by Liz Trenow
Of course I was put on the red list then: the strong clothes, the padded cell, knock-out injections every twelve hours. They won’t let you die, oh no, that’d be too easy. They just let you live in despair, instead.
She sighs wearily, and a long pause follows.
It’s a sad old business, remembering those times, dearie. There’s a good bit more to tell, the most important events still to come. But I’m getting tired now, can we call it a day?
‘Of course.’
The tape clicks off.
Patsy Morton research diary, 10th June 1970
Phone call from Dr Watts’s secretary, he wanted to see me urgently.
Took the bus (two changes, what a nightmare!) back to the Hall again to meet him and his face was like thunder. He’s somehow found out I’ve been interviewing M. when he had expressly recommended (his words) that she was an unsuitable research subject on account of her persistent inability to accept that what she recalls of her ‘life events’ is almost entirely delusional, with no basis in reality.
Tried to reassure him I fully understood that mental patients, even those that have been out in the community for years like M, may not be the most reliable witnesses, that this would be taken fully into account in my analysis, etc. etc., and suggested that if he had any concerns about my research methodologies, he might like to talk to the Prof again. He growled that it would not be necessary if in future I followed his advice.
Did more transcriptions this evening and listening to M made me sad all over again. It’s almost impossible to separate the truth from fantasy because she believes every word she’s saying – and I can see that she feels it, too – genuinely, with every part of her being, poor love. It’s emotional stuff, and none of it really relevant to my research, but I can’t resist her.
I can’t expect her friend’s son to drive her all the way up to Eastchester again, so have arranged to visit her in London next week. Must warn Prof that Dr Watts may be in touch again.
Chapter Ten
London, 2008
Had I been going to work each day as usual, I would have been keeping closer track of my dates, and how long had passed since the last time, but these days my appointments were so few that I rarely needed to consult the calendar on my phone. In all the mayhem of recent days, I had missed something glaringly obvious.
It was in the middle of a call to Jo, pouring out my woes: the theft of the quilt and my guilt about Mum, when I had to run to the bathroom.
‘What was all that about?’ she asked, when I called her back.
‘Still got a bit of a tummy upset. Must be coming down with something.’
‘Still? Are you being sick all the time?’
‘Isn’t that too much information, first thing on a Sunday morning?’
‘So you have been sick?’
‘Yup. Since you ask so sweetly.’
‘It’s the morning, and you’re being sick? Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘Oh, Christ …’ was all I managed, before dashing to the bathroom again.
She was horribly right, of course. I checked the dates: four weeks since Russ and I drunkenly ended up in bed on New Year’s Eve, six weeks since my last period. When we split up I’d gone off the pill, of course, to give my body a break from the daily hormone drench. Whoever said that getting older means getting wiser was deluded. It certainly doesn’t seem to have had that effect on me.
As the pretty double blue line lit up inside the plastic tube I burst into tears. ‘You stupid bloody idiot,’ I screamed out loud, throwing the tube across the bathroom. It hit the door and fell to the floor, its contents leaking out, but I didn’t care. ‘How could you get your life so wrong?’
I collapsed onto the sofa and howled: loud wails shaking my shoulders, sodden tears gushing out, snot streaming from my nose. After a while I was sick again and afterwards, rinsing my face, looked up into the bathroom mirror at an apparition I barely recognised: a haggard crone with bloodshot eyes and a nose red and raw from wiping.
‘Pull yourself together,’ I said to myself, hearing the echo of Granny’s voice. After nibbling gingerly at another piece of dried toast and sipping some water, the sickness began to pass.
I texted Jo: You were right. Aargh. What the hell am I going to do?
Her reply was almost instant: Hang on in there – whatever happens I’m here for you. I’ll come straight from work. Love you loads xox
Although my mind was already whirring ahead to the abortion clinic, out of nowhere an alternative choice seemed to present itself. At thirty-eight, this could be my last chance of motherhood. What if I kept the baby and co-parented it with Russell? At the very least he ought to be given the option. I gazed around the flat with new eyes, imagining toys on the floor, the spare room decorated in pastel colours with a cot and changing table.
Running my own business would allow me to work flexibly and have time to spend with my daughter – as I already thought of her. Through my newly acquired rose-tinted vision everything seemed perfectly possible. My body seemed to relax and become unusually at ease. Lots of women bring up children on their own these days, I told myself, making another piece of toast.
But reality soon reasserted itself. What an insane idea – must be the hormones. I was grasping at straws, desperate for something good to happen. With a resigned sigh, I dialled the number of the abortion clinic.
The receptionist was clearly experienced in dealing with telephone calls from panicky and indecisive pregnant women. In a smooth, reassuring voice she told me what would happen: an initial assessment and discussion with a counsellor, a scan to confirm my dates plus a few other tests, after which I could attend for the ‘procedure’, in a week’s time, if that is what I decided to do.
My head was spinning with conflicting emotions. Termination was the obvious route, quick and clinical, but what if I took no action and let nature take its course? Chocolate box visions reappeared: of me as the serene mother, cradling a contented, rosy-cheeked baby in my arms.
‘I’ve decided to keep it,’ I told Jo that evening.
‘Whoa! That’s quite a decision.’
It was enough to set me off again. ‘Oh God, I just don’t know what to do,’ I wailed. ‘I’ll be forty in a few years. I might never get the chance again.’
‘You’ve had such a crappy few weeks.’ She unwrapped a box of luxury Belgian chocolates and handed them to me. ‘But you need to take your time and not jump into drastic decisions.’
‘But I have to decide. I’ve got an appointment at a clinic tomorrow and then I need to make up my mind before next week.’
‘Okay, let’s write down the pros and cons,’ she said. After ten minutes, we had two columns on the back of an envelope:
PROS CONS
Want a baby No partner, no job
Might be too late to try again My life is a mess already without more chaos
Want someone to love Baby will make it harder to find perfect man
Russ’s baby – good genes Links me to Russell for ever
Could work flexibly How will I work with a baby around?
Ummm … Flat has too many stairs for buggy, etc
Expense of having baby, childcare, etc
Exhaustion of being a single mum
‘So you’re right. We have scientifically and conclusively proved that having a baby right now, without a partner, is a stupid idea,’ I said, at last. ‘But it doesn’t stop me feeling sad and broody.’
She hugged me again. ‘Of course you’re upset at the moment and your hormones are all over the shop. See how it goes tomorrow, and then ring me. Promise?’
Monday dawned grey and cold, and it matched my mood perfectly. En route to the clinic, every woman I passed – and even some men – seemed to be pushing a buggy or clinging to the hand of a small child. It was like being hit in the stomach, time and time again, each one an aching reminder of what I might be sacrificing.
I hung around outside for several minutes,
shivering with miserable apprehension, knowing that by the time I emerged my fate would probably be decided. When it became too cold to linger any longer and I was starting to attract curious glances, I took a deep breath and went in. The receptionist handed me a small booklet entitled Unwanted pregnancy, your choices, and showed me into the waiting room.
In the corner, by a dusty dried flower arrangement, a teenager nervously chewed her fingernails and, on the other side, an older woman sat utterly still with her eyes shut, as if trying to deny that she was even in this place. I understood how she felt: I would rather be anywhere than here, and even now my thoughts veered wildly between rosy imaginings of loving motherhood and an altogether more alarming vision involving scalpels and the stark white severity of an operating theatre.
To distract myself I flicked through the random titles of dog-eared magazines: Angling World, Vogue, True Life Tales, and a medical journal called Gynaecology Update. I would have preferred to read any of these instead of the booklet, but after a few moments I pulled myself together and opened it. The matter-of-fact language and simple line drawings were reassuring: it’s a staged process and this is just a preliminary assessment, I told myself firmly. Call it a fact-finding mission.
I emerged from the consultation even more paralysed by the choices I’d been given. But I still had a whole week, even more if necessary, to decide.
The days dragged slowly by. I spent hours on the phone gnawing Jo’s ear off and changed my mind every hour. I ate little else but dry toast and tried to stop myself from falling into a mire of self-pity. ‘It’ll turn out right in the end,’ Granny used to say, and I found myself repeating it to myself like a mantra, whenever I began to feel too defeated. I even went out to meet friends – keeping my secret firmly to myself, of course.
I made calls to Holmfield every other day. Mum was doing fine, the matron said, but probably best not to speak to her on the telephone just yet. She was still a bit confused as the result of the fire and the move. I promised I would visit next week and tried not to worry.
Meanwhile, though my heart really wasn’t in it, I started trying to write a business strategy and launch plan for my interior design consultancy.
The finance bit I could learn about, or get advice on, but what I really needed was an interesting, unusual and preferably unique design idea, a vision which would help my pitch stand out from the crowd. My imagination seemed to have gone into hibernation, suffocated into an early grave by those long years at the bank. Perhaps, I wondered at my worst moments, it never really existed in the first place? As a student, I had received praise and even won prizes for originality, emerging with a first-class degree and tutors convinced that I had a bright future ahead of me. Now, all that confidence had evaporated. Talking to friends in the business was even more depressing – all seemed to agree that the industry was going through a terrible time, struggling with overseas competition.
Desperate to kick-start my imagination, I bought every interior design magazine on the shelves and browsed the web pages of all the top companies. I dug out sketch pads, my pens and paints, and set up a studio at the dining room table. There I sat, for hours, looking out of the window and doodling ideas. They all seemed drab and derivative. There’s no spark, I thought gloomily. I’m past it. I’ll never make it.
A former colleague from the bank rang to say he had moved to another organisation, and they were hiring. With a heavy heart, I updated my CV and forwarded it.
Each day I called the police station, more to reassure myself that I was doing all I could to recover the quilt than with any expectation of good news. They received me politely, taking my ‘incident number’ and searching their databases diligently, all with no result. But one day there was a new voice – change of shift, perhaps.
‘Sorry, no news,’ he said, ‘But the stolen item is only described here as a coloured quilt, Madam. Have you got a more detailed description, perhaps, or a photograph, to aid our search?’
At least this was a positive suggestion. Regretfully admitting that I had no photograph, I offered instead to make a sketch and drop it off at the police station tomorrow.
The quilt had become so familiar to me but, now that I was faced with a large blank sheet of creamy white cartridge paper, recollecting its complex design in sufficient detail to draw it turned out to be surprisingly difficult. The scale of each section was relatively easy to remember, and the scrutiny of Jo and her curator meant that the shapes and colours of the central square and frames were imprinted on my brain. But the patterns of the outer panels were much harder to visualise with any accuracy. Two hours later the table was thick with pencil dust, but I had at least managed to create a reasonably accurate sketch.
It wasn’t just the patterns, but the brilliance of the colours and the texture of the fabrics that made this quilt so unique. I ferreted around in cupboards and dug out my old acrylic paints and a palette, untouched since leaving college, and started to mix and apply colour to the squares and triangles, circles and appliquéd figures, as close to the originals as my memory would allow. Of course it was only the general likeness, colours and main distinguishing features that the police would be interested in. But it had come to matter very much to me.
When my recall became too hazy I tried to visualise the quilt in its most recent home, slung over the back of the sofa. As I mixed and painted, using a hair drier to speed up the drying, I became fascinated all over again with the way that it had been constructed, the techniques used to join the pieces together, embroider or overlay them, and how the colours of the patches clashed with or complemented each other – sometimes both at the same time.
As I worked, I found myself humming. I was rediscovering something that I had lost: the thrill of using colour to create dramatic effect, the way that two tones placed next to each other could battle so fiercely it could actually make your heart beat faster, or blend so beautifully that it made music sing in my head. In my teenage years, nothing mattered so much as using paint, or dyes, or fabrics; I covered almost everything I could lay my hands on in vibrant colours and patterns, not just paper and canvas, and fabric for making clothes, but also my bedroom walls, my chest of drawers and curtains, my fingernails and hair and my schoolbag.
I completed the coloured sketch in far greater detail than the police would ever need, photographed it and then wondered what to do next. I’d enjoyed the process so much I didn’t want to stop. This time, I found myself sketching the living room around me, with the sofa at its centre. But in my drawing, instead of dove-grey velour, the sofa and chairs were upholstered in patchwork, the cushions a blending set of hues, the curtains striped in the same colours. Even the lampshades were patchwork in effect.
Only the carpet and walls remained cream, the rest of my design used shocking combinations of vibrant greens, sapphire blues and cherry reds – and it seemed to work. I sat back, hugely satisfied with my evening’s achievements, and understood what I had been missing, all these years. I’d been hungry for colour.
I took a quick photo of the room design and texted it to Jo: Gone a bit crazy! What do you think?
Wow, brilliant. Amazing colours! Good start. What news on decision? Jxox
No decision yet … xxx, I replied.
The following afternoon I returned to Marylebone Police Station with a copy of my quilt painting, carefully labelled with the incident number, my name and the date of the theft, and then wandered back through the darkening streets towards Tottenham Court Road tube. The weather forecasters were predicting a cold snap, suggesting sleet or even snow, and workers poured out of shops and bright-lit offices in a purposeful stream, desperate to reach home before night set in.
The homeless are almost invisible in London, until you start looking. Then they appear everywhere, men and women, old and young, drunk, drugged, or just miserably sober, and some with dogs always in far better condition than their owners. As evening approaches they lurk close to ventilation outlets and covered porches ready to claim t
heir pitches just as soon as office doors are closed, the lights turned out and security staff safely tucked inside. As they waited, so did I, for the moment when they would unravel those elaborate constructions of cardboard, plastic sheeting and scraps of blanket under which they hope to survive another night.
As I scrutinised each encampment and its owner, trying to remain inconspicuous, I wondered what I’d do if I saw my quilt. I should have brought another blanket or covering, just in case, to offer in exchange. They’d accept money, of course, but more booze or drugs would never keep a person warm on what was predicted to be the coldest night of the year.
Tentatively approaching a couple of men hunkering down in a doorway, I said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Depends what it is,’ one of them muttered in a broad Scottish accent, distracted by the contents of his luggage, contained in several plastic bags.
‘I’ve lost a quilt,’ I said, ‘and wondered if it might have been picked up by someone.’
‘A kilt? That’d be yours, Jock,’ he slurred, with a bronchitic laugh that turned into a ferocious coughing fit.
‘Who’d wear a feckin’ kilt in this weather?’ his mate replied. ‘Freeze your balls off.’
‘It’s a quilt, you know, patchwork,’ I persevered. At least they hadn’t told me to get lost. ‘Like a bed cover.’
‘Aye, a quilt,’ the Scotsman said. ‘Naah, haven’t seen such a thing in a long year, lassie.’
There was an awkward pause.
‘Well if you see such a thing would you let them know, down at the police station?’ I asked. The suggestion was received with stony silence. ‘Sorry … I mean …’ I stuttered, realising how naïve I’d been. ‘But perhaps you’d look out for it anyway?’
‘Fair enough,’ the other one said. ‘Spare a tenner, Miss?’
Flustered now, and knowing that it was probably the wrong thing to do, I fumbled in my wallet and handed each of them a ten-pound note, before dashing for the warmth of the tube station.
On the way home I got a text from Jo: Mark’s sent your design to Justin! Woohoo J xox
