Little Disasters

by Sarah Vaughan

  She just wants to hold her. To feel her: warm and surprisingly solid, but no longer straining against her in anger; her heart beating in close harmony as she lies against her chest. Betsey hasn’t rested like that since the night before her accident and every memory is of her exhaustion and fury that afternoon, and then, after it happened, of her pain. All Jess wants – and this is how she will justify it to herself later – is to hold her baby close.

  She unscrews the tube from the IV bag, like disconnecting two pieces of Lego; puts a hand either side of her baby, and lifts her up, her torso like a squat bag of cereal; her head far heavier than it appears.

  ‘Mummy’s here,’ she whispers into the top of her bandage, which rubs roughly against the base of her chin – and how she wishes she could remove this and kiss her properly. She sits back in the chair, hardly believing she has managed this; tries to preserve this moment. ‘Shh, shh. Mummy’s here.’

  But they’re too exposed. A curtain hangs around each bay and she eases this across, breath held tight as she prays the rings won’t clack on the runners. Now they are cocooned in their own private world. Betsey’s chest rises and falls and this connection, with their chests touching and breath mingling, reminds her of a closeness she hasn’t experienced since she was pregnant with her. This is how they should have been from the start! It’s all Betsey needs: a mother content to sit still, listening to the patter of her heartbeat, attuned to her tiny snuffles, breathing the same air. She drinks her in – and she was wrong: despite the stench of antiseptic and bleach, and the grub of her bandage, she still smells like Betsey. And Jess knows she can mother her.

  Or can she? The truth is she can mother a child who doesn’t wriggle or strain. Who doesn’t resist. Are the two things connected? Betsey’s resistance and Jess’s busyness, her failure to ever sit with her and be still?

  You’re a bad mother. The familiar mantra kicks off. A bad mother, a terrible mother.

  But no, I’m not, she thinks. For the fragile moments that Betsey is content, I am a good mother, now.

  And perhaps this could continue? She could manage to be a good mother if she somehow managed to maintain this calm. If she takes the time just to sit quietly with her, at home – not in a hospital, with its fluorescent strip lights and bleeping machines, its brutal way of doing things, but in the quiet of Betsey’s nursery.

  She is going to try. Her baby shouldn’t be here. Look at her. She’s fine detached from that machine. She doesn’t need this equipment. All she needs is a mother who loves her – and her love flows through her veins like melted chocolate, hot and dark and intent on scalding anyone who suggests she shouldn’t take her baby home. She unclips the other end of the tube from the cannula and wraps a hospital blanket neatly around Betsey’s limbs, swaddling her up to her neck. If she swings her tote over her shoulder and bunches her light Puffa jacket in front of her, shielding Betsey, she should be able to make it. If she is careful now . . .

  She peeks around the curtain. The nurse is still bent over the work station, and so she sidles out, walking softly for the first tentative steps, and then quickly, each footstep increasingly decisive now that she has turned the corner and left her behind. Jess’s heart swells. She has done it! She has managed to whisk Betsey from her bed and all she need do is get her down this corridor and then out of the ward.

  She picks up speed and almost trips. She must slow down; mustn’t attract attention. Betsey is heavier than she remembered, or she is holding her cack-handedly, the jacket flapping against her baby’s legs, the polyester threatening to slip. Her bag vibrates, an insistent buzzing, but she ignores it and hitches Betsey higher. ‘It’s all right, darling,’ she wants to whisper, but she daren’t. She must be as quiet as possible. Betsey wriggles, and she clutches her tight, her fingers digging in. A tiny, protesting mew. ‘Shh. Mummy’s here now. Just a moment,’ she whispers, and her voice is savage in its anxiety. ‘Almost there.’

  ‘Jess. What are you doing?’ The automatic doors to the corridor have swung open to reveal Liz, in her coat, and carrying her bag, perhaps having forgotten something and coming back for it, at the end of a long day.

  For one long moment, they just stare at each other. Then Liz shatters the silence.

  ‘Is that Betsey you’ve got there?’

  Jess’s throat is dry.

  ‘Please, let me take her from you.’ Liz moves forwards, unnaturally calm, as if she thinks Jess may do something erratic. ‘Jess? You can’t take Betsey away from here. Do you understand? She needs to be kept under observation; we have to keep a very close eye on her.

  ‘Here let me take her,’ she repeats, because Jess isn’t relenting, isn’t releasing her grip at all, and has absolutely no intention of handing her baby over.

  ‘Jess.’ There’s a real steeliness to Liz’s voice. ‘Betsey is still very poorly. Do you understand? She needs to stay with us.’

  Jess tries to sidestep around her, to make her way along the corridor, towards the exit and freedom, but Liz is too quick and blocks her path.

  ‘Please. Just give her to me,’ she says, like a mediator in a hostage situation. And then the threat comes, the steeliness explicit. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have to call the police.’

  ‘No.’ Jess shakes her head fiercely. Could she make a run for it? She is fitter than Liz – three HIIT sessions a week; a weekly run – and she is more driven, her fight-or-flight instinct tuned to its highest pitch. Clutching Betsey tight, she darts to the side of Liz, desperate to race away.

  ‘Oh no, you mustn’t,’ Liz says. And then she cries: ‘Security!’ and everything ratchets up a gear. An alarm sounds and fast-paced nurses seem to dart at her. A nurse barks orders – ‘Just give her to me; give her to me now!’ – and there is something about her directness, the economy of her language and her no-nonsense tone, that makes Jess falter, that makes her vulnerable, and in that moment the nurse swoops.

  ‘Nooooo!’

  Her baby is snatched from her arms. Within a split second Betsey is being carried back along the corridor at a fast, clipped pace. She tries to reach for her but she can’t go anywhere. A security guard has her held fast.

  ‘I’ll have to let Lucy know about this, and DC Rustin,’ Liz says, and there is pity in her eyes as well as frustration – and yes, she thinks she can read it, anger. She pauses and her voice softens. ‘Oh, Jess. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course I bloody understand.’ Jess never swears but fear has turned her into someone she no longer recognises. Her arms are too empty: her body yearns for her child. She turns her head, not wanting to acknowledge the reprimand; not wanting Liz to see that she is so close to crying. What have we become? she wonders. What have I become?

  ‘I know you want to be with your little girl but this isn’t the way to do it,’ Liz says.

  ‘How else can I be with her?’ Defiance surges hot and fast.

  ‘Not like this.’ Liz’s voice dips to a near whisper. ‘Not like this at all.’ She pauses, then, and puts her hand on Jess’s arm. ‘I need you to come back with me to the ward.’

  ‘Why?’ She knows why. She has broken all the rules.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to ask for police protection again.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’ The phrase is familiar: uttered when Betsey was first admitted but she is tired, so very tired, of the jargon with which they all speak.

  ‘It means the police can arrange for Betsey to be kept here in hospital but without you having any access to her. It means you’ll be banned from coming here and the police will stop you seeing your child.’

  LIZ

  Wednesday 24 January, 8.30 p.m.

  Twenty-eight

  Neil is incandescent, of course.

  I’ve come back to the ward to relay what’s happened. He is unequivocal: calls are to be made to Cat Rustin, and to Lucy Stone. ‘What the fuck was she playing at? She could have killed that baby. Is she insane?’

  He quivers with rage, but it’s an anger tempere
d with fear. Fear of what could have happened to Betsey; fear too of how we as a hospital might be deemed negligent for almost allowing a parent to abscond with her child. The bank nurse on duty is admonished, Neil lambasting her in terms that contravene all employment rules and confirm him as due for retirement. I intervene. She’s tearful and profusely apologetic; then, out of Neil’s earshot, extremely defensive. I think of the clinical incident forms that will have to be filled in; the potential inquiry into how this could have occurred. But my main concern is for Betsey, transferred back to her cot, and Jess, being held by security in the doctors’ room while Neil phones the police to relay this recent breach of her visiting conditions.

  It’s not DC Rustin who arrives but two uniformed officers: those who happen to be the closest, and can get to the hospital fastest. They only took ten minutes to arrive – it’s a high-priority call – and their speed means they’re not on top of the details of the case.

  Jess looks terrified as they approach. She’s shrunk into herself so that I get a glimpse of what she will look like as an old lady: fine-boned, delicate, vulnerable, with none of the spirit she showed when we first met, or the defiance shown minutes ago when she refused to hand over Bets. This diminished Jess reminds me of my mother, and the ghost of a memory shimmers: a Dartmoor lane; rain licking the windows; and a young police officer turning his head as he ducked into a panda car, keen to be away from us, embarrassment blotching his face.

  The memory distracts me; I need to focus on the present. The officer taking the lead – blond, confident, just the right side of burly – is indicating that Jess must go with them now. His manner is perfectly considerate but there’s a disconnect – his words, sharp as a paper cut, don’t seem to make sense.

  It’s because he doesn’t know the minutiae of the case, I tell myself; because he’s been radioed to get here as quickly as possible; because Rustin’s not working tonight and there’s no time for this officer to process why a mother might want to snatch her baby from a hospital.

  But, as he places a pair of handcuffs around Jess’s slight wrists, her alleged crime seems to bear no resemblance to the reality of her situation.

  ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of child abduction,’ he says.

  *

  ‘You can see why I had to do that?’ Neil says, when the police take Jess away. Before their arrival he was quivering with self-righteous indignation, huffing and puffing about whether she had the faintest idea of the ramifications of her behaviour: in the aftermath of her arrest, he is uncharacteristically subdued. When Betsey was admitted, he made it clear I wasn’t to be involved with the case in any way but now he seems to be asking me to validate his decision, just as he did when we discussed whether it was a safeguarding issue. Perhaps he finds the sight of a mother being manhandled by two police officers discomfiting, too.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Barely thinking, I tell him what he wants to hear as I try to process what’s happened. ‘Parents can’t just come in here and deny their children care.’ And yes, I can understand his fury and I can’t condone the selfishness of her behaviour: the sheer recklessness of trying to remove Betsey, and her arrogance in thinking she knew best. But I’m flailing, my frustration undercut by incomprehension and a deep sadness for a friend who seems a distorted version of herself, like a figure in a fairground mirror. Just how desperate must she be to believe that snatching her baby would be a better option than allowing Betsey to be treated here?

  The truth nudges me through the fog of my thoughts. This isn’t rational behaviour and contacting the police – though inevitable from the hospital’s viewpoint, and according to the trust’s protocol – doesn’t seem appropriate for someone not behaving as if she’s in robust mental health.

  ‘I don’t think she could have been thinking clearly.’ I edge my way nearer to this idea. ‘Perhaps we should talk to Lucy Stone about whether she has undiagnosed postnatal depression. See if she can be assessed.’

  I anticipate a snort; a harrumph; a dismissal because Neil is less sympathetic towards people with mental health issues than physical conditions. Not that he would ever admit it (he’s at least aware of the need to appear politically correct) and not that he thinks this about conditions such as schizophrenia that are extreme. But a bit of postnatal depression in an affluent, married mother? In a world in which he treats terminally ill children, he has limited sympathy.

  ‘It might help explain this behaviour,’ he concedes. ‘But it doesn’t excuse it. I’m not having her on my ward. She’s a liability, and she only has herself to blame.’

  It’s the inevitable response: our duty of care is to Betsey and to our other patients, and we can’t risk a repeat of this behaviour. What would have happened if Betsey had started fitting or banged her head while in Jess’s care? And yet, Jess isn’t well. It’s a revelation like discovering, aged twenty, that I needed glasses: the edges around my thoughts are no longer blurred; everything begins to make sense.

  I begin to argue her case but Neil raises a hand to silence me, like a policeman stopping the flow of traffic, and I am so stunned by this reversion to his old self – the self-regarding, dismissive, openly contemptuous Neil who keeps me firmly in my place – that I am quiet.

  But I’m not going to doubt my judgement on this. Because it tallies with something Jess suggested three years ago. Something I told myself I’d misheard and that she couldn’t have meant, but which now makes perfect sense.

  LIZ

  Friday 5 December, 2014

  Twenty-nine

  I’m getting old, I think, as I collapse on a sticky leatherette banquette having finally escaped from the dance floor. We’re having a mums’ night out and somehow a nice, quiet meal has segued into a full-on night of tequila shots and dancing at a dodgy club.

  It’s 1.30 a.m., and though I’ve gyrated enthusiastically to a string of Nineties anthems, my feet ache and I’m hoarse from trying to make myself heard above the music. Mel and Charlotte are dancing flamboyantly – arms reaching for the ceiling or flung around each other, lyrics shouted lustily – but, unlike everyone else, I’m working on Sunday. I’ve stopped drinking; have moved onto the Diet Coke.

  ‘Don’t be so boring! Come and dance!’ Jess flops next to me, and smiles up into my face. ‘Even Charlotte’s going for it.’ She gestures to our friend, now swaying to Oasis. Eyes closed, she couldn’t be more removed from the mother who creates highlighted spreadsheets when organising extracurricular pick-ups and harangues us for not concentrating at book club. Her expression is dreamy, as if she’s remembering a particular kiss. ‘Look at her,’ Jess says, gesturing to Charlotte, amused and indulgent. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this drunk.’

  ‘Wonderwall’ came out when I was fifteen: when I had yet to experience romantic love and doubted anyone would ever feel about me in that way. It was a miserable time – except that, by this stage, I knew, from watching Mattie being put back together, that I wanted to be a doctor: a plastic surgeon, I thought initially, though I later realised I was more suited to medicine than surgery.

  I managed this by studying obsessively and being academic and I’d imagined Charlotte was similarly bookish. But seeing her, lost in the music, I realise she might have had a far more balanced adolescence than me. There’s a surprising sensuousness to her dancing, and I can suddenly see a younger Charlotte falling deeply, obsessively, in love.

  ‘You OK?’ Jess shouts over the music.

  ‘Just looking at Charlotte.’

  ‘Oh you don’t want to do that. Come on. Let’s go and dance.’ She takes my hand as if to pull me along. The music is building to its climax; in a moment the DJ will cut the sound and everyone will start chanting.

  ‘Just a minute. I need to get my energy back.’

  She looks at me reprovingly. I relent and shove on my too-high heels.

  ‘Fab. I need my disco diva.’ She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek and her curls brush against my mouth. When she draws back, her pupils a
re dilated, and for a moment – a moment that stills because I’m not sure how I’d react if this happens – I think she’s going to lean in for a kiss.

  ‘I love you, Liz,’ she says, her limbs so languorous they are almost floppy.

  ‘I love you, too,’ I say. She is extremely drunk.

  ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ She flings her arms out and points to Mel and a posse of other mums from Rosa’s class who are belting out the chorus. She rests her bottle of beer against her forehead, and smiles at the pearls of condensation trickling from her hair.

  ‘Yes – yes it is,’ I say because what’s not to like? I may have felt tired and bored but it’s good to see a group of friends letting their hair down. ‘It’s a relief to know that we can behave as if we’re teenagers again.’

  ‘It’s good not to be a mummy all the time.’ She takes a swig from her bottle.

  ‘Well, there is that.’ I’m mildly surprised. Of our immediate group of four, she’s the only one who’s chosen to be a stay-at-home mum and she’s never expressed any opposition to doing this before.

  ‘I mean, I love my kids—’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘—but sometimes I just need a break. They wear me down, you know? I love Frankie dearly but I feel like I have to be on high alert all the time. And Ed’s never, ever there. It’s just me who’s responsible all the time. There’s no let up from always having to look after them. Always having to make sure they’re not doing something wild and impulsive; always being vigilant, and checking they’re all right.’