Last Seen: A gripping psychological thriller, full of secrets and twists. Lucy Clarke

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       11. ISLA

       Sarah’s name flashes across my mobile like a warning. I stare at the screen dispassionately. I can imagine what she’s going to say. In truth, I’m surprised she’s waited this long.

       Eventually my voicemail intercepts the call. Sarah leaves a message, but rather than listening to it, I return the phone to the drawer. I don’t want to hear her voice. I don’t even want to think about her – because right now I’m back in a comfortable, warm place of memory. I’m with Marley. My beautiful newborn Marley, with the sweet scent of milk on his skin, a tiny pink fist gripped around my finger. All I want to think about is the moment he burst into my world. My light, my joy, my son.

       Summer 2000

      As the next contraction crashed through my body, I dragged my focus to my breath. I pushed the air from my open mouth, then sucked a new breath deep into my lungs. In. Out. In. Out. My fists were clenched rocks at my side, my skin licked with salt.

      The contraction subsided, like a wave petering out. The midwife resumed rolling a pair of dark-green flight socks up my calves. ‘The anaesthetist won’t be long now.’

      I pressed my lips tight, nodding.

      Right then – more than anything in the world – I wanted my mother.

      I’d been labouring for forty-two hours, but the baby’s head had become jammed in the birthing canal. His heart rate was dropping with each contraction, and there was no way of pushing the baby out naturally.

      ‘You’ll stay with me?’

      The midwife took my hand tight in her own and said, ‘I’m going to be there until the moment that baby is put in your arms.’

      I felt the next ripple of pain building and pulled my focus back to my breathing, jamming my fists into the bed as the full contraction ripped through my body.

      When I was finally wheeled into the operating theatre, there was a room full of people in scrubs and masks. I didn’t care that I’d envisaged giving birth in a water-pool with calming music playing. All I wanted was my baby safe in my arms.

      I felt the blissful relief of painlessness as the anaesthetic flooded through me. It was seconds – that was all it took to cut me open. The midwife stayed at my side as she promised, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Although I was numb from the chest down, I felt the exact moment when the baby was lifted out of me; it was astounding, I felt it, a strange lightness as the weight was removed. I waited, eyes tracked to the corner of the small room, listening. And then I heard it: a tiny mewing cry.

      Someone said the word: boy.

      He was brought to me, naked and red-skinned, his dark hair matted to his head. He was placed on my chest, a tiny squished creature with a swollen puckered mouth, and the love that rocked through me was fierce and primeval. I kissed his face, and through my tears and kisses words slid from my mouth – promises of love that I meant wholly. My newborn son – Marley – opened his eyes and looked right at me. In that moment it was perfect. He was perfect.

      ‘Go carefully,’ Nick said, holding open the car door.

      I inched my way in, the wound from my Caesarean burning with each adjustment.

      ‘Here, don’t twist.’ Nick leant across me to put my seat belt on. He closed my door, then rounded the car and got into the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut, sealing the three of us inside. ‘You ready?’

      I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Marley, swamped in a fleece all-in-one, was fast asleep in his car seat. I smiled. My son. ‘Ready.’

      I’d spent four days on the antenatal ward watching the stream of fathers and grandparents flood in during visiting hours. Sometimes I pictured my mother padding in, a hessian bag filled with СКАЧАТЬ