Motherlove (21 page)

‘Don't,' she said. She didn't want her Gary in on it. A job for Carver was bad news.

‘You what?' His lip curled.

‘I'm scared, Gary. You do a job for Carver, what if it gets really bad?'

‘Shut up! What do you know about it? I'm the man he wants, okay? You know what it's worth? You ain't got no idea.'

‘All right, Gary.'

‘Keep the fucking baby quiet too. Shit. If you'd kept your nose down and had it here, we could have got rid of it.'

Lindy cradled the baby. Imagined being here when the pain had started, imagined giving birth on this mattress, curtains drawn, Gary telling her to shut it. At least he'd have been there with her. Maybe he'd have held her hand like he did sometimes.

She held onto that comforting image, blocking out the darker ones she couldn't bear. They'd lurked at the back of her mind since Gary had come home. Get rid of the baby, he'd told her. Like leaving her on the hospital steps or something. That was what happened to a baby a year or so back. That was what Gary meant. She wouldn't let the other image in, the old newspaper and a brick and the stinking gully behind the garages in Heighton Street.

Gary slammed out. He came in late again, quieter. Let her share the bed this time, though he didn't touch her. She could sense his nerves, stretching him like a string.

The baby woke her, a fretful murmur, not yet a full-blown cry. She opened her eyes.

Gary was already out of bed. He stood, silent over Kelly in her basket, looking down on her, head on one side, like he was studying something fascinating. Not hostile, not angry, she could see that in the light of the street lamp.

He was holding his pillow, clutching it with both hands.

She switched the light on and he looked round at her. A stupid laugh. He'd taken something, that was why he was laughing.

‘I'll take her,' she said, kneeling to pick up Kelly.

‘I could make her go to sleep,' he crooned, gripping the pillow tighter.

‘It's all right, she won't make a noise,' Lindy promised.

He was staring at them both as if he couldn't quite grasp what they were or why they were there. She rocked the baby, moving step by step away from him. At last, he staggered back to the bed and flopped down again.

Lindy switched the light off again, sat down on the chair by the door, and settled Kelly with a bottle. Kelly was a good baby, when she was fed and changed. It was easy to keep her happy. Easy because Kelly had everything she needed. Milk, warmth, love. How different was it going to be when she started needing proper food, and the nappies ran out, and she needed more clothes?

For a brief bleak moment, Lindy allowed herself to look into the future. What about when Kelly went to school? She wouldn't be such a good mum then, would she? Couldn't hardly read or write herself. Living here, with Gary, in this one room? Gary and his drugs, his rages, his pillow. What about when he'd done this job for Carver, and Carver didn't care about keeping things quiet any more? Lindy couldn't be awake all the time.

There was this heaviness in her gut. In her heart. Sadness that was never going to go away. Lindy was never going to be a good mum. She had nothing to give her baby. Kelly wouldn't make it, not here.

‘We can discuss things,' the social worker had said, at the hospital. Like whether Lindy would prefer to put Kelly up for adoption. Lindy hadn't listened. She knew better than to listen to social workers. But she should have. She didn't want to have her baby taken away, but maybe that was what Kelly needed.

Except Lindy knew all about being taken away. The rush and noise and terror and big people treating her like she was nothing, and her sisters screaming, and Jimmy crying, and strangers all around her. So alone and helpless. She didn't want that for Kelly.

But if she kept Kelly here, it would happen. They'd watch over her, with their sharp eyes, for a year or two, noting bruises, stripping her, weighing her, bringing in doctors to poke her, and then they'd come for her, battering down the door. Snatching her away, no matter how Lindy screamed.

Better for her to go now, while she was a tiny baby, because people liked babies. Someone would want to adopt her, proper like, not just a foster home. A real family. Let them take her now. Lindy could do like that woman had done. Leave her somewhere safe, so that she'd be found quickly.

The bedsit was silent. Gary was asleep. Kelly was asleep in her arms. Lindy wanted this moment to never end. But they had to go.

She laid Kelly in her cot and got dressed. No noise. What time was it? Nearly four. Chilly out. Kelly would need to be wrapped up warm. Lindy picked the shawl up, the webbed design a grey veil in the darkness. This was no good. The baby that had been left at the hospital; they'd traced the mother because of something it wore. People might remember how she was given all this Baby Garden stuff.

What else did she have? No baby clothes of her own. Lindy stripped Kelly down to her nappy and wrapped her in a cheap vest top she'd nicked a year ago and never worn. Then in a towel. Their good towel, warm and thick. That had been nicked too.

Quietly, barely breathing, Lindy cradled the bundled baby to her, eased open the door, stepped out onto the dark stairs. Went down to the hall, opened the front door, drank in the clear cold air.

She was conscious of her footsteps ringing out on the empty pavement. No one was around to see or care. A couple of stray dogs running around, that was all.

She thought of returning to the hospital, but that was a really long walk, three or four miles. And the hospital wouldn't be quiet and dark like this. There were always people on duty, coming and going.

The police station? Same with that. It never went to sleep. And if Lindy didn't want anything to do with social workers, police were worse.

She reached the town centre before she knew what she was going to do. Then it came to her, because she had been here so many times before. Cleaners came in at night, through the little back doors under the car park, the doors that shoppers never saw. Came in, did their work, went out again.

She settled into a corner in Albert Street, near the door. They wouldn't look her way, a cul-de-sac for unloading trucks. They'd be heading the other way. Not so very long ago, she'd been one of them, earning her pay packet with a mop. She knew their shifts. Here and then on to the Town Hall, and the office block in William Street. Any moment now they'd be coming out.

Kelly was stirring. Lindy had changed her but she hadn't brought any spare. If the baby started bawling now, she'd be in trouble. She rocked the child, singing softly, and Kelly breathed a little sigh and settled down again.

With a blaze of light the door swung open, two women emerging, chattering loudly. Usually about eight of them, and then Stan. Always slow on his feet, Stan. Pausing behind them for a few swigs from the half bottle of whisky he kept in his pocket. By the time they left their last port of call, the minibus would be swerving all over the empty streets.

Four more women. A pause. Then a couple more, the door beginning to swing shut behind them. That was it. Now, before Stan followed them. Lindy slipped forward, caught the door. She knew her way. A sloping corridor, with a cupboard off it. She tried the handle, to be sure it was open if she needed to duck out of the way. Unlocked and empty except for a few cardboard boxes and crates. One of them was as good as a cradle really. She pulled it loose and crept on up the corridor into the empty, echoing, dimly lit expanse of the shopping centre. She could hear Stan singing. He liked the sound of his voice booming down the empty spaces. On his way, but still some way off.

She turned in the other direction. WHSmith's, she wanted really, because it opened early, but it was too far away. Debenham's was closer. There would be people around soon to find Kelly. She dropped the cardboard box in the doorway, then looked one last time at her daughter in her arms.

Lindy wanted to hug her and kiss her so much it hurt. But that would wake her. Carefully, gently, she laid her down in the box, swallowing the tears that were pouring down her cheeks. She mustn't sob, mustn't make any noise.

Forcing air into her lungs, she returned to the sloping corridor, as quietly as she could. Stan ambled into view as she slid out of sight. Had he seen her? He said nothing. His toneless singing didn't falter. She ran down the corridor, yanked up the bar of the door, fell out into Albert Street, ducked into the darkness of the cul-de-sac. Waited, heart beating.

The door eased open again. Stan came out. Door closed. He was locking it, walking away. Lindy couldn't get back in now. It was done, there was no going back.

And now she could cry in earnest, because the only thing she wanted in the world was to go back and undo it all.

‘You stupid fucking bitch!' It was like being beaten round the head. When was the last time Gary had called her anything else? He used to be nice to her once. It did her head in. All of her hurt. Her stomach ached, her tits ached. She wanted to die.

‘I told you we don't want no trouble just now, and what do you do? Dump the fucking baby in the shopping centre!'

‘I thought it was what you wanted,' she pleaded. ‘You said we should get rid of it.'

‘Not this way! Stupid fucking bitch! What d'you think will fucking happen? Jesus fucking Christ!' He had his head in his hands. ‘What if they come looking? You thought about that?'

‘I didn't leave nothing on her to say where she'd come from, Gary.'

‘Lindy, you stupid bitch, you was in the fucking hospital with her! You think they won't send someone round to check? Ask questions? Jesus! He'll kill us.' He turned on her, his fear crystallising into anger. ‘I'm warning you, stupid cow! If anyone comes sniffing round here, if there's the slightest hint of trouble, I'll cut your fucking throat. Get that?'

She nodded. He wouldn't. He would hit her, because she was easy to hit, but he wouldn't do worse than that, because he wouldn't dare. But Carver – Carver would kill her, easy as blinking. The thing was, she didn't care any more.

ii

Gillian

Baby Found In Mall

Staff arriving this morning at WHSmiths in the Queen Elizabeth Shopping Centre were astonished to hear a baby crying, and traced it to a cardboard box in the doorway of Debenham's.

‘We thought at first it was a cat,' said mum, Kathleen Morris, 38. ‘We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw what it was.'

The baby, a girl thought to be less than a month old, was wrapped in a towel. There was no note, and police have as yet found no clue as to the identity of the mother.

‘We need to find this lady, who may be in need of medical attention,' said police sergeant Brian Hewitt. ‘I urge her strongly to come forward.'

Staff at the Lyford and Stapledon Hospital have named the little girl Debbie, since she was found by Debenham's. She is thought to be in good health, though doctors are running tests.

Police and the management of the Queen Elizabeth Shopping Centre are at a loss to understand how the child came to be in the Centre, which is securely locked at night. Cleaning staff have been interviewed and have declared that no baby was on the premises when they were at work.

‘If there had been a baby there, I'd have seen it,' said Stanley Turner, 63. ‘It's my job to keep a sharp eye on things.'

This is the second illegal nocturnal entry into the Queen Elizabeth Centre in less than a month, although the break-in at Curry's on the 2
nd
was…'

Gillian didn't care about break-ins at Curry's. From the moment she had seen the headline in the
Evening News
, her pulse had started racing. It was galloping now.

Don't think about it, she told herself. Ten to one, they'll find the mother within a week. No point in raising her hopes. And yet…

Joan snorted over the story, before pushing the paper back across the Formica. ‘Hanging's too good for them, you ask me.' She lit another fag. ‘Hope they lock her up and throw away the key.'

‘The mother?' Gillian snatched up the paper and put it in the bin, to stop herself rereading it obsessively. ‘You want to lock up bad mothers?' Her sarcasm always sounded so apologetic.

Joan, having stated one emphatic opinion, was able to do a complete volte-face without batting an eyelid. ‘Mind you, don't blame her. Times I wanted to dump the lot of you. Drain your life's blood, kids. Don't know why you're so set on having them. You'd think different if you were lumbered with one.' She coughed deeply, took another drag. ‘Thinking they'll offer you this one, then?' She cackled. ‘Not a chance. I told you, you're too old. Haven't got a hope in hell.'

‘If I had no hope they wouldn't have approved us,' said Gillian. She needed to get out. It was one thing to tell herself she should expect nothing, another to have Joan ramming it down her throat.

‘You wouldn't want that one. Some brat dumped in a box? Don't know where it's come from. It will have
needs
, you wouldn't want that.'