Cath Staincliffe - Trio

He nodded. ‘Will you come?’ He asked Megan.

She glanced at Mam, who smiled and dipped her head.

Megan stood on tiptoe and kissed Brendan on the cheek. Mrs Brendan Conroy, she thought. Thank God.

Marjorie

‘You’ve made up your mind, already, haven’t you?’ Robert asked Marjorie Underwood when they were halfway home.

‘She’s lovely,’ she said. ‘What is there to consider? A different baby wouldn’t be any better or worse. I don't want to wait any longer.’

He nodded. ‘You’d better ring as soon as we get in, then.’

‘Oh, Robert.’ She laid her hand across the back of his shoulders and leant over to kiss him on the cheek. Stephen had fallen asleep in the car by the time they got home and Robert transferred him to his cot. His face was flushed and damp around the temples and his hair was darker from the moisture. Downstairs Robert could hear Marjorie on the telephone, laughing and talking.

She was peeling potatoes when he found her in the kitchen.

‘Probably a week on Thursday but Sister Monica will ring tomorrow and confirm if that’s definite.’

‘Happy?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘As soon as I’m done with this I’m going to ring my Mum. She’ll be over the moon.’

‘Stephen didn't seem too chuffed with the idea.’

She laughed. ‘He’s two. He doesn’t really understand. We’ll probably get a bit of jealousy. Your mother says you tried to smother John when he came along.’

‘Still feel like it now and again.’0

‘Robert!’

‘Something infuriating about the eldest, don’t you think?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’d have given anything for a playmate – older or younger. I hope they will get on, though,’ she added. ‘If she’s anything like Stephen it’ll be a doddle.’

Wind her more often.

Robinson’s Gripe Water.

Give her a little boiled water on a spoon.

Try a different formula.

Rub her tummy.

Keep the milk cool.

They like swaddling.

Rocking helps.

Don’t wrap them up tight.

Add half a spoon of sugar.

Make the feed warmer.

Let her cry.

They were all full of ideas but nothing made a blind bit of difference. She’d been back to the clinic, seen the health visitor and the doctor, but it all came down to this. Evening colic. Screaming for two to three hours at a time. Night after night after night. At first she had been terrified that Nina was in pain – the baby kept drawing her knees up, her face was red and creased and her cries were agonising. After two weeks of it, exhaustion and frustration had replaced terror. And now she just wanted it to stop. She fell into bed each night feeling as though she could not survive another day of it. She had tried changing the daily routine in a myriad of ways but still come six o’clock the pitiful screaming would start. Simple things like the chance to wash her own hair, have a bath, do her nails were completely impossible. She’d been taken over. And it wasn’t fair.

She looked at Nina now, in her cot, a picture of fury and pain. Marjorie felt rage wash over her. She wanted to stop her, silence her, put a pillow over her to muffle the sounds. Her heart stammered and she walked from the room.

Robert was no use. He avoided the situation. His contribution to the living hell was to put Stephen to bed and then hide in the lounge with the radio or the television on.

She made a drink of Ovaltine and went back up. The screams seemed to drill into her bones, in the back of her skull and the roof of her mouth. How could the child scream so and not become hoarse? She put her drink down and lifted Nina from the cot. The yelling stopped momentarily and then resumed. She put her on her shoulder and turned the transistor on, raising the volume as high as it would go she sang along, her stomach clenched tight.

More racket for Deborah next door to get sniffy about. She’d been around and apologised after the first few evenings.

‘Colic?’ Deborah had said as though Marjorie had invented the explanation. ‘You poor thing. We did wonder. She has got a powerful set of lungs on her, hasn’t she? I never had anything like that with my three. They all went down at seven and not a peep from them till seven the next morning.’ She gave a shrug and a smile as though apologising for this imperfection. Bully for you, thought Marjorie. She felt like hitting her. She was a failure.

Stephen had been good though. And no one could tell her why Nina had colic or even what it actually was. It would stop by the age of three months, the doctor had tried to reassure her. If we’re both still here, she thought. That could mean another four weeks.

She lifted her cup in one hand and drank it while pacing about. Nina bawled frantically. Marjorie looked outside. It was dry, still light. She couldn’t bear this.

She went downstairs and laid her in the large Silver Cross carriage pram by the front door. Put a blanket over her.

She went into the living room. Robert was watching Coronation Street. She would have liked the chance.

‘I’m taking her out in the pram,’ she said. I can’t stand being cooped up with her any longer.’

He frowned with concern. ‘Do you think that’s…’

‘What?’ She snapped at him. Piercing screams reached them from the hall.

‘If you think it’ll help.’

‘It’ll help me.’

She walked fast around the block, pushing the pram. Trees lined the streets. It was a soft, pretty evening. The hazy evening light, the summer smells of night stocks and roses and honeysuckle, the dreamy quiet of the air seemed to amplify the wretched squalls Nina made. On her way she passed several people. She was sure that the looks they gave her were not sympathetic but were judgmental and suspicious. There she goes. Can’t comfort the poor child. Not her own, of course. Some women just don’t have the maternal instinct. Bad mother.

But she kept on and on, walking until her legs and arms ached and the night dew was falling and the child’s cries stuttered into sobs and then quieted.

Caroline Kay

Theresa

Caroline

Caroline sat at her grandmother’s grave. She had brought a piece of heather from the tops, it had enough roots to take. There was no headstone up yet. They were still carving it, adding her name to that of her husband’s. Both in the same plot. A purchase that had been made shortly after their wedding.

Caroline poked a hole in-between the turves of grass that were growing together over the mound and worked her fingers until it was wide enough and deep enough for the plant. She pushed the wiry, threadlike roots in and pushed the soil back packing it round them. Soft, rich, black soil. The colour of tar. The cemetery was exposed, out on the hillside beside St Martin’s. You’ll have a good view, Grandma. In this light with the haze burnt off she could see right across to the other side of the valley. She could pick out the Colby’s farm, the huddle of buildings and the foursquare farmhouse with its gravel drive. She saw a Land Rover bumping along one of the lanes and, further along, the silver streak of Dunner’s Ditch, where water tumbled down towards Otter’s Gap.

She loved these hills, felt comfortable here, unlike Mary, the friend she’d had at school, who yearned for the bustle of town or the headier excitement of Manchester with all the shops and coffee bars. Caroline found peace up here. No one to answer to, no one to bother her. But she felt lonely these days. Not a feeling she had been familiar with. An ache for warmth, for something to complete her.

Coming home had been a lesson in misery. Like a sleepwalker she had watched her mother set her endless practical tasks with some notion of keeping her busy.