Judith White

A Darling Boy

My mother-in-law is coming to stay.

I stack the chairs on the table, roll up the Indian rug, then vacuum.

This woman rocked my husband in her arms, buried her face in his chubby white stomach, blowing noisy raspberries into his flesh.

The nozzle of the vacuum cleaner sucks between the cracks of the stained wood floor, snuffles in corners like the trunk of an animal looking for food.

She would have pinched his cheeks with her long red-nailed fingers. With inverted eyebrows and inside out lips she would have crooned. Chwee chwee chwoo, who’s my little bubsy-wubsy, my little sossy-wossy sausagy man …

I take the ornaments from the shelves and put them under the chairs on the table. I wipe the shelves, sprinkle oil and polish them. Then I put the ornaments back.

She has seen his bottom. Fingered it. Wiped and washed it, and sprinkled it with talcum powder. And he has seen hers too, once, in passing from flesh to air, from womb to room, while all she wanted to know was … whether he was a boy or a girl.

A boy, Mrs Struthers, a darling little baby boy.

I put the kettle on and get the bucket. I have a plastic carrier with a handle which has all my cleaning potions. Different ones for different performances. I choose the floor cleaner, pour it green and thick, smelling of spearmint chews, into the bucket.

A darling little boy.

I pour boiling water into the bucket and soak the sponge mop, squeezing a froth of bubbles before letting the mop snap open, ready to clean the floor. My back is bent, my elbows move mechanically, like pumps, backwards and forwards, over and over, working in wide strips so as not to miss any.

Then did she hold him to her, awkwardly, he, gulping at the new air, finding a mouthful of new breast? I suppose so. I suppose that’s how it happens. Funny how you seem to know. Perhaps a part of me remembers doing it myself.

Being a baby, I mean.

I empty the bucket into the sink. I shouldn’t, I know, but I’ll be cleaning the sink afterwards.

Did her husband hold her hand and rub her back? Probably not, in those days; he would have been pacing the waiting room, smoking, to be informed afterwards. A boy, Mr Struthers. Congratulations.

Sir.

As if he’d done it himself.

I mustn’t be cynical.

The windows. They haven’t been touched for six months. It mustn’t look as though I’m not coping.

I must appear on top of everything. As though the windows are always clean and the floor always gleaming and the shelves always dustless and the smile always there.

She is coming to be with her son, not to give me a break. That is how it must be. How we are all pretending that it is.

I fill the bucket again, this time add hot water, vinegar and a touch of detergent. Throw in a tea-towel. I stand on a chair, wring the tea-towel tightly, then attack the windows in large swirls. I see now that they really are quite dirty, covered with splatters like grubby dried tears. I’m glad I made the effort. I shine them with a fresh tea-towel and they become invisible. The sky is reachable and I notice for the first time that the day is crisp blue and sparkling.

It is a long time since I’ve noticed the day.

Now I stand back proudly, viewing the scene as if really it is a painting that I have created on my window canvas. The leaves radiate an almost transparent greenness and birds flit busily in and out of the hedge, looking for each other in the comfortable privacy of the branches.

Looking for each other.

The bell.

The bell is ringing. Quickly I go to his room, but he sleeps. It is only the wind, flowing into the room in a mist of net curtain, which has knocked the bell from the sill. Worrying about a draught, I close the window but it awakens him and his eyes open to reveal the only part of my husband that is still truly functioning. He pours from his eyes. He pours from his eyes into me, entering me to relive every moment of how it was before the accident, entering me to lodge in my heart and flail there like a screaming child deserted in a padded cell.

He is there, I know he is still there, I know he is all still there, all, all of him, the real and whole person, only far, far away and without the means to come back. That’s all.

I imagine that he sees me as if at the other end of a telescope, a tiny little figure in one of those strange childhood nightmares. I imagine that the mangled groans are his calling to me from that dream. That’s how it is, isn’t it, in dreams? You wake up and your screaming is a mere squeak?

I wipe the dribble from the corner of his mouth and take his hand, curled around the other like the claw of an unhatched chicken.

‘Your mother is coming soon,’ I tell him.

He nods. See? He understands. He is making progress. He can hold things now and he can almost feed himself.

‘She will look after you. And the nurses will visit. I’ll be back soon.’

He looks away. He is going to cry. I know that. Loudly and on and on. He cries often. The noise reminds me of some sort of machine. I sit with him until he stops, stroking his blond hair, and looking through the curtain at yesterday.