her; that ferocious love that used to be just for me.
But sheâd scream and kick, rigid with fury against your chest, her tiny body convulsed with contempt. And youâd panic and pass her back and Iâd settle her immediately. Limp against my shoulder and then asleep in her basket with her thumb in her mouth. And it would be just the two of us again. Me and you. For a short time, until she needed a feed or a change, it was like she never was.
Only, things werenât the same. Even after my swollen body deflated and my breasts sprang back to tautness, ready to be reclaimed by you, I smelt more like her than like myself. Talcum powder and the sour tang of milk drying on skin. No amount of scrubbing or scent would take that away.
Do I seem resentful? Iâm not actually. Not anymore. I did blame her for you leaving. I do blame her. But Iâm not bitter, not now. I fought with you, with my mother, and with my own fear, to keep her. Nobody wanted her. And then she tunnelled her way into the world, splitting me in half with her enthusiasm for life, and everybody wanted her. They jostled with each other to pluck her from her cradle and puff air into her face and watch her blink and laugh.
I just wanted things to go back to the way they were.
I always knew youâd go in the end. For your wife. For your real children, the ones who shared your name. For the comforts of your life with them all. No man past his youth wants to sneak around, tugging pleasure from brief, damp groans spilled across the back seat of a car. Lay-bys and street lights marking the years, and the occasional cheap-hotel-room peak, with every light in the place on and space to undress, to pretend, to move. Sometimes Iâd watch you as you sat across the room from me, bent over your shoes, shirt half on, and the harder I focused on you the more indistinct you became, until I had to lean and switch the lights back off, the better to see you in the darkness.
The problem with giving someone space to move, you give them space to move away. Once I realised that she wasnât going to magic you into our lives permanently, bind you close with her soft palms and her hearty bellows, I lost all remaining belief that I would ever leave my jewellery box. I knew then that I would be that tiny ballerina forever, waiting for the lid to rise.
But I hadnât realised that forever would be over so quickly. Maybe I lost something of my previous mystique, my purity, when I became a mother. Or maybe I stopped trying once Iâd accepted my role in your life. Gave up the dream and gave you up in the process.
Whichever, whatever; itâs done now isnât it?
6
I was seventeen when the car struck me and brought me down to land beside my shoes. I lay in the road and looked across at the bruised black leather, tried to stretch a hand out to touch them, but couldnât.
Above me sirens shrieked and the cold blue of the sky was studded with eyes, but down here, on the road, the tarmac was warm beneath my cheek and as soft as feathers. I was turned over, shouted at. I tried to put a finger to my lips to hush the intrusion, but couldnât.
It wasnât my fault! She just stepped out in front of me!
For godâs sake, donât move her! Youâre not supposed to move them!
Faces hung above me like balloons and then disappeared. I almost recognised some of them, though none of them seemed to recognise me. Mouths stretched so wide that I could see the scream at the back of the throat. I tried to speak to them, to ask why nobody would help me up, but couldnât.
And then there were men in uniforms and they slid me onto a board and into the back of some kind of van, and the sky disappeared but the faces didnât. I thought about my mother, waiting at home, waiting for someone other than me, and I wondered how long it would be before I could get back to her. Shouldnât somebody tell her where I was? She might be worried, or angry.
But sheâd scream and kick, rigid with fury against your chest, her tiny body convulsed with contempt. And youâd panic and pass her back and Iâd settle her immediately. Limp against my shoulder and then asleep in her basket with her thumb in her mouth. And it would be just the two of us again. Me and you. For a short time, until she needed a feed or a change, it was like she never was.
Only, things werenât the same. Even after my swollen body deflated and my breasts sprang back to tautness, ready to be reclaimed by you, I smelt more like her than like myself. Talcum powder and the sour tang of milk drying on skin. No amount of scrubbing or scent would take that away.
Do I seem resentful? Iâm not actually. Not anymore. I did blame her for you leaving. I do blame her. But Iâm not bitter, not now. I fought with you, with my mother, and with my own fear, to keep her. Nobody wanted her. And then she tunnelled her way into the world, splitting me in half with her enthusiasm for life, and everybody wanted her. They jostled with each other to pluck her from her cradle and puff air into her face and watch her blink and laugh.
I just wanted things to go back to the way they were.
I always knew youâd go in the end. For your wife. For your real children, the ones who shared your name. For the comforts of your life with them all. No man past his youth wants to sneak around, tugging pleasure from brief, damp groans spilled across the back seat of a car. Lay-bys and street lights marking the years, and the occasional cheap-hotel-room peak, with every light in the place on and space to undress, to pretend, to move. Sometimes Iâd watch you as you sat across the room from me, bent over your shoes, shirt half on, and the harder I focused on you the more indistinct you became, until I had to lean and switch the lights back off, the better to see you in the darkness.
The problem with giving someone space to move, you give them space to move away. Once I realised that she wasnât going to magic you into our lives permanently, bind you close with her soft palms and her hearty bellows, I lost all remaining belief that I would ever leave my jewellery box. I knew then that I would be that tiny ballerina forever, waiting for the lid to rise.
But I hadnât realised that forever would be over so quickly. Maybe I lost something of my previous mystique, my purity, when I became a mother. Or maybe I stopped trying once Iâd accepted my role in your life. Gave up the dream and gave you up in the process.
Whichever, whatever; itâs done now isnât it?
6
I was seventeen when the car struck me and brought me down to land beside my shoes. I lay in the road and looked across at the bruised black leather, tried to stretch a hand out to touch them, but couldnât.
Above me sirens shrieked and the cold blue of the sky was studded with eyes, but down here, on the road, the tarmac was warm beneath my cheek and as soft as feathers. I was turned over, shouted at. I tried to put a finger to my lips to hush the intrusion, but couldnât.
It wasnât my fault! She just stepped out in front of me!
For godâs sake, donât move her! Youâre not supposed to move them!
Faces hung above me like balloons and then disappeared. I almost recognised some of them, though none of them seemed to recognise me. Mouths stretched so wide that I could see the scream at the back of the throat. I tried to speak to them, to ask why nobody would help me up, but couldnât.
And then there were men in uniforms and they slid me onto a board and into the back of some kind of van, and the sky disappeared but the faces didnât. I thought about my mother, waiting at home, waiting for someone other than me, and I wondered how long it would be before I could get back to her. Shouldnât somebody tell her where I was? She might be worried, or angry.
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