Carelessness
by Shona Wall


“Why don’t you just tell her, Martin? She must suspect something. Where does she think you are tonight?”

‘She’ knew exactly where he was, but he stood with his hands in his pockets, jangling keys and coins and broken golf tees.

“Driving range.”

Kellie laughed. “Not even you would go there in weather like this.”

Wouldn’t he? That showed how little she knew. It was exactly where he would like to go, whacking the balls and watching them arc into the floodlit droplets of rain. He would hear the laughter of the guys a few bays down, and the wind tug and rattle the gutter at the south end, but otherwise it would be just quiet, with the crack as another ball was despatched 300 yards.

“She’s gotta know some time, ain’t she? When are you gonna tell ‘er?”

Martin was standing in her kitchen with his butt resting against her worktop. He had all his weight supported by one leg, with his ankles crossed. One hand was holding a mug of steaming coffee. The other remained in his pocket.

One of them would possibly have to be told something at some time. But he didn’t know what he would say to either, so he settled for the next best thing, and said nothing.

He studied Kellie’s messy kitchen in disgust. Her jeans were unzipped and sagging under her full belly.

“Did you buy some new clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you wearing them, then?”

“I’ll want something to wear when we go out, won’t I?”

Back to that again. They didn’t go out together in case Martin was seen. It wouldn’t matter if they were seen, because Cerise already knew. But Kellie didn’t know she knew and Martin didn’t tell her, because he didn’t like taking Kellie out. She was too loud and too expensive and she flirted with too many blokes. The excuse that Cerise might find out was good enough to shut Kellie up, so Martin used it, but he wished Kellie would make more of an effort for him. And he didn’t like the unexplained either. He was always giving money to Kellie so she could have nice things. He never saw what she spent her money on.

“You ought to make use of those clothes now,” Martin said. “You won’t want to keep wearing them after the baby’s born.”

“It’s kicking,” Kelly cradled her belly with her hands. “He kicks so hard he’ll be a footballer, I reckon.”

“Let’s feel.”

Martin pulled her to him and let her flop back against him. She had her back to him and he kissed the side of her neck while he let his hands smooth over her bump. It was the second time that day he had held a pregnant woman. Cerise had broken the news that morning by waving a home testing kit at him.

“Have you done it yet?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It’s positive.”

He was in the biggest mess of his life, but he was overjoyed.

“Yes!” He punched the air.

She merely smiled, confident he had what he wanted… If only he knew what he wanted.

Cerise had been his wife for 15 years. He loved her like no other woman. Even in bed, when she felt in the mood, she was the hottest.

But she was rarely in the mood. She was mostly remote. She tolerated him. She patronised him by doing what he wanted, but her own feelings were rarely revealed. She involved herself in school governorships and theatre groups and the Liberal Democrats. And if he wanted any of her time he was made to feel an inconvenience. When he spoke to her, he felt he had interrupted her. There was always the sting of rejection, subtly delivered.

Maybe what he wanted was more reaction from her.

He never got it. Even when he told her about Kellie, she said little. He told her only because he realised she had already guessed. She wanted to know if he was going to live with Kellie and said nothing when he told her he was still thinking about it. Next, he told her it was over between him and Kellie, now she knew he called on Kellie sometimes. She never asked what he got up to when he visited her, but surely she must have known. The only thing he felt certain of was that Cerise couldn’t have known about Kellie’s pregnancy. She would never agree to have more children under those circumstances, though if she had thought a little harder, even that should have been no surprise.

“I want more children,” he had told her.

Cerise was cool. “Do you?”

“Maybe I should get Kellie up the spout.”

Cerise barely glanced at him. They were in bed together shagging, but she was probably thinking of a letter she would write later.

She spoke only after a long pause. She always did that, no matter what they talked about. It was as though everything had to be decoded and analysed and a structured response compiled. She often spoke conversationally while they were shagging.

“I hope you’ll be a better father to her children than ours.”

“What do you mean?” He was stung. “I’m an excellent father.”

“Yes you are, when you’re here.”

He gave her a load of guff about how he wanted more children because he had messed up the first time round. He wanted to do it better next time. Now here he was, with two women both expecting his babies, and knowing that was like a character endorsement to him. They loved him enough to carry his child. They valued him and needed him and they both looked beautiful and he was the luckiest bloke in the world. The only snag was that one or both of them might realise one day that the other was pregnant at the same time. That was a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved. If he told Cerise, the surface of her calm would be almost without ripples. He could tell her anything, no matter how bad it was, probably because she seemed to expect it. Her low expectation of him irritated him. She never asked for anything better. She just put up with things. He always got snared in her role-playing games. He treated her badly because she expected it.

If he told Kellie, she would likely chop his nuts off and never let him see his baby again. They were very different women.

He made his excuses and left Kellie to go to the driving range.

He normally saw Kellie every Thursday, but the following Thursday she was on holiday with her dad, and the week after she carried on holidaying with some girlfriends. He was unconcerned. He was busy at work and did his best to bring Cerise toast in the morning before she got up, to lessen the effects of her morning sickness. He saw Kellie when she came back from holiday. She said she had a wicked time. They made arrangements to meet later that week.

He got the call the day before their scheduled date. Kellie had gone into hospital, six weeks before her time, and then transferred to the maternity unit in his home town, where there was a special care unit. He rushed there at once. The waters had broken, but the labour had stopped. The baby was distressed. They were going to do a Caesarean.

It was 2.30 in the afternoon. He could remember wondering why the consultant was there, because a consultant had never attended the births of his other children.

He thought he did all the right supportive stuff. He was talking to Kellie, who was silly and hysterical. He had never seen Cerise act like that, but he knew all women were different. They went to the theatre and they put screens around Kellie’s belly. They used a local anaesthetic, so they could deliver while Kellie was conscious.

It was the baby’s cry that first cut through his dream. There’s something about another being in pain, and he knew at once this baby was in pain. The cry was weak and pathetic, but with an unnaturally high pitch. He had never a baby’s cry like that before. He had never seen a newborn with such a pallor, or with such unhealthy angles in its tiny body. On that first cry, everything seemed to stop for Martin. He knew fear for the first time in his life.

“What’s wrong?” His words blurted out faster than he could control.

If he could have thought about it, he wouldn’t have spoken like that, because he would have wanted to spare Kellie’s fears, but he couldn’t help himself.

He was ignored. They were too busy whisking his son away. It was 20 minutes before they told him. Thinking about it, 20 minutes was miraculously quick, but he had felt the passing of every second of every component minute. And they didn’t tell them together, as parents. They spoke harshly to her, and drew him away, where they spoke to him as sympathetically as it was possible to be.

That cry. That cry. It was caused by Kellie’s drug addiction. Their baby had multiple fractures, and multiple organ damage. That cry would soon be silenced.

Martin couldn’t remember very clearly what had happened next, or what was said, or what he did. He hadn’t realised Kellie took drugs. He didn’t know why not. He felt he should have known, but he didn’t. He hadn’t even suspected.

Kellie knew all this time the baby was in trouble, but she hadn’t warned him. She hadn’t said a word. It was too big a betrayal for Martin to grasp.

At some point he walked out into a recreational area and looked out the nearest window. He was four storeys up, but down below, in the hospital car park, he saw a figure walking hurriedly along. Cerise. She was upset. Even at that distance, he could tell. She was pulling a mobile from her pocket.

She’s phoning me.

He waited until she was out of sight, and a few more minutes after that before he left the building and returned her call.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something wrong with the baby.”

“What?”

“The scan has picked up something about his neck. They think it might be Downs syndrome. They’ve arranged for me to have tests in London tomorrow.”

He sagged. Perhaps he even fell. It couldn’t be. Not both babies. Not to realise all this within an hour of each other. This just could not be happening. He was near the bike sheds and grasped a pole for something to hold on to.

“Honey, I wish I could be with you so much right now, but I can’t.” He could hardly speak. He felt so numb it was as though his face had frozen too.

“That’s all right.”

That was Cerise. Coping. And the more she coped, the more remote her manner became. He knew that, but he couldn’t leave his dying son’s side. He knew her opinion of him would be sinking even lower, because she needed him and he couldn’t even give her a good reason as to why he was not there, but right now all he could do was leave her to cope.

He didn’t go with her to the hospital for the tests. He was too busy watching his son die.

He wasn’t with her when she was told the result. He was arranging a funeral.

He didn’t agonise with Cerise about what they should do when the result was positive. He had watched a short, terrible life, and had no stomach for witnessing more hardship. That cry had already decided it for him.

“I think you should terminate the pregnancy.”

He could feel the shockwaves in her. She wasn’t the sort of woman who did things like that. She was the sort who would go ahead and have the baby anyway. If he said anything more, she would do the opposite of what he wanted. Cerise could be stubborn sometimes. So he said nothing more and let her decide on her own.

She did it all on her own. He didn’t go to the hospital with her, because he didn’t want to see all those people he had seen the week before. He knew they wouldn’t say anything to her, but he couldn’t face them.

Afterwards, she came home on her own, and stood in their kitchen, dry-eyed and still.

“I never thought I’d kill a child. All this time, I’ve always thought I’ve lived a fairly normal, blameless life.”

He took her in his arms. “It’s still blameless.”

If he could, he would have told her about that cry, but for once, there was something he could not tell her.

(C)2003 Shona Wall