Page 21 of The First Time I Saw You
The run has cleared my head. I take a shower, clear up, put the kettle on and carry a parcel from Mam into the lounge. Tearing it open, I smile at the contents: another food package. Bisto gravy granules are resting on top of a packet of McVitie’s chocolate digestives – simple things that you can’t find over here. I eat a biscuit in three mouthfuls and then go back to my laptop. I check my email account for replies from the messages I’ve been sending to as many of her colleagues as I can track down. I scratch the back of my head as I re-read a sentence from an email that I’ve had from someone called Gemma. ‘Have you tried her sister?’ it reads. I rub my hand over the rough stubble on my chin . . . I remember her sister was called Helen, but apart from that, I don’t have any more information about her. I rattle off a quick email to Gemma, asking if she happens to know Helen’s surname or address. I hit send, then check the Sandwell website again for any mention of Sophie. I’m certain she would be going for another job in finance; she seemed too strong to just let this setback stop her. As I begin to scour through the financial newspapers, I ignore my dry mouth which should have been quenched by the tea I’d intended to make.
Instead, I settle myself away from the desk and on the sofa. Leaning backwards to reach for a pen from the desk behind me, I start circling jobs that she might be interested in, making a list of the office names, websites and phone numbers.
A ping from behind me lets me know I have an email. I get up, lean over the desk and click the mouse on the icon. It’s from Gemma: she thinks the sister’s name is Helen Yates.
I wander back to Mam’s hamper, rip open a packet of ‘Tayto’ crisps and begin searching for Helen Yates. I pinch my finger along the crease of the crisp packet and aim the tip of the crease into my mouth, sliding the remaining fragments into my mouth. There are hundreds of Helen Yateses: Helen Yates’ hairdressing; Helen Yates Isle of Man; Helen Yates tattooist. I screw up the crisp packet and throw it across the room towards the bin – it hits the side, but the shot falls short. I turn back to the screen. I need more than a name; she could be anywhere.
My neck cracks as I rotate it from side to side, then I realise that Helen Yates is probably her married name. I hit the keys and enter Helen Williams into the search bar. I scroll through the results, but again I’m left with nothing. My mouth is parched from the salted crisps, and my eyes feel dry from looking at the computer monitor for so long. I get up and walk to the window. The wind is playing with the leaves on the ground like a spoilt child, picking things up and throwing them down. The sun is setting, the blaze of it surrendering to the eagerness of the night, darkness pushing into the scene, demanding its spot in the limelight. I draw the curtains and head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. My feet tread along the hall, the noise from the wind outside whistling through the gaps in the walls, my feet sticking slightly to the hardwood as I step through the door, pausing to reach my hand to the wall and flicking on the light switch.
I’m momentarily distracted by a sound: like an elderly man taking in his last breath. And then I’m hit by a ball of white-hot light. The feeling is less of being thrown from the room than of being pushed out; I think of the leaves outside as my feet leave the floor, my body tossed from the room, my head cracking against something hard.
I’m on the rugby pitch; I’ve been tackled hard. My breath is short, and I’m paralysed by the shock of the impact. The noise of the stadium roars in my ears. My face is pushed into the grass, but as I breathe, I can’t smell it; instead I can smell smoke. Get up, Sammy, you great eejit. It’s Da, but what is he doing on the pitch? I try to move but I can’t; pain screams from my leg, from my head. The captain is having it out with the ref, Irish voices calling for a penalty. Get up, Sammy Boy. This time it’s Bret. Something isn’t right; Bret shouldn’t be here, Bret should be in DC. DC. I’m in Washington DC. I’m at home looking for Sophie.
As though I’ve hit the rewind button on the remote, I watch as my hand leaves the light switch, I see myself reversing back through the hall, into the lounge, I open the curtains: the leaves are still playing, I smile, I walk backwards to the computer, the crisp packet flies from the side of the bin back into my hand, I walk backwards to the table, I rummage in the parcel, I reverse back into the kitchen, I turn on the gas, I put the kettle on top of the stove, I watch myself rewind up the stairs and into the bathroom for a shower. Then I stop, press play and watch as I walk back down the stairs, into the kitchen, turn on the gas and place the kettle on top of the stove. I turn the knob that is always sticking. The knob that I’ve been meaning to fix. And then I walk out of the kitchen . . . the lighter still sitting in the kitchen drawer, unused.
I try to open my eyes.
I’m screaming. I can hear my voice. I can feel the heat.
Then I feel nothing.
Week Six
Sophie
It doesn’t feel like the same day. This morning seems like a lifetime ago and so does the car crash, and yet just two hours have passed. How can my life have changed so dramatically in such a short space of time? Six months ago, I had a job. Six months ago, I was a successful thirty-year-old who knew exactly where she was going and with whom: six months ago, I wasn’t pregnant.
‘If I just . . . Ah, there we go. See that little blinking light? That’s baby’s heartbeat.’ The technician turns the screen towards me and smiles. A real smile, one of those smiles that reaches every part of the face. I try to replicate this gesture, to smooth out the muscles of my cheeks and stretch out the frown that I can feel is corrugating my eyebrows into uneven arcs. She notices – or is perhaps hit by – my expression and I watch as the radiance from her face leaks out of her, and I’m filled with immediate remorse, that the deep crevices of my forehead can have such a destructive impact. She clears her throat, pushes her black-framed glasses further up her small, button nose and returns her gaze to the screen. ‘Here is the yolk sac, and if I just measure the heartbeat . . . there we go, one hundred and fifteen beats per minute, nice and strong.’
‘Oh,’ I reply. I know this word – not even a word, really, more a sound that you make if you suddenly realise that you’ve run out of milk – does not explain my feelings correctly. I know it is insubstantial and yet it is the only word that I can say. ‘Oh,’ I repeat as I attempt to swallow some saliva, but my mouth is dry. ‘Oh, I, I didn’t know there would be a, a . . .’ I look into the hopeful eyes of the technician but my startled reflection glares back at me through her lenses, ‘. . . yolk sac,’ is my disappointing conclusion. It’s as though I have shot her. I can see the colour drain from her flushed cheeks. I try again.Come on, you can do better.‘So, I guess I’m like a chicken?’ I inject some humour into the situation, but my tone is flat, and my sentence comes out as a statement rather than a question.
It’s strange to me that I’m able to function at this level when I’ve just found out this news. I can’t even find the right adjective to describe my reaction (distraught? overjoyed? confused?), let alone understand why I am functioning, why I’m able to consider the technician’s feelings when I am so filled with emotions but at the same time so devoid of them.
‘Would you like a picture?’ I’m momentarily confused and think that she wants me to grin into a camera, but then I understand that she’s talking about the thing on the screen: the swirl of greys that has a heartbeat.
‘Er, I guess?’ Again, her face looks as though it’s about to crumble, like I’ve just told her that Santa isn’t real. ‘Yes, of course, that would be perfect.’ I hear my voice reply, but it seems to be speaking a language that I don’t understand, a language, I suppose, of motherhood.
She smiles at that and I stare at the screen again until the the picture disappears.
The car is a mess, and one side is beyond repair, but it still turns over and will get me to Helen’s.
Deep down, I knew something was wrong . . . I think about the image on the screen, think about the heartbeat: nice and strong. Perhaps ‘wrong’ is not the right word to use? Something was different? That’s better. I knew that something was different.
The car and I limp our way along the roads. We ignore the toots from angry horns as they overtake, laughing at the state of us: one wiper working, an all but flat tyre on the passenger side and a painful screeching sound coming from the engine, until, with relief, we arrive at Helen’s house.
‘Where the hell have you been?!’ Helen exclaims, as she envelops me in a fried-onion-smelling embrace.
‘Long story,’ I mutter into her hair.
‘Where is your stuff?’
‘Can I use your loo first before you give me twenty questions?’
‘Yes, come in, you look awful.’
‘Toilet first, Hel, explanations later.’
‘Right, yes. OK. Kids will be back in an hour!’ she shouts behind my retreating back as I rush up the stairs, past the chaotic array of family photos that pose and grin at me from the walls, and into the bathroom. I dig around in my bag for the test that I bought from the pharmacy and pull down my jeans. Sitting down on the toilet, I tear open the white wrapper with my teeth, take the plastic end from the white stick and wave it in the vicinity of my urine which I can no longer contain.
