‘I just want to get home. Process it all properly. Parents! Us!’ The car lurched forward as he speeded up and there was a squealing of tyres as we hared around the bend.
The Monkees faded to ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’, and Elvis Presley’s voice was so wistful it almost seemed like a sign. Something bad was going to happen.
‘Jake.’
‘Chill. It’s okay.’
His eyes locked onto mine. One of his hands left the wheel and he tucked my hair behind my ear, and his touch was so tender. The music filled the car, and it felt like the perfect, perfect moment, until lights dazzled me through the windscreen. My head jerked towards the road. I was transfixed by the headlights of the other car approaching us, on the wrong side of the road, far, far too fast.
Everything seemed to slow: I do not know whether I screamed first or raised both arms in front of my face. Metal crunched; the seatbelt sliced into me as I was thrown forward and then pushed back as the airbag inflated. My head pounded against the window and blackness sucked me under.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was out for but the first thing I was aware of was the crushing darkness. It was dark. So dark. I couldn’t see and panic tornadoed through me. It took every ounce of energy to prise open my eyes and I blinked furiously as they began to water.
It was hot. Unbearably hot. Acrid smoke sealed off my throat, and as I coughed and coughed, my lungs burned with the effort of trying to drag in air, my ribs felt like they would shatter. ‘Jake.’ I was screaming his name over and over but I think it must have been in my head because I couldn’t hear. Just for one solitary moment there was perfect, perfect silence before my senses roared back to life. Someone was screaming, anguished cries that my ears would never forget. I didn’t think it was me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Where was I? I was trapped, and I was scared. So scared. Somehow Elvis was still singing but I wasn’t sure if it was real. I wasn’t sure if I was real. There was something warm and sticky running down my face and as it trickled down my nose I could smell the blood. Every cell in my body screamed at me to move. To run. But I couldn’t. Jake! I must reach him but I couldn’t undo my seatbelt. I couldn’t feel my body properly. There was no pain. Why wasn’t there any pain? ‘Jake!’ I tried to shift in my seat. I was weak but I put my palms under me and raised myself up slightly before dropping again, and as I sank back into the seat I felt a dampness between my thighs. I was so scared I thought I must have wet myself.
‘Jake!’
He didn’t answer. I looked to my right. His eyes were open, a crimson river gushing from his temple. He was waxy, still, and his stillness conjured the image of my dad, bleeding and broken at the bottom of the stairs.
Momentarily I raised my fingers, touching the gold cross around my neck and it crossed my mind this was some divine punishment for what I’d done.
51
Then
Nick stood, hand gripping the knife handle. The steel blade glinting in the light. The footsteps reached the top of the landing and a voice called ‘Nick? You found my jacket?’ Nick stepped out of the bathroom and opened and closed his mouth, silently watching confusion, worry, and then an awful realisation flit across Richard’s face as he noticed Nick’s mum lying on the floor.
‘Angela?’ Richard’s voice was loud. Firm. In control. Nick sagged against the doorframe, thankful Richard had done his Duke of Edinburgh Award. Nick silently promised he’d learn first aid so he’d never feel this helpless again. He covered his mouth with both hands, watching as Richard pressed his fingers against mum’s neck; he hadn’t felt a pulse, but Richard knew exactly where to touch. He nodded before saying: ‘she’s alive’.
‘I’ll go and phone for an ambulance,’ Nick said but before he had reached the top of the stairs he heard his mum whimper and then moan. He rushed to her side.
‘Mum.’ Nick’s voice cracked. ‘I thought you were…’
‘Where is he?’ Mum’s voice was raspy, her eyes glazed. As she struggled to sitting she pressed a hand against the side of her head; scarlet drops of blood trickled through her fingers.
‘He’s not here.’ Nick exchanged a worried glance with Richard, keenly aware his dad could return at any time. ‘Mum, I’m going to fetch a doctor.’
‘No! I’m fine.’ But his mum winced as she moved. ‘He found out.’ She tore off toilet tissue and dabbed at the cut on her mouth. ‘The money. He knew I was going to leave. I thought,’ she whimpered, ‘I thought he was going to kill me.’
‘I’ll call the police, Angela.’ Richard squeezed her arm. ‘He won’t come near you again.’
‘No! Not safe.’ Mum stood and stumbled. Nick caught her around the waist and she fell into him, and he remembered the time he used to press his small body against her legs, bury his head into her stomach to block out the shouting. ‘I want to leave. I have to leave.’ Hysteria crept into her voice and Nick soothed her, as she used to him.
‘Shhh. It’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay.’ But her tone was lower. Calmer. ‘We have to leave. When we’re safe we can call the police.’
‘Where will we go?’
‘My sister. Your aunt. She’ll take us in.’
‘Is she local, Angela? I can drop you off.’ Richard checked his watch. Nick knew he was thinking of the function he needed to go to; the icy disapproval of his father if he missed it.
‘It’s about an hour’s drive,’ Mum said.
Nick exchanged a glance with Richard. It would cost a fortune by taxi. Cash they didn’t have.
‘Richard? Could you lend me some money, please?’ Nick hated asking.
Richard swallowed hard and tapped his keys against his thigh; the way he always did when he was thinking.
‘Take these.’ He pressed the car keys into Nick’s hands. ‘I don’t have much cash on me and I must go. I’m nearly late as it is. I’ll grab my jacket and catch the bus on the corner. You get your mum out of here. Away from…’ Richard’s gaze swept over the blood on the floor, the knife.
‘But I haven’t passed my test,’ Nick said, though he curled his fingers against the key fob anyway.
‘No, but you’re good enough. You had a great instructor.’ Richard offered a faint smile and there was so much Nick wanted to say but his head was full of things they needed to pack, the thought his dad might come back, and instead he patted Richard on the shoulder. Sometimes there was no need for words.
‘Why haven’t I ever heard of this aunt?’ Nick said. The rain was torrential. Nick knew he should focus all of his attention on the road but he’d grown up watching Casualty, and knew from the egg-sized bump on Mum’s forehead he should keep her talking. He was terrified she would fall asleep before he got there. It wasn’t like he knew where he was going anyway.
‘We were close, as sisters, growing up.’ Mum started to speak, her words unclear as they spilled from her split lip, and Nick turned down the radio so he could properly hear her. He didn’t want to listen to songs about being a believer. As he looked at his mum’s battered face he thought he would never believe in anything again. ‘After I married your dad he insisted we moved away, and every time she came to visit he’d be rude and he’d always twist it around to make it look like she was the one who didn’t like him. It was awkward, I suppose, having her in the house. I’d still visit her though, at first, but each time I arranged to go, something always came up. Your dad wasn’t feeling well, or there wasn’t enough money for the train fare. I don’t know.’ Mum pressed her hands against her ribs, wincing as she shifted on her seat. Nick tried to smile reassuringly as he glanced over at her but his teeth were gritted, his hands clenched hard around the steering wheel. He almost wished they were round his dad’s neck.
‘It was an impossible situation for me caught in the middle. She thought he was a bully, and he thought she was trying to turn me against him. We were so close once.’ Mum sniffed hard and Nick thought she might be talking about Dad until she spoke again. ‘Lots of my friends
had siblings they fought with but it wasn’t like that with us. Our birthdays were close together and we always had a joint party; Mum couldn’t afford to splash out for two, but we never minded. One year our mum tried to make it two different themes, mermaids and princesses, but we wanted to be the same and ended up mixing up the costumes so we could look identical. I had a fishtail and a tiara. I’ll never forget that party…’ Mum’s voice grew fainter before her words were indistinguishable, and Nick felt a tight knot of tension in his neck as he twisted his head to look at her. Even in the darkness of the car he could see how deathly pale she was. How her eyelids fluttered as she tried to keep them open.
‘Tell me about the last time you spoke to her?’ Nick felt terrible firing questions at her, but he didn’t want her drifting off. Not yet.
‘She’d bought a house and asked us to move in with her. You and me.’ She reached out a hand and touched Nick’s arms. ‘Dad was furious and then someone anonymously rang her boss and told him she had been bragging about stealing things from work. A complete lie but she lost her job, lost the house. Dad never admitted it but I knew it was him. He’s always been too scared to confront people directly.’
Nick indicated left. He wasn’t too sure this was the right turning. ‘What a bastard.’
‘Yes. But at the time I made excuses for him. I thought about how hard it must be for him, losing a career, money, being dependent on me. No wonder he lost his pride.’
‘You can dress it up how you want, but the bottom line is he’s a coward.’ Nick leaned forward. Visibility was poor and he didn’t know the roads.
‘Why didn’t you leave dad? If you had somewhere to go?’
‘I don’t know.’ The distress in Mum’s voice sliced Nick to the core. ‘She was furious, telling me I had to choose between them. He was sweet, saying she was jealous; I had a husband when she didn’t. He can be very persuasive when he wants to be. Divorce would have seemed almost shameful, I suppose. My parents wouldn’t have been around to see it but they believed marriage vows were for life. And so did I.’
In his peripheral vision Nick noticed his mum twist her wedding ring around her finger, he hoped she’d tug it off and lob it out of the window into the blackness and the sheets of rain.
‘It’s not too late for you, Mum.’ Nick believed this to be true. ‘You can be happy again. Away from him.’
‘I’m not going back. Not this time.’ And under her exhaustion, her fear, her words were coated in steel. ‘I’m going to spend some quality time with my sister and then I’m going to travel. See all the places I’ve never been. Try new foods. Experience new cultures. I want to live.’ She exhaled sharply as though blowing her desire to travel out into the world she so wanted to see.
On the radio, Elvis began to croon ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ Mum leaned forward to turn up the volume.
‘This is my favourite song,’ she said.
‘Do you know where we are?’ It felt as though they had been on the road forever and, with the lack of street lights, the open countryside, Nick hadn’t seen a street sign for what seemed like miles. ‘There’s a sign for Shillacre – do you know it?’
But his mum didn’t answer; her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly in her seat, lost to the music. Lost to a happier time past, or dreaming of the ones yet to come.
Nick twisted around and picked up the map he’d looked at earlier. He shook it out on his lap, glanced down as he looked for Farncaster, the town his Aunt Natasha lived in, but it was too dark to properly see. He popped on the interior light – for a second – and he eased his foot off the accelerator. He’d marked Farncaster on the map before they’d left. He ran his finger along the tangle of lines and saw he’d missed the turning. He’d have to find a gateway or something to spin the car around.
Everything seemed to happen at once: his mum’s voice rose in pitch, singing out clear and strong; his foot squeezed the accelerator, energised now he knew they were almost there; the glare of the approaching headlights; the awful sinking feeling in his stomach as his head jerked upright. The realisation that he had – for a split second – drifted onto the wrong side of the road. Everything seemed to slow, and by the time his reactions kicked in, it was too late. There was the squealing of brakes, the look of horror on the face of the passenger in the other car before she raised her arms in front of her face. Her eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a scream, was something Nick had never been able to forget. There was the crunching sound of metal. He and his mum were thrust forward before being yanked back. Nick’s reflexes roared back to life.
‘Mum.’ He was almost too scared to look. Too scared not to look. But as he turned, tears of relief fought their way free as his mum’s eyes locked on to his. Despite the shock on her face, the sliver of blood trickling down her cheek, she looked okay.
‘I’ll call for help,’ he said. He clicked open his door and, as he got out, he almost didn’t hear his mum speaking above the wailing coming from the other car as a woman screamed ‘Jake’ over and over again.
‘Wait,’ Mum said. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be driving. You’ve no license and, with your suspended sentence, you’ll go to prison.’ With small jerky movements she dragged herself over to the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll say I was alone. You have to go.’
‘I won’t leave you.’ There was a gash above Nick’s eyebrow; he wiped blood from his eye. Nick knew he should stay; he wanted to stay. But was his mum right? Should he flee? The sound of Elvis was drowned out by a roaring in Nick’s ears that grew louder and louder, the word ‘prison’ spinning round and round his head.
The last thing he heard was his mum saying ‘Run.’ And to his eternal shame he did.
52
Then
There were shadows on the ceiling as consciousness tugged me awake. Dark, malevolent creatures with snapping jaws and flaring nostrils. My hospital gown was scratchy, tiny spiders skittering over my skin. I placed my hands over my belly as though I could keep the monsters at bay, keep my baby safe, but I knew, while I was sleeping, one of them had slipped inside of my head and they’d whispered it was too late for Jake. The image of him slumped in the seat, eyes wide and unseeing, was almost too much to bear but sleep was waiting and I stepped into its arms where it cradled me, warm and soft.
When I woke again, mum was sitting beside me, fiddling with the hem of her dress.
‘How are you?’ she asked but I couldn’t answer her, fixing my eyes instead on the clear plastic jug next to my bed. She sloshed water into a beaker and gently propped up my pillows so I could sip, and her touch was so tender, so unexpected it brought with it a memory of lying on the sofa as a child. Throat raw. Fever raging. She had cradled my head in her lap and stroked my forehead. Time slipped past as I drifted between sleep and wakefulness and we must have stayed like that for hours until Dad’s key had turned in the lock and she’d hurried to the kitchen to start dinner. And it hit me, for the first time: she loved me.
‘Mum.’ I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I didn’t know what I wanted her to say but she said nothing, fussing instead with water that had spilled. Mopping up with tissues.
‘Mum,’ I said again. This time louder.
There was another painful pause until Mum said, slowly, carefully: ‘There’s been an accident.’ The whites of her eyes were streaked with tiny blood vessels as though she had been crying for a long time.
‘But I’ll be okay?’ I shifted in my bed. My body felt heavy.
‘I was talking about Dad. He had a fall. Down the stairs. While you were out with Jake. That loose carpet he never fixed, I expect.’ She looked at everything but me.
‘But he’s okay?’
Wordlessly she shook her head, and I fumbled for her hand but she pulled it out of reach. I didn’t feel guilt or regret or any of the things I thought I might. Not then anyway. Then all I felt was numbness.
‘The police want to talk to you,’ she said. ‘They’ll likely be in later. They’ll want to t
alk to you about the car accident too. But I’ve told them about the loose stair carpet. Told them you were out at the time.’ She stood.
‘Don’t go!’ I cried as she headed for the exit, but I had no words to pull her back as she hovered, fingertips brushing the door handle.
She lowered her head, and her voice was barely audible over the clattering trolleys in the corridor outside. ‘I think it’s better if you don’t come home, Kat. When you leave here. I’ve brought you in some clothes.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’ She turned and held me in her gaze and it burned white-hot, and this time it was me that couldn’t look at her. ‘You mustn’t tell, Kat.’
As the door swung shut behind her I realised she knew what I’d done, and that if I left we’d be the only ones who did. She was setting me free, and I was certain, for the second time that day, she loved me. But it was a small comfort.
The doctor stood in front of the window. A shaft of sunlight cast him in bronze, almost as though he was a god. He was speaking but it was like watching a foreign film without subtitles.
‘We performed a D&C, of course, when we brought you in—’
‘A what?’
‘A Dilation and Curettage. It’s where we scrape away the contents of the uterus. The scan showed there was still some tissue there.’
The dawning, when it came, was slow and sickening. My hospital bed spinning and spinning and I gripped the sides so I didn’t fly away.
‘You do understand what has happened, Miss White?’
‘No,’ I said without hesitation because if I pretended not to understand it could not be real. It could not be true. But it was.
The Surrogate Page 25