barely conscious when they took her in.
‘Next day she was awake and lucid. I held her hand.
‘“I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m sorry,” she kept saying over and over again. Apparently it had been going on for months. “There was something there,” she says
to me one night, “I could see us together where no one could hurt us, where we were forever like we were before. All I had to do was keep running. If I kept running I knew we were both
safe.”
‘The doctors reckoned she’d been running well over a hundred and fifty miles a week, most of them late at night while I was sleeping. Her body eventually just gave out. Just like
that.’
He clicked his finger and took the whistling kettle from the stove.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. He made the coffee and handed me a mug.
‘I see her every day at the hospital, but she looks through me. “I used to love you, didn’t I?” she says sometimes when I see her. “But I could never run far
enough, could I? If I could run for ever, I’d find you again.”
‘They don’t think she’ll ever come back. It’s in the blood, apparently. Her aunt’s locked up in San Diego, convinced that Nixon’s put out a hit on her. Her
grandfather went crazy too, in the war, poor bastard.’
He blew on his mug of coffee. ‘Now isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?’ he said and gave out a low laugh. I thought of Helen’s body in the smashed car,
the blood, Lou Lou in the blue bottle. We drank in silence, then O’Neil woke up, looking confused like it wasn’t the room he was expecting. He looked at the clock and then at his watch.
It was late.
‘We should be making a move, Rob,’ he said. ‘We got meetings first thing.’
‘Thanks, Charlie,’ I said.
‘Yeah, thanks, Uncle Charlie.’
‘It’s my pleasure. See you boys soon, I hope,’ Charlie said.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow.’
Eclipse
Our baby cries, so I put him to my breast; his mouth greedy like his father. He is seven months old, but will not take to the bottle: instead he clings to me. Sometimes I
wonder if it will ever end, and imagine him a grown man with sharp teeth biting on my sore-swollen nipples; and this makes me both laugh and shiver. He has his father’s face then, the same
eyes that hooked me the first time.
Everything now smells of spilled milk, talcum powder and nappies. This is what he tells me, and I believe him; though since the birth I’ve not caught the scent of anything at all. He could
have started smoking again for all I know – the decision to quit was his and his alone – or he could have stopped washing. Or he could be coming home night after night smelling strongly
of his lover. He could stink of her sweat and her perfume. His breath could hum with the taste of her and I wouldn’t know. Maybe this is some kind of trade-off: my son for one of my
senses.
He fell in love with her on the 15th of September. This was almost exactly two months before I fell pregnant. How I knew, I can’t say. It just flashed before me, like
ticker tape, as he took a bottle of wine from the fridge: he has fallen deeply, madly in love. That radiance you get when pregnant is nothing to the sheen that comes with such passion and devotion.
It burned through him like an eclipse: beautiful, but dangerous to look upon.
The desire for motherhood came to me by stealth; for years I’d had no maternal feelings at all, preferring the company of cats to children. Mal seemed happy with this. But
as children proliferated around us, our friends succumbing one by one, I couldn’t quite fight the tugging inside, the slight hesitation as I passed back babies to their beaming parents. When
I decided, I was thirty-nine; Mal thirty-five. It was not something we discussed. Instead I threw away my contraceptive pills and got us started that very afternoon.
We had been trying for six months; a half year of thermometers, cycles and bored, routine sex. After he found
‘Next day she was awake and lucid. I held her hand.
‘“I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m sorry,” she kept saying over and over again. Apparently it had been going on for months. “There was something there,” she says
to me one night, “I could see us together where no one could hurt us, where we were forever like we were before. All I had to do was keep running. If I kept running I knew we were both
safe.”
‘The doctors reckoned she’d been running well over a hundred and fifty miles a week, most of them late at night while I was sleeping. Her body eventually just gave out. Just like
that.’
He clicked his finger and took the whistling kettle from the stove.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. He made the coffee and handed me a mug.
‘I see her every day at the hospital, but she looks through me. “I used to love you, didn’t I?” she says sometimes when I see her. “But I could never run far
enough, could I? If I could run for ever, I’d find you again.”
‘They don’t think she’ll ever come back. It’s in the blood, apparently. Her aunt’s locked up in San Diego, convinced that Nixon’s put out a hit on her. Her
grandfather went crazy too, in the war, poor bastard.’
He blew on his mug of coffee. ‘Now isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?’ he said and gave out a low laugh. I thought of Helen’s body in the smashed car,
the blood, Lou Lou in the blue bottle. We drank in silence, then O’Neil woke up, looking confused like it wasn’t the room he was expecting. He looked at the clock and then at his watch.
It was late.
‘We should be making a move, Rob,’ he said. ‘We got meetings first thing.’
‘Thanks, Charlie,’ I said.
‘Yeah, thanks, Uncle Charlie.’
‘It’s my pleasure. See you boys soon, I hope,’ Charlie said.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow.’
Eclipse
Our baby cries, so I put him to my breast; his mouth greedy like his father. He is seven months old, but will not take to the bottle: instead he clings to me. Sometimes I
wonder if it will ever end, and imagine him a grown man with sharp teeth biting on my sore-swollen nipples; and this makes me both laugh and shiver. He has his father’s face then, the same
eyes that hooked me the first time.
Everything now smells of spilled milk, talcum powder and nappies. This is what he tells me, and I believe him; though since the birth I’ve not caught the scent of anything at all. He could
have started smoking again for all I know – the decision to quit was his and his alone – or he could have stopped washing. Or he could be coming home night after night smelling strongly
of his lover. He could stink of her sweat and her perfume. His breath could hum with the taste of her and I wouldn’t know. Maybe this is some kind of trade-off: my son for one of my
senses.
He fell in love with her on the 15th of September. This was almost exactly two months before I fell pregnant. How I knew, I can’t say. It just flashed before me, like
ticker tape, as he took a bottle of wine from the fridge: he has fallen deeply, madly in love. That radiance you get when pregnant is nothing to the sheen that comes with such passion and devotion.
It burned through him like an eclipse: beautiful, but dangerous to look upon.
The desire for motherhood came to me by stealth; for years I’d had no maternal feelings at all, preferring the company of cats to children. Mal seemed happy with this. But
as children proliferated around us, our friends succumbing one by one, I couldn’t quite fight the tugging inside, the slight hesitation as I passed back babies to their beaming parents. When
I decided, I was thirty-nine; Mal thirty-five. It was not something we discussed. Instead I threw away my contraceptive pills and got us started that very afternoon.
We had been trying for six months; a half year of thermometers, cycles and bored, routine sex. After he found
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