by S Williams
Lissy picked up the book that came with the girl, flicking through it in case there were any clues as to medical conditions that might be needed to be known.
She looked up when her partner spoke again. He was staring at Bella, a deep frown jigsawing his face.
‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘I don’t think all the damage to her body was done tonight.’
Doctor Ran stared at the images displayed on the illuminated board, deep lines of fatigue giving her forehead the resemblance of a ploughed field. The girl involved in the car crash had multiple injuries and so had been X-rayed for damage, as was routine in any high-impact-related trauma. What was not routine, however, was what the X-rays had revealed.
‘Have the police been informed?’ she said, her eyes not leaving the illuminated sheets posted up in front of her.
‘Yes, doctor.’ The nurse shuffled through some papers on his clipboard. ‘The room has a constable outside it. Apparently the mother was already on her way with the sister, having been notified when Bella was first admitted, before…’ The nurse’s voice trailed off.
‘Quite,’ Ran said.
‘They’ve sent another patrol to the house for the father. The police already here have set up an interview room in the administration block. It was thought better to conduct them here, apparently.’
Ran nodded. In case the girl didn’t last the night. In case the mother was needed. It was good that the police were here. It wasn’t a situation Ran could deal with on her own. For all she knew the mother was the…
‘I’d like to examine the sister. The police won’t have anybody available on New Year’s Eve. All the police doctors will be in town, dealing with fights.’
Now it was the nurse’s turn to nod.
‘And no change?’ Ran asked.
‘No. The girl is breathing with assistance, but no high-brain function detected. The damage done from the accident seems to be beyond repair. As far as diagnosis, it seems that Bella will remain, if she does remain, in a permanent vegetative state. Brain dead.’
Ran nodded again, unsurprised. The X-rays showed severe swelling caused by the impact of the brain against the wall of the skull during the accident. That alone would be life threatening, given also the oxygen starvation caused by her heart stopping. They had removed a small portion of her skull to attempt to alleviate the pressure, and syphoned away the excess blood that threatened to drown her from the inside. There was nothing they could do about the six inch rip in her brain where part of the windscreen casing had speared its way in through the soft tissue of her temple deep into her hippocampus. The fact that she was functioning at all was some sort of miracle.
Ran swallowed. ‘And the baby? How old is the foetus?’
‘No more than sixteen weeks. There’s no way the baby will live if we c-section the mother now.’
Ran nodded again. She was beginning to feel like one of those novelty dogs on the dash of old people’s cars. She grimaced. ‘Normally, of course, it would be up to her parents to make the decision.’
‘Whether to cessate intervention,’ the nurse said, nodding. ‘But given the circumstances, with the police involvement and the baby…’
‘That gives us a bit of a moral dilemma then, doesn’t it?’ Ran said, biting her lip
Two weeks later
Bella was not breathing, at least not in the normal sense of the word. The noise the apparatus that squeezed air into her lungs made was too regular to be mistaken for breathing. Too regular and too sad and too mechanical. The girl’s skin was waxy. In the hospital bed she looked tiny, like she had been shrunk.
Doctor Ran looked down at her. Even in such a relatively small amount of time, the baby growing inside her had become more noticeable, pushing out against her abdomen under the thin hospital sheet. The scene was somehow creepy, with the sterile room and the tiny pregnant girl with no brain. Ran felt like she was party to some terrible experiment.
‘And her father is dead?’
The inspector nodded, staring down in morbid fascination at the girl. ‘Killed in a fire by the boyfriend. Apparently the father had locked himself in his study, but the smoke overcame him and he asphyxiated.’
Ran wiped a hand over her tired eyes.
‘And the mother?’
‘Held under section one of the MHA. It’s not clear how much she knew about what was going on, maybe it never will be. She seems to have retreated into herself.’
‘What a fucking mess. What about the sister; Martha?’
The inspector nodded.
‘Signs of early abuse. Cigarette burns. Cuts. Nothing like Bella, of course, but one can only imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t come to our attention by Bella’s accident.’
‘Plus what was written in the diary, of course.’
‘Yes,’ said the inspector quietly. ‘Plus that.’
They both looked at the girl. If Ran squinted her eyes, she could almost pretend the girl was merely sleeping. Of course, she’d need to squint her ears as well.
‘So what happens now?’
‘Difficult. Technically the girl has no responsible adult now, so is under the care of the state. We’ve sought clarification as to whether a termination is legal in this situation. It’s my understanding that there is no medical reason why…?’ The inspector’s words petered out, as if the path they were on had run out and become surrounded by forest.
‘No, medically there is no risk to Bella’s life in taking the baby to term. Morally, on the other hand…’
Ran found herself on the same path. In the same forest. ‘She would just become a human incubator, with no moral agency of her own.’
‘She has no chance of recovery?’
‘She’s dead, inspector. She was dead when she went head first through that windscreen. She was dead when she lay in the snow. She’ll be dead when she gives birth to her daughter. She’s just…’ Ran shrugged hopelessly, ‘…process now. The end of an equation. Who knows she’s here?’
‘Almost no one. It was considered… apposite to release a statement saying that the girl involved in the crash was a fatality.’
‘Which is technically true.’
‘Indeed.’
‘What about her friends?’
‘Difficult. They are children, and as in loco guardians of Bella and her child we have to think what is best for them. It has been decided at present not to inform them of the full facts. They have been told that Bella never regained consciousness after the crash and that she was pronounced brain dead in hospital. The boy is currently on remand awaiting trial for the murder of the father, and possible manslaughter of Bella. The girl is under supervision of her doctor. She appears to have suffered a breakdown. Even if it was considered appropriate to tell her, now would not be the time.’
Ran nodded again. The room fell silent, apart from the hiss and click and gurgling moan of the ventilator.
‘So we wait. And the longer we wait the less options we have.’
Five months later
‘You’re doing really well, Bella! Just a few minutes more!’
The machine that had kept her breathing clicked and ticked, and made its groaning backwards scream, like it was sucking air out of her; not pushing it in.
The five months that Bella had laid in her bed had made her seem more like a painting than a real girl. Her skin had turned from shine to wax and finally to the colour of rain-wet dough; and her hair was like thin string. As her body automatic-piloted its way through the birth, her face made no expression at all.
A full theatre team was present for the delivery, but the atmosphere was strange. None of the normal familial banter was in attendance. Usually the patient was anaesthetised; rendered unconscious while whatever operation was being carried out, so the fact that the patient wasn’t answering back or engaging with the team was not unusual. But Bella wasn’t only non-commutative, she was absent. There was no spark or consciousness there. She was… nothing. At the centre of all the machines – th
e ventilator and the monitoring devices and the drip – there was nothing of Bella. Only a black hole where a girl used to be.
And inside her a human being, grown without emotional input or meaning. Doctor Ran, observing from the edge of the room, felt an enormous sadness. She hoped that somewhere deep within Bella there was a spark of consciousness, or feeling. Something for her to understand the enormous gift she was giving. There had been a meeting as to whether a c-section should have been performed. Whether that might be safer for mother and daughter, but Ran had argued against it.
‘This is the only thing her body wants to do!’ she had said. ‘She can’t eat or breathe without mechanical assistance. She can’t think. She can’t look after any of her needs. She can’t feel the weight of her baby inside her. But she can give birth!’ Ran leaned forward across the table, boring her eyes into the suits that had responsibility for the husk that had once been Bella. ‘Let’s not take away the only thing her body can do. Her B-contractions have already begun. With the absence of any cerebral anxiety, the chances of the birth being anything but a biological certainty are slim.’
‘But surely she needs to be conscious to participate?’ said one of the civil servants, perplexed. ‘Push, or what have you.’
Ran had smiled. ‘Believe it or not, the contractions will happen all by themselves. It might be a slower process, but none the worse for it. Plus there will be a full natal team on hand in case anything goes wrong.’
‘But isn’t it a bit… freaky. I mean she’s brain dead, right?’ The court officer looked at her, his brow creased.
Ran nodded.
‘So it’s like the baby is coming out of a corpse.’ The man shuddered. ‘A living corpse.’
There was silence in the room. Ran looked out of the window for a moment, collecting her thoughts. On the moor she could see a lone lapwing, tipping against the wind.
‘Look, her body wants to give birth. It’s the only reason we haven’t ceased intervention up to now, yes?’ The man had nodded. ‘And when the baby is born, by whatever method, then all the mechanical aids will be removed, and Bella will be allowed to rest, yes?’ Again he nodded.
Ran looked at him, willing him to understand. ‘Then let her do this one thing. It is the entire purpose of her existence! Even though she isn’t aware on a conscious level, she’s aware on a biological level. Over the last five months her body has built itself around her baby. It’s a miracle, really. All of her that remains, remains so that she can give birth; produce another human being. Let’s not take that away from her, otherwise what is she? Just meat? Just packaging?’
Ran had held her breath, until finally the man had nodded slightly. ‘How will the baby be named? If Bella can’t and nobody else is left? Will she just be assigned one? Has this happened before?’
Ran looked at him. ‘Not this, obviously. This is pretty much unique, as far as I can see. But like this. When the mother has died in childbirth or something. Is there a procedure?’
‘As it happens, in this case we already have a name.’
The officer raised his eyebrows, questioning. ‘How come?’
‘Bella had written it down in her diary. It was one of the reasons we made the original decision to continue the birth, actually. Bella had decided herself not to have a termination. She was going to run away. She had been planning it for some time, apparently. She had just been waiting until she was sixteen, so that she couldn’t be forced back.’
‘But she wouldn’t have been! Once the abuse had been established she would have been removed from–’
‘That’s the point, though, isn’t it? The abuse often isn’t established. The abuser is very good at covering up their tracks. Controlling their victims. And if, as seems the case, the abuse had been carrying on for a long time, all through childhood, then there are all sorts of psychological difficulties. Abuse wrapped up in love and need.’
Ran wiped a surgical-gloved hand over her eyes, dragging herself back into the present.
‘She’s coming, Bella! You’re doing so well!’
Click. Wheeze. Tick. Beep.
No grunting. No screaming. No crying. Just the machines and the absence of a girl.
Until there was crying; wet and gurgly as one was born and brought out into the world.
‘She’s here, Bella! You have a beautiful baby girl!’
Ran felt hard tears falling from her eyes as she smiled.
‘Hello, baby,’ she whispered, as the cord was cut on the infant and she was swaddled and placed on Bella’s chest. ‘You should be so proud of your mum. She lived long past when she should, just so you could be born.’
73
Bella’s Room
‘They kept her going until she came to term, and then she gave birth to me.’ Athene stares at the flickering candles, her face a map of the life she has lived. Her marble eyes shine in the yellow glow. ‘Even though Bella was for all intents and purposes dead, she still managed to have enough in her for me to live.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Jamie says, his voice a mix of fascination and disgust. ‘They said she was dead.’
‘She was, legally speaking. When stem brain function ceases, and the person can only be kept alive through auxiliary means, then that person is legally dead. For the first few months after the accident, Bella was brain dead, but still with some stem function. Then after that… well they kept her going as a kind of biological birth support system.’
‘But why didn’t we…’ Mouse can’t take it in. She stares at Athene, seeing Bella melt out of her. She thinks of her friend, alone in a hospital room somewhere, being kept breathing by a machine, her body nothing but a birth-clock.
‘Hear about it? You did. Like you said, she was dead. Her father was dead. Her mother was certified. Trent was up for murder and…’ Athene pauses for a beat. ‘You didn’t come out too well in the diaries. Plus you were a child. Your parents were told, of course. What they decided was entirely up to them.’
‘My parents knew?’ Mouse’s brain was whirling. ‘And they never told me?’
‘I imagine they were protecting you. The guilt you felt for her death would only have increased if you knew the truth.’
Mouse shakes her head, trying to slot in all the new information. ‘So you’re Bella’s daughter? Bella and…’
‘Her father, yes,’ says Athene simply.
‘No wonder you hate us.’ Trent’s voice is rough with emotion. Athene looks at him, surprised.
‘I don’t hate you. Without you and Mouse my mother’s life would have been unbearable. You both allowed her to pen a narrative that made it…’ she shrugs. ‘It’s all in the diaries.’
‘But why this then, coming up here for revenge?’
Athene gives them a big smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. In fact it barely reaches her mouth.
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. I came up to find out who murdered my mother.’
The silence that fills the room comes in moments, still frames that layer upon each other.
‘But I thought you said…’ Trent begins before Athene cuts him off.
‘What happened to your wife, Jamie?’
‘Sorry?’ Mouse’s head is spinning. ‘Louise? What’s Jamie’s wife got to do with this?’
Athene ignores her. Jamie seems to have become smaller. Stiller. With the attention on him, he looks like a frightened rabbit.
‘She left me,’ he says softly.
‘She did, didn’t she?’ Athene says. ‘And why was that, I wonder?’
Jamie licks his lips and seems to sag a little more, resting heavily on the broken length of wood. ‘It just didn’t work out.’
‘Right. That’s probably it. Not because of the things you posted on the web, then? Not because of the torture videos and the rape-porn?’
‘What? What videos?’ Mouse says. What Athene had said earlier about spy cams whirls in her head. About Jamie being investigated. Mouse stares at him, feeling sick.
Jamie licks h
is lips again, his eyes skimming, unable to focus on any of them. ‘Look, I just liked to watch, okay? I’ve always liked to watch. It’s not a crime.’
‘Oh but it is, Jamie! I really am in the police, by the way; joined straight from school. Do you know you can do degrees in policing these days? Not just Criminology, but actual detectiving? Due to my particular circumstances, as you can imagine, I specialised in abuse and the trauma it can cause.’
‘I’m not sure how–’ Trent began.
‘Operation Bayonet. Ring any bells?’ Athene looks at him brightly.
‘Fuck you,’ snarls Jamie. Mouse stares at him, open-mouthed. The violence in his voice seems to cut through the room. ‘I don’t know what operation you’re talking about. Tell it to the others if you like; this has got nothing to do with me. I’m sorry I sold your mum Ecstasy but I’m not responsible for her fuck-up. I’m sorry about what happened with her dad; it must have been awful, but it’s got nothing to do with m–’
‘It was a Danish police operation to take down Hansa, a dark web marketplace,’ Athene continues, as if he hadn’t even spoken. ‘I say Danish, but it was global, really. Makes sense, right? I mean the web is global so you need global cooperation if you’re going to tackle it.’
‘Bye.’ Jamie turns towards the door and begins walking away.
‘That’s where we found all the pictures you’ve been posting.’
Jamie stops, one hand on the handle, the other still clutching the shard of wood. He turns back to stare at Athene, a puzzled look creasing his face. In the candlelight it seems, to Mouse, like his face has become jigsawed; made up of lots of bits that don’t quite fit together.
‘What pictures?’
Athene smiles at him. ‘Do you think just because you used a VPN you were untraceable? You think you’re invincible sitting in the dark with your computer?’ Athene makes a tutting noise, like a toy train. ‘Not these days, I’m afraid. The boys and girls in blue have their own encryption experts.’
