Read The Hand That First Held Mine Online
Authors: Maggie O'farrell
Tags: #Literary, #Psychological, #Family Life, #Historical, #Fiction
The Hand That First Held Mine (32 page)
Felix turns. He sees a young girl and, being Felix, assumes she has stopped to talk to him. ‘Hello,’ he nods, ‘lovely day.’
‘Yes,’ Margot replies, ‘isn’t it?’ She gives Felix a long, level look, then a smile creeps into her features. ‘I know you,’ she says, taking a step closer to him. ‘You’re on television.’
Felix treats her to one of his dazzling yet deprecating grins. ‘Not, I believe, right at this moment.’
Margot laughs, an unbecoming snicker. She glances from one to the other of them, then turns and gives them a little wave as she walks backwards away from them. ‘See you, then.’
‘Goodbye,’ Felix says, then puts his arms around Lexie. ‘Now, listen,’ he begins.
Lexie fights him off. Margot is still looking at them, over her shoulder, strands of her thin hair blowing over her face. ‘Do you know her?’ Lexie hisses.
‘Who?’
‘That girl.’
‘What girl?’
‘The one you just said hello to.’
‘What? No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘About what?’
‘That you don’t know her?’
‘Who?’
‘Felix,’ Lexie thumps him in the chest, ‘are you being deliberately obtuse? That girl. Do you know her?’
‘No, I’ve just told you. I’ve never seen her before in my life.’
‘But then why did you say—’
Felix catches her face between both of his hands. ‘Why are we talking about this?’
‘You must promise me,’ Lexie says, then stops. She doesn’t know what she wants him to promise but something is making her uneasy. She thinks of Margot and her mini-skirt and her slow smile and her fine, suddenly blonde hair. The way she looked at Felix, the snide delight in her features.
First you take my father.
‘You must promise me . . . I don’t know. Promise me that if you see her again you won’t say hello. Promise me that you’ll stay away from her.’
First you take my father.
‘You must promise me . . . I don’t know. Promise me that if you see her again you won’t say hello. Promise me that you’ll stay away from her.’
‘Lexie, what on earth—’
‘Promise me!’
He smiles down at her. ‘If you promise to marry me.’
‘Felix, I’m serious. She’s . . . she’s . . . Just promise me, please.’
‘All right, all right,’ he concedes testily. ‘I promise. Now, what about tonight?’
Lexie is sitting up in bed, cross-legged, her notes spread out on the counterpane around her. She is eight months pregnant and this is the only comfortable place she can work – the office is too much of a distance now. She has to finish this piece on Italian cinema before she can go to sleep.
She removes the pencil from behind her ear and reaches for a piece of paper to her left; the pencil slips from her fingers, rolls over the counterpane and drops to the floor. Lexie curses. For a moment she contemplates leaving it there but she doesn’t have another to hand. She slides the typewriter off her knees, manoeuvres herself through her notes and down on to her hands and knees to look under the bed. No pencil. She crawls towards the bedside table and peers under that and, as she does so, there is a strange down-dragging sensation in the pit of her stomach. Lexie straightens up, the pencil forgotten. The pain disappears as quickly as it had come. She gets back on to the bed; she reads through what she has written and, towards the end of the article, the sensation comes again. Lexie looks down at her stomach and frowns. It cannot be, it simply cannot. It’s much too early. She has an interview tomorrow – with an activist she’s been pursuing for months – and a leader to write before the end of the week. The sensation comes again, stronger this time. Lexie swears and slams down the pages. This cannot be happening. She stamps into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and feels the clench of another contraction as she fills the kettle – a small surge, like driving too fast over a hump-backed bridge, like swimming through a wave in the ocean.
‘Listen,’ she says aloud, ‘this is not on. You have to wait. It’s not time to come out yet. Do you hear me?’
While she drinks the tea, she looks at the paintings – the Bacon, the Pollock, the Hepworth, the Freud. She brushes her hair, still looking. She scrubs her teeth and, as she spits, the surges are turning into clenches, like a fist tightening, like a drawstring bag pulled too tight.
She picks up the phone and calls a cab. ‘To the Royal Free Hosp—’ The word is torn off because instead she says, ‘Ow.’
She presents herself at the labour ward just as dusk is falling.
‘Look,’ she says, to the nurse behind the desk, ‘this is happening much too early. I’ve got a pile of work to do this week. Can’t you do something to stop it?’
‘Stop what?’ the nurse says, nonplussed.
‘This.’ Lexie points at her belly. Is the woman particularly stupid? ‘It’s too early. It can’t come now.’
The nurse looks at her over her spectacles. ‘Mrs Sinclair—’
‘Miss.’
Several more midwives gather round her, shocked. ‘Where is your husband?’ one of them says, looking around. ‘You’re not alone, are you?’
‘I am,’ says Lexie, leaning on the desk. She can feel another of those pains approaching, can sense it on the horizon.
‘Where is your husband?’
‘Don’t have one.’
‘But, Mrs Sinclair, it—’
‘Miss,’ she corrects them again. ‘And another thing—’ Again, her words are strangled by a surge of pain. She clings to the edge of the desk. ‘Damn and hell,’ she hears herself shout.
‘Gracious me,’ the nurse tuts. Then Lexie hears her say to someone else, ‘Would you telephone the father? His telephone number is down here and—’
‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ Lexie roars. ‘I don’t want him here.’
Several hours later she is clinging to the leg of a hospital bed, a sailor in a storm holding on to a mast, and she is still saying it’s too early, that she has work to do, and she is still swearing. She is swearing like she’s never sworn before.
‘Get up off that floor, Mrs Sinclair, this minute,’ the midwife says.
‘I will not,’ Lexie gets out from between her teeth, ‘and it’s Miss not Mrs. How many times do I have to tell you?’
‘Mrs Sinclair, get off the floor and on to the bed.’
‘Shan’t,’ she says, and then she lets out a howl, a scream, followed by a string of invective.
‘Such language,’ the midwife tuts. They keeps saying that to her. That or ‘Get on the bed.’ She is still crouched on the floor when she gives birth. They have to catch the baby in a towel. The doctor says he’s never seen the like. Like a savage, he says, or an animal.
Such language.
These were the first words Lexie’s son ever heard.
These were the first words Lexie’s son ever heard.
Later, at visiting time, the ward began to fill with husbands in hats and raincoats, bearing flowers. Lexie watched them, looked at their nervous fingers gripping ribboned boxes of chocolates, their tight collars, their overshaven chins. The squeak of their shoes, the rain on their hats, the redness of their hands as they leant on the cots of their new children. Lexie smiled. She looked down at her son, who was swaddled in a yellow blanket, staring up at her with an expression that said: At last, there you are.
‘Hi,’ Lexie whispered, and put her finger into his hand’s grip.
A nurse appeared beside her. ‘You shouldn’t be holding that child unless it’s feeding time. You’ll make a rod for your own back. You should put him in his cot.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ Lexie said, without taking her gaze away from him.
The nurse sighed. ‘Shall I draw the curtains for you?’
Lexie looked up sharply. ‘No.’ She settled the baby so that he was closer to her. ‘No,’ she said again.
Towards the end of visiting time, there was the sound of regular, assertive footsteps in the ward. Lexie knew those footsteps. She raised her head to watch Felix take his walk of honour past all the beds, where the women looked up at him, their eyes wide, their mouths breaking into smiles. He was on television every night, these days. He nodded and smiled back at them. His coat was loose, as if he’d run here in a rush, and he was carrying an enormous spray of orchids in one hand and a basket of fruit in the other. Lexie rolled her eyes.
‘Darling,’ he boomed, as he neared her, ‘I just got the call. I would have come sooner.’
‘Really?’ Lexie said, glancing at the clock. ‘Haven’t you just finished tonight’s programme?’
He laid the flowers on the bed, on top of Lexie’s feet. He said: ‘A boy. How marvellous. How are you?’
Lexie said, ‘We’re fine.’
She saw him smile, lean towards her. ‘Congratulations, sweetie, very well done,’ he said, and kissed her cheek. Then he sank into a chair. ‘Although I’m a tiny bit cross,’ he said, ‘that you didn’t call me straight away. You poor darling, coming in here on your own. Very naughty of you.’ He treated her to one of his deep, intimate smiles. ‘I sent a telegram to my mother. She’ll be delighted. She’ll be looking out the family christening robe as we speak.’
‘Christ,’ Lexie muttered. ‘Tell her not to bother. Felix, haven’t you forgotten something?’
‘What?’
‘Have you forgotten why you came?’
‘To see you, of course.’
‘And the baby, perhaps? Your son? Whom you don’t seem to have glanced at yet.’
Felix sprang to his feet and peered at the baby. His face, fleetingly, showed a mixture of distaste and fear before he retreated back to his chair. ‘Wonderful,’ he declared. ‘Perfect. What name are we going to give him?’
‘ Theo.’
‘Oh.’
‘As in Theodore.’
‘Isn’t that rather a . . . ?’ He stopped. Smiled at her again. ‘Why Theodore?’
‘I like it. And it suits him. Maybe because it contains the sound “adore”.’
He put his hand over hers. ‘My darling,’ he began, in a low voice, ‘I spoke to the nurses on the way in and they think – and, of course, I agree with them – that you can’t possibly go home alone to your flat. I really think that—’
‘Felix, don’t start on this again.’
‘Won’t you come and live in Gilliland Street with me?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not talking about marriage, I promise. Just think about it. The two of us under one roof—’
‘ Three.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The baby, Felix.’
‘I meant three, of course. Slip of the tongue. The three of us under one roof. It is for the best. The nurses think so too and—’
‘Please stop!’ Lexie shrieked, making several of the bedjacketed mothers look over. ‘And how dare you speak to the nurses about me behind my back? Who do you think you are? There’s no way I’d live with you. Ever.’
But Felix was impervious. ‘We’ll see,’ he says, covering her hand with his own.
Lexie checks herself out early – she cannot stand the intimate camaraderie of the ward, the public life of it – and takes her baby home. They get a cab together. It seems a very simple equation: she went to the hospital as one person and she comes back as two. Theo sleeps in the bottom drawer of a chest. Lexie takes him out for walks in a big squeaking silver pram, given to her by a neighbour. She is awake for a great deal of the night. This is not a surprise but no less a trial. She stands at the window with her baby, in her dressing-gown, looking down into the street; she listens for the whirr-stop-whirr of the milk float and wonders if she is the only person awake in the city. The warm weight of Theo’s head balanced in the crook of her left arm, always her left, his ear pressed to her heart. His body slack with sleep. The room shimmers with the metallic white light of dawn. Around the bed are strewn the spoils of the long night they have lived through together: several soiled nappies, two crumpled muslin squares, an empty water glass, a jar of zinc ointment. Lexie scuffs her bare foot against the rug, then stops to look down at her son. His features cloud briefly in his sleep, then relax. His hand rises up, flails through the air, in search of something – texture, purchase, reassurance – finds a fold of her dressing-gown and clenches decisively around it.
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