Mud and Gold (17 page)

When she had put on her nightdress, she made
sure Malcolm was tucked snugly into his cradle by her side of the
bed. He was sleeping soundly for the moment. The baby looked less
disconcertingly like his father when he was asleep.
But I’ve
never seen Charlie asleep
, Amy realised. She wondered if his
face softened from its habitual scowl when he slept.

Charlie stood by the lamp waiting for her to
get into bed. As soon as she rose from the cradle and climbed
between the sheets, he put out the light. Amy was quite sure
Charlie had not washed or aired the bedding during her absence. The
stale smell of the room brought that horror-filled first night in
this bed alive in her memory.
I thought I couldn’t bear it. But
I’m learning—things’ll get better
.

She was so certain he would try to take her
that she was ready to speak the moment she felt his hand on her
shoulder: ‘No, Charlie.’ She was surprised at how calm her voice
sounded; it gave no suggestion of the fear churning inside her.

There was the briefest of silences; then, as
though he could not believe he had heard her properly, Charlie
said, ‘What?’

‘There’s bleeding… from having the child.’
Amy spoke quickly, while her courage held.

‘Is something not right with him?’

‘No, it’s quite normal.’ Amy could feel her
face burning, and was glad the darkness hid it. ‘Women always have
this after a baby’s born.’

She sensed he was debating whether to
believe her or to test the truth of her words. When he finally
spoke again she let out her breath with relief, and only then
realised she had been holding it.

‘How long?’ he asked.

‘Another three weeks,’ Amy answered in a
small voice. Charlie made a noise in his throat and rolled away
from her.

Malcolm woke an hour later. His mewling
cries seemed much louder in the darkened bedroom than they had at
Mrs Coulson’s, and Amy was awake at once. She took him up from his
cradle, thankful that the moon gave just enough light for her to
see by, and sat on the chair beside the bed while the baby nursed.
Charlie stirred a little. She saw the dark outline he made against
the window heave as he rolled over, but he did not wake.

When the baby woke next at one o’clock Amy
tried to reach him again without Charlie’s being woken, but Charlie
gave a snort and sat up against the pillows.

‘What’s happening?’ he said sleepily.
‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Nothing,’ Amy said, putting the baby to her
breast. ‘I’m just feeding Malcolm.’

‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’

‘I didn’t want to wake you up. I can see
well enough.’

‘Well, you
did
wake me up,’ Charlie
grumbled. But he rolled over, and she could soon hear from his
breathing that he had gone back to sleep.

The sky was lightening when Malcolm woke
once more, this time crying from wet napkins as well as hunger, as
Amy realised when she picked him up. She glanced in Charlie’s
direction and saw him looking at her resentfully.

‘He cries a lot,’ he said.

As if I’m doing it on purpose
.
‘Babies do.’ She turned away from Charlie to attend to Malcolm’s
napkin. The baby howled, waving his tiny fists in impotent protest
against discomfort and hunger.

‘Humph!’ Charlie said, sitting up in bed. ‘I
might as well get up now, I won’t get back to sleep with
that
going on.’ Amy said nothing. There was nothing useful
to say.

Malcolm
did
cry a lot, Amy had to
admit. She looked at his angry little face, red and screwed up, as
she walked around the kitchen floor with him later that morning,
trying vainly to soothe him.

‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she asked helplessly.
‘You’re not hungry, I’ve just fed you. You’re not wet. Do you have
a pain? I wish you could tell me.’ But Malcolm just screamed. Amy
didn’t recall Thomas and George waking so much when they were tiny.
Maybe I’ve just forgotten—I didn’t have to get up to them, only
look after them in the daytime. Did Ann cry all the time like this?
I don’t think so—but I lost Ann when she was younger than Malcolm
is now
.

After half an hour of Amy’s pacing back and
forth, Malcolm finally tired himself out with crying and closed his
eyes. Amy put him back in his cradle with relief.

Amy found it difficult to get her work done
during the short periods when Malcolm fell asleep, but she knew she
had to keep the house running smoothly. Charlie was going to be
difficult enough with his sleep being disturbed and her body being
unavailable to him; if he didn’t have his meals on time he would be
unbearable.

Charlie came in at lunch-time, but instead
of sitting down at the table he walked straight through the kitchen
and into the parlour. Puzzled, Amy followed him, and found him in
the bedroom standing over the cradle staring down at Malcolm. He
looked so proud and self-satisfied that for a moment Amy forgot to
be frightened of him.
Perhaps we really can be like an ordinary
family
.

He turned and saw her looking at him. ‘He’s
asleep,’ he said.

‘Yes, at last,’ said Amy. ‘Your lunch is
ready.’

Charlie had something close to a smile on
his face as he ate his lunch. ‘He’s a fine boy, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes, very healthy Mrs Coulson said. And
big for his age, too. He’ll be strong.’ Charlie looked more smug
than ever. ‘He looks just like you,’ Amy said, studying Charlie’s
reaction carefully.

‘Don’t talk rot—saying a little mite like
that looks like a grown man.’ But Amy could see he was pleased at
the idea.

Charlie was less good-natured when Malcolm
woke them an hour after they had gone to bed that night. ‘How long
is this going to keep up?’ he grumbled as Amy sat in the chair
nursing the baby.

‘Quite a while, yet, I’m afraid,’ Amy said
into the darkness. ‘He’ll sleep a bit longer between feeds as he
gets older, but he’s going to wake in the night for months
yet.’

‘Months!’ Charlie repeated,
thunderstruck.

‘Yes.’ Charlie said nothing out loud, but
she could hear him cursing under his breath. ‘Would you like me to
take him into the other bedroom and sleep there for a while—just
until he starts sleeping a little bit longer?’

‘No—you stay where you are,’ Charlie said,
surprising her with his vehemence. ‘I suppose I can manage without
sleep for a while,’ he said in a martyred tone.

I suppose I can, too
.

But it was hard to manage, Amy found.
Malcolm wouldn’t let her sleep for more than three hours at a time,
sometimes much less. He often cried during the day, and took a good
deal of soothing. He fed well and was thriving, but Amy felt
herself becoming more and more worn out over the next few
weeks.

It made things even harder that she had to
be as careful as ever not to annoy Charlie. She had to speak softly
when he grumbled, appear calm and collected when Malcolm’s constant
crying made him irritable, and do all her work properly, despite
weariness from lack of sleep and lingering pain from the difficult
birth.

‘He’s growing well, isn’t he?’ Lizzie said
when she called in one afternoon on her way to visit her mother.
‘How old is he now?’

‘Six weeks.’ Amy felt a sudden stab of fear.
‘I’ve been home three weeks today,’ she said, more to herself than
to Lizzie.

‘Is everything all right, Amy?’

‘What? Oh, yes, everything’s all right—I’m
just tired, that’s all, and I wish this one would start sleeping a
bit more. He keeps us awake a lot.’

Afterwards Amy wondered if Charlie had been
checking the calendar every evening to keep track of the time since
that first night she had come home. He gave her a meaningful look
as he bent over the lamp. ‘You’ve been home three weeks now,
haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Amy said very quietly. She lay still,
trying to will her muscles not to tense up.

The moment he started Amy knew it was too
soon for her; the places where she had been torn during Malcolm’s
birth had not yet healed properly. But it would be worse than
useless to ask Charlie to stop.

I can bear it. It won’t last
long
.

Amy kept her teeth tightly clenched to stop
herself from screaming with the pain. She felt herself going rigid,
a reaction so strong that she knew Charlie must be aware of it. She
tried to remember how she had learned to cope with it before:
Relax… go limp… think about something else
. But she hadn’t
been in agony then. Her pain took on the rhythm of his thrusting.
When he had finished it took her a few moments to realise it was
over. Her body was still throbbing.

Charlie gave her an angry shove as he pushed
himself away. ‘You’re worse than ever.’ Amy opened her mouth to say
she was sorry, but the moment she did so she could tell that if she
let her jaw relax she would cry out.

When Malcolm woke two hours later Charlie
was snoring, while Amy was awake trying to muffle her sobs. She
picked up the baby, still wrapped in his blankets, and slipped
quietly out to the parlour, finding her way to the door by feel in
the darkness. She sat down in one of the armchairs and unbuttoned
her nightdress, then slipped a nipple into Malcolm’s questing mouth
and suckled him till he was satisfied. She buttoned up her bodice,
lay back in the chair and closed her eyes.

I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten how awful it
is. It’s even worse now I’m all torn up. I wonder how long before
I’ll heal. Maybe I won’t ever heal if he keeps doing that
. A
warm tear trickled down her face; she caught it with her tongue
before it had the chance to drop onto the snugly wrapped baby.

Amy woke to find her shoulder being shaken,
and saw that daylight had crept into the room.

‘What are you doing out here?’ Charlie asked
grumpily.

Amy shook her head to try and clear it. ‘I…
I wanted…’
I wanted to get away from you
. ‘I didn’t want to
wake you again. Malcolm slept right through,’ she said in surprise.
‘He must like being cuddled at night.’

‘You’re not taking him into bed with you,’
Charlie said quickly. ‘I’ll not have my son being made soft. And
I’ll not have
you
sneaking out of my bedroom.’

‘I’m sorry. Do… do you want me to come back
to bed now?’ The thought made Amy’s stomach turn over. Tears
brimmed in her eyes.

‘Humph! It’s time to get up, near enough.’
He looked at her fear-filled face in disgust. ‘What the hell’s
wrong with you, woman? Eh?’

‘It… it hurts me.’

‘Hurts you!’ Charlie echoed scornfully. ‘Are
you made differently from other women, then?’

‘I don’t know. It just hurts me, that’s
all.’ Amy cringed, waiting to be slapped, but Charlie was too
conscious of the child in her arms to lash out at her.

‘I suppose you think I don’t know what I’m
doing?’

‘No, I don’t think that. I’m sorry I annoyed
you. I didn’t mean to.’ Amy closed her eyes and willed him to leave
her alone. Charlie made an angry noise in his throat, then stalked
off to the bedroom to get dressed.

Malcolm cried off and on all morning, as if
reflecting Amy’s own emotions. His noise hid his parents’ silence
over breakfast. Amy tried to avoid Charlie’s eyes; when her own did
meet them she saw resentment there.

After he returned from the factory Charlie
had his morning tea, still staring balefully at Amy, then rose from
the table.

‘I’m going into town,’ he announced.

Amy stopped pacing the floor with the baby
for a moment.

‘Can I come too? It would settle Malcolm
down, he loves riding in the gig. And I need a couple of things in
town.’

‘No, you can’t,’ Charlie said gruffly. ‘You
can stop home and do your work.’

Amy was so startled by his refusal that she
nearly asked why he would not take her, but stopped herself in
time. That would sound too much like arguing with him. She followed
him out the back door with the still wailing Malcolm in her arms
and watched him saddle up Smokey.

‘Will you be gone long?’ she asked.

‘If it suits me,’ Charlie answered
shortly.

‘Can you get me some—’

‘No, I can’t. You can wait until Saturday.
Useless bitch,’ he flung at her as he swung his leg across the
saddle and set Smokey moving with a hard kick. Amy saw the horse’s
ears flick in surprise.

‘Your Papa’s annoyed with us,’ she told
Malcolm. ‘He’s annoyed with you for crying all the time, and with
me for not doing what he wants. No, that’s not right—I do whatever
he wants. I think it’s because I don’t
feel
what he wants.
That’s hard, isn’t it? I can’t help what I feel.’ She sighed. ‘I
suppose if I was a good wife I’d feel the right things. Lizzie
does.’

Amy sat down wearily on the grass and
watched Malcolm waving his tiny fists in frustration. She felt a
rush of sympathy for him. ‘You’re not really bad-tempered, are you,
baby? You’re just miserable, same as me. Poor little mite. Papa’s
angry all the time, and Mama didn’t even want you. I do want you
now, Mal. Well, even if I don’t it doesn’t really matter, does it?
We’re all stuck with each other and we’ve got to make the best of
it. I’ll be a good mother to you, Malcolm. I’ll try and make you
happy, you and your Papa both. I just wish I was better at it.’

She dragged herself to her feet. ‘Come on,
Malcolm, let’s walk you around out here and see if all this fresh
air and sunshine can wear you out. Maybe if I get you tired enough
you’ll sleep all through the night. I wish your Papa would.’

Amy looked down the road and watched Charlie
disappearing. ‘I wonder why he wouldn’t take us today,’ she said
thoughtfully. ‘He’s usually so keen to show you off, Malcolm. It’s
strange he’s gone off by himself, and it’s not even a shopping day.
I wonder where he’s gone.’ She shrugged and began pacing the grassy
area, murmuring soothing noises to the baby in her arms.