by Stella Duffy
And so the timed torment carried with it not merely the physical wrench, but also an emotional rip and tear. Lillian would not let the child out, she would not go the long way into labour, they would have to cut her apart to set this child free. She would keep it safe within her own flesh. If it was the only way she could keep her baby, then that is what she would do. But of course she couldn’t. Her body betrayed her to the enforced will of institutionalized desire. Lillian eked out each contraction, numbing herself with the intensity of her desire to hold on, hold in, did not want this ripping away to be painless. Did not want this ripping away to be.
Finally she could hold the birth back no longer and the baby was born in wailing blood. There were only Doctor Lees and one nurse in the room; it was the middle of the night, the others had long ago been sent home. The child did not cry. Lillian cried. Lillian did not know the nurse, a young woman new to the building, drafted in for the late-night shift. Lillian had thought she knew Doctor Lees, but this white coat was a cold version of the gentle man who had held her hand through the last five months and discussed the possibilities. The baby was born and they did not show the child to her, did not slap the slippery infant to make it scream, healthy lungs attesting its presence to the world. There was silence in the white room and a heavy gas mask over Lillian’s mouth.
When she woke in the middle of the night she was sick and bleeding. And no longer pregnant. Her breasts ached with the rest of her flesh. But for no reason. There would not be a reason. At first Lillian thought her recollection must be wrong. Doctor Lees’ words running through her mind must be lies created from her own suffering. But as the early sun pierced the morning rain, Lillian knew his words clear in her head: “Your baby is dead, Lillian. Your baby was born dead. I’m really very sorry. There is no baby. You should sleep now. Go to sleep. Rest.” And as she breathed, gasping full through the ether, she also heard his quiet mumble to the nurse, “It’s probably for the best, in the end.”
When Lillian awoke the next morning she did not at first believe the dream her body told her. This could not have happened. The long waiting, the final thirty-six hours of heavy labour, and all of it for nothing. Pain and waiting with no result. Simply to be given another end, return to dark.
Lillian never saw the dead baby, did not hold her child. They had not offered to let her. She was drugged and beyond understanding anyway. The corpse foetus was taken away and dealt with and kept far out of sight, incinerated along with all the other waste matter from a day’s work in blood and guts. There was no funeral, there was no goodbye, no need for a tiny white coffin. There was nothing. It was not a real child, so why should Lillian grieve at all? Time and silence would heal the loss. Lillian would get over it. No one need ever know. It had not been a wanted child in the first place. That was the reason she’d come here, after all. God moved in the most mysterious of ways and who knew when Lillian would be ready to care for a baby? If ever. It wouldn’t be fair on the poor little mite. Now she had to concentrate on forgetting all about it and try to get herself well again. That was a far better aim. She should trust them, they knew about this, Doctor Lees understood. Lillian was not a bad girl and, if she tried hard, she could be a good girl. Then Lillian could be in the world again and this nastiness would be over. All the pain would be far away in the past. She really should let it go.
Except Lillian couldn’t let it go. Because she knew it was her fault. She had killed the baby with her own wanting to keep it. Strangled the child with her desire to hold it in. Rather than let them take the baby away, Lillian had made the child die. Only yesterday it had been turning and kicking, she’d felt it vibrant and ready inside. And Lillian had ruined everything. They were wrong. She was a very bad girl indeed.
It was another two years before Lillian climbed out of the darkness of her imagined wickedness and was ready to leave the place of crying. Though she never left the place of guilt.
THIRTY-ONE
They could have just looked at each other’s eyes. Same pale green, same rounded shape, same face of dark-ringed tiredness. They could have just gone with gut feeling and blood certainty and the complete fucking weirdness of the whole thing. They could have relied on the fact that as well as feeling drawn to each other, there was also a terrifying distance, almost revulsion. An uncertainty which was clearly not the circumspect dance of polite strangers.
They could have agreed this looked more than likely, though the old story told otherwise, though a residual hope of trust in the system told otherwise. And then they might have taken things very slowly, eased themselves into the possible, gently found a way to be that was interim and waiting and careful. But Patrick wanted to run out into the street slaughtering officialdom. Conduct his own personal massacre of the white coats and the social workers who made decisions on behalf of the irredeemably decision-free. They could have believed what they both seemed to just know anyway. But that simple assumption wasn’t enough for Patrick. He wanted proof too.
It was fortunate, therefore, that he also had money. The pause until morning was too long, but it was waited out all the same. Coffee and no-sleep and grated cheese melted onto thick white bread, which only Saz could eat, and then half-started conversations that were left hanging in the air because until they knew the truth there was no point in answering questions properly, giving whole details. Why would Lillian want to know about a fourteen-year-old boy’s school year? What need did Patrick have to learn that her father had been a tobacconist who’d died when she was twelve? Who cared when Lillian’s birthday fell? She already knew Patrick’s birth date. The conversations were waiting until daylight and the analysis, not of past experience, but of present actuality. Of flesh and blood.
Saz, though, had plenty of questions she was dying to ask. About Lees, about Richard Leyton. She wanted to know about the institution Lillian had been in, to ask about the other women there. To enquire if there might possibly have been a woman expecting a mixed-race baby, back then when the child would have been half-caste, delivered with even less welcome than the other babies. But it was too soon and Lillian was too shell-shocked and Patrick too angry. Furthering Chris’s search would have to wait until the midnight revelation began to feel a little closer to normal.
The search for a private clinic willing to do the blood and DNA tests at such short notice had them jamming the phone lines of the whole far west. It was Saturday morning. Most private clinics were open for privileged patients only. Or urgent ingrown toenails – a snip at three hundred pounds a time. Patrick made several calls to friends in London, then still more to friends of friends all over the country. Saz asked Molly to speak to a couple of trustworthy doctor friends. And when that proved useless, she demanded her girlfriend contact a couple of other less trustworthy ones who might be of more use. Molly thought it wasn’t wise. Counselled more speed, less haste. And then less speed and more care. Explained the impossibility, the lunacy of demanding such important proof at short notice. Molly told Saz she was asking the impossible. Saz handed the telephone to Patrick who pointed out that Molly’s impossible and his own were quite different – his had cash to throw at it. Anything could be bought for the right amount of money. Babies could be bought for the right amount of money. He got no further argument. Lillian made twelve full English breakfasts and eventually remembered to drink a cup of tea herself. She added three sugars. And threw it out after the first mouthful.
At eleven-thirty, after maybe twenty phone calls, Patrick’s rising disgust with the corrupt health system was finally confirmed. They were to drive to Plymouth. Hair, saliva and blood samples would be taken. They could, of course, go to further extremes later if these did not prove conclusive. But it was unlikely that would be the case as blood and saliva were most authorities’ ready reckoners of reliable parentage. A technician would take the samples to have them immediately analysed by her friend who worked in police forensics. It was by far the fastest way they could hope to get an answer. It would involve a bit of subterfuge
, some lying and possibly even minor theft – and the whole thing would cost just two hundred pounds less than Molly’s first IVF treatment. Patrick and Lillian would have their answer by the end of the day. Or tomorrow morning at the very latest. Definite. Promised.
Lillian left each of her guests a hand-written message in their rooms and Saz reluctantly agreed to stay in the B&B just in case Mrs Dawkins came back from the beach with a migraine and needed someone to keep the others quiet. She waved goodbye from the front door, one hand waving, the other with fingers crossed for good luck. Lillian’s wide frame uncomfortable in the new car, even with its easy seats and soft welcome – perhaps because of it. Patrick kept his eyes glued forward and his hands white-knuckled to the wheel, not sure whether to hope this was reality or a mistake. Not sure it was possible all this could have happened in such a short time.
Saz closed the door after them and surprised herself with a release of tensed, held breath. Tight shoulders fell to almost ear level and she sank to the hall floor. Though she had initially wanted to go with them to help dilute their tension in some way, another body-buffer hoping somehow to make it easier, part of her was also relieved to be forced to wait. Their journey wasn’t likely to be your average Saturday afternoon picnic in the teashop of English tourism. She hoped Lillian was used to speeding drivers – silent and furious.
Five minutes later Saz shook herself from a sleepy stupor and went into the kitchen. Twelve full English breakfasts left a hell of a lot of dishes behind them. And even a cold bacon and sausage sandwich, liberally spread with mustard and brown sauce, did nothing to raise her flagging energy levels. But the thick slicing of the crumbling fresh white bread and the art of getting a wide bite into her mouth without spilling grease all down her clothes did take her mind off Lillian and Patrick for a whole three minutes.
Saz sat by the phone for most of the evening. Molly called twice to see if there was any news. Saz called the hospital to check on Sukie and was told there was no change, she was still very ill. Neither Patrick nor Lillian called. Saz waited by the phone anyway, the thin diet of summer Saturday evening television for company – though even a fourth screening of a youthful Schwarzenegger in Terminator was preferable to the fretful complaints of Mrs Dawkins. Linda Hamilton was a damn sight better looking for a start. Saz greeted the migraine-free moaner when she knocked at Lillian’s door in search of clarification. Yes, Lillian would be back by the morning. No, there was nothing to worry about, just a minor family matter. Yes, of course Lillian would be able to prepare breakfast for the Dawkins family. And naturally, though Mrs Dawkins understood Lillian had endured a personal crisis of her own – no, Saz was sure she couldn’t go into details – Lillian would, of course, put the needs of her guests first. They were paying after all. Saz ushered Mrs Dawkins from Lillian’s part of the house, shutting her up and sending her off to her room as quickly as possible. One more irritable complaint veiled in mock-concern and Saz would have felt obliged to take Mrs Dawkins’ migraine-prone, penny-pinching face and slap it. Really fucking hard, in a manner she was sure Lillian didn’t usually use, even on her more irritating guests.
At midnight Saz finally gave up waiting and decided she might as well try to sleep. Certainly her body’s need for rest looked set to overcome her racing brain’s interest in answers – her usually racing brain which had slowed now to a stumbling jog as the past week’s combination of tension and lack of sleep dumped themselves on her in a red and yellow room at the bottom of a house of sleeping tenants. She laid herself out on Lillian’s couch, the alarm set beside her for six-thirty. Even if Patrick and Lillian made it back in the middle of the night, whatever the result Lillian might not be in a fit state to play the perfect seaside landlady. It was more than likely that eight in the morning would see Saz as the provider of twelve full English breakfasts, five of which were for the Dawkins family. She really needed the rest.
THIRTY-TWO
Lillian had planned the funeral so many times. The funeral she had not even thought to ask for. Not even the good girls had funerals for stillborns; they were foetuses whisked away before you’d even noticed. For your own good. Un-mothers, helped back to bed for a few days’ rest and then bundled into a warm coat and sent home to get on with it. Get on with life. And hopefully a kind neighbour would have moved the pretty little baby clothes lovingly collected over the last nine months, closed the door on the pastel-painted room, tidied the cold flat. And in the tidying left it colder still. Not that Lillian had anything like that kind of attention.
She did not think she was unusual. She waited in the hospital, floating on waves of medication and neglect, well beyond the reach of talking or analysis. Getting by on largactyl and ECT and time. It was a very long time before Lillian knew, from the TV documentaries and the newspaper supplements and the radio programmes, that she had been neither bad nor mad. Just one of those girls. Lillian had gone into care when she was twelve, mother unable to cope after her father had died. Taken first to a brief run of foster homes and then, as her demands became greater in wanting a real family, there had to be a new plan for Lillian. As she grew older and began to ask for what she wanted, started to demand what she perceived to be her rights, they had no alternative but to place her in the first of many institutions. They could not give her what she wanted, so they would give her what they wanted instead.
Lillian then understood that quiet and good weren’t getting her anywhere, so she might as well go for loud and bad. Finally a small affection was eventually shown by a visiting teacher, one she found she could talk to. Small affection returned by the easy gift of her body. At least he talked to her as if she was intelligent enough to converse, listened when she talked back, actually appeared interested – maybe he even was interested. But then his interest was noticed and he was moved on and Lillian stayed silent to protect him from the growing child. They did not like Lillian’s silence. If she wouldn’t tell them who had done this to her, how could they help her? From Lillian’s point of view, nothing had been done to her. For the first time in a long while she didn’t feel like a victim, she felt like he’d helped, been her friend. So she kept her silence and her refusal to speak was deemed yet another demonstration of her wickedness. From wickedness, and in silence, it was an easy metamorphosis from bad to mad.
Another institution, another language to learn. But first there was the baby to be born. Plans to be made, her aunt to care for the child. Lillian’s heartbreak was mad, her pregnancy was bad and there was a free bed in the dark hospital and Doctor Lees was ever so understanding. Lillian didn’t know why they thought she was unwell – it was simply words she wouldn’t use – but she understood they must know better, they had mapped the labyrinthine corridors, they wore the white coats, they knew how to walk outside. Lillian was no longer interested in going outside, the heat was building up out there, she stayed in the cool of the high walls, signed the papers they offered her and waited. Growing quiet, quiet growing.
Lillian was not the kind to cry loudly – she remembered what crying loudly had done to her. She did not talk it over with friends or family because by the time she was ready to leave there were none. But for years Lillian had imagined the lilies and the incense and the tiny white coffin. Planned out each little detail. Made the ending real until eventual acceptance came with exposition and Lillian began to put the baby away. To clear the memory of the nothing, the no-memory she had been left with.
And now it was nearly forty years later and Lillian did not need to plan the funeral any more. The dream had come true and it looked nothing like she had hoped. There was no funeral. It was far from making sense and yet it was also perfectly understandable. Far more understandable than when they had tried to get the loss of the baby into her cold and closed mind. The grown child sat beside her, talking twenty to the dozen, spewing out a torrent of abuse against the people who had allowed this to happen to both of them, interrupting himself to ask another question about Lillian, about her family, about how she had
even found herself in that cold building in the first place and then on again, another furious rage against the iniquity, the wickedness that had allowed this to occur. She sat beside Patrick growing quieter. Growing more Lillian. Part of her had always held onto the myth of reunion. The possibility of this might-be baby, come back to hold her and love her and to be mothered. And now here he was. Both ludicrous and perfectly normal. Lillian wasn’t crazy. Her sense that the child couldn’t be gone, her never-spoken conviction that they must have made a mistake, was confirmed. The baby didn’t die. Lillian wasn’t mad.
And it wasn’t that all the pain didn’t matter, and it wasn’t that their lying hadn’t been corrupt and wicked. But Lillian had been right. She sat listening to Patrick’s fury and even while acknowledging the bitterness, the soft warmth of relief blanketed out much of the pain. Perhaps it would come later, when there had been time to adjust. But for now, she had her child and her sanity. Which was rather more than she’d ever expected.
Lillian sat silently shaking beside her son who drove slowly and carefully through the night, Patrick glad of the new car with its comfortable seat for his crying mother, very glad of the new car with its automatic gears that left him one hand free to hold hers as he drove. And really fucking angry.
