by Gwyn GB
She’s angry. Why is it that it’s always after the argument she comes up with the right answers, precisely put, delivered with deadly precision to kill any counter argument? Now is no good. She has all the best retorts to Margaret’s painful accusations, only Margaret isn’t here. Why is it that those who know you the best, and are supposed to love you the most, can be the cruellest? Does her sister really think she would sell their home, kick John out of his? Does Margaret honestly think that badly of her? Is this what she’s come home to? Or perhaps that’s the point, she’s been kidding herself - this isn’t her home at all anymore.
She hears the faint sounds of family life rising from downstairs. Sophie’s voice, shrill in its youth, travels well as too does the sound of her feet running from room to room, or up and down the stairs. As Katherine lies in bed, eyes half closed against the morning light, she suddenly realises those very same feet are now climbing higher, up the second flight of stairs to her attic bedroom. She listens. There’s whispering, clinking sounds, and then a gentle knock at the door.
‘Aunty Kath…Aunty Kath.’
‘Yes Sophie, come in.’ The door creaks open and the little girl carefully steps through its threshold carrying a large tray laden with crockery.
‘I’ve brought you up some breakfast Aunty Kath,’ she says beaming, ‘There’s tea, toast and some fruit for you.’
Katherine smiles at her niece and wriggles herself up the bed, stuffing the pillow behind her back as she watches the little girl totter across the bedroom, willing the bowl and jug on the slippery tray not to slide off and crash to the floor.
‘Oh wow, that’s fantastic Sophie, thank you.’ She reaches out for the tray, eager to secure it, ‘You’re so kind.’ Sophie smiles proudly and hands it over, then stands there looking at her aunt, smiling. Her beaming face makes the perfect olive branch: as if that isn’t Margaret’s intention! ‘Would you like to share some of my toast and fruit?’ Sophie nods excitedly and clambers onto the bed beside Katherine, her back leaning against the headboard beside her aunt’s and little legs stretched out in front parallel with hers. Katherine puts the tray between them after carefully taking the tea off.
‘How long are you staying?’ Sophie asks turning to look at her aunt, a strawberry midway between plate and mouth.
‘I’m not sure yet, at least a couple of weeks, maybe longer.’
‘With us?’ she asks excitedly, ‘Here in this room?’
‘We’ll see.’
Sophie looks a little disappointed but seems to accept the answer. ‘It’s raining,’ she says matter of factly, completely changing the subject as only children can. ‘Mummy says I can go to Fort Regent later…will you come with us?’
Katherine looks at her expectant face, it isn’t the thought of going with her, it’s the prospect of having to spend time with Margaret that holds her back. ‘I’m not sure sweetheart. I’ll try.’
She hands Sophie half a slice of toast, smothered in home-made blackberry jam and cut in triangles - just the way her own mother used to.
An hour later Katherine is washed and dressed. She still has a slight hangover feeling of alcohol oozing out of her pores, but the Ibuprofen she’s taken have eased the headache. She goes downstairs with the tray but finds nobody around. The kitchen is spotless, so she puts her breakfast things into the dishwasher and wipes the tea and milk spills off the tray. She is just looking around for its home when the back door opens and the silent room is instantly filled with Sophie’s bubbly presence. Margaret follows close behind with some freshly pulled carrots from her polytunnel. When she sees Katherine she looks a little awkward.
‘Morning. I’m taking Sophie to Fort Regent in a bit, do you want to come?’ She says as nonchalantly as possible.
‘Do you mean the swimming pool?’ Katherine asks, the prospect of splashing around with a whole load of noisy children not exactly inviting.
‘No. The pool was shut years ago. They’ve got one of those play area things, you know where the children clamber around inside a giant climbing frame.’
Katherine looks bemused and a little unsure, in her life it isn’t something she’s come across.
‘We can just sit and have a coffee while she plays…. Anyway, we’re leaving in ten minutes if you want to come.’ Margaret extends her own olive branch, although Katherine can still see the sparks of last night’s lightning strikes flashing in her eyes.
‘OK.’ Katherine replies, still smarting from all the harsh words. She wants an apology, not an invite to a play area. Nevertheless, ten minutes later she’s at the bottom of the stairs handbag and coat ready as Sophie sits on the floor pulling her pink flowery wellies off and replacing them with shoes. She’s humming a little tune to herself and looks up with a glow of innocence as her aunt approaches.
‘Are you coming Aunty Kath?’
‘Yes I’m coming,’ she replies with a smile. She’s not sure what Margaret’s motivation is for the invite, to mend the bridges, or to have another pop at her, but she does know it will bring a smile to Sophie’s face so she’ll take the chance. She also wants the opportunity to put the record straight with her sister.
‘Come on then, monkey,’ Margaret says appearing from the kitchen, car keys jangling and her handbag swinging on her arm. ‘Perhaps you might see some of your friends from school,’ she continues opening the front door. Sophie doesn’t need any further encouragement, grabbing her raincoat from the rack, she skips out to the car.
Katherine follows. It’s been more than twenty years since she last visited Fort Regent. ‘I don’t suppose the skating rink is there any more, is it?’ she asks Margaret as they pull out of the yard.
‘No, God no, that went years ago, along with the little fun fair thing that used to be outside along the ramparts. Do you remember that?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she replies, wistfully. She and Margaret spent many happy days there when they were younger.
What happened? How did it all go wrong? Was it entirely her fault as Margaret said last night? Did she get so consumed by grief that she completely shut the living out? Perhaps if Margaret knew all that had gone on then she would have understood why she’d had to get away, for her sanity, for her survival.
Even now when Katherine remembers those days, before and just after she’d left, they fill her mind with black smoky fog. With cold. A coldness that makes her bones ache, and claws at her, dragging her down into suffocating mud. Only she knows just how close she came to completely succumbing to its power. Those dark, dark days after John left her in London, how near she had been to giving in; to accepting that nothing was worthwhile. Life was pointless.
22
1984, Jersey
At week sixteen Katherine returns to the midwife for another routine check-up. John doesn’t come this time, there’s no need. Her urine tests fine, as too does her blood pressure, and she offers up her arm for more blood tests. Then she lies down on the couch whilst the midwife checks the baby’s heartbeat.
‘I feel like I’m getting my energy back now, which is great,’ she chats to the midwife. ‘And I’m sleeping better again too, although I suppose that will get worse again as I get bigger. I don’t seem to be getting that big yet though, people keep saying that if they didn’t know, they wouldn’t be able to tell that I’m pregnant.’
It’s then she notices the silence in the rest of the room and when Katherine turns to look, the midwife’s face has changed. Just a few moments before she’d been smiling, relaxed and chatty, now a professional mask has fallen across her features and she’s listening intently, moving the monitor around Katherine’s belly but not keeping it still.
A terrible knot of fear grasps Katherine’s insides, twisting her intestines and wrenching her heart. ‘Something’s wrong isn’t it?’ she asks.
The midwife doesn’t answer straight away. Her face unintelligible. ‘I’m sorry.’ she says at last. ‘I can’t seem to find the baby’s heartbeat. It doesn’t mean that something is definitely wrong.’ Sh
e places her hand on top of Katherine’s gently. ‘But we need to get you in for a scan, take a look at what’s going on.’ The touch of her hand is enough for Katherine to know exactly what the midwife is thinking.
‘Could the machine be faulty?’ she asks, desperate to find a way out of the gaping hole of fear and misery opening up before her.
‘I don’t think so love, it was working just fine half an hour ago...but you never know. That’s why we must get you in, double check. Would you like to call your husband while I telephone the hospital?’
Katherine nods.’ When, when will the scan be?’
‘Straight away love. They’ll see you this afternoon.’ She smiles sympathetically at her, reinforcing the touch of her hand. Katherine is falling into a whirlpool and being sucked down fast. What’s happened to her baby? Why can’t the midwife find a heartbeat? They’d had the scan, everything looked fine. How can this be happening? She slowly sits up and after the midwife leaves the room, Katherine walks to the desk to telephone John. She prays he’s not out in the fields, so far away that he won’t hear the phone ringing on the yard speaker.
It seems to take forever for him to pick up, every second feeling like a month, then she hears his voice.
‘Hello, La Vielle Farm.’
‘John, it’s me.’
‘Oh hello darling, I was in the barn. You finished at the doctors? Everything OK?’ There’s a tightening in Katherine’s throat making it nearly impossible for her to speak. ‘Kathy?’
‘No… No it’s not. John, she thinks the baby has died. The midwife can’t find a heartbeat. They’re sending me for a scan.’
‘No!’ is all she hears from the other end. She doesn’t need to see him because she knows that she’s just ripped his insides out.
Then his voice again, different this time, quieter. ‘Are you sure?’
‘She says she can’t be sure, but I think she believes it’s died. There’s no heart beat John. Why? Why our baby?’
‘Stay calm Kathy. It could be a mistake. I’m coming now, don’t go anywhere.’ The phone clicks and goes dead.
She sits for a while staring at it, at the little holes in the mouthpiece down which she’s just uttered those dreadful words, ‘I think the baby has died.’ So easy to say, to send them off to John’s ear, but what a terrible effect those six simple words have on both of them. She’s calm, very calm, but that’s because she’s numb. Katherine is desperately hoping the midwife is wrong, that something is faulty with her machine, that their baby is going to be bouncing around on the scanner screen again just like it had been four weeks ago. Deep inside, she knows, she’s clutching at straws.
At first her womb shows up on the scanner monitor as an empty grey chamber. There’s no sign of the little jerky baby whose image she carries around in her handbag. The little form which once seemed to fill the space they’re now looking at. This space, which only a few weeks ago seemed capable of such miracles, creating and giving life to a baby, is now a cavern that has swallowed all her hopes and dreams. The midwife pushes the scanner right down, to the bottom, searching...and there it is. There’s no mistaking that it’s lifeless. It simply hangs there on the monitor, not responding to the pokes and prods, not moving. A little tiny human. Suspended. Dead. Her womb, the symbol of fertility and new life, is now its grey grainy grave.
From somewhere she hears the midwife say she’s sorry, and feels John take hold of her hand. She turns away from the screen to stare at the wall with its posters of pink healthy babies and advice on what you should and shouldn’t be eating during pregnancy, and the big sign that says smoking will damage your unborn child. What did she do wrong? What damaged her baby? Why has her baby died? She’s looked after herself just like all the books said.
‘Why?’ Her voice seems to come from nowhere.
‘We usually don’t know why,’ the midwife replies, ‘It’s very common you know, a big percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriages.’
‘But I haven’t miscarried.’
‘Any failure of a pregnancy at this stage is called a miscarriage, it doesn’t just mean that you lose a baby spontaneously.’ The midwife patiently explains, pausing and looking to John for some kind of go-ahead to continue. ‘We need to talk about what the options are now. We’d recommend that you are admitted and the baby is removed. From its size I’d say it died around two weeks ago, and as your body hasn’t expelled it itself, there could be a risk of infection if we don’t remove it.’
The midwife looks to John again and back to Katherine. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in, but the best thing would be for you to go up to the ward now. I’ll call the doctor, get him to come and talk to you. Would that help?’
Katherine nods because she doesn’t know what else to do. ‘I need the toilet,’ she says, slipping off the bed.
‘Shall I come down the corridor with you?’ John asks, but she shakes her head. She needs a few moments just to take this all in. Katherine feels for him, she knows he’s upset too, that he’s feeling helpless right now; but she’s just got to get out of the room for a while, away from all the reminders of the last time they were in here. As she walks down the corridor she stifles the overpowering urge just to run, run away and try to make believe that none of this is happening.
She doesn’t run of course. She’s not even sure she’s capable of running at this point, and even if she did she’d be running straight smack bang into reality. The longer she stays within these four walls the longer it’s another world away from their real lives and she can hold on to that former life for as long as possible. Katherine doesn’t want to return home and not be pregnant. This is just not how it’s meant to be. She should call her mother and Margaret, but she can’t bring herself to do it. She wants to keep this terrible secret just between John and herself. She doesn’t want to hear the disappointment and worry in her mother’s voice.
Faces jostle forward through the fog in her head. Smiling faces of all the people who have congratulated her over the last few weeks, each one further evidence of her failure. What will she say to them? She can’t bear the thought of all those smiles turning to sympathetic looks. She needs to at least call her boss, tell him she won’t be back in today, perhaps not for a few days. Maybe John will do that for her.
As the doctor explains what is going to happen, Katherine is on autopilot. She signs the consent form for ‘The Removal of Products of Conception’ and offers up her arm for blood tests and blood pressure monitoring. They sit awkwardly, waiting for the inevitable. She’s not allowed to eat or drink, and John refuses anything for himself. He wants her suffering to be his, she can feel it in his touch; and there’s a look of guilt in his eyes that she’s having to go through this as he sits by and watches.
Two hours later Katherine is taken down for surgery, wheeled through the corridors on a bed by two porters. As she says goodbye to John, the anaesthetist tries to calm her and make her feel more at ease with some inanely cheerful chat. All she wants to do is scream. He asks her to hold the oxygen mask over her nose. The smell of disinfectant fills her nostrils. Then he puts the needle into the back of her hand. She doesn’t want the needle in her hand. She doesn’t want to be here at all. She’s scared. Scared of what they are going to do to her. Scared of being unconscious. Scared of having to wake up afterward and deal with what will have happened. Her jaw starts to feel numb and tingly, then she feels woozy. She doesn’t want to go to sleep...She doesn’t want to have...an operation. She doesn’t...want...them to...take away...her...baby...
Noise first. Mechanical blips and the gentle murmur of voices. Her eyes open to bright white light and fuzzy images. Where is she? Her mouth. The overpowering taste and smell of anaesthetic and plastic. The dryness of her throat. The heavy gas which seems to lie like a fog in the depths of her lungs. Then the feeling. The overriding feeling which suddenly dominates her consciousness - the soreness in her womb – and it hits her. She knows where she is, why she’s here, what has happened. Her baby has just b
een taken from her - and she cries.
She cries for her baby, for her loss, silent sobs so as not to attract the attention of the nurses. Her tears, hot and full, escape the corners of her eyes and soak into the white hospital pillowcase turning it grey. The job is done. The problem sorted. She is not pregnant anymore.
If only she could have woken up to another life, a life where her baby still grows in her womb. Instead she’s woken up an empty shell, her insides sucked and scraped out like a whelk. A few moments and it was all over. All she’s good for is to be thrown back on the beach where the sea can smash and bash her until she’s just another grain of sand. No life. No identity. No purpose.
Katherine thinks of Anne lying dead in her grave. Perhaps this is what she deserves, perhaps this is to make up for how Anne’s parents felt when they lost her. Perhaps this is her eye for an eye. This is her reality now, lying in a hospital bed her womb throbbing and aching for its loss, just a sore bruised feeling where once her tiny baby lived.
Is this what grief tastes like? Will this artificial medical taste in her mouth be the signature of her loss? It’s not the first time she’s experienced death. First there was Dad. The shock of discovering her father’s body. Completely still. An empty husk instead of the man who’d been so full of life and strength. She was cast adrift then, the rock torn from under her feet, tossed on a storm of emotions she’d found difficult to rationalise at such a young age. Then Anne’s death. The signature of that grief was guilt, a gut twisting knot of guilt, clouded by remorse and by the fear that at any time everyone might figure out it was actually all her fault; that Katherine failed her friend and was the catalyst for her death.
