The Judas Scar (12 page)

Will reached over and stroked his hand down her cheek, tucking a tress of her hair behind her ear. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve kept from you. I should have told you months ago.’ He hesitated.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know how—’

‘Just tell me, Will.’

‘I … ’ He hesitated again. ‘I had a vasectomy.’

‘What?’ Barely spoken, no more than a breath. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘A vasectomy.’ He reached for her hand that clutched at the duvet. ‘I had a vasectomy.’

C H A P T E R    N I N E

As his words sank in, she stared at his face, caught the weight of his pained expression, saw how his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

‘Harmony?’

She didn’t move. He reached over and turned his bedside light on. She closed her eyes against the brightness, against him. His words tumbled around in her mind.

Had she heard him correctly?

Disbelief muddied her thoughts, her vision. She felt lightheaded, and as she forced herself out of bed her knees gave slightly.

‘You had a vasectomy,’ she said. ‘You had yourself sterilised?’ He didn’t answer.

She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She stood in the centre of the room for a moment or two, unsure what to do, her body beginning to shiver. She reached for the towel on the rail. It was damp from her earlier shower, but she wrapped it around herself like a cape, then closed the loo seat and sat down, her head swimming as if she were drunk.

Will opened the door. He’d put some boxer shorts on, which gaped unattractively. She felt nauseous and looked away from him. He crouched beside her. Touched her knee.

‘Get off me,’ she whispered.

‘Harmony, I—’

‘Get your hand off me, Will.’

He dropped his hand from her and his head fell forward. She closed her eyes again, waves of sickness passing through her as the ramifications of what he’d done began to settle over her.

‘Let me get this straight,’ she said, unable to look at him. ‘You went to a hospital and had a vasectomy without telling me?’

‘Yes.’

She concentrated on her breathing, focused on the air passing in and out of her body. Did he have any idea of the damage he’d done? As she sat there she felt her shock turn to disbelief. She fixed her eyes on him, her brow furrowed, her head shook from side to side as she grappled with what he’d told her.

‘Have you any concept of how serious this is?’

He didn’t respond, just crouched there, struck dumb.

‘I can’t believe you’d do that.’

His face showed all the shame, all the guilt, of a scolded child. His lips were pursed and his gaze was fixed on the floor between them.

‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, forcing the question through gritted teeth.

‘You know why,’ he said. ‘You know I never wanted children.’

‘But we were going to have one. I was pregnant. That changed things. It must have done.’

He looked at her, his eyes flicking back and forth across her face, his head shaking almost imperceptibly.

‘But you must have felt something.’ she pressed. ‘When it died you must have felt something. Something in you changed, surely?’ She was pleading with him, pleading for him to admit some sort of emotional response, something that would reassure her he wasn’t a heartless monster.

He sighed heavily, rubbed his face, then stood up and walked over to the bath. He sat on its edge. ‘That’s the point, I didn’t. I didn’t feel what you wanted me to feel, not when I found out about it and not when you lost it. I’ve tried to be there for you but I don’t understand how you can expect me to mourn something I never felt attached to.’

Harmony closed her eyes against the anger that swelled up inside her. ‘How can you be so callous?’ she whispered.

‘You don’t understand what I’m saying.’ Will paused. She opened her eyes and saw his face, twisted as if in physical pain.

‘When it died … ’ He hesitated. ‘When it died I felt … ’ He stopped himself.

‘What? What did you feel?’

‘Relief.’

The word hung between them, poisoning the air she breathed.

‘Harmony, I didn’t—’

‘Fuck you.’

She dropped her face into her hands, struggling to process everything she was hearing. How could he have felt that? She took her hands from her face and stared at him, picturing his heart, black and shrivelled, in his hollow chest.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t discuss it with me.’

‘We’ve discussed and discussed it until we’re blue in the face,’ he said. ‘When we got married – no, when we met – we discussed it. Christ, Harmony, you knew the score.’

‘I knew the
score
?’ She spat the words out of her mouth like they were battery acid.

‘I never wanted children.’ He squared his shoulders, looked her directly in the eyes, faced her, ready to defend himself.

She hated him then. Raw hatred. A hatred born of a wound she never imagined him capable of inflicting.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘How could you do that? You and I might have made decisions years ago but things changed. We got pregnant.’ She was crying now, hot tears running down her cheeks. ‘You knew how I felt about our baby. You knew from the start. But then you go … and … and have a vasectomy? Without even telling me?’ She paused and shook her head, pressing the edge of the towel against her eyes to blot the tears. ‘I mean, shit, is it even legal to do that without my consent?’

‘Your consent?’ He looked genuinely surprised and she fought the urge to slap him.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My consent. As your wife. Given that what you did affects me profoundly.’

‘You’re missing the point. This goes beyond the vasectomy. It goes far deeper. I’m not capable of being a father. I’m not capable of caring for another human being—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she interrupted, looking at the ceiling to try and stem her tears.

‘I’m not being ridiculous.’ Then he got up and walked back into the bedroom. ‘I don’t want to have a child.’

‘But I do!’ she shouted after him. ‘I did!’

Then she started to shake, shock taking hold of her body. She felt cold suddenly and tightened the towel around her. ‘Oh my God,’ she said under her breath. ‘Will, what have you done to us?’

When she stood, her legs were shaky, her heart racing. She made herself walk when all she wanted to do was collapse on the floor. She took the towel off her shoulders and took her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door. She put it on, tying the cord tightly, and then stood in the doorway and leant against the frame. He was sitting on the bed, his back facing her, shoulders hunched.

‘When did you do it?’ He didn’t reply.

‘Will? I asked you a question. When did you do it? When I was dealing with the pain of losing our baby?’

‘Not then.’

‘When?’

‘I went to see the doctor not long after you found out you were pregnant. I was all over the place. We had this child on the way and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again; I didn’t want more children.’ He turned on the bed to look at her. ‘I didn’t want to take any more chances.’

‘But you would have been unwell – there’s swelling, isn’t there?’ He didn’t reply.

‘Will! For God’s sake! Tell me when you did it!’

He shook his head and rubbed his chin with his hand. ‘At the beginning of December,’ he said wearily. ‘I told you I had the flu.’

Her mind whirred, thinking back to the week he spent in bed, tucked up in a darkened room, curtains drawn, an extra pillow. Chicken soup. A hot water bottle. ‘But I looked after you,’ she said.

‘I phoned Frank and told him you were too ill to go into the shop.’ She put her hand on her forehead. ‘I gave you ibuprofen. I fed you. I … ’ Her voice trailed to nothing.

‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I was going to, at one point, but I kept putting it off, avoiding it, and then you had the miscarriage and, well, I didn’t want to upset you any more than you were.’

She laughed bitterly and fixed her eyes on the wall. ‘Well, thank you for not wanting to upset me. Thank you for your care and consideration. For your
thoughtfulness
.’ She shook her head again. ‘You get the prize for caring fucking husband of the year!’

‘Don’t shout at me.’

‘Why the hell not?’ A sense of finality mushroomed inside her. It was like he’d fired a machine gun at their marriage which now lay in bloodied tatters at her feet. As she stared at him she had the strange illusion of him turning into a stranger, his features becoming unfamiliar, the set of his face becoming that of someone she vaguely knew, a man with a resemblance to Will, but a man she couldn’t place.

‘You know,’ he said, with a note of anger. ‘This is nuts. You’re looking at me like I’m the devil, like I’ve cut your heart out.You knew if you married me you wouldn’t have a family. It was a sacrifice, I know that, but you made it. I was there when you agreed to it, standing beside you in the registry office, holding your hand and slipping that band of gold onto your finger.’

‘Don’t you throw that at me! This is way beyond will we or won’t we have a child. Way beyond our marriage vows. If you want to bring marriage vows into it, how about love, cherish, honour – a marriage built on honesty? You’ve made a mockery of everything that day stood for, every promise you made me. And yes, you’re right, I did love you enough to make that sacrifice, and it was a sacrifice, it was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. But this isn’t about that day any more, can’t you see that?’ Tears sprung in her eyes and fell unchecked down her cheeks. ‘What you’ve done is despicable.’

Will walked over to her then, his hands reaching out for her, but she recoiled, turned away from him so he couldn’t touch her.

‘When I felt our baby inside me,’ she said, ‘I … felt … complete. Then, when I … ’ Her stomach twinged with the pain of her miscarriage.

‘… lost it I felt as if my world had ended, and all I wanted for was that mistake, as you call it, to happen again.’

She saw him swallow and his shoulders dip as guilt took hold, or perhaps regret.

‘I wanted you to have felt it too,’ she said, fighting the lump in her throat. ‘I wanted you to have imagined being a father and holding your baby, and I wanted you to feel as bereft, as cheated, as I did.’ She searched his face for signs of comprehension, of an empathy she now feared he didn’t possess. ‘I see how foolish it was now, but I just hoped you’d changed your mind.’ She blotted her tears on the back of her hand. ‘You
have
cut my heart out, Will. Doing what you’ve done, making that decision without me, taking away the option of me ever having a baby. You’ve cut my heart out and trodden it into the dirt.’

He moved towards her again but she pushed him away. ‘I want you to leave me alone. You can sleep on the sofa. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’

‘We need to talk.’

She snorted bitterly. ‘Oh, now we need to talk?’

‘Harmony—’

‘Leave me alone.’

For a moment he didn’t move and she worried that he might try and approach her again. She walked past him, careful not to touch him as she did, and got into bed. She stretched across to turn the light off and then lay there, arms either side of her on top of the duvet, willing him to go.

She heard him take a breath to speak. ‘Leave. Me. Alone.’

Then he left the room. She listened to his footsteps walking down the corridor. Heard him go into the living room. Heard the door close. Then it was quiet. The silence rang in her head. She felt as if she’d been driven over, stunned and confused, her head pounding at the temples. It scared her to feel this level of hatred towards her husband. She thought of her mum then, of a conversation they’d had when Harmony was about seven. She’d been crying in bed and crept downstairs and sidled into the television room where her mother was watching the news. Her mum had opened her arms and she’d climbed onto her lap and curled herself into her, burying her face in her wool sweater, reaching up to stroke the balding patch that had appeared on the side of her head.

‘What the matter, petal?’

‘Stupid Frankie Graham says my dad left because he didn’t love me.’

Her mother had tightened her arms around her. ‘Well, what does Stupid Frankie Graham know about anything anyway?’ Harmony had shrugged.

‘Nothing, that’s what.’ She kissed the top of her head. ‘Your dad loved you all the way to the moon and back.’

Harmony turned in her mum’s arms and looked up at her. ‘Why did he go, then?’

Her mother hadn’t answered immediately, but had taken a deep breath and then finally smiled. ‘Some people are like birds,’ she said.

‘You can’t keep them caged. He needed to fly, that’s all. I’d hoped he wouldn’t fly too far, but sadly for us he did.’

‘Do you hate him?’

‘Hate him?’ Her mother laughed softly and then rested her chin on top of Harmony’s head. ‘No, I don’t hate him. I could never hate your dad. I love him and you can’t turn love on and off like a tap. There’s nothing he could do, even leaving, that would make me stop loving him. Just like he still loves us, whatever he does, wherever he is. You remember that next time Stupid Frankie Graham says anything daft about your dad.’

Harmony’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden wetness between her legs as Will’s semen seeped out of her. She cringed as she remembered their lovemaking. Less than an hour ago, when she’d been happy, when she’d felt close to her husband and allowed herself to think about trying for a child. She recalled the way he’d kissed her, so tenderly, so full of love, but all the time he knew what he’d done, how he’d driven a stake through the heart of their marriage. She shifted her body against the discomfort she felt, pulled the sheets between her legs to dry herself. The thought of it turned her stomach; she was revolted by the dead and useless liquid, that ejaculate that tainted her body with its deceitful sterility. It was like venom inside her, and suddenly, violently, she wanted all trace of him out of her.

She got up and went to the bathroom and set the shower to as hot as she could stand, and there in the quiet darkness she stood beneath the scalding water and scrubbed herself clean of him.