Go to Sleep (25 page)

I hurl myself over, snatch up the bottle of medicine. It’s all but gone. Maybe an inch or two remains. A flashback. It’s me, standing
right here
where I am now, my head tipped backwards as I slake the liquid. But that’s no respite. I know that I only whacked the Dozinite down after feeding it to Joe first.

Aids a restful night’s sleep. For children aged six and above.

It was for his own good. He was in pain. His poor bottom was all blistered and he just couldn’t, he wouldn’t settle. His piteous squeals as I tried to clean him and change him. The bottle falling out. A glug for baby; a slug for yourself.

And then what? What next? Fresh air. Joe loves a lungful of fresh, night air. No. No. I didn’t. It was
freezing
. I wouldn’t have. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I scream into the bedroom
but I know even before I get there that Joe won’t be in his crib. I know, because I remember what I told him:

‘Let’s go and see the lake, baby. Come on! You’ll love it. This was Mummy’s place when she was a little girl. When she was happy.’

*

As I sprint through those big, ornate gates my head is vaulting. I’ll be locked up but perhaps it won’t be jail. They’ll put me in a secure unit. I’ll be sectioned. I’m sickened at the thought of what I’ll find; his little bloated body, grey-white and lifeless from the water. I try to shut the thoughts out, the voices, but it’s all caving in on me.

It’ll all be fine
.

Maybe the horrific shock of the frozen lake wiped out his little heartbeat on impact. And as my feet crunch closer through clusters of ice-hardened leaves, it all comes back to me, horribly, in ghastly vivid detail and I know, for sure. This is where I came. This is what I’ve done. I stop dead still, unable to take another step. Any step now brings me closer to the end.

I stand there in limbo. If I go forward, I take the steps that lead me to my dead child. If I stay here, it hasn’t happened. It isn’t true. Not yet.

I have to know. I have to see him. I set myself firm
and begin my trudge through the crispy brown-white crust to the edge of the stock-still lake.

Standing here, I have my solution; a way out of all this that has been staring me in the face. This place I wanted to share with Joe, the place that was ours – that’ll be the place where I slip away, where I finally, eternally succumb to sleep. No one will notice. No one need know. And it all makes sense, now – for me, it was always going to be this way. Mother was right, as always. It
will
all be fine. She’ll see.

The riot and clamour of girls in the early morning school-yard wafts high in the thin blue sky. Good luck, ladies. Good luck. But for me, for Rachel, for Mamma or whoever I am now, this is it. The pale frozen lake is before me and now it’s a step away I start to think about how I’m going to do this. I think I might just walk in and keep walking.

The lake is still frozen hard. I walk right out to the middle, willing the marbled surface to yield and splinter and suck me under, but it holds fast. I walk the same circle, round and round and round, praying that the friction will bore a hole and let me slip on down and away – but nothing happens. It’s going to take days for it to thaw.

I have no idea how long I stay out here. Somewhere nearby, there’s shouting, bringing me out of my trance. When I open my eyes, I can just make out the dark, square heads
of the old jetty’s struts, locked tight below the surface. And he’s down there somewhere too, my Joe. My little Bean. I barely knew you. I hardly gave you a chance.

I slam down on to all fours, maddened with grief and hate; hacking at the surface, slamming the opaque slab with my fists, trying to tear out a hole with my blistered fingers. I would rot for ever in jail if I could just hold my baby one last time.

I collapse exhausted. I lay my face down on the ice. Why have you taken Joe? Why not me?

Because that’s what you wanted, Rachel. You wanted to go to sleep.

No. I wanted Joe to sleep.

Exactly.

*

My legs are so weak now, each and every step starts from the hip bone and I can’t walk properly; I throw my legs, heavy and slow. The fatigue that is locked around my bones is thick and suffocating – a shutting-down of the organs, absolute surrender. The urge to curl up by the wall, to succumb to a full and final collapse, is overpowering. But I have to make it home.

A shiver. A tremor of light, and then – of course: Dad. My daddy. I will phone my daddy and he will come, now, and find me and take me away from all this. I dig out my phone, stab in his name. It rings and rings.

‘Hello, this is Richard. Sorry I’m not here to take your call . . .’

‘What if they can’t break the ice, Daddy?’ I hear myself wailing. ‘What if I never
see him again
?’ A voice in the distance. ‘Daddy?’

The voice gets louder.

‘Rachel!
Rache
!’

It’s not Dad. It’ll be the police. Social workers. Psychiatrists. They’ve come for me. They’ve come to take me away. I laugh bitterly. Prepare, Rachel. Go in peace. I try to focus. One hazy figure, running towards me. I try to step towards him and my head spins. I fall flat down and the sky is white.

I’m soaring up, up now and I see it all below. There’s silence except for the rhythmic thumping of my heart, fast and steady. I’m flying, gliding over the park, over my past, our story, flickering in stark and pristine shades of grey and white. I see a door opening and a woman, full of doubt. She’s shaking her head at me, but I can’t see her face. I squint, for a better view. She’s talking, animatedly now, but she’s not speaking to me. It’s James, at her doorstep. James McIver is on the doorstep at South Lodge and my mother is pointing . . . where? She’s pointing at the sun, sky high and dazzling white. It’s blinding. I close my eyes tight as I speed closer and closer towards it.

James is standing over me in my living room. I don’t even question it. None of this is real. I hear his dim and dislocated voice.

‘Rache. Can you hear me? You’re sound now.’ I think I try to smile. I don’t know. ‘Fuck, but you’re heavy, girl.’

I close my eyes. This is not happening.

Footsteps, receding. I’m lost. What
is
this? A dull ache from my hand. I hold it up. That, out on the lake, that happened; my bruised and bloodied knuckles give me a marker, a level of truth. And I flew. I soared up and out of my life and I saw it all and I flew back here. But no – I didn’t. Footsteps again. A voice.

‘Now then, little one . . . let’s just get you . . .’

James. James carried me. Yes. He picked me up and carried me all the way and he thought I was going under,
passing over, and he talked and talked, his breath all staccato, and he told me . . . no.

Gone. Just as I get a picture it dims and fades.

‘James? Are you there?’

Nothing. I’m dreaming the whole thing. I’m dizzy, my thoughts are disjointed and sluggish. What did he tell me? I’m having hallucinations, now: a strong, lurid narrative plays out behind my throbbing, sightless eyes, piece by piece. James breaking into the flat. Joe sobbing his little heart out. Starving. James tries to wake me. I’m comatose, dead to the world. Yes! Fuck. Of course. I’m dead . . . Dead.

I hear a sound that, if it exists at all, will never come to pass again. It’s here in my dead-head now.

Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak . . .
‘Yer all right. Got the hang of this now, kidda.’

I sit bolt upright. There’s no one there. James, if he was here, has gone. But he wasn’t here. It’s too cruel. I hold my battered hand close to my eyes to tell myself I’m here, I live. I stare at my swollen knuckles, then let myself drop back down on to the couch. Sleep. You can sleep as much as you want now, Rachel.

*

I’m flying again. I know why they say ‘heavenly’. I am limp with the ecstasy of my flight. James and Lacey McIver glide next to me, their crisp white wings clicking
as they climb higher and higher. James cranes his neck round.

‘I couldn’t make his formula right, Rache. I couldn’t get him to take it. But I remembered from when our Lacey was newborn that you could get it ready-mixed and that so I just . . . well, I didn’t have no choice, did I? I just put him in his pushchair thingio and went and got it. You was gone by the time we got back. Good job I seen you out there. You would’ve froze to death.’

I’m feeling some elusive tug in my heart, something calling me. I stop flying, drag myself back to consciousness again. Still bound tight in my hallucinations, my head is still ringing with James; my mind bouncing and spinning with snapshots and jagged little images. ‘Some fella keeps ringing your phone. Ruby. And yer aul’ fella’s on his way.’

I’m trying to break out through this cocoon, force myself up. There’s no one here. No James. Nobody. I know it. I have already gone, but I’m not yet on the other side. I understand, now. This is my last chance to confess. And though I know now that I will never see my baby ever again, that I will rot in hell or spin in limbo, I now understand my elation. I am glad to have this chance to explain myself; explain everything.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I couldn’t get him. I couldn’t break the ice.’

‘Shhh. You’re sound now, girl.’

‘I was so desperate, James. I had to sleep.’

‘I only got yer text this morning, Rache. I’m sorry.’

And I can feel it reining me in – death, hell, whatever I’m destined for. I start to fall, my eyes battling to stay prised open long enough for me to purge my guts of this confession.

‘You need to know what I did. You need to know where Joe is.’

‘I know where he is, you divvy. Just get your head down for now, eh? You’re still twatted from the sleeping drops.’

‘You forgive me?’

‘Rachel. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t fucking be here. End of.’

My eyes are closed now, but I can feel the splash of his tears on my face. I try to force myself up. I feel out for his hand but it’s not there. He’s not there.

‘I loved him, James. I did. I was so desperate for sleep. Can you . . . will you ever understand that?’

‘I’m not fuckin’ soft, Rache. It was written all over you. I come back the other day. But some fella thought I was breaking in.’

‘Will you go to the lake for me? Will you do that? Will you get him back for me? Make sure he has a proper goodbye?’

‘Who?’

‘The baby.’

‘What you on about, you divvy? Joseph’s here, with me. He’s fine!’

The words jolt me upright.
It’s all going to be just
fine.
Please. Don’t play with me. Let me go. Let me go.

James is there. I prise my eyes open and the image is hazy, it comes and goes; but he’s here. So scared, so shot through with the fear of what I
know
will happen now, I reach out. James takes my hand, squeezes it hard.

‘You loon. Do you want me to bring him?’

Ah-ah-ah-ah. Ak-ak-ak-ak.

And now my breasts are welling up, spilling over. Please. Please. Let this be real. I can take no more dreams; no more hallucinations. Please.

Everything dissolves into sepia.

Ak-ak-ak-ak!

‘Greedy little get, isn’t he?’

I screw my eyes up closed then bang them open, desperate to see, to feel.

‘James. Tell me. Please! Is it him? Is it Joe?’

‘Hang on a mo. I’ll ask if he’s taking visitors.’

And now I find the motor within me. Now I can sit up, desperate, smiling desperately.

‘James! Tell me what’s happening! If this is real?’

He fades out. His image drifts away and vanishes to nothing, and my heart sinks, my hopes plunge. James is gone. He was never here at all. This is agony, and it’s all I deserve. As soon as I can haul myself out of this stupor, this half-life, I will finish what I started. But then I hear his footsteps padding back to me.

Ah-ah-ah-ah
. . .

Closer now, the sound, and it could only be . . . it has to be. It’s so close I can taste his tears, his beautiful tears.

Ak-ak-ak-ak
. . .

And now here he is. Joe. My love. My baby. James places him on to my chest, and his tiny little mouth seeks and finds, and now I feel it, and I don’t care if this is real or not because I feel it so hugely, so purely – that awesome star blaze of emotion as he nuzzles and sucks on me. If my life was nothing but this one single moment, I would take it. I have lived. I have loved.

James pulls the blankets up and over us.

‘Go to sleep, now.’ My body is already crashing down and under. ‘You too, little fella.’

‘Don’t let him fall off me.’

‘Shhhh. I’m not moving till your aul’ man gets here. Go to sleep.’

And I do. I slip away, smiling at the sound of his greedy little gulps.

So here I am then, finally. Here I am, taking in the slow chug of the river, inhaling the salty diesel stink, trying to drink it all in and commit it to memory. If I shut my eyes I can think myself back to that day. I can hold the river air right down in my lungs and touch my stomach and feel that overpowering sense of destiny.

I open my eyes. The tide and all its spume have moved on. The sky has shifted, the clouds have changed. And so too have I.

I’m crying, happy-sad, as I make my way back to the flat.

*

A gentle bleeping. I dig my phone out of my bag. There are a couple of missed calls from Dad. He and Jan will
be heading back from the Lakes now and Dad will be anxious for an update, eager to know what he can do to help. On Friday night he hiked two miles in the darkness across boggy, cow-dunged fields in search of a phone box.

‘You trekked all that way just to tell me there’s no phone reception at your cottage?’

And knowing I was onto him, knowing he’d been found out, he had no choice but to come clean.

‘Are you absolutely sure, darling? We’re ready to come home at the drop of a hat if you need . . .’

‘You’ll do no such thing. Now go and enjoy this time with Jan. I’m hanging up right now.’

It’s a month now since my psychiatrist deemed me well enough to extend the period between our appointments, yet Dad still calls me once, often twice a day, and pops round at all hours, on any pretext.
There’re roadworks . . . I saw the light was on . . . Jan’s got a mountain of paperwork, thought you might keep me company
. . . Sometimes, it’s all I can do not to snap at him or laugh and throw my arms around him:
Dad, come on now. Even my fourteen-year-olds can do better than that!