Douglas Kennedy - A Special Relationship

I shook my head. I took a deep breath. I managed to curb the tears. I said, 'So you were here last night?'

'That's right. I arrived just before eleven - direct from the airport. And I went straight up to see you. But they told me' -

' - that I'd been sedated for excessive crying?'

' - that you'd been having a hard time of it, so they'd given you something to help you sleep'.

'So you were here at eleven?'

'That's what I said before. Twice in fact'.

'But why weren't you here before then?'

'Because I was in the bloody Hague, as you bloody well know. Now can we talk about more important things... like Jack'.

'Who's Jack?'

He looked at me, wide-eyed.

'Our son'.

'I didn't realize he'd been given a name yet'.

'We talked about this four months ago'.

'No, we didn't'.

'That weekend in Brighton, when we were walking along the promenade...'

I suddenly remembered the conversation. We'd gone down to Brighton for a 'get-away-from-it-all weekend' (Tony's words), during which it rained nonstop and Tony got hit with mild food poisoning after eating some suspect oysters in some overpriced seafood joint, and I kept thinking that this seaside town was an intriguing mixture of the chic and the tatty - which was probably why the English liked it so much. But before Tony started regurgitating his guts out in our freebie suite at The Grand, we did take a brief, soggy walk along the seafront, during which he mentioned that Jack would be a fine name if the baby turned out to be a boy. To which I said (and I remember this precisely): 'Yeah, Jack's not bad at all'.

But that wasn't meant to be interpreted as tacit approval for the name Jack.

'All I said was' -

' - that you liked the name Jack. Which I took as your approval. Sorry'.

'Doesn't matter. I mean, it's not like it's legal and binding as yet'.

Tony shifted uneasily on the edge of the bed.

'Well, as a matter of fact...'

'What?'

'I went down to Chelsea Town Hall this morning and got the forms to register him. Jack Edward Hobbs... Edward for my father, of course'.

I looked at him, appalled.

'You had no right. No fucking right...'

'Keep your voice down'.

'Don't tell me to keep my voice down when you...'

'Can't we get back to the subject of Jack?'

'He's not Jack. Understand? I refuse to let him be called Jack...'

'Sally, his name's not legal until you co-sign the registration form. So will you please... ?'

'What? Be reasonable? Act like a stiff-upper-lip anal Brit when my son is upstairs, dying...'

'He is not dying'.

'He is dying - and I don't care. You get that? I don't care'.

At which point I fell back against the pillows, pulled the covers over my head, and fell into another of my extended crying jags. Like yesterday's crying jag, it was punctuated by a dreadful hollowness. A nurse was on the scene within moments. I could hear a lot of rapid-fire whispering... and phrases like, 'we've seen this sort of thing before', 'often happens after a difficult delivery', 'poor thing must be under such terrible strain' and (worst of all), 'she'll be right as rain in a few days'.

Though the covers were over my head, I retreated back to my foetal position, once again biting deeply into the pillow in an attempt to stifle my screams. Like last night, I also didn't struggle when I felt a firm hand hold my shoulder while someone else turned back the bedclothes, rolled up my sleeve, and pricked my arm with a hypodermic.

Only this time, I didn't get despatched to never-never land. No, this time I seemed to be placed in a state of otherworldly immobility. I felt as if I was suspended directly above this room, looking down on the comings and goings of patients and medical staff. I had the benign disinterest of an accidental tourist who had somehow managed to end up in this curious quartier, and would certainly prefer to be elsewhere, but had imbibed so much cheap French fizz that she was paralytically incapable of knowing the time of day, and so she was perfectly happy to keep floating overhead. Neither sleeping nor fully conscious...just there.

I remained in this narcotic, blissed-out state until the following morning - when hard shafts of sunlight streaked through the windows, and my brain was as shadowy as a film noir, and I felt curiously rested, even though I didn't know if I had slept.

In fact, for the first ten seconds of consciousness, I luxuriated in that state of nowheresville, where there is no such thing as a past or a present... let alone a future.

Then the world crashed in on me. I scrambled for the call bell. The same tight-faced Northern Irish nurse was on duty - only now, after Tony's dressing-down, she was sweetness itself.

'Good morning there, Ms Goodchild. You seemed to be sleeping awfully well. And have you seen what's arrived while you were sleeping?'

It took a moment or so for my eyes to focus on the three large floral arrangements that adorned various corners of the room. The nurse gathered up the gift cards and handed them to me. One bouquet from the editor of the Chronicle. One from Tony's team on the Foreign pages. One from Margaret and Alexander.

'They're beautiful, aren't they?' Nurse Dowling said.

I stared at the arrangements, having absolutely no opinion about them whatsoever. They were flowers, that's all.

'Could I get you a cup of tea now?' Nurse Dowling asked. 'Perhaps a little breakfast?'

'Any idea how my son is doing?'

'I don't honestly know, but I could find out straight away for you'.

'That would be very kind. And if I could... uh...'

Nurse Dowling knew exactly what I was talking about. Approaching the bed, she removed the bedpan from the cabinet in the side table, helped me straddle it, and removed it after I filled it with yet another half-gallon of malodorous urine.

'God, what a stink', I said as Nurse Dowling settled me back on the pillows.

'The drugs do that', she said. 'But once you're off them, you'll lose that bad smell. How do the stitches feel today?'

'The pain's still there'.

'That'll take at least a week to go away. Meantime, why don't I bring you a basin of water, so you can freshen up and brush your teeth?'

Talk about five-star service. I thanked the nurse, and asked her again if she could find out how Jack was doing.

'Oh, you've already chosen a name for him', she said.

'Yes', I said. 'Jack Edward'.

'Good strong name', she said. 'And I'll be right back with the tea and any news of Jack'.

Jack. Jack. Jack.

Suddenly I felt the worst wave of shame imaginable.

'He is dying - and I don't care. You get that? I don't care'.

How could I have said that? Had I so completely lost it that I actually expressed indifference about whether or not my son lived? Instead of making excuses for myself - telling myself it was all postoperative stress, and an out-of-body reaction to all the drugs they'd been pumping into me - I immediately began to engage in a serious course of self-flagellation. I was unfit to be a mother, a wife, a member of the human race. I had jettisoned all that was important to me - my newborn child and my husband - through one deranged outbreak of rage. I deserved everything bad that would now happen to me.

But, most of all, yesterday's bizarre, out-of-kilter rage had vanished. All I could now think was: I need to be with Jack.

Nurse Dowling returned with a breakfast tray and some news.

'I gather your little one's doing just fine. They're really pleased with the progress he's making, and he can probably be moved out of ICU in a couple of days'.

'Can I see him this morning?'

'No problem'.

I picked at my breakfast - largely because whatever appetite I had was tempered by an equally urgent need to speak with Tony. I wanted to utter a vast mea culpa for my insane behaviour yesterday, to beg his forgiveness, and also tell him that he and Jack were the best things that had ever happened to me. And, of course, I'll sign the registration document naming him Jack Edward. Because... because... be...