Blue Ticket

by Sophie Mackintosh

  Everything appears to be in order, he said. We’ll just have to wait and see. He leaned forward. How often are you thinking about your family, lately?

  Not often at all, I told him. I’m coping fantastically with everything.

  Doctor A smiled at me. Good girl, he said. Look at you, doing so well.

  11

  In the bars after work, my body felt different. Alcohol tasted metallic, as if somebody had dropped a coin in my drink. It acted on me quicker. I started drinking gin and tonics rather than wine because I thought the quinine might be healthy. Cigarettes started making me feel sick, and I didn’t like to think of smoke curling around the organs and veins of my new, strange body. One night, my colleagues spoke about summer holidays, asking me where I was going. I said that I hadn’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll try for a visa this year, I said, and the second the words were out of my mouth I hated myself for saying them, for wanting to brush up against risk even here, like a cat with a post.

  I caught sight of R. He waved, walked over and kissed my cheek. It felt good. We moved on to another place, the bar where we’d met, and we sat at the table we had that first night, but neither of us acknowledged it. Maybe he was too drunk to remember. Maybe I had made it up. I picked a small fight in retaliation, because what was meaningful to me was not necessarily meaningful to him, but mainly because there was a part of him literally inside me, growing, and he didn’t know.

  Why do you need proof of everything? R asked me at the end of the argument. Why can’t you live in the present moment? But even the present moment seemed too slippery to rely on. Suddenly the change in me was unbearable.

  What do you want to do with your life? I asked. I was looking at him and he was looking at me, but not really looking, not seeing.

  What’s there to do? he replied.

  I don’t know, I said, suddenly overwhelmed—desperately wanting to lay my head down on the table, feel my cheek make contact with a hard surface, puddled beer. I stayed upright.

  Cheer up, he said. Everything’s fine and we’re having fun. A song came on that he liked and he nodded his head hard to the beat. He surveyed the room and I surveyed him: the surprising tenderness I felt at the shape of his ear, the part of his hair that was greying, how decisively he held the glass containing his drink. These were things I might contain now. I’m sorry, I said, but he wasn’t listening.

  My dreams were as vivid as being hit with water. They were edged with a crystal menace that I thought might itself be a symptom. That it confirmed I had the dreams of two people inside me now, and of course the dreams of a child would be as fresh and as strange as this, wet with colour and hung out to dry like a photograph on a line.

  In my dreams sometimes I was the girl walking along the deserted road towards the city, and sometimes the girl in pale blue satin walking into the forest, then in the car, keeping silent as the miles were eaten up. In my dreams sometimes I chased the girl and ripped the locket from her neck. Other times I knelt in the slush of the leaves and held my hands out in supplication. Other times I threw myself out of the car. Please, I begged, every time. Please.

  Or I was back alone in the bathroom of my father’s house, or in the forest and filling my hands with the pine needles, and my body was not changing, and my future was still in everything—the countryside scent, the other clapboard houses, the rabbits whose bodies beat inside the traps.

  The next morning I threw up upon waking, though I hadn’t drunk so much, doing it very quietly so that R would not hear. I will bide my time, I told my reflection in the mirror. It was a Saturday and I walked back home through the city, too early. There was a scoured, ascetic purity to the deserted pavements, to the absence of noise. The sky was an ugly pink, and the glass towers reflected it. It looked like the sky was bleeding. The entire world was bleeding, apart from me.

  12

  You have two ways to do this, said Doctor A, the day he found out. He had asked me for the date of my last bleed, and I hesitated. He had me lie down on the white-papered examination table while he felt my abdomen, and then he gave me a paper gown and told me to get undressed. My body slicked up with cold jelly, he scanned me with the small probe, from the heart downwards. Liver, stomach, kidneys. The screen was turned away from me. He frowned, pressed buttons, looked closer at whatever images were being transmitted. It was only a matter of time. I pictured the electricity of my heart jumping, the sea-noises of it steady, rapid. I prayed for the baby to stay still if it knew what was best for it, but it turned out the baby would not, could not.

  In the waiting room beforehand I had put my head between my knees momentarily, and then staggered to the bathroom to throw up. It seemed that the baby was making me sick, poisoning me from the inside like a virus. The thought was alarming. I made half-hearted peace with the idea of dying there, in the cubicle, bile burning my throat. The clattering feet of impatient women waiting for me to be done, their eyebrows raised when I got out, wiping my mouth. Women would be the ones who knew. Women were my enemies now. My dress was a billowing cornflower-coloured cotton, a disguise that definitely wasn’t necessary yet, but I felt compelled to hide my body. Just in case.

  After wiping the sweat and jelly from my body with paper towels, I came out from behind the curtain and sat in my usual place. He took a sip from his herbal tea, and mist fogged his glasses temporarily. My fingers pushed the beads of the painted abacus he kept on the table between us. Green, red, blue, yellow. One two, one two. Brown carpet. The institutional orange plastic of my chair. The dictaphone whirred.

  I closed my eyes, waiting for him to do something, for someone to break down the door and arrest me, but nothing happened.

  Choose now, he said eventually. Opening my eyes, I could see that he looked solemn, but that part of him was also enjoying feeling so important.

  Let me take care of it here, today, and you can walk back into your life like nothing happened. You’ll wake up and we’ll forget all about it.

  What’s the other option? I said.

  I’m not going to force you to get rid of it, but we can’t let you keep it either. You’ll have to go. You’ll be sent away.

  Sent where?

  He frowned. I can’t tell you that, Calla. But I can tell you that you don’t want to be on that journey.

  I made no move.

  Listen to me, Calla. How many chances do you get to make a fatal mistake and have it reversed—forgiven? They’ll come for you. There’s no escaping it.

  He leaned forward and kept talking but I was distracted by the smell of my own sweat. The choice seemed simple and yet the wrong answer was pulsing in me. The hour was almost over. I made a pact with myself to stay silent until the minute hand crossed the line. Finally, he stopped staring at me.

  Very well. You can go home. But you’ll be under observation from now on, he said. So don’t do anything stupid.

  13

  Come and get me, I pleaded to R on the telephone, ringing him from the box outside the clinic. I want someone to come and get me.

  Really? he said. Didn’t you drive yourself there? It’s not up to me to make you helpless.

  His voice was very pleasant, reasonable.

  But I need you, I said. Right now, I need you.

  I’m really tied up, he said, and so I drove the car myself to his apartment through the packed-out city traffic. I leaned against the mirrored wall of the lift all the way up, eyes closed. Nobody else got in.

  It took a while for him to open the door. He was in a pale linen shirt, no tie, and did not kiss me on the cheek or stroke my forehead or look me in the eye or ask if I felt any better, but he did hand me a glass of water with ice.

  Rough session?

  I drank the water in one go with my fist curled against my chest.

  Do you ever want to be a father? I asked him, which was as close as I could get to broaching the dark feeling
, how it pulsed in me, what it had made me do.

  He leaned against the counter thoughtfully. Oh, is this what this is about, he said, and I was scared for a second, but then he said, You think I’m going to go after a white-ticket?

  Well, maybe, I said. One day.

  I don’t think we should have that conversation right now, he said. Come on.

  He smiled, kissed me on the temple and then led me to his room, where he tucked me up in the grey sheets of his bed. Take a nap, everything feels better after a nap, he said, running his hand chastely over the covered lump of my torso. I fell into a hard, clean sleep, a sleep of emotional nothingness, and when I woke up he was gone. I stared at the ceiling for a while, trying to keep hold of the feeling of being emptied out. Afterwards I checked every room, then I let myself out and drove with the radio playing loudly so I didn’t have to be alone.

  I parked in the city centre and walked around, hoping to see one of the large prams bearing through the crowd. My legs were staggering beneath me. I wanted to see the face of a child, wrinkled and natural as an apple, and the father nodding at the wave of people stepping aside. I wanted proof that it could be done. But no proof was forthcoming.

  We all liked to see a baby sometimes. It was traditional to press small offerings upon the father. Coins, sweets, handkerchiefs. The father put them all into a net bag but we knew that they would be vetted later, weeding out anything that could cause damage to the baby. There were people who might wish to hurt a baby. We could only indirectly acknowledge this. Some women would stare and stare and try to touch the pram for luck. Others were more ambivalent, and some actively avoided being caught up in the knot of people watching, offering, trailing behind. Some did not want to see it.

  The first time I saw a baby in the city it was just a curiosity, like something that had come from outer space. But as I got older, babies seemed to become malevolent with their power. They had the ability to undo me. If I saw a pram and gave whatever silver coin I had in my pocket to the father, and he nodded at me graciously, I would have to retreat to the nearest private space and hold myself until the urge to howl subsided.

  I went into a shop full of baby things, empty except for the woman behind the counter, who stared at me but didn’t say anything. I ran my hands over absurdly small socks, stuffed toys. I picked up a hat with cat ears attached. The blood was hot and rushing in my head.

  Excuse me, the woman said, coming towards me. I think you should leave.

  But I’m buying something for a friend! I said to her, outraged. I can look, can’t I?

  You don’t have friends like that, she said, so I threw the hat down and walked out of the shop and back into the crowd of people as fast as I could. Stupid bitch! I shouted behind me and everybody looked at me, then looked away.

  You think that you are doing the natural thing, but you are wrong, Doctor A had warned me. You think that it’s for you but I promise you, it’s not.

  The streets were clean and grey as I walked, and it was cold. The blossom was not yet out but I knew it wouldn’t be long, that there was clockwork ticking inside the sour green buds, because that was what time did. Meanwhile there were no babies in the city today and everybody was going somewhere, sleek and easy as water. I could picture R pushing one of the prams around my neighbourhood, around the streets of the city, while our neighbours tried to get a proper look at the baby. The thought of it made me sit down on a bench and put my head between my knees.

  Are you all right? a voice asked.

  I looked up at the man and wondered if he was a father. I couldn’t look at any man without wondering it. What made a father? What made a mother? What was the thing I was lacking? R was holding out for somebody who would not crawl around on the floor, for someone who would not heap dirt upon themselves. I was like a baby myself, all sensation, no discipline. A broken engine thrumming with need. I didn’t even love him, I didn’t love anything.

  But also maybe I did love him and just didn’t want to admit it. How could I be a mother when even simple human emotions were beyond me, when they were just waves crashing on the shore of my body—this body which at once felt distant as the moon and uncomfortably close? I had not realized it would be like this. I had been stupid not to realize it.

  Are you all right? he asked again.

  Yes, I said, but I had forgotten the question. The man moved on without comment. I caught the shine of a wedding ring on his hand. My mouth filled with bile. I got up very carefully and walked to the car.

  14

  The pack came to my door three days after I had spoken to Doctor A.

  An emissary rang my bell very early. I saw him through the window and almost bolted, but when I plucked up the courage to open the door he did not arrest me or say anything at all, just handed over the pack and nodded. In the light, the grass looked flat as paint. The deal had been broken. I understood for perhaps the first time that there was no going back, that there was no halting whatever I had put in motion.

  I unpacked everything on the floor of the living room and observed it for a while without moving. One small tent, a magic-trick tent, the type you shake out rather than assemble with ropes and pegs. A rudimentary map, eight packets of noodles and four of dehydrated meat, iodine tablets, a small knife, and a pistol that looked very old, antique even. Implements of basic survival. I repacked it all and placed the rucksack in the spare bedroom, on top of the covers, where it lay bright and wrapped in red nylon. Four times on that first day, I checked on it to make sure it had not been a dream.

  At least they gave me a tent this time, even if the other objects seemed mostly tokens.

  I am going once more on a journey, I told myself. I am going on a great adventure.

  15

  Nobody has ever done this to me before! R exclaimed in the restaurant where I broke the news to him. It had been over a fortnight since we had seen each other. I chewed my steak neatly and didn’t respond right away. I was craving heavy foods, iron-rich, things that bled.

  You always wanted to do it, didn’t you, he accused me. You wanted to see what it felt like.

  What it felt like: cold electricity. A dragging in my body. I felt like a bird that had been pulled, inexplicably, to the ground. A white one with soft plumage, something more beautiful than I can give myself credit for.

  Don’t make a scene, I said. That’s why I brought you here.

  Why had I even told him? I could not remember my reasoning. Things kept getting away from me. A golden parrot in a cage shrieked from the corner. A black piano. A waitress in a long navy apron hovered nearby. Everything all right? she asked, and R waved her away with his fork. His face was hard and mean.

  Why? he asked. That’s all I want to know. Why?

  But I could not speak my want aloud—could not send it out into the world and see it bruised, shot down, like it was a debate topic. It wasn’t something theoretical, it was a tender wordless part of me, and I had no language for it.

  So you’re just going to sit there, he said. You’re not even going to try to explain yourself.

  You wouldn’t understand, I said.

  You have an emotional disease, he said.

  If you like, I said. I could see by the way he was looking at me that any reason would sound wrong coming from my blue-ticket mouth anyway.

  I don’t know why anyone has a child at all, blue or white ticket, he said, lowering his voice so nobody would hear what we were talking about.

  Perhaps nobody really knows, I said. It’s a thing you have to feel.

  But how do you know that’s what you’re feeling? Try out some other feelings. Something that you can come back from. He tried to pour me more wine but I’d had too much anyway, I put my hand over the glass. Too late. The wine went everywhere.

  I just know, I said. How to explain the dark feeling without opening my whole self up? How to ask whether he
had ever felt it too? He was staring at me. I felt pathetic. I licked the wine from the back of my hand.

  You know you’ll either have to have it sorted out, or you’ll be sent away, he said, turning his attention back to his food.

  It’s too late for that, I said, mopping at the wine with my napkin. I told him about the pack. It’s at my house right now. You can come and see it for yourself.

  Two pistachio custards were placed before us. I ate them both as R watched. My appetite was enormous. I felt no shame about it, for once.

  At my house we laid out everything the pack contained. He lifted the gun in his hand. He pointed it at me. I put my hand to the barrel and moved it away. No, I said, like you would to a misbehaving dog, though I knew it was not loaded. I lifted up my arms to take off my top, but he turned away from me.

  I can’t even look at you, he said.

  I’m starting to show. You can see it now, I said. If you want to.

  I was hardly showing at all, really, but I breathed out to exaggerate any bump that was there. I wanted to make it real to him. Something he could see and touch.

  I don’t want to, he said, still facing away. That’s the last thing I want.

  He didn’t turn around when I slipped off my skirt and then unhooked my bra and rolled my stockings down, slowly, though he could hear me doing it. I said nothing to him, just folded the clothes up neatly and put them on the bed, cupped the very slight curve of my stomach, nothing noticeable, nothing you would see if you weren’t looking for it. He kept his arms crossed and his body angled away from me.

  Then he left the house. I heard him walk down the stairs one by one, and I did not run after him or make any move at all. I just waited, naked, as the darkness fell and my neighbours returned to their homes. The sounds of their televisions and cooking and doors opening as they went out into their gardens to look at the sky or take the washing in, the small and rhythmic elements of life happening all around me, not-inconsequential life, all of it going on and on.