Rahel Hogg

Extract from Untitled

I was bleeding heavily. The patch of fabric in my crotch had already turned red. I’d always suffered from strong periods, though most would not phrase it that way, less even acknowledge it as something out of the norm. From the age of thirteen it had been like this: my body expelling whatever it was that had hoped to grow inside of me with as much blood as it could spare. The first time it had happened I’d thought I’d die, eaten alive by some creature that was using my stomach as a nesting site and that, after having gained enough strength, would burst forth from my navel, and split my body in half. Lying in bed, I’d wrapped my arms tightly around my middle, hoping it would stop my insides from spilling out. After hours of wretched pain, my useless father had finally brought me to the hospital, where a nurse had taken pity on me and given me a hot water bottle to put on my stomach. She’d squatted down to bring her head to the same level as mine and, stroking my cheek, she’d told me what a poor thing I was, having to experience this so early. She’d meant well but it didn’t help, the creature inside me had raged on.

I couldn’t remember how long we’d sat in the waiting room, only that it had felt like a long time. At some point, a doctor had come to collect me. He’d run some tests and pressed and probed at my body with an expression that had bordered on boredom. Finally, he’d sat down in a chair and informed me that there was nothing wrong with me. Quite the opposite, my experience was normal, millions of women had it every day and while the pain might be uncomfortable, it was also very useful, he said, preparation for birth. I had sat there terrified, with a sinking feeling that I’d been diagnosed with a deadly illness, that, contrary to what the doctor had said, I’d just heard my death sentence. I’d found it impossible to believe that this pain was simply something I had to endure, grit my teeth, and get on with life. Of course, without anyone to tell me any differently, that was exactly what I’d done. Once a month, I would raid my father’s medicine cabinet for the strongest painkillers I could find and swallow

one after the other until my head had started to feel woozy. It had been – and still was – the only way I could manage the pain.

It was partly due to this that I did not want children. I had begun to see it as an act of defiance, to not give my body, or whatever biological disposition responsible, what it wanted. It was punishing me, it seemed, for not getting pregnant month after month and I, in return, punished it by continuing to not get pregnant. This act of rebellion had reached its peak when I’d started taking the pill. I’d felt powerful, superior, God-like almost, which was precisely why I’d kept it from Jerry. For the first time, I’d experienced what life was like for him.

The splodge of blood glared up at me. I stared back and, with my pants still wrapped around my ankles, squatted down to open the bathroom cabinet. The packet for the pill was still there, lying beside the box of tampons. I had to check from time to time, just to make sure. I picked a tampon from its box and put it in triumphantly. Then I soaked my jeans and panties in cold water and went to get dressed.

I was standing outside the house with my camera dangling limply from my neck and discovered that I had no idea what it was I wanted to do. For some reason, I’d just assumed that once I was outside, I’d simply know where to go. The problem was that I couldn’t translate my feelings or thoughts into a clear idea. I was possessed by a gnawing curiosity I did not know how to feed. It had been different with my work on Times Square because there’d been a specific place I’d go to and even if I hadn’t been sure what I’d wanted to capture, there had always been something that had caught my attention. The women I wanted to find now were different; they were not bound to a specific place but scattered throughout the city and often hidden behind closed doors and hushed curtains. Motherhood was not a public place, and I was clueless to how I could access it. I considered calling Naomi but felt that I needed more than just one example to build my case. I wanted to compare, to find that single thread that bound all these women to the beings they had created.

After a few minutes of useless waiting, I forced my legs to move into an undefined direction and tried to let my mind and body get lost among the maze of streets. Soon, I found that I could not. The meditative effect of walking that I had always cherished had waned completely. My muscles felt restless as if they were eager to get me somewhere. Slowing down seemed impossible, so instead, I began to move faster in a sort of half jog that painfully swung my camera into my stomach. I noticed people looking at me, gawking at the large plaster that was still taped across my forehead. That and my jerky movements probably made me look wild, but I could not stop, I did not want to.

I came into larger, busier streets where people had to move out of my way so as not to get waltzed over by my rushing body. A narrow path began to form in front of me, with bodies ducking away as soon as they noticed my approaching presence. I still had no idea where I was going but for now, was content with moving. I had left the laid-back side-alleys of my neighbourhood and was quickly getting into the very heart of the city when suddenly, a dark husk appeared out of nowhere. I was just nearing a crossing and, focused on the traffic light, registered the obstacle too late.

The collision knocked me sideways so that my right shoulder slammed into the guy in front of me who’d been waiting to cross the street. We both tumbled over, and I landed on top of him. When I opened my eyes, two immaculately white sneakers came into view. I looked up.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry. Are you okay?” A young woman peered down at us, her gaze flicking back and forth between us and the toddler that sat on her hip. I rolled down and got up, carefully testing each limb for an injury, or wound. Everything seemed fine but the man who’d cushioned my fall was worse off. His hands were grazed, and a bruise was beginning to form on his cheek.

“Not too bad, I think. A few scratches but that seems to be it,” he said. The woman apologised again and asked if he needed anything, a pharmacy or doctor. He waved it off and said that he was fine. Then he rolled his shoulders back and took a stance that, as I assumed, was supposed to seem manly.

“Is the baby alright?” he asked in turn.

“Oh yeah, thanks. I was holding her when it happened.” Here she quickly glanced at me. “I think the stroller got the worst of it.” We all looked at the dark pile on the floor; knocked on its side, the stroller resembled a beached whale.

“Right,” he said, “let me take a look at that.” He walked over and picked it up. Then he pulled and pushed at it to check the wheels. They screeched in protest. “They already did that before,” the woman said, watching. He nodded and gave it a strong shake which seemed to do more harm than good.

“It seems to work okay, but I’d be careful with it, you never know, a wheel might fall off or something. Don’t want the little one to get hurt.”

“Yeah, you’re right, better safe than sorry. I won’t put her back in, just to be sure.” She made a grave face and took the stroller’s handle as if she were reaching for a dead thing. He nodded solemnly and looked at me. His eyes kept pointing at the stroller, but I acted as if I didn’t understand what he was insinuating.

“Okay then, I’ll be going,” she said after none of us had spoken. She waved goodbye and turned around the corner. We both looked after her and when she disappeared from view, he gave me one last look, shook his head and finally crossed the street. I remained where I was a minute longer, then I turned the corner and followed the woman.

Not long and I caught up. I recognised her from afar, blonde ponytail swinging from the back of her head. She was still carrying the child on her hip, clearly afraid that some harm would come to it if she were to place it back in the stroller. It amused me but I was not surprised. I walked faster to get closer and then stopped, steadying myself to peer through the viewfinder. I zoomed in on the ponytail, her square back, the place where her side was joined with that of the child’s. Her form was lanky, like she had not yet reached her full height. She really had seemed very young before – early twenties but barely – and now, that impression deepened as I watched her feathery, bouncy step.

They were drawing away again and I had to drop the camera to keep up. I repeated the process – walking closer, hitting the shutter, falling behind – until I felt that her back had nothing else to communicate. I followed them thus for a couple of blocks until she made a stop to attend to the wriggling child. She hoisted it up from her hip and in front of her, wanting to move it to the other side. She manoeuvred the small body with ease and determination, not giving it, it seemed, much thought. The child, however, was not pleased by this slight alteration and, dangling hallway between both hips, began to whimper and wail. I crossed to the other side of the street to have a better view but made sure to stay out of the women’s gaze, lest she recognised me. Her face was overtaken by a tense expression and she seemed annoyed. The moment was brief, too brief for my camera to catch but it had been there, I’d seen it, I was sure.

Meanwhile, the child’s cries had descended into desperate screams. The woman held it close to the chest, slowly bouncing off the heels of her feet in a motion that was meant to be soothing but the child would not calm down, could not be consoled. She was losing patience, the rocking became faster, the movement halting, almost uncontrolled. After minutes of this she had enough, stretched her arms and held the child away from her body. They regarded each other, both seemingly unwilling to divert from their position. She said something that I could not understand and then gave the child a quick but sharp shake. Its head lolled back, then forth and came to a startled halt. The screams stopped immediately and the little girl stared at her mother, eyes wide.

The street suddenly seemed very quiet as if the trees and birds had witnessed the woman’s behaviour and stopped their whisper and song to watch the scene unfold. A similar thought seemed to cross the woman’s mind and realising what she had done, she pulled the child back into a tight embrace and planted loud, wet kisses onto the top of its head. This time my camera had seen it all, had dutifully enfolded the progression of scenes within its case. I only let my finger rest when they started walking. The child was back on her hip, and she used her left hand to direct the stroller down the street. She still refused to unburden herself from the child and place it in the stroller. She would not, I saw, part from it again. She did, however, suddenly start to look around as if checking whether someone had seen what she had done. I ducked behind a telephone booth and counted to fifteen before I peered around the corner. She was further away now, her ponytail bobbing back and forth like a friendly wave. I watched them grow smaller, allowing for a greater distance to stretch between us, and then went after them. She had picked up her pace and was moving out of sight quicker than I had anticipated, the speed made it impossible to take pictures, I dropped the camera and contented myself with watching them from afar, trailing the roads and alleys behind them, close enough to observe, yet not so close that I would be seen myself.

We walked for a long time. Her pace had eventually slowed down and she’d begun to look tired. Her shoulders sagged under the child’s weight, and she’d been forced to switch hips more often.

She was leading the three of us into a park and sat down as soon as she crossed the first bench. I stopped, feeling that I could not walk past her without being recognised. The park, roughly the shape of a diamond, stretched onward, far enough to watch from a distance. We had entered at its tip but if I were to take a seat near its crown, I could hide behind the tall trees that stood close to the opposite entrance.

I turned on my heel and decided to go round the park to keep myself out of view. Before I entered from the other side, I peeked around the corner to make sure she had not started to move again. No, she was still sitting on the bench I’d left her on, attending to the toddler on her lap, who had grown unhappy once more. I entered the park, turning my head to the right, allowing the shadows of the trees to cover my face. Approaching a bench that was half hidden behind a bush, I carefully peeked over to access the view. She looked small and fragile from afar, like a child holding a doll. I sat down and switched the lenses on my camera. Then I raised my arms and looked at her through the viewfinder.

They were playing with a toy, a small animal with four legs, a cat or dog perhaps. She tried to motivate the child to go along with the play she was performing, moving the toy up and down as if it was taking large leaps into the sky, as if it was flying. Yet no matter how much she tried, how high she went, the child remained unhappy; the corners of its mouth constantly pointed down, towards the ground. I zoomed in and saw that it was more than a temporary unhappiness: its lips quivered incessantly, and it kept leaning back further and further as if trying to disappear into her mother’s stomach. This movement seemed to express a dormant wish or desire, the child’s wordless plea to be allowed back into the body it had come from as if it had seen the world and decided that it was not meant for it.

The woman did not notice that her repeated attempts to engage the child pushed it further into distress. She soldiered on, mouth moving fast, trying to lull it into happiness, or sleep, or any state preferable to the one it was in now. She seemed determined, resolute even to show this young being that she had not brought it into existence in vain, that there was something better ahead, even if it was not yet apparent, even if it was a long way off. She needed it only – I thought – to hold on, to wait long enough for it to materialise. I began to sense their future, saw their life unfolding in front of me like a book. Days and years of fighting and discord ahead of them, of trying to make something work that was set to break apart from the beginning.

I wondered how she could not see this, had not felt the child’s otherworldliness the moment it had been born. The little girl was slipping away, slightly, every day and perhaps that was why she was so determined to keep her safe, close. It explained why she had discarded the stroller at the first sight of trouble. I zoomed in on her face, wanting to capture this expression of worry, feeling that it was this that sealed her into her role so firmly and that made all the other aspects of her life go away, drawn into the background as if they had never existed.

I extended the lens as far as I could and hit the shutter. Then I went through the photographs I’d taken so far: she still looked awfully young but, there on the screen, something else became apparent too. It was visible just below the surface of the skin and once it seeped through, I was sure, it would draw lines across her face. She was beautiful, yes, but the youth and strength her body harboured now would slowly falter with each year the child completed. It had already started to show; the tiredness in her limbs and arms precursors of the years to come. With every day, she was surrendering a part of herself, I wondered what she would get in return.

They had stopped playing, the toy animal discarded on the patch of bench beside them. The woman had sagged back – the girl was crying again, silently this time. Her mother had given up consoling her, too exhausted and tired from the charade. She stood up but remained hunched over as if plagued by a pain in her lower back. They started walking, child hoisted up on her hip, stroller dragging behind. She still refused to put the girl down.

After they had passed, I waited a minute before I got up myself. They were not far off, walking very slowly now. She had carried the child all this way and her body couldn’t go on for much longer, was barely holding on. I had to admire her stubbornness. I would have abandoned the stroller long ago and wondered why she hadn’t done so herself. Then I noticed the bags in its lower compartment – groceries or shopping of some kind – too much for her to carry.

Large houses were starting to adorn the sides of the street. Their facades all immaculately clean and each fitted with a small, quaint garden in front. The area came across as excessively suburban. I looked around and wondered who could afford to live here, London was expensive enough as it was. When I brought my gaze back to the walkway, the woman and child were gone. The street stretched on, almost as far as I could see but the two of them were nowhere to be found.

I walked faster, suddenly feeling abandoned and lost without them as my guides. I rushed past the houses, ran almost, until I saw a flicker of light spring to life. I stopped immediately and turned. The house, identical to the others, was dark save for a single light that had been turned on in the kitchen. The room was empty but I hoped that whoever had flipped the switch would return presently. I didn’t have to wait long.

She came in alone, had probably brought the child to bed or stored her somewhere safely. She was moving rapidly, body hastening between cabinets and counters until she came to an abrupt halt in front of the sink. Only her hands remained restless, gathering plates and cups that lay scattered on the counter. She started scrubbing; the muscles in her arms were taut and tense, her upper body leaned forward. I feared that the plate would snap if she kept at it with such force, but she soon dropped it into the sink and took a step back. Her arms dangled at her side and her hands, still covered in soap and foam, were dripping slowly onto the floor. She did not move, just breathed and for a second, I felt the movement of her chest as my own, heavy and laboursome.

I couldn’t tell how long she remained that way but eventually, she dried her hands and turned her back towards the sink, leaning onto it lightly. She loosened the tight ponytail that still sat high on top of her head and the blond strands fell onto her shoulders and back and in front of her face. The hair tie had left a dent in her hair so that it looked as though she was wearing an invisible crown. She raised her arms and combed through it, starting at the scalp and moving down gently. I raised my camera. When her arms came up again, they remained mid-air, elbows close to her face and with long, thin fingers, she began to massage her scalp. They extended and drew back like the petals of a flower, moving in slow circles across her head. Her face was hidden behind her left arm, but I could see that her body relaxed more with each bloom. After a while, her hands started to move down towards the nape of her neck, working the cramped muscles that carried her head. Elbows dropped to chest and her head tilted back slightly, revealing a set of closed eyes and lips that were parted in pleasure. I hit the shutter but the click that emitted from my camera suddenly seemed so loud, that I lowered my arms startled. I checked the photograph. It was tender and intimate and immediately filled me with dread. I became painfully aware of what I’d been doing, stalking this woman, following her home, invading her privacy, her sanctuary and taking this moment of unveiled intimacy from her as if it were mine to take or even to witness. I did not know whatever possessed me to do this, but I wanted it gone and deleted the picture immediately. I felt sick, disgusted at what I had done, what lengths I would go to get these pictures. There was a strong impulse reaching my hands, demanding that they drop the camera as if it were a murder weapon. My arms were shaking, struggling against this command but I managed to store my camera into its bag before they lost the battle.

A man approached from down the street. He looked at me curiously, then at the house, then back at me as if wondering what I was doing here, in front of a property that was not mine, that I had no business being at. Fear seized me, had he seen what I had done, who I’d been observing? His mouth opened as if to call to me. This was the woman’s husband; I was absolutely sure.