Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  She wanders into the bedroom. Movement is easier than stillness. Laurie’s pushchair is parked in the corner. She knows that Bill won’t really get rid of it. He only said that because he was trying to move the situation forward, to break the deadlock. He’d done it in the worst way possible but it was kindly meant. She moves back to the kitchen and sees all that is familiar suddenly newborn. She goes to the draining board, starts to put away pots and plates, longing for simple actions to bring comfort. A long knife emerges from under a plate, its wide blade is eloquent, its point provokes. Jemmy picks it up, lays her wrist down on the draining board, places the blade of the knife across her skin. Positions it on the exact line of one of those pale, criss-cross scars. The action feels welcoming, but no, she doesn’t want to do that now. Sometimes she used to want to feel pain as a way of checking that she existed. But now she’s in such pain – burning, hurting, aching, longing – that she doesn’t need physical pain in order to prove anything. It’s so strange. She was mad when she had no cause to be mad, back in the thick black cardigan days. But now she does have cause, she’s frighteningly clear-sighted and sane. Madness has become a luxury she can’t afford. She lays the knife down and looks around her. Vegetables to make into soup before they rot, stale biscuits to be thrown out, a credit-card bill to pay.

  But she can’t do it any more. She just can’t. Who should she call? Perhaps Hannah from the shop in the Lanes, but Jemmy doesn’t know her well. She’d like to call Mr George Waldron of 8 Wilmlow Gardens, Harringbourne, Sevenoaks. It’s proved more difficult to sort out his policy than Jemmy expected. She’s had to call Mr George Waldron back on a number of occasions and he’s called her as well. She’s never told him about Laurie but she knows that, if she did, he’d understand. If she could hear his voice then she’d feel calm again. Finding her phone, she calls his number and listens to the burr-burr-burr of the ringing tone but no one answers. Jemmy listens for a minute, maybe two, three – finally flicks the phone off.

  If she waits up for Bill then they’ll talk, and say sorry, and they’ll have got through another day. But tomorrow will be the same, and the day after that. Sometime she’ll have to tell him about the pregnancy. Then he’ll want to go down to the pub and tell everyone. When the new baby is born – if it is born alive – then everyone will send cards. And they’ll be so pleased. Problem over, then. A happy ending. Well, aren’t you lucky? A lovely new baby. Cuddly toys and babygrows and mobiles to hang on the ceiling. That she absolutely cannot bear. Laurie didn’t have any of those things so no other baby is having any of that either. And yet she knows that the baby – the size of a strawberry now – is quite innocent and has no choice but to nudge its way into the world. A death can’t be allowed to ruin a life – but she can’t attach any love to this new baby. The risk is too great.

  Getting down on her knees, she pulls a rucksack out from under the bed. The canvas in her hands sings of escape. She won’t go for long, of course, just for a few days, while she thinks things over. It’ll be better for Bill that way. All she’s doing is making him unhappy. Their relationship isn’t over, it never will be, because he was there when Laurie was born. He saw what happened. And so they are locked together in some silent pact that goes far deeper than the mere fact of marriage. But twenty-two is far too young to spend your life with someone who doesn’t understand. If she and Bill can’t share Laurie’s death then what is their relationship worth? And then there’s the shame – the shame of what she said earlier, the shame of having failed Bill, the shame of not being able to pretend everything is fine.

  She finds her jeans, her patchwork jumper and purple boots. She’ll miss the flat – the curtains she made, the wooden floors she and Bill sanded and waxed together, stopping off at some point to make love amidst the sawdust and shavings, the wire of the electric sander pressing into her shoulder. She unplugs her laptop, pushes another jumper into her rucksack, finds the charger for her mobile, puts her camera into its bag, scoops underwear off the radiator in the bathroom. She’ll take the pushchair as well because she can use that to transport her sewing machine. It only takes ten minutes to pack. Surprising how quickly a life can dissolve.

  She should leave a message but she can think of nothing to say. Carrying her bag up the area steps, she thinks – I must be careful. Don’t run, don’t lift anything heavy, don’t eat undercooked meat or unwashed salad, don’t get your hair highlighted. But she was careful last time and it didn’t do any good. She bumps the pushchair up the steps. She’s no idea where she’s going. It doesn’t matter. Siberia, Patagonia, Timbuktu. She could live to be one hundred and ten but she’ll never stop being a woman whose baby died. Wheeling Laurie’s pushchair, she sets out down the street. She’s never steered a pushchair before and she likes the feel of it. As she walks, she hums to Laurie and moves carefully, picking out a route where the paving stones are smooth, taking care not to jolt or bump, in case he wakes.

  21

  NOW

  Jay – Baghdad, March 2003

  Hi Mum, Granmollie and friends back home,

  Hope you are all OK. It’s kind of weird here. I’m looking out of the window and this city is all the same colour, sand coloured, concrete coloured and big pictures of Saddam everywhere. And huge palaces which belong to him on every street corner but you’re meant to pretend that they’re not there. And what I’m writing to tell you is that I’m not coming back – or not right now anyway. No big decision, just I need to be here a few days more. But still I know you’re going to be upset about this so that’s why I’m writing to explain. I’m not quite clear myself. All I can do is tell you about what happened to me yesterday and hope you’ll understand.

  A doctor I met here took me to a hospital, a really cool guy, really high up, who speaks very good English and trained for three years in Edinburgh and talks about how cold Edinburgh is and walking in the Highlands. And it’s funny because he speaks English with a slight Scottish accent and says wee instead of small. The people here are really great but none of them will say a single critical word about the regime, not one word, however hard you try to get it out of them, so that in the end you start wondering if actually that really is what they think.

  Anyway, this doctor took me to the hospital where he works and he took me to one of the wards and they have no drugs there, and no drips and no bandages and not even clean sheets. And people there are just crying in pain and slowly dying – children, old people, a boy with his legs and feet all shrivelled up to half their proper size. And after that I was just crying and crying and I felt so ashamed because, of course, the doctor I was with doesn’t cry at all. He hasn’t got the time or energy for that. All he does is stand around all day and watch people die and he can’t even give them a fucking aspirin.

  But he was really kind to me and didn’t mind that I cried. We just hung around in this side room where there were blood-covered dressings lying around the place, and they’re washing syringes in sinks in case they should ever get any drugs to put in them. And then the Iraqi doctor thanked me for looking around the hospital and I thanked him – and both of us wanted to have this conversation about what we could do. He wanted to ask me if I could get drugs or medicine but he knows I can’t. And I want to ask him what he thinks should be done but actually there’s nothing to say, nothing at all. Even if George W called off his war and sent some massive load of aid then it’s still too late for the people here. For them the only hope is that they’ll die quickly. I wondered if the doctors here ever kill people to put them out of their misery. And I asked the guy in a roundabout sort of way and suddenly he laughed and said, we don’t have the drugs to do it with.

  And the point is that I know, in a sense, that I’ve been set up for this. Every journalist here has been taken on a horror tour of a hospital and it’s all a huge propaganda thing to show how terrible the sanctions are – and the journalists tell me that really it’s nothing like as bad as people are making out. And actually it’s true that the TV makes it look
worse than it is. When you’re here it’s attractive – like some place you’d go on holiday. Well, grottier than that but not bad really. I mean everything is broken and people are queuing and they’re drinking water from pipes in the street and apparently it’s contaminated. But I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It’s just different. Simpler, harder, basic but not necessarily worse than the excess and lethargy and mindless consumption where we come from. I’m not trying to romanticise what is going on here. That would be the biggest insult to the people who live this every day. But still in this place you do find an energy, a clarity, a purpose which is amazing.

  But the point is you can come up with all these fancy arguments and you can debate into the small hours and you can suggest this idea or that idea, and you can blame that person or this person, and you explain it away by saying this and that and the other but at the end of the day those people in that hospital ward are there. And actually all the conversations that you have are just a means of trying not to see, or trying not to face up to how many people here have died, are dying, will die.

  I guess you know that most people who came out on the buses have flown home now. Most of them weren’t doing much except playing cards. A few of them I miss but some I’ll be glad never to see again. Anyway, I met this guy called Greg Marsden who apparently knows you or Granmollie and he’s going to stay but most of the journalists are going. I also met a Spanish journalist called Patricia and a German mate of hers called Hans. Patricia cooks tortilla for me and says I can stay on the floor of her room. I love her, she’s really great.

  The truth is that I don’t really know what I’m going to do. There’s nothing I can do but maybe if I’m lucky something will emerge. All I know is that this is the right place for me to be. It sounds kind of strange but I like it here. It works for me. Some human rights people who got out a few days ago left me this really flash camera and told me I could document human rights abuses. I’ll certainly give it a go, though I think the photographs I take will not be the ones they want. But I could talk to Voices of Truth as well. They might be interested. Perhaps what I’ll do is just say sorry to people. Take photographs and say sorry. After all, somebody has to say sorry. Just to see is something. Just to see – I don’t know what good it does but it does do something.

  And I know that you don’t agree with me but you do know that I’m right. You know it really. And you mustn’t worry about me. Not at all. I’m really fine. I love you, Mum, and I wouldn’t say these things if I didn’t love you. But you can’t keep on living the way you live. I can’t keep on discussing with you whether we should have salmon or lamb for supper, whether we should go on holiday to Italy or Spain, whether it’s time to invest in a new stereo. Life has to be about something other than consumption. And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that you are no worse than anyone else. And you are right about that. Definitely right. But I’m afraid it isn’t enough not to be bad.

  Anyway I have to stop writing now because I want to carry this letter over to the Palestine Hotel before it gets dark. I’m going to give it to Greg because he knows someone who is trying to leave tomorrow and they’ll take this letter with them. Greg is going to email you the number of his satellite phone. It’s an American number and it doesn’t work well but he can get a signal from the back of his hotel. But please, please, don’t use either his phone number or email unless you really need to because Greg can get thrown out of the country. No one is meant to use any equipment except the stuff that is at the Ministry of Information. Just two days ago a journalist got thrown out for using his private phone. I love you. Don’t be frightened. Only good people die so I’m certain to be OK.

  Jay.

  22

  NOW

  Lara – Brighton, March 2003

  Lara wakes and turns over. Will she be late for the train? But then she remembers, checks her watch. It’s six o’clock in the evening. She went to bed at four intending to sleep for half an hour. Often now it’s easier to sleep in the day than at night. More than a week has passed since she left her job but still her mind keeps snapping at her – Time to get to work. Strangely, she misses Craig. Her tarnished love affair with him, the vague anger he always stirred in her, are proving difficult to leave behind. That anger was her fuel and without it she can’t seem to get started.

  She pulls herself up from the bed, takes care not to think. Instead – What can I do now? This minute? She’s spent the last week clearing and sorting, doing all of those jobs that never got done because she was too busy. Now she goes down to the sitting room, starts to make yet another list but it fizzles out after item number four. Oliver said to do nothing but Lara isn’t quite certain what that would involve. She rubs her eyes, tries to quell that lurching disorientation which always follows daytime sleep.

  She thinks of calling Mollie. Over the last few weeks Mollie has called most days but Lara has only replied once or twice – and has limited her conversation to the exchange of vital information. But now – briefly – she misses Mollie. Christ, things must be bad if she misses her mother. Would it be comforting to sit at the table in Mollie’s basement kitchen and drink tea? No. The milk will have gone off and will float in puddles of oil on the surface of the tea. Lara adds Mollie to her list of things to do. But the list won’t fill an evening, or even an hour.

  So strange, she thinks. Jay was meant to be the problem in the family, the person who caused trouble, who needed looking after, who was irresponsible. The scapegoat. But maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe Jay was the keystone, the brick that held the arch together, because now he’s gone everything is coming tumbling down. She had thought that Jay needed them but maybe it was always the other way round.

  Lara flicks on the radio. Stock markets and investors around the world have enjoyed record gains but the storm clouds are gathering. Her hand smacks the off switch. On her desk a file is stuffed with post that she’s received over the past three weeks. Some of the letters are carefully typed with correct spelling – hatred presented neatly. Other letters are written in sprawls of green ink on crumpled paper. One letter consists only of three illegible words scrawled on the back of an advert for a window cleaner. Traitor, betrayal, tyrant. Lara stares at the letters trying to understand their sizzling anger. These people have gone to the trouble to find out her address and write to her just because they’ve found Jay’s name in the papers. Why does anyone care enough to do that? Of course, there are some letters of support as well. Jay the hero, Jay the martyr, Jay the good Christian.

  Where is he now? I need to be here a few days more. That could mean anything. The red buses left Iraq two days ago and are now stranded on the Lebanon–Syria border because no diesel vehicles are allowed into Lebanon. Lara feels sure that he won’t be with those buses but is equally sure that he’ll be home soon now. All the reports say that everyone is leaving. Lara has a phone number for Greg Marsden now and she’s been in touch with him, knows that he has seen Jay and spoken to him. Of course, Lara had felt annoyed that, after she’d spent weeks trying to find a way of getting in touch with Jay, Mollie seemed to have managed it with no trouble at all. Mollie who always knows someone, always charms them, always gets what she wants without apparently trying.

  But it had been a relief to have some way of getting in touch. Last night she’d left a message for Greg, pleaded with him to try to get Jay home but she’s heard nothing. And she’s tried everywhere to find a phone number for Patricia, the Spanish journalist.

  The only person who does understand is Oliver. She’s been back to see him several times over the last two weeks and she would go now but he’s busy at some church meeting. She still doesn’t know what or who he is. Often he treats her as a vicar might, a shepherd tending a lost sheep. But sometimes she sees beyond that to some other person who is uncertain, frightened, too lost himself to look for the lost. Her mind drifts back to those vases that float on the shelf in his makeshift flat. All she does know is that he doesn’t mind
if she goes around, rants for an hour or more, and then leaves. She’s embarrassed to remember what she said last time she saw him.

  Do you have any idea how difficult it is being a mother? The yawning boredom, the tedium. Food shopping, meals, clothes washing. Clean your teeth, wash your face, hang your coat on a hook. Again and again and again. You know, every house you go to there’s the wedding photo. Such beautiful girls – full of power, and ambition and hope. And three years later they’re all the same. Pushing a pushchair up and down the street, the whole damn lot of them lost to motherhood with their waists gone slack and their hair greasy and saying – I never was much interested in a career. And society sells them the idea that they have the ultimate compensation. A beautiful child who loves them. But is that compensation enough? When their husband leaves, and their child stops speaking to them, starts taking drugs, fails every exam. Even if the child does grow up happy – is the mother compensated for what she’s lost? Of course, the theory goes, that through all that self-sacrifice you find your true self. But I doubt it. As a mother you’re nothing more than a venue where other people are living their lives. There were times when I could easily have bought a one-way ticket to Australia. But those times exist for every mother. The women who deny that are simply lying.

  After she’d said all that, she looked over at Oliver, massive and still, sitting on his uncomfortable upright chair and waited for him to argue, but instead he said that he understood and something about the look in his eyes told her that this was true. But that only made her feel ashamed because, in truth, she hadn’t made the sacrifices that other women make. She’d escaped, gone back to work, handed over half of the drudgery to her mother.