Chapter 15 #3
I cleaned the kitchen a lot while we waited.
Morning turned to afternoon and I heated some soup from the night before, but I remember I did it on the outside fire because I didn’t want the food dirtying up the kitchen space which was, as far as I could tell, now spotless and germ-free.
Freya yelled that the smell from the vinegar and scrubbing down was making her sick, which I thought was her just usual complaining, and then she was sick and I felt bad and mean-spirited and definitely not kind enough, given what she was going through.
I felt especially bad because I remembered the thing I’d been trying so hard to forget, which is that Cat had secretly told me that Freya might not survive.
Now I know that wasn’t really a secret to any of us.
And because I’m slow at realising things sometimes, it was only then, listening to Storm and Cat cleaning up the sick and making her feel comfortable again that I fully realised what a really brave thing this crabby and difficult girl was doing.
I’d said it to her once and she’d thrown that chopping board at my head not because it was just a stupid, useless thing to say to someone, but because I hadn’t really understood how bad the odds were, or what it truly all meant, because of course this day and the things that might happen in it were what she had been trying to escape from when she ran herself and Storm off the edge of the quarry.
And I realised in that moment, in my bones where the real understanding lives, that in saving her life, this day was the one we had condemned her to, however it turned out.
So that’s when I began to feel more than a little sick too.
There was a point where the rain let up enough for me to sit outside the open door, in earshot but out of the Bunker which got more and more claustrophobic as time crawled past and nothing seemed to change.
I sat watching the water drip from the trees and bushes with my hand in Digger’s fur as she leaned companionably against my leg.
And at different times I was joined by Cat or Storm, who took turns having breaks from watching Freya.
One time, I think it was before I heated the soup at midday, Cat was there with me, and we weren’t really saying anything, just sharing the silence when I felt Digger shift her weight off me and walk over to Cat.
I watched the dog rest her chin on her knee and look up at her face.
It was only then that I realised Cat was crying, or not really crying, but just looking drawn too tight, her mouth clenched in a grim sad line, rain on her cheeks that might also have been tears.
What’s happened? I said.
Nothing, she said, wiping her eyes.
Are you worried it’s taking too long? I said.
Not really, she said. Or maybe not enough. I mean, Freya is scared and pretty uncomfortable and Storm is scared too of course…
And you? I said.
Me? she said. Me, I’m feeling like a coward because I’m so frightened of the next bit that I’m relieved when we time the contractions, and they haven’t speeded up yet. Even though I can see this waiting is exhausting her.
Being scared is OK, I said. You told me that, ever since I was little. You can’t be brave if you’re not scared, remember?
She nodded. And then she reached over Digger’s head and squeezed my hand very tightly, and I do remember that because that wasn’t something she did very often.
I’m not worried about being scared, she said.
But I don’t think being brave is going to help much either.
There’s a choice I might have to make when the contractions speed up, if the baby can’t get out and you know what that is.
And you also know I don’t really have a clue as to which way to choose, or even whether either way won’t end with both of them dead.
She meant she might have to cut the baby out of Freya’s stomach, which would kill Freya because we didn’t know how to put her back together again. And if we just left the baby stuck halfway getting out, well, that would kill the baby and most likely Freya too.
The longer we wait, the longer I can put off that decision, she said.
Which I don’t know how to make anyway. But the longer we wait, the more tired she gets, which makes me think she won’t have enough energy to push.
So it also gets more and more likely it will go badly, and I end up having to make the decision I don’t know how to make.
You will make the right choice, I said. And you’ll save them both.
You don’t know that, Mouse, she said.
Yes, I do, I said. You’re Cat. Saving is what you do.
Sometimes you have to lie because the truth alone just isn’t strong enough to change the future.
It doesn’t always work, but every now and then it does.
I think that’s why people told stories, why all those books got printed, because a well-crafted lie, told with good intentions, can sometimes wrestle the world away from the darkness, towards the light.
In this case of course I was hoping that my lie might boost Cat’s confidence just enough to help her beat the odds stacked against us.
But however well-meant my lie was, it just wasn’t one of those ones that change the world in the way you want it to, because the day did not end as I so desperately hoped it would.
Which probably proves that other thing, about the world not thinking about us at all, because you can hope and you can pray, and you can face your fears or even run from them, but it ends up doing exactly what it wants, often in ways you couldn’t even imagine in your wildest or worst dreams. And then?
Then you just say goodbye to what you thought would be and carry the weight of what is instead.
That’s what Cat and I decided, later in the cold dark of the next morning, standing together in the rain letting it wash away the blood and the tears.
I think hope is a muscle, Cat said. I think it’s what helps us carry the weight of ourselves into the future.
Seemed an odd thing for her to say, after everything that had happened, after all she had had to do and see done. But, because she was Cat, she was of course right. I just didn’t know how right, or how strong that muscle was going to have to be.
So all the labour has blurred into one long indistinct memory like a bad bruise that loses its definition as time passes and it spreads out in a less and less distinct version of itself, becoming a stain dissolving into a ghost of itself.
But then the long wait ended so abruptly that it felt like an ambush.
I was alone again sitting in front of the window watching the rain which was now falling so hard that when the lightning caught it for a moment it looked like a field of glass reeds had sprouted overnight.
Digger was not scared of anything except thunder, and was next to me, curled into a ball against my thigh.
as if burying her nose under her tail would protect her from the deep rumbling in the sky.
I could feel her shaking under my hand, shivering in long spasms and every now and then looking up at me and panting as if she’d just finished a long run.
I was busy telling her it was OK when Cat called for me.
I ran into the kitchen and found her drying her hands and grabbing the top bundle of clean rags from the pile.
Wash your hands, she said. It’s happening.
She nodded at the steamer pot I had ready for the metal things that we hoped we wouldn’t need.
Just in case, she said.
Her face was tight and tough now the waiting was done.
I’ve got it, I said putting more sticks on the fire.
I know you have, she said pulling a short sharp smile through the tension clouding her face, in a brief brave glint of sunshine. Now wash your hands.
Then, like I said, my memory is really fragmented.
It’s like the black record on the wind-up record player with the scratch which makes it skip ahead just when you think you’ve got the hang of the tune.
So these are just the fragments – not necessarily joined up in the right order – skipping through the night ahead.
Freya stopped talking and complaining about Storm and Cat and began a moaning that was worse than anything because those sounds came from somewhere so deep and old that it felt like something really ancient and not very kind had taken over her body.
Storm came in and caught me steaming the blades.
That was bad. I couldn’t get the lid back on the pot fast enough to hide them, but she was obviously already so wrung out by what was going on on the other side of the wall that she didn’t see them.
Or if she did, she didn’t have enough thinking space left in her to make sense of what they were for.
She just stood there, blank-faced and limp, her hands hanging loose at her sides, as if walking through the door had suddenly wiped the slate of her mind clean.
Cat says I should wash my hands again, she said. I fell over.
I pointed at the wash tub.
Right, she said. I fainted, I think.
I watched her scrub her hands and then gave her a clean towel.
You can see the top of its head now, she said without meeting my eyes. Then I saw a shudder go through her as she looked up into my face.
She’s going to die, isn’t she? she said.
Cat won’t let that happen, I said.
And then, as if to immediately make me a liar, I hear Cat shouting for me and there’s something in her voice I haven’t ever heard before.
Mouse! she yelled. Help me!
And then, without remembering how I got there I am in the room in front of Cat and Freya and a sight that tells me the truth I will never ever forget – that birth is a wild and a bloody thing, and then I realise that what Cat is holding out to me is a baby, blue and slick as a fish and not moving at all.
Mouse! she says. Put the needles down there and take this.
And now I’m holding the baby and the baby is dead and Freya is sobbing and Cat turns back to her with one last look over her shoulder at me and she says,
Make it live, Mouse!