by Laura Elliot
‘We’ll find out, don’t worry.’ Amanda whipped the bedclothes from the bed. ‘But you must remain calm. Sometimes mothers fall asleep when they’re feeding…’
Now, a new terror had to be considered. The fist clenching Carla’s heart squeezed tighter but this thought barely had time to register before the bed was stripped. Nothing there, only the warm imprint of her body. Amanda checked the chart hanging from the bed rail then lifted the phone and asked for the matron. Despite her calm manner, Carla suspected a coded emergency message was being relayed. As the nurse spoke, her experienced glance constantly roved around the room, checking out places where a crazy mother, burdened with baby blues, could have hidden her child. The wardrobe, a drawer in the bedside locker, under the cushions on the armchair.
Carla leapt to her feet and pulled the cushions to the floor, rushed to the wardrobe and opened her suitcase, spilled her clothes across the bed. ‘She’s not here…can’t you see…she’s not here…’
Amanda tried to prevent her opening the drawer of her bedside locker but Carla pushed her aside. The matron entered as they struggled. Carla had met her shortly after Isobel was born. Small and sturdy with plump chins and authoritative eyes, she had been smiling then, as everybody had been, and Robert was holding Isobel in his arms, a dazed grin on his face.
‘Mrs Gardner, tell me exactly what has happened here.’ Her tone was formal, first-name terms abandoned.
‘One of your nurses took my child from her cot without asking my permission. How dare she…? I have to phone my husband.’
‘But first, you need to answer my questions.’ The matron’s voice was firm. Isobel’s disappearance was no longer a misunderstanding. It had, according to Matron, become a serious breach of procedure. ‘It’s in all our interests to find Baby Isobel as swiftly as possible so please co-operate with us, Mrs Gardner.’
The hospital was sealed off and the entire premises would be thoroughly searched. Amanda draped a bed jacket over Carla’s nightdress to cover the milk stains. The police were on their way. Carla had not believed her terror could reach a higher pitch but it clawed more sharply against her chest with every word the matron uttered. Amanda stayed with her until the police arrived. Their bulky shoulders filled the doorway. Uniforms, notebooks, too many people in the ward. They sucked up all the air. She could not breathe if she did not have air but no one was listening. A policewoman sat beside her and probed her with gentle but repetitive questions. How long had she been sleeping? Could she give the exact time she closed her eyes? Did she awaken at any point, disturbed by a sound, alerted by another presence in the room? The most important clues could be hidden in the most basic information. She was an older woman and her motherly tone never wavered when she told Carla to call her by her first name.
‘Orla…’ The name seemed to slide from the side of Carla’s mouth. She tried to speak again but everything was shifting, the floor and walls, her words meaningless as she pitched forward into blackness.
She was lying on the bed, Robert’s face above her when she recovered. Isobel was somewhere in the hospital, he assured her. She wanted to believe him. He was trained in the art of detection but she saw the truth in his eyes, their bleak fear mirroring her own. The search had now been extended beyond the clinic where all the other babies, tiny labels on their arms, were present and correct.
Carla returned to the armchair by the window and gazed down on the police as they combed the grounds of the clinic. The administration offices, kitchens, bathrooms, each small private ward and the half-finished buildings outside the clinic were being thoroughly checked. The entire staff were being questioned, along with the builders, and all those who visited the clinic during the day.
Her daughter, tiny and helpless, was lost in the rain. Carla moaned and covered her eyes. Amanda and Orla remained with her, each offering reassurances in their own way. There was, Orla insisted, an established pattern to such behaviour. The woman who took Isobel had always longed for children, had, probably, recently lost a child. She would protect Isobel, keep her warm and safe. Orla spoke as if she had a direct line to this unknown woman, whom Carla could only imagine as a monstrous, faceless creature. Amanda displayed the same impassive confidence as she helped Carla pump milk from her aching breasts. It would be kept fresh in the fridge until Isobel was returned to them.
Robert, ashen-faced, rain dripping from his hair and eyelashes, kept entering the ward and holding her, then leaving again, as if he could not cope with her fears. She sensed his desperation to be at the heart of the official search, but he was not allowed to participate. Official procedure, Orla told her. He was emotionally involved.
Raine and Gillian arrived, followed by Carla’s parents. Staring at the empty cot, they strove for words of comfort. Janet’s hands fluttered. Helpless tears rolled down her cheeks. Happiness, she believed, was contained in nothing more substantial than a fragile bubble, and now her greatest fear had been realised. Unable to endure her distress, Carla begged her father to bring her home. Gillian left with them, her pallor more pronounced than usual.
The day darkened. Spotlights illuminated the courtyard and the raindrops swirled like fireflies before splashing on the cobblestones. Raine sat on the arm of Carla’s armchair and held her hand tightly as the new fathers, arriving with flowers and fluffy toys, were directed to another entrance. The car park remained empty. Figures moved over the grounds still. Flashlights lit the shrubbery. Police cars entered and left between the black, wrought-iron gates.
A television van was driven up the avenue. The phone rang shortly afterwards.
‘No comment.’ Orla replaced the receiver with a clang. ‘I’m sorry, Carla. The media have got wind of the story. Don’t worry. We’ll deal with them.’
‘If I talk to them now, it’ll be on tonight’s news.’ For the first time since she awoke and saw the empty cot, Carla’s mind focused. She understood optics, publicity, the projection of an image. ‘I want to appeal directly to this woman.’
‘Leave the media to us,’ advised Orla. ‘We have procedures in place for dealing with such incidents.’
‘Incidents!’ Carla bent forward and clutched at her stomach. Her flesh felt flabby, empty. ‘How dare you call my baby’s kidnapping an incident!’
She brushed aside the policewoman’s attempts to apologise but Robert agreed with Orla. It was too early for interviews. The media already had Isobel’s photograph. If she was not found soon – he winced and closed his eyes – then a press conference would be organised. Suddenly, the strength left his legs. He collapsed on the bed and lay back, his hands over his eyes. Carla lay beside him. He gathered her close and she, hearing his laboured breathing, his desperate attempts at self-control, became the comforter. She repeated Orla’s assurances, soothing him with false words until he felt strong enough to rise again.
It seemed impossible to imagine time moving, yet the hands on the clock turned past midnight and another round of waiting began. Sleep, Amanda assured her, was necessary if she was to cope. When Carla did manage to close her eyes, it was a drug-induced slumber and she sank into a dreamless void until it was time to awaken again into the nightmare.
Chapter Seven
Susanne
Three days later
Go to her, they whispered when I saw her in the papers. Isobel Gardner – a baby with no distinguishing features to set her apart from other newborns who slide into the world a fortnight before their time. I resisted at first. I deadened my ears to the whispering and went to bed instead, pulled the pillows over my face.
The pain awakened me in the small hours. Clockwork precision each month, the bleed so heavy that I’m always nervous going anywhere for the first two days. It was still dark outside. Another hour before dawn lifted over the Burren. The pain was intense, thin and razor-sharp, slicing through my coccyx, through the sacrum, reaching a pitch where I believed I could no longer endure without screaming. Then it eased, ebbed, and I rested in the shallows until it began again.
I knew
then that I must leave before the light broke. Before Phyllis Lyons arose to lift her mother upright and plump the pillows behind her head. Before Mitch Moran opened his garage and Stella Nolan switched on her bakery oven. I checked the nursery. All was in order. I prepared your first feed and placed the formula back in the kitchen press. I filled a flask and removed your bottle from the sterilising unit. The pain built again and with it came the bleeding. I had a four-hour journey ahead of me. Eight hours on the road. Heavy rain was expected to fall.
When I reached the Valley View Maternity Clinic, I parked in the most secluded area of the car park. An embankment of pampas grass sheltered me. A wall of cotoneaster caught against my coat as I stepped from my car. I pulled free and the berries fell like drops of blood on the ground.
I gazed through the glass doors into a spacious foyer. The clinic used to be a Georgian family home and the building still smacks of carriages and candelabras. A fire was blazing in the reception area, turf and logs piled in the cavernous fireplace. Armchairs had been placed around it and magazines were stacked neatly on small tables. But no expectant fathers waited in the wings today. The only person I saw was the receptionist, her head bent over her desk. I moved out of sight before she noticed me and walked back down the steps.
At the back of the clinic, signposts directed me to different wards, outpatients’ department, the laboratory and the private rooms of gynaecologists. At the outpatients’ department, building work was underway. A notice apologised for any inconvenience. The workmen paid no attention to me. I paused outside automatic glass doors. This was the instant when sanity demanded to be heard. Once inside, I was stepping into a zone where rules no longer applied. But it was too late…far too late for second thoughts.
The glass doors opened and closed behind me. The noise fell away. Such a calm atmosphere, an empty waiting room, a notice advising me to knock at Reception then take a seat. Through the opaque glass of Reception I saw someone moving across the office. The top half of another person was visible at a desk. I walked past, expecting at any moment to hear the authoritative command that would pull me back from the brink. It never came.
My hands began to sweat. My knees trembled so badly I had to stop and lean against the wall. I forced myself to move on until I reached a long corridor with doors on either side. The smell of food lingered, not heavy and fishy (a smell I have always associated with hospitals) but herby and fragrant. The smell of health and vitality, the aroma of coffee, bread freshly baking, a hint of garlic. I reached a staircase; the banisters formed an elegant swerve. My shoes sank into soft, thick pile. At the top of the stairs, two arrows pointed in opposite directions, leading to rooms 18 to 25 or 26 to 33. On the way to the clinic I’d stopped at a public phone. The receptionist had told me that a bouquet for Mrs Gardner could be sent to Room 27.
I turned left and walked along the corridor until I reached her room. The pain had moved from the base of my spine to my stomach, the cramps doubling me over. I stumbled towards a bathroom. I had tablets for pain control in my handbag. They usually offered some relief but pain was necessary for rebirth. It was important not to interfere with my natural cycle.
Inside a cubicle, I sat on the toilet seat and adjusted my clothes. The harness holding the cushion had loosened. I fumbled, my hands shaking so much they became entangled in the bindings. The door to the ladies’ opened and a woman entered the cubicle next door. I remained motionless until she had washed her hands and left. Then I tied the strings securely over my hips and emerged. The white tiled walls cast a hard reflection on my face. My eyes were red-rimmed, shadowed, filled with anticipation.
I splashed water over my face until my skin was raw and flushed. No more…no more…the whisperers drove me forward. I could have stopped at that point. I wanted someone to enter and order me from the premises. A hard-faced matron or an enquiring nurse who would accept my excuse about being lost in this labyrinth of corridors. Then I heard you for the first time. You, my daughter, your voice calling out to me. I pushed the door open, hoping I would find Carla Kelly awake, protective and alert. But she was sleeping, one arm resting on the counterpane.
You made no sound when I lifted you. Light as thistledown, you moulded yourself against my breasts. Swiftly, swiftly, we moved as one, mother, daughter, into the ladies’, into the canvas holdall, into the future. Hush little baby, don’t say a word…walking fast down the stairs with its muffled carpet, past Reception where figures moved behind yellow glass, past the builders who did not stare or wolfwhistle at a pregnant woman, to the car park where I held my bag away from the spiky cotoneaster, safe inside the car, driving away, my stomach cramps beginning to subside, and deep in the depths of the canvas holdall, you moved, jutted an elbow, kicked a foot, struggled to be free from the dark confines. Then you settled back to sleep again.
Rain wrapped the city in a grey shroud as I drove through the traffic and out into the countryside, my foot hard on the accelerator, heading for home.
When you cried I pulled into a lane. The rain dripped like tears from black branches and a cow poked a damp, inquisitive face over a gate. I opened a flask and filled a bottle with your first feed. My hand trembled so much the formula spilled over my trousers. You whimpered, struggled to adjust your mouth around the teat. Your cheeks worked, your lips puckered, your eyes screwed up in outrage. You threw up your feed. The smell was faint but sour. I had to drive on, terrified a farmer would round the bend in a tractor. I wanted to turn back. Leave you where I had found you. But she would be awake by now and already screaming. So I kept driving. Your wailing terrified me – so strident and demanding from such tiny lungs. When I pulled into another lane and fed you again, you sucked reluctantly on the teat and eventually fell asleep.
I drove fast until I came to towns where the rain forced the traffic into a slow, sullen crawl. After Limerick City it wasn’t so difficult. I kept expecting to hear the wail of a siren but only the swish of the windscreen wipers disturbed my concentration. When I reached Gort, I noticed the fields were already under water, the same in Kinvara. Water ran from the hills and gathered in the ditches, spilled across the road, splashed dangerously under my wheels. The rocks of the Burren came into view. I drove through Maoltrán and past the craft centre. Lights were on in the windows. Miriam was in London, exhibiting at a craft fair. She’d warned me, before she left, to drive to the hospital if I experienced even the slightest twinge.
The windscreen kept hazing over and the rain was so heavy it flowed under the swishing wipers. I drove past the Lyons’ house and, suddenly, I was facing the wet rump of a cow. Cattle fanned across the road and Phyllis, walking behind in a bright yellow sou’wester, looked over her shoulder and moved close to the hedgerow. I skidded, the car waltzing on the scum of dead leaves, but I managed to control the wheel and glide gently into the grassy embankment. The front bumper took the shock, but the holdall slid from the seat. I grabbed it as it was about to topple over and held it steady. Phyllis peered through the window, tapped on the glass. I saw her lips moving and when I lowered the window she stuck her head into the car. Rain dripped from her sou’wester cap, sliding down her nose.
I expected you to cry. Wanted you in a crazy way to do so and end the madness. But you stayed silent, undisturbed by the swerves and jolts.
Phyllis demanded to know if I was okay.
‘I’m rushing,’ I told her. ‘Dying for a pee.’
She kept her hand on the window to prevent me sliding it up again. The road was flooding fast, she said, and she was taking her cattle to the high field. ‘Watch how you go,’ she shouted when I pressed my foot to the accelerator. ‘Take care of the dips. You know how quickly they flood.’
She swiped at the cows with a switch and guided them into a straight line. I squeezed the car past their swaying bellies. The stream running through Dowling’s Meadow had burst its banks. Part of the meadow was already flooded, the water rushing through the hedgerows and seeping across the road. I turned into the lane and drove
towards Rockrose, grateful for the steep incline that always protected us in times of heavy rain.
The sun peered between two heaving clouds and danced briefly in the sky. The drystone walls glistened as the weight of water swelled the turloughs, those mysterious underground lakes that appear so suddenly and flood the grassy swathes of the Burren. When I lifted you from the car and carried you up the garden path, it seemed as if we’d stepped into a world of glass.
I am a methodical woman and had planned each detail of your arrival. I planned as carefully as a bomber about to take flight, a strategy for survival in hand though he knows he could be blown asunder at any instant. But I cannot claim credit for the weather. I had cloud cover on the night you came to me but the rain that teemed from those clouds led me deeper into my deception.
Three days have passed since then. The flooded fields have swamped the roads and warnings on the radio advise people to stay indoors and only drive if it’s absolutely necessary. Two drivers, brave or reckless enough to drive along Maoltrán Road, stalled close to the lane and Phyllis had to pull them free with her tractor. We may be cut off by floods but her role in your birth has already spread the length and breadth of Maoltrán. She is the local heroine. I would have been lost that night without her assistance. I’ve spoken on the phone to Dr Williamson and to Jean, the district nurse. No need to worry, I told them. I have food in the house and you, my daughter, my miracle child, are in perfect health. When the roads are passable, I’ll bring you to St Anne’s Clinic for your postnatal checkup. They didn’t argue. There’s been an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea in the area. Not surprising with all that contaminated water.
They told me I was amazingly brave to give birth in such appalling conditions. ‘What was brave about it?’ I said. Women give birth in war and famine, under trees and in their branches, in igloos, sheds and caves. I brought you into the world under a dry roof and thanked God for a safe deliverance. We lay together between the sheets, nothing stirring except our breath. The whisperers were silent then and have remained so ever since.
