Writing in the Sand

by Helen Brandom

  The tide is coming in fast and at last the moon comes from behind the clouds, its broken reflection bouncing across the waves. Toffee runs ahead. Does he know where we’re going? I resist the need to walk faster, partly because I’m taking such care, but partly because my whole body is throbbing and tender. Toffee bounds on and on, only stopping when eventually he gets to the bottom of the steps cut into the sea wall.

  A cat appears, stalking along the wall. Toffee, his bark almost lost in the smash of waves against the breakwater, rushes after it. When it’s gone – into thin air – he sits waiting for me, as if there never was a cat.

  These steps, usually no bother to me at all – even when I take them two at a time – tonight feel like Everest. Before I get to the top, I stop. Suppose someone’s having a night-time walk? Worse still, taking their dog out. I peer up onto the paved seafront. It’s deserted. Clutching the shoebox, I manage the top step. I turn left. Toffee knows where I’m going and runs on, like we’re having the best game in the world. I almost wish he wasn’t with me.

  Kirsty’s house is the first in a row of three. It’s the largest, with an extension on the end nearest me. My legs feel shaky and I sink onto the pavement. Toffee tries to lick my face. I have to calm him down. “Good boy, good boy,” I whisper, and he flattens himself.

  The house is in darkness. I feel heavy, so heavy. I long, overwhelmingly, to go to sleep – hidden from the house by this low hedge.

  I have to keep my eyes from closing. I try to stand up. I’m holding the shoebox in the crook of my left arm – using my right hand to press on the ground for support – when the top of the hedge glows green. Toffee rears up. Forcing him down, I look up and see, on the side-end of the house, a small first-floor window ablaze with light. I stare at it. For how long? I don’t know, but now there’s blackness again. I’ve stopped breathing, and it’s seconds before I dare take a proper breath.

  It’s too much to hope Toffee won’t follow me, so when I walk – unsteadily – to the front door, I don’t try stopping him. For a reason I don’t understand, I encourage him to have a last quick peek at the baby. Which he does, sniffing – then looks up at me. Does he expect me to do the same? I think I should kiss my baby.

  But I don’t. I put him down on the step and ring the bell. For a few seconds my head spins and I have to lean against the door. Recovering – but with my heart bursting in my chest – I turn, grab Toffee, and run down the path. I can’t say how I manage to run, but I do. I run, then collapse behind the hedge. In a rush it comes to me that when the front door opens, Toffee will expect to be invited in. Holding him down, I stretch myself across his back and stroke his head fiercely.

  Staring up at the house, my neck cricks.

  One after another, lights go on. The front door opens and a wide stream of light colours the garden. Mr Kelly looks down the path. Next he looks down at the step. He sees the box, and calls back into the house. “Susie!” He’s bending down, picking it up. Mrs Kelly comes running and they both look towards the road. Mrs Kelly calls, “Hello? Is anyone there?” She’s wearing a short nightie. What is it makes me notice this when I’m hunkering down again, grabbing Toffee and crawling along the pavement?

  I don’t see any more, but, after a moment, I hear someone shut the front door.

  Chapter Eleven

  The tide’s right up now; there’s hardly any beach left. I’ve pulled my trainers off, and the water swishing over my feet is like every cool thing in the world. Cool, cool, cool. I’m tempted to paddle in further, but I know there’s something dark about this thought. Toffee loves the sea, but I fear for him. If he decides to have a swim and gets into difficulties, I’m in no state to go after him.

  My right foot meets a massive hidden pebble. Almost a small boulder. Bruised, my toe starts to hurt, like the rest of me. I stumble, and now I’m sitting in the lapping saltwater. I know I should move, make an attempt to stand up. But the cold sea, seeping into my jeans – making wet balloons between the harsh denim and my sore skin – feels so good. Too good, because it makes me want to stay here with the water washing round my waist. Now up to my breasts. They’re sore, and this soothes them. In front of me, at eye level, the reflection of the moon stretches away in a narrowing ribbon of light, until it meets the real thing high above the horizon. I don’t feel the cold, and somehow I know this is wrong. I think of Mum alone at home. Beside me, Toffee shakes himself, and the spray on my face knocks sense into my stupid head.

  I don’t, after all, want to slip under the water and drown.

  Wondering why I took my trainers off, I push them back on, and though my fingers don’t want to work, I force them to tie knots in the laces.

  I’m nearly home, and weeping. Which must be exhaustion. Also I’m worried Mum might have woken and noticed Toffee gone. I hate the thought of her going downstairs – even if she does read my note and assume everything’s all right.

  Each step up through the dunes seems hardly possible. Even Toffee has slowed down. Reaching the ridge top, I’m afraid to look at our house in case there’s a light on.

  But there isn’t. The whole place is pitch-black, the roof and chimney silhouetted against the sky – lighter now because the clouds have moved away. But even as I sigh with relief, a light goes on. My heart hammers. I wait a few seconds, praying Mum will switch it off again.

  She doesn’t, and I know I have to reach the house and get indoors quickly. We cross the lane, Toffee and me, and somehow I make a rush for the front door.

  I know Mum’s at the top of the stairs, but – like I haven’t spotted her – I softly call out, “Hi?”

  Toffee, his tail circling madly, is up and beside her in three bounds. Mum grabs one of his ears. “Amy…?”

  I struggle with the wet knots in my trainers, give up, wrench them off and start dragging my jeans down. I try not to let her see how heavy they are with seawater. “Sorry if we woke you, Mum. I heard Toffee scratching your door. He needed to go out.”

  “But you’re drenched!” She strokes Toffee’s head. “And this one’s sopping wet.”

  Pulling the top sweater over my head muffles my voice. “There was a sudden downpour,” I say, and hope she won’t look out to see how wet it is.

  “You could at least have put a parka on.”

  I try to laugh. “Mad, aren’t I? But I didn’t know it was going to rain.” Bare-legged, I take a couple of steps to the bottom of the stairs. “Can I get you anything, Mum? Hot chocolate?”

  She starts coming down. “You look as if you’re the one who could do with a hot drink.”

  I start up the stairs. “Mum, go back to bed—” But my knees buckle, and the next minute I’m in a heap at her feet.

  “Amy – sweetheart! What’s wrong?”

  “Mum, I’m so sorry, I—”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about, love,” she says, and I can tell how, for a few seconds, she’s glad to be able to take on the role of a mum looking after her daughter. She puts a hand out. “Come along, let’s get you into bed.”

  “Mum, I’m all right. Honestly. It’s just I’ve got such a pain…” With my voice trailing off, I try to control the shudder going through me.

  “You’ll feel better tomorrow, love, the first day’s always the worst.”

  I cling to the lifeline she’s thrown me and look up. “Sorry, Mum – I know what you mean now.” I rub my belly. “The last time I came on, the cramps weren’t as bad as this.” I take a deep breath, get to my feet. “I’ll put my jeans in the washer.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “There is. I’ll get them out of the way and give Toffee a quick rub down.”

  She starts to hobble back to her room. “Well, all right, but a good night’s sleep is what you need, so get to bed soon.”

  I put my jeans in the washing machine, and weakly rub Toffee down with an old towel. I leave my trainers under the stairs, stuffed with newspaper.

  Toffee follows me upstairs and I let him into Mum’s r
oom. I make sure she’s tucked in. She smiles. “You daft kid,” she says, and I kiss her goodnight.

  In my room at last, I pull the sheet off my bed, roll it into a ball and push it into my cupboard. Then I pull off the under sheet too. It’s lucky that it’s a thick, fleecy one because underneath the mattress is still clean. Too tired to put on a fresh sheet – there’s not a word to describe my tiredness – I pull on a T-shirt and lie under my duvet on the bare bed.

  I’m almost too tired to think about Liam. But I do. Just for a minute before I fall asleep I think of what we did. And how I believed the first time didn’t count.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mum’s looking down at me. “Who’s a sleepyhead, then?” For a second I can’t imagine why, with Toffee beside her, she’s in my room. Slowly, jumbled clumps of memory join up, and last night begins to fit together.

  I struggle to sit up. Pull the duvet across my chest. I can’t let her see anything’s wrong. “Sorry, Mum – I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  “You won’t,” she says, “I’ll make it. You stay where you are.”

  I mustn’t let her. It’ll be such an effort: running water into the kettle, struggling with a carton of milk. Also, I can’t just lie here worrying how I’ll hide what happened last night. And wondering if the baby’s still alive. I keep telling myself he must be. He has to be. Then I remember how tiny he was.

  I say I’ll make the tea. “I’ll bring us up a cup and we can go back to bed for a bit.”

  “Amy, love, you look washed out – and I’m not surprised. You were a silly girl, you know. Why didn’t you just let Toffee into the yard for a few minutes?”

  “I don’t know. He thought he was getting a walk, and I worried that he wouldn’t settle if he didn’t get one.”

  Trying to swing my legs out of bed, every bit of me feels like I’ve run a marathon. “I’m a bit shivery. Perhaps I’ve got this bug doing the rounds – as well as you know what.”

  Mum gives me a wry smile. “No revision sessions for you today. Stay at home. We’ll watch a bit of telly together.”

  This had been such a treat when Lisa and I were little: being full of cold, or once having chickenpox at the same time, and watching TV nearly all day. I know I shouldn’t skip revision – it’s my Maths exam tomorrow. I can’t face anything, though. Not today. Finally I ease myself off the bed. “It’s okay, Mum, I’ll bring us up tea and cereal.”

  “While you’re down there,” she says, “see Toffee into the yard.”

  “Yeah, course.” I stroke his back. “He can do without his walks today.” I’m aware of my voice sounding strained. I stand up straighter. “While I’m downstairs, I’ll get the washer going. Anything you want me to put in?”

  “Amy, I can do that.”

  “I know you can, but you’re not going to.”

  “All right,” she says, “then just my towels from the bathroom.”

  This suits me fine. When Mum’s back in her room, I pull out the bloodstained sheets from my cupboard and bundle them up with the towels. In the kitchen I force everything into the machine with my still-soggy jeans. I measure out the washing powder and turn the dial to sixty. This is hotter than we ever have it, but I’m worried about getting things really clean – I need to get the stains out. If my jeans shrink, too bad.

  After all this effort, I’m more aware how heavy and painful my breasts are. Hard instead of soft. I worry what they might look like, and whether Mum will notice if they’re obviously different. I remember a stripy pashmina Kirsty gave me. It’s wide and very long. I could try flattening my chest by winding it round. I wonder if an ice pack would help. Maybe frozen peas if we’ve got any – though they’d defrost, of course. I settle on the pashmina.

  I put mugs ready on a tray, then go upstairs. I hope the pashmina is where I think it is. And it is – on a shelf at the top of my cupboard. I pull it out. Good, it’s every bit as long as I remembered.

  I start winding it round my breasts, but with each tightening pull it hurts more and I hope I’m not making things worse. I secure it by tucking in an end. I look in the mirror. It shows under my pyjamas. So I pull on a sweater and realize I’m going to absolutely boil.

  I sit on Mum’s creaky old bed for a while, trying not to look as hot as I feel. We have the tea and cereal together, and I help her get dressed. Knowing I’m not feeling too great, she does more for herself than usual. I normally do her hair, but today she won’t let me. Even so, I feel exhausted.

  Back in my room, I slowly heave myself onto my bed. And think.

  Last night seems like a dream, but a vivid one where you remember every detail. It’s not like the dreams where you grasp at strands in case you forget. And you do forget. With those dreams, you stop thinking for a moment, and what you most want to remember slips from your grasp.

  Today, so far, I’ve managed to avoid picturing what must have gone on at the Kellys’ after they shut their door last night. Kirsty’s mum would know exactly what to do. She’ll have unwound the baby from the red cardigan and found it’s a boy. With his cord attached, and so tiny, she’ll know he was newborn.

  For the first time it hits me: they’ll have called the police.

  While I’m picturing a police car racing to the Kellys’, Mum comes into the room. “How’s your tummy?”

  I put my hand somewhere round my middle. It’s not flat like Kirsty’s, but it’s flatter than it was. “It’s okay. Better than yesterday.”

  “Good.” She pauses. “Aren’t you hot in that sweater?”

  “No – I’m kind of comfortable.”

  It’s such a relief when we’re sat downstairs with the telly on. We watch people buy houses at auction; then couples being given a choice of houses they might like to buy. A bit later there are people getting their houses ready to sell.

  I pull a face. “None of this will ever happen to us.”

  “None of what?”

  “Wondering what house to buy.” I think of another programme. “We’ll never even have enough bits and pieces for a car boot sale.”

  She says, “Never say never—” and the phone rings.

  Does it show – that I’m starting to shake? What will they say – the police?

  Amy Preston, can you explain why you abandoned your baby?

  Mum says, “I’ll answer it.”

  “No.” I turn the TV down and, with my heavy breasts hurting under the pashmina, I pick up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi. Are you okay?”

  “Hi, Kirsty. Yeah, just feeling a bit off. Think I’ve got this bug after all.”

  “Poor you… But listen—”

  “I’m worried about Maths tomorrow—”

  “Amy?”

  “What?”

  “Wait till you hear this.”

  I look at Mum and wish she wasn’t in the room. She’s looking expectantly at me. She likes Kirsty a lot.

  “Last night…”

  I hold my breath.

  She says, “Guess what?”

  Last night a girl left a baby on your doorstep.

  “Last night someone left a baby on our doorstep.”

  I say, “Oh my God,” and can feel Mum’s interest behind me.

  “A baby boy. Premature. He’s in hospital. Well, obviously.”

  My heart beats in my throat. “Hospital?”

  “First thing Dad did was ring for an ambulance and the police.”

  “The baby wasn’t ill, was he?”

  “Just small, Mum said. Born too early. She was right – he’s in the Prem Unit.”

  “Prem Unit?”

  “The unit for premature babies. They’re doing everything they can.”

  My tongue feels too large for my mouth. “But he’ll be all right?”

  “That’s what everyone’s hoping.”

  I have to ask her. “Did you see him?”

  “Amy, he is so sweet. They’ve called him Robbie – after the first paramedic on the scene.”

  Robbie. I try gi
ving that tiny little thing a name like Robbie. I suppose any name would be strange at first.

  “How long will he be in hospital?”

  “Quite a while, I should think. After that, Mum’ll have him back here until they try to trace the mother. You know, if she hasn’t already come forward.”

  Somehow I keep my voice steady. “So no one saw anything odd going on?”

  “Not a sausage. And they’re worried about the mother. With the baby born so early, they say it’s likely the mother’s in need of medical attention.”

  My heart thuds. I can’t get ill. I can’t. How would Mum cope? Oh God, I’d have to get hold of Lisa.

  Kirsty says, “Are you still there?”

  “Sorry – I was wondering what sort of medical attention.”

  “I don’t know, Amy. I’m not a doctor.” She pauses. “Anyway, I’d better get back. Sorry to remind you, but it’s Maths revision. I only came home in case there was anything new on the baby.”

  I put the phone down. Mum’s ears are well and truly pricked up. “Come on – put me out of my misery.”

  I look at her. I don’t even blink. “They found a baby on their doorstep.”

  “No! When?”

  “In the night,” I say, and give her the whole story. Well, not all of the story. Just everything Kirsty and her mum and dad know.

  I need to say his name aloud. “They’ve called him Robbie, after one of the paramedics.”

  Mum thinks for a moment. “That’s rather nice. Poor little mite, though.”

  I’ve been feeling pretty grim all day. I’m so tired I’ve gone back to bed. Now I feel even worse, thinking about little Robbie in hospital, with everyone hoping he’ll be all right.

  Just small, Kirsty said. Even me – with my lack of knowledge – thought he was very small. Premature? Well, of course he is. I’m groping around for dates, but I’m falling asleep…

  Awake again, I can see things more clearly. It’s perfectly obvious. I can work it out. It was the time – the only time – Liam and me lost control. I’d remembered someone saying you can’t get pregnant your first time. Or if you do it standing up. It was the time I got so carried away I felt I could fly to the moon.