Sail Upon the Land (40 page)

While the kettle boiled, she peeped inside a huge chest freezer, thinking to pop the bottle in there when made up to cool it down quickly. It was full of plastic bags of vegetables, prepared and labelled, presumably by Lady Mount-Hey. There were plastic tubs of stews and other meals she must have made before the baby came. The shelves above were full of jam in neat rows of pots, also labelled – the most recent said
Damson Cheese, October 1968
. When she remembered the mess upstairs, the crumpled sheets, overflowing nappy buckets and the terrible smell, it didn’t seem like the same person.

Early, and the chill mist that crept from the lake had muffled the trees from view. Melissa got up and padded barefoot into the dressing room. Once there she couldn’t remember why. Something moved in the shadows. There was nothing she could do for it now.

She pulled off her knickers and the tangle of elastic that held her maternity pad in place. Yanking them down her legs she kicked the whole lot under the cot. It was time she got away from this ridiculous pathetic fake nonsense. The sodden smeared nappies. The stinking buckets. Her weeping body.

She went over to the cot and rolled what was in there from back to front, picking it up and holding it under her arm. Opening her bedroom door she stepped out, carrying it along the passage and down the stairs, shawl dropping away. Small mottled legs bicycled in the chilly air as Melissa’s hands had rucked up the Chilprufe nightie. The heavy wet terry nappy with its rubber cover followed the shawl, slipping from minimal hips and landing with a damp soft sound on the cold stone flags.

The big carriage-built pram stood in the hall. She pushed a tangle of blankets out of the way and put what she was carrying inside. Best to take it with her. Who would look after it in the big empty house, with its dusty deserted rooms? There was a man there at night, but Melissa couldn’t remember what he was for. The warm repulsiveness began to seep between her legs again, reminding her to hurry. She felt a dull delight that she was going to wash it all away.

Twisting the iron ring, she found the front door wouldn’t open. The big key was in the lock. Her need to get outside lending her strength, she managed to turn it with both hands. She bumped the pram down the steps. The thing inside began to make the noises that were so irritating, but then it stopped as she pushed the pram over weedy gravel towards the grass.

As Melissa felt the sloping remains of the lawn begin to take the weight of the pram, she considered simply letting go. Then she noticed the thing had shifted until its head was at a funny angle against the end. She leant over and pulled it with one hand by its small purple feet to straighten it out. As her fingers touched the cold toes, she hesitated. The grass was wet and chilling under her own feet, but she didn’t mind. It felt refreshing after the stinking hot sheets of her bed. She was burning up in there. She walked on, letting the pram’s weight pull her towards the lake.

At the bottom of the slope the land began to flatten out again and she needed to push once more as she came closer to the water. In front of the house the reeds had been cleared and there was a muddy shore. A rotting boathouse stood to one side, with a half-sunk punt tied to the pontoon. She had a vague memory of the pontoon, of being frightened. She wouldn’t walk on it this time.

She stopped. The mist had thickened into drizzle. Glancing down she could see that the little thing was getting wet, so she pulled up the navy blue waterproof pram hood and fastened the mackintosh cover with big poppers on either side. As the motion ceased, it began to grumble again. Melissa remembered vaguely what this meant. She’d managed to feed it at some point in the night, but that had to be the last time.

It was so terribly painful, her nipples angry with the contact. They itched and looked strange to her, crusty and rough. One of her breasts was agonisingly hot and hard. When it had been sick, there were streaks of red in the posset. She wasn’t able to give it pure milk, even that was adulterated with her dirty blood. Between her legs and from her breasts. She was a filthy creature. But it was OK, the lake would wash it all away. That man had rescued her before, hadn’t he? Images fled through her mind, not stopping – sunlight, then a splintering as wood gave way beneath her. A horrible cold shock and something holding her down under the water. But that was long ago.

She kept pushing. The rank grass had given way to wet clay and stones. The lake had not yet filled to its full winter depth, but she shoved the pram through the shallows until the water was up to the axles. She looked down and could make out the shapes of huge freshwater mussel shells, broken and just visible through the swirling mud.

The dawn wind strengthened and blew rain into her face. The pram didn’t want to go any further so she left it where it was and waded past it, looking down at the cold water around her knees. She glanced up as movement caught the edge of her vision. Trees jostled on the other side, their trunks black and slick. A deer stepped out from between them and looked around before bending its neck to drink.

Melissa felt a dart of enchantment shoot through her. There was a jerk as if she woke up from a dream of falling. Her heart raced. She looked back to see the pram in the water behind her. She could hear her baby mewing inside. Sobs choked her as fear and love swelled and broke through her body. Crows cawed and flapped through the wet wild air.

The rain fell properly now in cold fat drops on her parting as she turned and tried to get back to the pram. The lake bottom was slimy, sucking at her feet. She was in too deep, moving too fast. Clumsy and stricken like some poor heifer sliding in a bloody shambles, trying to reach her calf. A broken mussel shell stabbed deep into her foot and she slipped, her legs shooting out from under her. She felt herself falling and gasped to scream as her face hit the water.

Sarah was in bed in the morning, still feeling shaky from the flu, when she heard the surgery bell ring. People nearly always telephoned these days to make appointments to see the doctor, and then walked in during surgery hours. She went back to her book and relaxed, knowing that Eileen the receptionist would be dealing with whoever it was. Her duty now was to recover from the beastly flu as soon as possible, and that took rest. Melissa would need her, and she had to be in good health to help look after the new baby.

After a while, she heard Arthur’s footsteps coming up the stairs, coming to check up on his favourite patient, as he always said. She detected something in his hurrying tread that made her uneasy.

The door opened. She saw his face and knew instantly that something terrible had happened. He moved across to the bed, his mouth slightly open, eyes bewildered and red, skin blanched.

She pushed her hands into the mattress to sit upright, saying, ‘What is it, darling?’

He came over and dropped on to the bed, pulling her forward awkwardly into his arms. She stiffened, but then put her arms around him. There was a pause.

‘Sarah, there’s something I have to tell you. You’ll need to be very brave,’ he said after a while. ‘As brave as you’ve ever been.’

Sarah didn’t feel brave, she was terrified. She began to shake.

‘Darling, there’s been an accident. Melissa.’

‘What – what – what are you saying?’

She could feel herself beginning to pant, her heart speeding up, her forehead furrowing into painful folds. She wanted to push him away, get out of bed, run to her daughter, make it all right.

‘I’m afraid Melissa has had an accident.’ Now he was sobbing into the shoulder of her bed jacket.

‘How – why – what do you mean?’

His tears terrified her. This man who had never cried before in her presence.

‘What’s happened to Melissa?’

‘She’s dead.’ Arthur’s voice was muffled in her shoulder.

She pushed him quite sharply away from her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Melissa has died.’

‘Melissa has died? How?’

Unbelievable. Her daughter dead? She began to shake.

She took him by the shoulders with her trembling hands, digging her fingers into him, feeling a kind of rip inside her as her heart was damaged beyond repair. She wanted to hit him. There were no tears just this aching shock that lodged inside her stomach like a cold ball.

‘Why is she dead? What happened? What has that man done to her?’

She realised she was shouting and Arthur’s head was rocking back and forth. She was shaking him and he did not resist, his eyes screwed shut. His hands came up and covered hers on his shoulders. She stopped the dreadful shaking, let go of him and fell back on her pillows, darkness peeling consciousness from her mind.

‘Sarah?’

She could hear him calling. Then he pulled her upright, swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed her head between her knees. She wished he wouldn’t. The darkness had been welcome.

Sarah sat feeling dizzy her head still down. Not knowing how to be in a world where her child wasn’t. She knew she should ask, make sure, make it clear, but she thought she would say nothing. If she ignored the world then Arthur and everything would leave and she could push this terror away from her to somewhere distant where she didn’t have to feel.

Now Arthur was beside her telling her this terrible thing about her daughter. Her beloved Lissy Lamb with her little hoof for whom she had crossed an ocean.

Bravery, yes, that was needed but it seemed inadequate. There was no room for the thought that Arthur had lost Melissa too. She started to sit up, and she felt Arthur’s hand tense and then relax, his arm curving around her shoulders as he pulled her against him. Her arms came up around his neck. Not looking at him she pressed her face into his shoulder that shook from time to time with sobs coming from so deep within.

She asked, dreading his answer: ‘What happened?’

‘The police just came. I thought it was about one of the patients. They told me Melissa had died. Darling, you’re going to have to be very strong.’

‘Why did she die? Was it something to do with the baby? Is the baby all right?’

‘Yes, darling, the baby is absolutely fine. Completely safe. It’s just that we didn’t realise Melissa wasn’t very well in herself. She did something irrational and dangerous early this morning which I’m afraid was fatal.’

‘What did she do? What went wrong? She seemed fine when we saw her.’

Her strong husband, used as he was to the realities of disease and death, was crying helplessly now. She could detect his guilt and it flowed into her as well sending her mind hunting wildly for clues. As doctor and nurse surely they should have known something was wrong? At that moment they were both suspended, dangling above an abyss of guilt, grief and blame together like the corpses of betrayers glimpsed in newsreels.

Pushing her hot face harder into his shoulder, she said, ‘How?’

‘What did you say?’ He hadn’t heard her.

‘What did she do?’

‘I believed from Miss Smith’s letter that she might have a touch of the baby blues, but it didn’t seem serious and I wanted to get you better so you could go and help. But it was clearly much more serious than we understood or it came over her very quickly.’

‘What came over her? What are you talking about?’

‘I’m so sorry, darling, but I think it must have been puerperal psychosis.’

The words hissed between them. Sarah gasped. He was still talking.

‘She didn’t seem to have done anything on purpose at all. She was found in the lake. She couldn’t be saved. The police said it must have been an accident in the end. We are going to have to be very strong.’

She hadn’t cried. She couldn’t cry. Once the dam broke she knew she would drown. A voice in her mind told her that many and many a mother had survived far worse. Every home was full of the echoes of children who’d never flown the nest. Now she and Arthur had joined that uncountable commonplace army of bereft parents.

Her back straightened and into her mind came the baby girl left behind. Something to hold on to like a pale perfect lifebuoy bobbing on black waves among the wreckage. Damson. Her shattered mind sent out little feelers towards the motherless baby girl.

The tears came then and Arthur silently passed her his damp handkerchief. She wept in great gasping torrents, on and on and on. Held quietly, mutterings of meaningless comfort transmitted from him to her.

‘Where was the baby?’ she sobbed.

‘The pram was on the edge of the lake with the baby safe inside. That’s one of the things that makes me think she didn’t mean to hurt herself. She probably imagined she was taking Damson for a walk. Poor darling Melissa.’

She made a decision then not to ask any more questions, to let Arthur tell her what he would. He went over the medical details of what had probably happened to Melissa, and she could feel her heartbeat slowing. She knew about cases like this. Some poor demented mothers took their babies with them. Sarah breathed a prayer of thanks that they were spared that at least.

‘You’re sure Damson is all right?’

The name, which she’d found strange to begin with, felt comforting and familiar.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘Dr Reeves, I brought up what you asked for. I’m so sorry, Mrs Reeves.’

It was Nurse Gregory from downstairs who did all the vaccinations. She handed Arthur a syringe.

‘Do you mind, darling? I think we need to give you something to help you get through this. I don’t want you relapsing.’

She nodded, desperate to escape from the all-consuming grief that threatened to derail her completely. There was a prick in her thigh. She sank away into sleep without any dreamy transition.

When she awoke, she lay for a minute or two wondering what was so awful, before the memory of what had happened to Melissa came crashing back into her consciousness. She curled on to her side in a ball trying to understand that she wouldn’t hold her daughter in this life again.