by Ann Leary
In London people walk, and pass each other, on the left-hand side of the sidewalk—or the “pavement,” as they call it. I never noticed that we Americans walk the way we drive, on the right, but I noticed it in London as I was constantly walking head-on into other pedestrians. The British say “sorry” in instances where we say “excuse me” or “pardon me,” but I grew to understand that, at least as it pertained to me, it was an observation. Sometimes, after a sidewalk body slam, men would say, “Sorry, luv,” which always thrilled me, as it instantly conjured the image of Michael Caine in Alfie.
The London Underground is relatively clean and efficient. The maps are easy to read, and it’s cheap, but the word “Underground” is a bit misleading, as it implies that the subway trains run, like most systems, just under the ground. The designers of the London Underground apparently believed that the farther people travel below the earth’s mantle, the better. At certain stops it is necessary to go down only two sets of stairs and perhaps an escalator to reach the train platform. But often, when you arrive at your destination, you discover that the train has been slowly descending toward hell, leaving you to scratch your way onto giant cargo elevators, impacted with other denizens of the deep who will join you cheek to cheek on your journey from the center of the earth. I discovered on one of these elevators that I’m claustrophobic, and I had a full-blown panic attack, which involved crying and hyperventilating. Fortunately, the elevator was full of Brits, who, fearing embarrassment—mine or theirs—pretended not to notice.
I was mostly a pedestrian, but when I had to ride, I usually took the bus. New York has tour buses that are replicas of the London double-deckers, but nothing can match riding the real thing. First of all, in New York, nobody would ever allow you to leap onto and off of a moving bus. I love the large platform in the rear from which you must sometimes launch yourself, as it always makes me feel like Lulu from To Sir, with Love.
From UCH I would take the number 73 bus to Oxford Street and from there switch to buses going to various destinations. Usually I wouldn’t remain at any of these places but would catch another bus returning to Oxford Street. As soon as I hopped onto the bus, I would scramble up the groovy spiral stairs to the top and try to sit as close to the front as possible. If I was lucky enough to get the very front seat, I always felt as if I were on some kind of space-age people mover, careening around corners, eye level with the treetops. For 75p I could sightsee for hours.
ONE DAY EARLY IN MAY, I was told that Jack was scheduled to graduate from Room A of the SCBU to Room B the following day. Room B was for babies who are breathing with little or no supplemental oxygen and therefore need to be monitored slightly less by the nursing staff. It was for healthier babies, babies who were one step closer to being home, and I delightedly hugged the nurse on duty when she gave me the news. For weeks I had walked past Rooms B and C, and envied the families of the babies within. There was a healthier atmosphere about those rooms, less machinery and more baby clothes and toys. Parents held their babies more frequently, and recently, walking past Room B, I’d seen a mother giving her baby a bath. I was thrilled with the news that Jack was doing well enough to move. Twenty-four hours seemed too long to wait.
The next morning I woke up early and ran across the street to the hospital as soon as I was finished submitting to the breast pump. I went straight to Room B, where I found five babies in isolettes, but not one of them was Jack. He was back in his old spot, in Room A.
“I thought Jack was moving to B today,” I said to the nurse.
“Yes, I heard something about that, but we have to wait for doctors’ rounds. The doctors on duty today must approve the transfer. Don’t worry, they’ll be coming through in a few hours.”
I went back to the nurses’ residence and took a shower. It was raining and cold outside, so instead of going to the park, I stayed in my room and wrote some letters. Then, when I figured that the doctors must surely have finished their rounds, I strode back to the hospital and into Room B, where again there was no sign of Jack.
“Doctors are still doing rounds, dear,” the nurse in Room B told me. “They’ll be finished soon.”
I left Room B and stood watching the doctors in Room A. They were examining the baby next to Jack, so I sat down and waited.
Finally they emerged, and Dr. Margaret Snow approached me.
“Mrs. Leary?” she said.
“Yes?”
“I understand that one of the nursing staff told you that Jack might be moving today, but we’ve decided to keep him on in Room A for another day or two, just to be on the safe side.”
“The safe side? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s terribly wrong. He had a few bradys last night, and we don’t like his blood-sat reading this morning. Nothing to be terribly alarmed about, but he did have a deep desat or two last night, so we took a blood sample. We’ll wait for the results of that before we allow him to move on.”
Amazingly, I knew what all of these words meant and was able to counter with, “Wait a minute. Are you worried that he’s developing an infection … or pulmonary hypertension?”
“We just want to rule out everything. It’s probably nothing. A little setback.”
“Did you up his theophylline?” I asked.
“We’re going to wait for his blood work to come back.”
“Hmmm,” I said, “I thought clinical trials indicated that theophylline should be used prophylactically in cases—”
For some reason doctors hate being advised on clinical data and neonatal practices by mothers with no medical training. Dr. Snow interrupted me by saying, “Mrs. Leary, I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure Jack will be moving to Room B in the next day or two. Let’s just wait for those test results.” And then she and the resident doctors moved on to examine the babies in Room B.
I spent the rest of the morning sitting mournfully next to Jack’s isolette, until Joan Dyer wandered in and said, “Why don’t you go for a walk?”
“It’s pouring rain, that’s why,” I replied bitterly.
“Have you ever been to the British Museum? It’s only a few minutes’ walk from here.”
“No,” I said.
“Right, well, it’s simple really. When you exit the hospital, you walk down Gower Street until you reach Great Russell Street. Turn left, and there it is.”
The last thing in the world I wanted to do was visit a museum, but before I knew it, Joan had pushed me out the door of the hospital and sent me off with her umbrella and some cheerful words about Egyptian mummies, Asian artifacts, and the Rosetta Stone.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM’S collections showcase the history of the world’s cultures. There is an Africa gallery, America, Britain, Asia, Near East, Pacific galleries, and so on. I didn’t pick up a museum guide or look at any maps. I just drifted in and out of the vast exhibition halls on that gloomy afternoon. Around me everywhere were tools, religious icons, and weapons—all evidence of the painstaking efforts of humanity. Staring at these relics now, carefully cataloged and displayed under the pure white gleam of gallery lighting, I was filled with sadness and a sense of futility. The purpose of the museum seemed to be to celebrate man’s existence by displaying centuries of our handiwork, but my immediate emotional response was to wonder what all the striving, effort, and elbow grease were for. What was the point of decorating an arrow that was going to break when it was pulled from its prey? Why would a person with a twenty-five-year life expectancy waste time decorating beads?
It was a school day and nearly every exhibit was surrounded by groups of uniformed schoolchildren—lively, rosy-cheeked schoolchildren who breathed effortlessly. Never before had children appeared so robust, so full of health, and as I followed them around the museum I embarked on my usual voyage of doubt: What if Jack is never able to go to school? What if he always has breathing problems? What if he can’t see or hear properly?
I saw the entrance to the North America gallery and was certain that my mood would be lifted by famil
iar relics of my own heritage. I expected to find folksy quilts and hand-dipped candles created by people with names like Goody Proctor. Instead the North American wing was filled with the colorful creations of people called Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec. People who devoted their time to creating elaborate stone carvings of wind gods, eagle warriors, and jaguars. I learned that these early Native American people were skilled artisans, potters, and metalworkers. I also learned, to my shock and amazement, that, at least as far as the British Museum was concerned, Mexico is in North America. Up until that point, I had honestly believed that North America stopped at the Texas border.
On my way out of the museum, I walked through the Egyptian room. There I was drawn to a rectangular display case in the center of the room that was surrounded by a small crowd. In the case was the almost perfectly preserved body of “Ginger,” a five-thousand-year-old man. Ginger had been buried in a shallow sand grave in predynastic Egypt. The lack of bacteria-producing moisture in his desert grave protected him from decay, and so his skin and his ginger-colored hair, even his fingernails and toenails, were perfectly preserved. According to a plaque on Ginger’s case, the body had been displayed there in the museum since 1900 and was one of the museum’s most popular exhibits. I could see why Ginger drew such a crowd. He was fascinating to look at, and it was hard to walk away. He was curled up, naked, in fetal position, and his flesh was the color of dried mustard. The skin on his head had begun to split open like the seams of a volleyball, and his white skull bone was evident underneath. Beside him lay earthenware jugs and bowls, ceramic beads, and a knife that had been fashioned from a large piece of flint. All these possessions had been carefully placed around him in his grave.
Somebody loved this man, I thought as I looked at these artifacts. My mother had run out and bought Jack a stuffed bunny almost immediately after he was born, and we had placed it in his isolette with a sense of purpose. It almost felt as if there should have been a ceremony for the laying of the bunny with Jack. The bunny was meant to be a comforting presence in what my mother and I thought was a bare and lonely new world. It was about the same size as Jack, and although he was never aware of its presence, whenever we removed it, even for a moment, his isolette seemed to lose all semblance of a home—of a living environment—and we quickly put it back again.
A group of schoolchildren was herded to Ginger’s display case by their teacher. The children appeared to be about seven years of age, and they had the glazed, wandering eyes of kids who had shuffled around the museum a few hours too long.
“Is that a real dead person?” one of them asked.
“It’s not. It’s a chimpanzee,” replied another child.
“No, it’s a human,” the teacher said, and she read them the plaque on Ginger’s case. The children jostled for position around the case. There was some shoving, and I saw a little girl angrily stomp the foot of a boy who had accidentally lost his balance and leaned on her for a moment. Two boys were walking around and around the display. Then they stopped and dissolved into hysterical giggles.
“Shhhhh!” admonished the teacher. The boys stopped giggling. One of them pulled the shirtsleeve of the boy next to him and pointed to Ginger. He was pointing at Ginger’s anus and deflated testicles, and now all three children were giggling uncontrollably.
“There’s nothing funny about that, Robert,” said their teacher, but the children couldn’t be convinced, and she was forced to wrangle them on to the next exhibit. All the way back to the hospital, I thought about the boys and about poor old Ginger and laughed quietly to myself. When I arrived, I realized I’d left Joan’s umbrella behind, and since it had stopped raining, I went back and retrieved it for her. It was still leaning against Ginger’s case, and Ginger still rested within, with his crockery and utensils and his ass bared for all the world to see, as it had been for the past hundred years.
FOURTEEN
I HAD ALWAYS assumed that marriage was an institution created by men. I thought that since men were once biologically unable to prove that a child was theirs, they bound their mates to them by law in an effort to ensure the paternity of their offspring. Now I know different. Marriage was created by women to prevent their men from hightailing it once they got a load of what pregnancy and childbirth can do to the female body and mind. My physical deterioration after Jack’s birth was due not only to the usual baby fat and postnatal depression but also to the fact that I couldn’t afford to look presentable. Haircuts, eyebrow waxes, and clothing all cost money, and though I had always considered myself a moderately attractive woman, I now came to the sad realization that my looks are purely cosmetic. Without Clinique, I discovered, I am a hag.
I wore my hair short at the time and was already somewhat in need of a haircut when we’d first arrived in London. One day, several weeks after Jack was born, I was walking past a shop window, wearing my usual denim jacket and sunglasses, and, turning to catch a glimpse of my reflection, I was shocked to see Roy Orbison staring back at me.
One of the nurses gave me the name of her hairdresser, whose salon was located within walking distance, near Covent Garden. When I arrived, I was met by George, the owner and sole inhabitant of the salon, who greeted me at the door and shook my hand. He smiled at me, and then his eyes wandered to the sides and top of my head. A cloud came over his face and then he quickly looked back into my eyes and smiled again. It almost seemed as if he was trying not to get caught looking at my hair and that it required the same effort as avoiding looking at a prosthetic limb or a scar. George led me into the salon and had me stand in front of one of the broad, full-length mirrors, and I actually gasped out loud. I hadn’t really seen myself in several weeks. I had no mirror in my room, and in the residence bathroom there was only a tiny mirror above the sink. The bathroom in the SCBU had a mirror, but the light in that bathroom never worked, and I could barely make out the shape of my face. George’s salon was nothing more than a small room filled with giant mirrors, and under the angry glare of the fluorescent lights, I was now forced to take it all in at once.
The hair was much worse than I’d thought. It had somehow managed to grow out and up instead of down, giving my head the exact shape of an acorn. My face was still puffy from pregnancy, and as a result my eyes were tiny slits. My body, which had always been on the lean side, was now chubby and soft, and my voluminous pants were hiked up over my belly and belted just under my chest, à la Fred Mertz. George must have seen the color drain from my face, as he suddenly steered me away from the mirrors and sent me into a minuscule dressing room to change into a robe. When I emerged, I felt better, since my body was hidden by the robe, and I sat in George’s chair and instantly fell asleep.
Sleep was the only positive pregnancy side effect that actually continued after I gave birth to Jack. I’m a lifelong insomniac, and since childhood I’ve viewed bedtime with a great deal of trepidation, knowing that after everybody else in the house was asleep, I would still be lying there worrying about how tired I was going to be the next day. As soon as I became pregnant, I couldn’t get enough sleep. Instead of awakening at my usual 5:00 A.M., I needed the alarm clock to awaken me at seven for work. I would doze on the bus on the way to work, then doze at my desk throughout the day. After work I came home and took a nice long nap, woke up for dinner, then went to bed at nine.
Apparently the hormones and the stress of lactation make new mothers incredibly sleepy, and on my hard dormitory bed, I was still able to lay my head on my pillow and immediately fall asleep. I also, unfortunately, had the tendency to nod off at less appropriate times, as I did that day at George’s Salon. When I awoke, I yawned and blinked and tried to look in the mirror, but George turned my chair so that I couldn’t see myself. He was frowning and was clearly upset about something. I tried again to look at myself, and George said, “No, no, let me finish.” He pushed my hair away from my face, then back over my face. I felt him part my hair on one side, then the other. As I looked at him, it was clear that something had gone ter
ribly wrong, but when I caught his eye, he smiled and said, “Almost ready.” Then he took his scissors and trimmed and cut and shaped and slashed, and finally, with a sigh and a tentative smile, he turned me back to the mirror.
Later, back at the hospital, I discovered yet another area in which the social behavior of the British differs from that of Americans. Most Americans, upon seeing a friend or associate with a new hairstyle, will comment favorably upon it, whether it looks nice or not. What’s done is done. The person can’t usually change her hair back, and the typical American, always determined to bolster the feelings of our fellow Americans, will compliment the new hairstyle no matter how ridiculous it looks. The British have thicker skins than Americans do. Much thicker. I imagine that if you laid the skin of an American out on a table, it would be so thin and delicate that you could see perfectly the surface underneath. The skin of an Englishman or -woman, coarsened by years of bullying and teasing, would, similarly laid out, be thick as cowhide. The British are sincere and see no need to lie to spare the feelings of their friends.