The Water Cure(24)
The whole time I am sprinting down the corridors towards Mother I am conscious of Grace’s pain, that white vortex of it binding me to her, and somewhere there is joy that she can’t be rid of me so easily, that our sisterhood goes deeper than anything she can control. Llew is forgotten, the solid and sleek lines of him nothing against my unrecognizable sister, an animal now, on the ground. I clench my nails into my palms to feel my own pain, as if through that I could understand her better. There is no going close to it, even I know that, but I’m trying. When I inspect my palms I have left moon-shaped hooks in my skin, and I am thankful.
Every day I walked past him and every day he shouted at me across the traffic and every day I wilted under it. Headphones and scarf wound over my ears. He made his shouts louder. He came right up to me so I could lip-read. I fantasized about killing him daily. It felt incredibly good.
Mother has been preparing. Buckets for hot water, armfuls of sheets and towels. New prayers and new words, bassinet and post-partum. When I shake her awake, she doesn’t need the emergency explained. I help her carry the towels, the pillows, a pair of scissors and a penknife to Grace’s room. We knock on Sky’s door. We do not tell the men, and we lock Grace’s door from the inside.
‘The baby,’ Grace tells me, as if nobody else is around. ‘I had dreams about the baby. That it was a boy. And worse.’ The pain moves through her visibly, like a current. ‘I dreamed the baby had no mouth,’ she tells me. ‘I dreamed we buried him in the forest.’
‘Less of that,’ Mother says, as if she has seen it all before, and maybe she has. ‘When you’re holding your daughter you’ll forget everything.’
Daughter, daughter, daughter. She is coming from a long way off, bathed in light. We are impatient to meet her.
‘Help me,’ Mother commands. ‘We need to turn Grace.’
We immediately put our hands and arms out to take her weight. I think of all the times we prayed to the sea, how those times were practice for disaster, and how much her heavy body feels like that disaster we have awaited.
Mother ties up her hair. There is a thumbprint of blood in the hollow of her neck.
The contractions are plentiful now, and they make Grace’s body do things she hasn’t given it permission to. Her limbs judder as she looks at me.
‘I hope I die,’ she tells me, and then she makes eye contact with Mother. ‘I hope I finally fucking die.’
‘Less of that,’ Mother says once more, her hands merciless. Grace shuts her eyes, water moving down her face.
And then the night has fallen properly and here it is, after one last outburst from Grace, her voice a ragged howl: a thing covered in blood, soundless, on a long rope. Mother touches its mouth. She sponges the blood from the frog-like body, and underneath the skin is blue in the lamplight. Grace lies there, panting, limp.
Mother lowers her mouth to the baby’s face, tries to blow air into its lungs. It’s not long before she gives up. She takes the scissors and cuts the string, wraps the baby in a blanket, puts her into my arms.
‘Can I see her?’ Grace asks. Mother nods at me and I take the small body over to the top of the bed. Grace looks and then turns her head to the side, tears leaking from her eyes.
‘Take it away,’ she says.
Before today, Sky was the only baby I had known. Raw as a shrimp, and loud. She put her hands inside our mouths, scratched at our gums with her small fingernails, wanted to see and know everything. Even when she grew long-limbed and sentient, when her own thoughts came out of her mouth like a shock to her as much as to ourselves, we could not lose that knowledge of her as an infant, that first impression. Grace had come to me fully formed, or rather I had come to her, any distance needing to be established, fought for. Sky was different. It is hard to deny her anything, wanting as we do to keep her small and safe, knowing that she is entirely of this world, that Mother and Grace and even my own tiny body, rocking inside Mother’s, did not escape the other one completely. Sky’s blood is irreproachable, essentially toxin-free, whole.
Sky and I go into the darkened bathroom, carrying the motionless baby before us. I close the door behind and we sit on the cold tiles while I try to think what to do. My hand tracks blood on the door, on the light switch. Sky rests on the edge of the bathtub as I wash the baby with my own hands. She has been quiet, obedient, throughout the whole thing, making herself useful. She watches me, expressionless, as I unwrap the blanket stealthily, half-expecting to find fins. What I find is almost worse: it is a boy, even though Mother said that would be impossible. I wrap the baby back up, tighter still, before Sky can see.
This baby has no name. It is unlucky to pick names before the birth, Mother had told us. Unlucky to place that weight on such a small thing.
‘Let me hold it,’ Sky asks. I worry about upsetting her, but when I pass the bundle over, very gently, she kisses its small face with no hesitation. Together we smooth down the hair of its head, still wet.
On the other side of the door, we hear Grace’s voice rising up, a cry out, and then quiet. We wait to be told the coast is clear. It takes a long time and my arms hurt, but I don’t put the baby down until Mother opens the door and holds out her arms for it and tells us to come in. Grace is sleeping. We move past the shape of her in the gloom, just one lamp in the corner to see by, sheets over her head, into the corridor. Mother closes the door behind us without saying another thing. The men, wherever they are, know not to make any sound.