The Memory Book (20 page)

‘Mum.’ I step in front of Greg. ‘It’s fine. It’s OK. Greg is a friend.’

It doesn’t seem anything like an adequate enough word to describe him – what he is, who he’s been to my mother – and I know that hearing it must hurt him, even if he understands why I’ve used the most neutral word I can think of.

‘Claire.’ Greg says her name once more, softly, as gently as he can. ‘It’s me, darling. We’re married. Look, there’s a photo of us on our wedding day …’

‘How dare you!’ Mum shouts at him, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me away from Greg. ‘Don’t you dare pretend you’re their father! Why are you here, in my house? What do you want from me? Caitlin, can’t you see what he’s doing? Get out! Get out!’

‘Mummy!’ Esther, attracted by the noise, arrives at the top of the stairs, followed by Gran, who stands one stair down, peering anxiously at the scene.

‘What’s all this racket?’ she asks. ‘Claire, what on earth are you playing at?’

Something in Gran’s voice calms Mum, who loosens her grip on my wrist. Her eyes are still wide with fear as she stands there, breathing very hard.

‘I was … I was running a … a bath … and then there was all this stuff in my bedroom. And it’s not mine!’

‘Mummy!’ Esther shakes Gran’s hands off her shoulders
and runs to Mum, who scoops her up and hugs her hard. ‘They are Daddy’s things, Mummy. You are very silly, Mummy-forget-me-not.’

With Esther in her arms, Mum sinks down on to the carpet. The air is still damp with hot steam, and the smell of wet carpet rises in the air.

‘I forgot,’ she told Greg, unable to look at him.

‘Mummy, get up!’ Esther commands, taking Mum’s cheeks in her hands and pressing them together between her little palms, twisting Mum’s face out of shape. ‘Get up now, Mummy. It’s time for tea.’

We stand back, the three of us, and watch as Esther tugs at Mum’s hand until she finally climbs to her feet.

‘What do you want for tea?’ Mum asks her, not looking at any of us, as she carries Esther down the stairs.

‘Lasagne!’ Esther says.

‘Or beans on toast?’ I hear Mum say, as her voice recedes into the kitchen.

‘Lasagne!’ Esther repeats.

And then there is silence.

‘I’ll get the camp bed,’ Greg says. ‘Sleep on the floor in Esther’s room.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ll sleep on the camp bed. You have my room. I’ll be away for a few nights anyway, unless you want me to stay?’

‘She’s getting worse,’ Greg says, the words spilling out of him before any of us are quite ready to hear them, even him.
‘I didn’t expect it to be this quick. I mean, I know they talked about the blood clots, but I thought … I’d hoped we’d have some time together, to say goodbye. I thought she’d come back and say goodbye.’

Finally, Gran climbs the last stair, and puts a hand on Greg’s shoulder. ‘Everything that’s happening now, the things she says and thinks, the way she feels … it doesn’t mean she hasn’t loved you, more than any other person in her life. It doesn’t mean that, Greg. This isn’t her, it’s the disease.’

‘I know, it’s just …’ Greg’s shoulders descend, and, suddenly, it’s as though the air is let out of him. He fades to half his size in front of our eyes. ‘I’ll get the camp bed out of the garage.’

Neither of us moves to follow him out of the front door, knowing he needs some time alone to mourn.

‘Mum!’ Mum comes to the foot of the stairs, calling up as if nothing has happened. ‘How do I get into this beans container, again?’

‘You go,’ I say. ‘I’ll try to mop up some of this.’

‘Are you all right?’ Gran asks me.

‘Are any of us?’ I ask her.

‘Mum!’ I hear her shout again. ‘Can I do it with a knife?’

This is the first photo I took of Claire and Esther.

Esther is wrapped in a towel, and Claire’s got that annoyed look on her face because she strictly forbade me to take any photos until she had brushed her hair and put on mascara. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

I suppose most husbands think their pregnant wife is beautiful, and I was no exception. I loved the way she looked – the swell of her belly carrying our baby. And she was happy, then. Claire liked to bitch and complain about her ankles getting fat, her skin stretching, and about how she was far too old to be doing this, but I could see she loved it too, most of the time. She had this energy about her – this sort of vibration of life. And I would look at her and be amazed. You know, my baby was in there.

Esther came a little early, and even though Caitlin had been born
early too, it took us all by surprise. As it had been such a long time since Caitlin, everyone thought Claire would most likely go overdue, because her body had forgotten that it had ever been pregnant before. Claire hadn’t stopped doing anything while she was pregnant – not going for walks, or working – she even went out dancing with Julia, on Julia’s birthday, even though she was as round as a ripe pomegranate. I hadn’t wanted her to go, but I couldn’t stop her, so I sent Caitlin out with them to keep an eye on her. Caitlin wasn’t impressed.

When Esther was born, it was the middle of the night and Claire got up, suddenly – especially considering she was so big, by then. She was at the stage when she didn’t do anything quickly. Like a super tanker – that’s what she said she was like, it took her at least a week to turn around. But on this night, she got up like a rocket and went to the bathroom. I went back to sleep again, almost straight away, but it could only have been for a few seconds because I woke to the sound of her calling. Not shouting my name at the top of her voice, but one quiet little call after the other, more like whimpers, I suppose. I went to the bathroom, and Claire was sitting on the tiled floor.

‘He’s coming.’ She breathed the words out.

It took me a second to get what she was on about, then I noticed there was a puddle of fluid between her legs, and I realised she was in labour. ‘Right, I’ll call the hospital, tell them we are coming,’ I said. ‘And get your bag …’

‘No, I mean he’s coming
now
,’ Claire said, and then this wave of pain hit her.

‘But that’s impossible,’ I said, and I realised I was still standing in the doorway, so I crouched down. She wasn’t screaming, or making any of the noise I was expecting. She almost wasn’t there: her eyes were closed and she looked like she was concentrating hard on the world inside her. The next wave of pain passed.

‘Tell that to the baby, and call nine, nine, nine!’

The call handler stayed on the phone and told me to look between Claire’s legs, and basically use my fingers to measure how dilated she was. I did try, but Claire growled at me, like she was possessed by a devil. So I knocked on Caitlin’s door, and although she could usually sleep through an earthquake, she got up immediately.

The woman on the phone said the ambulance was five minutes away, which seemed like a lifetime.

‘Check how dilated your mum is,’ I said to Caitlin.

‘What? No way!’ Caitlin looked horrified.

‘Oh, for chrissake, give me a bloody, mirror,’ Claire said, and I thought about it and remembered that this was my wife, and my baby, and I am six foot two and like to think of myself as pretty manly.

‘I’m looking,’ I told Claire. ‘So just get over it.’

Claire told me that she hated me, and used some choice swear words, too, but she still seemed quite in control, groaning a bit, closing her eyes, bracing herself with her back against the bath, her feet planted wide on the tiles. I felt sure that if it were really close, she’d be making more of a fuss. I got a towel
and mopped up the fluid on the floor, and then looked.

The woman on the phone asked me again if I could estimate how far dilated she was. I said, ‘I don’t know, but I can see the top of the baby’s head.’

The woman on the phone started to say that I should tell her not to push, but before she’d finished the sentence, Claire pushed – and there was a rush of life, and water and blood, and I caught her, the baby. This mucky little pink and grey thing covered in crap. She shot into my arms! It still makes me laugh when I think about it.

‘She’s out!’ I yelled at my phone, which I’d dropped when I went to catch the baby. Ever since then, Claire has said that this was the time all those Sundays playing bloody cricket finally paid off. Caitlin picked up the phone, and I laid the baby on Claire’s chest. Her eyes were wide as she watched me do it – wide and full of wonder.

‘She’s asking if it’s breathing?’ Caitlin said, looking worried. But before I could check, this cry, a howl of intent, cut through the air, and I burst into tears – proper stupid woman tears, running down my face. I couldn’t stop. Caitlin got a clean towel from the airing cupboard and we wrapped it around the baby, and then the doorbell rang. The ambulance had arrived. That was when I grabbed my phone and took this picture, even though Claire threatened to kill me. I wanted to remember that moment, exactly.

‘He’s so lovely,’ Claire said, oblivious to the two huge paramedic guys that had walked into our bathroom.

‘She’s a girl,’ I told her, and she looked even happier.

‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Another Armstrong woman to conquer the world.’

‘Have you got enough money?’ I ask Caitlin, who nods.

‘Well, I’ve got your credit card and the PIN, so yes,’ she says.

‘And you will look after my car?’ I run my palm over the surface of the vehicle, which is painted my favourite colour. It’s hot and strong and bold. I can’t remember what the name for it is though. Something happened last night that changed things. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I felt it when I woke up this morning: the blankness pressing down into my head. Perhaps it’s the fog; perhaps it’s the emboli. I picture them like bright little sparks, fireworks whizzing and banging. That would be a good name for the colour of my car: emboli.

‘I will try to look after your car,’ Caitlin says. She looks uncertain – of course she does.

Earlier today I waited in, being guarded by Greg while my mum took Caitlin to the hospital. I waited, looking out of
the window, pinning myself to the moment when she would come back and tell me how things were. The only way I knew how to do it was to stay there, in exactly the same place, from the moment they left until the moment they got back – certain that if I moved, I’d lose the present moment. Greg kept trying to make me do stuff – drink tea or eat toast or go and sit with him in the kitchen – but that is because he doesn’t know I have to pin myself to a point in time and make my mind stay there. I don’t know how long it took, but I tried to open the front door the second I saw the car pull in. Only they do something to the door to stop me going out of it, so I can’t open it any more from the inside. I waited on the other side for them to open it, still making myself stay in that moment: making myself know what had happened.

Caitlin has always been such an open book – I have always known what she is thinking or feeling – but suddenly I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell as she walked past me and flopped on to the sofa in the living room. I looked at Mum.

‘Eighteen weeks,’ she said. ‘Mother and baby doing well.’

I don’t know exactly what I felt so frightened of when I walked into that room; I only know I had the sense that whatever she was going to say was likely to terrify me.

‘Caitlin?’ I asked her, sitting down on the chair opposite.

‘I love my baby,’ she said, quite simply. ‘Like, with this force I had no idea was possible. It’s almost like I want to fight someone, even though there is no one to fight. Oh, Mum. There’s a picture. Do you want to see?’

She handed me a photo. They’re much clearer now than they used to be, and I could see little arms and legs, and a profile that looks just like Caitlin’s.

‘Oh, Caitlin.’ I wanted to hold her and hug her. ‘I’m so pleased.’

‘Me too,’ she said simply. ‘I’m pleased too, I think. But scared too.’

‘You will be a wonderful mother.’

‘Will you keep telling me that?’ she said.

‘If you keep telling me that you are pregnant,’ I said, and she smiled.

It seemed wrong, then, to dispatch her back out into the world, on her own, to go and find her father. And yet she is going. I can’t stop her now, even if I wanted to. Ever since whatever happened yesterday happened, she has had this sort of quiet determination about her – this kind of resolution. For the first time, I notice that she is being careful with me, treating me like I am ill. Yes, something changed last night. But if it was something that has helped Caitlin be this stronger, more certain and purposeful person, then I hope it can’t have been that bad a thing.

‘Call me when you get there,’ I say. ‘And before you see him – and straight afterwards. Don’t forget to tell him what I told you, OK? He’ll be shocked at first, probably … Perhaps we should write him a letter …’

‘No,’ Caitlin says. ‘This is the way it’s happening. I’m going. And I will be back really soon, OK?’

I nod and kiss her – and then my mum, who has been watching us both, presses a wad of money into Caitlin’s hand exactly the way she always used to do with a packet of sweets.

‘Take care, poppet,’ she says, and Caitlin bears the childish nickname sweetly, kissing my mother on the cheek. Esther cries as the car pulls out, and I want to cry too. Not just because Caitlin is going, but also because now I am alone, with my mother in charge.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Mum says, as she guides me back into the house, her hands on my shoulders, as though I have forgotten how to walk in a straight line – which hasn’t happened yet, I don’t think. ‘She’s stronger than she looks, that girl. I’m so proud of her.’

‘Me too,’ I say. ‘And of you – a great-grandma!’

‘That’s quite enough of that, my girl,’ Mum says, and after we’ve walked back into the house, she locks the door behind me. ‘Or should I call you Granny now?’