by Gwyn GB
Perhaps time has given her enough distance from the last experiences for her to have forgotten just how awful they were. Perhaps she just doesn’t like to give in. Perhaps she’s an optimist, or perhaps it’s simply the deep rooted need within Katherine to be a mother that just can’t be ignored. Whatever the reason, or reasons, helped by the joy of the wedding celebration, and the wine that goes with it, she and John make love that night and their third child is conceived.
Katherine wonders if other people stop to consider the wonder of creation. She’s not talking Adam and Eve; she means everyday creation. How a man and woman create a little clump of cells that multiply and grow into a tiny person. What an incredible piece of natural engineering: that the cells know where to put the arms and the head, that the little human needs lungs and a heart, it will want eyes to look at the world, ears to hear music. That some can be born with beautiful voices, others with legs that run faster than anybody else, or a brain which can further the human race. Katherine appreciates the marvel of this creation, because she also knows how it can go terribly wrong. She no longer takes it as given that they’re going to get a healthy baby. Her pregnancy becomes nine months of worry. Will it survive? If it does survive is it OK? Have the arms and legs been put in the right places? The internal organs fully formed? Some people worry about getting the nursery painted, Katherine just worries whether or not she will get a baby, or will they be mourning yet another lost soul.
Blood.
It’s so black and white isn’t it? There’s no manoeuvring with blood. No confusion.
When Katherine sees it she knows exactly what it means. Life is a little less cruel to her this time round: the miscarriage comes earlier, heralded by bleeding. She loses the baby spontaneously at eight weeks. The onset of the bleeding, the stomach and back pains are traumatic but at least she’s saved the artificial intervention of another operation, or worse still – labour.
She surprises herself with her resilience. Maybe it’s because she’s hardening, or maybe it’s because it seems a normal part of the pregnancy cycle to her; or maybe she just didn’t get so attached to this baby. Didn’t allow herself to dare imagine it in their lives. Katherine isn’t sure if she’s kidding herself, or if some emotional volcano is lying in wait buried beneath a granite wall of protection, but this time she doesn’t get depressed. If anything she’s more determined. She wants a baby.
Within three months they’re trying again. She tells herself if it’s a girl she will call her Anne. Perhaps that will appease the curse which is upon her. Even this promise gives her some hope, some kind of positive action in a process that until now appears to be completely beyond her control.
It’s early autumn when she falls pregnant again. They’ve been spending long warm evenings sitting in the garden chatting to Margaret and Robert who have set up home in the main house. Their mother has retreated to a couple of rooms and given over the bulk of the house to Margaret and her husband. It’s been a lovely summer, Katherine’s never felt so close to Margaret as now. This evening the candle flames are barely moving in the heavy air. She and Margaret lie on the lawn, looking up at the flitting black shapes of bats swooping across the garden catching the midges which hang in small busy clouds.
The garden is walled in granite with the house on one side. All along the wall Jersey lilies grow tall and proud, their shadows elegantly etched on the moonlit night sky. There’s the smell of freshly turned earth in the air, the men have been working late in the fields and Katherine is expecting John to join them at any time. She’s just discovered she’s pregnant again so she’s only sipping water and her eyes feel heavy and dry with tiredness.
Turning her head to look at her sister she makes a discovery. Margaret is lying on her back next to her, contentment across her face, one hand protectively over her stomach.
‘You’re pregnant aren’t you!’ Katherine exclaims.
Margaret is jolted out of her dream and turns to look at her. ‘Oh my God! How did you guess? Yes. I’m only nine weeks though, it’s still early days. We thought that after... well you know after your miscarriage, it might be best to leave off telling everyone until a bit later. Is it that obvious?’ Her face is consumed with joy. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you, I’m so glad you’ve guessed.’
Katherine smiles back at her. She would so love to tell her sister that she’s pregnant too, but that would involve telling the whole story. Margaret is happy, enjoying her expectant motherhood. She knows there can be problems but she’s not aware of just how risky it can be. If Katherine tells her any of their story it could take away the joy of her first pregnancy.
‘It’s wonderful news, I’m really excited for you. I shan’t tell anyone don’t worry.’
‘Thanks. Have you...you know, have you never thought about it again?’ Margaret asks tentatively, ‘It would be lovely for us to have little ones at the same time, cousins who could grow up together.’
A knife stabs into Katherine’s heart and slashes a huge wide open slit all the way down to her belly. If only.
‘Yes it would,’ she simply replies. ‘Maybe one day... but you know work is busy at the moment, so we’ll see.’ It’s the best brush off she can manage right now without getting upset and giving the game away.
They fall silent for a while, Katherine can guess what Margaret is dreaming about, lying there a smile on her lips, thinking about nursing her baby as she herself has done so many times before. All Katherine can think about are the grainy grey scan photographs, her babies that were not to be, and the possibility she might be setting herself up for more heartache. Above them the two bats continue their silent diving dance, dipping and turning, first one way and then the next. So fast you could miss their swoop in a blink.
Katherine’s need for a baby is heightened by Margaret’s news. She’d never wish her misfortune on Margaret in a million years, but what if her own pregnancy fails again and Margaret’s doesn’t. How is she going to cope with watching her younger sister with a baby? Part of her will be happy for her, but part of her will be screaming, why not me? As for John? He’ll no doubt be thinking he’d married the wrong sister, taken on the faulty one, the one who can’t bear children; can’t give him the son or daughter he longs for. The world is carrying on around her but Katherine’s need for motherhood means she’s stuck in a deep pit of desperation, a pit with slippery walls and an endless drop before she can see the bottom.
September is here and her boss needs an answer. It’s no. She can’t see anything else right now except her need for a baby. Katherine simply waits. Waits and prays that perhaps this time their perseverance, their past suffering will be rewarded. That pity will be taken on them.
Pity is taken on them, but not in the way Katherine hoped. At week-fourteen, when the doctor confirms yet again their baby is lost, he also promises extensive tests.
‘I suspect that what might be happening is your placenta is failing,’ he announces to them both. ‘It’s the baby’s life support, if not enough hormones are being produced it will fail. We need to do some more blood tests, check how your hormone levels are progressing. I’m sorry this must be very hard for you both I know, but we will try to find out all we can. See if there’s something we can do to help.’
Katherine nods, offers up her body to the medical instruments and needles, and then goes home to await the results.
Three weeks later Margaret announces to everybody that she is pregnant and everything is absolutely fine. Katherine rejoices with her, kissing and hugging her with relief, so glad her little sister won’t have to go through what she’s having to. Then when she gets back to their empty cottage, she sobs. Deep, body wrenching sobs that come from the pit of her stomach and take all her energy until she falls down onto the bathroom floor, hugging her empty womb, tugging at her hair and rocking backwards and forwards on her knees; until her eyes are so puffy with tears, they sting, and her jaw aches with the effort of her grief.
When she hears John return Katherine sh
owers and washes away the evidence of her emotion, brushing off his comments that she looks ‘wiped out,’ with the excuse it’s been a busy day at work. She doesn’t want him to see her upset. She wants to show him she can be strong, that she’s up to trying again. He’s already begun to question the wisdom of continuing saying he’s worried about her, but she doesn’t want to stop now, the very thought that ‘this could be it’ panics her. Whatever their next move the doctor advises they wait, give her body a few months to recover, and the medical staff time to work out if there’s something they can do to help.
Even the weather works against her. In mid-October a hurricane hits Jersey and the UK, devastating the countryside, ripping mature trees from the ground and tearing roofs from their walls. 134 miles per hour winds batter their tiny island which sits open to the raging of the weather gods with no shelter from the ferocious sea winds. It rips off barn doors, flings heavy slate tiles into the yard where they smash, and covers the fields in debris. It takes John weeks of long, back-breaking days to clear the fallen trees from the fields and repair the damage, and that’s after he’s helped his community using his tractor to clear fallen trees from roads. John is simply too exhausted to contemplate baby making in these weeks, leaving Katherine to wonder if the Universe is completely stacked against her.
28
February 1988, Jersey – Margaret
There’s no doubt Sara’s birth is the most wonderful day of Margaret’s life so far - but it isn’t one without sadness, for it’s also the day she feels she loses her sister.
Nobody could have prepared her for the emotional volcano of motherhood. That first night lying in the hospital bed, completely exhausted after nearly twenty-four hours of labour, physically in shock from the pain and exertion of it all, but unable to take her eyes off the tiny pink bundle lying wrapped-up in the Perspex cot by her bedside. The only thing she can think about is to love her, protect her, nurture her and how vulnerable she looks expelled from the safety of her mother’s body into a world where they could become separated. Ultimately will be separated.
In later years, after Margaret learns her own mother’s ‘secret’, she will remember those first feelings, that first sight of her child and she will put herself in her mother’s shoes. It will help her to understand how she felt, and Margaret will find comfort in that.
For now though that shadow doesn’t exist in her life, her only focus is the brand new baby who lies next to her. Eventually her exhausted body and mind succumb to a deep dark pool of sleep where even dreams struggle to follow, and only the squeaky cries of her daughter learning to call for her attention drag her back and wake her. She sits in the half darkness of the hospital ward feeding her baby, aware of the wind flinging the rain at the windows outside, hammering on the glass. Sometimes there’s only a few big drops, at other times hundreds, thousands of little droplets hurtling down to hit the few square metres of glass standing between the early spring Jersey storm, and Margaret and baby Sara. She feels secure, safe, rooted onto their tiny island sitting defiantly surrounded by sea and open skies. Their independence is what shapes them, people as defiant as the rock they live on. Swearing allegiance to the British crown nearly a hundred miles away rather than the neighbouring land mass of France to which they were once connected. That history, Margaret’s history will become Sara’s.
It’s dark outside except for the lights of the hospital and surrounds of St Helier. Most people are warm and dry, asleep in their beds leaving the storm to rage. The ward is half draped in grey shadows hiding the beds at the centre where neither the light from the corridor nor the faint glow from outside can reach. Margaret and Sara are the only occupants of the ward tonight, with just the odd laugh or slice of conversation from the midwives managing to slide in with the light under the closed door.
This is a twilight world Margaret learns to inhabit over the coming weeks. The small hours of the morning, half asleep, half awake, feeding a hungry baby. A time when reality can become confused with the dream world as her tired human brain attempts to shut down for sleep but is constantly nudged awake by the needs of the precious baby cradled in her arms. Margaret’s eyes are heavy, dry, blurring with the battle of consciousness. Her head hangs down, nodding as she struggles to keep her brain from falling into the abyss of sleep. She might be tired but she’s certainly happy.
Robert arrives first thing the next morning bearing flowers and a handful of cards from colleagues at the post office, plus a gift they’d all clubbed together to buy. Margaret loves the new look in Robert’s eyes. He’s always loved her, she knows that, but now that love has strengthened and when he looks at her holding little Sara she can see no bottom to its depths. His gaze envelops her and their baby in a warm soft fuzz. Robert sits on the chair next to Margaret’s bed and takes their sleeping child very gently in his arms while she opens the cards and presents. The sight of her big brawny husband gently holding their tiny daughter almost makes her shiver with the wave of contentment that breaks over her.
‘I bet Carol got this didn’t she?’ Margaret says to him as she unwraps the present. She can see Carol at work collecting the contributions and revelling in choosing it. Carol, is in her fifties with five children, only one still left at home, and she’s enjoyed Margaret’s pregnancy almost as much as she did herself.
‘Yeah, got it in one.’ Robert smiles. ‘She asked if she could pop in this afternoon after her shift.’ Robert replies without taking his eyes off the sleeping Sara.
‘Of course she can. That would be nice.’
‘You’re not too tired are you?’ Robert looks up now, searching her face for any signs of stress or discomfort.
‘No I’m fine. Tired yes, but not too tired to show off our new baby.’
‘Your mum and Katherine should be here soon,’ Robert adds, as Margaret continues to open her cards.
She can’t wait to share her baby with them both.
Margaret has just finished changing Sara when her mother and Katherine arrive. The changing process took at least fifteen minutes, she’s so unused to her baby’s delicate little frame that Margaret does everything ultra-slowly for fear of breaking or hurting something. She’d just settled into the soft chair by the window when Margaret hears their voices coming through the door. Her mother’s excitement fills the entire ward, her face exploding with pleasure and pride as she hugs and kisses Margaret and Sara one after the other, over and over.
Perhaps it’s the enormity of her mother’s joy, or simply that she’s so focused on showing off her new baby, but it isn’t until they’ve been there for around ten minutes that Margaret notices the muted reaction from Katherine. There’s no doubt their mother has taken the lead, perhaps forced Katherine onto the side-lines; but once Marie has taken Sara and started walking around the ward, rocking and cooing softly to her, Margaret becomes aware of her sister standing a few feet away as though there’s an invisible barrier between the two of them.
‘It all went OK then?’ Katherine asks.
Margaret nods, ‘Yes apparently as smooth as they go, although it was bloody painful and seemed to go on forever. But at least there were no problems and I haven’t even had to have any stitches.’
‘That’s good,’ Katherine smiles at her now, but it’s a cladding smile without foundations and Margaret isn’t prompted to say anything more. She’s waiting for some enthusiasm, some genuine show of interest and sisterly bonding. All she gets is, ‘You must be tired then.’
‘Yes but it doesn’t matter, you know.’ Margaret replies.
‘I guess you’re just going to have to get used to that anyway,’ Katherine half jokes, but she looks awkward as though she really would rather not be there. Margaret wonders if the idea of babies and children can abhor her sister so much now, that she can’t even bring herself to share in her happiness.
Their mother returns with the sleeping Sara and Margaret’s attention is drawn to them, but when Marie suggests Katherine holds her little niece, Margaret seizes the o
pportunity to try and force some reaction from her sister.
‘Yes Kath, you hold her for a minute, she won’t bite.’
Katherine hesitates for a moment opening her mouth and taking a short breath as if to protest.
Their mother takes this to be concern at handling such a tiny baby. ‘It’s all right love, just support her here and here and you’ll be fine. It’ll be good practice for you, perhaps you and John might think about trying again for one of your own.’ Subtlety has never been one of their mother’s strong points. Before Katherine has the chance to say or do anything else little Sara is placed in her arms. Margaret watches her face, but their mother begins to ask a thousand questions about the birth. ‘So did you have any pain relief? How many pounds is she? Has the doctor checked her over yet?’ Distracted by their mother, Margaret’s attention wavers from Katherine.
When Margaret looks again Katherine is standing at the window, her back to them both, motionless, staring out. There’s not a view from the ward and Margaret strains to see the reflection of her sister’s face in the glass, but it’s too bright outside. Katherine bows her head over her niece, holding her close. Is she kissing Sara? Whispering something to her perhaps? For a moment it gives Margaret hope that her sister is after all taking an interest in her child, but it’s short lived. As soon as the head rises again Katherine looks back outside briefly before turning round and bringing Sara back to her. Her face is stony, fixed, not soft and motherly like Margaret had hoped.
It’s the one and only time Margaret will see her sister hold her child, and this indifference becomes a cancer in their relationship. No matter how hard Margaret tries to include her over the coming days, weeks, months and ultimately years, all the attempts are met with a cool polite rebuff. At first Katherine goes through the motions of showing interest, religiously remembering birthdays and Christmas but there’s always something missing, a connection that has failed to fuse.
