Weyward(7)

Even then, she wasn’t sure whether she’d go through with it, whether she deserved it. Freedom.

Until Simon announced that he wanted a child. He was expecting a lucrative promotion at work – starting a family was the natural next step.

‘You’re not getting any younger,’ he’d said. And then, with a sneer, ‘Besides, it’s not as if you have anything better to do.’

A chill had spread through her as she listened to him speak. It was one thing for her to endure this – to endure him. Spittle flying in her face, the burn of his hand against her skin. The ceaseless, brutal nights.

But a child?

She couldn’t – wouldn’t – be responsible for that.

For a while, she’d kept taking contraception, hiding the sheath of pink tablets inside a balled-up sock in her bedside table. Until Simon found it. He made her watch as he popped each pill from its blister pack, one by one, before flushing them down the toilet.

After that, it became more difficult. Waiting until he had fallen asleep to slip from the bed, crouching silent in the bathroom over the blue glow of her secret phone, she researched the old methods. The ones he wouldn’t suspect. Lemon juice, which she stored in an old perfume bottle. The sting of it was almost pleasurable; it left her feeling clean. Pure.

As she planned her escape, greeting the monthly petals of blood in her underwear with relief, his rule tightened. He interrogated her endlessly about her daily movements and activities: had she taken a detour, spoken to anyone else, when she collected his shirts from the dry cleaner? Had she flirted with the man who delivered their groceries? He even monitored what she ate, stocking the kitchen with kale and supplements, as if she were a prize ewe being fattened up for lambing.

It didn’t stop him from hurting her, though – from twisting her hair around his knuckles, from biting her breasts. She doubted he wanted a baby for its own sake. His need to possess her had grown so insatiable that it was no longer enough to mark her body on the outside.

Swelling her womb with his seed would be the ultimate form of dominance. The ultimate control.

And so she found a grim satisfaction in watching a green swirl of kale disappear down the toilet, the same way her birth control pills had. In smiling slyly at a delivery man. But these small acts of rebellion were dangerous. He tried to catch her in a deceit, laying verbal traps as deftly as if he were a lawyer questioning a witness in court.

‘You said you would collect the dry cleaning at 2 p.m.,’ he’d say, his breath hot on her face. ‘But the receipt is time-stamped for 3 p.m. Why did you lie to me?’

Sometimes his cross-examinations lasted an hour, sometimes even longer.

Lately, he’d threatened to confiscate her keys, declaring that she couldn’t be trusted during the long hours when she was alone in the gleaming prison of their flat.

The net was closing. And a baby would bind her to him forever.

Which was why yesterday, the future – with its distant promise of freedom – seemed to drain away as she huddled in the bathroom, watching dye spread across a pregnancy test. The tiles were cold against her skin. The whirr of a fly batting itself against the window mingled with her own ragged breaths to form an unreal music. ‘This can’t be happening,’ she said out loud. There was no one to answer.

Twenty minutes later, she ripped a second test from its packaging, but the result was the same.

Positive.

Don’t think about that now, she tells herself. But she still can’t believe it – the whole drive up, she itched to pull over and open the cardboard box she’d stowed in her bag, just to check that she hadn’t imagined those two blurred lines.

She had tried so hard. But in the end, none of it mattered. He had got his way.

Nausea roils in her, furs the roof of her mouth. She shivers, swallows. Tries to focus on the here and now. She’s safe. That’s all that matters. Safe, but freezing. She heads for the other room, wondering if the fireplace is functional. There’s a stack of firewood next to it, and a box of matches on the mantelpiece. The first match refuses to light. So does the second. Even though she’s hundreds of miles away from him, his voice is loud in her head: Pathetic. Can’t do anything right. Her fingers tremble, but she tries again. She grins at the sight of the small blue flame, the orange sparks.

The sparks grow into flames, and Kate stretches out her hands to warm them, before thick smoke billows into the room. Chest heaving, she grabs the kettle from the range and flings water on top of the fire. Once it is out, her insides grow cold. Perhaps the voice is right. Perhaps she is pathetic.

But she’s come this far, hasn’t she? She can do this. Rationally, she knows, now that her breathing has slowed, that something must be blocking the chimney. A fire poker leans against the fireplace. Perfect. On all fours, eyes stinging from smoke, she shoves the poker up the chimney and feels it connect with something, something soft …

She screams when the dark bundle tumbles down, screams again when she sees it’s the body of a bird. Ash quivers on feathers the colour of petrol. A crow. The bright bead of its eye follows her as she recoils. She doesn’t like birds, with their flapping wings and sharp beaks. Has avoided them since childhood. For a moment, she resents her great-aunt for having lived in – of all the places on God’s green earth – Crows Beck.

But this crow is dead. It can’t hurt her. She needs a bag, some newspaper or something, to dispose of it. She’s almost out of the door when she feels a shiver of movement in the room. Turning, she watches in horror as the bird takes flight, risen like some sort of corvine Lazarus. Kate opens the window and frantically brandishes the poker at the crow until it flies out. She slams the window shut and runs from the room. The sound of its beak tapping on the windowpane follows her down the corridor.