The Infidelity Chain (6 page)

The night before my appointment, I can’t sleep. I toss and turn in bed, haunted by images of chopped-up babies and big
blue eyes gazing up at me pitifully from black plastic bags.
It’s just a bunch of cells
, I tell myself.
It’s not a real baby
.

Two years ago, a couple from one of those anti-abortion groups came to our school and showed us photographs of babies in the womb, sucking their
thumbs and running on the spot like tiny hamsters on wheels, and even hiccuping. They were a bit odd-looking, with their huge heads and everything, but they already seemed like real little babies, even the tiny ones: you could tell which ones would have
big noses or need braces on their teeth.

They played a video of the unborn babies listening to Vivaldi; you could see them waving their tiny arms just like they were keeping time. Heavy
metal got them bouncing around and kicking all over the place.

Then they showed us babies after they’d been vacuumed out of their safe, warm hiding places. Some of them
had had poison injected into their hearts. Others were born alive, and left in cold metal bowls to die.

I get out of bed and curl on the window seat, my hand instinctively fluttering to my stomach. It’s still so flat; how can there be a baby
in there?

After I saw the counsellor, the doctor put this probe thing inside me and I saw my baby on the screen. I heard its heartbeat.

Taking a pill’s different, isn’t it? It’s not like chopping the baby up or anything. I read the leaflet. It says the drugs work
by blocking the essential hormones that make the lining of the uterus hold on to the pregnancy. It just lets go. That’s the same as having a period, right?

My cheeks are wet with tears. I can’t have a baby. I’m only seventeen. I’ve got no money, no job. How can I look after a baby
when I can’t even look after myself?

In the morning, I dress in black, to suit my mood, and carefully pull back my hair into a neat French plait. I put on just enough make-up to hide
the dark circles beneath my eyes. Dad’s been going all-out to take proper care of me since Mum left for Italy; even though his head’s all over the place these days, I don’t want to take any chances. He stayed home from work last week
when I said I had a headache; the last thing I need is him deciding we need to spend some quality father–daughter time together today.

I can’t eat any breakfast. As soon as Dad turns his back, I give my bacon and eggs to Cannelle. He’s going to have trouble fitting in
his basket soon.

‘No school today?’ Dad asks.

At least I don’t have to make up a lie about that. I shake my head. ‘Half-term.’

‘You could come up to London with me, if you like,’ Dad offers. ‘Do a bit of shopping, and then meet me for
lunch—’

‘I promised Clem I’d go round to hers,’ I say, ‘sorry.’

Dad looks genuinely disappointed. He must be lonely, I realize, with Mum gone and everything.

‘Another time?’

I nod. Dad drops a kiss on the top of my head, and leaves for work.

I flit around the house, unable to settle to anything, trying to kill time until it’s late enough to leave. I never thought I’d ever
have to make this decision; I’ve always been sort of anti-abortion. But it’s different when it happens to you. I can’t give a child the kind of life I’d want to give it. I’m not ready to put my life on hold because I made a
mistake;
one
mistake. With other mistakes you get the chance to go back and fix them. Why not this?

I’m doing the right thing.

The counsellor I saw the first time isn’t there when I arrive. The admissions staff are perfectly nice, but brisk. I sit in the waiting
room, surrounded by other girls not much older than me, none of us able to look each other in the eye.

Someone calls my name. I let them take my blood pressure and check my details, and it’s like it’s happening to someone else. They
hand me a small tablet and a glass of water, and I sit there on the edge of the examination table with the pill in the palm of my hand.

‘You’ll need to come back in three days for the second dose,’ the doctor tells me. ‘You may experience some bleeding and
cramping before then, but that’s perfectly normal.’

This baby’s already part of me. It has my genes; my blood is keeping it alive. I can’t feel it yet, but it’s had a
profound effect on my body already. Does it know its mother is about to kill it?

I’m not ready to be a mother.

I swallow the pill.

I’ll never even know if it was a girl or a boy.

I’m on the platform at Waterloo waiting for my train when the cramps begin. Within minutes, I’m doubled up with
pain. I stagger towards the toilets and throw up before I can even make it to the loo. No one asks how I am or offers to help me.

Somehow I manage to make it outside and fall into a taxi. I tell the driver to take me back to the clinic, and collapse back against the
seat.

I deserve this.
I’ve killed my baby, and now it’s killing me.

An allergic reaction, the doctor says. My body has rejected the pill, and because I vomited so much it hasn’t been
absorbed properly. After all that, I’m still pregnant.

I can’t take another pill, so now I have no choice but to suck my baby out in bits.

You’d think after what had happened I’d keep it, wouldn’t you? You’d think I’d decide it was clinging to life with
all its might and deserved a chance to live, but if anything this has just made me more determined. I’m not fit to be a mother. I can’t even do this right.

So three days later I go back to the clinic, where two nurses help me change into one of those hideous gowns that shows your bottom at the back,
and they take me to an examination room, where I lie down on a table with my feet in some kind of rubber bands that are up in the air. They help me scoot to the edge of the table, and gently hold my legs apart. Their
hands are so cold. The doctor comes in and chats to the nurses about the weather as she puts her fingers inside my vagina to check the position of my uterus, and then she shows me a speculum and tells me she’s going to put it in and it might hurt a
little. I feel the cold metal sliding inside me and opening me out, and it feels so horrid, so
invasive
, I wonder for a moment if my baby is just going to fall out on its own. Then she takes a
long, scary-looking needle and inserts it into my open vagina and up into my cervix; it stings a little, but it’s not too bad. She shows me something she calls the dilators and explains she’s going to put them into my cervix to help it open
wider and she reaches between my legs—

‘Stop!’ I yell.

‘Is it hurting? We can give you some more meds—’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I gasp, struggling to sit up.

‘Cate, we’ve just paralysed your cervix,’ the doctor says, frowning. ‘If we stop now, you’ll miscarry anyway,
because your cervix will open on its own.’

‘I don’t care,’ I sob. ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I’ll pay you and everything, but I can’t do
this.’

The doctor nods to one of the nurses, and snaps off her gloves. They help me out of the stirrups, and one of them sits beside me on the
examination table and rubs my back as I weep uncontrollably.

‘Is there anyone you’d like us to call?’ she asks gently.

I start to shake my head, then catch her arm. ‘Wait. There is someone.’

‘You’re all dressed up,’ I say. ‘Are you sure I’m not interrupting something important?’

‘Cate, it’s fine.’ She turns to the nurse. ‘She’s OK to leave?’

‘You’ll be staying with her, Dr Stuart?’

Ella nods. ‘I’ll keep her with me overnight. Has she had any meds?’

‘Just codeine for the cramps. I’m afraid she waited rather too long before changing her mind,’ she adds quietly; ‘her
cervix will probably dilate on its own now. After she miscarries, she’ll need to return for a D&C to ensure there’s no material left inside the uterus. The biggest danger now is an infection—’

‘I understand,’ Ella says coolly.

She turns and hugs me hard. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I sob into her shoulder. ‘I’ve been so stupid, I’ve ruined
everything. I didn’t know who to call, I can’t tell Dad, he’ll be so disappointed, he’ll blame Mum and she’ll have to come back from her holiday—’

‘Sssh. Cate, it’s OK. I’m here now. It’s going to be fine, we’ll get through this.’ She releases me and picks
up my bag. ‘Do you think you can walk a little way to the car?’

I nod. ‘Ella, you won’t tell Dad, will you?’

‘I’m a doctor, remember? We’re like priests, we can’t tell anyone anything.’

‘I’m going to lose the baby now, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, darling,’ Ella says gently. She helps me down the front steps, and slips her arm through mine for support as we walk slowly
towards the underground car park. My legs are rubbery, and now that the internal anaesthetic is starting to wear off, it feels like someone’s shoved a red-hot poker up inside me.

‘Will I still be able to have another one?’

A shadow crosses her face. She shivers, as if someone’s walked over her grave.

Then she seems to collect herself, turning to me with a reassuring smile. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, especially if
we make sure you don’t get an infection. But we need to think about contraception after this, Cate. Your parents don’t have to know, but you can’t take these sorts of risks with your health.’

A police siren screams a few streets away. Ella glances briefly at her watch, and hitches my bag on her shoulder.

‘Can I ask you a personal question?’ I ask after a moment.

‘I think we know each other well enough now, don’t you?’

‘Why didn’t you ever have children?’

‘Oh, Cate. You don’t pull your punches.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I bite my lip. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

She sighs. ‘No, I don’t mind. This seems to be a day for exchanging secrets. OK, we have to cross here.’ She presses the
button, and we wait for the lights to change. ‘I never wanted children with my husband. I could probably spend a solid year in therapy and never get to the bottom of why, but I think it’s partly to do with my own parents, how they never
seemed quite ready for me, and partly to do with me, my career, my need to prove something to myself; and partly to do with me and Jackson. I always knew I didn’t love him the way I should. It seemed wrong to bring a baby into the world like that,
almost under false pretences.’

The light flashes green for us to cross. Neither of us moves.

‘What about Dad? Do you love him that way?’

She swallows. ‘It’s too late for us, Cate. I got in the way of your mum and dad, and I shouldn’t have done. They’ve got a
chance to—’

‘Mum’s left him,’ I say baldly.

Ella jerks as if I’ve slapped her. ‘She found out about me?’

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘In the end, it had nothing to do with anyone else.’

We’ve missed the lights. Ella presses the button again.

‘Will you and Dad get back together now?’

‘I can’t have children. I got some kind of infection when I was younger,’ Ella muses, as if she hasn’t even heard me.
‘It’s why we have to take such care with you. I don’t want you ever to have to stand in my shoes.’ She smiles sadly. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? I mean, there’s never been a time in my life when I’ve been less
prepared for a child, and I’ve never wanted one more.’

‘I’d have given you mine,’ I say impulsively. ‘If I hadn’t . . .’

‘Oh, Cate—’

The traffic signal beeps, telling us to cross. It’s almost drowned by the police sirens a street or two away. I’m about to step on to
the crossing when a souped-up car on elevated wheels jumps the red light and races past, music blaring from its open windows. Someone lobs a beer can from the car, and it bounces across the road, coming to a stop by my foot.

‘That was close,’ I laugh, as Ella’s eyes widen. ‘Do you think we could—’

I never get the chance to finish my sentence.