‘Oh. Oh, OK then, Friday’s fine.’
Exhausted, we got into the car. Emily was grey.
‘Are you OK?’ I whispered.
Her face was wretched. ‘Why did he buy it if all he wants to do is butcher it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What was it that eejit next door said?’
‘Follow me and I will get jiggy with thee?’
‘No, the other eejit from the other next door. Mike. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said. Well, he was right –I wished for someone to buy my script and now I wish they hadn’t.’
‘It might be a great film. You never know.’
‘No, it’s going to be a piece of shit,’ she said, and tears began to spill down her face. ‘My lovely script that I worked so hard on until it was perfect, perfect, perfect. I was so proud of it and now it’ll never see the light of day. No one will ever see it. Seven months I slaved on it, to make it wonderful, and now he wants it totally rewritten in a week. It can’t be done! And he’s taken out all my one-liners, all the funny stuff is gone, and any of the touching moments now involve a fucking DOG!’
I rummaged for a tissue while she howled like a child. ‘I’ll be ashamed, Maggie, I’ll be so ashamed to have my name on a cheesy, schmaltzy, moralizing movie about a dog.’ She tried to catch her breath. ‘About a dog called Chip’.
Could you pull out?’ I suggested. ‘Just tell him to stick his money and you’ll find someone else to make your movie, thanks very much!’
‘No. Because no one else does want to buy it. I know all that and I need the money to live on. But there’s no doubt that everything comes with a price tag.’
‘Just refuse to make the changes,’ I urged. ‘Tell him this is the movie he bought and this is the movie he should make!’
‘Then he’ll fire me and I’ll get paid almost nothing, but they’ll still own my script. They’ll just get some other writer in to make the changes.’
‘They can’t do that!’ But I knew they could; in my time I’d worked on enough contracts to know how much power the big studios retained. I’d just never seen it in action before.
‘They don’t just buy your script, they buy your soul. Troy is right to try and get all his work produced independently.’ Emily’s sobbing began to quieten down and she smiled regretfully. ‘You make a deal with the devil, no point complaining if you get a pitchfork in the arse.’ Then tears began to spill again. ‘But that script was like my baby. I loved it, I wanted the best for it, and it kills me to see it torn apart like that, my poor baby.’ Aghast, she stopped. ‘Oh, Maggie, I’ve done it again. I’m so sorry.’
32
When you have a miscarriage, you get given a huge amount of information, but you actually discover very little. People bombarded me with well-meant advice, which varied too much for comfort: some said we should try again immediately; others insisted it was vital that we grieve the loss before moving on.
But nobody could tell me the one thing I wanted to know, and that was: Why had it happened? The best that Doctor Collins, my gynaecologist, could come up with was that fifteen to twenty per cent of pregnancies routinely end in miscarriage.
‘But why?’ I persisted.
‘It’s nature’s way,’ he said. ‘Something must have been wrong with the foetus, so that it wouldn’t have been able to survive on its own.’
I’m sure that was meant to be comforting, but instead it enraged me. In my mind’s eye, my child, wherever it was, was perfect.
‘But it won’t happen again?’ Garv asked.
‘It could. It probably won’t, but I’d be lying to you if I said it couldn’t.’
‘But it’s already happened to us.’ Meaning we’d had our quota of bad luck.
‘Just because it’s happened once is no guarantee that it can’t happen again.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said bitterly.
‘Another thing,’ he said warily.
‘What?’ I snapped.
‘Yeah, what?’ Garv echoed.
‘Mood swings.’
‘What about them?’
‘Expect them.’
I went over the past nine weeks with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the thing I’d done wrong. Had I lifted heavy objects? Accidently gone on a loop-the-loop rollercoaster? Booked myself into a German measles hospital? Or was it just down to the fact – now unimaginable to me – that I simply hadn’t wanted it and he or she had known?
They provided a nurse-counsellor-type person, who told me that there was no way that the baby would have known that it hadn’t been entirely welcome. ‘They’re thick-skinned little creatures,’ she said. ‘But it’s natural to blame yourself. Guilt is one of the emotions everyone feels when this happens.’
‘And what else?’
‘Ooh, anger, grief, loss, frustration, fear, relief –’
‘Relief?’ I glared at her.
‘Not for everyone. And did I mention irrational rage?’
Because we’d told so few people that I was pregnant, there weren’t many who knew I’d miscarried. So almost no one made allowances for us as we tried to fill the hole in our lives.
And it was a hole. We’d already thought up names – Patrick if it was a boy, Aoife if it was a girl.
The due date had been April 29th and already we’d started looking at baby clothes and planning the decoration for the bedroom. Then overnight we no longer had any need of teddy bear wallpaper or revolving lamps that throw patterns of stars on the walls, and that was hard to get used to.
Even more painful was that I’d been excited about getting to know my child. I’d been looking forward to a lifetime with this new person, who was part of me and part of Garv – and abruptly it had all been whipped away.
You know how it is when your boyfriend ditches you –out of nowhere the world is full of loving couples, holding hands, kissing, clinking champagne glasses, feeding each other oysters. In the same way, as soon as I’d lost my baby, out of the woodwork suddenly emerged busloads of heavily pregnant women, ripe and gorgeous, carrying their swollen bellies with pride. And worse still, there were babies everywhere I turned: in the supermarket, on the street, by the sea, at the optician’s. Perfect little creatures with their dolphin-smiley mouths and lustrous skin bursting with freshness, flapping their pudgy arms, clapping their sticky hands, kicking their socks off and making high-pitched, swooping, singing noises, like bald mini-Bjorks.
Exhausted, we got into the car. Emily was grey.
‘Are you OK?’ I whispered.
Her face was wretched. ‘Why did he buy it if all he wants to do is butcher it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What was it that eejit next door said?’
‘Follow me and I will get jiggy with thee?’
‘No, the other eejit from the other next door. Mike. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said. Well, he was right –I wished for someone to buy my script and now I wish they hadn’t.’
‘It might be a great film. You never know.’
‘No, it’s going to be a piece of shit,’ she said, and tears began to spill down her face. ‘My lovely script that I worked so hard on until it was perfect, perfect, perfect. I was so proud of it and now it’ll never see the light of day. No one will ever see it. Seven months I slaved on it, to make it wonderful, and now he wants it totally rewritten in a week. It can’t be done! And he’s taken out all my one-liners, all the funny stuff is gone, and any of the touching moments now involve a fucking DOG!’
I rummaged for a tissue while she howled like a child. ‘I’ll be ashamed, Maggie, I’ll be so ashamed to have my name on a cheesy, schmaltzy, moralizing movie about a dog.’ She tried to catch her breath. ‘About a dog called Chip’.
Could you pull out?’ I suggested. ‘Just tell him to stick his money and you’ll find someone else to make your movie, thanks very much!’
‘No. Because no one else does want to buy it. I know all that and I need the money to live on. But there’s no doubt that everything comes with a price tag.’
‘Just refuse to make the changes,’ I urged. ‘Tell him this is the movie he bought and this is the movie he should make!’
‘Then he’ll fire me and I’ll get paid almost nothing, but they’ll still own my script. They’ll just get some other writer in to make the changes.’
‘They can’t do that!’ But I knew they could; in my time I’d worked on enough contracts to know how much power the big studios retained. I’d just never seen it in action before.
‘They don’t just buy your script, they buy your soul. Troy is right to try and get all his work produced independently.’ Emily’s sobbing began to quieten down and she smiled regretfully. ‘You make a deal with the devil, no point complaining if you get a pitchfork in the arse.’ Then tears began to spill again. ‘But that script was like my baby. I loved it, I wanted the best for it, and it kills me to see it torn apart like that, my poor baby.’ Aghast, she stopped. ‘Oh, Maggie, I’ve done it again. I’m so sorry.’
32
When you have a miscarriage, you get given a huge amount of information, but you actually discover very little. People bombarded me with well-meant advice, which varied too much for comfort: some said we should try again immediately; others insisted it was vital that we grieve the loss before moving on.
But nobody could tell me the one thing I wanted to know, and that was: Why had it happened? The best that Doctor Collins, my gynaecologist, could come up with was that fifteen to twenty per cent of pregnancies routinely end in miscarriage.
‘But why?’ I persisted.
‘It’s nature’s way,’ he said. ‘Something must have been wrong with the foetus, so that it wouldn’t have been able to survive on its own.’
I’m sure that was meant to be comforting, but instead it enraged me. In my mind’s eye, my child, wherever it was, was perfect.
‘But it won’t happen again?’ Garv asked.
‘It could. It probably won’t, but I’d be lying to you if I said it couldn’t.’
‘But it’s already happened to us.’ Meaning we’d had our quota of bad luck.
‘Just because it’s happened once is no guarantee that it can’t happen again.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said bitterly.
‘Another thing,’ he said warily.
‘What?’ I snapped.
‘Yeah, what?’ Garv echoed.
‘Mood swings.’
‘What about them?’
‘Expect them.’
I went over the past nine weeks with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the thing I’d done wrong. Had I lifted heavy objects? Accidently gone on a loop-the-loop rollercoaster? Booked myself into a German measles hospital? Or was it just down to the fact – now unimaginable to me – that I simply hadn’t wanted it and he or she had known?
They provided a nurse-counsellor-type person, who told me that there was no way that the baby would have known that it hadn’t been entirely welcome. ‘They’re thick-skinned little creatures,’ she said. ‘But it’s natural to blame yourself. Guilt is one of the emotions everyone feels when this happens.’
‘And what else?’
‘Ooh, anger, grief, loss, frustration, fear, relief –’
‘Relief?’ I glared at her.
‘Not for everyone. And did I mention irrational rage?’
Because we’d told so few people that I was pregnant, there weren’t many who knew I’d miscarried. So almost no one made allowances for us as we tried to fill the hole in our lives.
And it was a hole. We’d already thought up names – Patrick if it was a boy, Aoife if it was a girl.
The due date had been April 29th and already we’d started looking at baby clothes and planning the decoration for the bedroom. Then overnight we no longer had any need of teddy bear wallpaper or revolving lamps that throw patterns of stars on the walls, and that was hard to get used to.
Even more painful was that I’d been excited about getting to know my child. I’d been looking forward to a lifetime with this new person, who was part of me and part of Garv – and abruptly it had all been whipped away.
You know how it is when your boyfriend ditches you –out of nowhere the world is full of loving couples, holding hands, kissing, clinking champagne glasses, feeding each other oysters. In the same way, as soon as I’d lost my baby, out of the woodwork suddenly emerged busloads of heavily pregnant women, ripe and gorgeous, carrying their swollen bellies with pride. And worse still, there were babies everywhere I turned: in the supermarket, on the street, by the sea, at the optician’s. Perfect little creatures with their dolphin-smiley mouths and lustrous skin bursting with freshness, flapping their pudgy arms, clapping their sticky hands, kicking their socks off and making high-pitched, swooping, singing noises, like bald mini-Bjorks.
