Alice broke the silence. ‘I keep thinking about our old neighbours – that mother and daughter that used to live below Patrick and me. I think I told you at the time, about when the mother died and I went to visit the girl and tried to cheer her up by being jolly and over-enthusiastic about the adventure she was about to take. God forbid, I even took some Marks & Sparks goodies, as though some Belgian chocs could make it all better. I had no idea how she was feeling, but now, when I look at myself in the mirror, I see the same expression that she had when I first saw her and I know that instead of nice words, a big smile and a box of bloody chocolates, I should have just held her and let her grieve. I hope she forgave me. I was so naive.’
‘I doubt she will have noticed. If she was as numb as me, then nothing really registers. People want to tell me about their experiences, about their loss, as though that could possibly help in some way. How could it? I just nod, switch off, don’t listen. I don’t care what anyone else has been through. I can’t. And I know that no one fully understands what it’s like for me, even if they think they do.’
‘I didn’t know anything could hurt this much.’
‘Thankfully, Alice, I don’t think any of us did.’
‘I can’t sleep and I can’t eat. I just wish it had been me. Why, Grace? She was so small and I always felt so responsible for her whenever I was with her. And now it’s like I’ve let her down…’
‘You didn’t let her down. It’s just one of those things. Sepsis took her, that’s it. Sepsis, a horrible thing that can act fast and we weren’t on our guard because we didn’t know we had to be.’ Grace felt slightly irritated that she was being called upon to offer comfort; it was her daughter, her little girl that had gone. She didn’t want to have to keep going over the event in fine detail, she had enough terrible images of the day and the funeral to last a lifetime, in fact a dozen lifetimes. And she was fearful of being given a new picture to cram into her already overcrowded mind.
Please, Alice, no more.
‘I loved her, Gracie. I loved her so much.’ She broke away in sobs.
‘We all did, Alice. How are Mum and Dad?’ Grace had noted that they’d visited less and less in the last couple of weeks, heeding her request to be left alone and probably thinking that they too should try and return to some semblance of normality.
Alice shook her head and took her time in forming a response. ‘Mum’s dreadful. She looks so old. She isn’t speaking much and Dad doesn’t know what to do, he can’t make her talk and he’s worried sick. I’m worried about her and worried about him worrying about her, and I’m worrying about you. The whole thing is just so awful.’
Grace had to agree, it was so awful. ‘I don’t know what to do next, Alice – I’m not sure how I should be and I don’t have the space to worry about anyone else.’
Not you, not Mum and Dad, not even Tom, we hide from each other.
‘What can I do to help you?’ Her sister leant forward.
Grace shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Nothing.’ It was the best she could come up with.
Grace made her way into the doctor’s surgery. Wary of running low, she was keen to collect her new supply of tablets: the ones that kept her afloat during the day and the others that knocked her out at night.
She took her place on a padded blue chair in the waiting room. A pregnant woman struggled to lower her bulk onto the chair opposite, exhaling loudly as though she had completed a real feat. A boy of around three toddled in, swinging his arms purposefully to help propel himself forward. He stood in front of the woman, his mum. She tutted and pulled a wet wipe from a packet, running it over his mouth. He turned his delightful large brown eyes on Grace and, smiling, handed her a red plastic car.
On any other day, in any other circumstance, Grace would have admired him, but not today. ‘Thank you,’ she managed and placed the toy on her lap, looking away, hoping that would be enough to placate the child and he would lose interest.
‘Is he being a nuisance?’ his mother asked.
She couldn’t cope with seeing him and was in no mood for small talk.
Please, just take him away and leave me alone.
‘No. No, he’s fine.’
She picked up a dog-eared, grubby magazine and tried to immerse herself in the impending marriage of two reality-TV stars with matching haircuts that she had never heard of. She read and reread the same lines over and over because the information would not stick in her head. She had trouble remembering almost anything these days. There was a strange new disconnect between what her eyes saw, her ears heard and her brain registered, as if everything was out of sync. It was a similar feeling to being on a stationary train alongside another stationary train and then one suddenly moves off and for a few seconds you’re not sure whether it’s your train or the other one. That was how she felt, every moment of the day: disorientated and not sure of anything, even the everyday stuff. She trusted nothing; nothing was as it seemed. Because if the world could take Chloe from her, then anything could happen, anything…
Her memory loss affected even the most basic things. She would picture faces of people familiar to her, family, friends, colleagues, but could not, no matter how hard she tried, remember their names. It was pointless trying to read a prescription, an instruction, an article, and as for a book… Forget it. After finishing the second line, she would forget the first and have to go back to the beginning. She lived in a state of permanent confusion.
‘It’s a nightmare coming to these appointments with him, he gets so bored.’ The mother was intent on making conversation. Her dungarees were taut over her distended tummy, which she showed off with pride, and her striped T-shirt strained over her large breasts; she was ripe with child, new life. Grace could just about make out the slogan written in a jaunty script across her chest: ‘Baby Under Construction!’ It made her think of Alice. A multitude of wooden beads sat around the woman’s ample neck.
Grace nodded. Nightmare indeed.
‘My fourth.’ The woman patted her stomach with self-congratulation.
Grace nodded again and tried to concentrate on the text of the article.
‘Husband says this is the last, but he’s said that twice before!’ The woman tapped the side of her nose with her index finger and laughed, insistent on conversing. ‘As if he has any say!’ She chortled.
Grace thought of Tom’s words.
‘As for another baby, forget it! Forget what I wanted or what was best for Chloe, it’s all about Grace, the wonderful, warm maternal creature that she is.’
She lowered the magazine as if she knew what was coming next. She felt a rise of panic in her throat and the familiar punch to her gut in anticipation.
Please don’t ask me. Please don’t…
‘Do you have any?’ The woman adjusted her beads and craned her neck to look at her son, who was on the other side of the room gazing at the fish tank set into the wall.
This was the first time since Chloe’s death that she had been asked this question. She swallowed nervously. Grace realised at that moment that there would be many firsts. The dental appointment in the calendar that needed cancelling and…
Oh God…
Grace gasped at the thought of it: Chloe’s first missed birthday, Christmas without her. She clenched her jaw and tried to concentrate on the woman’s awful, awful question. How was she supposed to answer? What was the correct response?
I had one, Chloe, but she died. She died, my daughter died…
Grace tried to say the words, pushed her tongue against the teeth, tried to sound aloud the unbearable truth. But she couldn’t. To say the words out loud would be like making it true, accepting it, turning it into fact. It was an admission, something she simply couldn’t do.
‘A little girl.’ She kept it brief. Her stomach flipped, her heart constricted and the breath caught in her throat.
‘Oh, you lucky thing! I’ve got three boys and this is another little Herbert.’ She patted her stomach again. ‘We’re going for a football team! Mind you, it’s great for hand-me-downs, saves us a fortune. How old?’ The woman sounded delighted: a common link, the bond of motherhood. From here they could progress to the benefits of breastfeeding and the merits of disposable versus terry when it came to nappies.
‘Three.’ Grace swallowed, wondering if this was how she would feel for the rest of her life, wondering if there might ever come a day when this dark gauze of total distress might be lifted.
You will always be three, Chlo. Always three…
‘Oh! Same age as Alfie! Are you thinking of St Saviour’s? My older boys are there and it’s wonderful. Bit of advice, though: try and get her name down now, as places are like hen’s teeth.’ The woman spoke out of the side of her mouth as though she were imparting a secret.
I miss you, Chloe. I miss you now and I miss your future. I used to picture you starting school, pictured you at university. I wondered who you might marry. I pictured it all…
‘Grace Penderford.’ The tannoy system called her name and she was thankful. She stood and placed the little red car on the table before walking into the consulting room without looking back.
In the UK, sepsis kills more people than breast cancer
Grace hovered on the landing with one hand on the suitcase and the other on the door, steeling herself. She took a deep breath and turned the handle, closing the bedroom door behind her. The creak of the door made her cringe, ashamed and upset by what it used to represent.
Letting her eyes dance from wall to wall, she studied the room that had been her little girl’s favourite place. They had chosen the sugar-pink paint when she was born. The miniature white furniture with heart-shaped cushions, a later addition, had turned it into a real fairy-tale palace. Framed photos of family, friends and special days out sat at jaunty angles on the windowsill. There was one of Chloe with her grandma; one of her sitting between Grace and Tom in a pub garden; and, her particular favourite, one of Chloe on a trampoline, wearing fairy wings and holding a wand. She pictured that day, saw Tom carefully reaching into the back seat when they arrived home, lifting Chloe from her car seat, remembering how she’d flopped over his shoulder as he carried her up the stairs. She was exhausted by the day at Paz and Polly’s housewarming. Tom had pulled off her sandals and laid her on this very bed, as Grace watched, smiling and freshly sun-kissed, from the doorway.
Grace placed her hand on Chloe’s duvet and felt warm at the memory of the little bundle, snoring safely in her beautiful room. She picked up the silver building blocks that spelt out her name, a christening gift from Tom’s parents, and folded them into the bubble wrap, before putting them into the open suitcase that she had set on the little bed. Next she carefully unhooked the mobile, which probably should have come down a year or so ago anyway, a bit too babyish with its cartoon-like fish. She then turned to the bookshelf that occupied a recess by the fireplace, lifting from it the cherished editions of stories that had been hers:
Alice in Wonderland
,
Tom’s Midnight Garden
and others. Grace wrapped them all, deciding to protect them and stow them away in the loft. She pictured Chloe sitting up in her bed –
‘Another story! Mummy, I need another one!’
– as she thumped the little pink comforter that kept her warm in the night. Had she made time? Could she have read to her some more? Had she let work take priority? Again, she felt sick at the thought.
Opening the wardrobe doors, she surveyed the tiny wooden hangers holding the garments that were all in various shades of pink and purple and ran her fingers over the little items that her daughter had loved. Grace removed a party dress and a dress-up fairy frock and began folding them methodically, inhaling the scent from each one as she wrapped them in tissue and placed them in the suitcase, as if packing for a family holiday. Her mind drifted to Chloe in the swimming pool on their vacation last year, jumping into the pool with abandon. There had been no hesitancy or concern about being in water too deep; she knew that she’d be safe, that her daddy would catch her, he would always catch her.
‘What are you doing?’ Tom’s voice boomed from the doorway, startling her.
They’d had no contact for days, both still smarting from the hurt they’d inflicted on each other in the preceding weeks, both preferring to be alone rather than risk greater pain.
Her response didn’t come quickly enough and so he repeated his demand, more loudly this time, as though volume would help her comprehension.
‘Grace, I said, what are you doing?’
She looked at him as if to say a response was unnecessary. Wasn’t it obvious what she was doing?
‘I’m packing some of Chloe’s things away, her precious bits and pieces, to keep them safe. I thought that would be better than letting them gather dust in here.’
‘You are
what
?’ His tone was incredulous. ‘How could you do that?’ He shook his head, looking at her as though she was committing a heinous sin.
She felt her cheeks flame, ashamed and awkward. She hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong. There were some things she wanted preserved – not that she needed objects to remind her of Chloe, she never stopped thinking about her, picturing her, not for a single second.
‘I… I thought I’d pack some things away, keep them safe and dust free in the loft,’ she repeated quietly.
‘No! No you are not! You are not going to do that! How dare you!’ Tom spat, his eyes darting around the room, as if trying to spot what she had taken.
Grace felt like a thief caught in the act.
‘You put it all back! You put it all back
now
! Do you hear me?’ His anger made his voice waver. She felt mildly afraid. Before she had the chance to act, Tom rushed forward from the doorway, thrust his hands into the suitcase and removed the books, shoving them back on the shelf, at least one of them upside down. She resisted the temptation to turn it the right way up. He pushed the small clothes onto the hangers haphazardly and was muttering under his breath, indeterminate mumbling that made little sense.