The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  . . . my baby.”

  Alex listened to his wife in disbelief and went to take a step up the ladder to see for himself but Suzanne didn’t have the time. She wanted it out of there as quick as possible would allow.

  “You need to drain some of the tank, it’s right up to its mouth. Come on, Alex, you’ve already seen it,” Suzanne said impatiently and pushed him back. “Hurry, Alex, then run up to the house and bring down the box of food storage bags, the large ones. They’re in the press next to the fridge. And a warm blanket, don’t forget the blanket,” Suzanne couldn’t go—no way—she had to stay by its side, make sure it was safe. Besides, it would probably get distressed if she left, she thought.

  Alex went around the far side of the tank and opened the valve. He waited until the tank began to leak and then came back to Suzanne.

  “Food storage bags?” Alex sounded rightly confused.

  “The zip lock bags, to keep it warm while we get it back to the house. Hurry, go, go, go,” she said, ushering him away with her hand. “And a blanket, don’t forget the blanket.”

  Alex tracked back to the cottage like a good bellhop.

  “And turn the heat on full,” Suzanne called after him.

  The whiteout lasted nothing more than a split second, the precise moment when Alex cut away the section of tank that exposed the new-born to the world. Alex couldn’t see it, but it was there, it existed, the spectral aura of a mother and grandmother materialised and overlapped the new-born like a protective second skin. The gift passed on.

  35:

  “Feeding time.”

  Suzanne cut the zip lock off the bag and ripped down each side. She cut a V in the fold to fit over the baby’s head when it came out of the tank. Alex held the stepladder for her while she reached in and retrieved her new-born. For some reason she wanted to do this all by herself.

  Alex still didn’t know for sure what was in there and only had her word to go on that it was indeed a baby. He was nervous, to say the least.

  “It’s a girl,” Suzanne said with jittery excitement.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes when she presented it in front of him, bathed in glutinous brownish dark red that glopped and oozed off its tiny frame. He only saw it for seconds before she had it covered with the bag and the blanket. It was a baby all right, an honest-to-goodness real-life child. Now it was their honest-to-goodness real-life child.

  “She looks like Natural Carnelian,” Suzanne said as they made their way back to the cottage.

  Alex wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or the baby and before he could ask what Carnelian was she continued.

  “It’s one of the oldest known gemstones with its brownish red colour, the result of trace amounts of iron.” She knew this because it was the Zodiac birthstone for the sign of Virgo, her mother’s sign. “Sometimes the name Sard is used to refer to the dark colour and that’s how we found you, protected in the colours of Carnelian—a pure gem is what you are.”

  Suzanne turned her head to Alex. She had already forgiven him. “How about we call her Sard, Sard Dirkan? A perfect name for a precious gem. I think Mum would have been pleased with that.”

  Alex was finding it difficult to come to terms with what was going on. None of it seemed real but Suzanne was so happy, acting as if they had just arrived home from the hospital. The name played in his head. “It sounds okay. But she’ll probably end up with the nickname Sardine.” (Or “Kipper,” if the kid doing the nicknaming was anything like him. Then smell would creep into the equation, too, and the kids would call her smelly fanny.) “How’s about Sardis?”

  “Sardis Dirkan, yeah, I like it, that fits. Carnelian is known in Greek as the Sardios stone, from Sardis. The name sounds exotic, too, don’t you think? Like a faraway place.”

  “I like it. It’s nice,” Alex agreed. He knew she would still probably end up with the nickname “Kipper.” But there were worse things than being called Smelly Fanny at school, weren’t there?

  Sardis looked like a full term baby weighing in at 9 lbs., 2 oz. and a 22-inch length, a healthy baby by all accounts. Suzanne had been worried that she might not have enough body fat to stay warm, hence the food bags, which acted in the same way as an incubator, keeping her warm in the surrounding moisture of the gloop until she got her back to the cottage. No sooner were they back when Suzanne dictated the essential list for Alex to get from town and asked him to read it back to her.

  2 4oz. bottles

  1 bottle brush

  1 case of formula

  2 hooded towels

  4 washcloths

  1 container baby body wash

  1 baby lotion

  1 baby oil

  1 baby shampoo

  4 vests

  2 receiving blankets

  2 double receiving blankets

  2 sleepers

  2 sweaters (pink)

  1 cotton blanket

  1 pair booties (pink)

  2 pair socks (any colour but matching)

  3 pairs scratch mittens

  1 bodysuit (pink)

  2 bibs

  1 dozen diapers

  1 Moses basket

  “Okay, that sounds about right. We’ll get the rest together tomorrow,” Suzanne said, still cradling Sardis in the folded blanket.

  “The rest,” Alex said, checking for his wallet. “You mean there’s more?”

  Suzanne walked up to Alex and kissed him gently on the lips, mindful of Sardis between them.

  “Lots more. Get back within the hour if you can; she’s going to need a feed very soon. Love you,” she said and then looked back down at her little bundle of joy.

  The assistant at the baby shop willingly took the list and did all the hard work in minutes, then made Alex pay for it. He was still trying to come to terms with what happened today and hardly batted an eyelid at the considerable cost, most unlike him.

  Not a second went by when he didn’t search for reason in between the abundance of questionable improbability. “How is any of this possible?” Logic told him it wasn’t, and when he thought about how she must have got in the tank, he shuddered at the times when something weighty spilled from a red bag and he nearly dropped it from his hands. One of them did drop from his grasp; maybe that was the one.

  “How did she survive? How did she eat? What did she eat?”

  A decayed mix of internal human and animal body parts, a terminated pregnancy—the one Suzanne told him about? Thoughts of the Devil entered his head but he refused to believe that could be a remote possibility. No fucking way. There had to be another reason for her existence and survival, one that he might never figure out on his own. He knew better than to bring any of this up for discussion with Suzanne, not now anyway, not while she had so much else to think about. Imagine mentioning Sardis and the Devil in the same sentence, not likely. It was hard to believe any of this could be happening but his mind kept creeping back to the “Devil.” That seemed to make the most unlikely sense. Even the name was beginning to sound suspect, and he’d named her, Sardis. If Satan had a daughter then the name Sardis had a devilish ring to it. It seemed a more plausible name for a Female Devil than it did for the colour of a precious gem stone. For now it was best to keep quiet [?] and let Suzanne get on with what she did best.

  Alex was back on the hour, much to Suzanne’s delight. Sardis was washed in the kitchen sink and by the time Alex had dressed the Moses basket, which Suzanne thought was something urgent that needed to be done straight away, Sardis was fully dressed, mittens on and everything. Alex had never seen Suzanne at work but if this was anything to go by then she was focused and professional in her endeavours. He admired how unassuming she was about her own talents. She never paused, never looked nervous, and if she did stop to consider the improbability of recent events, that was not
apparent, either. All her focus was on ensuring that Sardis had the best possible care. Suzanne was going to make a great mother. It was late into the evening and with Suzanne driving everything at breakneck speed, Alex hardly had a moment to appreciate his new daughter, Sardis. Now that she was all cleaned up, dressed and lying in her new crib on the kitchen table, Alex took the time to muse over her while Suzanne prepared the feeding formula.

  “Make sure she’s well wrapped up, Alex,” Suzanne said, heating a bottle of formula in a pot of water.

  And all of a sudden the inquisitive thoughts and trepidation left him. It no longer mattered where she came from or how she got there. The most beautiful little baby he ever laid eyes on lay in front of him. A beautiful little baby girl, his daughter, his child, his responsibility. He’d wait just a little longer before picking her up and holding her, wait until Suzanne was there, after her feeding and belching. She looked so perfect and content, tucked up in a white cotton blanket. Only her head showed with her new pink top on and matching pair of scratch mittens, like she belonged. Her eyes were wide and bright and clear blue, just beautiful, and her little button nose. She was big, too, a healthy new born, Suzanne said. Any woman would struggle to deliver such a big baby, he thought, and then cringed when he imagined what that must be like.

  Suzanne nodded when she came away from the sink, squeezing a few drops of the white liquid from the bottle onto her wrist. “Okay, here we go, just hold this for a moment,” she said, handing Alex the bottle. “I’ll take her over to the couch and feed her there.” She picked up the basket, took it into the other room and placed the basket back down on the coffee table. With a devoted smile, she lifted Sardis and sat her on her lap.

  Alex followed and sat down beside them. Suzanne cradled Sardis in her left arm and took the bottle back from Alex. “This is just baby formula. It’s two packed level scoops to four ounces of water. Serve it tepid just above room temperature and check that it’s not too hot on your wrist, like this. Here, feel. Hold out your wrist.” He watched her squeeze the bottle gently to force a few drops from the nipple onto his wrist. “If it stings, it’s obviously too hot.” He hardly felt the few drops and rubbed them away into his hands.

  Suzanne placed the nipple to Sardis’ mouth, who willingly accepted it. She gently tilted the bottle and waited for Sardis to begin sucking. She also wanted to make sure she had no problem swallowing and was able to breathe, in that order. If what she saw in the tank was anything to go by, she didn’t expect any problems.

  Sardis sucked, swallowed, inhaled, sucked, swallowed, inhaled, sucked, swallowed, inhaled, and then without warning regurgitated in a series of violent spasms that transformed her face into a beacon of red.

  A shockwave of surprise gripped Alex as his less-than-a-day-old daughter looked like she was suffering from a strawberry-chocolate-cocaine overdose. She spluttered a foam mix of cream and reddish-brown at the mouth and appeared to be choking. He rubbed his face with clueless anticipation while Suzanne calmly sandwiched Sardis between both hands and bent her forward. She extended her fingers underneath Sardis’ chin to keep her tiny neck open and allow the frothy fluid to drip from her mouth—and Sardis began to cry. More of the reddish-brown dribbled from her nose, staining her philtrum.

  “That’s a good sign, right? The crying?” Alex asked, looking for confirmation.

  “She’ll be okay; she can’t digest it. We need to wean her onto it. Whatever’s in that tank has kept her alive, so we need to continue feeding her that in the same way. She’s hungry, you’ll need to go get some.”

  Alex went pale, the very thought made him want to vomit. “The Devil’s Dinner.” This was nothing like what he expected his first child to be like. Reluctantly, he said, “There are a couple of red bags in the van I haven’t managed to dispose of yet, I’ll get one of those.” He couldn’t believe the next few words when they spilled out of his mouth, “It’ll be fresher and won’t smell as bad.”

  Suzanne put the bottle on the coffee table next to the Moses basket. She stood up and placed Sardis back in, then picked it up. Alex noticed the bottle of formula fall over when the crib brushed against it as she lifted it back into the kitchen. He stood up behind her and levelled the bottle. A small pool of formula was left on the table, made up of at least three or four drops. The bottle had only been on its side for a couple of seconds. Inquisitively, Alex picked up the bottle and turned it over above his wrist as Suzanne had shown him. He gave the bottle a delicate press. The formula seeped from the tip of the nipple as before but this time the white liquid also trickled from its circumference in at least two other places. “What the fuck? It’s punctured—”

  Above Sardis’ tender cries Alex heard Suzanne say, “Shhh, my beautiful girl, it’s okay. Shhh, we’ll get you fed in a moment; I know you’re hungry. Daddy’s going to get it for you now.” Suzanne turned her attention to Alex. “Alex, where’s the blender?”

  36:

  “Say hello to my little . . .?”

  Alex was given the arduous task of getting their affairs in order. He fabricated a history for Sardis and falsified adoption papers which were good enough to secure the mandatory twenty-four weeks of adoptive leave with a further sixteen weeks of unpaid leave for Suzanne, who soaked up the well-wishing and promised to bring Sardis in “soon” to show her off. No one doubted the authenticity for a second.

  Alex finally had the answer to the elusive question: Is tending to a baby as hard as everyone says? The answer was categorically no. Not in the first seven days, anyway, not for him. For Suzanne it was a different story; she did almost everything. She took to motherhood like a duck to water, and quite frankly, Alex was beginning to feel a bit left out. She did all of the feeding, including the ones throughout the night, changing the diapers, and cuddling her back to sleep. She was a new mom desperately in love with her little bundle of time-consuming joy and when Sardis napped, she napped, too—so much for a great week off together. Fatherhood was not what he expected it to be.

  Alex did feel left out. Sardis took up all of Suzanne’s time. She was never out of her hands when awake and the extent of his parenting duties amounted to little more than get this and that. It should have been understandable given the four previous miscarriages but even so, Suzanne appeared far too over-protective of Sardis, even from him.

  Alex was beginning to notice patterns of behaviour that did not sit right, but he bit back from saying anything. For example, every time he went to lift her out of the bassinet or even peek in to see her, Suzanne would abruptly drop whatever she was doing and stop herself from falling over to get to Sardis and then mollycoddle her as if expecting visitors. And the fucking mittens. What was with the mittens on all the time, day and night?

  He wanted to see her tiny little hands, the wrinkles of her knuckles and the shininess of her nails but Suzanne said she had a condition common in newborns that required the skin be covered. She even gave it a name he would never remember and when pressed she said the condition would pass in a week or so, so it can’t have been all that serious in the first place, and what was with wanting to do all the night feeding?

  The routine was the same every couple of hours. Sardis calls out with her wake-up cry from the basket next to the bed. Suzanne bolts upright as if late for work and then slumps into a zombie-like trance. She slips on the sweatpants and neglects her top left crumpled on the floor, scoops Sardis up and then walks topless out to the feeding station on the sofa. Then the ping of the microwave and the TV goes on a moment later. Thirty minutes later Sardis is back asleep in the basket with a fresh diaper and Suzanne is out for the count until the next calling. But it was the insistence to do every feed that bothered him. It wasn’t like she was breastfeeding, it was a bottle of . . . stuff. What was she hiding from him? What was it about Sardis that she did not want him to see?

  Suzanne had struggled last night. Time was catching up with her and she was in
need of a good night’s sleep but she still rejected Alex’s offer to help. He was beginning to feel like a little boy excluded from any playground games but he thought it unlikely she would manage many more nights without his help. Maybe tonight he would get to feed Sardis, at least once.

  By eleven-fifteen Sardis finally went down in her bassinet and Suzanne was fast asleep. Alex lay beside her with his eyes closed, but only dozed. The consciousness of his duties and the annoyance of his persistent wife kept him above the level of a swoon.

  A few hours later, Alex was already out of the bed by the time Suzanne sat up to Sardis’ cries.

  “I’ll take it,” Alex said quietly, already walking around the bed. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Its fine, Alex, really, I can do it,” Suzanne said in a daze.

  “Go back to sleep. I’m serious, I’ve watched you enough times to know what I’m doing. Go back to sleep, I mean it.”

  It was not a request. Alex placed his hand on Suzanne’s forehead and induced her back into the bed just like an evangelist claiming to heal with the palm of his hand. Unexpectedly, she didn’t put up an argument and slumped back into the pillow.

  “Thanks, hon,” she said behind Alex as he left the room. Clearly, she needed the rest.

  With the basket resting on the kitchen table, Alex delicately picked Sardis up in the wrapped blanket and snuggled her into his shoulder with a bouncing arm. The action quieted her long enough for him to get one of the prepared bottles from the fridge and put it into the microwave, turning it on for forty seconds. The microwave pinged and he took the bottle out, giving it a shake on his way over to the “feeding station.” With Sardis lying comfortably in his lap, he did the heat test on his wrist. The few brownish drops told him the temperature was fine. Alex thought about turning the television on, probably because he’d heard Suzanne do it and therefore it felt like the next logical step in the feeding process, but he decided against it. The moment felt far too precious to spoil with the drone of the television. It was the first time he had Sardis all to himself, and it felt better than great.