Cot
by
Bernard O’Leary
They walked up
the stairs in a good mood, not caring that the elevator was
broken and they had to climb fourteen floors. The
babysitter was annoyed they were late but Gordon tipped her
and sent her away in a taxi. The baby hadn’t woken for his
late night feed yet. She poured two large gins. Gordon was
looking especially handsome tonight. He kissed her
passionately and they had sex on the sofa.
Later, he was smoking a cigarette by the window when he
said, “The fog’s covering all the buildings down below.
Feels like we’re in an aeroplane.”
“I not like that,” she said. “It makes feel like we’re
alone here.”
“You know, I think your English is getting even worse,” he
said. “What happened to those language CDs I bought you?
They still in the wrapper?” He laughed but she didn’t.
“How does it get to be good? I’m here, all the day. I don’t
meet peoples or go out.”
“You’ve just been out.”
“With only you.”
“Not this shit again.”
She looked away, holding the glass to her lips.
“I’m going,” he said. “Kiss the baby for me in the
morning.”
“Stay tonight. Kiss him yourself.”
He pulled on his jacket and muttered, “You’re starting to
sound as bad as my wife.”
She wanted to hold herself as still as rock, show no
emotion while he tied his shoelaces, and let him leave in
silence. But when his hand touched the door handle, she
shouted, “Hey, you leave me money for week!”
“Yeah, let’s not forget about what’s really important.” He
counted out the bills, then tossed them so they rained down
around her like confetti. He marched out, slamming the door
behind him. She threw her glass after him and it shattered
against the mahogany. For a moment, she continued sitting
still, determined not to cry, but then she thought of the
baby crawling around on the carpet the next morning.
Stumbling a little, she took a brush and pan and tried to
sweep up every fragment. One thick shard gashed the side of
her left hand, leaving a bright splash of blood on the
carpet. She finished cleaning and put a compress on the
wound. The baby was still asleep.
She picked up the money, counted it carefully, broke it
into two piles, then slipped the slimmer pile into her
handbag. The larger one went into a Tupperware box in her
freezer that was already bursting with notes. After closing
the freezer door, she took the postcard from its hiding
place above the washing machine and sat on the sofa.
All she wanted now was not to cry. She read the postcard a
couple of times then stared out at the shrouded city, dark
as space, and drank straight from the gin bottle until she
went dark too.
*
When the baby woke up, she was so drunk she could barely
open her eyes. Something that was more habit than instinct
forced her to get up and stumble through the darkness,
searching with her arms outstretched until they found the
cold metal rail of the heavy cot. Picking up her son, she
comforted him in her own language and took him to the
kitchen and prepared a bottle. Once or twice, she almost
fell asleep and relaxed her grip on him a little, but the
movement jerked her back to wakefulness. She walked back to
the nursery, lay him down and moved the bottle to his lips.
There was a dull, wet sound, then silence, then the baby
began spluttering, sounding terrified. She switched on the
light and looked down. He was soaked from head to toe,
thrashing like a freshly-landed fish. In her hand was an
empty baby bottle.
She lay him on the floor, changed him, and changed the
bedding. There was nothing about her actions to indicate
that there was a bellowing voice in her head, screaming at
her for getting so drunk that she forgot to put the lid on
the bottle.
*
The baby woke at 6 a.m. She forced herself through the
morning routine, trying to be every more cheery and
nurturing than usual, as if suffering her hangover without
complaint would atone for the night before.
At eleven, it was time to go to the shops. The lift was
still broken, so they had to trudge down all two hundred
and eighty-six steps while she held the buggy in the air.
Each step went through her aching body like a whiplash,
each one a sweet pain that helped drown out the incessant
voice asking, what kind
of mother are you?
At the bottom,
she put on her headphones and listened to her language CDs.
Not Gordon’s dry and dusty CDs, filled with words and
absent of meaning, much like Gordon himself. These were CDs
she’d bought herself, where the tutor spoke in a sensual
baritone as he unveiled the language. She imagined him as
heavy man with a thick beard, a man who liked red wine and
young women, a man who had travelled a lot. She dreamed of
meeting him one day.
They went to the nearest play park for a while, then headed
into town. Ignoring the two nearest supermarkets, she
walked to the discount store and began gathering the same
items as every other week. Her shopping list was planned to
the nearest penny and she had exactly enough in her purse.
The bright lights and smell of decaying vegetables made her
feel nauseous, but aisles were mercifully empty and the
girl behind the till made no attempt at conversation.
The rain was setting in as she began the walk home.
Everyone seemed to be going the other way and they jostled
her as if she wasn’t there. She gripped the handle of the
buggy tightly and focused on the confident voice in her
headphones.
“Tengo que
irme,” said the
voice. “I must go
away.”
“Tengo que irme,” she repeated.
“Quieres ir
conmigo? Would you like to come with
me?”
“Quieres ir conmigo?”
“Muy bien.
Very well.”
*
The baby refused to go to sleep that night. Her hangover
was still lingering and she felt like she was going to
shatter into tiny fragments if she didn’t sleep soon, but
he kept fighting to stay awake. Around ten, he drifted into
a light sleep, enough for her to sneak away. She lay fully
clothed on her bed and passed out.
She was having another nightmare when the baby woke up. She
ran to him, cradling him until he stopped crying. His nappy
was thick with urine, so she changed it quickly and took
him with her to the kitchen.
He sat in the crook of her arm, pressed tight against her
right breast as she prepared his milk. He was drifting off
again as the kettle built to a crescendo, rattling as the
water boiled. She poured a little into the milk to warm it,
splashing a little scalding hot liquid over her hand. It
was a small pain, but a bright intense one and it made her
swear out loud.
The noise made the baby cry again. She stroked the back of
his head and said “hush, hush” while finishing the bottle.
It took her a moment to realise that something wasn’t
right.
The baby she held—the one breathing gently, the one whose
soft, sparse hair she was stroking—was silent. She could
hear him breathing over the other sound, the dreadful
piercing scream of a baby in anguish. For a few moments,
she couldn’t move. She wondered if she was still dreaming.
But she could feel the burn on her hand and she knew she
was awake. “I must be going crazy,” she said out loud, in
English, and her voice sounded as alive and real as the
crying.
Slowly, she followed the sound to the nursery. She reached
inside and flicked the light switch. The crying paused,
then returned even louder. She couldn’t see anything at
first, but then saw something thrashing around in the heavy
metal cot in the corner. A
rat, she thought.
She would have pushed the whole cot out the window if its
metal frame hadn’t been so monstrously heavy.
Moving closer, she could see more of the thing now. Two
tiny pink hands waved frantically in the air. Edging closer
still, she could see the thing’s arms, then a foot kicking.
The crying grew more desperate. She stepped even closer
until she could fully see the thing in the cot, and was so
shocked that she almost let her son slip out of her grip.
It was a baby, just like hers. Exactly like her son, in
fact, almost a twin. Every inch of him was repeated there:
the flat nose, the thin mouth, the tuft of ginger hair.
Even the pyjamas were identical. The child in her arms
began to cry and the child in the cot mimicked him
perfectly.
A dark shiver ran through her and she raced to the front
door, clawing at the lock while holding her baby so tight
she almost crushed him. Her footsteps echoed around the
deserted landing as she ran from door to door, pounding on
each one, pleading for someone to help her. Each door had a
silver nameplate with the identity of the occupants –
Turner, Singer, Taylor, Carter – but the apartments within
were silent and her knocking and yelling rattled around in
them without result.
Her baby was screaming now, and so was the other one, the
thing in the cot. Almost against her will, she slowly
walked back in. Her mobile was on the kitchen counter so
she grabbed it and called Gordon’s mobile. It rang six
times. Her stomach twisted when she realized that he might
not pick up, but then there was a crackle and a tired voice
saying, “Hello?”
“Please,
Gordon, please come help. Is baby. Something strange. I
don’t understand.”
She could hear his voice in the distance say something
like, “Sorry love, work emergency. Back in a tick.” While
he trudged downstairs, she tried to focus. She needed to
find the right words in English to explain what was
happening, but it felt like her mind was coming loose and
every time she reached for a word or phrase it darted out
of her grasp.
“This better be good.”
“I don’t know. I am not understand. Maybe I am crazy. You
have to come.”
“I told you not to call me at home. She’ll take me to the
bloody cleaners if she finds out about you.”
“Please, please, there is no one else to help.”
“I’ve had enough, love. I’ll keep sending you your money,
but I can’t have you risking everything like this. Don’t
call me again.”
The line went dead.
She ran to her desk and pulled out a piece of paper tucked
away at the back. Gordon had given her his home number once
and it was still there, scrawled in his nearly illegible
handwriting. She held her phone, ready to call, but paused.
Calling him on his land line would only make him angrier
and he wouldn’t come anyway. She was alone now.
The cries from the cot dragged her closer and closer until
she was standing right over it. It was him, it was him; it
was her baby in there and yet it was also her baby in her
arms. She didn’t understand, but she couldn’t resist. She
picked him up.
He calmed and settled against her chest, mirroring the
position of the other baby. She looked from one to the
other, almost unable to breathe. They even weighed the
same. Their heads both fit into the crevice of her
collarbone as if it had been handcarved for them. She sank
to her knees, then rested against the nursery wall. Both of
the babies were asleep, enjoying her warmth. She didn’t
know what to do next, so she just sat there, looking at
their identical fontanels, until the sun began to creep
back in under the curtain and she fell asleep too.
*
The three of them woke up at the same time the next
morning. She took them to the living room and placed the
babies side-by-side on the playmat while she prepared
breakfast and thought about her options. Gordon was the
only person she knew well enough to ask for help in all of
Scotland. She hated him for that. But even if he did come
over, what would he do? Take his real son and walk out
probably, leaving her with the other baby.
She froze. She had placed the babies carefully, her child
on the left and the new one on the right, but what if they
rolled around? She would never again know which one was her
real son. She ran back into the living room and frantically
looked from one to the other. There wasn’t a single thing
them to tell them apart, not even a strand of hair. She
thought the one on the left was hers, but couldn’t be sure.
Picking them up, she inspected them both, turning them
around so roughly that they both began to cry. She almost
began to cry too as a small voice in her asked her over and
over again, what kind
of mother can’t even recognise her own
child?
There was only one difference, which was that the child on
the right had a nappy which was full to the point of
bursting. The one on the left needed a change but was a
little more comfortable. She had changed him, hadn’t she?
Yes, she was sure she had.
She picked up her son and moved away from the other thing,
terrified, thinking herself mad for holding it when she
didn’t even know what it was.
He stared back at her, oblivious, blowing little spit
bubbles the same way her son did.
Every
mother knows their own child.
Breathing heavily, she slowly inched back towards him. He
smiled, showing her his gums, bright pink with white edges
where the teeth were slowly pushing through. She picked him
up again and gave a deep sigh.
Later, when the
babies were playing together, she took an indelible black
marker and on the back of the knee of her original child,
small so no one would see it, she wrote the Roman
numeral I.
On the second child, she wrote II.
This innovation made her feel proud, but she realized that
she would still need names. “From now on,” she said to her
son, “I shall call you ‘Uno’.”
“You will be ‘Dos’,” she informed her other son.
*
Looking after two babies was easier than one, in a way. Uno
and Dos played happily together, neither one crying for
attention when she went to the kitchen, the way Uno often
used to do by himself. As the day wore on, she convinced
herself that what had happened wasn’t all that strange. It
was no odder than giving birth, really. Lying on that bed,
insane with pain; then suddenly a tiny cry and, from
nowhere, another person had appeared in the room. She
remembered first holding her son. He was tiny and
shrivelled and filthy, covered in mucus, his limbs moving
more like an insect’s than a person’s. She remembered
thinking that this is what a cockroach would look like if
you tore its shell off. She had been terrified of him, for
a while, but grown to love him. She was sure this would
happen with her new son too.
After lunch, she sat down with the boys and showed them the
postcard.
“This is a postcard from your Auntie Marina, my sister. I
haven’t seen her in six years, but then last year she sent
me this. Listen, boys:
“¡Hola guapa!
“That’s ‘Hello beautiful’ in Spanish. I’ve left Madrid and
live in Granada now. It’s so pretty! You must come visit, I
miss you so much, little sister. Come stay with me, I’ll
get you a job, maybe a man too!
“Hasta Luego,
“Marina.”
She explained
to them that she had been saving every penny she could
spare so that they could walk out one day, step onto a
plane, find her sister and never think of Scotland again.
When she finished talking, she took a deep breath and sank
back into the chair. It was the first time she had ever
discussed her plan with anyone and now it seemed so real it
was intoxicating.
When the boys fell asleep, she stayed a while to stare at
them and offer a prayer of thanks to whoever was behind
this beautiful, bizarre miracle.
*
They woke up around one.
She picked them up, carried them into the kitchen and
juggled the two bottles into the microwave. After the oven
went ping, she carefully shook both of the bottles,
remembering a gruff nurse at the hospital complaining about
modern mothers relying on microwaves. That nurse had left
her feeling foolish and incompetent, like she was just a
girl playing with a doll. She wondered how that nurse would
have reacted in this situation. Would she have been calm
enough to get both babies to sleep at their normal bedtime
on the first night?
“No, my sweethearts,” she whispered, “she would not.”
She walked back to the room and placed the two boys in the
cot, side-by-side, on their backs. She sat in the chair
next to the cot and felt them both grab at the bottles and
begin to suck hungrily.
One of them placed his tiny hand on her thumb. It was so
strange to think that these fragile, helpless things had
adults somewhere inside them, in the same way that a tiny
seed has a thick-trunked tree in it. She wondered what kind
of men they would become. She daydreamed for a little while
about old women stopping her on the street, saying, “What
handsome twins you have! How do you ever tell them apart?”
The hand squeezed her thumb, a little desperately. It was
pulling at her, desperate for attention, and soon the
tugging was followed by a low cry, like a baby waking up.
Yet both of boys were sucking at their bottles. The gentle
cry became a wail.
She reached into the cot and picked up the third child that
had appeared between her boys. “Hush,” she said, stroking
his hair. “Why don’t we get you something to drink?” While
waiting for his bottle to heat, she took the marker and
inscribed a tiny III
on
the back of his knee.
*
Every night, another one came.
By Wednesday, she’d stopped sleeping. She chain-smoked by
the window and tried not to look at them. Uno and Dos were
lying on their backs, listlessly playing with the baubles
hanging from the toy arch. Tres was playing with a squeaky
yellow hammer. Quatro was crawling towards him, trying to
claim it as his own while Cinqo sat still, pulling at his
nappy. Seis simply lay on his back, crying. The other five
babies ignored Seis, and so did she.
Her weekly budget had fallen apart. Empty milk carton
filled the overflowing trash can. The tub of vegetable
puree, intended for the week, had been scraped dry. There
were a dozen nappies left, barely enough for the rest of
the day.
She could hardly look at the babies now. They were demons
or monsters or something worse. They scared her. Yet the
only thing that scared her more was the thought of losing
even one of them. Several times, she had started to leave
with a clear plan in her mind: pack a few things, take Uno,
and leave the other five to their fate. Part of her was
sure that they would just evaporate like a bad dream when
she was gone. She got as far as picking up Uno and making
for the door, but Tres got his fingers around the hem of
her skirt, and she was caught again.
She lit another cigarette and wondered how hard she would
have to run at the window to break through the glass, and
how long she would fall for.
*
There was nothing in the house to eat, not even a piece of
stale bread.
“Tengo que
irme,” she
whispered.
She moved quickly. The simplest thing to do would be to
pack for an overnight stay: one change of clothes for her,
one for each of the boys, some basic toiletries and
bottles. They could buy milk on the way to the airport, and
once in Spain she could work on building up their wardrobes
again. They must have charity shops in Granada, she told
herself.
When the bag was ready, she went to the kitchen and took
the cash from the freezer. She recovered her sister’s
postcard, kissed the writing on the back, and whispered,
“Pray for us now, Marina.”
Everything was ready, but transporting six babies out of
the apartment would be difficult. She sat Tres in the small
buggy and strapped him in, then went to the closet. Deep in
the back was a huge pram which Gordon had bought her while
she was pregnant. She had cried when he’d presented it,
asking how she was supposed to get the thing down the
stairs. She yanked it out from under a pile of junk with
all her strength and placed Dos and Cinqo inside.
She had a papoose which she wrapped around her back, and
tied Quatro in so tight his chin rested against her neck.
In the forward facing harness she placed Uno, taking a
moment to breathe and to kiss him. It felt more important
than ever to have him where she could see him.
That left Seis, still lying on the ground, still crying.
The other five babies were ready to go, but there was
nowhere for him. He hadn’t stopped wailing since he’d
appeared. It would be easier to leave him than any of the
others.
She unstrapped Tres and wedged Seis in next to him, then
fiddled with straps until they were just about holding both
children in. The two boys cuddled together and fell asleep.
She pushed the huge pram and smaller buggy into the
hallway, pulled the suitcase, and shut the door. The
elevator was still broken. There was only one way to get
everything down the stairs. She started with the suitcase,
running down to the next floor, dropping it, then running
back up again. She brought the small buggy down next, then
the huge pram.
By the time they were down to the tenth floor, sweat
dripped over every inch of her. The babies in the prams
were sleeping, but other two screamed and wriggled. Her
calves were burning. She tried to focus on the logistics.
Taxis went by the apartment block all the time. She would
flag one down and the driver would stare at her and say
nothing, and she and the sleeping children would sit in
perfect silence until the airport loomed into view. She
would pay in cash, then go to the standby ticket desk and
book seven tickets. Would they allow her to take the
buggies on the plane? She worried how she would do it. Then
there was the issue of how she would carry the boarding
passes and passports.
Passports.
She knew exactly where they were, sitting in the small
drawer under the dining table. She kicked the brake on the
pram and the buggy. “Stay here, my darlings,” she said,
“and stay quiet.”
She struggled back up the four flights of stairs and let
herself back in. She rummaged through the drawer for both
passports, then raced back to the door. Her hand was on the
door when she stopped.
Two passports. Only two.
It was a long time before she could summon up the strength
to drag the other babies back up the stairs.
*
Gordon’s mobile didn’t even ring any more. It went straight
to cold, female voice that said, “The number you are
calling is unavailable, please try again later.”
There were eight babies now. There was no food, so she
simply had to leave them crying while she went to the shop.
She expected, maybe hoped, to come back to find policemen
and ambulances looking for the terrible mother who had
abandoned her children, but returned to only the screaming
babies.
The clock on the oven said it was 19:45. Five hours until
the next one. She could sense them before they came now.
They lingered in the air like static electricity for hours
beforehand and she could hear them, crying for her in the
darkness, arms desperately searching for her. And behind
each one, she could sense the others; further away but so
many of them. One for every day of the rest of her life.
She got out Gordon’s home number again. He had only
conceded it to her when she’d threatened to kill herself,
and as he handed it over he said, “If you hassle me at
home, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” She dialled it.
The oven clock flicked to 20:00.
It rang and rang with no reply. Each unanswered ring made
her sound like she was falling further and further into
space but she didn’t dare to hang up.
The oven clock said 20:02 when someone picked up. An old
man said, “Security?”
“Can I speak please to Gordon.”
“No Gordon here, hen, sorry.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is a warehouse, love. No one here except me.”
She placed the phone down. The phone book might have his
real number, but she didn’t have his address. She wondered
if she even knew his real name.
Most of the babies were asleep now, except for Uno who
stared at her as if expecting something. She went to the
bathroom and got some surgical spirits and cotton wool. Uno
smiled at her when she approached. She rolled up the leg of
his pyjamas and wiped at the number written on the back of
his leg until there was nothing left but a spot of red
skin. She did the same to the others. They were all equal
now, all anonymous. She tried to forget which one was
originally hers.
The oven clock said 20:30. She would have to hurry before
the next one arrived.
*
Moving them almost killed her. The stairs were exhausting
and it took over an hour to crawl through the city with the
two prams until she arrived at the hospital.
She sat on a park bench nearby for an hour before she could
bring herself to do it. For the first time ever, all eight
were simultaneously asleep and she kept wondering if she
was making the wrong decision.
She removed the babies from the sling and the papoose and
slipped them next to their sleeping brothers, then swaddled
all of them in blankets. She didn’t dare to kiss them.
Each step hurt. The pain was intense, physical, like a
gunshot to the stomach and she was sure she would bleed to
death before she walked away. She found a nearby pay phone
and called the hospital to tell them where to look.
The next morning she sat with last night’s baby, flicking
through the TV channels. Only when a regional news report
announced the search for the mother of a set of abandoned
octuplets did she allow herself to breathe. Only when the
report concluded that all eight babies were safe did she
allow herself to cry.
*
Maybe it was normal. Maybe there were mothers like her all
over the city, abandoning babies every night. It was the
only reason she could think of for the lack of interest.
The octuplets story vanished from the news and nobody ever
mentioned the other babies that she abandoned, a new one
every night. The babies just seemed to vanish into the same
blackness they came from, swallowed up by the city.
She was clever, finding hospitals, police stations,
orphanages, trying not to use the same place twice.
Sometimes she’d see a happy family playing in the park and
follow them home, then leave her baby on their doorstep. It
never got any easier. She was always sure she would die
before she got to the end of the street. She always sighed
with relief when was home and heard the sound of crying
from the cot.
A few months later she saw one of them. It was definitely
him, although he had grown now and his red hair came out in
uncontrollable curls. He was being held by a fat,
middle-aged woman, a woman who looked like a real mother.
She ran before they spotted her, clutching the most recent
baby close to her.
She sat on a park bench near a church and tried to calm
herself. She should be grateful, she told herself. Her baby
would never grow up now, would be reborn each night,
cleansed and uncorrupted. What mother wouldn’t want that?
She was aging though. How old was she now? She couldn’t
remember, although she remembered her last birthday being
her twenty-second. Surely she was much older than that now.
Her date of birth would be in her passport, but she wasn’t
sure where it was any more.
When nobody was around, she left the baby on the bench and
walked away, into the thickening mist.
Copyright
2009 by Bernard O’Leary