by Nina Manning
‘Here is your pill, Daisy.’ Annie held her hand out and the little white pill sat in the middle. I looked at it for a moment and then at Annie.
‘You know, Annie, I think I’m going to try a day without drugs. See how I feel.’
She looked thoughtful for a moment. She took in a deep breath before she spoke.
‘You know, I got to know an incredible number of social workers in my job, you wouldn’t think it, would you? I know two very well. Still keep in touch with them online from time to time. Sometimes it’s hard to not talk about us, me and you and our little set-up. I’m such an honest person, you see. I dread to think what damage it might cause.’ We looked at one another, Annie’s stare was firm and rigid. ‘Anyway,’ Annie sing-songed and stood up. I moved my leg and felt the air circulating around it again. ‘I’m sure you think you know what’s best for you, Daisy, but things are different now. You’re living here. This is my house after all.’ Annie picked up the glass of water and pushed her open palm with the pill in it towards me. ‘There you go, deary. Get it down you. Does you the world of good.’
I looked at Annie’s hands outstretched one holding the water and one holding the pill. I felt the anxiety as it filtered its way around my body, I thought of my teeth and of the strange sentences getting stuck in my head like a scratched record.
‘You’re right,’ I muttered.
I took the glass, popped the pill in my mouth, took a large gulp of water and swallowed.
Annie smiled and nodded. She placed the plate of fruit in front of me. I looked at the array of colours of watermelon, kiwi and grapes. ‘Eat as much as you can. I’ll be back later to collect it.’
I watched as Annie walked out of the room leaving the door ajar. When I heard Annie’s footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs, I put my hand to my mouth and retrieved the little white pill from under my tongue.
Annie
With so many tasks to keep myself busy with and how I was literally counting down the days, I found a whole morning had raced by having filled it with all the things I now did for Daisy. I would rise to make breakfast before her. I then cleared up and started preparing us both a healthy lunch whilst Daisy did whatever she did. I kept an eye on her mind, tried to get her out in the garden if it was nice in the mornings. Inhale some of that sea air that was so good for the baby. But she was clearly depressed. The tablets were helping her hold it together, I couldn’t risk her coming off them yet. She could do all sorts of harm to herself. The girl was riddled with guilt, and so she should be.
Her acts were unforgivable, but she had the baby now and that changed everything. I was needed now more than anything.
After lunch Daisy was usually tired so she would nap. I have been purchasing items for the baby online, looking on all the second-hand sites. It was amazing what I found for next to nothing. Daisy had not considered or talked about anything for the baby. I presumed she thought I would take care of it all, another sign the girl wasn’t well. An expectant mother should be embracing pregnancy and looking forward to the baby arriving, buying little bits here and there. But Daisy had paid no attention to any of it. It was almost as if she didn’t think there was going to be a baby. I certain it was all going to work out just fine; as it should be.
When Ben arrived, I finally felt as though I had been awarded the most prestigious award possible. I felt as though I was the chosen one and Ben was the little oracle in my world. I didn’t think I would ever get to experience that again. Yet here I was about to embark on that journey all over again. The anticipation was almost unbearable. I wanted to feel the baby in my arms. I was ready to be a mother again.
Grace
It was my last day at the cookery school. I hadn’t thought it would be when I woke up. I was still signed up for another few weeks. I presumed I would see it through to the end and then afterwards, Jenny and I would spend more time with one another. Both of us with our new babies, and our newfound culinary knowledge. We had so much potential.
But she had fooled me. Pretended that she was going to confide in me and then changed her mind at the last minute. That wasn’t what friends did. They told each other everything. Why didn’t Jenny see me as a friend anymore? I couldn’t understand what I had done to deserve that.
I approached her with my concerns that morning.
‘I’m sorry, Grace, I didn’t mean to alarm you, it’s just… well, you see, it’s very complicated and I…’ but Jenny couldn’t finish her sentence. She was suddenly weeping, quite obviously and others were turning to look. I didn’t want anyone else to come over and invade what we had. Jenny was on the verge of telling me what was going on. I needed her to tell me. To cement our friendship. She had to confide in me, and who knew, maybe I would reciprocate. Having never had that bond with another woman before. It was starting to feel like a friendship should feel.
‘I’m sorry, Grace, I really am. You must consider me a total fool. I am afraid I haven’t been straight with you because, well, my life is incredibly complex and well I just don’t even know where to start. But I should enlighten you because you’re nice, Grace. A real genuine person, I can tell.’
I smiled sheepishly and lowered my head as inside I felt my heart thump a little harder, swelling at the compliment. I touched my belly and looked at Jenny, waiting and wanting to know more.
Nothing could explain the emptiness one felt inside the womb whilst the mind still busied itself with the emotions of a pregnant woman. It was mental torture of the worst kind and it had happened over and over again. After so many miscarriages, to finally be awarded the precious role of a mother, felt like a prize I had been striving for all my life. Finally everything was falling into place.
Daisy
It had been seventy-two hours since I took the last pill. I was going to hang on for another forty-eight hours. I was putting them under the mattress because I figured that I would need them, if things got too bad. I had a choice. A get out.
My eyes filled with tears regularly throughout the day, but it did feel different, I had to admit. Or maybe I was imagining it. The pain felt less dull and more real. I could actually acknowledge it and feel it as it was, rather than this surreal experience that was happening to someone else and not me.
I had thought so many times about the number of tablets I could stash and if I could use them to my advantage when the time was right. Without Ben here, was there really any point to me anymore? And if there was no point to me, what would be the point of a baby?
Take the pills, take the pills.
I didn’t deserve to feel numb, I reminded myself. I needed to feel the raw pain and take my punishment. Either that or finish myself off with them.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror next to the bed. My face looked twisted and unfamiliar. My hair was unkempt. I had not had it cut since, well, I couldn’t even remember when. It was almost touching my backside. A sudden image of me just a few months ago with Eve in our flat flashed into my mind and then there was panic rising though my chest. I ran to the bathroom and fell to my knees. I tried to breathe normally but I was acutely aware of my own breathing, my mouth filled with saliva and I found despite the heat, I was shivering.
There had to be answer to all of this. But I couldn’t talk to anyone. I was clearly mad. They would lock me up and take the baby away from me.
I took several long breaths and blew them out slowly until I could feel the panic dispersing. I flushed the toilet and got myself straightened up and opened the bathroom door.
Then I was face to face to with Annie. My heart, which had begun to slow, was now galloping along at an alarming speed.
‘Everything okay, Daisy? You were in there an awfully long time…’
‘I’m fine.’ I pushed past Annie and headed back to the bedroom.
‘It’s just, it’s a rather nice day today. Not sure how many more of these we will get. I heard there was a cold spell headed. You should make the most of them. The baby needs sunlight for strong bones,’ Ann
ie was almost at my heels as she followed me into the bedroom.
‘Yes, I will go out later.’
‘Well. Just make sure you do, Daisy. I want my grandchild healthy.’ She walked out of the room. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. What had Annie just said? Her grandchild? Something about the way Annie had said ‘her’ grandchild made it sound as though she was making a claim over it and, through the dense pain and thick fog of depression that was still filling up around me, I felt a flickering of something that felt like a protective instinct.
Against my natural desire to crawl into bed and roll myself under the sheets, I took myself outside for some fresh air.
I could feel her stares from the kitchen window as I sat in the garden with my head tilted towards the sky as I soaked up the healing rays of the spring sun. Annie must have been wrong about the bad weather that was due because the sun was as warm as it had been for weeks and there was blue all around me.
As I looked around at the cloudless sky and the vast endless flat sea. I felt a sensation, of something that felt like possibility. As I played with that positive thought, I felt a firm kick from the baby and I allowed myself to interpret that as confirmation. I laid my hand on my stomach and pressed firmly down on the little foot that was trying to burst out of me. I thought about the tablets I had been stashing. I would flush them away, I didn’t need them. There was a baby in me desperate to live and it needed me to live too.
Annie
I was a serial mattress-turner, something that Daisy perhaps didn’t know about me. I couldn’t stand the idea of a mattress getting all squashed down in one place, they needed turning to keep them fresh all over. And what with the amount of time Daisy had been spending horizontal in that bed, it was all I could think about to get the thing turned every time I looked at her.
I was surprised to find what Daisy had been using the mattress for – to hide the tablets I had been giving her. I presumed I had got her into a state of mind where she believed she needed them.
And there she was, her face raised to the sun like she didn’t have a care in the world. All the while, my son was somewhere else, forced away by her, everything had changed, because of her. I had encouraged her to get outside of course but for the sake of the baby. Vitamin D was important for healthy bone growth. And I needed my grandson to be strong.
Suddenly she was there, in the doorway. Her face had such a healthy glow to it.
‘I need a drink.’ Daisy picked up the water filter jug. ‘It’s warm out there.’ She looked at me as I sliced the vegetables extra meticulously, my agitation manifested in the size and structure of the carrots.
‘Can I help?’ She poured herself a glass of water.
‘You might chop off a finger, Daisy. No, not in your condition.’
‘I’m pregnant, Annie, not incapable.’
I placed my knife down on the chopping board and turned and looked at Daisy.
‘No, not incapable, I have never said you are incapable. You were perfectly capable to get yourself into this situation. Tell me, how did you get pregnant in the first place? How does a bright young girl get herself into such a silly situation so early on? I mean, who could blame you, my son comes from good stock. Classically tall, dark and handsome, who wouldn’t want to breed with him. No doubt that little baby of yours will be just as strong, healthy and clever as he is.’
I watched with pleasure as her face that had been so full of colour, drained to a non-descript grey.
‘I forgot to take a pill – and I am married to him, Annie!’
‘And what about your other pills, the ones to stop you going completely mad? I give them to you because I know you need them. You stop taking them then you are putting yourself in danger and I have allowed you to reside here even though you chased my son away. When will it end, Daisy, when will you have had enough of destroying people and peoples’ lives? You think you are ready to become a mother in your condition? I have done so much for you. Do you think that by stopping taking your tablets you are helping anyone?’
I watched Daisy’s face fall. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She turned and walked back out of the kitchen.
I turned back to the board and continued chopping the carrots into neat small square chunks.
Daisy
I felt as though I needed to run, but I had nowhere to run to. I began to pull at my skin as I paced the room. I couldn’t contain the torrent of emotions that flooded my body. I felt as though they needed to be released or I would explode. And somehow, Annie knew. She must know all of it. I saw it the day I met her, the flickering of her eyes as she tried to place me. And she was right. Of course I wasn’t capable of being a mother.
All the images I had worked so hard to forget were surfacing once again. The looks on the faces of the people I had hurt, the headlines, the gossip. The dreaded feeling in the pit of my stomach. The desire to end my life, even though it had barely begun. So young. So lost.
My life had been easy until then. Not perfect. But easy. Emotions weren’t discussed, but if we all just remained civil, they never needed to be. It was no wonder my mother only had me. She suffered postnatal depression very badly, said she couldn’t risk having any more after that. Raised in a large detached house on the outskirts of the city, I attended a very good all-girls school paid for by my father who worked hard at his business. He built it up when I was tiny so we could have everything we wanted and needed. Looking back though, what I wanted and needed was a real family, with my mum healthy and engaged in conversation with me and my dad throwing me around his waist and calling me his girl. He was always distracted. Never fully there. One foot was always already of out of the door when he was saying goodnight; the books I held out to him to share with me refused with an empty promise of tomorrow.
School was a distraction. I did okay because I preferred being there to being at home.
Just after my fifteenth birthday, which came and went without a fuss from my parents, Callum arrived at school as the new English teacher, Mr Alderton. He had dirty blonde hair flicked to one side, piercing blue eyes and a shaven face revealing smooth flawless skin. All the girls were taken with him immediately, their voices dropping to a whisper when he walked past in his beige cords and slightly crumpled blue shirt. I opted out of their idle grotesque gossip, choosing to take in his beauty without comment. He offered the extra help I needed to pass my exams, I found myself drawn to him in more ways than just the father figure I was missing. I wasn’t interested in English especially, but the world of literature suddenly became a whole lot more interesting with Callum there. He made it all so clear for me. I couldn’t concentrate in class. My thoughts were always somewhere else, usually on my dissatisfactory home life. I had my two close friends, Beth and Aimee. We did lots together, but I never really felt relaxed enough with them to fully open up about who I really was. They saw me as one of the tall, pretty, popular ones like them. But that’s what I was on the outside. Only Callum really saw me, the person I was eager to become and would one day hopefully grow into with some nurturing.
He called me ‘darlin’. His words were like honey warming my insides and I began to experience tingling all over whenever he gazed at me with his blue eyes.
I had stayed behind one day after class. I heard the scuffing and shuffling of the cleaner moving her mop and bucket down the corridor and when we felt we were totally alone, he turned to me and gently pressed his lips on mine, confirming every feeling I had been experienced in those weeks leading up to it.
He was seventeen years older than me, still a young man at thirty-two, finding himself and discovering things about who he was. He told me he felt pressured to be a particular person. He was recently married and they had started trying for a baby.
He told me all of this first, so everything was on the table, I suppose. It didn’t change anything.
Our feelings remained. I was still a virgin and I gave myself to Callum two days later in a hotel room he booked spec
ifically for that reason.
I didn’t feel used, or dirty. It didn’t feel wrong. It was all beautiful. I craved him, I thought about him night and day. We continued our relationship for four months. Four months of pure heaven. I didn’t tell a soul. He was all mine and I was his.
Then everything came crashing down. It was so sudden. I couldn’t have prepared for it.
One day, she was there. His wife: Karen. Small and bony. Her hard and bitter face pressed against the window of his car. She knew where we were. She had been tracing and following us for weeks.
She was livid. It was rage like I’ve never seen before. Certainly not in a woman. She was possessed with anger, spit falling from her mouth as she hurled the profanities at Callum.
I never saw him again after that day. He was dragged from the car by his tiny wretched angry wife and the next day at school he was gone. Relieved of his post by a man twice his age, with a beard so thick it looked positively inhabited.
I fell into a state of depression. Rumours circulated fast, Beth and Aimee deserted me. My parents were beside themselves. What had they raised? They questioned again and again, constantly looking to me for the answers, never once reflecting on their own position as parents and the lack of emotion that ran through our family. It was that barely-there kind of love that just about kept a family together, but we all would have been so much happier without it at all. Then the guilt wouldn’t have been able to fester in the gaping holes which should have been overflowing with unconditional love.
But the worst was yet to come. If my parents thought they had been dealt a tough hand then they must have thought I had been given to them as the devil in disguise once the repercussions of my actions really came into play.
