by Cathy Glass
She waited while he unloaded the boot and carried her belongings up the path, stacking them by the front door. She wondered if she should give him a tip, he’d been so kind and helpful. But she only had a couple of pounds in her purse and didn’t want to embarrass him. Doubtless Mark would see to it if it was appropriate.
Tony opened the rear door and carefully slid out the Moses basket, then offered his arm as she got out. ‘Front door key?’ he asked as she straightened beside him.
‘It’s in my handbag,’ she said nodding to her belongings at the door.
Aisha let Tony carry the Moses basket up the path while she took her keys from her bag and unlocked the porch door and then the inner door. Tony passed her the basket and then lifted her suitcase and flowers just inside the hall.
‘Will you be all right alone?’ he said, stepping back outside. ‘They usually like you to have someone with you so soon after the birth. Shall I wait until Mark gets home?’
‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks. Mark will have made sure I have everything I need and he won’t be long.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. Take care then, and give my regards to Mark.’
Aisha thanked him again and closed the doors. She stood for a few seconds taking in her surroundings. Home at last, she thought. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, had ticked off the hours to. And if it wasn’t quite the homecoming with Mark she’d anticipated, at least the time to herself meant she would be able to get organized. She would shower and change, then start the preparations for the evening meal, so that when Mark came home from work it would be to a well-ordered house. She wanted to create a good first impression as a mother.
Setting down the Moses basket in the hall, Aisha glanced through the open lounge door. How bright and colourful it seemed after the drabness of the ward. Hospitals lacked colour, she thought. Why did they insist on painting everything light green? A little imagination would have done wonders, even on a tight budget.
Now the first thing to do was to settle Sarah in the nursery, then she could find some fresh clothes and shower. She and Mark had agreed that Sarah would use the nursery right from the beginning, thereby hopefully avoiding the pitfalls of separation some parents faced when they tried to move an older baby into a room of its own. The baby alarm was already in place so she would be able to hear Sarah from anywhere in the house and immediately answer her cry. Aisha knew she wasn’t a hundred percent well yet, but she would go carefully, and the basket was hardly heavy lifting. Sarah was still asleep, her loosely curled fist just showing above the blanket. She was going to be a good baby, Aisha thought, just as she had been in the hospital.
Aisha took one step up the stairs and then stopped. Strange, she thought she heard a noise. She paused and listened. Yes, there it was again. Distant, but definitely a noise. She brought her foot down from the stair and stood perfectly still, her ears straining for any sounds. A few seconds passed and then it was repeated, and again. It sounded like a click. A metallic click in a house that should have been empty.
Her fingers tightened around the handles of the basket and her pulse quickened as the distant noise repeated and then again. It seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Clink. Silence. Clink. Yes, she thought, it was travelling in from the kitchen and through the open door of the lounge. It was forming a regular pattern now of metal on metal, clink, pause, clink. Could it be an open window tapping in the breeze? No, Mark always closed windows; he was adamant about security, and it didn’t sound like that type of noise either. Not a window tapping. As Aisha strained and listened the clink began to sound vaguely familiar. Clink, pause, clink. A noise of a routine, a part of everyday life in the house. Finally, she placed it. Of course! How could she have been so stupid? It was metal on metal, it was cutlery being dropped in the drawer. Someone was drying up and putting the knives and forks away. Relief flooded through her. Mark. He must have finished with his client early, but not early enough to collect her. He had obviously come straight home, rather than going to the hospital and risk crossing en route and possibly missing her. Now he was doing some last-minute clearing up, drying the cutlery, making everything spick and span the way he liked it, ready for her return. He couldn’t have heard her come in, which was hardly surprising with her having been so quiet to avoid waking Sarah.
What a wonderful surprise, she thought, and how pleased he would be to see her. She knew what she would do, she would creep up and surprise him; they both would. She looked down at Sarah who, seeming to sense the excitement and change of plan, obligingly opened her eyes and yawned. ‘You’re awake,’ Aisha whispered. ‘Come on, Daddy’s home. Let’s go and find him. Won’t he be surprised?’
Returning the basket to the floor, Aisha eased back the blanket and carefully lifted Sarah out. She cradled her in the crook of one arm and supported her bottom and legs with her other hand. It was going to take some getting used to, this carrying her around. They hadn’t been allowed to carry their babies on the ward in case they tripped or fainted. And Sarah’s tiny form, which had felt so robust and determined while inside her, now seemed unbelievably vulnerable and fragile.
‘All right?’ she whispered, lightly brushing her lips across Sarah’s warm, smooth cheek. ‘You wait until your daddy sees us. His face will be a picture.’
Aisha thought she saw the faintest flicker of a smile cross Sarah’s face, although at two days old she knew this was more likely to be wind. Aisha went into the lounge, moving quietly across the carpet which seemed suddenly luxurious after the linoleum of the hospital ward. How tidy Mark had kept everything. Despite all his to-ing and fro-ing to the hospital and work, everything was in its place, apart from the newspapers, which he hadn’t had time to read and were in a pile on the coffee table. She smiled to herself, not many women would have come home to a house so neat and clean. She was the luckiest person alive, in every possible way.
Creeping the last few steps, Aisha stopped outside the archway which led to the kitchen. She heard a drawer close as Mark finished putting away the cutlery. She imagined him folding the tea towel and hanging it precisely over the radiator to dry, the way he always did and the way he liked it. Aisha waited out of sight, just on the other side of the archway, and steadied her excitement. The next step would carry her and Sarah through into the kitchen, and both of them into his arms. She gave Sarah a little squeeze of anticipation and moved forwards, then stood quietly unseen at the end of the kitchen. Mark was in full view now, but he had his back to her, and was wiping the sink spotlessly clean.
She took another step. He must be very deep in thought not to have sensed her presence. He was probably wondering when she would be home, and if Tony was taking good care of her. He would see her soon out of the corner of his eye, then with a gasp of surprise he would throw the dishcloth in the bowl and rush over to embrace them – ‘Oh, my little love. You’re home! I didn’t hear you come in,’ followed by hugs and kisses, the joy of them all being together, a proper family at last. Then he would open the bottle of champagne, which he’d told her was already in the fridge, and maybe just this once, she would break her abstinence and have a glass. Mark had said it was tradition to wet the baby’s head, for good luck and prosperity.
But he still hadn’t seen her or sensed her presence. He must be really preoccupied, she thought. He was probably thinking about the client who had stopped him from collecting her; she hoped Mark had won the contract for she knew how much it meant to them both financially and for his career. She glanced down at Sarah who lay perfectly content, then up again.
‘Mark,’ she said quietly. ‘Mark, we’re home.’
She waited, in heightened expectation. Aisha waited for Mark to stop cleaning the sink, turn, and come to her. She waited in silent anticipation, her heart bursting with love and pride; she waited for him to turn and see her. Then, with a small sideways step, Mark stopped wiping the sink, but continued across to the Formica work surface beside it. Still cleaning, lots of little wipes, like a parody of her own
cleaning when she was in a hurry and had more important things to do. Clearly he still hadn’t heard her.
‘Mark?’ she said again, louder this time. ‘Mark. Look! We’re home!’
He was only a yard or so in front of her now, but was still turned away, and still rubbing the work surface, making it very clean. She hoped his preoccupation wasn’t due to bad news at work. Then, suddenly, noticing it for the first time, she saw that he was wearing his dressing gown: the navy towelling one that he changed into briefly after his shower in the morning, before he got dressed. Odd, she thought, he never wore his dressing gown during the day. He said it was slovenly and it was important to keep up appearances, even when there was just the two of them. And why, she thought, why was he in his dressing gown if he had come straight from work? Shouldn’t he be in his suit, or if he’d had time to change, his jeans and sweater? That was normally what he wore when he came home from work.
‘Mark?’ she asked, concern in her voice. ‘Is everything all right? We’re home.’
He stopped cleaning, but he still didn’t turn to face her. She watched as he rested his hands on the work surface and then, raising his head, stared out through the window to the garden beyond.
‘We’re home,’ she said again.
‘I can see that,’ he said flatly, still not looking at her.
He must be joking, she thought, teasing her, as he did sometimes. ‘Can’t have you taking me for granted,’ he would say, when he had left out the ‘love and miss you’ which ended each of his telephone calls. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ she would ask. ‘Just teasing,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t want you taking me for granted. Of course I love and miss you.’
Yes, that’s what it was. He was teasing her before he came over and took her in his arms and hugged them both. But she knew what to do; she’d do what she normally did. She’d play him at his own game, which was part of their little ritual and showed their love was strong enough to bear teasing.
‘Well,’ she said, looking down at Sarah to share the joke, ‘if you don’t want your daughter I may as well go and take her back to the hospital.’
He was turning now, as she knew he would. It always worked, playing him at his own game. Mark liked a joke.
He dropped the dishcloth into the sink and looked at her, his shoulders drawn back, his feet slightly apart. She returned his gaze, smiling and proudly holding their daughter, waiting for the moment he would come over and encircle them.
But no. He wasn’t coming towards her, and there was something else. Something she had never seen before and couldn’t place. Something in his eyes, narrow and distant. And something in his voice, when he spoke. What was wrong with his voice? She barely recognized it, and what he was saying was impossible. She couldn’t grasp the meaning and it was well beyond a joke.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You do that! Go! But the baby stays with me.’
He drew himself up to his full height, a big man made even bigger in the confines of the kitchen. He stared at her, a cold, biting stare that pierced her soul and made her uncertainty turn to fear. ‘Go on! Get out!’ he said. ‘Take your bag and go! But leave her. She’s mine. She stays with me.’
He was shouting now. Impossible. Mark never shouted at her. He said everything was open to rational discussion and that they could sit down and talk out their differences sensibly. But they never had any differences, not really; they agreed on almost everything.
‘You scheming bitch!’ he yelled. ‘You thought you’d got the better of me, didn’t you! All that planning. You thought you’d got away with it. Oh, but I’m wiser now. Oh, yes! One step ahead.’
There was a tightness in her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She clasped Sarah tightly to her and her arms jerked involuntarily.
‘Stay where you are!’ Mark yelled, his face contorted and deathly white. ‘I’ll phone your parents. You can go there – if they’ll have you.’
Sarah began to cry. He was coming towards her now, towards the phone mounted on the wall behind her. He came right up to her and passed, brushing her shoulder. Aisha instinctively stepped back.
‘Mark?’ she stammered, her heart pounding and her breath catching in her throat. ‘Mark?’
But he was reaching up, taking the phone from its cradle, ready to key in the numbers and call her parents.
‘Mark! No. Don’t do that,’ she cried. ‘Please don’t. You’ll upset them. Tell me first. Tell me what I’ve done.’
He paused, his hand resting on the phone and looked back at her over his shoulder. ‘Upset?’ he sneered. ‘They’ll be upset all right when I tell them what their precious fucking daughter has been up to.’
She stared in disbelief. The room tilted and swayed. If she didn’t sit down soon, she’d faint with Sarah in her arms. She saw the whites of his knuckles closed around the phone, the grim determination on his face as he began to press the keypad and tap in her parents’ number.
‘No. Please don’t,’ she said again. ‘Please don’t. Mark, what is it?’ Then without thinking, as a reflex action almost, to stop him from telling and upsetting her parents, she took the couple of steps to his side, and placed one hand on his arm.
In that instant as she touched him, time locked and she saw what was about to happen a split second before it did. She saw the phone thrown down and swinging on its cord, as his hand clenched into a fist and came towards her, its target pre-set and inevitable. She heard the sickening thud as his fist hit the side of her head and felt the knot of pain explode in her cheek. She heard the cry that escaped from her lips as she began to fall. Down, down, the ground rising up, and Sarah snatched from her arms a second before she hit the floor. Then nothing.
Chapter Thirteen
Reds, greens and yellows, backed by a moving wall of darkness swam before her eyes. The colours came and went, grouping and reforming until they began to settle into a sickly orange hue. She was on her side with her right leg splayed awkwardly beneath her, and her right arm trapped under her body. She could hear Mark’s voice in conversation, only his, with no reply. Close, but not immediate, not in the same room.
‘Beautiful … Yes … Settling in fine. Yes, I will. Of course.’ It was his best telephone voice, crisp and precise, the one he used when he wanted to impress.
Her eyes were still closed, her cheek was pressed hard against the cold, wet tile. The hardness seemed to amplify the throbbing in her head and the pain in her jaw. Aisha could taste blood, bitter and salty, and then felt it trickle from the corner of her mouth.
‘Yes, feeding very well. Oh yes, most definitely,’ he said. ‘I will.’
For a moment, as she slowly regained consciousness, and her senses began to clear, Aisha wondered why she was lying so uncomfortably on the floor, while Mark was on the telephone in the lounge. Shouldn’t he be in here with her, helping her to her feet if she’d fallen? Then she remembered what had happened and her eyes shot open in terror.
She saw the outline of the lower kitchen cabinets and the legs of the breakfast stools distorted in an orange haze. She blinked. Her heart pounded and she took a deep breath, gulped in the air and tried to focus. In a while, she thought, when the jazzy patterns had quietened and she could do it without being sick, she would try and raise her head, then stand; and that was all she thought for some moments.
‘Yes, thank you. We are.’ Mark gave a little laugh. ‘Absolutely!’
Aisha slowly raised her free hand and brought it up to her face. Uncoordinated and heavy as lead, she drew it across her mouth, then up to her eyes. Slithers of blood-stained saliva ran snake-like across her fingers. She swallowed and then ran her tongue around her mouth and swallowed again. Her bottom lip felt swollen and there was a cut to the inside of her cheek, but thankfully all her teeth still seemed to be in place. She slowly turned onto her back and winced. Placing a hand either side, she pressed down on the floor with her palms and heaved herself onto her elbows, then up into a sitt
ing position. The room tilted and swayed, and she stayed very still, supporting her weight with her hands and trying to quieten her breathing. She mustn’t faint and fall back now, she must concentrate on standing and finding Sarah.
Mark’s voice floated in again, jovial and polite. ‘Yes, I know. Very sweet. It fits perfectly. The pale lemon really suits her. You’re so clever. I will.’
Pale lemon, Aisha thought, it must be her mother he was talking to. Her mother had knitted Sarah a lemon cardigan and Aisha had dressed Sarah in it before leaving the hospital. She reached up to the cooker and, clinging to the edge with both hands, hauled herself up. The nausea rose in her throat and she swallowed.
‘Yes, tired, as you’d expect,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her when she wakes. Yes, of course I will. See you soon. Goodbye.’ She heard the phone in the lounge clunk as it was set down.
Leaning on the cooker, Aisha stood very still and listened. It was quiet now. She ran her fingers over her cheekbone. It was hot and sore, but as she examined her fingers, she saw it wasn’t bleeding. The only blood appeared to be coming from the inside of her lip. With another deep breath, moving hand over hand, Aisha slowly inched her way along the fitted units and to the sink. Taking out the bowl she turned on the cold tap, then spat. A globule of red saliva slithered round the sink before disappearing down the plughole. Aisha cupped her hands, filled them with cold water, then rinsed her mouth and spat again. Splashing cold water on the rest of her face, she turned off the tap and reached for the towel.
Leaning on the sink for support, she patted her face dry and listened. It was still quiet, not a sound. She expected to hear something – his footsteps, Sarah crying for her feed. Her eyes went to the wall clock, it was twenty past four. She must have been unconscious for nearly fifteen minutes, and her mind recoiled. Where was Sarah? She would be waking for her feed soon, she must go and find her. Heaving herself off the sink, Aisha began to make her way slowly across the kitchen and towards the lounge. She went past the wall telephone by the door, which was no longer dangling on its wire but had been returned to its cradle. Her head throbbed, her pulse beat wildly in her chest and the nausea rose in her throat. She concentrated on finding Sarah, to the exclusion of everything else. Moving slowly through the archway and into the lounge, Aisha suddenly stopped. Mark was at the far end of the room, on the sofa beneath the bay window, with Sarah cradled in his arms.
