Gary McMahon - The Concrete Grove

The Fraser woman — that bitch, just like his mother was a bitch — was really going to get something special tonight. If he had felt sorry for her before, there was no more room for sympathy now. Someone had to pay for the way he felt, and she was going to find herself impaled on the sharp end of his confusion just to settle that debt. He promised himself that it would be an experience she would never forget — even if she walked away with her body intact, her mind would be crippled by the memory.

Boater hailed a cab, flopped down onto the back seat, and told the driver to take him to the Concrete Grove, where the edge of a familiar abyss awaited his arrival.

LANA STOOD IN front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. She was wearing her little black dress, black high-heels and way too much makeup. Bright red lipstick made her lips look swollen; the smoky liner around her eyes gave the impression of light bruising. Ordinarily, she would never go out like this, but she knew what men like Monty Bright admired in a woman: overt sexuality; the image of a whore.

“Whore.” Spoken out loud, the word lacked genuine impact. It only hurt when she thought it, when she kept it inside where it could slice her up like a razor.

She turned away from her tarted-up image in the mirror and walked towards Hailey’s room. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The curtains were open; street light leaked through the pane, streaking her daughter’s bed covers.

She walked across the room, stepping over Hailey’s discarded clothes, and stood at the side of the bed. Staring down, her heart felt heavy and her mind began to clear. What she was about to do, she did for Hailey. She would go to any extreme to put things right, to clear the debt and start all over again. If she had found a way to turn back time, she would have done it without pause for thought, and to hell with any sacrifice time might demand.

She remembered when Hailey was born. The memory still ached inside her. Three in the morning: New Year’s Day. She’d just missed out on being one of the first New Year babies, and her sibling had missed out on everything by being born dead. Lana’s labour had been long and hard. Her waters had broken fifty-two hours before the delivery, but she had not been dilated enough for the midwife to induce her. The hospital was understaffed and too many pregnant women had been admitted… the whole thing had been horrible, a nightmare.

She recalled a scene a minute or so after midnight, with Timothy standing by the bed, repeatedly lifting and letting drop one of the cheap nylon bed sheets. Worry and lack of sleep had made him fuzzy and weird — he barely even knew where he was or what he was doing. Fireworks were going off outside to welcome in the New Year, but Lana’s gaze was drawn to her husband’s busy hands, and the sheet as it fell repeatedly onto the bed. Static electricity shimmered in the air; it was their private firework display, a show put on just for them and their as-yet unborn children — the living and the dead.

“For you, honey,” she whispered now, in another life.

Hailey stirred in her sleep, one arm coming up out of the creased mass of sheets to cover her face. The bedclothes slipped down to her waist, exposing her midriff. The skin there looked thin, like paper. Lana could almost see her insides through the semi-translucent layer: bunched intestines, and other organs that didn’t look quite normal.

When Hailey was born she was floppy and unresponsive, a condition caused by something toxic in Lana’s liquors — the fact that her waters had broken so early had led to some kind of infection. The baby’s skin was grey; she was barely breathing. They took her away and put her in the Special Care Unit, up on the top floor of the hospital, while Lana continued with her labour. Timothy followed them out of the delivery room; he was clutching one of the tiny woollen hats they’d told him to bring along for the newborn babies. A small, silent Indian doctor drifted in to stitch up Lana after she’d pushed out Hailey’s brother, repairing the wounds caused by the delivery of the twins. He worked in silence; he didn’t look up from his task once, not even when Lana began to cry. A nurse with short hair and a small tattoo on her neck had carried away a bedpan containing the waste.

“For you…” She leant over her teenage daughter’s bed and touched Hailey’s stomach. The flesh there was warm, almost moist. She spread out her fingers, forming a fan of the digits. Something fluttered inside Hailey, like a caged bird, and then went still. Her belly remained flat; it did not bulge or distend in the way it had before, when Hailey had lifted her blouse to show Lana the great secret of her anatomy.

I imagined it all , thought Lana. The stress, the sheer pressure of our situation… It caused me to hallucinate. What I thought I saw… it was impossible.

Even as she thought this, she was not entirely sure that she truly believed the theory.

Impossible…

Tucking Hailey back into bed, she straightened up and left the room. Everything seemed heavy: her skin, her bones, even the weight of her thoughts. The world was moving slower than it ever had before, as if the nature of gravity had altered.

Her plan was simple, but it was also repellent. She would go to Monty Bright, allow him to do whatever he wanted with her, and then walk away, back to her life. She had been through so much, experienced such horrors because of Timothy and the things he had done, that she believed she could detach herself from the moment and just let it happen.

It might hurt; it would probably haunt her for the rest of her life. But at least the debt would be cleared, and she and Hailey could move forward, make plans to leave this horrible place.

She was willing to do anything to guarantee Hailey’s future. Even this: allowing a crude and vicious man — and possibly his friends — to use her body as a plaything. If she thought of it in mechanical ways — she had had a coil fitted a few years ago, so would not become pregnant; she would demand that they all use condoms in case of disease; she would refuse to kiss anyone on the mouth — then she could pretend that it was a job of work. She had grown accustomed to stifling her emotions, and this would simply be one more situation to lock up inside, throwing away the key.

She could think of worse things… like death, or mutilation. Rape — no matter if she went there willingly or not — was better than being maimed or crippled or killed. These men, she knew, were easily capable of all three acts. Penetration she could probably handle and come to terms with, even if it meant losing something of her soul; but losing a physical part of herself would be a lot tougher to accept.

But then again, she knew that physical scars healed. Blood stopped flowing; cuts and lacerations sealed themselves shut. Emotional scars, though, never went away: they just faded.

Could she do this? Could she really go through with it?

She glanced over her shoulder, at Hailey’s bedroom door. She remembered how that fat bastard, Monty Bright’s enforcer, had caressed her daughter’s photograph, licking it with his obscene tongue.

Then she asked herself the only other question that mattered under the circumstances: did she really have a choice?

She grabbed her leather jacket and handbag and walked briskly to the door, refusing to look back over her shoulder. She paused at the mirror hanging on the wall by the door, looking again at her doll-like image. She took a packet of baby wipes from her purse and washed off the lipstick, the rouge, the eye make-up.

“No,” she whispered. “Not for you.” That bastard didn’t deserve to see her at her best. She would go to him unadorned, making her sacrifices without the use of war paint.