by Toby Litt
Almost instantly, Aggie had became nostalgic for the previous time – her time of time; being indulgent of it, frivolous with it, investigative through it. It was lost; and the other time Aggie now became concerned with was the time stretching forwards, and wondering how long she would have to wait before she had some more of this velvety-rich, self-indulgent, bath-advertisement, woman-imagination time. With Max there in the house, there was no time as such, merely a succession of actions, improvised to stave off his boredom. Of course, Agatha resented Max for taking her away from herself, again; as he had done when newborn. What surprised her most, and dismayed her entirely, was exactly how much she resented him for this. It wasn’t just anger – she was honest enough to admit that; at points it became, though she felt nauseous with the implications – at points it became straightforward hate. Aggie needed distraction from these thoughts of Max and, perversely, she tried to find this in other thoughts of Max. She looked at him perhaps as closely as at any object that had ever held her attention. How had he been affected, on the most profound levels, by all that had happened to them? It was almost impossible to tell – and she was afraid she would only find out years and years later, when any linking of cause to effect would be a stupid act, probably one of despair. If Max went bad, they would inevitably blame what had happened to him in his third year.
Whilst she had been pregnant, Max had liked to put his hand on her growing tummy; nowadays, he still demanded this, to touch her ungrowing (and sadly unshrinking, too) tummy, and she still – meaninglessly – let him. She was glad he hadn’t been old enough fully to take in her preparatory introductions of the idea of a lovely little sister, a Rose. Still, she thought Max was a much more melancholy child; deep blue was there, as well as his usual green, crimson and yellow. She admired and was terrified by his capacity for passion; she wished it for herself (had she had it and lost it, or allowed it to be mothered-embarrassed out of her?), and she tried to mother it out of him.
Aggie had a terror of overprotecting Max, but even more of resenting his happiness, his ignorance of what had happened. There were huge fears inside her, as to what she might not be able to prevent herself taking out on him. She formulated it: ‘Because Rose died, part of me wants Max to die, too. It would tidy the world up, if he were gone; if he were gone, I could be done with the whole thing.’ Sometimes she felt it was as if Max had acquired, through no fault of his own, entirely through their doing, a second shadow: whenever he did something for the first time, a handstand, spoke a sentence with a sub-clause, picked up a book and read it for himself, said he was tired and wanted to go to bed, imitated a chicken – every time, there was another darkchild behind him who was never going to do these things.
It was hard not to wish him away so that his deathly little twin would go, too. He was polluted with pathos, and Agatha felt furious at herself, for not being able to forget, and at Max, for not allowing her to forget. At times, though of course he wasn’t, she seemed to catch him being deliberately tragic in order, it followed, to be cruel. There was a possibility that he’d learnt this sort of emotional manipulation from his grandmother, but the idea that he’d been corrupted so completely was almost unbearable: to have given birth to a male version of her mother – better never to have given birth at all. And this was another set of thoughts about Max which other, more presentable thoughts had to be brought out to replace. He was very handsome. He was very healthy.
Max also, and inevitably, brought joybursts with him; to be his parent was to become, at moments, the sky on fireworks night. He could not help but make Aggie feel again the old ecstatic wonder of being a mother and Paddy the deep rich ache of felt fatherhood. It was the recovery from these moments that made Agatha resent both them and, though she hated the idea, Max, too.
Arrangements for the funeral had become more complicated – Paddy hadn’t been aware of how exacting his father’s will would be; still, he supposed, the dying man had had five or six years to draft and redraft it. A particular church was specified, particular readings and particular hymns – all of which would require Paddy to travel halfway across the country, have meetings, make arrangements. It would be easier, he told Aggie, if he stayed overnight. ‘That’s fine,’ she said, trying to stop Max banging his head into the corner of the kitchen table.
‘Are you sure?’ Paddy asked. He had worries which he knew there was no way he could express: Agatha; Max.
‘It needs to be done,’ said Aggie. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
But it wasn’t – Paddy knew it wasn’t. He was afraid of leaving Agatha alone with Max. Somehow, he thought, she would absorb him into her depression, her dark world. He couldn’t be sure if she thought she amounted to an actual danger to Max: she was his mother, she spent her life keeping him from small harms.
‘I’ll be home as soon as I can,’ he said.
‘We’ll be fine,’ Agatha said, and Paddy felt as terrified as he could remember. This was irrational, he told himself; the telling did not work.
Before Paddy went, Agatha felt vaguely worried that without him there she wouldn’t be able to cope with Max. This was nothing to do with practicalities; the mechanics of it were already returning as reflexes. She was more anxious about becoming distracted, by the house, by some new manifestation of its feelings towards her. But within a couple of hours, Agatha’s worries flipped around and everything – Max – life – life alone – seemed all too horrifically copeable with; Agatha felt like a nurse in Accident and Emergency, experienced beyond compassion. Her emotions had been professionalized, cauterized, the scar tissue made into hard, useful shapes: hooks. Paddy’s coping, she took as read – it was what he did, who he was. And she feared, now, that between them they could cope with anything – even Max’s death; and this thought, of course, made her fear Max’s death more than ever, because she knew that – after the loss they had already suffered – life would then no longer even be a case of coping; it would be, as recent weeks had felt, mere survival for their separate selves. The delineations agreed between them, of time, of doing, would evaporate. There would be waste, emptiness, rooms, time, and the cliff face to climb of one another. It was agonizing, this thought, so, to begin with at least, she did not let herself near it; it left her in imaginary confrontation with the tall wall of the damaged other. Max, for the moment, stood between them – if either of them saw something they did not wish to see, a neglected wound, a stretch of ugliness, they could always pretend (to themselves most of all) that Max’s latest movement, dodge, had covered their view, that they were no longer sure they’d seen what they’d seen. Gashes there were, too big to ignore, where the cliff – along with a measure of self-esteem, or intellectual interest, or political engagement – had collapsed. There were slumps in one another that they had glimpsed, areas of slag and slurry – Max, in reaction, must be held higher up, closer to the eyes – he must come to obscure the whole view of the other; and the risk here was that they would each bring him up so close that they would begin to see flaws in him, too. He could not remain undamaged – how could he? This compassionate boy they had been trying to raise – alien to dismissal and cruelty and the weaponry of other little bleeders. How could he not notice? She desired more than almost anything not to come to hate him for this, his seeming ignorance and insensitivity. But her concentration upon this started, during the afternoon they were alone together, to make her think that she probably already had – had come to hate him. It was atrocious, to feel this; Agatha was wary of exaggerating to herself, but knew she wasn’t. There were conscious decisions she had made, about how to deal with Max when he returned. She had been determined that, by their own actions, melancholies, they would not demand of him any exaggerated response, they would not warp his universe with the gravity of her grief. He would know of his sister’s existence, her manner of existence, in their hearts and before their lives, and he would know, later, he would be told of her momentous continuance in their hearts and therefore their lives, but for the moment
his jolliness, his callousness were to be taken as gifts – had to be taken as gifts – from their wrapped appearances; he might hold out to them a box of earth, a worm in greaseproof paper, an applecore found beneath the carseat. Or all he might disgorge upon them might be an indifferent vomit, a puke that he himself was surprised by and hardly, really, noticed. These would be, she insisted, had to insist, boon and blessing and – if they needed to take further their insistence, in order to continue – these would be purpose and confirmation of purpose. Max went beyond being a reason for living, he was a lived life. It was hard, without him, to see how there might be life at all. And his death, his glorious variety of possible deaths, preoccupied her more even than it had done immediately following his birth. Agatha thought up ways and ways he might just. And as the afternoon turned darker, Agatha began to think of killing Max. Her momentary revulsion was only that – momentary, and revulsion could be overcome, by focus, by hate. It was a possibility, and the only illusion before had been that it wasn’t: she had often thought about killing Max, but always by terrible accident. Never before, not so far as she could remember, had the idea of deliberately ending his life come to her. And now, as he was in his cot taking his afternoon nap, all the accidents turned themselves into murders.
She felt dreadfully released – as if friction had disappeared entirely from the world of the house. Tidying up after Max’s morning was a long, slow hallucination in which movement required no effort at all: her hands sliced through unresisting air, finding themselves at their destinations a moment before she expected. She could, kill him – she could, because there was nothing and no-one to stop her. For a giddy half-hour, she tried to find where her guilt had gone. It was necessary to force herself into Max’s room, to look down upon his sleeping-breathing body. He was fine. In the strangest dislocated way, she felt he wouldn’t be harmed by being killed – the harm was all in him continuing to live. His breathing was a little annoying, so fast, so grabbed. Wouldn’t it be better, she thought, wouldn’t it solve everything for all of them? Paddy would know what to do. She would have her choices made for her – would never have to go outside again. Max wouldn’t have his wronged life. She wished his breathing would stop, so that she could return to hearing the house. He was still unknowingly asleep when she left his room; it annoyed her, in a minor additional way, that they hadn’t managed to redecorate it before he moved in.
Agatha continued to tidy downstairs, aware that really she was doing something preparatory – to what? She was no longer sure. Max would need a bath, and that was all she began to think about. In detail, she considered how deeply it would be filled – how long she would have to leave the taps running. She was, she found, able to picture the bathroom in its every detail – down to the toothbrushes in the glass. She remembered how, once upon a time, she hadn’t been content, setting off for work, unless she knew she’d made their toothbrushes, hers and Paddy’s, kiss; forcing their bristles into one another. It seemed such a disgustingly cutesy thing to do, like calling Max ‘the Monster’. The person she had become wouldn’t be capable of doing something so twee; she didn’t yet know what other capacities, in their stead, this new person had acquired.
Without letting herself think about it at all, she went to the phone and dialled May’s number. Luckily, but not completely surprisingly, she was in. ‘Can you come round?’ Aggie asked, after the hellos.
‘Why?’ asked May. ‘Is everything alright?’
‘I think I’m going mad,’ Aggie said. ‘I think I’ve already gone mad – I’m thinking so many things.’
‘Of course you’re not mad,’ May said. ‘I’ll be round in ten minutes, maybe fifteen. I’ll have to bring Hope. Is that okay?’
Agatha almost used this as an excuse to say no, she was alright, she’d just had a panic. ‘Come,’ Aggie said, ‘come quickly.’
Max woke up the moment she put the phone down, crying in a way she knew meant a full nappy. It was a plaintive wail, as if he’d been insulted by his own body and was fully aware of the indignity. With fear, Aggie went upstairs – she almost didn’t want to allow herself to touch him. After the phonecall, there was now no difficulty with guilt; she hadn’t had to find it, it had come looking for her. Lifting him from the cot, Max felt twice as heavy as usual – and it was an adult weight, though not in any way she could explain. She took him into the bathroom, where he immediately began screaming; the place still terrified him, for some reason. The automatism of nappy-changing did not happen: everything was clumsy – her movements, Max’s kicks. There was so much shit, and he seemed determined to get it on her trousers. May would be there, with Hope, in five minutes; there was no time to change. ‘Stop it, Max,’ Agatha said, and in imagination hit him. Then she hit him – a straight slap across the face. For a second she thought he hadn’t noticed. Perhaps she had done it gently enough for him to think it a game. But he started to cry, a big cry with a terrifying amount of momentum; this wouldn’t stop before May arrived. She fought him clean, then into the nappy, before picking him up for a hug. For a pulse or two, she thought she’d have to be sick in the toilet bowl. ‘Shh,’ she said, ‘shh, my baby boy.’ What would May think if he were distraught like this, when she arrived? Aggie pulled his hands down and assured herself there wasn’t yet a red mark on his face. Standing up, she looked down into the bath – perhaps this had been enough; no need for more. Just then, the doorbell rang. It was only when she opened it to May, Hope and the winter air that Aggie realised she had tears on her face right down to her chin.
May gave her a long, hard hug in the open door. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’ This was not a question Aggie could answer either immediately or honestly. She could feel Max holding onto one of her legs, slightly afraid of these new people.
They went inside, Hope carried through in her car seat; she was asleep, and May wanted her to stay that way so they could talk. Max, though, had recovered from his fear and was becoming playful. He very much wanted to grab hold of part of Hope, arm or leg, and shake her into life. For one terrible moment, Aggie – as she told him to stop! – thought he might be aiming to give her a slap. ‘Come and sit here,’ she said, and had Max imprisoned in her arms.
May continued asking what was wrong; if Aggie didn’t want to talk about it, she thought, why had she phoned up? May would understand her not wanting to talk at all. She knew already about Paddy’s father’s death – Paddy had called Henry with the news. ‘Everything’s wrong,’ said Aggie, exaggerating to deflect.
‘The house isn’t wrong,’ May said, ignorantly. ‘Max isn’t.’ She smiled at him and he, overcoming some of his adult-shyness, smiled back.
‘I’m so alone,’ Aggie said. ‘I’m in so much trouble.’ She had wanted to say pain but had swerved off from the self-pity. In doing so, she’d said something appallingly close to the truth. May understood her to mean in trouble emotionally and took the slight melodramatic tone as a good sign: it wasn’t humorous but it had a little of the old Aggie in it. ‘With Paddy?’ she asked, seeing no way of avoiding the name, even in front of Max.
‘With myself,’ Aggie replied.
‘You’re definitely not mad,’ May said, aware that in a very short time, months, they wouldn’t be able to talk this way with comprehending children around – even now it felt transgressive.
‘How can I know?’ Aggie said. ‘It might be too late. I might be unsafe already.’
‘Unsafe?’ May couldn’t understand.
‘To Max,’ Aggie said, ‘to me.’
‘How could you be a danger to Max?’ May knew, vaguely, about Aggie’s suicide attempts – they were long ago and could be filed under glamour.
‘By being me.’
‘You’re his mother,’ said May.
‘I see,’ said Aggie, in danger, she herself felt, of becoming very distant and allowing her mouth to say things she really didn’t want said. ‘You mean I’m inevitably a danger to him.’
‘I mean you’re not. You’re a good m
other.’ Perhaps, Aggie thought, that was what was upsetting her most: after the slap, she couldn’t help but see herself as a bad mother.
‘I’m not,’ she said.
‘Look at him,’ May said. ‘Look how well he is.’ Aggie looked at his cheek, checking again for a red mark – and this time thought she saw one, or rather two: shadow fingers. She wanted to take this as an opportunity of evidence, and confess to May, but couldn’t: she was becoming annoyed at her friend – that she couldn’t see through the situation any better.
‘That’s my mother’s doing,’ said Aggie. May didn’t know where to go, though a change of subject would be wrong. She felt now that Aggie had had something specific to tell her, but that in her way of asking she had muffed it – persuaded Aggie not to. In doing so, she had harmed her friend. This was as far as she could understand: it was too late to take Aggie literally: mad. Agatha, too, had given up on the visit – and, a little, given up on May as a friend. Max got free of her but had lost interest in sleeping Hope. Instead, he went and started opening and closing the door to the back room. Whenever he slammed it, Agatha told him to be gentler – which he would be, for a bang or two. They talked for half an hour more but were never again likely to achieve much. Only right at the end, as Aggie apologised for not offering May anything to drink, did they come close: if this little neglect had taken place, both of them thought, what other ones were possible? But for May it appeared as neglect of society whereas Aggie felt it as neglect of love. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said May, very much wanting to insist that it did.
‘Next time,’ said Agatha, already thinking of ways she might put this off for as long as possible.
They were in the hall when, as a final attempt, Aggie asked May, ‘Do you remember when we met?’