Daughter of the Winds (21 page)

I was no longer so sure that I could find any answers here in Cyprus
. The only people I could trust to help me with the turmoil I was in were at home waiting patiently for me to pull myself together. As I lowered my gaze and started to turn away a rush of wind caught my hair and blew dust in my eyes.

“
Leni!”

I blinked
away the dust but my vision wasn’t clearing as quickly as I needed it too.

“
Hello? Who’s there?”

“
Leni!” The voice shouted again. An impatient wind carried the noise from afar. It was a little girl’s voice. At last my vision cleared enough for me to peer around into the deserted street. Nothing moved. I turned back to the wasteland behind the fence and there, standing in the doorway of a building that had been left half completed, was a beautiful little girl with plaits hanging over her narrow shoulders. Anna was waving to me.

C
hapter eighteen

Cyprus, 1974

Whispering
through the fog in her head, Pru heard urgent voices. Hushed. Greek. She tried to ask what had happened to her but it felt like a long walk back to consciousness. When eventually she pushed open her eyes, Helene and Mrs Kostas were crouched over her. Helene put her hand behind Pru’s neck and lifted her head off the hard cold floor.

“
Here. Drink.” A glass was pushed into Pru’s sore lips where the icy liquid stung her cracked mouth. As she sipped, she could feel the progress of the water down her throat and spreading across her chest. The water tasted stale. Stagnant. Dust danced in the pellucid liquid and grit stung her throat. She tried to look more closely at the women but their images swam in front of her eyes and her pulse hammered out an uneven beat inside her head.

“
Seet up!” commanded the old woman.

Pru was too tired to move but equally too tired to fight with the imposing Greek woman.
She tried to push herself up using her elbows but she lurched to one side. The glass tumbled from her hand onto the hard stone floor and smashed, sending shards of glass across the tiles as it crumbled. Suddenly, as if the scales had fallen from her eyes, Pru saw it all. Time froze as she retreated within her own mind unable and unwilling to stop the memories flashing before her face.

She
saw herself having just returned from helping deliver Helene’s baby. She was tired and thirsty standing at the kitchen sink. Then she was lying on the floor of her apartment amid jagged splinters of glass. There was deep black blood oozing across her abdomen. She was shouting and screaming for help. “Somebody save my baby!” No came. She remembered the feeling of desperation as she had tried to cling onto her fragile consciousness as it was being drawn away from her.

Pru
’s hands flew to her stomach as the images bombarded her. The wrenching in her chest threatened to split her in two as the sob she had been holding back all day unexpectedly burst from her in a voice that she didn’t recognise. The acidic realisation of grief burned through her veins and made her scream. “Noooooo!”

She balled her fists up and pressed them against her eyes to blot out the burning images. Pru grunted and hummed with no rhythm or tune in the hope that the voices would quieten in her head.
But still she could hear them whisper. “You lost your baby. He’s dead. Gone. Forever. What will you do now you useless piece of shit?”

“
Nooooooooo! No! No! No!”

Pru rubbed
her hand across her sagging, deflated stomach and the cotton material of her hospital gown snagged against her barbed wire stitches marking out the perimeter of Pru’s own personal war zone.

“
Is he dead? My baby?” Pru whispered looking at the two worried looking women in front of her. “Please, can you tell me the truth? I don’t trust them at the hospital. Is he really gone?”

Helene stood and held onto the worn kitchen table, swallowing with difficulty.
Her face told Pru everything that she needed to know. Mrs Kostas placed her fat hands on Pru’s shoulders and nodded twice. The last of the fight left in Pru fled her body at that very moment. The only thing that Pru possessed now was body-numbing apathy. Pru could have sat, unfeeling and unflinching until the sun rose and the seasons changed, had it not been for the gurgle and bleating from the cradle on the table-top. All three women looked towards the wicker cocoon and then Helene looked back to Pru with pain and guilt etched all over her face.

“
It’s okay. Go to him. None of this is your fault and it isn’t his either.” Pru wiped her face on the sleeve of the borrowed coat she was wearing and was surprised at the lack of tears adorning her face.

“
Ees a girl. You remember?” asked Helene as if talking to a simple child.

“
A girl, yes, of course. I do remember now.” Her voice was uncertain and shaky but she was sure now that this couldn’t be her baby. Her baby had been a boy. She’d known it all along, throughout her pregnancy. Pru closed her eyes as she opened her arms to the tsunami of realisation and understanding that her baby was dead. Her son had died. She was all alone in the world.

Carefully placing her hand behind the baby
’s tender head, Helene lifted the baby out of the cradle and after a moment’s hesitation, offered the baby to Pru.

“
God, no.” Pru wrapped her arms around herself to keep her arms for reaching for the child. There was no doubt, thought Pru, that everything she touched withered under her hand. Her existence was noxious, poisoning everyone who came into contact with her.

Helene smiled sympathetically but failed to hide her relief in her face entirely.
Mrs Kostas started clearing up the broken glass carefully and silently as if this was the kind of thing that happened daily.

“
I’m sorry. About the glass, I mean. And everything else. Sorry. So,” said Pru trying to lighten the mood “does she have a name yet?”

Mrs Kostas helped her to her feet and into the chair by the table.

“No,” smiled Helene sadly. “I am waiting for my husband. He not know he has daughter. I have sent letter to the villages.”

Even though the words were sad,
Helene still wore happiness on her face as she looked down at the squirming pink bundle in her arms. Settling down in the arm-chair she deftly unbuttoned her dress with one hand and settled the baby at her breast. Pru’s own breasts started to ache and throb at the sight of this natural maternal act and another pang of grief coursed through her body when she realised there was another momentous event she would be missing out on.

“
You have more baby,” Mrs Kostas asserted.

“
Actually, I won’t.”

“
Tsk. You will.”

Swallowing down the unwelcome lump of agonising despair in her throat she concentrated on the now empty bassinet rather than the old woman
’s milky brown eyes.

“
No. I won’t.” And stopping the other woman before she could interject she continued “They did an operation at the hospital. I wil
l
neve
r
be able to have children.” Her voice cracked as the words came out of her mouth for the first time.

To Pru
’s annoyance Mrs Kostas swatted away this information with her hand.

“
I see you weeth baby like this. A girl. I never wrong.”

Pru
’s anger was beginning to burn with a searing heat which was gathering intensity. She needed to get some fresh air or she was going to be sick.

“
I’m feeling a bit hot. I think I shall sit outside for a minute, if that’s okay?”

Mrs Kostas nodded
. “I breeng you brandy.”

Helene nodded briefly in her direction and then went back to looking at the baby.
Pru couldn’t bear to look directly at the little girl, for fear she would collapse again and never get up. She hadn’t even realised how much she wanted her unborn child until he was gone. The pain of witnessing a scene that she would never experience was too much for her to bear. She pushed her way through the kitchen to the door and held on to the doorframe. Unseasonably, there was a crispness in the clear night and Pru pulled her borrowed coat tightly around her and tied the belt an extra notch tighter at her middle. What would Betty think when she realised that Pru had stolen her coat and left the hospital? How would she explain this to everyone. To Marjorie? To Eddie? What would they think of her if they knew that she had intended to take another woman’s baby?

Pru nursed the shame in her heart.
She allowed herself to feel every ounce of pain and humiliation that she deserved. What kind of person was she who, not only lost her baby, but intended to take someone else’s too? She was disgusted at herself. No wonder Eddie was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t stand the sight of her either. She had spent most of her life blaming other people. She blamed Mam’s bitterness at her own miserable life for her kicking Pru out of home. She blamed Dad’s weakness for him not getting in touch with her before he died. And Eddie. She blamed him for pretty much everything else. But as she stood in the night air in the coat she’d stolen from a well-meaning friend, outside the house where she’d been planning on taking her neighbour’s baby, she realised that
she
was the common denominator in all of these relationships. They’d all failed because of her. That, she realised with a snort, was why the ‘powers that be’ had decided she shouldn’t be able to bear any children. It was all starting to make sense now.

Pru furtively looked about her.
She had to get away from it all. Get some distance between herself and that baby. Before Mrs Kostas could come out and stop her, Pru launched herself down the dusky road in the direction of the sea. This was a walk she had completed many times before but today the distance seemed insurmountable. Her legs thrummed with fatigue and her knees threatened to give way with every step but she pushed on until there was enough distance between her and the house.

She had to si
t a couple of times on walls and benches before she reached the beach. Mrs Kostas would have discovered by now that she wasn’t sitting outside. She hoped that they wouldn’t come out to try to find her. She desperately needed to be alone. On the empty shoreline, there was meagre light being thrown out by the taverna and the noise was bearably low. Pru slumped just above the tide-line on to the welcoming sand and rolled onto her side. She pulled her knees up to her chest as much as she could, ignoring the angry pains in her stomach as her stitches rubbed and pulled. At first she tried to clear her mind of all thoughts but as she felt calmness lapping at her toes with every tender caress of the sea, she allowed herself to think more clearly.

She sa
nk deeper into the pool of her own pity as she concluded that there was no point in her existence. If she wasn’t able to have children, what could she possibly achieve with her life? When she died no one would mourn her passing, even if she lived to be one hundred years old. She was alone and would never be anything else. She couldn’t see the point of going on any more.

Her mind landed lightly upon Mrs Kostas
’ comment about her having a baby in the future and she permitted herself to be momentarily led down the path that the doctors could perhaps perform a miracle that would allow her to have a baby. “Please Lord, I will do anything you ask of me if I could just...” but she couldn’t stand to hear her own whining voice, calling out to a God that she hadn’t served in many years.

From somewhere in the distance, a sharp rapport of laughter pierced the silence but then died down just as quickly.
Pru was confused at how people could still be laughing and joking and getting on with their lives when Pru’s own was in tatters. She felt entirely removed from the world around her, but in a peaceful way. There were no tears left to fall. Her well of emotions had run dry. She didn’t want to be part of this world anymore. She had no place in it.

It took some time for her to manoeuvre herself into a standing position.
She didn’t seem to have functioning stomach muscles anymore. She brushed the sand off her clammy bare legs and fixed her sights on the sea in front of her. Pru felt her pain become part of her, rather than a sensation to be fought, as she walked towards the sea. She could barely see it now that the darkness had fallen in earnest. The sky held aloft a sliver of moon which cast little illumination on the sea below but she could hear the water rushing impatiently to and fro and whispering to her. She headed down the slight incline into the sea and felt the tide soothe its gentle fingers around her aching legs as if encouraging her to come in deeper. She was surprised by how cold the water felt on her legs but did not find the sensation unpleasant. She loosened her coat and tossed it up further onto the beach, hoping it wouldn’t get wet. She didn’t want to ruin Betty’s coat after all she had done for her.

Pru took a step forward and then another as the tide ebbed and flowed around her, pulling and pushing her in turn.
The sea, however, was so shallow that she would have to walk some way out to be completely submerged. Her mind made up, Pru now felt entirely at peace. She had made the one decision that would free her entirely from all of her pain. It would also free Eddie up to be able to marry someone who was worthy of him and have children of his own some day. Everyone would be better off.

She inhaled deeply as she waded out towards the thin moon
’s reflection. The smell of salty sea air was comforting and she was pleased that it would be the last thing that she would ever smell. A few more steps now and she could join nature and perpetually swim in the arms of the shadowy depths.