The Lies We Told(65)

It was 1980. The use of IVF, or ‘test-tube babies’ as we called them then, had hardly begun; it was considered an almost freakish thing in those days, ‘weird science’. It certainly wasn’t available to someone like me and wouldn’t be for years. Perhaps, eventually, I would have come to terms with it all; perhaps I would have gone on to happily adopt like many millions of couples do. But I was very far from that state of mind back then: it was like a physical, desperate need that was bigger than myself, that I couldn’t control or contain.

That particular morning, the morning of the baby who was taken into care, I fled from the delivery room and shut myself in the first store cupboard I came to. I clasped my hands to my mouth but I couldn’t help it; I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. And then the door opened and to my horror Rose Lawson walked in, absorbed in a list she held in her hand, presumably of supplies she was after. She stood stock-still when she saw me. ‘Beth?’ she said, astonished. ‘What on earth’s the matter? What’s happened?’

I couldn’t speak, and it was so like her to do what she did next. She didn’t say another word and as though it were the most natural thing in the world she walked over to me and hugged me. Such an instinctively kind thing to do, I’ve never forgotten it. I cried and cried until the shoulder of her white coat was sodden and bit by bit she got it all out of me.

‘Beth, I’m so very sorry,’ she said, and I could tell that she was. Someone tried to come in but she put her foot against the door and said in a grand sort of voice, ‘This one’s taken, thank you very much. Try the next one!’ and then she winked at me and I laughed. She talked so much sense that morning, she was so gentle and comforting. ‘Listen, my love,’ she said, ‘I know things feel very, very bleak right now, but you will be a lovely mum one day, I know you will. You’re still so very young. In a year, or two years, things will look different, you’ll see.’ The words would have sounded like platitudes on anyone else’s lips, and I suppose they were, but nevertheless they did help because I could tell she meant them, and having someone like her saying them did make me feel less hopeless about it all.

After that day, whenever I passed her in the wards, or saw her in the canteen or the tea room or whatever, she would make a point of stopping me, to ask how I was and put a hand on my arm. It was nice, supportive – I didn’t feel any better about my situation, but I did feel less alone.

And then something entirely unexpected happened that solidified our friendship – or our connection, I suppose you’d call it – even further. Because I had grown used to looking out for her, taking special notice when she was on shift at the same time as me, a few months later when I was back on the paediatric ward I noticed a change in her. She’d always taken such good care of her appearance – beautifully cut and coloured hair, lovely make-up, nice clothes – but suddenly she seemed to let herself go entirely. She’d turn up to work looking haggard and ill, her clothes crumpled, her face lined with tiredness, as though she hadn’t slept in days. There was clearly something very wrong, but I felt too shy to ask – it would have seemed too forward, I think.

A few weeks later, however, I came across her in the Ladies. I was washing my hands at the sink when she came out of one of the cubicles, her eyes red and raw as though she’d been crying. ‘Oh,’ I said before I could stop myself, ‘Rose, are you all right?’

She went to a sink as though she hadn’t heard me, and then stared down at the running water without moving. I didn’t know what to do. After a while I put a hand on her arm. ‘Rose? Is there anything the matter? Can I help?’

She looked up, as though she hadn’t known I was there. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘oh, Beth. I’m – no – I’m fine,’ but then she started to cry.

‘Rose, what’s happened?’ I said.

She waved me away. ‘No, no, please, don’t be kind. Please, I couldn’t bear it.’ She pulled a hand towel from the dispenser and put it to her face, then gave a half laugh through her tears. ‘Ridiculous. I can’t seem to stop crying. Oh please ignore me, Beth, you’re very kind. It’s just I have no one to talk to, no one at all.’

‘But I’m sure you have lots of friends,’ I said, surprised.

‘Oh yes,’ she agreed dispiritedly. ‘I’m very lucky.’ And then she whispered, ‘I just feel so ashamed.’

‘Well you could tell me,’ I coaxed, ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone.’

It was then that she broke down and began to cry as though her heart was broken. ‘Oh, Beth, it’s such an awful mess.’

On impulse I put my arms around her, just as she had done to me all those weeks before. ‘What am I going to do?’ she said. ‘What on earth am I going to do?’

And then she told me what was wrong, how Oliver had confessed to having an affair with one of his students at the university. ‘She’s nineteen,’ Rose said. ‘Nineteen! He said it just happened, that it got out of control, that he’d tried to end it but she became obsessed with him. He says she’s unstable, that he hadn’t realized how fragile she is and that … that he’s sorry, and …’ she broke down again, too distraught to go on.

‘Oh,’ I whispered. ‘Oh Rose, I’m so sorry.’