oh , i can't stop thinking about what's going to happen .pleas finish it soon for my sake and i'll be eternally grateful!!!!!!:Thanx:
|
Thanks dear, I will try my best to finish it very soon |
Jxatriona's turned up Garth's head jerked back in an involuntary re action to Claudia's casual announcement. They were eating a late supper, both of them having been working late. "Katriona?" Garth questioned dry-mouthed, hating himself for the pretence he was enacting, the carefully tailored tone in his voice that suggested he couldn't really remember who "Katriona' was when, of course, he could. Of course. For over a month after she had accused him of fathering her child, he had tried unsuccessfully to find her, but that had been over six months ago. He had told himself in relief that the whole thing had been a try-on, an attempt to get money out of him, and that it was impossible for him to have been responsible for her pregnancy and that he had been a complete idiot to ever let her panic him into believing that he could be. But he had still not said anything to Claudia. "Mmm... Remember... she was one of my cases? Apparently, she's been on the road travelling. She just turned up at one of the squats. She was there the other day when I went round to see someone else. She'd been asking for me, or so one of the other girls said. They tell so many lies it's sometimes hard to know when they're telling the truth." "So she's back?" "Mmm-hmm, and not alone. She's had a baby." "A baby...?" Garth abruptly put down his fork, his appetite lost. "It seems she gave birth while she was on the road. The baby's a girl, a pretty little thing. Of course, Katriona is refusing to say who the father is--if she knows. I don't think she's feeding her properly--she can barely look after herself, never mind a baby. One of the other girls in the squat seems to be helping out with the baby to some extent. The baby's such a darling. Garth. I just wish..." Quick tears filled Claudia's eyes and she looked down at her plate. Outwardly, she might seem to have come to terms with her miscarriage and to be getting on with her life, but no one else knew, no one else saw as Garth did, the nights when she woke both herself and him with the sound of her heartrending grief. Then Garth would hold her and comfort her and eventually she would grow calm. But there were other times, times when the anger and the pain were so great that she turned them on Garth as well as herself, screaming at him that he should leave her and go find a woman who could be a proper woman, who could give him children as she no longer could. Garth said nothing of any of this to their parents. So far as they were concerned, the two of them were simply biding their time before trying for another baby. His own father had even congratulated them quite recently on their foresight in waiting until Garth had established himself in his new career before taking on the additional responsibility of a child. Not that they saw much of his parents lately. His father's work took him abroad a great deal, and increasingly, Claudia tended to shun family gatherings or indeed any events that might either bring her into contact with children or remind her of what she had lost. He had had to turn down so many invitations from his colleagues at work that he was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable. Claudia's heavy work schedule had been given as the excuse, and it was true that she was working longer and longer hours. But both of them were working increasingly long hours--because neither of them could face the reality of what their empty flat actually meant. They had deferred thinking about making a move until they both felt they could put more enthusiasm into it. "There's something I need to talk to you about," he told her now as he tried to dismiss the memories Claudia's words had raised. It made him feel edgy and uncomfortable to realise that Katriona was in contact with Claudia, even though with the breathing space that time had given him, he was convinced that Katriona had simply wanted to panic him into giving her money. So what if she had identified that mole on his inner thigh. He had been so out of it with the whisky he had drunk that she could have been in the flat for any length of time before he had woken up, certainly long enough for her to have pushed back the bedclothes and. And what? Looked at his naked body? Just looked, or had she. had they. "Garth, you said you wanted to talk to me about something," Claudia reminded him, adding tiredly, "I hope it isn't going to take too long. I've got some case notes to write up and I want to go in early in the morning. " She looked as well as sounded tired. Garth acknowledged. She was working far too hard, using her work like a tourniquet pulled tight over a gaping wound, but all it was doing was stemming the loss of blood. It wasn't doing anything to promote any real healing and the moment it was removed. "Garth," Claudia prompted him irritably. "Oh, yes. Nick Forbes is thinking of retiring. His wife isn't very well, as you know, and her doctors have advised that she needs to live in a warmer climate. Since Nick is the agency, without him..." He paused as he saw the way Claudia was frowning. "What are you trying to say?" she demanded. "Is Nick trying to get rid of you? Does he--' " No, nothing like that. Far from it," he reassured her hastily. "In fact, what he's suggesting is that I set up on my awn. I've already got a good portfolio of my own clients. He's been of and Betray 257 fe red a very good financial deal by one of the other agencies and of course there's no way I could ever be in a position to buy him out. " "Set up on your own, but--' " It makes sense," Garth interrupted her. "I had a word with Dad about it over the phone." "You spoke to him before saying anything to me7' Claudia protested angrily. Garth gave a small sigh. "You've been pretty tied up with your work recently," Garth reminded her tactfully. "It will be very risky--setting up on your own," Claudia commented, her expression reflecting her concern. "Yes, but Nick seems to think I can make it work. More and more blue-chip companies are turning to PR agencies these days to handle certain aspects of their business for them. It's all about presenting the right image to the public, showing their human face, not being seen as unapproachable institutions." As she listened to Garth's increasingly enthusiastic explanation of what he planned--what he wanted to do--Claudia had to close her eyes against a sharp stab of envy. Garth loved his work in a way that she did not love hers. Her relationship with what she did was more of dependence and resentment. She needed to work to stop herself thinking about. about the past, but there were so many things about her job that she disliked, so many times when she was aware of the fact that she could not give each case the time she could see it needed. And it wasn't really an 'it'. Each case represented a human being, a person whose needs she knew she simply did not have the time to meet. No matter how many courses she went on, how much she absorbed about the ways to best reach each individual, what was the point when she simply did not have the time to put that learning into practice? On her latest course, there had been people who were in private practice, and listening to them had been a revelation. Seeing how much sense of achievement they derived from following a case through, from being actively part of an improvement in the life of their client, had reminded her of just why she had been drawn to her work in the first place, something that tended to get overlooked in the sheer volume of work with which they were confronted. And now suddenly and unexpectedly she felt a sharp stab of envy for Garth. He had so much to look forward to. a new career. a new life. and most probably a new woman, a wife who could provide him with the family that she could not. Claudia closed her eyes tightly, but it was no use; the tears still burned their destructive path from behind her eyelids and down her face. "Clo, please don't, please don't," Garth soothed her gently as he came round the table to lift her out of her seat and take hold of her. "It's so unfair. Garth. Everything's so unfair," Claudia protested. "Even someone like Katriona.-.a drug addict who'll be lucky if she lives another year, can produce a healthy baby... a baby she doesn't even want, never mind love. But I can't," she cried bitterly. "You ought to leave me, find someone else... I'm no use to you, I can't..." Garth suppressed the emotions threatening to rise inside him. It was pointless reminding Claudia that they had been through all this before, pointless and cruel. "I don't want anyone else," he told her. "I only want you." And as she looked into his eyes, Claudia saw that it was true now, but would it always be so? "We've got each other," Garth assured her softly, 'and that's all we need. " Only it wasn't, not for her, Claudia acknowledged, lying awake beside him in bed later that night. Much as she loved him, it wasn't enough. She ached, yearned, needed to have a child, to be a mother. Just looking at Katriona's baby earlier on today had awakened all the feelings she had been trying so hard to suppress. When Katriona had casually dumped the baby on the filthy, thin blanket on the floor of the squat beside her while she turned to squabble with the girl who had just come in, Claudia hadn't been able to resist picking the baby up and holding her. She had smelled of stale milk, urine and vomit, but that hadn't meant a thing to Claudia. She had been overwhelmed with such a surge of fiercely protective love for her that she had momentarily forgotten that anyone else existed. The urge to hold the baby close to her, to nourish and protect her, to love her, had been so strong that she had instinctively found her hand going to her blouse to unfasten the buttons before she realised what she was doing. And as though she, too, shared the same need to be close, to love, the baby, so quiet and wideeyed in Claudia's arms as she focused silently on her, had started to cry in protest when Katriona suddenly turned round and snatched her back. "Give her to me," she had demanded aggressively. "She's mine." "If you haven't already done so, you'll need to register her birth," Claudia had reminded Katriona with a Herculean effort to detach herself and remain professional. She would need to tell the local health visitor about the baby as she was obviously a child at risk. Possibly suffering effects from Katriona's drug addiction. "I'll... do it when I'm ready," Katriona told her sullenly. They had had this discussion before. Claudia knew better than to ask Katriona any questions about her little girl's father. To do so would inevitably provoke a stream of invective and anger, and apart from her personal dislike of being under that kind of attack from a professional point of view, for Katriona's own sake, the last thing Claudia wanted was to put herself in a position where Katriona might refuse to have anything further to do with her. For Katriona's sake, or for her baby's? Deliberately, Claudia looked away when the infant made pathetic little mewling noises and pushed her face hungrily against Katriona's breast. "Not there, you little rat," she heard Katriona screeching angrily. "Here, have this," she added more practically as she reached for what Claudia guessed was a cold and certainly very unhygienic-looking half-full bottle of milk. Then she shoved it into the baby's mouth without any apparent concern for whether the child could suck on it properly or not. "No prizes for guessing what you're thinking," she told Claudia sneeringly with one of those flashes of sharp intuitiveness that still managed to surface past the drugs dulling her brain. One of the things that depressed Claudia most about Katriona's situation was the fact that the girl was obviously very, very intelligent. "If she'd been yours, she'd have been breast fed Well, she's not yours, although..." She stopped and then suddenly smiled, giving Claudia a mocking, taunting look that made the tiny hairs prickle at the back of her neck. So knowing and secretive and yet at the same time almost sadistically triumphant was the look she could see in Katriona's eyes. Her heart started to thump heavily, her chest tightened, and the familiar sensations of fear, panic and bitter resentment gripped her by the throat. Surely Katriona couldn't have guessed the truth that she could never, ever have a child; surely she couldn't know of the sense of helpless longing and envy, of isolating pain and desolation, she experienced every time she saw another woman with her child. How could she know? No one knew, apart from herself and Garth. "Here... take her." The abruptness with which Katriona thrust the baby at her took Claudia off guard. Automatically, she held out her arms to take hold of the small bundle, instinctively and deftly positioning her comfortably against her own body as she picked up the bottle. But the baby wasn't interested in the milk-didn't need or want its questionable comfort now she was back in Claudia's arms--or so it seemed. She nestled happily there as though Claudia was her mother and not Katriona, opening her eyes to gaze up unblinkingly into Claudia's face with a grave intentness that made Claudia catch her breath as she was swamped by a responsive rush of fiercely protective and yearning mother love. It was like falling instantly and compulsively in love, Claudia recognised. The feeling was so intense, so strong, so sure, that as she gazed into the baby's dark green eyes, Claudia felt as though she had stepped through a special door into a private place, a special world where only the two of them existed. "Reminds you of someone does she?" Katriona's taunting question and sharp voice brought her back to reality. "She looks very like you," Claudia told her diplomatically, even though in reality she could see no resemblance between the baby and her mother. "Think so?" Katriona gave her one of her cruel, catlike smiles. The, I think she looks more like her dad. What's wrong? " she challenged Claudia. "Surprised I know who the father is? Oh, I know all right. She's got a very special daddy, this one has. She wasn't fathered by some scummy punter. No, he didn't have to pay me for sex." She gave Claudia a sidelong, mocking look and asked her softly, "Want me to tell you about it?" Katriona had tried to goad her before, but never quite so specifically as this. There was no reason why she shouldn't talk sexually explicitly to her, Claudia acknowledged, but for some reason she knew that she was already recoiling from the idea, unwilling to have Katriona confiding the details of her baby's conception to her. "He was good. He was very good," Katriona told her smugly without waiting for Claudia to make any response. "He even went down on me. He said that he wanted me to be really wet and ready before he had me. He said that he was fired of having sex with a woman who didn't know how to enjoy herself, how to enjoy him; a woman who didn't know how to pleasure him properly. I pleasured him properly all right, so properly that he gave me her," she added, nodding in the direction of the baby Claudia was still holding. The self-satisfied, purring tone of Katriona's voice jarred Claudia's nerves like the rasp of [محذوف][محذوف][محذوف][محذوف]l on glass, her distaste so intense that she almost physically shrank from her. The temptation to forget professionalism and to demand acerbically of Katriona just why this apparently so doting male was no longer on the scene was one she only just managed to resist. And as she fought it back, she felt herself break out in a cold sweat. Too many times recently, she had experienced this frightening sensation of being close to the edge of a precipice, of being one step away from total loss of self-control. As though she could sense her distress, the baby started to cry. Instantly, Claudia forgot her own problems, holding the infant close, soothing her. "Look at her," Katriona taunted, watching as the baby nuzzled close to Claudia's breast in the same seeking way she had earlier to Katriona's own. "You won't find anything there," she told the baby derisively. Her expression turning sulky again, she reached out and snatched the child back from Claudia. "She's mine," she declared fiercely. "Mine--and she's going to stay mine, even if... Good job you're a girl," she addressed the baby grimly as her body started to give in to the pull of the drug she had injected before Claudia's arrival. "Let's hope you grow up pretty. That way we can get you earning your own living. There's plenty of men around who like 'em young," she added unemotionally to Claudia, ignoring her sudden indrawn breath of shock. "The younger the better it turns 'em on." Claudia knew better than to protest or to plead with Katriona that for her daughter's sake, if not for her own, she ought to at least try to change her current way of life. Common sense told Claudia that it was already too late. The Katriona who had returned from the months spent 'travelling' looked almost a decade older than the girl Claudia had last seen. She was thinner, frailer, harder, her ultimate fate already showing in her eyes, and knowing Katriona as she did, Claudia suspected that the girl herself knew it. Even so. she had to try. "Katriona," she began quietly, 'you--' "I'm what?" Katriona provoked her grimly, her body taut with defiance as she silently dared Claudia to say what she was thinking. "You know where I am if you need me," Claudia said simply, resisting the urge to take up the dare, then getting up to go. She had reached the door when Katriona stopped her, calling out to her. Slowly, Claudia turned round. "Give me your telephone number," Katriona demanded tersely. Claudia frowned. Tou already have it. The office--' "No, not the office, at home. Give it to me." It was strictly against all the rules, but instead of refusing, Claudia found herself hesitating, then urged by some instinct she could neither define nor ignore, she quickly scribbled her number down on a piece of paper she tore from her diary and gave it to Katriona. |
Back at her desk later, she broke another rule. When she was writing up her case notes, she made no mention of the fact that Katriona had asked for her telephone number and no mention of the fact that she had given it to her. Look, are you sure you'll be all right? " "Garth, I'll be fine," Claudia assured him, trying to force the irritation out of her voice and put a smile on her face as he stood watching her, overnight bag at his feet, one hand already poised to open the door onto a new life for both of them, or onto freedom for him. From her? Tensely, Claudia swallowed. Garth had sworn over and over again that he loved her. But there were still images like now, when she could only see--what? who? --a stranger, a man dressed in his business suit, his mind already on the meetings that lay ahead of him, looking frighteningly unfamiliar, not her Garth at all. "I can cancel these meetings, stay here with you, if you--' " I want you to go," Claudia insisted even though both of them knew it wasn't the truth. She had been having one of her periods of feeling extremely depressed and the knowledge that Garth's business meetings were going to keep him away for two nights--normally something she would have taken in her stride--had caused her to feel even worse. Why, oh why didn't Garth simply go? Didn't he know how tempted she was to beg him to stay? Every second he delayed, that temptation grew worse. "Just go. Garth," she finally snapped at him. "I'll be fine." With Garth gone, she wandered around the flat, picking things up and putting them down. She supposed she ought to make herself something to eat but the idea simply didn't appeal. Although she had tried to hide it from him in bed, she could feel Garth carefully measuring the shrinking width of her waist with the span of his hands. He was constantly urging her to eat more, bringing home tempting boxes of chocolates, which she took to work and gave to the others. It wasn't food her body, her emotions, her whole being, craved; it was a baby. Confirmation of her womanhood, fulfilment of the very reason that nature had made her. A baby. Claudia was asleep when the phone rang. As she stretched out her hand for the receiver, she saw the time on the alarm clock and frowned, tensing her body as sleep receded, driven away by the surge of adrenalin-fuelled anxiety that filled her as she registered the fact that it was gone one o'clock in the morning. Her first thought was that something had happened to Garth. Either that or one or other of their parents. Telephone calls at one a. m. could only herald bad news, and at first she found it hard to make any sense of the unfamiliar and very slurred female voice at the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, I don't--' she began. But the girl cut her off, swearing volubly, then telling her frantically, "It's Kat.-she said to ring. She's bad... she wants you to come." "Cat...?" But it was too late. The girl had hung up, leaving Claudia grasping for answers. Cat . Kat . Katriona. It had to be her. Suddenly, Claudia was up and out of bed, pulling on her clothes, mentally running through all the possible things the phone call might mean. Grabbing her bag and car keys, she headed for the door. For some people, one a. m. was not particularly late, and this was, after all, London, whose streets were far from empty. Yet somehow, despite their busyness, Claudia was filled with a sense of alienation and deep foreboding. The fact that the squat was in an area that no one would think of visiting at night never even crossed her mind as she parked her car and got out, throwing a darkly challenging glare at the gang of youths watching. A little to her own surprise, they shuffled off, leaving her free to hurry towards the block of flats. Someone, somewhere, was having a party, the music so loud the building almost shook with the violent force of it, and as she passed one flat, Claudia could hear the sounds of arguing coming from inside it, followed by a crash of shattering china. Grimly, she hurried on. Without being fanciful, she suddenly had the feeling that she wasn't making her swift journey to Katriona's side on her own; she could almost hear the threatening beat of his wings as she sensed the ominous presence of death's winged messenger at her heels. The squat unexpectedly was in complete darkness, causing her to come to an abrupt halt. For some reason, she had expected it to be ablaze with light, filled with noise and people, but instead it was totally silent. As she raised her hand to bang on the door, someone opened it and a girl she vaguely remembered from a previous visit stretched out a skinny, clawlike hand to drag her in. "She's upstairs... waiting," she whispered to Claudia, who recognised from her voice that she was the girl who had rung her. Claudia demanded, "What's wrong ... is she--' " She's a goner," the girl replied brutally. "She's been into a bad scene. Took some spooked heroin." She shrugged. "Have you called a doctor... an ambulance?" Claudia asked her, hurrying towards the stairs. "No use," the girl said. "Wouldn't rush to come anyway, not to the likes of us, and besides, that wasn't what she wanted." "Go and ring for an ambulance now," Claudia instructed her. "Tell them it's an emergency. Do it," she commanded. "Now!" Shrugging, the girl headed for the door, telling her, "It won't do any good. It's too late!" But Claudia wasn't listening; she was heading for the stairs instead. Like the rest of the flat, Katriona's room was virtually in darkness but the illumination provided by the single flickering candle propped up in a corner and supported by its own wax was more than enough to show Claudia that the girl had spoken the truth. Katriona was indeed dying. Unbelievably, though, she was still conscious. Not only conscious but calmly aware of what was happening, Claudia recognised as she saw the girl's eyes flicker in mocking acknowledgement of the shock Claudia knew was visible in her own face. "You came. I knew you would...." The voice was a whisper, barely as loud as the whistling sound she made trying to draw air into her lungs. "Don't talk," Claudia urged, kneeling on the floor beside her and reaching out to take hold of her cold hand. "The doctor will be here soon." Katriona gave the ghost of a laugh. "Not soon enough. Oh, don't look so shocked," she mocked Claudia. "After all, isn't this what you've been warning me would happen? You should be pleased. At last you're being proved right." "Katriona... don't try to talk. The doctor--' " Can't do a damn thing. I'm not stupid. It's too late. I owed the dealer. I couldn't pay. " She gave a small shrug. "I begged him for one last fix. He took me literally, gave me a bad mix." She smiled, a mere shadow of a smile, her eyes shockingly alive in the drawn, already waxen pallor of her face. Suddenly, from a dark corner of the room, Claudia heard a thin protesting cry. The baby. Instinctively, she started to reach for her, but Katriona immediately stopped her, demanding, "Give her to me." Automatically, Claudia did so, but if she was looking for some indication that in the last moments of her life Katriona was going to show some sign of mother love for her child, she was wrong. "God but she stinks," Katriona protested, her voice suddenly stronger and harsher, more familiar. "Here, you take her," she commanded, then thrust the baby towards Claudia. The baby's cry that had grown stronger as Katriona held her suddenly, miraculously, magically almost, stilled as Claudia cradled her. Was it possible that that actually was a smile of recognition the baby was giving her? Was she imagining it or was she really reaching out with her tiny hands to clutch her? Claudia wondered. Katriona was momentarily forgotten as the intensity of emotion she had experienced the first time she had held her came rushing back, if anything even more strongly. "Still not pregnant, are you?" Katriona demanded. Unable to take her eyes off the baby, Claudia shook her head. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" she heard Katriona insisting. "It must be, otherwise you'd be carrying another by now. You can't have any more, can you?" Claudia was too caught off guard for pretence, her shocked gaze focused on Katriona's triumphant expression, the skin of her face drawn tightly back against her skull--a death-mask. "Poor Claudia, so desperate to become a mother. Aren't you afraid you might lose him if you can't give him a child, your wonderful Garth?" As though sensing Claudia's distress, the baby started to cry again, a nervous, frightened sound. Then, automatically seeking the warmth and protection of Claudia's body, she squirmed closer to her. Claudia held her tight, soothing her as she shook her head at Katriona. "Don't be frightened of her," she pleaded. "Katriona... take her." "No, I don't want her," Katriona rasped weakly as Claudia tried to hand her daughter to her. Turning her head away, she told Claudia in a petulant, hoarse whisper, "I never wanted her... I never meant to have her, but I left it too late. She'd have been better off with you as her mother, not me...." Closing her eyes, she stopped speaking, her strength fading so quickly that Claudia felt she could almost see it draining out of her. Where was the doctor. that girl. "I want you to take her... to keep her... to be her mother. I want you to be her parents... you and your Garth. It's only right that she..." Katriona closed her eyes again, her breathing ragged and painful. Take her! Take Katriona's baby. bring her up as her own. She couldn't. It was impossible, illegal . it was. The baby had stopped crying. Claudia looked down at her. "Do it she heard Katriona commanding her fiercely. "You know you want to. She could be yours after all. She needs a proper mother... a real father. What will happen to her if you don't? A foster home, passed from pillar to post, rejected and unwanted. But you want her, don't you, Claudia? You want her so badly, it hurts. I can feel how much it hurts. Take her, take her now... now while there's no one here...." Helplessly, Claudia closed her eyes, wishing she could get away from the insidious and dangerous whisper of Katriona's voice but knowing that she had to stay; that she couldn't leave the girl, not while. Outside, she could hear the sharp, fearsome clamour of an ambulance siren and her knotted stomach muscles started to relax. She replaced the baby in the grubby nest of blankets that was her bed and returned to Katriona's side. "You'll be feeling much better soon," she told her, trying to project an air of professionalism. "The doctor--' " The doctor. " Katriona laughed weakly. "Oh, my God, no doctor on earth can stop what's happening to me now," she whispered to Claudia in a voice that sounded like the rustle of dead leaves. "I'm dying, Claudia ... dying. Do you want me to tell you who her father is?" she demanded abruptly. "Are you afraid of taking her because your Garth might not approve... because her father might be some drop-out druggie like her mother? He wasn't, Claudia. You'd be surprised if I told you who he actually was...." She started to laugh again. The siren had stopped now and Claudia held her breath, praying that the ambulance crew would arrive in time. Not in time to save Katriona--that was impossible. Each breath she drew was forecasting her last and Claudia could almost see her heart straining beneath the thin wall of her chest. No. In time to save her from committing the crime of giving in to Katriona's tempting whispers. It would be easy enough. Katriona hadn't yet registered her baby's birth, and in the kind of environment that Katriona lived in, it was the easiest thing in the world for a baby to disappear. Any one of the peripatetic individuals who shared the squat might take it into their heads to take the child with them. No one would know; no one would ask any-"Take her," Katriona mouthed. "Take her. Take her, Claudia." The door burst open as the ambulance crew arrived. Claudia got to her feet. "I'm her probation officer," she began. "She's--' " Dead or as near as damn it," the paramedic who had knelt on the floor beside Katriona declared grimly, adding in disgust, " Bloody young fool. Why the hell do they do it? Get her on the stretcher," he commanded the two men with him. Then frowning, he suddenly said in a different voice, " No, don't bother. there's no point. " He turned towards Claudia. "She's gone, I'm afraid," he told her. "No, she can't be," Claudia protested even though she knew he was telling the truth. "She..." But the man was ignoring her, giving a string of instructions to the men with him. The squat, normally busy with people, had become strangely silent; even the baby wasn't making any noise. The baby. Claudia looked into the dark corner of the room where she had carefully placed her. Later she swore to herself that she had fully intended to warn them that the baby was there; that she had had no intention of doing anything else. But before she could open her mouth, the paramedic's radio started to crackle. Frowning, he took the message, then turned to Claudia and told her, "We've got another emergency to go to. Car accident down by Vauxhall Bridge. Sounds bad. There's nothing more we can do here. The authorities are following close behind us and they'll want to check out the death before the body is taken away. What did you say her name was?" Automatically, Claudia gave it to him, watching as he quickly scribbled it down before sidestepping Katriona's motionless body and hurrying towards the door. "Do I... shall I stay?" she began. But he was already through the door. Silently, Claudia glanced at Katriona's body. There was nothing left of the spirit, the presence, the life, that had once inhabited it; it was simply an empty [محذوف][محذوف][محذوف][محذوف]l. Even so. Claudia dosed her eyes, and on some impulse she couldn't even begin to explain, she slowly recited the Lord's Prayer and then as much of the Twenty-third Psalm as she could remember, her voice growing stronger as she trembled over the familiar words. How Katriona would have laughed if she could have heard her. But she couldn't simply walk away from her. Turn her back. leave her. A movement in the corner of the room caught her eye. Her heart started to thump crazily. Slowly, she left Katriona and walked over to the baby. She had only intended to pick her up, that was all. She had never meant to take her away, to leave the house with her, to carry her concealed within the fold of her coat to protect her from the cold, out to her waiting car. The street was empty. Claudia unlocked her car door and got in very carefully, placing the baby still wrapped in her coat on the back seat. As she drove off, she glanced at her watch. A quarter past two. Wasn't two o'clock the time when the heart, the body, was at its weakest and death most likely? "Take her," Katriona had commanded. "Take her." In the back of the car, the baby was gurgling softly. Slowly, Claudia drove home, expecting with every yard to be overtaken by a police car, sirens screaming, and to be accused of stealing Katriona's baby. But the night remained silent, the roads bare of anything more threatening than the odd taxi. The communal hallway to the flats was empty. Anyway, only the bottom flat was currently occupied--by an elderly couple presently away visiting their grandson in Brighton. Calmly, Claudia carried the baby, her baby now, upstairs to their own flat, carefully unlocking the door and then equally carefully bolting and locking it again. The baby, her baby, was making happy, *******ed noises, her dark green eyes fixed on Claudia's face. "You must be hungry, my darling," Claudia murmured tenderly, 'but I don't know what I'm going to give you, or how, though you certainly need a bath. A nice, warm, lovely bath to make you all clean and pretty. " She hummed softly as she started to remove the soiled clothes in which the little girl was dressed, her mind racing as she made plans. First thing in the morning, she would find a chemist, not a local one or a small one, no, a large distant one where an anonymous woman buying baby things would not be noticed. Or perhaps she would make several small purchases from a variety of stores--the amount of things that any normal mother would buy. She would have to take her with her, of course. She couldn't possibly leave her here alone in the flat, wouldn't want to leave her anywhere, be parted from her for even a heartbeat of time. "Don't you worry, my little precious," she crooned as she filled her washing-up bowl with warm water and placed it in the bath as a makeshift baby bath before carefully sponging her down and then lifting her into it. She was so tiny, so perfect, so heartbreakingly fragile with her little ribs showing through her skin. Claudia's heart started to beat anxiously fast. The baby must be hungry. All she could give her tonight was some warm milk, after she sterilised the bottle she had found in the filthy blanket used to wrap her in. Talking lovingly to her all the time she was bathing her, Claudia stopped every now and again to smile into her dark green eyes and tell her how much she loved her, her baby. hers now. |
by god, don't stop now!!!!!! |
الساعة الآن 10:19 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
SEO by vBSEO 3.3.0 ©2009, Crawlability, Inc.
شبكة ليلاس الثقافية