The Heaven I Swallowed

by Rachel Hennessy

  I had no idea what time it was. Still Fred’s room remained silent, aside from the occasional squeak of his mattress as he tossed. My mattress did not squeak because I did not move, rigid on my back, willing Fred to sleep.

  †

  The next morning I crept around the flat, preparing for work. I could not remember falling asleep but I must have had a few hours. Fred’s snores continued in the spare room and I didn’t want to wake him so I didn’t boil the kettle—satisfying myself with a glass of orange juice—nor wash my face for fear of the noisy pipes.

  I left my house keys on the dining table with a note telling Fred I would be back by six o’clock. I had never had a spare key cut—who would I give it to?—and had to trust Fred would stay for at least a day, even if it were just for some decent food.

  On my arrival at work, Mr Anderson gave me a curious look. ‘Everything all right, Mrs Smith?’ he asked.

  I suppose it was my untidy hair.

  ‘Yes, Mr Anderson, just running a little late this morning.’

  ‘That’s not like you.’

  ‘Well, we all have our bad mornings.’

  I had meant to sound cheery but it sounded almost ­snappish.

  ‘Chin up, Mrs Smith, a bad morning does not have to mean a bad day.’

  I grimaced and made my way to my office.

  The day, despite Mr Anderson’s prediction, had an odd edge to it. When the phone rang next door I kept expecting Mr Anderson to appear, bearing some message of disaster from home. I did not know what I thought would happen to Fred in my flat, I just found it difficult to think of him there, alone, free to roam. I could not imagine him prying into my belongings, nor could I see him simply sitting quietly. It was strange to have another’s movements so closely tied to mine again and by the afternoon I could stay no longer in the ­confines of the filing cabinets.

  ‘Just popping out for a walk,’ I informed Mr Anderson.

  He paused in his writing and frowned.

  ‘I didn’t have a lunch hour,’ I added, in case there was a perception of wasting time.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he replied, continuing to watch me walk across the office.

  I had not walked in the wards since my arrival at the ­hospital. I didn’t feel it was appropriate, given how much I knew about some of the patient’s ills, and had also felt a barrier between myself and the assured medical staff, their knowledge of the inner workings of the body making my own ­literary knowledge pale into insignificance.

  I stood uncertainly in the courtyard, red flowers withered to brown on the grass. Doctors and nurses were striding confidently past, their destinations clear. I suspected Mr Anderson was observing me from his office window, trying to determine how ‘fine’ I was. To escape him, I started towards South Wing. I was nervous. Some of these wards would contain replicas of the Mavis boy, embodiments of the words ‘battle stress’ scribbled on their files without further explanation.

  The long, thin corridor I stepped into had open doors at regular intervals and as I clicked along the floorboards I saw all of these entrances lead to a continuous room on either side, filled with single beds in rows under the huge, wide windows. The hospital had once been a colonial residence. This, then, was the converted ballroom, split down the middle, no longer fragranced with home-wrought perfumes or eucalyptus oil rubbed into wood. Now formaldehyde masked the odours of the sick.

  I pattered along, determined to keep moving so as not to draw attention to myself. I had only a vague impression of the occupied beds with figures lying restless, more than I had expected were empty, although their sheets were crumpled, suggesting only temporary absence.

  I passed the final door and heard a young man’s voice calling, ‘Sister? Sister?’ I couldn’t understand how he could mistake me, in my dark clothes, for the radiance of the nursing staff.

  ‘I am sorry, young man,’ I said from the doorway. ‘I’m not a nurse.’

  He was in the last bed of the ward, the closest, perhaps, to recovery—or to a more final destination? His skin, from the sunken hollows of his cheeks to the long, thin arms lying over the blankets, was an awful yellow. Would I receive him soon, in the form of a file to be deposited into the cavern below the hospital?

  ‘I need to go,’ he said.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘To the …’

  The blush that spread over his face showed me my mistake, the scarlet jumping out vividly.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find someone.’

  He nodded his head and I turned to leave, unsure if I had the confidence to accost anyone and demand attention for the boy.

  Across the hall a nurse worked with her back to me, tucking in the sheets of an empty bed. Her uniform, a pinafore belted at the waist and a headscarf reminiscent of a nun’s veil, was white and she appeared luminous in the sunlight coming in from the window. Her manoeuvres were studied and efficient. I walked quietly across the corridor to stand under the door arch and held my breath as she used the palm of her hand to fold the linen under the mattress, creating a perfect, tight corner.

  ‘Nurse Mary?’ an older, female voice called from out of my sight and the nurse looked up, her profile perfectly revealed, the same curled eyelashes, the same dark hue brought to stark attention by her face wrapped in white. I drew in a quick gasp of air. She may have turned to investigate the noise but I did not stay to see. Hurrying away down the floorboards on the soles of my feet, ensuring the tap of my heels did not echo out behind me, I hoped somebody else would help the young yellow man who needed to relieve himself.

  But almost before I reached the end of the corridor I had begun to doubt myself. Had Fred’s return created phantoms, tricks of the mind? Mary would have grown up, I was not foolish enough to keep her a twelve year old. Five years had passed and she had every chance of entering the workforce. But for her to be here? I had looked for her in patient files, never imagining her a nurse. Or was this just another vision? Could she really have been standing there, against the light, with her hair perfectly contained? Was Nurse Mary really my Mary?

  12

  I knocked on the door of my flat that evening without really feeling the rap against my knuckles. I had not left work earlier than usual, determined as I was to allay Mr Anderson’s concerns about my pale-faced appearance after my walk, and it was already past six o’clock when I arrived home. In this way I had also given Fred more time to prepare for my return, for I had vague fears.

  He answered almost immediately, unlocking the metal door that protected the front door with ease, suggesting he had been in and out sometime during the day.

  ‘Welcome home,’ he said and I was surprised by the unmistakable smell of a meal in preparation coming from the kitchen. He was dressed in one of his old suits, grey, from his banking days, so I knew he had found the half of the closet that still belonged to him. I didn’t say anything. The past had completely melded with the present and all secrets were now under scrutiny.

  ‘Good day?’ he asked, reaching to take my handbag from my shoulder.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  He hummed, placing the bag on the side-table and disappearing into the kitchen to turn off the insistently whistling kettle.

  I sat in the armchair feeling like a visitor, waiting for the host to determine the next move. I waited, listening to Fred make tea, his humming continuing under the boil of saucepan water and the twang of the oven’s metal shelves as they adjusted to the heat. I could not guess what he was cooking, or perhaps it was that my memory had no point of reference. The Fred I had known did not hum in the kitchen like a woman, nor place a cup and saucer tentatively on the armrest, ensuring it sat exactly on the middle circle of the lace doily.

  ‘Are you not having tea?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been drinking tea all day.’ He smiled and sat on the end of the lounge. He did not have the waft of alcohol around him I had registered yesterday though he still stunk of tobacco and I saw through the balcony door a
large pile of cigarette ends sticking out of an old bowl I’d once used to wash cleaning rags in.

  ‘Been keeping busy, Fred?’ I sounded caustic even to myself and knew, somewhere inside of me, it was not fair to take out the confusion of my afternoon on Fred.

  ‘I went walking.’

  He said this as if it was an achievement and I supposed in comparison to what he might have been doing, it was.

  ‘I walked along the coast, Grace. The wind was up but I managed to hold onto my hat, as they say.’ He laughed and turned his body towards me like a little boy willing you to focus on his story. ‘The sea was wild. I’d forgotten how wild the sea can be and I found myself just walking and walking without any clear sense of where I was going, or when I should stop. I could walk forever, I thought, and I felt so … so … so tired, at that thought, the thought I could keep on walking and no one would care. That is how I have been spending my days, because no one did care, not even me, about how, or where I walked, where I ended up, where I spent the night. I rant and rave and … and no one listens. The darkness … and then, Grace, I thought of you. How you needed me to be at home, even just because of the key and how … and Grace, I was so happy when I remembered that, that I had to be back here, at a certain time, for … a real … reason. God, Grace, how glad I was.’

  He was willing me to raise my gaze from the teacup, the hint of tears in his voice.

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ I said, staring into the liquid. I stood up and took the half-empty cup to the kitchen sink.

  †

  The meal—a dish of chicken cooked in spices I had never purchased and that I could only assume had come back with Fred from his foreign lands—was eaten in almost complete silence. I could not really compliment the food because it left my tongue burning mildly but I ate every last piece as a sign of my appreciation, sipping water all the while to take away the sting.

  The quiet had a softness to it, different from the harsh silences of the previous night and I marvelled to think we might already be settling into one another. A large part of me fought such a conclusion—I was tired, after all, from the illusions of the day and it was dangerous to read the mood in such times—and another part of me welcomed the idea that I might, once again, enter the world of the loved, and loving. Would Mary let this happen? Could I slip past my guilt into such a place?

  We went through the rituals of preparation for sleep with murmured enquiries of each other’s needs, the brasher call of my neighbour to her children—‘Get to bloody bed before I come in there and wallop you!’—ringing out against our solemnity.

  Fred whispered ‘good night’ and, once again, closed the spare bedroom door gently. Did his words have a question in them or had I imagined he was asking permission for a continuation of our time together, for comfort I had not had for such a long time? We were beyond flirting and I had not given him doe-eyed encouragement to believe we could go there once more. My only sign, my only answer to a possibly un-asked question, was to leave my bedroom door wide open.

  †

  The presence in my room was real this time. I had turned off my bedside lamp after pretending to read for a while, hearing Fred pace next door. I could not will him to know the invi­tation was there, only hope he would understand.

  I heard him draw a breath. He was standing at the end of my bed, possibly feeling the edges to get his bearings in the almost complete darkness. I kept my eyes shut, trying to keep my breathing even, to feign sleep even as I suspected he knew I was awake. So much pretence, still. I could not reach out to him, in case he drew away from me. He may have only been here to confirm his lack of desire for me, to draw the contours of my form in comparison to his other lover and pull back in revulsion from my different body.

  I felt him trace out the mounds of my feet and carefully sit on the end of the bed. I could smell saltiness. I waited for him to speak, to ask if I was awake. I opened my eyes and waited as the blackness dissolved into varying shapes of grey: the dresser against the wall, the outline of the door, Fred sitting, hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs. A great distance from me, a larger shadow than he really was. I closed my eyes again. The night ticked on and I wondered if I would hear birds awakening before either of us moved, if we would watch again for the dawn together, a vigil of waiting. These thoughts changed my breathing and I could not hope to stop the small sighs leaking out of my mouth, the deep inhalations as I imagined his hands on me.

  For this is my body, for this is my blood. If I could have willed the Virgin Mary back to me, to remind me of the icy film I had adopted in my youth, I would not have done it. The heat in me was like nothing I had felt before, not even in the days of our marriage when Fred had urged me to forget the watching eyes, to embrace him fully. I had never really done so, though the desire had been there. I had never held him, and only him, to my deepest heart.

  My fingers twitched. All I needed was to lift myself and place my burning hand on his leg, to risk his scalding. Before I could do this, he stood up. My eyes snapped open, his shadow had grown tall. He would leave now and in my head I shouted, No! pleading, stay with me, stay with me, repeating the words with a pathos that almost made me nauseous. In my head, the desperation could be spoken, my mouth could not whisper a word.

  Fred did not leave. Instead, he walked slowly to the empty side of the bed. He pulled at the tightly tucked sheets and blanket, opening up a wide space for his entrance, and lay himself down beside me. Not close enough for our bodies to touch, but close enough to feel his heat. He lay on his back, like me, and, gradually, our breathing began to match one another. I did not turn my head to look at him and I sensed if his eyes were open they were looking at the dark mass of the ceiling. We lay, as two corpses laid out for their funerals, with enough warmth in the air to enable cremation.

  I did not sleep. Much sooner than I expected Fred’s snores entered the confused night and all thoughts were punctured by his snorts and grumbles. My irritation brought down my longing and I tried to reason with myself it was age that had magnified the strength of his night-noises. I waited, with further itchiness, for the flinging out of his arms, the eventual taking over of the mattress that had once characterised our nights together. I didn’t know if I would tolerate such selfishness now, if my meek days of being satisfied with only the very edge of comfort were over.

  I thought of Mary on her first day, standing in my driveway—and the meek shall inherit the earth. What was there for her to do but lower her eyes and pretend to be content? How much the child is in our power, holding all that we want, all that we have lost somewhere along the way. Little wonder I had clung to her, little wonder she had slipped away. In the greyness of approaching morning, I saw she had never been meek, her face a prophecy of every sin I would commit against her.

  Fred’s snores stopped. His eyes opened and he turned to face me.

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Perhaps …’

  ‘Yes, Fred?’

  ‘Perhaps we could go for a walk sometime?’ His voice was quiet and it did not seem a strange thing to say. ‘Like old times. We could take a walk down to the fruit bat colony, hey?’

  In the dawn light, I could see his eyes were on me, intent, as if trying to read something in my response.

  ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I replied quietly.

  Fred breathed out loudly. ‘Did you get that letter, Grace?’

  ‘Which letter, Fred?’

  ‘The fruit bats …’

  I thought back over the collection of Fred’s letters, so secure inside his desk, wind whipped on the clothesline, now re-wrapped in ribbon. I couldn’t remember a mention of fruit bats. My puzzled expression seemed enough.

  He turned his head away and closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he whispered. I didn’t ask what he was referring to.

  The test of my meekness didn’t come in the night for Fred continued to stay within the confines of his half of
the bed and, by morning, he had returned to his bedroom.

  13

  For the next few weeks, the rhythm of my life became quite different. Every night, Fred came to lie beside me, slipping under the covers with the same quietness, and every morning I awoke alone.

  At work, Mr Anderson enquired about my health when I arrived in the mornings. I tried hard to make my tired face presentable—my sleep came in the small hours of the night when I was finally sure Fred was not going to move toward me—and was rarely able to muster the energy to arrange my hair properly, wearing it loose more often than not. Though I tried to inject as much enthusiasm as possible into my replies to Mr Anderson, it did not prevent him from sticking his head into my office throughout the day to check if I needed anything. He was obviously afraid my weary appearance was a sign of some discontent, and he might lose one of his best ‘drones’—as he referred to me—labouring the image of the hospital as a thriving beehive where we all made the ‘honey of health and well-being’.

  I would wait as patiently as I could for the beginning of my lunch hour. In general there were no appearances in the courtyard until noon, but the comings and going could continue past two o’clock. There was no possibility of watching closely that long so I dedicated only the middle hour—from half past twelve to half past one—to standing at the window, carefully hidden by a bank of curtains, checking the nurses’ faces for the telltale shade of skin. I was no longer able to sneer at the love dances of the couples being played out below. I felt as trapped in my office as I did lying in bed next to Fred and I could not bring myself to go for another walk in the wards, Mr Anderson watching too closely.

  †

  One afternoon, perhaps three weeks after Fred’s return, I stared down at the file of a typhoid patient lying open on my desk. A succession of doctors’ hands had written notes beside dates from the last month, until the final entry: ‘Died 9.47 pm’. It wasn’t necessary for me to read the clinical list of the man’s final days. I knew where the file needed to go, knew where the end lay, for his record, at least. Nevertheless, I found myself reading over the scrawls of symptoms and attempted treatment, over the timetable of decline, chronicling his fever and pain, the rose-like spots on his chest, the green soup of his excrement. One entry, ‘A turn for the worse’, seemed the grossest understatement while some of the entries were indecipherable, as if the doctor had barely had time to catch up with Death.