Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  The best thing to do is to count backwards, Jemmy says. Start at four hundred, breathe deeply, count.

  They cross the road together. 400. 399. 398. Lara helps Jemmy into the car. 397. 396. Shuts the door. 395. Straightens the cat-hair-covered blanket on the driver’s seat which hides the sticking-out springs and gets into the car. 394. 393. Turns the key and the engine splutters and roars. All the way to the hospital, they count. Past the houses, and the streets, and the people having normal lives, where nobody is about to die. At the hospital Lara helps Jemmy out of the car. She’s pleased to see there’s no further evidence of blood.

  It’s possible to lose a lot of blood and the baby doesn’t necessarily die, Jemmy says. I lost a lot of blood last time. And of course Laurie did die. But it doesn’t necessarily work like that.

  Sorry?

  Laurie. He was my first baby.

  Lara coughs, chokes, watches a bird which is sitting on a signpost.

  Sorry. I didn’t know. I’m very sorry.

  It’s all right. It’s easier, the second time.

  In the Casualty Department, Lara expects alarms to ring, stretchers to appear, nurses to rush forward. But instead there’s just a woman behind a desk and forms to fill in. Jemmy is told to sit down. Lara wants to shout, Get a doctor, a stretcher, a baby is about to die. Lara and Jemmy sit on plastic chairs and wait. Through glass windows, Lara can see nurses and doctors writing at desks, putting papers in files. She decides she’ll give it five more minutes before she goes and complains, wonders if she should hold Jemmy’s hand.

  I’m twenty-three weeks pregnant, Jemmy says. That means they could try to deliver him but he wouldn’t have much chance of staying alive.

  Lara is shocked by the girl’s matter-of-fact tone.

  I have a feeling the baby is a boy, the first says. If I’m right then I’ll call him Sebastian.

  A man appears with a gash in his hand, surrounded by friends. He moans, cries out. The friends steer him to an empty seat and he lies down with his head on one of the plastic chairs. A woman with a whining child is complaining that the coffee machine doesn’t work. Jemmy sits still, hands folded in her lap. Lara shuts her eyes and counts again. 400. 399. A plaque on the wall explains that the chairs in the waiting room were provided by the Rotary Club. Jemmy sits up straighter and Lara sees her decide to make an effort at normality.

  Sorry, she says. I’ve heard all about you. I wish we hadn’t met like this.

  That’s all right. Quite all right. I know that you’re a friend of Jay’s.

  Well, not much. Not really. But he was very important to me.

  Lara thinks, A romance? That seems improbable. But something else. What?

  He helped me, Jemmy says. You know how he could do that, of course. How good he is at helping people. Like he used to come here, didn’t he? To the hospital. The Camera Boy. But for me, it wasn’t like that. It was – I don’t usually explain. It’s rather difficult. I used to be a person who always wore thick, black cardigans.

  The words are dry, difficult. Lara takes care not to look at her as she tells her story. The boy she’s describing is someone that Lara has never known. After Jemmy has finished speaking a silence settles over the two of them, a private, intense silence, despite the moaning man and the coffee-machine complainer.

  Then Jemmy says, I always thought if he came back, if he was here—

  Do you think that’s why he went to Iraq? Lara asks. To help people?

  I don’t know. We’d sort of lost touch before then. But I always thought so. And I don’t know what it was that night – not religion, or magic, or any of that. Love is a silly word. Too big. Kindness perhaps. It was hard for him to make people understand.

  A young male doctor appears through swishing double doors. He asks some questions and then Jemmy is sat in a wheelchair and pushed through those doors. Lara follows her as they travel along corridor after corridor, passing people being wheeled in hospital beds, old men shuffling along pushing drip stands. Eventually they come to a place where there are tiny baby beds, posters of breastfeeding mothers, nurses carrying bottles of milk. Again they wait.

  Is there anyone you should call? Lara asks.

  I don’t know, the girl says. My husband, really.

  Husband?

  We split up but still. His child.

  Shall I call him? Lara says.

  No. No. He doesn’t know.

  Doesn’t know?

  No. And I can’t face telling him.

  OK. Give me the number and I’ll send him a text. Just telling him to come to the hospital, nothing more.

  I don’t know.

  Come on.

  The girl gets out her phone, reads the number out. Lara types it into her mobile. A nurse appears and Jemmy is wheeled into a room full of equipment and lifted onto a bed. Pale blue jelly is rubbed onto her swollen belly. Lara sits behind the doctor as he does the scan. The baby appears, a cluster of grey in a black and grey wilderness, surrounded by a mass of white flecks. Like seeing film of the moon, or deep under the ocean. The curve of the baby’s skull is perfectly spherical, his tiny spine and the spread of his ribs, like a fish bone. She’s shocked by how complete the baby is, a whole person, every detail in place. Briefly he turns and it seems that he’s waving a tiny gloved hand, a message from another world. This is a first day at school, an eighteenth birthday, a wedding, a grandchild. This is a dream, a hope, a possibility. This is a place to accumulate love.

  Lara looks at the doctor, trying to read his face. Jemmy keeps her hands locked over her eyes. Then a sound comes, a microphone thump, a sound like someone clearing their throat, a rush and a gurgle and then thump, thump, thump.

  Got a heartbeat, the doctor says.

  Lara feels a ball of relief rise up into her throat. The doctor continues to move the sensor over Jemmy’s belly. He plots dotted lines on the screen, consults his notes, shakes his head.

  I need the consultant. She isn’t in the hospital now but she’ll be here soon.

  Lara can’t listen any more. In the distance she hears Jemmy asking questions, the doctor explaining that they may have to deliver the baby but it’s too early. He won’t survive. Or they may be able to wait. Lara erects a barrier in her mind to block out the words. What did Greg mean when he said he couldn’t find Jay? Lara is swallowing again and again. For a moment, she raises her hands, as though to hide her eyes but then knows that she mustn’t do that, mustn’t let Jemmy see her panic. As she lowers her hands, her eyes fix on their blue-veined backs, the short, dirty nails, the silver hairs, the clear expanse of skin. And she knows then what she needs to do. A nurse is fixing a drip into Jemmy’s arm.

  I’ve got to go, Lara says. But I’m going to come back. I know someone who can help. Will you be all right until I get back? I sent that text.

  Yes, Jemmy says. Yes. I’ll be all right. Thank you very much.

  51

  BEFORE

  Jemmy – Brighton, July 2001

  Jemmy never usually lets anyone into her room, least of all a man. So now she wonders why she’s let the Camera Boy in. Drink, that’s the only answer. He’s propped on her cushion, his long legs folded awkwardly, drinking coffee. She met him down on the seafront earlier, been at a party there, met a guy she liked called Bill, then her head started swaying and she headed home. And then she’d met the Camera Boy. He’d followed her home, talking all the way, and on the doorstep he’d pleaded – Just a coffee. And she’d said – All right, all right but really just a coffee. And now he’s annoying her with his meaning-of-life talk. She sits with her back propped against her bed. Her window is pulled wide open and outside a feverish night is settling on the city.

  So why are you so miserable? he asks.

  I’m not miserable. Why would you think I’m miserable?

  He sits up straighter, crosses his legs, watches her. He’s wearing an old-fashioned dinner jacket, ripped at the elbows and hem, and a collarless shirt which must have come from some vintage shop. His ha
ir doesn’t look as though it has been brushed for a week and she suspects that he might smell – of peanuts or burgers or something.

  I haven’t got anything to be miserable about, Jemmy says. Nothing at all. I mean, I’m young and in good health and I’ve got career plans and enough money to live on – just about. So I wouldn’t have reason to be miserable, would I?

  The light from her bedside light falls in a circle, touching his knees but leaving his face shadowed – but still she can feel his eyes on her.

  But do those things make people happy? he asks.

  She shivers and drinks more red wine. Over the last three years she’s had as many of these boring student meaning-of-life conversations as she ever needs to have. She wishes she’d stayed down by the pier, with her friends – or gone somewhere with that guy Bill.

  Look, she says. The point is that when I was growing up my parents had quite a bit of money. I mean, I didn’t really get on with them but I never had to worry about having clothes, or meals, or stuff like that. And so I was lucky really. I mean, people who don’t have enough to live on – those people would be miserable, wouldn’t they?

  That’s what I used to think, he says. But now I’m not so sure. Because it wouldn’t matter if you had all the meals and clothes that money could buy – if you didn’t have people you could really be close to.

  Money can't buy you happiness, can’t buy you love. How tedious. But she feels the room shift around her and wonders if she might cry. She drinks more red wine, stubs out her cigarette. Although the sun has finally burnt itself out, the room seems to be getting hotter and her cardigan sticks to her, the cotton itching at her neck. The boy shuffles himself closer to the bed, rests his back against it. She knows he wants to get her into bed. She doesn’t want to talk but the red wine speaks for her.

  It was all right, she says. While I was at school and at college because I knew what I had to do. This is the course material, these are the assignments you have to complete, this is the date of the exam. But now. Since I finished the course, I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing because, well, it’s not clear what success is now. There are too many choices. I mean, if I get a job with one of the London design houses then is that success or is it selling out to commercialism? And if I start my own business is that success?

  But why ask yourself that question? Why not just ask what you want to do?

  That, she thinks, is the kind of thing he would say.

  I mean, what do you want to do? he says.

  Again she feels herself close to tears. Because this is the question she asks herself all day, as she sits in the shop. Place your bets. And the ball spins round the roulette wheel again and again but never drops into place. And she can’t understand why she doesn’t know the answer because it can’t be that complicated, can it?

  I did have a job interview, she says. It was in London. Junior Knitwear Technologist. And it was for Angelic Threads who are like a new, really exciting fashion design company. And actually it wasn’t like I applied to them. I didn’t – but they asked me to go for an interview because they’d seen some of my garment work. So it should have been pretty likely that I’d get the job and I did everything right. I’d done lots of research into the company and I managed to say it all in just the right way – but then—

  She stops and pulls at her sleeve, wishes she hadn’t drunk so much.

  Then. Well, I didn’t really like the people but they wrote and offered me a job and well – I never replied to the letter. And they left three messages on my mobile.

  She cries, sobs shaking her shoulders. She feels so ashamed. Why did she ever let this boy into her room? Why is she telling him these things? She wipes at her eyes, digs in her cardigan pocket for a tissue. It was only a job interview, only a decision she failed to make. She’s still a person who won the second year prize for textiles for the whole university, a person with enough money and friends. She tries to shut the tears up inside her and shades her face with her hand. Feeling him close to her, she draws back. His hands touch her cardigan.

  Get off me, you creep. I’m not interested. I told you.

  But his hands undo the buttons of her cardigan.

  I’m not trying to do that, he says. I’m just trying to say I’m sorry. That’s all.

  His hands keep working on the buttons and then he eases the cardigan off her shoulders. Underneath she wears a white sleeveless camisole. She winces as his eyes fall on the skin of her chest, her sticking-out collarbones. As he takes hold of her wrist, she pulls back, feeling the shock of his touch. He apologises, and with infinite care, peels off one fingerless glove. A piece of white material is revealed, wrapped around her wrist. She waits for him to draw back but instead he peels off the other glove. Now the bandages which cover both of her forearms are there for him to see. She’s always imagined a moment like this, a moment when someone finds out. Now the Camera Boy is going to feel sick, start shouting, talk about doctors and drugs. But he doesn’t – instead, taking great care not to hurt her, he gently pulls her cardigan down and edges the sleeves over the bandages.

  No, no. She says. No, no, no, no. She keeps her eyes tight shut and her head down. Once he knows then everyone will know – and then they will hate her. She won’t be able to pretend any more. But when the cardigan is off, and the bandages and plasters and cuts are all revealed, the Camera Boy registers no shock at all. All he does is stare at her arms. She can feel the hot night air on her skin and she shivers. The plasters don’t cover all the cuts and scratches. She can never do the dressings properly because she always has to do them with one hand. All she does is cut slabs of lint and stick them to her arm with pieces of plaster. That usually stops the blood from getting on her cardigan.

  The boy is kneeling now, holding her wrist across his knee. Gently he begins to remove the dressings, easing the plasters off, lifting the pieces of lint. Then he takes the safety pins from the bandages and undoes those as well. One of the cuts is deeper than the others and it oozes blood.

  Jemmy remembers how it felt to make that cut. The sense of power and control, the excitement and immediacy, the sudden exquisite stab of pain. The cuts are never as deep as she wants them to be. It’s always her intention to cut into an artery but she hasn’t the courage and her sewing scissors aren’t sharp enough. The boy is staring down at her arm but he isn’t disgusted or shocked. She’s always taken such care never to let anyone see because she knows she won’t be able to bear their looks of horror, and the judgements and questions and doctor’s appointments which will automatically follow.

  The boy examines the cuts more closely.

  Beautiful, he says.

  Yes, she says. They are.

  He stays still, watching them. His finger moves above them, as though mapping the pattern they make.

  It’s clear to her now that the boy is mad. But she feels strangely comfortable sitting with him while he stares at her cuts. Without her cardigan, her skin can breathe and she’s stopped sweating. Beautiful. He’s right. When she cuts herself, she does it with care. No wild and desperate slashing. Instead a deliberate positioning of the blade, measuring the angle of this new cut against the one before. And then pushing the sewing scissors down into her skin hard and watching the flesh split and the blood appear in a sudden swathe of crimson. You have to push down hard. Human flesh is surprisingly resilient.

  That moment of exhilaration. The knowledge that she’s here, that this is her arm. That she’s in Brighton, that this is the year 2001. And then the slow sawing, cutting into muscle and vein, pushing down and down despite the pain and the running blood – just to be absolutely sure, to know for certain, that she is here, that this is her arm. And now this boy can see the pattern, and how carefully it’s been done. So that he too knows that she’s here.

  He asks her if he can take a picture of the cuts and he makes her lay her arms out on the bed, on the white sheet. And he gets his camera and spends long minutes adjusting the lens, lining up the shot. First
he positions himself high above her and takes pictures from there, but then he comes down to her level, on the opposite side of the bed, and photographs her arms from the side. While he works, she cries – slowly, quietly, happily.

  The strange thing is that now that he’s looked so carefully at the cuts, they’ve ceased to matter. For so long they’ve been a dark and hidden thing, a deep and terrible shame. Because of the cuts she’s never gone swimming, never sunbathed, never gone to the doctor's, never gone clothes shopping with friends. She’s never been able to have a proper boyfriend because she can only have sex in an alleyway, or a car, where she won’t have to take off her clothes. Always wore a black cardigan and fingerless gloves in case the blood seeps through.

  And all the time she’d imagined the moment when someone finds out. The doctors, the shrinks, the psychiatric ward – the disgust. She’s always stayed with the people she knows well. Those people never dare to ask why she doesn’t ever take off her cardigan and gloves. The cardigan is part of her oddness, it’s attributed to excessive modesty, considered rather charming.

  The boy is putting his camera away. She looks down at her lacerated arms on the bed. Only a few cuts. Most people probably do that kind of thing sometime. They could just be scratches she got while trying to climb over a barbed-wire fence, or falling on some sharp stones. The boy comes back and kneels beside her, on the opposite side of the bed, watching her intently. One of the cuts has opened up and is starting to bleed. Slowly he lowers his head and kisses it. When he raises his head, his lips are stained red. Despite her tears, she can’t help laughing at his clown-red mouth.

  The Camera Boy laughs as well and then gets up and goes to the bathroom. He comes back with plasters, lint, Dettol and water in a plastic tooth mug. Kneeling beside her again, he washes the cuts and then goes to the bathroom, gets a towel, dries them. When he’s done that, he carefully cuts out pieces of lint, measuring them up so that they will fit neatly. He does a much better job than she could ever do, making sure they’re all covered, even the ones which are only scratches.