Authors: Sophie Hannah
Friday, September 26, 2003
MY MIDWIFE, CHERYL DIXON, has arrived. She is in her late forties,
a tall, buxom woman with strawberry blonde straight hair, cut in that
short, feathery style that is fashionable at the moment, and pale, freckly
skin. Today she is wearing trousers that are slightly too tight and a velour
V-necked jumper that highlights her substantial cleavage. Cheryl's passion in life is amateur dramatics. She is currently appearing in a production of The Mikado at Spilling Little Theatre. The first night of the
show's two-week run was two Saturdays ago. I had to apologise for
missing it on account of having had a baby the day before. I got the
impression that she didn't think it was a wholly satisfactory excuse.
Cheryl nicknamed Florence `Flipper' when her position in my stomach changed from week to week. When I asked silly questions, she
called me a `funny onion'. Sometimes she got exasperated with me,
when I became neurotic and requested unnecessary monitoring.
`Cheese on bread!' she would say, or `Flipping Ada!'
She was on duty at Culver Valley Hospital the night Florence was
born. It was she who told me to bring Florence into bed with me when
she wouldn't stop crying. `Nothing like a cuddle with Mummy in a nice
warm bed to make baby feel better,' she'd said, swaddling Florence in
a hospital blanket and tucking her under my arm.
Tears prick the backs of my eyelids. It will do me no good to think
about that now.
`When did you last see Florence Fancourt?' Simon asks Cheryl.
`Before today, that is.' He glances apologetically in my direction. I
refuse to meet his eye.
We are in the room that is known as the little lounge, although it is
not little by anyone's standards. This is where evenings are spent at The
Elms, watching television and talking. Vivienne will not allow any television until after Felix has gone to bed. Even then, she is only prepared to watch the news or documentaries. Occasionally she catches
an accidental glimpse of a reality TV programme and mutters, `How
ghastly!' or `How different from the home life of our own dear Queen.'
Sofas and chairs line the walls-too many, as if a party of twenty
people is expected at any moment. A long, rect angular, glass-topped
coffee table is the room's centrepiece, a family heirloom. Its base is
bronze, a thick S-shape on its side. I have always thought it hideous,
the sort of thing an ostentatious Pharaoh might have in his palace. At
the moment there is no coffee on the table, only a Moses basket that
contains a baby in a Bear Hug babygro, sleeping under a yellow fleece
blanket.
I sit in an armchair in the corner, knees pulled up to my chest, arms
wrapped round my legs. This position hurts my Caesarian wound. The
physical pain is almost comforting. I haven't taken my hypericum pill
today. Soon they will run out and I'll have to go to my office to get
more or switch to gelsemium. I felt sorry for a woman who was in the
bed next to mine on the labour ward, and gave her most of my hypericum tablets. Mandy. She'd also had a Caesarian and her wound had
developed a haematoma. She had bad acne scars and was tiny, toothpick thin. She looked too small to have ever contained a baby. Her
boyfriend harangued her in front of the whole ward about when
she'd be home and able to look after him again. They argued endlessly
about what to call their child. Her voice sounded tired and hopeless as
she suggested name after name. The boyfriend kept insisting on Chloe,
swearing at her.
David and I eavesdropped through the plastic hospital curtain that separated our quarter of the ward from the other three, and could
hardly believe our ears when we found out that the reason he was so
set on Chloe was because he already had a daughter by that name from
a previous relationship. Mandy kept trying and failing to convince him
that this was a reason against, not in favour.
I decided that she needed the hypericum more than I did, and gave
it to her after the horrible boyfriend had gone home one night. She said
thank you abruptly, as if no-one had ever been kind to her before and
she considered it almost rude.
David sits on the white sofa by the window, tapping his right foot
on the floor. Every so often he inhales sharply and we all look at him,
expecting him to speak. He doesn't, though. He just shakes his head
and closes his mouth. He cannot believe what is happening. After I
gave my statement, he gave his. Soon Cheryl will give hers. It is as if
we are all taking part in a bizarre cult ceremony.
I would like to be able to say that, as Florence's mother, my statement
is worth any number of other people's, but I fear that it isn't. Simon
wouldn't let me say half of what I wanted to say. He kept telling me that
it had to be a factual account. I was not allowed to use what he called
flowery language. I was not allowed to begin any sentence with the
words `I felt', or to say that it was my suspicion that someone crept into
the house and took Florence while David was napping. Apparently you
can only include an opinion in a statement if it is a `Hobstaff', whatever
that might be. Simon tells me that this situation is not one.
In the end, all I was permitted to say was that when I came home
this afternoon after having been to Waterfront, I noticed that the
front door was open, which was unusual, and then I went upstairs and
observed that the baby in the cot was not my daughter, although
superficially she looked like Florence.
I will not speak again for the time being. I will not contradict
David, whatever he says. What's the point? It isn't as if Simon believes
me, and nothing I say or do is going to change anybody's mind. I will
save my next effort for when Vivienne arrives.
`Mrs Dixon? I asked you when you last saw Florence?'
Cheryl stands on the Persian rug in the middle of the room, peering
into the Moses basket. Every few seconds she looks up at me anxiously.
She is uncomfortable with my silence and wants me to say something to
make her task easier. `I saw her on Tuesday this week. Three days ago.'
`And is this the same baby that you saw then?'
She squirms, wrinkles her forehead. I have to look away. I feel
utterly drained. My brain has grown fuzzy around the edges, as if
someone is trying to rub it out. I hug my knees tighter and steel myself
for Cheryl's response. `I don't know,' she says. `I'm really not sure.
They change so much in the early days and I see so many babies, sometimes ten or twelve a day. I mean, if Alice is positive. . . ' She tails off.
Shock, astonishment, surges through me. At last, somebody who is
not one hundred per cent certain that I am wrong, someone who
thinks I might actually be worth listening to. `Now will you do something?' I beg.
`Not sure? What does that mean? You can't say that!'
`Mr Fancourt, please.' Simon's voice is low, authoritative. `Mrs
Dixon is here to help us. If you're going to intimidate her, I'll have to
ask you to leave the room.'
`It's my house!' David snaps.
`No, it's not. It's Vivienne's house, and she's on her way back,' I
remind him. Suddenly it seems worth speaking again.
`I'm really sorry I can't be more definite,' says Cheryl. `I just don't
have a clear memory of Florence's face. And, as I say, they change so
much in the early days, don't they?'
`They don't change into different people,' David bellows. He leaps up
off the sofa. `This is preposterous. This is the most ludicrous thing
that's ever happened to me in my whole life. It's Florence! It's definitely her!'
I feel sorry for him, but sorrier for myself, and, above all, for Florence. I used to think I had enough love and determination in me to
help everyone who needed it equally. Not any more.
`You've checked it's a girl, then?' says Cheryl. We stare at each other,
mute and paralysed. Silence spreads through the room like sticky,
black syrup. `You haven't checked the sex of the baby?' Cheryl asks
Simon, who hardens his face at the perceived criticism.
`He hasn't checked because he doesn't think there's any need to,' I
tell her. `He doesn't believe me.'
`For God's sake.' David turns away in disgust. `Go on, take her
nappy off. She's due a change anyway. I can tell you exactly what
nappy she's wearing too-it's a newborn size Pampers Baby Dry.'
And she has blue eyes and milk spots on her nose, and no hair, I wait
for him to add.
`All babies wear those,' I say quietly. `David, that doesn't prove anything. You had plenty of time to change her while I was talking to
Simon in the kitchen.'
`Simon?' David looks at him, then at me. `So you two have got all
pally, have you?'
`You're making this more unpleasant than it needs to be, Mr Fancourt.'
Cheryl begins to unbutton the Bear Hug babygro. She does not ask
for anybody's permission.
`Can't you take her upstairs to change her?' I say shakily. `She's a
baby, not a piece of evidence.' My eyes and brain hurt, and the inside
of my nose tingles with the constant effort of not crying. I cannot take
much more.
`Her!' David pounces on the word.
`She's obviously a girl,' I say.
`See, you know it's Florence.' David jabs a finger at me. `You've gone
mad, but deep down you know it's Florence.'
`Do I?' I say vaguely. He sounds so certain. I look round the room,
at each face in turn. Three big faces, one little face. `No. No, I don't
know that at all.'
I leave the room, unable to watch as Florence's Bear Hug babygro
is removed. I wait outside the little lounge with my eyes closed for what feels like hours, pressing my forehead against the cool wallpaper in the
hall. `It's a girl,' I hear Cheryl say eventually, shouting to make herself
heard above the noise of outraged crying. I remember the last time I
heard those words, at my twenty-week scan, and my knees buckle. It's
a girl. You're going to have a daughter. But for how long will she be
mine?-I didn't think to ask. How long before someone takes her away
from me, or me from her? Nobody said anything about that.
`In a Pampers Baby Dry nappy,' says David. `Now do you believe
me?'
`Put her clothes back on,' I plead from the hall.
`Alice, where's her red book?' Cheryl asks briskly. `It's got all Florence's details in it-weight, height, any birthmarks. Every baby has
one,' she tells Simon. `That's one way to check the basics. I've got my
scales in the car. I'll go and get them.'
`Her red book's in her room,' I say.
`I'll get it,' says David. `This should settle it once and for all.'
I don't see how. Babies gain and lose weight all the time, especially
when they are very young. There is always height, I suppose. That is
an area in which one would expect only an upward curve.
David passes me in the hall and gives me a puzzled look, as if he's
not sure, but he thinks I might be somebody he once knew. I want to
reach out to him, but it is already too late. We have both set off on our
separate paths.
`Right, little lady, you wait here,' I hear Cheryl say. `There's no point
dressing you just to undress you again, is there? We'll just wrap you in
this nice blanket, keep you lovely and warm. No funny business,
mind!' Funny business is Cheryl's cover-all term for bodily functions.
Perhaps this is not the most difficult situation she has encountered in
her professional life. She must have to deal with real tragedies sometimes. She knows how to be calm and practical even in the worst of circumstances. Please let this not be the start of a real tragedy, I pray, let
it be only a temporary horror.
David comes downstairs with the red book. This time he looks at me with utter contempt. I follow him into the lounge. `Florence was last
weighed on Tuesday,' I say. `She was eight pounds and thirteen ounces.
That baby looks a bit heavier.'
"`That baby",' David mutters. He has his back to the room and is
staring out of the window. His voice sounds as if it's coming from far
away. When he turns, his face is pale with anger. `All right, then. All
right. I didn't want to have to do this, but you've asked for it. Are you
going to tell Simon about your history of mental illness or shall I?'
`Don't be ridiculous,' I say. `David, do you remember that woman
from the hospital? Mandy?'
`Alice was on Prozac for depression for nearly a year after her parents died. Also, and Cheryl will back me up on this, the night after Florence was born she claimed another baby was Florence, some random
baby in the hospital.'
I freeze. This is true, but I'd forgotten about it almost completely. It's
so stupid and irrelevant. I didn't even know David knew about it. I certainly haven't told him. One of the midwives must have, when he came
to visit the next day.
Cheryl appears in the doorway, carrying her scales. I can see from
her face that she heard what David said. She looks at me unhappily.
She doesn't want to betray me, but her common sense is telling her that
perhaps the incident is relevant, perhaps her belief in my sanity and
trustworthiness has been a little rash.
`I was exhausted,' I explain. `I'd just had an emergency C-section
after a three-day labour. I was so tired I was hallucinating, literally.'
`You still are,' says David. `Look where your hallucinations have
got us.'
`Cheryl offered to take Florence so that I could sleep, and I let her.
Then I felt guilty. It should have been my first night with my little girl
and I'd been only too glad to hand her over.' I cannot stop the flow
of tears as I tell this story. Part of me feared, that night, that I was the
worst mother in the world. A good mother would surely cling to her
precious baby twenty-four hours a day and make sure no harm came to her. `After ten minutes or so I was still awake, overtired and feeling guilty, missing Florence like mad, so I thought I might as well go
and get her back. I buzzed for a midwife, and Cheryl came in a few
seconds later holding a tiny baby. I ... I thought it was Florence, but
only because it was Cheryl who'd taken her away a few minutes earlier. I was almost out of my mind with tiredness. I hadn't slept at all
for three days!'