The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  ‘Well, no. No one has used any “actual words”,’ Dawn says, fighting to keep the impatience from her voice by drawing inverted bunny ears in the air with her fingers. ‘The man who’s after me doesn’t need to. He’s probably one of those types of men – those actions-speak-louder kind. He has red hair. I did think it might be Paul from room one, but his voice isn’t the same. Whoever the man is wants me gone from here so he can get me. He’s been in my room, put bars on my window and laid the fire blanket over my bed.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’ Peter’s nose is all crinkled up.

  ‘To show me that I’m trapped. That he has control over me.’

  ‘Right,’ says Peter slowly, fiddling with his chin dimple. Dawn knew he wouldn’t believe her. No one ever does when you have words like ‘Puerperal Psychosis’, ‘Bipolar’ and ‘prone to psychotic episodes’ written on the medical history section of your file.

  ‘And the fire blanket is a death threat – to show that he could suffocate me in my sleep if he wanted to. I can prove it,’ she adds, hearing the desperation in her own voice. ‘I have the days and times written down. If you check the CCTV, you will see him coming in and out of my room. Then you’ll know.’

  Peter and Grace look at each other for a long moment as if weighing up whether or not to give into the demands of a mad woman.

  ‘We’ll go through the feeds now,’ promises Grace. ‘And we’ll take it from there.’

  Grace is merely placating her at this stage, Dawn knows, but once she sees the evidence, she’ll know the truth. And then she and Rosie will be safe.

  Hopefully.

  ‘There is one more thing I need to tell you,’ Dawn mumbles, looking at her Shoe Zone flip-flops. She can’t recall how much they were. She tries to remember, but her memories are sleeping. ‘I have been breaking a hostel rule. A big one, I’m afraid. I’ve been letting someone stay in my room. He’s been no trouble, and I completely understand if you want to kick me out, but all that I ask is that you give the room to him. He really needs it.’

  ‘Let’s just wait and see after we’ve looked at it, eh?’ Grace opens the office door and beckons Dawn through. The dull roar of the hatch closing reverberates around her ears and she feels as if she’s at the bottom of a deep pool.

  Dawn perches wordlessly on the stool next to the CCTV monitor as Grace fiddles with the controls and Peter adjusts the rows of pens in his drawer in order of size and colour. She tells Grace the dates and times to start looking for. She’d written them down, but there was no need to check her notebook as they’d permanently inked themselves onto the front of her mind.

  ‘Here we are.’ Grace presses play with a flourish, seeming to forget she’s not popping on a boxset they’ve all been looking forward to watching.

  As soon as the screen comes to life, Grace appears on it at Dawn’s door armed with three metal bars. She places a toolbox at her feet and pops the bars into the crook of her elbow as she fiddles with a huge bunch of keys in her other hand.

  ‘Head office asked me to do that, honey,’ Grace says in a quiet voice.

  Dawn winces at her sympathetic use of ‘honey’. The girl is almost half her age after all.

  ‘It’s the new building regulations. It’s for health and safety. Your own health and safety. It’s to do with how wide the windows can open,’ Grace carries on.

  ‘Cara’s not got any,’ Dawn barks.

  ‘Cara’s on the ground floor.’

  Oh.

  ‘Is it in case I jump out of it or something?’

  Grace and Peter must get so bored with each other’s faces. They seem to look at each other every time Dawn says something lately.

  ‘Well. Okay. Fair enough about the bars. But you haven’t seen the next one yet – the day with the fire blanket.’

  Peter picks up a remote control and Grace tells him the next day and time Dawn has given her.

  It’s weird seeing yourself on a TV screen. Dawn had probably had more than her fair share of chances to see herself on CCTV, but it still shocks her every time. When did her arms become like twigs? The sharp hollows of her cheeks look positively zombie-like. And when did she get so old? She’s like an extra in The Walking Dead. Teardrop Terry had been watching that all week in the resident’s lounge. CCTV-Dawn closes the door to number six behind her and looks around her shoulder before creeping past the camera.

  Dawn’s heart begins to skitter as she realises that any second now, Shaun will be seen on the screen. Remorse pricks at her. By doing this, she’s probably increasing his chances of having to sleep on the street tonight. At least he’ll have her for company this time, Dawn guesses. It’s the only way though, she can’t let him win this one. The minutes tick by one after the other until she sees the back of her lime-green top on the screen, hanging off her shoulders.

  CCTV-Dawn reappears, opening the door again and entering before slamming it shut, leaving the image still and devoid of anything to look at apart from the door with the number six on it.

  ‘There must be a mistake. You must have put in the wrong date. The wrong time.’ But Dawn knows that was the only day she’d worn that green top since she’d moved in.

  ‘There was a health and safety inspection that morning,’ Grace says, suddenly. ‘We always check the fire blankets as part of that. I expect Lorna knocked it down and it blew onto your bed in the wind. Perhaps you just didn’t notice it until the afternoon?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dawn murmurs.

  The culprit wasn’t the only one missing from the CCTV feed.

  ‘Who was it you said you’d had staying in your room?’ asks Grace.

  Bugger.

  ‘Shaun Michaels.’ In for a penny, in for a pound.

  Grace’s eyes widen, and she switches the power off at the monitor before placing a gentle hand on Dawn’s shoulder. Peter has finished lining up his stationery yet again and closes the drawer with a bang.

  ‘I think you must have got that wrong, Dawn,’ says Grace. ‘Shaun Michaels is dead. He was found in the park toilets the day after you moved in.’

  Chapter 26

  Dawn

  TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE crowded around Dawn’s bed. She got carried there because she collapsed in the foyer an hour ago. Room 6 is small. It’s not designed for staff members and people in uniform to stand in; it’s only just big enough for Dawn and Shaun. Shaun. Mustn’t mention Shaun again, not to these people. Grace has shown Dawn a newspaper, full of details. Too many details. Next of kin have been informed. Someone needs to let them know it was all a lie. Dawn knows it was all a lie because Shaun’s still there, in her room where she’d left him this morning, behind all of all those concerned faces staring over her. Can’t they see him?

  There’s been whispered talk about ‘survivor’s guilt’, and lots of rummaging through Dawn’s medication packets. Apparently, they are all well out of date and most of the blisters are still full.

  ‘Ah,’ Peter had said. As if that explained everything.

  Grace has been speaking to the ones in uniform, using words that are to do with hospitals. They aren’t proper uniforms, just the clothes of the smart–casual brigade. The ones that try to portray the right balance of being ‘approachable’ – Hey, we’re just like you guys! – but smart enough to lay deep foundations for the ‘professional boundaries’. If you asked Dawn, it would be far simpler if they just wore uniforms; at least that way everyone knows where they stand.

  ‘No ward spaces at the moment,’ one of them mutters. ‘There hasn’t been any for ages. Funding cuts, you know how it is.’

  Grace raises an eyebrow. Yes, she knows exactly how it is.

  Somehow, Dawn becomes part of a conversation about making a deal. She consents to an injection to help her feel better and agrees to another one in a month’s time. That way, apparently, she’ll avoid having to go to a psychiatric ward. She feels a little short-changed by this deal given she already knows there are no beds, but she goes along with it anyway. It’s the least she can do a
fter putting all these people through so much bother on a Friday afternoon. Other words get thrown around the room. Words about care plans, therapy waiting lists, risk management. Dawn’s grateful for the concern, she really is, but all she wants is for everyone to leave so she can talk with Shaun and go to sleep as they ramble on about their days, just like they usually do.

  Then everyone does leave; everyone except one of the uniforms. She opens her briefcase and takes out a syringe as she explains to Dawn about the benefits and the risks of the stuff she’s about to jab into her thigh. Dawn doesn’t hear much of it, probably because seeing her take the vial out of her briefcase is reminding her of a Resident Evil film she’d seen where the characters injected themselves with an anti-zombie vaccine. She barely feels the ‘sharp scratch’ she’s been warned about, but she does feel the warmth pooling in the top of her left leg.

  The woman stays with Dawn for a while, and she stretches her legs out, lying on her side along the length of her bed. The breeze from the open window makes her shiver and the woman manoeuvres the duvet from under her, draping it over her body until it covers her shoulders. Her lids begin to feel heavy, and she experiences a sensation of long-ago déjà vu. Dawn’s dad used to be able to make her feel safe and calm like this, whenever he tucked her in. Often, she would already be in bed by the time he’d get in from work. Mum was never the type to read stories; she would usually be in bed even before Dawn was, sallow-faced and puffy-eyed, even if she’d only been up for a few hours during the afternoon. It was Dad who had taken her to school on her first day. Dad who wiped away her tears when Bobby Carter tripped her up during her dance show.

  The door clicks shut, and Dawn opens one eye, realising she must have begun to nod off. The room is empty now. She searches each corner with her eyes, hoping to see Shaun. She sees something flash by the window, but by the time she focusses her eyes in that direction she can see nothing but the sea, the sky and the trees. The seagulls are making their usual racket and Dawn concentrates on the caw sounds, unclenching her toes and pulling her duvet up higher until it covers the nape of her neck. Small parts of her mind are still trying to fight their way forwards for attention. Where would Shaun sleep now? What if something happens to him and Dawn’s not around to protect him? She still doesn’t understand why they told her he was dead.

  It’s happening all over again; a small voice says. It’s because of the evil. You were warned not to tell, and you did. He was taken, just like Rosie. You couldn’t protect her either.

  A tear trickles across the bridge of Dawn’s nose and seeps into the lumpy pillow beneath her head.

  Rosie. Where are you?

  Chapter 27

  THEN

  Dawn

  DAWN’S MIDWIFE HAD TOLD her during their last appointment that she’d know when labour was starting. She’d believed her because she’d said it to so many women herself throughout her midwifery training. They’d sat down together on Dawn’s blue and white stripy two-seater in the corner of their tiny living room, scribbling notes on her paperwork and creating a birth plan.

  She could have a home birth if she’d wanted to, the midwife had told her. She was healthy, at a low risk of complications and it would mean the baby would be born in tranquil surroundings.

  Dawn’s not sure how their flat could be described as ‘tranquil’, not with all the banging about from the shop downstairs. The British Heart Foundation sells furniture as well as second-hand jeans and ancient Mills & Boon books, so there’s often a delivery van parked outside with men shouting over each other as they load it up with various shades of pine, oak and fibreboard.

  She smiles to herself as her little princess boots her in the ribcage. She reckons wherever she’s born she’s going to come out wearing a pair of Dr Martens. ‘Just like her mum,’ Rob had beamed when Dawn had mentioned her theory to him.

  They don’t know for sure they’re having a girl; the baby had stubbornly refused to expose her genitalia to the sonographer at twenty weeks and Dawn hadn’t blamed her one bit. But deep down, she knows.

  Rob had been a little concerned when she’d mentioned a homebirth. ‘What if something goes wrong?’ he’d asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if there are doctors around in case there are any emergencies?’

  Dawn had explained about the benefits of being at home; how they weren’t far from a hospital if they needed to transfer. That she could put on her favourite CDs and scented candles. He’d ummed and ahhed, but Dawn could tell he wasn’t convinced. He’ll come around. All Rob ever wants is for Dawn to be happy. ‘That boy thinks the bloody sun shines right out of your arse,’ her friend, Mel, is always saying. Dawn usually tells her to shut up, but secretly thinks she’s probably right.

  And now she has a tiny human inside her that’s half her and half him.

  Hopefully.

  Despite having studied the exact ins and outs of what is happening inside her uterus, she still shakes her head in disbelief every time she thinks about it. It may have happened sooner than they’d planned; they’ve only been together for two years, but it’s a miracle, nonetheless.

  Their miracle. Hers and Rob’s, she tells herself.

  Another kick, or possibly a punch this time, makes Dawn jump so much that she spills some milk from the bowl of her Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. She’s almost ninety per cent sure that she’s knocking to say she wants to come out. The twinge in her back comes back again, a bit stronger this time, and a small wave of anxiety laps at Dawn’s feet. She gives herself a mental slap; she should be well prepared for this after spending all that time preparing women for what to expect during labour.

  All those ‘primip’ women, having their first babies and worrying about whether they would get to hospital in time and what if they accidently gave birth in Tesco’s or down the toilet? Dawn and her mentor would smile knowingly at each other and explain the early signs of the onset of labour and how, although it does happen, most births can take a fair amount of time, particularly first babies.

  The truth is, Dawn doesn’t think it’s the birth itself that’s scaring her. It’s what happens afterwards. Is she ready to be a mother? She didn’t exactly have the best role model and her own mum’s not around at all anymore. A familiar stone of grief shifts in her gut when she thinks about her baby growing up without grandparents.

  Rob had been in and out of care most of his life and it had been eleven years since Dawn had seen her dad. She wonders every day what her mum would have thought about Dawn having a baby. It’s still only a year since her death. Liver failure brought on by years of alcohol abuse has robbed her baby of her only grandmother.

  The pain has spread now; it’s no longer just in her lower back, but along the bottom of her pelvis. Dawn glances at their wedding photo from eight months ago, the only one on the magnolia walls, shining in a brand new frame from the Woolworths branch that Rob manages. Perhaps she should call Rob at work. But it’s probably a false alarm; Braxton Hicks, happens all the time.

  She picks her pregnancy notes up from the coffee table, staring at the number of her community midwife who also happened to have been Dawn’s mentor throughout her three years of community placement. She considers calling her but she’s worried about looking stupid. Dawn has trained for this after all.

  The decision is taken out of her hands when the phone starts trilling away from its place on the wall at the top of the stairs.

  ‘I think I’m okay,’ Dawn tells Rob through the receiver. ‘Just a bit crampy, but that’s to be expected when I only have two weeks to go. Thanks for doing your daily check on me, though.’ She smiles, glancing at her hospital holdall sitting patiently outside their bedroom door, plump and full, the material straining around the zip. She’s checked it and repacked it so many times that she’s lost count. Another twinge makes her gasp, but it’s over in seconds. Rob’s heard enough and tells her he’s on his way; he’ll get his assistant manager to cover the shop floor. She’s not phoning the midwife though; not yet. She runs herself a bat
h instead, pops her Norah Jones CD on loud and lights the candles she’s balanced on top of the bathroom radiator.

  She’s leaning over to turn the cold tap on when it happens. A small pop and warm fluid seeps down the inside of her thighs. She doesn’t have time to enjoy the frisson of excitement that trickles through her veins before the pain hits, almost knocking her off her feet. Dawn’s abdomen has gone rock hard and she feels like she’s being squeezed from every angle. It feels like it lasts forever, and just keeps getting stronger. When it does eventually begin to ease, she gives herself a wry smile, remembering how she’d been taught to use the word ‘discomfort’ rather than ‘pain’ when discussing labour with women and how some women preferred to say ‘surges’ rather than ‘contractions’. If someone spoke to her right now about her ‘discomfort’, she thinks she’d want to punch them squarely in the vagina just so they could get a small idea of the ‘discomfort’ she was in.

  A couple more tsunamis crash across the trunk of her body over the half hour it takes to hear Rob’s key in the door. Another ‘surge’ hits her as his footsteps climb the stairs. He calls her name out as he rushes into the bathroom, finding her leaning over the basin. His hand grips hers and she sinks to her knees on the tiles, leaning her forehead against the edge of the porcelain bath. Then something changes, much more quickly than she’s prepared for. The overwhelming need to push takes control of her and she’s bearing down before she can stop herself. Just breathe through it, she can hear her own voice in her head, using words that she’d thrown in front of women countless times before. Rapid deliveries like this can happen, she just never thought it would happen to her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Rob’s voice is at least two octaves higher than it usually is, and Dawn opens her mouth to reassure him, even tell him that she probably just needs a poo, something she’s never actually said to him yet, despite being two years into their marriage.