A Special Relationship

'No, it was completely negative. More to the point, his APGAR scores were completely normal'.

'His what?' I asked.

'APGAR is a sort of checklist we run on every newborn child, gauging things like their pulse, reflexes, respiration, and overall appearance. As I said, your son easily scored within the normal range. And in a day or so, we will run an EEG and an MRI, just to make certain that everything in the neurological department is working properly. But, at this point, I would try not to worry about such things'.

Oh please...

'I need to see him'.

'Of course. But you do realize that his initial appearance may upset you. Paediatric ICUs are not the easiest of places, after all'.

'I'll handle that'.

'All right then. But do understand, you will have to take things very easy for the next week or so. You've just had a major operation'.

He turned and started walking away. But then he wheeled back and said, 'Oh, by the way - congratulations. Any sign of the father yet?'

'Didn't he ring the hospital?' I asked the nurse.

'Not that I've heard', she said. 'But I'll check with my colleagues. And if you write down his number, I'll call him again'.

I looked at the clock on the wall. Six-fifteen.

'Couldn't I try to call him?' I asked.

But as I said this, two orderlies showed up, wheelchair in tow. This one was custom-built to accommodate a patient who was wired to assorted drips, as it featured a frame from which plasma and saline bottles could be suspended.

'Let me phone him for you', the nurse said. 'These fellows are going to need the chair back soon. Isn't that right?'

'Always big demand for our best wheelchairs', one of the orderlies said, adding, 'Come on, luv. Let's bring you up to see your baby'.

The nurse handed me a pad and a pen. I scribbled down Tony's work number, his mobile, and our home phone. She promised me she'd leave messages on all three numbers if she couldn't reach him directly. Then the orderlies went to work on moving me from the bed to the chair. I had expected to have been unplugged from my varying tubes - and then forced to endure having the lines reinserted into my veins. But the guys - both of whom looked like members of a wrestling tag-team - couldn't have been more dexterous when it came to lifting me off the bed and into the chair, while simultaneously keeping me attached to my assorted tubes. As soon as I was seated, a combination of exhaustion and postoperative shock seized me. My head swam, the world became vertiginous, my stomach convulsed. But after an attack of the dry heaves, all I was left with was a foul taste in my mouth and runny eyes.

The nurse used a large cotton pad to clean up my face.

'You sure you want to do this right now?' she asked me.

I nodded. The nurse shrugged, and motioned for the guys to take me on my way.

They pushed me through the maternity ward, passing half a dozen women, all with babies by their bedsides in little adjacent cribs. Then we entered a long corridor until we reached a service elevator. When the door opened, I saw that we had company - an elderly woman in a gurney, wired for sound to sundry monitors and feed bags, her breathing a near-death rattle. Our eyes met for a moment - and I could see her panic, her terror. All I could think was: a life ending, a life beginning. If, that is, my son was going to pull through.

The elevator rose two floors. The doors opened, and we were directly in front of a set of double-doors, by which was a sign: Paediatric ICU. The chattier of the two orderlies leaned over and whispered in my ear, 'If I was you, luv I'd keep my eyes down until we get up alongside your baby. Take it from me, it can be a bit distressing in there'.

I followed his advice, and gazed downwards as we crept through the ward. Though I wasn't looking upwards, what struck me immediately was the pervasive deep blue light of the ICU (as I later learned, it was to aid those babies suffering from jaundice). Then there was the absence of all human voices... the only sound provided by the electronic beeps of medical equipment; the steady metronomic rhythm a reassuring reminder of a small functioning heart.

After around a minute, the chair stopped. By this point, my eyes were tightly shut. But then, the chatty orderly touched me gently on my shoulder and said, 'We're here, luv'.

A part of me wanted to keep my eyes closed, and demand to be turned around and brought back to my own room. Because I wondered if I would be able to bear what I saw. But I knew I had to see him - no matter how upsetting his condition might be. So I raised my head. I took a deep breath. I opened my eyes. And...

There he was.

I knew he would be in an incubator - which meant that he seemed dwarfed by the plexiglas sarcophagus in which he had been placed. And I knew that there would be wires and tubes. But what shocked me was the sight of an entire network of wires and tubes running from every corner of his body - including two plastic ducts that had been pressed into his nostrils, and an oxygen meter running from his belly button. He looked alien, almost otherworldly - and so desperately assailable. But another terrible thought hit me: could that really be my son? They say that you should be swamped by unconditional love the moment you first see your child... and that the bonding process should begin immediately. But how could I bond with this minuscule stranger, currently looking like a horrific medical experiment?

The moment such awful thoughts crossed my mind, I felt a deep abiding shame - an immediate appalling realization that, perhaps, I was incapable of maternal love. But in that same nanosecond, another voice crept into my brain, telling me to calm down.

'You're suffering from postoperative trauma', this rational, mollifying voice informed me'. Your child might be gravely unwell, you've been pumped full of chemicals, you've lostsignificant quantities of blood... 50 everything is naturally skewed. It's called shock - and the worst shock of all is seeing your newborn baby in such a distressing state. So you're entitled to feel as if the world is upside down. Because, in fact, it is'.

So I tried to calm myself down - and look again at my son, and await that torrent of attachment to wash over me. But staring into the incubator, all I felt was fear. Sheer terror - not just about whether he had suffered brain damage, but whether I would be able to cope with all this. I wanted to cry for him - and for myself. I also wanted to flee the room.

The talkative orderly seemed to sense this, as he gently touched my shoulder and whispered, 'Let's get you back to your bed, luv'.

I managed to nod - and then found myself choking back a sob.

They brought me back down to the room. They gently lifted me back into bed, and reset my assorted bottles above me. There was a mirror on the dressing table. I picked it up. My face was the colour of ash. I tried to move my facial muscles, but found them immobile - as if they had seized up, or remained under the spell of the anaesthetics that were still coursing through my bloodstream. I looked like one of those people you see in news footage who have managed to walk away from a bomb blast - their face paralysed into a countenance of expressionless shock. I put down the mirror. I sank back down against the hard, starchy hospital pillow. I found myself thinking: this is like free-fall... I'm tumbling into a void, but I'm too astray to care.

Then, out of nowhere, I started to cry. The crying had an almost animalistic rage to it - loud, vituperative, and unnervingly hollow. The nurse who came running must have thought I was reacting to the state of my baby - and riding the usual post-Caesarean roller coaster. But the fact of the matter was: I didn't know what I was crying about. Because I couldn't feel anything. My emotional world had gone numb. But I still needed to scream.

'All right, all right', the nurse said, taking me by both hands. 'I'm sure it was a bit of a shock, seeing your baby...'

But I drowned her out by howling even louder... even though it hadn't been my intention to lose it like this. I didn't really know what I was doing - except crying for crying's sake. And not being able to stop myself.

'Sally... Sally...'

I ignored the nurse, pushing away her hands, curling up into a foetal position, clutching a pillow next to my face, and biting it in an attempt to stifle the howls. But though the pillow muffled the sound, it didn't end the crying. The nurse put a steadying hand on my shoulder, using her free hand to speak into the walkie-talkie she usually kept strapped to her belt. When she finished, she said, 'Just hold on - help should be here in a moment'.

The help was another nurse, pushing a trolley laden down with medical paraphernalia. She was accompanied by the doctor on duty. The nurse who had been keeping the bedside watch spoke quickly to her colleagues. The doctor picked up my chart, scanned it, spoke to the nurses again, then left. After a moment, I felt a hand raising the left sleeve of my nightgown, as the first nurse said, 'The doctor thinks this might help you relax a bit, Sally'.

I didn't say anything - because I was still biting the pillow. But then came the sharp jab of a needle, followed by a warming sensation cascading through my veins.

Then the plug was pulled, and the lights went out.

When I returned to terra firma, I didn't suffer the same convulsive shock that accompanied my re-awakening after the delivery. No, this was a slower fade-in - accompanied by a Sahara-dry mouth and the sort of mental murk that made me wonder if I had woken up in a land of cotton wool. The first thing I noticed was a small decanter of water by the side of the bed. I lifted it and drained it in around ten seconds. Then I felt a huge urgent need to pee. But my scars and my tubes were restricting my movements, so I reached for the button and summoned the nurse.

Only this time it was a different nurse - a thin, beaky woman in her mid-forties with an Ulster accent and a manner that could be kindly described as severe. Her name plate read: Dowling.

'Yes?' she asked.

'I need to go to the bathroom'.

'How badly?'

'Very badly'.

She heaved a small, but telling sigh of distaste, reached under the bed, pulled out a white tin enamel bedpan, and said, 'Lift up your bottom'.

I tried to do as instructed, but couldn't even summon the strength for this simple task.

'I think you're going to have to help me'.

Another small, disgruntled sigh. She pulled back the bedclothes. She inserted her hand under my bottom and forced it upwards, then pulled back my nightgown and shoved the bedpan underneath me.

'All right', she said, 'get on with it'.

But it was impossible to 'get on with it' in my current position - as I felt like someone who had been put into a kinky sexual posture. Anyway, who the hell can pee lying down?

'You have to help me up', I said.

'You're a lot of work, aren't you?' she said.

I wanted to shout something back at her, but the fog was too pervasive to permit me to engage in an argument. Also, I couldn't hold my bladder for much longer.

'All right then', she said wearily, gripping my shoulder and pushing me upwards. She braced me in that position as I finally let go. The urine felt warm beneath me, and possessed a chemical stench that was so strong the nurse immediately wrinkled her nose in disgust.

'What've you been drinking?' she said, without the slightest hint of irony. But then a voice behind her asked, 'Do you always talk to patients like that?'

Tony.

I could see him looking me over - taking in not just my awkward astride-a-bedpan position, but also my anaemic complexion, shell-shocked eyes, and general distrait condition. He gave me a small half-smile and a quick nod of the head, but then turned his attention back to the nurse. Like any petty tyrant, she was suddenly defensive and cowed when caught in the act.

'Really, I meant no offence'.

'Yes you did', he said, making a point of staring long and hard at her nameplate. 'I saw how rough you were with her'.

The woman's face fell. She turned to me and said, 'I'm really sorry. I'm having a bad day, and I didn't mean to take it out on...'

Tony cut her off.

'Just remove the bedpan and leave us'.

She did as ordered, then gently lowered me back against the pillows, and tucked the blankets in.

'Can I get you anything now?' she asked nervously.

'No - but I would like the name of your supervisor', Tony said.

She hurried off, looking genuinely scared.

'So how did you enjoy the play, Mrs Lincoln?' he asked me. He kissed me on the head. 'And how's our boy doing?'

'Poorly' I said.

'That's not what they told me last night'.

'You were here last night?'

'Yes - while you were sleeping. The nurse said you'd been...'

'A little unstable, perhaps? Or maybe she said something really English and understated. Like, "your wife's gone totally ga-ga"'.

'Is that what you think, Sally?'

'Oh, don't give me that fucking rational tone-of-voice, Anthony!

I could see him tense - not just because of my illogical temper, but also because I was now suddenly crying.

'Would you like me to come back later?' he asked quietly.

I shook my head. I took a deep breath. I managed to curb the tears. I said, 'So you were here last night?'

'That's right. I arrived just before eleven - direct from the airport. And I went straight up to see you. But they told me' -

' - that I'd been sedated for excessive crying?'

' - that you'd been having a hard time of it, so they'd given you something to help you sleep'.

'So you were here at eleven?'

'That's what I said before. Twice in fact'.

'But why weren't you here before then?'

'Because I was in the bloody Hague, as you bloody well know. Now can we talk about more important things... like Jack'.

'Who's Jack?'

He looked at me, wide-eyed.

'Our son'.

'I didn't realize he'd been given a name yet'.

'We talked about this four months ago'.

'No, we didn't'.

'That weekend in Brighton, when we were walking along the promenade...'

I suddenly remembered the conversation. We'd gone down to Brighton for a 'get-away-from-it-all weekend' (Tony's words), during which it rained nonstop and Tony got hit with mild food poisoning after eating some suspect oysters in some overpriced seafood joint, and I kept thinking that this seaside town was an intriguing mixture of the chic and the tatty - which was probably why the English liked it so much. But before Tony started regurgitating his guts out in our freebie suite at The Grand, we did take a brief, soggy walk along the seafront, during which he mentioned that Jack would be a fine name if the baby turned out to be a boy. To which I said (and I remember this precisely): 'Yeah, Jack's not bad at all'.

But that wasn't meant to be interpreted as tacit approval for the name Jack.

'All I said was' -

' - that you liked the name Jack. Which I took as your approval. Sorry'.

'Doesn't matter. I mean, it's not like it's legal and binding as yet'.

Tony shifted uneasily on the edge of the bed.

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

'What?'

'I went down to Chelsea Town Hall this morning and got the forms to register him. Jack Edward Hobbs... Edward for my father, of course'.

I looked at him, appalled.

'You had no right. No fucking right...'

'Keep your voice down'.

'Don't tell me to keep my voice down when you...'

'Can't we get back to the subject of Jack?'

'He's not Jack. Understand? I refuse to let him be called Jack...'

'Sally, his name's not legal until you co-sign the registration form. So will you please... ?'

'What? Be reasonable? Act like a stiff-upper-lip anal Brit when my son is upstairs, dying...'

'He is not dying'.

'He is dying - and I don't care. You get that? I don't care'.

At which point I fell back against the pillows, pulled the covers over my head, and fell into another of my extended crying jags. Like yesterday's crying jag, it was punctuated by a dreadful hollowness. A nurse was on the scene within moments. I could hear a lot of rapid-fire whispering... and phrases like, 'we've seen this sort of thing before', 'often happens after a difficult delivery', 'poor thing must be under such terrible strain' and (worst of all), 'she'll be right as rain in a few days'.

Though the covers were over my head, I retreated back to my foetal position, once again biting deeply into the pillow in an attempt to stifle my screams. Like last night, I also didn't struggle when I felt a firm hand hold my shoulder while someone else turned back the bedclothes, rolled up my sleeve, and pricked my arm with a hypodermic.

Only this time, I didn't get despatched to never-never land. No, this time I seemed to be placed in a state of otherworldly immobility. I felt as if I was suspended directly above this room, looking down on the comings and goings of patients and medical staff. I had the benign disinterest of an accidental tourist who had somehow managed to end up in this curious quartier, and would certainly prefer to be elsewhere, but had imbibed so much cheap French fizz that she was paralytically incapable of knowing the time of day, and so she was perfectly happy to keep floating overhead. Neither sleeping nor fully conscious...just there.

I remained in this narcotic, blissed-out state until the following morning - when hard shafts of sunlight streaked through the windows, and my brain was as shadowy as a film noir, and I felt curiously rested, even though I didn't know if I had slept.

In fact, for the first ten seconds of consciousness, I luxuriated in that state of nowheresville, where there is no such thing as a past or a present... let alone a future.

Then the world crashed in on me. I scrambled for the call bell. The same tight-faced Northern Irish nurse was on duty - only now, after Tony's dressing-down, she was sweetness itself.

'Good morning there, Ms Goodchild. You seemed to be sleeping awfully well. And have you seen what's arrived while you were sleeping?'

It took a moment or so for my eyes to focus on the three large floral arrangements that adorned various corners of the room. The nurse gathered up the gift cards and handed them to me. One bouquet from the editor of the Chronicle. One from Tony's team on the Foreign pages. One from Margaret and Alexander.

'They're beautiful, aren't they?' Nurse Dowling said.

I stared at the arrangements, having absolutely no opinion about them whatsoever. They were flowers, that's all.

'Could I get you a cup of tea now?' Nurse Dowling asked. 'Perhaps a little breakfast?'

'Any idea how my son is doing?'

'I don't honestly know, but I could find out straight away for you'.

'That would be very kind. And if I could... uh...'

Nurse Dowling knew exactly what I was talking about. Approaching the bed, she removed the bedpan from the cabinet in the side table, helped me straddle it, and removed it after I filled it with yet another half-gallon of malodorous urine.

'God, what a stink', I said as Nurse Dowling settled me back on the pillows.

'The drugs do that', she said. 'But once you're off them, you'll lose that bad smell. How do the stitches feel today?'

'The pain's still there'.

'That'll take at least a week to go away. Meantime, why don't I bring you a basin of water, so you can freshen up and brush your teeth?'

Talk about five-star service. I thanked the nurse, and asked her again if she could find out how Jack was doing.

'Oh, you've already chosen a name for him', she said.

'Yes', I said. 'Jack Edward'.

'Good strong name', she said. 'And I'll be right back with the tea and any news of Jack'.

Jack. Jack. Jack.

Suddenly I felt the worst wave of shame imaginable.

'He is dying - and I don't care. You get that? I don't care'.

How could I have said that? Had I so completely lost it that I actually expressed indifference about whether or not my son lived? Instead of making excuses for myself - telling myself it was all postoperative stress, and an out-of-body reaction to all the drugs they'd been pumping into me - I immediately began to engage in a serious course of self-flagellation. I was unfit to be a mother, a wife, a member of the human race. I had jettisoned all that was important to me - my newborn child and my husband - through one deranged outbreak of rage. I deserved everything bad that would now happen to me.

But, most of all, yesterday's bizarre, out-of-kilter rage had vanished. All I could now think was: I need to be with Jack.

Nurse Dowling returned with a breakfast tray and some news.

'I gather your little one's doing just fine. They're really pleased with the progress he's making, and he can probably be moved out of ICU in a couple of days'.

'Can I see him this morning?'

'No problem'.

I picked at my breakfast - largely because whatever appetite I had was tempered by an equally urgent need to speak with Tony. I wanted to utter a vast mea culpa for my insane behaviour yesterday, to beg his forgiveness, and also tell him that he and Jack were the best things that had ever happened to me. And, of course, I'll sign the registration document naming him Jack Edward. Because... because... be...

Oh fuck, not this...

The crying had started again. Another extended bout of loud, insufferable keening. Come on, knock it off, I told myself. But as I quickly discovered, this was an absurd idea because I fell apart once more. Only this time I was cognizant enough of this sudden breakdown to be genuinely spooked by it. Especially as I worried that the medical staff might start writing me off as mentally askew, and worthy of more intensive chemical treatment. So I stuffed the pillow back into my mouth, clutched it against me like a life preserver, and started counting backwards from one hundred inside my head, telling myself that I had to have myself under control by the time I reached zero. But during this countdown, I could feel my voice growing louder and louder - even though I wasn't speaking at all. The strain against my eyes became intolerable. There was such compression behind them that I was certain they'd explode out of my head at any moment. But just when I thought I was about to let go entirely Nurse Dowling showed up accompanied by the orderly. I felt her hand against my shoulder, calling my name, asking me what was wrong. When I couldn't answer, I heard her turn to the orderly and mention something about getting the unit sister. At which point I had just reached the number thirty-nine, and suddenly heard myself shout, 'Thirty-nine!'

This threw everybody - most especially, Nurse Dowling, who looked at me wide-eyed, as if I had completely abandoned all reason. Which was very close to the truth.

'What's happened?' she asked. I didn't know the answer to that question - so all I said was, 'Bad dream'.

'But you were awake'.

'No', I lied. 'I fell asleep again'.

'Are you sure you're okay?' she asked.

'Absolutely', I said, touching my very wet face and attempting to wipe away the remnants of all that crying. 'Just a little nightmare'.

The unit sister arrived at my bedside just in time to hear that last comment. She was a formidable Afro-Caribbean woman in her early forties - and I could tell that she wasn't buying a word of it.

'Perhaps you need another sedative, Sally'.

'I am completely fine', I said, my voice nervous. Because the last thing I wanted right now was a further trip into an opiated never-never. Which is why it was critical that I bring myself under control.

'I'd like to believe that', the unit sister said, 'but your chart shows that you've already had two such incidents. Which, I must tell you, is not at all unusual after a physically traumatic delivery. But it is a cause for concern. And if it persists...'

'It won't persist', I said, sounding very definitive.

'Sally, I am not at all trying to threaten you. Rather, I just want to point out that you have a legitimate medical problem which we will treat if...'

'Like I said - it was just a little nightmare. I promise it won't happen again. I really, really do promise'.

A quick glance between the unit sister and Nurse Dowling.

The unit sister shrugged. 'All right', she said, 'we'll forego medication right now. But if you have another incident...'

'I won't be having another incident'.

My voice had jumped an edgy octave or two. Another telling glance between the unit sister and Nurse Dowling. Defuse the situation, defuse it now.

'But I would desperately like to see my son, Jack', I said, my voice back in reasonable territory.

'That should be possible after Mr Hughes comes by on his rounds this morning'.

'I have to wait until then?'

'It's just another hour or so...'

'Oh come on...' I said, my voice going loud again. When I saw another telling glance between the unit sister and Nurse Dowling, I knew that I should cut my losses and wait the hour.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry', I said, a little too rapidly. 'You're right, of course. I'll wait until Mr Hughes shows up'.

'Good', the unit sister said, looking me straight in the eye. 'And you mustn't worry too much about what's going on right now. You've been through a great deal'.

She smiled and touched my arm, then left. Nurse Dowling said, 'Anything else I can get you?'

'If you could just hand me the phone, please'.

She brought it over to the bed, then left. I dialled home. I received no answer... which bothered me just a little, as it was only eight-thirty in the morning, and Tony was a notoriously late sleeper. Then I called his mobile and got him immediately. I was relieved to hear him in traffic.

'I'm sorry', I said. 'I'm so damn sorry about...'

'It's all right, Sally', Tony said.

'No - it's not. What I said yesterday...'

'Meant nothing'.

'I was horrible'.

'You were in shock. It happens'.

'It still doesn't excuse what I said about Jack...'

A telling pause. 'So you like the name now?'

'Yes, I do. And I like you too. More than I can say'.

'Now there's no need to go all soppy on me. What's the latest word on our boy?'

'I won't know anything until Hughes does his rounds. When will you be in?'

'Around tea-time'.

'Tony...'

'I have pages to get out...'

'And you also have a deputy. Surely the editor was most sympathetic...'

'Did you get his flowers?'

'Yes - and a bouquet from Margaret too. You called her?'

'Well, she is your best friend'.

'Thank you'.

'And I also spoke with Sandy. Explained that it had been a complicated delivery, that you were a bit under the weather, and told her it was best if she didn't ring you for a few days. Naturally, she's phoned me three times since then to see how you're doing'.

'What did you tell her?'

'That you were making steady progress'.

Sandy being Sandy, I was certain that she didn't believe a word of his reassurances - and was now frantically worried about my condition. She knew damn well that, if she couldn't talk to me, something rather serious was going on. But I was grateful to Tony for keeping her at bay. Much as I adored my sister, I didn't want her to hear how fragile I was right now.

'That was the right thing to tell her', I said.

'Listen, I have to run now', Tony said. 'I'll try to be in by early evening, all right?'

'Fine', I said, even though I didn't mean it - as I really wanted him at my bedside right now for some necessary emotional support.

But who in their right mind would want to be with me at the moment? I had turned into a crazy woman, who'd lost all sense of proportion, and spat bile every time she opened her mouth. No wonder Tony wanted to dodge me.

For the next hour, I sat and stared upwards at the ceiling. One thought kept obsessing my head: Jack, brain damaged? I couldn't even conceive of what motherhood was going to be like if that was the case. How would we cope? What fathomless, inexhaustible hell would await us?

Mr Hughes arrived promptly at ten. He was accompanied by the unit sister. As always, he wore a beautifully cut pinstripe suit, a spread-collar pink shirt, and a black polka-dot tie. He deported himself like a Cardinal visiting a poor parish. He nodded hello, but said nothing until he had perused the notes hanging on the bedstead clipboard.

'So, Mrs...'

He glanced back at the clipboard.

'...Goodchild. Not the most pleasant few days I'd imagine?'

'How is my son?'

Hughes cleared his throat. He hated being interrupted. And he showed his displeasure by staring down at the chart while speaking with me.

'I've just been looking in on him at ICU. All vital signs are good. And I spoke to the attending paediatrician, Dr Reynolds. He told me that an EEG performed this morning indicated no neurological disturbance. But, of course, to make certain that everything is functioning properly, an MRI will be conducted around lunchtime today. He should have results by evening time - and I know he'll want to see you then'.

'Do you think that brain damage did occur?'

'Mrs Goodchild... though I can fully understand your worry - what mother wouldn't be worried under the circumstances? - I am simply not in a position to speculate about such matters. Because that is Dr Reynolds's territory'.

'But do you think that the EEG results... ?'

'Yes, they do give one cause for optimism. Now, would you mind if I looked at Mr Kerr's handiwork?'

The unit sister drew the curtains around my bed, and helped me raise my nightgown and lower my underwear. Then she pulled away the bandages. I hadn't seen my wounds since the delivery, and they shocked me: a crisscrossing sequence of railroad tracks, bold in their delineation and barbaric in execution.

Though I was trying my best to stifle all emotion, I couldn't help but emit a small sharp cry. Mr Hughes favoured me with an avuncular smile, and said, 'I know it looks pretty grim right now - a real war wound - but once the stitches are removed, I promise you that your husband won't have anything to complain about'.

I wanted to say, 'To hell with my husband. It's me who's going to have to live with the disfigurement'. But I kept my mouth shut. I couldn't afford to deepen my problems.

'Now I gather you've been having a bit of, uh, shall we say, emotional disquiet'.

'Yes - but it's over with'.

'Even though you had to be sedated yesterday?'

'But that was yesterday. I'm just fine now'.

The unit sister leaned over and whispered something in Hughes's ear. He pursed his lips, then turned back to me and said, 'According to the staff here, you had a bit of a turn this morning'.

'It was nothing'.

'You know, there's absolutely no shame in going a little wonky after giving birth. Quite commonplace, actually, given that one's hormones are just a little all over the place. And I do think that a course of anti-depressants...'

'I need nothing, doctor - except to see my son'.

'Yes, yes - I do understand. And I'm sure sister here can arrange to have you brought upstairs once we're done. Oh - and you do know that you will be with us for at least another six to seven days. We want to make certain you're right as rain before sending you out into the world again'.

He scribbled some notes on to my chart, spoke quickly to the unit sister, then turned back to me with a farewell nod.

'Good day, Mrs Goodchild - and try not to worry'.

That's easy for you to say, pal.

A half-hour later - after having my surgical dressings changed - I was up in Paediatric ICU. Once again, I followed the advice of that benevolent porter and I kept my eyes firmly focused on the linoleum as I was wheeled in. When I finally looked up, the sight of Jack made my eyes sting. Not that there was any change in his condition. He was still enveloped in medical tubes, still dwarfed by the plexiglas incubator. Only now I had a desperate need to hold him, to cradle him. Just as I had a despondent fear that I might just lose him. Or that he would have to go through life with a terrible mental disability. Suddenly, I knew that whatever happened to him - whatever horrors were revealed by the MRI - I'd handle it. Or, at least, I'd deal with it - the way you deal with life's most unexpected, fiendish cards. But, oh God, how I didn't want that to come to pass; how I'd do anything now to make certain he was going to be all right... and how I knew just how powerless I was to change anything now. What had happened happened. We were now nothing more than fortune's fools - and hostages to whatever came our way.

I started to weep again. This time, however, I didn't feel the undertow of emotional hollowness that had so characterized the past few days. This time, I simply wept for Jack - and for what might become of him.

The orderly kept his distance while I cried. But after a minute or so, he approached me with a box of Kleenex and said, 'It might be best if we head back now'.

And he returned me to my room.

'Good news', Nurse Dowling said after I was helped back into bed. 'Mr Hughes says you can come off those nasty drips - so it looks like you're tube free. First steps towards freedom, eh? How's the little one doing?'

'I don't know', I said quietly.

'I'm sure he's going to be just fine', she said, her singsong platitudinous voice now sounding like fingernails on a blackboard. 'Now what can I get you for lunch?'

But I refused all food, refused a rental television, refused the offer of a sponge bath. All I wanted was to be left alone - to lie in bed with the blankets pulled up to my chin, shutting out the cacophony of the world.

That's how I passed my day - counting down the hours until Tony finally arrived and the paediatrician presented us with the empirical proof of our son's condition. I was conscious, but purposely detached from everything around me. Or, at least, I thought it was a deliberate detachment on my part. But, at times, I really did feel as if an occupying power had taken up residence in my brain, encouraging me to push away the world and all its complexities.

Then it was six o'clock. Much to my surprise, Tony showed up exactly when he said he would, bearing a bouquet of flowers and a nervousness which I found immediately endearing.

'Were you sleeping?' he asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed and kissing my forehead.

'A facsimile of sleep', I said, forcing myself to sit up.

'How are you faring?'

'Oh, you know - Day of the Living Dead'.

'Any news from upstairs?'

I shook my head. And said, 'You look tense'.

Tony just smiled a stiff smile and lapsed into silence. Because there was nothing to say until the paediatrician made his appearance. Or perhaps anything we did say would have sounded irrelevant and empty. Our shared anxiety was so palpable that saying nothing was the smartest option.

Fortunately, this silence only lasted a minute or so, as a new nurse came by and said that Dr Reynolds would like to see us in a consulting room by the MRI suite on the fifth floor. Tony and I exchanged a nervous glance. Requesting us to meet him in a private consulting room could only mean bad news.

Once again I was helped into a wheelchair. Only this time Tony pushed me. We reached the elevator. We travelled up three storeys. We headed down a long corridor. We passed the suite of rooms marked MRI and were escorted into a small consulting room, with nothing more than a desk, three chairs, and a light box for x-rays. The porter left us. Tony pulled over a chair next to my wheelchair and did something he'd not done before: he took my hand. Oh, we had held hands on occasion - by which I mean two or three times maximum. This was different. Tony was trying to be supportive - and, in doing so, he was letting me know just how scared he was.

After a moment, Dr Reynolds came in, carrying a folder and a large oversized manila envelope. He was a tall soft-spoken man in his late thirties. I tried to read his face - the way a person on trial tries to read the face of the foreman before the verdict was delivered. But he was giving nothing away.

'Sorry to have kept you both...' he said, opening the envelope, clipping the MRI film to the light box, and illuminating it. 'How are you feeling, Ms Goodchild?'

'Not bad', I said quietly.

'Glad to hear it', he said, favouring me with a sympathetic smile that let it be known he was au fait with my recent follies.

'How's our son, Doctor?' Tony asked.

'Yes, I was just about to come to that. Now... this is a picture of your son's brain', he said, pointing to the MRI film... which, to my untutored eye, looked like the cross-section of a mushroom. 'And after consultation both with the paediatric neurologist and the radiologist, we've all reached the same conclusion: this is a perfectly normal infant brain. Which, in turn, means that, based on this MRI - and the recent EEG - we sense that there has been no brain damage'.

Tony squeezed my hand tightly, and didn't seem to mind that it was a cold and clammy hand. It was only then that I realized I had my head bowed and my eyes tightly closed, like someone expecting a body blow. I opened them and asked, 'You just said that you sense there's been no brain damage. Doesn't the MRI offer conclusive evidence?'

Another sympathetic smile from Reynolds.

'The brain is a mysterious organism. And after a traumatic birth - in which there was initially a question about whether the brain was denied oxygen - you cannot be completely 100 per cent definitive that there was no damage. Having said that, however, all clinical evidence points to a positive outcome...'

'So there is something to worry about', I said, getting agitated.

'If I were you, I'd move forward optimistically'.

'But you're not me, Doctor. And because you're more than hinting that our son has been brain damaged' -

Tony cut me off.

'Sally, that is not what the doctor said'.

'I heard what he said. And what he said is that there is a chance our son was denied oxygen to the brain and is therefore...'

'Ms Goodchild, please', Reynolds said, his voice calm and still commiserative. 'Though I can fully appreciate your concerns, they are - with respect - somewhat overblown. As I said before, I really do think you have nothing to worry about'.

'How can you say that... how... when you yourself admit that you can't be 100 per cent certain that' -

Again, Tony intervened.

'That's enough, Sally'.

'Don't tell me' -

'Enough!

His vehement tone silenced me. And I suddenly felt appalled - both at the illogicality of my rant, and at the irrational anger I had shown this very decent and patient doctor.

'Doctor Reynolds, I am so sorry...'

He raised his hand.

'There's nothing to apologize about, Ms Goodchild. I do understand just how difficult things have been. And I'll be back here tomorrow if you have any further questions'.

Then he wished us a good evening and left. As soon as he was out of the room, Tony looked at me for a very long time. Then he asked, 'Would you mind telling me what the hell that was all about?'

I looked away. And said, 'I don't know'.

Six

AS PROMISED, THEY kept me in the hospital for another five days. During this time, I was allowed constant visits with Jack in Paediatric ICU. They had decided to keep him 'under continued observation' in the unit for a few more days.

'Do understand', Dr Reynolds said, 'there's nothing at all sinister about this. We're just erring on the side of caution'.

Did he really expect me to believe that? Still, I said nothing. Because I knew it was best if I tried to say nothing.

At times, I found myself observing Jack as if he was a strange, hyper-real piece of modern sculpture - an infant medical still life, enshrouded by tubes, on permanent display in a big plastic case. Or I was reminded of that famous eight-hour Andy Warhol film - Empire - which was one long static shot of the Empire State Building. Watching Jack was the same. He'd lie there, motionless, rarely moving a muscle (though, from time-to-time, there'd be the tiniest flex of his hand). And I'd find myself projecting all sorts of stuff on to him. Such as: how I hoped he'd like the bouncy chair I'd bought for him. Whether his diapers would be as disgusting as I imagined. Would he go for Warner Brothers cartoons or Disney (please may he be a smartass Bugs Bunny kid). And would his acne be as horrible as mine had been when I was thirteen...?

All right, I was getting way ahead of myself. But an infant is like a tabula rasa, upon which an entire story will be written. And now, staring at Jack in that Plexiglas bowl, all I could think was: he might not have a life... or one that is substantially diminished, and all because of the way his body moved a few wrong inches in the womb. Something over which neither of us had any control - but which could completely change everything that happened to both of us from now on. Even if Reynolds was right - and Jack had managed to walk away unscathed from this accident - would this early brush with catastrophe so haunt me that I'd become one of those fiendishly overprotective mothers who would worry every time her ten-year-old negotiated a flight of stairs? Or would I become so convinced that doom was lurking right around the corner that I'd never really rest easy again, and would live life now with an omnipresent sense of dread?

The ICU duty nurse was now at my side - a young woman in her early twenties. Irish. Exceptionally calm.

'He's a beauty' she said, looking in on him. 'Do you want to hold him?'

'Sure', I said tentatively.

She unhooked a few of his tubes, then lifted him up and placed him in my arms. I attempted to cradle him - but still found myself worried about unsettling all the medical paraphernalia attached to him... even though the nurse assured me that I wouldn't be disturbing anything vital. But though I pasted a caring smile on my face, I knew I was wearing a mask. Because, like the last time, I couldn't muster a single maternal feeling towards this baby. All I wanted to do was hand him back again.

'You're grand', the nurse said when I lifted him up towards her. 'No hurry'.

I reluctantly cradled him again. And asked, 'Is he really doing all right?'

'Just grand'.

'But you're sure that he didn't suffer any damage during birth?'

'Hasn't Dr Reynolds spoken to you about this?'

Oh, yes he had - and oh, what an idiot I had made of myself. Just as I was making an idiot of myself right now - asking the same damn questions again. Voicing the same obsessive worries... while simultaneously being unable to hold him.

'Dr Reynolds said he sensed there was no brain damage'.

'Well, there you go then', she said, relieving me of Jack. 'Unlike a lot of the babies in here, there's no doubt that your fella's going to be fine'.

I held on to that prognosis - using it as a sort of mantra whenever I felt myself getting shaky (which, truth be told, was very often), or fatalistic, or edging into borderline despair. I knew I needed to show a positive, improved face to the world - because I was now being watched for any signs of disarray... especially by my husband and by Mr Hughes.

Both men dropped by to see me regularly. Hughes would show up on his morning rounds. He would spend a good ten minutes looking me over, inspecting my war wounds, studying my chart, and briskly interrogating me about my mental well-being, while casting the occasional sidelong glance at the ward sister to make certain that I wasn't fabricating my improved personal state.

'Sleeping well then?' he asked me on the third day after Jack's birth.

'Six hours last night'.

He wrote this down, then looked at the sister for verification. She supplied it with a rapid nod of the head. He asked, 'And the, uh, episodes of emotional discomfort - these have lessened?'

'I haven't cried in days'.

'Glad to hear it. Nor should you, because your boy is on the way to a complete recovery. As you are. Two more nights here and we can send you home'.

'With my son?'

'You'll have to speak with Dr Reynolds about that. That's his domain. Now, anything else we need to speak about?'

'My breasts...' I said in a semi-whisper.

'What about them?' he asked.

'Well, they've become a bit... hard'.

'Haven't you been expressing milk since the birth?' he asked.

'Of course. But in the last forty-eight hours, they've started feeling rock solid'.

In truth, they felt as if they had been filled with fast-drying reinforced concrete.

'That's a perfectly common postnatal syndrome', Hughes said, still not looking up from my chart. 'The milk ducts tend to constrict, and the breasts begin to feel somewhat leaden...'

He cleared his throat, then added, 'Or, at least, that's what I've been told'.

The unit sister masked a smile.

'However', Hughes continued, 'there is a way of ameliorating the condition. You'll show Mrs Goodchild what to do, won't you Sister?'

The unit sister nodded.

'And it's very good to hear that you are in such improved form, Mrs Goodchild'.

It's Ms, buster. But, of course, I didn't articulate this sentiment, for fear of sending up warning flags yet again. Especially as I was determined to walk out of here the day after tomorrow in a chemical-free state. So I simply smiled at Mr Hughes and said, 'I really feel like I'm on the mend'.

But when Tony arrived that night, I was on the verge of screaming. This had nothing to do with my fragile emotional state - rather, with the instrument of torture that was currently attached to my left breast. It looked like a clear aerosol can with a horn-like aperture at one end and a reservoir at the bottom. It was attached to an electric power pack. Once turned on, it acted like a vacuum cleaner, sucking all the milk out of the breast.

I had been using this charming device ever since Jack's birth - as they needed my milk to give to Jack up in Paediatric ICU. Initially, extracting milk via this hoover was only moderately uncomfortable. But then my breasts grew hard, and suddenly the breast pump became my nemesis. When I first used it to unblock a milk duct I let out a howl, which made the unit sister cross with me.

'What seems to be the problem?' she asked me, sounding decidedly peevish.

'It hurts like fuck', I shouted, then immediately cursed myself for roaring without thinking. So I collected myself and said in a suitably contrite voice, 'I'm so sorry'.

The unit sister ignored my apology, and instead took the pump and repositioned it on my right breast. Then, placing her spare hand on my left shoulder, she turned on the juice. Within ten seconds, the pain was outrageous - and I bit down hard against my lip, shutting my eyes tightly.

'Steady on', the unit sister said. 'The thing is to build up enough pressure so that the milk duct has no choice but to clear'.

This took another dreadful minute - during which time the solidified breast felt as if it was being squeezed with vindictive force. Don't scream, don't scream, I kept telling myself. But each pressurizing squeeze of the horn made such self-restraint increasingly improbable - until, suddenly, there was this rupture-like spurt, and I could feel a warm liquid enveloping the nipple.

'There we are', the unit sister said, sounding pleased with herself. 'One unblocked breast. Now you'll need to let it keep pumping for a good ten minutes to completely clear the ducts of milk... and then you can start on the other one'.

Tony walked in when I was working on the left breast - and in the final throes of pain meltdown. This tit appeared to be twice as blocked as its counterpart - and having started the extraction process, I knew I couldn't stop, as the leaden feeling intensified fourfold, to the point where it was just as unbearable as this torture-by-suction. Tony's eyes grew immediately wide when he found me gripping the mattress with one hand, while using the other to clutch the dreaded breast pump. My face was screwed up into (judging from my husband's shocked expression) a mask of near-dementia.

'What on earth are you doing?' he asked.

'Shut up', I said, sensing that, any moment...

I let out a little cry, as the duct cleared and watery liquid came jetting forth. Tony said nothing. He just watched me as I continued to drain out the breast. When I was finished, I dropped the pump into a bowl on the bedside table, closed up my dressing gown, put my head in my hands, and thanked God, Allah, the Angel Moroni, whomever, that my stint on the rack was over (or, at least, for today anyway - as the unit sister warned me that I'd have to repeat this charming bit of plumbing several times a day if I wanted to keep my milk ducts cleared).

'You okay now?' Tony asked, sitting down on the bed.

'I have been better', I said, then explained exactly why I had been engaged in such a masochistic endeavour.

'Lucky you', Tony said. 'How's our chap?'

I gave him an update on my visit this morning, and then told him that I was still waiting to hear from Reynolds this evening about when he'd be moved out of Paediatric ICU.

'The nurse hinted to me it could be as early as tomorrow - as they really think he's doing just fine. Anyway, they want to discharge me in two days' time - so you might have us both at home before you know it'.

'Oh... great', Tony said.

'Hey - thanks for the enthusiastic response', I said.

'I am pleased, really. It's just - I only heard today that the editor wanted me to pop over to Geneva later on in the week. Some UN conference on...'

'Forget it', I said.

'Of course, now that I know you're coming home...'

'That's right - you'll just have to get someone else to cover for you'.

'No problem', Tony said quickly. Which was a relief - because I had never told Tony before that he couldn't do something (having both agreed from the start that we'd keep the word no out of our domestic vocabulary... within reason, of course). But I certainly wasn't spending my first night home from hospital by myself with Jack. Though my husband seemed a little thrown by my vehemence, he slipped into reassurance mode.

'I'll call His Lordship tonight, tell him it's out of the question. And I promise you a great homecoming meal, courtesy of Marks and Spencer. But the champagne will come from elsewhere'.

'Like Tesco?'

He laughed. 'Very witty' he said. 'But, then again, you can't drink, can you?'

'I think I'll manage a glass'.

We looked in on Jack that night. He was sleeping soundly and seemed content. And the nurse on duty told us that Dr Reynolds had okayed his move to my room tomorrow morning - a prospect which terrified me. Because he would be my responsibility now.

But the next morning, I was paid a visit by Dr Reynolds in my room.

'Now I don't want to upset you', he began, 'but it seems that Jack has developed jaundice'.

'He what?'

'It's a common postnatal condition which affects almost fifty per cent of all newborn babies - and it usually clears up in ten days'.

'But how did he get it?'

'Well, to give you the proper textbook definition: jaundice occurs when there is a breakdown of red blood cells and you get a build-up of a yellow pigment called bilirubin'.

'But what causes this build-up up of... what was it again?'

'Bilirubin. Generally, it comes from breast milk'.

'You mean, I have made him jaundiced?'

'Ms Goodchild...'

'What you're telling me is that I've poisoned him'.

That dangerous edge had crept into my voice - and though I was aware of its ominous presence, there was nothing I could do to curb it. Because I really didn't understand what it was doing here in the first place.

Dr Reynolds spoke slowly and with great care.

'Ms Goodchild, you simply must not blame yourself. Because there's nothing you could have done to prevent this, and also because - as I said before - it is such a typical ailment in new babies'.

'Can jaundice be dangerous?'

'Only if the levels of bilirubin get too high'.

'Then what happens?'

I could see Dr Reynolds shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

'Then', he finally said, 'it can prove toxic to the brain. But - and I must emphasize this - such levels are extremely rare. And so far, your son is not showing any signs of...'

But I wasn't listening to him any more. Instead, another voice had taken up residency inside my head. A voice which kept repeating, 'You've poisoned him... and now he's going to be even more brain damaged. And there's no one to blame but you...'

'Ms Goodchild?'

I looked up and could see Dr Reynolds eyeing me with concern.

'Are you all right?'

'What?'

'I seemed to have lost you for a moment'.

'I'm... all right', I said.

'Did you hear what I said - about not holding yourself accountable for your son's jaundice?'

'Yes, I heard'.

'And it will clear up in around ten days. During that time, we will have to keep him in the ICU. But, once again, there's nothing particularly ominous about that - it's just standard procedure for any newborn with jaundice. Is that understood?'

I nodded.

'Would you like to go up and see him?'

'All right', I said - but my voice sounded flat, devoid of emotion. Once again, I could see Reynolds studying me with concern.

The blue light of the ICU masked the yellowish tint that now characterized Jack's skin. Nor could I discern the discolouration around my son's pupils which Reynolds told me was another feature of jaundice. But it didn't matter that I couldn't see the actual physical evidence of his illness. I knew how sick he was. And I knew that, despite Reynolds's protestations, it was my fault.

Afterwards, I called Tony at work and broke the news to him. When I mentioned that Jack had become jaundiced because of my breast milk, my husband said, 'Are you sure that you weren't a Catholic in another life? Because you certainly love to wallow in guilt'.

'I am not wallowing in guilt. I am simply admitting the truth of the matter: his illness is my doing'.

'Sally, you're talking rubbish'.

'Don't accuse me of...'

'It's jaundice, not AIDS. And if the doctor says that it will clear up in a few days...'

'You're not listening to me', I shouted.

'That's because you're being preposterous'.

By the time Tony arrived at the hospital that night, I had managed to pull myself out of my self-flagellation jag - and immediately apologized to him for shouting on the phone.

'Don't worry about it', he said tersely.

We went up to the ICU together. Again, the blue fluorescent tubes cast the ward in a spectral light and also bleached out the yellowed pigment of our son's skin. When Tony asked the attending nurse just how bad the jaundice was, she reassured us that his was a very standard case and that (as Reynolds had told me) it would be cleared up in a matter of days.

'So there's nothing to worry about?' Tony asked, giving his question a certain for-my-benefit pointedness.

'He should make a full recovery, with no lasting side effects', the nurse said.

'See?' Tony said, patting my arm. 'All is well'.

I nodded in agreement - even though I didn't believe it. I knew the truth. Just as that nurse knew the truth. After all, she didn't say he will make a full recovery; she used the conditional verb should. Because she wasn't at all certain that Jack would get better and she knew that my milk had poisoned him.

But I wouldn't dare articulate any of this right now. No way was I going to open my big mouth and blurt out the reality of the situation. Especially given that everyone was now watching me for signs of stress and strain.

For the next thirty-six hours, I maintained this calm-and-collected front, showing a sane, rational face to the doctors and nurses of the Mattingly, visiting Jack several times a day at the ICU, and always nodding in agreement when they kept feeding me optimistic falsehoods about his progress.

Then, as expected, I was given the all-clear to go home. It was something of a wrench to leave Jack behind in the ICU - but I was glad for his sake that he was still sequestered from me, in a place where I could do him no harm. And every time a strange rational voice inside my brain admonished me for beating myself up over Jack's illness, another more forceful, prosecutorial voice reminded me just how culpable I was.

Getting out of the hospital was, therefore, something of a relief. Especially as Tony not only had dinner waiting for me when I came home, but (as promised) he'd also drafted in Margaret's cleaner, Cha, to give the place a thorough going-over... which meant that it now looked like a moderately tidy building site. And yes, he did have a bottle of Laurent Perrier in the fridge. But when he handed me a glass, all I could think was: this is not exactly a triumphant homecoming, now is it?

Still, I clinked my glass against his and downed the French fizz in one long gulp. Tony immediately refilled it.

'You're thirsty', he said.

'I think it's called: needing a drink'.

'And so say all of us'.

I drained my glass again.

'I'm glad I bought two bottles', Tony said, topping me up once more. 'You okay?'

I didn't feel that question needed answering. Just as I decided to sidestep my usual over-explanation of how I was feeling - because it was so damn obvious what was wrong here: I had come home from hospital after having a baby, but without the baby... even though I knew that Jack was better off without me.

'Nice bit of domestic news today' Tony said. 'The builders were in' -

'You could have fooled me'.

'Anyway, the foreman - what's his name?.. Northern Irish guy... Collins, right?.. he was asking for you. And when I mentioned you'd had the baby, but he was in intensive care... well, Jesus, you should have seen the Catholic guilt kick in. Said he'd get a full crew in the next few days, and try to have all the work done within a fortnight'.

'It's good to know that a potentially brain damaged baby can finally get a builder to...'

'Stop it', Tony said quietly, pouring me yet another glass.

'Have I already drunk the last one?'

'Looks that way. Shall I get dinner on?'

'Let me guess. Curry vindaloo?'

'Close. Chicken Tikka Masala'.

'Even though you know I can't stand Indian'.

'If you can't stand Indian, you've come to the wrong country'.

'Yes', I said. 'I have done just that'.

Tony got one of those uncomfortable looks on his face again.

'I'll get things underway in the kitchen'.

'And I'll go unblock a milk duct'.

Oh, God, we were off to a great start. To make things even merrier, both my breasts were now feeling like reinforced concrete again. So I retreated to the bathroom, and stared at the half-finished cabinets and untiled floors as I powered up the torture pump and screamed only three times until the right nipple finally spouted milk. However, the left breast seemed more pliable now. After five minutes of electrically induced suction, it burst forth. Then I staggered up off the toilet seat, dumped the pump in the sink, walked into the nursery, sat down in the wicker chair, and found myself staring blankly at the empty crib. That's when I felt myself reverting back into sinking mode, the same feeling that hit me right after the birth, and had now decided to pay me a second call. It was as if this brightly coloured room had become a cube, in which I was trapped as it headed on a downward trajectory. And the cube was simultaneously diminishing in size - to the point where all I could do was brace both legs and both feet against all four walls, in an attempt to stop it from crushing me.

'What the hell are you doing?'

Tony's voice stopped my free-fall - and also yanked me back to the here and now. The cube had become a room again. I was no longer plummeting, but I was certainly in an awkward and damnably embarrassing position, crouched against a wall, with my hands gripping the floorboards.

'Sally, are you all right?'

I didn't know how to answer that question - because I still wasn't certain where I was. So I said nothing, and let Tony help me back to my feet, and into the chair. He looked at me with that unspoken mixture of anxiety and contempt which seemed to characterize his reaction to my now-frequent moments of distress.

Only this time, the distress was short lived. As soon as he had me seated back in the chair, it vanished - and I felt functioning again.

'Dinner ready?' I asked.

'Sally, what were you doing on the floor?'

'I don't know, really. Little fainting spell, I think'.

'But you looked like you were trying to claw your way out of the room'.

'That's what I get for drinking three glasses of champagne on an empty womb'.

I found this witticism hugely funny - and suddenly couldn't stop laughing. Once again, Tony just stared at me and said nothing.

'Oh, come on, Tony' I said. 'You've got to give me an A+ for bad taste'.

'Maybe you shouldn't drink anything more tonight'.

'With bloody Indian food? You must be joking'.

Only we weren't eating Chicken Tikka Masala (that was Tony's idea of a joke); rather, a wonderfully high carbohydrate Spaghetti alla Carbonara, with lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and a big green salad, and a loaf of buttery garlic bread, and a decent bottle of Chianti Classico, all courtesy of Marks and Spencer.

It was pure comfort food. Days of hospital muck had left me suddenly ravenous. I ate like a hostage on his first full night of freedom. Only I didn't feel free of anything. Rather, the food was simply acting as a momentary diversion against...

What? I thought I'd rid myself of all the furies that had seized hold of me. But now... what the hell was that bad piece of surrealism in Jack's room? Maybe Tony was right: throwing back copious amounts of champagne after a long stretch of sobriety probably wreaked havoc with my equilibrium. And the sight of Jack's empty crib simply sent me over the edge.

'You seem to be nursing that glass of wine', Tony said.

'After that performance on the floor, I thought I'd better turn Mormon for the night. I'm sorry'.

He shrugged.

'Not to worry', he said in a flat tone of voice that wasn't reassuring.

'Thank you for this beautiful dinner', I said.

'Ready-made food isn't exactly beautiful'.

'Still, it was very thoughtful of you'.

Another of his shrugs. We fell silent. Then, 'I'm scared, Tony'.

'That's not surprising. You've been through a lot'.

'It's not just that. It's whether Jack will turn out...'

He cut me off.

'You heard what the nurse said yesterday. All vital signs are good. The MRI showed nothing. His brain waves are registering as normal. So, in fact, there's little to worry about'.

'But Dr Reynolds wasn't definitive about that...'

'Sally...'

'And I'm absolutely certain that Reynolds is trying to cushion us from the possibility that Jack has brain damage. I mean, he's a very straightforward, decent man, Reynolds - especially after that uppity prick, Hughes - but he's also like every damn doctor. As far as he's concerned, we're his problem... but only up until that point when Jack is discharged from the Mattingly. So, naturally, he'll keep as much from us as he can'.

'Please stop sounding like one of those batty conspiracy theorists...'

'This is not some fucking conspiracy theory, Tony. This is our son, who is now entering his second week in intensive care...'

'And whom everyone says will be just fine. Do I have to keep repeating that over and over? Have you lost all reason?'

'You're saying I'm crazy?'

'I'm saying, you're being irrational...'

'I have a right to be irrational. Because...'

But then, out of nowhere, I applied the emotional brakes. I was shouting. Suddenly, like somebody changing rooms, I found myself back in far more sensible surroundings, truly appalled (yet again) by such a temperamental overload, let alone the way it had just abruptly ended. This wasn't like anger's normal aftermath - where, once the exchange of words was over, I'd fume for a bit and then, when it was clear that Tony wasn't going to apologize (something he seemed genetically incapable of doing), I'd take it upon myself to sue for peace. No, this was... well, strange was the only word to describe it. Especially as the anger just fell off me. One moment, I was in full throttle fury. The next...

'I think I need to lie down'.

Tony gave me another of his long, nonplussed looks.

'Right', he finally said. 'Want me to help you back to bed?'

I haven't been in bloody bed since I've come back home, Tony... or hadn't you noticed?

'No, I'll manage', I said.

I got up, and left the kitchen, and went to the bedroom, and changed into my pyjamas, and fell into bed, and pulled the blankets up over my head, and waited for sleep to come.

But it didn't arrive. On the contrary, I was shockingly wide awake, despite a deep, painful fatigue. But my mind was in high-octane overdrive - ricocheting from thought-to-thought, worry-to-worry. Entire horrendous scenarios played themselves out in my head - the last of which involved Jack, aged three, curled up, ball-like in an armchair, unable to focus on me, or his general surroundings, or the world at large, while some hyper-rational, hyper-calm social worker said in a hyper-rational tone of voice, 'I really do think that you and your husband must consider some sort of "managed care" environment for your son. A place where his needs can be attended to twenty-four hours a day'.

But then, this catatonic child sprang up from the chair, and abruptly commenced the most extreme temper-tantrum imaginable - screaming non-syllabic sounds, upturning a side table, and knocking out of his way everything that strayed into his path as he charged across the living room, before falling into the bathroom and smashing the mirror with his fist. As I struggled to calm him down - and get a towel wrapped around his now haem-orrhaging hand - I caught brief sight of myself in the shattered glass: aged beyond recognition in the three short years since Jack's birth; the perma-crescent-moons beneath my eyes and the cleaved lines giving a clear indication of my so-called 'quality of life' since my poor brain-damaged boy had been born.

However, my moment of exhausted self-pity was quickly over - as he began to slam his head against the sink. And -

'Tony!'

No answer. But, then again, why would there be - as I was in bed and the door was shut. I glanced at the clock: 2.05. How did that happen? I hadn't been asleep, had I? I turned over. Tony wasn't next to me in bed. All the lights in the room were still on. Immediately I was out of bed and in the corridor. But before I headed downstairs to see if he was up, watching a late night movie, I saw the light on the still uncarpeted stairs leading up to his office.

The attic conversion had been finished while I had been in hospital, and Tony had evidently expended considerable effort on putting it together. His fitted bookshelves were now stacked with his extensive library. Another wall was filled with CDs. He had a small stereo system and a short-wave radio in easy reach of the large stylish desk that he chose with me at the Conran Shop. There was a new Dell computer centre-stage on the desk, and a new orthopaedic Herman Miller chair, upon which Tony was now sitting, staring intently at a word-filled screen.

'This is impressive', I said, looking around.

'Glad you like it'.

I wanted to mention something about how it might have been nice if he'd concentrated his energies on unpacking the more shared corners of the house... but thought it wise to hold my tongue. It had been getting me into enough trouble recently.

'What time is it?' he asked absently.

'Just a little after two'.

'Couldn't sleep?'

'Something like that. You too?'

'Been working since you went off to bed'.

'On what? Something for the paper?'

'The novel, actually'.

'Really?' I said, sounding pleased. Because Tony had been threatening to start his first foray into fiction when I met him in Cairo. At the time he intimated that if he ever got transferred back to dreaded, prosaic London, he was finally going to try to write the Graham Greeneesque novel that had been rattling around his head for the past few years.

There was a part of me that always wondered if Tony had the long-term discipline that was required for this prolonged task. Like so many journos who'd done time in the field, he loved the manic hunt for a story, and the hurried, frenetic rush to file copy by the necessary deadline. But could he actually retreat to a little room, day in, day out, to incrementally push a narrative along - as he once bragged to me that two hours was about the longest time he'd ever spent writing a story?

Yet here he was, in the middle of the night, working. I was both impressed and pleasantly surprised.

'That's great news', I said.

Tony shrugged. 'It might turn out to be crap'.

'It might turn out to be good'.

Another shrug.

'How far are you into it?' I asked.

'Just a few thousand words'.

'And...?'

'Like I said, I haven't a clue if it's up to anything'.

'But you will keep writing it?'

'Yeah - until my nerve fails me. Or when I decide it's beyond useless'.

I came over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.

'I won't let you stop'.

'That a promise?' he asked, finally looking up at me.

'Yes. It is. And listen...'

'Yes?'

'I'm sorry about before'.

He turned back to the screen.

'I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning... if you can stop worrying'.

But when I woke at seven that morning, Tony wasn't next to me in bed. Rather, I found him asleep on the new pull-out sofa in his study, a small pile of printed pages stacked up by the computer. When I brought him a cup of tea a few hours later, my first question was, 'How late did you work?'

'Only 'til three', he said, sounding half awake.

'You could have come down and shared the bed'.

'Didn't want to wake you'.

But the next night, he did the same thing. I'd just come back from the hospital - my second visit of the day to Jack. It was nine o'clock - and I was slightly aggrieved to find Tony already at work in his office, as he had told me he couldn't make it to the hospital this evening, because of yet another international crisis (something in Mozambique, I think) that was keeping him.

'Anyway, it's not as if Jack will be missing me', he said when he phoned me that afternoon at home.

'But I'd like it if you were with me'.

'And I'd like it too. But...'

'I know, I know - work is work. And who cares if your son...'

'Let's not start that', he said sharply.

'Fine, fine', I said, sounding truly tetchy now. 'Have it your way. I'll see you at home'.

So finding him in his office that evening really did peeve me.

'I thought you said you'd be working late at the paper'.

'We got the pages to bed earlier than expected'.

'Well, thanks a lot for rushing over to the Mattingly to see your son'.

'I only got in fifteen minutes ago'.

'And went straight to work on your novel?'

'That's right'.

'You really expect me to believe that?'

'I was inspired', he said, without the faintest trace of irony.

'I suppose you'll now want dinner?'

'No - I grabbed something at the office. Anyway, what I really want to do is work on, if that's okay'.

'Don't you want to know how Jack is?'

'I do know that. I called the hospital around six, and got a full update from the ICU sister. But, I suppose, you know that already'.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I just turned on my heel and left. After throwing something together in the kitchen, and washing it back with a single glass of wine (I wasn't risking another descent into weirdness), I poured Tony a glass and brought it back up to his office.

'Oh, ta', he said, looking up from the screen.

'How's it going?' I asked.

'Good, good', he said in a tone which indicated that I was interrupting his flow.

'Want to watch the Ten O'Clock News?'

'Better keep on with this'.

Two hours later, I stuck my head back in his office.

'I'm going to bed now', I said.

'Fine'.

'You coming?'

'Be down in a moment'.

But when I turned the bedside light off fifteen minutes later, he hadn't joined me. And when I came to at eight the next morning, the space next to me was empty.

So, once again, I climbed the stairs to his office - only to find him under the duvet on his sofa bed.

This time, however, I didn't bring him a cup of tea. Nor did I wake him. But when he staggered downstairs around ten, looking harassed, the first thing he said to me was, 'Why the hell did you let me sleep in?'

'Well, since we now seem to be living separate lives, I don't have to be your alarm clock'.

'I spend two nights on the sofa, and you're already talking about separate lives'.

'I'm just wondering if you're trying to tell me something. Or if this is some passive-aggressive' -

'Passive-aggressive. For fuck's sake, I was just working late. On the novel - which you so want me to write. So what's the problem?'

'I'm just...'

'Insanely insecure'.

I didn't know what to say to that. Except, 'Perhaps'.

'Well, you shouldn't be. And I will be at the hospital tonight. And I will share our bed. All right?'

True to his word, Tony did show up at the Mattingly around eight that evening. He was half an hour late, but I decided not to make a big deal of it. I had already spent the better part of an hour making eye contact with my son. He seemed to be watching me watching him - and for the first time in weeks, I actually found myself smiling.

'Look at this', I said as Tony walked down the ward towards us. He crouched down beside us and looked at his son.

'I told you he would be all right', he said.

Yes, you did. But why do you have to remind me of that now?

'He really sees us', I said, deciding it was not the moment to respond to Tony's comment.

'I suppose he does'. He waved briefly in his direction. 'Hello there. We are your parents, you poor bugger'.

'He'll be just fine. Because we'll make sure of that'.

'Your mother's an all-American optimist', Tony said to Jack. Our son just peered out at us, no doubt wondering where he was, and what was this thing called life.

That night, Tony did get into bed with me, and read Graham Greene's The Honorary Consul, and kissed me goodnight. Though sex was still definitely out of the physical question, a cuddle would have been nice. But, then again, a casual cuddle (or, at least, one without the follow-through of sex) was never Tony's style. When I woke the next morning... true to form, I found him upstairs, sprawled out on his sofa bed, more pages piled up by the computer.

'You seem to be having very productive nights', I said.

'It's a good time to work', he said.

'And it also gives you the excuse not to sleep with me'.

'I did last night'.

'For how long?'

'Does that really matter? You were asleep, after all'.

'As soon as I was conked out, you went upstairs'.

'Yes, that's right. But I did come to bed with you as requested, didn't I?'

'I suppose so', I said, realizing I had nowhere to go in this argument.

'And the novel is getting written'.

'That's nice'.

'So what's the problem?'

'There is no problem, Tony'.

But I also knew that my husband was shrewdly ensuring that, when Jack came home, he'd be able to sidestep all the broken, sleepless nights by using his novel as an excuse... and the sofa bed in his office as his refuge.

Once again, however, I feared raising this point, as I could see that every time I said something contrary, he'd sigh heavily and make me feel like the nag I never wanted to be. And he had let my little free-fall episode come and go without major comment. Just as he'd also been admirably Teflon-like when I was riding the hormonal roller coaster in hospital. So, to keep the domestic peace (especially given Jack's imminent arrival home), I thought it best not to push this point. Grin and bear it: the great marital bromide.

But I decided to sidestep all such negative thoughts by using the next few days to get the house into some sort of reasonable shape before our son filled every imaginable space. Fortunately, the foreman and his team were outside our front door at eight the next morning, ready to start work (Tony must have really played on their guilt - or simply stopped paying them). And Collins - the Northern Irish boss of the crew - was solicitousness itself, asking me with great concern about my 'wee one', telling me he was 'sorry for my troubles', but that, 'God willing, the wee fella will be just grand'. He also assured me that he and his boys would be able to finish all the large-scale work within a week.

'Now don't you worry about a thing, except your wee fella. We'll get the job done for you'.

I was genuinely touched by such kindness - especially in the light of the fact that he had been such a completely irresponsible pain prior to this, never true to his word, always messing us about, always acting as if he was doing us a favour. Suddenly, his inherent decency had emerged. Though I could have cynically written it off as him caving into emotional blackmail, I couldn't help but think that he was probably like every builder - playing the middle from both ends, taking on far more jobs than he could handle, and never letting the right hand know what the left hand was doing. But there's something about a child in danger which brings out the grace in almost all of us... unless, like Tony, you build up a wall against all panic, all doubt, all sense of life's random inequities.

Once again, I sensed that this emotional cordon sanitaire was Tony's way of coping with his own undercurrent of worry. As elliptical as he could be, I still knew him well enough by now to see through his veneer of diffidence. And though I was truly pleased that he was getting on with the novel, I also realized that it was a defence mechanism - a distancing device, in which he could push me and the potential problem that was Jack to one side.

'No doubt, it will only be a matter of time before he starts working out ways to get transferred back to Cairo - alone', Sandy said when she called me that morning.

'He's just quietly freaking', I said.

'Yeah - responsibility is such a bitch'.

'Look, everyone has their own way of dealing with a crisis'.

'Which, in Tony's case, means play ostrich'.

Of course, this hadn't been my first phone conversation with my sister since I'd been rushed to hospital. Ever since I had come home, we'd spoken two to three times a day. Naturally, Sandy was horrified by my news.

'If that deadbeat ex-husband of mine hadn't just taken off for a month-long hike with his outdoorsy paramour, I'd be over in London like a speeding bullet. But there's no one else to look after the kids, and the bastard's hiking without a cell phone, so he's completely out of contact'.

True to form, however, she did not react with horror to the big question mark hovering over Jack. Instead, she worked the phones, calling every obstetrician and paediatrician she knew in the Boston area, demanding information and second opinions, and all those other 'something must be done!' attempts to ameliorate a crisis that we love to practise in the States.

'I really think it's going to turn out all right', I told Sandy in an attempt to get her off the subject of my contrary husband. 'More importantly, they're moving Jack today out of Paediatric ICU'.

'Well, that's something. Because according to my friend Maureen's husband' -

And it would turn out that Maureen's husband was a certain Dr Flett, who happened to be the head of Paediatric Neurology at Mass General - and he had said that...

' - if the baby is responding to normal stimuli after seven days the signs are pretty good'.

'That's exactly what the doctors here told me', I said.

'Yes', Sandy said, 'but they're not the head of Paediatric Neurology at one of the leading hospitals in America'.

'The doctors here really have been terrific', I said.

'Well, if I had a couple of million in the bank, I'd fly you and Jack over here by MedEvac today'.

'Nice thought - but this isn't exactly Uganda'.

'I'm yet to be convinced of that. Are you better today?'

'I'm fine', I said carefully. Though I had mentioned my initial postnatal dive to Sandy, I didn't go into great detail... especially as I didn't want to unsettle her further, and also because I was pretty certain that my brief emotional downturn had been nothing more than that. But Sandy, per usual, wasn't buying my calmness.

'I've got this other friend - Alison Kepler - she's the chief nurse in the postnatal division of Brigham and Women's Hospital...'

'Jesus, Sandy' I said, interrupting her. 'Half of Boston must know about Jack's birth...'

'Big deal. The thing is, I'm getting you the best proxy medical advice imaginable. And Alison told me that postnatal depression can come in a couple of waves'.

'But I'm not having a postnatal depression', I said, sounding exasperated.

'How can you be certain? Don't you know that most depressed people don't know they're depressed?'

'Because I find myself getting so damn pissed-off with Tony, that's how. And don't you know that most depressed people are unable to get really pissed off at their husband... or their sister?'

'How can you be pissed off at me?'

How can you so lack a sense of humour? I felt like screaming at her. But that was how my wonderful, humourless sister saw the world: in an intensely logical, what you say is what you mean sort of way. Which is why she would never - repeat, never - survive in London.

But in the first few days out of hospital, I was certain that I was beyond the mere surviving stage of postnatal shock. Perhaps this had something to do with Jack's liberation from Paediatric ICU. On Wednesday, I arrived for my morning visit at ten-thirty - only to be met by the usual morning nurse, who said, 'Good news. Jack's jaundice has totally cleared up - and we've moved him to the normal baby ward'.

'You sure he's free of everything?' I asked.

'Believe me', she said, 'we wouldn't release him from here unless we were certain all is well'.

'Sorry, sorry' I said. 'I've just turned into a perpetual worrier'.

'Welcome to parenthood'.

The baby ward was two floors down. The nurse phoned ahead to inform them that I was the actual mother of Jack Hobbs ('We can't be too careful these days'). When I arrived there, the ward sister on duty was waiting.

'You're Jack's mum?' she asked.

I nodded.

'Your timing's perfect', she said. 'He needs to be fed'.

It was extraordinary to see him free from all the medical apparatus that had mummified him for the past ten days. Before he looked so desperately vulnerable. Now his face had shaken off that drugged look of shock that had possessed him during the first few days of his life. And though Sandy (through her platoon of experts) had reassured me that he'd have no received memories of these early medical traumas, I couldn't help but feel more guilt. Guilt that I had done something wrong during my pregnancy - even though I couldn't exactly pinpoint what that was.

And suddenly, that reproving voice inside my head started repeating, over-and-over again, 'You brought this on yourself. You did it to him. Because you really didn't want him...'

Shut up!

I found myself shuddering and gripping the sides of Jack's crib. The nurse on duty studied me with concern. She was in her mid-twenties: large, dumpy - but someone who immediately exuded decency.

'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Just a little tired, that's all', I said, noticing her name tag: McGuire.

'Wait until you get him home', she said with an easy laugh. But instead of getting annoyed at this innocently flippant comment, I managed a smile - because I didn't want anyone to know the manic distress that was encircling me at the moment.

'Ready to take him?' the nurse asked.

No, I am not ready. I'm not ready for any of this. Because I can't cope. Because...

'Sure', I said, my smile tight.

She reached in, and gingerly gathered him up. He was very docile until he was put into my arms. At which point, he instantly began to cry. It wasn't a loud cry, but it was certainly persistent - like someone who felt instantly uncomfortable with the hands now holding him. And that admonishing voice inside my head told me, 'Well, of course he's crying. Because he knows it was you who did him harm'.

'Is he your first?' the nurse asked.

'Yes', I said, wondering if my nervousness was showing.

'Don't worry about the crying then. Believe me, he'll get to like it within a day'.

Why are you trying to humour me? It's so clear that Jack knows I meant him harm, knows I really was trying to hurt him, knows I'm incapable of being a mother. Which is why he can't stand this first physical contact with me. He knows.

'Can I get you a chair?' the nurse asked me.

'That would be good', I said, as my legs were suddenly feeling rubbery.

She found a straight-back plastic chair. I sat down, cradling Jack. He kept roaring - a true cry from someone who was terrified by the company they were now keeping.

'Maybe if you tried feeding him...' the nurse suggested. 'He's due a feed'.

'I've been having problems extracting milk', I said.

'Well, he'll clear that problem up straight away', she said with another of her amiable laughs which was supposed to put me at my ease, but just made me feel even more self-conscious. So, cradling the still-screaming Jack with one arm, I tried to lift up my teeshirt and bra with my spare hand. But Jack's cries made me hyper-nervous, with the result that, every time I attempted to yank up my shirt, I seemed to be losing my grip on him. Which made him even more disconcerted.

'Let me take him there for a moment while you sort yourself out', the nurse said.

I'm not going to sort myself out. Because I can't sort myself out.

'Thank you', I said. As soon as she relieved me of Jack, he stopped crying. I pulled up my teeshirt and freed my right breast from the nursing bra I was wearing. My hands were sweaty. I felt desperately tense - in part, because my milk ducts had been blocked again over the past few days. But also because I was holding my child and all I felt was terror.

You're not fit for this... you can't do this...

Once the breast was exposed, the nurse returned Jack to me. His reaction to my touch was almost Pavlovian: cry when you feel Mommy's hands. And cry he did. Profusely. Until his lips touched my nipple, at which point he started making the greedy suckling noises of someone who was desperately hungry.

'There he goes', the nurse said, nodding approvingly as he clamped his gums around my nipple and began to suck hard. Immediately, it felt as if a clothes pin had been applied to my breast. Though his mouth may have been toothless, his gums were steel-reinforced. And he clamped down so hard my initial reaction was a muffled, surprised scream.

'You all right there?' the nurse asked, still trying to be all-smiles - even though, with each passing moment, I was certain that she was writing me off as inadequate and completely unsuited for maternal duties.

'His gums are just a little...'

But I didn't get to finish the sentence as he bit down so hard that I actually shrieked. Worst yet, the pain had been so sudden, so intense, that I inadvertently yanked him off my breast - which sent him back into screaming mode.

'Oh, God, sorry, sorry, sorry' I said.

The nurse remained calm. She immediately collected Jack from me, settling him down moments after she had him in her arms. I sat there, my breast exposed and aching, feeling useless, stupid, and desperately guilty.

'Is he all right?' I asked, my voice thick with shock.

'Just got a little fright, that's all', she said. 'As did you'.

'I really didn't mean to...'

'You're grand, really. Happens all the time. Especially if you're having a little problem with the milk flow. Now hang on there a sec - I think I know how we can sort this problem out'.

Using her free hand, she reached for a phone. Around a minute later, another nurse arrived with the dreaded breast pump.

'Ever use one of these things before?' Nurse McGuire asked.

'I'm afraid so'.

'Off you go then', she said, handing it to me.

Once again, the pain was appalling - but, at least this time, shortlived. After a minute of vigorous pumping, the dam burst - and though I now had tears streaming down my face the relief was enormous too.

'You right now?' the nurse asked, all cheerful and no-nonsense.

I nodded. She handed Jack back to me. God, how he hated my touch. I moved him quickly to the now-leaking nipple. He was reluctant to go near it again, but when his lips tasted the milk, he was clamped on to it like a vice, sucking madly. I flinched at the renewed pain - but forced myself to stay silent. I didn't want to put on another show for this exceedingly tolerant nurse. But she sensed my distress.

'Hurts a bit, does it?' she asked.

'I'm afraid so'.

'You're not the first mother who's said that. But you'll get used to it so'.

God, why was she so damn nice? Especially when I didn't deserve it. I mean, I'd read all the damn books and magazine articles, extolling the life-enhancing pleasures of breastfeeding: the way it cements the relationship between mother-and-child, and fosters the deepest of maternal instincts. Breast is best ran the theme of all these pro-suckling diatribes - and they were quick to denounce non-believers as wantonly selfish, uncaring, and inadequate. All of which I felt right now. Because the one thing nobody ever told me about breastfeeding was: it hurts so fucking much.

'Well, of course it hurts', Sandy said when I phoned her around noon that day. 'Hell, I used to dread every moment of it'.

'Really?' I said, grabbing on to this revelation.

'Believe me, it didn't give me a big motherly buzz'.

I knew she was lying - for my benefit. Because I was often in and out of Sandy's house in the months right after the birth of her first son. And she didn't display the slightest sign of discomfort while breastfeeding. On the contrary, she was so damn adept at this business that I once saw her ironing a shirt while simultaneously suckling her son.

'It's just a bit of a shock at first, that's all', she said. 'When are you going back to the hospital?'

'Tonight', I said, hearing the dread in my voice.

'I bet he's beautiful', she said. 'Do you have a digital camera?'

'Uh, no'.

'Well, get one and you can start emailing me photos'.

'Right', I said, my voice so flat that Sandy immediately said, 'Sally... tell me'.

'Tell you what?'

'Tell me what's going on?'

'Nothing's going on'.

'You don't sound good'.

'Just a bad day, that's all'.

'Are you sure about that?'

'Yes', I lied. Because the truth was...

What?

I had no damn idea what the truth here was. Except that I didn't want to go back to the hospital that night. As soon as I hung up the phone I escaped from the workmen who were everywhere in the house, and took refuge in Tony's study. I sank down into his desk chair and stared at the pile of manuscript pages stacked face down to the left of his computer keyboard. There was the large black Moleskin notebook, underneath a circular pen holder. I always knew that Tony was an inveterate keeper of diaries. I found this out the first night we slept together at his shambolic Cairo flat - when I woke up around three to take a pee and discovered him in the living room, scribbling in a black-bound book.

'So what do I rate - a five, an eight?' I asked him, standing nude in the doorway.

'That's private', he said, shutting the book and recapping his pen. 'Just like everything in this book'.

The tone was pleasant - but coolly firm. I took the hint and never asked him about his notebook again... even though, over the coming months, I'd often see him writing away in it. Someone once said anyone who kept a journal was a bit like a dog going back to sniff his own vomit. But to me, anyone who chronicled their day-today life - and, simultaneously, their deeply personal reactions to those closest to them - ultimately wanted it to be read. Which is why - I surmised - Tony had casually left his Moleskin notebook on top of his desk. Because though he knew I respected his privacy, to the point of never coming into his study, I couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't also playing a subtle passive-aggressive game with me, silently saying: There it is... go on, open it if you dare.

Then again, he might have just left it there by accident... which meant that all my psychobabbly thoughts about his alleged tactical behaviour were further examples of my heightened fragility.

I was feeling pretty damn fragile right now. So fragile that - as tempted as I was to open the notebook and learn whatever horrible truth was contained inside ('We are a terrible match', 'Why is she so bloody literal about everything?', 'I have constructed a prison of my own making'. I really was having inventive flights of paranoid fancy) - I knew that I would be venturing into territories best sidestepped. Anyway, who in their right mind really wants to know the private thoughts of their spouse?

So I pulled my hand away from the notebook, and also resisted the temptation to read a few manuscript pages and see whether Tony was playing Graham Greene or Jeffrey Archer. Instead, I simply unfolded the sofa bed, opened the wicker box where Tony kept the duvet and pillows, made the bed, pulled down the shade on the dormer window, turned the phone on to Voice Mail, took off my jeans, and got under the covers. Even though there was an excessive amount of hammering and sanding on the lower floors, I was asleep within minutes - a fast, blacked-out tumble into oblivion.

Then I heard a familiar voice.

'What are you doing here?'

It took a moment or two to work out where I was. Or to adjust to the fact that it was now night, and the room had just been illuminated by the big floor lamp that stood to the right of the desk, and that my husband was standing in the doorway, looking at me with concern.

'Tony?' I asked, my voice thick with sleep.

'The hospital has been trying to reach you...'

Now I was completely awake.

'They what?'

'Jack had a minor setback this afternoon. The jaundice returned'.

Now I was on my feet, grabbing for my clothes.

'Let's go', I said, pulling on my jeans. Tony put a steadying hand on my arm.

'I've been there already. It's okay now. They were worried at first that it might be a serious relapse. But the blood tests showed only a very minor overload of bilirubin, so there's nothing to worry about. However, they did move him back to Paediatric ICU...'

I shrugged off Tony's hand.

'Tell me in the car'.

'We're not going...'

'Don't tell me we're not going. He's my...'

'We're not going', Tony said, holding my arm with more vehemence.

'If you're not going, I'm...'

'Will you listen?' he said, his voice suddenly raised. 'It's nearly midnight'.

'What?' I said, sounding genuinely shocked.

'It's seven minutes to twelve'.

'Bullshit'.

'You've been asleep all day'.

'That can't have happened'.

'Well, the hospital has been trying to ring you at home since three this afternoon'.

Oh, no...

'And I must have left you ten messages on your mobile...'

'Why didn't you try the builders?'

'Because I didn't have their bloody mobile number, that's why'.

'I was taking a nap after seeing Jack this morning'.

'A twelve-hour nap?'

'I'm sorry...'

I gently shook off his grip and finished getting dressed.

'I'm still going over there', I said.

He blocked my path towards the door. 'That's not a good idea right now. Especially after...'

'After what?' I demanded. But I already sensed the answer to that question.

'Especially after the difficulties you had this morning'.

That bitch, Nurse McGuire. She shopped me.

'It was just a feeding problem, that's all'.

'So I gather - but one of the nurses on duty said you nearly yanked Jack off your breast'.

'It was a momentary thing. He hurt me'.

'Well I'm sure he didn't mean to'.

'I'm not saying that. Anyway, it wasn't as if I threw him across the room. I just had a bit of a shock'.

'Must have been quite a shock if the nurse reported it to her superior'.

I sat down on the bed. I put my head in my hands. I really did feel like grabbing my passport, running to the airport and catching the first plane Stateside.

You can't do this... you're a maternal disaster area...

Then another calm and lucid voice entered my head, repeating, over and over again, a soothing mantra: You don't care... You don't care... You really don't care.

Why should a catastrophe of a mother like me care about her child? Anyway, even if I did care, they (the doctors, the nurses, my husband) all knew the truth about me. They had the evidence. And they saw just how...

How what?

How... I wasn't understanding any of this.

How... one moment, I was wracked with grief and guilt for what had befallen Jack... the next, I couldn't give a damn.

Because I'm unfit. That's right, U-N-F-I-T. Like that old country-and-western song about D-I-V-O-R...

'Sally?'

I looked up and saw Tony staring at me in that quizzical, peeved way of his.

'You really should go to bed', he said.

'I've just slept twelve hours'.

'Well, that was your decision'.

'No - that was my body's decision. Because my body's noticed something which you definitely haven't noticed... the fact that I am completely run down after a little physical exertion called "having a baby". Which, I know, in your book, is just about up there with stubbing your toe...'

Tony gave me a thin smile and started stripping the sofa bed.

'Think I'll go to work now', he said. 'No need to wait up for me'.

'I'm not going back to sleep'.

'That's your call. Now if you'll excuse me...'

'You don't care what's going on, do you?'

'Excuse me, but who ran to the hospital this evening when our son's mother turned off all the phones and put herself out-of-touch with the world?'

His comment caught me like a slap across the face - especially as he said it in an ultra-detached voice.

'That is so unfair', I said, my voice a near-whisper. Tony just smiled.

'Of course you'd think that', he said. 'Because the truth is usually most unfair'.

Then he sat down in his desk chair, swivelled it away from me, and said, 'Now if you'll excuse me...'

'Fuck you'.

But he ignored that comment, and instead said, 'If you do feel like making me a cup of tea, that would be most welcome'.

I responded to this comment by storming out of his office, slamming the door behind me.

Marching downstairs, my initial reaction was to fly out the door, jump into a taxi, tell the driver to floor it to the Mattingly, march straight into Paediatric ICU, demand to see Jack immediately, and also demand that they find that Irish stool pigeon, so I could confront that Ms Holier-Than-Thou with the lies she'd peddled about me. And then...

I would be bound and gagged and dispatched to the nearest rubber room.

I started to pace the floor. And when I say pace, I mean pace. As in a manic back-forth motion: here-there, here-there, here-there. Only when the thought struck me - look at you, treading up and down the room like a laboratory animal on amphetamines - did I force myself to sit down. At which point I had a bad attack of the chills. An arctic wind had blown down Sefton Street and had somehow penetrated the very fabric of my house, leaving me convinced that the floorboards were rotting, rising damp was prevalent, and this entire shit heap investment, this mean little example of domestic Victoriana, was going to be blown off its dirt foundations, leaving us destitute and in the street.

But then, the climate changed. The mercury soared eighty degrees. I'd left mid-January in the Canadian Rockies and was now somewhere in the tropics. Aruba, baby. Forget the frostbite. We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave. Like one-hundred-and-ten in the shade, with ninety-six per cent humidity. Suddenly, I was sweating. So drenched in perspiration that I had to strip off all my clothes.

Which is exactly what I did - not noticing that our front curtains were open and someone was getting out of a black cab parked right outside, and the driver was gawking at me, wide-eyed, and I felt like turning full-frontal towards him, and showing off my Caesarean scar. Instead, some intrinsic modesty took over and I made a dash upstairs for the bathroom, and turned on the cold tap full-blast, and jumped under the downpour (thank God, I'd insisted on an American power-shower), and then...

What are you doing?

I turned off the water. I leaned my head against the tiled wall. I felt another stab of panic - because I was so completely adrift and out-of-control. What was scaring me most was the realization that there seemed to be no logical progression to these strange, manic interludes. I had become an emotional pinball, bouncing wildly off every object in my path. In the midst of these mood swings, there would be moments of extreme, painful clarity - like the one I was negotiating right now, where I felt like beating my skull against the wall and repeating over and over again, What are you doing?

To which I could only answer: I really don't know. Because I don't even know how things operate within me anymore.

Oh, listen to yourself. Little Miss Self-Pity. A mild postnatal dip in your equilibrium - something any sensible, balanced person could handle - and you cleave in two. Tony's right to treat you as some sort of silly recalcitrant. Because you're making an idiot of yourself Worse yet, you keep going down this manic road, and questions will start being raised about your sanity. So get a grip, eh? And while you're at it, go make your husband a cup of tea.

I followed the advice of this hyper-censorious internal counsellor - and stepped out of the shower, determined to put everything right. As I dressed and dried my hair, I told myself that, from this moment on, calm lucidity would prevail. I would go to the hospital tomorrow morning and apologize for not showing up today. I would seek out Nurse McGuire, and let her know that I perfectly understood her concerns about my mental well-being yesterday, but would then demonstrate that I was in control by breastfeeding Jack with uncomplaining aplomb. And on the domestic front, I'd soothe all of Tony's concerns by going Stepford-ish for a while, and playacting the perfect wife.

So, not only did I make my husband a cup of tea, but I also arranged a large plateful of his favourite biscuits and found a bottle of Laphroaig (his malt whisky of preference). Then I negotiated the stairs, nearly losing my balance (courtesy of far too many items on the tray) on at least two occasions. When I reached his office door, it was closed. I used my foot to knock.

'Tony' I said.

He didn't answer - even though I could hear low-volume music coming from within.

'Tony, please - I've got your cup of tea...'

The door opened. He looked at the laden tray.

'What's this?'

'Sustenance for your literary endeavours. And an apology'.

'Right', he said with a nod. Then, relieving me of the tray, he said, 'Think I'd better get back to the desk'.

'Going well?'

'I suppose so. Don't wait up'. And he closed the door.

Don't wait up.

Typical. So bloody typical. Pissing on my parade, per usual. And while I'm trying to be so good.

Stop it. Stop it. He's working, after all. And you did have that little 'set-to' (to be bloody English about it) just before, which you can't expect him to get over in ten minutes... even if he did make that shitty comment about...

Enough. Tony's right. You really should just go to bed. The only problem is: having just been asleep for the past twelve hours...

All right, all right. Stay busy. Do something to make the hours pass.

That's how I ended up unpacking just about every box and crate still strewn around the house. The entire process took around six hours and I had to work around what remained of the builders' mess. By the time I was finished, dawn light was just making a tentative appearance - and I had the weary, but satisfied buzz that comes from finishing a major domestic chore that had been naggingly unfinished for months. Walking around the house - now nearing a state of actual liveability - I felt a curious sanguinity. There was finally a sense of space and proportion and (most of all) order.

Order was something I truly craved right now.

I ran a bath. I sat soaking in the tub for nearly an hour. I told myself: You see... a little displacement activity, andthe gods of balance and equilibrium land comfortably on your shoulders. Everything's going to be fine now.

So fine that, after I got dressed, I felt fully energized - even though I hadn't been to bed all night. I peeped in on Tony in his office. He was crashed out on his sofa... but I did notice a stack of new pages on the ever-growing manuscript pile. So I tiptoed over to his desk, made certain his radio alarm was set for nine am, then scribbled a fast note:

Off to the hospital to see our boy. Hope you like the clean-up job on the house. Dinner tonight on me at the restaurant of your choice? I await your reply.

Love you...

I signed my name, hoping that he'd respond favourably to the idea of the sort of pleasant nights out we used to have in Cairo. With Jack due home within days, this would be our last chance to roll out of the house unencumbered.

I went downstairs. I checked my watch. Just after seven am. I opened the front door and noticed that someone on the far side of the road was in the middle of building work, with an empty skip out front for assorted debris. I glanced back at the stack of empty cardboard boxes and now-broken-down packing crates, and thought: this would save a trip to the dump. I also remembered how everyone on the street emptied their attics into our skip during the first stage of our renovations. So I decided that there would be few objections if a few items from my house ended up intermingling with my neighbour's debris.

However, as I was in the process of dumping the second lot of boxes into this large bin, a house door opened and a man in his mid-forties came out. He was dressed in a dark grey suit.

'You know, that is our skip', he said, his voice full of tempered indignation. Immediately I became apologetic.

'Sorry, I just thought that, as it was kind of empty...'

'You really should ask permission before tossing things into other people's skips'.

'But I just thought...'

'Now I'd appreciate it if you'd remove all your rubbish' -

However, he was interrupted by a voice which said, 'Oh for God's sake, will you listen to yourself'.

The gent looked a little startled. Then he became immediately sheepish, as he found himself staring at a woman in her late forties - blonde, big boned, with a heavily lined face (blondes always start to fracture after the rubicon of forty is crossed), but still striking. Equally eye-catching was the very large Labrador she had by her side. She had been walking by us when she heard our exchange. I recognized her immediately: she was the woman who had spoken to me approvingly in the newsagents after I forced Mr Noor to be polite to me. And I could tell from the reaction of the Suit that he was distinctly uneasy in her presence. He avoided her accusatory gaze and said, 'I was simply making a point'.

'And what point was that?'

'I really do think this is between myself and' -

'When I was having my new kitchen put in last year, and there was a skip out front, who filled it up one night with half the contents of his loft?'

The Suit now looked appalled - because he had been publicly embarrassed. From my few short months in England I knew that embarrassment was considered the most fearsome of personal calamities - and to be avoided at all costs. But whereas in America, the guy would have countered by saying something politic like, 'Mind your own effing business', here he suddenly went all pale and diminished, and could only mutter, 'Like I said: I was just trying to make a point'.

To which my Good Samaritan with the Labrador gave him a cold, knowing smile, and said, 'Of course you were'. Then she turned back to me and asked, 'Need a hand with the rest of the boxes?'

'I'll be fine. But I...'

'Nice to see you again, Sally' she said, proffering her hand. 'It is Sally, right?'

I nodded. 'Julia?'

'Well done'.

The gent cleared his throat, as if to announce his departure. Then he turned tail and hurried back into his house.

'Twit', Julia said under her breath after he was gone. 'No wonder his wife walked out last month'.

'I didn't know...'

She shrugged. 'Just another domestic drama - like we've all had. And, by the way, I heard you're a new mother. Wonderful news. I would have dropped over with a little something, but I've been away most of the last two months in Italy with my son Charlie'.

'How old is he?'

'Fourteen. And what did you have - a boy or a child?'

'A boy' I said, laughing. 'Jack'.

'Congratulations. How's life without sleep?'

'Well... he's not home yet'.

Then I explained, in the briefest way possible, what had befallen him.

'Good God', she said quietly. 'You've really had a ghastly time of it'.

'Him more than me'.

'But are you all right?'

'Yes and no. Sometimes I can't really tell'.

'Got time for a cup of tea?'

'I'd love to - but I really need to be at the hospital early this morning'.

'Completely understood', she said. 'Anyway, drop by whenever. And do throw as much rubbish in that fool's skip as you like'.

With a pleasant smile, she ended our little encounter.

I followed her instructions, and threw all the remaining empty boxes into the skip, along with four brimming bags of builders' debris. Then I walked to the tube, thinking: 'I actually have a friendly neighbour'.

At the hospital, I was on my ultra-best behaviour. And I was hugely relieved to discover that Jack's return to Paediatric ICU had been a brief one, as he was back on the normal baby ward. The usual unit sister was there as well - eyeing me up carefully, the way one does with anyone who's been labelled 'a loose cannon'.

But I gave her a big smile and said, 'Is Nurse McGuire around? I think I owe her an apology for being so extreme yesterday'.

Immediately the unit sister relaxed. Acts of Contrition usually do that.

'I'm afraid she's off on a week's holiday - but when she's back I'll tell her what you said'.

'And I am sorry I didn't make it last night. It's just... well, to be honest about it, I was so tired I simply passed out'.

'Don't worry about it. Every mother is exhausted after giving birth. And the good news is: that little relapse last night was nothing more than that. In fact, you might be able to bring him home as early as tomorrow'.

I was all smiles. 'That is great news'.

'Are you up for feeding him now? He's definitely hungry'.

Doing my best to disguise my unease, I nodded, keeping the fixed smile on my face. The unit sister motioned for me to follow her. We walked down the ward to Jack's crib. He was lying on his side, crying loudly. I tensed - wondering if he'd really start bawling when I picked him up. But I tried to mask this by saying, 'He sounds really hungry'.

The unit sister smiled back. Then there was an awkward moment, where I stood by the crib, not knowing if I should pick him up, or if the sister was going to hand him to me. Looking rather warily at me again, the sister motioned for me to take him. My hands were sweaty as I reached in. And yes, his squeals did amplify as I lifted him up.

Keep your nerve, keep your nerve, I told myself. And, for God's sake, don't look fearful.

I pulled Jack close to me, rocking him gently. His crying redoubled. I quickly settled down into the hard straight-back chair by the crib, opened my shirt, released my left breast from the nursing bra, squeezed the area around the nipple in an effort to expend a little milk, but felt nothing but solidified concrete.

Don't think about it, just get him on the breast and hope that you don't start screaming. Sister is studying your every move.

I gently directed Jack's head toward the nipple. When he found it he began to suck ravenously. I shut my eyes as the pain hit. But then his voraciousness suddenly paid off - as his vacuum-like suction cleared the ducts and milk poured forth. It didn't matter that his steel-trapped gums were squeezing the hell out of the nipple, or that my level of discomfort was rising by the minute. He was eating.

'Are you in a bit of pain there?' the unit sister asked.

'Nothing that can't be managed', I said.

This was the correct response, as the sister nodded approvingly and said, 'I'll leave you to it'.

As soon as she was out of sight, I leaned over and whispered into Jack's ear, 'Thanks'.

After ten minutes, I transferred Jack to the other nipple - and, once again, his hoover of a mouth cleared all obstructions within moments and milk flowed freely.

Of course, I've read the usual pop psychology stuff about how physical blockages can lead to psychological blockages. But though I used to be sceptical of this kind of body/mind linkage, I have to admit that when I left the hospital that morning, I felt as if I had finally rid myself of the gloomy impasse in which I had lived since Jack's birth.

'Well, God bless my nephew's suction', Sandy said when I called her around nine am her time to tell her that, finally, I had been able to feed my son without the use of a dreaded breast pump. But when I said that I was now feeling almost blissed-out, she said, 'Great to hear it - but don't get yourself into a state if you suddenly slip back into the glums again. Once Jack comes home you're going to be dealing with broken nights - when three hours of uninterrupted sleep will seem like a total triumph'.

'But I haven't been to bed all night, and I feel totally terrific'.

'Why didn't you get to bed last night?'

'Because I was asleep all day yesterday'.

'I don't like the sound of that'.

'Really, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I needed to shut down for a while. And now, I feel as if my equilibrium is back to normal, and I've really got things back into proportion, and I'm feeling genuinely at one with things'.

Long pause. I said, 'You still there, Sandy?'

'Oh, I'm here. But I'm also wondering if you've suddenly turned into a Moonie'.

'Thanks a lot'.

'Well, what the hell do you expect when you start saying garbage like "I'm at one with things."'

'But I am'.

'You now have me very worried'.

That was typical Sandy - even more literal than I was when it came to judging other people's moods. But I knew I was all right - though when I returned home that morning from the hospital, there was a note waiting for me from Tony, saying:

Invitation Declined With Regret. US Deputy Secretary of State in town tonight. Just received last minute invitation for dinner at the Embassy. Will make it up to you.

Great, just great. But after last night's stupidity, I wasn't going to call him up and hector him for turning down my invitation. Instead, I'd put a positive spin on this situation. Rather than fall into bed now for a nap, I'd force my way through the day on no sleep, then go by the hospital around seven and would be back home in bed by ten - tired out enough to sleep straight through the night without interruption. Come morning, I'd be back on a normal schedule - and ready to bring my son home.

Of course, by the time I reached the Mattingly that night, I had been up for twenty straight hours, and was starting to veer into numb-with-fatigue territory. The evening feeding session at the hospital went on longer than expected - as Mr Hughes made a surprise visit to the baby ward. He was showing a group of his students around this corner of the hospital - and when he saw me feeding Jack, his led his entourage over towards me. I had my son at my breast - and turned my wince into a look of maternal contentment as he approached us.

'Bonding well, are we?' he asked.

'No problems', I said, all smiley.

'And judging from the way your boy is absorbed in the task at hand, all is flowing well?'

'Everything is working just fine'.

'Splendid, splendid. Mind if I give the little chap a quick look over?'

Jack was not pleased to be disengaged from his source of food. As he kicked up, I quickly tucked my breast back into my shirt - especially as one of the male medical students with Hughes seemed particularly interested in my now bloated nipple. But judging from the critical way he was eyeing it, his interest was definitely more clinical than sexual. Meanwhile, all the other students were crowding around the crib. He started explaining in highly technical language about Jack's complicated delivery, and how he had to be ventilated after birth. He then explained about how I was suffering from high blood pressure throughout my pregnancy... to the point where he wondered whether it was best to deliver the child prematurely - as high blood pressure can prove hazardous to the mother's health.

'You never told me that', I said.

Suddenly, all eyes were upon me. Hughes gave me a frown. He didn't like to be interrupted in mid-discourse - especially by some pesky American.

'Something the matter, Mrs Goodchild?' he asked.

'You never told me you were considering a premature delivery'.

'That's because your high blood pressure condition wasn't pre-eclampsic... and because it did eventually stabilize. But, truth be told, when you were first admitted with high blood pressure, you were a borderline case for an emergency caesarean...'

'Well, thanks for the information, even if it is a little after the fact. I mean, if there was a danger to me and my baby, shouldn't I have been given that emergency Caesarean option at the time?'

'Curiously enough, it is always better for the child if it is carried to full term. And curiously enough, Mrs Goodchild, we are rather up-to-date on modern obstetric practice on this side of the pond... which means that we did do what was medically best for you and your son. More to the point, just a fortnight or so after a most complex and perilous delivery, your son appears to be flourishing. Good evening, Mrs Goodchild'.

And he moved on to the next crib.

Brilliant. Well done. Bra-fucking-vo. I'm surprised the State Department hasn't headhunted you for your diplomatic skills.

I put my hands against both sides of the crib, and lowered my head, wondering if all eyes were upon me, and if I should try to rectify things with an apology. But when I looked back up with the intention of saying something, Hughes & Co. were engrossed in another patient. Anyway, I had been put in my place, cut down to size, embarrassed.

I gripped the edge of the crib even tighter - and felt myself get very shaky again: a downward swoop which, out of nowhere, transported me to a vertiginous place positioned right over a deep, gaping chasm.

'Baby needs feeding again, I'm afraid', said a voice to my right. It was the nurse on duty - a severe, stocky woman who had been hovering in the vicinity while Hughes gave me a dressing-down, and (judging from the look she was giving me right now) thoroughly approved of his criticisms. Especially as Jack was still crying wildly, and I was just standing there, looking spacey.

'Sorry, sorry', I said as I picked up Jack, settled down again in the straight-back chair, and reattached him to my left nipple. Thankfully, he had the milk duct opened within seconds.

'Now I spoke with Dr Reynolds earlier today - and he feels that your son is ready to be discharged. So you can collect him tomorrow morning if that doesn't present any problems'.

I avoided her gaze.

'None at all'.

'Very good then'.

Ten minutes later, having settled Jack back in his crib, I was in a cab rolling down the Fulham Road, crying like an idiot. The driver - a young fellow, lean and tough looking - kept glancing at me in his rearview mirror, not exactly pleased that he had this blubbering woman in the back of his cab, but still torn between asking me what was wrong and not wanting to interfere. Anyway, I've never been one of those tell-all types who confide in strangers. But yet again, I was the architect of my own mess-up... and was also wildly over-reacting to Hughes's disparagement of me.

By the time we reached Putney, I did finally manage to get myself under a degree of control. But when I paid off the driver, he deliberately avoided looking at me.

I walked into the empty house and bolted upstairs to the bedroom. I threw off my clothes, put on a teeshirt and climbed into bed. I pulled the covers over my head. I blocked out everything.

When I jolted awake again at eight the next morning, I was so pleasantly groggy from such an unbroken period of unconsciousness that it took a moment or so to realize: I've actually slept.

Tony had assured me that he would take the morning off to drive me to the hospital to collect Jack. But when I shuffled down to the kitchen, I found a post-it on top of a couple of crumpled bank notes.

Emergency at the paper. Here's £40 for a cab there-and-back. Will try to get home ASAP this evening.

T xxx

I grabbed the phone. I punched in the number of Tony's direct line. I got his voice mail. So I phoned his mobile.

'Can't talk right now', he said.

'I don't care what emergency you have on your hands. You're meeting me at the hospital, understand?'

'I can't talk'.

Then he hung up.

Immediately I rang back. He had obviously turned off his phone after our last conversation, as I was put through directly to his voice mail.

'How dare you - how fucking dare you - pull this. You get your sorry English ass over to the hospital, or I am not going to be responsible for what happens next. Do you get that?'

I hung up, my heart pounding, my head full of righteous indignation and genuine upset. More tellingly, I hated the way I sounded on the phone. I also hated the extremity of my reaction, and the way I shifted from serenity to rage in a matter of a few moments. But... I'm sorry... he just couldn't stand me up on this one. Not on the first trip home with our newborn son.

But he did. Because I didn't hear from him for the rest of the morning. Anyway, I didn't have time to think about this latest example of Tony's complete indifference, as I needed to be at the hospital on time or further darken my reputation as a harpy. So I ducked into the shower, and slapped some makeup on my face, and was at the Mattingly by eleven am.

'Is your husband with you this morning?' the unit sister asked, eyeing me over, evidently wondering just what my emotional temperature might be this morning.

'I'm afraid he had a crisis at work'.

'I see. And how do you plan to get your son home?'

I hoisted up the carry-chair, which in my crazy rush to get out of the house I had managed to remember to bring.

'And you did bring some clothes for him?'

Oh please, I'm not a total deadbeat.

'Of course', I said politely.

'Very well then'.

Jack still reacted with upset when I touched him. And he didn't enjoy my diaper-changing technique - which was supervised by the unit sister, just to make certain that I was doing it properly.

It was also a struggle to get him into his baby-gro. He also hated being strapped into the carry-chair.

'I presume your local health visitor will be calling on you tomorrow', she said.

'I don't know - I haven't heard from anyone yet'.

'Well, no doubt, she will be visiting you very soon - so if you have any postnatal questions, she's the person to ask...'

In other words: if you're making a total mess of things, help will be on its way...

'Thank you for that. In fact, thank you for everything'.

'I hope he makes you very happy', she said.

One of the nurses helped me downstairs with the carry-chair. She also got one of the porters to call me a cab. On the way back to Putney, the driver spent most of his time on his cell phone, and seemed genuinely oblivious to the fact that I had a newborn in the back of his cab. But when he swerved to dodge an oncoming white mini-van, he rolled down his window and shouted, 'Stupid cunt! Don't you know I've got a little baby in the back?'

When we reached Sefton Street, the driver got out of the car and helped me with Jack to the front door.

'Where's your bloke then?' he asked after I settled the fare.

'At the office'.

'Guess someone has to earn the dosh', he said.

It was so strange entering my empty house with this tiny creature.

Like all of life's bigger passages, you expect a sense of profundity to accompany the occasion. And like all of life's bigger passages, the event itself is a complete letdown. I opened the door, I picked up the carry-chair. I brought Jack inside. I closed the door behind me. End of story. And, once again, all I could think was: this might have been an occasion if my husband was here.

Jack had fallen asleep during the cab ride, so I hoisted him upstairs to the nursery and unfastened the straps. Exercising the utmost care, I lifted him gently into his crib. He pulled his arms tight against himself as I covered him with the little quilt which Sandy had sent me. He didn't stir. I sat down in the wicker chair opposite the crib, my head splitting from the ongoing after-effects of the night before. I looked at my son. I waited to feel rapture, delight, maternal concern and vulnerability - all those damn emotions that every writer of every motherhood guide promises you will inhabit in the days after your child's birth. But all I felt was a profound, terrible hollowness - and a sense that, bar the fact that this child had been literally cut out of me, I had no further connection with him.

A ringing phone snapped me out of this desperate, vacant reverie. I was hoping it was Tony - sounding contrite and suitably humble. Or Sandy - with whom I could have bitched at length about my detached, taciturn husband. Instead, I received a call from a woman with a decidedly London accent who introduced herself as Jane Sanjay, and said that she was my health visitor. Her tone was surprising - breezy, pleasant, I'm here to help. And she wondered if she might drop by and see me this afternoon.

'Is there any reason why you need to see me right away?' I asked.

She laughed. 'Don't panic - I'm not the baby police'.

'But what did they tell you at the hospital?'

More laughter. 'Honestly nothing. We don't talk to the hospitals anyway - unless there's something seriously wrong. And you don't sound like the sort of person with whom there's anything wrong'.

Don't let the American accent fool you. I really don't know what the hell I'm doing.

'So', she asked, 'might I come by in an hour or so?'

Jane Sanjay was around thirty with an easy smile and an unfussy manner. Having expected a real social worker type, I was rather taken aback to see this quietly attractive Anglo-Indian woman, decked out in black leggings and electric silver Nikes. Her face-to-face manner echoed her phone style - and she put me immediately at ease, making all the right jolly noises about Jack, asking me a bit about how an American ended up in London (and sounding highly impressed when she learned about my Egyptian stint with the Boston Post), and questioning me gently about my general postnatal state. Part of me wanted to put on a happy face and tell her that everything was just hunky-dory - out of fear of looking like the height of incompetence. But who doesn't want to take another person into their confidence - especially someone who, though in an official capacity, seems to have a sympathetic ear. So after running through what she described as a standard checklist of baby care concerns - his feeding and sleep patterns, how often I was having to change his diapers (or nappies, to use the local parlance), and how to deal with standard infant complaints like colic and diaper rash - she then asked me (in her breezy way) how I was bearing up. And when I answered with a hesitant shrug, she said, 'Like I said on the phone, I'm not the baby police. And everyone who has a baby always gets regular visits from a Health Visitor. So really, Sally, you mustn't think that I'm snooping here'.

'But they have told you something, haven't they?' I asked.

'Who is they?'

'The people at the Mattingly'

'Honestly, no. But did something happen there that I should know about?'

'Nothing specific. I just think... uh...' I hesitated for a moment, then said, 'Well, put it this way: I don't think they liked my style there. Perhaps because I was a little over-wrought'.

'So what?' she said with a smile. 'You had a terribly difficult delivery, and then your child was in an Intensive Care Unit for an extended period of time. So you had a perfect right to feel distraught'.

'But I did manage to get up the nose of the consultant'.

'Between you and me... that's his problem. Anyway, like I said on the phone, I heard nothing from the hospital - and, believe me, had they been worried about you, I would have heard'.

'Well, that's good news, I guess'.

'So, if you do want to tell me anything...'

A pause. Instinctually, I started rocking the little carry-chair in which Jack was currently sleeping. Then I said, 'I guess I've been feeling a little up-and-down since his arrival'.

'Nothing uncommon about that'.

'And, of course, I'm sure things will be different now that he's finally home with us. But... uh... well, up to this point...'

I broke off, wondering how the hell to phrase what I was about to say. To her credit, Jane Sanjay didn't jump in, prodding me to finish the sentence. Instead, she said nothing, and waited for me to pick up the thread of conversation.

'Let me ask you something directly', I finally said.

'Of course', she said.

'Is it unusual to feel as if you're not exactly... bonding... with your child straight away'.

'Unusual? You must be joking. In fact, just about every other new mum I see ends up asking me the same question. Because everyone expects that they're going to instantly bond with their baby. Or, at least, that's what they read in all the baby books. Whereas the truth is usually a little more complex than that - and it can take a considerable amount of time to adjust to this new creature in your life. So, really, it's nothing to sweat, eh?'

But that night, there was plenty to sweat. To begin with, Jack woke up around ten pm and then refused to stop crying for the next five hours. To heighten the awful-ness of this nonstop bawling, both of my breasts became blocked again - and despite Jack's hoover-like jaws (and repeated uses of the dreaded breast pump), milk refused to flow. So I rushed into the kitchen and frantically spooned several scoops of formula powder into a bottle, then poured in the specified amount of water, shook it up, popped it into the microwave, nearly burnt my hand on the heated bottle, pulled a rubber teat out of the sterilizer, attached it to the bottle, raced back to the nursery, where Jack was now wailing, picked him up, sat him on my knee, and plugged him into the bottle. But after three or four slurps of the formula, he suddenly became ill and vomited up milk all over me. Then the screaming really started.

'Oh, Jesus, Jack', I said, watching regurgitated formula dribble down my teeshirt. At which point, I heard Tony's voice behind me, saying, 'Don't blame him'.

'I'm not blaming him', I said. 'I just don't like being covered in puke'.

'What do you expect, giving him a bottle. He needs your milk, not...'

'Who the hell are you, Dr Spock?'

'Any fool knows that'.

'My tits are blocked again'.

'Then unblock them'.

'And why don't you fuck off back to your eyrie'.

'With pleasure', he said, slamming the door behind him.

Tony had never slammed a door behind him before. And he did it with such force that it not only startled me, but also scared Jack. His crying redoubled in response to the loud bang. I suddenly had this absolute, immediate urge to punch out a window with my fist. Instead, I stripped off my vomit-drenched shirt, pulled up my bra, and - picking up Jack from the crib - attached him to the right nipple. As he sucked and sucked, I felt as if my head was about to implode - the pain from the obstructed breast suddenly feeling minor compared to the amplifying pressure-cooker between my ears. And when - out of nowhere - the breast unclogged and Jack began to greedily feed, my reaction wasn't one of relief. Rather, I entered a strange new terrain... a place I'd never ventured before. A realm called hysteria.

Or, at least, that's what it felt like to me. Incessant sobbing, accentuated by a mounting internal scream. It was a most peculiar sensation, this silent wail. It was as if I had retreated into a corner of my skull, from which I could hear myself - at a distant remove - crying. But gradually, these external tears were overwhelmed by a huge lunatic screech. When this howl reached such a magnitude that it threatened to deafen me, I had no choice but to pull Jack off my breast, lay him down in his crib, and negotiate the corridor towards our bedroom. Whereupon I fell on to the bed, grabbed a pillow, and used it to baffle my ears.

Curiously, this seemed to have a salutary effect. Within seconds, the internal howling stopped. So too did my sobbing. But in its place came silence. Or what, at first, seemed like silence... but then, out of nowhere, turned out to be the absence of sound. It was as if both eardrums had been perforated and now I was hearing nothing which was something of a relief, as I could no longer take the wail between my ears. So I lay there for what seemed to be only a few moments, luxuriating in this newfound deafness. Until the door flew open and Tony came in, looking surprisingly agitated. Initially, I couldn't hear what he was saying (even though I had removed the pillow from around my ears). But then, out of nowhere, my hearing snapped back into life. One moment, Tony was silent pantomime, the next, his voice came crashing into my ears. And underscoring his angry tone was the nearby sound of Jack crying.

' - don't understand how the hell you can just lie there when your son's' - Tony said, this sentence crashing into my ears.

'Sorry, sorry, sorry', I said, jumping to my feet and brushing past him. When I reached the nursery, I retrieved Jack from the crib and had him back on my left nipple within seconds. Fortunately, the milk flowed immediately - and Jack's cries were temporarily silenced. We all stop crying when we get what we want... for a moment or two anyway.

I leaned back in the wicker chair as he fed away. I shut my eyes, I willed myself back into the realm of deafness. Instead, I heard Tony's voice. It was back in his usual modulated range.

'What happened there?'

I opened my eyes. I sounded peculiarly calm.

'What happened where?' I asked.

'You on the bed - with the pillow round your head. Remember?'

'My ears...'

'Your ears?'

'Yeah - earache or something. Couldn't take it... the earache, that is. Just a momentary thing. Just...'

I shut my eyes again, unable to stand the sound of my own jerky train of thought.

'Should I call the doctor?'

My eyes jumped open again.

'No need', I said, suddenly sounding lucid. Anything but some doctor - looking warily at my fragile state, and adding to (what I imagined was) an ever-growing file about my maternal incompetence.

'I really do think...'

'Everything's fine now', I said, cutting him off. 'It was just a little temporary distress'.

Temporary distress. How bloody English of me.

Tony studied me carefully, saying nothing

'You ever get a flash earache?' I asked. 'Hurts like a bastard. And then... bam, it's gone'.

'If you say so', he said, sounding unconvinced.

'Sorry I shouted at you'.

'Comme d'habitude', he said. 'Mind if I go back to work?'

'No problem'.

'I'm upstairs if you need me'.

And he left.

Comme d'habitude. You bastard. Spending a derisory half-hour with me and your new son (on the first day he's home) before retreating to your sanctum sanctorum. And then getting all affronted when I get just a little peeved by your little lecture about Mother's Milk versus Formula. (How the hell did he know that? Some article on the Chronicle's women's pages, no doubt - which Tony probably glanced at for around fifteen seconds.) No doubt, once Jack starts crying again, my husband will plead the need for sleep (because somebody has to earn the money around here) and head for the silent comfort of his office sofa bed, leaving me to walk the floors for the night.

Which is exactly what happened. To make things even more maddening, I encouraged Tony to sleep elsewhere. Because by the time he came downstairs again - it was sometime after one am - Jack was back in bawling mode, the thirty minute feed being his sole respite from a long evening's cry. So when Tony found me in the living room with Jack, occasionally stealing a glance at the television, while simultaneously trying to rock him to sleep, I tried to play nice.

'Poor you', Tony said. 'How long has he been going on like that?'

'Too long'.

'Anything I can do?'

'Get some sleep. You need it'.

'You sure about that?'

'This can't go on all night. He's going to have to pass out eventually'.

Eventually was the operative word here - as Jack did not settle down again until 3.17 am exactly (I was watching BBC News 24 at the time - which always has the precise time in one corner of the screen). By this time, not only were both breasts unblocked, but had been wrung dry by his persistent feeding. After five hours of tears, he burped a milk-saturated burp, and passed right out.

I couldn't believe my luck - and swiftly got him upstairs into his crib, then stripped off my grungy clothes, took a very hot shower, and crawled into bed, expecting sleep to hit me like a sucker punch.

But nothing happened. I stared up at the ceiling, willing myself to pass out. No sale. I reached for a book from the pile of reading matter by the bed. I tried to read a couple of pages of Portrait of a Lady (well, I was an American in Europe, after all). But even Henry James's dense, lugubrious style didn't put me to sleep. So I got up and made myself a cup of camomile tea, and looked in on Jack (still conked out), and washed down two aspirins, and got back into bed, and tried to negotiate the further adventures of Isobel Archer, and waited for sleep to arrive, and...

Suddenly, it was crowding five am, and I was reaching the point in the novel where Isabel was about to ruin her life by marrying that malignant nobody, Gilbert Osmond, and I kept thinking that Edith Wharton did this sort of thing far more smartly in The House of Mirth and, God, didn't James write long sentences, and if he couldn't put me to sleep, nobody could, and...

Jack began to cry again. I put down the book. I went into the nursery. I removed his dirty diaper. I cleaned his dirty bottom. I dressed him in a clean diaper. I picked him up. I sat down in the wicker chair. I lifted up my teeshirt. He attached himself to my left nipple. I winced in anticipation of the forthcoming pain. And...

Miracle-of-miracle - a no-problem flow of milk.

'Well, that's good news', Jane Sanjay said when she dropped by late that afternoon to check on my progress. 'How many feeds now without a blockage?'

'I've just done the third of the day'.

'Houston, it looks like we've got full flow', she said.

I laughed, but then added, 'Now, if I can just get some sleep'.

'Was he up all night?'

'No - just me'.

'Well, hopefully it's a one-off bad night. But you seem to be holding up pretty well under the circumstances. Better than I would, believe me'.

'You've no kids'.

'Hey, do I look crazy?'

However, by two the next morning, I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was veering into craziness. Tony had been out all evening at some foreign correspondents' dinner, and rolled in drunk around two am - to find me slumped in front of the television, with Jack on my lap, crying his eyes out, unable to settle down, and completely satiated from an extended one hour feed.

'Still up?' Tony asked, attempting to focus his eyes on us.

'Not by choice. Still standing?'

'Just about. You know what a journo's night out is like'.

'Yeah - I vaguely remember'.

'Want me to do anything?'

'How 'bout hitting me over the head with a club?'

'Sorry - a little too caveman for my taste. Cup of tea?'

'Camomile, please. Not that it'll do any good'.

I was right - it didn't do any good. Because Tony never got around to making the cup of tea. He went into our bedroom to use the en-suite bathroom, then somehow managed to end up crashed out across the bed, fully clothed, out for the count. Had I wanted to sleep, this would have presented a problem - as there was no way I was going to get him to budge from his cross-bed sprawl. But I had no need of a bed - because, once again, I couldn't turn off my brain... even though Jack finally turned off his at three am that morning.

'Two nights - without sleep?' Jane Sanjay said the next afternoon. 'This is worrying - especially as your son seems to be conking out for around four hours a night... which, I know, isn't exactly a lot of sleep time for you, but is certainly better than no sleep. What do you think's going on?'

'I haven't a damn clue - except that my brain is more than a little hyperactive right now'.

'Well, this motherhood thing is never easy to absorb. Has your husband been helping with some of the all-night duties?'

'He's been a little busy on the work front', I said, not wanting to start complaining to a stranger about Tony's disinterest in most baby matters.

'Could you maybe consider a night nurse for a couple of days, just to allow you to crash for a bit? Lack of sleep is seriously bad news'.

'Tell me about it. But I'm sure I'll collapse tonight - without fail'.

But I didn't fall asleep. And it wasn't Jack's fault. On the contrary, the little gent went down around ten and didn't stir until four the next morning. This miraculous six-hour window should have been filled with deep comatose sleep. Instead I spent it drinking endless mugs of herbal tea, and stewing for an hour in a steaming bath (laced with assorted chill-out aromatherapy oils), and watching one of those endlessly talkative Eric Rohmer movies on Film Four (only the French can mix flirtation with liberal quotations from Pascal), and starting to read Dreiser's Sister Carrie (all right, I'm a glutton for punishment), and doing my best not to disturb my sleeping husband who was spending a rare night in our bed (I sensed he was in the mood for sex, but passed out from 'night after hangover exhaustion' before anything could happen).

Ten-ten. Eleven-eleven. Twelve-twelve. One-one. Two-two. Three-three...

It became a game with me, trying to glance at my watch right at the specific moment when the time was denoted by the same two numbers. A thoroughly dumb game, only worth playing if you're in the sort of advanced exhausted state which comes with two straight nights without sleep.

And then, before I could glimpse four-four, Jack was awake, and the new day had begun.

'How'd you sleep?' Tony asked me when he finally emerged from bed that morning at nine.

'Five hours', I lied.

'That's something, I suppose', he said.

'Yeah - I feel a lot better'.

Jane Sanjay told me she wouldn't be coming in today - but gave me her mobile number, just in case I needed to talk. But I didn't need to talk. I needed to sleep. But I couldn't sleep, because Jack was awake all day. And our shared routine was repeated over-and-over again.

Into the nursery. Remove his dirty diaper. Clean his dirty bottom. Dress him in a clean diaper. Pick him up. Sit down in the wicker chair. Lift up teeshirt. Offer nipple. And then...

By the time he finished sucking me dry at three that afternoon, my vision was starting to blur. Forty-eight hours of nonstop consciousness did that. It also played games with my depth perception, and made me feel as if I was Gulliver in the land of Brobdingnag - where even a dining chair suddenly looked as tall as a church steeple.

However, I could put up with the strange re-calibration of domestic furniture. Just as I could also handle a woolly feeling behind the eyes, and the fact that everything was slightly distended and fuzzy.

What I couldn't cope with was the feeling of calamity that was seizing me - a deep dark trough of despondency which I was finding hard to resist. Especially since - as I peered straight down into this trench - the hopelessness of my situation took hold. I wasn't just a useless mother and wife, but someone who was also in a no-exit situation from which there was no escape. A life sentence of domestic and maternal drudgery, with a man who clearly didn't love me.

Then, as I mused even further on my total despair, Jack began to cry again. I rocked him, I walked him up and down the hallway, I offered him a pacifier, my withered nipple, a clean diaper, more rocking, a walk down the street in his buggy, a return to his crib, thirty straight minutes of more bloody rocking in his bloody rocking chair...

When we had reached hour three of this uninterrupted crying jag, I sensed that I was heading for a rapid crash landing - where the idea of tossing myself out of a second floor window suddenly seemed infinitely preferable to another single minute of my son's bloody yelping.

Then I remember reaching for the phone and punching in Tony's office number and getting his secretary on the line. She said he was in a meeting. I said it was an emergency. She said he was in with the editor. I said, I don't give a shit, it's an emergency. Well, she said, can I tell him what it's about?

'Yes', I said, sounding most calm. 'Tell him if he's not home in the next sixty minutes, I'm going to kill our son'.

Seven

I DIDN'T WAIT for Tony to return the call. Because - after five straight hours of nonstop bellowing - Jack had suddenly exhausted himself into sleep. So, once I settled him down in the nursery, I unplugged the phone next to my bed. Then I threw off my clothes, crawled under the duvet, and finally surrendered to exhaustion.

Suddenly it was one in the morning and Jack was crying again. It took a moment or two to snap back into consciousness, and work out that I had been asleep for over nine hours. But that realization was superseded by another more urgent consideration - how in the hell could my son have slept so long without a diaper change, let alone food?

Guilt is the most motivating force in life - and one that can get you instantly to ignore the most impossible of hangovers, or lurch out of hours of sleep in a nanosecond. Dashing into the nursery, I quickly discovered that, yes, Jack did need a diaper change - but that, courtesy of the empty bottle I saw left on top of a chest of drawers, he had been fed sometime earlier. The sight of the bottle threw me, because the only time I had ever offered Jack this breast substitute, he'd utterly rejected it. But now...

'So you didn't kill him after all'.

Tony was standing in the door frame, looking at me with an exhausted middle-of-the-night wariness. I didn't meet his stare. I simply picked Jack up and brought him over to the changing mat, and started to unfasten his diaper.

'I'm sorry', I finally said, around the same time I was wiping Jack's bum free of milky shit.

'You had my secretary rather upset', Tony said. 'She actually hauled me out of the meeting with the editor, saying it was a family emergency. Thankfully she had the nous to say nothing more in front of His Lordship - but once I was outside his office, she informed me what you told her and then asked me if I wanted to call the police'.

I shut my eyes, and hung my head, and felt something approaching acute shame.

'Tony, I didn't know what I was saying...'

'Yes, I did sense that. Still, I thought it best to make certain that you hadn't taken the infanticide option, so I called home. When you didn't answer... well, I must admit that, for a moment or two, I actually did wonder if you had gone totally ballistic and done something irretrievably insane. So I thought it worth coming home. And when I walked in the door, there you both were, conked out. So I unplugged the baby alarm in his room, to let you sleep on'.

'You should have woken me'.

'You haven't been sleeping...'

'I told you I slept five hours last night', I said.

'And I knew you were lying straight away'.

Silence.

'You know, I'd never dream of hurting Jack...'

'I certainly hope not'.

'Oh Jesus, Tony... don't make me feel worse than I do'.

He just shrugged, then said, 'Jack will take a bottle, you know. Or, at least, he took it from me'.

'Well done', I said, not knowing what else to say. 'And you changed him as well?'

'So it seems. Sorry to have plugged the baby alarm back in. But once he was settled down, I thought I'd get back upstairs to the book...'

'No need to apologize. I should be up anyway'.

'You sure you're all right?'

Except for an appalling case of guilt, I was just fine.

'I'm so sorry'.

Tony just shrugged. 'You've said that already'.

I finished changing the diaper. I closed up Jack's baby-gro. I picked him up, settled us both down in the wicker chair, lifted up my teeshirt, and felt him clamp down hard on my nipple. I let out a small sigh of relief when the milk started flowing immediately.

'Oh, one other thing', Tony said. 'I took the liberty of making an appointment for you with the GP, tomorrow afternoon at two'.

'Why?' I said, though I already knew the answer to that question.

'Well, if you're not sleeping...'

'I'm sure it's just a passing phase'.

'Best to get it seen to, don't you think? And I've also phoned a company called Annie's Nannies - someone in the office recommended them - about getting you some help'.

'I don't need help. I'm fine. Anyway, a nanny's going to cost us lots'.

'Let me worry about that'.

I said nothing. Tony pointed his thumb in the direction of his office.

'Mind if I... ?'

'Work away' I said.

As soon as he was gone, I pressed my head down against Jack, and started to cry. But this teary episode was shortlived - as Jack reacted unfavourably to my shuddering body and showed his displeasure by biting down even harder on my breast: a corrective measure which let it be known that I should stay on task.

So I applied the emotional brakes, and sat there in silent shame, wondering how I could have said such a thing - and feeling, for the first time since his birth, this overwhelming need to protect Jack, and ensure that he came to no harm.

But as soon as I thought that, another unsettling rumination hit me: do I need to protect him against myself?

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. Nor did I find time for a nap in the morning, as Jack was wide awake. So by the time Jack and I reached the doctor's surgery that afternoon, exhaustion was beginning to settle in on me again - something which my GP diagnosed immediately.

Fortunately, my doctor of choice - McCoy - was on duty, as I don't think I could have managed that dry little prig who saw me the last time. Immediately, Dr McCoy was pleasantly solicitous - and spent several minutes looking Jack over. She already knew everything about his difficult arrival. This made me instantly wonder if word had filtered back from the hospital that I had been such a drama queen while I'd been at the Mattingly. Then she turned her attention to me - and sensed that something was wrong.

'Is he keeping you up at night?' she asked.

'It's me who's keeping me up at night', I said, then explained my irregular sleep patterns over the past few days.

'You must sleep', she said. 'It's crucial for your well-being, and for your baby. So what I'd like to propose is a mild sedative that should help knock you out, should the sleeplessness return. One important question: have you also been feeling a bit depressed or down?'

I shook my head.

'You sure about that?' she asked. 'Because it's not at all unusual to suffer from such things when you're unable to sleep. In fact, I'd call it rather commonplace'.

'Honestly, all I need is a couple of nights of decent sleep...'

'Well, these pills should help you. One small, but important thing to remember - after you've taken one of the sedatives, you mustn't breastfeed for at least eight hours, as the drug will be in your system'.

'No worries about that', I said.

'And if the sleeplessness continues - or if you are starting to feel a little low - you really must come back to see me immediately. This is nothing to play around with'.

Heading home, I knew that she knew. Just as I knew that Tony had undoubtedly told her about my threat against Jack. No doubt, Dr McCoy had now filed me away under 'At Risk' as Hughes had obviously spoken with her about my assorted contretemps in the hospital. So she could tell I was lying. Just as Tony knew that I was lying about my ability to sleep the previous night. Just as everyone was now convinced that I was a diabolically inappropriate mother who couldn't handle even the simplest of maternal tasks. Because...

Oh God, it's starting again...

I slowly depressed the brake. I gripped the steering wheel. I felt myself beginning to seize up - that sense of diminution which made me feel as if everything had the potential to overwhelm me. Including the jerk in the Merc behind me. He leaned on his car horn in an attempt to get me moving.

He succeeded, as I released the brake and inched forward. But his blasts of the horn also managed to waken Jack - who continued to cry while I was getting my prescription filled at the chemists. He was still crying when we arrived home, and he continued to do so for the balance of the afternoon. I checked him thoroughly making certain that he wasn't suffering from diaper rash, gum infections, malnutrition, lockjaw, the bubonic plague, or any other horrors I could conjure up in my mind. I also offered him my ever-ready nipples - and two hours after he sucked me dry, switched him to bottled formula with no complaints.

Until, that is, he came off the bottle and started to roar again. In desperation, I picked up the phone and called Sandy. She immediately heard his sizeable wail.

'Now that's what I call a set of lungs', she said. 'How's it going?'

'Beyond bad' - and I told her everything, with the exception of the threat I made against Jack. I couldn't admit such a desperate error of judgment to anyone... even to the sister to whom I always confided everything.

'Well', she said, 'sounds like completely standard operating baby bullshit to me. And the nonstop crying could be colic - which certainly drove my guys ga-ga when they were infants, and also sent me bonkers. So I hear where you're coming from. But it will pass'.

'You mean, like a gallstone?'

That night, Jack managed to cease his tragic aria just around the time that Tony walked in - smelling of six gin-and-tonics too many, and suddenly interested in having sex with me for the first time in...

Well, it had been so long since we'd had sex that I had actually forgotten just how badly Tony performed when drunk.

By which I mean, foreplay involved slobbering on my neck, popping the buttons on my jeans, shoving his hand into my pants, and fingering me as if he was stubbing out a cigarette in an ashtray (which, as it turned out, just happened to contain my clitoris). Then, after this impressive display of anti-erotic crotch grab, he pulled down his suit pants and briefs, and shoved himself into me, coming in less than a minute... after which he rolled off me and mumbled some vaguely incoherent apology about having a 'hair trigger' when drunk (so that's what they call it). Then he disappeared into the bathroom... at which point the thought struck me: this was not the romantic sexual reunion I had been hoping for.

I was well out of the bedroom by the time Tony emerged from the toilet, phoning up our local home delivery pizza joint, as our cupboards were particularly bare right now. When he staggered downstairs, he uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured out two glasses and downed his in two long draughts. Then he burped and said, 'So how was your day?'

'Wonderful', I said. 'I've ordered you a pepperoni with extra cheese. Does that work?'

'What more could a man ask for?'

'Any reason why you're so drunk?'

'Sometimes you just have to...'

'Get drunk?'

'You read my mind'.

'That's because I know you so well, dear'.

'Oh, do you now?' he said, suddenly a little too loud.

'I was being ironic'.

'No, you weren't. You were being critical'.

'Let's stop this right now'.

'But it's fun. And long overdue'.

'You mean, like the shitty sex we've - sorry, you've - just had?'

And I left the room.

No, I didn't throw myself on the bed, crying irrationally. Nor did I lock myself in the loo. Nor did I pick up the phone and moan down the line to Sandy. Instead, I retreated to the nursery and positioned myself in the wicker chair, and stared ahead, and found myself very quickly returning to the despondency zone I had entered two nights earlier. Only this time my brain wasn't flooded with forlorn thoughts about the hopelessness of everything. This time, there was simply a large silent void - a sense of free-floating vacuity, in which nothing mattered, nothing counted. The world had been rendered flat. I was about to totter off the edge. And I didn't give a fuck.

Nor did I move when I heard the front doorbell ring. Nor did I respond when, around five minutes later, I heard a knock on the door, followed by Tony's slurred voice, informing me that my pizza was downstairs.

Time suddenly had no meaning for me. I was simply cognizant of sitting in a chair, staring ahead. Yes, I knew that there was a child asleep on the other side of the room.Yes, I knew that said child happened to be my son. But beyond that...

Nothing.

Some time later, I stood up and walked into the bathroom. After peeing, I went downstairs. I sat on the sofa. I turned on the television. The screen flickered into life. I stared at it, noting that it was BBC News 24.1 also noted that the time was 0108 and that there was a pizza box on the coffee table by the sofa. But beyond that...

I curled up on the sofa. I looked ahead. I was aware of the moving images. I could also smell the pizza. I needed to eat. Because I hadn't eaten anything since...

Yesterday? The day before?

Didn't matter.

Then Jack started crying. Suddenly I was all action. Manic action. Cursing myself for my listlessness, my little catatonic escapade. Go, go, go - I told myself. Get on with it. You now know the drill by heart:

Into the nursery. Remove his dirty diaper. Clean his dirty bottom. Dress him in a clean diaper. Pick him up. Sit down in the wicker chair. Lift up teeshirt. Offer nipple. And then...

After the feed, he passed right out. I staggered to my bedroom and found the bed empty (Tony - surprise, surprise - having taken his pizza and his impending hangover up to his office). I curled up on top of the duvet, and...

Nothing.

An hour, two hours, three...

My bladder called again - the one thing that would get me out of the near-foetal position into which I had entwined myself. In the bathroom, as I sat on the toilet, I saw the bottle of sleeping pills on the shelf above the sink. The key to the real emptiness I craved.

When I reached the sink, I resisted the temptation to start ingesting the bottle, five pills at a time, ten big gulps, ensuring permanent oblivion. It's not that the idea of everlasting sleep didn't appeal to me - it's just that I was too damn tired to do anything about it. So I popped three pills (one above the recommended dose... but I wanted the extra knock-out assistance), and got back into bed, and...

The baby alarm went off. This time, however, I didn't rise-and-shine. No, this time my head felt as if it had been filled with a sticky, glutinous substance which made all my actions seem molasses-slow and fuzzy. But, yet again, I followed the drill:

Into the nursery. Remove his dirty diaper. Clean his dirty bottom. Dress him in a clean diaper. Pick him up. Sit down in the wicker chair. Lift up teeshirt. Offer nipple. And then...

Back to bed. Back to sleep. Instantaneous sleep. Which seemed to stretch on indefinitely. Until...

Tony was shaking me with considerable, anxious force, telling me to get up.

But I didn't want to get up. Because getting up would mean facing into the day/night/whatever it was. Getting up would mean regarding the disaster that was my life. Getting up would...

'It's Jack', Tony said, sounding scared. 'He seems to be unconscious'.

'What?'

'He won't wake up. And his eyes' -

I was on my feet, even though everything was still a chemically induced blur. Though I must have made the journey from my bedroom to the nursery twenty times a day, now it suddenly seemed like a labyrinth, strewn with heavy objects that I kept bumping into. When I reached Jack's crib, it took several moments for my eyes to snap into focus. But when they did, I felt as if someone had just kicked me in the stomach. Because Jack appeared to be catatonic.

As I picked him up, he went all floppy - his limbs splaying like a rag doll, his head lolling, his eyes unfocused, blank. I pulled him towards me and shouted his name. No response. I fought off the urge to shake him. I brought my face to his and could feel his faint breath, which was a relief. Then I turned to Tony and told him to call an ambulance.

They arrived within five minutes. The paramedics took over. We rode in the back of the ambulance with Jack. We roared through the streets, heading further south. Jack had been attached to a heart monitor, and my eyes roamed between his tiny body (strapped down to a gurney) and the steady beat being registered on the monitor. The paramedic in charge kept throwing questions at us: any convulsions or seizures or episodes of breathlessness or previous catatonic incidents?

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

And then we were at a hospital called St Martin's. There were two doctors waiting for us in the ambulance bay. The paramedic spoke with them. Jack was wheeled directly into a consulting room, filled with medical hardware. A woman doctor in her mid-twenties was in charge. Calm, efficient, immediately registering our fear. As she checked all vital signs, she too ran through the same checklist that the previous paramedic had used, and then asked if he was on any specific medication.

At which point, I felt something close to horror. Because I knew what the next question would be.

'Are you yourself on any medication?' she asked me.

'Yes', I said.

'What kind exactly?'

I told her.

'And might you have breastfed your son before the stipulated eight hours?'

I could feel Tony's stare on me. Had somebody handed me a gun right now, I would have happily blown away the top of my head.

'Jack woke me up out of a heavy sleep', I said, 'and I was so fogged, I didn't think...'

'Oh, for God's sake', Tony said. 'Where is your brain?'

The doctor slightly touched Tony's sleeve; a hint that he should stop. Then she said, 'Believe me, it happens all the time. Especially with very tired new mothers'.

'But will he be all right?' Tony asked.

'What time did you take the pills?' the doctor asked me.

'Don't know'.

'What do you mean, you don't know', Tony said, the anger now showing.

'Middle of the night, I think'.

'You think?' Tony said.

'May I handle this, please?' the doctor asked, then turned, put her hand on my arm, and addressed me directly.

'Now you mustn't get upset about what's happened'.

'I've killed him', I heard myself saying.

'No, you have not', she said, her voice firm. 'Now tell me' -

'I threatened to kill him, now' -

She gripped my arm tightly.

'Just please tell me... you took the pills around, what, five, six this morning?'

'I suppose...'

'And then he woke you up and you fed him...?'

'Don't know... but it was still dark'.

'That's good. And who found him in this state?'

'Me', Tony said, 'around nine this morning'.

'Which was probably around three to four hours after you fed him?'

'I guess so'.

She turned to the nurse and spoke in a low voice, issuing instructions.

'Is he going to be all right?' Tony asked.

'I think so. I've asked the nurse to put your son on a saline drip to keep him hydrated - and we'll also keep him on a heart monitor, just to be absolutely sure that everything is fine. But, from my experience of this situation, the baby simply has to sleep the medicine off'.

'But will there be any long term damage?' Tony asked.

'I doubt it. The fact is, the dosage of the drug he received in the breast milk was so nominal that...'

That was the moment that my knees gave way and I hung on to the side of the gurney containing Jack, like a passenger on a sinking cruise liner, not wanting to abandon ship, but also not knowing what the hell to do.

'Are you all right?' the doctor asked me.

How many times in the last few weeks had I heard that damn question?

'I just need to...'

A nurse helped me into a chair, and asked me if I'd like a glass of water. I nodded. Then I put my head between my legs and started to gag. But all that came up was watery spew.

'Oh, Jesus', Tony said as I continued to heave.

'Would you mind waiting outside?' the doctor asked him. After he left, the nurse cleaned me up and then helped me to a gurney opposite the one on which Jack was still strapped. I sat on the edge of it, my legs dangling down the side.

'When did you last eat?' the doctor asked me.

'Don't know. A couple of days ago, I think'.

'And how long have you been feeling depressed?'

'I'm not depressed'.

'If you can't remember when you last ate...'

'Just tired, that's all'.

'That's another sign of depression'.

'I am not...'

But I heard myself being cut off. By myself. But without deciding to cut myself off. The doctor said, 'And if you've been on sleeping pills, you obviously haven't been...'

'I tried to kill him'.

'No, you didn't'.

'I should die'.

'That's another sign of depression'.

'Leave me alone'.

I put my face in my hands.

'Have you ever suffered from depression before?'

I shook my head.

'And this is your first child?'

I nodded.

'All right then... I'm going to admit you'.

I said nothing. Because I was otherwise engaged - pushing the palm of my hands against my eyes, in an attempt to black out everything.

'Did you hear what I said?' the doctor asked, her tone still calm, considerate. 'You seem to be showing pronounced signs of postnatal depression - and under the circumstances, I think it wise to admit you for observation'.

My palms pressed down even harder against my eyes.

'And you must understand that what you are going through is not uncommon. In fact, postnatal depression is...'

But I rolled over on to the gurney and started to baffle my ears with a pillow. The doctor touched my arm, as if to say 'Understood', then I heard her mention something about going outside to have a word with my husband. I was left alone in the observation room with Jack. But I couldn't bear to look at him. Because I couldn't bear what I had done to him.

A few minutes later, the doctor returned.

'I've spoken to your husband. He's been informed of my diagnosis, and agrees that you should be kept in. He also understands that it's hospital policy to admit the mother and child together... which will also allow us, in the short term, to make certain that there are no side effects from Jack's mild...'

She stopped herself from using a clinical term, like overdose.

'Anyway, your husband said he had to dash off to work. But he will be back tonight...'

I pulled the pillow back over my ears again. The doctor saw this and stopped her monologue. Instead, she picked up a phone and made a fast call. Then, after hanging up, she came back to me and said, 'It's going to be all right. And you will get through this'.

That was the last time I saw her, as two orderlies arrived and flipped up the brakes on Jack's gurney, and wheeled him off. As he disappeared out the door, a nurse came in and said, 'Don't worry - you'll be following him in a moment'.

But I wasn't worried. Because I was feeling nothing. Just an all-purpose general numbness; a sense that, once again, nothing mattered because nothing mattered.

The orderlies returned for me around ten minutes later. They strapped me down (but not too tightly), then wheeled me down a long corridor until we reached a freight elevator. En route, everything seemed grey, badly lit, scruffy. And there was a prevalent toxic smell - an intermingling of disinfectant and fetid rubbish. But then the elevator doors opened. I was pushed inside, and we rode upwards. The doors opened again, and I was pushed forward down another long, grey corridor until we reached a set of fortified doors, with wire mesh covering the glass on both sides and a coded lock to the right of the door. A sign above the lock contained two words: Psychiatric Unit.

One of the orderlies punched in a code, there was a telltale click, and I was pushed inside, the doors closing behind me with a decisive thud.

Another long corridor. From my side view position, I could see that, along this hallway, all the doors were made of steel and had been fitted with outside throw-bolts. On and on we went - until we turned right and passed a small ward with regular doors. Beyond this was another series of doors - none of them with the formidable locks or fortifications I'd seen earlier. Just before one of these doors, we stopped. Then an orderly opened it and I was pushed inside.

I was in a room - around twelve feet by twelve, with a window (barred), a television bracketed to the wall, and two hospital beds. Both were empty, but judging from assorted personal debris on the small locker beside one of them, I already had a roommate. A nurse came into the room. She was in her late forties - thin, beak-like features, old-style horn-rimmed glasses, a carefully modulated voice.

'Sally?'

I didn't answer. I just continued to stare ahead - even though I was still taking everything in.

'Sally?'

I looked at her name tag: Shaw.

'George Bernard?' I suddenly said. The nurse peered at me carefully.

'Sorry?'

'George Bernard... Shaw', I said, and then fell into a serious torrent of laughter. The nurse gave me an even smile.

'It's Amanda Shaw actually'.

This struck me as the funniest thing I ever heard - and my laughter redoubled. Nurse Shaw said nothing - and, in fact, let me laugh like an idiot until I was spent.

'All right now?' she asked.

I returned to my balled-up posture on the bed. She nodded to one of the orderlies, who unfastened the straps that had been placed around me.

'Now if you wouldn't mind, Sally, these gentlemen need the bed, so...'

I lay motionless.

'All I'd like you to do is sit up and we'll take care of the rest'.

I didn't react.

'Sally, I'm going to ask you again. Will you please sit up, or should these gentlemen give you assistance?'

A pause. I could discern the threat lurking behind her even-tempered voice. I sat up.

'Good, very good', Nurse Shaw said. 'Now do you think you could get down off the bed?'

I hesitated. Nurse Shaw tilted her head slightly, and the two orderlies were on either side of me. One of them whispered, 'Come on, luv' - his voice uncomfortable, almost a little beseeching. I let them help me down, and on to the bed. Then, without a word, they returned to the gurney and steered it out of the room.

'Right then', Nurse Shaw said. 'Let me explain a few things about the unit...'

The unit.

'First of all, your baby is in the ward around ten paces down the corridor from here. So, you can have complete access to him whenever you want, twenty-four hours a day. And you can also bring him in here with you... though we do prefer if he sleeps in the ward, as it will allow you to get some much-needed rest'.

And it will allow you to keep him out of my clutches...

'Now, the next thing that's important to realize is that you're not a prisoner here. Because, unlike some individuals in the unit, you haven't been sectioned...'

Sectioned rhymes with dissection...

'So if you want to go for a walk, or leave the unit for whatever reason, there's no problem whatsoever. All we ask is that you inform the ward sister on duty that you're leaving...'

Because the front door's barred at all times... and also because we don't want some ga-ga dame like yourself running off with the baby... especially since you want to do him so much harm.

'Any questions?'

I shook my head.

'Fine. Now you'll find a hospital nightgown in the locker by the bed, so if you wouldn't mind changing into that, I'll see to it that your clothes are given a good wash'.

Because I spewed up all over them.

'And then, I gather it's been a while since you've eaten, so I'll have some food sent up straight away. But before all that, would you like to check in on your son?'

Long pause. Finally, I shook my head. Nurse Shaw was reasonableness itself.

'No problem whatsoever. But do remember - to see him, all you have to do is ring the call bell by the side of the bed'.

But why would he want to see me? Especially after I poisoned him. No wonder he always cried around me. From the start, he could sense my antipathy towards him.

'Oh, one final thing: the unit psychiatrist, Dr Rodale, will be in to see you in about two hours. All right?'

I can't wait.

'Well then, that's everything covered. So I'll leave you to get changed, and then I'll have one of my colleagues come back with lunch very shortly'.

Nurse Shaw left. I lay on the bed, not moving. Time went by. Nurse Shaw returned.

'Need some help changing, Sally?'

I sat up and started stripping off my clothes.

'That's good', Nurse Shaw said, and left.

The hospital nightgown stank of bleach and felt scratchy against the skin. I rolled up my street clothes into a big ball and shoved them into the locker. Then I crawled in between the equally scratchy sheets, and shut my eyes, and hoped for sleep. Instead, the door opened. A plumpish young nurse in her early twenties came in, Patterson on her name plate.

'G'day'

Australian.

'You all right?'

I said nothing.

'No worries. Lunch here'.

She was having a one-way conversation with a catatonic. But there was nothing I could do about it. I'd entered yet another facet of this strange landscape - in which mere speech suddenly seemed impossible, or somehow beyond my grasp.

The nurse placed the lunch tray on to the sliding table positioned next to the bed. She eased it over. I lay there and did nothing. The nurse smiled at me, hoping to get a response.

'Cat got your tongue? Tongue got your cat?'

I shut my eyes.

'All right, all right - it was a dumb joke', she said. 'But you've still got to eat. I mean, your roommate stopped eating for more than five days. And then...'

She cut herself off, as if she was about to reveal something she didn't want me to hear. Or, at least, not yet.

'But you're going to tuck into this lunch, aren't you? Or, at least, have a drink of something'.

I reached out for the tray. I took the glass of water. I brought it to my mouth. I drank a little while still in a prone position, which meant that some of the water ran down my face and on to the bedclothes. Then I put the glass back on the tray.

'Atta girl', the nurse said. 'Now how about a little tucker?'

I wanted to smile at the use of bush jargon in a South London hospital. But I couldn't do a damn miserable thing except lie there, feeling like a general all-purpose idiot.

'Tell you what. Why don't I just leave lunch here and come back in half an hour, eh? But, please, do yourself a favour and munch on something'.

But how can I eat when I can't eat. Don't you see that? Doesn't that make completely logical sense to you?

Half-an-hour later, she was back. And she didn't like the sight of the untouched lunch tray.

'Oh come on', she said, still sounding chirpy as hell. 'You've got to want something in your turn, don't you?'

No. I want nothing. Because I want to shrivel. Like a prune. Do everyone a huge service and disappear from view. Permanently.

She sat down on the bed and squeezed my arm.

'I know this is all really crap - and that you're in one of those "circumstances beyond your control" things. But a word of warning - the Doc is coming by to see you in about an hour. And she takes a really dim view of postnatal anorexia, eh? If you don't believe me, talk to your roomie when they bring her back from theatre. So do yourself a favour - and at least take a bloody bite out of the apple before the Doc shows up'.

But to bite an apple I have to bite an apple. Get it?

The doctor was a woman in her late forties. Very tall, very plain, with mid length brown hair sensibly cut, wearing a sensible suit under her white hospital coat, with sensible bi-focals on the end of her nose. Everything about her exuded high rationality - and a take-no-crap view of things. She immediately worried me.

'Ms Goodchild - Sally - I'm Dr Rodale, the unit's psychiatrist'.

She proffered her hand.

But to take your hand I have to take your hand.

She smiled tightly at my inability to make the necessary social gesture.

'Right then', she said, pulling up a chair next to my bed, then reaching into her briefcase for a clipboard and a pen. 'Let's try to make a start...'

It was she who made a start - asking me to verify my age, whether this was my first child, my first experience of depression and/or the first time I had ever gone silent like this. She also had gathered - from looking at Jack's chart - that his had been a traumatic delivery, and was wondering if this had impacted on my mental health... blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

Now what was interesting to me about Dr Rodale's one-way interrogation was the briskness of her inquiry, and the way she ploughed on even when I refused to answer her. And it struck me that - though she may have been a shrink - she wasn't of the touchy-feely let's talk to your inner child school of psychotherapy. No, she was simply after the necessary information to work out the sort of treatment I needed.

There was a problem, however - I wasn't responding to her questions. Something she picked up rather quickly.

'Now Sally' she finally said after getting nowhere on the answer front, 'I am well aware that you can hear me and that you recognize your surroundings, your situation, and the effect you are having on others. Which means that your refusal to talk must be regarded as psychosomatic in nature'.

A tight smile.

'However, if you do feel that you simply cannot talk at the moment, so be it. Do understand, though, that in order for me to render a proper diagnosis - and prescribe an appropriate course of treatment - you will have to answer my questions. So, shall we start over again?'

I said nothing. She reiterated her checklists of questions. Halfway through her list, I shifted position in the bed and turned away from her, showing her my back. I kept my back to her. She stood up and brought her chair around to the other side of the bed.

'There now, we can see each other again'.

I flipped over and showed her my back again. Dr Rodale exhaled a long, weary breath.

'All you are doing, Ms Goodchild, is impeding the speed of your recovery - and increasing the amount of time you will be spending with us. However, once again, I cannot force you to answer my simple medical questions. The choice is yours. For the moment, anyway. Just as you can decide whether or not to eat. But, as you well know, you cannot live without food. So if you continue to refuse food, that choice may well be taken care of for you.

'However, I do see from your notes that your GP prescribed a mild sedative to help you sleep. I am going to ask the nurse to administer the same dose to you this evening. And when I return to see you again tomorrow, I do hope we will be able to make better progress than today. Good afternoon'.

Around five minutes after she left, the doors swung open and I met my roommate. Actually I didn't meet her - as she was in a state of postoperative coma. Or, at least, I presumed she was suffering from postoperative something - as she was brought in on a gurney, and had a large bandage wrapped around her skull. Though I was still lying prone on my bed, I could see that she was a black woman around my age. Nurse Patterson helped the orderlies get the gurney into position. Once they left, she read her chart, checked her pulse, and rearranged her bedclothes. Then, seeing me staring at her, she said, 'Her name's Agnes. Her little boy, Charlie, is in the ward with your guy. You'll probably have a bit to talk about when she comes 'round - because she's been through what you're going through. In fact, she's still going through it - which is a real shame, but there you are. There's no rhyme or reason to the dance you're dancing. It's just a matter of bringing it under control before it dances you right into serious physical trouble - which is what happened with poor Agnes here. But hey, let her tell you all about it. Very bright woman, our Agnes - a senior civil servant. But hey, that's the thing about illness - it doesn't give a hoot who you are, right?'

She came over and sat down on my bed again. I so wished she wouldn't do that.

'And while we're on the subject of bad things happening to good people - don't you love that expression? - I'm going to let you in on a little secret: you did not make the best impression with the Doc. And she is definitely the sort of doctor with whom you want to cooperate, if you take my meaning. Very old school. Very into the old chain of command, and knowing what's best for you - which, I hate to say it, she probably does. Because whatever about her manner - which does get up a lot of people's noses - she does know exactly how to snap girls like you out of this mess. Only - take it from me - the road out of here is about five times shorter and easier if you help us to help you... and, yeah, sorry for the dumb cliché. So, come on, let's try a little food again'.

Hey, don't you think I want to help you out here? The problem is what the problem is, which is the fact that there is a problem which presents a problem when it comes to addressing said problem because the problem is...

She pulled over the table, and cut off a bit of sandwich for me and brought it to the vicinity of my mouth.

'Just a couple of fast bites, nothing to it...'

Listen, I know you mean well, but... no, I'm not going to get into it again.

'Apple? Glass of milk? Couple of our best choice bikkies? Nothing take your fancy?'

Just silence.

'Well, how about we get you out of the bed and take you in to see Jack. He's probably due a feed by now...'

This really made me react, as I suddenly clutched the pillow to myself and buried my face in it.

'Looks like I just put my big foot in it', Nurse Patterson said. 'But hey, the baby needs to eat too, right?'

Her bleeper went off. She glanced at it.

'That's me accounted for. Catch you later. And if you need anything, just buzz'.

I needed nothing - and certainly not the arrival, an hour later, of Tony. He was bearing a copy of that day's Chronicle and a festive bag of Liquorice All-Sorts. As he leaned down to kiss me, I saw his watch: 5.12 pm. Guilt must have egged him on to visit so early - a good three hours before he put his pages to bed.

'How's it going?' he asked me.

I said nothing.

'Brought you...'

He placed his gifts on the bedside locker, then looked for a chair, wondering whether to sit down or not. He decided to stand. He also decided to focus his attention slightly away from me - since my sickly, catatonic state so obviously disturbed him.

'I've just been in to see Jack. Good news - he's awake again, and from what the nurse told me, he gobbled down two bottles he was so damn hungry. Which, she said, is a good sign that he's completely back to normal'.

Because he's out of my tender loving care.

'Anyway, the nurse also said that you can visit him...'

Stop it, stop it, stop it. I don't want your kindness. I don't deserve it.

I pulled the pillow over my head.

'She also said you'd been doing a bit of this too'.

I pulled the pillow around my ears.

'If you want me to leave, I will'.

I didn't move. Finally he said, 'I hope you're better'.

I heard him leave. I removed the pillow. And then I heard a voice opposite me.

'Who are you?'

It was my roommate, Agnes. She was sitting up in bed, looking unfocused and fogged-in. But hey, I wasn't exactly one to brag about my lucidity right now.

'You here yesterday? Don't remember... You were here, right? But maybe...'

She broke off, looking confused - as if she couldn't hold on to this jangled train of thought.

'Agnes - that's me. You always put a pillow over your head like that? Agnes... you got that?'

Yeah - and I'm glad to see I'm not the only resident of Planet Weird.

'Agnes. As in Agnes. A-G-N-E...'

Nurse Patterson came in here.

'She's a woman of few words, our Sally', she said.

'Sally?' Agnes asked.

'That's what I said. S-A-L-L-Y. And she's not really talking much today. But we'd all like it if you kept trying' -cause sooner or later, we've got to hear that American accent of hers'.

Agnes blinked several times, trying to filter this information.

'Why's she American?' she asked.

'Why?' Nurse Patterson asked with a laugh. 'Because I imagine she was born there, that's why. And she's got a little baby boy, just like you'.

'He's called Charlie?' Agnes asked.

'No - your son's called Charlie...'

'I know, I know. I just thought...'

She interrupted herself again, sounding lost.

'Jack', Nurse Patterson said. 'He's called Jack'.

'And I'm... I'm...'

'A little scrambled, that's all', Nurse Patterson said. 'Just like last time. But, I promise you, by tomorrow morning you'll be all-clear again. Now what do you want for tea?'

Agnes shook her head.

'Ah now, we're not going down that road again', Nurse Patterson said. 'Especially since that's what got you...'

'Oatmeal', Agnes said. 'I'll eat oatmeal'.

'And oatmeal you shall have. And what do you fancy, Sally?'

I did my now-usual silent routine.

'This is not doing you any good, Sal'.

She approached me with a glass of water and another small cup.

'Now I'm not going to force food down your throat, but I am going to have to ask that you take these pills. Which are exactly the same pills you were taking last night...'

And which allowed me to poison my son.

She rattled the plastic pill cup by my ear.

'Come on now, doctor's orders and all that. And the payoff is: you get to sleep through the night. Oh - and as your husband may have mentioned, Jack is up-and-about, and ordering us all around. So...'

She shook the pills again.

'Please, Sal. Don't make me...'

She didn't finish that sentence. Because she didn't need to. I sat up. I took the pills. Then I forced myself on to my feet and shuffled into the adjoining bathroom, Nurse Patterson loudly congratulating me for getting up. Once inside, I avoided looking at myself in the mirror. Instead, I just emptied my bladder and returned to bed, and pulled the bedclothes over me, and waited for the pills to kick in.

Then it was morning. My head was somewhere high up in a vaporous stratospheric zone. When I began to work out the 'where am I?' question, I noticed that there was a needle in my arm, and a feed bag suspended above me. My roommate was absent. There was a new nurse on duty who was positioning another delectable repast in front of me. She was short and Scottish.

'Good sleep?'

I responded by getting to my feet, taking hold of the trolley with my feed bag, and pushing it towards the bathroom.

'Need some help there?' the nurse asked.

No, I'm a fully-fledged veteran of assorted hospital drips.

In the bathroom, I peed, then went to the sink to wash my hands and splash water on my face. That's when I saw the nightmare that was myself. My face puffy, my eyes streaked with red, my hair matted, my...