Roar

by Nicole Trope

  First published in 2015

  Copyright © Nicole Trope 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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  eISBN 978 1 92526 642 9

  Contents

  Roar

  More bestselling books by Nicole Trope

  Roar

  The baby settles into her body with soft sighs.

  She can feel his relief at having been picked up, at having been saved. She once read somewhere that an infant left to cry in the dark fears its own death even though it has no idea what death is.

  She believes this to be true. When she hears him crying there are times when she understands that he is simply communicating his need for food or sleep, but sometimes she can hear his fear, can feel it.

  Maybe this is because he is her child. Perhaps he had absorbed her disquiet as he grew inside her. They say you can pass those things on in the womb, along with immunity and a taste for spicy food.

  She leans back in the padded rocking chair and breathes deeply. Her body releases its tension along with her milk. Muscles that have strained and pulled, even as she sleeps, turn liquid.

  This is where her child is meant to be. Like generations of mothers before her, she cannot help but think that this child, this chocolate-eyed boy, is the very reason for her existence.

  He feeds slowly, sleepily. She drowses, falling in and out of the sweet darkness of sleep. Falling and catching herself and falling again. She wakes suddenly, feeling the chill of the night air on her bare breast. Her boy is deeply asleep, mouth slightly parted, clutching fingers released.

  She wraps him tightly so that he may always feel held and places him in the cot, touching his forehead lightly, praying that he sleeps through until sunrise and a different day.

  She tiptoes out of his bedroom and moves slowly to the main bedroom.

  At the door she stops. There he lies, asleep.

  She studies him in the edges of light that come in from the street. His mouth is slack and his whole body is still. He does not twitch or move. Even the usual guttural snoring is absent.

  This is not then the stillness of sleep. This is the rest of the almost dead.

  She searches her own body for signs of distress but can find none.

  His chest rises and falls with seemingly calculated slowness. He is lying across the bed, taking up most of the space. She had not pushed him to move when she lay down beside him. He was already immovable. She had no intention of sleeping anyway and had surprised herself by drifting off until she heard the baby’s cry.

  She walks around to her side of the bed and picks up her pillow and the blanket she has been using. She will take them back to the baby’s room and pull the foam mattress out from under his cot and she will curl up on her makeshift bed.

  She has spent many nights this way when the baby could not be settled because of a fever or teething or a nightmare that would not let go.

  ‘It’s easier if I sleep in his room,’ she has told his father on these nights without end.

  ‘Whatever,’ is his usual response.

  The mattress has to be pulled out inch by inch so as not to wake the baby, and as she moves she can feel sleep trying to claim her. Something flashes in her peripheral vision and she turns her head but sees only the change table. She is starting to dream but she goes back to the room to grab her flashlight and another blanket.

  It is important that there is evidence of her having slept in the baby’s room, of her having been there all night. She will curl up on the mattress and find sleep, even though she can feel the hard floor like the princess could feel the pea. She knows she would be able to sleep standing up if she needed to. She no longer tosses and turns at night, instead she sinks instantly into the deep dreamless sleep of the desperate. Unless of course it has been a bad night and she knows she needs to be wary and still so as not to disturb.

  Everyone will understand. She can imagine the words of sympathy, the shaking of heads.

  ‘She was with the baby, how could she have known?’

  ‘He was an unsettled child. She had her hands full just dealing with him.’

  ‘Life can be so random, so cruel, that poor woman.’

  She spreads the blankets out on the mattress, savouring the words she knows she will hear.

  ‘I was with the baby all night,’ she will say over and over again, and she will cry real tears, true tears. ‘I was with the baby.’

  The baby sleeps peacefully, filled with milk and contentment. The man on the bed breathes his way into the darkness, filled with rage.

  Was there ever really a choice?

  She is the only one awake in the silent house and she can feel the air changing.

  He always changed things when he walked through the door at night. The peace of the late afternoon would disappear the moment his key slipped into the lock. The atmosphere would be charged by his entrance, the air growing thick and the house getting smaller.

  ‘What the hell happened here? Do you do nothing all fucking day? Do you know what kind of a day I’ve had? Do you even understand with your tiny little brain the kind of shit I’ve had to deal with all day?’

  She would feel it happen and she would take a deep breath, claiming some of the air for herself.

  ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t—I haven’t—I couldn’t—I’m sorry…’

  ‘Useless, fucking useless.’

  He would clench his fists and move towards her, lifting an arm. She would step back and back and back, until there was nowhere else to go.

  Sometimes her failures made him tired, too tired to even show her the error of her ways. He would loom over her, threatening, menacing with intent and then he would stop and sigh, turn and walk away. ‘What’s the point?’ he would mutter. ‘What’s the fucking point?’

  She stares up at the ceiling in her child’s room. Her eyes are burning, but for the first time in a long time she does not want to sleep. She wants to be awake so that she can feel him leaving. Those who are present at the death bed of a loved one report that the exact moment can be felt, that the very instant the soul leaves the body it is apparent. She wants to feel this. Already the air is softer, warmer.

  She thinks about doing something, about calling someone, about preventing what is happening. She catches her breath, feels herself on the cusp but does not move.

  It had taken a pathetically small amount of planning, so easy that it seemed almost feted.

  ‘I wish you would talk to me,’ her mother had said that afternoon. ‘I wish you would tell me what’s wrong. I know it’s not just the baby. It’s all very well to blame a lack of sleep on some things but not everything and I just wish you would believe that I want to help, that I can help. Her mother had lifted her hand and stroked her cheek, brushing her thumb across the blue under her eyes.

  ‘You are wasting away my darling.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mu
m.’

  ‘Please tell me what it is. Is it him?’

  She had given her head a shake, ridding herself of her mother’s touch.

  ‘It’s nothing, Mum. I promise. I’m just very tired.’ She met her mother’s gaze to let her know that she was fine, but she couldn’t say anything else.

  ‘You’ll look after your mother won’t you love? She’s not as strong as you and I are,’ her father had said.

  ‘Of course, Dad, you know I will,’ she had replied, holding his thin hand, reassuring him and comforting herself at the same time. A nurse had entered the room and touched her gently on the shoulder and she had known that the end would be soon. Her mother slept in a chair next to the bed. ‘Oh, Daddy,’ she had wanted to moan but she had straightened her shoulders instead.

  ‘The gorgeous boy is sleeping now. Why don’t you have a lie down? I can watch him.’

  ‘No,’ again the shake of her head, ‘I’m here to see you. I’ll give you your shot and then we can have a cup of tea.’

  Her mother was failing. Each day she was a little weaker, a little paler, a little more undefined. Late babies become early carers.

  ‘You are the greatest blessing of my life,’ her mother always said. ‘I thought I would never have the joy of a child. Your father and I were utterly shocked but so happy, so very happy.’

  ‘I know, Mum.’

  ‘I can manage fine, darling,’ her mother had said as she watched her change a nappy. ‘You don’t have to come here every day to give me the shot. I’ve done it myself.’

  ‘I know you have. I know you can, but I’m here so I’ll do it.’

  She had filled the syringe from the vial of insulin and topped it with a hair fine needle.

  ‘There you go,’ she said.

  ‘You’re so good,’ said her mother. ‘I didn’t even feel that one.’

  ‘Practice makes perfect.’

  It was while she was replacing the vials in the fridge that she had known what she would do. The idea had come to her as though it had always been there, just waiting for her to claim it. Her hand clamped itself around a vial and a syringe and passing her bag in the kitchen she slid both inside.

  ‘Do you want a cracker or something with your tea?’ she called to her mother who sat in the living room, gazing at the perfection that was her grandson.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  It had been a pleasant afternoon. She had dozed in an armchair with her hand resting on the baby’s pram so that she would be alert to any movement. Her mother could not lift him but would try and then hurt herself.

  ‘Call when you get home,’ said her mother when she walked her to her car.

  ‘It’s only five minutes, Mum.’

  ‘I know, but I like to know you’re home safe.’

  ‘But I’m not safe,’ she wanted to say. ‘I’m not safe.’

  Letting herself into her own house just before sundown she despaired at the mess. He would be angry.

  The baby grizzled in his playpen while she spent twenty minutes lifting, whirling and shoving so that at least the house appeared to be under control.

  She pushed the insulin and its syringe to the back of the fridge, behind some stored breast milk. He would never see it there.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck what everyone else does; it’s not my goddamn responsibility to feed him. You wanted a kid; you fucking take care of him.’

  ‘If I could just get a couple of hours that would really help, please.’

  ‘I’m not one of those new age sensitive dickheads; don’t try to turn me into one of them. You were the one who wanted a child.’

  She did not counter his argument. He had been more than proud when her belly swelled. He stood straighter and sucked in his bulging gut when strangers smiled and friends congratulated him. It was all, apparently, his doing.

  He had missed the birth for which she was grateful. The midwives had been gently kind as they guided her through the pain with their soft voices. He was away, but treated everyone in the hotel bar to a drink to celebrate.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll hurt him or drop him,’ he said when he returned and held his son. He preferred the baby to be asleep when he came home.

  ‘I don’t even want you to touch him,’ she thought when old friends jabbed at him about his lack of interest in the child. ‘Woman’s work,’ he grunted and then later he spat and yelled at her for her lack of enthusiastic agreement around the restaurant table. At least he waited until the babysitter left. He had always been good about their public façade.

  That afternoon she had straightened and tidied and rehearsed how things would go. He would walk through the door. He would have a headache and he would ask for, call for, demand that she pour him a drink and hand him the headache tablets he needed.

  The box of sleeping pills sat on a high shelf in the pantry, next to the innocuous tablets he took for his headaches. They had been prescribed for him by his latest doctor. ‘He says I need to rest,’ he had told her triumphantly on his return from his appointment. ‘He says my life is very stressful.’ She had nodded her head in agreement, not wanting to look at him and the blame that would greet her.

  ‘You shouldn’t drink when you take them,’ she said.

  ‘What the fuck would you know?’ he said but he had left them unopened in favour of whisky.

  He would not look at what she gave him; merely chase it down with his drink, his eyes focussed on the world at war.

  At exactly six his hand had pushed open the door and he had scanned the room, looking for, searching for her failures.

  ‘At least you managed to get this place under control today,’ he said. She had not replied, sensing a tinge of disappointment in his voice. Instead she had pushed her teeth down on her lip. She had learned to recognise a ‘rotten day at the office.’

  Now as she lies in the dark staring up at the ceiling she wonders… if he had simply greeted her or even offered a smile would things have been different? If he had asked about his son or her mother or her day; would she have thought again?

  But he didn’t ask and he didn’t smile and things aren’t different.

  She had handed him the drink and three pills and waited for him to question why she had added an extra, but he hadn’t. He had slouched into his armchair and drained his glass once, twice, three times. She was attentive with her refills. She could see him relax and grow heavy. He turned up the sound on the television, perhaps hoping the noise would pull him out of the stupor he was falling into.

  ‘Can you turn it down? I don’t want him to wake up.’ The words were regretted the instant they were out of her mouth.

  ‘The kid needs to learn to sleep with noise. Most mothers know that. Didn’t you read any of those fucking books?’

  She had retreated to the bathroom and then remained in the kitchen, staying away, staying quiet, waiting.

  ‘How much longer?’ she thought.

  It took another ten minutes. ‘I may have a rest before dinner. I’m just …’

  ‘Good idea. Are you okay?’

  ‘Fucking fine. I’ve just been at work all day while you sit on your fat arse. I’m tired.’

  She watched him pull himself up the staircase by the bannister, the last of his energy having been expended on her ‘fat arse.’

  Everyone would understand. She had slept in the baby’s room. He was such an unsettled child. Everyone knew that. In his first few months of life there was advice from everywhere. Swaddle him, don’t swaddle him, feed him, don’t feed him, give him a dummy, don’t give him a dummy, let him cry, don’t let him cry.

  No one would blame her lack of attention.

  He was, after all, very negligent of his health.

  Too much food, too much alcohol, and he was under a lot of stress at work. His size had increased every year they’d been together and so had his problems. Indigestion, heart palpitations, muscle tears, high cholesterol.

  In the first years of marriage she had been able to dedicate herself to him. She m
ade his doctors’ appointments, cooked the right food, and encouraged him to walk with her. She knew his Medicare number off the top of her head. She had no idea what hers was.

  He was a big man, a stressed man, a sick man.

  Everyone would understand. ‘Bound to happen,’ old friends would whisper to each other. ‘He couldn’t have gone on for long the way he was going.’

  ‘I don’t know why he took sleeping pills,’ she can hear herself saying as she listens to the soft breathing of her baby boy. ‘He had a headache and I told him the pills were in the pantry. I don’t know why he took the wrong ones and then drank.’

  No one would question her. They knew she loved him. She took such good care of him. ‘You’re such a good wife,’ their friends remarked when she listed his medications at the show and tell of health problems. He would nod and smile and occasionally run his hand down her back. He loved her; everyone knew it and she loved him. They were a great couple and now they had a baby to complete them.

  ‘I could just go,’ she had thought over the years when the menace turned physical. I could just leave… but his heart was a problem. ‘I can’t stand this anymore,’ she told him one night a year before she fell pregnant.

  ‘Fine, then fuck off, just go,’ he said but even as he spoke his breath was running out and he was clutching his chest.

  ‘Just go,’ he screamed but she guided him to the sofa instead, called the ambulance, waited in the emergency room.

  ‘A minor heart attack,’ said the doctor, ‘Rest and no stress.’

  ‘But he’s still so young,’ she protested when what she wanted to say was, ‘I was almost out the door.’

  ‘You can go,’ he had said once he was prone on the bed at home. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replied.

  It took him weeks to recover and feel strong again. Confined to the couch or bed he was polite and talkative. They watched old movies together and discussed the news.

  ‘I remember this man,’ she thought. ‘I remember him.’ But then he was well again and back at work where no one but he had any notion of just how difficult things were. The second heart attack did more damage. She is sure they will not bother with an autopsy. His history would speak for itself.