by Ruth Heald
He surveys the kitchen. ‘Clearly.’
He reaches for the cake on my plate, takes it and throws it in the bin.
‘You don’t want to get fat.’
I shake my head.
Our daughter is watching, her eyes wide.
‘Why don’t you go to the other room?’ I say, desperately. She wants to take the cake with her and, sensing my husband’s impatience, I let her. A trail of crumbs marks our path as I carry her wriggling body to the living room. I know I’ll be punished for that.
I come back into the kitchen and start clearing up.
‘Who are the cakes for?’ he asks.
‘For us,’ I say. ‘Of course.’
He knows I’m lying. He never eats cakes or chocolate or sweets. He watches his physique with care. When I bake, I only bake small batches. I hide them at the backs of cupboards and my daughter and I consume everything while he’s out of the house. I hide the smell with synthetic air freshener.
Suddenly, his face is in front of mine. ‘I know you’re lying. Are you seeing someone else?’
I laugh. The idea is absurd. I never leave the house. I’m black and blue with bruises. I’ve no idea who he thinks would want me.
‘Don’t laugh at me! Don’t you dare laugh at me.’
I freeze, cloth in my hand, the worktop still white with flour. I steady myself, grip the kitchen surface and brace myself for his fists.
Six
‘Breathe,’ the yoga teacher instructs, as she looks serenely into the middle distance. ‘And hold your pose.’
My eyes are heavy and I let them close for a second as I follow the instructions. It’s 10 a.m., but it feels like midnight. I only had an hour and a half’s sleep last night before Olivia woke up for her morning feed. But I’m glad Emma has dragged us to mother and baby yoga. Both of us needed to get out of the claustrophobic cottage.
When I open my eyes Olivia is quiet, staring up at me quizzically from the mat in front of me as I balance on one leg. She’s calmer here, distracted by everything going on around her.
Even this basement room feels lighter and airier than our cluttered, dark cottage. I’m going to start sorting the house out. I can’t wait for Ruth to do it.
‘Relax, Claire.’
The yoga teacher smiles at me encouragingly. My shoulders have tensed and I try to switch off my thoughts as I pull myself into the next stretch. The other mums in front of me are straight-backed and tranquil, in lines on the mats, with their designer yoga pants and neat ponytails. In front of them the baby girls are dressed in pretty dresses and the boys in trousers and T-shirts. There’s an unsightly stain on the front of Olivia’s sleep-suit, which I hope no one has noticed. I didn’t have time to change her clothes before Emma picked me up. I don’t know how the other mothers find the time not only to put their babies in clean clothes, but to also look after themselves; dyeing their hair and doing their make-up. Sometimes I can barely find the time to change out of my dressing gown.
Emma smiles over at me. I really don’t know what I’d do without her. I only moved in two weeks ago and we’re already firm friends. She’s always coming over for a chat and a cup of tea.
I’ve missed having a best friend to confide in. After Miriam stopped speaking to me, I didn’t have anyone who I could call up for a chat when I was feeling down. I had friends from university who I met for dinner or coffee occasionally and some new friends with babies, but no one I could truly confide in.
I sigh. I don’t want to think about the way Miriam and I fell out. I still feel guilty. And angry that she wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t let me explain myself. I didn’t think she’d let our friendship slide after all those years.
‘Squeeze your pelvic floor as you exit the stretch,’ the yoga teacher instructs.
Olivia is smiling at Emma’s baby, Lizzie, on the mat next to her. I feel a rare glimmer of affection for her, that I want to bottle and keep. This is how I should feel all the time. I’m so grateful for how serene she’s been today.
‘Breathe,’ the teacher repeats. I focus on the point above the teacher’s head and maintain the pose.
* * *
In the break, Emma and I go to the seats just outside the hall. Olivia starts to whimper. She’s due a feed so I adjust my yoga top and bra and manoeuvre her onto my breast. The chairs are hard plastic, without armrests, and this, combined with my tight yoga top, makes it difficult to find a comfortable position. Olivia slips off my breast and starts screaming.
I try to put Olivia back on, but she is wailing at full volume now, and won’t calm. I rock her back and forth as I pull my top back over my exposed breast.
Emma puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you want me to take her?’ she asks, reaching out one arm as she balances Lizzie in the other.
‘No, it’s OK. Thanks though. I just haven’t really got the hang of breastfeeding yet.’ I smile apologetically.
Around us, other mums form groups and chat as they feed and rock their babies. I think of the NCT group I attended in Balham. I miss having that network of mums to meet with for coffee and share tips. Emma is the only local mum I’ve met so far in the village.
‘Breastfeeding is so hard,’ Emma says sympathetically. ‘I gave it up.’
‘Good for you,’ I reply, smiling. ‘There’s too much pressure these days.’ And even though I believe this, I’m still desperate to master breastfeeding myself. I’m so lacking in every other way as a mother.
‘I admire your persistence,’ Emma says. ‘It wasn’t practical for me to continue unfortunately. Sharing custody with Dan meant Lizzie was on the bottle with him, and she got too used to that.’
‘I’m sorry, Emma. That sounds really hard.’ I reach out and touch her arm, and she looks down at the floor, blinking back tears.
The other mothers start to wander back into the class, and I try once more to put Olivia on my breast. She fidgets, and I feel my stress levels rising.
‘You go back in,’ I say to Emma. ‘I’ll stay here.’
‘No, I’ll stay and help you.’
I smile sheepishly. ‘I’m not sure there’s much you can do.’
‘Why don’t I hold Olivia while you prepare yourself and then I’ll put her on.’
I smile gratefully. The other mothers have gone now, so I feel comfortable exposing myself more to enable Olivia to feed. I pull back my top and squeeze my nipple between two fingers to make it an easier shape for Olivia to grip. I see Emma watching and I feel the flush rising in my face.
‘That’s what the health visitor said to do,’ I explain quickly. ‘To help her to latch.’
Emma laughs. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I remember. Make your nipple like a sandwich, right?’
I grin, embarrassed. ‘Yeah, all of that rubbish.’
‘It works though,’ Emma says, as she lifts Olivia to my nipple. It feels surprisingly intimate, and I cringe as I feel the back of her hand brush my bare skin.
But then Olivia latches and it’s all worth it.
Emma beams at me. ‘There you go.’
‘Thank you. Thanks so much.’
As I feed Olivia, Emma takes out a bottle for Lizzie and we compare notes on sleepless nights. We both feel like we haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since the babies were born. You wouldn’t know it from looking at Emma though. I don’t know how she does it.
We go back into the class and find our mats. The other mothers pull faces at their babies and mimic their expressions and babbles. The love beams out of them. Why can’t I feel the same? Perhaps if I watch them and copy what they do, then the feelings will come. It must be like everything else. Just practice.
The yoga teacher claps her hands. ‘We’re ready to start again.’
I return to the mat with Olivia and hold her in my arms as the teacher goes through the exercises for the babies. I sing along to the nursery rhymes from my own childhood, awkwardly doing the actions. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the other mothers smiling adoringly at their babies, giggling with
them and tickling their tummies. I try to copy. But as I tickle Olivia’s belly, I feel no connection at all. A rush of emotion builds in my chest and I worry I might burst into tears in front of everyone. I feel like a complete failure as a mother. I hold myself together long enough to get through the class, but when Emma and I have put the babies in the car seats and we’re finally out of the door in the fresh air of the car park, the tears flow freely.
‘What’s wrong?’ Emma asks, putting down Lizzie’s car seat.
‘I just…’ It’s so hard to explain how I’m feeling. It’s the despair that rises inside me during every silence. The knowledge that I’m getting it wrong as a parent. That I’m not bonding properly. It’s the guilt of knowing I’m not good enough.
Emma strokes my arm. ‘You can tell me,’ she says.
I struggle to say the words though my tears. ‘It’s just when I see the other mothers with their babies. Well, I suppose it just brings home what I’m missing – or rather what Olivia’s missing out on.’
‘What do you mean?’ Emma hugs me close, and the warmth of her arms around me feels so much better. I shake with sobs.
‘I just can’t connect with her,’ I say. ‘I don’t deserve her.’
‘Oh, Claire, you’re a great mum. Think of how you’ve persisted with breastfeeding. I saw your nipple. It was bleeding. I’d have given up long ago.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘You just make it look easy. Lizzie never cries.’
At that moment, Lizzie decides to whine, as if to disprove my point.
We both laugh.
‘She’s getting cold,’ Emma says. ‘We’d better get going.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say. It’s my fault we’ve been standing in the car park talking for so long. My selfishness isn’t only affecting Olivia now, it’s affecting Lizzie too.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Emma replies. She squeezes my arm. ‘You needed to get that out. And you know that any time you want to, you can talk to me. Any time, day or night.’
* * *
When I get back from yoga I’m in a better mood. In the corner of the living room there’s a pile of framed pictures, ready to be hung up over the peeling, stripy wallpaper. Matt has warned me that Ruth will be unhappy if I put nails in the walls, but I don’t care. I need to make this house feel like home. My home. I smile at the thought of this minor rebellion.
Olivia can’t grow up in a shrine to her great-grandmother. I imagine painting the whole house, tearing down the oppressive wallpaper, and cutting back the trees that shade the living room. The cottage would be filled with light.
I put my fantasy aside and focus on the task in hand. Hanging one picture.
I select a canvas of a photo I took myself when I was working as a travel journalist in Vietnam. It was ten years ago, but it feels like yesterday. I’d finished my shift and was relaxing with a drink in a bar when I saw the teenage biker meticulously cleaning his motorcycle by the side of the bustling road, his single-minded concentration drawing me to him. I watched him for an hour, as he polished the battered metal frame until the sharp sunlight bounced off it and reflected the mass of movement behind him. When he finally stood, admired his work and got astride the bike, I jumped up from the bar and went over to photograph him.
Matt had the picture blown up onto canvas and gave it to me as a birthday present two years ago. There was never a place for it in our tiny flat in Balham, but it will work perfectly here, between the alcoves in the living room. It’ll change the look of the room entirely.
I put Olivia on her playmat and turn on the mobile that hangs over it. I find a tape measure and stretch it out between the two alcoves, marking a dot exactly in the centre. Blocking out the tinny music from Olivia’s mobile, I hold the canvas in the space and the motorcyclist’s gaze meets mine. He’s only fifteen or sixteen but he sits confidently astride the sparkling bike, one boot-clad foot the only contact with the dusty ground. The bright blue sky reflects off his helmet. His eyes meet the camera in an expression of defiance, his mouth and nose obscured by a black mask. In the background people mill around him, buses and bikes clamour by, dust circulates and animals scavenge. Amongst the chaos he has an air of knowing calm and adventure. The world is his and he will do what he wants with it.
The picture fills me with longing. I imagine I’m back in Ho Chi Minh City, filled with excitement about the adventure ahead of me, absorbed by a new city, bursting with life. When I close my eyes I can feel the dust in my hair, smell the petrol, hear the rumble of the busy road. I loved being an international journalist, travelling all over the world, investigating issues like human trafficking and illegal animal trading. I tried to get behind the headlines, talking to the locals and finding the human stories that brought the injustices to life. That was before I settled in London and worked my way up at one of the national newspapers. The city changed me. It sculpted me into a different person. All the sensitivity I’d nurtured when I was working abroad was gone. My job was no longer about helping to showcase hardship. Instead it was about telling the story that would sell the paper, and getting the scoop by any means possible.
I find a hammer and some old nails in the toolbox in the shed. We have our own, but they’re in one of the many unpacked boxes. As I hammer the nail into the mark I’ve made, Olivia starts to cry. I sigh. I’m very nearly finished. I survey my work. The nail is slightly wonky. I straighten it up with the edge of the hammer and then resume. I hang the picture up and step back to consider it. It’s perfect there. It gives the room a new energy. It feels more like home already.
Olivia’s screams drag my attention away. Suddenly exhaustion overwhelms me. The strain of so many sleepless nights catches up with me. I must rest. But I can’t. I have to look after Olivia, to comfort her, to feed her, to be a good mother. I’m not a journalist any more. My job is to look after Olivia. I have to respond to her every whim.
When I took the photo I was free, happy and determined to make my mark on the world. I’m someone else now, a new Claire. A mother and a wife with a house in the country. I pick Olivia up and stare at the picture as I wipe away a tear. The photo reminds me too much of the world I left behind.
I wake up, sit bolt upright and stare round the room. Objects start to make themselves known in the shadows. Pamela’s wardrobe. The chest of drawers. The vanity table.
It’s OK. I’m in the cottage.
I turn in the bed. I’m alone.
I reach out for my phone: 8 p.m. I must have fallen asleep straight after I’d bathed Olivia and put her to bed. I must get up. Matt should be home soon and I need to make dinner.
I can hear something. Rushing water.
I’m not sure if the noise is real or if I’m still trapped in the echoes of my dream.
I ease out of bed and open the bedroom door. The noise is louder. It’s coming from the bathroom.
The door is shut.
For a confused second, I think that Olivia’s in there, that I never took her out of the bath. That she’s drowned.
I force the door open, afraid of what I’ll find.
The bath is full. Water gushes into it from both the taps.
There’s no baby in the water.
I swallow and blink rapidly, trying to get the image of Olivia floating dead in the bath out of my head. My heart’s still pounding.
For a moment I thought my nightmares had come true.
I stare at the water, cascading into the tub.
I clearly remember taking Olivia out of the bath, draining the water. Why would I have turned the taps on again? The water threatens to flow over the rim of the bath and I reach over and quickly turn the taps off.
I run to Olivia’s room, hold my hand above her mouth and feel her breath on my palm. She’s OK. I sigh with relief, stroking her soft hair to soothe myself as much as her. She murmurs in her sleep. Warm and alive.
Back in the bathroom, I stare incomprehensively at the full bath, wracking my brains to try and remember.
But I can’
t. I remember lying down, but not turning on the taps.
It must be Matt. He must be home early.
‘Matt?’ I whisper, so as not to wake Olivia.
He’ll never hear me.
I go downstairs. All the lights are off and the dark crevices of the house are threatening, as if hiding the secrets of the past. I get to the bottom of the stairs and turn the light on in the hallway, chasing away the shadows.
‘Matt?’
He isn’t home.
I must have left the taps on. It’s the only explanation. There’s no one else here.
I must have started running the bath and then been so exhausted that I went to the bedroom and fell asleep. How could I be so stupid?
I feel the familiar stab of worry, niggling at me. I’m so absent-minded lately. How can I be a fit mother if I can’t even remember to turn the taps off?
Seven
The clock on the mantelpiece strikes midday, its insistent chimes echoing around the clutter of the living room. I glance up from my parenting book and see that Olivia is red-faced in her baby chair, tears streaming down her cheeks, taking fast, shaky breaths between her wails.
How long have I ignored her for? I didn’t mean to, but somehow I’ve learnt to tune out her screams, the way you’d tune out the sound of next-door’s lawnmower or the traffic on the road outside. Olivia’s screams have turned into background noise. The soundtrack of my life.
I unstrap her from the baby seat and pull her into my arms.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I say, rocking her back and forth and stroking her hair the way I’ve seen other mothers do.
I have that feeling again. Goosebumps on my arms. That desire to look behind me. Someone is watching. I can’t put my finger on how I know, but every instinct I have is telling me, putting my body on high alert.
I go over to the venetian blinds at the bay window and pull the cords one by one so no one can see in. The living room is dark now and I have to turn the light on. I feel afraid, hiding in my own house.
