At first, I wanted to give in. To let her hands have their way. How could I live knowing my daughter was out there in the world, growing up without me? But as she squeezed the air from my body, panic kicked in and I began to fight back. A desire to win overwhelmed me. I wanted to live, and in that instant my life mattered more than hers. My survival instinct overrode my maternal instinct, and I was powerless to stop it.
60
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
My skull throbs. The metallic scent of blood fills my nostrils. With a groan, I open my eyes into late-afternoon gloom. On the rough carpet, centimetres from my face, rests a jagged fragment of something blue. My fingers reach for it, recoiling as they meet the sharp edges.
The Virgin Mary.
She lies scattered on the floor, her severed head facing me. A sluggish residue of fear crawls through me.
My nails. Someone has painted them sparkly red. A sloppy job, smears of dried varnish all over my fingers.
Cassie has painted them.
I lift my head. It comes away from the carpet with a sound like Velcro peeling. I touch my matted hair and discover blood, red and sticky.
The fear picks up speed. Where is she?
No sign of her; she must have gone. I come onto all fours. The chair is still propped under the doorknob and her jacket and bag are still where she dumped them.
Up onto my feet. Armies of pins and needles march beneath my skin.
I have to get out.
The bathroom door is open, but the light is off. I wait for some sound of movement or the flush of a toilet but hear only the steady drip drip drip of water.
Then I notice the smell. An overpowering combination of vanilla, rose and lavender. The white, tiled wall of the bathroom reflects a golden flicker.
I creep closer, my skull pounding with every step, ears straining for some hint of her. The echo of each drip is all I pick up.
I push open the door and see her clothes. Tunic, leggings, knickers and bra heaped on the floor by the toilet. I see a cloudy layer of condensation on the mirror. I see her, reclining in a bath full to the brim with water and bubbles. A bath surrounded by scented candles on the wane.
‘Cassie?’ I whisper.
Her head has rolled to one side. Water laps at the entrance of her mouth. I grope behind me, locate the cord for the overhead light and tug it on.
Islands of pink bubbles bob around her, separated by patches of crimson water. Sickly steam clogs my lungs. Where has all the air gone?
‘Cassie.’
Warm water meets me when I plunge my arms into the bath. Her naked body slips one way then the other, but at last I get a firm grip under her armpits and haul her up and over the side, water sloshing with us as we land on the dirty lino.
Blood seeps from vertical slashes on her wrists. I pick up her leggings and tie a makeshift bandage around her right wrist. Then I pull off the belt of my coat and do the same to her left.
I hold my hand over her mouth. Is that a faint stream of air? Hard to tell. I rush into the living room and search the floor until I find my phone under the sofa bed.
999. The operator asks me which emergency service I require.
‘Ambulance,’ I say, ‘soon as possible.’
61
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
‘Touch my finger, then touch the tip of your nose as quickly as possible,’ says the weary junior doctor with the black-framed glasses.
‘I’m fine. Just let me—’
‘Please do as I say.’
I perform the task with ease, then glance at the curtains concealing my bed. The doctor asks me to name the months of the year in reverse and then once again asks for my name and date of birth. He nods at my answers and checks the dressing taped to my head one last time before declaring me free from serious concussion. As he pulls back the curtain, he cites a list of symptoms for me to beware of.
‘All done,’ he says to PC Palmer, who swaps places with him and pulls the curtains shut again.
‘How’s my mum?’ I ask.
‘PC King is finding out now.’ PC Palmer’s Geordie accent has the same soothing effect it did when he first arrived at Cassie’s bedsit a few minutes before the ambulance. His calm voice asking questions, issuing instructions, smoothing over the bloody scene in front of him. ‘We’ll get you to her soon as we can.’
‘What about Cassie?’ They kept us apart on the way to the hospital, her in the ambulance and me in the police car.
‘She’s still unconscious but she’ll make it,’ Palmer says. ‘You found her just in time.’
I nod, unsure what to say. Still unable to process what has happened. My heart quickens at the memory of Cassie’s slender body smothering me. Her arms tight around my neck.
‘We’ll take a statement from her when she’s up to it,’ he says.
The curtains part, as PC King steps into the cubicle.
‘Your mum’s stable,’ she says. ‘I told the staff you’ll be up once we’ve finished with you.’ She glances at Palmer and he rewards her with a nod of approval. King is young, the rookie to Palmer’s seasoned officer. She has the eagerness of someone finally putting theory into practice and takes notes as Palmer asks me once more to describe the events leading to Cassie’s suicide attempt.
We go through it again, my account making more sense now my panic has subsided.
‘She got a job at your mother’s care home?’ Palmer asks, eyebrows raised.
‘Emma… Cassie was great with old people,’ I say, not wanting to land Kegs in trouble. I couldn’t fully blame him for not knowing; Cassie had us all fooled. ‘Everyone liked her,’ I add.
I still feel a need to protect the girl. To make excuses for her.
‘Did she ever threaten your mother in any way?’ Palmer asks.
‘Not that I know of.’ Guilt pricks me for leaving my mother exposed to Cassie, but as far as I know, Cassie has never hurt her. I tell him about the fire.
‘You suspect she had something to do with it?’ he asks.
‘I don’t think so.’ I twist my puzzle ring back and forth. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Well, we need to be.’ Palmer nods at King and she puts her notebook away. ‘We’ll follow up on what we have and see if we can trace the girl’s family.’ He explains I’ll have to come to the station and make a full statement. ‘When you’re… when you’re done here,’ he says.
My statement versus Cassie’s. She could say anything when she wakes. What if her version of events contradicts mine? I’m sure after the police have spoken to everyone they’ll know I’m telling the truth.
‘Can I see her?’ I ask.
‘Your mother?’ says King. ‘Of course.’
‘No. Cassie.’ After all she’s put me through I still want to check she’s okay. Wherever my daughter is, I hope she isn’t thinking of me. I hope she doesn’t fixate on me the way Cassie has fixated on her mother.
King looks at Palmer, in need of guidance.
‘We can’t allow that,’ Palmer says. ‘Sorry.’
***
Two hours later. My mother lies motionless in a hospital bed in a side room off the Stroke Ward. The last space she will ever inhabit. I occupy the armchair beside her, a lukewarm cup of tea in my hand from the café in the hospital foyer.
The steady hiss coming from the oxygen tank invades the room, making me long for the intrusive tick of Mum’s carriage clock. Leaning forward, I free a tuft of her hair from the elastic strap of the oxygen mask.
The door opens and Stacey, the staff nurse on duty, comes in. She’s much younger than Juliet, the nurse from earlier.
‘Hi there,’ she says in her chirpy Essex accent. She reminds me of Emma. Part of me wishes Emma were here. She would know the right things to say and do. She would help me through what is to come. ‘How we getting on?’ Stacey asks.
What she means is, are you ready to let your mother die yet?
‘We’re okay,’ I say. ‘Just need a little more time.’
Stacey smiles, revealing a set of ultra-bright, perfect teeth. ‘No worries, my darling.’ She checks the monitors surrounding the bed. ‘Looks like Mum’s all comfy.’ Moving closer to me, she drops her voice. ‘Hearing’s the last sense to go so keep talking to her,’ she says. On her way out, she points to the red button on the wall behind the bed and tells me to buzz for her whenever I feel ready.
When I first arrived at the ward, a consultant took me aside and explained the situation. Mum would not recover, he said, and the advanced directive in her medical records instructed she should not be put on a ventilator if no recovery was expected. According to him, the oxygen mask would soon not be enough to sustain Mum, and so it would best to remove it and let her slip away.
‘How can I make that decision?’ I said.
‘You’re not,’ he replied. ‘This is the course of action your mother would want us to take.’
‘She’d have been okay if it wasn’t for the fire.’
The consultant shrugged. ‘The smoke hasn’t helped, nor did the shock of being moved,’ he said, ‘but your mother was already very ill. Her chest infection wasn’t responding to antibiotics, so it was only a matter of time.’
With Stacey gone, the room is still again. The sound of the oxygen filling Mum’s mask is deafening. The consultant didn’t know how long she’d survive without it. Could be days, could be hours. Once I press that red button and summon Stacey back in, an irreversible countdown will begin. I don’t have any choice, yet it still feels like I’m making one. I’m not ready yet. We need more time, my mother and I.
She looks peaceful. Younger. I swear her skin is growing smoother before my eyes, her wrinkles disappearing. In contrast, I feel I’m aging by the second. The past couple of hours have been a blur. After speaking to the consultant, I arranged for the hospital chaplain to come and visit Mum. I waited outside while he incanted over her body. That ritual was between Mum and her God.
Her hand twitches. I clasp it. ‘I’m right here,’ I say.
The swelling on my head has gone from painful to tender. Despite my exhaustion, I feel strangely like myself. As if I’ve landed back in my body after a twenty-year absence. The confrontation with Cassie was terrifying, but at the same time I needed to speak the truth aloud. To share what I have kept hidden for twenty years, even from myself.
‘I’m here,’ I say again.
Time is running out. There is so much I could tell my mother. I could tell her about my decision to keep my baby. I could tell her that the day before my move to Edinburgh, the director I’d auditioned for weeks before had phoned to offer me the part in his television series, but I turned him down. I could describe the remainder of my pregnancy. Those months in Edinburgh when I lived alone in a dingy one-bedroom tenement flat. Some days, the shock of my daughter moving inside me kept me bedridden, but most of the time the two of us maintained a polite distance that enabled me to function. I was a good hostess. I provided nutritious food, and I didn’t drink or smoke. I took her on educational excursions to museums and galleries and introduced her to art-house cinema. By then I’d had confirmation of her sex, not that I needed it.
I tried not to connect with her, but some days I couldn’t stop myself. On such days, we would visit Mothercare and play with the garish mobiles, and I would pick up baby grows and press the soft, towelling fabric against my cheek. Such days tempted me to phone Fiona, my social worker, and call the adoption off. Each time we met, Fiona reminded me I could do this, even up to six weeks after my child’s birth. I didn’t though. I stuck to what I believed was right for both of us.
All this I could tell my mother. The news might ease her passage into the next world or it might distress her. She might die resenting me even more for my past decisions.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I say.
I won’t tell her because the secret is mine to keep, just as the decision not to keep my daughter was mine to make. I relinquished her for so many reasons. At my initial interview, I gave Fiona the obvious explanations she expected to hear—I can’t afford a child yet, I want my child to have a better life, I’m not ready for motherhood. I didn’t tell her I wanted to recover the choice that was taken from me, nor could I admit I didn’t want to be a mother, not unless I could do so on my own terms.
My thought process made sense to me then. I did the best I could. I’m sure even Cassie’s mother had her reasons for leaving a defenceless baby by a rubbish bin.
Most mothers do what they believe is best. Even mine.
‘I know you were only trying to help.’ I’ll never understand how she could have put her faith before me, but I do know now that she made the decision she thought was right at the time.
I stand up and press the red button on the wall.
‘The nurse will be in soon,’ I say.
I lean over the bed and press my ear against her fragile chest. Her faint heartbeat passes into me.
PART FOUR
62
19/02/2016
Dear Mother,
Who knows if this letter will reach you? It’s the tenth one I’ve written, but Dr Costello refuses to send them. All I can do is keep trying. I can’t post the letter myself and when I tried to pay one of my keyworkers to do it, he reported me.
Sorry about my handwriting. The only chance I get to write to you is during art class and I’m only allowed a thick felt tip. Do you know where I am? Quentin said he told you I’m in hospital, but I bet he didn’t give you any details. He wants to keep us apart. They all do.
I’m at the Sunrise Women’s Unit—a place for fresh starts, new dawns. So they say. It’s the red-brick bungalow in the grounds of Five Oaks private hospital. My room overlooks the garden. None of the five oaks reside there. Too much risk of one of us jumping or finding a branch sturdy enough to swing from. All of us here are under constant surveillance. Nurses note what I eat at mealtimes and shadow me so I am never alone. Drives me nuts, but I’ve no chance of getting out unless I go along with it.
When I see Costello, I’ll explain that you must have this letter soon so you can arrange to come and visit me for my birthday. I’ve always hated my birthday but this year will be different. This year I’ll have you. Can you believe I’ll be twenty-one? If indeed February 26th is my birthday? The doctors that treated me in the neonatal unit guessed my mother had pushed me out earlier that day, but only you can say for certain.
We have a lot to discuss, you and I. Abandoning a baby is a crime and you are technically a criminal. Don’t worry, I know some crimes are more complex than others.
Dr Costello told me the coroner’s inquest into Grandma’s death proved it was accidental. The right verdict, in my opinion. Nothing that happened was deliberate. I believe the fire department’s investigation revealed that two cigarette butts on a plate beneath Len’s bed had started the blaze. Len could be difficult, but even he wouldn’t have done that on purpose.
I hope you didn’t feel too terrible after Grandma died. I still remember Isobel’s death so clearly. By the time I came downstairs from my room and realised she’d collapsed in the rockery, she must have been lying there for over an hour. I called an ambulance right away and sat with her in the back as we sped to hospital. She’d had a brain haemorrhage, which apparently wasn’t unusual for someone with a late-stage brain tumour like hers. She never woke up. I stayed with her two whole days before she died. Slept in the chair next to her bed. I was with her when her lungs shut down and she choked to death, her eyes bulging.
Are you still in touch with Kegs by any chance? I’m glad he didn’t get sacked for hiring me. To be fair, I did apply for the job using my real name. Yes, my references were fake and I spoke with a fake accent and made up a fake history, but I worked hard and always helped out when they needed extra staff. I miss Emma sometimes. Now that my blonde roots are coming through, all traces of her are vanishing. Sick of her as I was by the end, she was kind and fun and she meant well. Bless her heart. Now and again, when stuck in my room here, I
wish she would appear at my door and offer me a drink from the tea trolley.
Sorry for knocking you out with the Virgin Mary by the way. I was upset and confused. As soon as I hit you, something broke inside me. I waited for you to wake up, but you didn’t. I sat beside you for some time, thinking of ways to fix the bond between us. I even painted your nails, remembering how much fun we’d had the last time, but it didn’t work. I began to believe your lies about you not being my mother. I picked up the scrapbook and stared at the photo of me as a baby. So ugly. No wonder my real mother hadn’t wanted me.
I felt desperately empty. My mother had left me outside a pub after hours in winter. She’d wanted me to die, and I was never meant to be in the world. That’s when I decided to leave. I must have been quite calm this time round because I ran the bath scalding hot, determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. However, my scissors can’t have been as sharp as I’d thought and anyway, you got to me before it was too late.
When I first woke up in hospital and discovered you’d saved me, I hated you for it. I didn’t want to be alive. I didn’t want to have to think about everything. Then I realised what your actions meant. You’d finally come back for me. Rescued me from death, in a way you weren’t able to all those years ago. You were my mother and you loved me, and one day we would be together. I understood why you’d tried to deny it. You were scared by the enormity of it. I forgive you.
My session with Dr Costello starts soon. He’s very gentle with me these days, but I know what he’s up to. He wants me to renounce you. He says stuff like: I know you believe Grace is your mother, but I’m not convinced. He asks what direct evidence I have to prove my thoughts.
I always bring up the note, the one you wrote on blue, lined paper and tucked inside my blanket before leaving me by the rubbish bin. I’m sorry. G x. The Harringtons gave it to me so I’d have a memento of my mother. I don’t have it anymore. I burnt it years ago, shortly before my first attempt at departing the world.
She Chose Me Page 24
