‘Why are you here?’ Kay spoke softly.
‘I thought you should know.’
His baby. She was carrying his baby inside, beneath the trendy dress. A little Adam or perhaps a girl.
Fresh, fertile, skinny, ten years younger.
What was she? Barren, fat, dried-up and bitter. Up to her ears in packed lunches and clean football kits and table decorations. ‘I’d like you to go.’
‘He has to choose,’ the girl said. She stood up.
Adam. Adam could have children. They had always said it was feasible. But not likely: his sperms had low motility.
‘He’s got to face up to his responsibilities.’
‘Please, go.’
Julie moved into the hall. Kay walked after her, her throat constricted, her heart beating in her neck, her ears. She shut the door after her and sat on the bottom stair, her head in her hands. Talking quietly, cursing him, over and over, letting the tears slide down her cheeks, banging her fists on her chest and pressing them against her cheeks.
She thought of slitting her wrists or pouring the contents of the medicine cabinet down her neck. Something to surprise him on his return. See, she would say in her death, see how you have hurt me. See. You have killed me. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave the children. While she could breathe she would carry on. For them. Whatever he had done. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell and back.
Caroline
It was twelve years after Davey’s birth when the depression returned in full spate, dragging her down into a tomb of defeat and dislike and black grief. She had been certain she would succumb earlier, with her second pregnancy when Davey was three and as her due date drew nearer she had become more worried about that than about the labour itself.
She had begged Paul to stay with her for the delivery and he agreed. The midwives wouldn’t promise anything, they said they’d have to wait and see how she got on. The birth was difficult. They kept examining her and every time Paul had to wait outside. One of the midwives tried to examine her during a contraction and only by screaming could Caroline get over how much it hurt.
After several hours she was still only five centimetres dilated and they gave her an injection to speed up the labour. The contractions that followed became unbearably strong, panicking her with their ferocity. They had a belt strapped round her to monitor the foetal heartbeat, that made it hard for Caroline to move. She wanted to kneel up but they wouldn’t let her. She knew she had done that before, not with Davey but before. It was hard to remember Davey’s birth, one of the things that had become cloudy and indistinct after the ECT. The midwives came in and looked at the screen and went away.
She began to howl and pleaded with them to give her something for the pain.
The doctor told the midwife to break her waters. They sent Paul out.
She had to lie still, tears leaked from her eyes and she thought she would pass out when they ruptured the sac.
‘Please -’ her voice was hoarse with pain – ‘please stop it.’
They began to talk about an episiotemy. Then the baby went into distress, according to the screen, and she was wheeled through for an emergency Caesarean section. Paul wasn’t allowed near her.
The baby had been fine, the spitting image of his brother. Caroline felt damaged. She wanted to go away from this place that had caused her such agony but she had to stay in ten days. She vowed not to have any more children.
The first weeks home she walked on eggshells. Any slump in her mood, any distressing thought, she seized on as proof that she was losing her mind again. But the weeks turned to months, she recovered from the operation, and Sean, bless him, was soon sleeping through the nights. In the intervening years she became accustomed to low-level unhappiness, the leaden feel of her life, and betrayed little of it to others. Everyone thought she was quiet, that she liked her own company. She could bear it. Anything was tolerable compared to madness.
But now Davey was twelve and Sean nine and out of the blue the terror began to suffocate her again. She fought it for a few weeks, immersing herself in work, but the lack of sleep and the endless tension built up, corroding away her control. She had violent, destructive dreams when she did sleep and when she was awake she would frighten herself with thoughts of suicide.
It was a relief to give up. She sat in the office, looking out at the yard and surveyed her desk. Suppliers to visit, a trip to Holland for the new range of bulbs, a meeting with the man who was importing the New Zealand plants. She barely had the energy to blink. Two of the lads were unloading compost, laughing. Probably laughing at her. She closed her eyes but the shadows came then, frightening her awake.
She had to go. They were watching her in this place. Hidden cameras. She took her boots off and her socks. It was better not to leave footprints. Harder for them to track you down. She walked out and along the road.
The cars roared past her, some bleating their horns and startling her. She fell in the ditch once, nettles bit at her arm and her bare feet. When she reached the roundabout she sat in the middle. The road was like a moat protecting her. She lay by the shrubs and watched the clouds. Even the grey hurt her eyes. Jesus was the Lamb of God but lambs were slaughtered. Doreen had been slaughtered. And her unborn child. Pulled inside out. Let me keep her, please… Sister, I can’t… Some of the cars were spying on her too. The indicators recording her. She rocked to and fro.
Paul came later, with one of the lads who had been laughing. They put her in the back seat. He asked her things but she didn’t know what his words meant. They were traps or jokes. Not to be trusted. She tried laughing but her mouth didn’t want to. There was something she had to tell him. She squeezed her eyes shut tight till there were stars bursting and a band of pain. She looked at him. ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ she said. She saw his neck tighten and his Adam’s apple bounce. He turned to the lad. Nodded. ‘Collin’s Hill,’ he told him.
One day she told the doctor about her baby. When the words came back. But the memories were still full of holes, like moths had been at the shawl. She told her about trying to keep her and how they’d caught her and pulled the baby away. There was a hole inside where her heart had been. She never knew what had happened. If she was still alive, even.
The doctor told her she could always write a letter for her.
Caroline was shocked. ‘No! I promised, at the court, they made me swear I’d never…’
The doctor nodded. Her big copper earrings wobbled. ‘Yes, but you could leave the letter with the Adoption Agency, and then if your daughter…’
My daughter. Caroline felt the room sway.
‘… ever wanted to find you she would have something from you.’
‘Not my address. Paul doesn’t, the children…’
‘Fine.’ The doctor held her hands out, trying to calm her. ‘Just a note perhaps? If you’d like to, telling her that you think about her.’
Caroline tried to smile but she felt her face dissolve again and the tears made her thoughts all blurry.
They didn’t give her ECT again and she was grateful. She had lost too many memories. She imagined her mind pockmarked with cigarette burns, precious moments from childhood and later scorched away.
It took her six months to write the letter to her daughter. Endless drafts in her head, then on paper, times snatched in private. In 1978, eighteen years after she had given birth, she posted the letter to the Catholic Children’s Rescue Society. They had just passed the new law which entitled adopted children to apply for their adoption records and made it much easier to get hold of them. If her daughter approached the agency Caroline’s letter would be waiting for her. In it she explained the circumstances back in 1960 and a little of her memories of the few weeks they had spent together.
I have thought about you every day and prayed that you have been happy and that you have a close and loving family. I am married now and have two sons but I haven’t told them about you, I hope you understand. I do hope one day you will write and tell me all about yourself.