Nymphaea

Chapter 12: Rearranging life

It was nearly midday when Stephen awoke. Melissa called him out of the bathroom. Still groggy, he scrambled out of the bed of yet another hotel room.

“I’m coming,” he mumbled as Melissa’s calls grew more urgent.

When he’d reached the bathroom door, he saw the mishap: the girl had tried to go to the toilet by herself and had failed. Now she stood there in front of the toilet bowl that had been too high for her, soaked and desperate. Stephen managed to force a mild smile.

“It’s okay darling,” he drew in some clean air and entered the room. “Let’s take of your panties and then we’ll clean this mess up.”

He wiped away the tear that was pined to Melissa’s eye and helped her out of the dirty clothing that hung between her legs. Telling her to go under the shower and wait there for him, Stephen removed the small puddle on the floor with a lot of toilet paper and threw the pants into the dustbin. It was fortunate that Melissa hadn’t dressed further (she was ahead of her age in such things: she could walk, dress herself with a few difficulties and formed sentences of three or four words already). He had nothing he could dress her in except for the clothing she had worn.

Done with that, he took the shower head from its socket and adjusted the water to the right temperature to shower his baby girl. He rubbed her dry carefully and carried her over to the bed. Laying her clothes beside her and switching the children’s programme on for her entertainment, he asked her to dress while he was taking a shower himself. He longed for that.

He shut the door behind him. After ridding himself of his pants, he turned on the shower, making the water as hot as bearable. Stephen sank down to the floor, the water washing over him.

Images flooded his brain. The young doctor giving him a pitiful glance, Melissa lying in the dark hospital room, the journey to Leeds in the night in absolute silence; that drained feeling; Ayve’s eyes full of contempt. How he would have needed him now! But Ayve wasn’t the man he used to be anymore. Stephen’s view on him had changed. Whoever he was, Stephen did not have this sense of security anymore when he thought of him. No, Stephen relied on himself now. There was so much that he had to take care of. There was no time to whine about the things that had happened yesterday. Ayve was gone. For good.

A knock at the bathroom door. “Stephen, are you all right?” A male voice.

Stephen turned the water off. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He slipped into a bathrobe and looked into the steamy mirror. Terrible was an understatement. “I’m going to need a few moments.” He informed Paul. His face needed a shave; that was the least he could do to transform himself back into a human being.

The three of them had a very late breakfast (you didn’t get a hotel room at a quarter to one in the night so they had been forced to go back to Sheffield where they had already rented rooms which led them to go to bed around three o’clock in the morning) and then Paul took his leave, explaining that Anne needed help with the boys and he couldn’t let her wait any longer since he’d already been away for two weeks.

“But if you need help, then call me at any time,” he offered.

As it was a 400 kilometres ride back home, Stephen decided to stay a little longer, to run errands. After all Julie had grown up in a foster family – she did not have any close relatives. Stephen would have to organize her… funeral. The funeral of a 25-year-old. How bizarre was that? How did you tell a one-and-a-half-year-old that mommy had gone and wouldn’t come back?

When the waiter came to clear their table, Stephen asked for a sheet of paper, a pencil and a description were the next shop for children’s wear was located. He’d have to make a list not to forget all the tings he would have to take care of the next days. And Melissa couldn’t run around without underwear forever.

*

Stephen spent the whole day doing unpleasant things. He talked to the police to get to know what exactly had happened (a lorry had skidded off the wet lane when it had rained and had hit the front section of Julie’s car; Melissa in the back had remained unharmed), he had called a mortician to ensure that Julie’s body was transferred to Edinburgh, where it was to be buried, and talked to a lady of the youth welfare office on the phone to make sure he was authorized to bring up his daughter, even without having been married to her mother.

He refused to make any private calls. Of course there were people who had a right to be informed, but that had to wait. Stephen needed time. And Melissa needed time. He had bought her a cassette-player and a few children’s story cassettes so she had something to keep up her spirits while he was busy.

When they returned to the hotel early in the evening, Stephen’s manager headed them off. Stephen tried to get rid of him as soon as possible, telling him to give a simple official statement and keep the press away. He’d dine with his daughter and share the rest of the evening with her lying in bed and watching TV.

*

Paul had discretely taken his wife aside, when he had returned home, asking her to sit down. She had cried for quite a while and he had supplied her with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, telling her he would take the boys to bed today. After all, Julie had been one of Anne’s best friends. In fact, Paul had met Anne at a party of Julie’s; the two women had attended school together.

When he had changed a pair of diapers, filled a pair of empty stomachs and laid the twins to rest, Paul sat down beside Anne, holding her in his arms. By that time she had already calmed down and thought a great deal.

“What will Stephen do now?” she asked.

Paul shrugged. “He’ll have enough to do with taking care of Julie’s funeral, her apartment and stuff… and of Lissy, of course.”

Anne sat up to look into her husband’s face. “That’s just what I mean: with his career he’ll hardly be able to take care of that poor thing properly.”

“There are nannies…”

Anne wrinkled her nose (as a ‘proper’ mother would always do). “That’s no good. Julie’s been brought up by strangers herself – she wouldn’t want that for her daughter.”

Paul shrugged again. “I don’t see an alternative solution.”

Anne got up. “I need to talk to you about something anyway,” she said and went to fetch an envelope. She handed the letter over to Paul. “I know we haven’t finished discussing that topic, but you know how dearly I would like to go back to Scotland… even though that would mean that you have to leave your home. I just don’t feel at home here myself, no matter how hard I try.”

Paul wanted to reply, but Anne stopped him.

“Really just out of curiosity, I sent job applications not only to firms nearby but also to Edinburgh.” She eyed him nervously. “And there’s one enterprise who offers me a good position, part-time and still well paid. I’d so love to work again when my year of parental leave is over…” Anne tried to win Paul over with a saccharine blink of her eyes. “You’d have better practice conditions there… and we could support Stephen and Lissy…”

The way she half danced in front of him begging him to say yes made Paul laugh. “I’ll think about it.” He loved Ireland and he had never planed to move into another country, but after all: Anne had come with him, too, so why shouldn’t he return that favour and follow her this time? Her arguments were solid.

“Maybe,” Anne spoke on tentatively, “we could ask Stephen if he wants to share a house with us… or has he already a new girlfriend?”

Paul smirked inwardly. One with long, black hair, a bit flat around the chest… “I don’t know, darling. Ask him.”

“So you agree?” his wife pushed him further.

He sighed. “Okay, we’ll take a look around to see whether we find a decent place there and then we’ll see how I feel about the whole thing. Is that a deal?”

Anne gave off a victorious shriek and threw herself around his neck.

Morbid as it was, they agreed on taking a first look around the day after Julie’s funeral. Paul had a career after all and now was his bit of free time in the year.

*

They arrived in St. Andrews a day before the funeral, having deposited their offspring in Edinburgh at the house of Anne’s parents, to help Stephen clear Julie’s apartment. They merely packed what was Melissa’s stuff or what they wanted to keep as a memory. The rest would be packed and disposed by professionals. Stephen said he did not have the nerves for that.

They spent the early evening in Stephen’s apartment. Stephen had turned his bedroom into a room for Melissa and spent the nights on his sofa in the kitchen cum living room, which was exactly were they sat now.

Paul used the occasion of Anne disappearing in the bathroom to turn back to the question he had been asking in the hospital a few days ago already.

“So, what’s up with you? Is it really just the new situation or has there something happened, before I told you about the accident?”

They were sitting together, each of them a bottle of beer in their hands (Anne had agreed on driving back to Edinburgh since she didn’t drink alcohol anyway).

Stephen sighed. He didn’t really want to talk about it, but he supposed he should. Grimacing sarcastically, he kicked himself into opening his mouth. But what could he say? What had happened back then? “I had a really nasty fight with him that evening. I dunno. I never really got through to him and that day I realized I don’t know him at all.”

“Hasn’t he helped you in this?” Paul asked.

Stephen shook his head, taking a gulp of beer. “It’s over.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Oh, sorry.”

“And what are you going to do now? I mean, tell me off if I ask too much, but: are you looking for a male or a female now?”

Stephen smirked. “Honestly, Paul. I don’t give a damn about relationships right now. I have to come to terms with all that’s happened first. I don’t think I’ll end up in anything serious any time soon.”

*

It was a perfect spring day with a bright sun and blossoming flowers on the neighbouring graves as they bid Julie farewell. Of course it was incomprehensible for little Lissy why her mother lay there in perfect beauty and did not hear her. Anne had suggested not taking her to the funeral but Stephen felt that it was necessary to do so as he had failed to talk about her mother’s death to her in the past days. Now he explained as well as he could that mommy would be going to her parents now, that she would sleep and wait for Lissy there and that she had asked Stephen to look after her until then.

Lissy was a calm child. Stephen had expected her to cry but she seemed to accept her mother’s passing. Together they gave Julie some flowers and waved her good-bye.

*

Stephen agreed on finding a house together with Paul and Anne. Some place with separate rooms for Melissa and him so he would have his private sphere when he needed it but could also enjoy the benefits of a family, including a ‘mother’ for his daughter. They chose an old town house with a nice bit of garden in the back. It was a comforting thought for Stephen not to be alone.

Regarding his career, he decided that now that he had to care for his child all by himself, he could not afford any experiments. Thoughts of studying the history of art had circled in his mind ever since Ayve had brought the question of his future occupation up but now he abandoned them as he tried hard to abandon every other thought he had had about Ayve.

As if that was possible. Somewhere back in his mind snippets of memories would emerge. Ayve had said they were equal – and had kept so many secrets. He had pretended to be enjoying the time they had spent – but then there had been this disgust, this contempt in his face. Stephen had felt so humiliated… He had been warned. Before he had completely yielded to Ayve’s touch, he had been warned that Ayve was dangerous, potentially violent, rumoured to be a killer. Stephen had downright ignored it. He had wanted Aye so much, this idea of Ayve that he’d had. His arm carried still bruises were Ayve had grabbed and dragged him along to the bridge…

***