CHAPTER 75
'It was my father's anniversary,’ said Mildred. 'He'd died three years before. I went to put some flowers on his grave. Edgar was at work; I hadn't told him I was going there. I thought I'd be home long before he was.
'I'd filled up the flower vase with water - there was a tap there, in a corner of the cemetery, behind some trees - when somebody jumped on me. I hadn't seen anyone there; I was completely offguard. I only got one glimpse of him before he hit me in the face and I couldn't see any more. I couldn't even say what he looked like, except that he seemed youngish and he wore a red anorak hood with a blue jacket. I hadn't the breath to scream. I shouldn't be telling you this. You're only a child.’
'Go on,’ said Eldred.
'He raped me,’ said Mildred. 'Several times. I went unconscious. When I came round, he'd gone. It was getting dark. It was summer, so it must have been quite late.’
'The article said it happened at about four-thirty,’ Eldred said. His voice was very quiet.
'Yes,’ said Mildred. 'I lay there a long time. They close the gates of the cemetery before sunset.’
'Were you there all night?’ Eldred asked. He was crying.
'Nearly. Your father found me at about five in the morning.’
'How did he get in?’
'Climbed over the gates.’
'How did he know where to look?’
'He didn't,’ she said. 'But he'd looked everywhere else. He phoned everyone we knew, he contacted the police, then he spent all night out on the streets, going everywhere I ever went. When he passed the cemetery, he remembered my father had died in the summer time and he thought it might be worth a try. He ran up and down every avenue until he found me, behind the trees.’
Eldred broke into sobs. Mildred tightened her arm round him.
'He picked me up,’ she said, 'and carried me as far as the gates. He climbed back over the gates and flagged down a passing car - there were one or two going by, even at that time in the morning. He got the driver to phone an ambulance and the police. They broke open the gates.
'He went with me to the hospital and sat by my side all the rest of the night, all day and all the next night. He never let go of my hand and never left me, except to go to the toilet. He didn't eat or drink.’
'It wasn't him, then,’ said Eldred.
'I told you,’ said Mildred. 'He would never do that to me.’
'No, I mean, it wasn't him who germinated me. Why did you call me a name that was a mixture of yours and his? Did you want to pretend?’
'No,’ said Mildred. 'There was no pretence.’
‘Then why?’
'Eldred, this isn't easy for me. Let me tell it in my own way, will you? I'll come to that in a minute. Let me think.’
'Okay,’ he said. 'Sorry. Go on.’
'When I went home, I was weak - in mind as well as in body. I went for whole weeks without knowing what day it was. I couldn't remember anything. I don't mean just that I couldn't remember the attack, though I couldn't; it was no good the police asking me questions; my mind was a blank. But as well as that, I couldn't remember to do things. Edgar did the shopping. I cooked but I'd forget. I'd put something in the oven for two hours then find I hadn't lit it. Or I'd put sausages under the grill and come in to find them in flames.
'I chain-smoked. People told me it was bad for the baby but I couldn't stop myself. It's probably what made your lungs bad.’
Eldred shook his head. 'No,’ he said. 'It wasn't that.’
'I couldn't bear to talk to anyone,’ continued Mildred. 'The neighbours were kind, and the few friends we had, but whenever they visited I couldn't wait till they went home again. I'd watch their mouths moving and hear the sounds coming out but I couldn't make sense of the words.’
'Frightening,’ said Eldred.
'You would think so,’ said Mildred, 'but I wasn't frightened so much as numb. I'd lost all my feelings. I knew who Edgar was, of course, but I couldn't feel anything towards him. He was another person in the house but he didn't seem like my husband. I didn't feel connected to him or to anyone. I felt like I was on another planet - or everyone else was.’
'How long did it go on like that?’ asked Eldred.
'Until you were born,’ said Mildred. She went silent.
'I do remember being born,’ Eldred said. 'Truly. It was like coming down a dark tunnel, a very long way, and then a bright light at the end.’
'Yes,’ said Mildred. 'That's what it must have been like, all right.’
'Were you scared to look at me?’ asked Eldred. 'In case I looked like him or something?’
'No,’ Mildred said. 'You see, you were the light at the end of the tunnel for me too. When you came out, you brought me with you. I don't know what happened but something lifted. Edgar could see it too. He said I looked at him and saw him again for the first time in nine months.’
'What about when he saw me?’ Eldred said fearfully.
'Oh,’ said Mildred, 'when the nurses had wrapped you up and given you to me to hold, you know what he did?’
'No, what?’
'He took you from me. He took you in his arms and he held you and looked at you and he said, "Hello, son.” Then someone brought me a cup of tea and when I'd drunk it, he said, "You go to sleep now.” And when I woke up, I'd been moved down to the ward and he was sitting there beside me - just like he had before, after the attack, only this time he was holding you, still holding you against his chest.
'That's why I'm telling you, Eldred: that's who your dad is and you'd better believe me, because it's the truth. If anyone could think that God gives a gift like fatherhood to some pervert who would rape a woman when she's defenceless, they're very wrong. He saves that gift for the one who earns it. That's why you're called after us both, Eldred - because you're his, just as much as mine.
'That other man, he threw away his sperm the way he was throwing away his life and he probably thought he'd thrown my life away as well. I must have looked more than half dead.
'But something must have brought me through it, Eldred, to give birth to you. You were the one good thing to come out of all of it: you, and your father caring for me - caring for both of us. I know he doesn't show his feelings easily but he has loved you from the first moment.’
'But why does he say things like, "You get this talent from me, son," if he knows there's no genetic inheritance? He is pretending, isn't he?’
'The first time he said that kind of thing, maybe he was,’ said Mildred, 'or maybe not. It may not be genetic but children often do take on a resemblance to people who are close to them.’
Eldred pondered this. 'Like people come to look like their dogs? Or the dogs come to look like them?’
Mildred smiled. 'I don't know about that. Maybe we did pretend for a while, Eldred, that you were his in blood as well, or maybe we just wished so much for it that it became real.’
'How?’
'To be honest, I think by now we'd both forgotten. It's Edgar's name on the birth certificate. We didn't see it as lying, though I suppose it was. I don't know, love. We'd wanted a child for so long and nothing happened; we'd had such plans, such dreams, that gradually faded as the years passed. Then when we discovered I was pregnant, of course it was a shock, because of the way it had come about. But I honestly don't think it ever occurred to us not to see you as ours - Edgar's as well.’
Eldred nodded his head. 'Yes,’ he said, 'but he must have wished it never happened.’
'We both wished that,’ said Mildred softly. 'Of course we did. But we never once wished we hadn't had you.’
'Not like that!’ Eldred blurted. He hammered his eyes with his fists. 'I came from hell!’
'No,’ said Mildred. 'I don't know, love, if it's really like you said if you remember something happening. I don't know if it's possible for a child to have something carved on its memory right at the very minute it's conceived. I suppose, if what happened was strong enough, that could be. What I
do know is, yes, I went through hell and, whether you knew it or not, you came with me. But you also brought me out of it, Eldred.’
'It wasn't worth it, though,’ he said. 'Not all that, that you went through.’
She turned his face to look at her. His eyes were screwed up and puffy and his cheeks were blotched.
'Oh yes, it was,’ she said.
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