by Jill Childs
I crayoned slowly alongside you, struggling to concentrate. My chest was tight. I was weighed down by thoughts of Ella and baby Catherine and the sadness of what happened to them. Life seemed suddenly so fragile, so unpredictable, that I couldn’t quite believe you had survived and were here with me now, and couldn’t bear to think how barren my life would be without you.
All I wanted, as I made my careful strokes within the lines and let your chatter fill the silence, was to fold my arms round you and hold you close. I realised how angry I’d been. Angry with Richard for abandoning us and angry with Ella for stealing him away and frightened too that she wanted to take you next and then maybe even Matt. The people I loved most.
Now the anger fell away and I was left limp and exhausted and had to bite my lip to stop myself breaking down and sobbing in front of you. Ella had suffered, suffered much more than I had, suffered grief I couldn’t imagine.
Forty-Six
Ella
I know exactly what she did. I heard her running across the landing, away from our room, as I came up the stairs. It was obvious the minute I saw her there beside Gracie, flushed with guilt, pretending they were calmly playing together, when her chest was still heaving. She’s a terrible liar. An amateur.
I didn’t bother talking to Richard about it. He’d never believe me. He doesn’t have a prying, malicious cell in his body. But she and I are more alike than she cares to admit. Funny that, isn’t it?
That drawer sticks. It’s easy to open but there’s a knack to closing it and it wasn’t properly shut when I went to look. And inside, my mother’s old handkerchiefs and her jewellery lay jumbled in a heap. I would never leave them like that. And Catherine’s pictures shoved in their file in the wrong order. No one has the right to touch those. No one in the world, apart from me.
I know she hates me. I know she blames me for taking Richard from her. I understand that, however wrong she is. But she’s gone beyond that now. She’s become like him. Obsessive. Vengeful. He does that to people. Something terrible happens and they have to blame someone. To punish them. It’s how they make sense of things, even if the truth is, it’s no one’s fault. The car crash? She needs it to be my fault, another reason to hate me.
And what happened to little Catherine? He always needed to lay that on me, heaping it on top of all the other hurt until I nearly suffocated. Now he’s filled her mind with poison too.
Good luck to them both. All I ever wanted was for him to leave me alone, to take his grief out of my sight and leave me to deal with mine. I have dealt with it. I may not be whole but I’m still here. We’re all just trying to survive at the end of the day.
I knew it was him. I knew as soon as Richard told me that she’d met a man at the hospital who was suddenly part of her life. Oh yes. I didn’t need to hear the name.
I know what he does. I hear about it all the time from friends and from my mother who refuses to end her friendship with his. I know he asks about me obsessively. He asks about Richard. He stalks us both. He has so little in his life. He can’t let go of mine.
So of course he found out at once about the accident, about poor little Gracie, about Jen, the wronged wife, suddenly vulnerable and alone at the hospital. She fell right into his lap.
That’s why he was hanging around the ward, walking the corridors, looking for us all. That’s why he just happened to bump into her and befriend the suffering, needy mum. And she lapped it up, just as he hoped.
And then I saw him at DDs. It’s not the first time he’s gone there looking for me on a Saturday night. He knows it’s my favourite club. I took him there myself, once upon a time. And so he takes her there to find me, to show me what he’s doing. Pathetic, really.
I’ve thought a lot over the years about what happened with us. I’ve wondered, in the middle of the night, what on earth attracted me to him in the first place. I think back to my mother and the black hole inside her that I tried endlessly to fill. Maybe I saw something of her in him, thought he was someone I could finally fix, if I only loved him enough. Maybe I even liked his neediness at first, his fragility. Maybe he made me feel wanted. I don’t know.
I was a mess for a while. That wasn’t all his fault. Grief plays strange tricks on people. It warps their hearts. You know that children’s story about the magic mirror? The one that smashes into fragments which lodge in people’s eyes, in people’s hearts, so they see and feel only ugliness in the world, only evil in the people around them? That’s how it felt. For a long time. Until Richard came along.
I forgive him most things. The craziness. The stalking. The endless phone calls, even that string of abusive calls on the day of the accident, the ones that nearly cost little Gracie her life. I take responsibility for that. He can’t help who he is, not really, and I should never have let it go on like it did.
But there’s one thing I struggle to forgive. Why he took her to Venice. That wasn’t for her benefit, it was for mine. I felt it. A message to me. A new way to hurt me. A cruel way of trying to force me to remember. As if I could ever forget.
* * *
I was nearly eight months pregnant when we went. It was our last holiday before Catherine came and my very last chance to fly. We stayed in a small family hotel in the backstreets, all we could afford. Matt charmed La Patrona with his good looks and his smattering of Italian and she doted on me as only an Italian Mama can care for a woman about to give birth to her first child.
By dusk, once the tour groups headed back to their hotels, we had Venice to ourselves. One evening, we strolled through to Piazza San Marco in the fading light and treated ourselves to drinks in one of the over-priced cafés there, right on the Piazza. I sipped ice-cold freshly squeezed orange juice, one hand on my rounded stomach, and watched the lengthening shadows as Catherine stirred and kicked inside me. Matt was fussing beside me, warning me about the heat, the mosquitoes and who knew what other dangers he feared.
I didn’t even care. The last fingers of sunlight set fire to the gilded façade of the Basilica and it was so magical, so serene, and I loved that little girl, teeming with life inside me, with such passion that I was filled with hope. Maybe it was possible. Maybe, despite everything, despite my mother and Matt and all their unhappiness, maybe I could be happy, after all.
The following day, we took the vaporetto out to the islands. We had lunch in Burano, with its multi-coloured houses and cafés and shops piled with lace. I bought a tiny lace-trimmed bonnet for Catherine. I still have it. It’s the one she’s wearing in the photograph, as she lies, so small and so still, in her Moses basket.
And then to Torcello. I’d read about the cathedral and the amazing view from the tower. He said it was too much for me, I’d be tired. I wouldn’t listen. So I paid my extra lira and headed up there. It wasn’t such a steep climb after all. And the view was stunning. It was a clear day and I could see right across the Lagoon. The great dome of Santa Maria della Salute. The Campanile in St Mark’s.
There was a breeze up there and I stood against the wire mesh with my eyes closed, feeling its fingers cool and refreshing on my face after the stickiness of the walk below. It was timeless. Sometimes now, when I need to escape, I close my eyes and feel myself there again, the salty air on my cheeks, alone on the deserted tower, my beautiful baby girl safe and well inside me, high above the world.
It happened on the way down. I don’t know how. I was about two-thirds of the way to the ground. My legs were tired and perhaps Catherine’s weight unbalanced me too, pitched me forward. The sheer rounded bulk of my stomach made it impossible to see where I was placing my feet.
One moment I’m coming steadily down the steps. The next, I’m stumbling and falling forward into nothingness, my hands flung wide, scraping the smooth, curved walls as I pitch past, crashing and bouncing helplessly down towards the bottom. I don’t even have time to scream. I fall with such dreadful suspension – the moment stretching forever – and yet with such speed that I’m powerless to save myself. To save
her.
He finds me close to the bottom of the steps, curled round in a heap. My hands and one leg are bloodied, my face bruised. When I finally hobble in to the hotel that evening, limping and half-carried by Matt, La Patrona makes the sign of the cross on her breast and kisses the crucifix round her neck.
She and Matt huddle in a corner and I know they’re discussing me. The fact he wants to rush me to a local hospital and I won’t go. It’s something else he holds against me, later. I’m not bleeding. I’m not in pain. Whatever’s happened, I don’t see how they can help. I want rest, that’s all. I want to believe there’s still hope.
So I lie awake all night, my hands spread across my stomach, trying to protect her, to heal her with my love. Please God, let her be alright. Please God. I’ll do anything. I don’t feel a single kick.
We took the first flight back to London the following morning and went by taxi from the airport straight to the hospital. Nothing they could do. Too late. No heartbeat.
They gave me injections and we had a desperate, endless wait until the contractions started and by afternoon, I was in labour. I suffered all that pain to deliver a baby girl who was perfect in every way apart from one small detail. She was born sleeping.
She was beautiful, you see. My Catherine Louise. Even now, there isn’t a day I don’t think about her. Perhaps not even an hour. And every night, every single night, I go to sleep praying to have that dream.
The dream where I’m holding Catherine in my arms and she’s so beautiful and she opens her tiny blue eyes and looks up at me and she’s alive, she’s breathing and it was all a mistake, a terrible mistake. I live for that dream. Even now.
Then I wake up and it’s one more day without her. One more day alone, without my angel, sleeping in my arms.
Forty-Seven
Jennifer
I hardly slept that night. The bed seemed to shift and pitch. Nothing made sense. I’d made terrible mistakes, I saw that now, but I was left adrift, confused about all that had happened and what to believe. All I could think was that Geoff had lied to Matt, fed him nonsense about Ella. I longed to see Matt, to feel him hold me and comfort me and talk all this through with me, so we could work out the truth together.
On Monday, I took you to nursery and then drove around, not sure where I was going. The day stretched ahead without purpose. When I tried to call Matt, his phone went to voicemail. He’d been on late shift the day before but he should be home by now, pottering and having a shower before he made up some sleep.
I pulled into a garage, filled up with petrol and bought a coffee. Afterwards, I parked at the edge of the forecourt, sipping it and trying to decide what to do.
My hands shook. All I wanted was to be with Matt, to be held so tightly that I felt safe from all this, from Ella’s grief and your strange stories and my own sense of loneliness. I imagined him in his tiny flat, close to the Tube station, and had a longing to be there with him, to talk, to crawl into bed and hide away together. I finished my coffee and punched the name of the Tube station into the satnav.
He always made fun of his little flat in central London, about what a postage stamp it was and the fact that two of us would have trouble squeezing inside at the same time. I didn’t care. He’d turned up on my doorstep plenty of times without warning. I didn’t see why I couldn’t do the same.
I drove in to the city centre, guided by the satnav, and finally found the entrance to the Tube and the private, leafy square just across from it. It looked different in daylight. The restaurant where we’d first met for dinner was closed and silent. It all seemed a long time ago. A very different time.
I turned into the square. The pavements here were almost deserted. Many of the Georgian houses had brass plates on the doors, suggesting corporate offices or embassies. It was a warm day and I lowered the window as I crawled along, looking for somewhere to park. The outside air smelt of blossom and mown grass.
I finally found a metered space for the car and set off on foot towards the narrow side street he’d pointed out to me that night. I wasn’t sure how I’d find the right block but in fact, there was only one contender, a grand Victorian mansion block, hidden just off a street crammed with bistros, sandwich shops and offices. The entrance was set in a horseshoe round an ornamental garden and a small, spouting fountain with a stone bowl.
I stood by the water and ran my eyes across the array of flats in the three-storey block. Flat number twenty-two, he’d said. Easy to remember because it was the same as your birthday. The windows were still and dark. Many were concealed by curtains or blinds. I felt a sudden chill, wondering where Matt was and how he’d react when I appeared at his door.
The stone doorway was secured by a glass door. I put my face to it and cupped my hands until I could make out, through the reflection, a dimly lit lobby. A bank of metal postal boxes covered a side wall, most of them leaking flyers. In the centre, there was a polished wooden table with a large display of dried flowers. Ahead, up several carpeted steps, the metal shine of two lifts. The whole block had a hushed, opulent look.
I tried to imagine Matt, in his expensive coat, crossing the lobby and smiled to myself. I had a sudden sense of him lying close to me, in fresh cotton sheets in a modern apartment, all glass and chrome. He would stumble to the door in a dressing gown, bed-warm and drowsy, his face prickly with overnight stubble and open his arms to me to go inside and join him.
One of the lift doors swished open and a young man stepped out. A city type in a dark suit, a mac in the crook of his arm. The young man paused to check his mailbox, then held open the door for me to go inside.
I crossed to the lifts, feeling like an intruder. The second-floor landing had the same deep pile carpet as the lobby. I counted down the brass numbers on the doors. The landing was empty. All the doors looked identical.
I lifted the brass knocker on number twenty-two. The clatter made me jump. My pulse beat in my ears as I waited, listening. I had the same anxious flutter I once felt as a teenager when I hung round the school stairwell, hoping to catch sight of Jimmy Brent and his friends. Silence.
Behind me, the lift purred as it slid down its shaft.
A key rattled in a neighbouring door, then, again, silence. I got out my phone, dialled Matt’s number and stood close to the door in the hope of hearing it ring inside. Nothing. It clicked straight to voicemail.
I lifted the knocker, banged it again, a little harder. Waited. I was deflated, embarrassed. Perhaps he was still at work.
I was turning away when the door suddenly opened, just a matter of inches, held in place by a metal safety chain. A woman peered through the narrow gap, her eyes suspicious. She was in late middle age, her cheeks floury with powder, her lips an unfashionable red.
‘Hello.’ I straightened up, smiled. ‘I’ve come to see Matt. I’m Jennifer.’
‘No man. Please.’ She had a strong foreign accent and made to shut the door in my face. I stopped it with my foot, wondering if she’d understood.
‘Doctor Aster? He works at Queen Mary’s Hospital.’
She shook her head. ‘No hospital.’
I tried to peer past her into the flat. I’d envisaged a stark modern interior, all black and grey and cream with few home comforts. My stereotypical idea of a bachelor’s pad. This hallway was hectic with polished wooden furniture and knick-knacks. A large ceramic pot against the wall bristled with walking sticks and umbrellas. The wall above was crammed with three rows of framed pictures of all sizes, watercolours and photographs competing for space. A walking frame stood, partially folded, underneath.
‘Please—’ I began.
‘No. You please.’ The woman kicked away my foot with unexpected force and the door slammed. I stood for a moment, stunned, my heart thumping.
I stood, staring at the closed door in disbelief. I was certain he’d said flat twenty-two, the same as the door in front of me. Was I in the wrong block? Or the wrong street? I didn’t see how I could be.
I was ju
st reaching home when my phone rang and I stopped at the side of the road.
Matt’s voice was breathy. ‘Are you OK?’
I shrugged, looking out at the traffic. ‘Well, not really.’
‘I’m so sorry. Only just got your messages. Had my phone switched off. Been a night and a half.’
He sounded tired. I felt a bit better, just hearing his voice.
‘Where are you?’ I wondered for a moment about turning round and driving back. I wanted so much to see him, to be held.
‘Still at the hospital. Won’t bore you but it’s been non-stop. Going to grab a shower and then sleep here.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Matt, is someone staying in your flat?’
A couple of teenage boys trundled past on skateboards, shouting to each other. Their wheels drummed on the cobbles, drowning out his reply.
‘Didn’t hear you.’ He sounded distant, as if he’d moved away from the phone. ‘In the flat? Hope not. Unless I’ve got squatters. Why?’
I opened my mouth to say more, then closed it again.
‘Has something happened?’ He sounded concerned.
I tried to picture him in the hospital accommodation block, crawling exhausted into bed in some anonymous bedroom on a shabby corridor.
‘Yes. I mean—’ I didn’t know where to start. ‘I really miss you.’
‘I miss you too. Sorry. I’d come over but—’ A crackle on the line. ‘Love you.’
I hesitated. ‘You too.’
* * *
The house was empty with you at nursery. I went into your room and sat in the armchair with your bear in my arms, looking at your bed, trying to calm myself. Downstairs, I put the kettle on and stood against the kitchen counter with a cup of tea I didn’t really want, looking out at the sunlight falling in shafts across the overgrown yard.
