Chapter 3
THREE
Angela Barrat stared at the blank television screen.
She had no idea how long she’d been staring at it, but it soothed her a little.
Her eyelids began to gently droop, her head began to nod.
Tired wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the exhaustion she felt.
As her chin began to touch her chest the sickly smell of stale milk filled her nostrils and tears began to roll down her face.
She hated this, she hadn’t wanted to have a baby when she’d only just escaped her horrid parents.
Her mum had been too scared of her domineering father to ever stick up for Angela, so when the opportunity came along for her to leave their suffocating household, that’s what she did with wide open arms. She hadn’t even really liked Jonathan, but he’d had his own flat and that meant freedom, so when he’d asked her out, she jumped at the chance.
Now though, she was in a mess, married to him with a six-week-old baby she didn’t want and the desire to sleep for a week solid.
It was no good, smelling revolting or not it didn’t matter, she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
She curled herself up into a ball on the two-seater sofa that they’d bargained for in a charity shop because it had reclining seats.
They’d never be able to afford a new one until he was earning more money.
The crying began the moment she drifted off, softly at first, penetrating her dreams until it became full-on wailing at the top of its voice.
‘No.’ Angela begun to cry as hard as the baby she’d put in the crib in the bedroom.
She ignored it, but it didn’t stop like all the baby magazines had told her it would.
In a daze she dragged herself off the chair, into the bedroom and picked it up.
She would never hurt him, she wasn’t the kind of person to do that kind of thing, but she glared at him with hate in her eyes that she’d only ever felt for her father.
It even looked like him a little, he had the same ring of ginger hair around his crown and squinty black eyes.
She wondered if it was a demon of some kind sent to test her.
Scooping him up she felt her fingers touch something warm and wet.
The smell of baby poop was the worst thing she’d ever had to inhale, and it had squelched out of his nappy, up his back and right through his vest and Babygro.
‘I hate you,’ she whispered to him through clenched teeth as she realised she was now covered in shit as well as baby sick. She thrust him back down into the cot and went into the bathroom to run a bath.
He cried the entire time she was running the bath.
She did everything she was supposed to do and made sure it wasn’t too hot by sticking the crook of her elbow in the water to test the temperature.
Stripping off the stinking T-shirt she’d been wearing, she walked back into the bedroom to pick up the now hysterical baby.
Angela undressed him, took off his nappy and wiped him the best that she could.
Carrying him into the bathroom he began to calm down a little.
Angela was still crying. She didn’t want to do this anymore. She wanted a life where there were no screaming babies and she got to sleep for more than thirty seconds at a time.
She knew she should have got his baby bath out and filled that, but she was too tired to start messing around with it.
Kneeling she lowered him into the warm water, hoping it would settle him more.
Her eyelids were so heavy, it was so hard to keep awake with the warmth from the steam in the bathroom.
She blinked several times to wake herself up, but it was no good.
Angela felt her mind giving in to what her body wanted, and she didn’t even realise that she’d let go of her baby as she slumped against the side of the bath.
The door banged making her jump.
‘Angela.’
Jonathan was home, she realised. Thank God, he could take over.
And then she noticed her arms were empty and she wasn’t holding her baby.
Jonathan stepped into the bathroom and screamed.
Rushing over to the bath, he stood on her as he bent over and scooped the tiny, lifeless figure out of the water.
‘What have you done? Call an ambulance, Angela!’
Angela couldn’t move; she just stared at the small figure in Jonathan’s arms. It wasn’t moving and a wave of sickness washed over her. Clutching it to his chest he ran to the phone and dialled 999. He screamed, ‘Ambulance,’ down the phone. ‘Our baby isn’t breathing; he was in the bath.’
Then he thrust the receiver at Angela as he bent down and began to gently use two fingers to push against the baby’s chest. Then he placed his mouth over its nose and mouth, gently blowing air into his lungs.
‘What’s your address? An ambulance is on the way.’
‘Flat B, Windermere Road,’ Angela’s voice croaked into the phone.
Jonathan was repeating the same movements, chest compressions, then blowing into the baby’s mouth, and for a moment Angela wanted to tell him to stop what he was doing.
Wouldn’t their life be so much better without him crying all the time?
Without her smelling like gone off milk and both of them being able to sleep all through the night like they used to before he came along?
‘I didn’t mean to; I was so tired I passed out.’
Jonathan wouldn’t look at her, he carried on until the baby began to cough and water dribbled out of its mouth. Then it opened its mouth and began to wail once more. Angela closed her eyes and began to cry, not with relief, but with regret that he was still alive.
The ambulance staff ran into the flat and Jonathan passed the baby to them as they wrapped it in a blanket and rushed it out to the ambulance. He glared at Angela.
‘Will you put something on for God’s sake. We can’t go to the hospital with you in your bra.’
She did as she was told, getting dressed. She was a bad person, she had almost let her baby die, but she didn’t regret that. She regretted Jonathan coming home and saving it.