Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

‘Stuff to calm him down – makes it hard to concentrate.’ Christ, I thought, if that was calm, I’d hate to see him agitated. And he’d talked to me as though he’d no medical help at all.

She carried on: ‘Plus whatever else he can get his hands on.’ She was nothing if not honest. ‘There’s more drugs in there than there is out here,’ she said. ‘So, you’re all right for tomorrow?’

‘Yes. I’ll let you know how I get on.’

Abi Dobson was sorry but she couldn’t take Jamie the next morning – she had an antenatal appointment. I couldn’t ask Ray; he wouldn’t take more time off work to help me out. His mother, Nana Tello, used to stand in sometimes when the kids were smaller as long as it didn’t impinge on her other plans. She used to hum and haw and show such reluctance that it got so I disliked asking her. She would not be in the market for babysitting a strange child.

Taking my life in my hands, I rang my friend Diane. Diane is not child friendly. Even though we are very close she has rarely looked after Maddie, though Diane’s more relaxed in her company as Maddie gets older. Diane hasn’t any kids herself and has no desire to have any. She falls into sexual relationships every so often. Fall being the operative word. She plummets like a rock. Diane’s liaisons are a bit like elephant traps: rare, unexpected, dangerous, difficult to get out of. Aside from them her real passion is her work – she’s an artist.

I thought of Geoff Sinclair as I waited for her to answer the phone. Like him, Diane had fought cancer. Breast cancer. She’d had a lumpectomy and chemo. They thought they’d got it all. She takes pills every day.

‘Hello?’

‘Diane, I need to ask you a huge favour.’

‘Oh, God,’ she groaned.

After the kids were in bed Ray came into the living room where I was feeding Jamie. I smiled across at him but his face remained impassive. He sat down on the armchair. Perched on the edge; ready to strike. I concentrated on the baby and studied her eyes. Felt her feet pedal in time to her sucking. I’d one hand supporting her and the other holding the bottle; not enough hands free to rub her feet, which I used to do when I was breastfeeding Maddie. Ray took an audible breath. I waited.

‘Still no word,’ he said. ‘This is the third night.’

‘Yes, I know.’ And I wasn’t looking forward to yet more fragmented sleep.

‘Don’t you think you should consider contacting the authorities?’

‘No.’ I stared across at him, my face warm. ‘Not yet.’

‘When?’

‘Ray, I said before, I’m not setting a deadline.’

‘I think you should,’ His face was tight; I could feel his disapproval, palpable in every cell of his body.

‘You’ve made that clear.’

‘So what, the situation just rolls on and on?’

‘It’s only been a couple of days,’ my voice rose. The baby stiffened. I spoke more quietly, tried to relax my body, fighting against the tension. ‘She’s happy, she’s safe.’

‘She’s not yours.’

‘I know that!’ I glared at him. He was talking to me like I was some deranged woman living in a fantasy. ‘And I’ll be more than happy to see her mother show up. Meanwhile, I’ll carry on looking after her as best as I can.’ I lost the struggle to keep calm; my voice shook, my heart was thundering in my chest. I wanted to throw something at him. Jamie had stopped sucking.

He watched me for a moment, then looked away exasperated, his jaw muscle tautening. He turned back, about to speak, I thought, but then he got to his feet and walked out. I called after him but he didn’t return.

There was no pattern to the nights. Jamie was still awake at ten so I fed her then. She slept through until half three. Five hours. I could have had five hours unbroken kip if I’d gone to sleep myself but I probably wasted two hours tossing and turning, feeling anxious about Ray, about the baby.

The tension remained with me the following day, aggravated by tiredness. My shoulder was stiff and my neck ached. There was a knot of worry in my stomach.

Maddie got into a panic at breakfast – she couldn’t find her PE kit. Jamie was bawling and I was hurriedly mixing a feed.

Tom put his hands over his ears. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ he chanted.

‘It’s not in my drawers,’ Maddie insisted, ‘you look.’

‘Try the cellar,’ I said. ‘It might be in the dryer.’

Her face fell.

‘For heaven’s sake, Maddie,’ I snapped. ‘It’s broad daylight, there’s a window down there and you can put the light on too if you need.’ The dark is one of Maddie’s fears.

The baby cried louder. ‘I can’t go,’ I explained. ‘I need to feed Jamie.’

‘Ray can feed her,’ Maddie whined.

Ray slid a look my way, mutinous, critical but nevertheless moved closer and held his hands out for Jamie. She was in full throttle, face tomato red, back arching with frustration, twisting her head this way and that. Her cries were agonizing to hear. You are more at risk of being killed in the first twelve months of life than at any other time. It was a fact I could understand, horrible though that sounds. We arrive in the world completely vulnerable, utterly dependent on others and furnished with vocal chords that shred a listener’s nerves to bits.

When I opened the cellar door, Digger emerged, gave a foolish little woof and wove about my legs, wagging his tail.

‘Digger’s here,’ I called out to Ray who looked after him. ‘Been shut down the cellar again. I’ll let him out.’

I’d actually brought the dog home when his owner, a young homeless man who’d been helping me trace someone, had died. I was ambivalent about keeping the animal but Ray and Digger hit it off.

I ushered the dog out of the back door and into the garden at the back. The sun was bright again and mist steamed off the grass, along the top of the garden fences and the roof of the shed. The dew had been heavy and swags of spider’s web trailed silver beads among the foliage. I closed my eyes and drew in the air, cool and moist, felt a ripple of fatigue run through me. I took another breath and opened my eyes. Watched the coal tits on the bird feeder for a moment then dragged myself back inside.

In the cellar, I found Maddie’s shorts and T-shirt. I put another load of dirty clothes in the machine, emptied the reusable nappies out of the bucket they were soaking in, holding my breath at the stink, and added those to the wash, sealing the velcro tabs carefully so they wouldn’t claw at everything else.

Down there, beneath the kitchen, Jamie’s crying was muffled and stopped suddenly; quiet followed. All I could hear was the water running into the machine and Digger’s bark, asking to come in from the garden.

I went up to let him in and caught sight of the squirrel running along the fence. He’d already dug up most of the winter flowering bulbs I’d planted in a trough by the patio. I’d have loved to escape, stay out there and potter about: rake up the leaves and bag them for compost, clip back the bare lavender stalks and the straggly water mint that fringed the small pond. If only.

D iane lives in Fallowfield, a neighbourhood about a mile north of Withington, on the way into town. It’s home to many of the city’s students, who live in the purpose built halls of residence on Wilmslow Road and, behind the main drag, in the warren of small redbrick terraces. There’s also a large council estate where generations of families have lived. Diane doesn’t belong to either camp, though she’s known and liked by her long-term neighbours who joke about her being their local Tracey Emin (though not half as successful).

Jamie’s buggy doubled as a car seat, if you unhitched the top from the chassis. At Diane’s house I got it out of the car, carried her in and put her down by the sofa.