Countless

by Karen Gregory

  I think about the pages I scribbled during those long weeks when Rose was still inside me, my ‘Crap Things about the Unit’ list. When I was writing it, I felt like Molly was really there, sitting by my side. And suddenly, I know. It was never about why I shouldn’t go back. I was writing for her. So I didn’t have to say goodbye.

  I wait and wait for a sign, a feeling, anything that isn’t black emptiness, but any sense of Molly looking over me is gone.

  She’s gone. This whole time I’ve been fooling myself.

  There’s nothing left of her but cold stone and memories.

  Chapter 32

  A few days later, I have a cold. Rose has a cold. We cough and sneeze through the night and in the morning I’m so weak I can barely lift her. My head is thick and stuffy. When Rose cries, I put a pillow over my ears, and think, Shut up, shut up, shut up, then I’m overcome with remorse. Sometimes she stops and gives me this sideways look, like she can’t figure out if she should trust me, which makes two of us.

  There’s no food in the house, no money, no nappies. I fold up a tea towel inside her vest while I take her down to the shops. On the way back, I can’t get her buggy up the stairs; I can’t lift it any more. I unstrap Rose and my arms and legs tremble all the way up. I put her down in the flat and gasp for breath.

  There’s a crushing feeling in my chest, and I think, This is it. This is the day my heart gives out.

  I’ve been waiting for this moment since the day Molly died, probably before.

  My vision blurs. I scream Rose’s name so loudly in my head, but I can’t make the sound come out. And there’s no one to help. Robin isn’t here, Laurel’s in hospital. Mum’s used to me not answering my phone. It could be days before anyone realises anything is wrong.

  I stumble and fall to my knees.

  ‘Rose.’ I half sob, half whisper her name. She’s just a faint outline now, everything fading away. I reach out again, and know it’s no good; I can’t get to her …

  I wake up to someone banging on the door. I feel sore all over, but my chest hurts less. I roll on to my side and see Rose is fast asleep on her play mat, her fists screwed tight like she’s protecting herself. The door bangs again, and I haul myself up, feel for my heartbeat, which still seems to be going, after a fashion. It was a panic attack, that’s all. Maybe.

  I look out of the door and see one of the girls who sit on the stairs, chatting and drinking cider. I open the door a crack.

  ‘All right? You left your buggy. I brought it up,’ she says.

  ‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’ It’s all coming out in staccato.

  ‘No worries,’ she says, then looks me up and down. ‘No offence, but you look like shit. You ought to get yourself to the doctor’s or something.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say again and take the buggy from her.

  She gives me a worried look over her shoulder before clattering back to her cider.

  I walk slowly over to Rose. She seems OK.

  I try to ring Dad, but it goes on to voicemail.

  I check my account and see a benefits payment has come through, finally, but most of it has to go on the payday loan. I make lists but no matter what I do the numbers won’t add up. They wriggle and blur in front of me. I realise once I’ve bought nappies and formula, there’s no more money for food and I’m in no state to make it to the food bank.

  When I look out of the window into the dull grey concrete park, I see the Walking Woman circling it, like she’s always been there.

  My jeans are hanging away from me now. I feel like I’m suffocating, like I can’t get enough air. I read the same books over and over to Rose, until the words dance on the page. I even try the bird one, but stop when I get to the page about cuckoos and how they sneak their eggs into other birds’ nests to hatch there and massacre the real chicks. Brood parasites, they’re called. My mind snags on the word ‘parasite’.

  Joanna calls round, and I hide with Rose in the bedroom, waiting until she goes away. She leaves a voicemail on my phone, telling me to be in when she comes back and I know from her voice the clock has run out.

  That night, the thoughts expand and grow until all the walls are dripping with them, thick and black. I’m afraid to sleep, because what if I don’t wake up again? I keep thinking about Molly’s grave. If something happens to me, what will happen to Rose? Will anyone even find her before …?

  I fling my head to one side, get out of bed. I put my earbuds in and turn up rock as loud as I can. I start to run on the spot, pumping my arms frantically, trying to outrun the voices. The room spins and I feel sick rising up, but I shut my eyes and run on. In my head, Nia chants: Too late, too late, too late, or is it Fat cow, fat cow, fat cow? I push the volume up until it screeches in my ears.

  Then there’s a crash and a blaze of light and the man from next door is right in front of me, splinters of wood on the floor where he’s kicked in the door.

  He grabs my wrists and one earbud pops out so all I can hear is thrashing guitars in one ear, and him shouting, ‘I told you to keep that baby quiet!’ and Rose screaming, screaming, screaming, like she’s been crying forever, but I didn’t hear, I didn’t hear her and the man has his face pressed up close to mine and I can smell the sourness of his breath and I realise how dangerous his eyes are. I try to twist away, but his hands are crushing my wrists like he’s trying to snap them, and I’m so terrified I can’t get a sound out and all the time the rock music plays on and Rose screams and my heart flutters and goes still in my chest.

  He lets go and I stumble and fall, heavily, into the wall. Pure white pain flares over my ribs, taking the breath out of me. The other earbud falls out and tinny rock skids over the carpet. He kicks out and sends the iPod flying against the wall. It bounces back and continues to play and then he stamps on it hard and there’s a cracking sound and the music stops bleeding out into the room. Now it’s just Rose, whose cries have turned to frightened whimpers.

  I push up to my knees, though my ears are ringing, and there’s a colony of ants tracking across my vision, and crawl into the other room. He follows and leans down close to my ear as I try and pull myself up using the bars of Rose’s cot.

  ‘Next time, I’ll fucking kill you.’

  I think he really means it.

  I freeze in place, staring at my girl, and finally he goes.

  I stand and sway. Retch silently.

  I reach into Rose’s cot, pull her out. Smell an acrid tang coming off her.

  Her nappy.

  I turn on the light and see it’s leaked everywhere, all over her cot, her legs. She was screaming in her own crap while I tried to outrun the voices in the next room. I shush Rose as best I can, terrified he’ll come back. I get the door shut and manage to put the chain on, but the door frame is splintered.

  I wipe her down in the shower, putting one hand over her mouth as gently as I can to blot out her cries.

  ‘Shh-shh-shh, sweetie, please, shhh. Twinkle, twinkle, little star …’ My voice breaks.

  I find a sleepsuit, already worn and too small for her so I have to cut holes in the bottom to get her feet in. They stick out, tiny and vulnerable. I rub at them with my hands, but she flinches away from my cold fingers. When I put the last nappy on her, her bottom was bright red. No wonder she screamed. I feel sick with guilt.

  I wrap her in the blanket and curl myself around her in my bed, and lie rigid until morning comes, listening to Rose’s breaths and Nia talking on and on through the night, a symphony of horror I can’t outrun.

  Morning light shines weakly into the flat. I look at the stains, creeping everywhere, the wood splinters by the front door. I open cupboards and they’re empty. Robin’s chicken sits in the freezer, surrounded by white shelves.

  I hate white, I realise.

  I go into the bathroom and look at the way my eyes are sinking in, the dark hollows in my cheekbones. My hair that’s coming out in fistfuls when I put a hand to my head. I see myself, the way I saw Laurel that day, a shimmer that focu
ses everything.

  I see myself.

  Finally.

  Then I pick up the phone and make a call.

  Chapter 33

  Felicity arrives first. She takes in Rose and me and the state of the flat and sighs.

  ‘Come on, sit down. Do you have any tea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s all right. I brought some. And some milk and sugar.’

  We sit and drink. I let Felicity put sugar in mine and it gives me the energy to repeat what I said on the phone.

  ‘I can’t do this. I can’t look after Rose. I need … I need help.’

  ‘That takes a lot of courage to admit, Hedda.’

  I cuddle Rose tighter, as though I can take back the words, what I’ve set in motion. But I can’t. I love her too much to keep pretending. She needs more than this, more than I can give. All down my side a huge bruise is forming. I’m stiff with it, wincing whenever I move. My heart still feels strange and wrong, like parts of it might have died off. I can’t trust it, can’t trust myself.

  ‘You need to be checked out. And we’ll need to contact the police about the assault,’ she says.

  ‘I’m not going back to hospital,’ I say. ‘Not now. Not ever.’ I know this suddenly, and there’s grief in it, long and howling. Molly’s gone, and so is the unit. I can’t go back. Because if I do, I don’t think I’ll be coming out again.

  ‘Then we need to work out a plan, to keep you out.’

  ‘Like what? I’ve got nothing left.’ I sort of mean that I’m exhausted, but maybe more than that. I try and get it straight in my mind through the Nia fog. ‘It’s too late, isn’t it?’

  Felicity’s voice is very gentle. ‘I think, for now, you need extra support, yes.’

  I put my hands over my face and speak through them. ‘It’s like this war in my head. If I don’t have Nia … I don’t even know what I’m like without her … it. I don’t know who I am. I’ve never done anything worthwhile. Except for Rose. But I can’t make her my everything, can I? Like Mum? I can’t ask Rose to carry all that.’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘So Nia wins then.’

  Felicity leans forward and touches my hand. ‘Only if you let it. Nia’s not a person, Hedda, and your eating disorder is not you, no matter how comforting you might have found it in the past. And I think you know it too.’

  I give a tiny nod.

  She sighs. ‘Maybe I’ve been in this job too long … I think you’ve worked very hard, and you’ve done a very brave thing, to call me. I don’t think you realise just how strong you are.’

  I look at her in disbelief, but she’s not finished.

  ‘All this power you have, all this destruction – you can turn it into something positive.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You can. You are,’ Felicity says. ‘You just need some help. You have to let people help you.’

  I think about Robin, and Laurel, and Molly. How they always asked about me, and never once admitted they needed help too.

  I start to cry. ‘I have to let her go, don’t I?’

  I mean Rose.

  But also, Nia.

  Felicity sighs. ‘I think right now you need to work on your recovery, and I don’t think you have the resources at the moment to look after Rose too. I know how much you love her, but you have to love yourself as well. When you’re ready, I think you will be a beautiful parent.’

  ‘Just not now.’

  ‘No, not now. You need to be healthy first. And I believe you will be. I see you, and I believe that.’

  When Molly died, I never thought anyone else would see me – properly see me and love me anyway. And now Felicity, of all people, the woman who’s taken everything I’ve thrown at her – my lies, my insults and my silence – has. Then in a flash, I see her too. The apology in her eyes. How hard she’s tried. And I want to tell her how much it means that she did. That she didn’t fail me. I can’t find the words, but I grab hold of her hand and she blinks really fast and I realise she’s holding my hand back just as hard. We sit in silence with our fingers linked for a long time, until Rose stirs and begins to cry.

  A while later, Joanna arrives. Felicity talks to her in a low voice, and then I do. Joanna makes notes and asks questions and I try my hardest to answer, but I want to sleep and sleep.

  I tell her about Mum, and about Dad going AWOL.

  ‘I think that rules out your mother as a placement for the time being,’ Joanna says. She goes out for a bit to make calls and to buy nappies and formula.

  Felicity stays with me the whole time.

  I hold tight to Rose, my girl, my beautiful girl, my life raft I have to let go.

  Because no baby should be someone’s life raft.

  All that need.

  All my need.

  It’s too big for one tiny person.

  Another while later, the police arrive. They take a statement and go next door. There’s shouting and banging and then he’s being done for assault and possession and carted off. But I know he’ll be back. They say someone will come to fix the door later on.

  I can’t stop holding on to Rose.

  Eventually, Joanna is back. ‘I’ve found a foster placement. It’s a wonderful couple, very experienced. I’ve spoken to Violet and they can take Rose today.’

  ‘Today?’ Everything is falling away. I hold Rose tighter, like Joanna is going to snatch her from my arms right now. ‘What then? What will happen?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have contact, be able to visit Rose. And you will work on your recovery. This should be short term, until you’re back on your feet. We’ll need to sort out your accommodation. Perhaps college, or a job. If you weren’t turning eighteen next month I might have been able to arrange a placement for you both together, but as it is …’

  ‘I’ll be on my own,’ I say dully.

  ‘No. I’ll be here to support you,’ Joanna says. ‘This isn’t the end, Hedda. I can’t make any promises, and Rose’s welfare will come first, but this isn’t the end.’

  Felicity squeezes my fingers.

  Violet arrives as it’s getting dark with her husband Rod, a big, carefully shambling man, with thinning hair and broad hairy arms. Through my haze I recognise Violet. It’s Vi, the woman from the food bank.

  She smiles at me. ‘We’ll take good care of her, I promise.’

  She leans down to take Rose and I can’t believe this is it: this is happening, she’s going. I can’t make my arms let go. But Felicity is there and she puts her arm roundmy shoulder, and I breathe in Rose’s smell, and feel her warm against me, and I take what courage I have left and kiss her.

  Then I let her go.

  Vi holds her and says, ‘She’s a lovely wee thing. I can tell how loved she is.’

  I want to scream and howl, but I don’t because I can’t frighten Rose.

  Violet straps her into her car seat.

  I start to gabble. ‘She likes “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. And this bear – she laughed at him. If she’s tired, she likes you to stroke here between her eyebrows and that makes her sleepy. She likes going for walks. And books – she likes books.’ Panic rises in me. How do I sum her up? If only I’d made a list … Why didn’t I make a list?

  But Rose is the one thing I could never turn into a list.

  I take a deep breath. ‘She likes the bath quite warm, and if she has wind, rub this way.’ I hold a hand up to demonstrate. ‘Not this way.’

  I take a breath, and Joanna says, ‘Let’s give her a couple of days to settle in and then we’ll arrange a visit.’

  The space where Rose was on my lap is cold.

  I lean into the car seat and give her a kiss on her forehead. She’s fast asleep, but I whisper to her anyway. ‘Time to go, Rose. I love you. I’m sorry. I’ll see you soon.’

  And then they’re gone.

  Felicity says she’ll stay but I just want to be by myself.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Early,’ she says, and then she leav
es too.

  I run to the window and lean out to watch the car edge away slowly, like it’s carrying the most precious object in the entire universe. I stare until the car gets to the end of the road. It waits a huge amount of time at the junction, and I imagine Rod dithering, his thinning head spinning from left to right and back again, Vi telling him to get on with it. Then the car turns the corner and its lights fade away.

  I don’t know how long I spend at the window as dusk turns into darkness. It seems the flat is smaller when I turn back around. Rose’s spare blanket is still on top of the sofa and I take it with me and curl up, smelling it, trying to etch every line of her in my mind. And I want to run and not stop running until I find her and bring her home with me where she belongs, but then I remember not only her smile but the other times, when she cried and I thought I would do something terrible, the money running out and the man next door breaking in while she screamed. The Nia voice calling from the ceiling and my heart fading into nothingness.

  I let the grief wash over me and as it deepens, Nia comes, like I knew she would, like she always has. She wants me with her, and right now in this bleak flat, with the one good thing that’s ever happened to me gone, I can’t think of any reason why not.

  It gets darker still. Night is arriving. Words form, gathering strength and speed, like a train: Fat, disgusting bitch. Hate you … And there’s a part of me that wants to sink into them, back to where everything hurts, and maybe it would hurt less than it does now, because all of a sudden I don’t think I can breathe for one more second without my girl. Felicity was wrong. I’m like Molly after all; I’ve never been good for anything but destroying myself.

  I stand up and go back to the window. Lean way out in the night air. It wouldn’t take much to let go.

  I think about Molly underneath that stone slab, how I told myself she had cast a spell, to keep me out of hospital. But she’s not here. She never was.

  The ground below is dark, wind rushing around my ears. If it wasn’t Molly watching over me, keeping me out, then maybe that means something else.