And now a trip to Liverpool that I really need like a hole in my head.” I was just about holding it together.
“Any sign of the baby kicking yet?”
“I knew that there was something I was going to say to you! How could I have forgotten? Yes, in the last day or so, the baby has started kicking. And, Luke, do you know what? I think it’s a girl, that our baby is a little girl.” I paused, waiting for a reaction.
“You think it’s a girl – why do you say that?”
“Just something, I don’t know what it is, tells me it’s a girl.” I held my breath. I didn’t want to hear any trace of disappointment from him. Not now.
“Afric, no point in guessing at this stage.” His response was efficient and matter of fact.
“You’re right, of course. I’m off for a swim now. Talk to you tomorrow, love you, bye.”
“Take care, Afric.”
“I will.”
I hung up.
I opened the white wardrobe and carefully selected a long grey nightdress. Grey seemed to be the most appropriate colour. My bright pink dressing gown would be too happy, too vibrant for such a sad occasion, so I left it behind. I placed my slippers, socks, underwear and shoes in my blue hold-all. I scanned the wardrobe for some clothes that I did not hold any emotional attachment to – items that I was sure I would not
ever wear again. I selected a moss top and a pair of faded black jeans with an elasticated waist. I folded them neatly and put them inside the case.
I placed the tiny blue newborn baby outfit and my camera into the bag. I put in a picture of our wedding day. In the picture all our family and friends are with us in the garden. You can see a tree. I wanted to show her that tree, the tree in the front garden where I used to play we were young. In the picture it is only barely visible but I could tell her about it. There were a lot of people in that photo – would I have enough time with her to tell her about them all? I mean, if I was going to tell her about all one hundred and fifty people both she and I would be exhausted.
The picture was taken on the 21st June 2011. We wanted the bash for our friends and family to be a memorable party and to go on as long as possible, so we chose the longest day of the year. At the wedding the sun didn’t set until ten o’clock and then we danced the night away with all our family and friends. We partied and drank till dawn. Afterwards, we were satisfied that we made the best possible use of every minute of the longest day of the year.
I would need to decide who I would tell her about in the picture. I looked up from the desk and back out to sea. I would need to make a list – if I forgot someone important in that picture and she had never been introduced to them, then in years to come when I’d meet them again I might feel guilty. A list would be best, I concluded.
I completed the list. I got it down to twenty-two people. That seemed a pretty good compromise, down from one hundred and fifty, I thought. Then, I rechecked it, added names, deleted names, added more names, and deleted others.
How would I start the conversation with her, with my little girl? Would I say ‘How are you?’ Obviously not too good because she’d be dead. Or ‘What do you want to do today?’ There would be no answer, so then I would show her the photo, and point to each of the people in it, spending two or three minutes on each person. They would be funny stories; I would entertain her with the photo.
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