Beyond All Evil

by June Thomson

  It was typical of Ash to transform the news that he was to become a father into yet another flight of fantasy.

  ‘Let’s just have the baby first,’ I said, trying to bring him down to earth.

  ‘I can’t wait to see Mum’s face,’ he said.

  The constant references to his mother rekindled my fears. Surely this would be the turning point? Surely now he would realise his place was beside me as a husband – and a father? He could not now desert me and run home to his mother. It occurred to me that, once again, she would celebrate this landmark before my own mother. The weight of secrets and lies returned to my shoulders. I couldn’t keep a pregnancy secret. It changed everything. Living a double life had been draining me.

  Why, oh why? It’s so baffling. Even now I don’t understand it. I loved Ash so much that I was prepared to put up with this sham of a life and hide it from those I loved. The longer you live a lie, the more difficult it is to tell the truth. I would have to tell my family about the baby, but I didn’t know if I could bring myself to tell them about our weird living ‘arrangement’. I was struck by a new fear. When they learned about the baby, they would inevitably want to know when I was getting married. I could almost hear Ma’s voice: ‘I’ll need to buy a new frock for the wedding.’ My heart sank. Another impossible situation.

  I was dragged back to the present by Ash saying, ‘I want to go and tell Mum now.’

  He was putting on his coat, muddling up the arms in his excitement.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Phone her later.’

  ‘Yes, yes, okay.’

  I pushed him down onto the sofa.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ I said.

  I returned a few moments later. Ash greeted me with a broad smile.

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve made me so happy. We’ll always be together. I love you so much. I’ll never let you go.’

  My spirits soared. I snuggled beside Ash and allowed myself to enjoy the happiness of the moment, confident in the future. The following two hours passed in a happy blur. What did we talk about? I don’t recall. I only remember the atmosphere. I felt safe, wanted, loved. Everything was going to be all right now. We lapsed into a contented silence.

  ‘Fancy another cup of tea?’ I said. Ash nodded.

  I went into the kitchen. The kettle was coming to the boil when I heard the familiar ring tone of Ash’s mobile. It was a sound which had always made me despondent. Not this time. This time it was different. I was pouring water into the mugs when I felt Ash’s presence behind me. I turned. He was standing in the doorway. His expression told me everything I needed to know.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not now, Ash, not now.’

  He was shamefaced, his eyes cast down at the floor.

  ‘She’s my mother,’ he said quietly, without looking up.

  Chapter 9

  Even in Darkness

  ‘June and Giselle had seen something in these men and they were praying it would return. They didn’t want to believe they had got it so wrong …’

  Ian Stephen

  June: Didn’t the sight of your baby take away all the pain?

  Elton John was crooning about a baby with blue eyes, eyes that changed the world, held back the pain. His words seemed to have been written for both of us.

  His voice was flowing softly from a hospital radio speaker above my head. My baby cried. The sound was a moment of joy. Every woman who has given birth will know what I mean when I say that the first cry of a newborn has the power to heal. We are all familiar with the old story of how the discomfort of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth are obliterated by that blessed noise. My Michelle wiped away more than mere physical distress. As I held her in my arms she made me feel whole again.

  My life with Rab had been filled with torment. So I listened to that song and looked at my child, drinking in every tiny, perfect feature on my daughter’s face. I knew that to find hidden meaning in a pop tune written by a superstar who did not know I existed was the result of a combination of confused hormones and sentimentality. I didn’t care. It was a time to be sentimental. It was a time to surrender to emotion.

  I was cradling my Michelle, the most beautiful baby in the world. She had the biggest blue eyes. They looked at me trustingly from a gentle face, framed by blonde curls. She was perfect. No one could steal this moment from me. Not Rab, not anyone. She was barely an hour old. My lovely child had arrived early, 28 weeks into my pregnancy. She weighed less than 5lbs and for the first few days of her life she would have to stay in a special unit at Paisley Maternity Hospital.

  It was a miracle she was here. I had threatened to miscarry several times and I had to spend long spells in hospital, another source of irritation to Rab because his routine had been disturbed. His dinners were not on the table.

  I was still lost in my daughter when a voice said, ‘She’s a beautiful wee thing.’

  It was the nurse whom I had come to regard as my guardian. She had popped her head round the door of the room.

  ‘Isn’t she a wee cracker?’ I answered.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said the nurse. ‘You’ve done really well.’

  She left a word unspoken, hanging at the end of the sentence, but her meaning was clear. I heard the word in my mind as ‘considering’. This nurse had already crossed swords with my husband and let him know in no uncertain terms what she thought about him and his selfish behaviour. Rab had acted like a pig, a chauvinist pig, according to the no-nonsense nurse.

  ‘When the fuck are you coming home?’ he demanded to know one day. ‘There’s fuck all wrong with you. You’ve got housework to do – and me to look after!’

  The nurse flew at him.

  ‘Your wife is very ill, Mr Thomson,’ she told him in a voice laced with anger and disgust. ‘If she doesn’t rest she could lose the baby!’

  Rab ignored her but he shot me one of his venomous looks.

  ‘Tell her you’re feeling okay!’ he said.

  The nurse interjected, ‘We’ve had quite enough of you, Mr Thomson. Time you weren’t here. You need to go now. June needs her rest.’

  Rab seethed. He knew enough not to take on this formidable woman. This wasn’t his wife he was dealing with. He stalked out of the room without another word, to the accompaniment of my silent cheers. The nurse’s eyes followed him. She turned to me and said, ‘Rest!’ It was an order. If only I could take this woman home with me.

  Sooner rather than later, however, Rab would be back in control. It was inevitable. The nurse couldn’t protect me for ever. And, of course, Rab did get his way. On subsequent visits to the hospital he would wear me down to such a degree that I signed myself out.

  I had only returned to the hospital when my contractions began. My special guardian had been waiting for me.

  ‘Nearly there, June?’ she said. ‘Where’s your husband?’

  As if she cared.

  ‘He’s in the waiting room,’ I told her.

  ‘Right, let’s get you ready, and you can bring him in for a little while,’ she said.

  I was still in a ward. They hadn’t yet taken me to the delivery room.

  ‘My contractions seem weaker,’ I told the nurse.

  ‘It happens with first births. It might be a while,’ she said. ‘Best thing is to rest and we’ll keep an eye on you.’

  Rab appeared at the end of the conversation.

  ‘Stay with June for a few moments,’ the nurse said to him in an icy voice. ‘It’s unlikely she is going to give birth tonight. You should go home and let her rest. If anything happens, we’ll call.’

  Rab didn’t need to be told twice. He was out of there as fast as his legs could carry him. The nurse smiled at me, a smile that said I was better off on my own. As it happened, I would give birth that night, in fact not long after Rab left. The nurse stayed with me the whole time.

  She was now looking down at me and my new child. She was the perfect nurse. You get a sense when someone has found their true vocatio
n.

  ‘You’re lucky to have her,’ she said and bustled away, no doubt to comfort some other new mother.

  She had never spoken a truer word. My threatened miscarriages were only part of the story. There was that other, darker reason why I was grateful Michelle had been born safe and well.

  When I had first told Rab he was going to be a father, he had been delighted and for a little while the violence ceased. Well, that’s not exactly true. He was just more careful where he struck me.

  But midway through the pregnancy I had the temerity to argue back when he was berating me. He pushed me down a flight of stairs. I tumbled head over heels, my face unguarded because my hands had flown to my stomach to protect my unborn child. I lay at the bottom. He made no move to help me. His face was impassive, contemptuous. I rose painfully and fled from the house, dreading that the fall had damaged the baby. The fear haunted me throughout the remainder of my pregnancy.

  When I first held my Michelle, my fear was lifted. She was perfect and I had her to myself, revelling in the first precious hours of her life. Rab had yet to see his daughter. He was still at home. He hadn’t made it for the birth. Oh, the promises I made to that child. I promised she would never doubt my love for one second. I promised to care, cherish and protect her. I was not being sentimental. It was the truth.

  Michelle erased my troubled childhood, my life with Rab, my inability to break free of his control. She made me happy and whole. I realised for the first time that I understood the meaning of love. How could I, with all my frailties and failings, have made something so wonderful? I kissed my daughter’s head and pledged that I would never allow anything bad to happen to her.

  It was a promise I could not keep.

  Giselle: I was afraid I would never hold my child.

  Panic. Something was wrong. Loud electronic beeps shattered the silence. Ash’s expression changed from bored resignation to concern.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I demanded.

  A midwife raced to the monitors.

  ‘Get the doctor,’ she told a nurse, who ran off down a corridor of Glasgow’s Princess Royal Maternity Hospital.

  Ash jumped to his feet but the midwife motioned for him to stay back.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on a monitor.

  ‘Listen, Giselle,’ she said. ‘Everything’s under control. I think we’re going to take you to theatre, right now.’

  It was my turn to panic.

  ‘Why?’ I asked, my terror rising.

  ‘There’s a bit of difficulty with the baby’s heartbeat,’ she said.

  ‘Do something!’ Ash begged.

  ‘We are!’ said the nurse.

  It was controlled chaos. I was surrounded. The doctor arrived, said something, and the bed began to move. I closed my eyes tightly. When I opened them I was in an operating theatre. Ash was hovering on the edge of the crowd. The medical team worked at lightning speed, transferring me to a surgical table. The doctor had gowned up and looked down at me, his lips moving behind a surgical mask. From the corner of my eye I saw Ash being helped into green ‘scrubs’. His body language spoke of fear and confusion. His face was ghostly white. The medics talked in clipped tones. Please God, I thought, let my baby be all right.

  I had not been due to give birth until Christmas. It was 1 a.m. on 29 November. My son was arriving a month early.

  A voice said, ‘It’s okay! Don’t worry. The pain will go away!’

  Numbness had already begun to creep over me. Soon it was as if I had left my body. My mind, however, remained sharp and began running over the previous eight months. It had been a difficult pregnancy right from the beginning. I had been unwell from day one. My ‘morning sickness’ would last all day, every day. Within 24 hours of breaking the news to Ash that I was pregnant, I awoke to find myself covered in an angry, red rash.

  Sweet Lord, I thought. I knew German measles when I saw it. Like every other mother-to-be, I had read the horror stories about the effects it could have on an unborn child. The infection can pass through the mother’s bloodstream, causing congenital rubella syndrome, the consequences of which are potentially devastating. I was terrified. The doctors were not much help. They were split over the risks. One said I should consider an abortion. Unthinkable. Another said that it was too early in the pregnancy for the risk to be significant. To his credit, Ash agreed that there was no way I could have an abortion.

  ‘No matter what,’ he said, ‘we’ll love the baby.’

  Ironic, isn’t it? That he should show compassion to an unborn child whose life he would take when it was alive. We submerged our fears while waiting for Paul to arrive. The first scan, at 20 weeks, revealed a boy.

  Ash was ecstatic.

  ‘A son,’ he said. ‘To carry my name.’

  The pregnancy may have been dogged by illness but I cannot remember a happier time. My joy spread throughout the family. Apart from Ash, Katie had been the first to know. The news struck her dumb. She couldn’t speak, she just ran to tell everyone else – and buy enough baby clothes to deplete Mothercare stocks for at least a month. My niece, little Giselle, spent her pocket money adding to my unborn son’s wardrobe.

  ‘Jeans and baseball boots!’ I said to her, when she arrived with the world’s smallest denims and ‘sneakers’.

  They looked as if they might have been stolen from a doll.

  ‘He’ll look cool,’ she said.

  Explanation enough.

  Giselle was still at school, with an ambition to become a hairdresser – which she is now – and I had visions of my son sporting some very spectacular hairdo as soon as he had enough hair.

  Gifts poured down on us. Ash’s mother bought a pram. Katie arrived with a ‘bouncy chair’. My mum now had a legitimate reason for haunting her favourite shops, returning each time with another ‘wee something’ for the baby. It was a time of undiluted joy.

  I had still not told my family that I was married and I hated keeping that a secret, especially now. Looking back, I realise how crazy this must seem to an outsider. I cannot explain it, even to myself. Ash’s behaviour was the reason for my reticence. He was solicitous and caring, a master of ensuring I was comfortable. He even trimmed my toenails when I was too ‘big’ to reach them. He was, however, still going home to his mother. I loved this man. I was having his child. And yet he denied me what I wanted most. My mind filled with forlorn hopes. I believed that when we had our baby it would change everything. We’d all live happily ever after.

  ‘Giselle!’

  The voice brought me back to the moment. A man wearing a surgical mask said, ‘You have a beautiful boy … he’s perfect!’

  ‘Let me see him!’

  ‘Give us a moment,’ the doctor said.

  I watched as the tiny, bloodied baby was lifted clear of the green tent that covered the lower half of my body.

  ‘Ohhhhhhh,’ I whispered.

  A sudden terror.

  ‘Why isn’t he crying?’ I demanded to know.

  ‘Give him a chance,’ said the doctor, a smile in his voice.

  Then I heard the loveliest sound in the world. My baby was crying, and by the sound of his voice he had a healthy pair of lungs. Paul’s cry was a song sung by an angel. Ash mopped sweat from my brow. The nurse brought Paul to us. My arms were a forest of drip tubes. Ash took our son and held him up for me to see. He was crying at the sight of his son.

  How could I know? How could I see the future?

  I don’t know how long I lay there. Time had lost meaning as we gazed at our boy.

  ‘Let’s get you back to the recovery room,’ a nurse said as she whisked Paul away.

  ‘Give him back to you in a minute,’ the nurse said.

  When he was returned to us in the recovery room I told Ash, ‘Unwrap him. I want to see every bit of him.’

  Ash unravelled the white blanket and Paul’s arms reached for me. I counted his fingers and toes. I searched for any sign t
hat he had been affected by the measles. He was beautiful. He glowed. He was barely 6lbs but he was strong and sturdy. His oval face, with its tiny, perfect features, was surmounted by a thatch of dark hair.

  Ash was looking at him with a sense of wonder. ‘I’m going to send him to private school,’ he said.

  It was still all about Ash and what he wanted.

  ‘He can have a Mercedes for his 18th birthday,’ Ash continued.

  ‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Let him grow up.’

  Ash turned to the nurse and said, ‘I want to bring my mother to see the baby.’

  ‘She can see him tomorrow.’

  ‘I want to bring her now.’

  ‘Giselle needs to rest. She’s had major surgery. The baby needs to rest.’

  It was half past two in the morning and she was not inclined to indulge Ash’s unreasonable request.

  ‘You get home,’ she said. ‘And let us look after Giselle.’

  Ash kissed my forehead.

  ‘See you later,’ he said.

  I was returned to the ward. I felt exhausted, but the last thing on my mind was sleep. I just wanted to look at my baby. Despite all my joy, I was sad. Ash hadn’t said he loved me. Or that he was proud of me. What could I do if he didn’t want to be a proper husband? All I could do was promise to be everything I could be for my baby. I repeated that promise over and over as we lay in the silence of early morning. I laid my hand on Paul’s chest and felt the rhythm of life. I was drifting into sleep when the silence was shattered by the sound of a phone ringing. I knew instinctively who it was. I glanced over at the nurses’ station and in the half-light I could see the hands on the clock standing at 3 a.m.

  I heard the nurse say, ‘Hello’, and then, ‘Sorry, no, you can’t bring her just now.’

  ‘No,’ she repeated in a firmer voice. ‘Everyone is sleeping.’

  The phone was replaced and I waited. The nurse appeared.

  Before she could speak I said, ‘I’m sorry. That was Ash?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Sleep!’

  I lay back, disappointed. It was all about Ash and his mother. I closed my eyes – until a voice whispered ‘Giselle’. I awoke. The clock hands had reached 6 a.m. Ash was standing over me.