A Mother’s Sacrifice

by Gemma Metcalfe

  My lungs empty of air as I realise what I am looking at. The card I threw in the outside bin this morning has reappeared.

  It is sitting at the centre of my mantelpiece!

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  James

  After

  ‘This interview is being recorded at Blacon Police Station in Chester. It is now Wednesday 27th December 2014 and it is exactly twelve midday. I am DC 3345 Gillian Lawrie and the other police officer present is…’

  ‘…DC 3356 Michael Kennedy.’

  ‘I really don’t care for these formalities. I need you to find out what the hell has happened!’ I glare at the male police officer who sits opposite me.

  ‘Mr Carter, we understand that this is an emotional time,’ says the female DC, Lawrie or whatever her name is, ‘but I will have to ask you to calm down.’

  I breathe in through my nose in an attempt to slacken some of the tension in my jaw. If you were here with me, Louisa, you’d place your hand on my leg and give it a squeeze. You wouldn’t speak out loud but a warning would flash across your eyes. ‘Keep your cool, James,’ you’d silently plead. ‘Do as the nice officers say.’

  ‘So what is it you want to know? What am I actually doing here?’

  ‘James, can you give us your full name please?’ continues DC Lawrie as if I haven’t spoken, her soft Edinburgh accent elongating her vowels.

  I tut. ‘James Daniel Carter.’

  ‘And your date of birth?’

  ‘05.09.1975… Can we get on with this please? I’m going out of my mind here!’ I push my hand through my hair, my eyes stinging through lack of sleep.

  ‘For the tape, I’m going to state what the purpose of this interview is…’ DC Lawrie strings a sentence of words together which my brain fails to process.

  I glance around the room, no bigger than a store cupboard, the white walls stark and slightly scuffed at chair level. A heavy-duty wooden desk separates the officers from myself. I haven’t bothered asking for representation. Surely to do so would only make me look guilty?

  ‘Tell us about your wife’s state of mind leading up to last night.’

  I pause. ‘Look… I don’t think it really matters.’

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’ DC Kennedy places both elbows on the desk and leans forward, clearly the first move in the officer’s game of chess.

  ‘She wasn’t in good health,’ I say eventually, realising that the sooner I answer their questions the sooner I can get away. ‘It only seems like yesterday that we came home from the hospital. There were some complications during the birth. The cord was wrapped around my son’s neck and for a moment we thought we might have lost him.’

  ‘And that affected your wife’s mental state?’ DC Lawrie smiles but her eyes remain hard.

  ‘Yes, no, I don’t know, quite probably. But she was fine for a while. I mean, she’s always been highly strung but…’

  ‘In what way?’ interjects Kennedy.

  ‘You know, panicking over things. Always worrying that something might happen to Cory.’ My voice breaks as I say our son’s name out loud.

  ‘Your wife suffered with depression?’ I can’t be sure if DC Lawrie is asking me a question or stating a fact. I nod my head. ‘Correct.’

  ‘When did it begin?’

  ‘When she was very young. She found her mother hanging from her bedroom curtain pole on Christmas Day. Which also happened to be Louisa’s sixth birthday.’ From the corner of my eye, I catch DC Kennedy’s eyes drop to the floor. If he’s been assigned as the ‘bad cop’ he isn’t doing a particularly good job of it.

  ‘How was your relationship with your wife?’ he asks, as if genuinely interested in knowing the answer.

  ‘Good,’ I say a little too quickly. ‘It was perfect. I loved her.’

  ‘Loved her?’ DC Lawrie’s eyes widen.

  I feel the blood drain from my face. ‘Love her. I dunno. I think she must be dead. I mean, there’s just no way she would…’ Tears clog up my throat, stopping me from continuing. ‘She wouldn’t have just disappeared like this. But there’s no way she’s done what you’re accusing her of. I won’t have it. She…’

  ‘We’re not accusing your wife of anything, Mr Carter. That’s not how we operate.’ DC Lawrie cuts across me. ‘We are trying to gain an accurate picture of her mental health, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’ I hold my arms out in front of me. ‘Yes, she was saying and doing some pretty crazy stuff towards the end. I suppose I first started to notice things weren’t right a few weeks ago when she came home from having coffee with her friends. She’d fainted in the market on her way home and I guess I did suspect postnatal depression. And then of course there were the secrets she’d been keeping from me. I found out about one in particular and well… I suppose I could have handled it better.’

  ‘And what secret was that?’ blurts out Kennedy, glancing over at Lawrie who rolls her eyes ever so slightly.

  I explain the best way I can, still unable to fully process what I now know to be true. Why didn’t you just tell me, Louisa? Why did I have to find out in the way I did?

  ‘You had trouble conceiving, is that correct?’ DC Lawrie cuts through my ramblings once again, as if trying to catch me off-guard. It seems as if she’s now taken the bad cop role off Kennedy and I can’t say I blame her – poor bloke’s making a right cock-up of it.

  ‘We tried for a baby for a long time,’ I begin, unsure just how much I want to admit to. ‘Fertility tests revealed I have a low sperm count caused by a condition known as varicoceles – similar to varicose veins, only in the scrotum.’ I look up, notice the slight flush in DC Kennedy’s cheeks. ‘A pregnancy was always possible but deemed unlikely. I had surgery to remove the varicoceles but it was only mildly successful so we proceeded to play IVF Monopoly, failing to pass Go on our first round. My sperm didn’t even manage to fertilise Lou’s eggs, which was disheartening. But the second attempt… well, we transferred two decent embryos and were hopeful of a pregnancy.’ I take a breath, the memory of that morning momentarily snatching away my words. I can see you in my mind’s eye, throwing back the duvet and diving out of bed.

  ‘James! I need to pee. Like now!’

  I opened my eyes and looked over at the window where weak light seeped through the closed curtains, tinging the room a hazy blue. Tall shadows clawed their way up the walls. I was frightened. If this attempt failed, I’d lose you. I knew I would.

  I made a show of yawning, as if I had just woken up, when in fact I hadn’t slept all night. ‘Go pee then,’ I tried to say matter-of-factly, but my words were slanted, almost rehearsed.

  At 6.45 a.m. the bedroom was dark. The bed was warm and still smelt of sleep. It didn’t surprise me when you climbed back into it a moment later, admitting that you were too terrified to find out if the IVF had worked. You edged closer towards me and I wanted to comfort you, really I did. But I didn’t know how to. The communication had broken down, I suppose, both of us fighting the best we could through a battle we never asked for. When I turned my back on you, I knew you would cry.

  ‘This may be our time,’ you whispered through your tears, lightly tracing a love heart on my back. ‘Let’s go and find out if we’re going to be parents.’

  I loved you for tracing that heart on my back. Even if I knew it would soon fade away.

  Once in the bathroom, everything happened quickly; a blur of fumbling and clattering as you flung the toilet seat up and pulled your pyjama bottoms down. You grabbed the pregnancy test off the windowsill and ripped open the foil packet, the sound causing my stomach to stiffen. I think I’d developed some sort of PTSD, reacting to the noise of the wrapper like an ex-army veteran would to a gunshot.

  Your hands shook so badly that the pregnancy test almost fell down the toilet bowl. I stood with my back against the closed bathroom door, almost as if I was barricading us in against an evil eternity which lurked on the other side. I watched through wide eyes as the sou
nd of your pee hit the basin. You looked down between your legs, positioned the pregnancy test in the stream, as if you were playing a Wild West fairground game. I looked around the bathroom by way of distraction, noticed a chipped tile which I hadn’t previously seen, a new shampoo which promised ‘velvet luxury’. I couldn’t bear to meet your eye, to see the hope which rested there.

  The steady stream of pee finally reduced to a trickle, like the tail end of a storm. As it finally came to a halt, you made no attempt to get up off the toilet. Instead, you brought the test close to your face and stared at it, defiant, your eyes unblinking. I noticed your knuckles whiten as you clutched it tightly, as if the heat from your hands alone could give a positive result.

  ‘What does it say, Lou?’ The question lodged in my throat, so much so that I wasn’t sure if I’d managed to speak at all.

  You beckoned me over and I didn’t want to see but a part of me knew I had to. I stood by your side, watched in awe as your pee started to creep along the absorbent strip, leaving a solid blue line in the control window as it continued steadily on to its destination, like the tortoise in the famous children’s book The Hare and the Tortoise. I loved that book as a child. Dad used to read it to me and David when Mum was out at the Bingo and I hoped that one day I too would be able to read it to my son or daughter.

  Slow and steady wins the race…

  I closed my eyes, remembering the time you and I had agreed we should have a baby, as if doing so was no harder than preparing an omelette; how we had opened a bottle of champagne and toasted our clever, beautiful child who would be cuter and funnier than any other child to grace the planet. How we’d actually argued about the child’s sex, me convincing you that a firstborn should always be male and you reluctantly agreeing, as if the decision was solely ours.

  But boastful pride falls flat on its face.

  I opened my eyes, looked down at the pregnancy test which was now tinged a faint shade of blue.

  Like the bedroom, the test window was silent, still… like dying breath on cold glass.

  ‘Our final IVF on the NHS was negative,’ I tell the officers. ‘After that, my wife spiralled further into depression. She couldn’t eat or sleep. I knew it was my fault and that was really tough.’

  DC Lawrie offers a nod of sympathy but her eyes remain vacant. In contrast, DC Kennedy tightens his jaw, almost as if trying to convey that he doesn’t believe my story. But he sympathises with me, I can tell. Perhaps he’s had some baby trouble of his own. A miscarriage, I think, maybe even multiple.

  ‘How did you feel after the IVF attempt failed?’ Kennedy clasps his hands together, his gold wedding band catching against the stark overhead light.

  I want to tell him I felt worthless. That I knew I had lost you right at that moment. That I knew in my heart you wanted a child more than you wanted me and that I was convinced you would go to any lengths to have one. You didn’t realise I knew this, of course… but I did. I knew, Louisa. Right from that moment.

  ‘I felt okay. It hurt more because I knew how much Lou wanted a child.’

  ‘And what about you, Mr Carter? Did you want a child as much as your wife?’ DC Kennedy is urging me on with his eyes, as if desperate for me to tell the truth. I want to tell him that I probably wanted one more than you, that in that moment I’d have killed to hold a child in my arms. But I don’t tell him because I’m not sure what good it would achieve.

  ‘How is she?’ I ask instead, the crime scene once again bleeding into the forefront of my mind. I shudder, the memory of making breakfast in there just yesterday morning marring with the blood-splattered walls of later that evening.

  ‘Not good, Mr Carter,’ says DC Kennedy, his eyes glazing over, as if also remembering. ‘So if there’s anything else you can remember, it’s in both your and your wife’s interests to tell us.’ He looks over at Lawrie who offers him a slight nod of the head. ‘Because when we do find your wife,’ he continues, coming in for the home straight, ‘she’s likely to be arrested for murder.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Louisa

  Now

  Heat burns my cheeks as I stare at the card on the mantelpiece, the stork’s shiny black eyes, like wet pebbles, looking almost gleeful. I snap my eyes shut in the hope that when I open them again it will have disappeared. Without sight, the sound of the rain, as it smashes against the windowpane, intensifies, fighting against the constant hum of the central heating, which squeezes itself through the pipes in the wall. Up above, I think I hear a floorboard creak, causing a fresh wave of panic to start in my toes and end in my fingertips. My breath, when it returns, is dry and heavy in my throat. I peel open my eyes, one at a time, but the card remains.

  Beneath me Cory splutters. ‘Shit.’ I grab back hold of the bottle, which I hadn’t even realised had slipped from my grasp, the watery milk now trickling into the crevice of his chin. He coughs some more as I bend him over my forearm and smack his back a little too hard. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ He stares up at me, almost in shock.

  The mantelpiece smells of furniture polish and is spotless bar a single set of fingerprints which cling to the edge. I don’t remember even getting up but I must have done. On the sofa, Cory wriggles around, a grumble breaking up into a hungry cry. I turn back around, reach out my hand towards the card’s shiny edge, my fingertips lightly touching the chubby pink hand of the baby.

  The shrill sound of the telephone makes me jump. I shoot my eyes over to the window to where the phone is positioned in its holster on the ledge. It is only now that I realise the curtains are wide open. The night sky is black as oil, the world beyond the windowpane hidden by my own reflection.

  Little Pig, Little Pig… let me come in.

  ‘What do you want? Who is it?’ The phone is in my hand and I am speaking into the receiver before I even realise I’ve made the decision to answer.

  ‘Louisa?’ Madga’s muffled voice floats down the line.

  I open my mouth to reply, my response stuck in my brain like flies in treacle.

  ‘Lou, is that you?’ she asks again, more forceful this time.

  ‘Magda. What’s the matter?’

  She lets out a long breath. ‘ I heard about today. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say a little too quickly. ‘Everything is fine.’

  ‘Why is Cory crying like that? Are you feeling all right? Did your head bleed when you fell?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, the response seeming to fit for all three questions.

  ‘Where is James?’

  ‘At work.’

  ‘I thought you said he was at work today?’

  I want to hang up on her, her incessant questions suddenly making me dizzy. ‘There was an accident.’

  ‘What accident? Why did you faint, Lou? Speak to me.’

  ‘He’s come for Cory,’ I mutter, my eyes already sliding back over towards the card.

  ‘Who’s come for Cory?’

  I pause. ‘Him, Magda,’ I whisper, my voice thick as it hits the receiver. ‘You know who.’

  ‘Louisa…’ There is a brief pause before her words fall away into a sigh of disbelief. I suddenly regret confiding in her nine months ago about Cory’s true parentage. ‘You know that’s not possible,’ she says eventually, an apology almost creeping into her tone. ‘There’s no way he’d be able to.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing in my heart that she is right. It can’t be him, there is no possible way. But if it isn’t him, then who is it? Unless… ‘Mags, I have to go.’

  I slam down the phone before she has chance to say another word.

  ‘The heart of a man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps’ Proverbs 16: 9

  Rain lashes down on top of me as I trudge through the woodland towards the back of the house, my binoculars swinging against my chest. The moist soil squelches beneath my feet as I walk, and yet I am still confident that I stand on solid ground. That is the most remarkable thing abo
ut faith, you see; the unwavering belief that, despite the shaky ground on which we walk, God holds us firmly in his grasp. In him, we do not need to fear… for he will make our path straight.

  I take up position behind my favourite English oak, situated directly opposite the kitchen window. The oak’s branches are stripped bare, the bark slippery with moss and smelling of damp. To the untrained eye the tree may appear dead, but of course it is merely hibernating, preparing itself for the spring when it will bloom once again in all its greatness. Death is only an illusion, you see, a trick of the eye, ‘for a time will come when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out’.

  The night is now cloaked in darkness, the only light coming from a kitchen window and a child’s bedroom, Louisa hidden in the darkness of her dwelling. I grind my teeth and close my eyes in prayer. ‘Bring her forth, Lord. Let your divine light shine into the darkness.’

  ‘Ask and you shall receive,’ he whispers into my ear, so gently it could almost be a thought.

  I watch and wait, knowing that the Lord’s timing is divine. The rain reduces to a trickle, and the child’s bedroom light dims until it shines the colour of honey. I keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, my faith unwavering. Finally, a light begins to flicker… once, twice… ‘Let there be light,’ I whisper. And there is light… light in abundance.

  I adjust the binoculars, Louisa’s face slowly sharpening in the lens until I can make out the exact pattern of her freckles dotted across her cheeks and nose. Thin lines of black mascara are drying on her cheeks, reminding me of tyre marks in freshly fallen snow. I close my eyes and make the sign of the cross, wetting my finger on my waterproof jacket as I do. I don’t like to see poor Louisa upset, but I remind myself of who she really is and what she did back then… my senses recovering along with my vision.