Losing Faith

Losing Faith

When Verity found herself pregnant at 17 she thought her world had come to an end. She hid it from everyone. She wouldn't even admit it to herself until the morning sickness got so bad she had to stay off school. Her Mum had found her in the bathroom and given her one of those looks that said a thousand words that only Mums can give: don't go telling me you have food poisoning; you've only got yourself to blame if you drank to much at that party; you can't keep doing this if you want to get the grades for that university place you're after, but then the tears had welled in Verity's eyes and spilled silently down her cheeks as she slowly shook her head,
       "Mum, I..."
        She hadn't needed to say any more. Mrs Shine was a no-nonsense body of practicality with a soft caramel centre and she could not bare to see her daughter's distress. She knelt on the floor and wrapped her arms about her daughter's shaking shoulders and held her through her tears until they ran dry. She did not ask the inane questions: What were you thinking? How did this happen?Who is the Father?; Who did this to you?  It didn't matter. They would get through this together.
       "Dry your eyes my darling, crying won't change anything now. Tell me what you want and we will try and make it happen, together."
It was easier then, knowing she had her Mother's support, knowing she was not alone.
        Verity had assumed she would lose every bit of the future that she had imagined, A'levels, university, a Summer in Europe backpacking with her friends, a Gap year but now she could talk through her options everything felt more possible. She went into school with her Mum and they spoke with the head master . He agreed that she could stay on until the end of the Spring term and sit her mocks at school and everyone had home study in the Summer so she just needed to come in to sit the exams. Her chosen Universities were expecting her to take a gap year so that gave her some time to consider her options. verity was beginning to see a way back to her chosen path. With her Mothers support she had gone from feeling like her world had caved in, to feeling that she could manage her A'levels and,  although it might be delayed, University was still possible. Through all her fears and doubts her Mum had kept urging her to "have a little faith" and she was beginning to.
        Her time came two weeks after her last exam. Her waters broke in the supermarket car park and the contractions began soon after. They came hard and fast and Verity was scared.
        "Mum, I can't do this, make it stop."
        "Have a little faith. I believe in you Verity" she had said.
Verity had taken comfort as much from the words as from her Mum's calm supporting presence and hours later her daughter had been safely delivered into a room thick with euphoria. Verity turned to her Mum, tears of joy shining in both their eyes and said "Mum, meet your Grandaughter, I have a little Faith."
        The Summer went by in a blur of love, nappies and sleep deprivation and Verity found she did not envy her friends their trip around Europe. She could not imagine wanting to miss a moment with Faith, she was growing so fast.  Mrs Shine encouraged her to take an Assistants job that had come up at the local library two days a week. She was more than happy to look after Faith and what is more, she understood how important it was for Verity to have something other than Faith to talk about with her peers who couldn't really relate to the all consuming nature of motherhood. She did so well in the post that by Christmas the Head Librarian, Val, had convinced her to enrol for the undergraduate degree in Librarianship with the Open University. Faith was doing well and sleeping better now she was on solids, so Verity studied at home in the evenings and once a week went to the Adult Education Centre leaving her Mum to babysit. She  was still hoping to take up her place at The University of York to do English and art History the following September, looking forward to sharing a flat with Millie, childcare permitting and this would help get her back into the frame of mind for studying and,  post graduation, may even provide a job.
      She was surprised how much she enjoyed the course and it was great being a student again. She had been nervous of people's preconceptions of her as a 'teenage Mum' but she found that almost everyone at the Adult Education Centre was open minded.  They were a rag-tag bunch; a school dropout; an Art Historian; an ex-Accountant searching for something new; a young widow trying to make ends meet, and then there was Jez. He was a little older than Verity, mid twenties, but they were on the same wavelength and hit it off instantly. She found herself looking forward to seeing him, wishing to share thoughts and ideas with him. Verity found herself making an extra effort, dressing carefully for the class, applying just a little makeup. Her Mum sat quietly and noticed the change hoping that her daughter's new found glow and confidence would be held carefully by it's new custodian. Things seemed  to be getting back to normal.
       The course at the college came to an end and the group arranged an informal graduation celebration.
      "You look beautiful" Mrs Shine said, "and whatever happens you have Faith now, don't you. I'll see you later." It had become sort of a joke between them now, 'having faith', as if she had found religion, and so she had in a way because she could believe anything was possible when she looked at her beautiful baby girl. Verity breathed in the fresh bath smell of her and kissed Faith's rosy cheeks. She was a little hot, but she was having a tough time breaking through her bottom teeth.  " I'll kiss you in your dreams sweetheart. Look after Grandma."
      "We'll be fine darling. Us girls are both going to have a snuggle with Trunky and a story and then an early night. You have a lovely time."
       Verity had enjoyed the evening with her misfit of friends. It had felt good to be young and free that evening, to feel that the world was hers to command and that anything was possible. She was flushed with success and with the attention Jez was putting her way, especially after he linked his hand with hers beneath the table and brushed his thumb over her palm. It seemed like a promise of things to come.  They had kissed that night as they parted and she had known it was a first kiss not a last one. She was floating on air as she undid the latch and walked up the stairs to bed. All the lights were out and there was a gentle insistent snore to be heard from behind her mothers door. She went to the bathroom and looked at her reflection wondering if she could see the glow of desire on her face that she felt at her core.She went across the landing and creaked open the nursery door to kiss Faith in her dreams.
         Only the room felt wrong somehow. Too still.
         Mrs Shine would never forget that terrible scream for as long as she lived. It broke her heart to think of the pain her daughter held within her that night as they realised they had lost Faith. The following weeks were unimaginably dreadful and everything seemed so irrelevant next to the gaping hole left by Faiths absence. The cruel nature of cot death was that there was no one to blame, no reason, nothing they could have done. It was a game of Russian Roulette with the Grim Reaper. Slowly, but slowly, they started to go through the motions of everyday life again, always accompanied by the emptiness that echoed inside them. Verity had deferred her University place uptake for another year on personal grounds and the Dean of Admissions had been very understanding and in time Mrs Shine had encouraged her to go back to working part time at the Library hoping that the routine would bring her some comfort but Verity seemed very lost.  Mrs Shine anxious about the level of her daughter's withdrawal, asked her friend Millie to meet up with Verity to talk about University in the hope that it would give her a new focus, a new start.  All she could do was pray.
        Millie arrived at the coffee shop on the high street early, eager to bag the comfy sofa in the window that she knew would be hot property today as the watery Spring sun filtered in under the stripy awning. She was longing to see Verity.  It was six months since poor little Faith had died so suddenly and she had worried for her friend and how she would cope. Faith had been an unexpected gift but had become Verity's whole world for those brief ten months before being snatched away again. They had spoken on the phone about Verity coming to York to take up her deferred place in the new Academic year and Millie was pleased to see signs that her friend was ready to re-engage  with life. She ordered her Chai Latte and settled into the dumpy squat hollows of the sofa with her book to await her friends arrival.
An hour later and she was still waiting when her phone rang,  singing out 'Always look on the bright side of life' into the noise of the coffee shop.
Hello?
Is that you Millie?
Mrs Shine?

         Verity had tried to hide the guilt she felt over the loss of her baby but it followed her like a shadow, constantly pulling at her with its invisible weight. Everybody had said it was not her fault. Cot deaths were just one of life's inexplicable cruelties. Nothing she could have done. But she knew she was to blame. She had been out that night, enjoying herself.  If she hadn't been consumed with the desire to be alone with Jez, to be kissed by him, she might have got home sooner, been able to stop it somehow. In her more rational moments she understood that fate would have taken the same course irrespective of the drinks she consumed or the lingering kiss that she had enjoyed but her guilt was a weeping sore that she could not help prodding at. Verity felt that she was living in a slightly surreal world, Alice trapped on the wrong side of the looking glass watching the world go by on it's merry-go-round  but she had no desire to get back on the ride. Nobody seemed to understand that for her keeping the guilt alive, the sorrow and pain on fire, was both her penance and the way in which she could keep hold of Faith. People had been terribly kind of course but now there seemed to be an overwhelming expectation that she should move on. She was trying to move forward but it was like escaping from quick sand; the more she moved the tighter she seemed to be gripped.
         After a while she couldn't bare to see the pity on people's faces any more  so she had locked her pain away behind the reflective surface of a mirror and learned to dissemble,showing not the pain inside her but a reflection of what they wanted to see: that she was coping and making plans for her future, while,  protected behind her mirror's thin glass she could keen and rock her pain to her chest as she had done her child. Now, though, her strategy was failing. All this talk of moving to York with Millie, was forcing her to cut the only ties to the life she had shared with Faith. She couldn't move on. It would mean losing Faith all over again. The mirror's glass was treacherously thin and the pressure was causing the cracks to spider across the surface of her protective layer. She was not strong enough to let go. She could only see one escape.
        She hugged her Mum goodbye whispering her " I love you," and left home early for her meeting with Millie saying she needed to go to the Library. Nobody would be there until ten o'clock. She had her own keys now. She let herself in through the back door locking it behind her and went into the storage room.  She sat down on the floor with her back against the shelves and placed the note from her coat pocket next to her. She took out her homemade tourniquet and her Mother's empty Insulin syringe and half-filled the chamber with air. She found the vein in her arm and withdrew a little blood, wanting to make sure she had hit her mark,and then depressed the syringe.
Val found her an hour later with the note at her side.  "I'm sorry I  lost Faith."

The Grasshopper's Groove

Freedom, independence, spiritual enlightenment,

Gwendoline groaned as the group ground to a halt again.
She had been listening to the dawn chorus her whole life, dreaming of the day when she too may be a strong enough musician to join the choir. Today was her first rehearsal but so far it had not gone well.
"Gadzooks' exclaimed the Heron, looking down his nose,what is that garbage?I think I shall gag."
"Your grating on my melody" sang the blackbird
"Gnawing at the base line" cawed the rooks
"The thrush says your gabbling" said the pigeon in a guileless tone
"No, I merely meant it was rather gaudy. It's grating against our Gavotte."
"Say what you mean girls, it's ghastly" glared the haughty gander. "Show her the gate girls"
Gwendoline hung her head. She had hoped for a moment of glory and now they all wished her gone.
With one great leap she vaulted the gate and the great gunnera leaves beyond, for the grass meadows of home, where she rested under a gauzy spider's web. Her friend Penelope let out a thread gliding delicately above her head asked "How did it go?"
"G g g grotesque" was all Gwendoline could manage between gargantuan sobs they said I was gaudy, grating and graceless"
"Pah! what do those birds know. Birds of a feather stick together and they are not worth your good opinions. If you have a song in your heart, you sing it, never mind what anyone else says. They're not the friends for you my gorgeous green goddess, if they can't appreciate your gift. Enjoy the day and sing your song follow your own voice not the voice of others, it will lead you true.
As the sun rose through her arc in the sky Gwendoline followed through gaps in the tall grass of the meadow sipping sweet dew and chewing on the tender shoots, climbing and jumping and finding her springing gait.
And so it was that she came to the grey gravel bed's edge as the sun dipped below the trees. She waited for the rise of the gibbous moon in the gloaming and felt the urge to beat her drum to the rhythm of nature but she stopped herself, feeling again the shame and disappointment she had felt that morning, the beginning of heartbreak she experienced thinking that she would never take part. But then the most wonderful thing happened. All around her, other grasshoppers hidden in the reeds and grasses at the water's edge began to tune up. Gwendoline's heart did a leap of joy. She had followed her voice and it had led her true. She stepped out of the shadow and struck up her rhythm joining it with the syncopated beats of her brethren. She had found her groove.

Hide and Seek

       The paths between the beds lend themselves perfectly to hide and seek and the children play oblivious to the picture beyond their game. They are absorbed by the simple pleasures of their own world. I am invited in.
    'Your turn to count Mummy". They run to hide as I look away counting aloud the first few numbers.
      I am left in peace in an enchanted secret garden of exotic ferns, red hot pokers, proteas and succulents, rhododendron and camellia, Cyprus, Eucalyptus and bottlebrush. Industrious bees drone in the bottle brush blooms sounding like the rubber of bicycle tread on rain drenched streets. Their chaos belies the governance of the hive where direction must be followed, cells filled with life giving nectar, the queen protected. A pheasant struts into view and stops, eyeing me from his red pirate-patch eyes. I get the distinct feeling that I am the one being watched, the outsider. I am not very interesting and he walks slowly away, unperturbed. Squirrels chatter as they dart unseen from branch to branch. I know from the guide that they are Red squirrels not the common greys. They were introduced here a few years ago as an experiment and seem to be flourishing thanks to the lack of natural predators. As I continue my count, one appears on the path ahead of me and sits for a moment on its haunches, tail curled up over its back in a Victorian Christmas card pose, then scampers away, corkscrewing up the trunk of a tree, undeterred by the change to a near vertical plane. For a moment I contemplate abandoning the children's game just to wonder aimlessly in this place. I could make my excuses, let them believe they were just too good at hiding. There is a tempting wooden bench, in the shade of a tall drooping tree, with lichen growing on it so thick that the bench looks as if it is cushioned. How long must it have stood undisturbed to develop this degree of decoration? I could be the Miss Haversham of this bench and wait for all to be as it should be. I would become a mysterious lichen laden lady of the glades instead of the  cobwebbed wedding breakfast's bride. Not today.
   "...forty nine, fifty, coming, ready or not." I set off in what I hope is the right direction and almost instantly catch sight of half hidden clothing behind the most enormous dandelion I have ever seen, a dandelion tree. This one is not coming out with a garden fork, maybe a fork-lift. I determinedly  look to the other side of the path  peering obviously high and low as I go, and walk on towards the sound of running water.  An amphora lays on its side pouring its elixir through daisies into a pond filled more  thickly with the leathery leaves of water lilies than with water. I trail my fingertips lazily across the surface, pressing down a lily pad and letting droplets pool on its glossy surface, the glint of the sun catching in the orbs. I day dream watching the hover and glide of a damsel fly its translucent wings seem holographic in the sun. I turn to look down the length of another path and am sure I see a flash of my son's hat through the stand of bamboo.
    "Your too good, I give up. Marco?"
    "Polo." I move forward colliding into my impatient daughters excited hug and watch as the hat disappears deeper into shadow.
    "Come on, let's find him together. Marco?"
    "Polo."
My daughter and I follow the  audible trail to its conclusion and we are all united in happy chatter. We sit at the secret heart of the garden in the lap of Gaia and know we are truly blessed to be in this place together.