Tania Carver - The Surrogate

He wiped his hands down the sides of his long overcoat. Left long streaks of blood and gore, dark against the dark material. Glistening. Soon the marks would sink into the fabric. Join the other old stains that made up the texture of the coat.

He straightened up, looked round.The house was on the edge of the river, just up from the muddy sands. The river moved slowly towards the sea, flat and oily in the weak early-morning light.The surrounding area was flat and bleak, the marshland stretching to the sands, away to the river, the sea. The trees bare and spindly, late autumn naked, like bone sculptures painted with dried, dark blood.

He put the axe down, closed his eyes.Things were different this morning. Because Hester was no longer a mother.

She had lain awake most of the night, staring at the baby. She found it fascinating. Its little chest moving up and down. Its fingers clasping and unclasping, grasping at invisible creatures. Angels or demons, Hester thought. Its face contorting, mouth twisting and chewing. It was like a little creature from a Disney cartoon. Not a real, dying baby, just a pretend special effect.

Gradually it weakened until it could move no more. Its breathing became so shallow it eventually stopped. Its face and hands stopped twisting. Still fascinated, Hester put her head on one side, leaned in close, tried to hear the last trail of air leave its body. Its final sigh. She missed it. But it changed nothing. The baby was dead.

It lay in the cot, still and lifeless. Like it needed its batteries replacing. Hester poked it, prodded it. It didn’t move. She prodded again, harder this time. It still didn’t move. She leaned in closer, used both hands this time. It rocked slightly but returned to its original position when she took her hands away.

So that was that. The baby was gone. Hester was no longer a mother.

She felt something then, an ache inside, like something had been taken from her and could never be replaced. That feeling sparked another one. An older but similar feeling of something being taken from her body. Cut from her. She had tried not to remember it, fought against it returning to mind. Failed. She had tried to keep it from her head for years because when it arrived it was so painful she couldn’t cope and it spun her into a deep depression that could last for days, weeks even. She would just mope around the house, get no work done, make no food, just cry for what she had lost. And there was no cure. She had to ride it out.

She fought against it again. Pushed her hands between her legs, clamped down hard with her thighs.

‘No… no… Don’t come back, it’s fine. It’s going to be fine…’

Rocking backwards and forwards in the bed while she did it.

It was no good. The memory, long suppressed, was already there. Once again she could feel the guilt lance through her, the hurt and humiliation. Crawling naked along the floor, blood and other bodily secretions oozing from her, those cruel, hateful words still ringing in her ears. And all that pain, working through her body, pounding in her head. More than one person could stand. Certainly more than the person she used to be could stand.

Once again she remembered how that hurt and humiliation had driven her to the kitchen. Told her to open the drawer. In her mind’s eye she could barely see what she was doing, tears had been streaming so hard down her face.

‘Stop it… stop it…’ Rocking in the bed, curled up in a foetal ball, hands still pushed firmly between her thighs. But sparked by the dead child lying next to her, those long-suppressed memories just kept coming. They wouldn’t stop.

‘Oh God… no…’

She was seeing her own hand once again open the drawer, reach for the knife…

‘No…’

She clamped down harder, screwed her eyes tight shut.

‘Make it stop… no… I don’t want to…’

Take the knife, place it against her skin… Feel how cold and sharp the blade was against the soft flesh of her lower stomach. Push – tentatively at first – to see what it felt like, to see if it was a pain she could stand…

No words now, just muffled, inarticulate sobs.

But what was one more kind of pain against the rest that were swirling around inside her? She pushed, harder again. Felt blood trickle down her skin from underneath the path of the blade. It tickled, felt like it was nothing at all. She couldn’t call it pain. Not really. Not compared to the rest of her.

She felt once again her hand grasping herself between the legs, pulling out the skin and gristle, stretching it out…

More sobs, more rocking, more shaking.

Pulling, stretching as far as it would go… willing this to be an end, hoping and praying that the pain would stop when she had done it…

Just get it over with…

And then, with the realisation that whatever she did couldn’t be worse than what she was at present, she took the knife in her other hand and brought the blade swiftly down.

It didn’t go as planned. It was harder than she had imagined, tougher to cut through. But she managed, sawing backwards and forwards. The pain was so much more intense than she had thought it would be. And the blood, so much blood…

She felt she might black out. But she didn’t, she couldn’t. Looking down, she saw the job half finished, that hateful piece of gristle hanging off her body, bloodied and mangled. With a surge of rage she plunged the blade in once again and, in a fresh bout of arterial spray, resumed cutting.

And then, eventually, it was off.

She held it in her hand, that offending piece of flesh now looking so small and harmless. Shrivelled and lifeless.

Hester had smiled then, out of relief or respite from the pain she couldn’t remember. But she knew she had smiled.

Before she collapsed.

When Hester opened her eyes, she was standing in front of the cot, looking at the baby. Her memories receding, waiting for her husband to arrive.

What the fuck’s the matter with you now, woman? What you standin’ there like that for?

He was there. She quickly wiped her eyes, willed the last smoky trails of her memory to be gone. She didn’t want him to know she was thinking of that again. Anything but that.

‘The… the baby…’

What about it?

‘It…’ She knew she had to deflect her attention away from her memories. She took her hands from between her legs and pointed at the cot. ‘It died…’

‘It’s dead,’ she said again when he didn’t respond.

I can see that.

‘What… what should we do?’

Bury it .

So she did. As soon as it was time to get up, she climbed out of bed and took the now cold and stiffening body from the cot. She carried it outside and picked up a shovel. It was difficult. The cold, hard earth proved unyielding to anything less than her pickaxe. So she swung it down, over and over, until she had loosened enough ground to dig a shallow grave.

And there she stood, looking down at the empty patch of earth, the weak early-morning light casting a deep, spidery shadow into it. Hester and her husband were the only people around along the bleak, deserted coastline. She put the pickaxe down and picked up the tiny body in one hand. The sky was grey and oppressive, like it was pressing down on her, trying to squash her into the ground too. She took the blanket from the baby, knelt down and placed the body in the hole.

She stood up, looked down at it. And felt something. Again there was that emptiness, that strange aching feeling inside her. It seemed to well up inside her, building in her chest. She opened her mouth, put her head back. And out came a wail, as surprising to her as it was plaintive and heartfelt. It sounded like a wounded, cornered animal that could fight no more and knew it was about to die. The sound had a pained inevitability to it. She kept howling and screaming, her head back, her eyes closed. Just howling and screaming.