The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  Dawn swallows hard before nodding. She pads into the living room, pausing beside the Moses basket. She looks down at her baby, willing herself to feel the love she had on day one. ‘It’s just going to be you and me, Rosie,’ she sings softly. ‘You and me against this butt-ugly world. We’re both going to be just fine. We don’t need anyone else.’

  Rosie kicks the blanket off her legs and stares back without blinking.

  Dawn picks up the handles of the Moses basket.

  She can do this.

  ‘You go home and get a shower and some sleep,’ Dawn says to Mel when she enters the bedroom. She lays the basket in the middle of the bed. ‘I’ll keep her in here with me whilst I get dressed and tidy up a bit. Then I might take her for a walk.’ Dawn paints on a bright smile on her stiff cheeks.

  ‘If you’re sure…’ Mel looks far from sure. ‘I’ll pop back later – check how you’re getting on.’ She picks up her bag and strokes Rosie’s cheek before closing the door behind her.

  Dawn walks to the window and watches Mel as she walks away down the road. The bedroom feels huge all of a sudden and so silent. She pulls on a pair of jeans and a stained tank-top from a heap of clothes on the floor and creeps back towards Rosie.

  A garbling noise rises from the Moses basket. It’s a sweet sound like a burbling brook.

  Dawn tentatively places her hands underneath her baby and pulls her onto her lap, resting her head in the crook of her elbow.

  Rosie finds Dawn’s finger and grips it with her tiny hand. Her bright blue eyes search Dawn’s face and her mouth breaks out into an enormous grin. Dawn knows it can only be a sign of wind at this age, she knows this. But somehow, that smile seems like it was saved for her and her only.

  A splash of water hits Dawn’s forearm and she realises she’s crying. She lifts Rosie up to her shoulders and buries her face in her hair. ‘Oh, my baby,’ she says through her sobs. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Mummy loves you.’ Relief fills Dawn’s heart as she says the words and knows they are true. Of course, she loves her baby. From now onwards they would only have each other.

  Rosie’s neck smells like talc and a hint of something else. Lavender.

  Dawn holds Rosie further away from her, steadying her against the bed as she retches and swallows the bile back down. The lavender is overwhelming, it’s filling the whole room and bringing other unwelcoming smells with it, like patchouli. Patchouli and lavender, they always seem to go together, especially when something bad is about to happen.

  An outline flashes sharply in Dawn’s mind. A leering, featureless face under a shock of red hair. His voice echoes through her mind, saying the same sentence over and over.

  Tell anyone, and I will kill you.

  The voice keeps getting louder. Dawn places Rosie back in her basket and pushes her palms against her ears, rocking back and forth in an attempt to shake the words free.

  The door buzzer blares. Rattling comes from the door downstairs.

  Has he found them? The rattling gets louder, and Dawn snatches the basket handles, pulling it up from the bed and as far away from the door as possible. She needs to hide Rosie. He can’t find her here.

  She looks wildly around the room, her eyes settling on the airing cupboard. She pulls out the sheets and the towels and dashes them on the carpet before placing the Moses basket on the empty shelf and closing the door.

  Footsteps clomp up the stairs. Dawn flattens her back against the bedroom door and slides to the floor.

  A muffled cry comes from the airing cupboard. The door behind Dawn’s back vibrates with the force of something trying to prise it open.

  ‘Dawn? Are you in there? It’s only Mel – I can’t open the door.’

  ‘How did you get in?’ Dawn manages.

  ‘Rob’s key – you gave it to me, remember? Can you just let me in so I don’t have to keep shouting through the bloody door?’

  Dawn lets out a breath and scoots forward across the floor, leaving enough room for Mel to enter the room.

  Rosie’s cries have got louder.

  ‘What the actual…?’ Mel rushes to the airing cupboard and flings it open. ‘She probably can’t even breathe properly in there. What the hell were you thinking, have you lost your mind?’ She lowers the basket from the shelf and places it on the bed, before picking Rosie up and walking out of the room.

  Dawn rushes after her through the hallway and into the living room. She stops when she realises there’s someone else in there. A woman with a brown choppy fringe and purple-framed glasses. She looks familiar.

  ‘Do you remember Anna?’ Mel asks. She’s trying to sound casual.

  The hairs on the back of Dawn’s arms feel prickly.

  ‘We both worked with Anna on our hospital placement. She’s the lead mental health midwife in the area. I asked her to drop in with me and see you.’

  Mel is standing next to the window, clutching Rosie. Sunlight is bouncing off Rosie’s hair, highlighting a whole spectrum of different reds. Mel is watching Dawn’s face, waiting for an answer.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Dawn says. ‘Come away from the window. He’ll see you.’

  Mel and Anna share a look.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Mel mutters. ‘I was just opening the window,’ she says louder, to Dawn this time. ‘It’s stifling in here.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ Dawn turns to Anna. ‘I don’t know what Mel has told you, but I am fine, Rosie is fine. We are both fine.’

  Anna glances again at Mel before speaking. ‘I’m sure you are, Dawn. Just thought you might like to see a familiar face, that’s all. First few weeks are never easy, and sometimes it’s good to take all the help you can…’

  ‘We’re fine.’ Dawn strides over to Mel and prises her baby from her grip. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, the two of us are going for a nap. I’ll let you see yourselves out.’

  Mel and Anna have ‘dropped in’ to see Dawn every day since the airing cupboard incident two weeks ago. Today, though, they’ve brought reinforcements.

  The sofa and armchairs in Dawn’s living room are filled with people wearing lanyards and professional smiles.

  Rosie lies in her Moses basket kicking her legs, not a single clue that life as she’s known it for the past month is about to change its course forever.

  Dawn doesn’t look at the sofas, or the people sitting on them. She doesn’t look at the Moses basket or at the window. She keeps her eyes on the TV screen in the corner. The volume is muted but the people on the daytime TV show are doing the same as them: sitting about on sofas and talking about the world as if everything is normal. Just because the sun came up, people’s alarms went off and everyone got ready and went to work, doesn’t mean it’s an ordinary day. They can’t see the evil the morning brought with it.

  One of the presenters on the TV looks out of the screen. He seems to look at Dawn as if he can see exactly who she is. What she’s about to do. She can still hear him screaming those same words in her head. For a moment, it’s as if the voice is coming straight from the man on the telly. Perhaps it is.

  ‘And what about Dawn’s partner – is he aware of the situation? Has he had a chance to say goodbye?’ one of the lanyard wearers asks in a low voice.

  ‘He’s out of the picture.’ Mel speaks quietly too. ‘There’s no one else. No other family. If there really are no spaces at the mother and baby units, temporary foster care until Dawn is better is the only option. I’d help myself, but I’m off to India next week. I’ve already postponed twice, they won’t hold the position for me if I let them down again, and someone’s got to look after that baby.’

  Dawn swallows. Please don’t be listening to this, Rosie. None of this is your fault. You are perfect.

  Dawn feels Mel’s eyes staring down at her. She looks directly in front, avoiding her gaze. They’re cooking something on the telly now. A Beef Wellington. The one they’d made earlier is cut in half, showing off just the right shade of pink and the correct amount of puff to the pastry.
It’s easy to make something perfect when no one is watching. If they’d shown the one made in real time, Dawn reckons it would be a different story. All those eyes watching. Waiting. It would have come out tough or burned. Inedible.

  One of the lanyard wearers is telling Dawn that a nice family would keep Rosie safe for a while until she gets better. She must mean that he won’t be able to find her there. That’s good.

  The living room is getting hotter. Too many breaths from too many people and the window is still closed. Dawn shuts her eyes, letting the conversations around her drift in and out of her ears. They’re talking about paperwork. Signatures. Then the mother and baby unit again.

  ‘We can’t really say how long it will take. The waiting list is horrendous. Obviously, Dawn will be high priority, what with the severity of her symptoms.’

  ‘Will they admit Dawn to the Barton wing in the meantime?’

  Mel chews on her lip until she tastes blood. The Barton Wing is the adult mental health ward in the hospital where Dawn had completed her labour ward placement. It has a history of higher-than-acceptable rates of ‘incidents’ and of being severely understaffed.

  Anna glances Dawn’s way before turning back towards Mel. ‘I shouldn’t think so at this stage. There’s such a shortage of beds and she doesn’t appear to pose any immediate danger to herself. We just need to make sure this bubba is looked after.’

  Mel frowns. ‘But, don’t you think all this points to – well, to puerperal psychosis.’ She hisses, not as quietly as she thinks. ‘Dawn thinks some random man is after her. She says he wants to kill her and take Rosie, but she can’t tell me why – surely we can’t ignore that?’

  ‘I don’t think that,’ Dawn says. Her words come out too high, too shrill. Too loud. ‘Not anymore, anyway. I was just tired, hormonal. I’m much better now.’ She can’t go in the Barton Wing. She just can’t.

  The psychiatric nurse beside Anna picks up Dawn’s postnatal notes from the table. They’d all had a read, now it’s his turn. ‘I see from your notes you’ve had rather a traumatic birth.’ His too-big glasses slip down his skinny nose and he pushes them back up as he flicks through the pages. ‘Occasionally, birth trauma can trigger episodes of puerperal psychosis, particularly if there had been high levels of stress during the pregnancy.’

  Dawn looks at the carpet, counting the faded coffee stains.

  ‘Sometimes women might exhibit symptoms similar to PTSD following the birth or harbour very vivid delusions that often centre around their newborn child.’

  He sounds as if he is giving a lecture to a group of medical students, and Dawn feels like his not-so-glamorous assistant.

  ‘Of course, Dawn will need an ongoing psychiatric assessment of her progress, which we will put in place as swiftly as possible,’ he continues in a smooth voice. ‘How does that sound to you, Dawn?’

  Dawn gets up and moves to the Moses basket. She picks up her baby and holds her close. Baby talc, warm skin, soft neck.

  ‘Please don’t take her,’ she whispers.

  ‘Hey,’ Mel says. ‘It’s not forever. Just until you get better. They can’t do anything at this stage without your permission. It’s up to you, but it’s the best thing for Rosie.’

  Dawn nods slowly and a piece of paper is thrust in front of her to sign. Everyone seems to stand to their feet very quickly after that.

  Anna holds her hands out towards Dawn, waiting for her to place Rosie into them.

  Dawn takes a step forward, holding Rosie close. She shifts her from her shoulder so she can look at her face, her perfect nose. ‘I can’t do it,’ she sobs.

  Anna closes the gap between them and lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘You can. Let me help you.’ She places her other hand around Rosie and begins to prise her away from Dawn’s grasp.

  Rosie grabs a handful of Dawn’s curly hair and holds it tight, her tiny face wrinkled with determination, as if Dawn’s hair was an anchor between them.

  Anna uncurls Rosie’s fist and releases Dawn’s curls.

  ‘Goodbye little one. We’ll be together soon, I promise. You just need to go somewhere safe for a little while. Somewhere he won’t find you.’

  It’s only after they’ve all left that she lets the screams out. She pounds on the door with her fists and screams until her throat’s sore.

  Dawn spends the next week alone in her flat. She doesn’t answer the door or the phone. Letting Rosie go hasn’t stopped him from torturing her mind. She puts chairs against the doors and keeps the lights off to try and stop him getting in. Even in the dark she can see it: the flash of red hair.

  You told, Dawn. Remember what I said would happen if you told?

  ‘I only told one person. One stranger,’ she shouts. ‘Not Rob, not Mel. Not even the people who want to help make you go away.’

  He’s quiet for a while after that. Good.

  She gets the tealight candles from under the sink and makes a circle on the living room floor. Circles are for protection. She lights each one and sits in the middle, cross-legged on the floor. She mutters words, the same ones over and over again. Words that will keep Rosie safe, wherever she is. Time loses meaning when she does this, and the candles have long gone by the time Mel bursts into the flat, knocking the chair flying.

  Mel doesn’t care about the incantations, she’s too preoccupied with the state of Dawn’s ribcage and the mouldy food in the fridge. She moans about the stench and that it’s coming from Dawn’s soiled trousers. It’s easy for her to say; she’s not the one who has to stay inside the circle.

  Mel has a crowd with her this time too. This time some of them are wearing uniforms and they’re holding paperwork about the mental health act that takes away her choices. Dawn is taken somewhere with a bed and locked doors and a woman who takes away her shoelaces and the drawstrings from her hoody. Minutes bleed into hours which run into days. Dawn spends those days sitting in larger circles on chairs with other people next to her. Sometimes she manages to speak but most days she doesn’t. To begin with, she still hears his voice, his threats. She has endless meetings with doctors who throw various words at her. They try one lot of meds and then another. They pile pills on top of pills until she’s so numb it feels like she’s left her body and is watching it walk around without her.

  Her support worker comes into her room almost every day. A beaky-nosed woman with sour breath. She says the same things each time. ‘Rosie’s doing well in her foster home and you’re going to be in here a long time. Perhaps it would be fairer to your daughter if you… well, if you let her go.’

  Dawn had screamed in her face the first time she’d said that.

  After a few weeks, though, she no longer quite had the energy. ‘The other staff said they could arrange for a visit with Rosie. And there might be a mother and baby placement coming up one day soon,’ Dawn says instead.

  ‘You think this would be a good place for a baby? And even if you get a place on a mother and baby unit, you might never get well enough. Then you’d have taken her away from her foster family for nothing. Don’t be selfish. Think of what’s best for your baby.’

  Her support worker’s words stomp around and around in her mind, night and day, competing with his vile vitriol. He is still very clear about one thing: he will find and take Rosie if Dawn has her back with her. She’ll never be safe, not whilst they’re together.

  The day Dawn starts on yet another new injection to ‘help with her mood,’ she requests a visit from a social worker. It takes her hours to force the words out between broken sobs. They’re words she’s already chewed on, trying them on for size.

  Other professionals are brought into her room. Conversations happen around her. Things are said and then said again in different ways. All of them sewn up at the seams with ‘Do you understand what this means, Dawn?’ Lots of repetitions of words like permanent, adoption and you-need-to-be-sure.

  Dawn hasn’t been sure of anything for a long time; not since the night her future was ripped away f
rom her inside the cubicle of a nightclub toilet.

  ‘It’s the only way to keep Rosie safe,’ she says.

  The days that follow are dark ones. They don’t get any lighter afterwards, more that Dawn’s eyes adjust to the dimness around her. She immerses herself in a different world, one where Rosie is with her and she wears the thoughts around her head like a torch, lighting a path through each day.

  Almost a year goes past. Twelve months of long talks with assessment teams, with nurses and doctors. Further weeks inside sterile rooms on beds covered with NHS sheets. She learns to smile. She learns to pretend, to look like she’s coping. Then comes the day. The first day of the beginning of the end.

  ‘You’re free to go,’ a psychiatrist announces. He warns her of the long path ahead; that puerperal psychosis sometimes goes hand in hand with bipolar disorder which seems likely in Dawn’s case. He says she’ll need ongoing treatment if she’s to manage her life in the long term. He gives her a smile, armfuls of leaflets and blister packs filled with dosage instructions. ‘You’ll need lots of support from those closest to you,’ he adds.

  The doctor obviously hasn’t read each part of her file, otherwise he’d know she had no one.

  The staff on the Barton wing check Dawn’s address before she walks out of the door. Someone from the mental health team will come and visit her every other day for her first week home, they tell her.

  Dawn doesn’t go to her flat, what would be the point? If the discharge nurse had bothered to check, she’d know there is no way the flat above the British Heart Foundation would still be hers to live in. Who would have paid the rent? The bills? Someone else would be living there now, someone who wasn’t being followed by a faceless man with red hair.

  She makes her way into the centre of town. She’ll jump on a train at Manchester Piccadilly. She still has money in the handbag she’d been admitted with. It wouldn’t last long but it could get her across the country. Dawn can’t stay around here, he’s still too close, she can feel him all around her.

  She’ll start again somewhere new. She’ll make herself strong and then one day she’ll find her Rosie. She reaches the station and takes a last look at the city she grew up in before walking through the doors.