I let out a deep breath, my muscles unclenching. My husband’s strong arms wrap themselves around my waist.
‘It’s not your fault,’ he says soothingly. ‘It wasn’t your decision.’
I sigh. ‘You didn’t see her face, Dan. She was devastated. She was angry and upset, and I can’t blame her. I’m all she has.’ I shrug off his arms and pace the room irritably. ‘That fucking woman! All because she isn’t doing her job properly and decided she’d discredit me before I had a chance to tell people how useless she is.’
‘But if Edward thinks you should refer Ellie on,’ Dan says in his most reasonable voice, ‘then maybe it is for the best. It’s a new job and you’ve got other things to be thinking about. We’ve got other things to be thinking about too.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I round on him, desperate for someone to take my anger out on. It’s unfair and unkind, but I’m furious and devastated and all he can do is swing the conversation around to what he wants again. ‘That because you want me to get pregnant, I can’t be any good at my job? Like that’s all I can think about?’
He hasn’t said anything like that and I know it, but the truth is I’m scared that the baby he doesn’t even know about is already making me crazy. Is this what happened to Mum? Is that why Dad left her as soon as I was born? Because she went crazy? Mental illness is hereditary, after all. Why wouldn’t I be just like her?
Dan backs away, putting up his hands in a gesture of defence. ‘I didn’t say that, Im, and you know it. I would never question your ability to do your job. You’re good with these kids; you’ll be good with our kid. And I thought it was what we both wanted?’
I turn away from the hurt look on his face and want to scream in frustration, glad now that I haven’t told him about the pregnancy. If he’s like this now, what would he be like if he knew? He’s probably hoping I’ll quit work at the appearance of the two blue lines and start knitting booties. I hear Ellie’s words throb through my mind. You don’t deserve to be a mother.
‘It is,’ I say. ‘I just don’t see why everything always has to come back to us and our family. This is my job, Dan. And what I was doing with Ellie, that was important to me. It’s not all about us.’
‘What if it is?’ Dan’s face darkens. ‘What if you’re not going to be able to give the same level of care to these children once you’ve got your own? What does that mean for ours? You get so close to these kids. You have to learn to take a step back; that’s why we came here in the first place.’
Take a step back? Is he for real? Does he even know anything about me at all?
‘I don’t need to talk about this now, Dan.’
‘When, then?’
Turning to look at him, I can see that he is angry, that the months of denying him his dearest wish is pushing him further and further from me. Guilt sears through me; the knowledge that I have inside me the one thing he really wants, the thing that would make him the happiest man alive, and yet I still can’t bring myself to tell him. Because then it will over – my choice in the matter will be taken away. And I feel so cruel and selfish, but right now, in this minute, I don’t want to make him happy because I’m not happy.
‘When do we talk about it if not now? When we’ve been here a year? When you get a promotion and it’s sorry, Dan, it’s not the right time? Because frankly, Imogen, I’m starting to think you’d rather talk about anything but having my child. And I’d say I understand, that I don’t want to pressure you, that I don’t want children unless you’re ready, but you’ve spent the last year assuring me that a family is exactly what you want, that once you have a less demanding job and a house in the country and whatever other insurmountable obstacles you can think of to throw in the way, then we’ll do it, and I’ve gone along with it all, I’ve given you everything you wanted, and you still don’t want to start a family. Tell me what it is, Imogen. Tell me what’s going on inside your head.’
‘Did you ever stop to think that I might not want to give up my career, my body, my life? It’s so simple in your world, isn’t it? You don’t have to sacrifice anything; you carry on doing exactly what you’re doing now, only with a cute little baby to coo over and play with, when I’ll be the one who is fat and exhausted and stuck changing nappies at one a.m. and—’
‘I’d help with all that, Immy, you know I would. I work from home, it’s not like I’m out long hours, and I want to do the night feeds and—’
‘Oh stop trying to fucking fix everything!’ I scream. ‘Stop trying to persuade and cajole and bloody second-hand-salesman me into doing something it’s patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that I DON’T WANT TO DO.’
Dan steps back, shock flooding his beautiful face, and I want to take back the words and throw my arms around his neck and tell him I’m having his baby, but the words won’t come. The cruel, selfish part of me who has known all along that I can’t be allowed to be a mother holds me back as effectively as if it were a separate person, stronger than the Imogen who loves her husband and wants to make him happy more than anything in the world. That Imogen has been trodden down so often by her evil twin that I’m not even sure she has a voice any more.
‘I just thought . . . you always said . . .’ His voice trails off, these new, uncharted waters of our marriage too black and treacherous to explore.
‘Well now you know. I won’t give you what you want, Dan; you may as well pack your things and go.’
Pushing past him into the hallway, I stand at the bottom of the stairs, squeezing my eyes shut at the image of the devastated look on my husband’s face. I wait, one, two, three seconds, but he doesn’t try to come after me.
75
Imogen
The sound of running water blocks out any noise from the rest of the house so that I can’t hear whether Dan is following my awful suggestion or not. I’ve locked the door to the bathroom to run myself a bath, but it doesn’t matter; he hasn’t come to look for me, hasn’t tapped lightly on the door and pleaded that we talk about this like he usually would. I’ve gone too far this time. I have pushed him and pushed him until the wall that I’ve built around myself is insurmountable, and now I’m going to lose him. So why can’t I bring myself to just go and say sorry? Because I can’t bear to be the one to show weakness. It’s the thing that frustrates Dan the most about me; he has always been the one to apologise, always the first to break. I am stubborn and self-protecting, having been taught at an early age that to admit you are wrong, to say sorry, is to show weakness. Even now, even though it might lose me the one person I can’t bear to be without, I’m not able to break the habit.
Leaning over to turn the cold tap on, an excruciating pain shoots through my stomach and I bend over double with the force of it. I clutch my middle in agony and scream for Dan. I can’t catch my breath; I can’t scream again. I’m dying, I know I am, and I was such a bitch and now I’m never going to be able to say sorry. The pain pulses through my stomach over and over again, and I reach out for something to hold me up. My flailing hand hits the sink, but it is wet and slides against the shiny enamel, sending me crashing to the ground.
I’ve never felt pain like this; what is happening? A thought crystallises in my mind – the baby. As I lie sobbing on the floor in agony, I hear Dan’s shout through the locked door, but I can barely raise a whimper in response. Ellie’s words echo through my mind over and over again, a loop of prophecy: You don’t deserve to be a mother, you don’t deserve that thing that is growing inside you. It would be better off dead.
76
Imogen
My eyes are too sore to open, but even without looking, I know I must be in hospital. I’m not lying on the bathroom floor any more, yet the bed isn’t comfy enough to be mine, and my arm is pressed against cold plastic. My hand throbs. Cannula. The excruciating pain I felt before I blacked out is gone. Instead there is a warm haze in my head, but apart from that, numbness. I open my eyes slowly, the hospital lights above me stark and unpleasant. I ge
t a glimpse of Dan sitting in a chair beside my bed before I screw them shut again. He’s the only person I need, and the absolute last person I want to face as I ask the question.
‘The baby.’ My voice comes out as a croak and my throat screams.
There is a pause, then my husband’s equally strained voice. ‘No,’ he whispers. ‘The baby didn’t make it.’
My shoulders crumple against the hard mattress; I didn’t even realise that I was stiff with fright. The baby didn’t make it. The baby is dead. My baby. Dan’s baby.
‘How long have you known?’ The words come from Dan but they don’t sound like him. I open my eyes. His face is so full of pain that I want to reach over and pull him into my arms. We should be coping with this together, it shouldn’t be like this – and yet it is, because of me. Because I never even told him about the baby, and my first instinctive question upon waking was about the child I can no longer claim to know nothing about.
‘A couple of weeks.’
Dan winces as though I’ve slapped him.
‘You weren’t going to tell me.’
‘I was,’ I lie. Was I? I thought I would, I planned to, but I will never know now what decision I would have made. It has been made for me. I should feel relieved, but I don’t. ‘I was looking for the right time.’
‘After the conversation we had today, I think we both know that’s not true. Tell me, Imogen, had you already booked the termination? Were you planning to abort my child without ever telling me it existed?’
‘You don’t understand, you’re making it sound all wrong . . .’ But he isn’t, not really. He’s making it sound exactly as it was. Because of my selfishness, he never had the joy of knowing he was going to be a father.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you? You got exactly what you wanted and none of the guilt that goes with it. You should be bloody ecstatic. Or maybe you are – I don’t even feel like I know what you’re thinking any more.’
It doesn’t feel fair, that the husband who has supported me through every choice, every difficulty that I have faced in the last twelve months could sound so cold now, when I need him the most. You did this, I remind myself. I have taken a loving, patient, kind man and torn him into little pieces, until the only way he can rebuild himself is into stone.
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat, too exhausted, too broken to say any more.
‘I’ve called Pammy,’ he says by way of reply. ‘She’ll be here in about an hour. I’ll stay with you until then, then I’ll go home and pick up some things for you; they want you to stay in at least overnight. And I rang work, said your appendix had ruptured and you wouldn’t be in for a couple of weeks. The doctors say you need rest, and when you’re feeling better they can run some tests so they might have a better idea of why the . . . why it happened. But sometimes this really does just happen. Sometimes there is no explanation.’
‘Dan . . .’ I let the word tail off, not knowing how to follow it up. Dan sits back in the chair without looking at me.
‘You should sleep.’
I close my eyes and rest my head back against the pillow, thinking of the tiny life that only hours ago was growing inside me. The tiny life that has been washed away in a haze of pain and blood.
77
Imogen prises open her eyes groggily and for a split second panics at the darkness that envelops her. Is she blind? Why is it so black? As her eyes adjust to the darkness and the things around her begin to emerge, so does her memory. She was in her hideaway, reading Jane Eyre for the millionth time, when her eyelids began to feel heavy so she closed them, just for a minute.
Her stomach lurches in panic. What time is it? She has always been out of the hideaway by the time Mother gets home, blankets and pillows stored in the old meter box, books behind the disused ironing board, the picture . . .
She lets out a mixture of a sob and a gasp. The picture of her mother and father is no longer on her knee where she is so sure it was before she fell asleep. She fumbles around in the darkness, her small fingers finding dust-covered trinkets and piles of old magazines, but no photograph. With a heart as heavy as if it were carved from stone, she gets to her feet and pushes open the door.
Mother is sitting on the sofa, staring at the cupboard door as she emerges. Clutched in her fingers is Imogen’s photograph.
‘I’m just going up to bed,’ Imogen stutters. When her mother doesn’t answer, she starts towards the living-room door.
‘Come here,’ her mother instructs, her voice low. Imogen turns slowly, knows that her face is ash grey. Placing one foot in front of the other as though every step causes her great pain, she does as she’s told and comes to a halt in front of the sofa.
‘Sit down.’
She knows better than to argue.
‘This picture,’ Mother holds up the photograph – Imogen’s photograph – and shakes it at her, ‘was taken a couple of months before I got pregnant with you. Can you see how happy we look?’
Imogen nods silently, trying to stop tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Of course she can see; it’s one of the reasons she loves the photo so much – it shows a side of her mother that she has never seen in her short life.
‘We were so in love,’ her mother continues, as if Imogen isn’t even there. ‘Your dad was the best husband I could have asked for.’
Imogen is listening intently now. Her mother has never talked about her dad before, and she’s frightened to look too eager in case she puts her off. ‘He was caring and attentive, he loved me. And he wanted children above everything. Two, three even. I wasn’t so sure; we hadn’t been together long and I thought we should concentrate on each other for a while. But he was insistent. He kept on and on until I agreed. I thought that if he was happy then I would be too.’
Imogen’s heart is doing somersaults inside her chest. Her father wanted her! She was wanted! But she knows this story can’t end well. What did her mother do? Why isn’t the dad in the photo – the man who wanted her so much – here with her now?
‘He was brilliant when I got pregnant with you,’ Mother carries on. ‘It wasn’t an easy pregnancy, but he was there, rubbing my feet and holding my hair back when I was sick.’ Her eyes have a shiny, faraway look. After a minute of silence, she shakes her head and looks at Imogen as if she’s only just realised she’s still there. ‘Anyway,’ she says brusquely, ‘that’s that. Now go to bed.’
Imogen feels like a deflated balloon. ‘What happened?’ she asks, her usual fears all but forgotten. She hasn’t been this forward with her mother since she was a small child, since before she knew better than to pester and ask questions.
‘I said go to bed.’
‘But Mum . . .’
‘Fine!’ In that instant Imogen knows she has pushed her mother too far, but it’s too late. ‘You want to know what happened next? You happened.’ Mother’s eyes burn with fury and hatred, and ten-year-old Imogen Tandy recoils. ‘You were born and all you did was cry and eat and cry and shit. You sucked up all my time and all my love until there wasn’t any time or love left for anyone else and your father couldn’t handle it! He couldn’t cope with not being the centre of my universe any more and so he left. He left me alone with a screaming, selfish, ungrateful child who goes into my bedroom and steals from me and demands to know about a man who HASN’T GIVEN A SHIT ABOUT US FOR TEN YEARS!’
She is screaming louder than Imogen has ever heard her before, and angry tears are streaming down her face. She lifts the photograph into the air and rips it savagely in two, straight down the middle, then hurls the pieces into the cold, disused fireplace. Imogen springs to her feet, her legs trembling so fiercely she isn’t sure they will even hold her, and runs from the room, up the stairs into her bedroom, where she slams the door behind her.
78
Imogen
Pammy sits beside the bed, looking at me with unabashed worry on her face. She asked how I was feeling the moment she walked in, barely acknowledging Dan as he shuffled past her
muttering unheard excuses. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
‘Have you ever not known you wanted something, Pam, until it was taken from you?’ I ask eventually.
Pammy reaches over, places a hand on my leg. ‘Nah, not me. I’ve always been pretty good at knowing what I want,’ she says with a rueful smile. ‘But I know a man who has.’
‘Richard?’
She nods. ‘He had no desire to have kids, or at least was in no rush. They weren’t high on his list of priorities. I suppose he always assumed he had all the time in the world. He agreed to start trying for my sake, really, but when we found that it wasn’t working as easily as it should for healthy people our age – well, it became an obsession for him. I don’t know whether it threw his manhood into question or whether he just didn’t know how much he wanted kids until he was told it might not be an option.’
‘He started trying because you wanted them? What about what he wanted?’ I don’t mean to sound cruel, but Pammy flinches.
‘I didn’t try and pressure him – it wasn’t that he didn’t want them, he just wasn’t in the kind of rush for them I was. My clock started ticking and suddenly it was all I could think about.’
I nod and lie back on my pillow, shifting restlessly. Why can I not get comfortable in this bloody bed? I hate it here, surrounded by mothers and their screaming babies. They’ve put me in a private room at the end of the maternity ward, clearly to try and spare my feelings, but it just makes me feel like a leper – unfit to be around the normal, good mothers. The ones who kept their babies safe and loved. How can I explain to Dan that this was inevitable? Sooner or later I would have screwed something up – it’s in my DNA. Surely it was better to find that out now? And if that’s true, why do I feel such a gaping hole where my heart once was?
The Foster Child Page 23
