Where the West Wind Blows

by Mary Middleton

  I don’t want coffee but take a little orange juice, switch on the radio before stepping into the shower. Then I dress with care, fearful that I have forgotten how. I am in town now, jeans and wellingtons will not do. I choose a simple a-line skirt and a light jumper, slip my feet into shiny black shoes that feel uncomfortably tight after so many months in trainers and Ugg boots.

  I only take a light breakfast, a little cereal and milk but I throw it up afterwards and rinse my mouth with water that tastes brackish after the spring fed deliciousness I enjoy at home. By ten o’clock I feel a little better and, collecting my things, I close the door and walk through this strange town where I grew up and head for the surgery.

  The building sits, as it has for years at the far end of town, a squat brick built block with neat designated parking. A group of boys kick a tin can about as I cross the car park and jostle with a group of pensioners at the automatic door. At the reception a woman tells me my usual doctor is off sick and I will have to see a locum. I look at the ceiling and sigh with annoyance. I might as well have stayed in Wales.

  As usual, the appointment time overruns. I sit impatiently, tapping my foot and watch the time tick slowly by …and by. I flick through a magazine that offers advice for a healthy heart, suggesting fresh air, walks and exercise. I should live to be a hundred if that was all it took for a healthy heart. If it wasn’t for this other thing gnawing at me.

  But, finally, my name appears on the screen and I obey the summoning beep, pick up my bag and search for the appropriate door that holds the allocated doctor. He looks up, bright and breezy, as if I haven’t had to spend an hour and a half of my precious time awaiting his pleasure.

  “Sorry for the wait, Mrs Japp.”

  No one has called me ‘Mrs Japp’ for so long that, for a second, I am startled. I take the seat provided and clutch my bag on my knee.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” He is smiling at me, impersonal, clean and disturbingly young, with not a grey hair or a wrinkle in sight. I begin to reel off my symptoms; describing the sickness, the tiredness, the swollen body parts, the lack of appetite, the tears. I prepare myself for the worst.

  “How old are you now? Let me see…” He consults his notes and then replies to his own question. “Forty-nine – nearly fifty. And when was your last period?”

  Alarm bells begin to jingle somewhere in the back of my head as I grope for an answer. “Erm, I don’t know. Ages ago. I have never been regular and soon after James died, my periods stopped altogether and I assumed, since I am of that age, that all that kind of stuff is all over and done with … isn’t it?”

  I barely notice that I have mentioned James’ death without so much as flinching. The doctor is holding out a small plastic bottle. “Could you pee in this for me, please? You’ll find the ladies toilet through the second door on the right.”

  In a dream or a nightmare, I fumble at the loo door, drop my handbag, lower my knickers to squat inelegantly over the pan with the bottle between my legs. I can’t see what I am doing and hot pee runs over my fingers but I manage to trap some in the bottle.

  I hope it will be enough.

  “There we are; that was quick.” He relieves me of the still-warm sample bottle and retires to his table to tinker with test tubes and strips of coloured paper while I stare at his back and grip tightly to the handles of my bag.

  This cannot be happening, it cannot.

  I am almost fifty years old.

  I am too old.

  I don’t even like babies.

  “Hmm, definitely pregnant, look.” Frozen in horror I try to focus on the litmus paper that he waves beneath my nose. “Take off your underwear and pop up on the table and we’ll see how far along you are.”

  I feel as if I am in some ridiculous sitcom as I wriggle out of my pants and climb onto the table, the blue tissue paper cold and rough on my bottom. I spread my knees, look at the ceiling and try to think of anything but what is happening to me.

  When he inserts two long surgical fingers, well oiled with K. Y. Jelly and presses down on my tummy, he doesn’t make eye contact. It is a strange impersonal invasion. Then he withdraws, clears his throat, snaps off his gloves and discards them in the flip top bin while I climb from the couch and fumble on the floor for my underwear.

  “About four months, I’d say but, of course, the scan will confirm that. It could be a bit more.”

  I open and close my mouth. “Four months? Scan?” I croak like an idiot.

  I know nothing about pregnancy or child-care; and as for child birth.

  Oh my God.

  A surge of panic erupts in a sob and the doctor looks up sharply.

  “Ah,” he says, suddenly noticing my shock. “Not the news you hoped for, then?”

  How very observant, I think as I shake my head.

  He offers me a tissue and I mop my streaming eyes, my hands shaking, my knees like jelly.

  “I thought I had cancer,” I wail at him and he smiles gently.

  “Then, surely this must be better news … isn’t it?”

  Well, he is right, it should be better news. I’m not going to die, not yet anyway. It should be good news but …Christ all bloody mighty, what on God’s Earth will Jezz say?

  “Will you require a termination?”

  “No!”

  NO? What am I saying? I amend my response with a weak, “Well, maybe.”

  He turns toward me, clasps his hand like a kindly uncle.

  “Look, go home and think about it for a while, Mrs Japp. Give yourself time to get used to the idea. I’ll sort you out some leaflets. At your age there are other things that should be taken into consideration. There is a greater risk of Down’s Syndrome, that sort of thing. All this should be weighed up carefully before you reach any decision. When you’ve had a think, come back and see me. Bring your partner if you like … You do have a partner?”

  I think of Jezz. I can see him in my mind’s eye fighting his way through the rough weather, outwardly strong, inwardly maimed, terminally injured. I see him variously; roaring with anger, his face creased up in laughter, then suffused with lust, looking up to grin at me from between my thighs.

  He isn’t the ideal father material.

  He is gonna kill me.

  Somehow, I find myself outside the surgery, cars are queuing along the street, past the traffic lights, horns honking, the air thick with exhaust. People hurry past, pushing and shoving along the pavement, everyone in a tearing rush to be somewhere else. I hesitate for a few moments before I join the fray. A woman with a pushchair laden with shopping turns and hollers at her lagging toddler. “Come along, Jack, I haven’t got all day.”

  The child saunters after her, not altering his pace. His shoelace is undone, his jeans sliding down, showing the cartoon characters on his dinky little underpants. “Oh, God,” I think, “I’m not cut out to be a mum.”

  Except that I am old enough to be my child’s grandmother.

  I can’t do this.

  How can I go back? How can I tell Jezz? He will think I’ve done it on purpose. He will think I’ve set a honey trap. He will be furious.

  Back at the house I take a hot shower and afterwards I throw off my towel to stand before the long mirror. It’s a while since I’ve looked at myself like this for its far too cold in my coastal cottage to be naked for long. In Wales, after a shower, I tend to wrap myself in my clothes as quickly as I can.

  I turn sideways and examine my body closely, as if I’ve never seen it before. I have lost weight and, if anything, my breasts are smaller, the skin tight, the nipples pink. My ribs stick out below them like hoops. It can’t be true. I place my hands across the slight bulge of my belly. Four months? I am four months pregnant? I don’t look any different. I turn to look at my bum and wish I hadn’t. Then I lean close to the glass and peer at my face. Maybe I do look a little different.

  My skin is clearer, creamier, and my cheekbones seem broader somehow and I’ve a sprinkle of freckles on my nose that I
’ve not noticed before. If this is what they mean when they say pregnant women glow, so far, I appear to have only managed a slight sort of glimmer.

  Still naked, I sit on the bed and rummage through my bag for the leaflet the doctor gave me. It illustrates the different trimesters of pregnancy and I learn that, according to the badly drawn representation of a foetus, my child, Jezz’s child is already fully formed. He has arms, legs, internal organs and his heart is beating strongly.

  All it need do now is grow and develop.

  I wonder if it is a boy or a girl.

  I look again at the naked fifty-year-old in the mirror.

  There must be some mistake.

  I should go home and face him, tell him the truth but I convince myself I’m not ready. I need time to get used to the news first and prepare myself mentally for the task ahead, but the longer I stay, the harder it is to go back. Each day I wake up and make a different decision, putting it off, changing my mind, packing and unpacking my bag. Sometimes I think, I’ll just go and have a termination and be done with it. I could go on the pill and return to Jezz with him none the wiser about the whole affair. He need never know what happened.

  I picture myself there, walking on the beach only now it is summer, the sun is bright and there are families picnicing on the sand, dogs barking, kites flying… mothers, fathers …children playing.

  I’ve never wanted children. James used to say they got in the way, drained you of energy and prevented you from reaching your potential. He joked that babies were a cheat and only looked so cute because nobody would ever get broody over a spotty teenager. In the past I have always agreed with him. He was right, wasn’t he? Sleepless nights, juvenile tantrums, teenage angst …it’s the last thing I need.

  It was the last thing James needed.

  But I’m not James am I?

  And neither is Jezz.

  Then, as I am coming out of the bakers (I’ve conceived a unquenchable desire for éclairs) I see a baby in a pram; a baby all in pink, her face circled with swansdown, her mouth a tiny sucking bow, and something shifts inside me and I find I want to cry. I am crying, great splodges that drop heavily down my cheeks and onto my t-shirt.

  That is what I’m carrying. A tiny child; Jezz’s child. A perfectly formed, defenceless miniature human being.

  It might look just like him.

  How can I possibly destroy it?

  But how can I not?

  Seventeen

  A week later I am still here, dithering. One day I am a mother-to-be, the next I am undecided. I do not answer my phone. I do not write. I do not phone him. So why am I surprised when I wake up one morning to find him battering down my front door?

  With dread in my heart I pull on my dressing gown, tie it at the waist and hurry downstairs. He is peering through the fluted glass, his hand to his eyes, his face distorted and when I see him that old familiar jolt of love stabs like a knife.

  I reach out and open the door to let him in and I am engulfed in the force of his personality

  “Fiona! Thank God you’re all right. I’ve been so worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “Jezz.”

  I let him kiss my cheek and, when he does so, I inhale the wild smell that I have missed so much. “I left my phone charger in Wales. I’m sorry, I should have called from a land line.”

  He follows me through the house, discovers the kitchen for himself and I see his eyes linger on the row of steely knives. Flushing, despite myself, I remember telling him my story. His mouth had turned bitter when I told him of the knife, the blood, the postman hollering through the letterbox, the wailing sirens …

  Jezz hates that I was so full of life and wanted only to die while his wife, so full of death, dreamed only of living. I can see he hasn’t forgotten although he does not speak of it.

  I begin to fill the kettle, knowing him well enough to understand that he will be wanting a cup of tea. “You went to the doctor? What did he say?” he watches me reach down the cups from the cupboard, matching bone china with a blue-white glaze. When I finally turn and look at him, I see how earnest his face is and realise how selfish I have been. I should have rung him, made up a story, anything to put his mind at rest.

  “I’m fine.” I am astounded at how easily I lie. “It’s a virus, nothing that can’t be shifted with anti-biotics.”

  “Thank God for that. I couldn’t bear it if you were sick. I was so scared for you.”

  He comes to me, puts his hands about my waist and pulls my groin close to his. It feels right, easy. For a moment I am deliriously happy to have him here but then he stares into my eyes and I remember that I can’t be happy. This cannot last. My news is guaranteed to end things between us.

  Nothing lasts forever, only death.

  After a moment, I pull away to see to the kettle. “You’re looking good, the town must suit you,” he says and I make a face.

  “Not really. I hate the crowds and the way everyone is forever rushing around. Do you know, I’m sure I can taste the pollution.”

  He pulls out a spindly chair and sits down. I am surprised it can bear his weight. He looks around the kitchen and my eyes track his across a pile of clean tea-cloths, last night’s washing up, yesterdays junk mail …I catch my breath at the pile of leaflets, the uppermost featuring a glossy photo of a breastfeeding mother. His eye passes over it, not registering its implication and I breathe again.

  “So, when are you coming back?” He places a hand on each of his knees and I approach him with the tea tray, sit opposite him at the table, remembering other mornings here, with another man. In another life.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure? You are coming back?”

  “Oh, yes. I have to see the doctor again in a week. I thought to return after that…”

  My voice dwindles away. I cannot meet his eye.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Fiona?” He puts down his cup, his mouth grim.

  Oh God, I think, here we go.

  I shrug my shoulders. “There is nothing to tell, I’ve nothing to hide. I’ve just been taking stock, thinking which direction I should take now.”

  At least that isn’t a lie, not a total one anyway. I risk a glimpse at him.

  “As regards us?”

  I can hear the uncertainty in his voice, the hurt and regret twists at my guts. I take a breath and sip my tea.

  “Maybe. But I was thinking more along the lines of putting this place on the market, freeing up some money for the future.”

  “You don’t need money, I told you I have plenty.”

  “But that is your money,” I reply quietly and firmly. “I need to have my own. We might not be together forever, Jezz. Nothing lasts forever. I have to plan for that.”

  He leans back in his chair. “Well, that attitude doesn’t make me feel very comfortable. I thought we were for keeps.”

  “We can’t know that. Not at this stage.”

  “I know, but I’m used to looking after my woman.”

  Am I your woman? I want to ask it but I don’t. Instead I force a brittle laugh.

  “I don’t need looking after anymore.”

  His eyes are dark again, clouded with insecurity. “Don’t you?” He pauses, pretends to scratch something from the sleeve of his leather jacket, “Have you ever thought, Fiona, that maybe I do?”

  His voice is low and almost plaintive. I am reminded of a child crying in the dark and for the first time I realise that perhaps I am not the only one to have benefited from our relationship.

  Things are getting too deep here, we will end up saying things we don’t mean if we aren’t careful. “Are you staying for lunch?”

  I get up, clinging to the front of my dressing gown to keep it closed and he glares at me, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

  “Now I know something is going on. Am I staying for lunch? A few weeks ago you’d have had me in your bed by now.”

  I am on the back foot now, uncertain how to reply. I feel so imp
ossibly trapped. I don’t want to lose him; I just need more time to think. I want to delay the pain of explaining and the inevitable rejection.

  “I just need time to think,” I blurt out and he leaves his chair so quickly it tips over, lies with its legs in the air, like a dead insect.

  “Think about what?” He is shouting now. The old angry, dangerous Jezz is back in control and, for a fleeting moment, I think I could die in this kitchen after all.

  I take a step backwards.

  “Don’t shout at me,” I say stoutly, feigning a courage I don’t really feel. “I have been through a rough time and I have some personal things to sort out. I will come back to Wales when I am ready and maybe we can take up where we left off then.”

  He scrutinises me for what seems like a long time but can only be seconds, then he rubs his hands over his face. He is different in this suburban setting, rougher against the neat domesticity of the home I shared with James. My new life is contrasted starkly with my old.

  How I wish we were back in the cottage, where he wouldn’t hesitate to seduce me on the floor and somehow make everything right but here, in another man’s house, he is bound by absurd unwritten conventions.

  “Fine,” he says, “I’ll go then. Another three hours on the train won’t kill me. I’ll not trouble you again. I’ll be no woman’s stalker but listen, Fiona, listen, I mean this more than anything I have ever said to you before. When you come back, when you come back, I will be waiting for you and we’ll say no more about this – this – whatever it is.”

  My throat closes up so I can hardly speak and I nod gratefully as tears splash onto my cheeks. He ruffles my hair, his hands big and warm; then he lifts my chin and kisses my lips that are wet with despair. “I don’t know what is going on in that daft head of yours, woman, but sort it out fast, ok? I love you, I’ll be waiting.”

  He slams the front door and I drop back into my chair, my hand to my mouth and weep my heart out, more confused and lost than I was before.