Case Histories

Michelle thought that she'd been angry before, but never like this. It was like being a volcano, plugged and stoppered and unable to get rid of the boiling stuff inside. Which was called – what? Magma? Lava, for fuck's sake. She couldn't even remember the simplest words anymore. "Maternal amnesia," the books said, but if it was amnesia then it was very selective; it didn't allow her to forget how completely miserable and unhappy she was, did it? And today had been going really well up until this moment – she'd been on top of everything, everything under control, and then he'd barged into the house without a second thought and woken the baby up.

Michelle tugged at the ax, but it was stuck like bloody Excalibur in the log, and she was so lost in her fury that she didn't hear Shirley and when she turned round and saw her she nearly jumped out of her skin and said, "Jesus, you frightened me," and just for a nanosecond in time she forgot how angry she was but then she heard the baby screaming inside the house – half of East Anglia must be able to hear the bloody baby – and it all came boiling up again and she knew this time it was going to blow and it was going to be a mess. Krakatau. You see, she could still remember some things. "You look like you're going to kill someone with that ax," Shirley said, laughing, and Michelle said, "I am."

She charged through the back door like a Viking berserker and when Keith saw her he laughed as well. They were all fucking laughing at her as if nothing she said was important, as if she didn't mean what she said, and she lifted up the ax, although it was awkward because she didn't really understand where its center of gravity was, and she flung it at Keith, but it was a girly throw and the ax bounced heavily and landed harmlessly on the floor.

He was furious, he was even more angry than she was, and at first she thought it was just because of the ax, although it was miles away from him, but then she realized he was shouting about Tanya. "You might have hit her, you might have really hurt her," and she said, "Don't be ridiculous. It was nowhere near her," and he yelled, "You crazy fucking bitch, that's not the point," and she felt suddenly frightened because she could see that Keith had lost it now – he didn't even look like himself and he made a move to pick up the ax but the next moment it was in Shirley's hands and she didn't do any girly tossing. She just lifted the whole weight of the ax up and brought the blade down on Keith's head and then everyone was quiet, even the bug.

Shirley was a member of the St. John Ambulance, but it didn't take medical training to see that there was nothing anyone could do for him. Michelle was on the floor, hugging herself as if she were in a straitjacket, rocking backward and forward, and she could hear a weird keening noise that she realized was coming from her, and Shirley said, "Don't do that," her voice cold, but she couldn't stop the noise so Shirley grabbed her and pulled her to her feet and shouted, "Shut up, Michelle, shut up!" but she couldn't so Shirley punched her in the face.

The shock was so great she thought she might have actually stopped breathing for a second, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and find oblivion. Shirley said, "You've just ruined both our fucking lives, not to mention Tanya's," and Michelle thought, Not to mention Keith's, but she knew Shirley was right because when it came right down to it, it was her fault.

So she got up from the floor – she felt as stiff as an old woman – and picked up the ax, which at least wasn't actually embedded in his head, which was something to be grateful for, and then she wiped the handle of the ax on her jeans and grasped it herself and said to Shirley, "You go."

Tanya was standing up, hanging on to the edges of her playpen, and she started screaming again, just as if she'd been stuck with a pin. Shirley picked her up and tried to quiet her, but that child didn't look like she would ever be quiet again. "Just go," Michelle said. "Please just go, Shirley." Shirley put the baby back on the floor and said, "I promise I'll look after her for you," and Michelle said, "I know you will. Take her away, give her a fresh start, be the mother to her that I can't be," because if there was one person in the world she could trust it was Shirley.

"Right," Shirley said, and you would think she'd done this before, she was so in control. "Right, I'm going to phone the police and I'm going to tell them that this was how I found you? Right? Right, Michelle?"

"Right."