by A J McDine
She looks up at the ceiling as if finding the strength to deal with a particularly tiresome toddler. ‘Because you’d really pissed me off. So cosy, having lunch with your best friend Lou. You’ve never invited me to lunch, have you? Yet I’m a better friend to you than she ever was.’
‘You’re keeping me prisoner so you can steal my baby, yet you’re a better friend than Lou? You’re insane! She warned me about you. I should have listened to her.’ My thoughts track back over the last few weeks. ‘I suppose you left the cord of the hairdryer out on purpose, too.’
‘Of course I didn’t. I would never, ever harm the baby. Don’t you see? Everything I’ve done has been to protect him. I only started volunteering at the bloody garden so I could keep an eye on you.’ She shudders. ‘It was like being back on the ward, surrounded by nutters. But it’s just as well I did, isn’t it? That psycho Martin could have killed you.’
‘How did you know how to restrain him?’
She throws me a look of utter contempt. ‘I’ve been on the receiving end enough times to learn how it’s done.’
‘What about my presentation? Was that you?’
‘Guilty as charged, m’lud.’
‘Why?’
‘Just for fun. I wanted to unsettle your perfect, safe little life. I wanted to see you squirm.’
She watches me dispassionately while another contraction takes hold.
‘Please undo my hands,’ I beg once the pain has subsided. ‘My arms are killing me. I promise I won’t try to escape.’
Her mouth twists into a cruel sneer. ‘Not a fucking chance.’
I slide my hands up and down the table leg and wiggle my fingers, trying to coax some feeling back. Roz unpacks the two bags. I watch her in silence.
‘Plastic sheeting and towels to clear up the mess, sterile gloves, scalpels, medical scissors and umbilical cord clamps, a head torch and maternity pads. Oh, and a bowl for your placenta.’ She looks at me. ‘I won’t be eating it, in case you’re wondering. I may be BPD but I’m not a complete nutjob.’
As she arranges her home birthing kit, exhaustion hits me like a steamroller and my eyelids grow heavy. I don’t fight sleep. Even a few minutes’ respite from this nightmare would be a relief. I twist around so I can rest my head against the leg of the potting bench, close my eyes, slow my breathing and wait for oblivion.
Chapter Forty-Two
Now
I’m asleep on the blow-up bed in Lou’s lurid pink bedroom. She’s doing her best to rouse me, but I don’t want to wake up. It’s the morning after the night before, and it must have been a heavy night because my head is throbbing. That’ll teach me to knock back her stash of cheap vodka.
‘Go away,’ I mutter. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to edge my way back into oblivion.
But she’s insistent, though her voice is faint, almost inaudible. She is either very, very far away or whispering oh so softly in my ear.
I try to flap my hands in front of my face to send her away, but my arms won’t work. I know I mustn’t wake. It’s a reverse nightmare. If I wake, I’ll be plunged back into hell. I must stay asleep. I must stay asleep. I must…
‘Sophie, it’s me, Lou. Where are you?’ she calls again.
I’m in your bedroom, you twit. I long for sleep to return, but it oozes away, like rainwater down a gutter, and I prise open my eyes. Expecting to see my seventeen-year-old best friend grinning at me I’m shocked to be greeted by the sight of a woman towering over me with narrowed eyes and a finger to her lips. In an instant the horror of my predicament slaps me in the face. I’m being held prisoner in a cellar by a deranged woman intent on stealing my baby and killing me.
Roz darts towards me with a length of duct tape. I throw my head from side to side, but she grips my chin with one hand and presses the tape to my mouth with the other. She backs away, her eyes never leaving me, picks up a spade, flicks off the light and steps into the shadows at the bottom of the steps.
‘Sophie! Are you in there?’ shouts Lou.
Every nerve in my body is tingling with the effort of not calling out. All I can do is wait and listen while blood pounds through my veins. She’ll have seen my car and know I’m here somewhere. Be careful Lou, I silently will her. Don’t take any chances or we’re both dead.
Minutes pass and I hear nothing. No crunch of gravel, no warning cry from the robin in the pear tree, no creak of rusty hinges. The silence is all-encompassing and seems to suck the air from the damp cellar until I’m struggling for breath. I force myself to breathe in through my nostrils until my heart rate steadies. I can’t afford to pass out. Not now, with Lou so close.
Still there is nothing. I slump in despair and my cramping biceps scream in response. But the pain is nothing compared to the bitter disappointment that Lou has given up on me and gone home.
I sense rather than see Roz’s body stiffen. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She crouches down, her gaze fixed on the door at the top of the steps. I hold my breath as it swings open, casting a glimmer of palest moonlight into the cellar.
For a second the light fades and I picture Lou’s silhouette in the doorway.
‘Sophie!’ she calls.
I breathe in, ready to cry out as best I can with duct tape across my mouth. At the last second something stops me. If Lou realises I’m here she’ll come hurtling down the steps into this nightmare. She won’t stand a chance against Roz, armed as she is with both a spade and the element of surprise. If I stay quiet Lou will think I’m not here and will go. Maybe she’ll call the police, maybe she won’t, but she’ll be safe, and that, at this precise moment, is all that matters.
But I underestimate her. The slap of leather sole against stone echoes around the cellar’s four walls. I crane my neck to watch as her feet appear, followed by her legs as she descends the steps. Roz is crouched low, ready to pounce. Surreptitiously I slide as far down the bench leg as I can, hoping I can bring Roz down with my feet. But it’s no good. Even when I’m almost horizontal she’s a foot too far away.
Lou pauses on the bottom step and stares into the gloom.
‘Sophie!’ she calls again. There’s a tremor in her voice and I will her to turn around and retrace her steps out of the cellar to safety. But she takes one more tentative step forwards and Roz strikes with the ferocity of a cobra.
Chapter Forty-Three
Now
It happens so fast it’s over in seconds. Roz lunges forwards, wielding the spade high above her head. Lou’s head snaps around and she steps backwards. But it’s too late. The spade connects with her temple with a sickening thud. Time stands still, as though someone has pressed the pause button on a video nasty. My eyes flicker over the scene. Lou’s eyes are bulging and her nostrils are flared. Roz is holding the spade aloft, about to take another swing. Then Lou’s knees buckle and she crumples to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been slashed with a carving knife.
Although my scream is muffled by the duct tape it doesn’t stop Roz from spinning around and aiming a desultory kick at me. Her foot connects with my thigh, but the pain is nothing compared to the agony of the next contraction, which takes over my whole body. I close my eyes and count in my head, reaching sixty before the spasms pass.
When I open my eyes, Roz has switched the light back on and is winding duct tape around Lou’s wrists and ankles. Lou’s head is drawn back at an awkward angle and her cheek is pressed against the filthy cellar floor. I hope to God her neck isn’t broken. I stare and stare, willing her to show some sign of life - a shallow intake of breath or a rise and fall of her chest - but she’s as lifeless as a doll.
I turn on Roz in fury. ‘What have you done?’ I bellow. It comes out as an incoherent mumble and Roz gives me an amused look.
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.’
She advances towards me, the spade still in her hand, and although all I want to do is cringe, I force myself to raise my chin and stare her out. She bends down, takes a corner of the duct t
ape and rips it off. ‘What were you saying?’
‘You need to check Lou’s breathing!’
‘You think I’ve killed her? What do you take me for? She’s going to wake up with one hell of a headache, but she’ll be fine.’ Roz kneels in front of me. ‘I’m going to take a look to see how we’re getting on, alright?’
I tense as she peels off my pants and plucks two latex gloves from a box.
‘For fuck’s sake just relax, Sophie.’
I bite my lip and look away, trying not to cry and wondering where it all went wrong. When I think I can bear it no more she pulls away. ‘Obviously this is the first baby I’ve delivered, so don’t hold me to it, but I’d say you’re almost fully dilated. I can feel the baby’s head, anyway.’
I pull myself straighter. ‘You can?’
She smiles and her face is transformed. ‘I can. You must be thirsty. Would you like a drink?’
I nod. She scrabbles around in one of the shopping bags and pulls out a bottle of water, which she holds to my lips so I can drink. When I’ve finished she wipes my chin and screws the lid back on the bottle. She fishes something else out of the bag. To my horror it’s a thick leather strap. What new torture is she going to inflict on me?
She must sense where my thoughts are spiralling because she gives me a best buddy grin. ‘It’s for you to bite down on, silly billy. Do you really think I’d hurt you?’
The sudden shift in her demeanour is bewildering.
‘I don’t suppose this is how you imagined labour to be.’
I glance at the dank brick walls of the cellar, the rows of garden tools and the prone body of Lou half-hidden in the shadows.
‘It’s not exactly the William Harvey Hospital’s maternity unit, is it?’
She laughs, and then the smile slips from her face. ‘I’m sorry it has to be this way. When I found out Matt was married I made up my mind I’d hate you. I don’t. You’re alright. But I have no choice. Matt might not want me, you see. I’m not stupid. At least this way I’ll have his baby. You’re a means to an end. Collateral damage, if you like.’
‘There must be another way,’ I plead. ‘Maybe we could share the baby. I could be his birth mum and you could be his stepmum and we could do alternate weeks or something.’ It sounds ridiculous, but I press on regardless. ‘We can make it work if we want it hard enough.’
For a minute she appears to consider the idea, then her mouth curls down and I brace myself.
‘Thing is, I don’t want to share the baby. I want him to love me unconditionally. All the time you’re still in the picture he’ll never be able to give me all his heart. You have to go.’
‘You can have Matt. Just let me keep my baby, please? I can’t bear to lose another one.’
She frowns. ‘What do you mean, another one?’
I can’t answer. I’m in the grip of another contraction. But this one feels different and I have an uncontrollable urge to bear down and push.
Roz jumps to her feet as a belly-roar escapes my lips.
‘Action stations,’ she cries, grabbing a handful of towels and spreading them around me. She takes a pair of scissors from the nearest bag and holds them inches from my face. ‘I’m going to cut your arms free now, Sophie. But you need to remember that if you try any funny business there’ll be consequences.’
She draws the open-bladed scissors across her neck in such an exaggerated fashion it’s almost comedic. But it’s clear from the fervour in her eyes that she wouldn’t think twice about slashing my neck.
With a flick of the wrist she slices through the duct tape and I rub feeling back into my deadened arms. She hands me the leather strap and, sensing another contraction is on its way, I place it between my teeth.
The next half an hour is a blur as I retreat into myself and concentrate on managing the pain.
‘I can’t do it,’ I sob at one point.
‘Of course you can. Women in comas have babies. Your body knows what it’s doing. Don’t fight the contractions. Go with them.’
Then she is beside me, wiping my forehead with a damp flannel. Another wave of pain flows through me and I grab her so tightly my fingers leave red welts on her arms and she doesn’t even notice.
Suddenly I feel a burning sensation.
‘He’s crowning!’ she cries.
I stop pushing and let the contractions take over. The baby slithers into Roz’s hands. Minutes later the placenta follows him. Relief that it’s over is so all-consuming I barely register the fact that he’s silent. I could quite happily turn over, forget all about him and go to sleep. But I remember all the advice about skin to skin contact being so important for bonding. I sit up and unbutton my shirt. ‘Can I hold him?’
Roz shakes her head, refusing to meet my eye.
‘Roz, please!’
‘It’s not that,’ she mutters. ‘I don’t think he’s breathing.’
‘What?’
‘Shut up! I need to concentrate.’ Working quickly and efficiently, Roz wipes the baby with a towel and gently massages his back. I can’t take my eyes off his scrunched-up, vernix-covered face. Come on, little man, you can do it, I will him. Just when I’m giving up hope, he takes one shallow breath, then another. And then his mouth gapes open and he wails.
Chapter Forty-Four
Now
Roz wraps a towel around my son, kisses his fuzzy black hair and hands him to me.
‘Five minutes while I clear up. There’s no point getting attached,’ she says, but I don’t pay any heed. I am drinking in his new baby smell and watching in wonder as his tiny hand closes around my little finger. He’s warm against my skin and my breasts tingle. I shift and he nuzzles closer.
Roz stops shoving towels into a black sack and narrows her eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
I look at her beseechingly. ‘He should have one feed. He’s two weeks early, don’t forget. The colostrum’s good for him.’
She pinches the bridge of her nose. ‘Alright, but that’s it, OK?’
I nod and watch as he latches on with rosebud lips. I feel a welter of emotions. Love, pride, and an animal instinct to protect this tiny scrap of life at all costs.
‘You’re good with babies,’ I tell Roz as he suckles.
‘You have to be, don’t you, when your mum’s a smackhead and your dad’s fucked off with the woman next door and you have a baby sister and there’s literally no-one else to look after her.’
‘Is that what happened?’
‘No, I made it up for the sympathy vote.’ She tosses another towel into the black sack. ‘Yes, that’s what happened.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Ten. I think so, anyway. Our mother wasn’t big on birthdays.’
‘That’s awful.’
She stares at the baby hungrily. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Katy being born was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was perfect. Unlike the rest of my life which, frankly, was shit.’
‘I can imagine,’ I murmur. Only I can’t. I had a sheltered, happy childhood with a clean, warm home and parents who loved me. I have a hazy picture in my mind of a fetid council house with grubby mattresses on bedroom floors, nicotine-stained walls and a rotting sofa in the front garden. It’s a clichéd image gleaned from gritty television dramas and I’m ashamed at my naivety.
‘I did everything for her. Fed her, changed her nappies, bathed her and read her stories. If our mother was ever off the smack long enough to take an interest Katy didn’t want to know. I was the one she wanted.’
‘Are you still close?’
Roz’s expression darkens as she turns on me. ‘I don’t know, do I? Our stupid bitch of a mother overdosed and we were taken into foster care. I begged them to keep us together, but they said she was more likely to be adopted without an older sister in tow. Especially one with behavioural issues.’
She laughs without humour and holds her hands out for the baby. ‘It’s time. Give him to me.’
‘He’s still feeding.
Just a couple more minutes,’ I plead.
Roz tuts, ties the black sack up and starts packing away her home birth kit. While her back is turned I eye the distance between me and the steps. It’s at least five metres. Even if I make it to the bottom of the flight without her noticing there’s no way I’ll beat her to the top. My legs are as weak as pipe cleaners. I’m not convinced they’ll support me, let alone the baby, and there’s no way on earth I’m leaving him. I could lay him on the floor behind me, try to wrestle Roz to the ground and either knock her out or tie her up. I need an element of surprise if I stand a chance of succeeding. As if she’s reading my mind she turns her head and watches me over her shoulder. I try a smile, but she doesn’t smile back.
Keep her talking.
‘What happened to you both?’
‘They were right. Katy was adopted and I was sent to a children’s home because no-one wanted me. I stayed there until I was eighteen when I started work at the bank and moved into my own flat.’
She says this without a trace of self-pity and, despite everything, I admire her for it.
‘I could help you find her.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
I shrug. ‘Because I -’
‘Feel sorry for me?’ she spits, her face twisted in anger. ‘Fuck you.’
‘ - want to help,’ I finish. ‘It’s not your fault she was taken away. But you can’t replace her with my baby. Two wrongs don’t make a right.’
She laughs again. ‘Spare me the platitudes. Katy wouldn’t want to know me, not now. An older sister with borderline personality disorder? I’d only be an unwelcome reminder of her shitty start in life and her arsehole parents. No, Katy’s dead to me, I’ve known that for a long time. I need to start again with a clean slate and a new baby. So, shut the fuck up and let me get on with this, alright?’