Des Quotes in Five-Dollar Family
She’d browse mistily through those cards at the newsagent that showed guys with their shirts off holding little vulnerable babies, expressions of adoration on their faces; guys who looked like models, but still. All the time she was pregnant, she thought that that adoration would kick in once Des saw the baby and she saw Des with the baby. She’d had some vague idea that she’d be able to rest and Des would take over and look after them both, hold his son unashamedly in the crook of his arm like the men on the cards.
God knows what she’d hoped he’d do—rub her back like on the video in the antenatal class, maybe, or sponge her forehead with a face washer; she couldn’t put her finger on what she’d expected, but whatever it was, this wasn’t it. Not this wordless hanging back like it was all beyond him, folding and unfolding his arms. Not switching off the TV just when things were starting to get really rough, and going to get himself a drink.
[…] Des wasn’t even next to her when she turned her head to look for him.
When they handed her Jason, though, it was like she finally stopped thinking about Des. Stopped worrying about him. She leaned over and smelled her son’s head, fresh as newly turned earth, then glanced over at her boyfriend, who was back now, bashing an empty Gatorade bottle mindlessly against his thigh and jiggling his leg in his stretched tracksuit pants as he sprawled in the chair in the corner, so freaked out that he couldn’t even meet her eye. Useless, she’d thought, feeling a startling surge of impatient, adrenaline-fuelled scorn. She was suddenly way beyond him now. She couldn’t believe she’d ever needed him for anything.
He’s said nothing to her about it. Not a thing. Even though the court date is this Thursday, and even though he’s got a girlfriend with a newborn baby. That’ll be the first thing he’ll mention, though, you can bet on that. He’ll get his solicitor to stand up there and use her and Jason to try and duck the sentence. But no more probations means he’ll go straight to the jail from court. Not a word to her. It’s like he thinks that if he ignores it it’s all going to go away.
[…] [S]he remembered that night too, the way he’d bought those chips and dip to take home to his eight-months-pregnant girlfriend, then gone out alone. And how she’d believed he’d been thoughtful that night, buying snacks and renting her those DVDs to shut her up and keep her fat and dumb and happy. Thoughtful.
‘You’ll have to watch this one, love,’ he said, smiling. ‘He can be a bit of a naughty boy.’
She’d smiled back at the time, she remembers. Felt herself as indulgent and forgiving and tolerant as his mother, like it was a club women belonged to. Staring at Des now, Michelle thinks that’s exactly what he looks like: a naughty boy. She pauses to make him look at her, refusing to smile.
Jason might grow out of it, she thinks, but Des never will, and there’s nothing she can do about that now. The let-down reflex, she thinks fleetingly as she holds out her arms to take her son. Let-down is right. The story of her life: numb on the outside, and a burning ache inside.
‘The five-dollar family,’ says Michelle. ‘The portrait.’
He gets straight away at the tone in her voice, folding his paper with a snap. She can hear it too, the new hint of steel there.
[…] The stitches are killing her and she eases herself gingerly onto the chair, sitting them the way she’s planned it: Jason on her lap, Des with his arm around her. Dragging pain makes her face damp with perspiration; it’s like a flush of heat goes through her, a tensed fist tightening.
Des Quotes in Five-Dollar Family
She’d browse mistily through those cards at the newsagent that showed guys with their shirts off holding little vulnerable babies, expressions of adoration on their faces; guys who looked like models, but still. All the time she was pregnant, she thought that that adoration would kick in once Des saw the baby and she saw Des with the baby. She’d had some vague idea that she’d be able to rest and Des would take over and look after them both, hold his son unashamedly in the crook of his arm like the men on the cards.
God knows what she’d hoped he’d do—rub her back like on the video in the antenatal class, maybe, or sponge her forehead with a face washer; she couldn’t put her finger on what she’d expected, but whatever it was, this wasn’t it. Not this wordless hanging back like it was all beyond him, folding and unfolding his arms. Not switching off the TV just when things were starting to get really rough, and going to get himself a drink.
[…] Des wasn’t even next to her when she turned her head to look for him.
When they handed her Jason, though, it was like she finally stopped thinking about Des. Stopped worrying about him. She leaned over and smelled her son’s head, fresh as newly turned earth, then glanced over at her boyfriend, who was back now, bashing an empty Gatorade bottle mindlessly against his thigh and jiggling his leg in his stretched tracksuit pants as he sprawled in the chair in the corner, so freaked out that he couldn’t even meet her eye. Useless, she’d thought, feeling a startling surge of impatient, adrenaline-fuelled scorn. She was suddenly way beyond him now. She couldn’t believe she’d ever needed him for anything.
He’s said nothing to her about it. Not a thing. Even though the court date is this Thursday, and even though he’s got a girlfriend with a newborn baby. That’ll be the first thing he’ll mention, though, you can bet on that. He’ll get his solicitor to stand up there and use her and Jason to try and duck the sentence. But no more probations means he’ll go straight to the jail from court. Not a word to her. It’s like he thinks that if he ignores it it’s all going to go away.
[…] [S]he remembered that night too, the way he’d bought those chips and dip to take home to his eight-months-pregnant girlfriend, then gone out alone. And how she’d believed he’d been thoughtful that night, buying snacks and renting her those DVDs to shut her up and keep her fat and dumb and happy. Thoughtful.
‘You’ll have to watch this one, love,’ he said, smiling. ‘He can be a bit of a naughty boy.’
She’d smiled back at the time, she remembers. Felt herself as indulgent and forgiving and tolerant as his mother, like it was a club women belonged to. Staring at Des now, Michelle thinks that’s exactly what he looks like: a naughty boy. She pauses to make him look at her, refusing to smile.
Jason might grow out of it, she thinks, but Des never will, and there’s nothing she can do about that now. The let-down reflex, she thinks fleetingly as she holds out her arms to take her son. Let-down is right. The story of her life: numb on the outside, and a burning ache inside.
‘The five-dollar family,’ says Michelle. ‘The portrait.’
He gets straight away at the tone in her voice, folding his paper with a snap. She can hear it too, the new hint of steel there.
[…] The stitches are killing her and she eases herself gingerly onto the chair, sitting them the way she’s planned it: Jason on her lap, Des with his arm around her. Dragging pain makes her face damp with perspiration; it’s like a flush of heat goes through her, a tensed fist tightening.
