by Alice Jolly
Frank comes to the back of the bus, swaying a little. Come on, he says. Come out for a bit. The rain’s stopped.
She doesn’t want to get up but goes with him and they walk into the woods, stumbling in the blackness. A nudging wind moves through the blackened branches above. It’s a thin moon again but still, in the distance, they hear the rattle and whine of the planes coming in, and far away, at the edge of the city, pillars of light appear, cutting up through the air. Frank has been drinking and his voice is slurred. He asks her about the Peace Pledge Union, what’s going on, what they’ve been doing.
Nothing, she says. Very little. People haven’t got the time. It isn’t possible.
You will do soon, he says. You will.
He stands close to her and she smells whisky.
I love you, Rose, he says. I love you.
He reaches out his hand, touches her shoulder.
You’re not frightened, are you, Rosie? You mustn’t be frightened.
I’m not frightened.
I love you, Rosie. I love you.
He strokes a curl of her hair but she doesn’t respond.
You need to get out of Coventry, Frank says. You need to go.
Rose stares down at the ground. He knows there’s no way out.
You mustn’t lose hope, Rosie.
Why not? What’s wrong with losing hope?
You’re someone who does the right thing. You’ve always done that.
Yes, but what does it matter now? What does any of it matter?
Rosie, there’s still good you can do. There are people who need help. Small bits of kindness. Keeping humanity alive. You can still do that.
Rose knows how badly Frank needs her to agree with this, how badly he needs her support. She also knows what he’s saying is true. The bigger struggle has been lost long ago but there are still those daily choices to be made, right or wrong, compassion or cruelty, making sure not to walk by on the other side. Frank kisses her, his hand runs across the front of her blouse, touching her breasts. She feels nothing except irritation.
Well, at least at the end of all this your conscience will be clear, Rose says.
Rose feels Frank shrivel, knows the depth of the wound.
Come on, let’s go back. I’m tired, she says.
They feel their way back to the bus and Frank makes Rose lie down and then sits next to her, rests her head on his lap. They’re both wide awake. Mollie cries out in her sleep, thrashes and twists. Rose prays that she isn’t going to start screaming and wake everyone up but the child turns on her side and settles again. Rose knows that she should stretch her arm out, pull Frank towards her, talk to him, stroke his cheek. But she lies awake, burning with a silent anger. An old man coughs again and again, clearing phlegm from his lungs. People snuffle and shift, curled awkwardly on the seats or spread out on the floor. The air smells of candle wax, and engine oil and wet wool and leather. From above her, Rose hears Frank swallowing again and again, then his hand goes up to wipe at his face. Rose reaches out, encloses his cold fingers in her colder hand.
20
NOW
Jemmy – Brighton, March 2003
Jemmy stares at the bowl, which contains penne with tomato sauce. She cooked as soon as she got home but she’s only managed to eat four spoonfuls. Now she’s hungry again and pulls the bowl towards her – but no, the smell of it makes her feel sick and the sauce is just – too red. The evening is uncertain, the details of her kitchen, usually comforting, are not to be relied upon. The front window of the basement flat is steamed up but a dull glow shines in from the street lights outside. Sounds travel from far away, down on the seafront, the muffled bangs and whizzes of fireworks, some Gay Pride celebration.
The news will be on in five minutes so she flicks on the radio. Outside feet scrunch on the steps and Bill’s shadow appears at the half-glazed door. Jemmy picks up a patchwork quilt she’s been finishing off. She likes the way the colours work together, their echoes and resonances, each one changing the others. She sits down to sew, wanting Bill to see her, just for a moment, as peaceful, contented. She would like, at least, to give him that.
Hello there, he says.
Hi. Her fingers wobble as she tries to thread a needle. Bill drops his briefcase on the floor, takes off his coat, notes the uneaten bowl of pasta, starts to sort through post. Tell him, she says to herself. Go on, tell him. Every evening she promises herself she’ll talk to him about the new pregnancy but the risk is too great.
Bad day? he says.
No, not particularly.
He reaches over towards the radio.
No, no. Don’t turn it off. I’m waiting for the news.
Oh, Iraq, you mean? Your friend?
Jemmy wonders why Bill doesn’t use Jay’s name.
Yes. I didn’t show you – there was an article in the Guardian last week. Jemmy reaches into her bag and pulls out a blurred photocopy of a newspaper article with a photograph. Protesters are lined up in front of a high barbed-wire fence, wearing matching black and white T-shirts. A banner above them says – To Bomb This Site is a Violation of the Geneva Convention Article 94.
He isn’t there, though, Jemmy says. I looked at the faces. So I went around to the peace protest office and they said they could put me on a list and forward any emails.
Bill fiddles with a knitting needle lying on the table. For the first time, Jemmy wonders what Bill thinks about Jay. Perhaps he’s jealous? He could be because all he knows is that Jay is someone Jemmy knew around the time that they met. Maybe she should try to explain but where would she start? He was a boy I didn’t know. He saved my life. If she explained that then she’d have to explain about the thick black cardigans as well. Bill looks at his watch, the action a veiled threat. OK, so you just listen to the news, then we’ll be off soon, shall we? Or do you need to get changed?
Listen, sorry. I just don’t think I can. I know that you wanted me to go.
Tony will be really disappointed.
Jemmy wonders why she should care about what Tony thinks.
Are you sure it’s good for you to stay in so much? Bill says.
No, not really, Jemmy says. But it isn’t good for me to go out either.
She sees him wince. OK, he says. OK. Jemmy waits for him to go because that’s what he usually does – gives her a kiss, disappears, doesn’t come back until gone midnight. But now he sits across the table watching her. Her sleeves are rolled up and she feels Bill’s eyes touch the silver lines that run across her wrists and forearms. Those scars are something else they’ve never talked about. The radio continues to murmur. The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a catastrophic risk for the economy. Such highly complicated measures are time bombs.
I like that wool, he says, nodding towards a jumper that she’s been unravelling. She unpicks old jumpers and makes them into scarves with patterns of flowers and butterflies, which will sell for over eighty pounds in the Lanes because they’re recycled.
You know, James and Rachel would really like to see you, Bill says.
No, they wouldn’t. They don’t like having me around. I smell of death.
For God’s sake. Don’t be silly, of course you don’t.
She knows that she isn’t being fair but she’s tired – so tired – of having these conversations, night after night. She looks up and sees the familiar frustration on Bill’s face. This man – she married him, she loves him and she knows he’s working hard and that he likes to go out for a drink in the evening. And there’s nothing wrong with that – but then why doesn’t he go?
Bill turns the radio down. Jemmy gives him a warning look.
Yeah. I know. But I can’t hear myself think. And there isn’t going to be anything more about Iraq. Most of those people on the buses have left now anyway. And it isn’t our problem.
Jemmy continues to sew in threads, anger quickening her fingers.
You could do the patchwork another evening, Bill says.
It’s not the patchwork
. The problem is that I want to talk about Laurie because he’s what’s going on in my life but no one else wants to talk about him. So finally there isn’t any conversation to be had.
Bill is staring down at the table, keeping tight hold of his determination to be reasonable. This is how these conversations go. They involve long silences. She sees Bill trying to decide what he can and can’t say. But he is slipping on the cliff face and his fear curdles the air. Getting up from the table, he strides towards the door, purposefully, then moves back again, standing with his back against the sink. Of course, she could rescue this conversation. She could tell him about the new baby. They could hug and kiss, celebrate.
Actually, Bill says. Actually – you won’t even let anyone try and help. People would talk to you but they just don’t know what to say. People are frightened, don’t you understand that? They’re frightened because if our baby can die then so can theirs. And it’s the thing that people fear beyond anything else.
Yes, I know. I understand all of that. And I’m sorry that other people find it difficult. But what do they think I feel like? Do I have to keep quiet about my dead baby so that they don’t feel upset? When does someone put my feelings first? Because this happened to me.
And to me as well.
Yes. I know. I know.
Jemmy says the words with conviction although the truth is that, despite the fact that she understands Bill entirely, she’s unable to feel much sympathy for him. She’s tried to help him but he refuses every offer she makes. She’s said that she’ll make a special album for him containing the photographs of Laurie, she’s suggested that they should go and visit the grave together. They could make a tiny garden there, the vicar wouldn’t mind. But Bill doesn’t want any of that. If she presses him he says that he doesn’t find it helpful to talk, talking doesn’t change anything, the situation is what it is.
At the Support Group they say that you mustn’t judge the quality of other people’s grief. And Jemmy does understand that Laurie’s death is probably more difficult for Bill than for her. He’s someone who’s always been lucky. Things work out for him. A life of ladders rather than snakes. He did well at school, qualified as a surveyor, got a job in the best firm in Brighton, bought this flat for far less than its real value. So now he’s shocked to find that he too is vulnerable. No client of his will ever find that they’ve bought a house with dry rot, a leaking flat roof, or rising damp. So how come his life has suddenly been revealed to have a major structural problem? A problem that can’t be solved – ever. At the Support Group they say it’s worse for the woman than for the man but Jemmy doubts that’s true. She suspects that women do heal eventually – but men don’t.
You can’t go on like this, Bill says. Sometime you’ve got to let go of him. You’ve got to move on.
As soon as the words are out, Jemmy sees him measuring the size of the error. At the Support Group nobody uses those phrases. It isn’t about moving on, only about finding the right place in your life for the baby you’ve lost. Jemmy knows that Bill doesn’t mean what he said but she can’t stop herself from exploiting this advantage.
Why would I move on? she says. I mean, Laurie is not a roadkill, is he? Why does anyone move on from their child?
I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that. What I’m trying to say is – you can’t have a relationship with someone who is dead.
Of course you can. I do. I am. People who are dead are very important. It’s only this fucked-up modern world we’re living in which tries to tell us otherwise.
Jemmy can’t understand why she needs to explain this to Bill because he’s the one who’s got books about gravestones and is interested in drawing up family trees, sorting back through the dead, linking them one to the other, tracking down every last child, grandchild, great-grandchild. But now that he’s actually confronted by someone who’s dead his only response is to refuse to see. Impossible to understand – except that similar things have happened to Jemmy again and again over the last four months. In the places where one most expects understanding and comfort, it isn’t there. Like diving into the deep end of a swimming pool and finding that the water is only two foot deep.
The point is, Bill says, still staring at the table, that if you try to have a relationship with a person who’s dead then it’s a one-sided relationship, isn’t it?
In what sense?
Well, he can’t participate in the relationship, can he?
Yes, he can. Of course, he can. For me he’s quite different at different times. I understand him differently and his effect on me is different. You just can’t understand that because you’re stuck with the idea that you can, and should, leave the dead behind.
This is what the people at the Spiritualist Church tell Jemmy and she knows they’re right. Jemmy looks at Bill and for a moment she hates him. At the Support Group they say – You mustn’t turn your anger against each other. But where else can it go? There’s no one to blame. The hospital was not at fault. She sometimes thinks it might be easier if they had been. They had said when Jemmy was four months pregnant that Laurie might not live and that there was nothing they could do. But still they’d monitored and tested and prescribed pills, and then later they’d taken her into hospital, and she’d been there a whole week. And the hospital was so new and clean and there was so much technology and everything so shiny and bright that Jemmy never really thought Laurie would die, not even right at the end. Because it just didn’t seem possible with all those white coats, and machines and dials and knobs. It just didn’t seem possible that anyone could do something as old-fashioned and vulgar as dying.
Bill picks up his coat and heads for the door.
I don’t get it, he says. I don’t get it. Why would you want people in the pub to spend their time talking about. Something which. Hurts so much?
Because I want people to know I had a baby. If I could, I’d take his dead body into the pub and put him down on the bar. Because he’s a person, because he existed, because everybody else shows off their baby. He’s what we made. I want him to have his place.
Yes, but the point is, Jemmy, that he’s dead. That’s the point.
Oh so you think I’m in doubt about that, do you? You think I’m confused? I mean, if I’m holding a dead baby in my arms then I know absolutely how dead that baby is.
Jemmy, please. Please. Don’t do this. I just wanted to go out for the evening and have a break, think about something else. If that’s really too much to ask then what’s the point of being married?
Bill picks up his coat from the back of a chair and heads out into the hall. Jemmy follows him, stands watching as he hesitates. Silence crowds the hall. Jemmy knows that what she’s said is unforgivable. Only fifty per cent of marriages survive the death of a baby. She never thought she would end up in the wrong fifty per cent but somehow, by accident, just like that, she finds herself heading in that direction. Bill is quite right – what is the point of being married? She should go and put her arms around him and tell him that she loves him, tell him about the new baby. That’s what she would have done before Laurie died. And she does love him still – absolutely and completely. But strangely that is irrelevant now.
Bill says, The truth is— the reason why you hate Tony and James and Rachel and the others so much is that they sent Christmas cards and they didn’t put his name in them. You wanted his name in the cards, didn’t you? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You blame them for that. But that isn’t reasonable, Jemmy. I’m sorry. I’m trying to be sympathetic but that just isn’t reasonable. People do not write the name of someone who’s dead in their Christmas cards.
Jemmy sits on the stairs, nods her head. She’s too tired to say any more. He’s right, of course, she was angry about that. This is what Bill says all the time – you’re not being reasonable. But he doesn’t seem to understand that in this situation the comforting geometry of reason is as powerless as the deepest love.
Jemmy longs for Bill to leave, but
he stands there still, bright and fragile as a glass ornament. Also, he says, I just wanted to say that I’ve made some arrangements about the pushchair.
They’ve been discussing the pushchair ever since Laurie died. Bill wanted to take it to the charity shop straight away. After all, they don’t need it, and it’s making them feel bad. But Jemmy didn’t like the idea. Some other mother would buy that pushchair and she wouldn’t know that it belonged to Laurie. So what are we going to do with it? Keep it. Why not? Jemmy had spoken to the lady at the Support Group and she’d said, Listen, love, you keep it just as long as you want and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Someone at the office is about to buy a new pushchair so I offered to lend it to them, Bill says. Not give – just lend. So I’m going to take it into the office with me tomorrow. So I just thought I’d tell you that’s what I’ve decided.
Jemmy nods her head, unable to speak. She watches Bill slam uncertainly out of the house, pulling his coat on. She sinks down on the stairs, bloodless. She remembers the man at the Support Group who suddenly started shouting, If I’m strong and do all the cooking, washing, cleaning then I’m a heartless bastard who doesn’t care, but if I sit down and cry then I’m not offering her enough support. So what the fuck am I meant to be doing? After he’d stormed out of the meeting, Jemmy had looked up to see other men nodding their heads.
She would cry but she’s cried so much over the last three months that she hasn’t got any tears left. She can’t say, I’m pregnant again, because Bill will not remember what they said in the hospital. Jemmy had asked the question, saying the words slowly and clearly, when they went for the results of Laurie’s post-mortem. If we have another baby then will that baby die as well? And the doctor had buried her face in the computer screen and said, It’s very rare, most unusual, it would be unlikely, I would certainly hope not, but unfortunately, yes, sometimes, yes. Bill will not remember that conversation.