‘Not really.’
‘Oh.’ Panic wedges itself into my throat as I continue to fiddle around with the sticky tabs of the clean nappy. Cory is now shrieking, his face an unhealthy shade of red. I know his nappy’s on too loosely the moment I pick him up; it hangs down like a heavily laden shopping bag, earning me another tut of disapproval from Carol. His clean Babygros are upstairs in the nursery and I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to leave him screaming while I go upstairs and get them. I know his feed is long overdue and the bottles are sitting empty in the steriliser. Why did you choose today to have a lie-in, Cory? Why, baby, why? ‘I need to make up his bottles, he’s hungry,’ I say to Carol, looking up in order to judge her response.
‘Evidently!’
‘Shall I go and prepare his feed then?’
‘Well, I think that would be wise, don’t you?’ She raises her wiry eyebrows as if I’m stupid. ‘And while you’re doing that I’ll carry out my checks. I haven’t got all day, you know!’
A hot flush spreads into prickly heat under my pyjama top. Picking up Cory’s worn Babygro, I place it down on the carpet, ready to dress him.
‘Leave it!’ she sighs. ‘I’m hardly going to weigh him with his clothes on. Or with a nappy on come to that!’
‘Of course not – sorry,’ I say, fumbling around with the tabs of the clean nappy ready to take it back off again. ‘I really do apologise.’
The kitchen is an even bigger state than the lounge. Multiple pots and pans balance on top of one another in the sink basin, ingrained with solidified gravy from yesterday’s roast. I have tried to keep on top of things, really I have, but Cory is relentless, and in the rare moments he does decide to sleep, my muscles are so heavy I can barely move. I watch in horror as a lone fly tucks into a plate of toasted bread crumbs left on the draining board. To the side of it, a half-empty mug of coffee sheds its skin. I look over at the open kitchen door, certain Carol is going to appear at any moment, a hardback copy of Kim and Aggie’s The Cleaning Bible tucked under her armpit.
The kettle takes an age to boil. I peel the plastic lid off the powdered formula, my hands shaking so badly I almost drop it. Cory continues to cry in the lounge, a frustrated, hungry wail which frays every last nerve inside of me. I should go to him and try to soothe him, perhaps bring him into the kitchen with me while I prepare his bottle. But I can’t hold him while handling boiling water, can I? Carol will call social services if I do, she’ll have him removed!
Pulling my mobile phone out of my dressing-gown pocket, I fiddle around with the icons until I find what I’m looking for.
James picks up on the first ring.
‘Where are you?’ I whisper into the handset, the rattling of the kettle making it difficult for me to hear my own voice. ‘You have to come home!’
‘I’m at work obviously. You know I am. What’s the matter?’
Feeling the all-too-familiar burn of tears behind my eyes, I take a moment to compose myself.
‘Lou!’ The urgency in James’s voice spikes. ‘What’s the matter? Is Cory all right? Why’s he crying like that?’
‘I can’t… I don’t know what to do. Just come home now.’ I lean one hand against the worktop to steady myself, the kettle now screaming in its holster. ‘I’m sorry, James, I’ve tried so hard to hold it all together but I can’t do it any more, I just can’t.’
‘Louisa, calm down. What on earth is going on?’
‘The health visitor’s here,’ I whisper, my words clogging my throat. ‘I slept in and the house is a mess and she keeps tapping her shoe on the floor.’
I hear James blow out air, a slight laugh buried in the back of his throat. ‘Bloody hell, don’t do that to me. I thought something was actually wrong then.’
‘There is something wrong!’ I say through gritted teeth, my stomach hardening as visions of Carol’s disapproving glare floats in front of my eyes. ‘She’s going to take Cory, I know she is!’
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. Where is she now? Does she know you’re ringing me?’
I shake my head. ‘She’s in the lounge. But James…’ I say quickly, before I have a chance to change my mind, knowing my distress isn’t solely down to Carol’s complete and utter evilness. ‘There’s another card, on the mat. It’s…’
‘What do you mean another card? Lou, you’re not making any sense.’
I wince, knowing that now I’ve spoken of the card there is no going back. ‘James, I have to tell you something…’
‘Is everything all right in here?’
I squeeze my eyes shut, Carol’s voice suddenly close enough to touch.
‘Lou, what card? Speak to me.’
‘I have to go. I’m sorry. It’s all okay. We’ll talk later.’ Cutting the call, I place my mobile phone on the kitchen worktop, the steam from the kettle so hot I’m sure it’s going to leave blisters on my skin. Slowly, I turn around, looking on in absolute horror as Carol stands in the open kitchen doorway… her eyes ingesting the mess which is all around me.
‘The unfolding of your words gives light, it gives understanding to the simple.’ Psalm 119: 130
I follow the health visitor as she rounds the corner towards her car, the rhythmic click of her heels against the hard pavement the only sound in the otherwise abandoned street. She quickens her step upon seeing her archaic Fiat Punto up ahead, her arms remaining crossed over her torso in a self-serving hug.
I keep my distance for a while, enjoying the fact that I know everything about her and she knows nothing about me.
Fail to prepare… prepare to fail.
The health visitor throws her arms up in the air as she reaches her car. It is an overdone gesture, presumably aimed at the dog walker who ambles towards her, his chin buried in his chest in an attempt to keep out the cold.
‘Here, let me help you.’ I quicken my pace from behind, startling her.
She throws her hand dramatically over her heavy breasts, a look of panic cracking itself open into a smile. ‘You scared me then.’
The dog walker saunters past us, leaving a backdraught of dog faeces in his wake.
‘I’m useless when it comes to changing a tyre,’ she continues apologetically. ‘That’s twice now in the past week. If I were the suspicious type I’d say somebody has got it in for me.’
I remove the hubcap and loosen the lug nuts. ‘You’re Louisa’s health visitor, is that right? I saw you come from the house.’
She nods slowly. ‘I am. And you are?’
I answer her question – a mixture of truth and lies slipping from my tongue like melted butter.
‘Well, thank you for this,’ she sighs. ‘It’s very good of you.’
I place the jack under the car, my fingers stiff and in need of oiling. ‘Beautiful baby, isn’t he?’
She blows out a smile, her cheeks reddening. ‘He is that.’
‘Cries a lot though. It that normal? I wouldn’t really know.’ I drop my gaze, focus on the task at hand.
‘All babies are different.’
I leave a cold breath of silence as I begin to raise the car with the jack, the pressure mounting under its steel frame. ‘I guess babies sense a lot from their mothers…’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh nothing. I’m probably being ridiculous.’ I remove the tyre, my hands now black with oil.
‘You’re a pro at that,’ she says, throwing a curveball which I’m not expecting. ‘I really ought to learn… being a woman is clearly no excuse these days.’
I mount the spare tyre onto the lug bolts. ‘It’s no problem, really.’ I suck my teeth. ‘And please forget what I said about Louisa. I’d hate her to think I was betraying her in some way. It’s just…’ I allow my words to fall away.
‘Just what?’
‘Well, I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to her or the child and I hadn’t said.’ I look up and meet her eye, witness the panic which sweeps across her face.
I know everything about her, an
d she knows nothing about me.
Carol is the perfect pawn in my game of chess, a blessing from God almighty. She doesn’t realise I know of the sleeping pills she takes on a nightly basis in an attempt to quash the nightmares which have plagued her ever since that fateful night. It isn’t hard for me to get my hands on medical records after all. Late in the evenings, when she thinks nobody else is watching, she sneaks out and visits the baby’s grave, places flowers beside the marbled gravestone and apologises to her for not noticing the signs. She promises her that she will never make the same mistake again… that she will always look that little bit deeper on home visits. Yes, Carol is heaven sent. As our Lord God says, ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.’ James 1:17
‘I’ll keep an eye on Louisa, don’t worry.’ She swallows loudly.
‘Thank you. Because, obviously, you’re aware of her history?’
Carol drops her gaze, confidentiality stopping her from saying anything further. But it doesn’t matter; her eyes have told me all I need to know. ‘Are you saying you want to have your concerns noted down?’ she asks, looking up at me, her face flushing scarlet.
‘No, not at all,’ I protest through the wave of a hand. ‘You’re the expert… and if you think everything is fine and there’s nothing to report…’ I tighten the lug nuts by hand, slowly, twisting them until they almost snap.
‘Well, I suppose she did seem…’
‘Seem what?’
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’ll make a note of your concerns, confidentially of course.’
I lower the vehicle and replace the hubcap. ‘All done,’ I say through a wide smile, before tapping the side of my head. ‘It’s easy when you know how.’
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
The house is silent, still, as if holding its breath. I lean into the hallway wall, claustrophobia closing in all around me. Carol left twenty minutes ago, her heavy leather satchel swung over her shoulder, no doubt containing a referral to social services recommending that Cory be removed from my care. I know what she thinks of me; that I’m a useless mother, a blundering wreck incapable of caring for her newborn child. I can’t say I blame her, not really. After all, the house is an absolute pigsty and Cory’s in such a poor routine he’s practically feral. She called him ‘a poor mite’, didn’t she? My son, my precious little miracle, reduced to a hungry, wailing ‘mite’. Tears burn the back of my throat as I roll her comments round and round inside my mind, embarrassment giving way to fear.
She didn’t mention my past though… perhaps she doesn’t know?
James attempted to call me back just after she left but I didn’t answer. I don’t want to speak to him – not yet, not until I know what exactly it is I’m dealing with. I hold the card in my hand, still sheathed in its glossy envelope. Why did it have to arrive today? Why did it have to arrive at all? Over the past two weeks I have almost convinced myself that the card at the hospital was innocent, a well-wisher who’d forgotten to sign their name, maybe even a member of the church congregation who attend Mass across the road on a Sunday morning. Now I know, even before I open it, that I was stupid to ever believe I could live Happily Ever After.
I don’t want to open the card but I know I will. ‘Breathe, Louisa. One thing you can see, one thing you can touch, one thing you can hear.’ My counsellor’s words bounce back to me, or ex-counsellor I should say. When I fell pregnant with Cory I stopped going to see her, believing everything was going to be all right, that the panic attacks would cease to exist once I became a mother. I look down again at the light-blue envelope, the sweat from my fingertips leaving inky fingerprints around its edges. I see the scrawled red handwriting on the front, like a doctor’s penned prescription, my name slanting so far to the left that I fear it may topple down.
As I begin to peel open the fold, blood thunders in my ears, the sound deafening. I slide the card out of the envelope, the embossed lettering on the front like a thousand wasp stings underneath my fingertips. ‘You don’t have to look.’ But yet, even as I whisper the platitude to myself, my eyes are already seeing.
The stork stares up at me like an old friend, his sharp orange bill piercing through a baby-blue blanket. A small infant with hair redder than fire grips tightly hold of it as if he’s about to fall.
I open up the card, the familiar words bleeding together on the page. A Bible quote, the same quote which turned my stomach the day I gave birth to my son.
The day I gave birth to our son.
‘For this is my child, with him I am well pleased.’ Matthew 3: 17
CHAPTER EIGHT
Louisa
Then
Mummy once said that a stork delivered me on Christmas Day. She said she didn’t mind much because Dad had pissed the Christmas dinner up the wall and there was nowt on telly. I said I didn’t think you could piss out a turkey and she laughed until her eyes burst.
When Mummy got dead I wondered if the stork might come back for me but he never did. I suppose he was too busy opening his presents off Santa or maybe there just wasn’t any other mummies who wanted me.
‘Come on, lovely, out of the car.’
The strange lady pokes her head through a small gap between the driver’s seat and the back window, so our noses are almost touching. She has short brown hair and a funny accent, making the word car sound like the middle of an apple. She told me her name is Beverley, but the policeman, who looked after me yesterday and gave me a candy cane, said her name was Mrs Budd, so I think she might be telling me porky pies. Mummy used to say that a liar’s pants would go on fire, but it’s snowing so I think Beverley might be okay. Even though she’s a liar she’s pretty to look at. Her face is kind and her smile looks like it’s been painted on with permanent marker.
‘Come on, sweetie. It’s getting chilly.’ Beverly squats down by the car as she speaks to me, but this time she doesn’t stick her head back through the gap, which I’m glad about because she smells too flowery. ‘This is just until we find you a forever family.’ I am confused now, and wonder why I am being sent into a place called The Foster Home, which isn’t my house, and where I have to stay until somebody called social services finds me a forever family. I don’t want a forever family, I just want them to fix Mummy. I want them to rub away the Ribena stain from around her neck and blow air back into her, like she used to do to my armbands when we went swimming on a Sunday lunchtime.
I want them to draw a smile on Mummy’s face… with permanent marker just like Beverley’s
Beverley is telling the truth about one thing though. It is really cold in the back of the car. I decide I will go into The Foster Home, just to warm up, even though it doesn’t look like a real house. It’s very big and doesn’t even have any bricks on it! The front, the bit where the windows and doors go, looks like icing, a bit like the birthday cake Mummy made me a long time ago when she was having a Tigger day. Mummy’s Tigger days were mostly fun but sometimes a little scary. She’d dance and sing and twirl me around, sometimes until I was sick. She’d wake me up in the middle of the night with a plate full of cookies she’d baked and tell me how she’d thought of an idea to make us rich. She’d talk so fast I couldn’t really understand her, like when you keep your finger down on a cassette’s fast-forward button. When Mummy was being Tigger she couldn’t sleep and when she was Eeyore she couldn’t wake up. I always just wished she could be Winnie the Pooh.
The garden in The Foster Home is humongous, with pink and purple flowers dotted around the edges. It reminds me of Oz, the part where Dorothy, Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion skip along on their journey to see the Wizard. But the flowers in Oz are poisonous and I’m worried that these flowers are poisonous too. I cover my mouth and don’t breathe as we walk up the path, just in case.
The door to The Foster Home creaks open, even though Beverley hasn’t knocked on the huge knocker which looks like a horseshoe. A lady answers the door. Her hair is long and black, making her green eyes almost pop out of her
face. Her nose is really pointy and she looks thin enough to snap. I squeeze Beverley’s hand really hard. I want to tell her that I don’t like The Foster Home, that I want to go back to my real house. I know Mummy is in the sky now but I want to tell Beverley that she doesn’t need to worry about me because I can make toast and tea. I am a big girl now and I looked after Mummy well during her Eeyore days. It is while I am saying all of these things in my head that the lady at the door bends down, so our eyelashes are almost touching. My eyelashes aren’t long and dark like hers are; they are short and fair, the colour of Garfield.
‘Hello, Louisa, sweetie. I’m Esther.’
The lady, Esther, reaches out her bony hand and pats me on the arm. I jump back, the feel of my coat brushing against my skin making it burn. Esther looks at me strangely, her eyes flicking up past my head to where Beverley stands behind me. ‘Come on through, sweetie, you must be starving.’ I wonder how she knows Beverley is starving but I don’t ask.
I walk down a very long hallway to the back of The Foster Home, trying my best to place one foot in front of the other even though my legs have gone all wobbly. My shoes pinch my toes as I walk. Beverley said I would get lots of new things at The Foster Home but, as I’ve already told you, Beverley lies a lot. The sound of music blaring down from upstairs shakes my ears as we go down the corridor and I cover them with my hands. Esther turns around to look at me, her eyes jumping up into her forehead. ‘That’s Carla,’ she laughs. ‘You’ll get used to her.’
I am pretty sure it is Take That but I don’t say.
Once in the kitchen, a big boy with a round tummy turns around to look at me, a floppy thin piece of toast clutched between his thumb and forefinger, drippy yolk dangling down from the end like snot. On the stove, a pan begins to rattle, something inside of it banging hard against the metal.
‘Who’s the ging?’ the boy asks Esther, causing the smile to drop off her face.
A Mother’s Sacrifice Page 5