She got up, laboriously, and took his hand. For a moment he thought she was going to lead him away, but she was putting his hand inside the folds of her coat. She pressed it against her belly. The bulge was hard, as if, beneath the wool of her dress, her body was carved. His reluctant fingers felt the lump of her navel.
They stood there for a moment, locked. Then she left him.
In the doorway she said: ‘I only wanted to see if you were all right.’
_____Twenty-one_____
AT NIGHT OLLIE escaped into his story – no, he went there willingly, sitting in his pool of light. But Viv could not escape her dreams. They stirred and disturbed her.
The week ended with storms. On the Saturday night, the eve of the CND march, she tossed and turned, while outside the house loose slates rattled and way down the road a dustbin lid rolled. When was that storm – months ago? – when Rosie had been scared by the noise and had climbed into her bed. She herself had dreamed about the trench in her allotment and an ominous sky. The whole house had been shaken, the windows shuddering, Rosie holding her tightly. The next day Ann had lost her baby.
She shifted awkwardly, the great rock of her belly obstructing her. Her mouth felt sour and dry. She slid in and out of her nightmares, as if sinking into a deep and sluggish river. She dreamed she was lost in a crowd of people, they were suffocating her and she couldn’t get out. She needed to escape because when the crowd thinned she would be alone and she would have to stand on a platform and tell them something and she couldn’t remember what lines she should have learnt. Of course, now she looked down, she saw she was naked. Her stomach hurt and Ollie was in the crowd, jabbering at her and pointing. The sky was thundery and she knew she shouldn’t be there. She was frightened. She told herself it was the bombers coming, plane after plane against the black sky, but why then was there such a sharp pain inside her?
On Sunday morning it was still blustery. During the night a section of trellis in Ann’s garden had blown down; she was attempting to nail it up again. Ken was out, playing rugger. Despite her protestations, Viv had gone on the ban-the-bomb march, taking the girls with her.
Ann’s hands were mauve with cold as she fumbled with the nails. She felt unsettled. Next door the curtains were closed; Mrs Maguire’s mother was dying and the family had gone to Ireland. The silence was unnatural.
A flurry of rain pattered against the glass door of the extension. Ridiculously, she felt lonely; but she could not go round to Viv’s, of course, because that house too would be empty.
Ollie jogged towards the pitch with the other players. Diz pointed to the windswept spaces.
‘Our usual audience,’ he said, ‘two stray dogs and a misdirected Japanese tourist.’
Once Viv had stood there, shivering in her long-ago blue coat. Today he felt both sluggish and nervous. He had not slept well; the storm had kept him awake and he had missed her, achingly. Tonight he would go round and see her, for simple mutual comfort. If anything could be simple with Viv.
Way beyond the park a police siren sounded. The wind chilled him. In position, he jumped up and down, slapping his arms against himself, trying to get into the mood. One of the dogs barked.
Irene had a headache. Usually she relished her Sunday lay-in but this morning she felt restless. Her flat felt overheated, but when she opened the window it was too cold. She had glanced at her Sunday paper but she didn’t want to know any more about Joan Collins.
Beyond the flats opposite she could see the North Circular; as usual it was busy with traffic. Where was everybody going, what were they doing in their cars at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning?
She knew most of the people in this block of flats, she had lived here for years, but on Sunday morning their doors were closed. She missed Frank, who usually spent Sundays cosily with her, but he had had to go up north to visit his mother. She wondered: when I’m eighty, will my daughters ever visit me?
She was worried about Viv. If she herself were a good mother, deserving to be visited at eighty, she would be round there now, sweeping the floor and entertaining the girls. That’s what you did when your daughter was just about to have a baby and her husband had buggered off. Though the whole world knew he would be back, those two couldn’t live without each other.
One small advantage of this was that she could phone Viv and not feel she was intruding. She would invite herself over and they’d have a good natter; she hadn’t seen her for weeks, not since Guy Fawkes.
A gust of rain blew against the window. She shivered, though it made the room no colder; she lifted up the receiver and dialled Viv’s number.
But there was no reply. She must be out.
Crises dislocate everybody’s plans, wiping out the hours that preceded them. But often the moment just before the violent, rupturing act remains crystal-clear long after the event. What were you doing, people ask, and themselves vividly remember, when you heard that Kennedy was shot?
Ann remembered the split-second before the phone rang. She was climbing down from the step-ladder. Just as the phone started ringing, her shakily fixed trellis clattered down behind her.
It was only later that Ollie, who at the time was being jostled in the scrum, remembered that in fact he had noticed a faintly unusual sight: a taxi arriving and parking beside the changing-rooms. Ordinary cars were parked there, but why should a taxi arrive? He had no time even to think of this question, what with mud-spattered legs ramming him. He was unfit, and had forgotten what a brutish game this was.
Moments later he noticed a woman running through the rain towards the pitch. He himself was running down the field, sweaty and breathless, and only had time to presume it was somebody chasing her dog.
It was Ann. Slipping in the mud, she was trying to make her way through the players. Ken had already seen her and had veered away from the others to meet her.
Ollie trotted up to her. He hadn’t realized it was raining until he saw her wet hair. But it was her face he stared at.
He couldn’t hear at first; the wind whipped away her words. She was mouthing at him, her coat undone.
He heard hospital.
‘What?’ he yelled.
‘She’s gone to hospital,’ shouted Ann. ‘Hurry!’
_____Twenty-two_____
THE WATERS HAD broken while Viv was in the coach on the way to the demonstration. Suzi, who had phoned, was looking after the girls. Then there had been the pips and the phone had gone dead. That was all Ann could tell them.
Nobody, for what seemed an age, told them anything else. The three of them sat in the waiting room, which was stiflingly hot and smelt of disinfectant and past cigarettes. Ollie had found the sister, who had said that Mrs Meadows was in the delivery room, that it was all fine, but that he couldn’t go in.
‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘She wants me in there.’
‘Not just now, Mr Meadows.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Please stay in the waiting room,’ she said.
‘I’ve always been with her,’ his voice rose. ‘It’s all arranged!’
‘We have to wait for Dr Khan.’ She was short and severe; she looked him up and down – his muddy boots, his rugger shorts. ‘Please, Mr Meadows.’
In the waiting room Ken was lighting a cigarette.
Ann pointed to his leg. ‘You’re bleeding.’
Ken looked down. There was a cut on his shin.
‘Here.’ She gave him her handkerchief.
‘It’s fine,’ he said.
Ollie moved restlessly around the room. The only other occupant was a young black boy, who looked no more than a teenager. He was sitting there gazing at his hands.
Ann said at last: ‘I should’ve stopped her going.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Ollie.
‘I’ll never forgive myself,’ she said.
‘Ann!’ Ken stood up and went to the door. He looked at his watch. Then he turned back to Ollie. ‘Twenty minutes. Can’t we go and ask them?’
Ollie replied: ‘They told us to wait here.’
Ken opened the door. ‘I’m going.’
‘You stay here!’ said Ollie, so loudly that the black boy looked up.
On the hour, Ken’s watch bleeped. They all jumped. Ollie looked at his own watch and left the room.
Ken lit another cigarette and turned to Ann. ‘Will she be all right?’
‘How can I tell?’ she replied.
‘It’s so early,’ he said. ‘There must be something wrong.’
‘Do shut up,’ she said.
He walked over to the window and spoke to the glass. ‘I hate these places.’
She thought of a different waiting room, in a different hospital. How long ago? Nearly a year. And those other times, long before. She had never asked Ken what he did then; they had never spoken of it.
She got up to comfort him. But he started moving towards the door.
‘Stay here,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. He flinched away. ‘Leave it to him,’ she said.
A moment later Ollie came back in.
‘What’s happening?’ Ann and Ken asked, both at once.
‘Can’t find anyone,’ said Ollie. ‘These bloody places.’
He went back to his seat. Ann noticed, fleetingly, that though there were eight chairs in the room, they always went back to the same ones.
She said: ‘Everything’s going wrong.’
Ollie looked at her. ‘For you?’ he asked acidly.
‘Ollie!’ she said.
He came over and sat down next to her. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s Viv we’re worried about,’ she said.
He picked at the drying mud on his knee. Flecks fell to the carpet. ‘We made it up, you know. Well, nearly. She came round and . . .’ He stopped.
She said: ‘I know.’ They both looked at the carpet, lightly powdered with earth.
He said: ‘I can’t bear her being alone.’
Ann nodded. She looked up and said to Ken, sharply: ‘Do go and wash your leg!’
‘Got a fag, mate?’
Ken jumped. It was the black boy. ‘Of course.’ He passed him the packet.
‘Thanks,’ said the boy, taking it.
Ken looked at the packet; that was the last cigarette. He put the packet into his pocket discreetly, so the boy wouldn’t see.
Five minutes later a rattle approached and the door swung open. It was an orderly pushing a tea trolley. Passing through the room he paused and grinned. ‘Where’s the scrum?’
Ollie and Ken, startled, looked down at their rugger shorts.
More minutes ticked by. It was so quiet. Hospitals were usually busy; what was wrong?
Ann tried to reassemble her morning, to remember it. She had been in the garden, with next door silent, her own house hushed. She herself jumpy, moving from kitchen to garden, fidgeting. The bare earth in Ken’s tubs; behind one of them, the small heap of daffodil bulbs she had forgotten to plant. The wind blowing. Unusually for her, she hadn’t been able to think of anything to do.
She looked at Ollie and Ken. They were both sitting, staring at their boots. They had no idea how similar they looked.
‘I should phone Mum,’ she said, ‘shouldn’t I?’
But she didn’t move. None of them dared to leave the room.
Footsteps approached. A new, taller sister appeared. Or it might have been a matron.
She looked at the two men. ‘Which of you is the father?’
There was a pause. She wouldn’t have noticed it. Then Ollie stood up. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘Mr Meadows? They’re carrying out a Caesarean section.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a breech presentation,’ she said. ‘It’s routine in these cases.’
‘I must see her,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘They’re operating now.’
For the next twenty minutes none of them said a word. Ann didn’t realize it at the time; she remembered it later. She would remember, too, for as long as she lived, the pale green walls, scuffed near the skirting board; the one framed picture of Great Yarmouth; the view, from the window, of a tower block against a threatening grey sky. None of them moved, for fear of startling the others. At one point the black boy was called away – his girlfriend, they had learnt, was having twins – and then the three of them were left alone, without words.
Then there was the sound of clattering heels again, and the matron or sister was in the room and addressing Ollie.
‘Mr Meadows?’
‘What’s happened?’
She smiled. ‘She’s fine. You’ve got a little boy.’
There was a pause.
‘A boy?’ Ollie repeated.
She nodded. ‘You can’t see your wife yet, but would you like to see your son?’
Ollie nodded. With the sister, he left the room. He didn’t look back.
_____Twenty-three_____
MONTHS BEFORE, ANN had lain in a hospital bed, watching the lights coming on in a building opposite. Her head had been swimming and her stomach hurt. One by one the rooms had sprung into life, and the curtains had closed. Blue blurs of televisions. She had had no idea why she was lying in hospital but she knew she was going to have a baby.
Then she slept, and the next morning all those little curtains had opened and her head had cleared, but there was still a pain in her abdomen. The ward had been bright and bustling; a nurse approached her bed. It was then that she realized she had no baby, only a wound.
Viv lay there, her head resting on the pillow. She looked at the block of flats opposite. It was a tower block; a man in a harness was stuck to the side, cleaning the windows. He looked as frail as an insect, with the big grey sky all around him. She knew it was Monday morning. Somebody had removed the screens around her bed; she could hear babies crying, one of them near. Her stomach ached; when she moved there was a jabbing pain. She stayed still, her eyes closed, and drifted into sleep.
When she woke the baby was still crying and she knew she must do something, if only she could think clearly. But when she turned her head, the space beside her bed was empty. There was no baby. It was another one, beyond the woman in the next bed.
She thought she must still be dreaming, because some time later, probably only minutes – who knows? – there was a girl who uncannily resembled Tracey standing beside her in a dressing gown.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ Tracey was saying.
Viv looked at her. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ asked Tracey. ‘We talked last night for ages.’
Of course. Tracey was here because she had had a little girl. How stupid of her to forget; Tracey must think she was mad.
‘Just been to see him,’ Tracey said again.
She meant Viv’s son. Viv realized this now, idiot that she was. ‘Did you?’ she asked.
‘In his incubator,’ Tracey replied. ‘He’s gorgeous.’
‘Is he?’
‘Bet you’re glad you had a little boy,’ said Tracey. Her dressing gown was covered in sprigs of flowers – roses, were they? Small and pink. She was still speaking. ‘Bet your husband’s pleased.’ The sleeves were edged with green lace. It had the look of a dressing gown that had been bought specially for this. ‘He’s kicking away,’ she said.
‘Is he?’
‘Proper little Kenny Dalglish. He’ll be bullying his big sisters soon.’ How could she tell? After all, she herself would never have bought a dressing gown like that anyway. ‘What’re you calling him?’
Viv replied: ‘I don’t know.’
‘Glad I haven’t got a fella. We’d never agree on names.’
Each time Viv breathed, needles jabbed into her skin. She tried to keep her breaths shallow. ‘What are you calling her?’ she asked Tracey.
‘Rebecca. After that book we did in class.’
Viv said: ‘That was Jane Eyre.’
‘Oh.’ Tracey stopped. ‘Yeah, it was Rebecca I saw on the telly.’
>
Ann had taken the Monday afternoon off. For some reason she didn’t want to visit straight from the office, nor did she want to tell anyone where she was going. She wanted to go from her own home, with Ken.
Her armpits were damp and she felt queasy with nerves. She hadn’t been able to eat any lunch. She stood at the mantelpiece mirror, applying lipstick.
Ken came into the room and said: ‘He’s a bit young, isn’t he?’
She turned. ‘What?’
He indicated the lipstick. ‘To be impressed.’
They both smiled shakily. She picked up her handbag and pointed to the florist’s package on the table. ‘You bring the flowers,’ she said.
Ollie was sitting beside her. He had brought her some flowers; like all hospital visitors he didn’t know what to do with them. They lay on his lap. He had had a haircut and looked younger; he looked like a new father.
‘Did you sleep?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘They gave me a pill.’
He took a Private Eye and Cosmopolitan out of the carrier-bag. ‘Bit of frivolity . . .’
She glanced at them. ‘Thanks.’
He put them on the bedside table. ‘Painful?’
She nodded. ‘A bit.’
‘The girls made you these.’ He took out two large get-well cards – Rosie’s careful, Daisy’s only half coloured in. She had got bored doing the sky.
‘Oh dear,’ said Viv. ‘Like I’m an invalid.’
‘Didn’t know what they should put.’
‘No.’
She laid the cards on the table. He leant over and propped them up. ‘Is there anything you want?’ he asked.
‘A cigarette.’
‘You can’t.’
All down the ward, men were sitting beside the beds. The place was full of flowers. There was a faint mewling sound from one of the babies. She thought: mothers are supposed to recognize their own baby’s cry, but how can they when they all sound the same? She said: ‘I want to go home.’
He took her hand. They sat there in silence.
She spoke suddenly, in a rush: ‘Tracey must be mad. She thinks it’s so frightfully romantic, all this single-parent stuff. Easier, she thinks, be your own boss; up all night with it crying and screeching, wet nappies. Course, she’s right. Who needs men? Nothing but a bloody nuisance. Any woman with any tiny jot of sense’d rather be on her own. Silly cow.’
To Have and to Hold Page 26
