Hello, My Name is May

by Rosalind Stopps

  If Michael was here, he says, he’d be very proud.

  He sits there waiting, breathless from the coughing. It’s like it used to be with the kids in my class, when they were sitting in the book corner waiting for a story. All expectant and looking up at you as if the story might just be the best thing they ever heard.

  I shrug again. I’m over-using my shrugs but they seem to explain me best.

  Go on, he says, I’m ready, give it a go, what have you got to lose?

  I can’t just sit there staring and I really do want to tell him so I open my mouth again to see what might come out. I suddenly remember all those years ago, wanting to tell someone about Earring Sue and not having the words. I try harder.

  Jackie, I say.

  No, he says, I didn’t get that one, I don’t know what you’re saying.

  I’m not sure if he’s lying.

  He looks sad though, sad and sorry for me.

  You can’t save the world, May, he says, talk to me about something nice.

  No, I think, if I can’t depend on you to help me, I don’t want to say anything at all.

  I’m sorry, May, he says, I’m sorry.

  Jenny, I say. I didn’t know I was going to say it until I did. I wanted to talk about Jackie, only about Jackie, but I’m not sure if he wants to hear. I owe him, and to be honest I’m happy to stop worrying about her, even if it’s only for a moment.

  To me my ‘Jenny’ sounds like that dog they had on the TV, the one they taught to say, sausages, only it didn’t sound like sausages it was just a grunt. I think I was right because he looks puzzled too, he clearly isn’t sure what I said.

  OK, he says, I’m going to guess, let me guess. Is it a person? I nod for yes.

  I know it’s not Jackie, he says, that’s off limits, isn’t it? Is it a person who lives here, he says and I shake my head.

  Is it your daughter, he says and I nod so hard I wonder if my head might come loose and fly across the room.

  What about your lovely daughter, he says, is she alright.

  I nod again, and I point to my stomach with my good hand, then I make a cradling motion.

  Oh my God, you’re going to be a granny, he says, as if it is the most magnificent and unexpected thing, which I suppose it is.

  You don’t look old enough, he says and then he looks at me as if he’s shocked at what he just said.

  Don’t worry, I want to say, it was a reflex, nothing more, I know you didn’t mean it one way or the other. I sort through my repertoire of actions and decide the nearest match is a variation on the shrug, but with a smile and an open hand extended. I think he gets it.

  I love babies, do you? Trevor says.

  It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about babies a lot since Jenny gave me her news but when Trevor says that I get a sudden picture of Jenny as a baby, as if I’ve only just understood. Jenny in the bath, Jenny in her little brown and yellow striped babygro, looking like a fat little wasp. Jenny when she had just been born, and she looked at me with those big worried eyes as if she wasn’t sure whether this world was a place she wanted to stay in. Jenny and Seb leaning into each other on the sofa so that we could take a photo, that time Helen came to stay in the little flat in Pimlico. He was nearly as big as her, but she looked so much more grown up. Three months makes such a difference at that age.

  Hey, hey, says Trevor, don’t get upset, look, here’s a tissue.

  He makes a clumsy attempt to wipe my face. It’s such a kind thing, touching an old person like me with my disgusting bits and pieces.

  Maybe they’ll call it Trevor, he says.

  It’s an attempt to lighten the atmosphere and I’m very grateful. And it’s funny as well, the thought of Jenny choosing a name like Trevor.

  Go on, he says, tell me what names they’re thinking of, see if I can understand you.

  OK, I say before I’ve even realised that I’m saying it.

  Fortitude, I say. It’s a hard word to say and a hard word to guess so I’m not surprised when Trevor looks dumbfounded.

  Sugarhead? he says, sausages? Am I anywhere near?

  We’ll have to stop this, I think, the mention of sausages was too much, I’m going to have a little accident. He hands me my writing pad and I write it down, Fortitude. I show him. One thing about Trevor, he can do a good reaction.

  He looks from me to the pad and back again, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. I’m not sure why, but it hadn’t struck me until then just how funny the name was. Fortitude. I’d been so busy trying to accept Jenny’s choice without comment or opinion that I’d forgotten to notice what a damn silly name it was.

  Fortitude, Trevor says again and then he starts to laugh and I can’t help joining in. He laughs hard, slapping his thighs and throwing his head back – the whole works. Every time he comes up for air he gasps, Fortitude, and collapses again. He’s right, it’s a ridiculous name, poor little baby.

  You’re a one, May, I can’t believe you told me that with a straight face, he says finally. I’m assuming that’s the name if they have a boy, right?

  I shake my head. Both, I try to say.

  That sets him off again. Poor little love, he says, tell me she won’t go through with it.

  Time for another shrug, just the right response this time. I really don’t know if she’ll go through with it, I have no idea, really, who my grown up daughter is, or what makes her tick. I wonder if other parents feel the same, or whether most mums would know for sure what their grown up children would do next.

  Ah bless her, Trevor says, I bet it’ll be different when she has the little one in her arms. She’ll think differently then. She’ll probably call it the most normal name in the world, Doris or Doug or something.

  I nod. I think he’s probably right.

  Wise, I try to say. I tap my head at the same time to show what I mean.

  Oh we’re all wise as we get older dear, Trevor says, I think I would have made a good father. I wouldn’t have minded at all whether it was a girl or a boy. I would have called it Arthur or Bella I think. Maybe Matilda, like in that film.

  I nod to show that I think they are lovely names.

  Did you want a boy, dear? Trevor asks.

  I have to think for a moment, to try to give him an honest answer. I enjoyed the little lads in my class, but a boy in the house? I wasn’t sure. I grab the pad with my good hand. Boys need a man, I wrote. I can’t understand why I can write so much more clearly when Trevor is with me. He’s a calming influence.

  True, says Trevor, very true my dear. So why didn’t you have a man? They’re not too rare, except for in here, he says.

  I’m trying to think quickly, but I can feel the old cogs turning too slowly. I’ll never get a better chance to explain to him what’s happened in my life. I look at him, sitting there so expectantly, as if he’s going to be told a story. He thinks it’s all in the past, the bad stuff, he doesn’t know that there’s bad stuff aplenty waiting in here, in this nursing home. Do I really want to drag him into it, I think. He’s been through a lot, and the last thing he needs is to have his nose rubbed in the nastiness and violence that is Bill, aka Alain.

  It’s alright, he says as if he can read my thoughts, you don’t have to protect me, I can see that maternal look all over your face. I’m a big boy, you know.

  We both laugh. He’s tiny, Trevor, but somehow he’s convinced me that I can talk to him, he’s got a big heart and that’s what matters. In fact in my mind he’s a towering giant of a man and I wish I could tell him.

  You’re big to me, I write then I blush like a fourteen year old.

  Ooh, Trevor says. He claps his hands, ooh that’s the nicest thing almost ever. Give us a kiss, my Mayflower.

  He leans in and kisses me on the cheek and I wish for a moment that I was wearing nice earrings, ones that belonged to me and perfume, expensive stuff with a classy smell. I don’t even have nice soap any more, just the antibacterial stuff that smells of operating theatres. I motion for him
to give me my writing pad back.

  Beware Bill, I write.

  He starts to laugh, as if I’ve written a joke but when he looks at my face he can’t help realising that I’m very serious.

  He’s alright, Trevor says, nutty as an Easter cake but harmless, surely?

  I shake my head as vehemently as I can, and make a sign with my hands that I think means finished.

  OK, OK, I can see you’re serious, May, tell me more.

  I’m in trouble, I write but that’s not the right thing, that’s not what I meant to write and it’s nearly too late because my hand is feeling tired, it’s like a dead weight. I try to write again but all I write is, Bill.

  OK, OK, let me guess a bit, give you a break, says Trevor and it’s as though all the laughter has gone from his voice. I’m sorry to be the one that made the laughter go away and that makes me even more angry.

  You don’t want him to marry your lovely friend and lurch off into the sunset? Trevor says. He coughs.

  I write, more.

  What can it be, merry May, let me have a proper think. I’ve watched a lot of detective films on TV and I should be good at this.

  I think as hard and as quickly as my poor old brain will allow me to. I’ve probably got half a dozen words left in my hand, less if they’re long ones. I need to use them sparingly and carefully in order to give Trevor the maximum information. He deserves that.

  I steady the writing pad and flex my fingers. They don’t move much.

  It’s OK, May, says Trevor, don’t worry on my account.

  I nearly stop then, give up altogether. It would be so nice not to have to worry about it any more. I think for a moment of the lists of stupid on the walls, on every wall by the end, every damn thing I’d done or said inscribed there for me to look at every day. I couldn’t invite anyone in. He wouldn’t let me take them down.

  You need these lists, silly May, Alain had said, to stop you from being stupid next time.

  I realise that Trevor is speaking to me.

  Earth to May, earth to May, he says, trying to lighten the atmosphere, honest you don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to. We can talk about music or books or dancing, happy smiley things.

  He sounds breathless, as if he’s been running. I smile my lopsided smile at him and I have to hope that it’s enough to explain that I’d like to do as he suggests but I have to share, I’ve got to tell him, someone other than me has to know.

  Bill = my ex, danger J.

  That’s all I manage and I’m sweating by the end, I need to lie down.

  Trevor looks at it and his eyes widen. I always said he was good at reactions.

  No, he says, no, really?

  I nod as vigorously as I can manage.

  True, I say, or something that sounds enough like true to get my point across.

  So you’re worried about Jackie, he says, sounding out the words slowly so that I can hear the thought process, and a little bit worried about yourself too?

  I nod again. I’m just like the other old people, a little nodding dog from the back of a car. Nodding because they can’t help it.

  Oh, Trevor says, oh maybe we should tell her, tell Jackie.

  I’m so grateful that he believes me, just like that, no subsidiary questions asked, that I start to cry. Bloody stupid old people’s tears.

  There there, he says, it’s OK, I won’t let him hurt you. He wants to say more but that cough comes back.

  It’s no good, we both know that.

  He can’t help me now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  June 1978

  Pimlico

  It didn’t happen the first night May bled, or the second or third. She bled on and off for another couple of weeks before she miscarried.

  They carried her on a stretcher out of the flat and through a slice of warm night into the ambulance. May could think only of Jenny, and she lifted her head to see her, hoping she was asleep. There was an ambulance ride and then the lovely doctor, looking like a student with her long curly hair and her ankle-length skirt. May wasn’t even sure that she was a real doctor until she gave her the news about the baby, that the baby was definitely gone. May waited for the sadness but all she could feel was guilt, terrible searing guilt.

  ‘I didn’t want another baby, not really,’ May said to the doctor. ‘I had enough to do with one, I’m not very good at this mothering thing, I’m not sure I could have coped with two. But I didn’t want her to die, I didn’t, honest.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ said the doctor. ‘You would have managed just fine. You look like the coping type to me.’

  May thought about those words often in the days to come. She wondered if the doctor had meant it. The coping type. It was a lovely thing to say, even if the doctor had only said it to be kind.

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ the doctor said. ‘Only I’m not happy about the bruises all over your body, some of them old and some of them new. And you’ve got a black eye, are you even aware of that?’

  May hadn’t been aware of that but she touched her eye now and could feel how sore it was.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, but I’m always falling over things. I’ve got big feet. I’m very clumsy.’

  May knew that the doctor didn’t believe her but she didn’t have the energy to be more creative. She was too tired.

  ‘There’s a place,’ the doctor said, ‘where you could be safe. There’s a woman who has set up a safe space for women like you, a place where you can go and live with your children and be safe.’

  ‘Battered wives,’ May said. ‘I’ve read about that. That’s not me, honestly.’

  It wasn’t a lie, she thought, not really. Those other women she had read about, they were different from her. It’s not snobbery, May wanted to explain, please don’t think that. The doctor looked at her so kindly that May wished she could tell her what she was thinking.

  I’m not saying I’m different because I’ve been beaten for saying that The Great Gatsby seemed shallow, she thought, or because he once hit me over the head with a heavy second-hand volume of Proust. That’s not it at all. The men who beat them were cruel and violent and May felt so, so sorry for them but it wasn’t the same as her situation at all. Her Alain was different. He didn’t mean it, he didn’t want to hurt her, it was just that she was so difficult, so hard to live with. He hated hurting her, he always cried afterwards. He’d read Germaine Greer, he knitted small dolls.

  ‘Your nose,’ the doctor said, ‘was that broken recently?’

  May felt sorry for the doctor. She was young, and worried in case she said the wrong thing. It was obvious, May could see it in the way the doctor nibbled her thumbnail and flicked some invisible dust from her cheek. May wished that she could tell her she was right. She imagined what she might say, and how pleased the doctor would be that she could help, even what the hostel might be like. Full of lovely women like Helen, perhaps, babies like Jenny and Seb.

  A thought pushed at the back of May’s head. Her daughter. Her Jenny. What about Jenny? Didn’t Jenny deserve some peace? It wasn’t her fault that she had an idiot for a mother. She could have had a happy mother with a bunch of children and a kindly husband, May thought. There might have been a gentle dog and trips to the seaside where she could lie on a rug kicking her legs. Poor Jenny. Poor Jenny with May for a mother and Alain for a father, born into a world of fear and shouting. Poor Jenny who had learned to be frightened before she understood what it meant.

  The doctor was waiting, looking at May with compassion, giving her time to think it through and change her mind. May was tempted. She could almost hear the chattering and the laughter of the other woman as they cooked supper together while the babies crawled around their feet. She wanted to say yes, please help me. She wanted to give the responsibility for her miserable life to someone else, she knew they couldn’t make a worse job of it than she had. May was so close to saying yes that her mouth had opened to say the word when she l
ooked up and saw him standing outside the door of her single room.

  She looked at the clock. Four o’clock, visiting time and there was Alain, prompt and smiling at the window. The doctor looked in the same direction as May.

  ‘Look,’ she said in a whisper so quiet that May had to strain to hear it, ‘you don’t have to have any visitors you don’t want, you know, I can send him away. I have doctor superpowers.’

  She pointed to her stethoscope and smiled, and May loved her for making a little joke in such a dark place.

  It was tempting, so tempting. Go on, May told herself, say something. Tell her. She looked up at the window. Alain had a crocodile hand puppet, and he was making it yawn and cry and clap, there in the window. To cheer me up, she thought, come on, May. He really isn’t that bad. But Seb, a voice said, think of Seb. Think of Jenny, and how dangerous Alain could be if he was thwarted. The thought of the happy, cooking women disappeared, and instead she imagined the women frightened, hiding in their rooms because May’s husband had found where they were. May had put them all in danger. It’s my danger, she thought, it’s all mine. I can’t inflict it on anyone else. I got myself and my baby into this and I’ll bloody well get us out.

  ‘It’s fine,’ May said to the doctor. ‘It’s OK, honestly, it’s not what you think, I’ll be OK. I broke my nose years ago, playing hockey. We’ll be OK.’

  She tried to make her voice as hearty and believable as she could but it was clear that the doctor knew. She really knew.

  The doctor looked at Alain outside the door and then back to May.

  ‘Just ask for me if you want to talk again,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

  May felt bereft when the doctor left. She lay back on her pillows and stared at Alain.

  ‘You poor darling,’ he said, as the crocodile puppet on his hand held out a bunch of wilting flowers. ‘Was it very painful?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ said May, brave now that she was in the hospital. He wouldn’t hurt her here, there were people constantly walking up and down past her room and coming in to check on her.