Any Way You Want Me

by Diamond, Lucy

  ‘I feel so sad,’ I cried. ‘I’m so, so sad, Alex. I can’t bear to think about what’s just happened.’

  He hugged me tightly, his broad arms around me so that he ended up covered with the ultrasound jelly. I was half expecting him to make a joke about it, but for once, he didn’t. ‘I’m sad, too,’ he said, with a catch in his voice. ‘I’m really sad, too, sweetheart. But we’ll get through this, Sadie.’ He was squeezing me so tight, his fingers were digging into my back. ‘You and me. Good times ahead, I promise you.’

  ‘Do you mean it? Do you really promise?’ I was like a kid, desperate for reassurance, clinging to his words as if they could save me.

  ‘I promise.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘I promise.’

  Eighteen

  Alex stayed with me and held my hand while I had the D&C. Every last bit of baby had been taken from me now. Each cell and fibre and feature. Gone. Flushed away. Irretrievable.

  Everybody around me seemed desperate to say the right thing, yet there were no words in any dictionary that could make me feel any less devastated.

  ‘You have to remember, this wasn’t your fault,’ a well-meaning nurse told me kindly. ‘It’s very common to miscarry so early on in pregnancy.’

  That only made me cry harder. How could she say it wasn’t my fault? She knew nothing! Of course it was my fault! And now she’d made me think about all those other women who were going through this, day in, day out, as a frequent occurrence. It was unbearable.

  ‘Maybe your body just wasn’t ready to be pregnant again so soon,’ Alex said, squeezing my hand tentatively.

  I turned my face away from him and wailed into the pillow. My own body had failed me. I had been a traitor to my unborn child, let him or her slip from me so carelessly. How could I have done that? I hated myself for it.

  ‘You know, there could have been something wrong with the baby,’ Mum said when we were back home later that night. ‘It might be for the best. One of those things.’

  I didn’t reply, just snivelled into a tissue, but inside I was raging. For the best? One of those things? How could this possibly have been for the best? I’d just lost a baby! How the hell did that equate to ‘one of those things’?

  It seemed as though I had been away a long time, when we finally made it back to Tennyson Road. Everything had changed. I had changed. I had left the house, clinging to faint shreds of hope that my baby would survive. I had returned empty. Cleaned out.

  The hospital staff had wanted me to stay in overnight, as I was still bleeding and in pain, but I refused point-blank. I had just lost one child; I didn’t want to throw the lives of my other two into upheaval by not being there when they woke up in the morning. So, dosed up on painkillers and numb with grief and shock, here I was. I had industrial-strength sanitary towels between my thighs, so thick I could barely walk, and a swirling sensation in my head from the drugs. And there was a dead space inside me where my baby had once budded and floated.

  The kids were in bed, and I crept in to see them, trying not to cry too loudly and wetly over them. My beautiful, darling children, stretched out in slumber, breathing deeply, cheeks warm under my touch. How lucky I was to have them in my life. I was so, so grateful. I would never take them for granted again.

  The house was spotless, all traces of dropped pizza removed from the kitchen floor, carpets Hoovered, everything washed up and put away. Someone had even cleaned Nathan’s high chair, which had had disgusting dried-on Weetabix splashes on it for so long I had started to think they were part of the design. Mum had obviously been thrown into a cleaning frenzy in a must-do-something-to-help response to the news. She rocked me on the sofa while Alex went to make everyone coffee, and it was like being five again, and having her comfort me for a skinned knee or a hair-pulling scrap with Lizzie.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ she crooned, stroking my hair. ‘Don’t cry, pet. It’ll all be OK.’

  The phone rang and Mum stiffened in annoyance. ‘It’s been doing that all night,’ she said. ‘Whoever it is won’t talk to me though. I answer it, say hello, and the line goes dead. Bloomin’ kids.’

  RING RING. A chill crept down my back. No, not kids. It wasn’t kids. I knew who it was, all right. Who else would it be? The very person I’d been planning to see this evening until the unthinkable had happened.

  RING RING.

  I went over and wrenched the phone line out of the wall socket and the noise stopped abruptly, mid-trill. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone tonight, anyway,’ I muttered.

  I sat down again next to Mum, feeling light-headed and woozy. Sod it. Bring on complete annihilation. Tonight, I needed it. ‘Alex,’ I called through to the kitchen, ‘could you make mine a large brandy instead?’

  The next morning, I awoke with an eyeball-drying, brain-shrivelling, gut-churning hangover, and the nagging feeling that something unusual had happened. Then I remembered, and promptly burst into tears all over again. My baby. My little prawn.

  Alex brought me breakfast in bed with the rest of the hospital painkillers, and Nathan to cuddle, but Molly hung back at the bedroom door, with the same anxious expression she’d worn the day before.

  I dried my tears quickly, choked back the sobs and held out my arms for her. She shook her head mutely, her eyes fixed upon mine.

  ‘Come on, Molls, come and give Mum a kiss,’ Alex said, rolling Nathan up and down the bed to make him chortle.

  Molly was still looking at me warily. ‘You lie on kitchen floor, Mummy. You cry,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Mans take you away.’

  ‘I know, darling. I was poorly,’ I told her. ‘The men took me to hospital to make me better. I’m really sorry if you felt frightened.’

  Then she was over at my side in a rush, scrambling up on the bed, one knee in the toast in her haste. And she was clinging to me and kissing me and pressing herself right into me, bony arms squeezing around my neck.

  Alex looked at me above her head. ‘We’ve got these two,’ he said, and his eyes were soft.

  I was glad he hadn’t said ‘at least’. I was sick to the back teeth of hearing ‘at least’, and how I should count my blessings. Counting blessings and ‘at least’ didn’t change a damn thing.

  ‘I know,’ I said. I rubbed Molly’s back, feeling every knobble of her spine through her thin cow-print pyjamas. ‘We have.’

  Alex had already called in to the office to say he would be off work all week, for which I was grateful and relieved. I felt as if my stuffing had leaked out of me along with the baby, plus every ounce of energy and sparkle, too. There was nothing left of me now, just bones and skin and a face. Yeah, so I was breathing in and out. My pulse was ticking along, same as ever. For all that, though, I felt utterly lifeless. I could scarcely drag myself out of bed to the toilet, let alone carry on as normal with the kids and our usual day.

  Alex brought the TV up to our bedroom and switched on Lorraine Kelly for me. ‘I’m going to the shops,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some magazines and oranges and chocolate biscuits and . . . stuff. Anything else you fancy?’

  I shook my head and lay back on the pillows, watching with the very feeblest of interest as Lorraine interviewed a new family that were going to be appearing on Emmerdale. Everything was suddenly so . . . unimportant. So trivial. I listened to the front door slam and Molly’s high, cheerful voice as it floated up to the window outside, and then their footsteps faded away down the road.

  My teeth were chattering. I was cold. Then, once the quilt was up to my neck, I felt hot. I smelled of hospital; I could feel it coming out of my pores, along with all the brandy fumes. I knew, without checking the mirror, that I’d look as if I’d been in a punch-up – red, swollen eyes, puffed-up cheeks. My baby had died. My baby had died. My baby had died.

  Someone was knocking at the front door but I ignored them. Go away. Forget it. Not interested, whoever you are. Probably someone trying to sell me badly made oven gloves or pegs or some other household product that I always bought out of
soft-heartedness and never used. Or it might be God-botherers trying to convert me. One glimpse of my slumped shoulders and they’d know I was easy prey. Alex would come home from the shops to find me signed up to choir practice and canvassing, with enough spare copies of The True Light to paper our bedroom.

  More knocking, louder this time. Go a-bloody-way. My baby is dead, go away. I pulled the quilt over my head. Nobody is in. Get it?

  Then a voice. ‘SADIE! Open up!’

  My eyelids jerked up and I yanked the quilt away from me. Was I hallucinating with too many painkillers now? That had sounded like . . .

  ‘SADIE! Answer the door!’

  It was. Mark. Oh, no. Bad timing, Mark. I wasn’t fit for seeing him right now. I was so not up for this.

  ‘SADIE! I know you’re there!’

  I swung my legs out of the bed. Fuffuxy, as Molly would have said. I knew he wouldn’t go away if I ignored him. He would bang on that door until his knuckles had been ripped apart to cartilage and blood and bone. Oh, and then cue Alex returning from the shops, of course. All right, mate? What are you doing here?

  And Mark would say . . .

  I pulled on my dressing gown and managed to get down the stairs somehow, although my legs were so wobbly they didn’t seem to belong to me any more.

  I opened the door, and his mouth literally fell open as he saw me. ‘Jesus Christ. What happened to you?’

  I was finding it hard to meet him in the eye. Those blue eyes that the prawn might have inherited. Or not. ‘It’s a bad time, OK? I don’t really want to talk about it.’ I swallowed, feeling out of breath with the effort of speaking to him. I gripped the door frame for support. My baby was dead. ‘Mark, I don’t want to see you any more.’

  He took a step towards me and I cringed away from him. ‘But . . . but why?’ he asked. He sounded incredulous. ‘Has Alex found out? Is that why you look so . . .’

  I shut my eyes. Go on, check out those swollen eyelids as well, I thought wretchedly. See me at my ugliest and weakest, Mark. That should be enough to put you off having sex with me ever again. ‘Listen, I just . . . I’m not well,’ I said feebly.

  ‘I saw Alex going off with the kids a few minutes ago,’ he said. ‘And you two were back late last night. What was all that about?’

  I pulled my dressing gown tighter around me and frowned as my brain tried to make sense of his words. ‘What do you mean, we were back late last night?’ I asked. ‘How do you know that?’

  He was leaning against the door jamb. Somehow he’d managed to get even nearer to the threshold without me noticing. ‘When you didn’t turn up last night, I drove over,’ he said. ‘I was watching the house. I kept phoning and phoning and this woman kept answering. Who was that? A babysitter?’

  ‘You were watching the house?’ I repeated. My fingers were trembling. I was starting to feel sick. Why had I ever got into this whole mess? This was my punishment now for bad behaviour. First the miscarriage, and now . . .

  I didn’t get to think all the way to the end of the sentence, though. Just the word miscarriage flashing up in my head again was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Miscarriage. Miscarriage. Miscarriage. My baby had died before it had even had fingers and toes. I was never going to cuddle it, sing to it, pull stupid hats on its head . . .

  ‘Look, Mark,’ I said, trying not to cry in front of him. I didn’t want him to think I was crying about our relationship when I couldn’t give a stuff about that any more. It was nothing. ‘Please go. If you want, we can meet up when I’m better, and we can talk things through. I owe you that much.’ My teeth were chattering again; I was shivering and light-headed, swaying on my bare feet.

  His eyes were savage. ‘You little bitch,’ he said softly.

  I reeled as if he’d slapped my face.

  ‘Do you really think you can end things here and now, on your fucking doorstep?’ He spat out the word as if it were poison. ‘I mean so little to you that—

  I flinched away from him, half expecting him to slap me for real. ‘Please. Stop.’ I covered my face with my hands; my fingers were shaking. ‘I can’t do this.’ My baby just died, Mark, don’t you realize my baby just—

  He grabbed one of my wrists, pulled me roughly over to him. I stumbled on the step, stubbed my toe, fell painfully against him. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘Don’t fob me off with that.’

  I was crying, trying to drag my hand away from him. ‘Get off me,’ I snivelled. There was snot on my face. ‘Please, Mark. I—’

  ‘What’s going on? Sadie! Are you all right, Sadie?’

  Anna. I was faint with relief. Thank God, thank God, oh thank God for Anna. My saviour. She was here at all the right times. And now she was wedged between me and Mark, pulling me inside the house, shutting the front door on him. I leaned against her and sobbed, raw, rasping sobs that hurt my throat. Safe.

  For now.

  Mark was battering on the door, inches away from us. ‘I mean it, Sadie, you can’t push me away like that,’ he was saying. ‘Wait till I tell Alex what you’ve been doing. Wait till I—’

  ‘Go and fuck yourself,’ Anna shouted through the letterbox. ‘Before I call the police.’

  Over the sound of my sobs and sniffs, we heard his footsteps retreating, and then a car engine start up and drive down the road. He had gone.

  Less than a minute later, Alex was back with the kids and bags of shopping. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he said crossly, when he saw me tear-stained and white-faced in the kitchen.

  ‘My fault, sorry,’ Anna said easily. ‘Jamie’s looking after the kids this morning so I popped over with some flowers. Just arrived, just leaving, don’t worry.’ She hugged me, and I looked up in surprise. Flowers. I hadn’t even noticed she’d brought them, cellophane-wrapped tulips on the dresser. ‘I won’t stay. I can see you’re wiped out, Sadie.’ She kissed my cheek, and new tears rolled silently down my face. ‘You look after yourself, my love. Give me a call when you’re up to a chat.’

  Wonderful Anna. She had saved me again. I nodded and tried to smile at her, and then she had gone.

  ‘Back to bed at once,’ Alex ordered. ‘No, don’t get up. Let me take you.’

  He carried me up the stairs, not making a single joke about enrolling me for WeightWatchers classes, or breaking his back and needing to be in traction for a year. He laid me gently on the bed and pulled the duvet over my body. ‘Now sleep,’ he instructed. ‘And then, when you wake up, I’ll show you the treats I’ve got you.’

  When he’d gone, more tears fell at the very thought that I could ever have betrayed him, good, kind Alex. Wait till I tell Alex what you’ve been doing!

  Mark had been right: I was a bitch. A little bitch. I was the most ungrateful bitch alive, and I deserved everything I got. Although if anyone was going to tell Alex just what a bitch I’d been, he should at least hear it from me, straight from the bitch’s mouth.

  I was going to have to tell him. I was going to have to break his heart.

  That night, when the kids had gone to bed, Alex came up with two dinner trays for us. He switched off the telly, lit a few candles around the room, and got under the duvet with me.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘A little sneak preview of what we’ll be doing in thirty years’ time.’

  ‘What, eating off trays, in bed?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, shovelling in a forkful of pasta. ‘You know, when the kids have packed us off to an old people’s home because they can’t stand us any more.’ He shrugged. ‘Something to look forward to, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Cheers for that. You really know how to cheer a gal up, Alex.’

  ‘You wait,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I always tell you I’m right about everything?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘Actually,’ he said, looking shifty all of a sudden, ‘actually, there is something that might cheer you up.’ He coughed. ‘Or, at least, I hope it will. If I don’t balls this up by picking a completely
inappropriate time to be asking you, I mean.’

  I stared at him. He was fiddling around with his garlic bread and looking acutely embarrassed. Alex just didn’t do embarrassed. Which meant that this had to be something really big. Oh, Christ. Was he going to . . .?

  ‘What I’m trying to say is,’ he started, and then stopped. ‘No. Hang on. I want to do this properly. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About us. Good times and bad, and how much you mean to me. And what I’m trying to ask you is—’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said in alarm. His face swung round to mine. Now he looked alarmed, too. ‘Don’t ask me. I mean, obviously I don’t know what you’re going to ask, but perhaps this is an inappropriate time.’

  Alex’s expression turned from alarm to dismay to something resembling relief. Off the hook for the time being, mate. ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘I mean . . .’ Had he really been about to propose to me? I had never seen him look so uncomfortable in his life. Much as I’d longed for him to pop that bloody question for years and years, I could not sit there and listen to him do it, while I was planning to knife him with my betrayal, moments later. ‘I mean, we’ve just been through a really horrible thing. We’re still going through it. And I . . . I . . .’

  He put his knife and fork down, and rubbed my back. ‘I know. You’re right.’ He elbowed me in a jokey way. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ask the doctor instead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, I was just going to ask how long you need to wait after a miscarriage before having sex again, that’s all, but . . .’

  I laughed. I really did. I laughed out loud. ‘You tosser,’ I said. Then I started to cry again.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said in consternation. ‘Oh God, sorry. That was so insensitive of me. I’m sorry, Sade. I’m such a prick, aren’t I?’

  ‘No,’ I sobbed. ‘I’m not crying about that. I thought that was f-f-funny. I’m crying because you’re not a prick. Or a tosser.’ I snatched up a wedge of tissues and blew my nose. ‘I’m crying because I don’t deserve you. You’re too good for me, Alex.’