Needlemouse

by Jane O'Connor

‘Of course not, Mills don’t be silly, but this one is particularly annoying.’ Emma held up her empty plastic coconut shell which had housed a pina colada and raised her eyes. ‘I’m losing my buzz. I’ll remember how tired I am in a minute and that I’ve got two constantly bickering children to look after in the morning.’ She looked at Millie’s glass and noticed for the first time that she was drinking water. ‘Not drinking, Mills? Let me get you a cocktail. It’s your birthday, you have to have fun.’

  ‘No, I’m fine, darling, just have a bit of a headache. I’ll have something in a bit, promise.’ She blew Emma a kiss and turned back to Kamal, draping her arm round his shoulders and listening with intent as he explained to Shona’s husband about the problems they were having with the ancient plumbing in the deli.

  My mind was grappling with a possibility that I couldn’t face and I stared at Millie’s glass of water as if in a trance. I was about to get up and escape to the bathroom when the waiter appeared at last, carrying a pink frosted cake with candles and sparklers stuck in the top, and everyone launched into a boozy rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. I sang along and watched Millie giggle and flap like an excited child, blowing out the candles and nearly burning her fingers on the still-hot sparklers.

  Kamal stood up then and it was like being trapped in a nightmare. I knew what he was going to say. He thanked everyone for coming and said how gorgeous Millie looked and how happy he was that she was going to be his wife and how much they were looking forward to opening the deli soon. Then he held up his glass and we all toasted Millie. I was holding my breath, waiting for the next announcement, but it didn’t come. I took a long drink of my wine and told myself I was paranoid and being ridiculous. Then he stood up again.

  ‘And we have some even more beautiful news!’ Millie was tugging at his shirt trying to get him to sit down, but he wouldn’t. He was tipsy and getting carried away with the pleasures of the evening. ‘We are going to have a baby! Yes, we are so happy.’ He was beaming and tears of drunken joy were rolling down his cheeks. He went to kiss Millie but she was already standing up and he missed and nearly fell, righting himself on the back of her chair. Millie was a bashful bright red and glowing with delight.

  ‘Yes, we are. It’s really early on,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at Kamal, ‘and we weren’t going to tell anyone for a while, but there it is – I’m going to be a mummy!’

  Emma and Shona screamed and jumped up to hug her, welcoming her to their club. Mother’s face showed little emotion except the slight disappointment with which she greeted all news, good or bad, but when Millie looked right at her she did at least have the decency to smile and nod graciously.

  ‘What do you think, Sylvia? You’re going to be an auntie.’ Millie was trying to include me in the general frenzy of excitement and the table fell silent waiting for my answer.

  ‘It’s truly wonderful news. Millie and Kamal, congratulations to you both.’ I lifted my glass and Millie slowly lifted hers back, her face hurt and confused at my lack of enthusiasm and the insincere tone of my response.

  I couldn’t help it. I could hardly breathe and I needed to get out of there. Kamal refused to catch my eye, his waiter training standing him in good stead. I waited another twenty minutes until the furore had died down and people were back to chatting about themselves rather than Millie and then slipped out, whispering to Millie that I had to catch the last train, and handing her money to cover my share of the bill for food I hadn’t eaten.

  ‘Call me tomorrow,’ she said, holding onto my hand, ‘please, darling.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ I touched her hair and withdrew my hand from her clammy grasp.

  I stood outside the restaurant in the cool night air and pulled on my coat, tying the belt tightly round my waist and trying to ignore the soreness across my middle. I knew, then, that I had made a terrible, irreversible mistake.

  The next few months were pure agony for me, and then it got worse. Millie was completely swept up in the joyful anticipation of her impending motherhood and all I could do was watch from the sidelines with a growing sense of horror. She wanted me centre stage with her, of course: to accompany her to scans and midwife appointments instead of Kamal so they didn’t have to shut the shop, to help her choose the paraphernalia she needed from Mothercare, and to listen to her hopes and fears about the birth. I managed to dodge nearly every request, citing work responsibilities and prior engagements wherever possible. She was hurt, I know she was, but she said she understood and took either Mother or Emma with her instead. Mother was no help really, stunned by the level of care and attention contemporary pregnancy demanded and non-forthcoming about her own experiences. She shifted with embarrassment and claimed not to remember when Millie asked her about our births and infancies, let alone the mechanics of her pregnancies. At least I could plead ignorance and had no relevant experiences to share that she knew of.

  The one favour that I found impossible to get out of was decorating the nursery for the new baby in the dilapidated end-of-terrace that Millie and Kamal had hastily bought with a huge mortgage, using the last of Uncle Clarence’s money as a deposit. Millie asked me directly if I would strip the dated woodchip wallpaper off the walls, tidy up the plaster, and paint it in a gender neutral creamy white. She also had a stencil of teddy bears that she wanted put up as a border and a pair of bright yellow curtains that needed hanging in the little window overlooking the tangled garden. What with getting the deli off the ground and sorting out the rest of the house, neither she nor Kamal had time to properly prepare the nursery and she wanted it to be lovely for the baby. What could I say? I agreed to come round after work and do a couple of hours every week night while Millie pottered round unpacking and got dinner on, but I insisted I would leave as soon as Kamal got home and would not stay for the evening meal. Not wanting to intrude, is how I put it and Millie appreciated the gesture, hugging me tightly and telling me I was the best sister in the world, just as she used to do when we were children.

  Those hours in Millie’s box room, scraping wallpaper, painting and stencilling, were quite therapeutic when I could blank out why I was doing it. I found I could get into something of a meditative state if I put a classical music radio station on and focused purely on the job at hand. Even so, I would frequently, with a start, remember the situation I was in and accelerate my scraping or painting with a nervous vigour in order to get the job done fractionally quicker so I could be free of the task.

  Millie loved being pregnant. Her hair grew more lustrous and crazily curly than ever and her skin glowed. She took the opportunity to wear the kaftans she had always wanted to lounge around in, bought on a long-ago trip to Egypt, and talked endlessly about the foetus being the size of a pea, then a walnut, then a satsuma, as though it was an ever-changing list of groceries. She would read me sections from the books on pregnancy she had borrowed from the library, detailing exactly what was developing at each week, and I nodded sagely, throwing in the occasional impressed or surprised interjection as I carried on with the job that was starting to feel like an extended part of the punishment that had begun that evening in the Hawaiian restaurant.

  ‘What do you think he or she will look like?’ she asked eagerly one evening as she handed me a cup of coffee. ‘It will have the most beautiful colour skin, darling, can you imagine? Like … Like …’ She gazed round the room, searching for the answer. Finally, her eyes settled on her milky coffee and she laughed in delight. ‘Like this,’ she exclaimed. ‘Like caffè latte. And maybe brown eyes, maybe green. Kamal’s are green but his mum and dad’s were brown. Or maybe blue like ours?’ Millie and I had exactly the same eyes, a boring medium blue, replicated ad infinitum in schools, buses and workplaces up and down the country. ‘But it says here that they are always blue to start with. Oh, that will look so pretty, won’t it? And then we can see if they change.’ She closed the book and looked dreamily out of the window, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked in concern, Mil
lie’s hormonal ups and downs being another foreign territory for my usually constantly upbeat sister.

  She held the book to her chest as if it held all her baby’s wonderful secrets. ‘Just so happy, darling.’ She grinned at me and I smiled my traitorous smile back at her. Her happy mood went up another notch as she heard the key in the door downstairs and she jumped up, squealing, ‘Ooh, Kamal is home early.’

  I closed my eyes and laid down my paintbrush, silently counting to ten to calm my rising dread.

  ‘Come and see how far Sylvia has got with the nursery.’ Millie was pulling him up the stairs and they both appeared in the doorway, his eager face freezing to stone when he saw I was still there. Millie didn’t notice, of course. We never see the things we aren’t expecting to see, and he was standing behind her anyway. I met his gaze and he narrowed his eyes at me, skewering me with a look of pure hate. It was over in a moment and then he was responding to Millie’s excitement, agreeing with how lovely the colour was and what a nice room it was going to make for their baby. I stood, trapped in the far corner, while they talked, unable to get to the door without pushing past Millie’s considerable bulk. So, I waited until they had finished and then said I had to leave.

  ‘Darling, stay for dinner,’ Millie pleaded. ‘I was going to make spaghetti carbonara. I can do yours without cream, if you like.’

  ‘I really have to go now, Millie’ I said, glancing at Kamal who was staring at me blankly. ‘Have a nice evening, both of you.’

  ‘All of us you mean,’ Millie laughed, rubbing her belly.

  Once the nursery was finished I managed to avoid them for a while, until the night when Crystal was born. It was New Year’s Eve, and I was on the bank of the Thames with a group from work, waiting for the fireworks when Kamal texted me, presumably on Millie’s instruction.

  Baby on way, Millie wants you. Come to hospital.

  I stared at the message for a long time until the words seemed to jumble up and I could imagine not being able to understand them at all. Then I pressed delete and stood staring at the empty night sky that would soon be an explosion of colour and light. I walked home in the early hours and sat, wakeful, on the sofa until Millie rang, tearful and exhausted at 7 a.m.

  ‘Where were you? I wanted you here. I was so scared, Sylvia, and Kamal was useless. He wouldn’t even come in the delivery room. I knew he wouldn’t. He’s such a coward.’

  I blamed the New Year’s Eve overload on the phone network and told her I’d only just got Kamal’s text and she believed me. I promised her I was coming straight away.

  At the hospital I stood in the lift with a heavily pregnant teenage girl in a wheelchair and her po-faced mother. The girl was squirming in her seat, her sweaty hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face contorted in pain and panic. ‘Is he coming? Is Brandon coming?’ she kept asking, her mother staring at the doors refusing, or unable, to answer.

  I moved aside to let them past at the delivery floor and continued up to the maternity ward, resisting the urge to follow them and find out if Brandon was the baby or the absent father, anything rather than go and see Millie.

  The lift doors opened at the next floor and an animated Greek family were waiting to go down, holding balloons, bags of presents, and a big blue cake, a joyful mum and her new baby cocooned in the middle of them. I made my way through the party, pressed the buzzer, and was suddenly in silence waiting to be let onto the ward. The door was opened by a flustered nurse who directed me to a room at the end of the corridor. The closer I got, the harder my heart pounded in my ears and I felt as if my bones might fall through my body, leaving me a heaped mess on the floor. I slowed my pace to try and calm my breathing and stopped in front of a pinboard covered with breastfeeding advice and local baby groups for new mothers, which I felt I was not entitled to read, as though I was snooping on the details of a secret club to which I had forfeited any right to be a member.

  ‘What are you doing out here? She’s in there, Sylvia.’ It was Mother, her sharp tongue bringing me back to reality and making me feel guilty in that strange way she always did.

  I could put it off no longer. I walked into the room as if it were a chamber of execution, in which the only way to survive was to pretend to be happy. So that’s what I did. I said all the right things and did all the right things. I hugged Millie and insisted on holding the baby, holding my breath whilst she was in my arms so I didn’t have to smell her, protecting at least one of my senses from being bombarded with painful baby information. I marvelled at how small her hands were and counted her toes and let Millie tell me her birth story like a shell-shocked soldier returned from the front line. I lied that I had left the card and present that I had forgotten to buy on the bus, being so eager to get here and in such a state of excitement about the baby. Mother eyed me suspiciously at this point, but she couldn’t place the origin of her unease so turned her attention back to her granddaughter.

  ‘What do you think of the name?’ she asked, stroking Crystal’s feet.

  I knew one of mother’s traps when I heard one and was aware of her general opinion of any names which wouldn’t sound at home in a period drama. Millie looked at me anxiously for support and I declared it a beautiful name that suited her completely and how lucky she was to be called something unusual. Millie beamed lovingly at me and Mother rummaged in her handbag for a mint, her usual dismissive response to losing a minor battle. I stayed twenty minutes exactly and then said I had better leave so Millie could get some rest.

  ‘But you haven’t seen Kamal.’ Millie’s face dropped in disappointment. ‘He’s gone to ring his family and get some coffees. He’ll be back any minute.’

  ‘I really must go, Millie. I have to be at a lunch thing. I’ll call you this afternoon, promise. Happy New Year and well done.’ I rushed out the door, desperate to avoid seeing Kamal and needing the solitude of my flat.

  The lift seemed to take ages to arrive, long enough for the proud middle-aged couple also waiting to tell me all about their precious and longed-for IVF baby, who slept on, oblivious, swathed in purest white in an expensive-looking car seat.

  I exited the double doors at the front of the building as if I was coming up for air. I put my hand on the wall and stood next to a couple of heavily pregnant young women, smoking forbidden cigarettes as they geared up for the long labour ahead. A glance down at my flat belly excluded me from any part in their conversation, and they turned away blowing smoke back over their shoulders. Through the smog I saw Kamal standing on the other side of the parking bay, talking animatedly into his phone. Before I could escape he had finished his call and was walking purposefully back towards the hospital building. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me and then pretended I wasn’t there and continued on through the doors. I called after him, determined to at least be acknowledged, but he was gone and the lift doors were closing by the time I got to the lobby.

  They went to Gretna Green to get married later that year, just the three of them, with two complete strangers as witnesses. Millie apologised profusely to me about it and said it was easier that way because of their different religions and the complications of getting all of Kamal’s family over. They just wanted to be married, she said, and be a proper family without the expense and hassle of a big wedding. I was relieved, of course, if a little baffled. Millie had always talked about having a huge do and inviting everyone she had ever known. I suspect that it was Kamal who persuaded Millie that a secret small ceremony would be best, knowing full well that he may otherwise have pushed me too far.

  Friday 8 April

  Yesterday, after much procrastination I decided I really did want to go and see Crystal’s drawing at the young talent preview evening being held at the W gallery in Wandsworth – one of the smaller galleries managed by Prof’s now firmly ex-wife Martha. I knew Millie and Kamal would be there, and perhaps, if I’m honest, that was part of the pull. Coming out of the station into the early spring drizzle, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that
I had committed no crime. The gallery was a few minutes’ walk away on the edge of a small park – an old Victorian villa with an artisan bakery on one side and a vintage clothes store on the other, part of a row of boutique shops catering for the hipsters in this part of London. The door was ajar and I pushed it open straight into a wooden walled gallery, which took up the whole of the ground floor. A serious-looking young man, all in black with blond dreadlocks, sat behind a small desk just inside the door and handed me a programme detailing the art on show, with a list of prices should I want to buy.

  I was early, so only a few people were drifting around and they all seemed to know each other. Crystal’s picture, almost directly opposite the door on the far wall, was easy to locate – one of her usual black and grey, strangely compelling obscurities. It was hung carefully under a small light halfway up the wall. A card to the left acknowledged it as her work and gave some brief biographical details, which I wanted to read. As I was reaching into my bag for my glasses I heard Millie’s voice behind me urging Kamal to hurry up. My hands started shaking and I fumbled with the glasses case, swearing under my breath as I dropped it on the floor. That’s when Millie must have seen me as she stopped mid-sentence. I turned to face her and she completely blanked me, striding purposely past me towards Crystal’s picture, her long red velvet dress trailing on the floor behind her like that of a medieval queen. I stood mere inches away, yet she refused to look at me. Kamal was behind her, shifting from one foot to the other, jangling the change in his pocket, staring at the drawing with an inscrutable expression on his face.

  ‘Millie …’ I couldn’t help myself saying her name, but the word hung in the air between us as another black-clad youth offered us a tray of vol au vents. She turned, and for a moment I thought she was going to acknowledge me, but she directed her comment to her uncomfortable-looking husband.

  ‘Look at how she fragments the light round the trees. She has such a unique way of seeing.’