Writing in the Sand (7 page)

If it carries on like this, I could be forced to go into Mum…

…Now though, thank goodness, it's not quite so bad. In fact, it's kind of fading away. And it's gone…

…Even so, I hold my breath: it was so awful I'm half expecting it to come back. I start to relax. Is that it? I take a breath so shallow you could hardly call it a breath…Good. Everything's calmed down. I roll onto my side, but still I'm not risking anything; I'm dead careful how I breathe… Ah, that's better… I so need to get some sleep.

It's like my insides are pulled in tight and I'm awake again. I know I must have slept because I dreamed Toffee could talk. It was so sweet…

Oh, please
no
– there's another niggle.
More than.
God! Nearly too late. I desperately need the loo, and I don't mean for a wee. Can I get there? I have to – I can't make a mess in the bed. I lower my feet to the rug. I'm better standing up. I go to the door, lean on it. The harder I lean, the more the pain eases…

No!
It's on me again – this massive urge. I open the bedroom door. With my hands between my legs, I scurry along the landing. I sit on the lavatory seat. Nothing happens and the pain lessens. Perhaps if I sit here long enough it'll go away altogether. I want to moan, partly with relief. But I can't because I'm nearer to Mum now than in my own room.

Without warning I need to throw up. I slide off the seat, swivel round and hang my head over the pan. I retch and vomit. Tears stream down my face.

I creep back to my room, crawl into bed and lie as stiff as a board, listening for every creak in the house. I pray Mum didn't hear me in the loo. The exertion of the pain has wiped me out. So much – it's left me gasping for breath. I'm practically panting. In fact, if I carry on breathing this way, it feels possible the pain might ease off. Careful of every move I make, I dare to stretch out. I don't trust my own body. I feel floaty. And so hot I throw off the duvet.

It's back – the pain. Back with a vengeance, and I don't care what mess I make in the bed. All I want is to get rid of whatever's causing this bloody agony. It's like I don't recognize this is me. Me and my body pushing hard, again and again, down into the bed. My lungs struggle for the deepest breath I ever took. Which I hang onto…until something slithers – out of me – onto the sheet.

A baby.

I'm paralyzed with shock, and for a moment stop breathing altogether. At first I daren't touch anything: not the duvet, not my nightie, not my own flesh. My arms lie rigid. I stare at the ceiling, half blind, while a mad drummer beats inside my chest and a slippery warmth squirms between my legs.

My arms loosen, and I move my hands up and down over the baby. It's a boy. Somehow I grasp his wetness and pull him onto my stomach. He cries a tiny cry. My voice shakes in a whisper: “Oh my God, what are you doing here?”

Stunned, I feel something else finding its way out. I don't have to wonder what this is: it's the placenta. From Biology I know what it looks like. Liver. With me not even knowing a baby was inside me, this is what's kept him alive, and it's still attached to his belly button by the umbilical cord.

In the half-light I reach into my bedside drawer and fumble for my nail scissors. I've seen births on TV and know what the cord is like. Ugly. Grey and twisted. I'm glad I can't see it clearly. But I have to see it better than this, so I turn my bedside light on. The idea of cutting through the cord near his tummy is scary, so I start separating it close to the placenta instead.

Though I'm sure it can't be hurting him, I keep saying I'm sorry: “I'm sorry,
I'm so, so sorry
.” It takes for ever, and when I've finished, I lay the cord across his middle and push the placenta aside. I hope I haven't done the wrong thing.

We haven't moved. We're lying on the bed, while I think what to do. God –
what am I going to do?
The baby turns his head, nuzzling. He's so small. Not even a normal doll size. His lips move, but his eyes are mostly shut. I turn off the light because I think if it's dark he's less likely to cry and wake Mum.

It's like my brain aches, trying to work something out. This baby, he can't stay here. Tears roll down my cheeks. Gradually, it comes to me. There's only one place I can go.

I prise open the tiny fingers that grip the little finger of my left hand, move him to the safety of the middle of the bed, and tell myself I'm strong enough to stand up.

Careful not to make even the slightest sound, I draw the curtain back. It hits me then – how just a few hours ago, when I closed this old blue curtain, I was still me, with just my GCSEs to worry about and the same old day-to-day stuff. Now I'm another me. Numb, scared witless. With a newborn baby.

I won't talk to him any more. It's best if I don't.

I won't talk to him. But I know what to do.

In my wardrobe, on the floor at the back in a plastic bag, there's a cardigan I got at the hospice shop in town. I bought it for Mum's next birthday. Looks like it's never been worn. Perhaps someone died, or it didn't fit or they didn't suit red. I pull out the soft cardigan and spread it on the duvet. I fish under the bed for the shoebox I keep socks in, tip them out and put the box on the bed. I unfold the cardigan and lay the baby on it. I have to hold his arms and legs down so I can wind the soft red woolly stuff round and round him and the cord. Once I've wrapped him up he doesn't move. For one short moment, when moonlight touches the bed, I think he looks at me. I place him, swaddled up, into the shoebox. My knees feel weak and it's like I'm looking down on myself, looking at the Amy who's so keen on packing things neatly. Who parcels things up for Mum when her crooked fingers won't fold paper.

You read about mothers putting a note in with the baby. Perhaps the baby's name and a message:
Tell him his mum will always love him.
Something like that. But I don't know what I'd call him. I haven't had long enough to think about it. Or anything else. I don't even know if I love him. It's better if I don't. There's no point. I tell myself again – don't talk to him, try not to even look at him.

It's hard work, getting dressed, and I'm bleeding. I put on some knickers, take a pad from my drawer, pull off the sticky strip. Wobbling, I place the pad between my legs. My jeans feel stiff and it's painful getting them on. I pull on two sweaters. I feel hot, too hot, but reckon on taking one off if the baby looks like he needs more covering. The beauty of the red cardigan is that no one has ever seen it. Anyway, not on Mum.

Though I think I've done everything, I nearly forget the placenta. I know it shouldn't, but it disgusts me. Scooping it into the plastic bag, I'm shaking like a leaf. I hold the bag like it's shopping, and slide my other hand under the shoebox on the bed.

On the landing, willing the baby not to cry, I stand stock-still outside Mum's bedroom. Not a sound. I creep to the top of the stairs. Then he snuffles. Not the baby – Toffee in Mum's room. He'll know something's up. I bend down, put the baby on the floor. Quieter than I would have thought possible, I open Mum's door a fraction. No sound from her, but Toffee's nose pushes through the crack. I open it enough to let him onto the landing. I grab one of his ears. He goes still. He understands. Even when he gets the scent of the baby, he controls himself, just sniffs it up and down. He's more interested in the contents of the plastic bag, and I push him off before grappling with the shoebox again.

Downstairs, when I put the baby on the kitchen table, he lets out a squawk and tries to turn his head. I need to get out of the house fast, but first I have to write a note. I grab a pencil from the jam jar beside the draining board
.

Dear Mum, Toffee needs to go out, hope he didn't wake you. Won't be long.

Love A XXX

I'm so careful. Every step is a considered move. I have this baby in a box. I must not trip. We leave by the front door, and start off towards the dunes. Toffee goes ahead, looking back every now and then to make sure I'm keeping up.

If the clouds would clear I'd be able to see better. Thank goodness, though, that I know almost every centimetre of this path. Starting down the slope towards the beach, I dig my heels in, steady myself by leaning back. It's an incoming tide, and all I can hear are waves crashing against Croppers Rock.

We're on the flat, and here's where I'll throw the placenta into the sea. With the baby under my other arm, I give the plastic bag a feeble swing into the surf. In the murk, I watch it disappear. What's the betting it'll wash up somewhere further along the coast? Too late, I think how it would have been better if I'd taken it out of the bag.

Stopping for a second on the strip of beach, I push my face into the box. He's so still and quiet, I'm scared he's stopped breathing. I begin to wonder if the shock of being born has been too much for him. I grope under the red cardigan to see if I can feel his heart. I can't, but he gives a little splutter. He's alive.

The tide is coming in fast and at last the moon comes from behind the clouds, its broken reflection bouncing across the waves. Toffee runs ahead. Does he know where we're going? I resist the need to walk faster, partly because I'm taking such care, but partly because my whole body is throbbing and tender. Toffee bounds on and on, only stopping when eventually he gets to the bottom of the steps cut into the sea wall.

A cat appears, stalking along the wall. Toffee, his bark almost lost in the smash of waves against the breakwater, rushes after it. When it's gone – into thin air – he sits waiting for me, as if there never was a cat.

These steps, usually no bother to me at all – even when I take them two at a time – tonight feel like Everest. Before I get to the top, I stop. Suppose someone's having a night-time walk? Worse still, taking their dog out. I peer up onto the paved seafront. It's deserted. Clutching the shoebox, I manage the top step. I turn left. Toffee knows where I'm going and runs on, like we're having the best game in the world. I almost wish he wasn't with me.

Kirsty's house is the first in a row of three. It's the largest, with an extension on the end nearest me. My legs feel shaky and I sink onto the pavement. Toffee tries to lick my face. I have to calm him down. “Good boy, good boy,” I whisper, and he flattens himself.

The house is in darkness. I feel heavy, so heavy. I long, overwhelmingly, to go to sleep – hidden from the house by this low hedge.

I have to keep my eyes from closing. I try to stand up. I'm holding the shoebox in the crook of my left arm – using my right hand to press on the ground for support – when the top of the hedge glows green. Toffee rears up. Forcing him down, I look up and see, on the side-end of the house, a small first-floor window ablaze with light. I stare at it. For how long? I don't know, but now there's blackness again. I've stopped breathing, and it's seconds before I dare take a proper breath.

It's too much to hope Toffee won't follow me, so when I walk – unsteadily – to the front door, I don't try stopping him. For a reason I don't understand, I encourage him to have a last quick peek at the baby. Which he does, sniffing – then looks up at me. Does he expect me to do the same? I think I should kiss my baby.

But I don't. I put him down on the step and ring the bell. For a few seconds my head spins and I have to lean against the door. Recovering – but with my heart bursting in my chest – I turn, grab Toffee, and run down the path. I can't say how I manage to run, but I do. I run, then collapse behind the hedge. In a rush it comes to me that when the front door opens, Toffee will expect to be invited in. Holding him down, I stretch myself across his back and stroke his head fiercely.

Staring up at the house, my neck cricks.

One after another, lights go on. The front door opens and a wide stream of light colours the garden. Mr Kelly looks down the path. Next he looks down at the step. He sees the box, and calls back into the house. “Susie!” He's bending down, picking it up. Mrs Kelly comes running and they both look towards the road. Mrs Kelly calls, “Hello? Is anyone there?” She's wearing a short nightie. What is it makes me notice this when I'm hunkering down again, grabbing Toffee and crawling along the pavement?

I don't see any more, but, after a moment, I hear someone shut the front door.

The tide's right up now; there's hardly any beach left. I've pulled my trainers off, and the water swishing over my feet is like every cool thing in the world. Cool, cool, cool. I'm tempted to paddle in further, but I know there's something dark about this thought. Toffee loves the sea, but I fear for him. If he decides to have a swim and gets into difficulties, I'm in no state to go after him.

My right foot meets a massive hidden pebble. Almost a small boulder. Bruised, my toe starts to hurt, like the rest of me. I stumble, and now I'm sitting in the lapping saltwater. I know I should move, make an attempt to stand up. But the cold sea, seeping into my jeans – making wet balloons between the harsh denim and my sore skin – feels so good. Too good, because it makes me want to stay here with the water washing round my waist. Now up to my breasts. They're sore, and this soothes them. In front of me, at eye level, the reflection of the moon stretches away in a narrowing ribbon of light, until it meets the real thing high above the horizon. I don't feel the cold, and somehow I know this is wrong. I think of Mum alone at home. Beside me, Toffee shakes himself, and the spray on my face knocks sense into my stupid head.

I don't, after all, want to slip under the water and drown.

Wondering why I took my trainers off, I push them back on, and though my fingers don't want to work, I force them to tie knots in the laces.