The Cottingley Cuckoo

by A. J. Elwood

  Someone strokes my arm and I realise a figure is standing over me, holding the baby in place. ‘Careful,’ someone says; I don’t know the voice. ‘She’s still a bit groggy with the anaesthetic.’

  I think they mean the baby and I look down at the head still streaked with blood – mine, I suppose – and into blue-grey eyes. They’re wide and beautiful and a sudden emotion hits me, hard and without warning, and I smile. I reach out and the baby flails. I catch her tiny hand, soft with new skin, hard with barely covered bone. I run a finger over each knuckle. She looks back at me, into me. She’s a perfect little baby and I’m suddenly terrified – she is perfect, isn’t she? I wonder if I should be able to sense some golden tie connecting us. I can’t, not really, but I’ve been warned that doesn’t always happen, not straight away.

  It returns to me in a flood. I’d anticipated hours of waiting, steady contractions deepening, an irresistible urge to push. The midwife nodding as the baby crowned. Sucking on gas and air to mask the pain, but there hadn’t been any pain, not after the first ragged tearing that felt as if the baby was pulling me in two. There was the sense of being reduced to meat and bone, a half-faint ending in blackness. A series of images emerged from it: white walls and too-bright lights; Paul’s face up close, visibly trembling; the terror of too many people in the room, uniforms in varying shades of blue, hair covered in plastic, thin rustling aprons; a raised voice, something about a heartbeat that was too slow. And moving, being rushed into another room, the brief glimpse of a skylight, there and then gone. Now this. Time has skipped. I feel I’ve missed it all, the minutes and seconds having flown by too quickly, snatched from me into a void. What did they do? I try to look down at the smooth dome of my belly, the one I’ve grown used to, but then I do feel pain and I sink back into heaped pillows.

  ‘Don’t try to sit up.’ A woman wearing a mask puts her face up close. ‘You had to have a caesarean, so you need to lie flat for a while. It’s all fine, but you’ll be sore for a bit. Don’t overdo it.’

  The baby shifts, rubbing that domed head against me. A hand descends; it’s Paul, smiling down. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

  I frown. ‘She.’

  He laughs as if everything is exactly as it should be. We had opted not to be told the baby’s gender at the mid-pregnancy scan, but still, I had known. She should be called Robyn, Mrs Favell had said, and she had known. I had trusted her words, no matter how Paul crowed and teased me about having a son.

  ‘Nope,’ he says, and laughs again. It seems he can’t stop laughing, though I remain numb. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes like this, so bright and alive and so very full of love. ‘It’s Daddy’s little boy. I told you.’

  I shake my head. Did Mrs Favell say Robin? But no: She should be called Robyn, those were her words. Has the hospital given me the wrong baby? It’s happened before, I’ve heard of it, DNA tests confirming the swap years later so that nobody really knows who belongs with which family any more. But that couldn’t happen now, could it? This is my child. Mine. No one can take her from me.

  I have a sudden image of someone reaching for my belly, into me, a tugging sensation, an empty space left behind. I don’t know if that was today or yesterday or further in the past. I shake my head again in confusion.

  ‘He should have his dinner,’ the midwife says. The mask is gone but I can’t make out her expression. She’s just a disembodied voice. ‘He’s had quite a day.’

  Has he? I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know how many minutes flowed by while I was unaware. For me, it was seconds.

  Paul looks pointedly at my chest and I realise they’re waiting for me to do it – to be a mother. I fumble at the fabric, realise I’m wearing a hospital gown. The midwife helps me slip out of one arm and pull it down. It feels odd but she’s all practicality, all routine as she adjusts the position of the baby’s head. She says he may need a little help to latch on. She shows me how best to hold him and how to stroke his cheek, so that the baby – he – it doesn’t matter, of course my baby’s a he, Paul knew it even if I didn’t – makes a snuffling sound and opens his mouth. It’s a reflex, she says, the rooting instinct, he’ll be able to smell the milk, and I feel something hard against my breast. I catch my breath, wriggling in spite of myself, trying to see. The baby looks up at me, ancient knowledge in his eyes, and he opens his mouth and I see the tooth jutting from it, jagged and discoloured, yellowed like an old man’s. I pull away from him and let out a cry.

  ‘Oh – it’s all right,’ the midwife says. She lifts the baby from me, making clucking noises and rocking it in her arms. Paul asks what is it, what’s wrong, and there is the hint of something else beneath his concern: irritation.

  The midwife comes back into view, cradling the baby’s head against her shoulder. ‘It’s my fault.’ She leans in between me and Paul. ‘I should have told you – he has a couple of natal teeth. It’s perfectly natural, they just form too close to the gum surface sometimes, though we may need to remove them if they’re loose. The doctor will be in soon to check. Baby might end up swallowing them, otherwise.’

  ‘Baby’ makes gurgling sounds into her shoulder. He sounds happy to be where he is. She starts to lower him again, stopping when she sees my expression.

  ‘It happens every so often. It can make it a little uncomfortable to feed, but he will be hungry – are you all right to give him something?’

  I nod. She puts the weight on me again. He doesn’t need any help to latch on at all; his wet mouth feels the way. There’s a sharp tug and tingling warmth rushes through me, followed by deep-seated pain as his teeth delve into my flesh. I suddenly feel bruised: cut, stretched, beaten, reconfigured. I don’t want to let them see how much it hurts. I don’t look at him, don’t want to see him rooting, so I close my eyes. What I do see is a wizened face; an old soul; a being born with teeth, wanting to eat and eat. This is what the book told me about, isn’t it? Babies that appear just as they should – or almost.

  If this is natural, would it seem so strange? Would it hurt so much? Would it feel like what it is – a violation? This baby – too big, too bold, too male – surely couldn’t have come from me.

  When I look into its face again its eyes are closed, fed, sated, a look of sleepy contentment stealing over it. But my knowledge is of blood and bone, and somewhere deep inside, in my flesh, I can feel the truth.

  2

  Our home is different now, strewn with brightly coloured items of smooth plastic, things I wouldn’t have recognised in my previous life. The latest is mostly transparent, with a suction cup, handle and bottle attached: a breast pump. I couldn’t keep on with the feeds, though it’s important for the baby to have my milk. The post-natal midwife suggested it; she said that problems with breastfeeding could cause anxiety, tension, struggling to bond, all sorts of issues. They never did remove the baby’s natal teeth and my breasts still bear purple indentations where they have made their mark.

  I remember the last time I fed him myself. There was pain, although that has faded now, as pain does. And yet there had been that feeling, too: the deep, tingling pleasure of milk letting down, the sensation at the core of me as he drank, as if a door had been opened into my deepest being. It was the sight as he unlatched, more than anything, that made me decide that was enough: the drop of milky blood, warm against my dimpled skin. The tiny red smear that remained on his lips, the tips of his yellowed teeth.

  I lie back on the sofa, telling myself I made the right choice for us both, that there’s probably nothing about raising a child that doesn’t come with accompanying guilt. I allow the ache from the caesarean incision fade to a background itch and try to enjoy the sensation of being myself for a while. The baby is sleeping. Paul is out at a job interview, having kissed me and the baby and left an hour ago. He looked odd in a suit, his hair smoothed back, making his features more prominent. I wonder how he’s getting on. It’s helped having him around but we’ll be out of money soon, and we don’t have any family
who can help. Paul’s brother’s work is no steadier than his own. His mother came down for a day, but she’s on benefits and Paul had to send her the train fare. Cribs and sterilisers and tiny clothes don’t come cheap. Edie never did give me any of her knitting; it all went to strangers in the end.

  My mother’s books have gone to strangers too. The stairs had to be made safe for walking up and down them with the baby in our arms, and so Paul carted the lot away to Oxfam. I try not to wonder who has them now. I can’t get used to the stairs, too wide and too empty, lending a hollow ring to my steps. Paul kept nagging at me to pick out some of the books to keep, but I couldn’t face sorting through them, couldn’t make that choice. Keeping just a few would have been worse. Now I’ll never know if the fairy tales were somewhere among them after all, and I wonder if that’s for the best.

  Now there are other books: books with bright leaves that rattle or crinkle, books with pictures in black outlines and primary colours, single words on each page. Apple. Ball. Cat.

  The baby shifts and fusses but doesn’t wake. It’s a little piece of freedom – he’s constantly demanding food or time and attention – and he’s so big, his limbs plump and heavy, fists waving, his face flushing even though he’s asleep.

  It still seems strange that he’s separate from me, a new thing animated by his own will and his own desires. Part of me wants to go to him and kiss away whatever cares he has, but I don’t want to wake him. It still wrenches on my wound to lift his weight, and besides, I need some time to think. My mind is so often clouded these days – maybe it’s because the house is so warm, the heating turned up high to protect the baby from falling temperatures outside, and I’m just so tired. I try to grab some sleep when he sleeps but for now I’m wide awake, a little interval of clarity, and I have a decision to make.

  Paul suggested calling the baby Alexander some time ago, though I kept putting him off. It was the name of a friend of his who died when he was a teenager and I don’t really like the idea of naming him after a dead person I never knew. Of course, ‘Alex’ could also be a girl’s name – but haven’t I let that go now?

  The thing is, when I look at the baby, he doesn’t look like an Alexander. The name that comes to me – again – is Robin.

  I pick up my phone and bring up the web browser. I’m not altogether sure what I’m thinking but I search for ‘Robin’ and the word ‘fairies’ then stare down at the screen. I hadn’t really thought of it as a fairy name, but I find there are plenty of results; they’re just about paintings, not people.

  The first image looks old, yet brilliant and jewel-like. It contains a host of little creatures, all of them beautiful or grotesque or mysterious. I can tell they’re fairies by their size, since they’re sitting among the flowers. In their midst is a robin and he wears a garland of blooms about his neck. The title of the painting is The Captive Robin. Not a garland then, but chains: the robin is their slave.

  There’s a paragraph about the artist. He was called John Anster Fitzgerald, or just ‘Fairy’ Fitzgerald. He loved to paint the little folk; his pictures of them apparently came out far more realistic than those of the people around him. I scroll down and see more of them. One in particular stands out, mainly because of its frame, which is made of real twigs formed into a rough rectangle. They resemble pale, knuckled bones, fingers reaching and grasping. It is called Fairies in a Bird’s Nest. Of course it’s really a nest within a nest, the frame forming the outer, another painted inside that. There are no birds sitting there, though: only fairies. Ousted from its home, thrust almost out of the picture, is an egg. One fairy holds it steady – though it looks more like a demon – while another tries to force its way inside through a hole in the shell.

  I stare at that for a long time. The caption says the grotesque little creature is being hatched from the egg, but I know that it’s not. It’s trying to burrow its way inside, to take the place of the chick that should have grown there.

  I close the browser. I’m not going to give my child the name that Mrs Favell chose. He isn’t a Robin and never will be.

  Still, he can’t remain nameless for ever. Alexander, then. It isn’t what I’d imagined, but how many things are? And I have nothing to replace it with.

  I walk over to the baby and look down. He’s sleeping peacefully, though his hands are curled into fists. ‘Alexander,’ I whisper. ‘Alexander.’ I tell myself that’s who he is.

  He opens his eyes, sees me looking at him and starts to cry.

  * * *

  Alexander won’t stop screaming. He’s in my arms but fighting me, wriggling and kicking, his movements sending stabs of pain through my caesarean wound. I’ve offered his bottle and changed him though he didn’t need changing and he’s still a hot little ball of fury, squirming and lashing out. His face has turned puce. I hadn’t known that babies could be so angry. I tell myself he deserves to be angry, that he didn’t even have a name until an hour ago, and I rock him and shush him and kiss his dampened scalp, but none of it helps. There’s a constant ringing in my ears from the noise.

  I try to comfort him, sitting him on my knee, bouncing him. Before I’d known I was going to, I start to sing. Oranges and lemons… but I can’t remember the rest. When I grow rich? But that’s not right, that comes later, and I can’t think how to get there. Here comes a candle to light you to bed… Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

  I stand, swing him gently in my arms, start over. Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top… When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. The words are all so odd; it never occurred to me before how strange they are. Alexander squirms. Shrieks. He is not comforted; it is as if he understands what I’m saying. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall… Down will come baby, cradle and all. I stare down, my arms wrapped around him like branches and twigs, and the words echo in my head, but changed, almost threatening: baby will fall…

  I barely hear the rattle of the front door but a moment later Paul barges in, his brows like thunder, his lips pressed into a line. I see at once it didn’t go well and at the volume of his son’s cries he only looks more exasperated. Wordlessly, he holds out his arms, though I hear what he doesn’t say: Why haven’t you? When will you? Or more accurately, What did you do wrong?

  I hand the baby over, my arms suddenly light without his weight. The front of my shirt is damp with tears, or perhaps I’m clammy from his heat. For a second I wonder if it’s milk. I’ve been warned that my breasts might leak, my body responding to his cries on an unconscious level, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  Paul nestles Alexander into his arms and at once, he quiets. One chubby fist goes to his curled lips and he starts to suck his knuckle.

  ‘Didn’t you feed him?’ Paul demands.

  ‘I tried. How did it go, Paul? How was your day?’ I can’t help the sarcasm. I can’t help but think of the times when he looked at me the way he’s looking at the baby. I should be happy to see it, but somehow it only makes me feel sad.

  ‘Well, try again. He’s hungry.’

  ‘He can’t be.’

  Paul goes into the kitchen holding the baby in one arm, checks the bottle, warms it. A couple of minutes later Alexander is quietly drinking, his eyes drowsy with sleep. He makes little gulping sounds, more than usual, the aftermath of his sobs. Paul shoots me a look. He doesn’t say anything else. Possibly he doesn’t want to disturb the baby.

  I glare at them both. It isn’t long since I tried the bottle myself – it can’t have been. We’re a long way from Fairyland; time here isn’t fluid and it certainly isn’t magical. I wish I could make light of it, joke about the little traitor in his arms, but shadows still lurk in Paul’s expression. I should ask about the interview, but first I try to brush everything away.

  ‘Alexander,’ I say brightly, offering the name like a gift. ‘I’ve decided, Paul. Let’s call him Alexander.’

  He shoots me a look, but not one I’d anticipated. It’s as if he’s annoyed afresh that it’s taken me this long, and
what do I expect, a prize?

  ‘You still like the name, don’t you? Our little Alexander.’

  Paul grunts. He sits and settles the baby on his lap. Alexander hasn’t stopped feeding. He’s nearly emptied the bottle. Is he so voracious? And Paul says, ‘Did you ignore him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say, but I know exactly what he means, can see it in his face. He thinks I was asleep or hiding away from the baby’s screams – or maybe he suspects me of starving him on purpose. Why? To see what he would do?

  I open my mouth – I don’t know what words will emerge – when Paul lets out a long breath. ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean it.’

  He says it in such a quiet, beaten voice that I suddenly envision everything that might have been: all of his dreams. The child magically transforming us into a unit, dad and mum and baby, all contented, all happy, wearing identical smiles. A bustling wife handing him a gurgling baby at the door, kissing him soundly before going to take an apple pie from the oven. I look around the room. The nappy I removed is screwed up on the table next to old mugs, coffee rings showing where others have been. My cardigan is crumpled over the back of the sofa, the remote control dropped to the floor. But I haven’t had the chance to tidy up. I was rocking Alexander for so long – wasn’t I? It felt so. I remember the time I spent googling his name – no, not his name – and feel new guilt. I scan the room for my phone, but it isn’t there. I peer around the side of the sofa; it must have got pushed underneath. Or was I so disgusted with myself that I shoved it under there?

  ‘How did the interview go?’ I ask, wanting to know, though a smaller, meaner part of me relishes the chance to draw the subject from my shortcomings onto his. He doesn’t answer. He sets down the bottle, not hiding a look of distaste when he sees the state of the table, tilts Alexander upright and starts rubbing his back.