Mother's Story (22 page)

Cathy sat back on her haunches. ‘It's tricky. There is no rule of thumb. But what I say to all new mums is, trust that little voice of instinct you have. If she has a high temperature or is in obvious pain, then yes, of course. But it's important to remember that you know your baby better than anyone and if you feel she needs to see a doctor, then call one. But a bit of a cry in the morning is quite normal. After all, it's her only way of telling you that she needs something, right?'

‘Right.' Jessica tried out her brightest smile. ‘Usually one of three things: bum, tum or mum!'

Cathy laughed. ‘Exactly!' She smiled as she watched Jessica scan the questionnaire.

Jessica rested the clipboard on her legs and gripped the pen, feeling her fingers shake. The ten questions were easy enough, starting with ‘I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things', followed by a selection of boxes to tick, from ‘As much as I always could' at the top to ‘Not at all' at the bottom. Jessica was supposed to tick the most appropriate box for each statement.

She studied the questions and ran through what would be her honest answers. In response to ‘I have been sad and miserable', she would have ticked ‘Most of the time'. For ‘I have looked forward with enjoyment to things', her response would have been ‘Hardly at all'. Instead, Jessica went through each question meticulously lying to ensure her answers weren't going to cause any intervention from anyone and wouldn't embarrass Matthew in any way. She didn't want to be like Polly's sister's friend who had her baby taken from her; the very idea left her cold, it was unthinkable. She swung the pen between her knuckles and read: ‘The thought of harming myself has occurred to me'; Jessica ticked the ‘Not at all' box. She then slid the paper and pen across the floor for Cathy to read later.

Lilly gurgled after her great weigh-in and Cathy placed her back on her beanbag, where she sucked her thumb.

‘She's doing great, Jessica. Gained two pounds since we last weighed her, which is spot on! A happy, healthy baby, that's what we like to see.'

Jessica picked Lilly up and gathered her to her chest, feeling a wave of unbridled relief. She was grateful that Lilly could not speak and tell Cathy how rubbish she really was.

‘This is a lovely house, Jessica, refreshingly homely. How do you keep it so tidy
and
look after a baby? Mine are thirteen and fifteen and our place looks like a warzone!' Cathy laughed.

Jessica did her smile again. ‘I just do. I don't like things to be a mess. What is it they say? Tidy house, tidy mind.' She let her eyes blink in time with her heartbeat.

‘I should take photos and hold you up as an example. You've got a young baby and still manage to whizz the hoover over. Don't tell me you cook supper as well?'

‘No, not every night.' Jessica thought of Matthew coming in from work and running the vacuum around before tackling the washing.

Immediately after Cathy left, Lilly started to wail. Jess took her upstairs and cooed desperately as she rocked her daughter back and forth on the spot. ‘Please go to sleep. Shhhh… Come on, go to sleep, Lilly.'

Lilly wriggled inside her mother's grip.

‘Stay still. Be a good girl and go to sleep please!' Jessica reclined her little girl's body until she lay flat against her arm. Lilly was now quiet.

‘Shhhh…' Jessica whispered again, as though her baby still needed calming.

Lilly looked up at her mother and smiled, like it was some kind of game.

‘Don't laugh. Close your eyes, baby.'

Lilly blinked and reached up to grasp her mother's hair.

‘Stop it, Lilly! Go to sleep!' Jessica gently placed her fingers on her little girl's eyelids and tried to slide them shut.

Lilly instantly wailed again. She didn't like that at all.

‘What on earth are you doing?'

Jessica turned abruptly towards Matthew's voice behind her. He leant, flush-faced, on the doorframe to their bedroom, in his suit, with his briefcase in his outstretched arms.

‘I was just… I was trying to get her off to sleep.' She avoided eye contact.

‘What?' He narrowed his eyes.

‘I was getting her off to sleep. What are you doing home?' she whispered.

‘Court was adjourned for the afternoon. I thought I'd come and surprise you.' His tone was stilted.

Lilly pulled herself upwards, lifting her head and looking towards her dad. Matthew placed his briefcase on the landing floor and reached for his daughter.

‘I… I thought she might be tired.' Jessica swallowed.

Matthew patted his little girl's back as she lay against his shoulder. ‘She doesn't look tired; in fact, she looks like she has just woken up. She's full of beans. Why would you think she's tired again, Jess?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't know.' Jessica did know, but couldn't think how to confess to her husband that she needed the baby to sleep because
she
needed to sleep. Jessica didn't know how to be with her, didn't know what she was supposed to do. She only knew how to cope when Lilly was sleeping.

Matthew took Lilly downstairs, leaving Jessica alone. She stared out of the window and felt awkward, like a guest that didn't know or understand the rhythm of the house.

14th October, 2014

I think this is the first time I have been glad to have my diary to turn to. I'm sitting on my bed, huddled in the corner and I am shaking. I feel sick and afraid. I'm holding my acorn tightly in my palm. It brings me comfort, I can't explain why, today of all days, this present from my mum, from her hand to mine.

I walked to the dining hall for supper, as I have done countless times before. And as usual, I kept myself to myself. Tonight as I stood in line I realised I don't notice the smell any more. I placed my plastic tray, with its indents for food, on the rails, sliding it along, waiting for the feet in front to shuffle forward. I lifted it to receive a dollop of shepherd's pie and a large spoonful of diced mixed vegetables. I shook my head at the woman doling out pudding. I only eat because I have to. I always sit alone in the corner towards the back of the room, undisturbed – but not this evening. I was about to put a forkful of mash, peas and carrots into my mouth when I noticed one of the women I see in the exercise yard standing on the other side of the table, staring at me. She's a big woman with long blonde hair, which she scrapes so tightly into a ponytail that from the front she looks bald. She always has two dark rings of kohl around each eye, which make her eyes look tiny and sunken. She has plucked her eyebrows away.

I wondered if she was looking for a place to eat, which was unusual as she's one of the mouthy, popular women who everyone knows and fears, a bit of a queen bee in this rotten hive. I looked up and she sneered at me, ‘Yeah, you!' She spoke as though we were mid conversation or she had called me and I hadn't heard, which is possible.

I opened my mouth to reply, but the words wouldn't come. I'm so used to being silent; it's harder to break the habit than you might think. I looked behind her to the sea of faces turned towards us, all eager to see what would happen next.

‘How do you fucking sleep at night?' She took a step closer, her jaw twitched and her fingers flexed.

I felt my legs shake and my stomach churn. I was paralysed; the forkful of food shook and the peas fell.

‘Don't you look at me!' she shouted.

I looked to my left and right, not really obeying her, but trying to see if there was a guard close by. There wasn't.

She shouted then. ‘Sitting there like butter wouldn't melt, Miss Hoity-Toity, and all the time you are a fucking baby killer, isn't that right? You killed your little girl. What kind of animal are you?'

I couldn't speak. I couldn't swallow. I stared at her. She pulled her head back on her shoulders as though she was going to shout some more, but instead she coughed and a large splat of warm phlegm hit my face. It clung to the bottom of my fringe and my eyelashes and dripped from my nose, dropping slowly into my food. That's the second time I've been spat at in my life. It felt the same both times: confusing, shameful, soul-destroying.

‘Problem here?' The guard arrived, finally.

I shook my head. No. No problem here. I waited until everyone had left before taking my tray to the rack. My legs were still shaking and I thought I might be sick. I saw the way the servers, inmates like me, looked at me, seeing me for the first time. I am no longer invisible. I am stripped bare, exposed and I want to die. I want to die.

Sunday was a bright autumnal day in Chiswick and the Deane household was preparing for guests. Matthew was happily pottering in the kitchen with the radio for company while Jessica ran Lilly's bath. She squeezed a liberal amount of bath foam under the stream from the tap and watched as it transformed into snowy peaks that sat on top of the water. Jessica removed Lilly's onesie and nappy and let her kick her bare legs out on the changing mat on the bathroom floor. Lilly squealed at her newfound nudey freedom and lifted her head as she giggled.

Jessica tested the water temperature and swirled her hand through the bubbles. She lifted her daughter from the mat, holding her under the arms as she dangled her over the bath. As usual, she let her kick the water, allowing her to get used to the temperature and the fact that she was going to have a bath. The oily foam must have made her hands slick. And like a well-oiled thing, in a split second, Lilly suddenly slipped from her mother's grasp and disappeared beneath the water and its foam topping.

Jessica hadn't heard Matt tread the stairs, had no idea that he was behind her. The first she knew of his presence was when he shouted over her shoulder, ‘Jesus! Lilly! Jess! Grab her!'

While Jessica hesitated, peering at the water, Matthew barged her out of the way and shoved his arms into the bath. They emerged with Lilly, her hair plastered over her face. The little girl gasped, took a deep breath and howled. Matthew cradled his daughter to his chest and grabbed a towel, which he placed over her. Holding her close against his chest, he repeated, ‘You are okay, my darling. It's all okay, Lilly. Daddy's got you.'

‘Is she all right?' Jessica stood up, slowly whispering her question.

Matthew flashed her a look that made her intestines shrink. He ground his teeth and spoke through narrowed eyes. ‘What the fuck, Jess? What the fuck?' A small fleck of spit left his mouth and landed on her cheek. She didn't remove it.

‘What happened? You just froze!' he growled.

‘I don't know. I don't know what happened.' She spoke to the floor, stung by his sharp snort of derision.

By the time their guests arrived, Matthew was calm and Lilly laughing, but Jessica carried the memory of the morning around with her like a bad smell that she couldn't shift.

It was the first time both sets of parents had met Polly's new man and despite the guffaws prior to his arrival about his name and profession, they all seemed to be getting along like a house on fire. Topaz had worked briefly as a builder on a project in Africa, renovating a school and helping to construct housing. Much to the annoyance of Jake, everyone sat and listened to his story, which was summed up by Anthony quite neatly: ‘Doesn't matter where or how, bricks are bricks and a building's a building.'

Dinner was the usual lively affair, with Anthony verbally jousting with first Matthew and then Jake. ‘You two boys make me sick, wouldn't know a hard day's graft if it kicked you up the arse!'

Roger followed this with a ‘Hear! Hear!'

‘I work hard, Dad! Very hard!' Matthew yelled.

‘Rubbish. Sitting behind a desk isn't working hard, son. Working hard is being out in all weathers, carting bricks and mixing cement with fingers that are numb with cold. That's proper hard work!' Anthony emptied his glass.

‘You sit behind a desk now,' Margaret reminded her husband.

‘Only because I bloody have to. And I've earned the right to sit on my arse, I put the hard graft in!' Anthony banged the table.

Margaret tutted and rolled her eyes at Coral, who found the rambunctious nature of their relationship a little unsettling.

Polly complained about her annoying inability to lose weight, seemingly indifferent to the fact that she'd just polished off two healthy portions of coq au vin and a small bucket of ice cream.

‘You shouldn't be so concerned about the outside, Polly. Beauty is a light that shines from within,' Topaz offered.

This insight caused Anthony, Roger, Matthew and Jake to guffaw loudly. Topaz joined in the laughter, almost as if he had been intentionally feeding their prejudices.

Matthew drank liberally from the bottle of chilled Chardonnay that never strayed too far from his reach. The wine and banter flowed well into the evening, apart from for Jessica, who hadn't resumed drinking. She was happy that everyone was having such a lovely time; it was the kind of evening she had dreamt about when they first bought the house in Merton Avenue. She, however, felt like a bystander. No longer confident in expressing her opinion or trying to be humorous. She looked at the mouths of her guests, wide open and unrestrained and felt strangely shy. Even she could see that this was ridiculous: these were the people that knew and loved her.

Coral smiled at her daughter across the table, noticing how she tried to participate and how hard she found it. Jessica smiled back. She watched as Margaret and her mum tidied away the dishes and rinsed the casserole pot, whispering and raising their eyebrows as they did so. Jessica instinctively knew they were talking about her.

Lilly was tucked up in the nursery, having fallen into an exhausted sleep after being much admired by all.