by Gwyn GB
When Katherine announces she’s leaving Jersey for London less than two months later, Margaret isn’t surprised. It seems to her that this is all Katherine has ever wanted: to escape the confines of their island home, to concentrate on her career, to not be everything that Margaret is.
Margaret never felt as clever as Katherine, the older sister she worships. There’d been no rivalry between them - their needs were different. If there’d been any jealousy from Margaret at all it had been directed at Katherine and Anne’s relationship. When the two of them were together it wasn’t just one girl joining another, somehow they seemed much more. They’d known each other for so long it was as though they’d swelled and absorbed each other to become one greater whole: two small raw dumplings put on a stew, soaking up the gravy of life’s experience and growing until the edges of each other were blurred and the pan covered by their presence.
When Anne died, Katherine shrivelled and shrank overnight. For months afterward she’d hidden away in her room, hanging around the house like the air-dried skeletons of the spiders in the barn - blowing with whatever breeze arrived that day. It was only John’s arrival that seemed to bring her out of this hibernation from life, but she never did reclaim the carefree confidence of her teen years. Even now, years later, Margaret can still see the scar of Anne’s death on her sister, its toxic roots sunk deep into Katherine’s soul.
On Katherine’s last weekend in Jersey they find themselves sitting in the heart of the family home drinking red wine, surrounded by photograph albums their mother had sought out to show Sara’s resemblance to previous generations of the family. As they’d drunk the wine and listened to their mother’s garrulous commentary on nose forms, ear shapes and chin dimples down the ages, they’d once again found mischievous common ground and kept swapping glances or mouthing comments to each other. When their mother finally talks herself off to bed the two of them sit for a while longer finishing off the wine.
Margaret becomes emboldened by the drink, the first she’s had since getting pregnant. When Katherine grows quiet and reflective, she takes the opportunity to ask her the question she’s been dying to ask for ages.
‘I know you had the miscarriage, which must have been awful,’ her first words seem to shock Katherine for she looks at her with such force it makes her falter slightly, ‘but do you think you’d ever want to try again? Have a baby?’ There she’d said it. Katherine seems to be studying her face, then she looks down.
‘It’s not as simple as you think,’ she replies and starts to fiddle with her wedding ring.
A thousand things go through Margaret’s mind: work, John, Katherine’s fertility... and then she makes a mistake, one she realises almost as soon as she has done it. Instead of letting Katherine find her own words, give her time to carry on with her train of thought, Margaret’s eagerness takes over and she puts the words into her sister’s mouth for her. ‘You mean your job and this training scheme?’
Katherine looks up, her eyes settling on Margaret’s. Then she drops them again looking at her glass of wine, a faint wistful smile on her face. ‘Yes that’s right. That’s why.’ The very second those words have left her lips Margaret knows she is lying, that she’s taken her words, her reason as her own with some kind of disconsolate defeatism.
They stay chatting for another hour, but the bridge has been closed. Any further attempts to steer the conversation back onto the subject are adeptly deflected by Katherine.
Their conversation is soon forgotten once Katherine has left for the UK, and Margaret’s thoughts turn to other matters. She wonders how John will cope. He stays moping around the farm for a while after she’s gone, harvesting the valuable Jersey Royals. As soon as the earth has given up its last potato and he’s found someone to manage things, he follows Katherine across the sea.
Robert shakes his head and predicts doom.
‘He’s a man of the land, a Jersey lad. He’s not going to take to the big city.’
29
1988, Jersey
Margaret’s baby is born one fine crisp cold day in the middle of February. Katherine watches as Robert walks her around the house and yard for a while, allowing her contractions to build, before driving her into the hospital in St Helier.
Katherine had been in the same hospital just one day earlier, only she’d been getting an injection to see if she could retain her baby, whilst Margaret came to set hers free.
Katherine fell pregnant in early January, immediately they’d resumed their attempts for a baby. She at least feels lucky to be so fertile, only now she has another guilt to add to her list: Margaret. As Margaret’s belly has swelled before her, she’s struggled with the turmoil of being happy for her, but so jealous. Jealous of the fact she’s been able to fill up with a child. A child Katherine wants so badly for herself. She always tries to appear enthusiastic when Margaret takes her hand and presses it onto her stomach to feel the thud of a foot, or fist against hers. So many times Katherine has nearly broken down in front of her, told her everything, told her how badly she wants to be in the same position: complaining about her back, about how heavy and slow she has become, sitting with swollen ankles up and taking something for the indigestion. She hasn’t though. She knows how much it would upset Margaret to know that just by being pregnant she is causing Katherine torment. Although she is completely overjoyed for her sister, she’s riddled with an aching pain that gnaws right at her core.
Katherine showers her niece with presents but holds her only once, sucking in the smell of her until her head is light. Touching her soft smooth hair with her lips, letting her wrap her tiny pink hand around her finger. Then she hands her back.
She starts to stay late at work so as to avoid being around them. John asks if maybe they should get away for a couple of weeks, pop across to France, get a change of scene. Katherine hopes Margaret hasn’t noticed what John has. They don’t go, further injections are required. They are all in vain.
Little Sara is just six weeks old when her cousin loses her fight for life.
John finds Katherine on the toilet sobbing. She’s shivering with cold and she’s no idea how long she’s been there. He carries her to their bedroom, trying hard not to let her see the tears in his own eyes. She’s engrossed in her loss, but not so engrossed as to miss her strong husband coming apart at the seams. He wraps her up in bed and gets some painkillers and water, sitting with her until the darkness settles on their grief. Neither of them talk, but they both know that this is the end.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s not how Katherine dreamed it would be. They are happy, they love each other, they married. They are supposed to have children next, confirm their love, establish a family, bring on the next generation. Katherine is supposed to have produced a tiny baby for them to love. A child they could nurture and nourish, be proud of and cherish. They should have the opportunity to watch their children grow and take on life as they slowdown in theirs. Only she doesn’t seem to be able to. She can’t provide John with the one thing he wants more than anything in the world. She’s failed him. She wouldn’t blame him for not wanting her, for resenting her. Why would he want to be around her, an empty vessel of a person sucked dry by grief and longing. Barren.
Nowadays they only ever seem to make love when the need is for conception. Sometimes Katherine catches him looking at her when he thinks she can’t see. What’s going through his mind? Regret? Regret that he’s ended up with her, a woman who is just not quite woman enough to give him a child?
There comes a time when everyone has to accept their own reality, when Katherine has to accept her reality. A baby is simply not going to happen for them. No matter how hard she prays, no matter how long she crosses her fingers, or counts and waves at magpies; no matter how hard she stares at the photos of smiling healthy babies, she cannot suck one inside of her by some process of desperate osmosis. It’s not her destiny to be a mother and never will be.
She longs for the little things which so many moth
ers take for granted. She longs to bury her face into the soft downy hair of a baby and walk down a street holding a tiny hand in her own, just chatting, shopping, or walking to the beach – it doesn’t matter. She longs to come home from somewhere to be greeted by an excited cry of ‘mummy’ and be squeezed and hugged by small arms. She longs to be able to give her love to a child, to watch it grow, to help it through life. To go to the school sports days and music concerts, to help them with their homework. To put dinner on a table full of little faces, take snacks to them as they revise for exams. To be there to comfort them when life hits back and to watch them try out their wings, take flight and soar above life taking in all it has to give. She longs for all of these and more.
She wants to go up to mothers who are hot and cross, shouting at their children in the supermarket, stressed by motherhood, desperate for a few minutes of ‘me time’, for a little peace and quiet and she wants to shout at them. She wants to say she would give anything to swap places with them, anything to have a child hanging onto her skirt all the way round the supermarket. That all she ever has is ‘me time’, all she has is deathly, empty, no way out quiet – and it doesn’t bring peace.
She’s never held any of her babies, never been able to look into their faces, or have them look into hers. She now knows that she never will.
There are some days when Katherine sees her children everywhere she looks. They’re in the barn, laughing faces playing hide-n-seek amongst the tools of their father’s trade; or splashing in the puddles in the yard wellington boots on, rain macs glistening in a shower. She hears their footsteps running across the wooden floors upstairs, catches a glimpse of their sleeping faces in the moonlight: soft, pale, peaceful. She sees herself hugging them tightly, walking through the fields with them to visit their father and sitting together eating a picnic lunch.
There is only one escape from this ghost world for Katherine - work. At work she is no longer Katherine the wife, the failed mother; at work she is simply Katherine the professional. She’s good at what she does and when her colleagues see her they see a businesswoman not a scarred soul. If she stays with them, sees the world through their eyes she can forget - for a while at least. Concentrate on the figures on the paper in front of her, and not on what’s inside. Worse things happen right? She’s got to get this all into perspective, to realise how lucky she is. She’s not dying of a brain tumour. She hasn’t given birth to a child with a terminal illness who every day will shatter her heart into a thousand tiny painful shards.
One morning Katherine leaves their bed and finds herself sitting at their kitchen table feeling like a stranger who has just walked in and sat down. The table seems too small, she doesn’t want to live amid the sentimental clutter of previous generations, or the hand-me-down recipe books anymore. She needs to escape and live a new life. In front of her is last Saturday’s JEP, ‘It’s a Bergerac Bonanza’ it proclaims, a multitude of newspaper and magazine articles about Jersey featuring John Nettles from the Bergerac series has created an avalanche of holiday enquiries for Tourism. They’re welcome to it, Kathy thinks. She wants to go in the opposite direction. All the tourists might want to flock here to see this beautiful, quaint island but she needs to get away from it.
Later that morning she goes into the office and asks to speak to her boss. It’s not too late for her to join this spring’s apprenticeship scheme. She’s ready to go now. Defeated. She can’t stay in Jersey any longer. She has to get away from her pain. Perhaps she also needs to give John the opportunity to get away from his too; allow him an easy option to throw in the towel, find himself a woman that can make him happy and fulfil his fatherhood dreams. She knows he’s too honourable to leave her, but with distance between them? Perhaps it will be the excuse he needs.
For Katherine the prospect of a strange city, with all its distractions, doesn’t seem scary at all anymore. She wants to get lost, to lose herself and leave the old Katherine far behind.
30
March 2008, Jersey - John
After bumping into Katherine in the yard, John sits at the little kitchen table; the same table they’d sat at together so many times all those years before. He had intended to make a cup of tea, perhaps have a piece of toast or a snack, but his body’s basic needs are swamped by the emotion of seeing her. Even after all these years of separation neither of them has filed for divorce, they are still man and wife. He is sure people must find that a little strange but he doesn’t. From his point of view, he has never fallen out of love with Katherine, she’s simply chosen to live her life away from Jersey whereas he has not. Why would he want to break a union with somebody he pledged his lifetime’s love to?
John couldn’t believe his luck when Katherine fell in love with him. From that first day she’d popped her head out of the bedroom window he’d wanted her. At first there’d been a definite melancholy about her, but as the weeks went on she seemed to blossom and her mother said it was he who was bringing her back to life in the wake of Anne’s death.
There had been other girls but Katherine felt right in a way that none of the others had. Finding Katherine, the woman who is the love of his life, was like re-discovering the lost page torn from his favourite book; a forgotten key that is the only means of opening a lock. It’s a feeling that it’s just right somehow. Relief that the searching is over, happiness coming from the completion the other person brings to you. John’s not a particularly romantic man but he came to view their love rather as a bee does its honeycomb. Working at it bit by bit, adding layer upon layer until they’ve created a beautiful sculpture, a wonderful creation that pays homage to their union. Only the trouble is honeycomb can be quite fragile.
They were happy, blissfully happy, and then they started trying for a baby. How can a man deal with miscarriage? It’s not his body that’s involved, not his hormones. He’s on the outside of a very private tragedy. How does anyone cope with the stolen promise of a baby and a wife’s distress? John did what he thought was the best thing to do - he stayed strong. He wanted to be there for Kathy, a solid rock for her to be anchored to. He wanted her to feel she could take her time to find her bearings again, that he would keep them both safely rooted.
He watched that first time as she endured the trauma of it over and over again: forced to explain to people what had happened, why she was no longer pregnant. All he could do was stand guard over her. He couldn’t protect her from the pain within but he could try to prevent external hurt and that’s why they decided not to tell anyone the next time - kept it between themselves to ease the pain.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing - or perhaps a curse - either way it’s useless. He can see now that in not sharing their grief it made it more difficult to move on, to heal. A secret so big and consuming as the repeated loss of their hopes, their dreams, their family, served only to make Kathy withdraw. Her reality became her own private hell not the world around her. If only he had seen it sooner.
Watching her trying time after time, only for it to end in disaster, was soul destroying. It is the flaw of many men that talking is not one of their strengths. John simply didn’t know how to comfort her, what to say. Most often he would simply hold her hoping she would feel his physical comfort, that words would not be needed.
Yet, even when she wasn’t grieving, their relationship was different. Their sex life, which had been full and giving, became a function: a function of the means to conceive. They no longer made love, passion didn’t enter the room. Their house and their relationship became as barren as their parenthood. Throughout it all John felt completely powerless, unable to help, unable to give her what she wanted most of all - a baby.
In all truth he would have stopped trying sooner. Katherine made him happy, her love would have been enough to fill his life. Of course there was disappointment at not becoming a father, but that was a background heat of an emotion compared to the roaring inferno created by Kathy’s distress. The more they kept on trying, the harder it became to penetrate the wall
she built up around herself. He wasn’t her partner in this. He was an awkward passenger and it was she who took the battle on, allowing it to consume her, leaving him behind.
The last time if she hadn’t said ‘no more’ he would have. It broke his heart to carry her to bed as if she were a broken sparrow. This was no longer the Kathy he’d married. The woman lying curled up sobbing on the bed was an eggshell of the person she had been; completely consumed with pain, with the need to complete a pregnancy and become a mother. He doubted her poor body could have finished the task now even if there wasn’t a problem.
And what of them? He knew the link between them was becoming more fragile. When she announced she wanted to go to London it didn’t surprise him. He placated himself by saying it would do her good to get away, and he knew it probably would. His fear was she might never want to return to him.
Others were more shocked at Kathy’s news. Her sister Margaret was clearly upset, and seemed to take it almost as a personal snub having recently given birth to her daughter.
‘Perhaps you should tell Margaret about our troubles,’ John suggested one evening as they were having dinner.
Katherine was pushing her cold food around the plate but at the suggestion suddenly became animated. ‘No. Definitely not. Not now. She’s just had a baby, how’s she going to feel if I tell her that we can’t? It will pour cold water on her happiness. It’s not the right time. I’ll tell her one day.’ So she’d withdrawn again into her shell, and that was the only time it was ever mentioned.
