Full Circle

by Connie Monk

  ‘She’s all alone … doesn’t know about dying … be frightened … want me …’ It was beyond her to make a proper sentence. What words she could manage came out in bursts as she sobbed from the depths of her being.

  ‘She’ll never be alone, my dear. You may not see her but you will never lose her. As long as you love her – and you will love her as long as you live – she will know.’

  ‘How can she?’ It wasn’t like gentle Bella to sound so aggressive. ‘She can’t know anything if she isn’t alive.’

  ‘Listen to me, child.’ Dr Saunders’ tone was a complete contradiction to hers. A man nearing retirement, he had dealt with life at its most joyful and its most despairing. ‘Think of her lying each night in that cot, asleep. Are you saying that while she slept she didn’t know she was loved? When she woke and cried out for you, that was because something had disturbed her contented sleep. Sleeping she felt loved; waking she was temporarily alone and needed reassurance. Look at her, my dear,’ he turned her towards the cot, ‘does she look frightened? No, she is content and peaceful, wrapped in the love that will never fail her.’

  ‘And what about me?’ After so much crying, Bella’s face felt stiff and she could barely form the words.

  ‘I have no such comforting words for you, child. I wish I had. You will feel lost, empty, the purpose gone from your days. I know because I have travelled that road myself when my wife and I lost our son. He was eight. By now he would have been thirty-six. Like you, I didn’t know how to face the rest of my life. But from somewhere there comes an inner strength. You never forget. That’s how I know it’s true when I tell you that your Alicia—’

  ‘Ali,’ Bella interrupted, the single word coming out with unexpected force.

  ‘… your Ali will never be alone. She will be loved as long as you draw breath.’

  Bella looked at the kindly man, seeming to see him afresh. ‘You lost your little boy?’ she said. ‘How did you bear it?’

  The doctor held her gaze steadily. He knew truth was the only way.

  ‘There is no easy way. Each day was a battle and so it will be for you and your husband. There is no magic cure. Just go on loving little Ali, don’t try and escape the pain by not thinking of her. Remember her laugh, remember every blessed day you’ve had her. And wrap her in love. What happened today will leave a scar on you for as long as you live, but one day you will find you are able to find comfort in memory. But before you reach that stage, you have a difficult road to tread.’

  ‘Every day she was happy. No more days.’ Her voice was flat. Dr Saunders couldn’t tell whether he had been able to help her.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to examine her before I can confirm the cause of death.’ This was one of the moments when he would rather be doing any work than his own.

  Bella’s misery had been overtaken by numbness. Standing by, she appeared to be watching as the kindly doctor handled her little girl. Indeed, she saw his every movement and yet she couldn’t take in the truth of what was happening. With the certificate written he turned his attention back to her.

  ‘Your husband has been contacted, no doubt.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘He went to Reading – working, you see. He telephoned to say he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.’

  ‘But, my dear, can’t you contact him? It’s not fair to you and not to him either. He should be here.’

  ‘He’s staying the night with friends. That’s why he phoned. I don’t know where they live or what their phone number is.’

  He was puzzled. In the circumstances she described he would have expected her to be distraught that he wasn’t with her, but she replied like a child saying what she had been taught was the polite thing.

  ‘Try and think of a way of finding him. Do you know these friends’ name?’

  She nodded. ‘But I don’t know where they live. He didn’t tell me.’

  For one brief moment the doctor imagined the patients waiting for him, but he thrust the thought from his mind. This girl’s needs were greater than theirs.

  ‘Would Mr Carter Senior be able to throw any light on it? I know his mind isn’t what it was, but sometimes people remember unexpected things from the past even when they can’t—’

  ‘No!’ Her voice was shrill, and he saw the terror in her eyes. ‘No! I can’t see him! Don’t let him come in here!’ She was shaken with hard, dry sobs. ‘I should have watched him. They were in the garden. “Shall we play ball, Grandpa?” That’s what she said. Then they were gone. I didn’t know where he’d taken her. Hate him! He didn’t even care. He was just looking for a ball.’

  There could be no words of comfort.

  ‘Shall we go downstairs and see if you can lay your hands on an address book? Or perhaps there is the telephone number of these friends listed. Come, my dear, let’s try to find your husband.’

  As suddenly as her outburst had started, so it quietened, leaving only the occasional hiccough as she took a gasping breath. Without protest she let the doctor guide her out of Ali’s room. As they made for the stairs he was relieved to see through the landing window that Ted Johnson was hovering outside the house. A thoroughly good man and one young Mrs Carter would be comfortable with. On the way out he would stop and have a word with him. But first he would help the poor girl find her husband.

  The up-to-date house telephone book listed no one called Gibbins, but when Bella went to replace it she saw that there was an older version still kept. And there she found the number.

  ‘I’ll leave you to talk with him, my dear. If there is anything, anything at all you want me for, you have my number. I made sure it was in your book,’ he added with a smile.

  Perhaps it was the smile that helped her remember how indebted she was to him for the way he had talked to her. Whatever the reason, she managed to force her face into a grimace, which she intended to show her gratitude.

  ‘You have been so kind – the things you told me. I’ll try – I won’t fail her, my poor ba—’ But she couldn’t say it. With the corners of her mouth clenched tightly between her teeth she made herself ask, ‘How much would she have known? She must have called for me.’ Her words were hardly audible; it took every bit of her willpower to ask the question.

  ‘In my opinion she would have known nothing, and certainly she wouldn’t have been conscious to call. The bump on her temple tells me that she was unconscious before she fell right into the water. A happy little girl on an adventure.’

  ‘Why couldn’t he have watched her? Damned old fool. He promised.’

  ‘He loved her dearly. Each time he comes to me he talks about her with great love and pride. My dear, make your phone call. Share your grief with Leo. Alicia – Ali – was the most precious thing in his life, as she was in yours.’ After he’d said it he wondered at his choice of words, but she seemed not to have noticed. So he let himself out and, while she was asking to be put through to the Gibbins’ number, he stopped for a word with Ted.

  ‘Hello. This is Jane Gibbins.’

  ‘Mrs Gibbins, may I speak to Leo? It’s urgent, terribly urgent.’

  ‘Leo? Leo who?’

  ‘Leo Carter, from Lexleigh. He’s staying with you for the night.’

  ‘Is that his mother? I didn’t recognize your voice, Mrs Carter. But I expect we all sound different after all these years. How are you?’

  ‘She’s been dead for ages. I’m his wife. I thought it was you he said he was with in Reading this morning and you were taking him home for the night. It must have been another name.’

  ‘Fancy Leo married. We haven’t heard anything from him for quite fifteen years. And neither have we been to Reading market except to buy bits for the machines. We gave up livestock years ago.’

  But Bella wasn’t listening. Gently, she replaced the receiver. Leo wasn’t there … he’d lied to her … he probably hadn’t even been to Reading. She stepped back from where the telephone was attached to the hall wall and sat on the bottom stairs. She knew he
spent many hours with Louisa, and she had never felt a bit jealous. She knew they were both far cleverer than she was – both of them interested in things that went on in the world. She couldn’t compete with all that; she didn’t even want to. She’d found all she wanted in Ali … and warm tears escaped to roll down her cheeks. Then she pulled her mind back to Leo. Louisa was with her parents – wasn’t she? – but if she knew about Ali she would come straight home. Bella was ashamed that she could be so weak, but she couldn’t face the night alone here. If Louisa didn’t say she would come back this evening, then Bella would lock herself in Ali’s room. Dad would be home. She didn’t want to see him.

  Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she got up from her seat on the stairs and went again to the telephone. Directory Enquiries would tell her the Hardings’ number if she gave them the name of the town and the road where they lived.

  And so a few minutes later she was answered by a none-too-friendly male voice. When he heard that it was Louisa she wanted, he told her, ‘She was on the road by just after nine this morning. She must have reached home by lunchtime. Try her there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I had just turned on the wireless for the early evening news.’

  She found herself again sitting on the stairs with no recollection of how she got there. Louisa must have known she was only staying in Newquay for one night … Leo had lied about the Gibbins … Louisa and Leo …

  Yet she felt they were removed from her, just two people she had been fond of – was still fond of – but were removed from the thing that had taken the foundations away from her world.

  ‘Bella, is it all right if I come in? Did you get Leo on the buzzer?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I can’t contact him.’

  ‘Look m’dear, there are things that have to be done. Not things for you to see to. If you give me the certificate the doctor has left with you, once the Registry Office opens in the morning I can get things sorted for you. If Leo is away all night we shan’t see him before midday tomorrow and there are arrangements to be made. Let me be the one to do all that for you, won’t you?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem real, Ted. Does it to you?’

  ‘I’d give my right arm for it not to be true, and that’s the honest truth. But it’s no good our wishing and pretending. The little lassie needs us to look after things. We’ll do her proud, just see if we don’t. If she could see the pair of us – and I tell you, I’ve had a few tears too – but if she could see us, I reckon she would be a bit scared. This isn’t the mum she calls when she wants something, no, and no more is it the old Ted she always had a smile for. We’ve got to keep going, child, make her proud of us, eh?’

  So how was it that when, at his words, her body was shaken with sobs and he sat by her side and held her in his arms, his cheeks were also wet? She believed her tears were all for Ali, for the loss of all the years of childhood, of adolescence, of growing into a woman, for the unfairness that it should have been snatched from a little person who had brought nothing but joy to the world. But they were for more than that, because in the moments after she spoke to Louisa’s father she had faced what in her heart she had been aware of for a long time. Leo had never really loved her; he had married her because of the baby. Those visits to The Retreat were what gave his life purpose.

  Limp and weak from her bout of crying, Bella forced herself to face what had to be done. She was thankful for Ted’s offer to register the death in the morning and call at the undertaker’s on his way out of town.

  ‘Then there’s the guv’nor,’ he said, conscious that she seemed to draw back at his words. ‘Me and Eva had a word with him. Told him you weren’t feeling too good and with Leo away it would be best he kipped at our place.’

  ‘He killed Ali.’ The words came out hardly more than a whisper; certainly she didn’t speak them as if to someone other than herself.

  ‘He’s not himself, Bella. His body may be strong, but he doesn’t know what he’s up to. You know that better than anyone, the hours you watch over him. He loved Ali. He wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her head. But you can’t be expected to have to take care of him here until after Leo gets back from these friends of his. Are you going to ring the number again later on? They may have been out looking round the farm. Even later still – say they go out to dinner and you don’t get hold of him till they get home – he’ll get straight in the car, you can be sure. I wouldn’t want his drive after what you’ll have told him. Poor lad.’ Nearly forty years old but still a lad as far as Ted was concerned.

  ‘Ted, I got through to the Gibbins. They haven’t seen him for years.’ She made herself look directly at him, willing him to meet her gaze. ‘So I phoned Louisa’s parents so that I could talk to her. She only went for one night.’

  There was no escaping what they were both thinking. His only comment was a grunt, while he thought that the local gossip Eva had picked up seemed to have been nearer the truth than they’d wanted to believe. And what about this poor girl? Pure gold she was and let down not just by her husband but by her friend too. It wasn’t right.

  ‘I can look after the guv’nor if you’d like Eva to come over for the night. She could bring a sleeping bag and put it on top of a spare, no need to make a bed up. She’d come like a shot, you know she would.’

  ‘I know, Ted. And I’m grateful for the offer. But, no, I’ve got to face it by myself. You know what you said about us having to do Ali proud. So for her, I’m going to show that her mum isn’t a wimp.’

  Later, when she could see from the window that the lights in the workers’ cottages had been put out for the night, she got ready for bed. But the thought of climbing into her side of the double bed and sleeping was impossible. She pulled on her thick dressing gown and crept back into Ali’s room, half expecting to see the little girl had moved, changed the way she was lying, even though reason told her that could never happen. And so started the longest night of Bella’s life. She lowered the side of the cot, letting her hand take Ali’s in its grasp. How cold she was to touch. Of course she was cold, all she was wearing was her best sunshine dress and socks … and her new shoes … not the first time they’d been in the cot with her, for the first night she’d had them she’d been so proud of them that she had kept them on her pillow.

  Reaching to lift her from her cot, Bella was shocked at the change in the feeling of the little body. Whenever she’d picked her up Ali would wrap her arms and legs around her, would nuzzle against her neck; but now the inert body lay stiffly in her arms. It was Bella who nuzzled, hardly aware that she was crying, her wet face against Ali’s. She had never felt more at one with her, shut off from everyone, her tears damp on the baby-soft face. This was grief that belonged just to the two of them, something that would stay with Bella as long as she lived.

  The put-u-up where she had slept for the first months of Ali’s life was barely used through that long night.

  So much happened the next morning. True to his word, Ted registered the death and then called at the premises of the undertaker, glad that he remembered the firm Harold had used for Alice. So by the time Leo’s car parked at the front of the house, Ali’s little body had already been taken away.

  Bella was upstairs in the nursery bedroom when she heard him come, but she made no effort to go down. Sitting in the low nursing chair near the empty cot she was removed from anything that went on, held apart from it by a wall of misery. She knew he was searching, arriving home ready to play his role and tell his endless lies. Although the image seemed distant, as far away as though it were a dream, she pictured his disappointment that no one was there to greet him. There was nothing attractive in her smile.

  ‘Hello? Where are you all? I’m home,’ he shouted from the hall.

  She was glad to think of his disappointment, or as glad as it was possible for her to be when she was numb with misery. Then his footsteps on the stairs. Her mouth felt dry. In seconds she would have to tell him; she would have to form the words that her heart refused to accept
.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me call? Whatever’s the matter, you look awful. Are you ill?’

  Bella shook her head.

  ‘Where’s Dad? And Ali? I didn’t see them when I parked. Bella, for Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Ali,’ she managed to get the word out even though her tongue was almost too dry to form the right sound, ‘dead.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ He must have misheard her. ‘It sounded like—’

  ‘Dead!’ This time she shouted. She needed to yell, to hit out as if by hurting someone else she would ease her own pain. ‘He killed her, Dad killed her.’ Her voice rose hysterically as loud sobs shook her body.

  ‘What are you saying? Where is Dad? For Christ’s sake, tell me what’s happened.’

  Bella tried to find the words, but when she spoke it came out a jumbled mess. ‘Ask him. Promised to look after her, just playing ball … then they were gone … he took her … I want to die … please, God, let me die …’ Bella, gentle, kind, pure gold, but in those moments she was screaming, bellowing as she cried. When he shook her it made no difference. His hand hit her sharply, leaving finger marks on her cheek. It made her gasp and that gasp broke her hysteria, leaving her trembling and weak, her strength gone as she flopped back into the nursing chair.

  ‘Now, quietly tell me exactly what happened. And where is she? Was she taken to hospital?’

  Sitting hunched with her knees apart and her arms hanging limply between them, Bella told him what had happened the previous day, ending with the visit from the undertaker this morning when Ali was taken away. Leo listened in silence. If she’d glanced up at him the sight of his face might have cut across her own isolation and she might have remembered that it wasn’t for her alone that Ali had been precious beyond words. But she didn’t look at him.

  ‘How long have you been up here? Where’s Dad? He’s not downstairs.’