Whoosh! by Tracey Christiansen

Read a runner-up entry in our 2007 short story competition

Tracey, 47, is a teacher. She lives in Branston, Lincoln, with her husband Niels and their two daughters, Natalie, 13, and Emily, 10.

Whoosh!
I slump back against the pillows. Their chatter continues unbated, like magpipes crowing over something shiny.
'Oh, how sweet.'
'She's just gorgeous!'
'Ssh, don't wake her.'
'No, let's. I want to see what colour her eyes are.'
Shut up! Shut up! I want to scream but I barely have the energy to fake a proud smile unlike the other smug Earth-mothers in here.
'Can I pick her up?'
'What are you going to call her?'
Oh the irony of the baby's name!
'You will breast feed, won't you?' This is a statement not a question.
'Yes breast feed is best.' A tired old song from my sister who knows all the theory but has failed to produce a child in practice. Guilt immediately eats at me. I try to force my lips upwards but cannot generate the requisite radiant beam. But then I never really glowed during pregnancy either- a warning I shouldn't have ignored.

Just go away! Please go away! All I want to do is sleep, sleep and week. The murder of crows crackle on oblivious to me until a puffed-up bird in blue plumage ushers them all out; they leave in a flurry of feather and pashminas.

Closing my eyes is an effort so I let them drift to the spider web of lines in the ceiling and contemplate the cracks in my character. Why am I not elated? Where's the joy I was promised for the safe delivery of this marvellous new life? Eighteen hours of pushing and screaming only to be cut open like an over ripe melon. Oh, physician, heal thyself.

An unbearable noise like the high pitched screaming of seagulls almost distracts me but with some concentration I can tune it out.

'Oh, the poor poppet. Shall we try the breast again?' The puffed-up bluebird is pressing a bundle at me; small fists emerge from the folds and jerkily punch at the air. My heart sinks like a stone in a well. No, take it away !
'I'm sorry, I just can't. I'm too tired,' I say to the ceiling.
'Well, maybe later. I'll pop her back to the crèche. When's the hubby coming in?'
'No idea.' At the mere thought of his proud grin tears burn under my eyelids and spill out like an overfull bucket. A bucket full of self pity, I think.

Her sympathetic hand pats my shoulder. 'It's all right, love. You've got a touch of the baby blues. It's quite normal.'

I turn my face to the wall. Relief washes over me as I hear the squeaky wheels of the baby basinet being pushed away. The feelings of anger, guilt, self loathing and shame wrestle for the first place. Shame eventually wins and more tears flow. But this isn't normal! This isn't me at all!

Failure. For the first time I experience the bitter tang of things gone sour in life that has always come easily; studies, friends, career, men, whatever. I've never had to try too hard; while others sweated over their medical textbooks, I found theory and exams fun; girlfriends looked desperately for love but it came unbidden to me; I was lucky with jobs, money, property. The only fly in the otherwise smooth ointment was that the ease of my success caused a green-eyed monster to rear its ugly head in the form of my older blue-eyed sister.

It wasn't my fault that I was better at everything than Emma. My parents had encouraged both of us, loved both of us, I assumed equally. Having never been jealous, I couldn't sympathize, much less empathize, with those who were. I couldn't fanthom why Emma resented me. When I came top of my group at medical school, she muttered 'well, you would, wouldn't you?' On meeting Mark she observed to my mother, punitively making sure I was within earshot, that he probably poohed roses. When I completed my residency and was taken on at St Guy's, Emma was still struggling to finish her law degree. My older sister vainly followed in my wake, mere mist in the contrail of my triumphs. And I revelled in my achievements, reasoning I had every right to do so.

'So now you'll be the perfect little mother, too,' Emma had said, not even attempting to disguise her petulant tone when I announced I was three months pregnant.

'Beginner's luck,' I replied. 'Don't worry; the IVF's bound to work eventually. In the meantime you can practice by being an auntie.' I'd meant to sound comforting not conceited.

But now back at home and my maternal instincts still haven't kicked in despite desperate assurances from friends and relatives. Two weeks later and though my incision is healing nicely, my mood isn't. Everybody's lost patience with me; through my sleepy fog I sense how much they want to say 'pull yourself together.' I can't answer my mother's questions about the christening and she leaves in a huff. Mark goes back to his practice leaving instructions, formula and sterilized bottles in the kitchen. I've lost his sympathy. I've lost the plot. Worse still, I've lost my sense of humour. I lie limp on our antique four-poster bed and listen to the screaming from the tastefully decorated designer nursery. I ram my fingers in my ears but the baby's desperation filters through and burrows into the back of my skull. I need a lifeline. Me, who never needed anyone's help and scorned it if offered. If I really try I can reach the phone.

'Of course. I'll be right over. Ten minutes.'

Do I care that Emma sounds jubilant at my impotence? No. I just want the crying to stop. It does as soon as Emma arrives and picks the baby up. She fits the bundle into the crook of her arm, expertly tucks the bottle into the gasping mouth and sways smoothly in the rocking chair, humming gently. How right she looks here in this room with its colourful freeze of nursery rhyme characters running around the wall; Little Bo Peep, Miss Muffet, Jack and Jill and other children to instruct us in quaint manners from a bygone era. Relaxed in her outfit of smock top and leggings Emma looks like the real mother. I'm acutely aware of the paradox.

'See. It's easy, Louise,' she says, never taking her eyes off the baby: it makes contented guzzling sounds. 'What are you so afraid of? It's the most natural thing in the world.'

I stumble down the hall back to the safety of my dark cocoon. As I bury myself into the duvet like a worm hiding down a hole I wonder how she knows of my fear; a secret I thought I'd kept well hidden, a secret that keeps me imprisoned. I can't admit it to anyone; not to my husband or mother, not even to the best friend I've known for thirty plus years. Yet my sister knows.

I'm petrified, terrified of damaging this fragile, most precious life. Since the moment my child was placed bloodied and shivering in my arms, images have run non-stop like molten rivulets through my head. I'm tormented by freeze-frame pictures spliced together like an MTV video; an adult hand smothers the rosebud lips and button nose and applies just enough pressure to stop breath; another image, the baby in the ornamental pond, struggling mutely against the hand that presses it down, tiny bubbles escaping from mouth and nostrils until the surface of the water is still. Ding dong bell; Pussy in the well.

Oh God! I must be mad! I'm physically sickened by these unbidden fantasies; a wave of nausea rises to stem these thoughts and I start to shake with fear, again.
'Louise?'
I would fake sleep but my clammy panic betrays me.
'Lou?' she persists in an urgent whisper. She walks over to the bed and the edge dips as she sits. She strokes the damp fringe off my forehead. I wonder bleakly when I last washed my hair. I can't remember. It doesn't matter anymore.

'Lou, you can do this.'
No! I really can't!
'Come on. I'll help you get through this.'

Another irony! My second-best sister, runner-up in the sibling stakes and non-starter in the baby stakes is offering her expertise. But to refuse would be like a drowning man rejecting the hand that would pull him out of the water. I summon the energy to sit up while Emma efficiently plumps the pillows behind me with her spare hand; her right still cradles her charge.

'She's asleep now. Just hold her for a little while.' I look at her in terror but Emma puts the baby into the snug of my elbow and curls my forearm around the warm body. 'Get to know her. I'll go and make you a cup of tea.'
'Don't go, Em.' The plea comes out in a hoarse whisper.

She looks back at me from the doorway. She looks different. Taller, slimmer? 'It's okay, Lou. I'll just make some tea. You're both safe.'
She trusts me and leaves.

For a few minutes I can control the rising panic; I breather slowly and deliberately, glancing at the baby's sleeping face, smooth pale cheeks and a mouth in a perfect pink O. I look closer at her trying to find a family resemblance and nearly smile when I remember how my father said all newborns resembled either prunes or Winston Churchill.

But suddenly I see her, really see her and realize that this child is angelic. I hold my breath in awe of this perfect being. Monday's child is fair of face; porcelain pure complexion, pale blusih eyelids, conch shell pink fingernails. Her hair, like a fair halo around her head, is as silky smooth as new rose petals. Beautiful, wondrous child. God forbid she come to any harm.

Then I realize that my muscles are tightening, I'm gritting my teeth. I see the fingers of my right hand clenched around the baby's small thigh. She begins to squirm in discomfort, eyelids flutter. Appalled I call Emma. She doesn't come.

Emma! Where is she? I swing my legs out of the bed gripping over more tightly onto the baby and lurch from the bedroom to the landing.
And then I freeze.

I'm standing at the top of the stairs. The immense gallery landing opens before me revealing the full expanse of the quarry tiled floor below. Midmorning sun streams through the two storey long windows, illuminating dust particles suspend in the long beams of light. I'm aware that I'm swaying slightly, closing my eyes against the glare of light that sparkles through the windows.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The banister rail to my right is waist height. I'm holding the baby in both arms now but exactly an inch above the banister rail. I wouldn't even have to lean over. Or is the banister gave way against my weight, or if I put a foot wrong on the stairs and we fall…
Down will come the baby, Cradle and all.

The baby starts to cry, I'm crushing her protectively against me as I surrender to the terror. My legs are too weak to support us, my heart squeezed and the pounding increases in my ears in the knowledge that I will fall, the law of gravity demands it. The light pierces my closed eyelids and a white glow fills my head.

Is this it? Is this how I must pay for my hubris? For having achieved everything so effortlessly? The glow of knowledge spreads through my body. With awful clarity I see myself for the flawed woman I am, one who has never had to try, never felt real need, real joy or real sorrow. Like a child I begin to make deals with God and mutter rapid promises under my breath. What can I barter? I swear I will be more humble, I vow I will cast aside worldly goods, donate to the poor, empathize with my patients. Yet even as the desperate side of me negotiates terms, the other side knows I'm unlikely to fulfil them.

I feel my head growing lighter, my ears are filled with a whooshing noise, like the one Mark and I heard so often during the fetal ultrasounds; the echoes made by the blood flowing through our baby's heart, pushing through her blood vessels and umbilical cord. The whoosh of life, we called it.

But then I have no sense of standing, only weightlessness as I float into freefall.
'Louise!' I blink my eyes open. Emma's face looms before me. 'It's okay. Let her go.'

I'm still standing at the top of the stairs but perilously close to the edge. Emma is standing two steps below, looking up at me and reaching out her arms in supplication, like a Virgin Mary statue. I look down at the baby flailing in my arms; her face is mottled and pink with the effort of crying. Emma is pushing me backwards from the edge and is trying to wrestle the baby from my grasp. 'I can't,' I stammer weakly.

'Yes, you can!' The fierceness of her tone shocks me into submission and I relinquish the child. 'For God's sake, Louise, get a grip!'

My legs give way and I slid to the floor, my back against the landing wall.
'How bloody ironic is that?' I say. 'I was gripping too hard.'

Emma gives a gasp of relieved laughter. I start to laugh as well, hysterical, then tearful. Emma cradles the baby and eases herself cross-legged onto the carpet.

'Is she okay? Have I hurt her?' I ask wiping my nose with the corner of my dressing gown. I risk a glance. The baby has grasped Emma's little finger and is sucking at it for comfort. Emma strokes the downy blonde hair with infinite tenderness.

'A little frightened, maybe. But she's fine; protected by layers of swaddling clothes and nappies.'
I put my head in my hands. 'Em, I don't know what to do.'
Emma leans against me. 'It will be okay, Lou.'
I shake my head. 'How can you say that? You just don't know.'

She sits upright and turns to face me. 'I'll tell you exactly what I do know.' Her voice is soft but authoritative and I look keenly at her; she might have an answer. Her blue eyes hold my gaze.

'Life isn't always full of happy endings- leave that to Hollywood feel good movies- mostly life is made up of contented middles. But one day you will experience the happiest moment of your life. You just don't know when. You might not even recognize it or think it particularly momentous. We rarely do. But when the pieces fall into place it will be greater than anything you've ever felt, even with Mark; remember when you were first dating? You felt constantly restless with all the anticipation of falling in love with him and knowing that you were the object of his desire?'

I sigh with the distant remembrance of it. 'Yes, it was wonderful.'
'I think you were high on lust most of the time.'
'That probably had a lot to do with it.'
'But Lou, that kind of high is the product of hormones. Just the way this kind of fear, this depression…'

'Don't try and diagnose me. I'm not depressed,' I bristle.
'Be realistic, Lou. It's all right to admit you're suffering post natal depression. Just because you're a doctor doesn't make you immune.' I grudgingly agree by saying nothing. 'But as bas as you feel, this will pass; you're not doomed to unhappiness. Moments of pure joy are out there, waiting for you.' Emma takes my hand and places it on my baby's head. Her head is so small that together my fingers and palm almost cover it entirely. I feel a pulse throb softly through the fontanel into my hand, as if she is trying to breathe her way with her heart into mine.

I look from the baby to Emma. 'How can you be so sure?'
Emma closes her eyes, sighs deeply and lets her head fall back. The sunlight catches the threads of early grey in her hair I hadn't noticed before.
'Because that belief is my best friend. I have to believe my moment of bliss is just around the corner, too. Despite everything.'
'I'm so sorry, Emma,' I say.
She opens her eyes and smiles wryly. 'Sunday's child syndrome. You can't help it. Anyway, I should apologize as well.'
'What on earth for?' I ask astonished. Emma averts her gaze and bends her head over the baby.
'For hoping you'd fail and enjoying it when you did,' she says in a flat tone.
'I'm still failing.' But even as I say this I glimpse it; a distant glimmer of hope, a cheery twinkling beacon showing me a new existence, one of happiness and calm. But it's terrifyingly long way off. 'Will you help me, Emma?'

She says nothing; a curtain of thick hair hides her face. Then a tear drops and splashes onto the baby's head, a brief baptism. Emma smoothes her hair back and looks at me, eyelashes wet with tears. Why have I waited so long to ask?
'Of course I will,' she says.

The wall of guilt and grief starts to weaken; muscles tightly clenched in fear finally begin to relax. As I shakily hold out my arms to receive my daughter, I can feel my hear surge under my ribcage.

'So this,' I say to my baby girl, 'is Joy. Maybe it's not such an ironic name.'
'Yes,' says Emma. 'And she might even be pretty once she stops looking like a prune.'


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