by Gwyn G B
‘No, couldn’t I’m afraid,’ replied Martha, catching her innuendo.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alison reached out and touched her hand.
‘It’s alright, I accepted it years ago. Now I’d better go off and call that ambulance before your latest offspring decides to appear.’
‘Thanks Martha,’ Alison smiled. Although knowing Martha had delivered babies before was reassuring, all the same, she’d feel a bit happier if she was in the back of an ambulance on the way to hospital. ‘Sorry to be such a nuisance,’ she added as her old friend headed out the door.
‘Sorry? Don’t be silly my dear, it’s what we’ve all been waiting for.’
Martha smirked to herself as she went downstairs, she was betting Alison hadn’t even entertained the reason why she couldn’t have children. But then again, it’s not often your husband accidentally rips and punctures your insides because he’s shoved something up that really didn’t belong there. It had taken her months to recover from the clean up process and the hysterectomy, but what the Hell, she wouldn’t have wanted snivelling brats anyway.
33
The contractions were almost becoming unbearable by now, and Alison was alternating between getting up and trying to move around and lying on the bed. Despite the pain though, she was actually enjoying it a little bit more than Sophie’s birth because she had nobody telling her what to do, no machinery strapped to her and no endless stream of faceless medical staff coming in and out of her room. She was able to sit or crouch in the best position with each contraction, or just get up and wander in-between. It was as she got up for the umpteenth time that she felt like something was really beginning to happen. She called Martha who confirmed her fears.
‘Yes, looks like you’re fully dilated. I think we’re going to be seeing a head soon.’
‘Where is that ambulance?’
‘Don’t panic, I’ve called then, they’re on their way. I’m afraid I couldn’t get hold of Mary she’s out on a call already, but it will be OK Alison, like I said I’ve done this before and so have you. Between us we can deliver this baby.’
Alison looked at the old woman’s face as another contraction wave hit her causing her to catch her breath and groan. Why not? It felt right somehow, having the baby at home, they could do it.
‘OK Martha but what if something goes wrong?’
‘The ambulance is on its way, but nothing is going to go wrong, you’re feeling strong aren’t you?’
Alison nodded.
‘Then everything is going to go as smooth as silk. You relax while I go and get you something for the pain. If the ambulance arrives then great, but I’m going to assume we’ll have to manage without them.’
Alison nodded.
‘Ok Martha, thanks. Where’s Sophie?’
‘She’s gone to keep an eye out for the ambulance, but I’ll send her up.
Martha scuttled off downstairs, Sophie had arrived back with Michaela.
‘Right you,’ she said to Michaela, ‘you know what to do. I want you to stand guard. Stop anyone from coming to the house and any problems give two rings on the telephone. You,’ she now addressed Sophie, ‘go and get lots of towels and find me a bowl. Go on hop to it.’
Sophie rushed off.
‘Keep an eye on her,’ she said to Michaela, ‘she’s wavering. I don’t want her fucking everything up. Did you tell your dad?’
‘He wasn’t in, but I left a note.’
‘Right, he’ll know what to do. I’ll come with you to the cottage. I need some herbs and I think I’d better hurry otherwise the silly bitch will have had it.’
When Martha returned to Alison, it was obvious a head would start appearing at any moment. Sophie was holding a wet flannel to her forehead and Alison was very red in the face.
‘Drink this, it will help with the pain but not deaden your muscles,’ Martha offered up a half mug of brown sludgy looking liquid.
Alison peered at it as though it were from a swamp.
‘I know it doesn’t look appetising and I’m afraid it doesn’t taste great either, but trust me it will do the trick,’ added Martha.
Alison who was getting to the point of not caring about anything because of the contraction pains, looked at her dear friend.
‘OK Martha, here goes’, and she knocked it back in one and then shivered as it hit her taste buds. ‘Ugh,’ she said without meaning to be rude.
‘Give it five minutes and those contractions will feel a lot less uncomfortable.’
As she said that a huge pain seared through Alison’s abdomen sending shooting pains down her legs.
‘I think I’m going to have to start pushing now,’ she said to Martha who was busy sorting out the bed.
‘OK. I’m going to wash my hands and I’ll be right with you.’
The contraction wave receded.
‘Are you alright sweetheart?’ Alison turned to Sophie now and put her hand on the little arm that was mopping her brow.
‘Yes,’ she’d managed to croak back, although to be honest she wasn’t at all sure.
Her mother was in such pain and it all looked so terrible.
‘If you want to leave I don’t mind sweetie, you might find it all a bit too much.’
‘I’m OK,’ she’d whispered back, and Martha returning to the room ended their conversation.
‘Alright Alison Swift, let’s have this baby,’ she said, sleeves rolled up and a sparkle in her eyes.
34
Margaret patted the tiny little clothes again. There were times when she still felt empty inside, times like now when she mourned her lost children. She would have been a grandmother at her age, buying little presents for her children’s children and looking forward to noisy visits and babysitting duties. But it hadn’t been meant to be. Eight miscarriages she’d endured, with the last one the worst. She’d carried it for half of its term before one day the pains had seared through her body and she’d rejected its tiny little form. She’d have been willing to try again, she’d managed to carry each one for a little longer than the last, but the doctors said ‘no’, and so Clifford had also put his foot down, concerned for the mental and emotional welfare of his wife, not just the physical.
Those had been tough years. There had been sympathy, but it’s difficult with miscarriages. Even though to the mother that baby was real, you’d felt it growing inside of you for weeks and months on end, and had dreamed a thousand dreams of what you would do together once it was born; to anybody else the baby had never existed. There was no funeral, no service to mourn its passing, to the outsider it had never been alive. For Margaret and Clifford, the reality had of course been very different. There weren’t even any little graves to visit when she was feeling down, nowhere to tend the flowers to satisfy her maternal instinct to nurture. It was during those hard, lonely years that she’d turned to God with her aching questions of why? There’s been no answers, but she’d found a cause to pour herself into and as time went by the wounds had healed. These days it was only occasionally, during moments like now, that her heart and womb cried out.
Clifford seemed to have an inbuilt sensor for when she was feeling like this and lost in her sorrow she didn’t hear him enter the room until it was too late for her to recover her composure.
‘Come on Margy,’ he said putting a firm hand on her shoulder. It hadn’t taken him much to guess what it was she was thinking. ‘Don’t you go getting yourself all upset, you know how I hate to see you suffer.’
She turned to him and smiled a wistful smile of regrets.
‘Oh you know what a silly old woman I am sometimes,’ she said, taking his hand from her shoulder and kissing it. Clifford was an old school man who found emotions difficult to express, but she understood the message behind that simple touch on the shoulder and she was grateful. ‘These are for Alison Swift’s new baby,’ she said motioning at the clothes before her, ‘I suppose I’d better get them wrapped and over to her as she’s due at any moment.’
‘I�
�ll make you a cup of tea,’ replied Clifford, his answer to any minor crisis, and he left her to wrap up her baby dreams in peace.
Margaret decided to pop the present over just after tea time. She knew that Alison liked to cook Sophie’s dinner fairly early and so she judged seven o’clock to be a safe time for the family meal to have been consumed and cleared away. She drove as usual, placing her little offering on the worn leather passenger seat and chugging over to Alison’s house at her customary pace - not rising above thirty miles an hour all the way.
As she arrived the Richardson girl who she knew Sophie had got quite friendly with, came bursting out of the bushes at the side of the house and went to sit on Alison’s doorstep. When Margaret started to get out of the car she spoke.
‘They’re not in,’ she said quite rudely. Margaret who certainly didn’t like her father also didn’t think much of her tone.
‘Is Alison having the baby?’ she asked her back.
‘No. They’re just out.’
Margaret frowned.
‘Are you sure?’ she questioned, not really knowing why the girl should be lying but not quite convinced all the same. She’d reached the doorstep by now and Michaela stood up in her path. Before the girl could answer, the door opened.
‘What do you want?’ it was Martha.
‘Martha Hurrell, what are you doing here? I came to see Alison is she in?’
‘No, she ain’t and I’m here because she wants me to be. I was invited, have you been?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. I was just bringing a gift over for the new baby,’ Margaret was actually beginning to feel quite upset at the rudeness and hostility. She’d been expecting a warm welcome from Alison as usual and had been looking forward to watching her open up her present.
‘Well, like I said she ain’t in at the moment,’ replied Martha standing firm in the doorway and crossing her arms over her chest. Margaret was also aware of Michaela glowering at her like some terrible accomplice.
‘Do you know how long she’ll be?’ she continued, but the hesitation was in her voice now.
‘Nope. Could be ages for all I know. Do you want me to give that to her?’ asked Martha nodding at the little parcel she was clutching to her and stretching out a hand to receive it.
‘Err well no. No I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t trust me ay?’
‘No, it’s not that. I’d just like to give it to her myself.’
‘Well I’d say it’s from you,’ replied Martha, getting quite pushy now. Margaret began to waver under the stare of the old woman. ‘I’m sure she’d appreciate it just as much if I said you’d popped it round.’
‘Yes but I’d like to see her.’
‘She’s been very tired,’ Martha tried a different line now, ‘not particularly wanting to see any visitors’. It worked, Margaret began to think that just maybe Alison was in, but had sent Martha down to send her away because she wasn’t up to seeing her.
Embarrassed at the thought of the situation and hurt by the lack of welcome, she handed over her treasured gift to Martha.
‘Send her my love,’ she said, but the old woman was already beginning to shut the door in her face.
‘Sure,’ she vaguely said and Margaret returned to her car. Once inside the familiar territory she thought back over her encounter. She felt wronged and snubbed and worst of all she’d been cheated of the opportunity to watch Alison open her carefully chosen present and to receive her spontaneous gratitude. She felt quite angry at Martha for her rudeness, but really wasn’t at all sure whether Alison really had been there or not. She couldn’t believe that she would have been so rude and inhospitable and she wished she’d hung on to her gift and returned tomorrow with it instead. She drove home at forty miles an hour all the way.
Martha’s swamp medicine certainly helped Alison’s pain and as she reached the time to start pushing, her panic at no ambulance had begun to subside and all she was concerned about was having her baby. As the sensation to bear down grew stronger she started to push with each contraction. For a while, she held onto Sophie but as the effort level increased, she let go, worried that she might squeeze her tiny hand too hard. Most of the time she found that crouching on the floor was the easiest, it certainly felt the most natural, and the little bit of help gravity gave didn’t go unnoticed. It was all so much better this way, she felt more in tune with the birth rather than detached from it by the medical staff and surroundings. Sophie continued to mop her brow every now and again and Martha rubbed her back or held on to her when she needed support, while also giving a running commentary as the baby’s head slowly began to appear.
‘Go on, that’s it. You’re doing well. A few more good pushes and its head should be out,’ said Martha wringing her arms in excitement. Alison’s heart was pounding and her breathing was heavy from the last effort, but as the contractions began again she started to push with all her might, holding tightly onto the headboard. As she let out a large ‘aaaarrgghh’ of effort, she felt her baby’s head slide out of her.
Martha yelled, ‘Stop. The head’s out. Start panting.’
Grateful for the break anyway, she did as she was told fully aware that now was the really critical time. Martha would need to check that the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck and she had to be careful not to rip herself. Through all the pain and effort, Alison could just hear Martha murmuring.
‘What Martha?’ she puffed out.
‘Nothing love, just saying a blessing. It’s all clear, we can push carefully now and the baby should come clear.’
Alison lay on her back now so that Martha could get access to the baby, Sophie stood behind her, mouth open, not saying a word.
‘OK, here goes,’ said Alison, grasping for breath as the pains hit her again forcibly, her lower back felt like it was being snapped in two and her skin around the pelvic area was so sensitive to the touch that even the rub of the cotton sheets made all her nerves jangle.
While Alison strained, Martha chanted under her breath, ‘King of heaven, King of hell,
Send your aid so I can do well,
Horned Hunter of the night,
Work your will by magic rite.’
‘Aaargh,’ Alison let out a yell again.
‘OK, pant again,’ said Martha loudly and she grabbed the tiny baby which was slowly emerging, helping it to turn its shoulders and slip from Alison onto the sheet. Alison stopped panting, red in the face and with sweat pouring down her she strained to see her new child.
‘It’s a boy,’ said Martha, holding up the tiny little scrap of humanity and wiping the placenta from around its mouth and nose.
‘Look Sophie, you’ve got a brother,’ Alison said, her voice breaking with emotion as she pulled her daughter to her, ‘He’s beautiful, isn’t he?’
She nodded.
Alison thought that she looked very pale and she could have sworn that she was shaking very slightly, perhaps the birth had been too much for her to witness after all.
Martha dealt efficiently with the umbilical cord and then handed Alison her baby. It felt so wonderful to hold him for the first time, to look in amazement at his tiny little hands and face and to know that just minutes before he’d been inside of her growing. The feel of his soft baby skin, the beauty of his first few snuffly breaths and the first sounds from his vocal chords as he cried. Nothing could ever top that feeling and nobody could ever take that away from a mother. Alison cried with emotional happiness and kissed her new son’s head.
‘He’s perfect,’ she said to no-one in particular and helped him to her breast for his first suckle.
35
Martha left Sophie, Alison and the new baby for a few moments while she went off to get some more of her potions. Sophie was obviously shaken by the birth and was looking at the new brat as though there was some emotional attachment there.
Michaela was at the cottage when she got back, along with her father.
‘Right,’ she said to the
young girl first, ‘I don’t trust that Sophie. She’s served her purpose anyway, so from now on I want you to stick close by her. Go over to the house now and make sure she doesn’t sneak down to the phone or something.’
Michaela nodded and was away. She loved this feeling of importance, of having a job which was critical to the plan and it made her feel powerful for the first time in her life. After years of being humiliated and treated as though she were worthless, the time was getting near when she’d be initiated into the clan and then she too would be able to wield the power her father and the other members did. Not only that, but she knew as Martha’s apprentice she was being groomed for the top, soon it would be she who held court with Satan and ordered her father and all the other clan members around. She’d keep an eye on Sophie Swift alright, the snivelling, spoilt brat had been getting on her nerves for a while. She had everything, a loving mother, nice home, good food and an easy time of it, yet she was always getting upset over something or complaining about something else. Well she was damned if she was going to let her ruin her future plans.
Back at Martha’s cottage, Robert West was receiving his instructions.
‘OK, we’ve got twenty-four hours to keep a lid on this right? I want you to stand guard outside, make sure nobody gets near the house. She’ll be drugged anyway, but I don’t want to take any chances. That nurse woman Leggett might well come round as too might that interfering old bitch St Romaine.’
Robert nodded.
‘I’ve let all the others know.’
‘Good, now I trust Neil is organising the equipment and Richard Davidson has the fire side of things under control?’
‘Yes, all in hand.’
‘Very good. Carry my bag over to the house for me while I fix this drug. Be quiet about it. I’m gonna try to keep her as sweet as I can for as long as I can, although with no medical staff turning up she’s gonna twig soon.’
Robert West nodded again and did as he was told. The adrenaline was pumping around his body, this was their most adventurous plan to date. Sure, snatching the kids had been risky, but this one, this was on their own doorsteps and would be the toughest. He noticed that Martha had already cleared away any of their videos or publications from the cottage. They’d be in safe storage somewhere and he’d been told to tell everyone to hide all evidence as soon as the Swift woman went into labour. If they could pull this off it would be a total triumph and with Satan on their side, there was no reason why they shouldn’t.
