by Beth Miller
‘Will your dad do some last-minute practice with you, Melissa, or shall I come over on Thursday evening?’
There was a time when I’d have jumped at the chance of another evening with Aron, but everything seemed a bit complicated. So I said Dad would practise with me.
We stood up and shook hands. ‘B’hatzlacha,’ he said. ‘Good luck, Melissa.’
Then he kissed me on my forehead. His lips were so soft that it was like being kissed by a butterfly. I took in a great deep breath of shampoo and soap and was so muddled that I found myself outside in the car park waiting for Dad, without really knowing how I got there.
Melissa
2 APRIL 2003
Whenever I go outside, I’m astonished all over again by the backdrop of mountains. It’s so beautiful here. And so welcoming. I thought the Welsh would be unfriendly when they heard my English accent, but they’ve been lovely. I feel like I’m still travelling: the same pleasurable sense of displacement, the unfamiliar language, the new discoveries. It’s a good place to be when the rest of the world is imploding. You can almost forget about Iraq, war, people dying. I am far from the centre of things, detached from reality, living a quiet existence centred round Laura, Evie and the baby.
One traveller’s discovery I’ve made is a small café in a village called Llandegai, which serves homemade ‘Jewish’ chicken soup, not quite like Mum used to make but not bad. I consider myself a regular now, having been in for the last three days. Today I sit at my usual table, and leaf through my diary while I wait for my soup. How full my diary used to be! Often there wasn’t enough space to note down every meeting, every client. Now, this week, next week, the week after: totally blank. When should I go home? Where even is home, now? For the first time in my life I’m not tied to anywhere. Mum’s fine. Fine as she’ll ever be, anyway, thanks to Morris. Work’s long since replaced me. Jay’s already seeing someone, Sasha tells me – a woman he met at the tennis club. I’m glad for him, feel only a tiny pang. I can go anywhere. Do anything.
I look at Sasha’s latest text – When you coming back, hon? – and don’t know how to reply. I don’t realise I’m sighing till a businessman at a nearby table says, ‘Cheer up!’
Laura smiles broadly when I come into the ward. They’ve been letting her get up for the last couple of days, so they can take her in a wheelchair to see the baby. This has clearly made her feel much stronger.
I give her some of the cards and gifts that have been arriving at the cottage. Hella and Danners have sent flowers, and Laura studies the accompanying card intently. It’s in the florist’s handwriting but I can see from the phrasing that the words are Hella’s. I don’t tell Laura; why spoil her fun? Then she opens a card from Ceri, reads it and tosses it to the floor.
‘She phones every day, you know.’
‘She feels guilty,’ Laura says. ‘Good.’
She is getting better.
I give her some things I bought this morning. Glossy magazines, a box of Maltesers because I remember she used to love them, and a small spritzer of my perfume, the one she likes.
‘Oh, Miffy, you shouldn’t spend money on me, you’re doing enough. You’ve already stayed miles longer than you meant to.’
‘I want to be here.’
I’ve tried several times to talk about what happened the day she went into labour. But I haven’t known how to begin. I don’t think she remembers our argument. She hasn’t mentioned any of it: not offering me Huw, not the things I said, not me pushing her. None of it.
Olivia bursts onto the ward, back from the SCBU. ‘Dios mio, Laura! He opened his eyes! He looked straight at me. He is so adorable!’
Another thing I haven’t told Laura is the pull that tiny baby exerts on me. It’s almost physical, my need to see him. At night, when I can’t sleep, I imagine how he would feel in my arms, his tiny warm body nestling into mine. Sometimes I dream I’m walking along the corridor from the lift to the Special Care Baby Unit. In real life the green floor sparkles, the same kind of flooring as in the hospital where Jay works. Maybe it’s non-slip or something. And in my dreams it’s the same, an endless glittery corridor, and I feel so happy as I walk along it. I never actually see the baby in my dream but I know he’s there, waiting for me.
‘He’s put on another ounce,’ Olivia says to me, ‘and the nurses think Huw will be able to hold him in a couple more days.’
‘If he’s here,’ Laura says.
‘Of course he’ll be here!’ Olivia says. ‘Don’t talk that way. Tempting fate. Didn’t I just tell you he’s getting stronger?’ She gathers her things, kisses Laura, puts her hand on my shoulder briefly. When she’s gone Laura and I look at each other.
‘I didn’t mean the baby,’ Laura says. ‘Huw’s leaving me. Did I mention that?’ She laughs, a hollow sound.
‘Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry.’
‘Shitty, isn’t it? It’s that blonde bitch I saw him with in the pub. Knew it all along.’
‘But I can’t believe he’d go now. What sort of man leaves his wife when she’s just had a baby?’
‘I’m sorry to say, the same man I fell in love with, Miff. When he left Carmen for me, she was pregnant with their second child.’
This shuts me up. I didn’t know that. Laura managed to miss that out of her romantic telling of their affair.
‘He didn’t want to have another child with Carmen, not with their marriage in such a mess. Yes, I know, the irony’s not lost on me.’ She presses the call button next to her bed.
‘Laura, this isn’t the same situation at all! He can’t leave you with a premature baby.’
She looks suddenly much younger. ‘Always knew it could happen, Miff. I messed up. I deserve it.’
‘No one deserves this.’
‘I do. I don’t believe in abortion, but I went and had one anyway. This is my punishment. Another dead baby.’
‘Your baby isn’t dead, love. He’s doing fine. Poor you. I didn’t know you’d had an abortion?’
She rolls the perfume bottle I gave her round in her hands, not looking at me.
‘Sorry, Laura. Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘I do want to. Really, you have a right to know.’
‘Me? Why do I?’
She looks up at me. ‘It was my baby with Danny.’
Someone’s jaw dropping is such a silly cliché. But mine really drops. I feel it go, my mouth sliding open in a big round ‘O’.
‘I always assumed he’d have told you,’ Laura says.
Nurse Canton comes over. ‘You want to see your baby, honey? I’ll just get the chair.’ She heads back out of the ward.
‘When was it?’ I manage to say. My thoughts are whizzing about. It can’t have happened since seeing him last month; she was already pregnant. Before that, she hadn’t seen him since we were children. So she must mean …
‘Found out I was knocked up a few weeks after we left Edgware.’
‘Oh my God. Oh, Christ, Laura. You were only fourteen.’ I put my hand on hers.
‘You’re shocked. I’ve upset you, Miff. I’m sorry.’
I am shocked. And yet … things are slotting into place. ‘Did Danners know?’
She nods.
And he never told me. ‘Who else knew?’
‘Mama. Michael. That’s all.’
‘Not my mum?’
‘Not unless Danny told her.’
No way would he have told Mum, not at that time, and in the state she was in. So he carried that secret all by himself. He was just a teenager himself, fifteen or sixteen. His dad has left, his mother’s having a nervous breakdown, his girlfriend’s betrayed him, his sister’s had an accident, then he gets a phone call or a letter … This is the missing part of a puzzle about Danners that I had long since given up looking for.
‘Did you want to keep it?’
She uncurls her hand from mine. ‘I was just a child myself. Long, long time ago.’ She breaks briefly into song – the beginning of ‘America
n Pie’. Then says, ‘Yes. Yes. Not at the time, not properly. But when I was older, oh yes. When I realised you can’t always have the children you want when you want them. God yes.’
That’s a feeling I understand.
She gives me a tired smile. ‘What goes around comes around, Miff. I don’t just mean the abortion. Huw leaving as well. I took him off Carmen, now this Tania has taken him off me. He makes you feel so special. I remember how amazing it was when he chose me. Me, out of all the girls he could have chosen.’
Since I met Laura again, I’ve often wondered why I thought her so sophisticated when we were young. And I’ve never wondered it more than now. ‘He shouldn’t have been choosing anyone, Laura. He was married then. And he’s married now.’
‘Men just follow their dicks, don’t they?’
Nurse Canton arrives with the wheelchair. ‘Ooh, talking about dicks are we, you must be feeling better.’
Laura laughs. The nurse helps her into the chair, arranges the drip, says, ‘We’ll be getting you off this tomorrow.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Laura says. ‘Okay, ready.’
The nurse pushes Laura’s chair and I keep pace alongside. The corridor from the lift isn’t nearly as long as in my dreams, but the floor does sparkle. I point it out to Laura and she says, ‘Oh yes. I’d never noticed it before.’
Laura can’t go into the SCBU because of the wheelchair and the drip, so she sits outside, presses her face to the window. I stand next to her and we are silent for a while, gazing at the tiny baby. He’s awake but he doesn’t look in our direction – he’s too busy scanning the ceiling. What a strange world he must think it is, all wires and lights and hardness.
‘Beautiful,’ Laura breathes. ‘I can’t wait to get in there. Touch him.’
Nor can I.
‘I couldn’t have got through this without you,’ she says. ‘It’s been so wonderful having you around.’
I feel such a terrible fraud, hearing this.
‘I feel so worried for you, Laura.’
‘I’ll manage, Miff. I’ll take the fucking bastard for every penny, don’t worry.’
‘What about emotionally, Laura?’ I want to shout: Who cares about money? What about Evie? The baby? What about another broken marriage? But I hold myself back. It’s not any of my business. I take a breath, pretend she’s a client. Move the abortion into a compartment, to be dealt with later.
Then just when I think I know how she’s feeling, she throws her arms round my waist, and sobs, ‘Christ, Miffy-sister, I love him. My heart stopped when he told me about that woman. He went through so much to be with me, I thought he’d never leave.’ Her sobbing is more like gasping. ‘It was just meant to be a rough patch.’
The toughness of just a minute ago has quite disappeared. She is so much more vulnerable than she pretends. I stroke her hair, make soothing noises, and after a while she wipes her eyes and sits up straight. The baby has gone to sleep.
‘Let’s go back down. Can you push me?’
What, like I did in your kitchen? I must, must talk to her about this today. The therapists I’ve seen would have absolutely loved that I pushed Laura. I can hear them, triumphantly making patterns out of the misery in my life. ‘She pushed you, so, years later, you pushed her. It is appropriate, natural. A child pushing a child.’ But I wasn’t a child when I pushed her. I remember one therapist I saw during my clinical psychology training almost yelled, ‘Your father couldn’t have abandoned you in a more damaging way if he had tried! Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ But I can’t help it.
Back we go, across the green sparkles. Laura says, ‘When I saw the baby for the first time, it felt like being hit, it was so powerful. Hit by love. But I’m frightened.’
When we reach the ward, I ask a nurse for help and she gently eases Laura into bed. I smooth her covers. She looks absolutely exhausted, pale as the sheets.
I say, ‘Tell me what’s frightening you.’
‘I guess we never know what’s coming our way. If the baby makes it …’
‘He will!’
‘If he makes it, the doctor said he might be brain-damaged. Blind, maybe. Never been very good with stuff like that. How will I cope with it on my own?’
I’m going to have to tell her. Now.
Deep breath.
‘Laura, do you remember what happened before you went into labour?’
‘Huw told me he was leaving, and I had too much whisky.’ She opens the Maltesers and offers the box to me. I shake my head.
‘Before that. Do you remember our argument?’
‘Oh no, I can’t bear to talk about that. I embarrassed myself. And you.’
‘Laura, listen. Me pushing you caused the baby to come early.’ It’s such a relief to say it that my eyes fill with tears.
‘I don’t think so, Miff.’
‘I know so. You didn’t have any symptoms of labour before, did you? And I shoved you and you fell, and then a few hours later the baby came. Oh Jesus, Laura, I wasn’t thinking straight, I have never ever hurt anyone in my life before, I don’t know what came over me. Thank God that little boy is fighting to stay here; if he didn’t make it, I don’t know what I would do.’
She is shaking her head but I keep going. It’s so important to speak up.
‘And I promise – I swear – that I will make it up to you. If the baby’s disabled, or if he isn’t, it doesn’t matter to me. And now I know about Huw, it’s even more important you have someone here, to help and support you. I will gladly do that. I’ll stay with you for as long as you want, and help you look after him. That’s the best way I can make it up to you.’
Laura stares at me. She starts to say something several times:
‘I’m not sure that’s what …’
‘But I was already having …’
‘Your work and your life …’
I wave my hand at the last one. ‘It’s providence that I’m a free agent. I can move here. Get a job. Look after us all. I don’t want you to have to get another crummy shop job. I mean it, Laura. I feel this is what I am meant to do. What I must do. To try and make it up to you.’
There is a long silence. Laura looks at her hands. Finally she says, ‘Thank you.’
By the time Huw arrives we’ve made lots of plans. He saunters over, addresses Laura in his usual cocky tone. How could I ever have found him attractive? How could I have let him kiss me, on that crazy sunlit walk when we got lost? He fancies himself way too much, and behaves like he’s still an irresponsible young man. But the buttons on his shirt are straining. The lines on his face are deep.
‘Feeling fit enough to put on make-up, that’s a good sign, cariad.’
‘Need to start attracting potential new husbands, don’t I?’ She’s brassy again, protective shell firmly back in place.
I pick up my bag. I feel such anger. Towards Huw. Towards all men who leave their kids as though it was such a little thing. Such an easy thing. Such a nothing.
Most of all, I feel anger towards myself.
‘Oh, by the way, Huw, I’ll stay around after you’ve gone. Help Laura and the baby.’ I look straight at him, as I pull on my coat. ‘It should be your job. But if you’re not man enough for it, I’ll step in.’
I turn on my heel and go out, leaving a gratifying silence behind me.
Miffy
1979
Bat Mitzvah Girl
Saturday, 2 September 1979. The day I officially become a woman.
I put on my new pants and bra, then stepped carefully into my green dress. I didn’t feel scared. More weird, really. In the mirror I looked sad. Laura once said that the best cure for a tired face was sparkly eyeshadow. I chose the silvery-green one from my new make-up kit, which was a batmitzvah present from Mum’s friend Bernice. Laura’s heart-shaped pendant didn’t go with the dress, so I took it off and put on my gold Star of David instead. Then I went carefully downstairs in my high shoes.
Everyone was waiting for me: Mum, Dad, Danners a
nd Auntie Leila. Dad made special breakfast pancakes. Auntie Leila put my hair into a French plait and tied it with a green ribbon. She looked amazing in a red and white polka-dot dress. Mum was in a lovely new cream dress with pleats.
Dad and Auntie Leila started the car shifts to get all our relatives to shul, and Mum and I waited in the living room. I sat with my knees together and hands by my sides so I wouldn’t get crumpled. Dad had polished my shoes so there was no sign of the scuff marks Towse had made.
‘You look beautiful, angel,’ she said. ‘How you feeling?’
‘A bit strange.’
‘Nerves, I suppose. I never had a batmitzvah, of course; girls didn’t in my day. I’m so proud of you.’ She gave me a gentle, non-crumpling hug. She was wearing her new perfume, which Auntie Leila had brought from France.
‘You smell really nice, Mummy.’
‘Listen, Melissa. I just want to say, I love you. We’ll always be together and we’ll look after each other. Whatever happens.’
Dad beeped his car horn and we stood up and smoothed down our skirts. Mum held my hand as we went out to the car, but I didn’t mind.
The shul was packed with my aunties and grandparents and cousins. My cousin Linda was wearing the sailor dress I’d seen in Helene’s Paris Fashions, poor thing. Aunt Faye came gushing over. She flicked back the neck of my dress to read the label. ‘Hmph,’ she said. ‘Leila always did go right over the top and into orbit.’
But everyone else was nice. Booba and Zaida Cline came over, pushing Booba Preston in her wheelchair. Booba Cline fussed over me, picking invisible threads off my dress. Zaida Cline gave me a big kiss. I bent down to say hello to Booba Preston and she said, ‘Hubble, bubble toil and trouble.’
I laughed, and said, ‘Well, exactly.’
She took my hand and pulled me towards her. ‘Whatever your silly parents do, you’ll be all right, Melissa,’ she whispered. ‘Sound head on those pretty shoulders.’
Danners was leaning against the back wall with Towse, who looked cute in a dark suit. He shook my hand and winked at me. I thought of what he looked like in just his T-shirt, gloppy sperm all over his belly, and gave him a huge wink back.
