I Do Not Sleep

by Judy Finnigan

  Edie gave a little wriggle. Her face was serious, completely solemn. Suddenly she launched herself out of her mother’s arms and her stubby little legs propelled her forwards. She managed about ten shaky steps and threw her arms around my shoulder, laughing hysterically at her own success. I grabbed and kissed her, and Lola and Danny yelled with the massive happiness that all parents feel when their child achieves something enormous. No matter that every baby starts to walk eventually. For each mother and father, watching their little one make that first tremulous journey is a miracle. And for grandmothers, of course. I was beside myself with joy at witnessing such an ordinary but wonderful feat: a baby girl taking her first steps, not unusual, but so momentous for those who love and treasure her.

  Edie’s little triumph permeated the rest of the afternoon. I felt so close to Danny and Lola. These family moments are deeply precious; they bind us together. I wished Adam had been here to see it. Edie was thrilled at her triumph, and she responded by walking as if she’d been up on her two feet for years. She trundled round the garden, flopping down onto her bottom every few yards, but always with a beatific smile on her face, looking at us as if our only function in her tiny universe was to be her ecstatic audience. We duly fulfilled our familial duty. By the time Adam arrived, we were all rolling about the garden, consumed with delirious happiness.

  Adam stood and looked at us all benignly. ‘Good heavens, what on earth’s going on?’ he asked. Danny jumped up and threw his arms round his dad. ‘Edie’s just started walking,’ he shouted. Adam gave him a fatherly look, congratulatory and full of affection. ‘Well, of course she has,’ he said in a proud voice. ‘Hooray. She’s been on the verge for a while now.’

  Adam beamed as he swept Edie up into his arms. ‘Kiss your Gramps, gorgeous,’ he said. And she did, showering his face with slurpy caresses. ‘Well done, kid. I always knew you’d be a genius.’

  And so the day crept happily by, as we sat in the garden eating smoked salmon and strawberries; the sun shone bright, crowning our happiness, and Edie crawled, tottered and chortled, beside herself with glee.

  When at last Lola took her inside for her bath, milk and bed, silence fell. Still wreathed in contentment, Adam and I were both aware that our talk about Ben could not be put off much longer. Neither of us wanted to discuss Joey’s best friend in front of Danny, so Adam suggested we should go out, maybe to Fowey for dinner. I’d dressed with some care earlier in the day, admitting to myself that I wanted to look good for Adam. I understood, shamefacedly, that this was because I’d kissed Jamie last night. I wanted a repeat of that kiss, but this time with the man I was married to. So I wore a pretty pink sundress that made the most of my figure, and my shoulder-length blonde hair was behaving itself for once. I popped up to the bathroom to repair my make-up, and then we were both in the Volvo, heading towards Bodinnick.

  ‘You look nice,’ Adam said appreciatively, glancing at me as he drove.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmured, pleased. Adam looked good, too, I thought. He’d had a quick shower before we left; relaxed in a crisp white open-neck shirt, his after-shave, Eau Sauvage by Christian Dior, smelled alluring. I’d always loved that fragrance on him, light and lemony and, to me, deeply sexy, reminding me of holiday nights when a romantic dinner was always infused with the promise of passion to follow. Sitting beside him in the car, I felt my heart quicken and my stomach lurch.

  Confused, I wondered why I suddenly felt so attracted to Adam, after the years of sexual drought that had plagued us since Joey’s accident. It was as if the kiss I had so nakedly desired from Jamie the previous night had kick-started something in my body. Jamie was an incredibly attractive man. I felt guilty. If Adam and I did have sex, would I be fantasising about Jamie while we made love? This thought made me deliciously depraved, and I realised I was relishing my own naughtiness. Molly, my girl, I admonished myself, you are in a very skittish mood.

  How strange. Nothing had changed–Joey was still missing. But somehow, my body, my thoughts, seemed different. The grief was still there; I felt the tears rise even as I thought of my son, and yet I didn’t feel… what? I don’t feel dead any more, I thought suddenly. I no longer feel as if I died when Joey did.

  My heart thudded. What had I just let myself think? I had actually used the word ‘died’ about my beloved son. I had never, ever allowed myself to do that before.

  This, of course, was what Adam had been trying to get me to acknowledge all along. Knowing that my husband thought Joey was no longer alive had been at the root of my coldness towards him. So what did it mean that I had now allowed this previously forbidden thought into my mind? Jamie had said something to me yesterday, after I’d seen the scarecrow at the allotments, after Annie had explained what had happened to me there five years ago when, catatonic with grief and shock, I’d been frightened by the effigy’s scary appearance after its leftover Hallowe’en makeover. Now I knew that my experience at Jamaica Inn was not supernatural, but an understandable trick of my memory prompted by anxiety and trauma.

  Jamie had told me that I was, at last, waking up.

  Waking up from the long nightmare of grief and denial that had set me apart from everyone, even my family, since my boy went missing. Waking up. Was that why my body now felt so alive? Was that why I suddenly felt so physically drawn to my husband? Passion suddenly felt for another man had jolted me into renewed desire for my husband.

  Sort of the opposite of what happened to Lady Chatterley, I said to myself ruefully, and then I giggled. I started humming to myself. Adam looked over at me, amused. ‘Why are you humming “I Feel Pretty” to yourself?’ he asked. ‘You do though; you look really lovely tonight.’

  I smiled at him; he smiled back, and I saw his surprise, his quickening interest. He realises I feel sexy, I thought. I refuse to feel guilty about kissing Jamie. Maybe that brief embrace had been just what I needed.

  And as we boarded the ferry at Bodinnick, we looked at each other with pleasure. Nothing had been said, but we had turned a corner during that drive. I think we’d made a promise.

  We sat opposite each other across a candlelit table at the Quay House, an old and pretty hotel in Fowey. We ordered dinner, happily flirting with each other, knowing there was a serious conversation to be had but, for the moment, putting it off and relaxing into our new awareness of each other, which was of course simply a well-trodden memory of how things always used to be.

  Who knows how that evening might have ended? Might we have booked a room at the hotel and stayed the night? I think we would, but as we started eating, before we’d even mentioned Ben, my phone rang.

  It was Josie. She was weeping as she spoke, weeping as if she would never stop.

  ‘Molly? She’s gone, Molly. Hope has gone.’

  Poor Josie, Poor Tony–Hope, as well as her namesake emotion, had gone. The hope they had lived with ever since their beloved daughter was born: all gone now. My throat ached but I made myself sound calm. ‘Josie, my love. I am so, so sorry. Do you want me to come to the hospital?’

  ‘No. We’re just sitting here, Tony and I. They’ve taken her away for a while, but they’re bringing her back soon. We’re making some calls.’ Josie continued to sob as she talked, quite calmly, as if this were the only way of speaking left to her, as if from now on she would always weep, it would be her natural state. ‘We need to be on our own with her for a while. But I wanted you to know. We’ll be coming back to Polperro later on tonight. Would you like to come and see her tomorrow? They’re going to put her in a special room, before… and then when the undertakers have done what… they need to do, she’s going to come back to Emerald Point. We want her with us until the funeral.

  ‘So will you come to Derriford tomorrow? At, say, ten o’clock?’

  ‘Yes, of course I will. Josie, you sound very strong.’

  ‘I’m not, believe me. But Tony and I, we’ve talked about this for so long. I just want to do the best for her; I want to be strong for her. I have to go now, Mol
ly. They need to… talk to us. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  And she rang off, leaving her tears behind to stain my soul. I told Adam what had happened. He’d never met Hope, or Josie, but of course he too knew what it was like to lose a child, and he immediately sank into sadness. ‘Can I take you to the hospital tomorrow, Molly? You haven’t got a car; I’d like to help.’

  I gratefully said yes. The mood between us had changed, no longer sexually charged, but tender. I couldn’t eat. Another child, another tragedy. Of course Hope and Joey were grown-up, but to us, their mothers, they would always be our children. When you have a baby, what joy they bring, and how little you know of the sorrow that lurks at the edges of motherhood; if you’re lucky, it will stay outside the charmed circle of your family–if you’re not, you will know a grief that seems too much to bear.

  We talked, and I apologised finally for blaming Adam for Joey’s death. I told him I knew it wasn’t his fault, it never had been, and the things I convinced myself of then had come from the depth of my grief, which had driven me almost mad. He said he understood, although it had hurt him deeply, but we could find a way forward now.

  And we talked about Ben. Adam said he had tried to trace him through the university, not knowing, of course, that he now lived in Cornwall. But although the administration office couldn’t tell Adam Ben’s address, they did say he hadn’t completed his degree course. He hadn’t returned to the university in the summer term after Joey went missing. His tutors accepted that he was too upset to come back so soon, but he did resume his course again the following September. Adam said no one at the university would tell him much, but he got the impression Ben had had a difficult time when he tried to get back to his studies. At any rate, he had left for good at Christmas, and seemed to have disappeared.

  Adam had the phone numbers of a few of Joey’s friends at the English and Drama Department, and two of them–a boy called Seb and a girl named Nina–agreed to meet him at the Red Lion, a student pub near our house in Didsbury. They were affable and pleasant, now in their mid-twenties and anxious to be helpful in any way about Joey. They reminisced for a while and then Adam asked them what they remembered about Ben.

  ‘Not much, really,’ said Nina. ‘I was always closer to Joey than Ben. And when Ben came back to Uni for the Christmas term he was very withdrawn. He hardly spoke to anyone, especially about Joey and the accident in Cornwall.’

  Seb agreed. ‘He became a bit of a hermit. Wouldn’t talk about Joey. I remember a party near the end of term when some bloke, pretty drunk of course, started baiting him about the boat wreck. He wanted to know exactly what happened, and why Joe had gone out in the boat on his own. He sort of implied Ben had been negligent and had let Joe down. I remember Ben really tensed up and asked this guy if he was saying the accident had been his fault. The bloke backed down–he looked scared. Ben’s a big bloke, and could be aggressive if he’d had too much to drink. I honestly thought he was going to deck the other guy, but in the end he just walked out, left the party looking thunderous.’

  Nina grew thoughtful. ‘I always thought Ben looked incredibly sad that term,’ she said. ‘Obviously he was missing Joey–they were always very close.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘Best friends since primary school. Do either of you know where Ben is now? Is he still in Manchester?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Seb, ‘Haven’t seen him since that party years ago. I’d know if he was still up here.’

  ‘But, hang on,’ Nina joined in. ‘I did hear something about him not too long ago; something about film. What was it? You know, of course, he was incredibly talented? Easily the best in his year at directing. We all used to think he was going to be really famous. Then he disappeared without finishing his degree, but someone mentioned a while ago that he had a job with an agency, directing ads or something. Sorry, can’t remember who told me, but if it’s true it’s pretty jammy. Most of us would give our eye-teeth to get a filming job with a kosher agency at our age.’

  Adam thanked them and said that gave him something to go on at least, bought them another round of drinks and left the pub.

  As he neared the door, Seb caught up with him. He looked slightly embarrassed, but determined. ‘Mr Gabriel, I don’t know if I should mention this. It may be just gossip, but the fact is there were a lot of rumours that Ben had got back into drugs that last term.’ Adam asked him to go on. ‘Well, everyone knew Ben used to do quite a lot of heavy stuff, but Joey never gave up on him. I mean, none of us were prudes; smoking weed was part of the university experience for most of us, but for Ben it went deeper than that. He was very cool, was Ben; a lot of us were in awe of him, so a lot of legends sprang up around him, the kind of guys he was hanging out with and stuff. There were always a few heavy types loitering around the student union then. They weren’t students, but they were always there, hanging out with the coolest kids on campus. We knew they were pushing drugs. They were local gangsters; everyone knew that. Anyway, Joey would have nothing to do with them, like most of us, but Ben was definitely involved. They were quite aggressive, swaggered around as if they owned the place, and Ben seemed to enjoy feeling part of all that.’

  Seb looked slightly stricken now.

  ‘Look, Mr Gabriel, I’m not saying Ben was dealing or anything like that. And Joey kept well out of it, but he was definitely concerned about Ben.’

  This was what Adam told me that sad night when little Hope lost her life. We sat in that attractive seaside restaurant, watching the smiling faces of couples all around us enjoying a sophisticated holiday dinner, all of them beautifully dressed, sipping wine and looking as if they hadn’t a care in the world, and I thought about Hope and Josie, Joey and Ben.

  I felt like a bad fairy at a christening, spreading gloom like a curse because inside I was coiled up with grief and anxiety and couldn’t bear any other parent to be lucky, to be blessed with children in perfect health, who didn’t disappear never to be seen again.

  I gave up pretending to eat and asked Adam to take me home. He paid the bill without demur, and we walked to the little car park up the road. Inside the Volvo he asked me if I would come back with him to Coombe. I was tempted, but I realised I needed to get back to Hope’s house. I wanted to be in the little cottage she had loved so much, with all its sweet Americanisms, all the Disney charms that had enchanted her. She was still alive for me there; the place was full of her girlish enchantment.

  Adam stopped the car at the top of Polperro and insisted on walking me home. We were both quiet, but relaxed together. He held my hand, and when we reached Hope Cottage he kissed me gently and said he’d see me tomorrow morning at nine fifteen, to take me to the hospital in Plymouth.

  I let myself in. I sat in Hope’s sitting room, furnished by Josie but with devoted attention to her daughter’s wishes. It was full of good taste, polished floor, high-quality rugs, beautifully upholstered furniture. And yet there were tiny Mickey and Minnie Mouse ceramic ornaments dotted around the room. Tinkerbell hovered over the fireplace. A glittering rendition of the Sleeping Beauty Castle was tucked into a corner on a blond-wood pedestal. Photographs of Hope and her parents were everywhere in silver frames. In all of them she looked happy, full of beans. Tony looked strong, capable and in charge. Josie looked beautiful, delicate, and love blazed from her face as she hugged her daughter.

  I sighed, said a prayer and went up to bed. Undressing, I remembered that Adam hadn’t had the chance to tell me how he discovered that Ben was in Cornwall. No matter. At the moment my head was full of Hope and Josie. Nothing else was important right now. Adam would no doubt tell me everything he knew tomorrow. I took a sleeping pill. Tonight I didn’t want to dream. Or if I did, I hoped for peaceful visions of Hope: walking on the beach with Josie, watching her dad building her dream cottage. How lucky and lovely for Hope to have a grown-up doll’s house designed especially for her. How many little girls would covet that? Darling Hope had enjoyed hers; she had adored her parents. She had known nothi
ng but love her whole life.

  What more can any of us ask for?

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Adam drove me to the hospital next morning. He insisted on staying in the car when we arrived. He didn’t know Josie and Tony, had never met Hope, and thought his place was solely to stay on the periphery and offer as much practical help as he could.

  I was guided to a small room next to the hospital chapel. It was cold inside, heavily refrigerated. Josie sat bent over a small hospital cot. She looked like Mary tending to the infant Jesus in his crib. Hope lay on the little bed, her beautiful red hair vivid on the pillow. Tony wasn’t there. I moved over to the cot. Josie looked up at me and half-smiled. ‘She looks peaceful, doesn’t she?’ she said. Her face was drowsy. She bent her head down to Hope again and her face nuzzled her daughter’s cheek.

  I turned away and walked to a chair at the side of the room. It was a pretty, restful place, gently decorated in shades of soft rose pink. Candles burned on small tables at either side of Hope’s bed, behind her head and at her feet. The cloth that covered her was blue and yellow, reminding me of her little cottage, the sunny doll’s house which had become my sanctuary as well as hers.

  Josie kissed her daughter one more time, then crossed the room and sat down in a chair next to mine. I held out my hand and she clasped it, squeezed it and began to talk.

  ‘She didn’t survive the operation,’ she said softly, still weeping, speaking as if she was unaware of the constant tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. To me she looked noble, full of dignity. ‘Her heart stopped on the operating table; a cardiac arrest. I think the team half expected it. They knew the odds on her pulling through this time were slight. They tried very hard to get her back. They wouldn’t give up. They did everything they could. I’m grateful for that. I know they did their best.’

  I gently let go of her hand, stood up and asked, ‘May I?’ She nodded. I walked to Hope’s bed, and looked down at her sweet, childish face. I remembered her huge smile, her happiness when she played with younger children at Emerald Point, her confidence when she showed toddlers round the farmyard, their little faces lighting up when she told them stories about the animals. Hope had loved children. She had wanted her own baby to look after, entirely sure that with her parents’ help she could have given it a happy life. I remembered the graciousness Hope had shown; the constant love that shone upon her. Her life had been short but blessed. Grace and kindness flowed around her in a benevolent loving stream. I could sense that goodness even now, surrounding her as she lay still, at the end of her life.