In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘You live by the Bible don’t you?’

  ‘Got to live by something in this world. Got to have something to hold on to. We all have to be anchored to something.’ Bloody boats again.

  God forgives everything if you love Him enough, that seems the constant refrain. But I’m not buying it. I’d like to, but I can’t. I’d like to live in a world where it’s that simple; where we do something bad but it’s wiped out with a prayer. Where the people we love are waiting for us on a cloud. But they’re not. As far as I’m concerned, all bets are off.

  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Well I do not forgive.

  And lead us not into temptation.

  Even as those around us would be tempted?

  But deliver us from evil.

  Deliver me towards it.

  For mine is the kingdom.

  The power and the glory.

  Forever and ever.

  Amen.

  I slowly moved away from Madge. The ache in my back swelled and began to stab. ‘Happy Christmas to you and yours.’

  ‘Same to you, love, and your little one. God bless you both.’

  I didn’t move away from her because the tangy scent of her unwashed creases were getting to me. Or because the folds of her corpulent arm kept rubbing against me. I moved away instinctively because I didn’t want her to know what was happening and I didn’t want her to help me.

  I’m getting out of here.

  I’d barely reached the cemetery gates when I felt the warm gush down both of my legs.

  Thursday, December 27th – 33 weeks, 5 days

  I’m in fucking labour. I’m in fucking hospital. And fucking Bitch Midwife is on duty. I wanted Mishti with her soft hands and kind eyes and genuine concern. Instead I get this pass-ag tattooed harpy who looks like she’s just been lifted out of a fucking mosh pit. Soo perb.

  Confusion? Intense pain? Irritation? It me.

  *

  It was first the gush, and then the searing stabbing pain, cutting and slashing through my body at regular intervals.

  ‘How often are the contractions?’ the voice kept saying.

  ‘I DON’T KNOW. PRETTY FUCKING OFTEN,’ I seethed.

  The voice was a random woman on the seafront walking her dog. Her dog was sniffing at the drips from my hems.

  The ambulance took forever but when it came, events progressed mercifully quickly. I didn’t take too much notice of anything until the doors of the ambulance swung open and I was stretchered down a ramp and into the main hospital. Two drunks were having a fight in the corridor. A security guard was pulling them apart. Slamming doors. Flashing lights. The reek of hand-sanitiser and coffee. Porters wheeling beds. Long-ass corridors. Where are my trousers? Where’s my shoes?

  I didn’t realise we’d arrived in the delivery suite at Southampton General until I saw Bitch Midwife standing at the basin, washing her hands.

  ‘Hey Rhiannon, you’re early, babes!’

  ‘No shit… ’ I could not remember the guy’s name. Warlock? No shit Warlock? That didn’t sound right. ‘Ugh, stop this pain please!’

  I threw up – the paramedic caught it in an egg box thing.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call for you?’

  ‘No. There’s no one.’ The pain seemed to radiate out from my lower spine – like my skin was splitting open. ‘Holy shit I can’t take hours of this.’

  ‘Might not be hours, Rhiannon,’ said Bitch Midwife. ‘You’re crowning.’

  ‘CROWNING?’

  They kept asking and asking me if there was someone I’d like to call. I kept saying no but none of them believed me. ‘You all know where the father is, he’s in prison. I’m on my own!’

  I’ve never felt pain like it. It was taking every single thought and emotion I had and snatching it up. Chewing it. Twisting it. I couldn’t think about anything else other than the agony. The nearest description I can get to it is the world’s worst period pain, accompanied by Anthony Joshua repeatedly thumping me in the back.

  My ass burned too. A tube appeared in front of my face. I sucked on it before I was told to, wrenched it out of Bitch Midwife’s hands. Such nice air. The nicest air I’ve ever had, in fact. I sucked it in deep and out again and in and in and out and in and I couldn’t get enough of it.

  ‘Nice and slow,’ said Curly Hair. ‘Calm breaths, easy breaths.’

  ‘Am I sitting on fire?’ I kept asking. ‘My ass is on fire!’

  ‘Nice and steady, you’re doing so well.’

  ‘Am I?’ Nice air kept coming. Burning ass was washed with cool water from a mountain spring. Heaven. Briefly. So briefly before the wave of pain came crashing back over me.

  ‘Looks like she doesn’t want to wait,’ said Bitch Midwife, appearing from underneath the white sheet they’d draped over my nethers. ‘Okay, deep breaths now. Every exhale, imagine the pain flowing out of you. You can do this, Rhiannon. Say it with me, “I can do this.” Exhale, “I can do this.”’

  ‘Inhale I can’t do this. Exhale I can’t do this.’

  ‘Come on, Rhiannon, work with me now.’

  ‘No. You do it. Please don’t make me. I don’t want this kid.’

  I imagined Craig sitting there in the chair next to the bed, holding my hand, wiping my hair back. He’d have been useless – going out for a smoke every five minutes and calling his dad. But he wouldn’t have missed it. The empty chair was all I could focus on.

  ‘Okay come on, Rhiannon, the baby needs you to do this now. She can’t stay in there forever. She needs you to help her.’

  I tried to remember every film I’d ever seen where a woman was giving birth – the deep breathing, the pushing, trying to get into the headspace of a mother – Nine Months, Parenthood, What to Expect When Everyone’s a Bland Superhot American Actor and You Can Never Think of Their Names.

  ‘Why’s she coming so early? She’s not due ’til February!’

  ‘That’s pregnancy for you,’ said Bitch Midwife. Cue Porky Pig laugh.

  ‘Helpful.’

  It actually felt good to finally push. My body wanted me to push because it knew it was pushing the pain out.

  ‘Okay, nice deep breaths, deep diaphragmatic breathing. Push down right into your bottom.’

  My body is working on its own, doing things I haven’t asked it to. I’m just going with it – pushing myself inside out. Sweating, tearing pain.

  ‘This is horrible,’ I cried. ‘I want to die.’

  I sucked too hard on the gas and puked on someone’s hair. Not Bitch Midwife, unfortunately, one of the other midwives who’d come in to have a rummage about in my nethers. That’ll teach her.

  Bitch Midwife keeps yelling at me. ‘Push, that’s it, we’re nearly there, Rhiannon. One more big push and she’ll be out.’

  I push something out but it isn’t a baby. ‘That’s good, we can clean that up. Now one more big push.’

  It felt like everything was going to come out – womb, lungs, ribs and baby – the whole damn lot all joined up by umbilical cord bunting.

  ‘One more, come on, nice big push.’

  ‘You keep saying one more one more, I’ve done about fifty of these!’

  ‘We need a really big one, Rhiannon. We need her shoulders out now and then the rest of her will follow. One big push, come on! Good girl.’

  And so I did. I pushed with all my might. I knew that if I didn’t, she might get stuck – she might die up there between my legs and that’s no place for anyone to die, believe me. So I pushed to save her life. That’s what I did for her. I did it for her.

  And everything seemed to give way – she was out of me and in their arms. And lots of high voices were saying ‘Well done’ and ‘Good girl’ but they were all the adult voices. The voice I wanted to hear wasn’t there – the little cry of freedom. There was silence. And one of the midwives and two of the doctors took her over to the corner of the room onto a little flat bed.

  ‘What are th
ey doing?’

  ‘They’re helping her to start breathing,’ said Curly Hair, snapping off her gloves.

  ‘Why isn’t she breathing?’

  ‘She will in a second, don’t worry. Give her a moment.’

  I lay there still panting, legs akimbo, pushing out the placenta into the midwives’ hands. They busied around my nethers, tearing strips of tissue and tidying away empty packets and collecting up surgical equipment. And I still lay there, numb, still watching the corner, waiting for the cry.

  And then it came – a squawk. Like a tiny sparrow.

  And my body gave like a tidal wave.

  ‘There she is,’ said Bitch Midwife. ‘See? Told you she was all right. She’s a bit shocked, that’s all. It’s quite normal.’

  I wasn’t in the least bit prepared for that feeling. I didn’t know I was capable of that feeling. Bitch Midwife brought her back to me and she was all I could look at – this little squawky bundle, all purple and wriggly and ugly with pasty white shit all over her little scrunched up angry face.

  Just like her mother.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ said Bitch Midwife as she placed the wriggly fish on my chest. She stopped crying instantly.

  ‘There you go. She wanted her mummy, didn’t you, darling?’

  I looked down at her – my daughter – her tiny hands pushed up to her chin – fingers splayed like her face was the centre of a flower. This little girl who had grown inside me, against my will, forcing me to feel things I didn’t want to, didn’t think I could. She was part of me. Built of my skin, my bones, my hairs, my nails. She was wound up so tightly within me, I couldn’t untie her now if I wanted to.

  ‘Have you got a name for her yet?’

  No names had seemed appropriate until now. ‘Ivy,’ I said. ‘She’s Ivy.’

  ‘Ahh that’s nice. Is that a family name?’

  ‘No, after the plant.’

  Bitch Midwife nodded. ‘Lovely. She’ll need to go to neonatal for a little while so we can get some nutrients into her. Need to fatten you up a bit, don’t we, darling? We weren’t expecting you yet.’

  Ivy nuzzled into me because she was her own woman now and she didn’t have to put up with all that patronising shit. I was empty and there she was. Warm. Real. Little chest pulsing. I was shaking from head to toe.

  ‘It’s the adrenalin,’ said Bitch Midwife. ‘Quite normal.’

  Ivy opened her eyes and it freaked me completely and totally out.

  ‘Woah! I didn’t know they could open their eyes so early!’

  ‘Oh yeah, look at those,’ said Bitch who was down at the goal end, cleaning me up, not that I could feel anything. ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘She’s got her father’s eyes,’ I said. And the tears came again.

  Of course Bitch Midwife still thought it was Craig’s baby, like the rest of the world apart from Claudia. ‘Does he want to be involved?’

  I didn’t answer and Ivy started to cry in my arms. I knew what she was thinking – My real daddy is dead. She killed him.

  Marnie had said it would all fall into place. Click, all of a sudden. That I’d know what I had wanted all along the moment I saw my baby for the first time. But it didn’t. The moment she started crying, all I felt was pain. Shocking, terrifying pain in my head and my chest. And all I heard was screaming. Crying. Glass smashing.

  I was back at Priory Gardens.

  A vase crashing to a hardwood floor.

  The sound of blood dripping from a cot mattress.

  The creak of the eaves as the rope swung back and forth.

  My dead friends. All babies.

  Heartburn clutched my throat. ‘I think I’m going to be sick again.’

  I handed Ivy to the midwife. ‘Can you take her now, please?’ I grabbed the empty egg box from the side locker.

  ‘You can have her for a bit longer if you want?’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said, clutching my egg box with shaking hands. ‘You said she has to go to neonatal.’

  ‘Yeah, we need to keep an eye on her for a bit. She’ll be monitored twenty-four-seven, I assure you. She’s in the safest hands. Are you sure there isn’t anyone you want me to call?’

  Ivy was still crying. She wouldn’t tell me why – was it me? Was it the midwife? Was she thinking about her daddy? I needed her gone, I needed her out of there.

  ‘Claudia. You can call Claudia.’ I reached for my handbag on the armchair and she scurried around and pulled out my phone, handing it to me. I found the number and handed it back to her. ‘She’s the baby’s godmother. Can you take her away now, please?’

  ‘She’s a good weight, Rhiannon, five pound two ounces. A good sign.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  My heartburn didn’t start to go until Ivy had gone with the midwife, out of the door and up the corridor. I could still hear her wailing right until she was through the second set of double doors. Then there was peace. Then there was silence. And my head returned to normal. And I no longer heard the sounds. I sat up in bed alone and in complete silence.

  Until I began crying my fucking eyes out.

  *

  When I woke up, surrounded by rough, starchy sheets and the smell of disinfectant, I was no longer shaking. Nor was I alone.

  There was a blonde blur sitting in the armchair beside me: Claudia.

  ‘Hey there, Sweetpea, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Bit grim,’ I replied.

  ‘She decided to come early then?’

  ‘Yeah. No holding her back. She’s a bit small.’ I rubbed my face all over to force wakefulness. I had a hospital bracelet on my right wrist that I didn’t know who had put there – my name and date of birth were on it.

  Claudia had brought with her a pink balloon and a large bunch of flowers – gerberas and roses. ‘Where is she, neonatal?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t you have to be at work today?’

  ‘Time off in lieu. The midwife said you did it on your own.’

  ‘Yeah I did.’

  ‘What about Craig’s parents?’

  ‘They’re away ’til the New Year.’

  ‘You should have called me sooner, I could have been here for you.’

  ‘You’re here now.’

  ‘Yes, and I packed a bag. I can stay here as long as you need.’

  I nodded. ‘Thanks. Might be some time.’

  Friday, December 28th – 1 day post-partum

  1. Sandra Huggins.

  MORNING – 10.00 a.m. – 9 hours ’til DEPARTURE

  Mmm, so post-partum pooing is a nightmare then. Thanks everyone for warning me about that little sunny delight. It was like pushing out The Houses of Parliament. At one point I thought I was giving birth again. It came with a full sweat and a rush of blood but Bitch Midwife assured me it was ‘all part and parcel of the wonder of pregnancy’.

  ‘Yeah yeah, just get me an ice pack and a rubber ring,’ I said, trying desperately not to twat-slap her to Mars.

  I’m still waiting for maternal instinct to kick in so that kind of shit doesn’t bother me anymore but so far, so bad. Everything is annoying me. The amount of blood on every single pad I wear seconds after changing it. My tap-like tits. The crying babies in the other delivery suites. The gaggle of midwives standing about the nurses’ station laughing and drinking tea from mismatched mugs and talking about last night’s TV. Doctors milling about looking all sexy and knowledgeable. Where are all the endorphins that were supposed to have kicked in by now? Did they come out with the baby?

  All dressing-gowned up and looking like Fifty Shades of Shit, I walked along to neonatal this morning to see Ivy. There were several babies in their plastic boxes, all attached to tubes and wires, all with worried mums and dads and grannies sitting beside them or cuddling them in armchairs. I spotted Ivy instantly. She had her head against the bunny. I put my hand through the hole in the box and felt her breaths through her tiny white romper suit. I used to do the same with Tink when she was a pup
py.

  She was all tiny tubes and a woolly hat like an egg cosy. The on duty midwife said she was ‘a good weight but she’ll have to stay in for a bit’.

  ‘Can’t I take her home and feed her there?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said the midwife. ‘She needs to be in there for a while.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Difficult to say but she’s a bit early so usually around a week.’

  ‘A week? I can’t wait that long.’

  ‘It really is the best place for her. Would you like to try breastfeeding?’

  ‘With people watching?’

  ‘Does that make you uncomfortable?’

  ‘I don’t want to do it here.’

  ‘We can arrange for—’

  ‘I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it at all.’

  ‘That’s fine, no problem.’

  Ivy looked so much like AJ it was shocking. She was a small, wriggling guilt trip. Her face wrinkled up like she was about to cry and I made to leave but she settled and went to sleep again. I put my face next to the box, so only she could hear me.

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet your dad. I am sorry about him.’

  I stroked her tiny hand – her fingers as soft as petals, her skin as smooth as catmint. ‘I don’t know what my future looks like, Ivy. But I know I don’t want it to be your future. I don’t want you running and hiding. I want you to have four walls and a big garden. And toys. And friends. If they catch me, they’ll put me in a tiny room. I need fresh air. I need a garden. And I need to kill. I know you don’t like it but that’s me. All those people who would hurt you. I need to cause them pain. Lots of pain. That’s not the kind of mother you need. You need better than me.’

  I guess that was the moment I knew – I was a mother. And I only wanted the best for her.

  The tears came. ‘I can’t take you with me. I want you to be with someone who puts you at the centre of their world. Because however hard I try, I can’t make you the centre of mine. That fortune teller was right about me. She could see it – a baby covered in blood. That would be you. And I can’t handle that.’

  I reached in and picked out the pink bunny I’d bought her. I held it to my nose and inhaled. It smelled of her. She started crying – this stark, repetitive roar that felt like being grated from the inside out.