Hello, My Name is May
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She’s right, it is good to get out of the room. It crowds in on me, that place, squashes me down until I can’t get my breath. I used to feel like that in the little flat in Pimlico when Jenny was a baby, but I’d forgotten it until recently. He’s got his door shut, the man across the way, maybe he shut it when he saw me coming. She pushes me down the corridors past closed doors or worse, open doors with glimpses of old people’s lives in them. Televisions blaring, little stick legs on beds or dangling from chairs.
They’re not like people, I try to say, they’re an alien race of stick people. Sick sticks.
Ssh Mum, she says. I know she’d find it funny if I could just explain it to her, I’d love to see a twinkle in her eye.
Come to the dining room, she says, just take a look, it’s really pretty with flowers and fairy lights and everything. There will be a tree at Christmas, I bet it’s a big one, she says as if the sole aim of my life so far was to get to a dining room with a big Christmas tree. I don’t bother to answer. To be honest, the struggle isn’t worth it, even for Jenny. My words are on the ration, that’s the thing, and to be used sparingly like eye drops.
Come on, she says, cheer up, I hate to see you like this, you’re usually such a happy person.
I am? I think, really? I try to show her what I’m thinking by raising my eyebrows. I think it works on one side of my face. Jenny bursts out laughing.
Oh Mum, she says and she bends down to hug me in my chair. It doesn’t feel right. I’m supposed to be bigger than her, that’s how it goes with kids. Anything else is like dogs walking on their hind legs, or elephants playing cards. I try to tell her that but I think the only word she catches is elephant. She looks worried.
We sit there for a while, at one of the round tables in the dining room. Neither of us knows what to say to the other. She’s right, they have made an effort to make it look pretty. Soft lighting, big windows looking out on to the grass, more like an upmarket old-fashioned hotel than a nursing home.
Who’s paying for this? I want to say. Jenny has no idea what I’m talking about, so I make the sign for cash, rubbing my thumb against my fingers on my good hand. I don’t want it to come out of her inheritance, that’s what I want to tell her so I make a gesture to take in all the fancy lighting and the soft carpet that most of the residents can’t walk on anyway.
Pish, she says, don’t think about it, everything is fine.
How are you going to get away from that stupid oik of an ex-husband if I don’t help you? I want to say. I make the gesture of a walking stick, and a little wobble. I put my finger over my lip and under my nose like a moustache.
Ah, Jenny says, you’re talking about the walking stick again.
Yes I am I try to say, my movements getting a tad frantic. It’s a walking stick I own, you see, it’s in my wardrobe, it was definitely used by Charlie Chaplin and it should be worth something. I got it at an auction.
Hush now, she says, don’t worry, I know where it is, the stick. Let’s do a jigsaw.
I can tell that she’s a really good teacher. The kind of teacher who is loved by the children, but never promoted. Different from me, softer and kinder. I hate jigsaws, always have, but for once I think I ought to do something to please her rather than myself. And it’s calming, it really is. Looking at pieces, seeing whether they fit in, for a moment there’s no room for any of the ghosts who usually patrol my head. The jigsaw picture is of sweets and chocolates from the sixties and seventies, and my mouth is watering like a burst pipe in seconds. Opal Fruits and Bar Noir, KitKats with the real silver paper, Butter Snap and Aztec. All jostling for position on the table in front of us. It’s like it used to be, just the two of us only this time I’m the infant and Jenny gets to be the adult.
I’ve made a will, I try to say. I thinks she gets the word, will. I lodged it with Cate who lives next door but one, I want to say, you know, the woman with the black car and the brown dog. I notice that even in the words I don’t say I’ve been reduced to describing things by their colours. Cate, I could have tried, the woman whose husband died of oesophageal cancer two years ago last summer. As if I will ever attempt the word oesophageal again.
Don’t talk about wills, Mum, Jenny says, talk about Crunchies instead and she holds up the missing piece of Crunchie wrapper like a trophy. We both laugh and she reminds me that on a Friday we always used to have a Crunchie bar to celebrate the weekend. I’m struck by remorse and I can’t explain why. Was that enough, I want to ask, is that a happy enough memory to keep you going?
The fun goes out of the jigsaw for a moment and I try to sulk quietly. I have surrounded myself with the mundane, I think, and you are the unfortunate byproduct. I refuse to comment on the piece of Cadbury’s fudge she holds up. She’s hurt, I can tell she’s hurt, and I didn’t mean to upset her.
Only joking, I try to say.
I attempt to fit a piece of Galaxy bar into the jigsaw but my arm does that trick again of being out of control and swinging and the whole thing tumbles to the floor. All the pieces, upside down, all the progress we’d made, gone.
Sorry, I say, arm. I can’t see how anyone could understand, it’s just a shout.
That’s OK, she says, you couldn’t help it, it’s only a jigsaw, don’t worry.
But I liked it I think, I liked it and before I know where I am I’m sobbing like a baby again, crying as if my last hope had just died.
It’s OK, it’s OK, Jenny says, we can do it again, and she hugs me and I don’t like it but I’ve made so much fuss now that even I can see I will just have to bloody well put up with it. Just a jigsaw, just a jigsaw, she says in my ear, and I remember a time when I said similar things to her, it’s just a woolly rabbit, it’ll be OK, never mind.
I push her away. No point making a drama out of a crisis, that’s what I’d say if I could. I’ve always had a thing about clichés, tried not to use them too much but these days they speak for me. Least said soonest mended, that one works, too.
I try to rub my eye with my good hand and it’s then that I see him. Like rubbing a lamp to make a genie appear, my eye rub has produced a man over in a shadowy corner that I hadn’t noticed before. I think he’s the man who has been watching me, I’m not sure. From the room across the corridor. There’s something familiar about the tilt of his head.
Is everything OK? he asks, anything I can do?
Jenny replies to him civilly and they exchange a few words about the weather and the flower decorations, that kind of thing, and all the time there’s something playing at the back of my mind. I know that voice, I think, I know that person with his head tilted just so, as if he has a list of questions in his pocket to ask the world.
Mum, you’re shaking, says Jenny, let’s get you back to bed. Did you see that nice man I was talking to? He seemed really friendly, don’t you be flirting with him now.
I try to pull myself together. This is important, I think, this is no time to go to pieces. Think, May, think. It’s like an egg and spoon race in my brain when I try to think in a straight line. A slippery egg and spoon race through mud, with a gigantic egg and a tiny spoon. The harder I run at it, the more it slips off. What was it about the man? Why did he seem so familiar?
Before we’re even halfway along the corridor to my room I’ve forgotten the exact shape of the tilt of his head, and the way he looked at me doesn’t feel so bad. I’m an old woman, you see, and I’ve started thinking about toasted cheese sandwiches and chocolate instead. I can’t even keep the thread of my unease. It’s still there, in the background. It’s like one of those tiny figures in the distance in a painting by that chap, is it Lowry, I try to say his name to Jenny. I can see it, I know it’s there, but I can’t actually make out the shape. She doesn’t understand me this time, I can see that.
She stops pushing me along the corridor and she bends down close and says, what’s that Mum? Say it again. I catch sight of the lines around her eyes, close up they seem very prominent. Did I do that, I wonder. I put my hand up to try to stroke them away, it’s an instinct but I can’t control my arm at the best of times and this is the worst of times so I knock Jenny and she’s bending anyway so I catch her off guard and she falls.
I’m so so sorry, I try to say, I was only, I just wanted to, I’m sorry.
It’s OK Mum, she says, but I can hear she’s fighting tears.
I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you, I try but the egg has slipped off the spoon and into my mouth somehow and the words sound even more like rubbish than usual, even to me. Like the chorus of a bad pop song, over and over again with no meaning.
I have a sudden memory of Jenny learning to speak. She was such an earnest little thing. She tried so hard, as if someone had set her homework and she was going to be tested on it the next day. We had the TV on and it was Saturday afternoon, I remember. The presenter was reading the football scores. Liverpool one, Manchester United two, he said and every damn score he announced, she copied, with the exact same inflection in her voice and concentrating so hard on getting the shape of her mouth right. These days I would have videoed her I suppose, stuck it on Facebook for everyone to admire. Back then I just watched and marvelled and thought, I’m going to make sure things are OK for this child, I am going to keep her safe. Look at her now. Lined and lonely on the floor.
OK, I say, and my voice is suddenly clearer than it was by far. Go, I say. It’s as near as I can get. What I want to say is, it’s OK, you don’t have to visit me here any more. Go off, travel the world, have a baby, rob a bank. Have some fun. I can’t say it, only go, but I can see that she has understood anyway.
Mum, she says, getting up and brushing herself down, don’t be daft, I’m alright, you didn’t mean to, everything’s fine.
I’m too tired now or I’d tell her that everything isn’t fine, and that something today has made me think of danger, I’m not sure what it is, and that she would be better off away from whatever it is that I’m too knackered to remember.
Go, I whisper again as we get back into my room.
She rings the bell for the carers to help me get into bed, it’s too late for sitting in the chair now. I need to lie down and the tiredness is like a massive weight on my head. Go away, I don’t want to see you any more, I think. She understands that one, and there are tears in her eyes.
I’m saying it for you, I think, I’ve always tried to do what’s best for you, I’m not going to stop now.
I could come back tomorrow, she says, let you know how 5B managed their poems about autumn.
I want that more than anything, but there’s danger somewhere and I can’t remember where but there’s something about a tilt of the head and a smiling face that terrifies me and the least I can do is keep her away.
I’m tired, I try to say as the night duty carer helps me into the hoist, and I am, I’m tired, she must see that. Stay away, I think, let me rest, bloody Crunchie bars.
Don’t worry, the carer says. I think it’s Mary, the nice Irish one. Don’t worry, she says, she doesn’t mean it like it sounds, it’s the brain injury talking. Why don’t you just stay at home for a day or two so that you can catch a rest as well? That way, when you come back everything will be like shiny new again. She’ll be pleased as punch to see you.
I keep my head hanging down, don’t look up or she might see I’m crying.
What was it, I remember thinking just before I went to sleep, what was the danger? Tilt of the head, that’s the echo back, tilt of the head, rhyming with dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
October 1977
Hull
May looked at her reflection in the department store window and smiled. She didn’t have a long mirror at home, and she couldn’t help being surprised every time she saw how big she was. She had worked hard to stay slim, and in that time her life had changed beyond recognition. Husband, baby, a whole life that had been waiting for her. She hoped she hadn’t jinxed things by getting fat, even though it was for a good cause, even though she was pregnant. May didn’t know any other pregnant women, so she wasn’t sure whether she was unusually big, but she thought she might be. She was the kind of huge that made perfect strangers at bus stops smile at her, or feel entitled to stroke her pregnant stomach as if it belonged to them. May felt like a massive insect full of eggs. It was difficult to believe that there was only one baby in there.
‘Looking good,’ May heard someone say. She realised that the woman was speaking to her. She turned from her reflection.
‘Oh gosh, yes, I’m sorry, just can’t quite get over myself, you know?’
The other woman laughed and May noticed that she was pregnant too, but smaller.
‘You too,’ May said, ‘welcome to the club!’
‘Literally,’ said the other woman.
She looked younger than May, taller and with a more graceful bump.
‘I like your bump,’ May said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. No offence meant.’
‘None taken,’ the woman said. ‘In fact I think from now on I will only allow comments on my bump from women, and specifically, women who are more pregnant than me. It’s a good rule.’
May laughed. It must be lovely, she thought, to be as confident as that, to be able to make jokes with complete strangers.
‘I’m Helen,’ the woman said. ‘Pleased to meet someone else who might be as bonkers as I am. Do you ever wonder why you’re doing this?’ Helen pointed to her pregnant stomach.
May laughed. ‘Only about every five minutes,’ she said. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy and all that but…’ May’s voice tailed off as she wondered if she had spoken out of turn. She looked down towards where her big feet would be if she could see through her stomach. Typical, she thought. I’ve been longing to talk to someone else who’s pregnant, and when I do I mess it up. No one likes a moaner.
‘Hey,’ said Helen, ‘maybe we should stick together. Safety in numbers and all that. I know how you feel. I think it’s normal, in fact I’m sure it is, I read it in a book!’
May felt as though she wanted to cry. Pregnancy hormones, she thought.
‘Have you got much ready for your little one?’ May asked. ‘Only it’s difficult to know how much we’re going to need, isn’t it? Some books say twenty babygros, others say twelve.’
Helen threw back her head and laughed.
‘Twenty!’ she said. ‘I reckon these books are funded by the babygro industry. Mine will be wearing nighties anyway, I’ve made them myself.’
‘Oh, me too,’ said May and the two women smiled at each other. May thought how lovely Helen was. She was dark skinned, possibly Asian, with long black curly hair. Even pregnant, she shone out as something rare in the litter-flying grime of Hull city centre. Beautiful, like a lizard from a beach landscape or a fire in the distance. May blushed at her silliness for thinking such things.
‘You really do suit being pregnant,’ May said.
Helen laughed. ‘Well I’m never going to be pregnant again,’ she said, ‘so maybe I should have a photograph taken. I haven’t got any pictures, and I can promise you, this little one is going to have absolutely no brothers or sisters.’
‘A dog?’ said May. ‘I was thinking, for mine, maybe a dog might be company for her.’
‘For her?’ said Helen, raising her eyebrows. ‘So you think you know the sex then? Have you done that wedding ring test, where you loop the ring on a hair from your head and dangle it over your belly to see which way it swings?’
‘I have not,’ said May, ‘and if you’re asking me that, I know you’re not the rational woman I thought you were a moment ago. Sometimes I think she’s a girl and I say her, sometimes a boy. Today she’s Amelia or Rose.’
They both laughed, and May felt an unfamiliar warmth, a sense of camaraderie.
‘I’d ask if you want to come for a cup of coffee, in Binns,’ Helen said, ‘but coffee is out of my budget right now.’
May was happy that the hike in coffee prices had not just affected her. She had been so lonely recently, she had started to believe that everyone else was still swilling coffee like they used to, and that she was the only one who had had to give it up.
‘Tea it is then,’ said May.
May was excited. She hadn’t realised how much she needed someone to talk to, and Helen was the best company May had met in a long time. The only company.
‘I should tell you,’ Helen said as they sat down in the department store cafe, ‘I’m a lone mum, I’m on my own with this one, a single mother, I think that’s what the papers say.’
May wondered for a brief moment what that would be like.
‘You’re brave,’ she said, ‘I don’t know how I’d manage without Alain.’
‘I guess you’re one of the lucky ones,’ Helen said. ‘A good man and a straightforward life, well done you.’
Helen sounded as if she meant it, as if she really was pleased for May. May felt embarrassed at her good fortune.
‘Maybe I can help,’ May said. ‘You know, when your little one is born. Many hands make light work and all that stuff.’
Anything, she thought, I’ll do anything to have a friend.
‘Ha,’ said Helen, ‘tell me that again when you’ve had that baby. Have you ever looked after a baby?’
‘I babysat for the vicar’s little boy when I was a teenager,’ May said. As soon as she had said it, she realised how silly she sounded. As if looking after someone else’s child for a few hours would be any kind of preparation. And vicar – how prim did that make her sound?
‘I mean…’ she said and both women exploded with laughter.
‘I’ll know where to come for advice if this lump of a baby has any spiritual queries,’ Helen said, ‘seeing as you might have a direct line.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ said May, ‘I’m not, I mean I don’t know why I said that, but please don’t think I’m some kind of religious nutcase.’
‘Just because you said the word “vicar?”’ Helen said. ‘Don’t worry, I think I’ll let you off.’
May liked Helen more and more. Humour, she thought, she’d been missing that recently. And closeness to another woman. She wondered if it would be rude to ask Helen about her baby’s dad. What must it be like, she wondered as she stirred her tea, how did she manage the loneliness?
‘I feel like we’ve been friends for a while,’ Helen said. ‘Isn’t that weird?’
‘No,’ said May, ‘it isn’t weird, I feel it too. Maybe meeting when you’re very pregnant is like meeting in wartime or something.’
May hoped that she didn’t sound too ridiculous. Why had she thought of wartime? She was pregnant and happy, wasn’t she?
‘Exactly,’ said Helen. ‘When the bombs and the babies start flying, it’s time for us women to stick together.’
There was an awkward silence as May tried to think what to say next. She didn’t want to scare Helen away by being too needy, and she wasn’t quite sure why it was all so important.
‘We’re moving soon,’ May said, ‘to Bangor. My husband has a job there.’
‘Bangor?’ said Helen. ‘It’s lovely there, I went for a university interview, gorgeous. You don’t sound too happy about it though, surely you’re not going to pine for the mean streets of Hull?’
May laughed. She couldn’t trust herself to speak for a moment. She had no idea, none at all, why she felt so low. It must be a pregnancy thing, she thought. It was ridiculous to be so pleased to talk to someone else, ridiculous.
‘We went there last week,’ May said, ‘and stayed in a nice hotel and everything. I didn’t get to see the flat because I didn’t feel well, but Alain did and he said it’s lovely. Huge grounds and everything, it goes with the job.’
Helen stirred her cold tea.
‘Sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘Maybe me and Baby Lump here will be able to come to stay.’
‘Oh yes,’ said May, ‘that would be amazing.’
May noticed that Helen seemed less bouncy.
‘Are you OK?’ she said.
‘Yes, sorry, I’m fine,’ said Helen, ‘only I feel lonely, that’s all, and hearing about your plans, I’m just worried. What if I can’t do this on my own?’
May realised how thoughtless she had been. Typical May, she thought, thinking about yourself instead of other people.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘I haven’t even asked about you. Is he involved, your baby’s dad? Is he going to help you?’
Helen looked around as though she might find an answer written on the wall, or out of the window. May wished she could kick herself for being so thoughtless.
‘That’s a story for another day,’ Helen said. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, I’ve got a politics degree and it would take more than a tiny baby and a stupid man to stop me. I’m going to be a writer. I’ve been on my own for about a month now and it’s just fabulous. Honestly, I’m hard up but there’s the dole, and the landlord at the local pub gives me the odd shift, cash in hand. No one tells me what to watch on TV, or what to eat. I never have to worry about anyone else, May. Imagine that.’
May found that she couldn’t imagine that, not quite. It didn’t seem possible.
May thought about that later, when she was back home. Neither of the women had telephones, so she and Helen had exchanged addresses but May wasn’t at all sure whether they would be able to meet again. Binns cafe, they had said, they would both try to get to Binns cafe on Friday mornings if they could.
‘It’ll be fine for me,’ Helen had said. ‘Fire, flood and pestilence permitting, I’ll be here.’ It was May who might have the difficulty, but she couldn’t explain that to herself, let alone Helen. Still, even if they never met again, May thought that it had been wonderful to talk to another woman.
May put on the dress Alain liked and spent the afternoon cooking. A celebration meal, she thought, a Bangor special. She pushed Helen to the back of her mind, thinking that she would ponder it over later, when she was in bed. May didn’t know where Alain was, but he’d talked a lot recently about going for interviews at schools, just to get the lie of the land. He hated it when May asked lots of questions, so she had no idea why he would go for interviews when he already had a job. May guessed he wanted to have a backup plan, in case anything went wrong. He was always so careful. He wanted everything to be definite, and who could blame him? If the Welsh Film Board would just contact them, to confirm starting dates and so on, May was sure Alain would feel much more secure.
May could tell from the slam of the door as Alain came in that things had not gone to plan.
‘Hi, darling,’ May called. ‘How did it go? Would you like a cuppa?’
‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Not in the mood.’
May wondered if it was something she had done. She checked the mugs on the mug tree but they were OK, all pointing in the same direction. Alain was so tidy, he could get really upset when she just threw them on any old way. May pushed her hair back with her arm. Alain did not seem his usual self at all. He picked up his knitting from the table, shook his head and put it down again.
‘Leave the cooking, May, turn it off. We need to talk.’
‘But I…’ May said. But I’ve been cooking for an hour, she wanted to say, it’s a meal you like, and I haven’t been eating recently, I was looking forward to it too. It will be horrible heated up later.
She looked at Alain’s face. I’m so selfish, she thought, fancy thinking about myself and my fat stomach when he is so worried.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘let’s go upstairs to the living room. The students are in but they’re up in their attic, with their music. It’s more comfortable upstairs and I’ve been standing for a while.’
‘No,’ said Alain. ‘I’d like to talk down here. I’m fed up with wondering whether they’re listening to me every time I say anything.’
‘OK,’ said May. She felt wrong-footed somehow, as if she had been caught out.
‘While we’re talking about stuff that annoys us,’ said Alain, ‘maybe we should talk food.’