There is an abundance of bad luck flirting through my back garden in the form of single magpies
About thirty minutes North of you, when winter still began in November, a man died and June was born.
It was a bloody affair, and June’s mother could hardly stand the sight of the dripping thing when it was handed to her after seven hours of hard heaving and labour: Thrust at her with a ‘well done, Beatrice, isn’t baby beautiful?’
No, Beatrice thinks, not really.
It’s crying and wet, and holding it feels a little too much like ‘I should have asked Stanley for a divorce three years ago’ to bear thinking about. It’s all a little too big. Like this moment demands emotions she can’t quite let herself feel, and really isn’t sure she has ever been capable of. Do all mothers feel like this? Please let this feeling be fleeting.
Stanley left at some point to take a call, so it’s not like she even has the excuse to hand the thing off to someone. She definitely should have asked for a divorce.
Christ, how must she look to the nurses? Is she supposed to speak to the thing? Is it still breathing? Yes, it’s still breathing. What is she supposed to do now?
God, she didn’t even ask if it was a boy or a girl.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
Only, the windows are open, and the door opens, and Stanley comes in saying something about work, and a bus goes past, and an aeroplane flies overhead, and three floors below a man is on his deathbed and telling his grandchild about something entirely insignificant but still worth being said. And the nurses are speaking but Beatrice can’t hear a thing because she’s just realised that she proved her mother right and married a man that doesn’t love her and is probably having an entirely predictable affair with his secretary, save for the fact that his secretary happens to be a man- and actually thinking about it, maybe none of that really matters except for the fact that her husband happens to be an utterly bland man so it would be a little surprising if he managed to catch the attentions of a twenty-something fresh-faced someone, and now Stanley is looking at her and he’s saying something like “well done, Beatrice” except it sounds exactly like “now, Beatrice, eat your greens or the big bad wolf will be most displeased” but Beatrice always ate all her greens and father was always displeased and God, Mother must be laughing at her now, wherever she is. Most likely haunting that modernist minimalist hell she’s left Beatrice to rear her own family in. Beatrice can almost hear her- “There you go, Beatrice, you’ve cleared your plate. What a good girl. You can go and play in your room now, and the big bad wolf won’t be out to get you.”
Which is strange, because she’s eaten her greens, but the wolves are still after her. They’re in the room with her: she’s got one in her arms. The wolves are telling her that June is a lovely name, and she can take it home, and we’ll be seeing you soon, Beatrice, you’ve done so well, you can get down from the table now.