It was a peculiarly English reserve. I realised this when I met a European acquaintance.
‘I’m so sorry about your baby,’ he said. The tears came to my eyes and I couldn’t speak, but I was glad that he had said it.
But many people studiously avoided the subject. And others felt obliged to make cheering remarks.
‘Aren’t you lucky,’ they said, on hearing that I was going to Majorca, and they believed, I know, that they were saying the right thing. Such remarks were hurtful—even insulting—trivialising as they did the extent of my grief, implying that a mere holiday could make up for the loss of my baby. But I had to forgive them for I knew that I too had made the same dreadful mistakes—before I knew—when I was on the other side of that barrier.
How badly I had let Ruth down at our recent meetings, unrelentingly trying to be cheerful, constantly changing the subject, thus denying her the right even to speak of her sister Rita. And by that denial—not only refusing to acknowledge Rita’s death and its terrible impact, but also her very existence.
Did I do it because I thought it was unhealthy to think back to a lost loved one? Did I do it to avoid the embarrassment of tears? Did I really believe that I could cheer Ruth up, and with a few words drive a tragedy of such magnitude from her mind, if only for a few moments? Yes I had believed it, and now I knew how dreadfully wrong I was. Such a tragedy was not something that flitted briefly in and out of your mind. It surrounded you, engulfed you; it was there all the time, with only tiny momentary excursions into the activities of the rest of the world.
Only now did I discover the longing of the bereaved to talk about their loss, bringing the dead back to life for a moment or two through some vivid memory, briefly revisiting the days before tragedy had struck. Increasingly as the months passed, I was to recognise with shame my own past mistakes. Because talking of the tragedy itself was the greatest release of all—the greatest relief of pain, and for friends to forbid that relief, albeit through ignorance, was positively cruel.
Before the end of the week, we made our way to Ruth’s new home in Hertfordshire. On our arrival, Roger greeted me by saying, ‘It seems strange saying this, but you look very well.’ I knew he was right; my face was still rosy from the summer sunshine, and I still had the fullness of a nursing mother. Even after a week, milk remained in my breasts. It was as if my body had not yet learned the terrible truth.
With this family, where tragic death was no stranger, we spoke without reserve. Perhaps it was too late for me to help Ruth, but the ability to take refuge with her was certainly a support to me.
But work and life of a sort had to go on. We left their home by night, and as we sped through the darkness from north to south, we were waved to the side of the road by a police car.
‘We’ve been caught in a speed trap,’ said Michael gloomily. And I, with the feeling of one who is fated to meet with an unending stream of problems and misery, recalled that Michael’s driving licence already held two endorsements; one earned by my brakeless excursion into the village, and the other (about which he was equally indignant) bestowed upon him by virtue of one of his then employees driving a van with a bald tyre.
Would a third endorsement for speeding mean that he would be banned from driving
, I wondered?
Formalities were carried out and the policeman told Michael to bring his licence and so on to a police station the next day.
‘You’re going to Shrewsbury, tomorrow,’ I reminded him.
‘The day after, then,’ requested the officer.
‘We’re going on holiday,’ I said worriedly, wondering how he would suggest we overcome such insurmountable difficulties.
To my surprise, his manner relaxed.
‘Going on holiday, eh? Where are you going? You go off and enjoy yourselves. Don’t let it happen again.’
A great wave of relief spread over me; it was good to know that nice things could still happen, and I couldn’t help wondering if something in our faces told him that we needed a break.
Ruth was not my only support during the few days before our holiday.
Carol and Jill, who had so unselfishly taken Robert away in those first agonising days, still had time to sit and talk, to reassure—above all to be with me; and Susan, our dentist’s wife, herself expecting her first child, even she sat and talked to me, at what unknown cost to her own future piece of mind, for she must have wondered what fate had in store for her own baby, whilst I prepared for the holiday. My preparations involved washing and ironing everything that had accumulated, even the little nighties and vests that had been thrown in with the other dirty linen, many days ago. Now as I automatically ironed and folded the tiny garments, even the problem of what to do with them and all the dear little dresses seemed insoluble.
The first severe frost came to our garden before the end of the week. One morning I awoke to find the garden enveloped in mist, only faintly revealing the dark shapes of frost-singed plants. But as the mist lifted, I saw that my garden was devastated—the once brilliant dahlias and tomatoes were dramatically changed to blackened skeletons, and in its sudden transformation from high-coloured radiance to grotesque ugliness, it seemed to echo that other transformation from rosy cheeks to the pallor of death. I felt a grim satisfaction that my garden, where I had often found peace and relaxation, should now be in accord with my emotions.
Yet there, at the very depths of the pit of my bitterness, I found a small ray of hope.
I took it as a sign—as perhaps we all do, who search or long for a sign from a higher Being. In my dead garden, flat upon the ground, so that it had temporarily escaped the ravages of the frost, not more than 2″ across was a young fuchsia. Its brothers and sisters had perished—it was a reminder that in nature we accept unquestioningly that the weak will die and the strong survive.
Even before Amanda had been conceived, this little plant had taken root, only to show itself now, for the first time, as if it were a reincarnation of her, or if not that, a tiny memorial here in my garden. But could it also mean that poor, frail Amanda would be followed by a stronger, hardier plant—one that, like this fuchsia, would survive Nature’s assaults?
One week after Amanda’s funeral, we made preparations to depart for our holiday. The milk was cancelled and the house locked up. I had dealt with matters efficiently, like an animated robot, mechanically capable of carrying out tasks it had performed before. I even left a note for the laundry man, telling him what had happened and asking him to leave Michael’s dinner jacket in the porch when it had been cleaned. For it was our intention to get home in time to attend a family wedding a day or so after our return.
I had been momentarily hurt—disappointed—by my mother’s reaction when I had originally said we wouldn’t go to the wedding.
‘It’s a few weeks yet—you might feel differently then,’ she had said. How could she have imagined that my feelings would have changed in such a short time? What enjoyment could I possibly get from eating, dancing and music?
Nevertheless, I realised that she was disappointed at the prospect of missing the wedding herself. She and my father relied upon Michael and me driving them to such events. It was a rare opportunity for my mother to see the family and enjoy a social occasion—a highlight in her humdrum and dreary existence, caring for my father. It would be of no consequence to me whether or not we attended. My pain would not be increased or decreased by the occasion. So I changed my mind and decided that we would go and, as previously arranged, take my parents with us, and we had planned our return from holiday with this in mind.
But now, as we set out for Majorca, the whole thing took on an air of unreality, rather like the journeys out with Michael. Although I was far from happy, more numb than hurt, it was difficult to grieve for Amanda, for she did not belong in this new setting. To a certain extent I acted out a part, managing to chat and laugh with other people in the hotel. Many of them—like us—were there to escape from some emotional upheaval. It was the end of the holiday season. Judging by the builders’ rubble, the hotel was only recently completed, and it was occupied by people who had made a sudden decision in the past two or three weeks to get away; in one case, the strain of a recent bereavement, in another, a slow recovery from illness had caused them to be there—a group of refugees struggling to survive misfortune.
The hotel took on an enclosed atmosphere, like that of a hospital ward, partly because of our isolation from other local life and partly because of the gradual emptying out of the hotel at the end of the season. As a result of this, we got to know the remaining occupants more intimately each day. We were all first amused, then slightly worried to hear that our hotel would shortly be occupied by a group of hippies and their leader, the Maharishi, during the second week of our stay.
Robert’s birthday occurred fairly early in the holiday. We made a tentative approach to the authorities, but they were not eager to lay on any little treat, and though we brought out the cards from home, it was difficult to turn the day into anything special. We had a look at the hotel shop for a present, but succeeded only in finding a bucket and spade, which we had forgotten to bring from England, and a patterned, peaked cap to protect him from the sun, thereafter known as his birthday hat. And thus the sad little attempt at a birthday celebration was over.
I awoke one night to the crack of thunder. High up as we were on the fourth floor, the whole building seemed to shake.
‘Go and see if Robert’s all right,’ I whispered urgently to Michael, also awoken by the noise. For, although petrified by the sound of the storm, my sudden fear was that if Robert had not heard it, then he must, like my baby have died in his sleep.
But Michael crept back to bed saying, ‘He’s all right; he’s fast asleep,’ and I snuggled up to him and blotted out the fury of the storm and the other unspoken terrors.
The power cuts which followed accentuated the intimacy and insularity of the guests at the hotel, whilst adding nothing at all to the conveniences, not even novelty value, for power cuts were well-known to us at that time. (It was under a year since we had all experienced them in England, during some industrial action, and we had fished out the gaslight and other paraphernalia once again in our own home.) Now, fairly pragmatically, I added an emergency candle and box of matches to the impedimenta in my handbag. But the Majorcan power cuts had some extra annoyance to offer, apart from candlelit dinners. Without electricity, the water pumps failed to operate and we had no washing water or even water to flush the toilet. One guest was even spotted filling buckets in the ornamental fountain in the forecourt of the hotel. Michael and I were reluctant to resort to such measures, as we would have had to climb the stairs to the peak of the tower block loaded with water. Obviously, the lifts stopped wherever they were during the cuts so one felt inclined to avoid them.
The longest cut of the three we experienced was a full twenty-four hours and the so-called hippies arrived one night right in the middle of this, and wearily transported their luggage up the dark staircases to their rooms.
Later, one of their number was to explain to me that if the group of people who had arrived had not studied transcendental meditation, there would have been scenes of panic when they arrived at the hotel to such a dismal reception.
I tried to imagine how a group of English people would have met this situation—for the hippies were mainly young Americans—grumpily, miserably, but stoically, I told myself.
I had wondered, for a day or so, whether Fate had decreed that I should meet up with this group and whether they had something to offer me during my present crisis. But on seeing these young people wandering along, clutching in their hands and regarding dreamily a single flower, or gazing sightlessly out to sea, and on hearing this particular criterion of the success of their meditation, I came to the conclusion that I could and I would cope with my problems just as well on my own.
I had skirted round the edge of my sorrow. This holiday was just a way of marking time. The full realisation of my loss would face me on my return home to my normal situation. I knew that and I was afraid. But some instinct told me I had the strength to carry me through.
17. The Road
The hurly burly of the flight home was followed by the rush to visit my parents in order to accompany them to the family wedding. I dressed carefully for the occasion showing no mark of mourning, and indeed during the course of the evening I chatted and laughed (perhaps slightly hysterically) as if nothing unusual had happened to me. Did they know, those who saw me, that my body had become accustomed to acting out a part, as if it had an independent life of its own, and underneath I was still numbed by sorrow?
But the occasion was neither painful nor special, and I was satisfied that I had carried out my filial and familial duties. Now, the holiday behind me, life—normal life—stretched before me like an expanse of empty sea, with the promise of happiness, at present remote and invisible, perhaps beyond the horizon.
I was used to following established pathways, with events occurring like cosy cottages along their edges, in a recognisable pattern.
Now, in order to regain that pattern, I travelled with slow steps, carrying out the most trivial of tasks from the old days, long ago, early in my pregnancy, before the cares of the house had given way to languidity, tiredness and contented laziness. Somehow I began to get back to that old routine of dusting, hoovering, sweeping and bed making, and as I did so the lines of a hymn we used to sing at school kept coming into my head: