Heartstream

by Tom Pollock

  “That I’m real.” She shrugs. “That I exist and I matter. Just like you do. That I can’t be shoved away in a cupboard like a dress you got too big for and forgot about.”

  She beams at me suddenly, and raises her mug in a salute. “Thank you, Amy,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “Here I am, holding you in your own house against your will, and you’re being so nice to me. You’re the first person in I don’t know how long to treat me like a human being.”

  She drains her mug with a show of great relish. I hear her slurp the dregs, and the tension in my chest ratchets down a single notch.

  “Now that,” she says, “was a truly extraordinary cup of tea.” She stands, collects my empty mug as well, and beetles over to the sink to wash up. On the telly, my house has been replaced by the familiar bulk of Adrian Rijkaard, London’s mayor. He’s standing outside the giant collapsing glass testicle that is London City Hall, microphones shoved in his face.

  “The incident is rapidly evolving,” he says. “At present the police believe there to be one hostage, and no casualties. They have a principal suspect for the hostage taker. They are not prepared to release the name at this time, but that suspect does have confirmed terrorist contacts.”

  I shiver at the word terrorist. Since the mayor came in, there have been more guns, more police, more shots and fewer questions. The cops killed all six of the Tufnell Park attackers within two hours of the first blast, but some claim they put two innocent bystanders in the morgue alongside them. The official report was that those two were hostages executed by the terrorists. Like always, it depended on who you trusted. But the next day all the news sites were full of words like decisive, no nonsense, even heroic, and the picture on every front page was of the cop who was killed.

  Around the streamer forums there were other rumours too. That terror suspects were having patches slapped to their heads and being forced to stream off end-stage cancer patients. The Met denied it, but noted a legal opinion that if they had done it, it wouldn’t be torture since, technically, they wouldn’t have actually been creating the pain.

  “So we haven’t ruled out terrorism,” the mayor rumbles on. “But very little is known…”

  A loud crash of breaking ceramics startles me. Standing at the sink, Polly’s back has gone completely rigid. She starts to tremble, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter like it’s all she can do to stay standing.

  “I haven’t ruled terrorism out of your face, you duplicitous little shit!” The force of her shriek pins me back in my chair. She whirls and flings Mum’s teapot at the TV. It misses, smashing into the wall underneath the screen and dragging a dark smear of suds down the paintwork. Fragments of the Hatter’s face stare up at me from the red tiles.

  “Oh,” she says, in a small voice. “Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry, Amy. I didn’t mean to…” She drops to her knees and begins to collect the pieces of shattered pottery. “I didn’t mean to; I didn’t…” she mumbles over and over.

  “It’s OK,” I find myself saying. I crouch down to help her, but she pushes me gently away. Her eyes are unfocused.

  “No, pleassse, I’ll do … do … duuuuuuh.” Her movements slow. She grabs for one big chunk showing the shattered top hat and misses by six inches. “I didn’… I did.”

  She goes still, slumped forward heavily on her elbows, her breathing suddenly laboured and wet. Then her arms go out from under her, and she collapses on the floor.

  For a split second, I stare at her, my heart locking up in horror. Is she unconscious? Is she dead? Then my eye lands on the Hatter’s yellow bow tie.

  “You’ve got a job to do,” I mutter. “Survive.”

  But how? The silver tape glints mockingly from the window frames. I don’t dare disturb it. I make a grab for my phone where it sits on the table. My hands are so slick with sweat that the touchscreen doesn’t answer; my fingers leave wet smears on the glass. I wipe it off on my dress and try again, frantically scrolling to the recent calls. One unknown mobile number sits at the top of the list. I call it.

  “This is DCI Singh.”

  “Hello? Hello? Are you there?”

  “Yes, this is DCI Singh. Am I talking to the individual holding Amy Becker?”

  “No! No, this is … I am Amy.”

  “Amy?” The voice sounds startled. “I’m Sammi. I’m the officer in charge of this situation. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just… I need help. I managed to … I don’t know. I think she’s unconscious. She might be dead.” My guts twist and I almost vomit up the word.

  “Who is?”

  “The woman holding me hostage. I put some of Mum’s old drugs in her tea. She’s out cold on the floor.”

  “You … that’s incredible. Brilliant work, Amy. We’ll come in and get you.”

  “NO!” My startled yelp is so loud that, for a second, I think I’ll rouse Polly, but she stays motionless on the tiles.

  “She’s put some kind of tape around all the doors and windows. She said if anyone fiddles with it or breaks it the bomb will go off.”

  “OK. OK, Amy, we’ll get you out of this. I need to talk to some other people right now. Stay on the line, OK?”

  “OK.”

  Silence crackles over the phone. Distantly, I hear snatches of a muttered conversation:

  “Can we jam the signal?”

  “Only if we knew the frequency, and even then she might have wired it to blow if it’s interrupted remotely.”

  A chagrined silence falls. I hang desperately on the line, listening now only to my own laboured heartbeat. And then:

  “Amy?”

  “Yes? Yes. I’m here.”

  “I’m going to hand you over to DS Atkinson; he’s from the bomb squad, OK?”

  A new voice, cigarette-coarsened, comes over the phone. “Amy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Tom, Tom Atkinson, pleased to meet you. I know this is scary, but you’re going to be fine. Do you trust me on that?”

  I can feel myself starting to hyperventilate. I grit my teeth, forcing my breath out slowly through them.

  “Yes.” It’s a lie, but a useful one, and I’ve got used to telling those recently.

  “First, we need to find the bomb; do you know where it is?”

  “It’s … it’s on her. It’s strapped to her.”

  “Like on a vest?”

  “Yes. There’s two lights, some ball bearings and … and a load of wires.”

  He mutters something I don’t catch.

  “OK, I need you to go over to her.”

  I crouch beside Polly’s prone form. She’s sprawled, face down. One leg is cocked up under her.

  “I’m there.”

  “Can you get at the wires?”

  “No, they’re underneath her. She fell on her stomach.”

  “OK, we’re going to need you to turn her over; can you do that?”

  I try to put my hand out to touch her, but it’s like trying to force it into a fire – it won’t go. “No … I … I can’t. I’m scared.”

  “Amy, this is really important. We can’t come in if you can’t get at the wires.”

  “OK, I… OK.” I pin the phone between my cheek and my shoulder and slide my palms under Polly’s stomach. For a split second I think I feel her jerk and I scream.

  “I can’t… I can’t…” I’m crying, my tears running down my jaw to the phone, making it slick.

  “You can,” Tom says gruffly. “It’ll be OK.”

  I drag in three, four, five deep breaths. “OK.” I tense and pull upwards on Polly’s stomach. She’s so light, she flips over almost immediately. Her head lolls back, but she’s breathing, her chest full of wires rising and falling.

  “OK. OK, I’ve got her on her back.”

  “Brilliant, that’s brilliant, Amy. Well done. Can you see the wires now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What colour are they?”

  “There’s … there’s two bl
ack, one green and one blue one.”

  “Can you see the explosive? It’ll be in blocks or bottles.”

  “Yes, it’s in little plastic bottles of clear liquid on her chest and her back.”

  “How big are they?”

  “A … a half-litre each? Like water bottles.”

  “And how many are there?”

  “Six.”

  “Holy—” Tom swallows his oath. “OK, well, that’s quite a lot. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not going to go off, is it?”

  “No.”

  There’s another muttered conference on the other end of the phone.

  “Is there a small box anywhere on the vest? It should have a little nub on top, like one of those old car door locks.”

  “Y-yes? Yes.”

  “OK, good. That’s the aerial. That’s what picks up the signal from the circuit she’s put round your house. Somewhere, hooked up to that tape, there’s another one of those. In an ideal world we’d look for that one, but it’s not an ideal world, is it?”

  I swallow hard; my throat is dry and sticky at the same time. “Not today it’s not exactly, no.”

  He laughs. “Good stuff, Amy. OK, now tell me, what colour wire goes into the aerial on the vest?”

  “The green one.”

  “OK, then that’s the one we need to cut. I don’t suppose you’ve got a set of wire cutters in the house?”

  “No, but I’m in the kitchen. There’s a knife block about four feet away.”

  “Great. That’ll do. Grab the sharpest one you can find.”

  I slide the carving knife out of the big pine block and crouch back beside Polly’s slack form.

  “Got it.”

  “OK. We want one smooth, clean cut, so try to bend the slack of the wire around the blade.”

  “OK.” There’s enough, just barely, to get a loop of acid-green flex around the blade. My hand is shaking so badly that the tip of the knife is a blur. Polly’s chest rises and falls, regular as the tide.

  “OK, then whenever you’re ready, cut.”

  I blow out hard, and feel every muscle in my body tense as I—

  “You probably ought to know I wired it in reverse.”

  I jerk backwards. The phone slips out from my cheek and skitters away over the tiles. For a moment, I think I’ve severed the wire, but then I realize my arm hasn’t moved. Polly’s hand is locked onto my forearm. Her fingers are digging under my muscle like needles. Her eyes are open, her expression rueful.

  “Cutting that wire will bring the house down,” she goes on, “so you really don’t want to do that, unless you’re looking to call it a day. Which, given the day you’ve had, I wouldn’t blame you for.”

  “Amy?” Tom’s voice crackles over the phone. But I can barely hear it; my gaze is locked on Polly’s green, sad eyes. “Amy, are you there?”

  She twists my wrist and the knife slips from my numb grasp onto her chest.

  “I thought we were becoming friends,” she says, sadly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cat

  The light in the waiting room is like a drill to my eyeballs.

  All around me, women try to manage their nerves with varying degrees of apparent success. Some perch right on the edge of the polythene-covered benches, drumming their hands on their thighs. Some scroll feverishly through their phones for distractions, unable to settle on anything for more than a few seconds. Others are very still, holding themselves with something like dread. Every time a high beep cuts the silence, all our eyes dart to the dot matrix display over the windows where the next patient’s name has flashed up.

  Roughly half of the women are accompanied by men. The men murmur soothingly to their wives and girlfriends, and squeeze their hands. My chest hurts and I turn away from them. All I can do with my own sweat-slick palms is rub them on my jeans.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re the one who decided not to tell him.

  Yet. I correct the thought. I haven’t told Ryan yet. He’ll be there for me, I know he will. I feel a little twinge of guilt at keeping it from him. I will tell him; it’s just… Look, it’s my uterus and my hormones, and I want to get my head straight before I involve his.

  In the corner, two women kiss. I hadn’t realized they were here together. The older one, the one with grey hairs creeping in at her temples, rocks gently in her chair. She has the face of someone who knows this is her last chance.

  A chair tips over with a clatter and a girl with dyed dreadlocks scrambles for the bathroom. We all look sympathetically after her. For me, at least, that’s stopped, for now.

  Still, I suppose I should be grateful for the two-week breakdance party in my stomach since it was that which finally tipped me off. My boobs had been sore and I was knackered, but I just thought I was sick. I’d lurched into the living room, pale as a zombie, sipping the Bovril that Mum swore by for stomach flu. On TV a harried-looking blonde woman was hurtling into a toilet stall for a projectile vomit that rivalled my own spectacular pukeathon.

  “What are you watching?” I asked Mum.

  “I genuinely have no idea,” she said, and checked the TV menu. “Up the Duff Without a Paddle.” She shrugged and crunched another crisp. “I remember I had terrible morning sickness with you. Cat? Are you OK?”

  But I couldn’t answer. I was frozen in place, Bovril mist wafting over my face like beefy weather.

  It just hadn’t occurred to me. I was on the pill; I had been since before Ryan and I had started hooking up. OK, when I really racked my brain I couldn’t remember whether I’d taken it every single day, and my periods had been light, for me, but they’d kept coming, so…

  “I’m fine, Mum.”

  In fairness, it was only the next day, when the fifth stick I peed on gave me the same message as the four before it, that I really knew that wasn’t true. I stared at the little blue cross, acid panic burning in my throat. Ryan, Mum, school, Evie – my world dissolved into a storm of questions, and no answers.

  The beep from the dot matrix is like a knitting needle in my ear.

  Ms Hippolyta Richards.

  I peel myself off the seat, wincing at the sound my sweaty thighs make as they come away from the polythene. Some of the older women throw covert glances my way. I think I’m the youngest here, and I’m suddenly painfully aware of the empty air around my right hand.

  “Ms … Richards, is it?” The doctor has a beard that could give half of London’s homeless a new wardrobe if you wove it into clothes.

  “Mrs,” I correct him. If you’re going to do wish fulfilment on your alias, you might as well go all out.

  “Hippolyta, eh,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  “Queen of the Amazons.” He grins; he’s enjoying showing off. “Horse let loose!”

  “’S’right.”

  “Parents are classicists, are they?”

  “Uh … yes. They, um … they love all that stuff.”

  Not even a flicker of the eyebrows, which I put down more to the number of women who come in here with fake names than my outstanding thespian skills.

  “I’m Dr Jenkins. Please just lie down there.” He scrolls through a couple of pages on his screen. “How long has it been since you last bled?”

  “My periods kept coming.” He looks up at me. “But I took a bunch of tests, and they all said I was pregnant.” Hope flares briefly. “Why, could they be wrong?”

  He barks a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’re pregnant. Can you roll your top up? And just unbutton your shorts and pull them down a bit so I can get below your belly button.”

  He tucks some tissue in around my waistband, pulls on a plastic glove and then smears a jelly that feels like a concentrated arctic snowmelt around my abdomen. A rash of goosebumps covers me.

  He mirrors my wince. “I know, sorry. It is a little cold.”

  I can’t help but flinch when he touches the probe to my skin. A little electric shock goes through me and I can feel every beat
of my heart throbbing up into my jaw. He moves the wand this way and that, head cocked slightly to the side, like he’s a burglar and my uterus is a safe he can crack. Then I realize he’s watching a computer screen off to one side. I don’t know how long has passed. About 3,657,955 years judging by the number of heartbeats I’m getting through. A wave of feeling, part relief, part anticlimax, washes over me. The tests were wrong. There’s no baby. Nothing’s changed. Everything’s OK.

  And then I hear it.

  Via a trick of technology, it sounds like it’s coming from a speaker on the rack of the machine beside me, but I know where it’s really coming from. Steady, but rapid, putting my own frantic pulse to shame.

  A heartbeat. A second human heartbeat. Inside me.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Mrs Richards?”

  I don’t answer.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Richards?”

  I blink and look down. There’s a white blur about nine inches from my face, and when I blink away the tears I didn’t know I was crying, and clean the fog off my glasses, I realize it’s a box of tissues. I have to wrench my hand free of the rictus grip it has on the armrest to take one.

  And all the while the little heart goes duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum, fast as a butterfly’s wing.

  “It’s as well you came when you did,” the doctor says. “By the looks of things it’s been about eleven weeks. We’ll need to take some blood for tests.”

  “Why?” I look up sharply. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “Well, that’s what we’ll be testing for, but I don’t have any reason to believe there would be. Speaking solely in biological terms, you understand, women your age are well-oiled machines for this.”

  I nod, astonished by the surge of emotion welling up in my throat. Relief and gratitude and … something else. Where is this coming from? I examine the feeling suspiciously, like it’s counterfeit, like it’s not really mine. I shouldn’t be able to feel this way about something so small and simple, something that’s barely there, that doesn’t even know my name, that doesn’t even have a brain yet, not really.

  Duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum.

  But it has a heart, and that’s enough.