Postpartum
Benjamin could see from the street that the living room lights were on. He knocked on the glass in the front door as he turned the key in the lock.
‘Shauna,’ he called, kicking off his trainers. He went to the living room then stopped, palm on the door jamb. Cushions from the sofa were on the floor. A cup of coffee spilt on the table had dripped onto the carpet and the television had been left on. In the bedroom draws were open and clothes had been pulled off the rail and were strewn on the floor.
‘Shauna!’ he called again as he dashed into the bathroom. It was empty, and in the kitchen sticky sugar and coffee granules were all over the counter. He put the fish and chips down and felt the kettle to see if it was warm but it wasn’t. He reached for his phone in his pocket. He pressed call, and a few seconds after he heard the piano notes of Shauna’s Nokia ringtone. He listened as it repeated, trying to locate it. The sound led him into the living room, where he muted the television and kicked over the cushions. Then, just as her phone stopped ringing, he saw it on the windowsill. He looked through the missed calls. There were the four from him and a voicemail. A midwife had left a message saying she had tried to visit and would call again tomorrow morning. He felt the tension ride up his shoulders and set his jaw. His coat and the sling were constricting and he hurriedly took them off and laid Dulcie on the changing mat on the floor. He stood looking down at her; she was going to cry again.
‘Don’t give me that face. I know, I know - bottle, nappy - but where’s your fucking mother? She taking the fucking piss.’
As if in response to his harsh words, Dulcie began crying angrily, becoming louder and louder as he undressed her and began to change her nappy. She was kicking her thin legs, her knees going up and down, her thighs wrinkling. He continued shushing her as he fastened the new nappy over the blue plastic cord clamp and filled the old one with the dirty wet wipes. Then he left her on the floor screaming as he went into the kitchen and hurriedly made up a bottle of milk.
Kettle/ Self Portrait by Azzanne Dale
He came back with the bottle and the bouncer, put her in it on the coffee table, sat down on the sofa and held the bottle to her mouth. She stopped crying as the milk poured in, and he could think again. He’d phone Josie, Shauna’s closest friend. Keeping the bottle tipped up in Dulcie’s mouth with one hand, he went through Shauna’s contacts and found three numbers for Josie. He called her mobile and she answered.
‘Two secs, babe.’ He could hear her talking to someone, arranging an appointment. ‘Sorry Shaur!’
‘No, it’s Benji., I’m looking for Shauna.’
‘What? What d’you mean you’re looking for Shauna. She’s with the baby, no? I was gonna come visit after work but it’s gotta be tomorrow, I can’t tonight.’
‘When did you speak to her?’
‘Was it yesterday? Or maybe the day before? Whenever she got out of hospital.’
‘She didn’t call you today? Because I don’t know where the fuck she’s gone.’
‘Maybe there was somewhere she had to take the baby and she forgot to tell you.’
‘No, the baby’s been with me all day. She’s here now.’ He pulled the teat out of Dulcie’s mouth and milk dribbled from the side of her lips.
‘Oh.’ Josie sounded serious. ‘You mean she’s gone off on her own?’
‘Yes, she’s being fucking weird.’
‘Yeah. Let me just get my fags and go outside.’
He heard the click of the lighter.
‘Remember when she used to do this a lot? Go off on one.’
‘No.’
‘Yeah, you do. When she’d go missing. Not tell anyone where she was and get us all running about. I’d have to cover because you know what Terry’s like. Obviously she’d come back, usually the next day, but she’d never say where she’d been. I don’t know, it was just some head thing.’
‘What? I didn’t know she did that. What head thing?’
‘At college, you know, she was kinda stressed.’
‘We weren’t together at college. We got together the summer after.’
‘So she’s not done it since she’s been with you then?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Have you tried her dad?’
‘I’m going to have to. You know they came to the hospital?’
‘Yeah, I mean, that’s something, isn’t it?’
‘No. It would’ve been better if they’d stayed away.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, some people don’t change. Look, I better go.’
‘All right but call me later, yeah? Let me know what’s happening. Benji, don’t worry, she’ll be come back.’
Benjamin stared at the television as he held the bottle in Dulcie’s mouth. His thoughts kept jarring and he had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He thought he knew Shauna and loved her but now something empty and formless and dark was creeping in. His head ached, he was so hungry, he needed a spliff but he picked up her mobile to see who else he could call. There was the group of friends she used to go out with before she was pregnant, but recently it was just Josie, and also Anna and Elise, she was close with. Most of the other friendships had diminished to comments on Myspace. He took the empty bottle out of Dulcie’s mouth, and tried Anna first but she said she hadn’t spoken to her for a day or two, nor had Elise, but, like Josie, they told him not to worry, she’d be back. They didn’t seem to comprehend that she’d had a baby and she’d just left.
He put the phone down on the table and looked at Dulcie lying in the bouncer, helpless, and there again was the anger: rapid streams of bubbles breaking at the surface. His neck was rigid and he could feel his heart beating down to the palms of his hands. If it wasn’t for Dulcie’s contented face, he would have thrown the phone against the wall. Then a slide show of images of flying books and records and dents in the walls at his mum’s, the thudding and cracking, a rain of glass, all the times, at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, he’d been wild with rage.
In his wooden box was the weed Louis had left him. He rolled a joint, lit it and held the smoke in before releasing it slowly through pursed lips as he sank back into the sofa. From somewhere central, deep in his guts, there was a subtle expansion. Dulcie was here, fed at last, peaceful again, the skunk was softening him and the rage had stayed inside and now he could make that call to Terry, her dad. He got his number from her contacts and dialled it on his mobile and as it rang he quickly rehearsed his story again. Shauna’s out getting nappies and she said she might pop in to see you only she’s left her phone behind. But Terry didn’t answer and when he heard the default voicemail he hung up.
After he ate the fish and chips cold and drank a Jack Daniels and coke, he put Dulcie in their bed to sleep and lay back on the sofa in the living room, staring at the muted television. He heard a bus and footsteps on the pavement then there was a whistle and a distant police siren. His forehead was tight, his thoughts were searching. Where, in which pocket of this vast city, was Shauna right now? He let himself picture her walking up the steps of the tube, in her blue coat, her hair down, running across the road, cars beeping – she never waited for the green man - and coming down the street towards the flat, down the steps, back to him.
He opened his eyes. The lights were on, the television was on, the bottle of Jack Daniels was on the table, and he heard crying coming from the next room. He switched off the television. He went into the bedroom and in the darkness he could see Dulcie in her white baby grow, no covers over her, and the rest of the bed empty.
‘All right, all right.’ He picked her up and with a few panting breaths she calmed down and her little body felt so tender in his arms. He looked in the bathroom and in the kitchen; Shauna hadn’t come home. Alone with Dulcie in the dark, a feeling of alienation tore through him and he shuddered with cold. Holding her on one arm, her head in his elbow, her arms and legs dangling down, he went into the kitchen and prepared a bottle of milk. In the bedroom he got under the duvet keeping her close. It was quiet and he listened to her sucking and watched her eye lids flicker. The sucking became slower and then she was asleep, and he laid her down and slipped out of bed.
In the living room he rolled a cigarette, turned the lights off, and smoked it quickly. Through the bent slats of the blind, he could see the yellow light from the street lamp. He fiddled with his phone but nothing seemed wrong with it. Taking it with him, he went back into the bedroom. As he entered, even in the dim light, he could see Dulcie’s eyes were open. He took off his jeans and jumper and slung them over the clothes rail.
‘Hello. You’re very awake.’ Their gazes met and in her face he saw something ancient and true, something secretive between them. He lay down with her on his chest, his hand over the crown of her head as she fell asleep again and he closed his eyes too, trying to blank out the images of Shauna lying in the road bloody, in the bushes naked, beaten up on the green or face down in the subway.
It was just past midnight when his phone started ringing. Blearily, with Dulcie still lying on his chest, he reached for the phone then gently rolled her onto the mattress and sat up.
‘Benji -’
‘Shauna, where are you? Fuck. Thank fuck, you called.’
‘I’m not confused. I’m not. It’s my dad. He’s mixing it all up.’ She was speaking very fast.
‘Shauna, where are you? Are you with your dad?’
‘You mustn’t bring that baby here. Promise me, Benji. Please.’
‘Okay, but tell me whose phone are you using? Who are you with? You don’t sound -’
‘It’s my phone. Dad, tell him.’
‘Shauna, let me speak to your dad.’ Benjamin stood up and started pacing the room. ‘Terry?’
‘Yes, it’s me. We’re in hospital. She’s not well, she really isn’t. We’re waiting to see someone from the mental health team. I tell you, she’s very confused. She thinks you’re the mother, or I’m the brother. I don’t know… I don’t understand what she’s saying.’
‘How did she get to hospital? Has she hurt herself?’
‘I don’t think so. I saw her on our street when I was putting the bins out. She was walking up and down, very panicky and scared. I brought her in myself. We should see someone soon - Shauna!’ Terry shouted. ‘She’s just run out of the cubicle,’ he said to Benjamin, and the call ended.
Benjamin was now wide awake, flooded with adrenaline, but strangely numb, like he’d become detached and was watching himself through a breach as he stood up, in his checked boxer shorts and black t-shirt, left the bedroom, turned the kitchen light on and scooped milk powder into Dulcie’s bottle. He heated water in a pan on the stove and poured it into the bottle and shook it slowly, mechanically, as he went back into the bedroom.
It was Terry he needed to speak to. He put the bottle down and sat on the edge of the bed and tried calling him again, but he didn’t answer. He was going to have to go to the hospital, he couldn’t just wait there; he didn’t care what Shauna was saying. Terry hadn’t said which hospital but he thought Charing Cross, that was the nearest one.
He put the light on and started to get dressed and just as Dulcie was waking, his phone rang again.
‘She’s going to the psychiatric ward for an assessment,’ Terry said.
‘You’re at Charing Cross, right? I’m just on my way now.’
‘And you got the baby? I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘But I want to see her.’
‘No, Ben. You can’t come with the baby.’
‘I’ll call Josie then. Maybe she can come over so I can go out.’
‘It’s past one now, it’s too late. Look, I’ll stay with her here as long as I can and I’ll let you know what’s happening.’
‘But what is happening? What’s wrong with her?’
‘Displaying delusional thinking. That’s what they said. Look, someone’s here to take us to the unit. I’ll call you later.’
That call came as the sun was rising and the sky was pink. Terry was walking back from the hospital when he told Benjamin Shauna had been admitted to the Mental Health Unit and sectioned. Benjamin had fed Dulcie and finished the weed and the whiskey. He’d slept for about an hour. When he looked up from the living-room window, above the white wall and the black railings, he could just see the sunrise and he decided he’d walk to the hospital with Dulcie in the sling.