The House of Hidden Mothers

by Meera Syal

  Mala joined him and they stood in silence for a while, enjoying the birdsong, the wide-open views. She had buttoned up her coat to her neck – or rather Shyama’s coat, as Mala owned nothing warm enough that still fitted her any more. Toby remembered Shyama wearing this one, a smocky-type thing with three large buttons, the kind you might find on a toddler’s coat, in a bold blue-and-black print. Shyama had told him it was sixties-style, based on a Mary Quant design. He had told her it made her look ‘six months gone’. She’d worn it defiantly for a while after that, enjoying the spark that passed between them every time she emerged from the house wearing it. But once they’d started trying for a baby and it became clear that there were problems, the coat had been consigned to the back of the wardrobe.

  ‘You like it so much, don’t you?’ Mala finally said.

  Toby nodded. ‘I think Shyama will like it too, don’t you?’

  Toby looked at her. Her face was so still she looked as if she had been carved out of polished wood. He couldn’t understand how she did not seem to know how beautiful she was.

  ‘Who would not like this place?’ Mala shrugged. ‘You see, horses here … cows in that field, yes? With the gate and the high ground. And in this one,’ she indicated a small overgrown meadow, ‘I would plant food. Not the same as my village. Here you must plant wheat, barley, sugar beet, carrots.’

  ‘You’ve just named the major crops grown in East Anglia,’ Toby said, impressed.

  ‘I know, I googled it. And in this corner … just flowers.’

  ‘Flowers don’t feed anyone,’ smiled Toby.

  ‘When you are not hungry, then you have time for something beautiful.’

  Toby jumped as his mobile buzzed in his pocket. He saw the caller ID and walked rapidly away from Mala, further up the dirt track. She saw the guilty twitch, a veil already filming his eyes as he left her behind.

  ‘Toby?’ Shyama said, sounding as clear as if she was standing in the next field. ‘Are you out and about?’

  ‘Er … yep … just a few last-minute odds and sods.’ He tried not to pant, slowing down his pace so she wouldn’t hear the frosted crusts breaking under his boots. ‘How’s your dad doing?’

  ‘Oh, Tobes …’

  He wished the line had been less clear so he wouldn’t have known she was crying. Shyama never wept loudly or with any great drama, her tears came from somewhere deep and private, unwillingly shed; she always feared seeming weak, appearing needy. He braced himself for bad news.

  ‘Shyams?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘He’s … he seems so … normal. It may be temporary amnesia just from the stress … or it could be the beginning of something else. Mum’s not coping well.’

  Toby spun around at the sound of a loud horn. He saw the estate agent waving from his car window, miming a telephone receiver with his finger and thumb. Toby nodded back in a similarly clichéd manner, doing a thumbs-up Roger-Roger-understood gesture, wishing to Christ the man would just bugger off as quietly as possible.

  ‘Where are you? Is this a bad time?’

  ‘No, no … sorry, the traffic is … keep talking.’

  She carried on while Toby listened, watching a huge flock of starlings swoop across the fields in wide synchonized arcs, tea leaves swirled by an invisible hand around the blue bowl of the sky. She missed him so much, she said, was being torn apart by her conflicting loyalties, tending he who had given her life, wanting to be with the one yet to take his first breath. But her father’s final batch of test results would be discussed the day after tomorrow, so she still hoped she could be on a plane home before the baby’s due date.

  Toby finished the call and turned back towards the rectory. As he walked around the side of the black-painted barn he saw Mala lying on her side, one leg splayed out awkwardly revealing her pink winter sock, the shoe that had covered it a few inches away. The surface of the pothole was all ice and blood.

  ‘Mala?’ he shouted, running now, knowing she would not lift her head to hear him.

  After the stillness of the farmyard, there was so much noise. The men’s voices shouting, and instructions in her ear so kind and calm, the wa-wa wail of a siren like keening women following a funeral and the sounds of a fat man puffing loudly in hissy breaths, tyres on tarmac, then the clanging of doors, cold air on her face, the sensation of being lifted as easily as a child, set down, swept away, then more voices, women this time: ‘Mrs Shaw? Can you hear me?’

  Through her closed lids flashes of light alternated with darkness as she was wheeled through places where sound echoed and bounced back to her, far away, as if she could hear through a conch shell other lives, other worlds. But only one life existed for her, now lying still in her stomach; they were all satellites around a dead star.

  ‘Mr Shaw?’ Dr Pardew led him into a small office and shut the door behind her. She looked risibly young at first glance, hair scraped back into a ponytail, a crumpled blouse under her white coat; the bags under her eyes made her look older – it must have been a long shift. In her hand she held a set of what looked like X-rays, except these were black grainy images printed out on thin white paper, a stark relief map that meant nothing to Toby.

  ‘The baby’s not in any danger. There’s been a slight bleed, but that’s all under control and they’re both stable.’

  Toby felt as if he had been holding his breath for hours; only now could he let out a long exhale, which took all his energy with it. The doctor briefly consulted the form in front of her, checking with him the date of their last scan, how had the results been?

  ‘All fine, as far as we were told …’ Toby said cautiously. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘We are just a bit concerned that the baby seems a little small for its dates.’

  Toby wanted to say his dates. It bothered him, the refusal to assign an identity to his son.

  ‘Or that … no, we were told he’s a bit on the small side, but the doctor said he looked fine … We were told South Asian kids are generally smaller … you know, they’re usually under that average weight line of those charts they show you. And maybe we got the dates wrong …’

  He was aware fear was making him gabble. He wanted to tell her that he had finally read all the baby books Shyama had had piled up on her bedside table for months. He’d even remembered to say ‘South Asian’ instead of just ‘Asian’.

  ‘OK, well that’s good to know. Hopefully we can get hold of your last scan results. Do you happen to know if there were any queries then about the amniotic fluid around the baby?’

  ‘I … I don’t think so.’ Toby tried to recall, but his head felt packed with wet cotton wool.

  ‘And has your wife mentioned that the baby hasn’t been moving as much recently?’

  Toby hesitated, then confirmed that Mala had said something about that a couple of times the week before. They had assumed that he’d just slowed down, as there was less room in there for the little fella to tumble around. The doctor continued writing in rapid strokes until Toby’s question made her look up.

  ‘Is there something wrong with him?’ Toby’s voice sounded high and strange to his ears.

  Dr Pardew closed her file slowly. She knew she wasn’t firing on all cylinders today. Her job’s ridiculous hours helped her make swift decisions and sharp diagnoses, but occasionally did nothing for her people skills. ‘I do apologize, Mr Shaw. There are a couple of things which may need investigating.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Well, it’s a combination of factors. The baby’s weight—’

  ‘I already said—’

  ‘Yes, absolutely … but that combined with the slightly unusual amount of amniotic fluid and lack of movement … What we would like to do is rule out the slight possibility that there may be any chromosomal abnormalities, sometimes indicated by—’

  ‘What? But no one has ever mentioned— Chromosomal? Abnormal?’

  ‘I don’t mean to alarm you.’

  ‘Well, you bloody are!’ Toby stood
up. ‘We’ve been under the best … very expensive doctor. How come this hasn’t been picked up before?’

  Dr Pardew came out from behind her desk and stood beside Toby. Her eyes felt gritty, she badly needed another coffee. ‘I am probably being over-cautious, and when I’ve seen your previous scans and talked with your own doctor, we can all relax.’

  ‘Relax?’ Toby slumped back in his seat.

  Dr Pardew perched awkwardly on the desk beside him. ‘Would you prefer to be under your own consultant? We can arrange—’

  ‘No,’ Toby said calmly. ‘First tell me what you think is wrong and what you think we should do.’

  Dr Pardew recognized the set jaw of the stoic in this young man and her explanation was swift and frank. The procedures were simple: an amniocentesis and parental blood tests would confirm or dismiss any suspicion of chromosomal issues. The only point at which Toby blanched was when she informed him that the test results would take at least ten days to come back. As his wife was still bleeding, Dr Pardew did not advise moving her until she and the baby were stable, but she could offer a transfer to a London hospital after that. She would of course discuss all of this with their own doctor in the morning. And in the meantime they should try not to worry. It was probably nothing.

  Nothing.

  Toby had been following everything pretty well until she started talking about translocations. The science of it was blandly comforting.

  ‘… if we find the translocation in either you or Mrs Shaw, that’s fine. If it’s present in both of you, there is a fifteen per cent risk of a genetically inherited flaw, and then we can look at further options …’

  His mind was on the larger truth of what all these tests would reveal. That Mala was not Mrs Shaw, that she had no genetic connection to this child – only he did. But would they then refuse to treat her? Would they inform the authorities? All those nightmare stories whispered in the back of the clinic’s people-carrier returned to him: surrogate children who ended up stateless, left to languish in foster care whilst red tape looped around them, strangling their futures. Shyama would know what to do; she had dealt the most with their lawyer. Maybe the minute they did the tests they would know the truth anyway. As he didn’t know what he could and couldn’t say at this moment, he simply nodded his head until the doctor was standing up again, clipboard under her arm and furtively checking her watch.

  ‘Mr Shaw? Is there anything else you need to ask me?’

  Toby cleared his throat. ‘So if we find something … anything … I mean he’s due next month – so there’s nothing we can do now anyway, is there?’

  Dr Pardew sat down again next to Toby with a faint sigh. It would be hard getting up again. She knew she owed this man another half an hour. And all the other patients waiting for her, short-changed again. Never enough time. ‘I’m sorry this has all happened like this. Normally you’d be offered genetic counselling. We don’t have anyone here right now, but I can get on to that first thing tomorrow. And I will say it again at the risk of sounding repetitive – this may well all be a false alarm, and in ten days’ time all you will have to worry about will be welcoming your healthy baby into the world.’

  Even though Shyama had been unsure about going out to eat that evening, Tara had insisted she needed a break. Prem was sitting up, chatty, animated; his hand never left Sita’s, whom he seemed to recognize so naturally that he thought it odd when she carefully asked him once or twice who she was. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever not recognizing her, was shocked by her tears, saddened by her relief that he had come back to them.

  ‘I haven’t been anywhere, jaan …’ He patted her arm and waved off Tara and Shyama. Half an hour later they found themselves at Koti, the trendy new establishment which had fashioned itself on a Rajasthani bazzar. You had to pay an entrance fee to be admitted.

  At first, Shyama assumed the ringing phone was not hers but Tara’s, as she had been texting on it every ten minutes, no doubt providing a running commentary of her evening for Dhruv, whom she would see in an hour or so and then repeat the whole story to again.

  ‘Sorry, Toby!’ Shyama said breathlessly, finally finding a quieter spot behind a stall selling carved wooden trunks with heavy brass locks. ‘I should have called earlier … Dad’s suddenly turned a corner, he’s …’

  She had to walk further away to hear everything, found herself leaning against the boundary wall, the stone cool against her back, crickets violining their legs somewhere near her hair. She repeated what Toby suggested she had to do: talk to Dr Passi, get the medical records of the egg donor and email them back immediately. Yes, he had done the right thing to say nothing yet; yes, she understood the baby was fine, she wasn’t to worry.

  ‘Have you got hold of Mr O’Connell?’ she managed to say. ‘What hospital are you at? Sorry? What the fuck were you doing in Suffolk?’

  Toby, shivering in the hospital car park, spoke without thinking, his mind clouded with worry. He still recalled the easy honesty of their last conversation and hoped that everything he said would reassure her: he’d been hunting down a new home for them, buying clothes and a bed for the baby. Yes, Mala had been with him, but only because Shyama couldn’t be, and he had missed her every moment. He offered up the truth as a gift.

  All Shyama heard was his assumption that she would sell the house – her house – to fund his pipe dream. All she saw was Toby walking hand-in-hand with Mala, choosing changing bags and tiny knitted hats, wandering around a country place she had known nothing about until now, planning a future in which she was a distant bystander. Flashes of memory spooled into a story, frame by frame: how he had rushed to open the car door for Mala when they first arrived; how he always insisted on escorting her upstairs before her bath; how, many times, she had caught them talking into the night, and their sudden silence when she entered the kitchen; how he had ignored Mala so studiously at first that it was clear he had wanted to look; how, after that, he couldn’t stop looking as she glided around making potions, feeding them, the fecund Lady Bountiful doing everything that Shyama did, but better, and so much younger. Shyama had always imagined that she would fight for this relationship if it faltered. Initial worries about losing Toby to a woman his own age had faded when they had embarked on this journey together, a commitment more significant than marriage. Since then she had always assumed that she would be battling different rivals: boredom, wrinkles, the libido-draining sleepless nights that accompanied a small child. But not this. How could she fight the woman who sustained all their hopes of a shared future? Who nourished her lover’s child, which she had paid her to carry?

  ‘Are you in love with her?’ Shyama asked him calmly.

  ‘What?’ Any answer he may have given was drowned by the scream of an ambulance siren as it pulled into its bay. By the time Toby had moved far enough away to ask her to repeat what he thought he had heard, the line was dead.

  Toby sat by Mala’s side all night, checking his phone every half-hour, willing it to ring, waiting to hear Shyama’s voice with all the answers. In the morning, he brought Mala treats from the small but well-stocked on-site supermarket: chocolate, apples, milkshake in a carton, glossy magazines. Of course he loved her, but only because he loved the baby she carried. This was what he told himself as he held her hand and watched the long, almost invisible amniocentesis needle puncturing her protruding stomach. He half expected to hear a loud pop and a rude noise as she deflated, revealing the child on the screen, so unmistakeably a small person now with eyelashes and restless fingers, to be a hologram, a hoax. But his boy slept on soundly; the only sign that he had even registered the intrusion into his silent watery world was a sudden twitch of his small and perfect foot.

  He left her for a while to have his own blood test, welcomed the discomfort as a distraction, watching the syringe fill with the ruby liquid that contained all his secrets, the inherited flaws of his past, the possibilities of his cellular legacy. And then back to her bedside in the noisy six-bed ward. She looked
almost comical in her blue gown, a tiny head and slim legs and feet bookending the enormous dome of her, a beached whale, a python who had swallowed a giant egg. She looked grave with responsibility and only broke into a wisp of a smile when she waved him farewell. His throat felt thick with emotion. He had another nine days of this.

  In the car park, he checked his phone again. Shyama had not called, but she had left a short text. ‘Dr Passi out of the country. Told no one else available to give more detailed info on egg donor. Makes no difference now. We have to live with what we have.’

  There were more texts and emails but he never got to talk to Shyama directly, despite leaving her regular voice messages. Not that there was anything new to report – every day passed the same way. Mala’s bleeding continued on and off so she stayed put; the foetal heart monitor became their reassurance: there he was, tiny horses’ hooves galloping their glee. If there was something wrong with this child, he didn’t know and didn’t care. Toby would bring Mala fruit and magazines and they would eat lunch together, though there was a new formality between them. He kept his conversation light, polite, skimming over the subtext that seemed to underpin every exchange. She held herself carefully all the time now, every shift slow and deliberate. He sometimes had to look away; he did not want to see her tender movements which gave away the unpalatable truth: she was frightened too, because she cared way beyond her job description as womb for hire. How could she not? How could they, any of them, have assumed otherwise?

  In the afternoon he would get into the car and drive aimlessly around the country lanes, carefully avoiding any old haunts or places where familiar faces might lurk. Suffolk was a big county but not big enough to lose the fear that clawed at his skin, his chest. A long and at times angry conversation with Mr O’Connell, their obstetrician, the same soothing reassurances, the same tiny note of doubt – he told Shyama all of it and all he ever got back were her typed responses: ‘That’s fine’, ‘Agree – go ahead’, ‘Late here – let u know tomorrow’. The test results, they both knew, would only tell them half the story: Toby’s genetic gift or curse. But in the end, did it matter now? They were experiencing the hopes and fears of every parent for the being they had created. And what would they do if their creation turned out to be flawed? Give him back like a faulty product? This child was an x-ray of their shared conscience. If he was anything less than the perfect and carefully chosen baby they had ordered, how they coped with him would expose who they really were: people who wanted to be parents at any cost, or people who decided the cost was now far too high.