Sandra said nothing, determined to shift her mind from the whole affair, as she had in fact been doing most successfully. She stared out at the front garden, fixing her total concentration on the brilliant crimson berries on the cotoneaster bush. Red as blood. No, blood was a forbidden subject, along with—
‘Look, I’m freezing to death on this step. Why don’t I come in, just for a few minutes, then we can have a little chat.’
Mavis was actually stepping into the hall, uninvited, unabashed. ‘You look all-in,’ she clucked, shaking her head as she peered closely into Sandra’s face. ‘Now, listen,’ she continued, as she headed for the sitting-room, ‘if there’s anything I can do to help, you only have to ask.’
Sandra darted after her, suddenly realizing that the baby’s shawl and nappy were still lying on the sofa. Hastily stuffing them under a cushion, she motioned the wretched woman to a chair and sat down opposite, praying that the visit would be brief. She had no intention of offering tea or coffee, in case Mavis followed her out to the kitchen and saw the tins of baby-milk and the box of Farley’s rusks, not to mention the carrycot and pram.
Mavis settled back against the cushions, as if she planned to stay all morning. ‘Sandy, dear,’ she said, her voice clotted with concern, ‘I do have some idea of what you’ve been through. It must be quite horrendous to lose a baby so late on in the pregnancy.’
Sandra gripped the arms of the chair. She had tried so hard to bury all the memories, yet Mavis seemed determined to dig them up again, like a careless dog scrabbling with its clumsy paws to unearth a tiny corpse. And, yes, all at once, she was there again – in the labour ward, panting and gasping through twenty-six hours of contractions, only to expel a deformed, dead child.
‘I wonder if you’ve considered going to see a counsellor? It can help to talk, you know.’
Talk? What for? There’d been enough chit-chat in the maternity ward, where they’d put her, cruelly, when she’d developed an infection, claiming it was the only free bed in the place. Couldn’t they understand what torture it was to be surrounded by radiant mothers feeding their living, breathing, triumphantly normal infants?
‘I mean, especially as you’ve lost three in succession. That makes it so much worse.’
Sandra said nothing. What was there to say? In the silence, she noticed Mavis glancing surreptitiously round the room. All right, so it wasn’t as clean as usual, but she had other claims on her time – making the girls new clothes, dressing and undressing them, wheeling them round the garden in the pram. Christmas had been particularly busy, what with filling three stockings and helping the two older ones make paper-chains and decorate the tree.
‘Do they have any idea why it happened?’ Mavis asked, worrying at the subject again: that tireless dog still foraging for its bone.
Sandra gave a sudden squawking laugh, the sound startling her as much as it did Mavis. ‘Well, the obstetrician told me I was simply a bad layer.’
‘A bad what?’
‘Lay-er. As in hen. Some hens go all broody and hatch whole clutches of eggs, while others…’ She let the sentence trail away. With all due respect to her obstetrician, the analogy wasn’t apt. The best layers in the hen community were those that didn’t go broody. And, in any case, the term ‘bad layer’ surely applied more to problems in conceiving a baby, rather than bringing one to full-term. None the less, the phrase had upset her considerably, made her feel inadequate, not a proper woman; ‘childless, fruitless, fallow’ branded on her forehead for all the world to see.
‘But wasn’t there anything they could do to prevent it happening again – I mean, once you’d lost the first one?’
Since the interrogation showed no sign of abating, Sandra decided to open up, if only in the hope of getting rid of her visitor. ‘Actually they didn’t take the first one very seriously. I lost it at eleven weeks, you see, which the doctor said isn’t that uncommon – it’s a tricky stage, apparently. So if it’s your first miscarriage and there’s nothing basically wrong, they tend just to say “better luck next time”.’ An eleven-week-old foetus was still small enough to fit inside a goose-egg, yet the pain had been so fierce and lasted for so long that by the time the ambulance arrived, she was in a state of total panic, and then made things worse by actually biting one of the ambulance men on the wrist. She felt horribly ashamed now of harming such a kindly soul, when he was only trying to help her onto the stretcher, but extremes of pain had turned her into an animal, baring its teeth at the vet. And the journey to the hospital had seemed to take forever, the ambulance siren shrilling, and Thomas and the driver swapping football stories (having discovered they were both Chelsea fans), while she lay jolting and weeping as baby Florence bled steadily away.
Mavis was cuddling one of the plump, pink cushions – presumably so accustomed to having a baby on her lap, she had reached instinctively for a substitute. ‘And what about the second time?’ she prompted, obviously eager for further gossip, to pass on to Father Peter, not to mention half the road.
Who cared? If it gave them pleasure to tittle-tattle, good luck to them. ‘Well, that time, I started bleeding even earlier on, so they took me into hospital to rest. They thought I’d be there for just a couple of days, but it was more than a couple of months, in fact, before the haemorrhaging stopped. Then, when I finally went home, it restarted the very next day and…’ No need to spell out all the gory details. She had actually miscarried on a trolley-bed in the hospital corridor, with only a flimsy screen between her and people passing. Again they were short of beds and short of staff, so Emily had plopped into a chamber pot unremarked, unsupervised.
Abandoning her cushion-baby, Mavis leaned forward to take her hand. ‘Sandy, I just can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
The hand felt hot and damp. And no one called her Sandy except Thomas.
‘And what with Thomas leaving on top of everything else,’ Mavis added, as if reading her mind. ‘It was Father Peter who first told me he’d moved out, then later I bumped into Ruth, in Sainsbury’s and she confirmed it.’
Sandra stiffened. If her husband couldn’t cope with three lost babies, that was his affair. She had removed all his photos from the house, including their wedding photo, which for the last seven years had stood in pride of place on the mantelpiece. Now it was Emily and Florence who smiled down from the ornate silver frame.
‘You must have been absolutely devastated.’
Sandra released her hand. What had hurt most, in fact, was that Thomas had gone off with a good lay-er – a divorcée with three children, who was now expecting his. And, on top of everything else, the new woman was a bimbo, with less brain than a teapot and a mass of cutesy curls.
‘Greg was quite appalled. He said it made him feel ashamed of his own sex. But, look, talking of Greg, why don’t you come round for lunch this Sunday? I know he’d love to see you.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m, er, tied up this Sunday.’
‘Well, make it the Sunday after. In fact, we’ve invited Father Peter then, so it would be great to have you both. And Father might be able to help – you know, put you on the prayer-rota, or even suggest a counsellor.’
‘Thank you, Mavis. That’s really kind, but I’m afraid I’m busy then, as well. And, in fact,’ she said, rising to her feet, ‘I have a fair bit on right now. So if you’ll please excuse me …’
Mavis remained sitting where she was. ‘Sandy, I don’t like the thought of you working so hard. You need rest and recuperation, not a hectic schedule.’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she said opening the sitting-room door and standing pointedly beside it.
With obvious reluctance Mavis followed her into the hall, still pouring out advice. ‘And,’ she added, gazing directly into Sandra’s eyes, ‘it goes without saying that Greg and I always include you in our own prayers.’
‘Thank you,’ Sandra muttered, closing the door with undisguised relief.
The minute she was alone, she rushed back to the sitting
-room to rescue the children from the sideboard. Despite their ordeal, there wasn’t a murmur from any of them – in fact, they greeted her with their usual sunny smiles. ‘Poor darlings,’ she soothed, gathering all three of them into her arms and pacing gently to and fro, in case they were disturbed beneath their placid façades. ‘I’m really sorry to have had to shut you in, but people just don’t understand. We’re all right now, though – on our own again. And if we’re going to have that party, I’d better make a start on the cake.’
Which brought her back to the matter of the candles – a source of some anxiety all morning. Today, 30 January, was the day Penelope was actually due to be born, had the pregnancy run its full-term. In brutal fact, the infant kidneys had failed at almost twenty-eight weeks, and the little heart stopped beating, but, without that dreadful trauma, the new-born baby would be taking her first lungfuls of air at about this very time. Her first birthday, though, was a whole year away today, which meant that even a single candle on the cake would not, in fact, be right. On the other hand, the older girls loved to blow out candles, so should she opt for seven, perhaps: one for each successful month of the pregnancy? After all, why dwell on loss and heartbreak, when she could celebrate instead – as she had managed to do (with, admittedly, some lapses) since the beginning of December? ‘What do you think, my poppets?’ she asked Emily and Florence, whose blithe expressions confirmed the fact that seven would be perfect.
She took her little brood into the kitchen, putting Penelope in her carrycot and settling the two others on their miniature highchairs. ‘Now you sit nice and quiet while Mummy checks the ingredients.’ Opening the top cupboard, she took down various jars and packets, ticking each one off the list. ‘Self-raising flour, caster sugar and icing sugar, vanilla essence, raspberry jam. That leaves just the eggs. Shall we go and fetch those together, darlings?’ she asked the girls, knowing how they enjoyed these little errands.
The pram was ready and waiting on the patio. She laid Penelope in first, tucking the covers tenderly around her, then allowed Emily and Florence to sit at the other end, making sure they were warm enough before venturing down the garden path. This winter had been bitter, with heavy frosts and several falls of snow. However, today was bright and clear, as if even the weather was rejoicing in Penelope’s birth-day; the sky a deep, contented blue, and every blade of frosted grass glistening in the sun.
The hens could hear her coming and started clucking loudly as she approached the chicken-run. She was still new enough to poultry-keeping to be nervous about her tiny flock. However, the breeder, Mr Townsend, had given her a wealth of useful tips, as well as helping her choose the birds in the first place. The only real perquisite, she had emphasized, was that they had to be good lay-ers. ‘In that case,’ he’d advised, ‘I’d recommend either Black Rocks or Rhode Island Reds.’ She had opted for the latter, since their laying record was slightly better and – so far – they’d lived up to it.
Once she reached the hen-house, she left the baby in the pram, then lifted the two girls out, reminding them again how to put their hands gently into the nest-boxes and withdraw the large brown eggs. They were so co-operative and docile they never scared the hens and, on this occasion, managed with a little help to find half a dozen eggs – exactly the number needed for the sponge.
The hens looked fit and well, thank God. She was doing everything in her power to ensure that they continued to lay well, even under her amateurish care. Their feed was carefully balanced; they were shielded from all predators, and she kept a constant lookout for the slightest sign of sickness. She had even bought a cockerel, so that, by the spring, she could hatch a load of eggs and fill the place with baby chicks. And, judging by the way the rooster preened and strutted, there was no doubt that he would do his stuff. Like Thomas, she thought, quickly suppressing the image of her husband with a red comb and wattle, and flamboyant shimmering tail-feathers, mounting his new fluffy hen, again, again, again.
‘That’s it, sweethearts,’ she said to the two girls, checking on the sleeping baby before putting them back in the pram. As she wheeled it up the path, she was mightily relieved that there was no sign of Ruth in the next-door garden. Ruth and her husband objected strongly to the hens – the noise, the mess, the risk of attracting rats to the area, which might spread disease or endanger their two boys. What they couldn’t understand was how vital it was for her peace of mind to have babies in the house and good lay-ers in the garden, and the promise in the hen-house of continual reproduction. If she was surrounded by fecundity outdoors as well as in, it reversed her own sterility, made her feel more womanly, rather than a barren non-producer who had failed to make the grade. Every egg her chickens laid increased her sense of worth, as did every cot-sheet washed and ironed, every nappy changed.
The cake was a triumph – golden-brown and springy, and as light as air inside. She had sandwiched it with best raspberry conserve, and iced it in white glacé icing, with a big pink ‘P’ on top. Now, with Penelope in her carrycot and Emily and Florence sitting watching in their chairs, she drew the kitchen curtains and lit the birth-day candles, the seven tiny flames creating a glowing little circle in the gloom.
‘Now look, my loves,’ she told the older girls, ‘this may be hard for you to grasp, in view of the fact that Penelope’s been with us for the last two months. But today is really the day of her birth – my official “due” day, as it’s called – and that’s what we’re celebrating.’ She glanced at the two faces, knowing that they understood and were indeed hanging on her words. ‘So when you blow the candles out, I’d like us to say – the three of us together – “Penelope, welcome to the world!” No, not just yet – hold on a sec. First I need to put her on my lap, so she’s part of the whole thing. That’s it. All set. Right – blow!’
‘Welcome to the … the…’ she began, the last word of the sentence aborted in a howl of pain. Then, all at once, she smashed both her fists into the sponge, snapping the still smouldering candles, and savagely pummelling the cake until she had reduced it to a mess of sticky crumbs. ‘You’re dead, Penelope,’ she sobbed. ‘All three of you are dead. This is a death-day, not a birth-day.’
And above her storm of grief, she heard the rooster in the garden suddenly give tongue, mocking her sterility with a long, contemptuous Cockadoodle-doodle-doodle-oooooooooooo.
Suicide
‘I’m sorry, Miss, but you’ll have to get off. There’s been a suicide.’
‘A what?’
‘A man jumped in front of the train. It was on the other line, but no trains are travelling in either direction for at least a couple of hours.’
‘So where are we now?’ Tessa asked, confused, having been ousted from the toilet by an urgent knocking on the door.
‘Hitchin. We’re not actually scheduled to stop here, but in the circumstances …’
‘So how do we get to London?’ Immediately she regretted the question. It was surely deeply selfish to be worried on her own account, rather than concerned about the poor, unfortunate man.
‘They’ll provide alternative transport, but it may take some time to arrange. Now will you please get off, Miss. You’re the last person left on the train, you know.’
She’d been deaf to the whole drama, closeted in a cramped and smelly cubicle while she attended to her face, applying blusher, lip-gloss, eyeliner, in the hope of impressing Jacob. She might as well have saved her time. Patience wasn’t his strong suit, and she couldn’t see him hanging about till nine or ten at night. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, gathering up her things.
‘That’s OK. Now, mind your step.’
Alighting from the carriage, she blinked against the glare. The sun was like a blowtorch, scorching down from a cloudless sky; all the more ferocious after the air-conditioned train. Surely not a day for suicide. Wouldn’t people tend to take their lives in dreary November or barren January, rather than mid-June? Yet the recent heat-wave had become increasingly oppressive, breaking all known record
s, threatening heat-stroke, sunstroke, forest fires; making even placid souls feel restless, out of sorts.
Hoisting her bag on her shoulder, she joined the throng of people milling about on the platform. The other train, stranded on the northbound line, was now empty of all passengers, but surrounded by police and paramedics. Was the body still on the track, she wondered, her stomach churning at the thought, or had it been blitzed to smithereens? There was barely time to speculate, as an impatient guard began chivvying the crowd along, in tandem with an announcement on the tannoy.
‘Will everyone clear the platform, please. A bus-replacement system will be laid on outside the station. Kindly listen for further announcements.’
She shuffled along behind a mother with a pushchair and a brood of fractious kids. The baby’s hysterical screams seemed to express the desperation of the suicide. Had he been out of work? A refugee? An immigrant? Someone jilted or betrayed? Pictures of his grieving mother, or guilty, shattered girlfriend kept jumbling in her mind with images of Jacob sitting in the restaurant on his own, fingers drumming restlessly, as he checked and re-checked his watch. Most other people were clearly equally concerned about their own predicaments, complaining on their mobiles, as they trooped out of the station.
‘Look, I’m really fucked … There’s nothing moving and …’
‘Sorry, but I haven’t a hope in hell of making it. You’ll have to count me out.’
‘It’s utter bloody chaos here. I’m going to miss that meeting, so you’d better …’
She should have brought her own phone, which had Jacob’s number programmed into it. She knew the code by heart, but not the actual number, which meant she couldn’t even ring him from a call box. He’d be furious – with reason. She was disorganized, as he had told her more than once. This afternoon, for instance, she’d rushed from the office without a backward glance, leaving her mobile on the desk, and even forgetting her best shoes, which had been sitting on the floor all day in a Sainsbury’s plastic bag. ‘Look, he won’t be in the restaurant yet,’ she tried to reassure herself. ‘It’s only ten to six. You’ve every chance of making it, if the bus arrives in time.’
The Biggest Female in the World and other stories Page 18