‘“I’ve been trying to call you for a week.” It was the midwife, a black woman with a tidy Afro. With her was another woman, white, older, tall, with a thin face and greying hair.
‘“Sorry,” I said. “I haven’t been out to put credit on my phone.”
‘The midwife and I sat down, baby on her lap. The other woman took a seat opposite. I looked at her and smiled, expecting a greeting or at least that she would introduce herself. “My colleague’s just here as a chaperone,” the midwife said, sensing my anxiety. She passed the baby back to me. “What a pretty little thing.”
‘We talked about how I changed Britney, how I fed her; I pointed out the sterilizer that cleaned her bottles. The chaperone made me nervous. Although Britney slept in a basket, when they asked me to demonstrate how I put her down, I wrapped her up and put her on the bed, next to where I slept. I looked at them and trembled, my eyes darting about.
‘“Babies are happier in a smaller space,” the midwife said.
‘“Being confined simulates the womb.” It was the first time the chaperone had spoken.
‘I boiled water and put it in Britney’s bottle, then put the bottle in cold water to speed up the cooling. I added a level scoop of infant powder to the water in the bottle. The midwife nodded and smiled. The chaperone asked, “Are you not lactating?”
‘About then, Britney woke up. She had a powerful cry. Luckily, I had just done a bottle, so I fed her.
‘“Funny, isn’t it,” I said as I finished the feed, “you put it in one end and it comes straight out the other.”
‘I undressed the baby — it’s no easy thing pulling those vests off her head, especially when you’re being watched. I took off the nappy and cleaned her. The midwife stopped me there to examine the baby’s bottom. The chaperone narrowed her eyes and peered closely at the baby. “Ecchymosis, discrete patch, one centimetre, lateral right thigh.”
‘“It’s nothing to worry about,” the midwife reassured me. “I’ll book you in at the doctor’s this afternoon.”
‘You might wonder how I remember all this? It was written up later, like a play, every detail and word spoken. I’ve read the documents a hundred times.
‘At the doctor’s, there were two other people in the consulting room. They sat against a wall. The doctor described one as a student and another as a chaperone.
‘I put Britney on his couch and undressed her. He looked at the baby’s thigh for about one second, turned her over, ran his eyes over her and shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, Miss Booth, just keep an eye on her.”
‘On the way home, I put credit on my phone.’
Grace nudges up to me for comfort. There is a bottle of water on the bedside table; I use it to wet the dried tea towels around her neck. She screeches at the cold water but keeps still. Slowly I peel away each layer, exposing a small clotted triangular wound bordered by multiple grazes. Like a child she gazes at me, grateful.
I settle back so that we’re now lying side by side. Taking a lock of her hair, I twist it between my fingers until it pulls her scalp. She grits her teeth, unwilling to vocalize her pain.
She kicks away the duvet, her legs rubbing against one another like scissor blades. She pulls her nightdress up to her waist, exposing the dark hairy triangle of her cunt. It might be an invitation but it amplifies her vulnerability. It cheapens her in some way. At the same time, I am grateful. It is an offer to my ego. She knows I won’t act on it, and so do I.
Closing my eyes, I remember the moment when the cane vendor pulled the trigger. A slow-motion spark at the tip of his rifle. My knee buckles underneath me and I fall, and before I hit the dusty ground, I see a shower of glass tumblers ping into the air, and the flimsy wooden cart fall to pieces, and the cane vendor himself pinned to the spot with fire, peppered by Lieutenant Lovell and what remained of his troop. Trigger-happy ISAF and thousands of rounds of 7.62. ISAF hated to lose.
Lieutenant Lovell was in love with Second Lieutenant Coates. She was a Black Country lass and had a soft spot for me, for Adrian too. Lovell, engrossed in his wireless conversation with his lover, had let Adrian and me detach ourselves from the troop and felt bad. You look after your own in Terry country, and that, combined with his soppy state of mind, meant that the worst he would say was that after the shock of Adrian’s death I’d had a moment of temporary insanity. I had paid for it too, with my knee, or so read his report. Recommend honourable discharge. With that, a wodge of compensation was credited to my bank account.
I was in rehab for months. They depressed me, the cheerful amputees and flirty nursing staff. I mourned Adrian and blamed myself. I was the sergeant, and although Lovell’s report was kind, I knew I had been reckless and led him into danger. I lived mostly in a daze, lost day to day in my own self-recriminations, and so, when finally I came to leave rehab, naturally I went home with my parents.
They had fixed me a bed in the guest room downstairs, but I wasn’t having that. I managed to hobble up and down the stairs. It was really only then, through the enforced exercise, that I learnt, albeit with my own peculiar gait, to walk again. I was tricked, but I was complicit, if not as a participant then at least as a silent observer. I had returned for want of a warm and familiar bed, and even that, my sole comfort, was soon to be shared with a stranger from the mother country.
Of the ceremony I don’t remember much, except that it was conducted in our house, and that it was short, with only my parents and an imam present. We ate, the men in the living room and the women separately upstairs. I had hardly finished my meal when my mother came down. ‘Now you go.’ She pointed to the stairs. I looked over at the imam, who had just shovelled in a mouthful of biryani. He raised his eyes, the rice spilling from his lips.
My new wife, Azra, still in her wedding dress, lay flat on her back on my bed. A veil covered her face, behind which her eyes were screwed tightly shut. For a minute I stood over her, watching the rise and fall of her small chest, barely perceptible, like a precious thing wrapped inside a blood-red shroud.
Mum and I had been mesmerized at first sight by the dress Azra now wore. We had seen it on a mannequin in a shop window. Azra was still in Pakistan at the time. The dress was red with gold brocade around the neckline, cuffs and ankle-length hemline. It was studded with dazzling glass beads arranged to form roses. The owner of the shop wouldn’t haggle on the price, and in protest my mother had walked out, leaving me alone, surrounded on all sides by beautiful, alluring mannequin brides, their toenails painted red. I was alone with the shop owner, her foot tapping impatiently on the floor. I dug my hands into my money belt and reluctantly counted out the price she demanded.
Now I slid into bed, nudging against my bride. The glass roses of Azra’s dress dug roughly into my chest. I pressed harder, defying the tiny pinpricks of pain, strangely hoping I might draw blood.
Earlier she had sat resplendent beside me on our sofa as the imam had conducted the short ceremony. Before that I had seen her once only, covered from head to toe in her black burqa. Trembling beside her on our wedding day, I dared not look at her, staring instead at the row of gold bangles on her arm. As she leant forward to sign the documents, a dot of gold glinted on her nose but the rest of her face was obscured by a long silken veil. Her long slim hands were clad in thin white gloves, and her feet in narrow sandals protruded from beneath the dress, the nails painted red.
But in bed with Azra now, the dress took on a new meaning. It represented a cold scratchy barrier between my new bride and me. Through the barrier I reached for the soft bulge of her breasts, and felt her chest arch with a long intake of breath. I felt myself harden, every muscle in my body contracting towards my groin, and from the tip of my penis I felt an escape of something wet. Was I supposed to help her out of the dress? It must hurt, I thought, the beaded fabric pressed between her body and the mattress. My hand ran down her flat belly, pulled up the skirt and reached for a drawstring that tied under-trousers at her waist.