Mother's Story (34 page)

Jessica trod the stairs and stood at the sink in the bathroom. With her legs splayed, she threw her head forward until her thick, chocolate-coloured curls hung over her head in a curtain that nearly reached the bathroom floor. Gathering her locks into a ponytail in her left hand, she righted herself and smiled. She looked a bit like a genie with a big fat rope of hair sitting on top of her head. With the scissors poised in her right hand, Jessica started to cut. The sound the blades made as they sliced into her hair was very pleasing; hypnotic. When she had chopped all around the ponytail and it came away in her hand, she shook her head and stared in the mirror. It was surprisingly even. She threw the discarded mass of hair onto the floor and cut the right side until it sat over her ear. This made the whole thing ridiculously lopsided and so, turning her head to the right, she cut the left side to match. Next she trimmed the long licks of hair that hung from her crown and then a little more from the back. When she had finished, her hair was short in places and shorn in others.

Jessica placed her hand on her reflection in the mirror and stared. She didn't recognise the face that stared back and that suited her just fine. Gripping the scissors, she drew back her fist and jabbed their point at the glass. The top of the mirror fell away in long shards that clattered to the floor. The image of her face was now bisected by the fractured glass still hanging on the wall. ‘Seven years bad luck…' she whispered.

Jessica picked up the phone in the bedroom. ‘Mum…' She spoke quickly, gabbling, making little sense. ‘Just wanted you to know that I have done it, finally! It was annoying me, much better this way. I know you'll be happy. One less thing to worry about.'

‘Done what?' Coral was a little flustered by her daughter's directness and couldn't think what she was referring to.

‘My hair!' Jessica laughed, loudly, as though her mum wasn't keeping up. ‘I've cut it all off.'

‘Have you? Who did that for you, love? Is it a bob?'

‘
I
did.
I
cut it. And it's not just short, it's gone. All gone. It's for the best. It's all for the best, part of the plan.' With that she replaced the receiver, straightened the bedspread and reached under the bed for a bottle of strawberry paracetamol liquid. Then she made her way downstairs.

Jessica poured half a pint of milk into the saucepan, watched it start to bubble, then removed it from the heat to cool. She collected a bottle and teat from the cupboard and gave it a rinse before filling it three quarters full with the warm milk. Next she took the strawberry liquid from its box and tipped over half of it into the milk. She shook the bottle gently.

I padded up the stairs one at a time and walked into our bedroom. Lilly had relocated onto the rug beneath our window and was stirring a plastic spoon into an empty bowl. The clatter ricocheted like gunfire inside my head.

‘It's a conspiracy, you know, Lilly,' I told her. ‘It's as if all the women that have given birth are swimming in a pool of quicksand and they beckon you in from the depths, waving and smiling and saying, “Come in, the water's lovely!” And so you jump, and almost immediately you start to sink and it's only when you are close to them that you can see their looks of panic, but by then it's too late, solid ground beneath your feet is something you will never feel again. Never. And it's a burden. It really is.'

Lilly just laughed, like she did at everything. Her fat, nappy-covered bottom meant she crouched awkwardly, with her feet planted firmly on the floor. Her blue eyes were bright, her dimpled cheeks raised in a smile that showed all her teeth, like she was excited. She was always like that, exuberantly happy. That's because she didn't understand. She had no idea of what lay ahead, was ignorant of the price she would have to pay for my shortcomings; she didn't know about the quicksand, how it would suck her in until she had no choice but to let it rise above her head or how, strangely, she, like me, would be glad of the dark escape that I was offering.

‘I makin' cake now!' Lilly shouted. Always shouting.

When she saw her baby bottle in my hand, she shrieked, ‘We play bubbas!' Whenever a new idea presented itself, her voice always got even louder.

She abandoned the bowl and spoon and kept one foot on the ground while she hopped on the other. She was clapping in time like a lame dancer as she turned in a circle. Her laugh was too high-pitched and again very loud. I watched her chubby hands smack together with fingers splayed, palm-to-palm, and it was as though it was happening in slow motion.

It's hard to explain, but I felt like the more energy she expended, the less I had. It had always been that way. Like we were a machine and I was the fuel that kept her going. But I was running out and she just wanted to go faster, faster.

I placed my hand across her little round tum and lifted her up onto our unmade bed. She settled herself back on the deep pillow, wiggling her bottom, trying to get comfortable as she pulled down her pretty white smocked top over her little jeans, which had a cluster of pink and green flowers sewn onto the hem of one leg. Her socks were stripy – pink and white – and when she lay flat, her little feet fell naturally inward. She flattened the front of her blouse, which had become bunched up inside her pale pink cotton cardigan, arranging and smoothing her clothes as if she was a grown-up and not a little girl who was not yet two.

‘I all tangly, Mummy!' She smiled and hunched her shoulders briefly as though everything she said was a revelation.

I nodded in response. She didn't expect anything else from me.

Lilly was giggling, kicking her heels against the floral Indian cotton bedspread that was a wedding present. I heard my dad's voice saying, ‘I don't think I can go any further without mentioning quite how beautiful my daughter looks today,' and I heard the roll of laughter and clapping that followed. It was such a lovely, lovely day. Perfect, in fact.

I lifted the bottle and Lilly lay ramrod straight apart from her arms, which stuck up, fingers flexing, grasping. A bit greedy, I thought.

‘Mweh, mweh!' She did her best impression of a crying baby and my head automatically jerked towards the door.
Is that Lilly awake?
My heart rate increased at the prospect of dealing with that tiny baby and I felt the familiar band of angst tighten across my forehead.
No, no, it's okay. It's just Lilly pretending, playing bubbas, she's here on the bed and she's a little older now.

‘I a baby now.' She opened and closed her mouth like a little goldfish, trying to remember what being a baby was like.

That made me smile briefly – like her, I often tried to imagine not being me. I used to try and imagine what it would feel like not to be alive. I tried to imagine what it was like before I was born and what it would be like after I'd gone. It brought me fleeting moments of peace.

I handed the bottle to Lilly and she rammed it into her mouth. I watched as her very red lips worked quickly, gorging on the milk that I had flavoured with strawberry syrup. She was drinking very quickly and I could tell she couldn't taste the over-generous slug of sedative. Which was a good thing.

I ran my fingers through her pale golden hair with its bounce of curl on the end of each strand. It felt like silk.

She removed the bottle suddenly and it exited her mouth with a loud sucking noise. Like everything else, that made her laugh. ‘Loveoo, Mummy.' A glug of sticky milk slipped down her cheek and soaked into the pillowcase. Something else to wash. The blots, scuffs and dents on every surface in the house were so numerous I hardly noticed them any more. She blinked and immediately placed the bottle back in her mouth. Her eyes never left mine.

I stroked her cheek and watched as she finished it, saying ‘Shhhh…' as though it was bedtime. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table; it was half past four in the afternoon. The dappled sunshine through the trees cast a moving image across the wall. The branches dipped and rose in the breeze, giving the impression of sea diamonds on the wall behind her head. It was all so quiet, so peaceful, until the phone rang and shattered the silence.

Jessica reluctantly picked up the phone.

‘Jess?'

‘Hello, Matthew. I've decided, I'm going to start work now. It's been far too long since I've worked on anything and now is the right time for me. I'm going to call Lavinia tomorrow and say I'm finally ready to tackle my next project. I feel quite excited about it.'

‘Oh, well, that's good.' He noted her energetic tone and wondered if maybe Coral had got the wrong end of the stick; she had sounded panicked when she called, but things seemed fine. ‘Your mum said you had cut your hair?'

‘What?'

‘Your hair, Jess. What have you done to your hair?'

‘Oh, I cut it off.' She ran her free hand over her scalp. It was a little uneven, admittedly; some of it was just bristles, and where the scissors had slipped, there were one or two little cuts. But at least she didn't have to think about it.

‘I don't…' Matthew started.

‘You don't what?'

‘I don't know why you did that.'

Jessica walked back and forth, her overly long pyjama bottoms dragging across the floor, gathering dust bunnies in their wake. ‘I made our baby disappear, Matt. It was my fault. I wished it.' Jessica held the receiver close.

‘You wished it?'

‘Yes. I didn't want it and I made it happen.' She blinked.

‘No you didn't, love.' Matthew swallowed the tears that massed at the back of his nose and throat. He covered his eyes and lowered his voice. He was as usual sitting within earshot of Guy.

‘If you make a bad world, Matthew, then bad things are going to happen. My mum and dad made a bad world and they lost Danny, he got taken from them. And I have made a bad world,' she whispered.

‘You didn't make a bad world, Jess. Any world you are in is infinitely more beautiful because you are in it.' His breath caught in his mouth.

‘I'm sorry I didn't open the door,' she said, urgently.

‘What? You don't have to answer the door, I have a key.'

‘I should have let you in sooner, but I kept you out there in the rain.' She chewed her lip, which was quite raw. ‘That was bad of me.'

‘When, Jess?'

‘When you asked me to marry you. In the car park. With your soggy bread and your jumper full of rain. I didn't like it because you hugged Jenny and she put her leg up on you. I remember it. I've always thought she was the type of girl you should be with.'

‘Oh yes.' Matthew sniffed. ‘Yes, you did, you kept me out in the rain!' He laughed through his tears.

‘You are not really married to me any more, Matthew, you know that, don't you?' Her voice was quiet but steady.

‘Yes I am, Jess. I am married to you now and I always will be. In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, that's what we agreed, remember?' He raised his volume, no longer caring if Guy or anyone else heard.

She shook her head. ‘I don't think it counts. Not now. I went and bought loo roll and pasta. We'd run out. The girl in the shop bothered me. I can't explain why.'

‘It's good you went out. Did you manage okay with Lilly and the pushchair?'

‘No, I left her here. I went on my own. It was quite nice just to have five minutes.'

‘You… you left her?' he stuttered.

‘Yes.' She smiled. ‘She was fine. I was only gone for a little while.'

‘Where is Lilly now?' he asked softly.

‘Hmmm?' she hummed, needing the question repeating, unable to remember what he had asked.

‘Where is Lilly?' he asked more firmly.

‘She's here.' She looked at their little girl, who was sleeping. Sleeping very soundly.