Peek-a-boo

Sensitive issue: This contains a reference to induced labour and stillbirth which may be disturbing to some readers.

I had never cared much for flying—stuck in a sardine can for three hours or more. I invented ways to entertain myself. People-watching was my favourite, but sometimes I found other people watching me. I found that a bit unnerving. Children were the worst—they have a very direct gaze.

The child in the seat in front of me was doing it now. A baby really, very cute. She was staring at me from between the two seatbacks, her round, brown eyes staring deep into my soul. What could I do but cover my face with my two hands and then uncover it saying, “peek-a-boo!” As predicted, she fell about herself with laughter. This game was always guaranteed to get a laugh.

Roger and I used to play this game when we were still getting to know each other. He would put his hands over his face and say, “where am I?”

My role was to say, “I can’t see you, but I can feel you,” and I would put my hands on his and then bring my mouth to his hands. He would just part them enough for me to kiss him and then he would close them again. He used to tease me this way, making me want him more. Then we would reverse the game and I would cover my face. It always led to the bed where we would hunt and find each other’s bodies. I smiled now, recalling the tenderness in those games we played.

The baby in front of me was eyeing me again between the seatbacks, waiting for me to play the game now. Hands to face. Open. “Peekaboo!” more gales of laughter ensued. She was getting the hang of the game now. “Peek,” I said, and she coyly hid her face behind the seat back “aboo!” I finished and she stuck her face out again, laughing uncontrollably. Her parents were busy knocking back airplane wine from plastic cups, delighted that they had found an onboard entertainer for their kid.

I leaned my forehead against the window, staring down into the endless blue sea.

It was on the cruise that I found out I was pregnant. While we were sailing on the endless blue sea. The glare off the water hurt our eyes and we used to walk around like blind men when we came in off the deck. We thought it was hilarious, bumping into one another in our dark cabin. Feeling, searching, and finding one another.

I just thought it was seasickness, but it never seemed to get better, and I was eating all the time, trying to keep the nausea at bay. I went to the infirmary for some pills, and the doctor asked me if I could be pregnant.

I stared at her in disbelief. “No, I couldn’t,” and then I said, “yes, I could.”

“Well, I can’t give you these pills then, but let’s do a pregnancy test, shall we?”

It was positive, and Roger and I spent the rest of the cruise talking about the baby and our future. He bought me a trinket—a silver dolphin—in the port of one of the Greek islands. He said it was a symbol of fertile womanhood, but I never cared for dolphins—an octopus would have been more apt, they can camouflage themselves on the seabed in under a second.

Sticky fingers like tentacles entwined themselves in my hair. The child in front of me still wanted to play. I turned my face back and raised my hands to my face. I was surprised by feeling the wetness on my cheeks. I hadn’t realised I was crying. “Peek-a-boo,” I said, opening my hands and smiling maniacally at the child. Her face curled up in glee, mine creaked as I smiled a false smile.

It was never the same after the cruise, we tried to play the hide and seek game in the bedroom, but it seemed hollow and Roger began to hide at the office instead, night after night. “Sorry, Love, got to work late.”

I was between jobs and using the time to study. It was easy to hide in books, “to better myself,” I said, but in fact, it was a great way to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. To be fair, neither of us had wanted a child—it wasn’t in our grand plan. We were career-oriented and were happy working or studying for the next step on the job ladder.

“Peek a boo,” the child lisped at me. She was getting into the swing of things and her little sticky fingers were starting to reach further between the seatbacks as she lunged at my face, my drink and now she grabbed my tablet “peek a boo,” she said again.

“No, no I said gently, not the tablet. That’s for grown-ups.”

So, I put my hands up to my face again to distract her. “Peek a boo,” I said.

Laughter from the child “peek-a-boo,” she said and slid her face behind the seat again.

Children never tired of playing the game, but Roger did. Roger got tired of the game first. We were coming up to the second scan at 20 weeks.

“I can’t make it,” he said. “Work. You’ll have to go by yourself for this one.”

I went on my own. I put on the ugly paper gown and lay on the couch. The doctor talked to me in a gentle voice and smeared cold jelly on my belly. “Let’s have a look then shall we?” she said putting the scanner on my skin. “Where are you hiding?” she said to the foetus—it never became a baby—we always called it the foetus. She hunted for a bit.

“Foetus is playing peek-a-boo,” I said. I thought it was funny, but the doctor’s face took on a serious edge.

“I can’t find it,” she said. “Nurse!”

The nurse came in and they whispered together for a bit.

“She’s just hiding,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” said the doctor.

“Peek-a-boo!” the child brought me back into the present just as the announcement came over the tannoy: “Please return to your seats we’re currently experiencing some turbulence.”

At which point one of the cabin crew fell into my row of seats. My coffee went flying along with the tablet and the little girl was pulled from behind by her parents and finally strapped into her seat. I felt relieved. I didn’t have to make small talk with the child any longer.

I didn’t like children, I had never wanted to have children, but that didn’t prevent me from the feeling of deep sadness that I felt when they sedated me and gave me the drugs to induce labour. I had to give birth, a stillbirth, to a dead child. I felt cold and hard inside.

Roger came to the hospital after it was all over. He held my hand as I lay in the bed and I searched for his eyes, but he dropped his gaze. He couldn’t look at me. He wasn’t playing the game anymore.

When I returned from the hospital Roger had packed his bags and was gone. Only empty coat hangers swayed in the empty wardrobe.

The plane swayed.

Please remain in your seats, we’ll be beginning our descent soon.”

I wiped up the remainder of the coffee from my tabletop and wiped my tablet before putting it into my bag. My hand touched something metal and I pulled it out, a leaping dolphin. The shiny silver caught the light from the window and blinded me. For a moment I was back on the cruise, blinded and fumbling in the cabin. A second look through squinted eyes and I noticed the rust—the metal wasn’t silver at all.

“Peek-a-boo” the child was back. Her parents with flushed faces and slightly glassy eyes, looking forward to their holiday in the sun had cut her loose from her restraints against all requests from the cabin crew. The parents thought she was undeniably cute—others not so much.

“Peek-a-boo,” I said. “Here, I’ve something hidden in my hand.”

She looked at me with her big brown eyes.

“Right or left?” I asked her as I held up first my right fist and then the left.

“If you guess it, you get the prize,” I said, “and then you can sit down with your mum and dad like a good girl.”

“Which hand?” I held up the two fists.

She pointed at the right one.

“Try again,” I said.

She pointed at the left one.

“Clever girl.”

I said, “peek-a-boo,” one more time and opened my fist. The dolphin gleamed in my palm.

The child was enchanted and took it in her hand shyly. Hiding her face now with her shoulder, she slid back into her seat clutching her prize.