The Single Mums' Mansion

by Janet Hoggarth

  That was the first time he had called me Mands since he’d left.

  *

  ‘We need to take your blood pressure,’ the nurse said in the cramped green-curtained cubicle.

  I lay on the bed, wearing a scratchy blue gown, completely naked underneath. The sheets were super starched with proper hospital corners that you could have sliced your finger on. I offered up my arm to her and she smiled benevolently at me. They all knew I was a mess, that I was in here to end my pregnancy. None of the other patients was crying silently while their erstwhile boyfriend held their hand and promised a holiday the following month in Greece.

  ‘Remember I said we could go,’ he said quietly, attempting to mitigate the tension. ‘Well, I found some bargains. I’ll forward you the emails. We can go when the kids go away with Sam.’

  Woody had returned the day after his outburst. He had been staying at Sarah and Will’s house.

  ‘Sarah said I was being an idiot. You were right, I was making it about me. I’m so sorry.’

  I sighed. Sarah said…

  ‘Please let me come tomorrow and be with you.’

  I needed a holiday. The thought of aquamarine sea tickling my toes as I drank a large glass of red wine distracted me from this constrained cubicle.

  When the doctor arrived with the anaesthetist, Woody interrupted them.

  ‘Sorry, Amanda’s terrified of needles. She’s got herself in a state about it.’

  ‘We can administer one we use for babies and children – they’re tiny. And bandage it up so you don’t see it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Hysteria bubbled unobserved below the surface, mixing readily with the triumvirate of fear, guilt and anxiety. Thoughts seesawed between the irrational and rational. I felt barely in control and, when it was time to go to theatre, fear finally freed itself from its moorings. I ululated past all the ingrown toenails and wisdom teeth extractions, fluorescent strip lights whizzing overhead like trackside houses on a fast train as the nurse tried subtly to hurry. In the ante-chamber outside the theatre, they had to hold me down.

  ‘Get Joanna,’ I heard someone say. ‘She’s good with situations like this.’

  ‘Now, what’s all this fuss?’ a kindly-looking nurse asked me. She had the most startling green eyes, laughter creases fanned out from each corner and she grabbed one of my hands in both of hers and rubbed it. Her Afro hair was braided close to her scalp with a few silver streaks ducking and weaving through the braids. ‘We need to stick the needle in, my love.’

  ‘I’m scared. What if I don’t wake up? What if God punishes me?’ Hearing myself reverentially say the word ‘God’ rather than blaspheming was a revelation in itself.

  ‘Listen here, God doesn’t punish people for things outside of their control. I know you love this baby, but it’s very sick and it will make you very sick if you carry on.’ She cleverly massaged my hand, warming it up for the needle and as soon as I nodded, she expertly inserted it while I turned away. ‘Now, that’s a good girl. Here’s the pre-med. Relaaaaax. I’ll see you on the other side.’ I gave up the fight as soon as the drugs took a hold. I even sneaked a furtive look at the bandaged cannula. This wasn’t so bad…

  ‘Enough now, Amanda. Enough crying.’ I was still in what appeared to be the ante-chamber. Joanna stood next to me holding my hand and patting it.

  ‘When’s the operation?’ I asked her, confused as to why it hadn’t happened yet.

  ‘All done.’ Joanna smiled and offered me a tissue. ‘Your man is waiting for you. We let him stay. My, he loves you, doesn’t he?’

  I nodded dumbly. ‘You mean it’s over? I can go home?’

  ‘In a bit.’ I blew my nose loudly and Joanna took the used tissue from me.

  ‘Thank you, Joanna. I’m sorry for crying.’

  ‘No worries. You look after yourself. You’re going to be all right, you know?’

  Angels walk among us, I thought.

  *

  I gingerly held the official piece of paper in my hand, staring at it, not seeing it, but knowing it was there. Decree Absolute. Another ending in less than one week. I sat slumped on the floor in Sam’s office, recently optioned as the new nursery, watching the relentless rain sheet down outside. Jacqui and Ali had sweetly cut the grass and tidied up some of the garden when I was sleeping off the anaesthetic.

  ‘Where are you? Are you OK?’ Ali cried as she searched for me after returning from the shops. ‘I got you some Reese’s peanut things that you like.’ I had left the office door open so she eventually found me. ‘Oh, you’re here. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m divorced.’

  ‘Fuck. Oh, what timing.’ She kneeled down and kissed my cheek. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know. So much to take in.’ My mobile rang in my pocket. It was Michelle, my lawyer.

  ‘Have you got the paperwork?’ she asked eagerly. ‘You’re free! You can be a bit more blasé about the baby now.’

  ‘I lost the baby. It was sick and had to go. I had a termination four days ago.’

  ‘Oh, Amanda. Oh, I had no idea. I am so so so sorry. That’s awful.’

  ‘I know…’ And then the full force of it all hit with a brutality that maybe I had been putting off since the hospital. ‘I didn’t think I would feel like this, but I feel worse than when he left.’

  Ali retreated to sit on the bed.

  ‘You lost your baby as well as your marriage. I hope you recover soon.’ I couldn’t speak I was crying so hard. I felt like I had fallen down a well with no rope. Michelle said some kind things and let me go with a promise to ring when things had plateaued.

  ‘Ali, I feel like someone died. How can it hurt so bad?’ Ali re-joined me on the floor.

  ‘Oh, Mands, someone did die.’

  ‘Is this what it felt like when your dad died?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some days it’s OK and some days it floors me and I don’t want to get out of bed. But I do. I don’t know how Mum carries on.’

  ‘I feel like I will never be happy. Like this will always hurt.’

  ‘It’s everything. You got divorced and lost a baby – two of life’s most stressful events. It was never going to be a picnic.’

  Woody had bombarded me with emails about our Greek getaway, and I couldn’t even open them. Every time I conjured up tentative thoughts about being on holiday, I always imagined I was there alone.

  That afternoon, when everyone was back from school and nursery, I sat in Isla’s room with her and Meg and attempted to read a story but had to lie on her bed and cry. Isla lay next to me and Meg stroked my hair and cried softly alongside my own grief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I kept saying over and over again.

  ‘It’s OK, Mummy. We’re here,’ Isla soothed me. I heard the door go and footsteps pad up the stairs. Woody appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Mummy’s divorce happened today,’ Isla explained seriously. ‘She’s sad.’

  ‘I can see that, but sitting here crying with you two isn’t a great idea, is it?’

  Isla and Meg looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘I’ll be downstairs.’ He sounded annoyed.

  Woody was chatting to Ali and drinking tea when I ventured into the kitchen.

  ‘What did you mean just then?’ I asked him, trying hard to keep irritation out of my voice.

  ‘About you crying?’ I nodded. ‘Well, it’s not good practice, is it, to unload like that on the kids? Upsetting them, too.’ Ali took her tea and wandered tactfully out to the living room, leaving us alone.

  ‘I’m sorry for being human and wanting to be with my girls when I feel desperate and the lowest I’ve felt for years.’ I could feel anger rushing in my ears. Battened-down words determined to escape queued up at the base of my throat.

  ‘Look, I thought I could make a start on the hallway for you this week, get rid of the wallpaper you hate so much. I did promise I would do it when I decorated the baby’s room. I can stil
l do it. Refresh the house for you…’

  ‘No, Woody, I want to leave the hallway as it is.’

  ‘But you hate it. You’re always moaning about it, saying what an eyesore it is. I could get a nice soothing colour from work. It would look—’

  ‘No! This has come to the end of the road, hasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Us. I think we should end it. I don’t see the point. I feel different and need to be on my own.’

  ‘Can’t we work it out? You’re just feeling awful ’cos of the baby and the divorce at the same time. It’s understandable.’

  ‘No. I feel strongly that I need to be on my own. I haven’t got the space in my head to consider another person at the moment.’

  ‘Wow. You’re being so harsh.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m being honest. If you really thought about it, you’d agree. It would have burned out.’

  ‘I disagree. I’ve never felt like this before.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t feel the same way.’ I stared at him. I couldn’t bear him being anywhere near me. He tried to grab my hand and I pulled it away in revulsion, my skin practically recoiling at the thought of it.

  ‘Is it because I got so wasted at Dara’s party? I was just so freaked out about being a dad, something I had never thought would happen.’

  ‘Part of it. Other stuff, too. I’m different, that’s the only way I can explain.’

  ‘If the baby had been OK, would this be happening?’

  I shrugged. I knew the right answer, but felt the truth was possibly too punitive.

  ‘OK. I’m going. I can’t believe you’re doing this.’

  Really? I wanted to ask. You had no idea I had disappeared from view? I thought it had been obvious. I’d not physically touched him since the morning I woke after the abortion, not even by accident.

  ‘You’ll regret it!’ he maligned angrily from the hall. ‘You’ll be alone for ever if you push everyone away.’

  Just for today I will be kind to every living thing…

  When the front door finally slammed, Ali bolted back into the kitchen.

  ‘Did you just bin him?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What a mad day! Are you OK?’

  ‘Weirdly, I don’t feel as dreadful as I did earlier. I know I’m being selfish, but I want to be free. There’s no tie to him any more.’

  ‘You’re not being selfish. If you don’t want to be with him then you don’t have to. How was he?’

  ‘Sad, angry. He’ll get over it if he doesn’t go on a bender and start behaving like a total twat again. I think he could do with some therapy, but I know he won’t have any.’

  Was this how Sam had felt when he left me? After all, according to him, he had lived in misery for at least two years. He must have been practically giddy with glee at the thought of never having to play at being my dutiful husband ever again.

  I wandered out into the hall and surveyed the supposedly repugnant wallpaper. Startlingly, it appeared less offensive today. Perhaps my tired eyes couldn’t summon the energy required to process such brash colours and whirling-dervish flowers and leaves. I rubbed it with my fingers and for the first time really appreciated the high quality of the finish. There wasn’t one scratch or nick because the paper was so luxuriously thick, and you couldn’t see the joins between the different rolls. Only a master craftsman could cover the walls so effortlessly that the jungle assumed a life of its own, curling round the heart of the house like the protective briar forest in The Sleeping Beauty.

  ‘You know what, I’ve always liked your loud wallpaper,’ Ali said, giving me a hug as I stood staring at the wall, feasting my eyes on it. ‘The chandeliers really do complement it and all the cornicing and ceiling roses just add to the charm. It’s a talking point. I think all you need to buy is a carpet runner and the hallway will be complete. The same cream as one of the flowers.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I hugged her back. ‘Maybe get rid of the shit-coloured stair carpet, though.’

  ‘Oh God, yeah, that has to go!’

  *

  I could hear something hitting my window. Sunlight filtered through the slats in the shutters. I checked my alarm clock – six a.m. There it was again. It sounded like a bird pecking the glass with its beak. I rammed the pillow over my head but the noise persisted, knocking its way into my brain so it was all I could hear. Reluctantly peeling back the duvet, I eased myself upright and pushed open the shutters whilst sitting on the edge of the bed. Woody stood in the front garden. He motioned for me to let him in. I shook my head and slid open the window instead.

  ‘Mands, I’ve not been to bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I don’t want to split up. I’ve been thinking and thinking all night. We can make it work.’ He started chewing his mouth and he couldn’t quite control his jaw.

  ‘Woody, you’re wasted. I think you should go.’

  ‘I love you, Amanda.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel like this. Sonny has just woken up; I need to go. Please don’t do this again.’

  His hands flapped uselessly at his sides and his face searched mine for an answer. I closed the window and shutters on him, extremely aware that I was the one dealing out the pain and, even though I knew how it felt to be the receiver, it didn’t sway me for one second. There was no other option. I lay back on top of the duvet and did something I had not done for ages. I asked myself what was there, in my body, what emotions or feelings.

  First up was sadness, then grief, then guilt, then finally, just before Sonny did come in, I felt peace. Just plain, old-fashioned peace. The kind that reigns after a particularly violent storm has left the landscape bruised and torn, with trees uprooted and roof tiles strewn like shaken blossom. It’s only after such a tumultuous battering that you really appreciate the tranquillity, the gentle hum of life and the birds finally tweeting again, celebrating their very existence.

  26

  Greece Is the Word

  ‘I hate him!’ Jacqui cried heatedly, sobbing into her warm sauvignon blanc, tears sliding off her chin and into the glass. ‘How can he do this so soon?’

  Ali and I sat impotently with her in our back garden on the dilapidated taped-together camping chairs the week after Woody’s departure, vainly trying to make the most of the dwindling sun before it swooped behind the chimney pots. The grass was already in need of a cut and, so far, no one had volunteered.

  Ginger loved the garden and, now he was allowed out, he could often be found shading himself under the sprawling acer tree or sunbathing on one of the patio benches, stretched out like a fur rug. Once or twice I had been ceremoniously delivered an offering of a dead mouse. He had picked me out to be the chief cat, though Meg was his favourite.

  ‘He’s rushing into it,’ Ali soothed. ‘She must be pregnant.’

  ‘I think she is pregnant,’ I pointed out. ‘Either that, or they want a baby very soon and she ain’t getting any younger.’

  ‘Or what if it’s actually because he loves her more than anything ever in his entire life and cannot wait to get married again, this time to the right person.’ Jacqui burst into fresh tears.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time before Sam marries Carrie. They already have a baby, so I imagine a wedding is on the cards. It’s going to happen to all of us and it’s awful. We may not want them back, but it’s the final shutting of the door.’

  ‘I know, it’s a shock they’re engaged, but I think the fact that they’re doing it in a month’s time is more upsetting. Like he can’t wait to let the kids get used to it. I know my feelings don’t matter to him, but the kids?’

  ‘He will just expect them to get over it, like he expected you to!’ Ali said crossly.

  ‘Leaving me to tidy up his mess again,’ Jacqui groaned. ‘It’s the gift that keeps on giving.’

  ‘We should do something, commiserate,’ I proposed brightly, waving my glass round in the air to add a sense of occasion. ‘Get shitted. An ant
i-wedding celebration.’

  ‘How about a better idea? An anti-honeymoon?’ Jacqui outplayed me, smiling through her tears.

  *

  ‘Oh Gawd, this is our room?’ Jacqui laughed nervously. When we’d arrived via a dusty cab from Kefalonia airport we had been instructed to go to room eleven by a very young girl who was obviously bored sitting at reception. Our home for the week was a traditional white-washed, two-storey guesthouse with maid service. From the outside it resembled someone’s home with a beautifully tended garden, starbursts of different brightly coloured geraniums shooting out either side of the terracotta-tiled steps leading up to the reception area. Electric-pink clematis writhed its way across the walls and spread as far as the roof, curling round windows, complementing the deep blue wooden doors and window frames. The scents of lavender and rosemary growing in the clay pots dotted on the steps mingled in the warm breeze. The corridors and stairs were open to the elements but the guidebook had said the area was so safe that no one ever locked their doors. I found this to be true when we had approached the open door of our room without a key, which lay trustingly in the centre of one of the twin beds.

  ‘Well, what were you expecting?’ I asked Jacqui happily: drinking in the orange terracotta-tiled floors, the tiny windowless bathroom on the left as we entered, the twin beds with the ubiquitous satin-edged blue blankets and sheets instead of a duvet – a mini blue table separating them – a wooden wardrobe and dressing table with a mirror, and adjacent to the bathroom wall, a Barbie-sized kitchen complete with a hot plate and utilitarian fridge. It was all I could afford from my carefully hidden rent account that Ali paid into. It had been last minute and dirt cheap. Jacqui had offered to pay for both of us to stay in more salubrious surroundings, but I had refused.

  ‘For it to be a little bit bigger. For it not to be so basic. It’s like the place I came with Tara when we were students.’

  ‘All right, Princess Jacqui! We’re just sleeping here. Chill – we have a balcony. Look, why don’t we go and see what the other room is like next door; it’s open too. It’s on the corner of the building so it might be bigger?’