Chapter Two


At The Beach

Debbie sat on the beach. To all outward appearances she was relaxing and enjoying the warm sea air.
“My life is a contradiction,” she thought.
“How could I feel so lonely? My baby is growing and moving inside me, I have a husband who says he loves me, and I have the support of my friends.”
Oddly she felt remote and disconnected from all of them, like everything was on hold. Like a spectator watching and waiting for the game to begin.
She tried to see her baby in her mind but could imagine no more than a generic picture like the kind you see in magazines, scan photographs. Do all babies in the womb look so alike?
She thought about her husband, Sean, and their marriage. What was going on? Something vital had changed. Nothing remarkable had happened, but something was not right.
They had stopped communicating. They were talking, but the language had changed from familiar, easy and comfortable, to brief and distant, like an invisible screen had been lowered between them.
The change was recent, she thought.
A few months ago, twelve weeks to be exact, they had spent a week in Cumbria together. The weather had been awful, but that had not seemed to matter at all.
It had been a perfect week of romance and indulgence. They had laughed like teenagers, and made plans for the future.
The changes in Sean’s behaviour were since then, she was sure of it.
What had happened? Was she no longer attractive to him? It was certainly difficult to feel attractive while heavily pregnant, or was there something more? Had she unwittingly changed her own behaviour, or was it him?
As Debbie reflected her memory dealt her a series of shuffled snapshots of her relationship with Sean these past few months.
One by one events and feelings, which when viewed singly appeared insignificant, collectively began to create a different picture. From this new picture frightening possibilities emerged, like spectres.
She closed her eyes, but there was no place to hide. The spectres took form. They would not go away.
He was coming home late from work and spending more and more time at the computer, or going for long walks alone. It was true she was no longer up to the kind of walks they used to enjoy, but he had failed to come up with a compromise, suggesting Debbie should take the opportunity to put her feet up. He would walk alone.
He was not sleeping well. Often, when Debbie went to the bathroom during the night his side of the bed was empty and the light glared thinly through gaps around the office door. If she went in he closed the page he was working on.
“Just doing a bit of catching up,” he would say turning his face from the bright computer screen, his expression as secret as the dark side of the moon.
Debbie could feel the courage and self-confidence woven around her life wane.
She realised it was all far from perfect.
And it was now, with the beginning of her maternity leave, she had time during her day to wonder. Debbie could see that for the past three months she had been sleep walking through her life. She had not seen and she had not thought, until now.
Today was the day Debbie realised there was something wrong in her marriage.
The day was pleasant, with a clear sky and a warm breeze.
She sat on her sweater, on the sand, her back against the white solid rocks that formed part of the reinforcement erected to hold back the tides; the potential failure of which was evident in the skeletal roots of desperate trees locked in exposed clay along the coastline.
Scooter, her black Labrador, sat at her feet the warm sun on his old back generating a familiar doggy odour that was tempered with the salty breeze.
She brushed the grains of sand from her tanned legs and carelessly aimed a small pebble at an abandoned sand castle, missing it by a metre. Scooter, conservative in his responses, raised one lethargic ear.
Scattered about the beach, like spots of rainbow coloured paint from a shaken brush, people, young and old, enjoyed the afternoon. All shades, from white to dark and suntanned flesh emerged from vivid beachwear, exposing body parts that in any other setting would have been carefully hidden. Voices, laughter and cries detached by space and distance, were carried on the air.
Last week Debbie had finished work. She had anticipated delight in having some time she could call her own, for a short while anyway.
Instead she found there were too many things to think about, beside her marriage. The responsibility of bringing a baby into the world, and the forthcoming labour and birth held many fears.
The cost of becoming a mother was measured in more ways than just financial.
And her body, all of the 36 pounds she had gained in weight seemed to be around her middle; would she ever be the same again? How could she be?
She had no experience of handling a baby. ‘Clueless’ was how she had described herself to her colleagues, and she meant it.
“You’ll soon pick it up,” her boss, the mother of three boys had told her. “There’s no better way to learn than practical experience.”
The closer her expected date became the more fearful Debbie became. Sometimes she dreamt about it. They were strange colourful dreams.
She wondered how it could be, that despite the countless experiences of other women, their descriptions, their stories, and with everything she had ever been told or had read about it; the prospect of giving birth remained an enigma, mysterious, frightening and exciting.
Sometimes she wished to know what it will really be like. Sometimes she thought she would rather not know.
“Stop winding yourself up Debbie,” she was talking to herself again.
She tried to enjoy the scene, to relax. The sand felt warm and gritty under her bare and swollen feet. Her toes were like cocktail sausages with painted pink tips. Helen had painted her toenails for her, and she had painted Helen’s. The stray dot of pink varnish at the base of her big toe was a reminder of Helen’s laughter, which caused her to miss the nail.
Finishing work, in Debbie’s plans, was a marking point, a stage further.
It was so frustrating. The promise of days like today with the idea of peace and relaxation had kept Debbie going all through those weeks of feeling mentally and physically too tired, almost, to go on.
The time for having her baby was drawing near, yet where was the joy she had anticipated?
Instead waves of sadness threatened to drown everything.
It was something Chrissy had said, that had triggered Debbie’s feelings of concern for her marriage.
Debbie tried to remember. She wanted to clarify her thoughts and make sense of things.
She directed her thoughts back to their meeting earlier that day, in the restaurant.
Lost in thought, Debbie was attempting to recall Chrissie’s words when just in front of her a small boy, aged about four or five, was knocked off his feet by an exuberant collie chasing a ball. Debbie struggled to her feet as quickly as she could; although it was impossible to move with any speed.
She reached the boy and leant over him.
“Are you all right?”
He looked up at her and she could see that he was struggling to hold back the tears pooling in his astonishingly clear blue eyes.
“Let me help you. I’m sure that dog didn’t mean to knock you over he was so busy having fun.”
The boy nodded and attempted a smile while raising his arm for a lift up to his feet.
Debbie smiled back, then, when he was standing ruffled his black hair while resisting an urge to hug him.
“Any damage?” she asked; he shook his head but rubbed his arm nevertheless.
The boy eyed Debbie with curiosity.
“Have you - have you got a baby in there?” he asked. His small hand moved towards Debbie’s stomach.
“Yes I have.”
He looked up with wondering eyes, gazing over the span of her stomach into her face, and asked,
“Can you tell me something?”
“Of course,” Debbie replied.
“How did the baby get in there?”
Debbie was speechless. Her wordless mouth opened and closed more than once, while a number of explanations swam through her thoughts, only to drown during their faltering attempts to surface. Finally she decided that avoidance would save her.
“I’m sure your mummy will tell you if you ask her,” she said.
“My mummy is in heaven.”
Again the boy had confounded her. Debbie was unsure how to respond but managed a whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll explain it to you, Jonathan - later.”
The voice, very close to her, startled Debbie. She hadn’t heard his approach on the soft sand. She turned to look at the man who had come to join them, to discover she was at a disadvantage; she was standing in his shadow. He was tall and the sun was in Debbie’s eyes. She tried to make out his features.
His hair was dark and his eyes smiled. This much she could tell.
“What do you say to the kind lady, Jonathan?
I’m Michael Powel, Jonathan’s father.”
“Debbie, Debbie Johnson.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.”
As they shook hands he held Debbie’s briefly. He seemed to be studying her. For a moment Debbie felt uncomfortable with this, but he seemed pleasant enough and the discomfort vanished quickly.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Thank you,” Jonathan whispered.
Michael Powel turned his attention to the boy.
“Are you all right, did you hurt yourself?”
“No, erm, just my arm a little bit.”
He bent down to look at his son’s arm and gave him a hug.
Debbie smiled down at Jonathan.
Scooter nudged her leg with his dry nose.
“Goodbye Jonathan,” she said and then to his father,
“Goodbye Mr Powel.”
She turned and walked away, then smiling back at them and waving casually she waddled in the most graceful way she could, shoeless, on the soft sand, and 37 weeks pregnant, conscious of two pairs of smiling eyes following her.
She collected her bag and shoes and walked off the beach. Scooter waddled after her.