She paused, breathless. Ollie stroked her forehead. ‘Darling.’
She started to weep. Each sob jabbed pins into her abdomen.
Ollie went on stroking her forehead but she stretched beyond him and grabbed her bag. Fumbling through it, she found her cigarettes and matches. He didn’t stop her. In fact, he took the box of matches and lit the cigarette for her. She inhaled deeply.
‘Mrs Meadows!’
The nurse was there, holding out her hand. Viv took another drag and gave the cigarette away.
Ken parked the car in a side street near the hospital. Ann checked her face again in the vanity mirror. She despised this – what on earth did it matter how she looked? She wanted never to get out of the car. Ken must think she was mad.
They got out and walked towards the hospital. At the corner she stopped and put her hand on his arm. ‘Look.’
Ollie’s car was parked on the other side of the road. He must still be visiting Viv.
Ken nodded. They turned back and walked down the side street again. Ken opened the door for her and she climbed into the car. They sat there, side by side, waiting. He reached towards the radio, but then he stopped. They sat there in silence.
‘How does he look?’ asked Viv.
‘Fine.’
‘How did he look yesterday?’
Ollie replied: ‘Very angry.’
‘Did he?’
Ollie nodded. ‘I’m not surprised.’
‘You couldn’t touch him or anything?’
Ollie shook his head. ‘They say he’s doing very well. He should be out tomorrow.’
There was a silence. Then Viv said: ‘It wasn’t like we planned.’
Ollie paused. ‘Nothing’s been like we planned.’
‘Wish you’d been there.’
‘They wouldn’t let me in,’ he said.
‘I wanted you to rub my back.’
‘So did I.’
She smiled. ‘Remember with Rosie, you read me The Catcher in the Rye?’
‘That was Daisy,’ he said. ‘Rosie was Humboldt’s Gift.’
‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Weren’t we intellectual then?’
There was a silence. One of the babies started crying in earnest.
She asked: ‘What did you do afterwards?’
‘Phoned parents. Sat in the pub.’
‘Alone?’
He nodded. ‘Ann and Ken invited me, but . . .’
‘No.’ She paused. ‘Suzi had the girls?’
He nodded. ‘For the night.’
Down the ward there was a burst of laughter. Viv looked out of the window. The sky was blue; it had turned out to be a lovely afternoon. She said: ‘I didn’t think he’d be a boy.’
Ollie picked a stray petal off his knee. ‘Nor did I.’
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she said.
He nodded. One of the cards had fallen over; he propped it up again.
She said: ‘They keep asking about names.’
‘Who do?’
‘Women here.’
‘It’s no business of theirs.’
She said quickly: ‘I’ve always liked Thomas, haven’t you?’
He frowned, gazing at his knee. ‘Yes.’
She tried it out. ‘Thomas.’
‘Tom.’ He nodded. ‘Nice.’
‘Straightforward,’ she said. ‘No-nonsense.’
‘Viv –’
‘Sturdy and sort of stumping up and down the stairs –’
‘Viv –’ he began again.
She said: ‘You’ve always wanted a boy, haven’t you?’
He didn’t reply. He looked down at his damp knees. The flower stems were wet.
‘Haven’t you?’ she said.
He said: ‘He’s not my son.’
‘No.’
There was another silence. Then he asked: ‘What are you going to do?’
She turned away and hid her face in the pillow. ‘I want to go home.’
Viv wouldn’t see Ann and Ken. When Ollie had left they went into the hospital and up to the ward, but she turned away and asked them to go.
A nurse ushered them out. They stood in the corridor. Ann was trembling; she felt as if she had been smacked across the face. She wanted to sit next to Viv and say that it was her, Viv, she was worried about. Never mind the baby. (Never mind? She would say that; she would mean it.) She had never seen Viv look so terrible – closed and pale.
‘She’s been a bit low,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s quite normal.’ She took the flowers. ‘Aren’t they lovely! What a lot. I’ll put them in a vase for her.’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Ann.
‘It’s what we call the baby blues. You her sister?’
Ann nodded.
‘You’ve got a gorgeous little nephew. Want to see him?’
Ann gazed at the ground and nodded dumbly. She dared not look at Ken.
‘Come on,’ said the nurse. ‘You can see him through the glass.’
She crossed the corridor and stood beside a large window, waiting for them. Ann moved towards it, but Ken hung back. She turned to him.
He said: ‘She hasn’t even seen him yet.’ His face was blank.
‘Come on,’ said Ann, holding out her hand. ‘Nor have you.’
The nurse frowned at them. Ann blushed. Ken moved forward and stood beside her.
There were three babies in incubators; the nurse pointed him out.
All Ann could think to say was: ‘He’s very small.’
The nurse said: ‘He’s very new.’
The swimming pool was empty, except for one dogged old man in goggles. Ken swam twenty lengths and then lost count as he went on; he didn’t want to stop.
When he finally climbed out, dripping, his legs bendy with fatigue, the lifeguard looked at him with a half-smile and raised his eyebrows.
‘Here’s to the happy father,’ said Irene, raising her glass. It was later that evening, and she had brought round a bottle of champagne. ‘Cheer up, you two. Thought of a name?’
Ann said: ‘We thought Mark.’
Irene grinned. ‘Well, if he takes after the Mark I knew, he’ll do all right.’ She turned to Ken. ‘Does he look like you?’
‘He’s only tiny,’ Ann said hastily.
Her mother said: ‘I could tell, when you were born. The image of your father.’
There was an awkward silence. Ken was standing beside the aquarium. He rubbed the glass with his finger; then he looked up and said: ‘She wouldn’t see us. I don’t know what she’s going to do.’
‘She’s confused,’ said Ann.
‘I told you,’ said Irene. ‘Once it’s born –’
‘Don’t,’ said Ann.
‘I wouldn’t trust her,’ said Irene. ‘I’ve never trusted her, and she’s my daughter.’
Ken said suddenly: ‘I don’t trust her.’
There was a pause. Then Irene said: ‘Well you wouldn’t, would you?’
‘I feel that way about sausage rolls too,’ said the nurse, taking away Viv’s untouched supper. She put the tray on the trolley and began to put up the screens around Viv’s bed. An orderly appeared with a stretcher bed and parked it beside Viv.
‘What’s happening?’ Viv asked.
The nurse smiled. ‘Just going to check your dressing.’ While she did so she said: ‘We’re taking you to see him now.’ She pulled down Viv’s nightie. ‘We’ve all fallen in love with him. He’s quite a little character.’
They started to shift Viv on to the stretcher. She stopped them. ‘No!’
‘Are we hurting you?’ asked the nurse.
Viv shook her head. ‘I don’t want to go,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t want to see him.’
The nurse and the orderly looked at each other; then the nurse turned back to Viv. ‘Feeling poorly?’
Viv nodded.
‘You rest then,’ said the nurse, tucking the sheet around her.
Viv pointed to the screens. ‘Can you leave
these up?’
Surprised, the nurse agreed. They left Viv alone, screened in.
Ann stood in the little back bedroom. It was empty. They had painted it cream, that was all. They had not dared to do more, though she had put up some curtains with red birds printed on them: not specifically childish.
Downstairs Ken was washing up the supper. She sat on the carpet, her back resting against the wall. Through the window she could see a square of London sky. It was too painful, to wonder if this room would ever be used. Instead she wondered about her sister, what she was thinking, what on earth she was feeling. She ran her finger to and fro across the carpet.
Down in the kitchen she heard the crash of breaking crockery. Ken had dropped something.
It was midnight, and the ward was dark. Everyone was asleep, except for Viv. She lay, gazing at the high ceiling. Outside the ward, in the nursery, a baby was crying.
Nobody stirred. The night nurse’s office was lit but empty. The baby went on – a faint, insistent wail, as monotonous as wood being sawed.
She pushed back the bedclothes and swung her legs to the side of the bed. She flinched; her stitches hurt. The baby cried on. Carefully she raised herself to a sitting position, and slid off the bed. She stood, bent double. She felt dizzy, and supported herself on the side of the bed. Her head was still fuddled from sleeping; she had been dreaming of long narrow corridors and other babies crying, or perhaps that had been no dream at all.
The sawing sound went on and on; it was a different sound from the babies in the ward, or maybe that was just her fuddled head. Bent double, she hobbled slowly to the door. The pain made her breathless.
The cries came from down the corridor, where the window was. There was nobody around. She hobbled across to the window, and looked in.
The days passed strangely, in limbo. The future was blank. Like the little bedroom it waited, empty; nobody dared furnish, or fill with their own pictures, the months ahead.
So they could say nothing. Viv was pale and polite with visitors, including her sister. The baby had been moved now into a cot beside her, and the girls came and touched him with their fingertips, then lost interest and whined for some of Viv’s lemon barley water. He was a sweet baby, and so far bore no resemblance to any of them.
Ollie slept at home, in the study, and seldom went out. One evening Diz and some friends, having heard the news, rang on the door but he lay low and didn’t answer. When the girls were at school he sat in Caroline’s flat and tried to finish his book. For some reason he felt it must be done before Viv came out of hospital.
Ken and Ann went about the house quietly. Small talk seemed too small and plans too painful. Which left little to say. Ken, now self-employed, spent all day on his building site in a biting east wind. Trudging through the mud he thought breathlessly: I have a son. At lunchtime he sat in the adjoining pub, smoking too much and trying to chat to his chippie.
You can’t trust Viv, said her mother. Viv gave people slugs instead of blackberries. I’m a wonderful liar, she had told Ken. She had told her parents she was spending the evening with her friend Sandra, and instead she went out with a Maltese waiter who gave her love-bites. Now she was a highly disturbed woman who had just given birth. Ridiculously, everyone had expected a girl. It might have made no difference, but nobody dared ask. The only clue to her state of mind was that, instead of breastfeeding the baby, she fed him with a bottle. Ann had not liked to remark upon this, except to Ken.
Viv was to leave the hospital the next Tuesday. On Monday, while Ollie was visiting, a woman in a tweed suit came up to the bedside. She carried a clipboard.
‘I’m so sorry to interrupt. Mr Meadows? Hello. I’m Mrs Brookes, the hospital registrar. If you’d both like to register the baby now, it’ll save you a visit to the Town Hall.’
There was a pause. Ollie glanced at Viv, who was fiddling with the sheet.
‘Decided on a name?’ the registrar asked.
Viv said: ‘Not yet.’
The registrar smiled. ‘Like that, is it?’
Viv said: ‘It’s either Thomas or Mark.’
The registrar replied: ‘Could always be both.’
‘We’ll leave it for now,’ said Viv sharply. The registrar looked at her curiously, stood up and moved on to the next bed.
There was a silence. Then Ollie said: ‘You’ve got to decide.’
‘Everyone’s always asking questions,’ said Viv restlessly.
Most of the women in the ward were new now. Viv had been there over a week; her various bunches of flowers had died and had been taken away. She looked at Ollie. ‘You want him, don’t you?’
‘Don’t ask that,’ he replied. ‘I can’t help you.’
That day Ann spring-cleaned Viv’s house, sweeping the kitchen floor and removing Ollie’s old beer cans. She scrubbed the dresser with disinfectant; she washed the sheet for the baby’s Moses basket, in which he would be coming home. Home? Here. Ten days, the arrangement was; until the midwife’s visits ended, he would be here. Then what?
She disliked lying, but she had lied to them at the office, saying she felt ill and was staying at her sister’s. In fact, she had never felt more vigorous. Damp with her exertions, she hoovered and polished. Her nerves felt taut as wire; tomorrow afternoon, at 3.30, she and Ollie would be fetching them from hospital.
Butterfingers. Scrubbing the units, she broke a cup. Clearing out the cupboard, she upset a wooden bowl of salt. It scattered on the floor; she closed her eyes, threw some over her shoulder, and wished. It had always surprised Ken how superstitious she was. I thought you were the logical one, he had said once. She had flared up – she remembered it, they were climbing the stairs to their flat – and she had replied: You mean the boring one. He had remonstrated, accusing her of jealousy, but she knew it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Nearly, but not quite. He had never had a sister; he didn’t understand.
She brushed the stairs: three floors of them, dust flying, from top to bottom. The only exercise I get, said Viv, is sex and the stairs. Ann’s hands were grey from the fluff. You wait, Viv had said, conkers under the stair carpet, tripping you up. Soggy bowls of cornflakes under the sofa. You wait. For how long must she wait; for ever?
Viv had let her hold him. Casually, just once, in hospital she had passed him to her. But then she would do that if Ann were just an aunt. Ken had held him too.
Soft, tiny mouth. Fingernails. Perfect. All those years ago, her own little daughter had been perfect too; except she never moved.
She had put her finger in his hand, hoping he would grip it. He did. A hot rush through her body.
Perhaps Viv hadn’t talked in the hospital because she was being discreet; somebody might hear. When she came home, it would all be different.
But Viv wasn’t the discreet type. Ann emptied the dustpan into the bin. Some of it scattered on the floor.
‘Fuck!’ she said aloud, surprising herself.
Viv had packed all her stuff into two carrier-bags. Dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed. Her son lay in his cot, quietly gazing up at her. Neither of her daughters had had such dark hair. His face was a perfect oval, with a tiny pointed chin. Neither of them, new-born, had been so small.
She jumped; the sister had come up to her.
‘Aren’t you having any lunch?’ she asked.
‘No thanks,’ said Viv.
‘They won’t be here till half past three.’
Viv nodded; the sister went away. Once she was out of the ward, Viv picked up the shawl she was going to use for carrying the baby.
I’m not quite myself, people say when they feel they’re going mad. Viv felt like somebody else as she picked up the baby, wrapping him tightly in the shawl. The real Vivien Meadows wouldn’t be as cruel as this, leaving her husband and sister to find an empty bed. How could the real Viv upset them like that?
Her body felt flabby; she was short of breath. Carrying the baby and the bags, she stopped at the end bed. There was a girl there she lik
ed.
‘When my husband comes,’ she said, ‘can you tell him I’ve gone home early?’
The taxi driver actually tried to help her in with her bags. She refused, thanking him. She didn’t want anybody else coming into her empty house.
The taxi drove away. She stood in her living room. It was spotless. There was a bunch of flowers on the table and, propped against it, a WELCOME HOME poster from the girls. Beside the Moses basket was a packet of disposable nappies and two new Babygros.
I have never been alone with my child. Would anybody understand?
I must be going mad. She sat down on the sofa, clutching him tightly. He mewled, his tiny, wet mouth against her ear. He started sucking the lobe, and the stud of her earring.
The room was silent. His gums gripped her skin; her body bloomed.
‘Hello Thomas,’ she whispered.
_____Twenty-four_____
IT WAS NO better now Viv was home. Still she didn’t speak about the baby. All she said was, give me time. Ollie’s presence confused and irritated her, and he was told to stay in Caroline’s flat. He went; nobody dared contradict her.
She was acting oddly, but what could anyone do? Ann dropped in each day to bring the shopping and make the girls’ tea. Viv was grateful – in fact, she was gushingly grateful, as if Ann were an acquaintance at a cocktail party. Politely she said: ‘Please don’t, I can manage.’ She sat with the girls; once she laughed so hysterically at one of their TV programmes that even her daughters were startled. She talked about the baby quite naturally, and complained that he kept her awake at night. She sounded normal, but her eyes were bright, as if she were taking drugs. She asked about Ann’s office day in eager detail, looking fascinated when Ann told her the computer had broken down. She talked, all right; but she didn’t speak.
By the third day Ann was so highly strung that she shouted at a man in the street who had dropped some litter. She yelled at him like a fishwife. Back home she dreaded Ken’s return. As usual, he asked about Mark.
What could she say? ‘He looked fine. Gaining weight.’