Emma Chapman - How to Be a Good Wife

In my bedroom, I pull on my woollen nightgown and slip beneath the covers. Touching my stomach, I push it out, imagining I am pregnant again. That feeling, of your body no longer being yours but the property of someone else, someone more important. I remember the sickness too. Before I knew I was pregnant, I thought there was something really wrong with me.

One day, on my way to the market, I had to pull the car over and vomit onto the grassy verge. I drove myself straight to the doctor’s surgery on the other side of the water. Asking for an appointment, I felt ashamed, as if I was betraying Hector, by admitting there was something wrong in the new life he had worked so hard to build for us. I read the posters on the walls of the waiting room, my hands quivering against my green skirt, not making eye contact with anyone in case I knew them or they knew Hector.

The receptionist had to call my name three times before I recognized it. Marta Bjornstad. Blushing, I made my way along the draughty corridor.

‘You’re expecting a baby,’ the doctor said once she had run her tests, looking up from behind a desk cluttered with paperclipped documents and family memorabilia.

I felt my mouth fall open. ‘But I’m ill,’ I said. ‘I’ve been dreadfully sick.’

The doctor smiled, writing something. ‘That’s perfectly normal. I’m prescribing folic acid.’

‘But I don’t feel right,’ I said.

She didn’t look up. ‘It’s all worth it in the end,’ she said. ‘When the baby arrives.’

It felt so strange that something had been happening in my body which I was unaware of. I put my hands on my tummy but it didn’t feel any different. As I walked out of the doctor’s surgery into the sunshine, I smiled, imagining someone to talk to, to look after. I held onto the knowledge as if it was something precious. Hector could tell something was different: I hummed to myself making the dinner, smiling more than usual. I waited until we were in bed that night, sitting side by side, before I told him. He shifted his position, leaning over me and searching my face. Then he pulled me towards him into a hug, squeezing me gently, and I knew then that this was what he wanted, that he was as happy as I was.

Leaving the light on for Hector, I turn onto my side and shut my eyes.

In the middle of the night, I jerk awake, my eyes wet. The illuminated alarm clock by the side of the bed reads 02:13. Moonlight shines dimly through the crack in the curtains, and I can just make out a white disc in the night sky. A full moon.

I was dreaming of a forest. A figure was running, as fast as she could, the green of the trees rushing darkly past. I remember a flash of white-blonde hair, a shriek of laughter, her muscular limbs pushing forward. The ballet shoes she wore on her feet. Ribbons trailed behind her, skimming the dirt.

I breathe out. I am in my own bed, warm and safe. Hector is on my side, his arms around me. I imagine him, lying awake in the darkness, watching the outline of my body, working up the courage to move closer. I can feel his warm belly against my back; the looseness of the skin like silk; the flesh soft, harmless. I listen to the rise and fall of his breathing: the slight wheeze in his lungs, the rattle of his throat. I put my hands over his: the skin feels dry.

There is no sound in the room except for our breathing, my heartbeat in my chest. I feel a twisting anxiety begin in my stomach. I try to make myself calm, to go back to sleep, but the darkness is heavy, the silence oppressive. I long for the sound of the outside nighttime: an owl in the forest, a fox wailing.

When I can’t bear it any more, I slip away from Hector and out of bed, pulling myself up. Walking towards the hallway, I wince at the creak of the hinges.

Away from the warm bedroom, the air is sharp. I long for my dressing gown, hanging on the other side of the door. Over the banisters of the staircase is one of Hector’s ironed shirts and my black trousers, ready to be put away. I pull off my nightgown and slip them on. The shirt is made of thick wool and reminds me of Wellington boots, chopping wood, and the smell of pastry. Warm, wholesome things.

Shafts of moonlight trespass across the hallway, casting shadows behind the picture frames. I rub my finger over the light switch on the wall. I don’t press it: Hector is sleeping, but I imagine the light spreading down the dark corridor. I am good at this. Soon, the black square of the window is white.

I walk to Kylan’s bedroom, opening the cupboard doors to look for traces of him. At the back, I find a pair of balled-up socks and an old magazine about stamp collecting, yellowed at the edges. Holding the socks to my nose, I breathe them in, but there is nothing. Eventually, I put the things back where I found them.

Turning around, I see a girl, sitting on the floor with her back against the bed. I let out a gasp, but she doesn’t seem to see me. She stares without blinking, her grey eyes wide and glossy. Her hair is very messy: dirty, almost grey, though the broken ends are blonde. She is wearing grimy white pyjamas, her thin arms wrapped loosely around her bony knees. The bed is different: low with a metal frame, and a thin foam mattress covered with a white sheet.

A strand of hair falls forward into her face. She doesn’t notice; I long to reach forward and brush it out of her eyes. Then she looks straight up at me.

‘Help me,’ she says.

As I step towards her, she disappears. The bed is as it was. I go and stand in front of where she was sitting, lean down and look under the bed, but there is nothing there. I tell myself I must have imagined it. It isn’t real, I say. But I can still hear the desperation in her voice, and see her huge grey eyes. I try to remember if this is what happened last time I stopped taking my pills, but I can’t. The part of me that watches from the outside is intrigued. Something is happening at last.

I walk quickly back down the corridor, thinking with every step that I see something in the corner of my eye. In our bedroom, I pull back the covers and crawl into bed. It is so warm. I lean in to Hector, pulling his arms around me. I feel him stir.

‘What’s the matter?’ he says sleepily.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I say, drawing him even closer. ‘I had a bad dream.’

I feel him wrap his body around mine. I think then of telling him what I saw, but I know he will ask me if I have been taking my pills.

‘You’re so cold,’ he says, his breath warm on my neck.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he says, and I shut my eyes.

Lying in the darkness, I hear his breaths slow, and I match mine with his.

I wake again at seven to the sound of the alarm. Hector is on his side of the bed and I am on mine.

He switches off the sound and I turn over, watching the blue edge of the curtains. It makes me think of the early days, before we were married, when I spent so much time in this bed. I wasn’t well then: I could barely sit up, but waking in the night and seeing the orange summer light around the curtains made me feel a little better. I would lie awake, listening to Hector breathing, thinking of nothing but the light-filled valley above the dim bedroom, and listening to the alien sounds of birds in the trees. My fingers trembled under the duvet cover, stretching towards the window.

Hector was so good to me in those days. He took time off work, sat with me while we watched old movies, and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was ill, grieving, and he took care of me, with food and cups of tea and hot-water bottles. He knew I didn’t want to see anyone, so he kept me a secret, didn’t force me to get up, to pull myself together. He made sure I took my medicine, and slowly I began to put on weight, to get better. I owe him so much.