NULL: Chapter One

NULL

(Working Title)

 

By Sophie Chapple

 

Chapter One

 

It was an unusually hot Friday afternoon in late July, 1963. Margret lay on her back, eyes open, staring upwards into nothing, happy, at least for now, to simply let her mind wander. Her thoughts came and went with the sky, which was visible intermittently through slowly undulating curtains. She had been here before, the sights, sounds, and smells were familiar, even if the hushed voices of those around her were not. The day possessed a certain feeling of optimism in which she chose to lose herself, accompanied only by the thin, wispy, white clouds that sat almost motionless in the careless blue. Friday, whether for schoolchildren, factory, or office workers, was a special day. Long before the scourge of mobile phones and email, once Friday came, you knew that you were about to be released from your weekday burdens. Many homes still didn’t have a telephone, so once you walked through the gates your life was your own, at least until Monday. As she lay there, in the distance, diffused through ivy and brick, the sound of roadworks, punctuated by impatient car horns and shouting could be heard, suggesting not everyone was sharing the optimistic feeling. Yet despite the occasional intrusion of these muffled outbursts, the room had a quiet, almost serene air, reminiscent of a church (albeit one smelling very strongly of disinfectant). All the while, jostled by the net curtains that punctuated Margret’s view of the sky, the wooden toggle on the end of the chord that controlled the window danced on the cast iron radiator that sat beneath, tapping rhythmically, like a child’s stick on metal railings. Gradually its metre began to fade as Margret rolled uncomfortably onto her side and slept.

Margret had been admitted to the hospital just after lunch, her impending delivery announcing itself earlier that morning in the bakery whilst buying warm cakes, known locally as “drippers”, for her four children who had, due to previous poor behaviour, been compelled to wait outside by the baker, their expectant faces pushed up against the grubby window, creating four equally spaced clean patches that ascended neatly in order of age. Drippers were, and continue to be, a regional delicacy made primarily of rolled dough, sugar, and dripping with some added raisins and spices for good measure. Found in the South-West of England they remain to this day the cause of many blocked arteries, contented silences, and playground scuffles.

The maternity unit was a tall, albeit single-storey building that had definitely seen better days. Built in the shadow (literally) of an imposing red brick general hospital, the building was only three years from closure and hence very much in its old age, despite being, in its current incarnation, only twenty years old. The hospital had been converted from a pre-existing and already shamefully decrepit nursing home – something that might explain the faint smell of lavender and urine that occasionally filled the air, especially on warm summer afternoons such as this. Rather like an incontinent, senile relative, the building had been left to slowly succumb to old age and the British weather, only being attended to if it sprang a leak or publicly disgraced itself in some other way. Due to the proximity of the main hospital, the sun rarely struck its decaying wooden-clad walls and consequently, over the years, it had grown a thick vertical carpet of green moss that gave it an attractive fuzzy appearance. Accompanied by a musty, damp aura, not at all conducive to the health or wellbeing of mothers, new-borns, or indeed the nursing staff, half a century before the trend for swanky vertical gardens, the structure was already clearly demonstrating the limitations of the concept as dank, microbe-laden water dripped from its clammy sides. Each window wore an ancient net curtain that hung from a sagging wire like a long-abandoned spider web. The curtains stubbornly resisted any attempt at whitening without recourse to bleach (in which they had a tendency to simply dissolve) so, rather than replace them, the policy was to leave them very much alone in the hope that the accumulated dust and cobwebs might hold them together until the building’s final demise.

Inside, each ward had its own expectant fathers’ room, a smoky, yellowed man-cave situated at one end of a long corridor as far away from the delivery rooms and beds as the building’s design (or rather lack of it) would permit. These rooms were imbued with a palpable sense of turmoil – places in which men, and sometimes boys, became fathers, and in which primeval urges slipped silently away to leave shell-shocked remnants of men to ponder unmapped (and often unplanned) futures. Here, fathers could escape all of the unpleasant truths of childbirth to discuss sink fittings or soldering, or whatever it is that men talk about in the midst of the emotional turmoil that is their ascent to the lofty heights of fatherhood. Here, in their final fleeting moments of reckless freedom, they were left to ponder their fate and how they succumbed either to their own passionate impatience or to some (now seemingly) misguided desire to raise a family.

Out of sight of the nurses and midwives, who rarely ventured past the door, on the wall behind the left-hand inward opening door, a particularly traumatised father had drawn a rudimentary penis with a wet finger in the years of accumulated yellow tobacco smoke. Possibly a last defiant gesture, possibly a territorial act, possibly an attempt to simply raise a smile, whatever the motive, unfortunately the artist had run out of spit at a crucial moment and, obviously not wishing to re-moisten his tobacco stained digit, and reluctant to deploy another, had left the illustration somewhat unfinished – an oversight that merely added to its poignancy.

During the day, fathers would pace the hospital grounds, looking skyward for salvation in the passing clouds or, as was more often the case, kicking the gravel endlessly around in a fruitless attempt to find solace from the trauma of their bearing wives – or more likely, their own. During long anxious nights, fathers would sit and jiggle nervously in the waiting room, smoking themselves slowly to death whilst reading well-thumbed magazines about the sports cars they could now never afford, quilting, or some other slightly equally incongruous hobby. Clouds of billowing cigarette smoke would escape the ill-fitting double doors of the room and waft along the corridors towards the sleeping mothers, combining with the musty evening miasma emanating from the building’s mossy coat and the lavender-urine remnants of its previous life to form a heady cocktail – undoubtedly the cause of many an infant cough, or worse.

With four children already, and barring any delivery-room mishaps, it was never going to be a particularly difficult birth and, as expected, the whole event was concluded with the minimum of fuss – something that certainly pleased Edward, a man lost in an almost fanatical pursuit of order in all things (a flaw that today would almost certainly be attributed to an -ism of some kind). Thankfully for all concerned this was a textbook, early evening, warm water and towels birth in which none of the parties involved – neither, baby, mother, midwife, nor father – were required to break into even the mildest sweat. In any case, in the early 1960s the male contribution to the birthing process pretty much ended with the après-intercourse cigarette. An exceptionally liberated man might offer a grudging post-coital cuddle, although this gesture of parental solidarity was unlikely in all but the most progressive relationships – progressiveness being something of which Edward could certainly never be accused. For Edward as for thousands like him, childbirth was something that happened behind firmly closed doors whilst they read, paced, smoked, and drew optimistically proportioned, if incomplete facsimiles of the source of all the trouble to pass the time.

The birth was short and lasted barely four hours from start to finish, the result, an eight-and-a-quarter-pound baby boy. A junior nurse was dispatched to the door of the fathers’ room to announce the good news, whereupon Edward, full of misogynistic self-satisfaction at producing a son at his first (and only) attempt, strutted meaningfully up and down like a rooster, smug in fatherly joy at having not only produced an heir to his (recently conceived) quilting empire, but also at proving his own manhood in the most demonstrative way possible.

The following morning the child, as yet unnamed, was clean, fully inflated, and thus considered fit for public display. On the wall high above the matron’s desk a large round clock, knocked off-centre by a clumsy cleaner some years previously and never re-aligned, revealed a circle of pristine, un-faded dark green paint imprinted on the now pastel green wall, its richly pigmented presence marking the passage of countless mothers – first timers scared of what the future might hold, seasoned mothers far more afraid of what it might not. Day in, day out, the clock patiently ticked away the hours like the slow clickety-clack of a wise old grandma knitting booties as exhausted mums snored unattractively with their mouths open. Outside, triumphant fathers, still stinking from a night of nervous half-smoked cigarettes paced the crunchy gavel awaiting the obliged and the obliging who, despite strict visiting hours, arrived rather randomly to deliver gifts of under-ripe grapes and odd flower combinations bought in much haste on the way.

Grapes, in particular those bought for hospital visits, reveal a darker side of human nature. Inevitably, the bunch is ruthlessly plundered from beneath on the bus (even more so if there is a child involved), the incriminating bare stalks either concealed by rotating the bunch so they lie at the bottom of their now soggy brown paper bag or, worse still, clumsily torn from the remaining bunch and discarded down the back of the seat. Should the theft not cease until the ward (the preserve of only the very hardest criminals), the stalks can also be surreptitiously dumped in a vase, in extreme cases, right under the softly sleeping noses of the intended recipient. As the perpetrators of this most despicable act depart full of joy and self-satisfaction having discharged their duty in time to make it home for dinner, unsuspecting mothers, awakening from often partially feigned slumbers, are left to ponder the apparent meagreness of their gifts and lament earlier times when “a bunch of grapes really was a bunch of grapes.”

The baby, quiet, although obviously harbouring a fair degree of resentment towards the indignity of the birthing process, peered at Edward, squinting, as yet still unaccustomed to the light. As he looked into those steely blue eyes, Edward felt a distinct chill in the air. It was at this precise moment both father and child decided they harboured a profound dislike for each other, a dislike that was to surface again and again in the years that followed. For now, however, father and baby agreed a silent truce, not least as neither were in any fit state to fight.

Amongst the many visitors there was much talk of little chubby feet, cute hands, and the surprisingly complete head of fluffy white-blond hair that poked out from the little crochet bonnet that was held in place by loosely tied ribbons. Edward hated the bonnet from the moment he laid eyes on it, but sadly for him, it was a family heirloom passed down from his grandmother to his mother, Annie, thence to Margret, and as such its deployment, even if questionable, was not open to negotiation. The delicacy of the bonnet only sufficed to make the baby look even more sinister as he frowned ominously in his sleep, quietly planning his revenge against both bonnet and father if only he could get his thumbs to work.

Various observations on the condition of the new arrival were made. One of the most perplexing came from a visitor to another new-born on the same ward who, upon losing interest in her own family’s new addition had begun roaming the ward on a covert mission to confirm the superiority of her own particular gene pool. The woman, upon seeing the dozing Margret with the bonneted baby in her arms enthused “oooooh…she’sa lovely colour,” upon which Edward, alarmed by the obvious threat to his off-spring’s future sexual stability, retorted gruffly “it’s a boy…” continuing just for good measure (and following a long-established family tradition of innate, though it must be stressed utterly unintentional, racism) “…we thought we’d have a white one.” Of course, although inexcusable, Edwards racism has to be seen in the context of the time. The early sixties were not noted for their racial awareness and rather than being a bad man, Edward was simply a product of his time, a dinosaur from a bye-gone age, afraid to express any opinions beyond those with which he grew up. The perplexed visitor, not wishing to draw any more ire from Edward, retreated to the sanctuary of yet another pile of quilting magazines that sat on a large table in the middle of the ward. Accompanied by several bunches of discarded flowers that sat slowly decaying in an odd assortment of half full vases containing murky green water and discarded grape stalks, the table looked strangely out of place. Imposing and dark, it carried a scratched and largely illegible brass plaque on which it was still possible to make out the words “…until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over…” Part of a well-known prayer, the fragmented verse, a throw-back to the building’s earlier life as a nursing home, seemed somewhat out of place in its new setting. Perhaps the table had been a gift from a thankful family for the care bestowed upon a long-departed loved one, or possibly a guilt-easing gesture to make amends for a long-abandoned relative. Whatever its history, there it stood steadfastly dominating the centre of the ward and presenting an obstacle to nurses and patients alike, immovable by virtue both, of its now forgotten legacy, and its sheer weight.

As a seasoned mother, Margret was never going to spend any longer in the hospital than absolutely necessary. She was a pragmatic, some might say fierce woman, not given to laying around when there were potentially far more interesting things to do, such as bullying Edward. So, on Monday morning, only three days after the birth with her bags already hurriedly packed, she announced that it was time to go home – a quite unexpected move that caught both Edward and the hospital staff more than a little off guard. Margret was not much given to discussion and, as she wished, the hospital obligingly discharged her, leaving Edward, lamenting the loss of his temporary status as boss at home, to hastily make all the necessary arrangements.

The return home was a chaotic affair. Edward, who had never learnt to drive had, in an utterly rash moment and against all his usual fiscal reserve (he had a reputation for being more than a little tight), decided upon, and foolishly promised, a taxi to return them home in style. A decision made more to bolster his image with the neighbours than anything else, unfortunately, when the time came to actually order the taxi, the expense suddenly seemed to exceed his threshold of generosity. Hastily, in an attempt to save at least a little face, a lift in a friend’s car was arranged, which in turn, when the friend in question failed to arrive at the allotted time, became an undignified and now very late ride home on the number twenty-three bus.

Margret’s lamentable packing skills meant Edward, arms full of various bags, suitcases, flowers, and gifts, was left attempting to withdraw his wallet from an inside jacket pocket using little more than suction and his teeth as Margret, a thankfully snoozing baby, and the rest of the packed bus looked on. The conductor, conscious that he still had a busload of tired, bad tempered passengers from which to collect fares looked compassionately at Edward and with a smile and a dismissive wag of a spindly, tobacco stained finger said, “go on … this one’s on me.” Relieved, Edward relaxed his grip on the precarious assortment of packages just enough to allow a bunch of flowers to escape from the open rear step of the bus. Glancing repeatedly between the escaped flowers and the now-seated Margret trying to ascertain which of them looked the least disappointed with him, as the bus conductor, oblivious to the escaped blooms, gave the customary “ding-ding” on the bell and the bus pulled away, Edward opted to fix his gaze on the forlorn bouquet only to see it run over by the number twenty-seven bus, which was, as always, in hot pursuit. Margret, with a well-practiced disdainful look (the inevitable result of trying to control four, now five, unruly children) stared, unamused, at the back of Edward’s head.

The bus took a tortuous route from the city. Caught up in the ongoing roadworks, the journey took much longer than usual before escaping the gridlock and scattering its work-weary contents like crumpled confetti to their homes. In contrast to the optimistic “Friday-feeling” of the birth, “melancholy Monday” did little to lift the mood amongst the suits and briefcases. As the bus slowly emptied, Edward managed to manoeuvre himself onto the far end of one of the long bench-style seats that ran on either side of the bus from the rear to about a third of the way up, where they gave way to the more usual forward-facing seats. These seats, leaving as they did a large empty space between them, created a space at the rear of the bus where people could stand. Although practical, especially for passengers who were only going a few stops because they could jump on and off quickly thanks to the open back of the bus, the seats were not popular, especially with women, as you either ended up with some pervert looking up your skirt from the other side, or you spent the whole journey staring into the crotch of an as yet un-coined “man-spreader.” Edward, looking for at least a hint of forgiveness, peered through the stems of the remaining bouquet as Margret scowled intransigently back. Sadly, no sooner had Edward got comfortable on his new perch than the bus arrived at their stop and, letting Margret and the baby go first, he wrestled himself to his feet to follow her. As he fought his way to the rear exit, his various bags hit the other seated passengers on the knees, each passenger in their turn omitting a differently pitched squeak like a row of variously filled glass bottles tapped with a spoon.

As the bus disappeared into the distance in a cloud of blue diesel fumes, Margret marched confidently down the avenue, a good distance ahead of the overburdened and now profusely sweating Edward. Swinging the baby basket more like it contained a fresh loaf than a fresh baby, she seemed more interested in the twitching curtains of the neighbours than her new charge. In fact, she swung the basket with such force that, at the highest point of each swing, the baby became momentarily weightless. Luckily, rather than nausea, this motion seemed only to induce sleep in the new-born and so, striding purposefully, more with the demeanour of a woman returning from a coffee morning than a woman who had recently given birth, she arrived triumphantly at the front gate of the house where she stopped, adjusted her hair, and waited for Edward.

Balancing the basket precariously on the pointed concrete pyramid that topped the brick gate post, she glared at Edward, simultaneously annoyed at his lack of stature (and driving licence) and revelling at his obvious discomfort. Theirs was a relationship in which tension was omnipresent – something that would have been noticed only in its absence. Amongst other things, this made them rather stressful dinner companions and thus they enjoyed a smaller than usual circle of friends as well as attracting more than their fair share of neighbourly interest, as a result of their frequent and sometimes very vocal arguments. Margret was not given to allowing herself to appear in any way vulnerable, if she left Edward to carry all the bags it was not because she needed him to, but rather that he should. This was the way she liked it, and the way she liked it was always the way it was. Luckily for her, Edward was a man gripped by a highly developed sense of chivalry and thus rarely needed prompting to lift a bag or open a door. In some ways, at least by today’s standards, Edward would have been described as abused, yet his own sense of place meant that he rarely, if ever, felt that way – a trait that was to prove his undoing only a couple of years later.