by Dawn French
While she was speaking, Silvia couldn’t look at her daughter. She was packing up crockery from the cupboard, wrapping everything in newspaper and laying it carefully into boxes.
Methodically.
Purposefully.
‘Please look at me, Mum. You’re talking as if I’m not Cassie any more, not even your daughter. I’m still Cassie, Mum. Just Cassie who’s having a baby, that’s all. I said I’m sorry, but I’m not getting rid of it, I can’t. Why won’t you look at me? Mum!! Bloody look at me!’
What was wrong with her? Cassie knew her mum was tough but she’d never come across this Silvia before. She just carried on packing up, ignoring Cassie’s pleas, like a heartless robot. Yes, this must be a massive shock for her, yes she would probably feel embarrassed among her friends and neighbours about it, and of course it wasn’t what her mother would wish for her, but out-and-out rejection? Cassie hadn’t anticipated that.
Her mum had changed a lot since the divorce with her dad. She was impossible to talk to properly. Not that she’d ever been such a touchy-feely mum. She always said that people in her family were allergic to physical contact. She called it ‘soft’ and ‘daft’, but deep down, Cassie knew she wanted it, because whenever she did manage to persuade her mum into a snuggle, especially when she was little, Silvia reciprocated. Sometimes, Silvia would cry quietly at these very close, very personal and physical moments. Cassie would try to comfort her but would feel confused.
It was at these times Silvia would say, ‘No, sweetie, it’s not your fault, it’s silly old Mum. I’m just being soppy. It’s lovely to cuddle you, come here, it’s just, I’m not used to it, that’s all.’
Cassie saw the same reaction from her mother, even to her father when he sometimes attempted a kiss. She’d bat him away or play wrestle with him, anything to avoid open and easy physical contact, which clearly made her supremely uncomfortable. Why? What could be nicer than people wanting to hold you? That’s all Cassie longs for. That was all she needed on that awful day when her mother made it clear she wasn’t welcome any more. But Silvia withheld her love from Cassie then, and there has been virtually no contact since.
Her dad brought a small white soft, very soft, bendy bear from Silvia to the hospital when Willow was born four and a half years ago. It was Ben’s mum, though, who was at the hospital with her, not her own mum. By then, the chasm was too wide to cross. Cassie couldn’t help hoping that this might be the turning point for Silvia, that she would come marching in and claim her daughter and granddaughter somewhere in those last few agonizing pushes. Stomp in and really be her mum. Kiss her brow, grasp her hand and say, ‘C’mon little mother, you can do it, you’re amazing and strong and beautiful. Keep going!’
Cassie had never needed anyone as much as she needed Silvia right then. Not Ben’s mum, not Dad, not Ben, not Jamie. Silvia. Her own mother. She kept looking at the door. Willing it to swing open and for Silvia to sweep in. It would all have been over then, all forgiven, all in the past, in one glorious birth moment. The start of Willow and the start of a new, better love with her mum.
That didn’t happen, though.
Silvia stayed away. Stayed cold. Remained cruel.
Ironically, the white bendy bear has become Willow’s favourite creature. Of course. Cassie tries to lose it. She shoves it to the bottom of the toy box, or hides it on a high shelf. Willow searches it out every time and cries anxiously until they are reunited. So Silvia’s gift has become Willow’s comfort. Silvia is getting to be close to Willow, a privilege she hasn’t earned. In any way. She has skipped her own daughter and connected with the very one she took so violently against.
No, Cassie thinks, Silvia doesn’t deserve to have Willow’s peachy little face resting on her bear every night, or for that bear’s paw to be brushed rhythmically against Willow’s utterly gorgeous suckly kissy top lip in order to lull her to sleep. Sometimes Cassie creeps in to check on her and Silvia’s bear is sprawled across Willow’s entire face. It looks like suffocation, but Willow wants full contact with it, she wants to sleep under its certain protection. She loves it. She calls the bear ‘Namma’ because Ben told her that her Grandma gave it to her and she couldn’t quite manage ‘Grandma’. Namma was the best she could do. So, Namma is a very important thing in Willow’s little life, yet she has never met her. And neither will she.
Not now, and it looks like not ever.
Cassie is aware that she is in the way, standing at the door, frozen like this. She can just see her mother lying there, with frightening tubes going into her and weird machines all around. Cassie whispers, and she can see the steam of her words clouding up the glass in the small window of the door. She whispers louder, but not so loud anyone will hear.
‘I hate you, Mum.’
Cassie can’t go in. So she goes home instead.
To Willow.
And Ben.
And Namma.
Fifteen
Tia
Sunday 2pm
‘I not believin for one little minute, that “Charlotte Church has ditched the booze”, is you? No way hosepipe. She is always drinkin the Asda plonk to forget all the Gavin things she love so much. Why could she not miss him? He got the orange boy to man face and kind of hot orange bod what make a girl crazy. Any girl he like. All of him is a pleasant view for your eyes and ears. What young girl not want a piece of his orange yum yum? I do, that for sure. I will say “me next” when I see him. For sure. Stupid if you don’t. See?’
Tia holds up a centrefold picture of Gavin Henson, oiled up and fake tanned to within an inch of his orange life, titled ‘Torso of the Week’.
‘His milkshake bring all the boys to the yard. Damn right, it’s better than theirs. It true. It true. Drink it up Mrs Shit. Have a look. It worth wakin up just for this! No? Hm. OK, what about a lady what fell in love with the Masai Warrior? Oooo, he very high, with plenty beads and red blanket on. Why he got a blanket in Africa? Did she sew it for him, for a present? She love him mighty fine yes, but she need a ladder to reach him for the lips. He will be happy when he come to live in Southampton with her. He be high enough to see over everyone when he watchin the football! He should need his blanket then. Southampton full of rain allatime. All Southampton ships get waved off in the rain. She better buy him umbrella. He so big and high, he can hold the umbrella and all Southampton people could get under. Cos he so big. And high. Isn’t it? He he.’
Tia flicks the pages, looking for more inspiration.
‘ “Britney and bodyguard in sex scandal”. No surprising there. The old lady from One Foot in the Mud is sellin funerals. She smilin bout it, with a nice top on. Pink. Nice. Oh, Jedward twin boys done a next album for no one to buy. They keep doin all their talkin at the same time. Stop it Jedward, for tits sake, no one is thinkin clever about that. When will they finish? Soon I hope. “Are you Preppy or Boho?” Oh, not sure. Mostly both, I think, Mrs Shit. Charlie Sheen, no thanks. Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Price, no thanks. “Ask the doc”, oo yes, a good bit. Let see, a lady have spots where pants go tight: Wear the bigger pants please! A man have no hair: Get the but-plugs put on like Dwayne Rooney, he got the hair all over now really good. See, I can be the doctor easy, better than her! You ask me the problem, I try the answer back at you … Yes, start now …’
Silence.
Tia waits.
Silvia doesn’t move or speak.
‘Oh. I geddit. You is a lady with no speakin. OK. Well, first I am tellin you that I say you did a fall on your head and now you havin a sleep so you don’t look at all the messy bad life you got, where you shoutin at Mrs Cat allatime and cryin about wrong things you done. She shoutin, you shoutin, nobody talkin quiet or listen nice. Everyone sad and angry.
‘And why not? Cos you should, cause you have pretty daughter and you never see little babygrand. Lovely little girl. Look like you. Bossy like you. Big noisy like you. Willow, yes, she cute as a dicktip. And the mother is a good girl, keep her clean and do cookin, all what the babygrand
need. But she sad and angry too, wishin allatime for the magic mother. But none comes. So she pretend she hate the mother so it feels not too much bad. But she don’t hate her mother. She need her. Why you not go for her? Whassafatcock up with you? What so big in Mrs Shit new life so you can’t be her mummy? You missin alla good stuff with the babygrand.
‘I see her last week, go there to help Miss Cassie. I sit on Willow for some hours so Miss Cassie get to go to shoppin and yoga, and to meet her friends for cappychin coffee. That job not for Tia. That job for Mrs Shit. This is true though, sometime I glad you freezin shut off lady, or maybe Tia wouldn’t be the babysit. And Willow love Tia, always putting arms out and laugh loud with smiling. Willow like mini angel from God. Four-year-old angel. Only laughin and smilin allatime.
‘If you see her now she would make you wake up for sure. She should come in here, but Mrs Shit too shut off lemon lips to talk to Miss Cassie, so the little babygrand not welcome. How?! How can a four year old not welcome? Ever? You crazyhead. And that finish your “Ask the doc” bit. Now Mrs Shit know her problem, she can fix. Up to you. So, what else?’
Tia flicks the pages, wetting her finger and thumb.
‘ “My daughter is also my sister-in-law”. No thanks. “I married my stalker”. No thanks. Ah, here is good one, “Madonna’s got a megabucks cellulite buster” …’
Sixteen
Ed
Sunday 6pm
‘Kidneys, heart, liver, small bowel, eyes, lungs, pancreas, tissue. What’s tissue? What exactly is tissue? Ti-sh – oo –’
Ed says it slowly to try and unlock a non-existent medical encyclopedia in his head. He holds a clipboard with a questionnaire on it, and he is reading a small pamphlet that’s been left with him by the donor team. They took him quietly into an ominous side room and explained that, although there were no concrete signs that Silvia might not survive, they like to broach the sensitive subject of donations with everyone in the intensive care unit at some point. This is Silvia’s some point, and Ed is the most appropriate and closest kin, apart from Jo, who is staunchly refusing to speak to anyone who is anything other than positive.
She doesn’t view organ donation as a positive move. She doesn’t want to think about it at all, it interrupts her unflinching desire to facilitate Silvia’s recovery. Questions it. Doubts it. Eats away her determination. She has told Ed that she will support his decision, but she doesn’t want to know any details.
So it’s all up to him. Ed feels immensely alone with it, and more than a little queasy.
‘S’pose really, it’s skin, probably. Don’t think I can tick that box, you need that, alive or … Otherwise. Keeps everything else in, contains it all. No, that wouldn’t be right. Let’s see, of all the other organs, which do I think you wouldn’t mind giving? Um. Why are eyes the hardest to say yes to? I don’t think I’d be able to tick “yes” for my own eyes on a form like this. They’ve seen such a lot, I suppose, and I imagine my memory of all that would go with them. Idiotic, I know, but I think it’s something like that that bothers me. Plus the ridiculous notion that supposing all that Sunday school bollocks was true after all, it would be terrible to arrive in heaven and not be able to actually see it. To have no bloody eyes to witness the wonder, that would be just my luck.
‘After years of believing that no God could possibly exist, that it was all nonsense, when push came to jump off a log, it was that same impossible, improbable God I spoke to, wasn’t it? Actually spoke to him aloud! Same when you gave birth to Jamie and to Cassie – I spoke quietly to God both times, wanting you all to be safe. Spoke to him when Cassie had Willow too. And when Jamie went off to a pointless war in a big green bus. I murmur something every day for him, in the hope that God notes it. Y’know, the God I don’t believe in? That one, who definitely isn’t there at all the important frightening moments in my life, but whom I still choose to address. Him?
‘The same one I raise a little prayer to each night for you at the moment, Silvia. I give it a go, why not? What harm can it do? Yep, that’s the same God who’s gonna be in charge of the whole heaven shebang that I wouldn’t be able to see if I give away my eyes. Wouldn’t see the gates, the clouds, the angels, Elvis, Ayrton Senna, Kurt Cobain, Shergar, nothing. Wouldn’t be able to see you. Not that you will necessarily be there before me but, just, whenever you do turn up.’
He falters.
It occurs to Ed that perhaps Silvia won’t be checking into that particular celestial department at all. Maybe she is headed elsewhere, possibly somewhere subterranean, considering how very unkind she has often been. He doesn’t say that bit out loud. He isn’t as unkind.
‘Either way, God or no God, heaven or no heaven, I don’t think you would choose to give your eyes up. I don’t blame you, so no to that. Kidneys? Yes, OK. Liver? I suppose so, although it will be, how shall I put it, “previously enjoyed”. Ha. Bowel? They can have that. Lungs, pancreas, yes yes. Heart? … Ah …’
What heart? thinks Ed. She used to have one, many years ago, but he imagines if they go rummaging around in her chest, there is every chance they will find only a heart-shaped hole where a heart should be.
In order to make sense of what she did to him and to their kids, he has had to demonize her, he knows, otherwise he would have to face the fact that he might be partly to blame, and that is too hard. When a big hurtful difficult thing happens to you, it can shock and shake all logic or reasoned memory out of you. That hinterland of victim thinking often becomes the line of most comfort. Ed is sure that Silvia’s sudden and inexplicable malevolence must have its roots in something he doesn’t yet know or understand, but whilst he is ignorant of it, his method of coping is to render her irrefutably spiteful. That, in turn, must mean she is heartless, or at the very most have a heart of flint, only useful as a weapon not as a donor organ. Any recipient of her particular heart would therefore have to withstand its sharp assault from within. A genuine heart ‘attack’.
‘I’m saying no to heart. That’s it. Done. Hope you approve, but, y’know, can’t help it if you don’t.’
Ed gets a kick out of this glimmer of assertion. Then he immediately feels immense guilt. He is finally squaring up to a helpless woman on the edge of her life. It’s not exactly heroic. He jolts himself out of his discomfort.
‘The doctor says no change Silv. The lovely nurse, Winnie, says we should find hope in that. Your strength and resilience is keeping you steady at the moment, while your body is trying to recover. That’s good. You’re not giving in, you’re holding fast. That’s what I’ve told the kids. I think Cassie will come to see you. She is thinking about it. Y’know. Finds it hard all this. I don’t want to push her. She thinks you might not want her here, but I’ve said that’s nonsense. I hope that’s right, Silv. God, I hope that’s right. I wrote to Jamie, he knows what’s happening …’
Ed has indeed written to their son to explain what has happened to his mother. He has Jamie’s reply in his pocket, but he doesn’t want to read it to Silvia.
Dear Dad.
Thanks for your letter and for letting me know. Yeah, you’re right I could get compassionate leave. I’m not going to bother, the only time I will come to see mum is when she’s in a wooden box and even that would be to make sure she really is completely dead. Sorry Dad, but you know how I feel. No time to write real letter now, but will defo do it next week. Promise. Good news re David Bentley. Allardyce making right choices. Gives all us Hammers boys out here a bit of hope. By the way, I defo have enough dosh for my season ticket (nothing here to spend it on!) so can you get mine when you get yours? Let me know about any special offers etc, yeah?
Seeya.
Jamie
PS I am smoking again. Soz.
No, Ed didn’t think it was the right letter to read aloud to Silvia. What a shame it’s come to this. Neither of her kids want to be with her at this desperate time.
Ed allows a selfish thought to flash through his mind. He hopes and indeed knows that it wouldn’t be th
e same if it were him in that bed. He rests assured that his kids would be there for him. He hasn’t deserted them. He knows as well as he knows anything, that what you put in is what you get out, and he’s put a lot in these last few years. Two parents’ worth of concern.
He misses being a parent alongside her. However irascible she may have been, she was always clever and saw situations looming way before he did. She watched the children very closely. Literally stared at them, fascinated and amused by their growth and their every move. He remembers it all very clearly, but when he looks at her lying there, a stationary lump, he can’t believe it’s the same woman. Who has she become?
‘Funny really, thinking about when the kids were born, and praying to God to keep you all safe. Do you remember it all, Silv? I do. So clearly. Especially Jamie. The first one. We had no clue, did we?’
Ed finds himself touching Silvia’s arm. It doesn’t feel wrong while he’s remembering their shared intimacies. If she was conscious, he wouldn’t dare. Face it, if she was conscious, he wouldn’t be here, full stop.
‘You didn’t like your belly being so big and round, you thought it just looked fat. It didn’t. I told you again and again it didn’t. It looked … full. Actually, I couldn’t tell you this at the time, but sometimes I would catch you waddling down our path and I thought you looked like you’d had the most enormous lunch. Not fat. Not fat at all, but full, like I say. And because I couldn’t quite believe there was a living baby in there, couldn’t get my head around it, it was simpler to imagine you were full of all your favourite food. That perfectly, alarmingly round belly stuffed with toast and mackerel and fudge.
