Heartache

Their names were Jo and Nick. They were in their early 20s and calm, sitting close together on a threadbare sofa. Their daughter, Gail, played with her Duplo on a rug at their feet. I sat in the only armchair. There was a television and stereo, a few CDs and some children’s videos, a plastic box with toys, and a wall-mounted gas fire. A few condolence cards stood on the windowsill. Nothing else. Not even any dust. The room might have been sparsely furnished, but it was spotless.

'Lottie had a hole in her heart, and part of her brain was missing,' Jo told me. 'They said that if I carried her to term there was only a 50-50 chance she would live past birth. I could have had a Caesarean, which would have increased that a bit. But even if she did live, she would have needed 24-hour medical care. Not just personal care: tubes and stuff. She might have lived for some years, with that. She might even have been able to come home at some point. But she wasn't likely to live for many years, even at the best.'

'And it would have taken over our whole lives,' said Nick. 'And Gail's.'

'It was after the 24-week scan they found out. The midwife was nearly in tears when she told us.'

'We couldn't take it in straight away. But they were so good, weren't they?'

'Yes, the midwife couldn't have been more supportive, and the hospital. They let us talk, and ask questions, and go away and think about it, and come back and ask some more.'

'Lottie was very much a wanted child. We'd always said we'd have two. We'll have a third one, now, when we're ready. But the feeling just grew in us, over the days, that we couldn't bring her into the world for that kind of life.'

Jo nodded. 'It really felt as if the best thing we could do for her, for both our children, was to let her go.'

'We would have made a different decision if we were rich,' said Nick. 'We even did the lottery, didn't we, Jo, that Saturday night? Lottie's lottery, we called it. We don't usually waste a pound on that, but we thought we'd give it a go, just in case.'

'If we'd been rich, and we could have afforded the best care for Lottie and for Gail, we would have gone for it. But we're not. We can't afford carers and nurses. And the NHS is great, I’m really thankful we’ve got it, but it’s not so good at coping with long-term problems. So we went back to the hospital and I asked them to put me into labour.'

'They were great, they kept checking that it was really what we wanted.'

'Well, you thought that was great, but I was sure by then and I just wanted them to get on with it.'

'I know, love,' said Nick, and took her hand. 'You did so well. I was proud of you.'

'They warned us that Lottie might survive her birth. I wanted her to, in a way; I wanted to meet her. But she didn't. I guess perhaps it's just as well.'

'She was beautiful,' said Nick. 'We sat with her for a couple of hours, in the hospital. Talked to her, talked to each other, cried, hugged, talked some more. We took some photos, would you like to see them?'

'I would,' I said, not sure whether I was telling the truth.

He handed me half a dozen prints of an impossibly tiny, impossibly perfect baby.

'She's beautiful,' I said. They nodded happily, and for a fault slip moment everything felt normal, a loving couple showing me photos of their newborn. Then the fault slip reversed again and I was looking at pictures of a dead child.

'You named her Charlotte Catherine?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Nick. 'We had all our children's names sorted out before Jo was pregnant with Gail. First daughter: Jo's mum, my mum. Second daughter: Jo's grandma, my grandma. First son: my dad, Jo's dad. Second son: my granddad, Jo's granddad. So that's Gail Victoria down there.'

Gail looked up at the sound of her name, and smiled at her daddy who leaned down to stroke her curly hair.

‘I’d like to tell the story of her names on Friday,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about this, and it seems to me that the ceremony will be a baby naming as well as a funeral. And her names embed her firmly in your families. I thought maybe I’d say something about how she’ll always be part of your family, to be loved and remembered and spoken of.’

Jo’s eyes were shining. ‘That would be wonderful. They’ve been so good. We didn’t tell them until it was all over, I couldn’t bear to, but we should have done.’

‘We wanted to do it ourselves,’ said Nick. ‘And we weren’t sure how they would take it. We thought maybe they would be angry, or disagree, or not understand.’

‘We were wrong about that, weren’t we? The only people we told were our friends Sam and Tony, they live next door. They were great, too, and they had Gail for us when we went to the hospital.’

‘I stayed the night at Sam and Tony,’ said Gail proudly.

‘Did you?’ I asked, suitably impressed. ‘Did you like that?’

She scrambled up into her father’s lap. ‘My little sister died,’ she told me. ‘Mummy was very sad. But she came to get me back in the morning, and I gave her a cuggle. That made you feel better, didn’t it, Mummy?’

‘It did, sweetheart,’ Jo said.

Gail beamed, and wriggled over to her mother to repeat the ‘cuggle’. Then she settled down between both parents and put her thumb in her mouth.

‘There’s a poem by Elizabeth Jennings that I thought might be suitable for Friday,’ I said, and passed copies to them. They were quiet for a moment, reading.

‘That’s perfect,’ said Jo. ‘Can I keep this?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Nick?’

‘I think it’s nearly perfect. There’s only one line I’m not sure about: ‘your clear refusal of our world’. Because we refused it for her, kind of. I’m not sure how much she refused it herself.’

‘I am,’ said Jo, putting her hands on her belly. ‘She would never have joined our world, even if she had lived for a few years. She would have lived in her own world, and we would have had to join hers as much as we could.’

‘I know you’re sure, my love. And I’m not doubting we made the right decision. I just don’t feel as certain as you, about some things. I think because I didn’t know Lottie as well as you did.’

‘You each have a different relationship with your children, because you’re different people,’ I said. ‘That mostly doesn’t seem to matter when everything’s going OK, in fact it can be useful at times, when one of you prefers doing some things and the other prefers doing others. But there seems to be an expectation that people should feel grief the same way. I don’t know why, it doesn’t make sense. You’re bound to grieve differently, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it together too and support each other in the process.’

Gail was drowsing off between them, and they smiled at each other over her head.

‘Have you thought about music?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘We want songs from children’s films. Some of her sister’s favourites. She won’t be going, the nursery have kindly said they’ll keep her all day. She’ll enjoy that, and we’d rather she had a day she enjoyed. It’ll be better for us, too. But she’ll send her songs for her sister.’

‘Which are they?’

‘There are three, is that OK?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Well, there’s Somewhere Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz – Gail loves to sing along with that one – and two from The Lion King, Circle of Life and Can You Feel The Love Tonight. There were loads of others we could have chosen, but those were the three we thought would be best.’

‘Any thoughts about when you want them in the ceremony?’

‘Circle Of Life at the end, I think,’ said Jo. ‘It’s a bit more hopeful.’

‘And Somewhere Over The Rainbow at the beginning?’ Nick suggested.

‘That would leave Can You Feel The Love Tonight for the middle,’ I said. ‘Sounds good to me. And would either of you like to speak during the ceremony?’

‘I can’t, but Nick would,’ said Jo.

‘I need to say something for Lottie. I’m going to bring her in the car, we’re not having a great big black hearse for her, just a little white coffin and she’ll travel on my lap in the back with Jo. I’ll put her on the thing, you know, the place at the front. And we’re not having the curtains closed, when it’s time I’m going to put a white blanket over her, that’s all.’

‘And I wanted to put some flowers on top,’ said Jo. ‘Just a little spray of that baby’s breath, you know? But I don’t think I can get up in front of everyone. Zinnia, could you do that for me?’

‘Of course I could. And if you change your mind, at any time, even right there on the day, you can do it yourself. I can catch your eye, when the time comes, and you can let me know.’

‘I won’t change my mind, though,’ she said.

I’d thought for a few minutes that Nick was worrying about something, and I saw him make up his mind to speak.

‘What about your fees?’ he asked.

‘We don’t charge for babies,’ I said.

‘That’s what Paul said, too. Is that a standard thing, then, with funerals?’

‘As far as I know it is. I’ve never heard of anyone charging for a baby’s funeral.’

The relief in the room was palpable.

‘I’ll be writing up everything we’ve talked about into a script for Friday,’ I told them. ‘Would you like a copy, afterwards?’

They both said ‘yes please’ at the same time.

‘It would be helpful for Gail, too, when she’s older and has more understanding,’ said Jo. ‘She’ll be able to read it, and to see what was said about her sister.’

‘Okay. I’ll be in touch again before Friday, and if you think of anything else just give me a ring.’

They started to rise, to see me out, but I gestured them back into the sofa. Gail was fast asleep between them, in one of those sweaty crumpled positions that children seem able to sleep in.

‘You’ll disturb her if you get up,’ I said. ‘I can find my way out.’

We shook hands, gently, and I left them there on the sofa, a loving family that would always have something missing, a hole in its heart.