J.S. Lark - After You Fell

‘You have to help it. I can’t deal with you and if I can’t then the children don’t stand a chance.’ His hand opens.

I think he’s going to slap me.

There’s no loyalty between us any more. No love. No hope. Nothing except anger and arguments.

His hand drops, but he snarls in my face, sounding like an attacking wolf. Then he turns away in a sudden movement, lifting his arm again and striking a fist into the wall.

His mother’s favourite blue and white china vase, an antique on the bookshelf near him, wobbles as if touched by the strength of his anger. Then it falls on the parquet floor, shattering with a sharp sound that breaks our argument. Stop.

His mother found that vase at a car boot sale. She bought it for next to nothing. She was so proud of it. But she is proud of her son too.

He shakes out the hand he’s hurt, ignoring the ruined vase.

‘Mum …’ Our son stands in the centre of the open doorway, his beautiful face distorted in an expression of fear.

‘I’m all right, love. We are both all right. Daddy is just having a tantrum.’

He thrusts a glare over his shoulder with the toss of a dagger, then walks out of the room, herding our son out of the way.

I pull the mobile from the back pocket of my jeans. It drops on the floor with a clatter because my fingers are shaking even harder now the adrenalin is ebbing away.

The phone lies there, looking up at me with a fresh crack across the screen, another testimony of our failure.

Bile rises in my throat, a bitter taste that wants me to be sick. I bend to pick up the phone. I can’t remember when I last ate.

The desire to hear my mother’s voice screams as loudly as my child.

I bring up my recent calls, and touch the icon saying ‘Mum’.

The phone rings twice before she answers. ‘Hello, love.’

‘Mum.’ Help me.

‘Yes, darling.’

I sniff back the tears before they run from my nose as well as my eyes.

‘Are you all right?’

‘No. We argued.’

‘ Again.’ A tut echoes from the phone.

We haven’t made it through a single day without arguing this year.

A tear drips from my chin, falling to leave a tiny puddle on the floor that will run into a crack between the blocks of wood. The story of my marriage is shouting, shattered china, cracked glass and puddles of tears.

I swipe other tears away with the heel of a shaking palm. But tears trickle from my nose. I wipe them on the back of my hand. ‘He doesn’t love me. None of them do.’

‘The children do.’

‘No. They hate me. They blame me because he does.’

‘The children love you. Shall we come over to see you? Would that calm the argument?’

‘Do you think he’ll leave? Do you think he’ll take the children?’

‘No.’

‘He can’t stand to be in a room with me.’ Our marriage is cracked down the middle, as if the earth between us has been torn open in an earthquake and his position is on the other side of the ravine, with a glowering expression of judgement. I have tried to reach out. But I can’t reach him. He has other women because I do not want him to touch me like that. But I still want to be hugged sometimes. Those moments never happen. He doesn’t even kiss my cheek.

‘We’ll come and talk to him.’

‘Mum, you can’t. It will cause more trouble.’

‘I can’t leave you this upset. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

At least if they came they would be here for the children.

His parents have gone out for the day. They turn their backs on our rows.

‘All right. But I’m going out, Mum. I need to get away from the house. I love you. Look after the children when you get here.’

‘I love you too, darling. We’ll see you soon.’

‘Goodbye, Mum.’

‘Goodbye, dear.’

I step over the broken china, to look for paper and a pen in the drawer of the television stand and write a note telling him where I am going. To stop him being angry when he discovers that I have gone.

The note left beside the television, and the china and my tears left on the floor, I push down the door handle to get out.

The patio door glides open with a whisper, keeping my departure a secret. He will not know I have gone for a while. I’ll use the back gate into the alley beside the house.

The sound of a lawnmower cutting grass in a nearby garden enters the living room. The breeze carries the scent of freshly cut grass and the sweet perfume of the mauve wisteria flowers that dangle from the plant above the door.

The note I left by the TV blows off the side and flutters to the floor.

There’s a rhythmic electronic beeping near my left ear. It echoes back from bare walls.

The thin elastic cord holding the mask over my nose and mouth scratches at the top of my ear. I turn my head, twisting my neck to look at the machines. The air inside the mask is warm and moist with condensation that tells me I have been lying here with this mask on for some time.

A soft whistle plays out from the oxygen cylinder near the bed.

A bank of tubes that are connected to my neck rattle with a plastic pitch as I look over at the open door.

I am alone in the clinically all-white room with the machines.

The urge to touch the wound lifts my hand and drags the black cable hanging from the finger-clip over the greying-white cotton blanket.

The clip is sending messages to one of the machines beside me, measuring the oxygen level in my blood.

It feels as though a weight is hanging from my wrist, the pressure of gravity drains so much energy from me with the tiniest movement – I am used to that feeling. But a pulse thumps through the crook of my elbow – that is a new sensation.

Pump-pump.

Pump-pump.

The rhythm of a drumbeat is everywhere inside me and it is repeating on the monitor.

Bleep-bleep.

Bleep-bleep.

The oxygen travels deep into my lungs, releasing energy that says something is coming.

You are going to be strong .

The feeling speaks.

Nothing else tells me a ghost is here and I do not usually hear them talk, I just know when they’re near.

It might be my belief speaking.

I breathe out, and listen to the throb of sound in my ears. That is the heart calling to me. The rhythm of it tingles all the way down to my fingertips.

A hum rumbles in my nerves. I saw bees on a honeycomb once, when they had been pulled out of a hive. When my nerves hum like this, I see the shimmering silver wings of the bees as they work and dance to tell the others where to go.

Angels dance, in spheres of light, to tell others which way to go.

I can’t feel the wound, only the soft dressings that cover where the incision was made.

Beneath the sheet and blanket is a rash of sensors, scattered over my chest, their information conducting the rhythms on the machines.

A thin plastic tube shakes as I move my hand down; the tube dangles from the clear bag, dripping fluid into my arm.

A man slid the long needle for the tube under my skin while someone on the other side of me counted down from ten. I can’t remember anything else from then until now.

Voices chatter from somewhere outside the room. Things move and footsteps squeak across the tiled floor. The sound of one set of soft-soled shoes comes closer.

‘Helen?’

The owner of the unknown voice is at the doorway into the room. A nurse with dark hair scraped back into a high ponytail, wearing a pale blue pyjama uniform. She has a bright smile, with white teeth that look chemically treated.

‘Hello.’ The word scrapes my throat as though my voice hasn’t been used for a year.