The Love of a Family

by Rebecca Shaw

  That evening Graham told Myra what Piers had said and she nodded her agreement.

  ‘You know I never like touching fur or going near any animals normally, but I’ve taken to Little Pete. Two rabbits will hardly be any more trouble than one and if that’s what Piers would like . . .’

  Graham went to sit beside her on the sofa, taking her hand in his as soon as he sat down. ‘I’m so glad you’re beginning to feel better about the boys. Just think, by Piers’ birthday this time next year, it’ll feel like they’ve been here forever.’ He added softly, ‘They even look like me don’t they?’

  ‘They do, yes. Anyone who sees you out with the boys just assumes you’re their father. But I’m still waiting for the big row and the great big upset, because there’s bound to be one, I mean we nearly had it tonight.’

  ‘If there is and, like you said, I expect there will be, we shall weather the storm together. You know, Piers is terrified of having to leave this house, that was why he lied. We’ll have to be so careful with him – we mustn’t forget he’s still frightened inside, even when him and his brother put on a brave face. I’m surprised they haven’t grieved more than they have.’

  Myra absentmindedly stroked Graham’s hand, ‘Piers cried a lot tonight when we were talking.’

  ‘You didn’t say.’

  ‘No well, we resolved it, he just needed . . . well . . . I suppose he needed . . . mothering.’

  Graham disguised his surprise as best he could. Mothering? From Myra? He supposed she just meant someone to hold him. In a different way, it was what he needed too. Just a sign that love still lingered somewhere. He held Myra’s hand to his mouth to kiss. She snatched it away from him but he knew if he didn’t say something now, the moment would be lost. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you even if you’ve stopped loving me. All these years, turning away from each other, such a waste. Why did it happen, Myra? Why?’

  Myra knew that since the boys had arrived she’d found herself in deep water. The kind of deep emotional turmoil she hadn’t felt since she left hospital twelve years ago. But something had been stirred by Piers this evening, and even though she couldn’t answer Graham’s question, for once she wasn’t scared at the very thought of it. She didn’t even know the answer herself, all she knew was that shutting everyone out had enabled her to batten down her emotions and in time, ignore them completely.

  ‘Perhaps if we’d had the courage to try again after . . . our little boy . . . we’d have been successful.’

  Myra glared at him. ‘You don’t know that.’ The prospect of trying for another baby and perhaps losing them was one emotional hurdle she most definitely couldn’t have faced.

  ‘No, but perhaps we should have tried. Cutting ourselves off from one another was no answer.’

  ‘It was my answer and that should be enough, after all I would have had it all to go through, not you.’

  ‘You don’t imagine, do you, that the father of a baby experiences nothing at all? I know we don’t do the hard graft but we’re involved. I grieved too, but you couldn’t comfort me, you didn’t even realise I needed comforting, and you certainly wouldn’t let me comfort you. It was as if I didn’t exist. That was when you went dead inside.’

  Myra turned to look him straight in the face the first time since they’d sat down. ‘I died inside? Is there any wonder, when the baby died inside me. Inside me, do you hear! You never thought about that did you?’

  Graham went still and then said so softly she strained to hear, ‘Of course I did, what do you think of me, that I’m inhuman? Unfeeling? I couldn’t bear the distress, the despair you were suffering, it crucified me, but you wouldn’t let me even talk to you about it.’

  ‘I shut down, that’s why. If I didn’t talk about it, it was because I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Every time I passed a woman in the street pushing a pram, I died all over again. I couldn’t even look inside it to see the baby in case the baby was awake and looked at me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry, Myra, we could have made things so much better for each other, if we’d both tried. We each had our own private grief – of course, we still do – but there was a shared loss, too; we could have helped each other through it somehow.’

  The only sound in the room was the crackle of the log fire, the only light the flames flickering in the grate, the only movement Graham’s hand taking hold of Myra’s again.

  ‘Graham?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve never asked before.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake say it, there’s been too much “not saying” between you and me. Just ask.’

  He heard the great breath she took in, felt the tremor of her hand, so he begged her again to say what was in her mind. ‘Say it, whatever it is, just say it, please.’

  Her reply came out in a rush. ‘What did you do with all the baby things?’

  It was Graham’s hand that trembled now. Eventually he answered her devastating, heart-wrenching question. ‘I think you guessed I put it all in the loft before you came home from hospital. I didn’t know what else to do at the time. But a few months later, that day your mother had that last operation and you went to spend the weekend visiting her, I went up in the loft after dark and brought everything down, put it in bags and carried them out to the car when the neighbours had all gone to bed. The next morning, a Saturday it was, I took them to the vicarage because the vicar’s wife knew someone due to have a baby who was short of money and badly in need of help. I thought that was best, thinking we could always buy new if . . . if we had another.’

  Myra gripped his hand and thought about what he’d said. The wound inside herself, so long concealed, felt like it was now gaping horribly, and didn’t allow her to speak. Vicar’s wife? They didn’t know any vicars, nor a vicar’s wife. ‘When did you meet a vicar?’

  ‘It was the hospital chaplin – the one who did the burial service for the baby.’

  ‘I didn’t go to a service. No one told me,’ Myra replied indignantly, shocked into speech again.

  ‘No, I did though. I went, while you were still in hospital.’

  ‘Oh Graham. I’d no idea.’

  ‘You were too ill, you’d lost all that blood remember? They were worried about you. And you weren’t yourself, you barely knew what was happening, between the drugs and the trauma of it all. I thought even if you were well enough, you wouldn’t want to be there, because that would make it real and I knew you couldn’t face that after everything you’d been through.’

  They sat silently holding hands, the fire burning lower, the night getting colder, each with their own thoughts. They’d both lived through it, but the paths they’d taken were very different, and Myra knew it was her inability to speak about their loss that meant they hadn’t shared their feelings before. Perhaps it could all have been so much easier if they had.

  Eventually Myra said quietly, ‘Did . . . you give the baby a name?’

  ‘I called him George, after my dad, and Brian after yours. They were the only ones that sprang to mind, at the time.’

  Myra stood up. She dared to say his name. ‘George Brian Butler. I see.’

  She drew back the curtains and looked out at the night sky for a few minutes.

  She sighed several times. ‘We’ve been such fools you and I. Me more than you.’ She closed the curtains again. ‘Cup of tea?’ It was the closest Myra could come to a peace offering.

  Graham nodded. She went into the kitchen and he got up to throw another log on the fire.

  As they drank their tea Graham said out of the blue, ‘I kept one thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Three vests. I kept three little baby vests. Still in the packet. Untouched. I thought I should, I don’t know why, I just did. I look at them sometimes. Thinking.’

  Silence from Myra, then feeling that wound inside once again she asked, ‘Where are they?’

  ‘On a shelf in m
y wardrobe.’

  ‘I won’t want to see them.’ But lurking at the back of her mind was a need to see and a greater need to face up to her memories. She promised herself when she was in the house alone and no one would see her, nor hear her if she cried, she’d take a peep. Just for a moment. Not long. Just long enough.

  Chapter 8

  Immediately after taking Piers to school on Monday morning, Myra went up to Graham’s bedroom and opened his wardrobe doors. She was struck by how neatly his clothes were stacked on the shelves, how his hanging items were all perfectly organised. Normally she just left his laundered clothes in a basket on his bed, never seeing inside any of these closed doors. It was his domain. Now she looked up to the very top shelf that ran the full length of the wardrobe. She was going to need the steps.

  She went downstairs to get the folding steps she used to reach high-up things in the kitchen. Back in Graham’s room, she patiently made her way along the wardrobe shelf, carefully turning things, trying not to disturb anything, but desperate not to miss her goal. She peered underneath every item and eventually, there it was . . . an old Marks and Spencers’ carrier bag, in the furthest most inaccessible corner. Myra climbed down and stood on the carpet, her hands shaking, her heart thumping. She could barely see, her eyes were so full of brimming tears. She blinked them away resolutely then slipped her hand inside, fearing it might not be the right bag, but out came three baby vests. They were just as they were the day they were bought, still in their packet, folded perfectly. Her heart raced at the memory of how excited she’d been, buying those vests. The very first purchase for their longed-for new baby. Pristine, tiny, beautiful, so full of promise, so filled with hope.

  Myra sat down on Graham’s bed and fingered the packet. It rustled as she stroked it, the end of her finger rubbed up a corner of the self-adhesive flap and before she knew it the vests were out of the packet and laid on her knee. One fell to the floor so she bent to pick it up; laid it against her cheek and it comforted her. Where she’d expected tears she felt relief, a closeness to their lost baby she’d never permitted herself before. It hurt, but a kind of soft glow came over her, the injustice of it all melted, the anguish gone. Tenderly she refolded them, replaced them in the packet, sealed the flap, returned it to the carrier bag and put it away right where Graham had laid the vests all that time ago. She thought of him silently looking at them for all these years and never saying . . .

  The phone rang.

  Myra ran downstairs to answer it, quickly clearing her throat in case she sounded choked with emotion. It was the head teacher from Piers’ school.

  ‘I’m afraid Piers is not at all well, Mrs Butler. Is it possible you could come to collect him?’

  ‘Not well?’

  ‘He’s deathly white and being sick, three times already, and it’s only a quarter to ten.’

  ‘Oh! I see.’ Myra didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Will you be able to come?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’ll have to walk, it’ll take me ten minutes.’

  ‘That’s fine. He’s in the sick room with our nursery helper keeping an eye. I’ll tell him you’re coming.’

  ‘I’ll set off straight away.’

  ‘Thank you – see you soon!’

  This unaccustomed state of affairs threw Myra into a panic. Any change to her routine, any shift in plans or pressure to be spontaneous was enough to send her anxiety levels skyrocketing. But she knew she couldn’t dither about leaving the house, so she pulled her coat on and headed out.

  Viv was heading towards her as she shut the front door behind her.

  ‘I was just coming across for coffee, is something the matter?’

  ‘It’s Piers, he’s been taken ill at school and I’ve to fetch him home.’

  ‘Oh! the poor little chap.’

  ‘Will you come and have a look at him when I get him back? I’m not used to sick children.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll look out for you, it won’t be anything serious you know, not appendicitis or anything. Don’t worry too much.’

  She waved Myra off as though it was quite normal, but it wasn’t normal to Myra. She was horrified that she could have been so careless as to send a sick child to school. She’d need to apologise, she really would.

  The walk home after collecting Piers was horrendous. He kept retching over the gutter but nothing came up, for which she was thankful. But it was the ghastly pallor of his face she didn’t like. She held his hand for which he appeared grateful. What on earth had she done to cause this? Was it something she’d cooked? Should she call the doctor? Viv would know what to do.

  As she put the key in the latch Viv came dashing across.

  ‘I feel awful,’ said Piers, his face twisted into a grimace.

  ‘Get your coat off and let’s have a look at you.’ Viv felt his forehead, asked him where it hurt, did he feel sick right now? Had he got tummy ache? If she pressed his tummy did it hurt? Piers shook his head.

  Myra asked if she should give him something, but she hadn’t anything to give him. Her medicine cabinet was rarely used and full of ancient pills and bottles that would be no use for a young child.

  ‘What shall I do?’ She rung her hands with helplessnes.

  ‘If I were you I’d let him sit in a warm room reading or better still watching telly, to take his mind off it.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Give him a warm drink, not hot, just warm so’s not to aggravate anything. What’s your favourite, Piers?’

  ‘Hot chocolate.’

  ‘Good idea, perhaps with just a bit of sugar, Myra. And Piers you must sip it gently, just see if you can keep it down.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Give him a bucket just in case it comes over him again. I’ll come across in an hour or two to see how he is. Lots of TLC.’ She winked at Myra and left for home.

  Myra couldn’t think what on earth her wink meant but then forgot about it as she busied herself with her tasks. She switched the TV on, put a rug over Piers knees as he seemed to be shivering, made him a hot chocolate and one for herself and sat down in the other armchair to keep watch. She’d strategically placed a bucket with Dettol in the bottom, a glass of water and a box of tissues . . . just in case.

  The two hours Viv was away passed without further incident, which made Myra wonder what on earth was going on. Was he sick? Well, he had been at school, they said so. But it was all over it seemed and Piers was looking, quite frankly, rather sparkling.

  Viv knocked and walked in at the back door calling out, ‘Come to see the invalid. Oh! You look better. Thank goodness.’

  ‘He’s not been sick again.’

  ‘Well, that’s an excellent sign. Any coffee going?’ Out of Piers’ eyeline she nodded her head towards the kitchen. Mystified, Myra went with her to put the kettle on.

  Viv quietly closed the kitchen door. ‘If he’s not sick again it might not be a bug, you know. I reckon he might just be homesick.’

  ‘Homesick? For his real home you mean?’

  ‘No. For here.’ She pointed at the kitchen floor.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t think he does either. I bet he just wants to be sure it’s still here while he’s at school.’

  ‘But of course it is, where else would it be?’

  ‘When you think about it, he’s never had a mother that he’s known, his dad’s been dying while he’s been looked after by that horrible Delphine and now he’s living somewhere where, quite honestly, he sensed you didn’t want him. So he’s panicked and all he needs is some comfort to reassure him all’s OK. You’re not the only one who lives on their nerves!’

  ‘That is ridiculous. I’ll take him straight back to school, we can’t have this.’

  She handed Viv her coffee. She would, she’d take him back and apologise for his foolishness. He’d have to brave it out. She wasn’t putting up with this kind of nonsense.

  ‘A few hours off school won’t set h
is career back believe me. He won’t learn anything if you do take him back, he’ll be too upset. It’s what he needs. He needs to sit with you playing Ludo or something, anything to give him the feeling that you care.’

  Myra decided she wanted her own way about this. This was what being a mother was about she felt. Making sure they toed the line, did as they were told. There’d be no end to this caper if she didn’t, he’d end up being off school every other day. Viv could see this in her face and said, ‘Please, Myra, one day off won’t hurt.’

  ‘He’s in my care and I say he’s going back to school straight after lunch.’

  Viv got up abruptly and left, a look of thunder on her face, still holding one of Myra’s coffee cups. Myra called after her, but Viv didn’t, or wouldn’t, hear her,

  Myra prepared lunch and the two of them sat in the kitchen, Piers chattering away and Myra answering him as best she could while wondering how to phrase what she had to say. He appeared perfectly fit judging by the eagerness with which he was eating his lunch. If he got upset well then he got upset. Not that she cared if he was upset because he was being naughty fancying a day off school, otherwise he’d have been sick at home as well as school.

  His reaction to the news was more like an explosion than anything, but she didn’t care. He was going back to school even if she had to carry him there, someone had to discipline him and it was going to be her. He screamed and cried, flung his chair to the floor, overturned her chair and the two others, his mug joined them and smashed as it landed on the tiles.

  She put her coat and gloves on, forced him into his outdoor clothes including his hat, which he pulled off three times before he gave in, and they struggled out of the front door with Myra gripping him hard.

  Crossing the main road was the hardest, as soon as the lights went red he redoubled his efforts to escape homewards. While hanging on to him on the pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road waiting for the lights to change, Myra ran out of energy and in the split second she took to regroup herself he slipped from her grasp and was scooped up onto the bonnet of a passing car. The screech of its brakes and the screaming of the driver were to stay in Myra’s head for years.