Close My Eyes

by Sophie McKenzie

  I look away. I didn’t see Beth because she was so deformed that Dr Rodriguez advised me not to. Her defective chromosome, Trisomy 18, had caused damage to the heart and kidneys, with massive disfiguration to the head.

  Art said at the time he wished he hadn’t seen her. I didn’t understand why, until I demanded to see the pictures in Dr Rodriguez’s file during our visit to hear the results of his post-mortem tests. The photos were clipped to a report on the birth. I wish I hadn’t seen them – but I did. I saw everything, including the way her face was twisted like melted wax.

  So I didn’t see Beth herself, but I did see the proof that she was dead.

  And Art, poor Art, he saw her for real.

  ‘What did she look like, Art?’ I say, keeping my gaze fixed on his face. ‘Our baby . . . you saw her . . . what . . . how did she look?’

  I hold my breath. We’ve never talked about Beth’s specific appearance. I mean, Dr Rodriguez told me about her disfigurement and I saw that picture of her afterwards. But Art’s always refused to tell me exactly how our baby looked – the essence of her. I watch his face harden, and even before he opens his mouth I know he’s got no intention of talking about it now, either.

  ‘I’m not going there, Gen.’ Art stands up, paces to the door then stops, his fingers clenched tightly round the handle. ‘Maybe you should call Hen again. Or Sue. Or your mum. See what they say about all of this.’

  I shake my head. I already know what Hen thinks. Hen never hides her feelings. My friend, Sue, on the other hand, will be soothing and sympathetic, then try and make me laugh. But she won’t really understand, either. Mum will dismiss my fears out of hand, even before I tell her what they’re about. She makes no attempt to hide her belief that I’ve inherited my dad’s neurotic, compulsive tendencies, ‘though at least you don’t appear to be looking for the answers to life at the bottom of a bottle.’ Plus she adores Art.

  Not that it matters. I know it’s crazy for me to doubt the past like this.

  ‘Mum’s in Australia.’ My voice breaks as I speak.

  ‘So? They have phones there, don’t they?’ Art’s tone is suddenly harsh, his breathing jagged. He strides back to the bed. His jaw is clenched. ‘Jesus Christ, I hope John Vaizey, or whoever sent that woman to lie to you, rots in hell for giving you false hope.’ He slams his hand, flat, against the wall above the bed.

  I jump, my breath catching in my throat. Art never loses his cool. He’s always absolutely in control. I stare at him, my whole body tensed. I’ve never seen him so angry. And then, as I watch – half-terrified, half-astonished – Art sinks down beside me on the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gen.’ He puts his head in his hands and, when he looks up, there are tears in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry but you have to let this go now because . . . because . . . the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was walk into that room and face you after our baby had died. And I’m not – do you hear me? – I’m not letting that moment destroy our future like it destroyed the past.’

  He stops, his chest heaving. For a moment I feel guilty. I have to keep remembering that Art lost Beth too.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

  A beat passes.

  Then Art nods, ‘Not tea though, champagne,’ he insists. I can hear him making himself sound cheerful again. ‘We’ve got things to celebrate.’

  Champagne is the last thing I want, but Art is back in ebullient mode and I know from experience it’s easier not to resist. ‘Okay, you get the bottle and some glasses,’ I say, smiling back. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

  Art raises his eyebrows, a flicker of lust in his expression. ‘No need for that,’ he says, tracing his finger across my bare shoulder.

  ‘Maybe later . . .’ I smile and pull away from him. ‘Go on downstairs. I’ll be there in a sec.’

  Art leaves. I hurry into jeans and a sweatshirt and follow him down to the kitchen. I feel disoriented from sleeping the whole afternoon away. Art has already set two champagne flutes on the table. As I stand there he pops the bottle he’s fetched and pours two glasses. He hands one to me, then raises his own.

  ‘To the future,’ he says. ‘Our future.’

  I smile again and take a tiny sip of the chilled fizz. I sit down and Art comes up behind me, sets his glass down, and starts massaging my shoulders. ‘Listen, Gen,’ he says. ‘I know it’s hard, but you have to put all the rubbish that woman said out of your mind. Let’s make today the day we start again.’

  The fading light coming through the kitchen window catches the smudges around the rims of the two champagne flutes on the table.

  Art picks up his glass again.

  ‘Do you think we should report her to the police?’ I ask.

  ‘What for?’ Art dismisses my suggestion with a flick of his hand. ‘There’s no proof. We don’t even know her real name, or where she lives.’

  I think of the scrap of paper with Lucy’s mobile number scrunched up in my coat pocket. ‘Right,’ I say.

  Art strokes my hair. ‘I think what we should do is forget she ever existed. We’ll do ICSI and you will get pregnant and we will have a baby.’ He holds his glass out towards me and grins. ‘To hope.’

  I hesitate. I know Art’s is the logical way forward but I want to believe the impossible. I want to believe that Beth is out there somewhere, waiting for me to find her. I touch my glass against his.

  ‘To hope,’ I say.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I wake with a start from a bad dream. Anxiety clutches at my chest. Something’s gone . . . something’s missing . . . Beth . . . always Beth . . .

  As the sensation fades, I grope for the clock beside my bed: 4.15 a.m. Crap. Art is snoring gently beside me. He never wakes early. He never has trouble sleeping. Most annoyingly, he never takes longer than a few minutes to fall asleep.

  I get out of bed and pad downstairs to the kitchen. I know from experience that once I’m awake at this time, I might as well get up. I switch on the kettle and fetch a mug, a tea bag and some milk.

  I’ve dreamed about Beth many times in the past few years and though I can never remember the details, I know that she grows older each time, so that she’s always the age she would have been if she’d lived.

  Maybe the age she is . . . The thought strikes me so hard I actually drop the mug I’m holding. It bounces onto the countertop with a thud that echoes loudly in the early morning air. Could I be dreaming of a real person?

  Is such a thing even possible?

  I sit down at the table, listening as the rush and hiss of the kettle coming to the boil fills the room. I rarely remember anything specific from the dreams, just a vague and fading sense of her face: once a rosy-cheeked baby, then a chubby, smiling toddler and now, almost eight years old, an olive-skinned little girl with soft brown curls, like I had when I was younger, with Art’s huge brown eyes.

  In my dreams she’s alive and she’s perfect.

  I drink my tea, go back to bed and refuse to let myself think about either Beth or Lucy O’Donnell. After a while I fall asleep again. When I wake up it’s almost nine-thirty. I can hear Lilia singing along to her iPod as she vacuums downstairs. I turn over. There’s no sign of Art. Which isn’t surprising. He’s always out the door by seven. There is a note on his pillow, however. I reach over, groggily, and pull it closer.

  Wish this was flowers. Love you, Ax

  I teach today’s class in a bit of a daze. I take four two-hour adult-education classes here at the Art & Media Institute each week – all on aspects of creative writing. It’s not well paid and, as Art pointed out the other day, it’s so part-time it’s not even really ‘a proper job.’ I’m waiting for a lift when one of the women from the class corners me. It’s Charlotte West, all designer jeans, sleek blonde ponytail and pushy sense of entitlement.

  ‘Geniver?’ Charlotte’s voice is wheedling, her accent pure Home Counties. ‘I wonder if I might have a word?’

  I scan the lifts. All three of them seem to be
stuck on the first floor so I force my mouth into a welcoming smile. ‘Sure,’ I say.

  Charlotte moves closer and I have to stop myself taking a step away from her. She’s in her early forties, I’d guess – a little older than me, though roughly the same age as most of my writing classes. She looks good for her age – slim and groomed. Today she’s teamed her trademark Calvin Klein jeans with an emerald-green boat-neck top that brings out the colour of her eyes.

  ‘How can I help?’ I continue.

  ‘I re-read Rain Heart again,’ Charlotte says, her eyes shining. ‘It’s so brilliant. Such an inspiring book.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I feel awkward and not just because Charlotte is gushing. Of my three published books, I actually think Rain Heart is the weakest. The plot – about a woman whose husband has an affair with the wife of his business partner – has more than a couple of holes, and the characters seem wooden and unconvincing to me now. Ironically, it sold better than the others. In fact, it’s the only one still in print.

  I edge away. Charlotte follows, backing me into the corner between the wall and the first lift. I get a whiff of her perfume – one of those dark, sweet, cloying scents meant for velvet dresses and expensive restaurants.

  ‘I was wondering where you got the idea from?’ Charlotte goes on.

  I sigh inwardly. This is the most common question writers get asked and, to my mind, one of the hardest to answer.

  ‘I thought perhaps the story came from real life?’ she adds.

  ‘No.’ I hesitate, wondering what to tell her. I could offer up the truth as far as I know it, that Rain Heart came from my imagination: a blend of half-thoughts and ideas filtered through a couple of newspaper articles, five minutes of overheard gossip at a bus stop and the inside track on two friends’ heartbreaks.

  And yet there’s something unsettling about the intensity of her gaze that holds me back from confiding any of this information. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte . . .’ I glance pointedly at my watch.

  ‘Oh, right . . .’ She sounds a little injured now. ‘I’m in a hurry too. If I miss my train from Paddington . . .’

  ‘I know.’ I offer her a sympathetic grimace. Charlotte has mentioned her long journey from the West Country to my creative-writing class several times before. She definitely gives off ‘the smell of burning martyr’, as Hen would say. Other members of the group are now appearing behind her. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the lift furthest away from me has reached the second floor.

  ‘Like I say, I was just curious . . .’ Charlotte pauses. She shifts her bag up onto her shoulder and I notice it’s an Orla Kiely, identical to the one Hen bought me for my last birthday.

  Across the lobby, the furthest lift away from me is opening. Students surge inside. There won’t be enough room for all of them, let alone me as well.

  ‘Okay, well, I really have to go.’

  Charlotte stares at me intently but says nothing. Her green eyes are impossible to read. For a second she seems almost angry. The lift doors close, leaving several people still outside. I glance at the two remaining lifts. The one nearest me is moving now. Third floor . . . fourth floor . . .

  ‘I’m just so fascinated by your work, Geniver,’ Charlotte says. There’s a fawning tone to her voice that sets my teeth on edge. I take a step towards the lift as it pings its arrival.

  ‘Bye, then,’ I say brightly.

  Charlotte’s face falls. She tosses her head and her blonde ponytail swishes from side to side. I feel guilty, then irritated. People are crowding around, angling for a spot in the lift as it opens. If I don’t move now I’ll miss this one too. I step inside.

  As people pile in after me, I can hear Charlotte, still outside the lift, sniff loudly.

  ‘Well, good luck with your next book,’ she says evenly.

  My face burns as two women I don’t know stare at me.

  I press the button for the ground floor. As the door closes, I wonder if Charlotte knows what she’s saying. If she knows I haven’t written anything for nearly eight years.

  Since Beth.

  I try to push this thought away and head off to meet Hen for lunch. As I reach the restaurant I pass a little girl. She’s smiling and skipping along beside her mother in a stripy school uniform, with short dark hair in two stiff bunches. I stop and turn, staring after her. A fear rises inside me. In the same way that you notice lovers in the street after you yourself have suffered a break-up, for years I’d see babies in prams and toddlers in buggies and think: ‘That’s what my Beth would look like now.’

  But I never wondered before if any of the children I notice could be my Beth.

  The fear increases inside me. I actually take a step after the little girl before trampling on my panicky thoughts. Don’t be stupid. Beth is gone. Except . . . my panic rears up again. Maybe she isn’t gone. She could be out there somewhere and you would never know, Gen.

  Oh God. I force myself to go into the restaurant. I sit down, feeling hot even though it’s cool and calm and the room is only a quarter full. I push thoughts of the little girl with her bunches out of my mind and start puzzling over that £50,000 Art paid to ‘MDO’. Who or what is MDO?

  The restaurant is starting to fill up when Hen arrives, nearly fifteen minutes late. She flies in through the door of the restaurant, her wild hair streaming behind her, her scarf trailing on the floor. She beams at the maître’d, who smiles indulgently at her and escorts her to our table.

  That’s Hen all over. Pretty and dizzy. On the surface. Underneath, she’s as sharp as a pick.

  ‘Sorry, Gen,’ Hen gasps. ‘I got held up in Cath Kidston.’

  I can’t help but smile. If there’s one sentence that sums Hen up, that’s it. Always late, and with a penchant for girly knickknacks. Until she married Rob last year, Hen never had any money yet never seemed to stop spending. I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve been in shops and she’s had her cards cut up in front of her. She frittered away most of her twenties in a succession of short-lived jobs which she only managed to hang on to for as long as she did because of her charm and her smarts. Unsuitable boyfriends were also a specialty – penniless drifters with endearing smiles and severe commitment issues. No one who knew Hen was surprised when she fell pregnant with Nat or that the father ran away as soon as he found out.

  Rob was a surprise. He’s ten years older than her, and a banker – a breed that the younger Hen would have had put up against a wall and shot. Rob is as grounded as Hen is flighty and, while I believe Hen genuinely loves him, I’m sure she enjoys his money too.

  Still, as my mother never tires of reminding me, you can never really understand anyone else’s relationship. And the truth is that Hen’s been far easier to be around for the past eighteen months, now she’s able to indulge her extravagant tastes without worrying about paying her bills.

  Hen is on top form. She doesn’t mention Lucy O’Donnell’s visit for at least half an hour. She’s full of the funny shop assistant at Cath Kidston and some quirky expressions Nathan has come up with. I try to put O’Donnell out of my mind too, though her words lurk like a shadow behind everything I think and say.

  ‘Are you okay, Gen?’ Hen asks at last, smoothing down her top. It looks expensively cut, with a low neckline and tiny seed-pearl buttons. She casts a glance at my chewed fingernails and the torn, red skin around them and I smile, knowing this is how Hen gauges my well-being.

  I tell her how upset Art got last night and then I tell her about the payment to MDO. I feel disloyal bringing it up, but it’s on my mind and I can’t hide my anxiety from Hen – she’s too sharp-eyed for that.

  ‘It was fifty thousand pounds, Hen. I mean, that’s a huge amount to go out of a personal account.’

  Hen shrugs. ‘But Art says it wasn’t personal,’ she insists. ‘Fifty grand isn’t that much in company terms. Rob’s always shifting money around different accounts. And I’m not surprised poor Art was upset after that woman coming round. Bringing all the old stuff up –
it’s going to be stressful for both of you.’

  I fall silent. Beth is the one thing I’ve always found it hard to talk to Hen about. We were pregnant at the same time, though under very different circumstances, and full of plans for how we would be mums together. Nathan was born just a week before Beth. Hen missed the funeral as a result. I know she felt bad about that, but she didn’t want to leave her baby and I couldn’t cope with seeing a newborn just then. It was hard for both of us to be apart at the very moment we needed each other the most. During the twelve months that followed we spent less time together than we had in years. Hen tried, to be fair. But I couldn’t face her and Nathan for a long time. I felt bad about that, but I know Hen understood. She certainly never held it against me.

  And yet, though it’s never been said, we both know that it’s still difficult for me to see her as a mother – or be reminded of what my own life as a mother would have been like. At least Hen understood why I needed to call myself a mum after Beth died. Most people seemed to think that made no sense – as if I didn’t really qualify for motherhood. But, to me, Beth was as real as any other baby and not to be allowed to call myself a mother seemed to deny her very existence. Stillbirth grief is like that – full of stupid little heartaches that leave you isolated and floundering. There are no memories to hold on to, no known individual with a distinctive personality to mourn, only a sense of something lost, always out of reach.

  Hen puts her hand on my arm. ‘I know it’s difficult even without some stupid woman making ludicrous claims.’ She rests her gaze on me, her normally lively, darting eyes full of sympathy. ‘Maybe it would help to look at the certificates and stuff again. Maybe you need to see them all once more to let it go.’

  I think about this on the way home. Hen’s right, maybe it would help to see all the official documents. The trouble is, I have no idea where Art put everything. Despite my search, I didn’t find anything in his office.

  It takes me ages to get home. My bus crawls along Seven Sisters Road – there has obviously been some kind of accident and all the cars are stopping to have a gawp. Once I’m back, I check out the obvious places – the cupboards in the hall and the bedroom and, of course, Art’s office, though I already know there’s nothing about Beth in there unless it’s in that locked cupboard.