The Noise

She looked down at her hands, laughed briefly and without any mirth. Her useless shitty hands – red and scaly with eczema - stress, the health visitor had said; it often happens. She’d been given some cream but hadn’t used it. What was the point? Her eyes focussed on the nails, all crooked - broken off any old how. She remembered when she’d been about fifteen – how she’d finally managed to stop biting them, how proud she’d been after putting up with the awful tasting bitter aloes she’d had to paint on them. Hah. Like it mattered now. She looked at the rings of grime inside, where the nails met the flesh. If she hadn’t stopped biting them it would have been one less exhausting task to not manage to do. Was there really a time when it was such a big deal to her that she bit her nails? If only life were so….Oh god – the noise. It had started again.

She pulled herself off the sofa and stood up – it took all her strength – she was so tired – tired like she’d never known before. As she dragged herself towards the foot of the stairs, she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece – Jesus – eleven ..that late? She must have been dozing for hours. She hadn’t even known she’d been asleep until just then.

All the days and nights were the same now – they melted into one huge knot of fatigue. Sometimes she didn’t even know if she was awake or asleep. Most of the time it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She stopped again, listened. The noise again. A shiver ran down her body – it started as a shiver, but then it changed - it became a great rush of rage and tiredness and anger at the unfairness of everything.

She couldn’t, she just couldn’t do it anymore. She could feel tears running down her cheeks, making tracks – not of sadness, but of anger – they were building now, swelling – the tracks became rivers – the hot tears felt like they were burning grooves in her cheeks. Instinctively, she put her hands up to rub at her eyes – stem the flow, and it was only then that she realised they were clenched into tight fists. She lowered them, staring. It felt as if they didn’t belong to her.

Suddenly the anger left her – now she felt empty, deflated. She sank down onto the carpet where she’d been standing, and sat cross-legged. She put her hands to her head and pressed hard, as if trying to keep her brain in - she felt like it was about to explode. Then she pressed her fingers against her eyelids until she could see little prickles of light. The noise was still there, but somehow it seemed like a million miles away – not something she needed to do anything about anymore.

Just for a moment she remembered reading somewhere how the cry of a baby is designed to make a mother come rushing to see what it needed. Well – that was it – that proved she wasn’t a mother anymore – didn’t deserve to be one. She’d never been much good, but here was proof. She didn’t care anymore – that cry did nothing for her. It was far too late.

She looked at the pale green carpet – it was so dirty – how long since she’d had a chance to hoover it? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter – nothing mattered anymore – the only thing she wanted was for the noise to stop. It wasn’t loud – the baby was too young for that – it was just so insistent – so never-ending – so nothing to do with her.

She got up on her knees, still on the carpet, and bent down, so that her forehead touched the floor, then she covered her ears with her hands to blot out the noise. She stayed that way – it was oddly soothing, and when eventually she took her hands away she found that the noise had stopped, as she’d told herself it would if she was quiet for long enough.

She got up – everything seemed dreamy, silent and calm. She went back to the sofa, awkwardly because her legs felt so stiff. Then she lay down, as quietly as she could, so as not to disturb the tranquillity, and she closed her eyes and slept.