Mother's Story (32 page)

‘Really?' she asked.

‘Really. A whole weekend, just you and me. A big bed, room service, large TV and no alarm clock – how does that sound?' He smiled, knowing he needed this as much as she did.

Jessica grinned at her man. ‘That sounds like absolute heaven.'

‘Good. Because it's all arranged. Your parents are coming here to look after Lilly and you and I are off to Cliveden for a bit of spoiling.'

‘Oh, Matt! No way. Can we afford it?'

‘No, we can't. But my mum and dad are treating us.'

‘Bless them. It'll be wonderful, just me and my man. I can't wait.' She slipped her arm around his waist and held him tight. ‘I really can't wait.'

‘Good. Me too. Now go pack because we leave in the morning! And don't worry about laundry and clothes: apart from breakfast, when you will be in public, you won't be needing much.' He winked at her.

Jessica kissed her husband on the cheek as she passed him in the hallway. She had a good, good feeling about this weekend.

Coral gathered Lilly into her arms to wave her mum and dad off from the front doorstep. She caught her son-in-law's arm. ‘Look after her, lovely.'

‘I will.' He smiled.

‘It will all be okay, Matthew. She just needs a bit of down time and some TLC.' Coral smiled, confident that this weekend would be the break they both needed.

Matthew nodded and gathered their overnight bags from the hall floor.

Lilly waved in earnest and then cried before waving some more.

‘Don't worry about a thing, we'll all be fine! See you on Sunday!' Roger shouted as they threw their luggage in the boot and jumped in Edith.

Jessica watched her family getting smaller and smaller in the wing mirror. She sank down in the seat and popped the radio on. Adele's ‘Someone Like You' was playing.

‘Do you remember dancing to this in the kitchen?' she asked as she watched the houses of Merton Avenue and then the shops, restaurants and bars of Chiswick High Road glide by. Both of them turned their thoughts to that enchanted evening, which felt like a lifetime ago. Jessica looked across at her handsome husband. She reached over the console and rested her hand on his thigh. ‘We can get back to that, Matt. We can. I know it.' She squeezed his leg beneath his jeans. ‘I love you. And that's all that matters, isn't it? I love you.'

‘I know.' Matthew looked at his wife. ‘I love you too.'

Less than an hour later, Matthew flicked the indicator and turned Edith into the gravel driveway of Cliveden House.

‘Oh, wow!' Jessica sat forward in her seat and peered at the grand house in front of them. ‘This is stunning!'

Matthew patted Edith's dashboard. ‘Don't feel inferior, Edith. You might not be the flashiest motor ever to grace this driveway, but what you lack in grandness, you make up for in reliability.'

Jessica giggled. ‘You sound as nuts as me!'

‘Blimey, Jess, that's saying something.' And they both laughed, a good belly laugh, just like they used to.

Their room was sumptuous: fancy and decadent, with a large four-poster bed and beautiful antique half-moon tables on which sat ornate lamps that gave the room just the right amount of cosy. The large sash windows, whose plush drapes were tied back, gave the best view of the incredible manicured grounds. The en-suite bathroom had a large roll-top bath and a vintage brass radiator.

‘I rather like it here,' Jessica murmured from the depths of the bed as she finished off a healthy portion of lobster ravioli, washed down with champagne. She had questioned whether the alcohol was a good idea, given that she was taking medication, but she and Matthew agreed that for one night it would be fine; this was, after all, a treat. After her second glass, she had to agree, it was a splendid idea!

The two lay in the middle of the disarranged bed and looked at the large moon through the window. The night was silent, the air warm and the atmosphere perfect.

Jessica laid her head on the flat space between her husband's shoulder and chest, feeling the soft rhythmic pulse against her cheek. She blinked. ‘I'm giving you a butterfly kiss,' she whispered, beating her lashes against his pale flesh. She felt Matthew's arms envelop her in a hug. Their conversation was slow, unhurried.

‘I didn't know what a butterfly kiss was when I met you. Do you remember?'

She smiled. ‘There were lots of things you didn't know.'

‘That's true.' He grazed the top of her head with a kiss.

‘You didn't know the car-name rule. I remember asking what your little Fiat was called and you looked at me as though I was crackers. His number plate was R zero fifty-five – you'd been driving around in “Ross” and you didn't even know it.' She felt his chuckle grow in his chest.

‘And I didn't know the rule concerning red sauce and brown sauce.'

‘But it's so easy to remember.' She rolled her eyes. ‘It's always red unless it's a dish that starts with P, like pie or pasty, then it's brown. Other than that, it's red. Easy.'

‘What about paella?'

‘Neither sauce required, clever clogs, although we didn't eat much paella when I was growing up. We had a fair few fish fingers though.'

They laughed and lay against each other, relaxed, with the flames of happiness flickering from long-forgotten embers. Jessica felt contentment swirl inside her like a swallowed cure. She felt better, so much better. This was her medicine, this was what she needed: to lie in the arms of her husband, enjoying the quiet of being alone together. When she spoke, her voice was small, conscious of spoiling the moment and wary of being heard.

‘I love it here,' she whispered.

‘Me too,' Matthew mumbled drowsily.

‘Do… do you ever wish it could be like this all the time?'

‘Hmmm?' Matthew was close to sleep and needed it repeating.

Jessica drew breath. ‘Do you ever wish we could turn back the clock to when there was just the two of us?' She let the idea hang in the air before continuing. ‘Back to when we could do what we wanted, sleep when we wanted. Just the two of us?' She heard him sigh, but he didn't say anything. Jessica took this as her cue to continue. ‘I sometimes think of the night we made Lilly. She should have been called Pimm's. Do you remember, we were so drunk on it when we made her, I was convinced she'd come out with slices of cucumber and a strawberry on her head.' Jessica laughed.

Matthew laughed too. ‘We'd best not tell her that! Far better she think that we planned her and yearned for her rather than she was the result of a few drinks too many!'

Jessica raised her head and propped it on his shoulder. ‘I wish… I wish I'd not drunk so much that night. I wish we'd waited a few years, stuck to our five-year plan and had more moments like this.'

Matthew shifted, easing her head from his body until he sat up.

She ran her fingers over his strong, bare back and continued. ‘If I hadn't been so sloshed, I wouldn't have been so unlucky and then if we hadn't had Lilly, there wouldn't have been the next baby.'

Jessica's words tailed off; she was only half aware that she was actually voicing the thoughts that she dwelt on with regularity in private. It was as if she was lulled into her chatterbox state by a rare moment of euphoria, helped by the champagne. ‘I think about it a lot. I imagine what we'd be doing if it was just us. We wouldn't know what it was like to be truly knackered or to have every second of every day hijacked by a baby. We'd be free… And I think about the miscarriage and I feel guilty because you were so upset, but I was just relieved, that's the truth!'

Matthew brought his knees up beneath the sheets until his elbows rested on them and with his head in his hands he began to cry. Jessica at first thought he was laughing, until she heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing.

‘Matt! Oh no, Matt! Don't cry. Please don't cry! Why are you crying?' She sat back against the pillows and wondered what to do.

All Matthew could mutter was, ‘Oh God. Oh my God!' His tears were a mix of grief and rage. His breathing was erratic. He couldn't talk.

Jessica listened to him and watched, wide-eyed from the other side of the bed.

His words when they did come were delivered with a newly hardened edge to his voice. ‘No! No, Jess. I never, ever think that. I love my girl, I love my family and I could never, ever think of Lilly in terms of being
unlucky
.' This word he almost spat. ‘There was nothing unlucky about being given our beautiful little girl.' He swiped at his tears with the back of his hands and threw back the sheet as he stumbled from the bed.

Jessica shrank back against the padded headboard. ‘I didn't mean it like that,' she whispered.

‘No? How did you mean it, Jess? How the fuck did you mean it? I don't know what's got into you. I don't know what's happened. I try to understand. I do. I have been more than patient, but sometimes I don't know what the fuck is going on! I can't keep pace with your moods. Every time I put the key in the door, I never know what I'm going to find. Your highs and lows have a massive effect on Lilly and me. It's like holding a mirror up to your mood: the rest of us take our cues from you and it's shit, really shit!' Matthew stood by the side of the bed, staring at her like she was a stranger.

‘I know it's shit. I… I just get so tired,' she said. ‘So tired that I can't stay awake, can't think. And when I do think, I feel so sad that it saps every ounce of strength that I have ever possessed and I miss me. I miss the me I used to be. The me that bounced and laughed and looked forward to things.'

‘Christ,
you
miss her? Try being me! I fucking miss her – if I ever knew her, that is.' He placed his hands on his hips and stared at his wife, his tone, clipped. ‘I'm not so sure sometimes.'

‘I'm still here, Matt.' Jessica patted her chest. ‘I'm sorry I'm not the woman you need me to be. I need you to help me, Matthew, and I need you to wait for me, please!' She was almost begging. ‘It will be okay when I'm not so tired. It will.' She nodded, trying to convince them both.

‘
You're
tired?' He snorted his anger. ‘I'm busting my balls commuting in and out of town every day, an hour there and back just so you can have the fucking house of your dreams and
you're
tired? I do everything in the house because if I don't it all goes to pig shit, which you seem happy to wallow in, but I'm not.'

‘It's not just tired, it's… it's like I'm in this dark place—'

‘Dark place? I tell you what, I'll swap you. I'll take wandering around in my pyjamas and playing with Lilly all day. I'll fucking take it any day of the week. Christ, it's not as if you're cooking dinner or cleaning the place regularly! What the fuck is it that you do all day that is making you so tired?'

Jessica slunk further down the bed. Crawling into a ball, she pulled the sheet up under her nose.

‘Paz said I had to give you time and space. Said that it wasn't your fault and that you were fragile.'

Jessica closed her eyes, hating the level of detail with which he and Topaz had discussed her. It made her feel less of a person and if she was less of a person then what was she? She knew that everyone was talking about her – her parents, Polly, everyone. It left her feeling as if she had no one to talk to, no one to keep her secrets. She was on her own. Completely on her own.

Matthew continued. ‘How much time and space do you need, for God's sake? Because I tell you what, Jess, I'm at my fucking wits' end and I'm finding it very hard to reconcile you with the girl I married.'

‘I don't know where she is, Matthew. But I want her to come back. I do. But I feel as if I am drowning. I am drowning,' she whispered, mouth hidden by the sheet as she stared at him.

‘And even now, you can't say anything, not one word. Not one fucking word. You're just lying there in silence.' Matthew grabbed his pants, jeans and shirt from the floor. ‘Lilly is the most amazing thing we have ever done. Our greatest achievement. She comes first, always. Before us and before you. Got it?'

‘I'm sorry,' she managed.

‘Oh God! Please! Not “sorry” again! I don't want to hear sorry. It feels a little thin.' He reached for the door handle before turning back to look at his wife, who lay in the middle of the grand bed. ‘To be honest, Jess, sometimes you make it really hard to keep loving you.'

Jessica heard the door close and looked up at the space that he had vacated. Her tears fell hot and fast. The thought, the very idea of Matthew not loving her, was absolutely the worst thing that she could imagine. Jessica just wished that things could go back to the way they were when she and Matt were happy. She would do anything, anything to recapture those days.

18th July, 2015

This morning I got the sweetest news you can imagine. I met with my doctor and he told me that I will be released in six weeks. Six weeks! I can't quite believe it. I can't! I will be free of these walls and I will no longer have to force down food that sits like ashes in my mouth. I can't wait to stare at the clouds, walk barefoot and breathe clean lungfuls of fresh air. I shall take in the view and feel the breeze on my face. My heart is singing. I have smiled for the first time in as long as I can remember and I have songs in my head. It's wonderful. Music has been gone from me for such a long time. I have missed it. I have missed lots of things.

My doctor tells me I have to write everything down, everything that I can remember from the day itself. So that's what I'll do. Not for anyone else to read, just for me. He says it will help greatly as I work towards my release day. It's going to be hard, because much of it I have blocked out of my mind since. I have had to, to survive. But mainly it's hard because it's like writing about a person I don't know, a person I don't recognise. It's as if she was this dark shadow of me lurking inside and now she has gone I can only look back at that time with deep, deep sadness and regret. It is hard for me to accept what I did, whether in an altered state of mind or not, I know I will pay for it, for the rest of my life.