The scream.
Lisa is lying on the sofa on her back. Knees bent.
‘Lis?’ I scramble over to her.
‘It’s coming.’
‘It?’ I can’t make sense of what she is telling me, and my head is throbbing where it banged against the bannister.
‘The fucking baby,’ she bellows, and I am suspicious. Elated. Confused.
‘There’s a baby? You really did it? The surrogacy? God, I’m so sorry, Lis, for doubting you.’
‘I’m not ready.’ Lisa’s distress spreads like ripples in a pond.
I am aware of Nick hovering behind me. I can feel his panic matching mine.
‘He shouldn’t be coming yet,’ I say, as though my words might be able to change things. I can’t believe this is happening.
Lisa doesn’t speak. Her face hot pink, fringe damp and plastered to her forehead. The whole room stinks of sweat. She pants, and I stroke her hair, let her grip my hand.
There’s a baby.
‘Call an ambulance, Nick.’
‘With the response times somewhere this rural? Last time someone in the village called an ambulance it took a fucking hour. We’d be better off taking her to the hospital in the car. Can you stand, Lisa?’ Nick says.
‘No. I can feel the head.’ Lisa is crying.
‘I’m going to have a look,’ I say.
Nick turns to the wall as I ease down Lisa’s knickers. ‘She’s right. There’s not enough time to go anywhere.’
‘Fuck.’ Lisa throws her head back and bellows. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t.’
‘You can.’ I feel a rush of warmth towards her. ‘We can. Together. Look at me.’
She turns her head, her eyes full of tears. We are locked together in this moment, in every moment that has come before. School plays where she’d cheer me on, exams I’d help her revise for, bad haircuts, birthday parties, first love, first loss. It has always been together and all of it was leading to this. I am stunned but I can’t afford to stand around thinking how I’ve got her wrong.
‘Nick.’ I snap to attention. ‘Boil some water and fetch some towels, some scissors and something warm to wrap the baby in.’
He hurries up the stairs, and when he’s gone Lisa says: ‘Kat. There are things I need to tell you… Christ. This hurts.’
The muscles in my back scream as I hunch over her, remembering all the times I’d watched One Born Every Minute. My teeth are gritted as I hold the baby’s head in my hands, waiting for the next wave of contractions. Lisa can’t stop babbling. Shouting. Screaming. And I don’t try to guide her. Her body knows what to do, and she will cope with this in any way she can.
It seems like an age before Nick comes back with a scalding kettle full of water but no bowl, and the towels from the bathroom, damp from use, but I don’t send him back for more. It’s nearly over. Lisa has stopped talking and is wailing and grunting. I tell Nick to hold her hands, and he shouts out in pain as she squeezes too tightly.
With one last guttural cry, Lisa pushes, and the baby slithers into my arms and, although he is covered in gunk, I have never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.
But he is still. Silent. Blue.
He’s not breathing.
Strangely, I am suddenly calm. I’ve seen enough births on TV to automatically ease my finger between the umbilical cord and his neck. There’s a gasp. A juddering breath. A piercing cry, and I’ve never heard anything quite so lovely. He is small, but not worryingly so. Perfectly formed.
‘It’s a boy, Lis.’
Nick hands me scissors and I carefully cut the umbilical cord and wrap the baby in the fleecy lemon blanket with the giraffe in the corner that Nick has fetched from the nursery.
‘Lis?’
‘I don’t feel right, Kat.’
Suddenly there is blood. Too much blood. Lisa’s lungs rattle and she is chalk white.
‘Nick.’ I place the baby gently on the floor. ‘‘Fetch some cold water, a flannel and a phone. Hurry.’
‘Kat,’ she whispers. ‘I’m scared.’
‘You’re going to be fine,’ I say, but as I cradle her face between my hands, her eyes start to roll back into her head.
56
Now
I don’t hear Nick come back into the room. I don’t know he is here until he touches my shoulder.
‘Kat.’ He says more than just my name but all I hear is static. I am sobbing so hard I cannot hear. I cannot speak. My head is resting on Lisa’s chest but underneath my ear there is no beating of her heart.
‘Kat,’ Nick says again. This time his hands are under my armpits and he tries to hoist me to my feet, but I grab hold of Lisa’s shirt.
‘Noooo.’ I don’t want to let her go. ‘Please…’
‘Get out the fucking way, Kat,’ Nick shouts. There’s a whimpering to my side and my eyes are drawn to the baby. My baby. His tiny fingers are flexing. His eyes screwed shut. I scoop him into my arms and step to the side.
Nick tilts Lisa’s head back, and despite seeing resuscitation a million times on TV, there is none of the tension I feel when I watch Casualty, none of the drama, just a sad resignation it is too late. But still I watch. Two breaths. Thirty chest compressions. I count them in my head. Two breaths. Thirty chest compressions. I wonder if that is the right number. I wonder if it matters.
‘Fuck.’ Nick sits back on his heels. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ I am shaking violently with shock. I can’t believe what has just happened.
‘We have to phone an ambulance. They’ll probably call the police.’
‘What about the baby?’ I draw him closer to my chest. He yawns, wide and gummy.
Nick toes the floor with his shoe and looks at anything but me.
‘You think they will take him away?’
‘He’s not ours, Kat. Lisa has a family. They will want him.’
‘He is ours. We had a contract.’ Everything is slipping through my fingers. Grains of sand on the beach. The sandcastles me and Lisa used to build crumbling into nothing as if they were never there. But this baby, he is here: real, solid, and I won’t let him go.
‘The contract isn’t legal. Richard warned us. The baby has to live with us for six weeks before a residency order can be granted. Besides…’
‘Besides, what?’ I try to keep my voice calm as I rock from one foot to another. Gulping back salty tears.
‘He can’t be ours, can he? I don’t know much about babies but, even if he’s early, it’s still too soon, isn’t it?’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.’ I hiss out my words. I am not going to think about the way Lisa had clung to my hand as Nick located towels and boiled water, fetched the blanket from the nursery, telling me how miserable she’d been since Jake died. How her mum seemed disappointed she was the one who was alive. How lonely she had been. It had been easy to get drunk in the pub on what would have been her and Jake’s 30th birthday. It had been easy to fall into bed with Aaron at the end of the night, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken for nearly ten years.
‘I didn’t know what to do when I was pregnant,’ she had sobbed. ‘I didn’t plan it. Any of it, I swear. Aaron is married. He doesn’t want his wife finding out. He said it was a mistake and he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.’
‘I thought you’d made the pregnancy up. I thought you were both trying to extort money from me.’
‘No! How could you think that?’
Lisa screwed her face up tightly before she carried on. ‘I noticed you in that magazine and it said you lived in Craneshill. I just wanted to see you. I’ve missed you so much. I haven’t seen Dad in years. Me and Mum barely speak. I wanted to talk about Jake.’ Lisa gabbled as I focused on delivering her baby, and I let her ramble on. ‘You know I didn’t ever want a baby. I can’t be a single mum. Couldn’t tell Mum I’d had an affair with a married man, like dad.’
‘You were pregnant when we met?’ I am strangely calm.
‘Yes, but I’d booked an abortion. It seemed like fate you wanted a baby and couldn’t have one. I thought I could make everything up to you. There was only a few weeks difference, and I thought if I kept you away from the scans you’d never know how far along I was. I read a newspaper article about that singer who wanted a surrogate and it was easy to pretend I’d done it before.’
Another contraction swept over her and the sounds she was making were like an animal in distress. She was panting hard as she started to speak again.
‘I don’t see Mum often anyway. I knew I could avoid her for a few months, and by the time he was born and you found out from the date he couldn’t possibly be yours, it would be too late. You’d already love him. Want him. Give him the home I never could. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I panicked. I’m so sorry.’
‘How could you?’ There had been no surprise in my voice. Only resignation. I think that part of me had already known.
‘My life is a mess, Kat. I’ve never had a career. I’ve always suffered with bouts of depression, spending weeks in bed at a time. I’ve never been able to stick to a job. I made up working in the hospital so you’d respect me. I didn’t think there was any harm. I’d get some cash and you’d get the family you wanted.’
My fingers touched the gold cross around my neck as Lisa screwed up her face that was scarlet and slick with sweat. She grunted and I hated her and was glad she was suffering, and yet there was part of me that still cared, even though I knew I shouldn’t. Lisa and Jake and I, we are a tangle of past, present and future. Once her contraction had passed she babbled again.
‘I realised how much I had missed you. It felt good to be friends again. New Year, when I came to stay and saw the nursery, saw how much it meant to you, and I met Nick properly, I knew I had to stop. I felt so guilty. It wasn’t fair to let you believe the baby was his. Yours.’
‘Was it ever twins?’ I was desperate for something to be real.
‘No. I did slip on the ice. That was true. I pretended to have a miscarriage. Because I cared about you. I felt awful deceiving you both. I was a mess. It was too late to have an abortion and I didn’t know what to do. But then you came and found me and it seemed like fate. I didn’t want to be without you again. It was easy to carry on lying. I’m so sorry this isn’t your baby, Kat. Or Nick’s.’
It had been a night for truth but sometimes you can hear so much it’s hard to take in, and you look back and wonder whether you ever actually heard it at all. I so desperately wanted this baby to be mine. All along I had believed he was, and sometimes believing is enough. It has to be. Lisa was half out of her mind with pain. She had no idea what she was saying. It is my baby. It is.
Nick gently places a blanket over Lisa, covering the face that I used to sprinkle with silver glitter before our school discos. The hard ball in my chest plummets into my gut.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he says. ‘Make some calls.’
I nod but as we reach the foot of the stairs I turn and hand Nick the baby. Back at Lisa’s side I pull down the blanket, lean over to the coffee table and click on the lamp.
‘She’s scared of the dark,’ I say through my choking sobs. I raise her hand to my cheek, linking her fingers through mine, remembering all the times we’d run out into the playground holding hands, eager to reach the hopscotch first. Although I had gone years without her, there’s a hollowness inside when I think I will never again hear her laugh. It seems impossible it was only a few months ago we reconnected. I still remember that day. The snow. The taste of frost and hope on my tongue. Lisa will never see another winter, and I feel my heart is breaking. Already, without her, I feel lost. Hopelessly, irretrievably lost.
‘Kat.’ Nick touches my shoulder.
‘I can’t…’ I can’t tear myself away from Lisa. I can’t leave her. I won’t be able to live with myself. My forehead lowers onto her chest, resting on a ribcage housing lungs that will never again draw in air.
‘She’s with Jake now,’ Nick says and that, at least, is some comfort.
‘Goodbye, Lisa.’ My fingers shake and it takes several attempts to unfasten the gold cross from my neck and place it around hers.
‘I’m sorry too,’ I say as I kiss her lips that are already losing their warmth. The kiss of Judas.
* * *
I stop in the doorway to the kitchen as I see Nick’s dad lying where he fell. I’d forgotten he was here.
Silently I watch as Nick kneels next to him and checks his pulse. His face is ashen as he turns to me. I already know what he is about to say.
‘Shit, Kat. He’s dead.’
‘You killed him.’ I shift the weight of the baby in my arms.
‘It was an accident,’ Nick says but now he has as much to lose as me.
And as much to hide.
57
Now
‘You have to go.’ Nick is flinging my clothes into a suitcase as I lie rigid on the bed. My cheek sinking into the feather-soft pillow smelling of the husband I should hate, but somehow can’t. I’m so very, very tired.
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘You must.’ Exasperation has again crept into his voice.
‘Two people are dead, Nick.’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ He is shaken. Pale. ‘It will be fine.’ His blue eyes lock onto mine, and we both know it is as far from fine as it can be. ‘I’ll sort everything out and then I’ll join you.’
‘How can you sort it out?’ I want to believe him but can’t quell my gut feeling telling me this is impossible to sort out.
‘Richard.’
The sound of his name tears through me as if I have fallen on barbed wire. Can I trust him to keep me safe, after everything he has done? I am scared. So scared.
There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t run away, and one reason why I should. The baby is asleep next to me. Snuffling like a small animal. He is early. A bit small perhaps but I’ll get him checked over. I’m going to take very good care of him. There are veins visible beneath his paper-thin eyelids. He is as weak and powerless as I feel but his fragility draws a strength from me that grows with each and every breath he takes.
‘I’ll go.’ I push myself to sitting.
The mattress squeaks and dips as Nick sits on the edge. He smooths my hair away from my temples, cupping my face between his palms. There is nothing quite as painful as knowing something is ending.
‘I love you, Kat. I always have.’ He rubs his thumb over my cheekbone. I raise my hand and take his in mine. Kiss his palm. Pull him towards me and kiss his lips. The kiss of goodbye.
I don’t tell him I love him.
I can’t.
Even though I know I’ll probably never get the chance again.
Epilogue
There’s a sweet scent of freshly cut grass hanging in the breeze that is warming my skin, ruffling my hair. The park is busy, the sunshine drawing out families. It saddens me Nick will never feel this again. Once the bodies were discovered he had handed himself in. Confessed to things he had never done. Confessed to the things he had. I wrote to the prison last week. I do sometimes. But I’m careful to use a different name each time. A different address. Nick may have taken the blame for everything that went on in the house that night – he did owe me – but you can’t be too careful, can you? He knew, I think, even as he threw my things into a suitcase, it was all over for him. It was the last thing he could do for me, and I like to think he acted not just out of guilt, but out of love too. Despite everything he told me there is a part of me that misses him. Misses us. The Friday nights spent snuggled on the sofa watching TV in our pyjamas; curry-stained plates stacked on the coffee table.
The police knew, of course, that Lisa had recently given birth but Nick denied all knowledge of a baby over and over until eventually they stopped asking, although I’m sure they haven’t stopped looking. Richard defended Nick, as he always had, whether out of loyalty, or out of fear of being discovered for the liar that he is, I
do not know. I have never forgiven him for his part in the accident. But we always seek out someone to blame, I suppose. It’s human nature. And it’s easier to hate him than hate Nick, than hate myself. Still, Richard has at least provided me with a new identity. ‘You’re a missing person, Kat,’ he had said over the phone, his voice cold and hard. ‘I’ve a client who spent time inside for identity theft. Let me make some enquiries.’ And weeks later, as we had met on the edge of a pier, the crashing waves spraying salt into my mouth, I had taken the envelope he handed to me and something else wordlessly passed between us as if we both knew this would be the last contact we would ever have. I turned away from the snarling hate in his eyes and stared out at the flat white sky and, despite our strained relationship, I’d felt a pang of loneliness as his shoes clattered against the wooden boards as he walked away from me.
Nick had stuck to his story that I had depression and had left him days before. There were enough people to validate my erratic behaviour. I had watched the live coverage unfold in front of my former home. The reporter sweating in his cheap suit, interviewing the woman with the red hair who lived a few doors down from us. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears despite the fact we had hardly spoken. Still, everyone wants their fifteen minutes, I suppose. She confirmed that I had rarely been seen in the few months before my alleged disappearance and when I did venture out, I really wasn’t myself. Running around without shoes. Even Tamara had cried on the news. She always was the better actress. I’m pleased she got to play Maria in the end; I saw the photos online and she looked stunning. Her dreams came true, at least. The musical ran for two weeks longer than it was supposed to. I’m guessing the attention surrounding my disappearance probably did wonders for ticket sales. Who was it that said there is no such thing as bad publicity?
There were rumours that Nick had killed me. The police had to take those seriously and had dug up our garden, but there was nothing to find. I was distraught as I watched the helicopter reports on TV. Dewei’s and Mai’s rose bushes wrenched out of the ground as though they were nothing. Over time I was classed as another unsolved murder, another sad statistic. The newspapers interviewed some of our old school friends. Aaron was photographed standing stiffly with his wife. He was quoted as saying he hadn’t seen or spoken to me or Lisa in ten years. He always was a liar. But then, we all have things to hide, don’t we? Our version of the truth is pliable, we mould our reality to mask our lies, and sometimes it sounds so plausible we even convince ourselves.
The Surrogate Page 27