Hello, My Name is May

by Rosalind Stopps

  I’m sorry, Jackie says, I’ve got you all upset now and I didn’t mean to. It must be so hard, not being able to make yourself understood, I’d hate it. I know, shall I just ask you yes and no questions?

  I nod, mainly because I don’t want her to be upset and think it’s all her fault.

  Are you normally a chatty person, she asks and I nod but that one has me thinking. Am I? I’ve lived alone a long time now, and got used to my own company, but back in the day I could talk the hind legs off a donkey, I’m sure I could. At work, with the kids, we’d talk all day.

  Do you like cooking, she asks and I shake my head, no. She laughs and says, me neither. I start to feel more comfortable and at home, but I can’t help glancing towards the door every couple of minutes in case he comes back.

  Do you like classical music, she asks and I do another big shake of the head.

  Rock music? she says and I nod.

  Hey we’ve got lots in common she says and I feel a glow. I’m not being completely truthful here but I’m getting a chance to refashion myself in a way. Truth was I liked silence most of my life, preferred not to have anything spoiling it whenever possible, but I think I’ll be different now. If I get another chance I’ll play some of that noisy music Jenny used to like when she was a teenager and I’ll play it with the volume turned up. There’s no silence as big as the silence inside my head, that’s how it feels.

  We’ve established some favourite authors in common by the time they bring my lunch and Jackie heads off to the dining room. OK, I haven’t been completely truthful and some of the authors we talked about are new to me but I’m going to read them if Jackie likes them. I’m going to read them and talk about them so that we’ve got even more in common just because it’s so wonderful to have a friend. You’re worth losing my voice for, I want to say to her but I remember that people do not always like it if a person goes overboard with admiration.

  I think about the chatty person question all through lunch. You need something to think about at mealtimes here because the food is terrible. It’s like someone has taken great care and attention to produce a menu that is as fattening as possible. They never miss a carb if they can possibly shoehorn one in. Today it’s salad for lunch, which involves a large pile of plastic-tasting grated cheese and two pieces of bread and butter. I carefully pick out the tomatoes and the green bits and eat only them, thinking of how lovely Jackie manages to look in plain linen trousers and a thin jumper. Not February clothes at all but just right for this place, not like an old lady at all.

  I’m still thinking about the chatty thing when Jenny turns up that evening.

  Hi Mum, she says, happy birthday, how are you feeling today?

  I realise that the reply I’m about to make is horrible. I want to say, how do you think I’m feeling? I don’t know why that pops into my head. Have I always spoken to Jenny like that? I try to remember specific occasions and I think yes, maybe I have. Recently anyway.

  Fine, thanks, I try, then I point at her to indicate that I’m asking how she is too.

  She doesn’t get it, but then she wouldn’t be expecting me to ask after her, would she? If I needed any further confirmation I can see it on her face. She looks as baffled as usual.

  Oh, she says, well done for giving it a go, that’s nice, and look what I got for you. Jenny holds out a parcel, loosely wrapped. Of course it makes me start snivelling again, I think it’s probably the medication they have me on. I’ve never been a crier.

  Jenny looks like she is on safer ground now. Come on Mum, she says, it’s your birthday. Here.

  She pushes the parcel at me again and helps me to take it. She hasn’t used any sticky tape, which is so thoughtful I nearly cry again. As if I care about things being wrapped up, I want to say, I’m happier being ignored. I pull at the paper and it’s a nightdress, a pretty one with pink flowers.

  And a Kindle, Jenny says, there’s a Kindle in there that might be easier to read than paper books, it’s lit up from the back, see? It’s much easier than an iPad.

  I am grateful, very grateful, and I wish I could tell her thank you. I put my hand on her arm instead, as gently as I can, and stare at her with a smile so that she will see how happy I am. Jenny looks away, she’s never been so good at eye contact, and she fiddles with her coat and her gloves. I want to ask her if it’s cold outside, so I cross my arms over my chest and try a questioning brrrr face.

  It’s a pointless question, because as I ask it Jenny takes off her padded coat and her scarf and her gloves and she rubs her fingers and hugs herself as if she can’t believe she is really safe in the warmth of this place.

  Yes, she says, it’s freezing but I didn’t have to wait long for the bus.

  I picture her there, at the bus stop, all wrapped up and looking more like somebody’s grandmother than somebody’s daughter. How strange to have a middle-aged child that used to be a tiny baby.

  Time, I say. I’m thinking of the tricks time plays on us all. Jenny leans in, determined to catch my mumblings.

  No, she says, it really wasn’t that long. She still thinks I am talking about her time at the bus stop. She is so sweet, so forgiving, how come I don’t notice it more often?

  I pull some faces, stretch out my cheeks and open my mouth wide. Jenny looks alarmed.

  It’s what actors do before going on stage, I think, facial warm up. I have no way of explaining this so I stop.

  I remember the pad of paper they’ve been wanting me to use. It’s worth a try. I anchor it with my useless right arm and gesture to Jenny to take the top off the pen for me.

  When you were little, I write, the words appearing in a wobbly way as if I had been transported back to Year One, was I a chatty mum?

  Oh, Jenny says, this is not what I was expecting. You sure know how to keep a girl on her toes, Mum. Let me think.

  If you have to think, it’s a no, I want to say. I keep quiet, let her think how to say whatever it is she’s going to say.

  You had a lot on your mind, Jenny says, I know I wasn’t an easy child.

  I feel ashamed. You were, I write, you were an easy child, who told you that you weren’t. Even as I write it I know who told her. It was me of course, me who said things like, I don’t know why you have to be so difficult. Poor little mousy little Jenny.

  Of course the more upset I get, the more incoherent I become, and the more my writing slips and slides and my right arm won’t hold the paper down. She doesn’t get any of it as I apologise and tell her she was a dear, easy baby.

  Don’t get upset Mum, she says. She looks uneasy and I want to make her feel better so I try to calm down. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth and concentrate on a point on the opposite wall.

  I was thinking, says Jenny, maybe I could take you out soon, as soon as the weather improves. In your wheelchair.

  I give her a look, trying to indicate that I’m too heavy.

  I would manage, Jenny says, but about that, I was wondering, I mean, Dan and I are getting on much better now.

  What, I write, playing for time.

  There is always a problem when people get back with ex-partners, I’ve seen it all before. I have always been the friend who is happy to say bad things about the ex during the split, but then if things go differently and they want them back, it somehow becomes my fault.

  Hilary, the deputy in the first school I worked in. She found out her husband had a stack of nasty porn hidden in the attic, and when she threw him out it was me she turned to. I suppose she thought that because I was a single mum I would understand, and I did. I told her everything she wanted to hear, agreed with everything she said about him. I told her things were OK on your own, and that she didn’t need a man like him. It turned out that she did, though, and when they got back together three months later I was suddenly off the friends list without a trial. Literally, snubbed at the Christmas party, overlooked for a simple promotion I was more than due, and we never spoke again apart from in the course of our dutie
s. I don’t think she could look at me without seeing those poor girls in the pictures.

  So Jenny and Dan. I try to arrange my face in a neutral way. A Swiss face, I think, because of Switzerland being neutral in the war.

  Oh, I say, giving it two syllables to imply that I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing.

  Oh Mum, Jenny says, he’s a nice guy, you know he’s a nice guy really. And who wants to be alone when they get older.

  Oh no, Jenny says, I didn’t mean, it’s just that, I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking.

  I wave to show I’m not offended. I’m feeling a mixture of disappointed and triumphant. Disappointed that she would go back with him, and that she would do it for such a banal reason, and triumphant because I always feel happy when things go wrong, especially when I’ve predicted it. I can’t help it. It’s a tiny triumph compared with how sorry I am.

  I pat her arm to show it’s all OK. I’m not sure if she notices. I point at the tissues on my tray.

  What if it all happens again, Mum, Jenny says, I couldn’t stand it.

  I keep my mouth shut. It would never happen again, I want to say, no other woman, however naive, would ever look at him with anything but contempt, surely?

  The truth is, Jenny’s Dan is a spineless little creep of a man. He teaches philosophy to sixth formers and I always imagine that his classes must be the butt of jokes for long after students have left school and moved on. No one, and especially not Jenny, was prepared for him to have a liaison with one of his pupils, he just didn’t seem the type. He works in a hardware shop now.

  I’m busy thinking about how to play this one when Jackie pops her head round my door.

  Bye, May, she says, bye-bye we’re off to the cinema, maybe you can come next time, see you in the morning.

  We? I think. We? Who the hell is she talking about? I know really, of course, I knew before he poked his stupid head round the door.

  Bye-bye merry May, Bill says, sleep tight and don’t let the monsters bite.

  Bill, says Jackie as they walk away, it’s not monsters.

  Mum, says Jenny, that’s what we used to say, isn’t it?

  I shrug my shoulders.

  Yes, she says, we did, I remember. Everyone else said bedbugs.

  She’s right, I think, and the thought gives me a cold feeling.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  February 1978

  Pimlico

  ‘London isn’t paved with gold,’ May wrote to Helen, ‘but there’s something magic going on. Alain’s working, he’s teaching infants. He’s got a long-term supply job and he’s a different person. Honest, I can hear you not believing me but it’s true. He’s happy, that’s the difference, happy and fulfilled. He comes in at night and talks to me, really talks about the children, and what they’ve been doing, and if he has a problem, he asks me what I think he should do and we talk it over. So, no, I’m not using my teaching skills myself, I couldn’t bear to leave Jenny in a nursery yet. But I’m using my brain, and honestly I’m so happy.’

  May paused. Most of it was true, and the other part, the exaggerated part, that was because she wanted it to be true, so much. Alain really did seem a little better. Happier, more talkative, smiley and less angry. Much more open, sunny, all the things May loved about him out there on show every day. Well, nearly every day, but no one is happy all the time, May thought.

  Jenny was thriving, and May had decorated the little flat with yellow walls and brown paintwork. She made sure that she was always finished for the day before Alain came home from work, so that he wouldn’t feel pressured into helping.

  ‘I’d better go now,’ May wrote. ‘Alain will be home soon and I’m making that casserole with bacon and white sauce. Don’t worry, I’m not turning into a Stepford Wife! It’s just that with a baby, routine is more important than it used to be. You’ll find out any day now, as soon as that baby stops dithering and decides to join us!’

  May put down her pen and looked over at Jenny in her cot. She was still asleep, and May knew that she would pay for that later. If May’s mother was here, she would probably have suggested that May picked Jenny up and woke her so that she would sleep later, but May wasn’t sure. It seemed such a shame to disturb her. She hadn’t expected that there would be so much compromise involved in child rearing, so many small daily negotiations. She hadn’t expected that she would miss her mother so much.

  May decided to make dinner a real treat, to show Alain how happy she was that things were going so well. She wouldn’t eat much herself, just move it round her plate a little. He was right about the extra weight she had put on with Jenny, it was slow to shift. She had to show him that she supported him, that was the important thing. After all, if he had a physical problem like diabetes or appendicitis it would be easy to sympathise, and that wasn’t fair. Just because whatever ailed Alain was hidden, a psychological problem, that didn’t mean that she should abandon him, whatever Helen said. May knew that she should try harder, help him more. He was such a good person underneath.

  May had asked her health visitor for advice a couple of weeks ago after a very frightening argument with Alain about E.M. Forster. She hadn’t told the health visitor what the argument was about, because it sounded ridiculous, but she had tried to explain what life was like living under these conditions. The health visitor, a cheery young man with red hair, had suggested that Alain might be allergic to caffeine. May had reservations about the possibility of being allergic to such an everyday substance but the man had assured her that there was a great deal of research about exactly that going on at the moment. Alain had been in an abject, apologetic mood that night, and May had managed to explain to him that caffeine could be the problem.

  ‘Yes,’ Alain had said, ‘yes, I’m sure that’s it. I drink loads of coffee, all day. Oh God wouldn’t it be marvellous if I could stop? Help me, May.’

  May didn’t want to feel suspicious, but he had latched onto her suggestion so quickly that she felt winded.

  ‘It’s just an idea,’ she said.

  Alain had taken both May’s hands in his and looked into her eyes.

  ‘We’ll beat this together, May, we’ll sort this out for ever, I swear. Just don’t buy any tea or coffee and I’ll keep away from it when I’m out of the house too.’

  May thought there was something slightly unfair about this, and that on her own at home with a small baby tea was as necessary as air, but she kept quiet. It had to be worth a try, despite her reservations.

  It had been ten days now with no tea or coffee in the house and things were going well. At least they were doing something, May thought, and all the time they were taking action they were acknowledging that there was a problem. In fact they had joked that May was finding it much more difficult than Alain.

  ‘I know you’re doing this for me, and I know it’s hard for you,’ Alain had said the previous night. ‘No one has ever done anything for me before, not something like this that proves they really care. I want you to know that I appreciate it with every part of my soul. Talk is cheap, so I’m not going to say that everything will be plain sailing from here, because it might not be, but I’m going to try, darling wife, I know we can get through this together.’

  May loved that phrase, ‘darling wife’. It sounded so special, unique, as if nobody before her had ever been addressed that way. Alain had been gentle in bed afterwards, making love to her like he had done in the early days. None of the rougher stuff he had seemed to prefer recently.

  ‘Look,’ Alain had said, ‘no coffee, no coffee at all. I’m caffeine free.’

  He had lifted Jenny into the air as he said it, spun her round and round. Careful, May had wanted to say, don’t drop her, she doesn’t like it, she’s just had a feed.

  ‘Clap for us, Mummy,’ Alain had said and May clapped. Even though she could see Jenny’s lip wobble, even though Jenny was seeking out eye contact with her and there was definitely panic in her sweet little eyes, May had clapped.

  ‘We had f
amily fun last night,’ May wrote to Helen once the casserole was in the oven. ‘Alain is really bonding with Jenny now.’

  She sat back and looked at the sentence she had just written, and at the rest of the letter. It’s what people do, she reasoned to herself, no one tells the whole thing exactly like it is, friends spare each other the grim details. It’s not the same as lying. Jenny started to cry and May folded the half-written letter, tucked it into a copy of 1984 on the bookshelf and picked her up.

  ‘Maybe I’m being stupid,’ she said to Jenny. ‘Maybe it’s all OK now that he’s given up coffee. Maybe everyone has these sorts of niggles when they’re trying to live together. Maybe I’m just a bad person and if I was better, he’d be OK. Maybe it’s me, Jenny, did you ever think of that? Maybe if I left him we’d both be better off.’

  Jenny stared back with her milky blue eyes. May felt as though she had hit on a desperately important truth. That’s it, she thought, if things go wrong again I’ve got to get out, leave him not just for me and Jenny but, even more importantly, for Alain’s sake. There’s something in me that seems to make him mad, it’s my fault and if I leave, he’ll be able to be the proper, kindly, intelligent man that he really is, underneath. The other thing, the thing that May couldn’t admit even to herself, was that this new caffeine-free Alain who was so pleased with himself at beating his addiction, this healthy happy version of her husband that she was so proud of, well, didn’t he seem just a little bit drunk, most of the time? He swore that he never touched a drop and certainly they didn’t have enough money to buy any. But he swayed like a drunk, he giggled like a drunk, he snored like a drunk and more than once he had repeated himself. If she thought back, it had happened before. Not at the very beginning, she hadn’t noticed it then, but when she was pregnant, there had been a couple of times then. A couple of times when she had thought he seemed drunk. She had always pushed the thought away, assumed that she was being ridiculous.