Deep harbour, p.25
Deep Harbour, page 25
A place where no one would ever look for her.
There was a thudding sound in the distance, too far away to be any help.
Something seemed to have happened to Eira’s leg, and she couldn’t get to her feet. She’d curled up on the floor instead, possibly in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
She counted the seconds, little more than two minutes between contractions now. They were getting longer, too, some lasting almost a full minute, and she remembered that this was when she was supposed to go in, or maybe she should have done that a long time ago. The closest maternity ward was fifty miles away. Did the people who wrote the information brochures know that?
I don’t want to give birth in an ambulance, she thought, but a moment later that had become: I just hope an ambulance shows up at all.
It wasn’t until she heard someone shout ‘Hello?’ that she realised she wasn’t alone in the house.
‘I’m here,’ she whimpered, yelling as loud as she could when the next contraction hit her. ‘Upstairs!’
Footsteps, hands, a scent she would recognise among thousands of others.
‘Where did you come from? What are you doing here?’
‘You weren’t answering the phone.’
GG got her up onto her feet and guided her down the stairs, Eira clinging to his arm.
‘There’s something wrong with my leg.’
‘Trapped nerve, I should think.’
‘What, are you a doctor now?’ His arrival seemed to have opened the floodgates, and she broke down in tears. What the hell was he doing there? Thank God he had come.
‘Don’t forget I’ve done all this before,’ he said, helping her onto a seat in the hallway. ‘Have you packed a bag?’
‘No,’ Eira screamed as the next wave surged through her. ‘I haven’t. It wasn’t meant to happen yet.’
‘Of all the ways to go into labour …’ He smiled and got through to someone on his phone, she wasn’t sure if it was the emergency services or the healthcare helpline; whoever it was he was arguing with them, about the ambulance that was supposed to be stationed in Kramfors, ten minutes away. Someone had crashed their car on the way to Nyland, it seemed and GG swore and hung up.
‘I’ll drive you. You’re going to Örnsköldsvik, apparently.’
Eira didn’t have time to pack a bag – what was she even supposed to put in it? A toothbrush, baby clothes? Did it matter? She sprawled on the back seat as GG broke the speed limit, telling her it was all going to be OK, such a blatant lie. Her waters broke as he slowed down for the roadworks in Herrskog, damn it, all over the seat of his new Audi.
He could hear that something wasn’t right during their call earlier, but he had hesitated to call her back so late in the evening. When he eventually did – because he’d had a bad feeling and, like he said, he’d done all this before – and she didn’t pick up after five attempts, he had jumped straight into the car and driven the fifty or so miles to Sundsvall. Eira had run into a burning building, after all, and he had seen enough over the years to know what shock could do to people. He had knocked on the door, pounded, eventually trying the handle; the door wasn’t locked.
She wasn’t going to give birth on the side of the road. GG was on the phone to the maternity ward during the last few miles, asking her whether she was OK every thirty seconds.
‘Yes,’ Eira snapped. ‘Stop nagging!’
The midwives were waiting with a trolley when he pulled up outside the hospital. Warm voices surrounding her, experience and competence. GG gave way to the crowd of medics running tests and examining her, sticking their fingers into her to check the dilation and attaching electrodes to the baby’s head. And then he was back, stroking her hair, telling her that everything was going to be OK, and then it was time. She only just made it into the delivery suite when she felt a sudden urge to push, and everything that had come before was like child’s play in comparison. ‘Don’t scream,’ said the midwife beside her, ‘put that strength to use instead.’ Eira yelled for water, swatting away the hand that gave it to her. ‘Don’t push, just go with the contractions when they come,’ the voices told her, but it was all bullshit and agony, a few blissful seconds of rest before the next pneumatic drill got to work on her.
‘I can see the head, you’re almost there now,’ someone shouted from between her legs. Someone else gripped her hand, and then it was as though a hurricane tore through her, breaking every tree in its path.
The calm once it was over. Whimpering, a pitiful cry, a tiny body on her chest, pale and blue.
‘It’s a boy.’
So small, Eira thought as she sobbed with exhaustion, the midwives mopping her blood from the floor and pulling a clean sheet over her. He’ll break if I do anything wrong.
‘Can you take him, please? I think I need to use the toilet.’
The little one had been given some clothes and was fast asleep in a plastic trolley when August arrived. He unpacked more clothes from a bag. Tiny sleepsuits with teddy bears on them, soft fabrics.
Were those tears she could see in his eyes?
‘I don’t know how I could have left you on your own, I was there just a few hours earlier.’
‘I didn’t feel anything then,’ said Eira. ‘And you were working.’
‘Still.’
‘It all worked out fine in the end.’
Was she really supposed to carry his guilty conscience, on top of everything else? Yes, he had left, but wasn’t she the one who had told him to leave, that she was fine? Why did she say these things when nothing was fine? Why wasn’t she capable of accepting help from a single person?
GG had come over and given her a hug once it was all over, and Eira had thanked him in a way that felt much too small and awkward. They had laughed at the slightly embarrassing fact that some of the staff had assumed he was her father. Theoretically, of course, that was perfectly possible. She had never considered that before. Eira had told him to check in to a hotel to get some sleep, but she wasn’t sure whether he had done that or driven back to Sundsvall. Don’t think about the fire or the murder now, he had told her, I’ll take care of it. And with that, there had been nothing she could say to keep him there.
‘Still, the fact it started while you were on your own,’ August continued. He was upset she hadn’t called him, bringing a hint of tension to a room that should be calm and peaceful. ‘So far from the hospital, too. It’s kind of worrying.’
Eira thought she could detect an undertone in everything he said. You should live your life the way I live mine. Wouldn’t everything be so much easier then?
Or was she just imagining it?
August leaned over the little trolley again.
‘When do you think we’ll find out?’
He had already been to give a DNA sample. It would be sent off to the same lab that dealt with police DNA tests, and they both knew it would take however long it took. Until then, the baby would be left in limbo in his see-through trolley. A sense of panic gripped Eira again: that he was too delicate for this world, that she wasn’t the right person to protect him. She still couldn’t quite access all the incredible feelings everyone had said she would feel. What kind of mother ran into a burning building and put her baby’s life at risk before he was even born, had to turn to the National Forensic Centre to find out who his father was …
August stroked his downy head, delicate as glass.
‘Don’t wake him,’ said Eira.
‘Don’t you think he looks like me?’
She laughed. ‘I need a favour.’
‘Anything, whatever you need. I’ve already told them I might be taking some time off at work. I wonder if you’re allowed to take paternity leave if you only might be a father. What do you reckon?’
August was so worked up, wanting to laugh and hold her hand. The way he kept looking at her felt different, too. Admiring, because she had managed it, but also the opposite, as though this was his moment to step in and take charge. The baby whimpered, stirred. August held out his arms.
‘Is it OK if I …?’
‘Sure. You know to support his head, right?’
‘Of course I do.’
It was touching to see how careful he was as he picked up the boy, tender yet confident.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, cooing and stroking his cheek, trying to catch the little one’s eye.
‘I need you to stop off at Ricken’s place on the way back,’ said Eira.
‘You’re kidding?’ She got the sense that August was clinging to the child, backing away from her though he was sitting perfectly still. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘He doesn’t know,’ she said. ‘I need to let him know that he might be a dad.’
‘Why don’t you just call him?’
‘This is Ricken we’re talking about. He doesn’t have a mobile phone – he’s convinced they’re surveillance tools, that everything we do on them is stored somewhere.’
‘Sounds like a responsible father …’
‘He does have a landline,’ Eira continued, ‘I’m just not sure he actually uses it. He never picks up, anyway.’
‘So you want me to tell him?’ August laughed, and in that moment Eira realised she didn’t like him all that much.
‘Can’t you just stop off there?’ She could always ask someone else, but she wanted August to do this, to give him a chance to prove it wasn’t all just talk. That he could handle things, even when they were uncomfortable.
‘OK. Yeah, I guess so.’ He passed the boy over to her, smiling when he saw his mouth searching for her nipple, his tiny fingers stretching. ‘Maybe I should get us both a cigar?’
*
Eira woke to the sound of her phone ringing and realised that she had dozed off with the child on her breast. If she had turned over in her sleep, rolled on top of him, let go of him … She gently lowered him into his little trolley.
Less than two hours had passed since August had left.
‘Seriously,’ he said, a little too loudly. ‘Do you really think it’s a good idea to let your kid grow up there? How does he even make a living, this Ricken guy? I ran a search—’
‘What did he say?’ Eira felt a little dizzy when she got up, had lost quite a bit of blood, but she walked over to the window all the same. The world was still out there. ‘About the baby, I mean. Did he seem happy?’
She knew what was in Ricken’s record. Theft, assault, a few charges for growing cannabis a long time ago. She didn’t need August to tell her any of that.
‘Yeah, he was totally beside himself, started doing some weird war dance in the garden. Shouting “Fuck, I’m a dad” for everyone to hear, as though he already knew the kid was his.’
Eira couldn’t help but laugh. She was pleased that Ricken was excited, a man who had never wanted to bring a child into the world. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him dance. Maybe once, as they ran singing around the old oil tanks over on Svanö? Had they danced then, before she lost her virginity to him?
‘He said he’d swing by,’ said August.
‘Thank you for going to see him,’ said Eira.
‘But he refuses to give a DNA sample.’
‘What?’
‘Not a chance in hell, that’s what he said.’ August tried to imitate Ricken’s soft, melodic accent. ‘Then he started asking if I knew what they do with all the DNA they collect, how much information they have on all of us. “Sure, you’re a cop, no harm in that, there’s a cop I love too, but you’re part of this bigger structure and so is she …”’
‘Did he really say that?’
‘I mean, if he can’t even step up and take responsibility for fathering a child how do you expect him to actually look after a baby? My son won’t be growing up among any wrecked cars, I’ll tell you that.’
That wasn’t what Eira had meant, but she couldn’t exactly ask whether Ricken had really said that he loved her. She didn’t bother pointing out the illogical aspect of his words, either. That the boy obviously wouldn’t be growing up in Strinne if August was his father. Nor if Ricken was, for that matter.
‘I guess it doesn’t really matter,’ she said. ‘The test will show whether it’s you, and if it’s not you then it’s him.’
‘Still, it’s the principle,’ said August.
‘I’ve got to go,’ said Eira, gripping the window frame. The city seemed to be swaying, multiplying in the shiny new facades and expanses of glass looking out to sea. ‘I think I need to lie down again.’
After three days she could no longer remember the pain; all memory of it was gone.
‘We’re supposed to forget,’ said Stina, who had come to the hospital to give them a ride home. ‘Otherwise no one would ever do it. Did yours go away the minute you managed to shit again? That’s always how it’s been for me. Pretty weird, but I guess it makes sense.’
Her deft hands got the little one into a tiny jacket and leggings, pulled a hat onto his head. Lifted him into a lined carry bag.
‘You can’t call him “the boy” forever, you know.’
‘It’s not forever,’ said Eira.
She had phoned her childhood friend to ensure that the drive would be a quiet one, without having to discuss anything with August, for example. She also thought she owed it to Stina after everything she had done for Eira – including lending her the car seat that was ready and waiting for them.
‘You can keep it until I become a granny,’ said Stina.
Eira got into the back seat, letting the boy grip her fingers. He was calm, possibly pacified by the fact that something new was happening.
‘Have you always felt like a mother?’ she asked. ‘After giving birth, I mean.’
Stina glanced up at Eira in the rear-view mirror. She had just joined the line of traffic through Docksta, tourists heading up to Skuleberget, lorries pulling in and out of the roadside café. ‘It can be that way first time round,’ she said. ‘They don’t cause much fuss when they’re this age, you know. They don’t sit there in their prams, thinking “Who’s this useless woman I’ve been lumped with? Can’t I swap her for a better model?”’
Eira laughed, which was a bad idea considering the stitches she had needed, still not quite in control of her bladder.
‘So, come on then, can you see any similarities? Which of them are you hoping it is?’ Stina knew all about her dilemma and had previously laughed and teased Eira. She seemed to be holding back slightly now, as though the boy could understand.
‘I guess it doesn’t matter.’ There had been moments when Eira thought she could see a hint of blue in his eyes, like August’s. Or was it a flash of green, of Ricken? What about the dimple in his chin, where had that come from? ‘He’ll get the dad he gets. They’ll love him either way, right?’
Stina turned off after Ullånger, escaping the traffic on the E4 for the tranquil valleys and fields. As they passed the little swimming beach in Butjärn, Eira saw that the kiosk was still open, kids eating ice creams and racing down the slide into the water.
‘So are you planning to stay up here now?’
She caught a hint of something searching in the eyes in the mirror. Of uncertainty. But there also seemed to have been a shift in the power balance.
When Eira left Ådalen to continue her studies, her friend had also transformed. She had become the One Who Stayed Behind. Stina had become a mother while she was still in high school, doing precisely what the older generation of women warned their daughters about. Use protection, live your lives, get an education and be careful not to get stuck with a bloke too early.
Four babies later, she had a level of knowledge that Eira would never come close to.
‘Is it OK if we take a detour through Kramfors?’ Eira asked.
*
The staff met her in the doorway, Eira with the baby in her arms. She had been given a sling, but it was too early for that yet, too many straps and clips to wrap her head around; the whole contraption seemed lethal.
‘Ohh, what a lovely little lad.’
‘You had a boy!’
‘All ten fingers and toes – and he certainly knows how to grip! What a strong little thing.’
‘How wonderful for your mum, that she gets to meet him.’
Eira had called ahead to let them know she was coming, and they had helped Kerstin into one of her pretty blouses. Her reading glasses had disappeared a while back, and the book in her lap was unopened.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Oh! Who’s this, then?’
Eira pulled out a chair so that she could sit right by her side with the boy in between them. A brand-new sensation rose up inside her, one she struggled to put into words. A feeling of belonging. A focal point outside of themselves.
‘There she is,’ said Kerstin.
‘He,’ Eira corrected her with a laugh. ‘He’s a boy, Mum. You’ve got a new grandson.’
It wasn’t so surprising that Kerstin had made that mistake; August had consciously bought gender-neutral clothing, no pinks or blues. He wanted people to address the baby as an individual, first and foremost, rather than simply a boy or a girl.
She held out her arms, wanted to hold him.
‘Gosh, she’s so lovely, come here, my dear …’
Eira hesitated to hand over her son. If Kerstin couldn’t even understand that he was a boy, was she really in a fit state to properly support his head? What if she dropped him? Eira felt a pang of guilt when she saw her mother’s outstretched arms, the look of expectation on her face. She knew how wrong it would be to deny her this, the woman who had birthed two children of her own. Didn’t that knowledge run deep, becoming part of the muscle memory? Eira lowered him into Kerstin’s arms, hovering close by so that she could react if necessary.
She watched as her mother immediately tucked a hand beneath his neck. The instinct was still there after all, she needn’t have worried. They could enjoy this moment together, Kerstin humming and stroking his cheek.
