The Killing Jar

by Nicola Monaghan

  I smiled at him and breathed deep. I knew he didn’t owe me no money, but I didn’t say owt about that. He smiled back but didn’t look happy. It were one of them smiles what said a million things, none of them good. I was lucky with Mark. He liked it when someone needed him.

  Mark took me to this private clinic where a nearly young as me lady doctor with a posh voice asked me a load of questions.

  ‘What contraception were you using at the time?’

  I thought about lying and telling her the condom’d bust but I couldn’t be arsed so I shrugged.

  ‘Right,’ she said. I’d never heard anyone put so much judgement into one word. ‘And which method of birth control are you considering using once you’ve left here?’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘Kerrie-Ann, do you want to end up in this situation again?’

  ‘Course not.’ I looked at her through my fringe.

  ‘I’d recommend the coil if you’re not too promiscuous. Wouldn’t normally unless you’d had a kid but you’ll be okay now.’ She was scribbling on her pad. I didn’t know what she meant by that comment, hardly heard, and looking back I wish I’d listened more. ‘How many men have you slept with?’ she asked me, looking up from her papers.

  ‘One,’ I said.

  ‘This year?’

  ‘Ever.’

  She looked so sceptical I could of whacked the cow. But I knew it wouldn’t get me nowhere cept thrown out the clinic, and I couldn’t afford for that to happen. It wasn’t a question, not for me. Round ourn all the young gells tended to keep their babies, but I don’t see that. Keep a baby I can’t deal with and can’t afford to do nowt for and they end up no better off than me. Bring them into drug running and dealing at ten, smuggling guns out of attics for pimps and dealers, like what I was. I didn’t want it. I would have kids one day, but it’d be after I’d seen through my escape plan. The plan I had was this. Keep dealing. Save up. Run away to South America and start over again. They can’t get you back from there, even if you get found out. That’s why that train robber bloke went there. I could live in Rio, like him, and go to the rainforest whenever I liked. Then I’d have babies. Coffee-coloured ones like my beautiful brother with one of them gorgeous local boys. Not now. Not Phil Tyneside’s.

  They did a scan and measured the baby and said I was only just legal for what they called a ‘termination’. A couple more weeks and I would of had to have it.

  ‘You’ll have to have a late medical termination,’ the doctor told me. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  I shook my head. No one had never, ever seen Kerrie-Ann Hill so quiet as I was them few days.

  ‘We give you drugs to stop the pregnancy. Then we make your body push the baby out.’

  I didn’t say owt.

  ‘You need to understand that you’ll be aware of everything.’

  There were a million questions I should of asked right then about what the silly cow meant by that. God knows why she didn’t explain proper. But the questions didn’t come. I was just too fucked in the head. She said, ‘Are you all right with that?’ and I said nowt. She said, ‘Kerrie-Ann, are you okay for us to go ahead with the procedure or not?’

  I thought then of all the polite words they kept using to put sugar on what I was doing. Termination. Procedure. But I said, ‘Yes.’ It were the last time I felt anywhere near normal. And I closed my eyes then opened them again. The next twenty-four hours was about to really open them up.

  I had a ‘late medical termination’. It were the ‘standard procedure’ at my ‘stage of pregnancy’ and I would be ‘aware of everything’. They reckon people repress things what make them feel bad but I know that won’t ever happen to me cause if I could repress owt it’d be this memory. What it all meant, once you’d licked off the sugar, was the doctors induced you early so’s the baby was born but couldn’t live.

  They took blood, gave me a tablet to take. They said I might notice the baby stop moving during the night. I slept in a room at the clinic, and this nurse kept coming in to check I was okay. She was all right, that nurse. She was small, smaller than me, made of tiny bones and not like a grown-up woman at all. More like a doll. Mark stayed with me. He laid his head down on the bed next to me, stroked my hair. Tender Mark again. He fell asleep but I didn’t. The baby was still kicking.

  ‘You got a good-un there,’ the doll nurse told me when she came to take my temperature. She meant Mark, but at first I thought she meant the baby, and my hand went to my stomach. ‘You ready for this?’ she asked me. I nodded and felt Mark’s grip tighten round me. You could almost laugh at how I didn’t have a clue.

  The next day they put these tablets up inside me. The doll nurse told me this’d bring on the contractions and that was when I realised what they were doing. Soon after, my tummy started hurting like I’d got a bad period. Mark held my hand and I laughed it off but I knew what was going to happen and felt sick. Bile shot up into my throat and I got up to go to the toilet.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ Mark said.

  And I looked down, saw a trail along my trouser leg.

  The nurse came in then, made me sit down and change into one of them hospital slip things. The tummy ache got worse, till it settled into long grinding pains what might of made a different gell cry. But that wasn’t the kind of thing what made me cry.

  It didn’t take long before the bloody bundle came out through my legs. The nurse grabbed it up before I could see but I sat up and shouted at her.

  ‘Give it me,’ I screamed.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she said.

  ‘It’s my baby – give it me,’ I said.

  Mark tried to calm me down but I’d gone psycho bitch like I sometimes do and there was nowt he could do. I wailed and shouted and water streamed down my face and snot out my nose.

  ‘Why din’t no one tell me?’ I screamed. The bed was covered in blood and as I kicked and yelled it got all over. My arms and legs were covered and I spread it over Mark as he tried to hold me still.

  I ran out of steam and lay still in Mark’s arms. I sobbed with my head on his chest for as long as I had energy to. When I’d done, my eyes were bright and red like rowanberries. Like the blood what was all over the place. When I touched round my eyes the flesh sprung back like rubber against my fingers. Never cried like that before or since.

  We sat there then, me and Mark, quiet as you like, blood all over us. That picture says it all about me and Mark and where we were going from there. Says too much.

  ELEVEN

  I once saw this accident where a lorry driver slammed on his brakes too quick and jack-knifed, sweeping the motorbike what was overtaking up then underneath him. After my ‘late medical termination’, my head was more of a mess than that. Summat went with that baby, a part of me what couldn’t be replaced. I got all snappy with Jon, and that really wasn’t like me. I couldn’t stand being with my mam, and Mark wound me up even when he was being all nice to me. My birthday came and went but I refused to do owt about it. When people asked me how I was I said ‘all right’ and ‘okay’, like what you do. But there’s a difference between all right and okay. Things were sometimes okay after my baby’d gone. They were never ‘all right’.

  The crunch came, though, when I was supposed to be meeting with some of the lads from the Medders and I didn’t turn up. Mark went, so it wasn’t a disaster, and he said I was poorly so’s they didn’t feel skanked. We’d arranged to meet them down Hockley to discuss who’d deal where in town, cause Mark and me didn’t want to tread on no one’s toes. That was the easiest way to get a gun in your face. We couldn’t of had a more important meeting and I could of died that I’d missed it. I thought Mark would give me a real hard time about it but he didn’t. That made me feel worse.

  ‘It dun’t matter,’ he said. ‘Yer not right at the minute.’

  ‘There’s nowt wrong wi-me,’ I said. I kept saying that to him. I didn’t want to admit it to me-sen.

  ‘Come on,
Kez. Yer don’t have ter be perfect all the time. Yer not right and that’s that.’ I shut it then, didn’t bother fighting cause I knew it were true. I sighed deep and looked at the floor. ‘What about we get away somewhere, go ter Skeg or summat?’ he said.

  I felt the muscles twitch in the bottom of my face but I was determined not to let me-sen cry. Instead I forced a smile, and said, ‘Yeah, that sounds nice.’

  We borrowed a car from this bloke I knew and Mark drove us to the coast. The winding country roads we had to go along made me feel sick. We’d rented a caravan on Golden Sands in Ingoldmells from one of our mates, whose mam owned it. Let us have it for next to nowt as well. We could of gone abroad I spose, to Ibiza or summat, but we weren’t so bothered. I just needed a break. It were busy as we approached the town, and the cars were queuing to get in Butlins. Mark didn’t feel like waiting behind them so he mounted the pavement and drove us past. We got dirty looks from some of the pedestrians but it made us both laugh.

  It were raining by the time we got to the caravan park. I tried to work out the map we’d got to take us to the right van and we giggled as we got lost over and over. We found it in the end, though. Mark unlocked the door and we brought our bags in. The caravan was all right. A sofa curved round the front window and the small curtains were made of the same material as the cushion covers. There was a tiny shower room and a bedroom with a double bed. Mark said he’d sleep in the front room if I wanted, on the pullout. I smiled at him and said I wouldn’t mind a cuddle when I was going to sleep if that was all right with him. He smiled back and you could tell it were. We’d been shopping before we left Nottingham, and I put tins of curry and Fray Bentos pies in the cupboard while Mark sat at the pull-out table and had a smoke. I could tell from the smell he wasn’t smoking hash or weed. I didn’t like it that he smoked brown, but I couldn’t stop him and didn’t see no point trying. It would of only meant we’d argue.

  ‘Are we far from the sea?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nah, not at all.’

  ‘You want to go and see it?’ I said. Mark shrugged, but picked his-sen up and put on his coat. He’d grown some in the last year or so, and it surprised me how near the ceiling his head was. He slouched his way to the door and I followed.

  Mark pushed the door to and locked it. We walked down the muddy soil path and followed the signs to the small beach what sat by the caravan park. The sea boiled in the distance, brown as mud from the shit they throw in it from open sewers. A couple of miles away I could see the roller coasters on the main beach at Skeg. Drizzle misted over the scene and the sea looked as far away as Skeggie did. They should put this on postcards. I remember when I was little, coming here once with Mam and Uncle Summat or other. I thought it were great then, that I could walk from one town to another all the way along the beach. Me and Jon sang ‘Ingoldmells, Really Smells’ for ages in the car till Uncle Bill or Paul or whatever his name was got nasty and gave me a clip round the ear-ole.

  ‘Chips?’ Mark said. And I nodded. I couldn’t think of a thing I’d like more in the world.

  There was a chippy on site, so we walked over to it. Mark got some beers from the shop next door. I got us fish, chips and peas twice. My mouth watered as I ordered it so’s I couldn’t get the words out right. We walked back to the van without talking. Mark ripped a hole in the packet and pulled chips out, flicking off paper and shoving them in his mouth. We got back to the van and ate the rest quick, washing them down with beer. When we’d finished, Mark burped really loud and we both laughed. We did some speed then, and Mark said, ‘Let’s go to bingo.’

  We walked over to the bingo hall arm in arm, pretending to be two old ladies. We talked about the price of eggs, and how the bread at the Co-op wasn’t ever fresh no more. When Mark said summat funny I’d laugh, and before I knew it I was laughing my head off and’d forgot all about the stuff what’d gone off recently. I walked along like that for a bit, happy as you like, then pictures of the red bundle in the nurse’s hands snuck into my head, making me breathe more heavy.

  ‘Gi-me some more-a that speed,’ I said to Mark, and he held out the packet to me like it were a 10p mix he was sharing. I took a good fingerful of the white powder.

  ‘Tek it easy,’ Mark said, and I shook my hand, sprinkling a bit back into the wrap. I rubbed the stuff in my gum and waited for it to make me go all hyper again.

  We went into the bingo hall. We were laughing as we walked in, and I was leaned against Mark. Pairs of eyes all over turned towards us, and there were a couple of loud tuts, a deep intake of breath somewhere behind us. That only made us laugh more. We found our-sen a table and Mark went to buy some cards. We sat with our pens and blotted at the numbers. Neither on us won owt. We couldn’t hardly keep up with the caller, and whenever we looked at each other we’d giggle again, so loud at one point that the table next to us asked the caller to repeat some numbers. Then this security bloke came over and asked us if we’d leave. We didn’t care.

  We walked past the site club on the way back to the van. There was a buzz coming through the door. I knew what it’d be like inside. Full of women in stonewashed jeans or leggings, fat slipping out the top. Their blokes, huge tummies what they looked proud to balance a pint on. There would be the odd slim woman dressed in tight black trousers or a dress. They’d dance round, wiggling in a way what made you know how much they thought of themselves. The men always went for them types, though, no matter how cheap they looked.

  ‘Want ter go in?’ Mark said as we passed.

  ‘Nah, not in the mood.’

  We went back to the caravan and Mark let us in. It’d been raining all night, and it were cold inside. I put on the heating and the telly, and snuggled me-sen into a ball on the sofa. Mark brought some beers over and sat down next to me, put his arm round me. I lay back into him, tried to dissolve. I heard the rain pitter patter the roof, and there was some thunder. It felt good to be cuddling up in the warm, in front of the glow of the telly, with the weather up to all sorts outside. Mark kissed me on the top of my head and I snuggled into him, nuzzled him like a dog. We sipped the beer. Blind Date was on the telly. Mark took the piss out of the cheesy crap they all said, the way they were trying to be clever with their answers. I fell asleep. Mark was talking to me, but I don’t know what he was saying. He picked me up and carried me through to the bedroom. I felt him do it, but was too far gone to even wake up enough to say thank you. He put me in bed with all my clothes on and got in beside me. I could feel his legs next to me, hear the rustling denim of his jeans. He stroked my hair and I woke up. It were raining heavy now, and the caravan roof turned the raindrops into big booming noises as they hit. I lay still and quiet and heard my heart in my eardrum, felt it beat against my breastbone. It were going hard and heavy as the rain on the roof. I made my head sink into the pillow and my body drop into the mattress but it didn’t help. I lay awake and watchful for ages after I heard Mark snoring. I heard different groups roll drunk back to their vans. I heard Mark talking in his sleep, but his words blurred into each other so’s you couldn’t make them out. A bit later, I heard the birds singing.

  The next thing I heard was the hiss of bacon being cooked, but I think it were the smell what woke me. It were about ten, and I hadn’t had much sleep and felt grumpy to be awake. I was stroppy with Mark, even though I knew he was just trying to be nice. He came through to the bedroom with a tray full of stuff and said, ‘Wakey, wakey, rise and shine.’ It took all the will I had not to tell him to fuck off. I sat up and he put the tray on top of me, handed me a knife and fork. ‘For madame,’ he said, and grinned.

  I wasn’t very hungry but felt like I ought to eat summat after Mark’d gone to all that effort. I nibbled at some bacon, put it down, had a spoonful of tomato. Temper stung inside me cause I felt forced to eat. Course that was just my take on it, not the way it really were.

  ‘I could do wi-a cuppa tea,’ I said. Mark grinned. He went through to the kitchenette and brought back a mug. He handed it over and I w
rapped both hands round it, let the warmth run into me and through my body. I looked at the liquid in it.

  ‘This in’t tea,’ I said.

  ‘Oh it is. It just in’t PG,’ Mark said, winking at me.

  I looked at him. ‘Shrooms. This time-a day?’ I said.

  ‘Why not? They in’t no rule about it,’ he said. Course, there were a whole load of rules called laws about it, but I didn’t point that out. Mark threw me a pixie grin and I couldn’t resist his cheek. I sipped the liquid. It were warm enough but tasted sour, like there was metal dissolved in it or summat. I spose normal tea doesn’t taste that nice neither, not really. It’s just what you’re used to. I sipped at Mark’s special brew and he had a cup his-sen. I didn’t eat much breakfast.

  I got up and dressed and we walked to look at the sea. It were still raining, but not hard like the night before. Now it were a miserable sheet of drizzle, ice cold, so’s it hit your skin like needlepoints. It were dead stormy out there, and the sea was a long way in, there was only a couple of yards of beach the other side of the wall. Mark said it’d be dangerous to go down. I hoped the weather would clear. I wanted to go rock pooling and collect up shells and little crabs. I would of liked to build a sandcastle too, a big one with a moat. Then me and Mark could of jumped all over it and smashed it to the ground. I was still a kid really.

  Mark wanted to walk into town, go to the arcades, but I couldn’t be arsed and the weather put him off a bit too. We went back to the van, put on the telly and wrapped our-sen up in a quilt on the settee. Mark put his arm round me again. It didn’t feel like the night before, though. It wasn’t all cosy and nice. There was this draft coming from somewhere, and Mark’s skin felt clammy and cold against the back of my neck. I didn’t cotton on but I was tripping by then, and it wasn’t a good trip.

  Mark was happy enough. He kept giggling at the smallest bits of crap off the telly. Stupid ads what weren’t funny. The more he laughed the more he got my strop on. I got up and went to the kitchenette, filled a glass with water and sat down at the table. Next thing I knew Mark was there talking to me. I could see him and hear that he was talking but nowt made sense. He was asking me questions but I couldn’t put his words together, make them into owt I’d understand. I couldn’t move ner nowt, all’s I could do was say no and wave my arm in front of my face. That reminded me of the gell in the EMHG what I beat up. Maybes she was like this all the time, and that was why she did bad shit. I shouldn’t of beat her up. And as I realised that, I felt worse, deeper in me-sen. It were like there was this ice barrier between me and the world, and there was nowt I could do to smash or melt it. Then it cracked just a bit.