Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

For she will make up for what was lost, she will absolve my terrible folly — I admit I was foolish, but Christopher let me, he could have stopped me but he let me do it…

Never mind all that, I shall have my baby.

She isn’t a baby, actually. She’s three and a half, but she’s very small, malnutrition and poverty keep them small. I’m glad; someone small is easier to love, easier to cradle in my arms.

I could sit with her for hours, just sitting looking at her little hands and feet, looking at her littleness. She seemed a still child, rather silent. I’ve spent all my time in rapid motion, rushing from one place to the next, fifty-five years of desperate hurry. Now I would like to stop and look.

I want to help her, hold her, feed her. I’ve never really done that for anyone, have I? If my father is to be believed, my mother never did it for me, either. He said she had no time for us girls as babies. And I was the youngest child, the least wanted. ‘I always loved you, girl,’ he said. ‘I fed you with a bottle when she couldn’t be bothered. I loved my two daughters, and you were my favourite, the brightest, the naughtiest, the prettiest. I wouldn’t have been without you, Alex.’ She would though. I think she never liked babies, though she loved the beliefs which meant she had to have them.

When I was fifteen or so I made her turn white with anger when I told her I didn’t believe. I didn’t; still don’t; I shall die unshriven; Christopher and I were both unbelievers. Our religion was love, he said… hey ho.

And now I’m here posing as a virtuous Catholic! Thank heavens I remember enough of the cant.

How odd that I want to sit still with the baby. Because the thing I hated most about church was having to sit still, eyes to the front, not even allowed to scan the congregation without her finger digging into my back because we had to put on a good show. When she poked me I dug my nails into my hymn-book so hard they left little lines of scallops. It was easier when I had my own hymn-book, something of my own to hold on to at least, worst of all when I had to share with my sister and my nails had to dig into my own palms.

I never remember sitting on her lap. There were three of us, after all, competing, but I don’t remember any of us sitting on her lap. I was never cradled, but I need to cradle. Perhaps it’s a way of cradling myself. That’s what I do now, as I wait for her, my two hands lightly stroking my wrists as they fold together across my body and tighten against me because she’s not there. Hand upon hand, hand over hand. Her hand with the flower was so small in the sun, her fingers stubby when she came close and her mother tried to make her shake hands. Her eyes were brown and bright and impervious; she wanted to stay outside and play, of course she did, she is just a child. I took her small hand briefly in mine, hot, damp, stiff as a little starfish. Soon she’ll relax and let me hold her.

Chris was a toucher, a holder. Chris cradled me when I wanted him to.

— Actually I do myself an injustice. I have held someone recently, I have cradled someone and helped them a little, though the year 2000 is no longer recent, it’s slipping behind us with its weight of memories, that extraordinary, brilliant, savage year with its score of drama and blood and death…

It was Isaac I cradled, Isaac I held. Isaac, of all people. Yes.

The nights are the worst, the foggy nights when the dark is solid, impenetrable. Everything dead and cold. No one in the world to care about me. No one to hold me in their arms.

I sent my letter into the void two weeks ago. Nothing’s come back. Mary has forgotten me, or died.

They were all cold and hard, all the women I’ve known. Alexandra was worst, of course, the bitch. I get up at three in the morning and drink because there is warmth in a bottle of whisky…

I was good to Alexandra, damn her to hell. I loved her, protected her, comforted her. When I met her she wasn’t much better than a tart, encrusted with mascara and sequins at the SFTA awards ceremony where she’d gone with some oily Greek millionaire… she didn’t know a thing about broadcasting; she was expecting it all to be as glossy as the Oscars…

But she was so young. So heart-twistingly young. And sharp. And funny. And wild. And… wounded. She was like no one I had ever known, and she was in a mess; she needed me. Penelope had never needed me, or never admitted she needed me. I fell in love with Alex completely.

I held her, loved her, cradled her. I replaced her crazy Irish family.

Half-a-dozen years ago the fear began, or I began to notice it. I needed to be sure she loved me. I needed to be sure. I needed her.

Alexandra. And what did she do?

— She stared straight through me, betrayed me, left me.

It was Isaac I cradled. Isaac I held. Unlikely as it seemed, and still seems now, I held his hand for hours when he needed me. Or whoever it was that he really needed, it doesn’t matter, I was there.

I did some good. I helped someone. I held a body like a very old man’s, I fed him, sometimes, I cleaned him up… and that made me long for a baby even more. To care for a body that would not die.

I wonder now if he’d already tested positive when he came out to see us in Switzerland. I remember that unsettling sense I had that he was shrinking inside the overcoat of flesh. But no, I’m sure if he had had that knowledge he couldn’t have resisted hitting us with it; he hated us so much that night.

Later on the telling was difficult. We had established an uneasy pattern of meetings, once every few months, when we were in the same continent. I think it was in 1998 that he came to see us in Sri Lanka, and booked a night at the same hotel (which his father paid for, despite his protests) so we could spend two days together on the lush green outskirts of Kandy.

The first evening was uneventful; he was on a health kick, and hardly drank, which kept our intercourse amicable, though he fussed a lot about the food, a perfectly delicious curry and sweet pancakes, and ended up by ordering a plate of raw vegetables, then panicking in case they weren’t clean. He refused coffee and ordered boiled water, to which he added a vile-smelling herb tea-bag which he had brought along himself. In the soft evening light he looked a little puffy but pink and well; I suspect it was makeup.

Next day he appeared very late at breakfast and didn’t look well at all. But then, perhaps none of us were looking our best in the bright Sri Lankan sunlight. He had never looked well; I thought nothing of it.

He waited till Chris had gone to swim in the pool — he did twenty lengths minimum every day, to excuse his inertia for the rest of it — and then bearded me in the downstairs lounge which had a beautiful view of the hotel gardens.

I love Sri Lanka, but in any case I had reason to feel very happy that day (I thought I had, thought I had). My period was five days late. My breasts were heavy in the hot sun; I told myself I felt very faintly nauseous, gloriously nauseous, glorious. I was avoiding coffee, although I love coffee, I proudly ordered fresh orange-juice — deluded, alas, as I know now, for it was one of the many times I ‘knew’ I was pregnant and took pride in my swollen breasts and belly, only to bleed just a few days late and bleed my happiness away.

I felt good until Isaac sat down heavily beside me, and asked if he could tell me something. I saw his face was grey in the sun; I saw his hand was shaking a little, though that may have been nerves, I’m sure it was nerves. At once I started to feel nervous too. The white fan hissed above my head.