Where Women are Kings

by Christie Watson

  ‘A baby!’ he shouted. ‘Congratulations!’

  Obi coughed. ‘Daddy, do you not understand?’

  Daddy let go of Nikki, went back to his seat, sat down and raised his eyebrows. ‘Understand?’

  ‘We lost so many,’ whispered Obi. ‘What happened before could happen again. And Elijah – they said it will affect him very badly.’ Obi shook his head. ‘It’s a disaster.’

  Daddy laughed. Both Nikki and Obi looked at each other.

  ‘A disaster?’ Daddy shook his hands in front of him. ‘A baby is never, ever a disaster, no matter how difficult the circumstances.’ His eyes shone. ‘A baby,’ he continued, ‘is a gift from God.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Elijah couldn’t get to sleep. Mum and Dad didn’t kiss like they used to and they didn’t hold hands. And now they said they were going to postpone the trip to see his grandparents in Wales until summer. He knew something was happening. He’d been watching them closely, but they seemed very far apart, like they weren’t best friends any more. He lay awake for what seemed like hours, his eyes open in the darkness, looking at shadows. He could see the antlers, and the curtains, and the door. He thought about Mum and Dad, and how Dad seemed a bit far away, even when he was in the same room, and how Mum had fewer freckles on her face. Fewer angels’ kisses. For some reason, the angels’ protection was rubbing off a bit. He closed his eyes tight, but Mum and Dad kept popping behind his eyelids, turned away from each other. Then Elijah felt something inside his tummy. Something crawling. His mouth filled with sick. He quickly swallowed and forced all the crawling away. The wizard was gone. He would not let it come back. He would not.

  But as the night hours went on, Elijah’s head filled with worries and his tummy filled with crawling.

  *

  Obi and Nikki were sitting across the table, holding hands. Elijah hadn’t slept all night; his eyes were sore and red. What had happened? They were holding hands again, so that was back to normal, but Ricardo hadn’t visited for a long time and, even though Obi told Elijah it was good news and nothing to worry about, his mouth had turned completely dry. Had something happened to Mama?

  Ricardo’s hair was shaved at the sides. The middle bit was sticking up. He looked worried, even though he had funny hair. And that made Elijah feel worried. Feeling worried was like being a sun with a cloud in front of you, and you couldn’t see the people or even shine. Elijah looked at Ricardo’s face to see what it said. Ricardo noticed him looking at his funny hair and put on a hat that had the words, Lose weight real quick, ask for Rick.

  ‘I’m trying to change careers,’ he said when he saw Elijah watching his hat instead of his hair. ‘You know I love looking after girls and boys, but my job is changing and I haven’t got time to do it properly.’ He looked at Dad. ‘It’s impossible now – so unsafe – nobody has time to do their job as they’d want to and, of course, it’s always the social worker who gets scapegoated at the first sign of trouble.’ He squeezed Elijah’s arm. ‘I’m so happy that you’re all sorted and safe with your lovely family, Elijah. That’s been the best part of my job and, if every child and family I looked after was like you, it would be an easy job.’ He laughed, then he tapped his hat. ‘I have these herbal diet pills from Brazil – completely organic and safe – and I’ve started a small business to sell them to private clients.’ He looked Obi and Nikki up and down. ‘But you, my lovely family, don’t need any. So fit and healthy.’

  Mum’s eyes flashed at Dad.

  ‘Do they help any illness?’

  Ricardo laughed. ‘I’m afraid not, Elijah. If they did, I’d be a very rich man.’

  The doorbell rang, followed by knocking. ‘Now,’ said Ricardo, ‘I have to talk to Mum and Dad, so Jasmin has come over to play.’

  ‘Really?’ Elijah looked at Mum. Her face was blotchy.

  ‘Really,’ she said. She stood up and walked to the door. Jasmin came in with a rush.

  ‘Hi! Bye!’ said Jasmin running up the stairs and waving her hand behind her head.

  Elijah followed her up. He didn’t look back to see what Ricardo was talking to Mum and Dad about, but he thought it might be something bad. The air was thicker than usual and there were shadows in corners.

  *

  ‘You are the best in the class, Jasmin,’ said Jasmin to Elijah. ‘The very best pupil I’ve ever taught and you will probably go on to be an astronaut or the President of the United States. In fact, the most well behaved pupil I’ve ever taught, Jasmin.’

  Jasmin was the teacher and Elijah was a girl called Jasmin. She had a blackboard in front of her and was drawing on it in white chalk. ‘Jasmin,’ she said, ‘come here. You can be class monitor and you can be in charge of ringing the lunch bell.’

  Elijah walked to Jasmin and made a sound like a bell.

  ‘Good. You can be the monitor today …’ Jasmin stopped talking when raised voices travelled up the stairs. Elijah heard Nikki’s voice and then Obi’s. He didn’t hear Ricardo’s voice.

  ‘Wow, they’re talking loud for a meeting.’

  Elijah moved closer to Jasmin. His arm was shaking.

  ‘My mum and dad talked a lot louder than that. Actually, my mum and dad shouted all the time, had blasters every day before my dad moved to America.’ Jasmin looked at Elijah’s face filling up with tears. ‘But your mum and dad are not like my mum and dad. All adults have louder voices sometimes.’

  She put her arm around Elijah’s shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s carry on playing schools. You can be teacher now, if you want.’

  After Jasmin had gone, Ricardo was still there at the table and an empty coffee cup sat beside his hand.

  Elijah leant towards Mum.

  ‘Well, I’ve come along today, Elijah, to help Mum and Dad give you some big news. Mum and Dad and I thought it might be even better if we all tell you together. We want to tell you lots of things, so please ask questions as it’s confusing news – even for us!’

  Then Mum smiled a smile that didn’t look cheerful at all, and Ricardo stopped tapping his hat. Elijah had heard Mum and Dad talking about Ricardo. Mum and Dad laughed about Ricardo sometimes, and how he once had blue hair. Elijah thought they must like Ricardo a lot, even though they thought he was a little bit odd. Elijah liked Ricardo too. He used to be his best friend of all, but now Jasmin was his best friend of all.

  ‘Well,’ Ricardo said, before getting a notepad out and putting it on the table in front of him. ‘I’m so happy about how things are going.’ He smiled at Elijah and his smile looked angry, like Mum’s. ‘How are things, Elijah? It’s been a month since I’ve seen you.’

  ‘I’m good, thank you.’ Elijah’s voice sounded outside even though it was coming from inside him, like it wanted to fly into another room. ‘We went to the aquarium, where I touched a stingray on the back. And I watched a show at Granddad’s called Frozen Planet that had a caterpillar that dies every year when it gets really cold and then comes back to life. Granddad helps me collect nature things too.’

  Ricardo moved his papers on the table in front of him. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Overall, it sounds like you’ve been having a great time.’ Ricardo’s laugh made his hat jump up and down on top of his head. ‘Mum and Dad tell me you’re doing really well, and you’ve settled in completely. Which is great.’

  Ricardo laughed again but Elijah didn’t. He suddenly thought of how many other boys there were who were like him, and how many mamas were like Mama, all alone. Ricardo made Elijah feel very happy then a bit sad, quickly. He bit the inside of his mouth.

  Mum’s eyes were not looking for his. Usually Mum’s eyes looked for his all the time.

  ‘First –’ Ricardo smiled and stopped moving his head around – ‘you should know that this could be a very good thing, but it’s completely fine for you to have feelings. You might feel confused, or even angry, and we’re all here to help you to understand what’s happening. Feelings are good. In fact, we are going to arrange for you to do some more playing with Chioma. Sh
e’s very good at helping people with their feelings.’

  Elijah looked around at them all. Maybe they couldn’t love him because he was so wicked. ‘I don’t need to play with Chioma,’ Elijah said. Mama was hurt. He just knew it. Tears filled his face and dropped on to the table one by one. Mum let Dad’s hand drop like Elijah’s tear and moved her chair even closer, next to him.

  ‘Elijah, don’t cry,’ she said, pulling him towards her. ‘Everything will be all right.’ But Elijah knew there was something wrong because Mum smelt different.

  ‘There’s nothing to panic about,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think it’s very good news and I think you will be happy.’ Mum took a bite of the air with her teeth. ‘You are going to be a brother. A big brother.’

  And Elijah thought of Mama and a baby, who was not him, growing inside her tummy: a normal baby with no wizard inside it. And she would be able to look after it and she would get better and be able to see him again. The tears stopped straight away.

  But then he saw it: the look on Mum’s face. He smelt her as she pulled him back towards her. ‘I’m so glad you’re happy. It’s going to be really great,’ she said, and he suddenly realised. He felt the warm from deep inside her. A real baby inside Mum. Her baby and Dad’s baby.

  There was no baby in Mama’s tummy. Mama was all alone.

  Mum wanted a newborn baby as much as Elijah wanted Mama. But he couldn’t have Mama. He couldn’t ever have Mama.

  Ricardo leant forwards. ‘You might be a big brother,’ he said. He looked at Mum for a long time. ‘But the sad part of this news is that Mum has an illness inside her body which doesn’t make her sick, but it does make it difficult for babies to grow in her tummy. It makes them come out too early for them to live in the world. We don’t think that will happen with this baby because Mum is taking special medicine to help it grow, but it might.’

  Dad reached over and put his hand on Elijah’s shoulder.

  ‘What happens to the baby if it comes out too early?’ Elijah looked at Mum.

  Mum was shaking her head.

  ‘We hope it won’t, but it’s important that we discuss everything,’ said Ricardo. He looked at Elijah. ‘A baby that comes out too soon would be too small to live outside of her tummy. The baby would die, and it would be very sad, but the baby wouldn’t suffer.’

  The ground suddenly moved and everything swirled around Elijah’s head. Why was Mum ill? She had always been healthy before. Illness. Death. It followed Elijah everywhere. This was the work of the wizard. If the baby died, then it would be his fault. The wizard’s. And, if the wizard failed, then the baby would grow inside Mum where Elijah had never ever been. A baby who they would love and look after. A baby would have his bedroom and he would have to go back to Nargis’ house and Darren would burn him with his cigarettes and everything would be FIRE and he would melt the whole world and suddenly he was screaming and screaming and screaming and, even though he was screaming, he could see Dad move back in his chair and raise his hands up and he could see Nikki’s hands cover her mouth. He could see the look between them that he caused, full of fire and hate and burning hell, and he shouted and shouted with no words. This was the wizard. It must be the wizard. Everything was spinning. He tasted blood and in his ears was ringing and he felt pressed up high against the ceiling, looking down on his own head, then falling, falling quick so his stomach flipped and flew up inside him. His chair threw itself against the wall with a bang and everyone reached towards him, but they were too slow for a wizard, and Elijah watched as a tower of plates by the sink crashed to the floor, a million pieces, sharp and dying, screeching out at him, and he looked down at his hands, full of pieces cutting into his skin then flying across the room.

  He could feel Ricardo’s arms around him as he thrashed and bit and screamed and punched and finally he cried and cried and Ricardo carried him up the stairs, holding his body so tight.

  ‘Shhh. It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘It will be all right, Elijah.’

  But in the background Elijah heard Dad’s voice change to evil, and say, ‘This is your fault,’ to Mum, and he knew that nothing would ever be right again.

  *

  After Ricardo left, Elijah felt the wizard walking around inside him once more, like it had shrunk itself and was trying to escape. Coldness spread around. He tried to block the wizard in by pinching his nostrils and holding his hands over his ears but, that night, the nightmares were back. He dreamt of Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth, and woke up screaming and scratching and Mum and Dad came in and shushed him and stroked his hair until he fell back asleep and the whispering in his ears was gone and replaced with shouting:

  BEAST, FULL OF NAMES OF BLASPHEMY, HAVING SEVEN HEADS AND TEN HORNS.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Obi paced the room as Nikki sat with her legs curled under her. She couldn’t think straight. His voice was so loud it filled her entire body.

  ‘I’ve read it, over and over again, when the parents have a birth child after adoption there is a higher percentage of failure. Of disruption. Do you know what that means? I think we’ve been over this before. I think I explained it to you a little after you took me for a nice dinner and threw a twelve-week pregnancy at me. Do you remember what a failed adoption means? Do you remember our adoption training all that time ago, when they told us that twenty per cent of adopted children go back into care?’

  Obi paced round and round.

  ‘A life in care. Completely preventable. A childhood ruined by the parents’ selfishness.’

  ‘My selfishness,’ she said, quietly.

  ‘Yes!’ said Obi, swivelling to face her. He locked his eyes on hers. ‘Elijah was settling in, Nikki. We had a family. We had a son.’

  Nikki uncurled her legs. ‘We have a son,’ she said.

  But Obi didn’t draw breath. ‘And there might not even be a baby! Even with anticoagulants, how is he supposed to cope with an eighty-per-cent chance? The worry, the rushing to the hospital in the middle of the night, all those tests and all that waiting and all your tears? How can he feel safe if you’re in bits? What will happen when the baby dies? Elijah is covered head to toe in scars. He has lost his mother. You want him to lose a baby too? To lose you?’

  ‘Please!’ Nikki thumped the sofa. ‘We have been over this. What does it change? We have said all this.’ Her voice sounded muffled, like she was talking through glass.

  ‘So, once it’s been said, that’s it? We can move on? These are the facts. Elijah has a twenty-per-cent chance of losing a sibling. He had a twenty-per-cent chance of ending up back in care. But that has gone up, now you’ve been so stupid.’

  Nikki felt her mouth open, the air rush in. ‘What can I do? What can I do?’

  ‘Elijah should not be put through this.’

  ‘But this is the situation and I don’t know what you expect me to do. It’s your baby too. You want me to have an abortion? Is that what you want? You want me to kill our baby?’

  Obi turned on her and pushed his face towards hers. ‘Did I say that? Would I say that?’ He pulled back. ‘You know full well that, by leaving it till twelve weeks, you took that discussion off the table.’

  Nikki was burning up from the inside out. She cradled her arms over her stomach and watched Obi closely. ‘It’s still possible,’ she said, slowly, not blinking.

  His lips made a tight line and he shook his head. ‘You knew. You knew. Twelve weeks! When you found out at eight! Of course it’s possible.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You know my views on this! You knew! So now we’re stuck again with something that may or may not survive and will ruin everything either way.’

  ‘Just say it. You want me to have an abortion, anyway.’ She clenched her fists. ‘I won’t do it, Obi; I won’t do that to our baby. But we might as well be clear about what you’re saying.’

  ‘That is not what I’m saying.’

  ‘Then what are you saying? What are you sayi
ng?’ She was screaming now.

  ‘Everything was working. Did you hear Ricardo? Did you see how worried he was as soon as we told him? He knows Elijah. He knows he won’t cope.’

  ‘Stop saying this!’

  ‘That tantrum? All those scratches on Elijah’s arms?’

  ‘What? What?’

  Obi wasn’t looking at her any more. He shouted on and on, going over and over the same ground: how good it had been, what they had promised the team, the research, how Nikki had let Elijah down. He was stuck. Obi could not get past the facts of the situation.

  Nikki wiped her eyes and sat forwards. She made her voice soft again. ‘Obi, I am pregnant with your baby and we have Elijah. That is the situation and I have taken all the blame and now we need to start dealing with it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s so simple, is it? I don’t think you understand the magnitude of this, Nikki, I really don’t.’

  ‘Please; I understand, and we need to work together now.’

  ‘Work together?’ Obi laughed.

  ‘What Ricardo said – we need to include him in everything. Ricardo said it was natural for Elijah to feel like he was being replaced, like we didn’t love him any more.’

  Obi just stared and shook his head. ‘This didn’t need to happen,’ he said.

  Nikki closed her eyes. ‘Please, Obi, we need to try. More than ever, we can’t be fighting now. It will unsettle Elijah.’

  ‘I think that’s already taken care of, don’t you, Nikki?’

  Nikki’s eyebrows creased together. What did he want her to say?

  ‘This shouldn’t be happening to Elijah.’

  Nikki nodded. ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘This shouldn’t be happening.’

  She closed her eyes again and sighed. ‘We agree on that, Obi. I promise, I agree.’ Huge tears pressed out from under her lids and her whole body shook.

  Eventually, Obi sat at the table and pulled his papers towards him. He opened a file and got out his pen.