He doesn’t get it. He never will. She cleans because she has nothing else in her life, nothing and nobody to throw her energy into. She is alone. With Malcolm working away so often, there are days when she feels as if her world is about to implode.
He chose to have a vasectomy without telling her shortly after they met and although it was a shock to her, it wasn’t a particularly big problem as she felt no pressing desire at that point in her life to have any children of her own. But with the passing of time, her need to become a mother has grown and intensified to the point that there are days when it is all she can think about. It consumes her every waking moment: the thought of what their baby would look like, what they would call it, how she would dress it and the sort of healthy food she would cook for their precious child.
And then, like a bucket of cold water being tipped over her, it dawns on her that it will never happen. She will never know the warmth of their child’s body or smell the aroma of their soft unblemished skin. She will never know what it feels like to carry a child inside of her, to experience that first kick and feel that first twinge of pain that would signify that she was in labour, about to become a mother for the very first time. And all because Malcolm, the man she committed herself to for the rest of her days, refuses to consider going back on a decision he made without even consulting her.
She could foster or adopt, but doubts he would want that, and if she is being frank, neither does she. She wants her own baby, something that has grown inside her, not another person’s child. She wants their baby. Something that will tie them together, cement their already crumbling relationship. Because it is crumbling. She’s not stupid. She can spot impending disaster, has a nose for it, and if she doesn’t do something about it, her marriage to Malcolm may well come undone and unravel completely.
All she needs to do is shift her focus elsewhere, stop her constant clingy behaviour, develop her own interests and become her own person instead of standing at her window day after day, staring out at the world, analysing the lives of other people and putting the word to rights. She wouldn’t feel the need to do it if she had another person to pour her love and time into.
As it is, she spends her days rattling around this house with too much time on her hands. Too much time to think is what she has. With no current job, she needs to find an outlet for her energy and anxieties before she says or does something unfortunate that will bring her marriage and her life as she knows it, to an abrupt and premature end. If she can shift her thoughts away from babies to something more productive, perhaps things will change. Malcolm will start to have more patience with her. She has talked about little else and nagged him relentlessly for the past few years. Little wonder he chose a job that takes him away from home so frequently. She isn’t an idiot and yet finds it so damn hard to switch her attentions elsewhere, hormones fuelling her need.
Her biological clock is ticking. She loathes that phrase with a passion but knows that it is true. She is thirty-five years old and every month, every year that passes squeezes at her gut, condensing her bitterness and frustration into a tight little knot deep down in her belly. She has so much anger and resentment stacked up inside of her, there are days when she can hardly breathe. Anything and everybody sends her into a rage.
The knock at the door takes her by surprise, fizzing her blood, making her heart thump. She rarely gets visitors. With family who live away and few, if any, friends, she is unaccustomed to the loud banging that is echoing throughout the house.
This, she thinks, is how insular I have become. It is indicative of how sad and pathetic her life actually is, that a random caller in the middle of the day is enough to send her into a state of confusion and panic. This is what she has turned into – a ridiculously lonely housewife who is marginally paranoid and neurotic.
She visualises a man standing outside, knife in hand. The same man who took that child a couple of days ago from the village down the road. He could be anywhere right now – still loitering in Atenby or here in Middleham, right outside her door, waiting for her to open it so he can pounce.
Holding her hand to her chest to quell the rising terror that has her in its grip, she slouches through the hallway, grabs the handle and opens the door.
7
Ashton
It’s three o’clock and he is already prepared and ready to go. Too early. Once again, he is too damn early. The class doesn’t start until seven. Another four hours to kill. Four hours of sitting worrying about how it will all turn out. Four hours of that wrenching gut-sinking feeling that everything will fall apart before it’s even begun. He wishes that he had no reason to feel so anxious. He has planned this to the nth degree. And yet deep down, he knows that he does actually have every reason to worry. Now he is back home where it took place, he can never truly relax. People have long memories and short tempers. They rarely forgive and almost always remember.
The bottle of beer in the fridge looms large in his mind, beckoning him. Not now. Later perhaps, after it’s all over. Once the class is finished, he can come home, unwind and crack open a bottle or two. Maybe even three if things go well.
The ticking of the clock behind him on the bureau booms in his head, chiming in time with his rapid heartbeat. He gulps down air, tells himself to stop it, to get a grip and calm down. Maybe it’s being back here, in his hometown after spending so many years away that’s doing it. This is a small place, not geographically perhaps but mentally. It’s a large populace with small minds. Unforgiving small minds that refuse to comprehend or let go of the past. Even the smallest of misdemeanours are frowned upon, judgements doled out by the bucketload, by people who’ve been nowhere and seen nothing.
Still, he’s back now, part by choice, part forced due to financial reasons. Living away from home while earning just above the minimum wage proved to be too much for him and after contacting his mum, he made the decision to leave Lincolnshire and head back north.
With his stepdad out of the picture, he banked on things being easier. And so far, everything has been fine. Better than fine really. No problems or issues to speak of. A little tension perhaps in the first few weeks but he supposed that was to be expected. Now they’ve got a routine sorted, he and his mum, a way of going about their daily business without impinging on one another’s space, life seems easier.
His presence was bound to bring a small amount of darkness, an awkwardness that only time can erase. He missed her while he was away. He missed her smile, her warmth and positive attitude even when faced with the most trying of circumstances. That’s just how she is. He thinks of what he put her through – what they were both forced to endure – and thanks God that she stuck around for him.
It was his mother’s idea to start the classes. Her faith in him, in his skills and abilities, gave his flagging confidence a much-needed boost and he jumped at the idea but now, two months down the line, his nerves are kicking in and part of him is wishing he had refused, wishing he had thanked her for the idea but insisted that his day job was enough.
The day job that is so mind-numbingly boring, there are times that he feels like picking up his coat and bag and walking out of the factory doors never to return. Inspecting food at the end of an assembly line, searching and scrutinising for lumps of stray plastic or grit or anything alien that may have become lodged in it, isn’t exactly the most scintillating way to spend the day. In fact, after three hours of examining tray after tray of confectionery, he sometimes feels as if he is having an out of body experience, his solid form remaining on the floor while his mind and spirit wander free to escape the drudgery of the task in hand.