Authors: Araminta Hall
‘No, no. We have a daughter, Mavis, she’s two.’
‘Well, hang on to that then,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘Her bed is the last on the right. And please let us know if we can help at all.’
Gerry shook the doctor’s hand, feeling the skin and bone which had saved Sandra’s life and killed her hope. He realised that he would choose his wife over any baby, but that she would choose any baby over any life. Part of her would have wanted to die with the baby; part of her probably would die. He walked down the middle of the room, all the beds cocooned behind their own curtains of grief, knowing that his life had changed beyond recognition, knowing that his one stupid action had been the catalyst, knowing that he was nothing more than the dog shit which sticks in the groove of your shoes.
Sandra was lying on her back, her eyes open and her hand on her stomach. She started crying when she saw Gerry. He went to sit in the chair next to her bed and kissed her cheek.
‘San, I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’t mean to crash,’ she said and Gerry realised that he had already been wondering.
‘What were you doing? They said you were in Kelsey.’
‘I don’t know why I went there. We were happy there, I just wanted to …’ She trailed off, overcome by sobs. ‘Where’s Mavis?’
‘I took her across the road. She’s fine.’
‘To Ellen’s?’
Tony nodded, supposing that was where she was.
‘I must have scared her.’
‘Don’t think about it. She’ll have forgotten already.’
‘I’ve asked the nurse if I can see the doctor. I want to go home but nobody’s telling me anything.’
‘I’ve just seen the doctor. You won’t be able to go home for a few days, San.’
‘What’s happened to me? I can’t remember anything.’
‘You crashed into a tree, but you’re going to be fine.’
She was crying again, soaking the bed sheets. ‘I can’t feel the baby move.’ Her hands scrambled on the covers. ‘My stomach aches so much. What’s going on, Gerry?’
Nothing that Gerry had ever said before had really mattered, he realised as he prepared to jump off the cliff. He took Sandra’s hand in a way that would have made him scoff if he’d watched it in a bad made-for-TV movie, but which he now understood. ‘The baby died, San.’
Her face dissolved but he thought she had probably worked it out already. ‘Oh my God, no. I killed our baby.’
He covered her face with his own at this, the awfulness of what she was saying needing to be blocked out. ‘No, San. Don’t say that. If anyone killed our baby it was me. But neither of us did; it was an accident.’
Her face was crumpled, like nothing more than a piece of paper. ‘Have you spoken to the doctor? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh God, no.’ Her hands twisted round the sheets. ‘Oh God, Gerry, please tell me this isn’t true.’
He smoothed her hair off her face. ‘Ssh, darling. It’ll be OK.’
‘I was five months. Did the doctor tell you what it was?’
Gerry shook his head but ultimately there’d been enough lies. ‘It was a boy.’
Sandra choked on this information, as if there were too many tears to leave her body. Gerry knew he had to tell her the rest, knew this was his punishment for being a terrible person. ‘San, listen, the doctor told me something else. I’m going to tell you and we’re going to get through it, do you hear?’ She said nothing, her eyes opening wider than he’d ever seen them. ‘You were badly hurt when they got you in here, bleeding internally. If they hadn’t operated, you’d have died. What they did, they did to save your life. And your life is precious. If you’d died you’d never have seen Mavis again. Do you understand?’ She nodded. ‘But the damage was bad. They had to cut out some of your womb. We won’t be able to have any more children.’
Gerry had expected screaming and hysterics but the calm silence with which Sandra took the news was worse. He reached out for her hands, but she snatched them away. ‘San, we’ll be OK. We’ve got Mavis. Some people can’t ever have children.’ She turned her face away from him. ‘Please talk to me, San. I love you. We’ll be OK, I promise.’
Sandra rolled on to her side, her face only inches from the wall, and curled her body tightly into itself. Gerry stood up and leant over the bed, watching silent tears fall down her cheeks. ‘San, please. I’ll make it OK.’
‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘Please leave.’
‘Don’t be silly, San. I’m not going to leave you like this.’
She shut her eyes. ‘If you don’t leave I will scream and I won’t stop until they make you go.’
Gerry put his hand out to touch his wife’s shoulder but she was already too far away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I love you. It’ll be OK.’
‘No it won’t,’ she said and there was more tragedy in those words than he knew how to deal with. ‘Go away. Now.’
Gerry knew his wife well enough to leave.
Death comes to us all. Isn’t that the saying? But I do not want to see another person I love die. I feel as though I have been watching that all my life. Dealing and watching and keeping my upper lip stiff. When you are young death seems like the worst tragedy that can befall you, but as you get older and you lose more and more people it stops being so fearsome. Up until this I felt quite sanguine about it, sometimes I even looked forward to the release, but now the person I love more than anyone else is in danger and once again death has taken on its old mantle and I quake in its presence.
She cannot be dead or even hurt. And I know there are lots of people dying behind the cameras showing us those images on the television right now, but one of them cannot be Dot. Do you hear me, whoever you are who sees fit to constantly drag destruction across my life? If anything happens to my granddaughter I will hunt you down, so help me God, and I will sacrifice my soul to make you pay. I recognise our world less and less. It seems desolate.
I was in the garden when Alice got the call from Sandra. I heard the phone ringing from where I was standing admiring the agapanthus which seemed to have sprouted forth overnight. I was thinking what a majestic plant it is, how it looks fierce and beautiful at the same time, when Alice practically fell out of the house. It was obvious that something was very wrong, but I didn’t expect to hear the words which poured out of her. I brought her inside and sat her on the sofa and we turned on the telly and now we are stuck, bound by the endless loop of news telling us nothing, making no sense. Every five minutes or so Alice calls Dot’s mobile, but it never connects. At least it’s not ringing; I think that would be worse.
‘Sandra said she’d gone to look at her birth certificate,’ Alice says finally, her eyes never leaving the screen.
‘Let’s not think about that now,’ I answer.
She turns to look at me. ‘No, Clarice, let’s think about it.’
‘Have you not got a copy?’
‘Of course I have.’
There is nothing to say to that; it’s too obvious.
But my daughter continues, ‘I’ve ruined everything. Tony, Dot. I thought I was doing OK. I always meant to tell her about him, but it always felt like the wrong moment. I never knew which words to use.’ She looks over at me and her beauty is so fragile it seems fake, so exactly like my mother’s that I have to look away. ‘It made it too real. Does that make sense?’ I nod, but she’s not looking for reassurance. ‘I thought she’d blame me for being too unlovable to keep her father around. I thought she’d feel sorry for me, see me as some pathetic woman with no life.’ Her voice catches. ‘But she’s got eyes. She can see me for who I am without me telling her.’
‘Come on, Alice,’ I try.
She’s angry now. ‘All of that is about me. Me! I wasn’t thinking about what’s best for her. I’m a total idiot.’
I feel angry as well now, but not with Alice. ‘Alice, you have done your best. Do you hear me? You were so young when you had Dot and then Tony left without a word. You’ve coped brilliantly. You’ve been a brilliant mother.’
She looks at me as if I’m mad, her huge eyes swimming. ‘We just spin through life, don’t we? Your mother was right. There’s no one looking out for us or protecting us. And we grab on to anything that gives us that sense of stillness. That’s why I’ve clung to Tony for so long, even though he’s been gone for years. But you know what, right now he doesn’t seem so bloody scary. I could have told Dot all of this years ago and the sky wouldn’t have fallen in. What did I think was going to happen, Clarice? Something worse than this?’
‘You were scared, Alice. Life can be terrifying.’ I grab at things to make it better for my daughter who, I see, is as lost as her own daughter. ‘I used to watch you in the garden with Dot and I’d feel so proud of you, how capable you were of giving love. Alice, I doubt I’d have done any better. In fact, I didn’t do any better. I’m the one who should be apologising to both of you, probably.’ We are on uncertain ground and I feel my heart fluttering with what I want to say, but now is surely the time to be brave. ‘In fact, maybe my mother should apologise to all of us. Or maybe it’s her mother’s fault, or her mother’s. Or maybe our fathers. Why do they all get away scot free?’
Alice is crying in deep, heaving sobs. ‘What’s happened to us?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m sick of it. Alice, we’ve kept on going, we’ve stuck in there. And by God we’ve probably got a lot of things wrong, but we’re still here. My mother, Tony, Howie: they all opted out one way or another. But we didn’t, we’re still here.’
‘If something’s happened to her I’ll die.’
‘Stop it. Nothing’s happened to her.’ I stand up and go to sit next to her on the sofa. I put my arm around Alice and I’ve forgotten how good it feels to touch warm flesh. She sinks into my shoulder and I feel her tears on my neck so I rest my face against the top of her head. It’s been maybe twenty-five years since I held another human being but my body remembers how to do it as if it was yesterday. All this wasted time: what were we thinking?
‘Oh Mum,’ she says. ‘It hurts so much.’ I kiss the top of her head and whole chambers unlock inside me. Words do mean something, I remember, it is always within our power.
There is a knock at the front door and we both jump to our feet. The possibility of redemption is too sweet to imagine. Sandra is standing on our doorstep and I am rushed backwards through time, sucked down a rabbit hole of remembrance.
‘Can I come in?’ she asks and we both stand back, and then all go into the sitting room.
‘Is Mavis OK?’ Alice asks.
‘Yeah, I got Gerry to come home and sit with her and Rose. Obviously they’ll call if they hear anything.’
‘Do you want some tea?’ I ask.
‘No.’ Sandra sits on my chair by the fire and so we both sit back on the sofa. For a while we listen to the numbers and details on the telly. The people emerging from the smoking holes seem to have an incessant need to tell their stories, but all the stories are different and there is nothing concrete to grab hold of.
‘I hope you don’t mind me being here,’ Sandra says finally.
‘No, it’s good,’ says Alice.
‘It’s just I know what you’re like,’ Sandra says and then blushes. ‘I know how easy it is to blame yourself for things that happen to your children. But it’s not helpful, thinking like that.’
Alice starts to cry at this and so I take her hand. ‘I’m only thinking what is true,’ Alice says.
Sandra sits forward at this. ‘Alice, you were the only person who spoke any sense to me after my accident and I so wish I’d listened to you.’
‘I can’t even remember what I said.’
‘You told me that it wasn’t my fault.’ Sandra stands up at this and goes to stand by the window, her hand tapping against her thigh. I feel as though I’m watching a play. ‘But I didn’t listen. I’ve spent the past sixteen years cleaning away my sins, repeating actions that stop me falling apart in the middle of the day. Then Rose was born and it was like someone slapping me. I stood in that hospital where I felt everything had ended for me and watched my daughter give birth. My God, it was …’ She reaches out and touches the window as if looking for the right word in our garden. ‘It was so bloody real. And I thought: What am I doing torturing myself about something that happened because of lots of different reasons, lots of different moments, split-second decisions?’
‘That’s different. Dot wouldn’t be in London now if I had told her about her father.’
‘It’s not different. I wouldn’t have driven my car into a tree if I’d trusted my instincts when Gerry lied to me about you and him after the circus. Not that any of that matters. We are where we are. You have to just keep moving forward, that’s all there is.’
‘What if I have no forward, San? Dot is my forward.’
Sandra comes over to the sofa at this and squeezes in next to us. She’s always been emotionally brave and I wonder what it’s been like for her, these past sixteen years, entombing herself like a mummy. ‘Dot is going to be fine. She’s too special.’
It is a ridiculous and preposterous thing to say because as we sit here I realise that everyone is special. That people will die today who are special. That the men who blew themselves up for an ethereal idea are special. That we all have our own reasons for being where we are at any moment, but that in the end you simply cannot let any of that count. In the end we are all only in control of ourselves and we have to make our actions count. We have to find our own peace because there are no answers out there. There is no right or wrong; there is no correct way of living. Who was it who said we come from nothing and we return to nothing? I can’t remember. I just know that in my moment of return I want to know that despite all my mistakes I did my best. That I was loved and that I loved back.
Sandra and I cocoon Alice on the sofa as we all go on watching the pictures of jagged cars, blackened faces, fires and turmoil, holes gouged out of the ground and men and women rushing into and out of the devastation in a desperate attempt to save or be saved.
This is worse than my mother or even Howie. There are points in your life which seem desperate, but you should never think that it is the worst it can get. Life can always get darker and when you realise that the world becomes a very scary place. We all occupy tragedy; what differentiates us is how we respond to it.