Where the Edge Is

by Gráinne Murphy

  ‘Lucy!’ Her mother’s voice. ‘Stop that! You’re giving me a headache.’

  ‘I was dreaming about the baby,’ Lucy said, trying to sit up.

  ‘I’ll go and get Kieran,’ Pat said. ‘He’s been waiting outside all this time.’

  ‘Are you deaf? I told you I’m not ready to see anyone,’ Lucy snapped.

  ‘I don’t need any of your cheek, Miss.’

  You’re not too old for another slap, you know, Lucy said inside her head. She would be the last of the slapped generation, she vowed. Any redness on her baby’s arm would only be from where she held on too tightly.

  ‘You want to start being a bit grateful to Kieran,’ her mother said. ‘You need him more than he needs you. You’ll have to make an extra effort to help him get past the weight gain, take it from me.’

  ‘He loves me the way I am.’

  Pat snorted. ‘Just because he says it now doesn’t mean it will last. You won’t know he’s going until the day you wake up and he’s packed his bags, believe you me.’

  Just because you’re hungry doesn’t mean you’re losing weight. It was another of her mother’s staples when Lucy was growing up. An expression that held back Lucy’s hand in her flat as James opened box after box of takeaway, spooning out the huge portions that his fat wife would lap up.

  ‘I tidied up,’ she would say, when he came back from the loo, running the tip of the tea towel up her thigh, ‘I thought it was time for dessert.’

  What was his wife doing while she was straddling him on the floor of the kitchen, a can of whipped cream in one hand and a handful of herself in the other? How the hell could Lucy be a good mother if she had never been a good person?

  I am not you, she might have told her mother the day before yesterday, last week, last year. Now, for all her smartness, for all her education, for all the pity and shame she felt for her mother, she had done nothing more than follow the same path to the same mistakes.

  If she was to have this baby, she would need to work harder to inure them both against her mother’s negative drip-feed. Time was something she still had. It could be a project, like getting her winter-soft feet used to the push of air through summer sandals. She would no longer give in to the shared pleasures of shallowness that bound them together in the past. She would do it for her baby.

  What if it wasn’t enough? Nothing in her life so far suggested that this was something she could do. Who was she to protect anything, knowing that the last person she minded had died in the back of an ambulance?

  Kieran was good at protection; it was his one strength. His USP. He would love the idea of a baby binding them forever. Once the baby came, his obsession might shift enough to give her room to breathe. This baby could bring her both protection and freedom, if she played it right.

  She would need to leave behind this version of herself. Become sombre, grow her hair out, dress in shapeless clothing, make some pretence at enthusiasm. She would have to look past everything about him that annoyed her. His clinginess. His pained expression. His habit of holding one nostril and blowing out through the other. The way his skinny jeans flapped around his legs. Those would have to become items of fondness. Her hand in his, her life, the life of her baby, folded into it.

  She could do this, she could. Starting with one strong decision.

  ‘Can you ask Doreen to come back in?’ she told her mother. ‘I’ve changed my mind about seeing Orla’s family.’

  * * *

  ‘Orla was always a good girl,’ the woman, Vera, said.

  ‘Never met a rule she didn’t like,’ the father, Denis, said. ‘But a dreamer too, in her own way.’

  ‘We wanted that for her,’ Vera added.

  The room was too hot. It sucked Lucy’s brain dry. When she was little, her mother cooked chops and showed her how to suck the marrow from the bone. Her head spun and she felt sick.

  One strong decision, she reminded herself. A new Lucy. ‘She seemed very independent,’ she offered.

  ‘She certainly was!’ Vera said, pleased. ‘She wanted everything just the same as the other girls. The ordinary things, you know. A job, a bit of privacy, nobody to watch how much ice cream she was eating.’

  Was she supposed to laugh or cry? ‘We never wanted her to be limited by her condition,’ Vera said. ‘What you have to understand… when she was born, times were so different then. Everyone sympathised with us instead of congratulating us.’

  ‘When I was growing up, there was plenty of families had a Down’s child,’ Denis said. ‘It was just how things were and people got on with it. But that all changed somehow and when Orla was born, everyone acted like it was a death sentence.’

  Lucy closed her eyes and remembered seeing the woman walking with her small daughter. The leather jacket, the high heels. It was hard to square that woman, her glamour, with the dry-haired, brittle-skinned woman sitting beside her. Not a death sentence but a life sentence.

  ‘She had so many health issues the first couple of years, we were in hospital a lot. That was tough on her sisters, they were practically reared without us,’ Vera said, still with a trace of sadness.

  ‘To their credit they never held it against us,’ Denis added.

  ‘She told me about her sisters,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Did she?’ Vera leaned forward. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘I… just… That they were very close.’

  ‘That’s it, exactly!’ Vera beamed. ‘They get on great, the three of them, thick as thieves always. Did she tell you about the Great Wall of China? They told her they would take her for her twenty-first. She was so excited.’

  ‘She’s had a thing about that wall since she first learned about it,’ Denis said.

  Lucy looked away while Vera cried and Denis patted her shoulder. She had told her mother to come back in fifteen minutes, but without her phone there was no way of knowing how much longer that was.

  ‘She didn’t say anything about China,’ Lucy said. ‘She told me about her dance class though.’

  ‘She never takes a bit of notice of her limits,’ Vera replied. ‘Not one bit.’ She twisted the tissue in her hand. ‘She taught us to take no notice of them either.’

  ‘It’s what you have that counts, not what you lost,’ Denis said, more to Vera than to Lucy. ‘That was what we always said. Your child is the one that comes to you.’

  * * *

  ‘Those poor people,’ Pat said, closing the door behind them. ‘I didn’t realise she was retarded. Still, it might be a blessing to them in the long run; they’re not getting any younger.’

  ‘I don’t think they see it like that.’ Lucy’s voice was icy.

  ‘It all happens so gradually, you see. The life they should have had slipped away bit by bit. They don’t even realise how blinkered they are, the creatures.’

  There were times she couldn’t tell if her mother was straight-talking or downright tactless. Hadn’t she herself had a similar thought when they were… in? Had she internalised her mother’s skewed cruelty or inherited her honesty? Was it as simple as Orla’s parents said, that you took what you got and were grateful for it? Would the answer be determined in a single moment when her baby arrived? Or would she be the frog in the fucking saucepan, happy and clueless?

  Kieran arrived, breezing in the door without knocking. Hoovering up what little air was left.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened when I was on my way over.’ He kissed Lucy, then Pat, draping his coat over the back of a chair. ‘This asshole – excuse my language, Pat – cut into my space, just as I was about to reverse in.’ He sat on the bed beside Lucy, pushing backwards until his narrow arse was against the pillows.

  ‘Boots, Kieran,’ Pat said, pointing.

  ‘Sorry.’

  The thud of one boot hitting the floor, then the other.

  Lucy winced. ‘You can’t just leave them there, this isn’t a hotel,’ she said, poking him with her elbow.

  Pat lined the boots up under the window
and shot her a warning look for her bitchy tone. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to call the nurse, Lucy? You’ve been complaining about that headache for a couple of hours now.’

  ‘You have a headache?’ Kieran’s hand was clammy on her forehead. ‘Why won’t you let them give you something for it?’

  ‘It wasn’t that bad until just now.’ If her mother thought this was hers to control, then she could just fuck right off.

  ‘She thought it was better not to, under the circumstances,’ Pat said. ‘You know, because of the—’

  ‘Mam. Please.’

  It felt like a long moment before Pat finished, ‘Because of the risk of a head injury. After the crash, you know.’

  ‘I thought they did all the scans?’

  Kieran’s concerned face was probably the least attractive of his unattractive faces. The way his eyes narrowed and his forehead crinkled, he looked like one of the less appealing Wind in the Willows creatures.

  ‘They’re just being cautious,’ Lucy said.

  ‘The family of that little Down’s girl were in earlier, wanting to talk it all through. I think they overstayed their welcome, it wore her out,’ Pat said.

  ‘Rest assured that won’t be happening again,’ Kieran said. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

  Lucy watched her mother’s eyelid twitch at the shift in pronoun.

  ‘Maybe we should let her sleep,’ she said.

  ‘I could do with a kip myself,’ Kieran agreed. ‘It’s been a long night.’

  Lucy glanced at her mother, willing her to understand, trying to put all the years of shared history, of being a twosome against the world, into a single look.

  ‘I could do with some food,’ Pat declared. ‘The food in the canteen is inedible. How they expect people to recover on white bread and potato croquettes, I don’t know. Let’s pop over to the shopping centre for an hour, let Lucy have a rest.’

  ‘I don’t think we should leave her.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be sleeping and the nurses are right outside the door if I need anything.’

  ‘You go and get the car, Kieran,’ Pat said. ‘I’ll meet you at the front door.’

  Lucy braced herself as the door closed behind him.

  ‘You’d want to watch that tone,’ Pat said. ‘You won’t be so smart when he up and leaves us on our own with the baby. You needn’t think I’ll be minding it while you’re swanning around doing whatever you please.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do it. I look at him and I just…’

  ‘Do you want me to make an appointment for you in London, so, is it?’

  ‘No! That’s not what I’m saying at all. Jesus. It’s not either/or, Mam.’

  ‘In a fantasy world, maybe not. But here in the real world, that’s exactly what it is. A lot is riding on this. You have no money, no flat. You barely have a job. What you do have is a man who loves you and who wants to protect you. That’s more than most.’

  ‘At what price?’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic, Lucy. Let him hold your hand and whatever else he likes every couple of days. It’s hardly slavery.’ She sprayed a cloud of perfume from a tiny travel bottle in her handbag, wiggling her body until the vapour settled.

  Was it cynicism or realism? Did it matter what she called it if the decision was the same in the end?

  ‘I have to go. He’ll be waiting.’ She leaned in as if to kiss Lucy on the cheek. Instead, she tapped her daughter’s abdomen with one long fingernail. ‘Remember, you’ve a lot to be grateful for. Don’t fuck with the fairy tale.’

  Lucy’s head buzzed and the perfume clogged the air. After ringing the call bell three or four times, a nurse came, bustling in the door as if it was all her own idea. ‘How are we doing in here? Everything all right?’

  ‘Would I be able to go for a walk? I need some air.’

  It took her five minutes to get out of bed and arrange herself on the crutches. She hopped around the room a few times to find her balance.

  She kept her head down as she moved slowly out onto the ward, not wanting strangers to see her. Kieran and her mother would be huddled over a pizza, talking about her as if she were a child. Anger propelled her further than she intended to go. Half-turning to go back the way she had come, the swinging door caught the tip of her crutch and nearly knocked her over.

  ‘Watch it!’ she shouted, once she righted herself, but the man was long gone.

  ‘Here, sit down.’ An arm appeared out of nowhere and guided her to a chair. ‘Those things take a bit of getting used to. I remember my first time on crutches, I was like a baby giraffe on one of those behind-the-scenes zoo videos.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She sat and stretched her cast out in front of her, still tingling from the slap of the door.

  ‘You’re very pale. Can I go and get someone to help?’ the man asked.

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I just need a minute to catch my breath.’

  ‘Okay. Mind if I sit, just to be sure?’ He looked at her expression and laughed. ‘Occupational hazard. I used to be a firefighter.’ He held out his hand. ‘Tim.’

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘You’ve had a rough couple of days, Lucy. I worked the site,’ he added. ‘Or at least my team did. These days I’m more of a behind-the-scenes guy.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me how lucky I was?’

  He sighed. ‘Luck means different things to different people.’

  ‘Nobody else seems to agree. They all want something. Gratitude, memories.’

  Tim’s voice was gentle. ‘Try to remember that you didn’t cause their pain and you can’t take it away either. That’s the best and the worst of surviving.’

  Lucy picked at the edge of the seat where the fabric was worn soft. It was the shade of grey her imaginary grandmother used to wear when Lucy closed her eyes and pretended someone was reading her a bedtime story.

  ‘I don’t think I allowed myself to feel really scared until the rescue team came.’ It was a relief to admit it, to stop pretending that gratitude took the fear away. ‘The guy that came in to get us – Leo, I think? – his voice was so warm and calm. I wasn’t expecting everything after that to be so… violent.’

  Tim smiled. ‘Leo’s that calm all the time. Except when the Irish team is playing.’

  If she had grown up with a father, would Sundays have been spent on sport rather than romcoms? Perhaps she would have been sporty, happier outdoors, more rooted in the local area. Or she might have been terrified of the dark, of a man’s footsteps to her bedside in the darkness. Who the hell knew?

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about the others?’ The ones who didn’t get to keep taking breath after breath, simply because they sat on the other side of the bus.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘That’s all anyone wants to know. What happened down there in the dark. The ghoulish story of Lucy and her dead people.’

  ‘The dead aren’t ghoulish,’ Tim said.

  She was about to tell him that was easy for him to say, when she saw his face. His eyes were somewhere else altogether.

  ‘Since my daughter died, I enjoy remembering the time we had. To think of that time as creepy would be a terrible waste.’

  ‘Orla’s father told me they wouldn’t change anything, that Orla was their child no matter what. I don’t understand how he can be so accepting.’

  Tim smiled and got up to leave. ‘That’s part of the deal with parenting. It seems unimaginable and then suddenly you get it.’

  What if she didn’t? What if the baby arrived and she felt nothing but regret at everything she had given up and everyone she had invited in? Take what you get and be grateful for it, that was what the advice amounted to. But she wanted more. She might not know what more looked like, but she knew where it started. She would apply for that epidemiology course. This could be it. The One. Her do-over. Look at Orla, with everything stacked against her yet doing exactly what she wa
nted to do. Kieran would love to mind the baby while she studied. Lucy trapped at a desk in the tiny spare room of his flat would be his idea of the perfect family set-up. He would save the child from Pat. From afternoons of dull chat shows and sharp criticism. Having a baby wouldn’t rule her out of the course. In fact, it might help her chances of getting a place. Positive discrimination and all that. Hadn’t she seen it work for others for years? The crash wouldn’t hurt either. If she got an interview for the course, she could play it up a bit. Make it so that when the panel looked at her they saw a line of coffins.

  * * *

  She woke to find Kieran hugging her. ‘Lucy! I can’t believe it. A baby!’

  ‘What…? How…?’

  ‘Don’t be cross with your mother for telling me. She explained that they could tell this early from the scans and blood tests and things. Isn’t it amazing?’

  ‘Where is Mam?’ She kept her voice casual. As if she wasn’t going to rip off her face and make her swallow it.

  ‘One of the reporters wanted to ask her a couple of questions, I think.’

  This time, Kieran lined his boots up under the windowsill without prompting.

  He pulled Lucy into his shoulder. ‘It’ll be a girl,’ he said confidently, resting his hand on the flat of her stomach.

  It wouldn’t help if he felt her tensing up every time he touched her. She forced her shoulders down from somewhere near her ears.

  ‘Could you go and get a nurse for me?’

  ‘Can’t you use the call bell?’ He frowned. ‘I just took off my boots.’

  ‘It’s broken,’ she said. ‘Please, love.’ She winced a little, pretending she couldn’t see him looking at her.

  ‘Anything for my baby mama.’ At the door, he turned. ‘I opened a bank account for the baby, just now on my phone. I know it’s early, but I want to do this right, you know?’