Drawn from Life

         Clare clung desperately to the edge of the sink, her fingers trembling, her arms trembling, her whole body trembling.  "No," she told herself lucidly, "You're fooling yourself.  It's not just trembling, any more."
Clare’s whole body was shaking so violently that she could hear the side of the bath vibrating where she was leaning against it to stop herself falling.  Desperately, she fought to keep herself upright, but everything was going black.

         It was almost twelve weeks since Clare had left hospital and it was twelve weeks in which her life had been turned upside down.  For forty years, she'd been able to please herself about what she did with her time.  She'd made concessions to whomever she'd lived with, whether it was her parents, her flatmates or, for the last five years, her husband.  But she'd always been able to pick up a book, or a piece of embroidery, or begin a painting without having to think too closely about whether she’d be able to finish her housework.

         In fact, she’d prided herself on not being ‘house-proud’.  As long as she'd done her share, her mother had been satisfied and in her bed-sit, she'd been easily able to manage the minimal level of neatness her landlady had demanded.

         But, shortly after marrying, she’d felt the first stirring of the nesting instinct so that, when they'd first moved into their flat together, she'd scrubbed the walls and floor of every room.  Then she'd kept it spotless, willing to put in the extra hours to ensure they were welcomed home from work, every night, by a pristine and immaculate living space.
She'd been equally careful about making it reflect both their personalities, as well as it was able.  She'd spent days deciding which books to display on the shelves and which pictures to hang on the walls.  For the bedroom, she'd chosen macramé wall hangings and the Valentine heart she'd drawn to mark the anniversary of her first date with Tony, all deep velvety colours in soft pastels and a plain gold frame.
         The living room she’d made home to two especially bought classic prints, Van Gogh and Renoir in simple frames which wouldn't detract from the artwork.  Her own contributions had been the beach picture and the railway station, the first still framed for the exhibition she'd entered it in, and the second barely finished in time for her art exam.  Both were flawed but she loved the jumble of driftwood and stones and the memory of her then-fiancé’s arm around her waist as she'd blended the pastels to make the exact green-blue of the sea and the exact honey-brown of the sand.  She loved the way, too, that she'd captured the unruliness of the grass growing between the cobbles of the neglected old station.  Her new husband had framed two of his own photographs and hung one on each side, because he loved anything to do with railways.

         In the last twelve weeks, Clare hadn't touched pencil to paper or brush to paint.  She'd barely had time to put vacuum to staircase and dishcloth to dirty plate.  In fact, in the eighteen weeks since she'd finished work, she'd managed only a tiny amount of very perfunctory furniture shuffling.

         Her friends had advised her to make the most of her last few weeks of unfettered time but her department had been on 'audit alert' so she'd been forced to bring home file after file of students' paperwork, to check for consistency and completeness.  Her City and Guilds students had needed their work marking, too, and her Teaching Partner had suffered his usual spate of 'migraines' so that she'd spent three afternoons every week in the smoke-filled atmosphere of the Tutors' Common Room, interviewing prospective students and assessing their suitability for the course.  Then her own final assignment, for her Teaching Certificate, had been due in.
         And, of course, there had been the packing for the move.  With Tony away all week, the main bulk of the sorting and organising had, once again, fallen on her increasingly weary shoulders.  She'd been looking forward to relaxing, at last, and having some time to herself.



         Time to herself, she thought dizzily.  She must have been stupid to have thought there would ever come a time when she could begin to organise her work-space and gather the materials to start work on the painting which had been nagging at her subconscious for so long.  For two years, it had waited in the background while she had worked flat out to earn enough money to enable her to afford the time to give herself this breather.
         But now, if she even took a minute to make herself a sandwich, the baby called to her, urgently.  If she drank a glass of water, it was to fuel the glands which produced the milk for his guzzling little mouth.  If she took a bath, it was to wash off the smell of milk and perspiration and the constant mucousy 'posset'.  And if she tried to make love with her husband...

         Clare tried to remember the last time she'd enjoyed an intimate moment with Tony.  She knew there must have been a time when she'd regarded him as something other than a source of cooked meals and a weekend's worth of relief from the constant drudgery of cleaning, holding and changing the baby.  She vaguely remembered welcoming him into the house because she wanted to spend time with him, not because she needed the car to go to the supermarket to buy yet more nappies, baby clothes and nipple cream.  She felt sure there had once been a time when she'd even slept in the same bed as him, proven by her loving sketch of his beautiful naked back lying still asleep in the early hours of a light summer morning.  She'd framed it in a certificate frame, and hung it on the wall of the room which they'd, giggling, designated her 'office'.  It was the room in which they'd finally put the mattress so that Tony could sleep on, undisturbed, when the baby woke Clare for one of his too-frequent night-time feeds.  The midwife had warned her to expect it for six weeks, not three months, and Clare couldn't ever see it ending.

         "Clare?"  It was Tony, calling up the stairs, possibly needing her, hopefully concerned for her wellbeing.  Perhaps he wanted her as something other than a baby-feeding robot.  Perhaps he, too, wanted some of the life they'd had before the birth.  "Clare?  Are you awake?  The baby needs feeding!"
         Clare felt sick again.  She'd had the bug for three days and she couldn't shake it off.  She'd been sleeping and she'd been feeding the baby and she'd been dragging her half-dead body between the bedroom and the bathroom.  It was all she was capable of doing.  Sometimes she managed a few sips of water but most of the time she lay still.  Her head ached, and she was soaked in perspiration and she couldn't stop shivering.  And everything was dark.

         "Clare!"  It was her husband.  She'd closed her eyes for a moment but he wouldn't let her sleep.  She wanted to tell him to leave her alone but she couldn't get the words out.  He was shaking and shaking her and he wouldn't stop.
         When she opened her eyes, she saw his face, full of concern.  And, as the roaring in her ears cleared, she heard the baby, whooping as usual.  He didn't cry, like other babies; he whooped.  But he'd passed all his tests and they'd allowed her to bring him home.  The nurses had said she was lucky that her baby had such a quiet cry.
         He was crooked in his father's elbow, looking too small to have caused all this disruption in her life.  He'd been crying so long he was purple with rage, except for the patch of blue on his upper lip, which the midwife had assured her was "only wind".
         Clare felt the tears come running down her cheeks.  How could she have hated such a little helpless baby?  "What's wrong?" she asked, trying to sit up, but she was too dizzy to try.  "Has he been coughing?"  Sometimes, her baby coughed so much that he was sick.  She'd taken him to the doctor but he'd said it was normal for babies to 'posset'.  She'd felt stupid, waiting for the taxi home, with all the other patients watching her and her perfectly well baby.
         "He's fine, Clare.  He's just hungry.  I was bringing him up for his feed when I heard you fall.  You look terrible."
         Clare realised she was lying on the bathroom floor, with her head against the bath.  She guessed that she'd fainted but she didn't want to worry Tony.  "I'll be all right," she said.  "I just need to get back to bed."
         Tony gave her a disbelieving look but helped her back to bed.  She heard him speaking on the phone while she was feeding their baby but, because she'd disconnected the upstairs extension, she couldn't hear what he was saying.



         Two days later, Clare was sitting up in bed, in the bedroom she shared with her husband.  She was smiling down at little David William as he contentedly drank his fill of the milk only she could make.  The stomach bug had burned itself out and she no longer needed the urgent trips to the toilet.  The doctor had diagnosed exhaustion and dehydration and had recommended a reliable domestic cleaner.
         She'd examined David William, too, and had diagnosed asthma.  She'd chatted with Clare while Tony had driven to the chemist’s, to get the inhaler, then she'd showed them both how to use it.  She'd assured them that, once he could breathe properly, their baby would sleep longer between feeds and would stop panicking every time his mother put him down.
         She'd given Clare the telephone number of the nearest Mother and Baby support group and had advised her to spend an hour, every day, doing something she wanted to do.  Tony was busy, already, unpacking the art things, which he'd brought down from the loft.  He'd rearranged the 'office' to accommodate them and he'd also improvised a desk for himself.  He'd still need to work in the city from Monday to Wednesday but he'd arranged to use his home office for the other days, so that Clare could have the benefit of the car in the daytime and his company at night.

         Clare smiled again at their sleeping infant.  She was looking forward to starting the preliminary sketches for the new picture she wanted to paint.  It was no longer the perfect pastel-tinted fantasy which had lain dormant in her imagination for so long.  It was a real living and breathing family.  She let her eyes dwell on the peaceful, pink-lipped face in the cot beside her bed and knew her own features had lost their wild-eyed despairing look.  When she felt rested enough to start work, she planned to paint a portrait of her baby, her husband and herself, as a happy fulfilled family who were at last able to enjoy life.