The Wrong Mother

15

Friday, 10 August 2007

When I hear the key in the lock, I pull the massage table towards me so that it stands between me and the door. He comes into the room, unsmiling, his face blank. In his left hand he holds the gun and in his right the syringe, which is full. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No. Please. It’s too soon after last time…’

‘Why aren’t you lying with your legs up against the wall like I told you to?’

‘It would be pointless,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t want to say anything before because I was scared of making you angry, but… I can’t have any more children.’

‘What?’ His face twitches.

‘After Jake was born I had some problems.’ I know words, details, that would make this lie more plausible. I know the names of all kinds of gynaecological syndromes from the dozens of books I read when I was pregnant with Zoe. Why can’t I remember any of them? ‘I’m infertile. However long I lie with my legs up against the wall, I won’t get pregnant. I’m sorry. I should have told you straight away.’

He laughs. ‘Infertile. Not suffering from a rare genetic disorder, then, which any child you had would be likely to inherit? Of course, you couldn’t say that because of Zoe and Jake.’

‘I’m not lying, I swear on my life.’

‘Swear on your children’s lives.’

No. Not that.

‘No. I would never do that. I’m telling the truth, Mark.’

‘That isn’t my name.’

‘What is?’

He stares down at his arms, his head hanging low. ‘William Markes. You guessed right first time.’

He puts the syringe down on the massage bed and points the gun at my face, holding it with both hands. ‘We’re going to play Conscience Roulette,’ he says. ‘In a minute, I’m going to ask you if you’re infertile. If you are, and you tell the truth, I’ll let you go. You can go back home. I want and need a family, Sally. A happy family. If you can’t give me one, you’re not the woman for me. But if you aren’t infertile, you’ll stay here with me. And if you lie and say you are when you aren’t, I’ll kill you. Do you understand? I’ll know if you’re lying. I already know.’ The gun makes a clicking noise.

‘I’m not infertile,’ I blurt out before he asks. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t lie again.’

‘Why are you crying? I’m the one who should be crying.’ He exhales slowly. ‘Lie down on the massage bed.’

Gathering together all my energy, I say, ‘Please can I… do it myself?’ I point to the syringe.

‘You’d mess it up deliberately.’

‘I wouldn’t. I promise.’

‘If you do, I’ll use this.’ He waves the gun. ‘Not to kill you. I’d shoot you in the knee or the foot.’

‘I swear I’ll do it properly,’ I babble, desperate.

‘Good, because I’m going to be watching carefully. I’m not stupid. I’ll know if you’re trying to sabotage our family.’

‘No!’ Every nerve ending in my body is screaming a panic signal. I wish he had kept me unconscious for longer, for ever. He said he would kill me if I lied, so why didn’t I? Fear. Terror, not a desire to live, not like this. ‘Not with you watching. Please!’

‘No?’ He walks over to the window, turns his back on me. ‘You’re trying to take advantage of me. Everyone always does, because I’m soft. I never put my foot down. Do you think I don’t know that you’ve got all the power and I’ve got none? Do you think I might have missed that fact, so you have to rub my nose in it?’

‘I… I don’t know what you mean,’ I sob.

‘I need you more than you need me. Think how you’d feel in my position. You don’t need me at all, and you don’t want me. So I need a gun and a syringe, locks on all the doors. And now you’re asking me to leave the room, to entrust the most important thing in my world to you, when you’ve lied from the minute you got here. How is that fair? How is that right?’

‘If you let me do this, on my own, I’ll try harder to make it work. I promise. If you want me to help you, you have to start thinking about what I want and not just what you want.’

‘Why do you care so much?’ he snaps. ‘Why does this tiny detail matter so much? I’ve seen your body before, I’ve touched it, every inch of it.’

Something inside me is about to break. I can’t argue any more. There’s no point: in his mind, he has already won every possible argument we might have.

‘Let’s get it over with, for both our sakes,’ he says, picking up the syringe.

I walk towards the massage table.

‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Not the table this time. I’ve been looking on the Internet. There are better positions for conception than flat on your back. Look.’ On the carpet in front of me, he gets down on his hands and knees, holding the syringe between his teeth while his palms are flat on the floor. ‘Do that,’ he says, standing up. ‘Right. Good.’

I stare at the stripy carpet, list the colours in my head: grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Nothing happens. I don’t feel his hands lifting the bottom of the dressing gown he made me put on after my clothes became too much of an inconvenience to him. Why is he taking so long?

For a beautiful moment I imagine he has died, that if I turned I would see him upright, grey and cold, eyes staring emptily.

‘That doesn’t look right,’ he says, sounding irritated. ‘I know, let’s improvise a bit. Go as if to fold your arms, resting your forearms flat on the carpet. No, not… yes, that’s it. Excellent. And then-final stage-shuffle forward on your forearms so that your body sort of stretches, so that your bottom’s higher in the air than the rest of you. That’s it. Stop. Perfect.’

Grey, green, rust, gold, orange. Grey, green, rust, gold, orange.

Darkness falls down on me. I twist my head to look up, see a layer of fabric. Not the ceiling. I feel air on my legs and back. He has pulled up the dressing gown, thrown it over my head. I begin to weep. ‘Wait! Look up male fertility on the Internet,’ I plead with him, but the words come out thick and indistinct. Only I know what I’m trying to say. ‘Four times a day is less likely to succeed than every two days. I’m not lying!’

He doesn’t answer.

I feel something brush against me. Not the syringe: something softer. Material. ‘Please stop,’ I beg. ‘There’s no point, not so soon after last time. It won’t work! Are you listening to me? I swear, I’m not lying!’

Thick, heavy breaths come from behind me. I close my eyes, steeling myself for the syringe, pressing my face into my arms. Seconds pass-I don’t know how many. I have forgotten how to count the speed at which my life is rolling away from me. Nothing happens.

Eventually, when I can’t bear it any more, I raise my head and turn. He’s holding the gun in the air. The bottom of his shirt has blood on it. ‘What…?’ I start to say.

He flies across the room at me. ‘You bitch!’ he screams. ‘Evil bitch!’ I don’t have time to move. I see the gun above my head, his hand coming down fast. Then a terrible crack, a burst of pain that wipes everything away.

When I come round, my arms and legs are twitching. That’s the first thing I’m aware of. I raise my hands to pat my face and head. Something around my eyes is the wrong shape. I find a lump above my right eyebrow, hard and huge, as if someone’s sliced open my skull and pushed a cricket ball under the skin at the top of my face.

My fingers are wet. I open my eyes: blood. That’s right: he hit me with the gun. I look around. Tears of gratitude prick my eyes when I see he’s not there. I don’t mind being in this room as long as he’s somewhere else.

Blood on his shirt. But that was before he hit me. Did he injure himself? How? Slowly, I rise to my feet. On the stripy carpet where I was lying, there is more blood. Nowhere near where my head was. I can’t bear to check in the most obvious way, not after what he’s done to me. I hobble over to my bag, pull out my diary and find the last page that I’ve marked with an asterisk. Then I count the days since then: twenty-nine. Oh, my God.

Knowing why he hit me frightens me as much as the click of the gun did. He can’t wait. That’s how mad he is. At some point in his life, he has lived with a woman and had a child; he must know exactly what the blood means.

He can’t even bear to wait five or six days.

Has he given up on me and gone to find another woman?

I try the door handle. Locked. I swear at myself, knowing how ridiculous it is to be crying with disappointment. For a moment I allowed myself to hope that he had left the house in a blind fury, forgetting to take his usual precautions.

I know he has gone out. I’m sure of it. He can’t stand to be around me, not now that I’ve let him down. I have to do something. I can’t wait for the milkman tomorrow morning. I must do something now.

Why do people say, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’? Most of them will never end up in a situation like mine, forced to remember the number of times they’ve trotted out that idiotic platitude.

I have never said it because I’ve never believed it, but now I have to. I have to make it true.

Breaking down the door would be impossible. It’s a thick one with metal inside, a fire door. It swings shut heavily unless someone-the man, William Markes-holds it open. That leaves the window. Double-glazed. I’ve looked at it hundreds of times and decided there’s no way I could smash it.

I have to try. I run from the opposite side of the room, throw my body at the glass six, seven times. It doesn’t move. I do it until my shoulders and arms feel as if they’re about to break. I slam my fists against the window and scream, hating it for its strength.

There is clouding on one pane. It’s been there since I got here, blocking a small patch of what is already a limited view. It never clears; funny, I haven’t noticed before. Moisture, trapped between the two panes of glass. Which means that, somewhere, the seal is broken.

Climbing up on to the massage table, I unscrew the white plastic light fitting above the bulb and release the cranberry glass shade. Then I swing my arm back and hurl it at the window as hard as I can. It smashes. I leap down from the table, run to the pile of glass and choose a shard with a thin, sharp edge. I think about using it to kill myself and immediately reject the idea; if I’d wanted to die I could have lied and let William Markes shoot me-it would have been easier.

Using the pink glass triangle’s sharpest point, I start to slice gently at the grey rubber seal at the top of the window. The soles of my feet sting. I stop to examine them and see that they are bleeding: small chunks of lampshade have embedded themselves in the skin. I ignore the pain and carry on cutting at the thin rubber strip. I don’t care how long it takes. I will never stop. I will spend the rest of my life gouging out the corner of this window.

After what feels like hours, a curl of rubber springs towards me-I have prised it free with my makeshift spade. Yes. I drop the slice of lampshade on the carpet, grab the rubber and yank it as hard as I can. The strip peels away, and the glass in the window shifts slightly. I’ve pulled out the seal.

My body feels too battered to break anything. I push the massage table on to its side and start to unscrew the central metal leg, twisting it clockwise. It is stiff, and takes a while. I sing under my breath, ‘Annie Apple, she says “Aah”, she says “Aah”, she says “Aah”.’ Zoe’s Letterland song-she learned it at nursery. By the time I get to Z I’ll have done it, I tell myself. I’ll be free. ‘Annie Apple, she says “Aah”, she belongs to Mr A. Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, Bouncy Ben says “Buh” in words, and then he bounces home. Clever cat…’

I’ve done it. I’m holding the sturdy metal leg. It’s hollow, but still heavy enough. It should do the trick.

Running from the opposite wall, I aim the end of it at the middle of the window. The glass smashes. It cracks, then crumples and falls like hard, opaque confetti.

I sling my bag over my shoulder and move towards the open air.

Police Exhibit Ref: VN8723

Case Ref: VN87

OIC: Sergeant Samuel Kombothekra

GERALDINE BRETHERICK’S DIARY, EXTRACT 8 OF 9 (taken from hard disk of Toshiba laptop computer at Corn Mill House, Castle Park, Spilling, RY29 0LE)

17 May 2006, 11.40 p.m.

Mum phoned this evening. I was so tired, I was barely able to form words with my lips and tongue. ‘What are you doing?’ she said. She always asks this question as if she hopes my answer will be ‘Sculpting a dolls’ house for Lucy from a piece of firewood. I’d better go now-got to get back to my sewing machine and finish the cute gingham curtains for those dollies’ little windows!’

‘Tidying away the toys that Lucy’s scattered all over the house,’ I told her.

‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘You’re always saying how tired you are. You should sit down and put your feet up.’

This surprised me. Mum usually tells me I have no reason to be tired and has never before shown an interest in the position of my feet.

‘Is Lucy in bed?’

‘Not yet,’ I told her.

‘Wait till she goes to bed, then. There’s no point putting things away that she’s only going to take out in five minutes’ time.’

Wrong again, Mother. There is a clear point. Tidying up is not only about the result. The process is equally important; sometimes I think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane at home. When Lucy and I are both in the house, I do almost nothing but walk from room to room tidying away the mess she’s made. I stand behind her, and as soon as she’s put something down I put it back in its proper place. Every time she pulls a toy or book or DVD off the shelf, five other items tumble down with it and land on the carpet. Each time she dresses up, all the play-clothes have to come out of the wardrobe to be strewn all over the bedroom. Then there are the toys I loathe most, those with more than one component: tea sets, picnic sets, hairdresser sets, Lego, Fuzzy Felt, jigsaws. All these things end up all over my floors.

In the past Mum has said that I should make Lucy tidy up herself, but if I did she would have a tantrum, which I would then need to summon up the energy to deal with. Still, that’s not the only reason why I clear up after her. Hovering behind her and putting back the things she’s taken out appeals to me in a sick kind of way. I like the symbolism of it. I want to prove to all observers how hard it is for me-second by second, minute by minute-to make my life acceptable to me, to get it into an order I can live with. I want my predicament to be clearly visible to all: Lucy is constantly ruining everything and I am constantly struggling to repair the wreckage of my life. And I will never, ever give up. I’ll be on my feet, on my hands and knees, fighting the things I hate for as long as there’s breath left in my body.

How would it be if I sat on the sofa chatting or watching television while Lucy spread her plastic, felt and glitter across the room? People would think I had accepted the ‘status quo’. You cannot undo the act of having a child once you’ve had one-I know this-but my endless, frenzied tidying is the closest I can get to the act of undoing (harmlessly, I mean).

I didn’t tell Mum any of this because I knew she would start ‘shoulding’ me-telling me what I should and shouldn’t think and feel. You can’t go round ‘shoulding’ other people. I could tell Mum she should be more understanding, but where would that get us? Evidently she lacks the capability.

‘Please don’t wear yourself out,’ she said. I was actually quite touched by her concern until she said, ‘I’m not trying to interfere in your life. All I care about is Lucy, that’s all. If you’re exhausted, you won’t be able to look after her properly.’

All I care about is Lucy, that’s all? Couldn’t she have packed a few more declarations of exclusivity into that sentence?

I was her daughter for more than thirty years before Lucy existed.

I told her not to phone again.