Because of You

by Dawn French

  He came running.

  ‘Yes, bae?’

  ‘I don’t feel right.’

  ‘OK, sit tight, I’ll get some water …’

  ‘No, Lee, get the ambulance. Please. Quick.’

  As she spoke, she dropped the notebook and collapsed into his arms.

  The letter to her darlin’ mum Hope, in custody, would have to be finished later.

  Back Then: Hope

  Hope looked up at the flat for the last time. She was feeling nostalgic. It’d been a big part of her London life, and the place where Minnie was made. She had pushed past the stoner downstairs’ annoying bike for the last time, she’d strapped Minnie into her car seat in Isaac’s old car that he’d left behind, and she was heading home to Bristol.

  Hope had very little to take with her. Her bed and sofa and TV had gone ahead in a van driven by one of her uncles. Even Minnie herself didn’t involve much actual ‘stuff’. A Moses basket and a bag with all her bottles, nappies and a change of Babygro for the journey. She was just over a month old now and still very tiny, but she was a hungry baby so Hope was feeding her half formula, half breast.

  There had been a couple of moments when Hope wished she’d been able to get advice from a neonatal or a paediatric nurse, but of course, she couldn’t. Minnie had a temperature but Hope calmly dealt with it. Minnie had a strange rash on her neck: Hope dealt with it. Minnie was waking up hungry in the night: Hope dealt with it by substituting formula for some feeds. It was going relatively well despite zero support, but Hope knew that, in the long term, the answer was to return to Bristol. She needed her wider family wrapped around her if she was going to raise Minnie right. Hope had missed her little sister Glory when they were apart. So that was the first call she made when she decided to go.

  ‘Hi, G. So. Sitting down? I’m coming home! Yeah, yay, right! Me ’n’ the baby. No. He’s … er … gone. I’ll tell you when I see you. And I can meet the gorgeous Ky at last, check him out, see if he’s suitable BF material. He’s got to pass the sista test. That’s who you are, girl. My sista. I’ve missed you so much. Get yer arms ready for incoming love …’

  Glory had been the hardest to leave; she was only sixteen when Hope headed up to London, leaving her at home to cope with Doris and Zak and all the nonsense of their debilitating using habits; but Hope had taught her well. Shown her by example how to withdraw when the two of them were in a state, how to wait until their many melancholic, substance-induced storms had passed, before stepping in to care for them in the quieter calms afterwards. Hope sent some of her wages home, to an account only Glory could access, to make sure they all had some nutritious food and warm clothes, etc. Between the two sisters, they cared very well for their beloved, flawed parents. Yet however much Hope knew Glory had coped, she still always felt the nagging guilt that, as the older sister, she had abandoned her. In that way this was a good day. Hope was going to be back in town to take charge.

  She’d given her notice at work. No one was that surprised; they knew she’d suffered a tragic stillbirth. She did it all on the phone and apologized for not going in personally to say her goodbyes, but they all understood.

  Hope went to register the stillbirth. It wasn’t easy.

  First of all, she had no one to look after Minnie. She couldn’t ask anyone. How could she, without alerting the wrong folk? She even considered, for one mad moment, asking Mr Downstairs Stoner to have her for an hour while she dashed to the registrar’s office, but she couldn’t do it. He was off his face most of the time, which was very useful for not noticing a baby upstairs, but not good for looking after one.

  Eventually, Hope knew she had to take a huge risk, one she never would otherwise. She drove to the registrar’s office at just the right time in the early afternoon, when she knew Minnie would fall asleep, replete and drowsy after her lunchtime feed. She put Minnie in her Moses basket in the back seat and lightly covered her over with a blanket and a coat on top. She propped it all up so that nothing could fall directly on to her, and she locked the doors quietly. It hurt her heart to do it, but she had no option. She thought about asking another mother to keep an eye on her, but knew it would arouse suspicion – why would anyone do that rather than taking their baby into the room with them … unless something was amiss? No, she couldn’t do that.

  And what if the registrar saw her with a baby?

  And what if the woman she entrusted Minnie with was a certifiable murdering lunatic?

  NO. NO. NO.

  This was the only way.

  She checked through the window that the heap of clothes was in place. She reassured herself that no one would want to break in to this old banger and that the heap seemed innocuous, and she walked away briskly, looking back all the time.

  As she entered the reception area, Hope went straight to the receptionist, grateful that there was no queue, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but my name is Hope Parker – well, no, I’m not sorry about that, but I need to know if the appointments are on time? It’s just that … I have an elderly mother waiting for me …?’

  ‘OK, Mrs Parker—’

  ‘Miss.’

  ‘Miss Parker, I’ll call you as soon as possible.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Take a seat.’

  Hope looked around. There were very few people waiting, thankfully. It must be a slow time for births, deaths and marriages. Maybe the human race was on a general go-slow when it came to matters of life?

  She wasn’t.

  She wanted to get this done and get straight back to Minnie. She sat down next to an older man whose face told a story of unimaginable loss. He looked haunted and was clutching a brown envelope. Hope couldn’t engage with him, she knew it would draw her into an emotional pit she couldn’t enter. On the far side of the room was a woman in her early thirties with two toddlers and an infant in a pram. Thankfully the toddlers were a welcome distraction from the gloom that orbited the old man. The only other couple were cuddled up in the corner facing the other way, clearly not wanting to be there.

  But Hope’s thoughts were with Minnie in the car. Why wasn’t there a window in there, from which she could keep the car in sight? Stupid room. Stupid ill-thought-out room. It was almost as if they didn’t WANT mothers with stolen babies who were secretly stashed in the car to be able to keep an eye on them … or something …

  She was shocked out of her agitated reverie when the receptionist called out, ‘Miss Parker? Room Two, please.’

  Hope walked up the corridor, knocked on No. 2 and went in.

  A friendly woman welcomed her and gestured that she should sit in the blue pleather chair across from her desk. ‘Hello, Miss Parker, I’m Susan Meagre … You on your own today?’

  ‘Yes, miss. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course. I was just … probably … hoping you might have some support at this difficult time?’

  Difficult time?

  In the chaos of the previous few days, Hope had all but forgotten the real reason she’d come here, she was hitherto simply fulfilling a necessary formality.

  ‘Oh. Yes. No, I’m OK, thank you. Just want to get this over …’

  ‘Yes, of course. Now then, you are what’s called the primary informant, so of course you can register on your own, but I need to ask you if you would like to have the father’s details entered? If so, I’m afraid he would need to be here.’

  ‘No. Thank you. That … won’t be the case today.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s … gone … home to … another country.’ Hope told as much of the truth as she could manage.

  ‘I see. Do you have the documents with you from the hospital?’

  Hope handed over the envelope Fatu had given her and she watched as the registrar opened it and started to fill in the details in her big important book.

  Hope gave her name and her London address.

  She watched as Susan Meagre filled in Minnie’s name and in a box marked ‘Cause of Death’ she wrote ‘Unknown’.


  Yes. Unknown.

  In a box marked ‘Details of Father’, she put lines through the boxes. Obliterated.

  Also unknown, in effect.

  Hope’s heart hurt to think that anyone might suppose Isaac didn’t care, because he so passionately did. For the first time since she left the hospital, Hope thought about Minnie. The first Minnie.

  Her daughter.

  She pictured her so clearly. She remembered every detail of her little sweet sleeping face.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Hope looked up at kind Susan Meagre, and she crumpled. Susan came around the table and put her arms around the trembling Hope.

  ‘I know. It must be awful. You’ve been so brave. God bless little Minnie …’

  Little Minnie? Yes, she must get back to her immediately; she might have woken by now. Hope took the certificate Susan gave her and, after thanking her profusely, raced back to her car to find little Minnie safely still fast asleep. As usual, being the best behaved little soul so that her mummy could get her to where she needed to be: in Bristol, where, hopefully, no one would ask any further questions because they were all expecting Hope home, bringing her brand-new daughter, little Minnie.

  So Hope took that one last glance up at the flat. She propped up Isaac’s picture of Captain Paul Cuffee that she’d brought with them in the car. She wanted to see it so she put it between the gearstick and the dashboard. She put the car into first gear.

  She mouthed, ‘Thank you, Isaac.’

  And she pulled away.

  She was going home.

  With Minnie laid to rest.

  With Minnie right beside her.

  And with Isaac in her heart.

  All of them free now.

  But.

  All of them chained to the truth.

  And each other.

  Minnie’s 1st Birthday: Isaac

  Watching his family sitting together around the simple wooden table on the porch of his house made Isaac feel waves of contentment. That he could at last provide something for those who had supported him for so long was a source of great pride.

  He had only had his real full-time job for a few months, but with his new degree finally in his arsenal, he could earn properly, he could move out of his parents’ home and he could afford the rent on this little one-storey wooden house near the port in Freetown.

  He wanted to be near the harbour. His close friends didn’t understand why he’d choose to be near all the mayhem, the clatter of harbourside commerce, the smells of fishing and fuel, but Isaac had a singular reason, nothing he needed to share necessarily, but something that helped to ease his burden. He felt close to his purpose here, in the shadow of his long-time hero. Thoughts of Captain Cuffee arriving on this soil, bringing his first cargo of thirty-eight freed slaves back to Africa from America, with all the optimistic hope of a new life in Sierra Leone, often played on his mind, especially when he was struggling with difficult, hidden feelings about everything he had left behind in England a year ago.

  It might be New Year’s Day, but Isaac’s guilt was growing old and big and familiar. He liked the notion that Hope might just occasionally be looking at the picture of Cuffee. He had left it by accident in his haste to go, but he was glad that he had, because, after all, it was Cuffee who had brought his mother’s ancestors to this place two hundred years ago, and it was the blood of those ancestors that ran through Minnie’s veins … when she was alive and kicking inside Hope. Not so the case with the new Minnie. Although he had no biological connection to her whatsoever, he WAS and IS most certainly connected, he knew that for sure.

  Fastened forever to her with a big fat fib as the glue.

  ‘Hey, where you gone?’ Efiba nudged him gently, jerking him into the present.

  ‘Huh? Ah, you know me …’ he replied.

  ‘Yes, sir, I do.’ She giggled. ‘Mr Dreamer, floatin’ off all the time. Well, now is no time for daydreams, there’s Puff Puff to put on the table. Priorities.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know and Momma has made the caramel sauce.’

  ‘From the secret recipe she’d have to kill me if she told me …’ Efiba giggled again and Isaac knew she was joking and not joking. It was true that his mother guarded the recipe for the sauce she spread on the sweet dough balls. It was a family treasure and until Efiba was family, that’s how it would stay.

  He watched her. She was wiping beads of sweat from her temples and her neck with a cotton cloth she’d retrieved from the freezer. It was the only way to stay cool in the blistering African heat. He found her graceful movements to be so lovely.

  Isaac was indeed inching towards asking Efiba to please marry him. She would be such a kind, beautiful, thoughtful wife, and she loved him very much. She showed him in so many ways, every day.

  She spooned up behind him and held him close every single morning when they woke up together.

  She knew how much he liked his minty tea to start his day, and she brought it in his favourite old tin cup.

  She understood that he needed to be quiet.

  She paid homage to his parents by respecting their family traditions, however different they were to her own, and she laughed at their jokes and teasing.

  She didn’t question him too much; she noticed how tense he became under scrutiny.

  She thanked him often for all his kindnesses.

  She supported him.

  She knew him.

  She sensed when he slipped into sadness, and she would whisper, ‘Remember, I am your life jacket anytime you need to wear me,’ in his ear.

  She woke him gently when he whimpered in his sleep sometimes, like a dog dreaming of running.

  She let him be. Just be.

  And Quiet Isaac appreciated all of her. Even the parts of herself she was so harsh about.

  ‘My forehead is big as a moon.’

  ‘I’m as short as a twelve-year-old kid.’

  ‘I don’t know anything much, I’m not clever.’

  ‘I stink.’

  Her regular dialogue was a litany of self-deprecating criticism. It was easy to reassure her when she was down on herself because Isaac genuinely admired her and didn’t see her in any light other than a bright, shiny, positive one.

  Something was holding him back from proposing, though. Something he couldn’t explain to her, especially not today, on New Year’s Day, Minnie’s birthday. That’s where his thoughts were … all around little secret Minnie. Where his heart so often was.

  Isaac leant over to Efiba and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Let’s get the desserts out, come on, before Momma turns murderous …’

  It was much later, when the family had gone, and Efiba, full of delicious lunch, was snoozing on their bed, that Isaac sat down to write the letter he’d been constructing in his head all year. Hope had given him a PO box number and they had agreed not to communicate any other way: it was too risky. Isaac hadn’t written yet, he was so unsure what to say, but today was the day.

  He was sitting at the table they’d all gathered around at lunchtime. It was cooler now the sun was disappearing. He placed his outdoor petrol-lamp near the pad of lined paper, and he sat back in the rattan chair with his arms behind his head. He looked up at the sky he could see over the tin roofs of the houses further down the hill, and above the busy industrial landscape of the harbour. He took a deep deep breath. He blew out. He wondered for a moment if that same air would ever have the momentum to whirl its way up up up across northern Africa, across Portugal, over the Bay of Biscay, across the pointy bit of France, over Guernsey and Jersey, all the way to Bristol to Minnie, who might just be in the middle of a big baby yawn unknowingly taking in a gulp of African dad-air. Could that happen?

  He would so love a connection with her – anything to let her know that he cared. He felt heartbroken that she might grow up believing he had abandoned her easily. Nothing he’d ever done or would ever do was more difficult. This letter might at least go some way to letting her know.

 
If …

  Hope let her see it …

  Would Hope let her see it when she could read?

  Would Hope ever let her see it? Would she read it to her?

  Regardless, Isaac would write it, and in that moment he resolved to write to Minnie on her birthday every year.

  He picked up his Biro and, in his scrawly writing, he started.

  Dear Daughter,

  I am your father, and I love you. You need to know that as a fact.

  One day, I will tell you the story of how I met you, and how much your mama and I wanted you, and maybe then you will understand how the situation came to be.

  For now though, you are one year old today and I am thinking about you. I bet you’ve changed so much. I hope your eyes are as bright as they were. When I close my eyes, I see yours so clearly, looking directly at me, straight at me, just like you did. You were so quiet and interested in everything. I only knew you for a few hours, but they were honestly the most beautiful hours of my life so far, little one. We ran up the road together with you inside my jacket. I felt your little heartbeat next to mine, and you dribbled all down my shirt ’til it was straight wet and I didn’t mind at all. Even though that was my best shirt – your mama bought it for my birthday. From Marks and Spencer. Posh.

  I am a long way from you on your birthday, but trust me, little Minnie, I don’t forget you. I still feel your heartbeat.

  I keep you close that way.

  In my thoughts.

  Your loving father XX

  He folded the letter twice. He put two green banknotes inside the fold. He placed it in the envelope, he sealed it, he addressed it, and he kissed it. He would post it quietly in the morning. He’d send some Africa to Bristol.

  Isaac stood and stretched his arms up. Then he walked back inside, back into his present life, and back to Efiba.

  Florence’s 1st Birthday: Julius

  Julius stood in front of the long mirror. His natural home. He was much slimmer than this time last year, thanks to a strict regime of steamed broccoli, an attractive, sexually generous Danish personal trainer, and a renewed alliance with his own narcissism. The pounds had dropped off. So much so that rumours had circulated concerning his health, which of course Julius relished. He didn’t mind the hunger: it kept him keen. He needed to be as sharp as possible right now. He had an arduous career voyage ahead, if all went according to plan. It was going to be ‘an extended and tricky process of personal change and self-development’. Or so he said in all of the literature he issued concerning himself, all the while being extremely careful never to mention his ultimate goal. However, all those who needed to know knew that Julius Albert Lindon-Clarke wanted to be the first black Prime Minister. He was stealthily ensuring that each step moved him further along that yellow brick road to his own Oz, and the top job in the country. Wizard.