Chapter 15

“Just one bag to check in?”

“Yes, Dublin please, travelling alone, thank you,” I replied. “Is there any chance of an emergency-exit seat?”

He looked from my face down to my bloated stomach and then back at my eyes. I wondered if I should say anything, but what could I say? ‘Sorry, in fact you are wrong. I can sit in the emergency-exit seat because I am no longer pregnant.’ Should I say that my inflated belly was only a farce and that it was only skin deep, that behind the skin was a vacant womb?

“Sorry, we don’t have emergency-exit seats available – they are all booked up,” he replied politely.

Thankfully, we had both been saved a difficult conversation.

I made my way to the boarding area.

My phone blipped, I stared at the screen.

Miss you, Afric, hope you survived the conference, very excited about the new job and coming home soon. Chat later, going to a meeting just now, hope all is well, Love you, Luke.

I sent a simple ‘X’ that would buy me more time before I had to speak to him. It would be easier to talk to him sitting at the desk overlooking Howth Head. It would be more restful there. It is easier to tell lies when you’re in your comfort zone – mind you, I had done a pretty good job in Liverpool. I would be home and at my window in over two hours – one thirty at the latest. That would make it eight thirty in the evening in Beijing, a perfect time to call Luke. He would have done his pool swim and would be more relaxed. I would get home, shower, relax, pour myself a stiff drink and then call him.

The plane skidded to a halt.

I looked out the square window with the slightly rounded edges. The raindrops bounced off the tarmac at Dublin airport – they looked as though they were jumping up to greet the aircraft.

I began to relax. Very soon I would be home, sitting at the window. Knowing that I was not far from my comfort zone, my mind began to wander.

They say ‘Trust your instinct’, another cliché like ‘Time heals all wounds’. Clichés had a reason to have been hanging around for so many generations. People use them time and time again, mainly I suppose because they are largely true.

But I had ignored my instinct. I deliberately had denied its existence – maybe because I was too scared to trust it. During those long six months of pregnancy, I didn’t know that there was something wrong but I knew that there was something not quite right. I could never put my finger on it. I was unable to identify what exactly was the problem. Unable to recognise the issue, instead I chose to block it out.

Maybe if I had listened to my inner voice from the beginning this tragedy would have been avoided. If I had gone for an amniocentesis at an earlier stage of my pregnancy would they have discovered my baby’s incompatibility with life? It still would have been very sad, but it would never have got to become this tragic.

Perhaps that was why I didn’t tell anyone until I was over twenty-two weeks pregnant – maybe to protect myself from the imminent hurt. I had gone through the motions of congratulations. These now would be followed by a follow-up round of commiserations. That was what awaited me now, hundreds of well-intended empathetic condolences.

Inadvertently, I had been shielding myself from the pain, from the reality of the situation. Of this I was sure. It had not been the hormones that were making me feel sad for the past six months. It was my own body rejecting its own flesh, the very flesh that it had created. My body and mind were not elated because perhaps it was nature’s way of protecting me from the deformity in my womb. It was preventing me from bonding with a child that would never survive outside the womb. I was saving myself from myself.

During those six months, I thought that I was going crazy, that I was losing my grasp on reality. I was relieved now that I knew it was my mind rejecting something that was trying to hurt me: it considered my daughter as a foreign body.

The raindrops continued to dance on the ground – there was something very therapeutic about it – it had a rhythm – there was almost a sensation to it.

“Miss, Miss, Miss – whenever you are ready – we need to get the plane clean – very quickly.”

I wondered how long he had been trying to get my attention.

“Sorry, sorry, I was in my own world,” I replied.

He smiled. Perhaps he could tell I was sad – you can see when someone is very sad – you can see it in their eyes. I smiled gently back.

I opened the large yellow door and climbed the threadbare stairs to the front door of the apartment. I was glad to be home. I poured a large glass of chilled white wine and sat down at the window.

The rain storm was slowly clearing, the dark grey mist had blocked out the entire headland of Sutton and Howth. There was no white-and-grey lighthouse visible, though I searched the sea for it. It must have finally toppled over and tumbled into the Irish Sea.

I took out my phone and typed: At home, exhausted, going to sleep for a bit, will text later.