The Anniversary

by Hilary Boyd

  ‘This will feel cold,’ she muttered mechanically, before inserting the ultrasound wand into her vagina. The examination room in the modern, purpose-built unit was pristine-bright and chilly, like the wand. Eve, her legs wide, knees drawn up, could feel the baby kicking wildly at the intrusion. Craning her neck sideways, she only saw the edge of the screen and a mess of blurry black-and-white sonar images.

  ‘Is it OK?’

  The doctor didn’t reply, her gaze intent on the VDU.

  ‘Baby’s fine,’ she said absent-mindedly, still gently probing, ‘but I’m afraid the placenta hasn’t moved.’ She raised her head to look at Eve, almost for the first time, her gaze – eyes ringed dark with tiredness behind her black-rimmed glasses – seemingly indifferent to the patient in front of her. ‘You’re what? Thirty weeks?’

  ‘Twenty-nine.’

  ‘OK …’

  More probing, more silent screen gazing. Eve wanted to scream at her, Tell me! Just fucking tell me!

  After what seemed like a lifetime, the doctor removed the wand and ripped off her gloves, throwing them in the metal bin by the door. She handed Eve a wad of paper towel to wipe away the excess gel, then stood looking at her, hands in her scrubs pockets, a slight frown on her pale face.

  ‘Well … Given the spotting, I think we should keep an eye on you overnight.’ She must have sensed Eve’s protest, because she hurried on, ‘Just to be safe. Then if there’s no more bleeding, you can go home tomorrow.’

  Eve let out a sigh of relief. The images that had been spinning alarmingly around her brain, of Eric returning to a half-formed incubator baby – so strung around with tubes and wires, electrodes and catheters that he couldn’t see its tiny face – began to fade.

  ‘You can help Bibi get breakfast in the morning, then do some gardening. You love that,’ she told Arthur as she said goodbye to him. He adored pottering behind Stella as she tried to get the garden into shape.

  Arthur put his thumb in his mouth and laid his head against his grandmother’s shoulder, stubbornly not responding to the carrot his mum was holding out to him.

  ‘He’s tired,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll get him home. He’ll be fine, Evie, don’t worry.’ She bent to kiss her. ‘Text me when I can pick you up, OK?’

  She watched her mother carry her son away, the dark head and the pale-auburn one bobbing together. It was almost a month since her mother had arrived to stay and she was beginning to relax her old habit of being on guard all the time and checking her mother’s words for the criticism that had been such a regular feature of their earlier relationship. She was even beginning to loosen control on her house and her child, surrendering many of the chores to her mother.

  It helped that the garden was taking up a great deal of Stella’s time. Most days, when the weather permitted, her mother and Arthur would be outside as soon as breakfast was cleared away, weeding and chopping and trimming, piling up the cuttings in a huge heap at the bottom of the garden near the small copse. Arthur had his own little green wheelbarrow and would follow his grandmother down the path to the heap with his small cache of weeds. Eve, blissfully alone in the house, could rest, read a bit – although her attention span negated anything more serious than a magazine most of the time – doze off, cook the lunch, surf the Net for baby-related clobber she would never buy and text her London friends, who she missed a lot. Her days felt like the lull before the storm.

  But leaving Arthur alone with his grandmother overnight was a first.

  20

  Stella and Arthur woke later than usual the following day. Her grandson had taken an age to settle when they got back from the hospital in the small hours, having napped during the twenty-minute car journey, then woken as she tried to transfer him from his car seat to bed, refreshed and annoyingly bright. He probably thinks it’s morning, Stella had thought, as dawn was already beginning to lighten the late June morning – the summer equinox just passed.

  The first thing she was aware of was Arthur grizzling as he wandered into her room around eight. She pushed back the duvet and he climbed up on to the bed.

  ‘Where’s Mumma?’ he asked as he snuggled in and began sucking his thumb.

  Still half-asleep, Stella repeated the same phrase she’d told him over and over last night: ‘Mummy’s in the hospital, remember? We’ll go in the car and pick her up later.’

  Arthur sat up. ‘Go now, Bibi.’

  ‘We’ve got to get dressed and have some breakfast first, haven’t we? We can’t go to the hospital in our pyjamas.’

  The boy clearly saw the logic of this, because he jumped out of bed as he said, ‘Let’s get dressed and get Mumma. Come on, Bibi.’

  Stella realized she wasn’t going to win, so she dragged herself out of bed and followed in the wake of her grandson, who was making a beeline for the chest of drawers in his bedroom to find some clothes.

  Stella drank a strong cup of black coffee, while her grandson, now clad in a red-and-white-striped T-shirt and blue shorts – his choice, Stella wanted him to wear the red shorts that matched his top, but then realized how silly it was to care – consumed his cereal at top speed. The day was beautiful, the air washed clean by the storm, the sun sparkling off the wet vegetation. She threw open the kitchen doors. A strong wind, the tail end of the storm, was blowing, but the air was so fresh she stood for a moment, taking long slow gulps.

  Arthur slid off his chair. ‘Finished. Let’s go, Bibi,’ he said, pulling on her hand. ‘Get Mumma from the ’opital.’

  ‘We’ve got to wait for Mummy to text us back, sweetheart. We can’t go yet.’

  The boy’s face fell. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Teeth,’ she said, to distract him, taking his hand and leading him upstairs again. The bathroom was above the kitchen and, like the kitchen, it was built into the circular kiln tower. The cowled, beamed roof – from which the smoke from the drying hops had previously escaped – was exposed, giving height to the room, with a small, rectangular window cut into the outside brick wall, giving a minimum amount of light.

  Eric had installed a claw-footed, free-standing Victorian bath before he went on his travels. This was partnered with a wide, elegant basin surrounded by a chrome towel stand on three sides, beneath an oval mirror. A cabinet stood on the floor beside the basin, which Eve said would go up on the wall eventually, once Eric got back.

  Arthur was perched on a plastic booster box, enthusiastically running his orange battery toothbrush round his small teeth, spitting into the basin and sucking tap water from the buzzing bristles. He grinned triumphantly as he handed the brush back to his grandmother. The action almost stopped her breath, her mind suddenly catapulted back to the bathroom in Stoke Newington and another little boy with a similarly engaging smile and identical red-gold curls. She often thought she had been given another chance with Arthur. He wasn’t Jonny, of course, but they were very alike in so many ways. Glancing up and catching her face in the mirror, she saw the memory stamped painfully across her features and turned away.

  Last Monday, the anniversary of Jonny’s death had come and gone, yet again unmarked. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Eve, worrying that her daughter would want to make a thing of it, especially in light of her recent desire to talk about Jonny. So she just buried her head in the chaotic phalanx of hydrangeas behind the flowerbed, angrily cutting them back to almost nothing, although it was much too late in the year to do so, according to Iain. But in that moment she had wanted the plants to die, wanted everything to die, including herself as the clock ticked past the hour – twenty-seven years to the day – when her world had come to a screeching halt.

  Arthur got down off the yellow box and wandered out of the bathroom while Stella, still in her pyjamas, cleaned her own teeth and washed her face with a muslin cloth, then rubbed moisturizer into her skin. She looked well, she thought. Better than she had for a long time. The gardening had taken weight off and she had a bit of colour on her pale skin from so many hours outside. She had barely slept last n
ight, and her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep, but still, deep down, she felt rested, calmer. If I can just embrace the present, she thought, as she folded the hand towel and placed it back on the rail, not slide back into the past … Stop Jack and Eve from pushing me there …

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the loud bang of the bathroom door. She went to open it, thinking it was Arthur playing a game, but it wouldn’t budge. The pretty porcelain doorknob – decorated with faded pink flowers and held in place by a tarnished brass back-plate – just spun in her hand. She pulled, but the door, which opened inwards, seemed jammed at the latch and at the top; only the bottom half of the door was free of the frame.

  Stella stood back. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said out loud.

  She gave it another yank, but the thing stood firm, unbudging.

  ‘Arthur? Arthur?’ Panic was slowly seeping up from her gut. Her small grandson was outside, alone. There were the stairs, the kitchen, the open door to the garden and the lane. Her whole body flushed with fear. ‘Arthur! Arthur, come here, sweetheart,’ she shouted, trying, at the same time, to keep her tone light.

  Hearing the soft padding of his feet on the bare wood corridor, she breathed again.

  ‘Darling, Bibi can’t open the door. Can you turn the handle for me?’ She thought maybe the handle on the other side might still work.

  There was a rattling as her grandson took hold of the knob. ‘It goes round and round.’ Then a soft thud as he banged on the door. ‘Bibi, come out.’

  Stella tried to calm herself. I mustn’t panic, she told herself firmly, deliberately slowing her breathing. OK, what are my options? She looked around the room. The window was narrow and behind the bath; she would never be able to squeeze through that. And anyway, it was on the first floor. Shinning down a drainpipe was not an option at her age – or any age.

  Arthur was starting to cry, still banging on the door. ‘Bibi, I want you. Come out.’

  ‘I can’t at the moment, darling. I’ve got to get this silly door open.’

  She knelt down, peered underneath and saw his bare feet through the small gap between the door and the floor. ‘I’m here, Arthur. Look under the door.’ The boy’s head appeared upside down, curls hanging round his face. ‘Lie down and then you can see me,’ she said, trying to push her fingers through the space – but it was too narrow.

  ‘Hello, Bibi,’ Arthur was smiling again as he lay down, cheek resting on the floorboards; it was now a game.

  ‘Sweetheart, can you jump up and see if there’s a key in the door?’ she asked gently. She thought maybe the force with which the door had slammed had triggered the lock.

  A minute later, the boy’s face was back. ‘There isn’t any key.’

  ‘No key, OK. Umm … What shall we do about this silly door?’

  Arthur’s chin wobbled. ‘I want Mumma. Let’s go and get Mumma.’

  ‘I know, so do I. We’ll go and get her very soon.’

  ‘Go now.’ He sat on the floor by the door and began to grizzle in earnest. ‘Want Mumma …’

  Stella rose to her feet. ‘Arthur, don’t go anywhere, OK?’ She began to pull at the door again, using every inch of her strength, but she couldn’t get any real purchase on it with only the fragile knob to grasp hold of. Would it help to take the handle off? She looked around for something sharp, but there was nothing but a scuffed cardboard nail file in the cabinet and that was too thick for the small brass screws that fixed the knob to the back-plate. She forced her fingers under the door and tried to get some leverage, but she couldn’t get her hand far enough under the thick wood.

  Come on, Stella, she tried to rouse herself, get a grip. You’re an intelligent woman. There must be a way out of this. Was anyone due to come round this morning? The postman? The nearest house was a brick bungalow fifty yards along the lane. But Muriel Blackhouse was in her eighties and deaf as a post. Stella could shout till kingdom come before she’d get help from there. She felt a wave of hopelessness engulf her. Eve might be ringing. What will she think if I don’t answer or call back?

  Then she thought, the phone. Where was her mobile? Had she taken it downstairs when she made breakfast for Arthur? Was it still beside her bed? If she could get Arthur to find it, could he call someone? But it needed her thumb print for access, or her code, and she wasn’t sure he’d manage that. It might fit under the door, though, then she could make the call and get help.

  ‘Arthur, are you there?’ she called. But there was silence. Heart in her mouth, she called again, ‘Arthur! Arthur, come here, sweetheart! Arthur!’

  The panic, the sense of her own uselessness, was painfully familiar. She had been here before. Desperate shouts for another child, annihilating fear for his safety … The years rolled away. ‘Arthur, please. Come here, darling, please …’ She sat on the bath, suddenly cold and faint.

  There was a soft knocking. ‘I’m here, Bibi.’

  She got up and went to lean against the door. ‘Oh, darling. That’s great. Stay there a moment.’

  She took a deep breath and tried to collect herself. ‘OK, Arthur, there’s something really important I want you to do for me.’

  There was silence, but she could feel his presence, listening.

  ‘I want you to see if you can find my phone. You know what it looks like. It might be beside my bed … Or in the kitchen, on the side.’

  ‘OK, I get it, Bibi.’ He sounded touchingly grown up.

  ‘Don’t go anywhere else, Arthur. Just to the bedroom and the kitchen. Be careful on the stairs. Don’t touch the kettle. Don’t go outside …’ But her grandson had long gone, charging off on his grandmother’s important mission.

  With her ear to the door, she tried to hear his progress. But the door was too thick, the circular room too insulated from the rest of the house with its kiln bricks.

  After what seemed like an age, he was back. ‘I got it, Bibi.’ His voice was triumphant. ‘I got your phone.’

  ‘Oh, brilliant! Well done, sweetheart, that’s so clever of you.’ She knelt down again. ‘Now, let’s see if you can squeeze it under the door to me.’ She looked through the gap and saw his bare knees on the floorboards. Then the scrape as he tried to pass the phone to her.

  ‘It won’t go.’

  ‘Try a bit further along,’ she said. There was slightly more space on the latch side, the wood bowed with age. After a moment of shuffling, she saw the end of the phone and her grandson’s hand. ‘Push it really hard, Arthur.’

  ‘I am pushing, Bibi.’

  The mobile was tantalizingly close, she could just feel the smooth end against her fingers, but she couldn’t get any purchase to pull it through. ‘Have another go, darling. Try in the bit right next to the wall. Use both hands if you can.’

  For a moment the child did nothing and she feared he had given up. But then there was a scraping sound and she felt the phone move again as he slid it closer to the door frame.

  ‘I’m pushing and pushing, Bibi.’ She heard Arthur grunt with effort and felt a very slight inching forward against her fingers.

  ‘You’re amazing, Arthur. That’s so clever. Don’t stop, sweetheart.’

  And finally, after another few minutes, there was enough of the handset for Stella to get hold of. Slowly, slowly, she managed to wriggle her finger and thumb till they had a grip and she was able to prise it free. With an enormous sigh of relief she clung to the thing in her hand as if it were a lifebelt and she on the open sea.

  ‘Got it! I’ve got it, Arthur. You’re the most brilliant boy in the whole world.’

  ‘Will you come out now?’ a little voice asked.

  Checking the screen, she saw there was nothing from Eve yet. ‘I’m going to phone someone to get me out, darling. It won’t take long,’ Stella called to her grandson, realizing it was still only just after ten o’clock. The nightmare seemed to have gone on all day. Should I phone the police, get the fire brigade to come and get me? she wondered. It felt so drastic, just for a stuck door, b
ut a child’s safety was at stake, and they came out to get cats down from trees, for goodness’ sake. And then she thought of Jack.

  Scrolling through her contacts, she prayed his mobile number was still the same, prayed he was at home, prayed he would answer her call. One ring, two rings, three rings. Pick up, Jack, oh, God, please. She held her breath.

  ‘Stella?’ his voice said, and she burst into tears. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ She heard the panic in his voice now and tried to control her sobs as she explained.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ was all Jack said, and Stella sank to the floor, the breath gone out of her.

  It was not even ten minutes before the sound of Jack’s car made her heart leap. She had been entertaining her grandson through the door, singing songs, clapping her hands, chanting nursery rhymes and getting him to join in, her sitting on one side, him on the other. A minute later, his grandfather’s footsteps were taking the stairs two at a time and Arthur was running towards him, calling, ‘Grandad, Grandad. Bibi’s stuck. She can’t open the silly door.’

  ‘Stella?’ Jack said through the wood.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, so embarrassed now the threat to Arthur was over that she physically cringed as she spoke.

  ‘I brought some tools. Should have you out in a jiffy.’

  Jack had always been good at DIY. He liked fixing things, knew how to assemble a flat-pack without hysterics, kick-start a car battery, put up a straight shelf and light a barbecue inside three hours. Basic stuff, but Stella, back when they were married, had never had to hire a handyman or ask for a friend’s help.

  In the end, though, all it needed was brute strength. Jack told her to stand back, then put his shoulder to the door. On the second try, the thing burst open and Jack fell into the bathroom, a startled look on his face.

  Stella couldn’t help laughing, both from relief and from another feeling she couldn’t quite identify. Without thinking, she flew into his arms and hugged him fiercely, as if she never wanted to let him go. She felt his arms close firmly around her body, and for a long moment they just stood there, rocking gently together, her head against his chest, before they let each other go.