Guilty (2 page)

He had been paranoid that the resulting offspring could have rotten genes. Suppose the donor had a history of schizophrenia or was a sociopath?

*

Simon was right. Caroline gingerly pushed open the heavy oak door of Simon’s local. They had enjoyed the odd meal there together because they did now have an amicable relationship as long as they steered clear of conversations involving Sadie. Caroline was all too aware of her advice from the Alcoholics Anonymous: not even one sip.

She hesitated; she was mentally and physically exhausted. At this moment in time Oliver’s voice was the only one that could have called her back but she could not imagine it very clearly. All her mind could visualise was a huge glass of red wine. She deserved it, she promised herself.

As the first sip trickled down her throat it promised her the freedom she so desired. Ravenous for oblivion, she gulped it down. She was aware, out of the corner of her eye, that she was being observed.

As her body relaxed, her inhibitions disappeared and she really didn’t care who wanted to stare at her. She greedily ordered her third double glass, mentally considering what she should choose next for a change of taste. Not that it was that important, her taste buds were not being involved very much in all this swigging.

He tapped her on the shoulder. She swung round, annoyed to be disturbed from the heavenly slur into which she was drifting.

“Shall I take you back to Simon’s?” he suggested kindly.

His familiar features sharpened as she managed to focus. She surprised herself that she could remember his name.

“Steve” she slurred. His friendly eyes and his warm, open smile were so reassuring.

“Join me,” she flirted, patting the empty bar stool next to her. He slid onto it and attempted to remove the glass from her hand.

“Come on, Caroline, I’ll take you there.”

Even in her drunken stupor she recognised her mistake and felt herself blushing. He wasn’t chatting her up; it was just the actions of a concerned neighbour.

Immediately her self-respect fell. She couldn’t even pull a guy these days.

She tugged her arm free and ordered a few bottles of beer. Steve and the bar man were exchanging a worried discourse as to what course of action they should take with her.

She reached into her purse and tugged out a wad of money. Grabbing the bottles the bartender had put on the bar, in response to her request, she left them to their quandary. They didn’t seem to notice her clanging exit as they debated if they should go and get Simon themselves. Caroline’s battle with the bottle had been the subject of so many of Simon’s pint chats after a busy day in the office.

The cold air bit her face as she staggered out. Her tiny facial hairs seemed to turn to icicles but the pit of her stomach was warm, the alcohol fuelling her. She tottered in the opposite direction to Simon’s. It was funny how different a place looked on foot rather than by car. Not entirely sure where this cobbled path would take her, she trekked on.

A bottle opener was what she needed. She was a desperate woman now; the drink awakened the fury as it always did. She placed the bottle neck in her mouth and bit down hard, using her wisdom teeth to prise the top. Over two hundred pounds’ worth of dentistry gave way as her crown flew out of her mouth but she had been successful in her mission and the bottle top followed it. She downed the contents in one and carelessly hurled the glass bottle over her shoulder. She kicked her shoes off and ignored the stabs of the jagged stones as she carried on her journey to goodness knows where.

She came across a large boulder silhouetted in the moonlight. The clear sky with the masses of twinkling stars explained the coldness of the evening and she plopped down, her head spinning. It did not relieve her dizziness and she felt herself falling, falling, falling. The ditch was comfortable, quite deep, like a Moses basket. The bracken swaddled her and she felt loved, wrapped in a blanket of nature.

The security kindled memories of those precious first months with each of her babies. With a contented smile she fell into a stupor.

*

Sadie lay paralysed by fear on the grey bunk, staring at the stained walls, contemplating. She wondered what memories Bri and Simon did actually hold of her. She had expected them to have been there, today; now it seemed a foolish thought.

A kaleidoscope of happy memories often came to her but her brothers and Dad seemed to have abandoned any thought of her as she had wandered off from them into the fog of drugs, drink and petty crimes. Well, boy, hadn’t she given them one massive memory to go off on now!

They were so judgemental, whereas Caroline always tried to look for a cause.

Sadie’s heroin habit had been born out of her inability to sleep due to all the worry. Mum had understood that.

It took her to a place away from all her heartaches, but it also broke all their hearts because it took her soul away from them. It was her best mate, her replacement family.

She had lost count of the number of times Caroline had got her on to rehabilitation programmes. Mum had supported her as she moved on to methadone, an attempt to wean her off the heroin and then Caroline had moved into that squalid bedsit with her to support her as they tried to wean her off the methadone.

Caroline had yet again earned her angel wings as she had taken all Sadie had dished out. Sadie seldom tried to frame her words and this was one of those moments when she wished with all her heart that she could tell her mum how much she had appreciated all her efforts to try and save her from this hellhole.

She had been convinced that coming off the methadone had been hell itself but it was nothing compared to this hopelessness, this lonely road to nowhere.

The cold turkey, or clucking as Caroline had called it, had presented itself as endless hours of weird hallucinations. Dreams about scoring heroin where she would score it but spill it, nightmares where she could not get the needle into her vein. Police chasing her, dealers chasing her. A time warp had consumed her. Her brain had been racing and she was scared of all the crazy junk it was firing at her. Any light or noise had killed her head even more.

Her mum had been her only anchor to reality and now in this pit she had lost her for ever. The mental, spiritual and emotional pain of this realisation was ineffable.

She had experienced widely fluctuating temperatures; one minute Sadie’s bed sheets, if not tossed aside, had been dripping with sweat, the next she was begging Caroline to find her extra layers as she nearly froze to death huddled in a sleeping bag and duvet.

Caroline had shown no disgust as she had stripped the diarrhoea-soaked covers from the bed, only to find the replacement ones covered in vomit a few moments later. She had bathed Sadie’s head with damp flannels, trying her best to soothe the terrible migraines, filled countless hot water bottles to try and calm the cramps. There had been moments when Sadie had managed to nod off but when she had woken she had felt that she had been awake all the time.

Her mum had entwined herself around Sadie, hugging her tight, trying to absorb some of her energy, trying to halt the restless legs syndrome. Nervous pulses had run through Sadie’s body forbidding her to lay still. Suddenly and totally involuntarily, she would kick out but her mum was always there, trying to guide her safely through all these quicksands to the solid rock in sight.

Trying, trying, and trying.

Caroline had done all the trying for Sadie in her twenty-five years with her, but Sadie was realising much too late that there had been no sustained effort from herself on anything but living for the moment.

Sadie had never had any interest in the past or future. The present was all that had mattered. The four walls now hemming her in were rudely awakening her to the ghost of the future; it was black, bearing a very miserable, wrinkled face, devoid of any love.

Her saviour had helped her touch down and taken her to a place from which a new life had been possible.

How had it got to this? Which was the day that led to this point of no return? She managed to wriggle her fingers and wipe her nose on the sleeve of her prison clothes. A musty smell immediately triggered more memories of that bedsit where she came so close to turning things round.

She sighed deeply, more of a groan really. There wasn’t one day, she was convinced. Sadie was positive she had bad blood; a bad egg seemed to be a phrase that came to mind. The counsellors and Caroline had told her numerous times that each day was a fresh start but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. She had been doomed from day one, she was certain.

More tears stained her cheeks as she clenched and unclenched her hands, waiting. Waiting for what? She had no idea.

How would she stay sane in a place like this? That was a laugh – her, sane! Funny how in moments of quiet reflection like this she could think rationally. Her thoughts were crystal clear now; not a glimmer of mental instability!

Memories were what she was thinking about. What was her first memory? She tried to recall.

Dad bouncing her on his knee, singing some sort of rhyme and the giggles, the giggles and giggles till she stupidly fell off and then suddenly the tears, the tears, the tears. How metaphorical, she sadly realised, of her relationship now with Simon.

Bri and her sharing popcorn, snuggled together under a blanket, on a beanbag, watching Postman Pat. He, even though younger, so protective of her, when she got upset when Pat lost Jess, wiping her tears, hugging her.

Surely they too must think of these times. They had existed. It would be a crime to deny them – how very hypocritical of them to commit a crime!

She scrunched her face. This was going to be the most awful thing of this life sentence – she would never, ever get such treasured moments again. The future lay before her like a canvas which had already been painted – stripes of different shades of grey, each stripe darker than the previous one.

Pippa. She thought of lovely, loyal Pippa with her huge brown eyes: a stray she had befriended or rather who had befriended her during her series of homeless nights on the streets of York. They had met as she had hid amongst the falling shadows in the Minster gardens, hoping to survive detection, to find a little bit of privacy to sleep for the night. Pippa had seemed an appropriate name for the little scraggy bitch, so hungry that she had devoured Sadie’s last apple core, pips and all!

They had been inseparable from that moment on. Sadie had managed to make a bit of money during the days, begging, in between being moved on by any wandering police. Suddenly since her new tag-along she found her income trebled – not just the odd coins now but lots of notes. One plea from those huge brown eyes and the members of the public opened their wallets wide. They would have been much more sensible, she acknowledged to herself as she lay there now, to buy the Big Issue from one of the sellers – they were the down-and-outs who were at least trying to get themselves up and going. All her “earnings” went to feed her habits not her stomach. She was happy to survive on the leftovers from the bin outside McDonalds – it was amazing how many people left half burgers and full bags of chips. Her dignity and respect had long since flown but McDonalds’ leftovers kept her and Pippa from death’s door.

The cold nights were bearable as they huddled together in doorways; she was half fazed anyway. Some days the more thoughtful souls would dash into a nearby baker’s and buy her a sandwich, sometimes even a cake and hot tea and patronisingly or pityingly put them down at her feet as they hurried off to re-join the hustle and bustle of their more conventional lifestyles.

Pippa relished Sadie’s growing stench as the days turned to weeks without any possibility of a shower or bath. There had been opportunities to get a roof over her head, a bed for the night but such luxuries were not high on her priority list. The charity establishments demanded certain rules which, in her drug-fuelled mentality, she was not prepared to adhere to.

Eventually she had become one of a little group sleeping amongst the others for protection at night. In the daytime, though, she and Pippa fared much better alone, just the two of them. She had soon worked out the best spots. If she could dodge the authorities, then the queues for the Jorvik exhibition or the Dungeons supplied generous hand-outs. Bored children would want to wander over and pet Pippa. A little spotted red and white kerchief, wrapped around her neck, had endeared her even further to their hearts. The youngsters would return with coins. Some of the tourists wanted photos with Pippa and offered finance in return! Pippa was a true star!

Fresh tears trickled down Sadie’s cheeks as she recalled her beautiful Pippa. The heroin even took her. Too doped to notice, or dare she admit, even care that she had let Pippa wander off; her senses sniffing out sizzling sausages from an un-franchised burger bar. Sadie’s head had slightly risen, annoyed by the incredibly loud beeping horn of one of those open-topped tourist buses. Her hand had automatically reached out to stroke Pippa’s head and her fingers had tapped along the paving stones feeling for her warm bulk. She had managed to stir herself and had felt a wave of panic as she saw the empty blanket which a kindly old lady had knitted for Pippa. She had pulled herself to her knees, looking around, calling her and then she had noticed, through blurred vision, the bus driver dragging something to the kerb, cursing in the torrential rain. Despite her drugged state she had been up there in a flash, tottering towards the dirty sack-like bundle. She had thrown herself down protectively, hugging the furry mound but it was to no avail. Pippa had gone.