On Your Doorstep: Perfect for those who loved Close to Home

‘Stalled a few times,’ she said, ‘but here I am, and there you are, and what on earth is that?’ She drew back from the bed and covered her eyes.

I understood her fear. She can joke all she likes about calves but childbirth is a mystery to her. All that blood smearing the sheets, my legs, my hands, and you, your hair stiff with it, your tiny, wrinkled face marked with the slime of birth, face down and stretched naked across my stomach. I lifted you and swaddled you in a towel.

‘Hold her,’ I said. ‘Hold her while I take care of myself.’

I forced you into her arms. She held you gingerly, as if she expected you to mew or scratch.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ she said. ‘I’ve never held a baby that’s just been born.’

‘Barely born,’ I said, and roused myself from the bed. ‘Do you mind turning away? I want to…’ I hesitated and lifted the sheet. I thought she would faint when she saw the blood. ‘It’s the placenta,’ I said. ‘It’s come away.’

She moved away across the room, still holding you, and sank onto a stool in front of the dressing table. She looked at me in the mirror as I slopped the liver into a bowl and covered it with a white cloth.

‘I never knew what it looked like,’ she said when I was lying back again against the pillows. ‘Jesus, it’s awful.’

‘But it’s over now,’ I said. ‘The most frightening part was cutting the cord. If you’d got here on time you could have cut it for me.’

She glanced quickly at the scissors and thread lying beside the bowl then averted her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do,’ she said.

‘You cut it then clamp it on either end with thread,’ I replied. ‘That’s how you do it in an emergency.’

She came slowly towards me and sank to the edge of the bed. She seemed unable to take her eyes from the bowl. Blood had already seeped into the white covering. She swallowed loudly. I thought she was going to faint or throw up.

‘Let me hold my baby now,’ I said, and I took you back into my arms.

She stared down at the pair of us and wrinkled her nose. ‘Bit of cleaning up needs to done around here,’ she said. ‘Boiling water.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘It’s what happens in them films. I always wondered what the hell it was for. Now I know.’

She lifted a jug and matching basin from the dressing table, old porcelain, painted with blue roses. Miriam must have used it when David was a baby. His grandmother would have also bathed his father in it. The sense of tradition in Rockrose was never stronger than on that night.

I sponged the blood from the crevices in your skin. I cleansed you from all impurities then wrapped you in a soft white sheet. I wept tears upon your upturned face.

‘Tea and toast,’ said Phyllis. ‘My cousin says that’s the only thing when the tears start.’

The toast was thick and buttery, the tea stronger than I usually drank it. I’d never tasted anything so fine.

She asked if I’d decided on a name.

‘Only one name is possible,’ I replied. ‘I want to call her Joy.’

We rolled it around our tongues. Phyllis nodded, satisfied, and took you back into her arms. Her smile grew in importance. ‘Just as well I was able to manage that tractor,’ she said. ‘You’d have been truly stranded in your hour of need. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here for her birth.’

‘But you were,’ I said. ‘Or as close as makes no difference. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’

She assisted me into the shower. The water coursed over my body, washing away the stain of blood. When I emerged she had a clean nightdress ready to slip over my shoulders. The bed had been made with fresh linen and the old sheets bunched out of sight into the laundry basket. But you had had enough handling by then and David, when Phyllis phoned him, heard you crying…such a loud, lusty roar.

‘I should have been with you,’ he kept saying. His voice broke, as if he too was crying. ‘I should never have left you alone…is our daughter as beautiful as she sounds?’

‘Even more beautiful,’ I said. ‘She is our miracle baby.’

Gales were blowing across the North Sea. No helicopters had been able to land on the rig for two days. The forecast was for milder conditions and he would be home as soon as humanly possible.

I gave Phyllis instructions on how to prepare your formula and she watched, her eyes moist with longing, as you sucked. But she was growing anxious about her mother who always needed to be taken to the bathroom at midnight.

‘Do you want me to dispose…?’ She hesitated and gestured towards the bowl.

‘Leave it be,’ I said, when she went to lift it. ‘I’ll look after it myself.’

She nodded when I told her to leave the sheets in the basket, understanding, as all women do, that dirty linen is best washed in private. I asked her to take our photograph before she left. It’s important that David is able to share that priceless moment when I named you into life.

After she left, I rested with you in my arms and imagined the water bubbling behind the drystone walls, forming deceptive puddles and dangerous dips, and raising the river levels that would soon burst their banks. But we were content, you and I; safe and warm in an ocean of calm.

David is in the air, flying towards us. Miriam also, with a full order book, both of them anxious to catch their first glimpse of you. In Rockrose, you sleep by my side, your tiny face puckered with concentration. Your lips move, blowing silent raspberries. I cannot take my eyes off you. Your blonde hair is downy, as fine as my own. Your eyes are still milky, unfocused. Hard to tell the colour; I pray they will be blue.

Carla Kelly will be on the news tonight. Her press conference is due to begin soon. This is her first public appearance, apart from the flurry of publicity that followed the birth of Isobel Gardner. I cannot bear to watch. The deed is done.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_c2c201d7-bd8c-5f69-9fcf-894648070b12)

Carla

Carla braced herself to enter the hotel conference room. Three days had passed since Isobel’s disappearance and this was the most important public appearance she would ever make. Bottled water and glasses were laid out on the green baize tablecloth. She sat behind the table and greeted the cameras like old friends sent to comfort her. Each shot mattered. Flashbulbs would illuminate her daughter’s whereabouts. Adrenaline pumped through her body as she held up Isobel’s photograph. She allowed the intrusive lens to see her devastation, her bewilderment.

Her elder brother Leo, her protector since they were children, had automatically become her adviser and solicitor. Words were important, he stressed before the conference began. He went over the written statements she would read and advised her on how to answer questions. Keep it simple, appeal directly to the woman who had taken Isobel. She would be listening.

The story of her daughter’s disappearance had swept like a bushfire through the media. Anticipation Tot Robbed While Model Mum Slept…Mysterious Disappearance of Anticipation Baby…Celeb Mum Waits in Anticipation. The broadsheet headlines were more circumspect than the tabloids. Two Days Old Baby Stolen from Luxury Clinic…Shocked Parents Seek Missing Baby.

The public response was immediate. Sightings were reported and investigated but the Garda had nothing new to report at the end of each day. Borders were checked, ferries searched. Everything that could be done was being done, claimed Detective Superintendent Murphy, who was in charge of the investigation. Initially, Carla believed everything he said. His words were the lifebelt that prevented her sinking.

The Garda Press Office dealt with all the media queries and Detective Superintendent Murphy had insisted she keep a low profile while the Garda continued their investigations. Slowly, she became aware of other ripples in the background.

‘For your husband’s sake, we need to keep a tight rein on your public appearances and utterances,’ the superintendent warned her.

But Robert’s career as an undercover detective was over. No more dark deals against the walls of derelict warehouses. A desk job in the future, if there was a future…and Carla could not imagine their lives moving on if Isobel was not found. On the day following Isobel’s disappearance, Matron, stiff-necked with shame, embarrassment and nerves, had discharged her from the clinic. Bookings were being cancelled and investigations of the security procedures in place within her clinic were underway. Journalists hung around the courtyard waiting for staff to emerge and be questioned. They were leeches, the matron declared, feeding off the good reputation of the Valley View Maternity Clinic, which she and her staff had worked so hard to maintain.

Leo stood on the steps of the clinic and issued a statement to the assembled journalists while Carla left by the back entrance. She was driven in an unmarked Garda car to Raine’s apartment in Dundrum where Robert had been staying since the story broke. It was safe to weep there. No one to tell her to stay calm and focused. When she had exhausted herself into silence, she tried to eat the meal Raine had prepared.

‘I have to face the media sooner or later,’ she said. ‘I can do the press conference alone. The Garda Press Office should be able to issue a statement as to why you can’t appear.’

‘I want to be with you,’ Robert said. His cheeks were gaunt, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep.

‘What if you’re recognised?’ she asked. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened—’

‘No one’s going to make the connection,’ he assured her.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘It was my job.’ His mouth tightened. ‘That’s why I was one of the best.’

She noted his use of the past tense. Their lives were out of control and they were powerless to halt the slide. He was in contact with the search team, constantly seeking the latest information. Her antennae had become attuned to every nuance in his voice. She could gauge the information he was prepared to share with her by the shift of his eyes.