Tania Carver - The Surrogate

She must have been staring at the still baby for a long time. She did that sometimes, stood still, not moving from the spot she was in. Losing all track of time. This time she hadn’t noticed the day slip away, to be replaced by night. And she hadn’t heard her husband enter. But that wasn’t so strange. Usually she just heard him as a voice in her head, a presence, and she knew straight away that he was there.

She looked at the baby one more time and, satisfied that it was all right, crossed over to the kitchen area. Her husband had built it for her. He had put up plasterboard walls to divide it from the open space, built shelves and cupboards from what he had salvaged on his travels. He had even painted the bare stone and brick walls in the kitchen area white. She liked that. Thought it made the place look more homely. And that was important, now they were a proper family.

She stood in the kitchen area. She hadn’t prepared anything. She looked round to see what she could make quickly. There were two skinned rabbits on the counter top, some root vegetables in a basket. That would do.

‘How… how about rabbit stew?’ she said, closing her eyes, hoping her husband wouldn’t see her lack of preparation.

He grunted again. I’m hungry. Now. Whatever you do, you’d better make it quick.

She nodded and, as fast as she could, lit the stove, put on a pan of water to heat up. She looked round. The baby was lying still in the cot, making no sound. Good. Knowing no harm could come to it, she made their evening meal.

Later, after she and her husband had eaten and she had washed up and cleared away, she returned to the baby. She couldn’t keep away. She had been getting up and checking on it all through dinner. She had heard her husband give a few exasperated growls, but he had said nothing. She had smiled inwardly at that. Perhaps he was an understanding man after all.

While she was staring at the baby, her husband slipped away again, leaving her alone with the infant once more.

It hadn’t wailed for ages. Once she had changed and fed it, it had kept quiet, slipping into what she thought was sleep as she rocked it in her arms. She remembered, before she blacked out, studying it as it lay breathing shallowly but raggedly in her arms, its eyelids just about closed, leaving only a sliver of milky white showing through as its eyeballs rolled into the back of its sockets. It was so small, so helpless. She could have done anything to it. Cuddled it, kept it warm, squeezed it tight. Or put her fingers round its throat, choked the air out of its tiny, frail body. Anything. She felt a rush of adrenalin as that realisation sped through her. She had the power of life and death. She could play God.

Power. For the first time in her life. She had smiled at the thought. No wonder people went to such lengths to have babies.

Hester looked down at it now, deliberating what to do. She wanted to pick it up. After all, that was what mothers did. But it looked so peaceful lying there, hardly moving, hardly breathing.

That was when she thought something might be wrong.

She leaned in closer, angled the lamp over to see it better. The pink blotches on its face seemed to be lessening in number. Its skin now had a blue tinge all over and the yellow was increasing. Hester didn’t think that was right. It most definitely wasn’t what they looked like on TV. Something was wrong.

‘Oh God, oh God…’

She looked round, panic welling inside her, willing her husband to turn up, but he was nowhere to be seen. She would have to cope on her own.

‘Oh God… oh God…’

What to do, what to do… She looked down at the sleeping child. She couldn’t take it to the doctor, she knew that. She hated doctors, had had a bad time with them all her life. So what, then? Did it need feeding? She checked her watch. No. Changing? She couldn’t smell anything. Should she pick it up? Yes. That seemed like a good idea. Then what? Hold it. Why? Because that was what mothers did, she reminded herself. Because doing that would make it better.

She reached down, picked the still infant from the cot. She stroked its cheek. It felt cold to the touch, its skin clammy. Just like stroking the walls behind it.

She held it to her. Warmth. That was what it needed. She got into bed, holding the baby to her chest. Eventually her arms began to cramp up from keeping them in the same position for so long, so she put the baby back in its cot with an extra blanket on top of it. The tin cot was right beside her bed. She lay on her side, looking at the baby.

And that was how she lay well into the night. Staring at the baby, keeping vigil for signs of a worsening condition. Trying to keep awake but dropping off occasionally. At some point during the night, she woke to find her husband was back.

‘The baby’s not well,’ she said.

He grunted. So?

She looked at the baby once again. For the first time she voiced the fear and doubt that had built within her. ‘I don’t… I don’t think it’s goin’ to get better. Not on its own.’

It’ll have to , her husband said.

‘Can’t we just…’

No.We can’t. Don’t be fuckin’ stupid, woman.

She nodded. She knew that.

You’ll just have to hope it gets better on its own.

‘Right.’

If it lasts the night, it’ll be all right.

‘What if it doesn’t?’

Then it doesn’t. Go to sleep.You’ve still got jobs to do in the mornin’. Baby or no baby.

And he was gone again.

She took his advice, tried to get some sleep, but couldn’t. Instead she lay there, watching the baby. At some point she plucked it from the cot, held it to her. She could feel something happening inside herself and she didn’t know what it was. An unfamiliar feeling, like it was tearing a hole in her. She didn’t like the feeling but she wouldn’t have wanted to be without it somehow. Not now.

So she held the baby. Waited for morning.

Caroline Eades couldn’t sleep. Her husband, lying on his back, mouth open and snoring like an angry lion growling, had no such problem.

She just couldn’t get comfortable. Every time she did, moving her body around to a position that could accommodate her stomach and the rest of her, somewhere the baby wasn’t lying on anything that would cause her discomfort, it would kick, or stretch, or shift about, and she was back to square one again.

But she didn’t think it was the baby’s fault. Not entirely. Graeme had come in after nine o’clock, put his briefcase down and announced he was going for a shower. He didn’t want any dinner, which was a good thing, since the M &S lamb shank was ruined by then; said he had eaten on the way home. Then, following his shower, he had downed a can of lager and gone to bed. He didn’t ask how she was, how her day had been, nothing. He barely acknowledged the children, who were putting themselves to bed. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was having an affair.

He had been her childhood sweetheart. Proper Romeo and Juliet stuff. At least she’d thought so until she read the play and saw what happened to them. She vowed that would never happen to Graeme and her. She would make it work, whatever. Give them a happy ending.

And she had. In the early days, when he was building up his business, she had put her career plans aside, been there to help him. In fact, the majority of the work involved in drawing up the business plans was down to her. But falling pregnant had stopped all that. Then she’d become a stay-at-home mum, let Graeme go out to work. His business had prospered, selling his recruitment agency to a national company while still being allowed to run the local arm. This had led to the new house, the two big cars, the private schools.