The Forgotten Seamstress (15 page)

One time I managed to wangle myself a bed in the corner of the ward, furthest away from the nurses’ station. To kill myself I needed to stay awake and somehow avoid the nightly sleeping pill they would force you to take, standing over you until you swallowed it down. This time, I stuck it in between my teeth and my gums so that it didn’t go down with the water, and then spat it out under my pillow once the nurse had moved on to the next bed. It felt a small triumph, just managing that, like taking control of my own destiny.

Then, in the middle of the night, when the nurses was snoring at their desk, I started to rip up the sheets into narrow strips to make a kind of rope. By God, in a silent ward the noise of tearing cotton is loud as a crack of thunder, and I was sure it would wake the whole hospital. It took ages, doing it slow to keep it quiet, and when I’d got a few strips I knotted them together and put a chair onto the bed so as I could reach the light fitting to tie the end of the sheet around it.

It was a wobbly business, balancing on that chair, and I was that worried I might fall off before I was ready to hang myself. But the knot was soon tied around the metal light fitting and all I had to do was tie the other end around my neck and jump off the bed. That’ll show them, I was thinking to myself. In a twisted kind of way the thought made me feel happier than I’d been for a long while. I wasn’t afraid; I was that desperate I’d have done anything to escape the place. Even death could not be worse than my half existence here on earth.

But after all that struggle and effort, it wasn’t to be. I suppose someone up there wasn’t ready to have me. The light fitting was made of metal and looked perfectly strong enough to hold, but just as soon as I slipped my feet off the bed there was the sound of tearing wood and plaster and I fell into a heap on the ground beside the bed with the light fitting and the flex falling around my head followed by clumps of plaster and a snowstorm of dust.

Of course I was put on the red list then: the strong clothes, the padded cell, knock-out injections every twelve hours. They won’t let you die, oh no, that’d be too easy. They just let you live in despair, instead.

She sighs wearily, and a long pause follows.

It’s a sad old business, remembering those times, dearie. There’s a good bit more to tell, the most important events still to come. But I’m getting tired now, can we call it a day?

‘Of course.’

The tape clicks off.

Patsy Morton research diary, 10th June 1970

Phone call from Dr Watts’s secretary, he wanted to see me urgently.

Took the bus (two changes, what a nightmare!) back to the Hall again to meet him and his face was like thunder. He’s somehow found out I’ve been interviewing M. when he had
expressly recommended
(his words) that she was an unsuitable research subject on account of her persistent inability to accept that what she recalls of her ‘life events’ is almost entirely delusional, with no basis in reality.

Tried to reassure him I fully understood that mental patients, even those that have been out in the community for years like M, may not be the most reliable witnesses, that this would be taken fully into account in my analysis, etc. etc., and suggested that if he had any concerns about my research methodologies, he might like to talk to the Prof again. He growled that it would not be necessary if in future I followed his advice.

Did more transcriptions this evening and listening to M made me sad all over again. It’s almost impossible to separate the truth from fantasy because
she
believes every word she’s saying – and I can see that she
feels
it, too – genuinely, with every part of her being, poor love. It’s emotional stuff, and none of it really relevant to my research, but I can’t resist her.

I can’t expect her friend’s son to drive her all the way up to Eastchester again, so have arranged to visit her in London next week. Must warn Prof that Dr Watts may be in touch again.

London, 2008

Had I been going to work each day as usual, I would have been keeping closer track of my dates, and how long had passed since the last time, but these days my appointments were so few that I rarely needed to consult the calendar on my phone. In all the mayhem of recent days, I had missed something glaringly obvious.

It was in the middle of a call to Jo, pouring out my woes: the theft of the quilt and my guilt about Mum, when I had to run to the bathroom.

‘What was all that about?’ she asked, when I called her back.

‘Still got a bit of a tummy upset. Must be coming down with something.’

‘Still? Are you being sick all the time?’

‘Isn’t that too much information, first thing on a Sunday morning?’

‘So you
have
been sick?’

‘Yup. Since you ask so sweetly.’

‘It’s the morning, and you’re being sick? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

‘Oh, Christ …’ was all I managed, before dashing to the bathroom again.

She was horribly right, of course. I checked the dates: four weeks since Russ and I drunkenly ended up in bed on New Year’s Eve, six weeks since my last period. When we split up I’d gone off the pill, of course, to give my body a break from the daily hormone drench. Whoever said that getting older means getting wiser was deluded. It certainly doesn’t seem to have had that effect on me.

As the pretty double blue line lit up inside the plastic tube I burst into tears. ‘You stupid bloody idiot,’ I screamed out loud, throwing the tube across the bathroom. It hit the door and fell to the floor, its contents leaking out, but I didn’t care. ‘How could you get your life so wrong?’

I collapsed onto the sofa and howled: loud wails shaking my shoulders, sodden tears gushing out, snot streaming from my nose. After a while I was sick again and afterwards, rinsing my face, looked up into the bathroom mirror at an apparition I barely recognised: a haggard crone with bloodshot eyes and a nose red and raw from wiping.

‘Pull yourself together,’ I said to myself, hearing the echo of Granny’s voice. After nibbling gingerly at another piece of dried toast and sipping some water, the sickness began to pass.

I texted Jo:
You were right. Aargh. What the hell am I going to do?

Her reply was almost instant
: Hang on in there – whatever happens I’m here for you. I’ll come straight from work. Love you loads xox

Although my mind was already whirring ahead to the abortion clinic, out of nowhere an alternative choice seemed to present itself. At thirty-eight, this could be my last chance of motherhood. What if I kept the baby and co-parented it with Russell? At the very least he ought to be given the option. I gazed around the flat with new eyes, imagining toys on the floor, the spare room decorated in pastel colours with a cot and changing table.

Running my own business would allow me to work flexibly and have time to spend with my daughter – as I already thought of her. Through my newly acquired rose-tinted vision everything seemed perfectly possible. My body seemed to relax and become unusually at ease. Lots of women bring up children on their own these days, I told myself, making another piece of toast.

But reality soon reasserted itself. What an insane idea – must be the hormones. I was grasping at straws, desperate for something good to happen. With a resigned sigh, I dialled the number of the abortion clinic.

The receptionist was clearly experienced in dealing with telephone calls from panicky and indecisive pregnant women. In a smooth, reassuring voice she told me what would happen: an initial assessment and discussion with a counsellor, a scan to confirm my dates plus a few other tests, after which I could attend for the ‘procedure’, in a week’s time, if that is what I decided to do.

My head was spinning with conflicting emotions. Termination was the obvious route, quick and clinical, but what if I took no action and let nature take its course? Chocolate box visions reappeared: of me as the serene mother, cradling a contented, rosy-cheeked baby in my arms.

‘I’ve decided to keep it,’ I told Jo that evening.

‘Whoa! That’s quite a decision.’

It was enough to set me off again. ‘Oh God, I just don’t know what to do,’ I wailed. ‘I’ll be forty in a few years. I might never get the chance again.’

‘You’ve had such a crappy few weeks.’ She unwrapped a box of luxury Belgian chocolates and handed them to me. ‘But you need to take your time and not jump into drastic decisions.’

‘But I have to
decide
. I’ve got an appointment at a clinic tomorrow and then I need to make up my mind before next week.’

‘Okay, let’s write down the pros and cons,’ she said. After ten minutes, we had two columns on the back of an envelope:

‘So you’re right. We have scientifically and conclusively proved that having a baby right now, without a partner, is a stupid idea,’ I said, at last. ‘But it doesn’t stop me feeling sad and broody.’

She hugged me again. ‘Of course you’re upset at the moment and your hormones are all over the shop. See how it goes tomorrow, and then ring me. Promise?’

Monday dawned grey and cold, and it matched my mood perfectly. En route to the clinic, every woman I passed – and even some men – seemed to be pushing a buggy or clinging to the hand of a small child. It was like being hit in the stomach, time and time again, each one an aching reminder of what I might be sacrificing.

I hung around outside for several minutes, shivering with miserable apprehension, knowing that by the time I emerged my fate would probably be decided. When it became too cold to linger any longer and I was starting to attract curious glances, I took a deep breath and went in. The receptionist handed me a small booklet entitled
Unwanted pregnancy, your choices
, and showed me into the waiting room.

In the corner, by a dusty dried flower arrangement, a teenager nervously chewed her fingernails and, on the other side, an older woman sat utterly still with her eyes shut, as if trying to deny that she was even in this place. I understood how she felt: I would rather be anywhere than here, and even now my thoughts veered wildly between rosy imaginings of loving motherhood and an altogether more alarming vision involving scalpels and the stark white severity of an operating theatre.

To distract myself I flicked through the random titles of dog-eared magazines:
Angling World
,
Vogue
,
True Life Tales
, and a medical journal called
Gynaecology Update
. I would have preferred to read any of these instead of the booklet, but after a few moments I pulled myself together and opened it. The matter-of-fact language and simple line drawings were reassuring: it’s a staged process and this is just a preliminary assessment, I told myself firmly. Call it a fact-finding mission.

I emerged from the consultation even more paralysed by the choices I’d been given. But I still had a whole week, even more if necessary, to decide.

The days dragged slowly by. I spent hours on the phone gnawing Jo’s ear off and changed my mind every hour. I ate little else but dry toast and tried to stop myself from falling into a mire of self-pity. ‘It’ll turn out right in the end,’ Granny used to say, and I found myself repeating it to myself like a mantra, whenever I began to feel too defeated. I even went out to meet friends – keeping my secret firmly to myself, of course.

I made calls to Holmfield every other day. Mum was doing fine, the matron said, but probably best not to speak to her on the telephone just yet. She was still a bit confused as the result of the fire and the move. I promised I would visit next week and tried not to worry.

Meanwhile, though my heart really wasn’t in it, I started trying to write a business strategy and launch plan for my interior design consultancy.

The finance bit I could learn about, or get advice on, but what I really needed was an interesting, unusual and preferably unique design idea, a vision which would help my pitch stand out from the crowd. My imagination seemed to have gone into hibernation, suffocated into an early grave by those long years at the bank. Perhaps, I wondered at my worst moments, it never really existed in the first place? As a student, I had received praise and even won prizes for originality, emerging with a first-class degree and tutors convinced that I had a bright future ahead of me. Now, all that confidence had evaporated. Talking to friends in the business was even more depressing – all seemed to agree that the industry was going through a terrible time, struggling with overseas competition.

Desperate to kick-start my imagination, I bought every interior design magazine on the shelves and browsed the web pages of all the top companies. I dug out sketch pads, my pens and paints, and set up a studio at the dining room table. There I sat, for hours, looking out of the window and doodling ideas. They all seemed drab and derivative. There’s no spark, I thought gloomily. I’m past it. I’ll never make it.

A former colleague from the bank rang to say he had moved to another organisation, and they were hiring. With a heavy heart, I updated my CV and forwarded it.

Each day I called the police station, more to reassure myself that I was doing all I could to recover the quilt than with any expectation of good news. They received me politely, taking my ‘incident number’ and searching their databases diligently, all with no result. But one day there was a new voice – change of shift, perhaps.