by Alyson Rudd
‘Mu-um,’ said a voice. ‘Mummeee, what you doing?’
Lauren thought it a good question. Her mind was wrapped in damp cotton wool, she had dribbled onto the towel under her face. Her back was sore.
She lifted her head and blinked into the sunlight. ‘Why do I let myself do that?’ she mumbled. ‘I always fall asleep and then feel dreadful when I wake up, usually sunburnt.’
She fiddled automatically with her bikini top. ‘Christ, what time is it?’ she wondered. ‘What day is it?’
She could sense someone was staring at her and turned her head to see a little boy dressed as Spiderman scowling at her.
‘You’re boring, Mummy, when you lie down,’ he said.
Lauren had no idea who this child was but felt an overwhelming urge to cuddle him. She held out her arms and he sighed and ran to her.
‘You’re Toby,’ she said.
‘No, I’m Spiderman,’ he said crossly as he ran back inside the house.
As soon as he disappeared from view Lauren became anxious. She was certain she was supposed to be somewhere else. She sat on the sun lounger in a state of utter confusion. The garden was familiar, her bikini was familiar but who was she? I’ve had a stroke, she thought. Yes, and I was in hospital.
She clutched her head. She could remember pain, searing pain but aside from her sun-sleep grogginess there was no pain at all now. She involuntarily stretched out her legs. He knee was fine, just fine and very slowly she recalled being carried down the stairs, being told to push. She remembered beams of light mocking her. She remembered that if it was a girl they were thinking maybe Amber and if it was a boy maybe Joe. Definitely not Toby. When did they decide upon Toby?
She felt an overwhelming urge to sob creep up on her and the tears flowed. She knew they were tears of loss but she was not sure what it was that had gone. She put her face in the towel as her body shook from weeping.
‘Hey, what’s all this?’ said a gentle, Northern-accented voice, and she felt an arm enclose her tightly. She leaned into him. His smell was comforting, sexy, a part of her, and it made her feel brave enough to put down the towel and look at him.
He was handsome and shirtless and trying to appear concerned but his eyes were smiling.
‘Don’t laugh,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a stroke.’
There was a second’s pause and then he burst out laughing.
‘You should be banned from sunbathing, Mrs M,’ he said. ‘You’re always either in a strop afterwards or a right tizzy.’
‘I am?’ she said, thinking this was good news. Pretty soon she would be back to normal, then.
He placed the towel around her shoulders.
‘I am running you a bath,’ he said. ‘That usually does the trick.’
As she lay there amid masses of bubbles, the boy burst in, ripped off his costume, climbed into the tub and began clapping so that the bubbles splattered and landed in her hair.
‘Toby,’ she said. ‘Toby’s a nice name.’
‘Mummy’s a nice name,’ he said.
‘No room for me then,’ the man said, and Toby shook his head sombrely.
‘Feeling OK?’ the man asked.
‘I think so.’ But really, Lauren reflected with alarm, she still couldn’t be sure who he was. Or who she was, for that matter.
‘Hey, you already sound much happier,’ he smiled.
Lauren wondered if her stroke diagnosis was wrong, perhaps she had suffered a nervous breakdown and that’s why he’d said ‘happier’ and not ‘better’. She knew which was their bedroom and what clothes she would find there. There was a card stuck onto the side of her dressing-table mirror written in silver ink. It was an invitation to a christening addressed to Mr and Mrs Simon Millington.
The name sounded familiar. ‘Simon Millington,’ she said out loud not realising he was in the doorway. ‘Simon. Simon Millington. Millington. Milling… Debbie Millington. Oh my God, I’m married to Debbie’s big brother.’
He coughed. ‘You’re worrying me,’ he said. She jumped.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Well. I’m fine, but I feel there is something bad happening and my brain has gone all sluggish.’
‘There’s nothing bad here,’ Simon said. ‘We are together and we are happy and Toby is happy and healthy and a superhero.’ He paused, trying to find an explanation. ‘Perhaps Mum being in hospital, that’s worrying you?’ He cocked his head to the side. This was their life and it was a good sort of life. She did not look ill to him, she looked the same.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I was in a hospital,’ she said hesitantly, and he nodded encouragingly because she looked so uncertain
At that moment she saw the dressing table and its array of family photographs, which included a girl, older than Toby although very like him.
‘Rosie,’ she said, and at that moment a tomboy burst through the door, her hair bedraggled.
‘The rope-swing broke,’ she said, ‘and Chris fell in the nettles.’
Simon laughed and told her there would be hot water in an hour or so for a bath or she could shower straight away. Lauren sank onto the bed. She had married Simon after becoming pregnant with Rosie, who was clearly a daddy’s girl, and then they had had Toby. Like a photograph in a developing tray she felt her personal history bloom. She remembered Simon kissing her for the first time and how mad she had been for finding him so unexpectedly attractive. She remembered how annoyed her parents had been when she said she could not go to art college, that she was getting married and having a baby, and how quickly their anger had dissolved in the face of Simon’s adoration of their only child.
We are happy, she thought. I can tell, I can feel it, we are happy – so why am I so scared?
She stayed in the bedroom while elsewhere she could hear the hustle and bustle of normal family life. There was a clattering in the kitchen and cartoons blared from a TV and then in bounded Rosie, who announced they would be eating in the garden ‘like the French’.
Lauren sat quietly gleaning what she could from the conversation. As soon as one fact was established she discovered it blossomed into other solid memories. She taught art at a sixth-form college and, once a week, at a community centre. Simon ran a thriving motorcycle garage and showroom which sold new bikes, second-hand bikes and did repairs. It was much easier for her to recall Bob and Vera, now Granny and Grandpa, but she assumed that was because she had spent more of her life with them.
Later that evening she sat on the sofa with Simon.
‘You can see Doctor Haines on Monday,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should have a scan or something.’
She nodded. The day had improved but still she was fearful.
‘I feel half empty,’ she said, ‘like there’s a big secret you’re not telling me.’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘No secrets here. What you see is what you get. Oh, and I love you.’
She slept better than she had expected, drained from the heat, the disorientation and the dread, but also soothed by being loved so much. Toby woke her the next morning by bouncing on her tummy.
‘Oh, no, the baby,’ she groaned and that was the start of it, a gnawing realisation that she was definitely supposed to be here…
But, also, to be somewhere else.
Tim
He phoned Bob and Vera’s house but he reached their ansaphone. He was not ready for that. Perhaps they were on their way to London. He did not leave a message and then worried he should have done. His mother was holding his daughter. She had pulled out of her production. He was touched but also scared. If his mother was putting him first then it must be bad, really bad.
His mother was watching his every move with a beady make-up-free eye. He was in shock and she was waiting for the collapse.
‘Let’s go to my flat,’ she said. ‘It’s cosy for the baby and cool enough for us on a hot day and I can look after you both for a bit.’
‘I can’t leave Lauren,’ he said.
She did not have an adequate answer to that so she le
ft the pastel room and asked a passing nurse if anyone could help her do or say the right thing, and then her voice trailed off as she spied, scuttling towards her, Lauren’s parents. She had chatted to them amiably enough at the wedding and had joked about seeing them again when they were all grandparents.
‘We couldn’t wait for the call,’ Vera said. ‘Is that the baby?’
Beatrice stood open-mouthed in shock and Bob and Vera looked at her puzzled.
‘Tim tried to phone,’ she said. ‘It’s a girl.’
Vera scooped the baby out of Bea’s arms and shed a tear of joy but Bob felt uncomfortable.
‘Please, come in here,’ Bea said solemnly.
They walked in to find Tim slumped, rocking, moaning with his head on his knees.
Bea gently took back the baby as Vera started to gurgle the way someone being slowly poisoned might gasp at air and lose their voice.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Bea said knowing now that nothing else need to be said for them to understand the terribleness of what had happened.
‘Where is she?’ Bob said.
‘I’m not sure, Bob, I’m trying to get some information. Tim won’t leave the hospital.’
It was, Bea noted, a tableau worthy of any play as they stood in varying states of despair and ignorance. And silence. Later she would say the silence could have lasted for ten seconds or it could have been minutes but it was suddenly punctured by Vera screaming the scream of all bereft mothers. It was piercing and agonising and forced Bea to leave the room again whereupon she shouted in the clearest of stage voices into the corridor, ‘Get us some fucking help. The mother of this baby is dead.’
It caused complete strangers to burst into tears, husbands to shield their pregnant wives, nurses to stop in their tracks and porters to frown in confusion. It also prompted help and apologies for the delay in providing practical advice and information, if not for the actual death.
Tim was led away. Thirty minutes later, he returned to retrieve Bob and Vera. The goodbyes to Lauren were long and only ended when Vera collapsed, her legs buckling in grief, her mind incapable of absorbing how a day of excited anticipation had turned into this nightmare.
Bea arranged for taxis and took them all to her flat. Tim and Lauren’s new home was full of boxes, some unpacked, and her flat was not big enough for more than Tim and the baby, so she phoned around and found a hotel room nearby for Lauren’s parents although she was not at all sure how she would usher them out of her flat when the time came for bed.
The flat’s buzzer sounded and a nurse, on her way home after her shift, handed over a steriliser, bottles, some powdered milk, and the tiniest nappies, which Bea placed on her low glass coffee table in the middle of her lounge and then abruptly ran into her bedroom so she could weep and swear in private.
‘What did Lauren want to call a baby girl, Tim?’ Bob asked in a voice that he hoped sounded strong but wavered under his lack of control. ‘We kept asking and she kept saying neither of you had decided.’
‘She liked Amber, that was in pole position as we drove to the hospital,’ Tim said as if recalling the events of last year, not the day before.
‘Oh, Amber is nice,’ Vera said. ‘Does she look like an Amber, Bob, do you think?’
‘She looks like a Lauren,’ he said.
Lauren
She dropped by the pharmacy on the way to the doctors’ surgery. She did not want to make a fuss about it with the doctor, she wanted quiet confirmation, that was all.
‘A what?’ asked the young girl on the till.
Lauren blushed. She did not want to shout it out.
‘A pregnancy test, you know, a home pregnancy kit.’
The girl eyed her suspiciously and went behind the sharp white wall where the pharmacist was bustling. She returned, pleased with herself.
‘We don’t stock them and the chemist says no one does. He’s not heard of them anyway.’
‘Oh,’ Lauren said, and she suddenly felt a wave of panic that brought daubs of sweat to her forehead.
The girl softened.
‘You’re registered at the doctors’, aren’t you? I’ve seen you here before, so just go there like everyone else?’
Lauren nodded, feeling stupid. Why had she been so sure she could buy a pregnancy testing kit over the counter? As she walked out of the pharmacy she caught sight of the post office that doubled as a sweet shop and had an urge to buy licorice allsorts. They were her cheer-me-up sweets. She could smell them, see them, the gaudy blue and garish pinks of them, and yet no one in the post office had ever heard of them. She had to settle for barley sugar. But I didn’t want barley sugar, she grumbled to herself. What I really wanted was a pregnancy test.
Dr Haines was on holiday, which meant that Lauren found herself sat opposite Dr Buckingham who was popular with the over-eighties but whom everyone else hoped to avoid.
‘I’ve never heard anything quite like it,’ he said with a marked lack of curiosity.
‘No, well, could you send me for a scan or some tests or something?’ she said.
‘You’ll have to go to London,’ he said. ‘Might take a while for the appointment to come through. But there’s a psychiatrist in Chester who could see you quicker.’
Lauren knew better than to argue with him. Dr Haines would be back soon.
‘Please, put me the on the waiting list for the scan,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a psychiatrist, thank you. And can you arrange a pregnancy test?’
Dr Buckingham frowned.
‘You have two children, Mrs Millington,’ he said. ‘Surely you can tell without an expensive test?’
Lauren wanted to yell and ask what was wrong with people today, but thought better of it. She was the one with the problem. She knew that much.
She walked out to her car, holding the car keys as if they were precious stones. She could drive. She knew she could drive and yet it seemed to her as if she should not be allowed to. Simon had the children so she decided, on a whim, to drive to her parents’.
It was a bad idea. The main lane looked familiar but she could not find the turning to the cul-de sacs that led to her old road. She slowed and wound down the window.
‘Could you tell me where The Willows is, please?’ she shouted to a mother pushing a pram. The woman shook her head.
‘Ashcroft Road?’
The woman shrugged and said sorry. Lauren turned the car around and drove slowly along the lane and at last saw a track where the road should have been. She parked the car and walked along it until she reached a metal gate behind which there was a field full of sheep.
It was peculiar and yet she was not upset. The memory had been sharp and was now fading. Her parents lived on the other side of the farm. Of course they did. But she did not drive over, just in case. At least now, with Simon and the children, she felt secure. When she arrived home, he was ready to leave to get to the garage.
It was the school holidays. She and the children were to be together all day and for a few seconds she felt helpless. What does anyone do with two children for a whole day? she wondered.
‘You OK, love?’ Simon said. ‘I can get home early if you need me to.’
He noticed the slight panic in her eyes. ‘Tell you what, I’ll come home for lunch,’ he said.
‘Yes, please, thank you,’ she said, relieved.
She watched him rev the bike and drive away. Rosie tugged at her arms.
‘Mum, you’re acting weird,’ she said unsympathetically.
‘I love you,’ Lauren said. It was all she was sure about. Her daughter grimaced and ran upstairs to her room but not before turning to glare at her mother.
‘And your voice is weird too, it’s a bit posh. I don’t like it.’
‘Oh,’ Lauren said. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’
‘There, just like that. Posh.’ And then the bedroom door slammed shut.
Toby was watching an old Elvis Presley film, which seemed to her an odd thing for a four-year-old to be doing, but he liked
the songs and the dancing so she left him to it while she toured the small kitchen. She found a fridge stacked full of food and in a flash remembered the trip to the supermarket, the overladen trolley, Toby grabbing chocolates, Rosie moaning about how boring it was.
It all felt like she was on a juddering conveyor belt, one step behind everyone and then suddenly up to speed only to fall behind again. Without thinking she made Simon a cheese and pickle barm cake and she was pleased she had not had to think about it but less pleased that when she did she doubted she had ever made one before. She filled the kettle and stood next to it while it boiled. It took so long she began to flick the switch on and off in annoyance, finally snapping and throwing the entire contraption into the sink. The lid sprang open and some water splashed up onto her arm. It did not scald her, the water was merely tepid.
‘And what’s the kettle ever done to you?’ Simon asked as he stood, trying to appear relaxed, at the kitchen door.
His wife’s eyes were smarting in anger.
‘It takes so bloody long to boil. It’s ridiculous,’ she said, and he gave a her hug, aware that perhaps the kettle was not all that was frustrating her.
They sat at the small kitchen table while the children ate on a rug on the small lawn.
‘I went to see Mum and Dad this morning,’ she said, meaning to explain to him that she had tried to find them but forgotten where they were and that perhaps she had some neurological disorder, but Simon laughed before she could find the right words.
‘And how could you do that when they are in St Ives?’ he said.
‘Oh, they’d never go there,’ she said.
Simon shook his head.
‘I think you fell off the sun lounger and bumped your head. You really are all mixed-up about stuff. When’s your scan?’
She pulled a daft face. ‘It was Dr Buckingham.’
‘Say no more. We’ll chase it up with Dr Haines.’ He paused. ‘Just out of interest, why would Bob and Vera not go to St Ives?’
‘Because of…’ She rubbed her knee but her knee was fine. ‘I thought we didn’t like it for some reason.’
‘They’ve been going ever since we were kids. We all love the place, you know that. Mum was cross her operation kept her away this time. Don’t you remember Vera promising they’d all go back late September or spring to cheer her up?’