by Sam Hayes
Mother watched for the glint in my eyes as she told me of their festive plans, held her breath for any sign that revealed my longing to come too. I couldn’t help it, thinking of them all together, laughing, dancing, singing, eating and drinking in the New Year, my cousins frolicking as a noisy pack, playing pranks, stealing the alcohol. I tried not to look at the pleasure on Mother’s face, that tightening of the lips, the narrowing of her dismal watery eyes when it dawned on me that I wasn’t even invited, apart from being too shamed to attend.
It didn’t occur to Mother that perhaps I didn’t want to go to the celebrations, that I was too scared. My poker, dough-faced, bloodless expression aside, trying so hard not to let her think I was disappointed, a worry spillage was set free.
What if he came looking for me?
In the early hours, my parents will be walking home, holding hands, rosy-cheeked, chilled, feeling sick, feeling young, exhausted but warm on the inside. The entire Wystrach family, my uncles and their wives and sisters, cousins, aunts, mothers and my babka will see in the New Year in their own way; under tight surveillance from Mother and her sister-in-law, Aunt Anna. It is the only night of the year when they all let down their hair.
I double up in pain and fall onto my bed. It hurts. I have a cramp in my guts, perhaps because of bad food, perhaps because of no food. I push my face into the pillow and bite and the pain drops away as suddenly as it came. When I stand up, I am shivering and more hot pee trickles down my legs. I wrap my dressing gown around my shoulders and get back into bed. Everything will seem different in the morning, that’s what Mother always used to say when she liked me. I fall asleep.
I was dreaming of Christmas Day, that they let me have extra food and put a cracker on my dinner tray. Who was I supposed to pull it with? In my dream, the cracker turned into a long carving knife and when they came to get the tray, I slipped it into each of their bellies, the flesh bursting precisely because the cracker knife was so sharp. The pain in my belly makes me stretch out and yell. I grip the bedhead behind me, my fists whitening around the metal bars. I scream again. It’s a scream that comes from a place so deep inside, I don’t even recognise that it’s me.
I try to stand up but fall off the mattress and bang my head. That pain doesn’t matter. It’s the pain across my front, whipping round to my back and speeding up and down my spine that I can’t bear. In between the streaks of agony, it dawns on me that the baby is coming. Where is Mother? I call out her name, while I am able, while there is no pain.
I pull a pillow off the bed and doze fitfully on the floor. I can see some of my old toys under the bed – dolly Patricia, a grubby pink rabbit, a pile of Enid Blyton books and that game of Snakes and Ladders that he gave me two birthdays ago. It was a sign, he said, that we had good games. He’d wrapped it in tin foil and the ribbon was from a chocolate box and now he tells me to just forget. What, that he gave me Snakes and Ladders? No, the other stuff, he says and laughs at me.
I draw my legs up but that doesn’t help. My face shatters as another wave of pain helter-skelters around my entire belly.
‘Mother . . .’
Somehow I get to my feet. I lean forward, resting my hands on the end of my bed, and rock from side to side each time the pain comes. I screw up my eyes and pant out gallons of air, which makes me feel dizzy and convinced the world is upside down. I’m sick. Water vomit erupts onto my quilt. I fall to my knees, too weak to stand.
‘Someone help me! Mother . . .’
I sleep again, with my forehead resting on the floorboards and my domed belly stuck between my knees. I dream of him and when I wake, because the pain has started again, I’m sweating and scared and panting because the dream was so real and I thought that he was in here with me. I look around. He’s not.
Suddenly, I want to push. I’m like a dog, holding my breath and bearing down, lifting out of myself because I’m on fire down there and I’m screaming and screaming and drowning because there’s no breath in me and still no one comes to make all this better. I am completely alone in the house.
I drop down with my forehead on the floor again. I will do this.
There’s the Snakes and Ladders box again, unopened, mint condition. I slide my hand under the bed, through the dust, and pull the box towards me. A game for two or more players. I lift off the lid and take out the board.Yellow ladders, green and red snakes. There’s a little plastic bag of counters and two dice. I snap open the bag, roll a die and move a counter five places but then the pain comes again and I rear up and grip the metal bed frame and wail like a wolf and strain and push and those hot irons stabbing through me are going to kill me, I know.
I’ve landed on a ladder which takes me directly to square thirty-four. Hurray! A six this time. Then a three and another ladder and I’m reminded of him by the face of the little snake that, if I had rolled a two, I would have landed on. Oily, leathery face with eyelids too flared for his black bead eyes, like our heavy living-room curtains. Simply too big.
Pain again and I chip a tooth as I wrap my lips around the bed frame, trying to cool down because everything about me is burning up. I’m a space capsule re-entering the atmosphere. I put another counter at the start, for him, so that I can pretend he’s playing too. I want to beat him. Using both dice, to hurry things up, I frantically roll and roll, taking turns, me then him, climbing up, sliding down, on and on to the top. Even with my head start, he’s catching up. I can see his bald, moley scalp getting closer as he steps methodically up each rung. I’m only one level above him now and – I fold with pain – if he reached up a hand, he could probably grab my ankle as I cower on square fifty-seven.
I plunge a fist between my legs. Something’s there, bulging, like a disc of wet animal. I burst out in shrieks of laughter, which turns into exotic wails coming from a part of me I didn’t know existed. The urge to push is all-consuming. If I don’t, I think I’ll die. I’m burning, burning. I scream for my babka. She will help. She doesn’t even know I’m having a baby. Three thirty-six, the clock says. Where is everyone? I pant gently; have a break; roll the dice. He’s gaining on me, no doubt about it. Only three squares behind.
Instinctively, I reach for the pillow that is already lying on the floor. I drag the quilt off my bed and make a nest. It’s my only hope. There are little animal noises, me I think, and a warm milky smell bubbling from inside me. This is it. I’m on my back, half sitting, half lying, propped on elbows, legs as wide as they can go. It’s bursting out of me. The world goes black and quiet for a moment – the eye of the storm – before I’m stretched to infinity with a pain that now, compared to my game of Snakes and Ladders with him, seems bearable.
The large, masterful figure looms over me, watching, laughing, spit collecting in the corners of his wide, hungry mouth as I split myself in two, his shiny boot nudging my hip, his hands creeping where they shouldn’t. The head’s out. No pain for a moment, just me with two faces, one of them squirming, squinting between my thighs, the other thrown back, flushed, exhausted.
It makes a noise. A squeak. I heard it and felt the tiny vibrations shiver up its body inside me. Then, with one final griping pain, the rest of it suddenly comes out in a rush and slithers in mucus and blood onto the quilt. I grab my baby roughly so that he can’t get a hold of it first. I press it to me, without even bothering to look at its unfolding body, urgently hiding it from the figure that is kneeling beside me now, easing me back onto the quilt, his thin lips searching for mine, his smooth, moisturised hands creeping around my deflated belly.
I press the baby’s mouth to my nipple and realise, as its grey legs pound the unfamiliar space in anger, that I have a baby girl, born on the first day of the New Year.
Something else glides out of me, warm and thick and smelling of raw liver. I leave it lying between my legs and, with his finger pressed on his mouth to silence me forever, the figure vanishes, leaving behind the faint tang of pipe tar on my lips.
I wrap myself round my baby to keep her warm, p
raying that he won’t come back. I’m shaking. The quilt is soaking but I pull it up over my shoulders anyway. I’m too tired to move and as I’m falling asleep I realise that because of Uncle Gustaw, my daughter must be my cousin too.
TEN
Robert had instructed Jed Bowman to come back in half an hour. The client wasn’t pleased, his already ruddy cheeks flushing, his cold eyes darting over Robert as if sizing up which bit to thump. Robert clicked the reception door locked as Jed left so that he and Tanya wouldn’t be disturbed. Den was out at a meeting all morning and Alison, his PA, was off sick so it was just the two of them.
‘Right, pick up the phone.’ Robert felt a pang of guilt as he addressed Tanya like an impatient teacher would address a disobedient child. However competently she’d managed Fresh As A Daisy for Erin on Saturday, she’d be clearing her desk by the end of the week if she didn’t get hold of Ruby’s birth certificate. He stood over her as she dialled the number.
‘Put it on speaker phone.’
‘Good morning, Northampton Register Office. How can I help you?
‘Hi,’ Tanya replied. ‘I’m calling about an application for a copy of a birth certificate.’
‘Hold, please, while I transfer you.’
‘They’re always busy,’ Tanya protested, covering the mouthpiece with her hand as her boss stood glaring down at her. His dark hair, stiffened shoulders and deep chest barricaded by crossed arms told Tanya that he wasn’t budging until she got answers. Having worked as Robert’s assistant for many years, she’d always thought him a reasonable man.
An electronic voice told them they were number five in the queue. While he waited, Robert re-read the letter from the General Register Office: ‘. . . unable to issue a copy birth certificate from the information given . . . no record found for Ruby Alice Lucas . . . DOB 1/1/92 . . .’ The details were correct. No doubt. He wondered if Ruby had another middle name that he didn’t know about, that never got used, or if Ruby was indeed a nickname. He would ask Erin. He needed facts.
As they moved forward in the automated queue, Robert considered that Erin might have given Ruby her maiden name after the split from Ruby’s father – a defiant act of completely cutting herself off from the man she didn’t love any more. He could imagine Erin doing such a thing in a fit of pride and independence. If that was the case, if Ruby’s birth had originally been registered under her father’s name, when her parents were happily married, then of course no record would be found. Robert released the tight embrace of his arms a little, relaxing as he realised a rational explanation was entirely possible.
Although Erin never spoke of Ruby’s father, understandably, and he wasn’t keen to hear details, Robert had always assumed that the name Lucas came from her previous marriage. It hadn’t seemed important before and delving too deep into another person’s affairs, he knew from bitter experience, only ever resulted in trouble. Thus far, his relationship and marriage to Erin had encapsulated the thinnest of details, deliberately skimming the surface for fear of crushing something delicate and irreplaceable beneath. Robert chose to ignore the feelings of frustration this tactic of self-preservation had produced.
‘Superintendent Registrar’s office. Can I help you?’
Tanya opened her mouth to speak but Robert lunged for the telephone and picked up the handset. He didn’t trust the woman not to make a mess of things again. Time was running out.
‘Hi . . . yeah . . . I made an express application for a copy of my stepdaughter’s birth certificate about a week ago and got a letter back saying that you couldn’t find it. I was just wondering if you’d be able to check again for me. Obviously my daughter exists. I saw her just this morning.’ Robert tried to inject a little humour into the request, keen to keep the woman on his side, knowing how she could make things difficult.
‘Have you got a reference number on the letter?’
Robert read out the number carefully and waited, listening to the woman’s breathing as she tapped at the keyboard.
‘No, sorry. It says that no records were—’
‘Yes, I know that. I have the letter here. I just want to know why no records were found.’
Robert, perched on the corner of Tanya’s desk, recited details about Ruby – when she had been born, full name, how her mother had split from her father, but the woman interrupted, uninterested in what Robert had to say. There was a queue of callers racking up.
‘You’ve supplied appropriate details on your application form. The only explanation is that either the child’s name is wrong or, more likely, that the birth wasn’t registered at this particular office. Other than that, I can’t give specific details as to why we’re not coming up with anything. It might be worth checking with Mum again, too. Just to confirm you’ve remembered all the details correctly.’
‘I think I know my own stepdaughter’s correct name,’ he replied sourly. ‘Can’t someone run a search for all entries for that particular birth date?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. We simply don’t have the staff or the time to pursue such matters. If we had to—’
‘Thanks for your help.’ Robert replaced the handset abruptly, biting his lips in thought. He knew he wouldn’t get anything else out of the woman. He poured himself a coffee from the machine, almost forgetting to ask Tanya if she wanted one. She nodded when he held up a cup and for a while they drank in silence, each considering the outcome of the phone call.
It occurred to Robert, as he sipped the scalding coffee, that he must have made a mistake about Ruby’s birthday. He knew Erin would react, the way women do, when he confessed to getting Ruby’s year or even day of birth wrong – rather like forgetting an anniversary and cobbling together a hasty surprise, blaming it on the tardy jeweller or incompetent travel agent.
‘First of January, nineteen ninety-two,’ he pondered out loud. ‘Thirty-first of December, ninety-one.’ Definitely the first one, he thought. Definitely January. But maybe nineteen ninety-one?
His excuse to Erin would be that he was a father by default. It was Erin he’d loved first. Ruby came as part of the package, he accepted, but adopting a teenager was something he’d never bargained on. It was a hard task, a thankless one sometimes, but he was committed to them both forever. He dialled Erin’s number.
‘Fresh As A Daisy. Erin speaking.’
Robert felt himself unfurl inside when he heard his wife’s voice. It was natural, he told himself, for suspicion to reign, even dimly, after what he’d been through with Jenna. Louisa had been right, although he’d not wanted to admit it. He had moved too fast, although if he hadn’t made a move on Erin, if he hadn’t gone back for his umbrella . . .
‘Hi, babe. It’s me. Can you talk?’
‘Yes, the shop’s clear at the moment. What’s up?’
‘Just run by Ruby’s year and place of birth again. The birth certificate people are having trouble finding her entry and she needs a passport to go to Vienna.’ Robert opened Tanya’s desk drawer and took out a pen. He pressed the phone to his shoulder and waited to write. ‘Erin?’
‘Not that again, Rob. I thought we decided we weren’t going to bother with the school trip.’
Robert glanced at Tanya and smiled. He hadn’t meant to be so hard on her. She was a loyal employee and always willing to please. She returned his grin and began tapping away at her computer.
‘Bother?’ he replied in a low voice although he would have preferred to raise the volume. ‘How can you not want to bother with anything to do with your own daughter?’
‘Exactly,’ she said swiftly. ‘My daughter.’
Robert sighed. He wasn’t going into battle in front of Tanya. ‘Can you at least confirm that her birth was registered in the name of Lucas at Northampton Register Office? You said she was born there, right? School trip or not, she needs a passport. Unless you’re planning on not having a holiday ever again.’
‘Robert, I’ve got to go. There’s a customer. Bye.’ Erin gave a little kiss before the line went dead.
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Jed Bowman didn’t return to Mason & Knight. Robert spent the time he had allotted to the case reading over the sordid file. It was dragging on. He should have had this all wrapped up by now. It was textbook stuff, albeit in reverse to the usual glut of custody cases.
Man wants sole residency rights of his two children. Wife is an alcoholic, a drug addict and clearly mistreats the children, who haven’t even been consulted about what they want. Man now has home of own and is in employment. End of story.
‘Yes, end of story, all right,’ Robert said to himself, leaning back. ‘If it wasn’t for bloody Jed Bowman.’ He felt stupid when he saw Tanya standing in the doorway.
‘There’s someone here to see you, Mr Knight. Mary Bowman.’
Robert slid swiftly from behind his desk and shut the door. ‘Mary Bowman, as in Jed’s soon-to-be ex?’
‘The very one.’ Tanya looked rather proud. She enjoyed a fuss.
‘Did she say what she wanted?’
‘Just that she had to see you. Shall I show her in?’
Robert hesitated. Den wasn’t back from his meeting yet and if Tanya wanted to keep her job then she knew to keep quiet. Robert was fully aware of the ethics involved, especially without Jed present. But off the record, as a compassionate human being who sensed that something was very amiss, where children and their future happiness were at stake, Robert was compelled to hear what Mary Bowman had to say. Fleetingly, he thought of Ruby.
‘Bring her in.’
Mary was small. Five foot three at most. She was wearing an old-fashioned beige and blue crimplene dress. Robert recalled his mother in something similar, which added about twenty years, Robert reckoned, to her three and a half decades.
