The Stranger She Knew. Rosalind Stopps
it’s there, but I can’t actually make out the shape. She doesn’t understand me this time, I can see that.
She stops pushing me along the corridor and she bends down close and says, what’s that Mum? Say it again. I catch sight of the lines around her eyes, close up they seem very prominent. Did I do that, I wonder. I put my hand up to try to stroke them away, it’s an instinct but I can’t control my arm at the best of times and this is the worst of times so I knock Jenny and she’s bending anyway so I catch her off guard and she falls.
I’m so so sorry, I try to say, I was only, I just wanted to, I’m sorry.
It’s OK Mum, she says, but I can hear she’s fighting tears.
I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you, I try but the egg has slipped off the spoon and into my mouth somehow and the words sound even more like rubbish than usual, even to me. Like the chorus of a bad pop song, over and over again with no meaning.
I have a sudden memory of Jenny learning to speak. She was such an earnest little thing. She tried so hard, as if someone had set her homework and she was going to be tested on it the next day. We had the TV on and it was Saturday afternoon, I remember. The presenter was reading the football scores. Liverpool one, Manchester United two, he said and every damn score he announced, she copied, with the exact same inflection in her voice and concentrating so hard on getting the shape of her mouth right. These days I would have videoed her I suppose, stuck it on Facebook for everyone to admire. Back then I just watched and marvelled and thought, I’m going to make sure things are OK for this child, I am going to keep her safe. Look at her now. Lined and lonely on the floor.
OK, I say, and my voice is suddenly clearer than it was by far. Go, I say. It’s as near as I can get. What I want to say is, it’s OK, you don’t have to visit me here any more. Go off, travel the world, have a baby, rob a bank. Have some fun. I can’t say it, only go, but I can see that she has understood anyway.
Mum, she says, getting up and brushing herself down, don’t be daft, I’m alright, you didn’t mean to, everything’s fine.
I’m too tired now or I’d tell her that everything isn’t fine, and that something today has made me think of danger, I’m not sure what it is, and that she would be better off away from whatever it is that I’m too knackered to remember.
Go, I whisper again as we get back into my room.
She rings the bell for the carers to help me get into bed, it’s too late for sitting in the chair now. I need to lie down and the tiredness is like a massive weight on my head. Go away, I don’t want to see you any more, I think. She understands that one, and there are tears in her eyes.
I’m saying it for you, I think, I’ve always tried to do what’s best for you, I’m not going to stop now.
I could come back tomorrow, she says, let you know how 5B managed their poems about autumn.
I want that more than anything, but there’s danger somewhere and I can’t remember where but there’s something about a tilt of the head and a smiling face that terrifies me and the least I can do is keep her away.
I’m tired, I try to say as the night duty carer helps me into the hoist, and I am, I’m tired, she must see that. Stay away, I think, let me rest, bloody Crunchie bars.
Don’t worry, the carer says. I think it’s Mary, the nice Irish one. Don’t worry, she says, she doesn’t mean it like it sounds, it’s the brain injury talking. Why don’t you just stay at home for a day or two so that you can catch a rest as well? That way, when you come back everything will be like shiny new again. She’ll be pleased as punch to see you.
I keep my head hanging down, don’t look up or she might see I’m crying.
What was it, I remember thinking just before I went to sleep, what was the danger? Tilt of the head, that’s the echo back, tilt of the head, rhyming with dead.
October 1977
Hull
May looked at her reflection in the department store window and smiled. She didn’t have a long mirror at home, and she couldn’t help being surprised every time she saw how big she was. She had worked hard to stay slim, and in that time her life had changed beyond recognition. Husband, baby, a whole life that had been waiting for her. She hoped she hadn’t jinxed things by getting fat, even though it was for a good cause, even though she was pregnant. May didn’t know any other pregnant women, so she wasn’t sure whether she was unusually big, but she thought she might be. She was the kind of huge that made perfect strangers at bus stops smile at her, or feel entitled to stroke her pregnant stomach as if it belonged to them. May felt like a massive insect full of eggs. It was difficult to believe that there was only one baby in there.
‘Looking good,’ May heard someone say. She realised that the woman was speaking to her. She turned from her reflection.
‘Oh gosh, yes, I’m sorry, just can’t quite get over myself, you know?’
The other woman laughed and May noticed that she was pregnant too, but smaller.
‘You too,’ May said, ‘welcome to the club!’
‘Literally,’ said the other woman.
She looked younger than May, taller and with a more graceful bump.
‘I like your bump,’ May said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. No offence meant.’
‘None taken,’ the woman said. ‘In fact I think from now on I will only allow comments on my bump from women, and specifically, women who are more pregnant than me. It’s a good rule.’
May laughed. It must be lovely, she thought, to be as confident as that, to be able to make jokes with complete strangers.
‘I’m Helen,’ the woman said. ‘Pleased to meet someone else who might be as bonkers as I am. Do you ever wonder why you’re doing this?’ Helen pointed to her pregnant stomach.
May laughed. ‘Only about every five minutes,’ she said. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy and all that but…’ May’s voice tailed off as she wondered if she had spoken out of turn. She looked down towards where her big feet would be if she could see through her stomach. Typical, she thought. I’ve been longing to talk to someone else who’s pregnant, and when I do I mess it up. No one likes a moaner.
‘Hey,’ said Helen, ‘maybe we should stick together. Safety in numbers and all that. I know how you feel. I think it’s normal, in fact I’m sure it is, I read it in a book!’
May felt as though she wanted to cry. Pregnancy hormones, she thought.
‘Have you got much ready for your little one?’ May asked. ‘Only it’s difficult to know how much we’re going to need, isn’t it? Some books say twenty babygros, others say twelve.’
Helen threw back her head and laughed.
‘Twenty!’ she said. ‘I reckon these books are funded by the babygro industry. Mine will be wearing nighties anyway, I’ve made them myself.’
‘Oh, me too,’ said May and the two women smiled at each other. May thought how lovely Helen was. She was dark skinned, possibly Asian, with long black curly hair. Even pregnant, she shone out as something rare in the litter-flying grime of Hull city centre. Beautiful, like a lizard from a beach landscape or a fire in the distance. May blushed at her silliness for thinking such things.
‘You really do suit being pregnant,’ May said.
Helen laughed. ‘Well I’m never going to be pregnant again,’ she said, ‘so maybe I should have a photograph taken. I haven’t got any pictures, and I can promise you, this little one is going to have absolutely no brothers or sisters.’
‘A dog?’ said May. ‘I was thinking, for mine, maybe a dog might be company