The Heaviness of Empty

Potentially upsetting content, subject of child loss ***

Every month has its colour, and August is red. Not the lively, April, cork-popping red which flecks itself gold come Christmas, but the deep ebon rose of hoop-heavy taffeta, the port-wine stain of airless Sundays, the disquiet of a silent emphysema, blood thickened, slow-moving.

He brought me flowers again. A gothic bouquet. How quickly it withered. Fallen petals on the sill, curled up like ensanguined scabs. Sun at its highest, blazing through the window. Car lacquered black, a-glare, out there in the drive. No primroses now. No mimosa. No garden.

It was Bill who bought him that car, Bill who helped dig up and level the ground before laying the flagstones, a uniform jigsaw in brick. No need to pay me back, mate, just do me a favour some time. Was he sure? He was quite sure. Bill, for all he could be ‘a right royal pain in the ass’, turning up like he did night after night, and outstaying his welcome, was ‘good like that’.

Bill with his booming voice and rock-the-house-to-its-foundations laugh. Santa Claus out of season, lost without his elf.

He was a constant before we were married, and after. He gifted us our honeymoon and invited himself along. He came to our baby scan. Couldn’t let him drive us all that way out to the hospital through thunder and lightning and leave him hovering around the waiting room, now, could we? And then, last year when the baby died… Look, pal, does you no good whatsoever shutting yourself away like you’re doing. Not even trying to get back into work. I’ve got contacts. Can get you fixed up with a job down south, no probs. In fact, I’m thinking of making a move there myself. The wife? Na, wouldn’t worry, she’ll be fine. You’ll still get home on weekends.

And on Fridays a bunch of flowers, stems jabbed into a crumbling oasis. Friday’s mossy green.

It’s a habit he has, his buying me flowers. Like kissing me on the cheek when he leaves or rolling his eyes when he arrives and Bill follows him into the house. A sheepish unspoken apology, but hey, what can he do when he owes the man so much? At least we can afford to live now, and besides, I have Miriam for company. Miriam Marsh, whose life post-divorce has become even more of a saturated bog of negativity than it was before, and whenever she speaks, I can picture myself with waders on, in the midst of this sodden field, ground sinking with every torturous step… Of course, you know what those flowers mean? Simon bought me them too when he was up to his tricks, and He wasn’t working away. No, He was at the gym, or covering someone’s shift, or attending to some family crisis. And he had the nerve to leave me to see to his kids as well. Brats that they were…

September’s grey ash-lined route to the cemetery. Him on one side, Miriam on the other. His parents and mine, faces like clay as if they’d been painted backstage ahead of some macabre theatrical production, a grotesque rehearsal for when they became corpses themselves. No Bill for a change, at least not until later when everyone else went away. Those whose masks of tragedy became increasingly warped towards the comical during the wake. The fun crowd.

I don’t hear from them anymore, not even my bridesmaid, Rachel, my best friend from school. She’s getting married soon herself. Had her hen do last week, saw the pics on Insta. All wearing customised sashes: Mother Superior of the Bride, Mother More Superior of the Groom, Maid of Dishonour, Miss Worldly, Ms. Been-There-Done-That, Screw the Sash…. (Justine’s ex was called Sasha). And for Georgie, Rachel’s wayward kid sister, in the same shocking pink belly-top as last year, but now serving as a vibrant upper casing for an extraordinarily large naked bump, Lady in Waiting.

Miriam must have either decided to give the event a miss or not been invited. I didn’t care to ask. Oh, you know what she’s like, she just brings the mood down… I’d nodded along to Rachel’s words so many times in the past. Made my own snide remarks, called her ‘Miriam the Misfit’, ‘The Spectre at the Feast’, and giggled away. That latter insult would be on my sash now, I’m guessing…

Sunday. Miriam isn’t here today, but Bill is. He’s upstairs with my husband in his recently renovated den. His ‘man-cave’, or whatever the hell he calls it. There’s a wedge under the door. A temporary measure, he assures me, to stop it from inadvertently opening until they fix the latch and hinge. There was nothing wrong with the old door. Nothing wrong with the wallpaper either. Powder blue, why would he want to change that? It’s not even the colour of Tuesday, not quite. Not the colour of any day or month. Too cold. Too pale.

Last time I was up there, they had all this flat-pack shelving lying around, brackets propped up against the new dove-grey walls. It made the room look like a cityscape, an upside down one, or one which had been partly destroyed, like Manhattan after 9/11, and because they’d kept the cerulean carpet, it somehow gave the impression that they were trampling on the sky. Such great big clodhopper boots.

Cerulean. Heavenly. It comes from the Latin. I looked it up. But it’s a dark blue supposedly, and heaven isn’t that. I used to think it was more of a November ice, but now it’s just nothing.

Can’t say the same for the sun, of course, but why do folk worship it so? Can’t look at it without being blinded, can’t go near it without being burnt to a crisp. Apollo’s great ball of fire. Icarus and his wings… The Sons of… He was bound to have daughters too…

Did Icarus have daughters? I’d asked Miriam that, but she didn’t reply, just gave me a quizzical look and started on about Simon again… Well, He’s got one, that’s for sure. Or so he says. Fathered one with that tramp of his, didn’t he? Another to add to his disgusting brood. Except I’ve been hearing rumours, so serve him right if they’re true. Men, I tell you, they’re all the same. And, you know what, it’s maybe not my place to say, but there’s something else I discovered…

What she said next, if indeed she said anything, was lost on me for my eyes were on my phone. Scrolling, I find, helps me float over Miriam’s bog, the waders left stuck in the mud along with her voice, but give her an inch and she’s there. Just one little cry… More pictures on Insta, Georgie this time with her bouncing new baby boys, Frankie and Finn. Both F’s. I was close to screaming a third.

Lunchtime. Can’t say that I’m hungry, but Mam and Dad might pop by, so I’d best make a move. Salad should do, too hot for much else, and besides, Mam’s always saying not to go to any trouble. Except she also says I’m wasting away and I’ve got to eat, and that’s when Dad starts telling her to ‘stop mithering, woman, let’s talk about something else.’ Although ‘something else’ generally doesn’t involve me or Mam at all. Hey, lads, if you need any help up there, just give me shout. A couple of beers and one for me? Yeah, you got it.

Dad’s lost his clay face now, but Mam’s still got hers. It’s a little more cracked than it was, for I reckon she only puts it on when she visits, then takes it off again in the car, haplessly discards it the moment she’s home, along with whichever handbag happens to match her outfit. Still, I’m only surmising…

Strange that I’ve lost all this weight, yet I feel so heavy. Legs like lead as I mount the stairs. It’s the humidity, that's the killer. I can still hear my husband telling me this when we first got together in the midst of a similar heatwave, and again when I was pregnant. He hasn’t said it for a long time, at least not in those words. Anything ‘death’ has been struck from his personal dictionary, censored as if taboo, white (or should I say grey?) washed. Just like that room which used to be our baby’s nursery. He does agree with Mam, though, regards my eating. An engine can’t run on empty. Guess they don’t know just how heavy emptiness is.

I’m only halfway up, on my way to the bathroom, when I hear them. Although, when I say 'them', I mean Bill. Not a whisperer like my husband, he’s as cacophonous as ever, but more excitable than I’ve heard in a while. No, no, no, can’t do that! What the hell are you thinking...? Some DIY disagreement, no doubt. But then… Yes, I know that Miriam thinks she knows and it might all come out, but I’m warning you, mate, don’t push it… I mean, a child, that’s a hell of a lot for anyone to get their head around without… No, you’re wrong, pal, couldn’t deal with that, no way… Got something you ain’t too proud of? Just keep it to yourself, don’t admit, learned that a long time ago… Na, I see what you’re saying, but that would only make things a hundred times worse… Hey, shh... Think there's somebody out there…

Silence. Stillness. Like the air is no more. Like I am no more. Just like before on the other side of that door. Frozen, paralyzed. My husband had shaken me out of it then. Gently. Tenderly. He’d provided the strength and I’d leaned on it… And now I feel myself falling again, but only so far. The bathroom door is there to stop me. I open it like some intruder, close it behind me just as surreptitiously, and stare at myself in the mirror. See nothing.

Miriam. The Spectre at the Feast. I should have heeded her warning…

Flush, run the water, splash my face. Mam and Dad at the door. Act normal. As normal as I can these days. Or maybe find my old self? The woman who would have banged and hollered, demanded her husband remove that ridiculous wedge, and insisted he tell her the truth. The same woman who, for all she'd laughed at him having to deal with this flesh and blood shadow following him around - bribing him - would never have allowed him to be swallowed up so completely. And although she would still have delighted in relating the anecdote that not only had she gained a third wheel on her honeymoon 'bicycle made for two' but that this same unfortunate wheel had been mistaken 'Three Men and a Baby' style for another, albeit less-likely, potential expectant father by that wide-eyed nurse at the scan who claimed to be 'entirely au fait with three-way relationships, and please don't think otherwise', she would never have let anyone, let alone such an insensitive individual, brick over the garden she loved, much less lead her husband astray.

So, was the job down south just a blind? Had it been that way from the start? What the eye doesn’t see and all those other bad behaviour excusing clichés? Okay, this I can handle. I can even understand it up to a point. People do deal with grief in different ways, and husbands still have their needs even when their wives’ have been eradicated, nullified. But to have a child with someone else? One which must have been conceived so closely to the time of our own baby's death? That's like him throwing a giant roulette wheel into the mix. Red or black, black or red, standard choice, then up pops green zero. Just like the first time when it was either pink or blue and when we thought things were settled, the ball jumped into a void. And that’s what Bill meant, wasn’t it? That's what I wouldn't be able to deal with. And that was what Miriam had been hinting at when I refused to listen…

Hey, love, your mam and dad are here, not sure that you heard…?

Yeah, thanks. Tell them I’ll be down in a minute.

Got to stop shaking. They’ll know something’s up… And he’ll know too. Just one more splash on my face…

Mam smiles as I enter the lounge. Her face and arms are sunburnt, her hands full of dead petals picked from the sill. Aw, just look at those flowers. What a shame. You know they’re best kept away from the heat…

Dad’s wearing a baseball cap. A yellow one like a family day at the beach in sunny, chummy July. Boys upstairs, are they? Working hard as usual, I’ll bet. I’ll just grab some beers from the fridge, give them a hand.

I sink down onto the sofa. Back where I started.

You okay, love?

Now we’re alone, Mam’s clay face has returned, just a little pinker than before. She sits down beside me.

Well, you know…

I do, love, I do, but you’ll get there… But what’s this I’m hearing about Bill? Must say, it came as a bit of a shock when Miriam told me. Never in a million years did I think he was the type to shirk his responsibilities like that. Never mind that the woman’s coupled up with another man, that baby’s still his whether he likes it or not. And really, you’d think he’d be happy about it. I mean, what’s he got in his life apart from his nibs up there? And money, of course. Just hope your hubby can persuade him to do the right thing… By the way, love, have you eaten? You do look frightfully thin and pale.

The petals are still in Mam’s hand. But they don’t look like scabs anymore. They’re smaller now, crushed down, and I swear I can smell their perfume… Maybe I’m wrong, maybe its hers, or maybe I’m just imagining that faint sweet scent. A red scent. Not like April or August or Christmas, but somewhere in between. A Sunday at the height of summer with just the hint of an afternoon breeze.