Etched on Me Read online

  Clench. Fly. Clench. Fly.

  Don’t open me. Don’t make me open.

  Clench. Fly. Clench. Fly.

  “Lesley?” Soft hand on my shoulder, shaky-gentle voice at my ear. “Talk to me.”

  Contractions are like waves. Picture yourself riding them.

  Fuck that fuck that fucking fuck that.

  I tipped my head back. Mad-wet-dog-drippy head-shake. How long ago had I prayed, in those hot droplets? How hard had I laughed, under that tingling spray?

  “Imogen!” Gloria, above me, shouting out into the crowd, her hand tilting in frantic wave.

  Hand them the letter, Im. Tell them I’ve just nipped into the toilets again. Back any minute. Passport at the ready.

  “Got here fast as I could, Mrs. K. That queue is fierce. What’s . . . Why’s she down on the floor like that? She’s not in . . . Oh my God.” Her voice rose to a shriek. “She is!”

  (No. Your Miraculous Pregnancy says, and I quote: Labor can take many hours in a first-time mum. Contrary to what hospital dramas and comedy films depict, there is almost never a need for panic.)

  Almost. Almost.

  Not happening. Is not.

  Luggage trolley roll-squeak. “Mummy, is that lady going to have her baby right here in the airport?”

  My fists rose. My head whipped round to spy poor little Hannah in her Mickey Mouse ears.

  “No,” I choked out, just as the next clench hit and a security guard came walking over.

  • • •

  “Relax, love.”

  No, really. That’s what he said.

  And then: “Hospital’s just up the road.”

  Breathe. Rock. Breathe.

  Imogen’s and Gloria’s arms around my back.

  “I’ve radioed our medics.”

  Ceiling ceiling ceiling.

  Clenchclenchclench.

  (Dr. P., back in the day, all Zen chuckle: “Don’t push the river, Lesley. It flows by itself.”)

  Into me, out of me.

  My arms wrapped around her, harder than the belt I’d teased her father with, tighter than the belt her grandfather had used to bind my wrists above my head.

  Little light, shining . . .

  Blue one. Atop an ambulance.

  • • •

  “Every five minutes. No idea on dilation.”

  God, that trolley mattress felt brilliant. Didn’t want it to, but it did.

  “Roll onto your left side for us, sweetie?” Broad-shouldered, kind-faced lady medic.

  I rolled. Wrapped my fingers round the cold metal of the protective rails. Chillygood.

  “Any urges to push?” This from her male partner, wheeling me from behind.

  “No.” Head-shake so vigorous it hurt. My free hand still guarding my bump.

  Stay with me. With me.

  Clenchclenchclench.

  I closed my eyes. Deep-belly breathed.

  “That’s it. You’re doing marvelous.”

  At the sound of the ambulance doors’ unlatch, my eyes flickered back open. “My . . . my family. I need them. Where are they?”

  “Following us straight there.”

  Heave-ho into the cavern. Gritting my teeth on the jostle.

  “Anyone else we should contact? Your partner? Midwife?”

  “Haven’t one,” I mumbled. “I’m moving abroad.”

  Will be. No, admit it: was.

  Man slipped a pair of those oxygen prongy-bits like Vera’s into my nostrils. Lady rolled my sleeve up. The closest one. The left one.

  Not a word. Not even a sigh-gasp. Just an apology. “Quick poke here. So sorry.”

  They don’t know. They won’t know. I’m marvelous. I’ve a chance.

  Eye-squinch, followed by soft flicker, followed by eye-squinch again. Squeezing the steady fingers my guard offered me through the bars, counting down the seconds to clench clench clench clench fly.

  24

  Ward bustle hand-off. Flying jargon. Primipara, precipitous labor, and . . . “Wait. What’s her name?”

  Clare Manning. Molly Bloom. Kate Bush.

  Lie, do it. Lie, damn it.

  Pain like a wave, no choice but to ride.

  “Lesley,” I gasped. “Lesley . . . Holloway.”

  • • •

  Phone calls. Whisper flurries. My trolley’s wheels locked in park at the nurse’s station.

  “She’s that one . . . From on telly . . . You know. Custody order? Harm risk?”

  Unit head paged. Protocol spelled out. “Get her on a fetal monitor, and don’t leave her unattended, even for a second.”

  I jammed my fists in my mouth. Curled up tight as I could.

  “Keep away from that drip line, now.” My assigned nurse swatted lightly at my hand as they wheeled me towards my single room.

  When we passed by a suite fitted out with a glossy egg of a birthing tub, my eyes welled up. Stupid sluice-tears. Wistful lavender ache.

  “Here. Put these on.”

  Old diamond-print wisp of a gown, same gray fluff-socks.

  No, I wanted to say. If you can’t treat me with dignity, you can at least let me keep my goddamn clothes on.

  But of course I balanced. Of course I scrambled, in the four (ohmygod, four) minutes I now had between cramped huffs.

  “Lie down. It’s less stress on the baby.”

  Not your baby. The.

  I’d just got settled on my side—well, best I could given the pair of electronic jetpacks attached to my bump—when a white-coat manly-man came in, all “Let’s see where we stand, shall we?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He gave me a look like Surely you know all these procedures by heart, Miss Munchausen. “A progress check. Of your cervix.”

  Nonononono.

  (“They do what to what now, Les?”)

  Imogen. I needed Imogen. Where was she?

  Glove-snap. Hand-beckon. “Slide down for me, please.”

  Inch by inch, quaking beneath blankets, I slid.

  His hand angled under. Tilted my knee open.

  Every muscle in me tightened. I willed my legs not to clamp shut.

  Good girl. I’m a good girl. See?

  He rolled me onto my back. Reached for the waistband of my knickers. Whisked them down and off.

  I grabbed fistfuls of blanket. My head rocketed off the pillow, rigid-necked, as both the gut-clench and the shove of his fingers overtook me.

  “Ow. Ow. Ow!” My protests like empty-air punches.

  “Seven centimeters.” Nonchalant latex peel-off. “You’re well on your—”

  “What the hell?” Immi, all indignant in the doorway.

  Still naked and bent-kneed, I reached out my arms for her. She ran into them and grabbed me tight, rocking me into a sitting position. “Flipping sadist,” she whispered. “Next time, I’m punching him out.”

  I tried to smile. “Where’s Gloria?”

  “Still trying to find parking. This place is a pit.”

  “Careful you don’t dislodge her monitor,” my nurse called from her chair post.

  Mrm-mrm-mrm-mrm-mrm-mrm-mrm, Imogen mouthed in scowly, head-cocked imitation of her. “You need anything, Les?”

  “Just my knickers.”

  I’d barely got them back on when the next pain rammed me. Back, belly, front, bottom, everyplace. I sank forward onto my hands and knees, moaning pitiful moo-cow sounds, wracked with shakes.

  “Please,” Imogen said to the nurse, her voice equally shaky. “Can’t you give her some drugs?”

  “She’s too far along for an epidural.”

  “Just rub my back, Im,” I gasped.

  She hovered over me, her hand timid.

  “Not like that. Harder.”

  Blanket-grip. Head-lower. Door-swing. Gloria.

  She hurried to the bed. I reached out for her. Fought to steady myself as the clench hit.

  “I’ve got you,” she whispered, stroking my hair as I buried my face in the warm wool of her coat. “Just lea
n into me, angel. I’ve got you.”

  “She really ought to lie down again.” Public service announcement from my nurse.

  I leaned back, turned over, closed my eyes. Immi fed me ice chips; Gloria draped a cool cloth against the back of my neck. Tranquil, almost sleepy. A blessed lull.

  And then I was up again, back on my hands and knees. Sweating. Swearing. “It’s too fucking hot in here! Nobody talk!” Shades of Francesca and her soup.

  I puked into a basin. I bled pinkish egg white onto a crackly square of aqua-bordered padding hurriedly placed between my trembling thighs. I made guttural growls that sounded like I was rending raw flesh with my teeth. I slammed my fists down on the mattress in fury as the pressure descended and my body betrayed me with a push.

  “Get on your back!”

  Trifecta of round lights gleaming. My fluff-socks hoisted into stirrups. Manly-man between my splayed legs, imperious. Nurses frantically consulting. “At what point should security be dispatched?”

  Never never never.

  “Ring Bradford Kamen,” I panted to Gloria. “Right now.”

  On my other side, Immi clung to my hand. “It—it’ll be okay, Les.” Her words an unconvincing stammer. “Really, it will.”

  “All right, so Lesley.” Bradford, his voice thin through the stretched cord of the bedside table’s landline. “I want you to listen to me, hard as you’ve ever done in your life.”

  “ ’Kay,” I grunted.

  “Don’t let medical staff take her out of your sight without your explicit consent. And if a Children’s Services worker from any borough shows up without a court-issued order in hand, send them back down the lifts.”

  “How . . . long . . . decide?”

  “Several hours. During which you have sole custody. Do you hear me? Complete.”

  • • •

  “Six, seven, eight, nine . . .”

  Stop counting. Shut up.

  “Aaaand rest.”

  My eyeballs throbbed. My lips stung.

  So much pressure, too much skin-stretch.

  Where’s my candle where’s my bathtub where’s Clare?

  Just relax, love.

  Fuck you.

  There’s my girl.

  Mine. Do you hear me? Mine.

  The glint of a syringe. Scissors.

  I whipped my head back and forth on the pillow. Sucked my tongue so I wouldn’t scream as the snip came.

  “One more push.”

  No. Stay with me, lovey. Don’t be—

  Slip, slide, turn. Out.

  Wiggly waily smear of limbs, all blood and squall.

  I barely got a glimpse before they hustled her under her own bright lamp, laying her down in a plastic cot to rub her roughly, suctioning out her button nose and furious little mouth.

  “Time of birth, thirteen forty-five.”

  My flight’s scheduled moment of departure.

  “Give her to me,” I said, teeth chattering.

  And, miracle of miracles, they did. Swaddled all snug like a jacket potato in foil, sporting a striped pink hat. Quiet now, her eyes never straying from mine all through my stitch-up.

  For the next hour, we lay curled together, me with an ice pack on my sore parts, she in the crook of my arm. I sang her a ridiculous song about being the cutest calamari in the ocean, while Imogen took picture after picture with her mobile phone’s camera and Gloria fed me bites of a cheeseburger I’d ordered up from the hospital kitchen. (Best meal of my flipping life, I kid you not.)

  Little girl must have been hungry, too, ’cause she started rooting round, nuzzling me like, Make with the goods! Not like I had much on offer yet, but both birthing class and Your You-Know-What Pregnancy had been in agreement that those yellowy drips-and-drabs were “liquid gold,” so I hiked my gown up straightaway.

  “Stop.”

  I glanced over at the nurse. “What? It’s good for her.”

  “We can’t allow you until we’ve gotten back the results from your toxicology screen.”

  “Oh, you are freaking kidding me.” Gloria, I’m so not in full force.

  My lips trembled. “Only thing I’ve had is a hazelnut latte, I swear.”

  Against my gown, Squidlet whimpered and fretted.

  “Shh, baby,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head.

  Nurse stood up. Walked over. Reached across the bed rails, arms outstretched. “I’ll take her to the nursery for a feed.”

  And never bring her back?

  Just say yes. You’ll look even more dodgy if you don’t.

  “Okay,” I said. “But only if she”—I pointed to Gloria—“goes with.”

  Frownypants sigh, followed by assent. My skin crawling, my fists curling, as they filed out.

  Soon as the door closed, I fell onto Imogen, all silent howl.

  “Easy, girlie,” she said, patting my back. “You know Gloria won’t let them pull any shit.”

  Sure enough, ten minutes later, back they came, Squidlet’s pointy-capped head tucked under Gloria’s chin. “Scrumptious, scrumptious thing,” she cooed. “Let’s get you back to your mum.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Let Immi hold her.” Just in ca—

  Shh. Don’t think it.

  “All right, Auntie Imogen. Here you go.” Delicate handover, Im looking delighted and terrified at once. “Steady her head. Just like that. Perfect.”

  Immi’s eyes went damp. “God, she’s so tiny.”

  “Who’s my ickle Squidlet?”

  Soon as she heard me, her face turned.

  “She knows who that is,” Gloria said, smiling.

  Greedy, amazed, I reached hungrily for her. Cuddled her to my chest. Lay back and tucked my blanket round us both.

  Voices in the hall. Footsteps. My nurse stood. Went to the door.

  I glanced from Imogen to Gloria and back again.

  “Im,” I said hoarsely. “Go check.”

  She grabbed Gloria’s hand. Squeezed it for reassurance.

  Huge, almost comical steps. Arms pumping. Sneaky sneak, followed by a joke’s over dart back to my bedside.

  “What?” I said.

  “Security.”

  My arms tightened round Squidlet. No no no, I mouthed, chin jerking.

  Gloria rested her palm against my cheek. “Lesley.”

  Eye-squinch. Ceiling.

  “Look at me, Lesley. Look at me.”

  Flicker.

  It’s happening, I mouthed again.

  “You don’t know that.”

  Airless throat. I wisped out speech. “It’s gonna kill me.”

  She slid her hand up against my temple, holding me fast. “We won’t let it.” Sharp glance at Imogen. “Will we, Im?”

  Immi’s face was blank with terror. “N-no.”

  The nurse stepped back in, her features softened to pudding. “Lesley.” First time she’d used my name in the four hours she’d kept watch. “There’s a social worker here to see you.”

  “Don’t need one,” I said. “But thanks.”

  Her face flushed. “She’s . . . she’s from child protection.”

  I sat up. “Which team?”

  “Islington.”

  Fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

  “Papers,” I managed. “Has she got any?”

  “Hang on. I’ll ask.”

  Soon as her back was turned, I motioned for Immi to unlatch the side rails on my bed. Fought to swing my legs over.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Gloria put her hands on my shoulders.

  “Let me up.”

  “Only if you tell me what you’re planning to do.”

  Hide in the toilets. Jump out the window. Whatever it takes.

  Door opened again. There she stood. Directress Butter-Up.

  I shifted Squidlet into one elbow crook. Put up my palm to block Olivia’s approach.

  “Don’t come near me,” I said, like a desperate gun-brandisher. One of Those People, forever and ever, amen.

  Olivia didn’t move. Just handed the
nurse a small sheaf.

  As she brought it over, I slid back on the bed.

  The page floated before my eyes. Couldn’t touch it.

  In re: Baby H.

  My sleepsighing girl, rendered an initial.

  The High Court judge’s signature a smooth swirl.

  I snatched it from the nurse and flung it across the room. Kamikaze paper airplane. Fuck that fuck that fucking fuck that.

  Olivia bent down in her heels. Plucked the order from the floor. Straightened up and walked towards me.

  “Don’t do this,” I heard Gloria whisper from the foot of the bed. “Please don’t do this.”

  Imogen, sobbing into Gloria’s shoulder.

  I pressed my cheek to Squidlet’s head.

  “You brought me crisps and a soda when I ran away from home,” I said. “Remember that girl.” My voice broke. “Remember me.”

  Olivia’s brows furrowed. Forehead line going deep. Mouth pinching into what looked like sorrow.

  “Let’s do it calmly,” she said. “Gently. For your daughter’s sake.” Her voice tender. Almost reverent. Your.

  Thank you, I almost said, but then she bent down, and my mouth watered with spit, and my eyes watered with rage. No more eager retriever, no more collaborative solutions. No more yes please sure absolutely whatever you’d like, here let me lift my skirt and lean across the desk so you can fuck me over even harder, no more no more no more, I’m done, do you hear me, done, so give me my—

  My fist, aiming for her teeth.

  My gray-fluffed feet, poised to kick the triangle between her legs.

  My unbridled screams.

  My forearm, swabbed with alcohol.

  My wrists, laced into leather cuffs.

  My ankles, spread and bound.

  My sacred sweet shining thing, Margate funfair balloon, lifting, lifted, towards the ceiling, up and gone.

  • • •

  By the time they discharged me, bruised and staggering, it was almost midnight. I lay on the backseat with my head in Imogen’s lap, moaning softly all the way back to the Kremskys’.

  Jascha met us at the pavement, sleepless and solemn. I sat up just enough to reach for him, and he scooped me into his arms and carried me up the front steps.

  Inside, the dogs barked and a wide-awake Sveta babbled. “How come Auntie Lesley’s back? Why hasn’t she got the big tummy anymore?” Her voice rose in panic. Her fingers tugged at her father’s sleeve. “What’s wrong? What happened to the baby? Tell me!”