If You Knew Her Read online

  I call out again as another clash of pain rips through me. It feels like I’m being eaten alive. I can hear Jess calling for me – ‘What’s happening Ali? Are you there?’ – and I let out a groan that becomes Jess’s name and I look down at the phone, and with a shaky finger press the speaker button. My kitchen is filled suddenly with all the life in Jess’s kitchen. There’s music in the background, something with Spanish guitars. Tim must be on the phone or have someone over because his laugh, deep, resonant and usually so reassuring, echoes through the receiver and into my ear.

  Ha! Ha! Ha!

  Now it sounds mocking.

  Ha! Ha! Ha!

  ‘Ali? Alice?’, and then Jess pauses and says, away from the receiver, ‘For god’s sake, Tim, will you shut up? Something’s wrong with Ali’, and I let out another moan as the pain starts to feast deeper inside.

  Tim always listens to Jess; the laughing stops immediately and the Spanish guitars are snuffed out as well. Bob comes to see what’s the problem. His black seal-head hangs low. He sniffs me uncertainly. I’m frightening him; all this noise is frightening him.

  ‘Ali, is it happening again?’ I was at Jess’s house when I had the sixth one; she recognises the groans. All I can do is grunt confirmation and try and whisper, ‘It’s OK, Bob. It’s OK.’

  Refusing to hang up, Jess calls David from Tim’s phone to tell him he needs to go home. He’ll be a little over an hour she tells me in a breathy voice she must think is controlled, reassuring. Jess wants to call an ambulance but I yell out, ‘No, no ambulance’, and she knows I mean it, she wants to drive over, but it’ll take her almost as long as David at this time and, besides, I know this battle and I need it to be a private one. Between gasps of air, I persuade her she’s more help on the phone.

  The only clear thought I have is that David mustn’t find me squashed and wailing on the kitchen floor. It’d upset him too much. So slowly, like a maimed animal, I pull myself up on the cutlery drawer. Bob’s tail starts cautiously wagging. Still bent over double and now holding the phone towards my stomach so Jess’s voice is muffled, I stagger to an old woman stoop and shuffle to the spitting hob. The meat is ruined, cooked through from one side, the skin carbonised. Tiny sprays of fat leap from the pan and sting my face. I could weep at the waste, but there’s no time. I know I don’t have long to get to our bathroom before another spasm. I turn the hob off and using the wall for guidance I pull myself upstairs. It starts again just as I get into our bedroom, forcing me to bend over as my abdomen is ripped to shreds, but it doesn’t quite wind me and I make it to the bed, tossing the phone down on the duvet, Jess reminding me in an authoritative voice to stay calm. I sit on the edge of the bed and look at my feet as I puff air in and out. Labour breath comes instinctively even though I never made it that far … never had the lessons.

  After a few minutes, I think I’m strong enough and stand again, my body shaking like a taut string, my skin slick with sweat, and, grabbing the phone, I stagger faster this time, more urgent, to the drugs cabinet in the bathroom. I kept some morphine back from last time, as if I knew in my marrow this would happen again. I swallow a couple of pills and then feel the first falling away deep inside me, a detachment in that deep middle-belly space, the horrifyingly familiar sensation of being turned inside out. I manage to sit on the toilet as the blood comes quickly and focus on the pain that in a few months would have been happy, welcome pain, but now is just an agonising reminder of a truth I’ve refused so many times and I hold my head and I let myself cry.

  This is how David finds me, hunched on the toilet, my face puffy with sorrow. He doesn’t ask any questions, not now. He sees the morphine, which is now kindly distorting, softening everything for me.

  He picks up my phone. Jess is still on the line; he tells her he’s home, that I will be OK. She reminds him, like I asked her to, to call Kate’s to tell them I won’t make my night shift before he hangs up. He cleans me, puts me in pyjamas, all the while he’s telling me it’s going to be OK, that he’s here now, that he loves me.

  He carries me to bed and lies behind me, spooning me, and it’s only then I feel his body tense and release, tense and release, as he sobs, and I want to turn to hold him but the morphine is too strong, and I let go and fall deeply into a violent, chemical sleep.

  When I wake, there’s just a twisted strudel of bed sheets next to me. I sit up.

  ‘Hi, Ali,’ David says gently. He’s pulled the armchair over towards the bed. His face is swollen from lack of sleep. I feel as if I drank two bottles of heavy red wine the night before, a headache like a gathering storm pounds just behind my eyes. The cramps have quietened to dull thumps in my lower abdomen. My tongue is sticky, so I reach for the water but David intercepts.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks as he hands me a freshly poured glass.

  I find I can’t answer, and just gently raise my shoulders, shaking my head, I don’t know how I’m feeling; I haven’t been able to place myself just yet.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Ali?’ His face messy with lines and confusion.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out all night – why you didn’t tell me. I …’ He hangs his head.

  I feel my heart crack as he starts shaking his head. I move forward, across the bed, and put my hand in his curls, trying to soothe him as best I can, when the pain, like a memory from last night, ripples through me, and all I can say is, ‘I’m sorry, David, I’m so sorry.’

  He moves to sit on the bed. I fold around his torso, and he wipes his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, I’ll have a vasectomy to stop this from happening. I can’t go through it again, watch you suffering, me totally incapable of doing anything to really help …’

  Neither of us says anything as we grip onto each other and I find that, instead of the familiar sense of loneliness where my hope used to rest, I can feel something else there, a feeling of possibility for change, a spark of something different.

  Moving away from this terrible routine scares me less than being locked in it, and although it feels blasphemous to even think, I realise I’m ready to wave a white flag, ready to surrender to the truth that my body can’t carry our child.

  We stay in bed for the whole day, taking it in turns to cry and soothe, until David falls asleep again by my side, and I listen to the rise and fall of his breath and hope for sleep to come.

  20

  Frank

  Lucy’s kept her promise; she’s visited every afternoon since my first scan four days ago. Today she’s curled up in my visitor’s chair chewing her fingernails, her feet tucked underneath her. She’s flicking through a glossy manual for a rehabilitation centre in Birmingham.

  ‘It says here, Dad, that they’ve got a special swimming pool to help residents regain muscle strength.’ She looks at me. ‘Ooo eerr,’ she says, like I’m headed to a decadent spa. I imagine people like me floating around like jellyfish.

  I’m trying to blink twice for ‘no’ because I can’t blink ‘never, ever put me in a bloody swimming pool’ just yet, when Lizzie approaches the bed.

  ‘Hi, Lucy. Hi, Frank,’ she says. ‘This is Dr Sarah Marsh, our senior speech therapist. She’s going to introduce you both to the blinking board I was telling you about.’

  An older woman with wiry grey hair and glasses that look like they’re about to slide off her nose and fall on me smiles down.

  ‘Hello, Mr Ashcroft. May I call you Frank?’ she asks.

  I blink once and she shakes Lucy’s hand.

  I zone in and out of Sarah Marsh’s instructions. The blinking board is an A3 piece of plastic with the alphabet divided lengthways into different colour bands. Red for letters from A – D, yellow for letters from E – H and so on. Sarah Marsh gets really excited when she tells us that soon Lucy can personalise the board for me, adding words I commonly use so I can just look at them without having to blink through the whole bloody board.

  ‘I hope you don’t min
d swear words!’ Lucy says brightly.

  Sarah Marsh frowns and says, ‘Let’s just try, shall we?’

  She positions the board right in front of my face and in an overly loud voice that makes my skull vibrate she calls out, ‘Red.’

  I blink.

  ‘Right, so that means his letter is in the first row of letters,’ Sarah Marsh says in a normal voice to Lucy before booming back at me, ‘A.’

  I blink.

  ‘A. So we know he wants his word to start with “A”.’

  I get over excited and fluff the next letter, blinking too soon on ‘K’ instead of ‘L’ so the next letter ‘I’ makes no sense.

  ‘A, K, I?’ Sarah Marsh sounds uncertain.

  ‘Aki, Dad? I can’t think of any word that begins with Aki …’

  They both turn to me, confused, worried perhaps that I have lost it after all.

  I try a double blink for ‘no’ but I’m too exhausted so I just let my eyelids glide shut.

  ‘I think it’s knackered him out,’ Lucy says.

  ‘It’s a big step.’ Sarah Marsh sounds disappointed although she’s pretending not to be. ‘Best to take it slowly. Today was just a little taster.’

  Sarah Marsh leaves and I hear Luce mutter, ‘Aki, A.K.I’, quietly to herself a couple of times.

  In the blackness, I worry that Lucy will question whether I am getting well or not, that she’ll start to think my blinking was just muscle reflex after all.

  But then a consultant I don’t know comes to the bed and tells us a recent brain scan was encouraging, that there seem to be some small shards of light in the pulpy mess in my head.

  There’s something very intimate about having a brain examination. I hope they’re not too accurate; I’d hate to think what they’d see. I imagine the white coats wincing over the results: ‘Oh dear, look, purple there for regret and those big flashes of red? Rage. Frank Ashcroft is not a peaceful man.’

  Lucy gives me a peck and says, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Dad. We can try again with the board then. It’s so exciting to think you might say a word soon!’ I hear her smiling, a big smile to egg me along, to keep our spirits up.

  I listen to her walk away and wonder where Alice is. She’s been gone for three days now. I overheard Carol telling Lizzie it was ‘one of her migraines’, which is news to me; Alice never said she got migraines. My plan is to sort this ‘AKI’ mess out, to blink what I obviously meant to blink, that’ll cheer her up, make her forget her migraine, if that is what’s wrong.

  The last four days have been busy. I try to keep my eyes open now as I’m wheeled to my daily scan. I need to get used to people staring at me. Even after all of this, I’m surprised to find I still care what strangers think. When I’m not being scanned or with Lucy, I’m being prodded and pushed by an energetic physiotherapist, or my pupils are investigated by some visiting consultant. The main difference is that now they tell me where they’re going to prod or poke instead of just cracking on like before. Small mercies. They ask me before every session ‘How are you, Frank?’, which is bloody annoying because I’m still strictly a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ man.

  Just as things have heated up for me, they have cooled for my neighbour. The reporters, it seems, have mostly lost interest, for now anyway. They’re pointing their cameras and microphones towards a local radio presenter who it turns out is overly fond of young girls.

  Jack comes every day. He sits by his wife’s side, plays her music, calming classical stuff mainly, or reads her the newspaper. He only reads political and sports updates out loud for her. All the war and misery he keeps quietly to himself. I’m grateful for that.

  Charlotte comes every day too. She likes to keep herself busy. She files Cassie’s nails, washes her hair, but sometimes she just waits – hands poised over Cassie’s stomach and her eyes fixed on Cassie’s face – for any sign from the baby. She cried the first time she felt the baby kick. They’re so consumed with their Cassie, I don’t think they even know I’m here; I could turn bright purple with pink spots overnight and they wouldn’t notice. Fair enough.

  The lazy February sun has long gone and I’ve had a sleep since afternoon rounds, so I reckon it’s early evening when Alice arrives. She pauses by Cassie’s curtain before coming to me. My head is tilted forward so all I can see is the thin outline of my useless legs, but holding both sides of my head, she pulls my gaze up so we look directly into each other and I know as soon as I see her; it wasn’t a migraine.

  She’s gaunt, as though she’s been emptied drip by drip of spark, her Alice-ness. She looks me straight in the eye and I see her eyes swell behind her eyelids. She bites the skin that peels painfully away from her bottom lip, looks deep into me and shakes her head a couple of times and that’s all it takes. I know. I know it’s happened again. She wipes an escaping tear from her cheek and lowers her eyes for a second before we both hear the rattle of Cassie’s curtain opening.

  ‘Alice, you’re back?’ Charlotte asks. She’s visiting later than normal this evening.

  I watch Alice’s face change in an instant; Alice the professional is back. She turns toward Charlotte, and all I can see now is the back of Alice’s head as she walks towards the older woman.

  ‘Charlotte, hi, yes, sorry. I’ve been off with a really terrible migraine, I’m afraid.’

  Charlotte’s hair falls to the side as she tilts her head slightly, listening to Alice.

  ‘Doing much better now though,’ Alice continues, ‘so I thought I’d just pop in quickly, see how everyone is, then I’ll be back for my shift tomorrow morning.’

  Alice’s voice is clipped, efficient. I hear a small warning to Charlotte not to ask questions.

  Charlotte’s eyes narrow slightly. I don’t think she believes Alice, but she seems to have picked up on the warning in Alice’s voice; she knows not to pry.

  ‘Well, make sure you don’t overstretch yourself, Alice. I was supposed to leave a little while ago, actually, but the little one’s been so busy tonight. I’ve just been standing there feeling her kick. Honestly, it’s amazing how much energy she has. Come and have a feel.’

  Alice follows behind Charlotte to Cassie’s bedside but she keeps her hands laced behind her back, away from Cassie’s baby. I know she means well, but I wish Charlotte would leave Alice alone.

  ‘Actually, Charlotte, I’m really not planning on staying long. I … I’m still not really myself, so I think …’

  Charlotte stares at Alice. Her eyes narrow again, like Alice is a puzzle she’s trying to work out. Then she looks down at her hands, resting on the top of Cassie’s bed, and I think Charlotte knows there’s something else wrong. Maybe like me she’s seen the new absence in Alice, the loss in her.

  Charlotte nods and looks up at Alice, tries a small reassuring smile, and says, ‘Of course, Alice, I understand. You should go home and get some rest. Get that husband of yours to make you supper.’

  Alice nods, and raises a small but empty smile to Charlotte.

  ‘You’re going to stay for a bit longer?’ she asks Charlotte. ‘I’ll let Paula know you’re here.’

  Charlotte nods. ‘I bought that cream I was telling you about, the one that helps skin stretch? I think I’ll just pop some on her now and then I’ll head home as well.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see you at some point tomorrow,’ Alice says. She casts a final expert glance over Cassie, her eyes resting on her bump for just a second. Her smile fades as soon as she turns away from them. She closes the curtains most of the way around them but she wants to get away quickly now and she doesn’t pause to fully close the gap. She only looks up at me quickly to smile goodnight.

  My heart cracks for her; her footsteps sound so lonely as she walks away.

  I try and become interested in what Charlotte’s doing, to distract myself from the terrifying free fall of Alice’s loss. I watch as she takes off her coat and lays it carefully on the visitor’s chair. From her handbag she takes out a white tub, and starts picking at the seal until the
lid finally releases with a little sigh. She pulls the sheets carefully off Cassie, bunching them around her ankles. Cassie’s legs look thin, the sort of thinness old people have when their muscles wither like overripe fruit. Charlotte lifts her nightdress, exposing Cassie’s swollen stomach. I haven’t seen the bump like this for a while; Cassie’s tummy button has popped out like a small, juicy grape. Her stomach is impressive, dwarfing Cassie’s form. It looks bigger next to her shrinking muscles, as though it has its own presence, as if the baby’s here already, which in a way, I suppose it is.

  Charlotte doesn’t sit in the visitor’s chair. She stands above Cassie as she dips her hand into the jar and pulls out a large handful of white cream. She warms it in her hands before she starts smearing it on Cassie’s stomach in fluid, round motions, as if icing a cake. She keeps her eyes fixed on her work as she looks down at her hands and Cassie’s stomach, both of which are now covered in cream. She starts muttering, her voice taut, lower than I’ve heard it before.

  ‘Oh, my little Freya,’ she says, smiling down at Cassie’s bump. But then her hands stop moving and for a brief moment they become tense. ‘I want you to know your daddy never wanted any of this to happen.’ She looks up briefly at Cassie’s face, and the warmth in her voice cools to a hiss. ‘I tried to warn her.’ And then she starts moving her hands again in small circles, Cassie’s stomach as innocent as a shelled boiled egg, white and glistening with the cream.

  21

  Cassie