Go to Sleep (12 page)

We cut down Kingsley Road, and the speed bumps – even with Dad’s careful negotiation of them – deliver a little kick to my womb, a phantom limb lashing out. Joe seems already to have sussed on some primal level that
my promise of care and constancy pledged at birth is already out of reach. And then, out of nothing, he starts smiling with his eyes as we navigate the roundabout at Prince’s Park. His mouth makes a tiny ‘O’ and, for the first time, it feels like we’re on the same side. Joe’s history is scattered all over that park, and he knows it.

*

I don’t know
what
to feel, as my front door beckons. Terror, mainly. All I know is that, whether they stay an hour, two hours or whether the pair of them insist on staying the night, no matter what token gestures or offers of help I receive, I’ll be doing this alone. Sooner or later, they’ll be closing that door behind them as they walk away and leave me to it – and it fucking scares me, now. How am I going to
do
this? How will I stop Joe crying? When will I get some sleep?

Dad parks as close to my doorstep as possible. I take a deep breath. Just say it, Rachel.
Say
it! It’s what they want, isn’t it? They want to be a part of all this. I draw myself up as though I’m about to start breathing through labour all over again.

‘I was . . . I was wondering . . . if maybe you could come over a couple of days in the next week or so? Just take Joe off my hands for a few hours while I catch up on a few things.’

Sleep. Catch up on sleep. Why can’t I just own up to it? Please – take the baby so I can get some fucking sleep! Jan gives Dad the briefest of furtive glances. Dad winces, looks out of his window. Jan gives a weary sigh and hits me with it.

‘Look. Your dad didn’t want to mention anything while you were . . . until after the birth.’

‘Mention what?’

Her eyes plead with Dad to help her out here. ‘Just . . . something came up, Rachel,’ she says. And without so much as skipping a beat she segues right into it. ‘I’ve been given this unbelievable research opportunity. In Malawi. I was . . . I was kind of hoping that your dad might join me . . . for a couple of weeks. We haven’t been away together in
so
long.’

Ha! It all makes sense now! The video camera. Record every beat. Yeah, right, Dad – record every beat you won’t be here to see. Well fine. Do what the fuck you want.

‘Well, hang on, Jan . . .’ He places a hand on her thigh and cranes his head round to me. I can see the sides of his slightly-bulging eyeballs. ‘You come first, Rache. You and Junior. If you want me to stay back, I’m here.’

Could he have
phrased
it any more strategically? The burden of guilt now squarely on my shoulders, it’s down to me to respond in kind; to be a big girl, in every sense.

‘Don’t be silly, Dad. We’ll be fine. To be honest, I’m looking forward to it just being me and Joe. I need to
get to know the little tiger. And there’s Faye chomping at the bit to steal a few hours with him.’ Jan nods, a little too enthusiastically. I force a radiant smile. ‘Go! I insist.’

I lean across and begin trying to release Joe’s chair from its safety belts, biting down the bitter sting of betrayal.

Dad hits me with a daft wink.

‘Well, let’s see. It’s not till next week – and you
do
seem to be coping
bloody
well, I must say! Isn’t she, Jan?’ Jan nods her head just that little bit too enthusiastically. ‘Is my little girl just bloody amazing, or what?’

I want to kill them both. I press myself backwards, deep into my seat, stealing this last moment before I launch myself out of the cocoon of the car and into real life. I touch my stomach, and the slack emptiness brings about a weird grief for the puckish little companion who has kicked and punched inside me for all those weeks and months. He’s sitting right here next to me, his minuscule little fingers furling and unfurling, frowning up at me, his disappointing mother, and it’s
so
hard for me to comprehend this – that
that’s
him, right there. Right here. That’s the baby I sang to and read to and made plans with for the future. But what future? This isn’t how it’s meant to be. The stone in my guts sinks deeper, darker, dragging me down. It’s doomed. The whole thing is doomed. And it’s all I deserve.

As last Christmas approached, it would drift in and out of my thoughts: what if? But in the build-up to the holiday and all the attendant headaches of work, I managed to push the ‘P’ question out to the furthest recesses of my mind. On 23 December I laid hands on a cheque for precisely one hundred pounds from the C&R Foundation, a locally-based charitable foundation for kids, and I whisked James Mac off to town to buy him the new clobber without which he felt unable to attend The Gordon’s Christmas party. It felt good, seeing him that happy. I felt good. I went home, poured myself a big fat glass of red and settled down to
It’s A Wonderful Life.

I’d vaguely told myself I’d make sure, for sure, in the New Year. There was nothing one couldn’t put off until
the New Year, and things generally worked themselves out, once Christmas was out of the way. And although my period was late, that wasn’t completely unusual (indeed I went almost the entire first year of sixth form without coming on at all). It was only when the morning sickness started halfway through January that I knew, and at that point I really did
know
. You just do. I didn’t even bother investing the small fortune on a testing kit to confirm it – there was no doubt whatsoever in my mind, or in my womb. And then of course, after the scare, after it was properly confirmed, I was delighted beyond belief. For the next six weeks I was walking on air, unable to think about anything but my baby. And it just seemed obvious, it seemed
right
that I didn’t tell Ruben. Not yet, anyway. We’d both made it clear enough that our shag had been just that – cathartic and good and, absolutely, a means to an End. There were no losers; we both walked away fulfilled. I was pretty sure Ruben had no immediate ambitions to be a daddy. As we walked along Hope Street that night back towards his flat, he had told me he was waiting on the result of an interview with a Michelin-starred kitchen down south. And whether he got the job or not, I was disinclined to put his Dad potential to the test by just jumping him with news of impending parenthood. And in truth, those first few weeks of what transpired to be my pregnancy I was more engrossed with a martyred sense of injury at my own dad – hurt and confused by his villainy in intercepting and
destroying Ruben’s letters. I’d tackle him about that; but I’d choose my moment.

As for Ruben himself, I had no clear direction, either moral or altruistic, as to how or when – or if – I’d let him in on the secret. I’d write to him, probably; further down the line, when there was a reliable timetable ahead. In cool, grown-up terms I would inform Ruben that he was to be a father; that I neither hoped for, nor expected anything from him but that if he wanted a role in his child’s upbringing then naturally I –
we
– would welcome his involvement. What I would
not
say is that I –
we
– would be over the moon if it turned out that this was what he wanted, too.

The near-miscarriage hit that plan for six. I know I should have told him. I know I have done wrong, here. But I know, too, that Ruben doesn’t want this baby. He doesn’t want to be Joe’s Daddy. I know that.

Our first night home together. How many months have I ached for this moment? How many times have I played out the beats of this scene in my head: feeding my tiny sidekick to sleep, feeling the helpless suck of his gulps as he drifts away, safe, happy, careless to the world outside. And I would sit and watch him, long, long after he fell into slumber, and stroke his gentle head and kiss his apple-fat cheeks.

It is nothing like that. I cannot dredge the dread from my soul. I’m not even sad – I am nothing; flat, flattened as I haul myself from the bed and set Joe down in his new crib. As I tiptoe away, wincing as the loose floorboard creaks, cursing myself, cursing everything, strange fragments of ideas gather in the crevasses of my mind. I can’t recognise myself as the thinker of these thoughts,
and stub them out before they take form. I cling to the delusion that in time, with sleep, it will come – that gut-tingling star blaze of emotion we’re supposed to feel. For now, I’ll just have to do the best I can. As long as he’s fed and warm and safe, I’m not failing my baby; not yet.

In our dinky hallway, I notice for the first time the handful of congratulations cards lining the console table. Dad and Jan must have put them up, along with the flowers, already past their best, their greasy stink spreading a message of gloom throughout the flat. I glance at the cards, most of them from women I barely know – Dad’s colleagues, neighbours who saw me being carried out to the ambulance. There’s one from Faye too, more of a plea to meet my new man. She’s saying she came to the hospital twice but each time I was flat out and she didn’t want to wake me. How? When?
Did
I sleep then? Most of the cards strike a similar note – a little in-joke, a toast raised in sympathy as much as in celebration, now that I’m safely on their side, inaugurated into the cosy fold of the cheerful doomed. I switch the kettle on, make a brew, keep busy, try not to dwell.

I sit at the kitchen table with the lights off and the curtains ajar, a bar of amber streetlight striking the patch of floor by my feet. I flick the radio on; some late night phone-in casting crumbs of hope to the unlovely, the unloved. A passing car lights up the room for a split
second – long enough for me to spy a patch of sticky filth on the floor. I haul myself up, all sighs and whys, wrench the tap on and prepare a stinking hot Dettol mix spiked with an extra slug of bleach. I scrub and scrub, get right down on my knees and scour the corners of the kitchen, under the fridge, everywhere. The effort seems to work loose some of the knots in my head so I continue, blitzing all the kitchen surfaces, the door handles, the fridge, the bin, the microwave, till everything is pristine and perfect. As though Joe didn’t exist.

Hopeful I’ll sleep now, I make my way to the bathroom, avoid myself in the mirror, give my teeth a cursory brush. I can’t keep my eyes open. It feels like I could fall into the deepest, loveliest sleep, right where I am now. I head for the bedroom, forgetting the loose floorboard. I freeze for an instant, bite hard on my lip, promise I’ll nail it down first thing tomorrow and lower myself into the bed. Please sleep, Joe. Please sleep for Mamma. The headboard creaks as my head hits the pillow. I hold my breath.

He snorts.

I lie dead still, scared to exhale; afraid to blink.

Please, Joe. Please sleep. Please don’t wake.

I see his hand reach up. A little fist reaching out for me. I want to smack it away. Not now, Joe. Let me sleep. Let me sleep.

* * *

Joe is not hungry, not interested in my breast. He just wants me. That’s what this boils down to. On some basic, primal level he’s worked out that my role is to nurture, his is to take. He doesn’t need me for anything right now, he’s taking because he can. I leave him on the bed, watch him a while. Thrashing. Outraged. Sobbing so hard his larynx starts to vibrate. I catch sight of myself in the bedroom mirror and I cave. I’m scared. I’m really scared. Cope, Rachel, just fucking cope.

I hold him close, make a big effort to deal with this, to just
be better
at all this entails. My baby is suffering here, and I must not hide. It’s up to me to make things work; to make Joe better. His face seems unnaturally red; he’s in pain. I check his temperature – fine. Then I check his nappy, find it bogged down with a caramel, almost sandy-coloured excrement. My heart soars with relief – there was something wrong and I sourced it out. Me. Now I can fix it.

I fill a little bowl and bathe his chafed bottom – that seems to calm him – and I smear it in Sudocrem. His lip ceases trembling and, as I rotate my thumb around his delicate back, his hiccuping sobs abate and his breathing begins to regulate. I pat him dry, kiss his forehead.

‘Let’s get you into a nice new nappy, shall we?’

And he seems to respond. I’d swear he smiled, there. But my sense of bravado is swept away when I find we’re down to his last clean nappy. I stand there, staring at the
empty packet. There were dozens of them! Where did they
go
? Whether I do it now, or later, I’m going to have to face up to it and get myself out for supplies. I take a deep breath. Cope. Joe starts up a fresh stream of wailing. I’ll kill two birds here; get Joe out in his pushchair, out into the fresh air, and hope that that knocks him out. We’ll walk down to the twenty-four-hour Tesco like every other mum does and we’ll stock up on everything. I can do it. I can.

I struggle to get Joe into the all-in-one, Eskimo-style suit I bought to insulate him against the impending winter’s chill. I end up near forcing his right leg inside the thermal legging, so wilfully does he resist me. Once I’ve got him down the stairs my spirits start to lift a bit. I’m doing it. I’m actually doing this thing. I’m coping. With Joe tucked under my arm like a koala bear, I grapple with his baby buggy with my free hand. I jerk it and wiggle it and throw it forward, expecting it simply to unfold, like it did when Mothercare sold it to me. I thrash and throw, but Joe’s pushchair refuses to open. On the verge of a fit, I place him down carefully on the hallway’s threadbare carpet and hack the buggy into shape. There! Stupid thing.

The smell of the shit overpowers me, knocks me sick, as I bin the laden nappy. I drop it in the wheelie bin and, head down, march my newborn boy into the big bad world. Joe is wailing louder now and I have the eerie
sensation that everyone’s looking at me from behind their curtains as we march down Belvidere. I pop my head over his canopy every few minutes and find myself making self-consciously jaunty remarks:

‘Do you like it down there, little fella? Do you? Yes, you do!’

‘Ragghhhh! Ragghhhh!’

A late-night runner flits past, laughing, turning round and jogging backwards to quip: