~
On my way back from dropping Julie off at Windermere railway station, I feel a little empty, a little scared and a lot homesick. My sister was a big help and great company while she was staying and now she has left, I’m filled with uncertainty. Can I do this by myself? Can I look after Chloe properly? I was very tempted to get on the train with Julie.
As I pull up in front of the house, I sternly remind myself that I’m not alone. I have Alex. He’s such a good father. It all comes naturally to him. I’ll get the hang of this parenting thing, too. Eventually. And as for feeling homesick, well that’s just ridiculous. My home is here now, at the Old Vicarage. Julie and Daniel brought up everything I’d left at Dad’s, and I’ve unpacked my stuff and tidied it away. It’s comforting to see my books on the shelves and photos of my family on the windowsills. It still doesn’t feel quite like home, but I’m sure it will. One day.
I get the pram and Chloe out of the car. As I open the front door, Chloe starts to cry at the same time as the phone starts to ring. I rush to pick up the handset and then come back to push the pram to and fro as I answer the call.
‘Hello?’
There’s no one there. Or rather, if there is someone there, they aren’t saying anything.
‘Hello?’
This hasn’t happened for a while. I hang up, feeling slightly relieved as this leaves my hands free to pick up Chloe. But I also feel flustered. Who is calling? What do they want? Do they only want to speak to Alex? Or are they trying to spook me?
If the caller is trying to unsettle me, it’s working. A thought troubles me. Could it possibly be Alex who is behind these calls? He never seems to be at home when I get them. Is he playing some sort of warped mind game? Or just checking up on me to see that I’m home, where he likes me to be? I shake my head, as though to dispel these illogical thoughts.
At least half an hour later, when Alex arrives home after this morning’s long run, Chloe is still wailing. Alex barely has time to set foot in the hall before I thrust our baby into his arms.
‘I want to take her to the doctor’s.’
‘Is that really necessary?’
‘Something’s wrong with Chloe, Alex. She cries too much.’
‘All babies cry too much.’
My dad also said something like that, I recall now. He and Alex have both had lots of experience bringing up baby girls. But I’m not convinced. And although Julie seems to agree with nearly everything Alex says, even she was surprised by how distressed Chloe is at times.
‘It’s probably colic,’ Alex says. His firm tone of voice indicates that this is the end of our discussion.
I’m worried about starting an argument with Alex, but I’m more worried about my daughter. ‘She’s always either in a deep sleep or screaming at the top of her lungs,’ I say. ‘She’s never just awake and contented. I want to take her to see a doctor.’
I’m being demanding, and that’s not the best way to talk Alex into doing anything. He has been lovely since the barbecue. The whole week Julie stayed at the Old Vicarage, he was wonderful to both of us. I think he really believed I might go back to Somerset with her, so he has been making an effort to keep his bad moods at bay. Now she’s gone, there’s less risk of me going home. Alex knows that. I need to tread carefully. I look at him with what I hope are pleading eyes.
‘OK. If it will make you feel better, we’ll make an appointment with Dr Irving.’
Dr Irving has been Alex’s GP for years. Since Alex was little. He’s also a close friend of my mother-in-law’s. He’s getting on a bit, and on the two occasions I’ve been to see him, the word ‘doddery’ sprang to mind, but he’ll do nicely.
‘Thank you,’ I breathe.
My relief is short-lived.
‘But he won’t be able to see us so late in the morning and the surgery is closed on Saturday afternoons,’ Alex adds. ‘We’ll have to wait till Monday.’
Alex gets a bottle ready and feeds Chloe, and she calms down and falls asleep. He flashes me a smile that’s only slightly smug.
‘I’ll put her in the cot and then I’d better take a quick shower,’ he whispers, leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek. I’m still not feeling reassured, but Alex has everything under control.
I follow him into the hallway. As we walk past the locked door next to the cupboard under the stairs, I realise I’ve never asked Alex where it leads.
‘Alex, what’s through that door?’ I ask, pointing.
‘It’ the cellar.’ I’m slightly behind him now and I can’t see his face, but it sounds as if his voice is strained.
‘Why don’t we use it?’
He pauses a beat too long and I know I won’t believe his answer even before he gives it. ‘I lost the key some time ago and didn’t see the point in calling in a locksmith.’ Then he mutters a few sentences I don’t quite catch. Something about ‘unnecessary expense’ and ‘a room that serves no useful purpose’, I think.
He doesn’t turn around as he heads upstairs with Chloe in his arms. I’m not sure how long I stand there, at the bottom of the staircase. I’m not sure what’s going through my mind. Everything is misting over.
I sense it coming. I am suddenly swamped by a fear so intense I can hardly move. My legs buckle under me and I sink down onto the stairs. I can’t think straight, but instinct tells me to put my head between my legs. Suddenly two hands are around my throat, strangling me, choking me. I know they’re imaginary, but they feel so real that I claw at my neck, trying to loosen the vice-like grip. I’m losing my grip. I’m losing my head.
Just when I think I’m going to black out, I manage to catch a breath. My heart is still thumping way too fast, but it feels now as though it will stay inside my chest instead of hammering its way out of my body.
I break into uncontrollable sobs and after a few seconds I hear Alex’s voice. He’s right behind me on the staircase. I didn’t hear him come down. How long has he been there? He sits down behind me with his legs either side of me. He wraps his arms around me and holds me against him. I pull his arms down from my neck so that his embrace is around my chest instead. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest against my back and my heartbeat gradually slows down. We stay like that until I stop crying and start breathing normally again.
‘Stay there. I’ll be back,’ he instructs. He gets up and squeezes past me on the stairs. I watch him take his mobile out of his jeans pocket as he makes his way into the kitchen. He closes the door behind him. I can hear him talking, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.
He isn’t gone more than a minute. ‘Doctor Irving has made an exception,’ he says, coming back into the hallway. ‘He’ll see us at one o’ clock.’ His tummy rumbles. ‘We’ll have to eat lunch afterwards.’ He directs this sentence at his stomach and when he looks up, grinning, I manage a weak smile in return.
Alex goes upstairs to fetch Chloe. I get up and walk gently towards the kitchen to get a glass of water.
Just as we’re leaving, the landline phone goes. I look at Alex.
‘Leave it,’ he shrugs. ‘Probably some telesales bollocks.’
‘Alex, someone rang earlier.’ I grab his arm. ‘But they wouldn’t speak to me. It wasn’t the first time.’
‘Don’t worry about it. We hardly use the home phone anyway. Don’t answer it. Or unplug it altogether if it bothers you.’
Alex is right. I’d more or less dismissed the calls myself until I got worked up over them today. And even so, I wouldn’t have given them another thought if the phone hadn’t just rung now. It’s not as if there have been that many calls. Three at most.
Something else occurs to me on the way to the health centre in Grasmere. Alex can’t be the one making these calls as he was with me when the phone went just now. He could feasibly have rung from his mobile without me seeing, I suppose, but that thought is just too far-fetched.
When we arrive at the doctor’s surgery, Dr Irving leads the way into his consulting room. He slides into his black leather chair and Alex and I sit down in uncomfortable metal chairs opposite him.
The GP peers at me with watery blue eyes through rimless glasses. ‘Let’s start with you,’ he says, leaning across his desk towards me. I can smell garlic on his breath. I sit back, trying not to wrinkle my nose. ‘Alexander tells me you had a panic attack.’
I wish Alex hadn’t told him that. It’s humiliating and it makes me sound weak. ‘Oh, no. We didn’t ask for an appointment––’
‘Can you describe the symptoms you had when you experienced it?’ His voice is flat, soporific.
I look at Alex. It’s meant as a reproach, but he takes it as a prompt and answers for me.
‘She has difficulty breathing,’ he says, ‘and she feels dizzy. That’s right, Katie, isn’t it?’
I nod.
Dr Irving hasn’t taken his eyes off me. ‘Go on please, Mrs Riley,’ he says.
‘I get frightened. My pulse races and I feel the need to escape, sort of, to get out of the house, I suppose, but my legs won’t hold me up.’
The doctor swivels in his chair so he’s facing the computer screen, and jiggles and clicks his mouse. ‘Uh-huh. Anything else?’
‘I feel sick.’
‘Nausea,’ he says, typing slowly, using mainly his index fingers.
‘Insomnia?’ There’s no rising intonation and it takes me a second or two to realise that this is a question.
‘No. I find it hard to get to sleep sometimes, but I’ve been tired since … well, you know, with Chloe, so once I fall asleep at night, I don’t wake up until she does.’
‘I see. Any chest pain?’
‘No. Just a pain in my stomach. Like bad nerves.’
‘OK. How long did this panic attack last?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Less than five minutes, I’d say,’ Alex offers. ‘Three or four minutes, tops.’
Again, I wonder how long Alex was behind me on the staircase before he came to my aid. Did he just stand there while I was struggling to catch my breath? Did he watch me panic for three or four minutes without intervening?
‘Have you had an anxiety attack like this before, Mrs Riley?’
I’m staring at Alex, lost in my thoughts, and the doctor has to repeat his question before I hear it.
‘Yes.’ I can’t find it in me to elaborate.
‘Any crying episodes?’
I remember sobbing earlier as Alex held me against him on the stairs.
Again, Alex answers for me. ‘She did cry earlier. And she cries sometimes in the evenings or at bedtime.’
I look at Alex, but he seems to be avoiding my gaze. Surely he’s not referring to our wedding night when I sobbed next to him in bed? Or the evening he accused me of tampering with his shower gel and made me cry?
Doctor Irving rolls his office chair round to my side of the desk and unwinds the stethoscope from around his neck.
‘I’ll just check your heart and lungs,’ he says, ‘and then I’ll take your blood pressure.’
When he has finished examining me, the doctor types up a few more notes. Then, without further comment to me, he starts talking to Alex about Chloe. I hear them talking, but I can’t decipher what they’re saying. I’m in a daze. I allow myself to zone out for a while.
Recently, I’m the one who has been looking after Chloe the most, and yet the doctor doesn’t ask me a single question about my baby. The two men seem to have forgotten I am there. I don’t feel like I’m there myself. I’m removed from all of this, as though it’s all happening to someone else.
I vaguely register that Chloe wakes up when Doctor Irving starts to examine her. Although she cries, it is not the high-pitched screeching that I’m used to hearing. It’s a cry that I find less disturbing and normal.
‘I’m going to prescribe you some low-dose anti-depressants, Mrs Riley,’ the doctor is telling me when I tune back in. ‘The anxiety, bouts of crying and tiredness you’ve described indicate to me that you have post-natal depression.’
‘I’m not depressed,’ I protest. But I think my words might have stayed in my head.
‘Your family live far away and so it’s hardly surprising,’ the GP continues. ‘I understand that you were worried about bonding with your daughter when Alexander went back to work––’
‘Well, I was looking forward––’
‘And, of course, I know about your mother-in-law’s bad fall, but now she’s on the mend, I think it would be a good idea if she could help you out with Chloe,’ he says. ‘Alexander seems to think that Sandy would relish the chance to see more of her granddaughter.’
Alex takes my hand. I resist the urge to snatch it back.
‘Can I continue to give Chloe my breast milk on this medication?’ I hear the words coming out of my mouth even though I’m not aware of the thought going through my mind. I have no intention of taking anti-depressants anyway.
‘Yes, you can. It’s very mild.’
‘Perhaps we should switch to formula,’ Alex says. ‘Chloe prefers feeding from the bottle anyway.’
‘That’s up to the two of you,’ Doctor Irving drones, ‘but it could be a good way of monitoring how much milk Chloe is taking.’
‘Monitoring?’
‘As I was saying to your husband, Mrs Riley, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your baby girl except for the fact that she’s a little underweight.’
I say nothing all the way home. I’m confused. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep so that I can begin to unravel what’s going through my mind.
I replay my conversation with Doctor Irving in my head. I’m not depressed. I feel misunderstood by the GP. I feel betrayed by my husband, as if he didn’t stick up for me when Doctor Irving made his diagnosis. I even feel let down by Chloe, although I know this is irrational. But it’s as though she was on her best behaviour at the health centre so that the doctor would think I was the one with a problem.
I do fall asleep for a few minutes and when I open my eyes, we’re home. I see it before Alex does. There’s a cardboard box in the porch. With his easy stride, Alex is wheeling Chloe in her pram towards the entrance when he notices it. He stops dead in his tracks and I nearly walk into him. He turns to look at me, a quizzical expression on his face.
The parcel doesn’t have a name on it or an address. It’s the size of a large shoebox. I pick it up and notice it’s quite light. I shake it and something moves around inside the box. I hand it to Alex. He doesn’t even open the door and take it into the house. Instead, he tears off the parcel tape, ripping the box open right there on the doorstep. I stay behind him, as though he’s shielding me.
An unmarked parcel. Someone has come up the drive and left this here. I’m reluctant to find out what this is. I cling to the hope that this could be a benign present, but my senses are telling me otherwise.
Looking over Alex’s shoulder, I smell it at the same time as I see what it is. This is no gift. There are flowers in this box, about a dozen of them, but it’s not a bouquet from a friend, that’s for sure. The flowers are dead and their heads are separate from their stems.
To begin with, I’m more puzzled than frightened. Is this supposed to be scary? A warning? A threat?
I look at Alex. If I had any doubt about the phone calls, this time I know it’s not him. He was with me when this was delivered. He has fear written all over his face, which has drained of colour. I notice he’s biting his bottom lip. I’m missing the point, I think, taking the box gently from his hands.
‘I don’t get it,’ I tell him.
I peer into the box again. There are purple flowers and red flowers. There’s a lot of soil, which appears to have been scattered over the flowers. Tentatively, I touch them. The purple flowers are artificial rather than dead, I realise now, but their heads have been snipped off their stems just as for the red ones. I count them, pushing each dead bloom to the side of the box in turn. Thirteen flowers altogether.
My fingers feel something else, under the flowers. It’s a small card. I pull it out and read the words written on it in small, neat letters. How ironic. But I’m not sure I’ve grasped the meaning. I read the words again. Wake up and smell the dead flowers.
Alex is leaning against the stone wall and hasn’t seen me take the card out. Quickly, I stuff it into my handbag. He doesn’t look like he can take much more for now.
‘The flowers,’ Alex says. ‘They’re … they’re …’ He doesn’t seem to have the force to finish his sentence.
It takes me several seconds, but then it hits me. Oh, no! I feel my eyes widen as I meet Alex’s gaze.
‘Poppies and violets,’ I whisper.