Strawberry Jam by Clare Reddaway
Photo by Mikhail Nilov for Pexels
Dear Ben
The baby kicked today! For the first time. It felt so strange. Bit like when you go over a bump in the road and leave your tummy behind, or like butterflies. Not nice exactly, but at least I know that he – or she – is alive. Chrissy said there was one day when she could actually see a foot, through her tummy. The outline anyway. Like mime artists when they press their bodies against a sheet and you have to guess what the bits are, and you never quite can and it’s all a bit earnest and hard work and has that wispy music going on in the background. Well, I couldn’t see any foot, but I could feel it. Wish you could have felt it too, it would have made the baby more real for you. Anyway, wanted to let you know.
All my love, M
Dear Ben
By the way. I can’t find your Lou Reed CD, you know the one, with Perfect Day? You were re-writing your Desert Island Discs list for the hundredth time, in case Radio 4 got in touch and asked you and then you’d have it ready and not get in a fluster and put Super Trooper as your favourite song ever of all time. You said that you would choose Perfect Day if you were allowed only one track because it reminded you of us. Well, I want to listen to it, and it’s not there. I know I could download it, but I want yours. Why can’t you ever put anything away? Where on earth did you put it? Where?
Love, M
Dear Ben
Went to the hospital today for some kind of scan, another one. They were weird with me, kept scurrying around and bumping into each other. No-one was smiling. I kept thinking something was wrong with the baby, and at last I asked the who was rubbing that jelly stuff all over my tummy, I said ‘So has it got two heads or something?’ and she looked at me all deadpan and said ‘No’. That got me a long way. OK, so the baby’s not got two heads, but what about the things I didn’t ask. Three legs? A tail? Can I list the ways my baby might not be perfect for you please? I think that she could see I was getting anxious – drumming my heels on the bed might have been a give away – and so she said ‘The baby looks normal and healthy,’ but she said it in a doomy I’m about to burst into tears kind of way that I didn’t find reassuring.
All the other women in the waiting room had their partners with them. Wish you’d been there.
All love, M
Dear Ben
I spoke to your Mum this morning. She was so sweet. She was talking a lot about what you were like as a little boy. I expect the baby’s bringing it all back. What a sweetheart you were! Always getting into such a pickle! Strawberry jam, she said, you loved it apparently. Oh, the times she caught you with your wee fingers in the jam jar, and you were all wide-eyed innocence but there were tell-tale signs of jam smeared over your face and your blue striped dungarees. She says she’s probably got the very pair somewhere in the attic and would I like them for the baby? And you never told me about how good you are at Scottish dancing. Your mum says she’s always been surprised you didn’t keep it up. Ha! Kept that one quiet! And your clarinet, quite the little choir boy, weren’t you. Prefect, school cups, Sunday school, I tell you it was nothing like the wine soaked chancer I know and love. Maybe it was Scottish dancing you were practising on that table on New Year’s Eve. Funny, when I put the phone down I felt like she’d been talking about a stranger.
All my love, M
Dear Ben
Why didn’t you ever tell me you liked strawberry jam? I’d have bought it, we could have had it for breakfast at the weekend, on freshly baked croissants hot from the oven, like in the movies, a sheet draped over our naked bodies, and I wouldn’t have complained about crumbs in bed because they never bring that up on the telly. I mean, you could have bought strawberry jam too, but it just never occurred to me. I like marmalade, and I don’t like strawberries. Why didn’t you say?
Love, M
Dear Ben
I’ve been out and bought some strawberry jam. Maybe it’s a pregnancy thing but I had some on a slice of Mum’s fresh bread and it was delicious. I ate the whole jar. Yup, the whole jar. If I carry on like this I’ll be the size of a house in a few months and a teeny tiny baby will glide out and far from pinging back to my original shape like they say you should I’ll have jars and jars of strawberry jam around my tummy and there’ll be no hope of getting into that polka-dot thong bikini again.
Love M
Dear Ben
Just in case you’ve gone into overdrive – I don’t have a polka-dot thong bikini. You might have remembered if I had.
Love M
Dear Ben
I’ve been thinking about our first kiss. Remember? Autumn, thin watery sunshine and you rang on the doorbell at 11 in the morning looking all shy and sheepish and did I want to come for a walk with you? And then you slipped over on that leaf and I couldn’t help laughing – I know, I know, it’s cruel and immature and pathetically insensitive, but I’ve always been a sucker for slapstick. You pretended it didn’t hurt at all, la la la, so macho, trying to be cool. Then we walked along the canal and even though we were dodging the junkies’ needles and being growled at by pitbulls it was beautiful. Blackened warehouses straight down into the water with that odd thing of doors half way up the walls and on the other side people’s gardens, tiny slices of domesticity, each one different. We got to the lock and sat on the gates and you put your arms round me and kissed me. I’d wanted to kiss you for ages. And then you said – well, what did you say? I can’t remember. It’s bugging me so much. This is our memory of our life. You said the perfect thing that made me feel safe and loved and comfortable and forever. And I can’t remember what it was.
All my love, M
Dear Ben
I’ve done something awful. It was last night. I couldn’t sleep. I was twisting for hours, and the baby was up and doing a can can inside me. I felt sick, then I felt thirsty and when I had a drink all I wanted to do was pee – OK, too much information. Take it from me, I wasn’t at my best. Anyway, all I could think about was that day at the lock and what on earth it was that you’d said. Eventually, I couldn’t bear it. I rang Pete. The phone rang and rang and then at last I had Eve on the other end of it. She was livid. She tried really hard to stop herself but I could hear her teeth grinding when she said they’d had a bad night with little Sam and had only just got him to sleep and did I know what time it was? Well, no, actually, I said. It’s 3.30 in the morning, for god’s sake. Oh, I said, sorry, I didn’t realise, I’d better go. Then she said no, she was sorry she was snappy but she was so tired. Did I want to speak to Pete? So I said that I did, if she didn’t mind. We were very very polite. Anyway, then Pete was there all yawny and like he was under the duvet. I asked him about that day, about whether you’d ever told him what you’d said to me, and how I couldn’t remember what it was and it was tearing me apart because memory is so important and when it’s gone it’s gone and that’s all there is. He burst into tears. I made him cry, I made big old tough old Pete, your bestest mate, cry. And he didn’t know the answer.
I must get a grip.
All my love, M
Dearest Ben
Well, it was today, the funeral. There you were, up at the front. I hope you liked it. It’s not something we’d ever discussed – what coffin would you prefer, sweetheart? Oak? Pine? Ebony? Mr Mathews, he’s the undertaker, nice bloke actually even though he has a crap job, he showed me loads of pictures. Which one would you like, madam? The pine’s the cheapest, he said, I’m sure you wouldn’t want that one, and all I could think of was that documentary we saw, the one that Sarah’s sister made, exposing the underworld of the undertakers and how they get you when you are at your most vulnerable and try to sell you really expensive coffins when pine would do perfectly well. Then I thought of Ikea and how you hated it, and I thought, no, not a flat packed coffin with half the bits missing, better have a nice bit of oak. What d’you think?
I found the CD. Yeah, the sock drawer. Really good place to keep your music. We had Perfect Day although I think my Dad thought it was a bit odd. Well, it’s not really is it, he said, and I know what he means, but it was a you-me thing and I thought it was important.
You had a good turn out, didn’t you? Your mum and all the family, and Pete and all the boys, and oh god it felt like everyone we’d ever met and more. I don’t know. I just sat there. They all buzzed around and made speeches and said nice things about you and I just sat there and stared at where you were for the last time. That’s it. Finito.
Then junior started kicking up, whacking me in the solar plexus. And I thought, oh, don’t let the baby be a boy ‘cos then he might like football and I know now that I’d never be able to explain the off-side rule to him. That’s what Dads are for. But if it’s a girl, who’s going to thump her boyfriends and call her his little princess? Hmmm. Best not go there, eh.
But it’s me I’m worried about. It’s me that misses you. I miss everything. The smell of your jacket – wet dog meets tobacco and Aramis for Men. The sound of your key in the lock when you come home from work. The bubbles of laughter as we talk about Bill from accounts or a video on Instagram or how crowded the Tube was this morning: you leaning over the cooker stirring something in a pan, me leaning round you to dip my finger in, you grinning at me when I burn myself. The leanness of your body as you hug me. The warmth of your tongue. The sky blue of your eyes.
Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. Great.
All my love, forever, M
Clare Reddaway
Clare Reddaway’s stories are published widely and have won or been listed for national competitions. Recent highlights include being long-listed (top 50) for the BBC National Short Story Awards, short-listed for the Bridport Prize and publication of standalone short The Guts of a Mackerel by Fly on the Wall Press.
Follow Clare’s work: