Fresh Flesh

by Stella Duffy

  Carrie handed the two sheets of paper to Saz. The top one was a form confirming an adoption, just like the other ones Saz had been so pleased to find the night before. The adopted baby was Georgina. Adopted by Leyton to bring up as his own. Neither of the birth parents was listed on her form so Saz assumed Leyton must have arranged for their names to be kept secret. For the first time she almost felt a tiny degree of sympathy for the woman. She really hoped Georgina had known her own circumstances before they’d brought all this up and forced Georgina to rummage through her father’s papers. It wouldn’t be a great way to remember darling Daddy otherwise.

  The second piece of aged paper was Georgina’s birth certificate. It certainly looked like an original. And this one had both mother’s and father’s names on it. Samuel Lees and Sukie Planchet.

  FORTY

  December 1967 was a cold month with winter snow early to London, surprising the girl who’d assumed the south was warm and easy. Sukie Planchet was only just three months arrived from the north. She had come to London to find the swinging city, late-night party land, Peyton Place equivalent. Instead she found a bedsit in Kilburn: one tiny room two floors above an off-licence in which to eat and sleep, meterrun bathroom and tiny kitchen shared between five other bedsits. Three of them were occupied by young couples, the other by an old man who took a three-hour bath once a week and ate a single chicken leg each night. All that and a fantastic view of Kilburn High Road for the princely sum of six pounds a week. On her second day in town she found a clerical job at St Mary’s in Paddington, ten pounds a week to file the juicy details of other people’s internal lives. And another week later she’d found what she thought was love with Samuel Lees.

  Sukie was seventeen, supposedly too young for sex but wanting it anyway. Wanting to drink and party and play and fuck and willing to take whatever was offered. Sukie was in town simply for the experience of being. There was nothing for her at home, she’d left with a ten pound note and headed south because she imagined London was where the real blessings were to be found.

  Samuel Lees was her first blessing. In his late forties, unhappily married for the second time, with a daughter just six years older than Sukie, Samuel was her first and her greatest love. Samuel was the proof that real love really existed. She’d listened to all the songs, read the books, watched Emergency Ward 10 so Sukie knew the point of love was unrequited wanting. Samuel gave it to her in triple doses.

  She could not call him at home, nor could she could call him at work. He lived in Cornwall but came up to St Mary’s two days a week, and was also working in his private practice with infertile couples. It was his ambition to one day allow everyone who wanted a child the possibility to conceive. He was inspired and passionate and cared about little other than his work. Sukie had never met anyone so certain of themselves; he was John Lennon and Bob Dylan rolled into one and, better still, he was an adult. Father figure and first fuck – a lethal combination. In March 1968 Sukie was two weeks’ pregnant. She knew immediately, though her own doctor took another month to confirm it. Samuel’s method of confirmation was equally clinical. As he put his hand inside her, he explained that he had no intention of being trapped by a lie – or by a liar – he would see for himself if she was really pregnant. She was. Sukie had expected anger, but she had also assumed that he would take care of things for her. Refer her to a safe abortionist, make it go away, make it better. Which would have been OK with her. Not great, but all right, bearable. Certainly more bearable than the single motherhood that would have her returned ignominiously to Sunderland, to embarrass her parents and shock the town. Without the pregnancy though, Sukie imagined they could go on as before. She’d just had her eighteenth birthday, this was an aberration, but it would pass.

  Sukie was in love with Samuel Lees, but even in that blindness she knew he would not leave his wife for her. She knew that they would probably continue to have a relationship as long as she did not demand too much – to know when he might call, to ask for commitment to any pre-arranged date, a wedding ring. Sukie may have been young but she was not completely naive; the nature of Samuel’s passion extended as far as her body. She didn’t expect him to be interested in her mind as well. Sukie was in London to develop her mind; Samuel was one of the ways she was doing so. He loved to talk to her and she loved to listen to him. Sukie thought he was the epitome of all things modern and progressive, which was why she was so shocked when he refused to even countenance the idea of her aborting the baby. More shocked still when he smacked her in the face for even suggesting it. Samuel Lees had never referred a woman to an abortionist before and he had no intention of starting now. What he had not done for a stranger, he would certainly not do for his own girlfriend. Did she understand nothing of his work at all? He dealt in the giving of life, not its taking. That was all he cared about, making new life possible, allowing other people’s dreams of family to come true. What’s more, this was his baby, how could she possibly have thought he would sanction her murder of the child?

  Put that way, Sukie agreed. Agreed he was right. Agreed because she also knew that if she didn’t go along with him, she would not only lose the new life she’d planned for herself, she would lose Samuel as well. And Sukie couldn’t bear for that to happen. She carried the child to term, left work when she’d reached six months and the bigger and bigger dresses could no longer hide what was referred to behind her back – and once to her face – as her “shame”. And then she sat out the last three months alone in the bedsit. It was autumn and then winter again. She saw Samuel once a week when he came to pay her rent and give her five pounds for herself and the bottles of milk and great bags of expensive green vegetables he insisted she eat. His baby would not be grown on a glass of stout a day. Samuel Lees was a man well ahead of his time.

  When the baby was due Lees moved Sukie down to a cottage in Cornwall. It was the first time she’d ever stayed in a place that had a telephone in the bedroom. Or in the hall for that matter. She was to call Lees the minute contractions started. He would deliver the baby himself and then take it on to the couple who were going to adopt it. At three in the morning, on a freezing night, Sukie went into labour. Alone. The baby she had not intended to keep came quickly but not easily, and Lees was sweating and crying as much as she was by the end of the delivery. Against his better advice, Sukie did hold the baby, very briefly, kissed the little girl’s dark head of hair and then watched as Lees took her from the room.

  Two hours later he returned to Sukie. The baby had been safely delivered to its new parents, Sukie’s life could go on as before. Except their relationship was finished. He would check her over physically in the next few days and then again in a month’s time, he did not want her to go to a hospital or to her own doctor, he did not want anyone else to know she had even been pregnant. It was over now, the baby was with people who wanted her, and Sukie was not to mention the child to Lees ever again. He would leave her in the cottage, there was plenty of food, warm blankets, a radio. A taxi would come in two days’ time to take her to the train station. He left her ticket and five hundred pounds on the dressing table. He didn’t kiss her goodbye when he left the room. Sukie cried for two days.

  Four months after that Sukie met Gerald Freeman at her new job as a clerical assistant for his London office. Sukie had remade herself. The money had provided a great flat, good clothes and the entry to a much better job – where she might meet a better class of man who would appreciate all that Samuel Lees had taught her. Sukie had become a much wiser little girl. A wise little girl who knew that if there were any advantages to be taken, she intended to be the one taking them. Lees had educated her well.

  Occasionally in her later travels with Gerald Freeman, Sukie met up with Samuel Lees, who was always impeccably polite to her, as she was to him. They behaved as well as any two strangers might when introduced at a party, and if Lees sometimes wished she’d taken his money and returned to Sunderland, he never even hinted as much. Gerald did note though tha
t Richard Leyton’s doctor friend Lees had been a damn sight friendlier before he started taking Sukie out with him. He assumed that while the man had no qualms about selling babies, he obviously didn’t like the idea of extra-marital affairs. Which was odd, but not unusual: Richard himself didn’t approve of Sukie either.

  If Sukie had known where her daughter had been taken, she might have assumed that Richard Leyton despised her out of fear that his child’s identity might be uncovered. But neither she nor Gerald Freeman ever found out the real reason behind the change in Leyton’s behaviour. And Gerald thought it was a bloody shame that they couldn’t keep their censorious noses out of other people’s business – and ordered another bottle of wine for himself and the girl.

  FORTY-ONE

  The nurse who let her in was not doing so because she felt sorry for Saz. It was Sukie who had gained her pity. She’d had no visitors other than the young policewoman who’d been returning twice a day in the hope of getting some information, any information. But the tiny battered woman in the flat bed was not speaking. Rarely anyway. She drifted in and out of consciousness, waking briefly and disorientated, waking to pray and then slip back. They still had her on the danger list and Saz wasn’t officially allowed into the room.

  But as the nurse whispered, “It’s a wonder she’s managed to hang on this long actually, love. And I don’t see why she shouldn’t get a chance to see the one friend.”

  She walked off muttering “bloody bureaucracy” and Saz thought maybe the woman would fancy getting together with Molly for one of her regular “patients not papers” sessions.

  And then she saw Sukie and forgot about Molly. She actually looked worse than the last time Saz had seen her. The bruises across her face, around the wired jaw, had come out in full and she was a mess of deep purple with pale yellow tinges. Iris skin. Saz felt her stomach lurch as she approached the bedside, hushed ICU unit, dimmed lights and quiet, but for the electrical tracking of monitors. She sat beside the bed and waited. Ten minutes, fifteen. The nurse didn’t return and Saz spent the stolen time wondering which part of her investigation could have led to the beaten-up mess she now saw in front of her. There was no clear link, no definite reason for her to feel responsible, but Sukie’s beating had followed far too closely on her visit – an unpleasant coincidence which meant Saz felt far too much potential guilt to have an easy time waiting.

  Then Sukie opened her left eye, the right clearly too swollen to move. Saz waited a moment, unsure if Sukie was waking or merely shifting in her uncomfortable sleep.

  A cracked whisper spilled from the swollen lips, “Miss Martin?”

  Saz leant into the bed, “Yes, it’s me. I wanted … I came to see how you are. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Saz wasn’t quite sure what she was apologizing for, wondered if maybe Sukie knew more than she did. The older woman’s eyelids fluttered and Saz thought she had fallen asleep again, but then Sukie rallied and, with evident pain, opened both ice-blue eyes this time. Saz wondered if Georgina knew how much she looked like her mother. And with the daughter’s features in her mind, Saz decided to open her mouth. She’d been wondering if she should tell Sukie about Georgina or not. Finally veering slightly towards the nurse’s point of view – if Sukie really was that ill, what else could hurt her? And it was the truth after all. Saz thought Sukie probably had a right to know who her daughter was. Saz thought probably, maybe, not definite – hoped she was doing the right thing – and then did it anyway.

  “Sukie? I’ve met your daughter. The child you had with Samuel Lees.”

  Sukie breathed in with pain, spoke with even more, “Georgina?”

  In all Saz’s moral deliberations it hadn’t occurred to her Sukie might already know. “Oh, yes. Georgina. I didn’t realize you knew her. I didn’t think—”

  “I don’t know her,” Sukie sighed, whether from physical or emotional pain, Saz couldn’t be sure, “Richard told her about me when she was eighteen. She came to meet me, but there was nothing. I wasn’t what she was looking for. I’d already found Jesus by then, I wanted to help her to the truth too. She didn’t want to know.”

  Sukie stopped to catch her breath and Saz wondered how likely she would have been to accept a born-again mother at eighteen. It couldn’t have been the easiest of reunions – for mother or daughter.

  Sukie was speaking again, “Then she came to see me again, not long ago, when her father – when Richard – died. I thought she had come back to me.” Saz waited, Sukie flinched, a barely perceptible shake of her head, “But Georgina just wanted … to see me. To see if I’d changed since the first time we met.”

  “And had you?”

  “Not in the way she wanted, I don’t think. It was too late anyway, she couldn’t see me as her mother.”

  “But she knows Doctor Lees?”

  “Samuel always was a very charming man. I loved him dearly, I can understand that she wanted to know him. I am less – less of a catch.”

  “But surely you both had her adopted? She can’t just blame you.”

  Sukie frowned, breathed in a couple of shallow, rasping breaths and replied, “Girls always forgive their fathers long before they pardon their mothers, don’t they? Anyway, it was my sin, and my suffering. Sins of the mothers, you could say.”

  Saz didn’t want to. Particularly as she believed Georgina was in some way responsible for the pain of the woman in front of her. And whoever else Georgina had enlisted to help damage Sukie. Saz didn’t want Sukie to blame herself for the pain she was now in. She wanted to help find the culprit.

  “The police want to know, do you have any idea who did this? They think you let someone into the flat. Do you remember who it was? Who came in and hurt you?”

  “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.”

  “Sukie, it wasn’t Samuel, he’s an old man. It can’t have been him who did this to you.”

  Sukie nodded with difficulty, “No. Of course. I opened the door and it was a man. Not old, not an old man. We talked, he told me about himself.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  Sukie shook her head, “I don’t know. You were asking me about the babies and then – I thought perhaps he was one of them. The children. But maybe I only thought so because you reminded me about them. I don’t know.”

  “What’s his name, Sukie, can you remember the man’s name?”

  But Sukie was rambling now, caught back in the space between letting the stranger into her home and waking in such pain in the hospital. “And then he followed me into the house and there was shouting, and I didn’t understand. And he hit me. I tried, but I couldn’t stop him, he was so angry, shouting so much. And then I thought perhaps it was right, paying my dues.”

  “What?”

  “How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord who judgeth her.”

  “Sukie, nobody deserves to be hurt. You have to try and remember who it was, what did he look like? He can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

  “But he won’t get away with it. He’ll be judged too. In time,” Sukie shuddered, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. Not now. I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

  Saz stood up, “No. I’m sorry. I’ve pushed you too much. I shouldn’t have. I apologize. I should go.”

  Sukie tried to lift her hand to Saz, “Wait. There’s still time for you, you know. You can repent too.”

  “No, really, look I should just go. I should have let you rest, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Listen – Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

  Saz nodded, “Yeah, look, it’s OK, Sukie, I’m sorry I upset you. I’ll come in again, s
oon. And if you do remember – anything at all – you will tell the policewoman, won’t you?”

  Sukie was asleep before Saz had crossed the room.

  Saz left the hospital and headed for Patrick’s home where she was due to meet him and Lillian. She intended to explain about the breakin, confirm what they now knew anyway. She also hoped that Lillian might now be in a calmer state and would perhaps be able to offer some information about Chris. From what Patrick had told her, Lillian had some ghastly stories about the time she’d spent in the institution where she’d given birth, but it had been long enough for her to possibly have come into contact with women who’d had children after her. Chris was three years younger than Patrick. Maybe Lillian would remember his mother.

  She sat on the tube and tried to remember Sukie’s biblical ramblings, wondered if there was any meaning to them. I will come into him and will sup with him, and he with me. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought it was a garbled reference to Patrick. But while she knew he had an appalling temper and was possibly capable of extreme anger, probably even more than she’d already experienced, Saz figured his violence leaned more towards the emotional and verbal than the physical that had resulted in Sukie’s injuries. She was stuck on the memory of Sukie’s whispered rant, disturbed by the preposterous suggestion that Patrick might have had something to do with it. But once she’d started to see meaning in the words, she was unable to dismiss the ludicrous thought from her mind. Until she remembered that Luke also owned an eating and drinking establishment. And then she felt worse than ever.

  FORTY-TWO

  Saz sat at a corner table with Lillian and they both picked at fresh olive bread. Neither of them had much of an appetite. Saz was sparing in the details she gave to Lillian. Patrick could hear the lot once he’d finished with lunch, but the tired woman in front of her was obviously barely coping with the massive changes of the past week or so. She didn’t need to hear about Sukie’s suffering as well. Saz explained a little about Chris and then asked Lillian if she thought she might ever have come across his mother.