Go to Sleep

by Helen Walsh

  ‘Gorgeous. Thank you. And thank you for, you know . . .’

  Helping me? Guiding me through the most petrifying moments of my life? I can’t bring myself to say it.

  She wrinkles her nose in an ‘it was nothing’ kind of way, looks across at Dad. He pushes a little digital video camera across the bed.

  ‘From us both.’ He leans in to me, kisses me on my head. ‘I want you to record each and every beat of his—’

  ‘It’s Joe, Dad,’ I interrupt. ‘He’s Joe.’

  A nervous smile comes over him. He’s happy I’ve preserved Mum’s spirit by using her father’s name and yet he’s desperate for Jan to be a part of this, for her not to be excluded. He pulls her in, close.

  ‘That’s lovely, isn’t it, Jan? Joe.’

  ‘Yes. He’s just gorgeous, Rachel. He is so, so beautiful. You have every right to be proud.’

  Every right? What does she mean by that? Does she think I’m ashamed of him? Dad sees my face, quickly intervenes.

  ‘Just film everything will you, Rachel? I mean it, darling. This time, these moments . . . it’s so magical, yet it’s all over so quickly.’

  Jan nods solemnly. What does she know! Why is she even here? I cannot control this maddening will to be slighted by them. No matter what they do, it will be wrong. What I need, what I crave more than any other thing is rest. Every fibre of my psyche is screaming out for it. I have been awake for over sixty hours and without sleep – real, deep, restorative sleep – I just do not see how I’ll survive.

  Jan seems to read my lowering mood. She goes to get coffee. I watch her to the end of the ward, a wounded hunch to her shoulders and for a second I am shot through with guilt. She has tried and tried to reach me. I have only ever held her at polite arm’s length. Once we get out of here, Joe and I, I am going to make a sincere effort to take down the walls I have built. But now, I’m too tired. Dad hovers over the little Perspex cot filming the suddenly docile Joe. Joe seems to know him. His tiny mouth trills and coos. I watch Dad carefully, willing him to love my baby, to pick him up, to hold him close; but the love’s not there. Dad, for all he’s become, for all that he is, is still in shock at his daughter’s brown baby, and he knows I know this. I caught him before he could adjust himself.

  He got to the flat just as the paramedics were wheeling us out. Dad took one look at the flailing baby on my chest and I could see the panic in his eyes. He was quick to correct himself, stoop down and take Joe’s hand, coo at his beauty – but one’s first and instant gut reaction is always the tell. And Dad’s reaction was: Shit! The baby’s black.

  Dad and I have done our usual thing – nothing. Throughout the whole pregnancy, we have never talked about the baby’s father. I would have explained, would have been honest, if he’d come out and asked but he ducked the issue. Ever since I can recall, Dad has circumnavigated the tough-love part of parenthood. He dodged the bullet of conflict and its subsequent fallout by not prying, being ‘cool’, giving me time and space. But he wasn’t cool. He was a coward. I still flinch when something sparks a flashback, a memory crashes in unbidden to bring back some of the things I shrieked in temper; the awful things I said to Mum. Dad never made me say sorry. And she was gone before I had the chance to do it of my own volition.

  But I would have levelled with Dad about Ruben – of course I would. Yet as time went on, that whole hammy ritual of sitting the old man down, talking through the reasons I’d chosen the path I chose and the future I foresaw all seemed gradually less and less natural – and less necessary. If he wasn’t going to ask me, I didn’t feel any compulsion to tell. I’d be telling him out of guilt, rather than to share something with him. So somehow it went off the boil; it was just too late. I left him to draw his own conclusions. And now, whatever made this curious turn of events most palatable to him, that was just fine by me. If my father, Dr Richard Massey, the eminent Professor of Tropical Medicine, preferred to reconcile his half-caste grandson as the result of an ‘arrangement’, preferably with a cultured black academic, then so be it. But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t.

  14

  I’ve never been one for gearing myself up for Christmas too early. On the contrary, once the wonder of Christmas was leached away by the first show of puberty, I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to recapture or re-create the Festive Spirit – whatever that may be. In spite of having no car, I make the trek out to places like Haworth or Ambleside where I’m guaranteed mulled wine, brass bands and, if I’m lucky, snow. I make mince pies – the pastry is always too thick, too crumbly; I have Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Bach, The Pogues and Wham! on shuffle. I’ll dust down the bottles of Drambuie and Tia Maria and hope that one of my old Lark Lane confidants might swing by for a nip: we’ll eat chocolates off the Christmas tree (a real tree too), pungent cheeses and dates and walnuts and watch It’s A Wonderful Life. But no one ever comes, and I’ve long since accepted that the sense of warmth and comfort that used to come with Christmas will never come again; it’s a gift of childhood and, once that passes, so too does Christmas itself. But I have always loved – will always love – the run-up to the festive season. I approach it with trepidation and respect. It really gets me down, seeing the cards and decorations in Tesco the moment the kids go back to school, the seemingly unstoppable gradual seeping of the first Christmas piss-up into November, and now into October.

  In spite of all this, I had no input into the timing of last year’s Christmas work’s do. The mass-circulation email passed on the details with all the intimacy of a subpoena and it became a simple matter of accepting or not. The ‘do’ was going to be an early supper at Eureka, a down-home Cypriot kitchen I liked a lot; and it was to be held on the first Monday in December, the only night they could get. I tended to interact with only three or four Connexions staff at most, but we got along well. Whenever I saw them, I liked them; they were good eggs. And as much as the prospect of paper hats and crackers on the seventh of December left me nauseous, I was up for a night out and I quickly accepted.

  And yes, the meal was fun; the usual simple but flavour-some fare from Eureka’s huge grill. Plenty of retsina, ouzo and stout Domestica wine, with bottle after bottle of Mythos beer. We were that karaoke fun crew, careening our way down towards town, belting out Slade. And when one of the gang suggested a nightcap at the Everyman, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

  I saw him straight away and, though every lunge and swoop of my guts told me it was Ruben, I couldn’t quite be sure. Fifteen years had passed since I last saw him. His hair was longer, worn in short dreads and his eyes seemed wise and sad, where once they had sparkled with promise. But it was him. I knew it was him. And I waited, a lovestruck fourteen-year-old all over again, to see if he’d recognise me. For one split second I’d swear he clocked me, but if he did, he hid it well. He turned quickly on his heel and disappeared back into the deeper recesses of the Everyman’s kitchen that weren’t visible from the bar. The party was heading on down to Flares and I promised I’d be right there, but I was already somewhere else. I was back in the park; back in South Lodge; back wherever Ruben wanted me.

  I decided to let fate take control of the cards. What was certain was that, now that I was alone, I would not be making a return trip to the bar. I had half a good glass of Rioja to nurture. If Ruben made eye contact during the time it took me to drink it, I’d make things easy. I’d smile, invite him over, take things from there. All I really wanted to know was – what happened? Why did you stop coming? To get the answers I’d craved for over fifteen years, I would compromise. If dignity allowed, I’d even make the first move. But it had to happen within the time it took me to finish this glass of wine.

  He had to pass me to get to the lavatories. No doubt now that it was him. He wavered, his eyes flickered; he was going to see me, he was looking past and ahead; he showed no emotion; there was the hint of regret. Or anger. Ruben, the guy who called the shots, who stood me up, who let me down – Ruben was a nervous wreck, a
nd it felt marvellous.

  ‘Hello, Ruben.’

  He made a big show of being taken by surprise, then a further show of not being quite sure it was me.

  ‘Rachel?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good.’ Then, whether it was in spite of himself or not I neither know nor care, but his face split in two with the size and brilliance of his smile. ‘I’m really good, thank you.’ His voice had changed. He sounded a little clipped, like he was trying to lose or cover up his accent. He perched on the edge of the bench. ‘How have you been?’

  And I thought, the heck with it, I’m half drunk and I’m just coming out with it now before the moment moves on.

  ‘Why did you stop coming, Ruben? Why wouldn’t you answer my calls?’

  He dropped his head towards his knees, then ducked back up with a smile, shaking his head in sad amusement.

  ‘See, if I’d have bumped into you a year or two ago, it’d be me putting you in the corner! How come you never wrote? How come you never came to see us? But I figured it out. He never told you, did he? He never liked me seeing you.’

  ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your aul’ fella. He stopped you getting me letters, didn’t he?’ He sees the wide-open shock on my face and takes my hand. ‘I got done. Like . . . I never done it. But I got put down.’ His old accent is back now, bristling with the injustice of what happened. ‘A few of the lads I was knockin’ round with, like . . . They weren’t good lads, know what I mean? They was up to all sorts. Couple of them asked us to mind something for them and I wouldn’t . . . but our Aisha was mad on one of the cunts so she done it anyway. She hid the thing and . . .’

  I lean forward and silence him with a squeeze of his hand.

  ‘You went to jail?’

  ‘Fucking Armley, yeah. Leeds. Then got transferred back here.’ A shake of the head, and another rueful laugh. ‘Fucking better off in Armley, telling you.’

  ‘Jesus!’ My eyes well up. ‘Fuck!’

  He nods, smiles. We just stare at one another, each thinking different things, both knowing where this is heading.

  15

  It’s been raining since daybreak, the kind of insistent gossamer-fine spray that dampens concrete, dampens the soul. I stand by the window, eyeballs throbbing with the effort of watching drivers carefully inching their tiny brand-new passengers over the hospital speed bumps below. Everything inside the ward is still and dark and gloomy; even Joe is asleep, yet I can’t shut down. I pad across, look down on this impeccably small, sleeping thing and a sudden surge, a loss of sense yanks me back. I try to breathe through it, steady myself. I stay deadly still. I can make out the gentle rise and fall of his tiny little lungs. It would take nothing – nothing at all – to stop them.

  I walk to the other side of the cot. He’s not even forty-eight hours old and already his features have changed. His nose is starting to take on the same broad handsome sprawl as his father’s and his caramel skin is getting darker. His head lolls sideways and he seems to chuckle in his sleep. For the first time I spy the tiny dimple that dents his left cheek and I swoon at the recognition of a bit of myself in him. Gently, I lift Joe from the cot, hold him close to my chest, willing myself to feel. But there’s nothing; nothing comes.

  I return him to his cot, grateful that he hasn’t woken, and go back to the window. Morning has broken now and down below, silhouettes are being blown along the street like broken puppets. That was me not so long ago, on my way to work, battling through the elements, cursing myself for not taking a taxi. Such a simple pleasure, taking a cab – such a simple act of freedom. If only I’d relished it when I could – just slumped back in the vastness of the taxi’s back seat, legs splayed out just soaking up the sideshow of the streets.

  I should try again, try to get some sleep. I get into bed, slump low beneath the covers and lie there. Sleep won’t come. No matter how I force the shutdown, try and then try again to induce some begrudging slumber, it will not come. My mind is dealing me card after card, snatches of thoughts and notions, each alerting me, sitting me up, putting me back down again. A fragmented thought – not even that, a prayer, maybe: babyhood is finite and this, this very real sense of imprisonment cannot last for ever. Six months from now Joe will be robust enough for nursery and I can return to work. I can walk there in the rain or, if I want, I can flag down a taxi. A harsh and shallow drowsiness comes over me, and my flittering mind submits to a kind of sleep.

  *

  A figure stands over me, a student midwife with a bedpan; but I don’t need a bedpan. I check the clock, an instinct now. Since Joe, I always check the time: its rapid, rigid passing between feeds – it barely seems like I’ve laid him down before I’m heaving him up again – and its torpid lope when he cries, before he finally burns himself out. Yet here I am tossing and turning in spite of this dreadful fatigue. I murmur a brief hello to the girl, lower myself back to where slumber lay and climb inside, distantly aware of the covers being drawn back, a warm flannel seeking the place between my legs. The student tries to make conversation but she speaks too softly and I’m too wasted to offer anything back. I try to throw out a smile, my vision falling heavy and drunk, staggering in and out of the space between us like a mirage. She pats me dry and I fall headlong at last into a deep and heavy slumber.

  Moments later, I’m being roused again. I know at once from the instantaneous eye-throb that no rest has been had, neither respite nor nourishment for my fractured psyche. This time it’s a different midwife – stout, older. I’m too stunned, too disoriented to take in what she’s saying but it’s clear from the fierce distortion of her face that she’s scolding me, her grey eyebrows twitching angrily in time with her speech. Only as she places the howling Joe back in his cot does the squall of opprobrium take form.

  ‘You should never let your baby sleep on his side! Has no one told you? Goodness sakes, love – doesn’t bear thinking about what could happen!’ She lays Joe flat on his back and bustles away, her mouth set firm in a shocked and angry grimace. ‘Don’t they teach them anything at antenatal any more?’

  Her calf muscles seem absurdly broad as she turns the corner and disappears. Joe is sobbing for food, a more pitiful, penetrating cry than anything yet. He’s learning from the other little bastards, and it hurts. I lift him on to my breast, glancing briefly at the ward clock. My sleep lasted all of fifty minutes. One hour in how many days?

  *

  Evening. The lights turned down low, the ward calm and ordered, all the babies washed and fed and winded, all of them ready for sleep; all except Joe. Joe fights it, struggles, bleats. Unable, unwilling to settle, champing on my chafed and throbbing chest, he writhes and burns and gets angrier and angrier. I am so tired now – desperately, achingly tired. I could drop, here and now, drop down, drop him, collapse. I so badly need to put him down in his crib, give in to the weighted rolling of my eyes jolting me in and out of this fractured sub-reality, and if it were not for the other mothers I’d do just that, lay him down and let him cry it out. But I see their little darts of hatred raining down on us and I have no choice but to keep offering my breast, anything to plug him, stall his onslaught of baying desolation.

  Night. The lights along the ward are snapping off, one by one, throwing shadows on the walls, babies heads big and deformed. All of them are sleeping, now; all except Joe. Joe sucks at my nipple, draws blood. His anger, his frustration, scuttles like an insect across my animus, holds me captive, wide awake.

  Midnight. One light on. Mine. All the babies sleeping still; all except Joe. I can’t do this any more. I can’t stand it – can’t stand him. I’m putting him down and I’m walking out of this ward. As I look down on him I’m smashed by the sheer helplessness of his tiny fragile head, his weird and innocent wrinkled fingers but I stagger on in spite of him, stumble on and out. The woman in the easy chair at the end of the corridor smiles. She knows.

  ‘You never slept,’ she says. ‘Not till you were thr
ee years old. We were both exhausted. Your father developed asthma, stood there in the cold and damp night after night. You have to sleep. Without it . . .’

  The euphoria soaks me, rinsing my scalp, my spine, the soles of my feet. She is with me. She didn’t die – she is here, she is here! I edge closer. The relief, the joy, the multitude of things to ask, to solve, to do all collapsing into one another, idea after joyful idea of all the things I can share once more with my Mum. I reach for her and I can feel the smile tightening on her face – the smile that precedes a No.

  ‘You’re not going to that fair, Rachel. God alone knows what’s got into your father. Well, he can be a fool to himself but I won’t let him be a fool to his daughter.’

  And I’m standing there by the reception desk, gaping, deranged. The angry midwife sees my face and softens; she takes me by the arm and guides me back to the ward.

  *

  Dawn. The first fissures of light cracking the green-grey vault. All the babies awake, feeding. All except Joe. At long last, Joseph is asleep. Me, I lie awake, incapable of peace and scared, too; scared to shut down, scared I won’t find my way back.

  16

  ‘Ruben?’

  A squat muscular silhouette is hovering above Joe’s cot, watching him. Watching us. A young, familiarly husky voice croaks out.

  ‘Shhh. It’s myself, yer divvy.’

  I sit up, turn the bedside light on.

  ‘James. Is that you? What time is it? What are you even doing here?’

  ‘Nice to see you too, Rache.’ I drag myself up into a sitting position. James McIver is trying to get Joe to grip his little finger. I’ll swear Joe is smiling at him, gurgling. ‘Seen the lips on the little fella? Fucking ’ell, lad, gonna be a boy you, aren’t you, mate?’