Authors: Claire Mcgowan
‘Ow!’ Quick as a snake, Bernice had jabbed a syringe in Paula’s arm, into the crook of her elbow. Blood beaded.
‘Press that down or it’ll bruise.’ Bernice passed over a cotton pad and stunned, Paula did what she was told.
‘What did you give me?’
‘Just something to relax you. You’re always running round the place. Aren’t you? I’ve watched you in the snow, at crime scenes, racketing round with that newspaper editor – he’s a bad boy. He’d make a terrible father. Not to mention the married policeman. Really, Paula, you’ve made some very bad choices. That poor wean, with you as her mother. No, you’re not really safe with a baby, are you?’
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ Paula’s mouth felt stiff and dry. The lights overhead began to blur. ‘What did you give me?’
‘Lie down now.’ Bernice was arranging her on the table, Paula’s limbs flopping. She felt her legs opening, arms pushed behind her head. Bernice loomed overhead, her masked face terrifying. ‘I think it’ll be better for that wee girl if we get her out as soon as possible and away from you, before you decide to go to some abortion butcher and have her flushed down the toilet. You still haven’t made up your mind, have you, and she’s been growing inside you for months now!’
‘Wh—aa?’ Paula tried to speak but her tongue was frozen. She realised she couldn’t move at all. It was like switching off a light inside her. Before she went off altogether the last thing she saw was Bernice’s ID badge, wavering over her head on a lanyard. The name: BERNICE ROURKE.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The world came back as a slow lap of noise, like waves on a distant beach. There was a rattling, and a weakness in her bones, and the whoosh of what sounded like cars in the distance. Then her sight returned, under a grey film. She seemed to be on a stretcher in a large car – her hand, lolling useless, bumped on the dirty floor of it. The van, she remembered. She tried to blink, seeing red stains on the floor, like dusty rose petals.
Her thoughts were on a slow spin cycle. The van. The stains. She thought of Heather Campbell, bleeding out on the hillside, her mother dying too. She felt a dampness on her thighs and wondered dimly if she’d wet herself. She tried to speak but her voice was a gurgle that lived and died. The bumping seemed to go on and on, her body thrown round like a sack of spuds. She couldn’t move her arms or legs; all she could do was shut her eyes and wait for it to end.
Light. Silence. The shaking stopped. Paula tasted bile. If she threw up, would she choke? The door opened, Bernice’s face in a square of light from the car. An ordinary woman, kind-faced. Hands rough and efficient. The stretcher was wheeled out into the freezing air. They were in some kind of yard, a house with blank windows. Dark, the hush of snow in the air. The light of the car was dying. She wondered if she was, too.
She tried to speak; move her tongue. Nothing. She squeezed her lids shut. The trolley was moving. A door, then overhead an ornate ceiling, chandelier lighting. The smell of the place was familiar, polish and flowers, somehow unlived-in. A heavy tread and then another voice. ‘What in the name of Our Lord have you done now?’
‘I had to. She’s ruining the child. I had to get it out before she kills it.’
‘I told you it’s too early! She’s not even three months yet.’
‘But I have to!’
A sigh. ‘Bridget, I won’t stand in your way. It’s your right. But I’m telling you, that wean won’t live if you do it now.’
‘She’d have flushed it away. She didn’t want it.’
‘Maybe. But can you not just wait a while? Keep her, wait for it to grow. Then get it out.’
This was her they were discussing. This husk to be harvested, that was her body, which was currently lying useless on the trolley. She tried to turn over, but all that happened was her foot shook gently. She couldn’t even move her head to see the speaker, but the voice was familiar, and something in the light was too, the smell of the place, dust and paint.
‘Did you give her something?’
‘A shot. She’d have kicked up a fuss.’
The other voice tutted. ‘It’s not safe, I keep telling you. It hurts the babies.’
‘I have to get her out soon. The wee girl. It’s a girl.’
Paula felt damp seep from her eyes. A girl. All the guesses were right. A little girl.
‘What are we going to do with
her
?’
‘I want to do it now.’ Bernice – Bridget, the voice had called her – sounded mutinous, almost tearful.
‘If you do, they’ll both die. Have some patience, pet.’
A choking sound. Bernice was crying. She was saying something like, ‘I’m barren ground . . . I’m dead . . . barren . . . It’s not fair.’
The other voice softened, and from the muffled sound Paula guessed the two were hugging. ‘I know it’s hard, love. I know you want it. Where’s the other one?’
‘She doesn’t love me. She was too old, she doesn’t need me.’
‘Bridget! Where is she?’
‘I – I left her down there.’
‘You left that baby alone?’
‘She doesn’t love me. She knows I’m not her mother.’
‘Go and get the child, Bridget. Don’t make her suffer too. They’re innocent, all of them, until they grow up. You know that. Never mind. We’ll care for them both, and when we can we’ll give her back, like the Polish boy. That’s what we agreed, isn’t it?’
‘And I can have this one for myself?’
‘When the time’s right.’
‘But they’ll notice! They’ll come for her.’
‘Let them come. We’ll be ready.’ A shadow fell over her, and Paula found herself looking into the hard face of Magdalena Croft.
She’d passed out. At least, she must have. An orange bulb burned overhead. They were in a basement room and she was lying on a bed. Small windows set high in the walls. Paula tried to lift her head. One wrist was handcuffed to the bedhead; the metal of it rattled as she moved.
‘Rest yourself, will you. She gave you a wild dose of sedative.’ Magdalena, again. She was sitting across the room in a hard-backed chair, legs crossed. Paula could see the wrinkles where her tights pooled.
‘H-hu . . .’
‘Shush now. You won’t be able to talk yet.’ She got up and went to the bare table. There was a sound of water glugging, then she held a glass to Paula’s mouth. ‘Take this now, you’ll be thirsty.’
She was, her mouth raw and dry. She gulped too fast, choking. The water ran over her face and Magdalena wiped it with a dry facecloth. Efficient, not ungentle, like the nurse she’d been, and her sister wasn’t. Not really. She took a small key from the pocket of her cardigan and undid the handcuff. Paula’s arm fell to the bed, lifeless.
Paula tried to look around the room, which was difficult when she couldn’t move her neck. There seemed to be a machine in the corner, something with a lot of buttons, and a yellow bin like they had at hospitals. Bernice had been stealing more than babies from her workplace. There was a table with a jug of water on it, and a large black laptop, closed up. Was this the doctor’s missing computer? Some papers were taped to the concrete wall above it; Paula couldn’t see what they were.
‘Help me,’ she croaked. The cold water made her gasp.
‘I can’t help you.’ Magdalena tidied up the cloth. ‘It’s too late, Paula.’
‘Stop her—’
‘I won’t stop her. She needs to do what she does. We both do. No one can ever understand that. She’s my sister. But you know all that, don’t you?’
‘I . . . went there.’ Her voice broke. ‘Donegal . . . the farm.’
A slow nod. ‘I’ll never go back there again.’
‘We found him. The man. Yours? Your baby.’
Magdalena laughed, short and cold. ‘I’ve never had a child in my life, thank God. He was Bridget’s. She was twelve years old when she had him.’
Paula’s hands curled in the old blue blankets, feeling coming back in a storm of prickles. ‘Grandfather . . . he?’
Magdalena sat down in her chair. ‘You’ve got it all worked out, I see. We weren’t to blame. Not Bridget or me. I’ll tell you, since you’ll be here a while. I know you like to have things sorted in your head, Dr Maguire.’ She smoothed her skirt on her lap. ‘Our grandfather tried to abuse us from when we were young, as you may have guessed. Well, he was afraid of me. That’s why he sent me away. From when I was a wee girl I told him I could see the Virgin Mary. Put the fear of God in him and he’d stay away from me – unless he’d been drinking. I’d tell him I could see Her standing behind him, waiting to take him to Hell. When I got older, he sent me away to my aunt’s. I had to leave my sister there with him. By the time I got back it was too late. Her baby was coming. And you know what he did, our grandfather, the so-called man of God? When the baby came he swung its head against the wall. Trying to cover up his sins. That was poor Jimmy. He was never the same again. That night we ran away, left him with our cousin.’ She paused, rubbing down her skirt again. ‘Our grandfather died that night. Heart attack. He was scared of me, I told you. I took Bridget away with me but she was never the same since. Well, you found out about the baby in Dublin. I let her be me for the nursing. That was my price for letting her down. Being around the babies, it helped her for a while, until she had to go and steal one, so I couldn’t let her do that any more. Then she got married – I let her be me for that too – and she was pregnant again. She was so happy.’ Magdalena looked at Paula. ‘You know about that, yes? Your father, what he did?’
‘He tried . . . he . . .’
‘Aye, they all tried. Him and that doctor and the Garda too. Bridget still lost her husband and her baby died, and they never caught a single person for doing it. I couldn’t help her any more after that. I moved up here to be with her, tried to keep her away from children. I got her to change her name again in case anyone found us, and we were OK. I made sure we had money – if you’d been as poor as we were, you’d understand that. But she was bound to snap one day. Saw that Polish wean and took him. I did what I could, but she had to have something. It was her right. So I just directed her. I made her leave him back. Said we’d choose them together. Only the ones who deserved it. There’s a list and everything. Do you want to see it?’
Her voice was almost friendly. Paula tried to struggle but her limbs were jelly.
Magdalena detached something from the concrete wall and brought it over. On it, in a girlish curly hand, were written several names, lines coming out of them and leading to others. Alison Bates linked to Heather Campbell. A note beside it:
eight months
. Then Mick Quinn, leading to five names. One was Fiacra’s. One Aisling’s. The others must be their sisters. Aisling’s was underlined and again beside it:
seven months
. There was also Robert Hamilton, leading to Ian Hamilton. That must be the name of Bob’s son. Kevin Conway. No children listed for him. The final name was PJ Maguire, and leading from him, Paula’s own name:
two months
. It was underlined with vicious slashes, like the ones made across Heather and Aisling’s stomachs.
Cold tears pooled in her eyes. ‘Help . . . me . . .’
‘You didn’t want your baby, did you? We are helping you. You sinned, and that was the price, but you wanted to be let off, didn’t you? Well, that’s not how it works. Now Bridget’s owed a baby, and you don’t want yours, so that’s fair.’
Paula started to cry, a mewling sound in the base of her throat.
‘Oh, you do want it now? Well, it’s not yours to pick and choose, Paula. It’s God’s will. Bridget wanted her baby too, but she lost it and couldn’t have any more, thanks to that butcher of a doctor and your useless father. Why should they live and be happy and have families, when Bridget had to watch her baby die in that kitchen? When her first got his head bashed in against a wall? No, it isn’t fair.’
‘Too soon . . . s’too soon . . .’
‘Aye, I know it is. Your baby won’t survive if she comes out now. Still, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘N-noo . . .’
‘You should have thought of that. I’ll try to make Bridget wait. She thinks if they’re young, she can get them to love her. Didn’t work with that one, mind. She wants rid of it now too.’
She nodded to the corner, and Paula managed to turn her head and see where the glow was coming from. The baby in the incubator was alien-like, tubes connecting it to life, its little arms and legs red as its chest rose and fell in rapid time. As if she were panting, desperate to suck in life.
‘L-Lucy?’
Magdalena inclined her head. ‘Bridget wouldn’t have called her that. Anyway, she can’t stay. Not what Bridget wants, she says. Ah well. She never would listen to me.’ She was getting up, leaning on the door as if her bones hurt.
Paula tried one last time. ‘The police . . . police will come. Find her . . .’
‘Aye, they’ll get to her name eventually, for all they are useless. Maybe they’ll even work out it’s her fingerprint they found, not mine. But they’ll not break her. We learned to hide early on, us Conaghan girls. There’s not much can hurt us. You sleep now, Paula. You’ll need it.’
The light went off.
For a while Paula couldn’t even move, the drug pumping her veins full of despair and lassitude. As soon as she could she pulled her shirt out of her trousers and felt her stomach, still smooth, still uncut. A soft but insistent swelling under her hands, like the bumping of the tide against a boat. There was only one incubator, and Lucy Campbell was in it, balling her pink fists. Magdalena had wheeled her out of the room, hopefully to somewhere more welcoming than this. Paula didn’t like to think of the baby looking at these cold grey walls, concrete underfoot. They’d take care of her, surely. They were nurses. One nurse between them, anyway. Lucy was still alive. Maybe they would give her back safe to her father.
Time went by. It was dark – she knew her own father would be waking up in hospital, coming round, and her not there to see him. If he was even all right. At this more cold tears leaked from her eyes. She had to stop crying. It was only a house, not a prison. There’d be a way to escape – she’d heard Magdalena turn a key in the lock as she went out. And they wouldn’t hurt her, would they? Not while they wanted her baby.
Paula thought of Bernice in her surgical mask, the needle in her hand, and struggled up into a sitting position. It wasn’t going to happen like this. She’d made mistakes, yes, and she hadn’t been sure about the pregnancy, but she was having this baby. She realised she’d known that for a while.
Hold on, OK?
Inside she could feel the child, its vague flutterings of life. It was still safe within her, not like Lucy, ripped into a cold, bright world she wasn’t ready for, her sparrow lungs swimming in toxic air.