As a child, I would come here all the time.
I don’t know how it feels to be back here again. Strange. A little peculiar.
I’m not sure.
It’s almost as if all those old moments, those distant, near forgotten memories, are still happening right now. Fragments of the past existing side by side with the present, hiding somewhere just out of sight. Maybe if I were to take a quick glance in the wrong direction, turn my head and have a sneaky peek out of the corner of my eye, I would see myself as I was back then.
Of course, I knew I would be looking at a completely different person. A stranger, really. Younger, that’s true, but not only that.
Different inside. Full of alien emotions. Unrecognizable feelings.
Other reasons for being here.
I remember.
My mother used to send me packing first thing in the morning. Fill me up with toast and jam and fizzy Cola until I was fit to burst. A quick kiss on the cheek and then it would be, “Go on, Madam, out you go,” just so she could carry on with her endless list of chores. It gave her a purpose, I suppose. Sometimes, I would sneak back home and peer through the living room window to spy on her. Her jobs would all be finished by then and she would be curled up on the sofa, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee from an oversized mug, gazing at the television set. She didn’t even know I was there. Staring vacantly at some soap opera, the fuzzy picture in crackling black and white.
Her favorite program. I didn’t mind, though.
I felt free.
I loved it.
Being a parent just isn’t the same these days. You cannot let a child wander the streets alone. Or let them stay out, playing hide and seek until it gets dark. Well, I wouldn’t. It’s just not safe anymore. Years ago, things seemed much more secure. Everything seemed easier. Not so complicated.
Just.
I don’t know.
Better. Happier.
I wish I could turn back the clock. Be eight years old again.
Long hot summer vacations that stretched out forever. I would go and knock for my best friend, Anna. Her Mom would usually still be in bed. She always seemed to sleep. Depression, of course, obvious now really, but when you’re a kid, you don’t think about these things. Just accept them for what they are. Anna would talk to me through the locked front door. Hushed whispers, excited and breathless, planning our adventures for the day. She would sneak out quietly through the back so as not to wake her mother. The pair of us, on our pushbikes, pedaling for all our worth, rushing to get here as quickly as we could.
The Recreational Park.
We just called it The Wreck. Looking at it now, I wonder if children still call it the same thing. They probably have some other name for it. Some crude piece of slang I would imagine, judging by some of the awful graffiti scrawled all over the place.
Still.
It really hasn’t changed that much.
A huge open expanse, lush emerald blades of grass. So lovely in the summertime. Just as long as those awful dog walkers remember to scoop up the foul smelling presents their filthy mutts leave behind. What was it we used to call them? Scooby Doo’s poop-poop! That was it! A beautiful children’s play park tucked away in the corner, overlooked by the old church. Most of the rides seem to be the same. The slide, the swings, the climbing frame, the roundabout.
To think, we used to perch on those swings, Anna and I, dipping licorice into sherbet, legs dangling, dreaming about the future. We both had our hearts set upon marrying some handsome fairytale Prince when we were old enough. Being whisked away from the boring confines of town to live in a glorious palace on some exotic, sun-kissed tropical island.
That didn’t happen, of course.
But most childhood fantasies never come true.
Do they.
Mark may be many things, but royalty, alas, is not one of them. And the life of the wife of a software engineer isn’t really the fast-paced whirl of social functions, champagne, and caviar that one might expect. But I shouldn’t complain. He is a good man. A decent man. He looked after me.
And Ben, of course.
He’d like it here, I’m sure.
Mark, that is. He’d like the silence. The peace and quiet.
Anyway.
Anna and I could easily let an entire day slip away from us. There always seemed to be hundreds of children playing. Boys yomping around, arms entwined tightly, screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Who wants to play…Army…no girls allowed!”
Not that I would’ve ever dreamed of participating. Back then, little boys were just beastly. Horrid dirty things. Covered from head to toe in muck and bruises. At that age, despite my childish daydreams of knights in shining armor, I could never imagine really kissing one. Let alone growing up and actually falling in love with one of them. Getting old and eventually having my very own little soldier to play with.
We girls had our own games.
Happy families.
Elaborate role playing that put you in good stead for the life that lay ahead. Well, prepared you as best as possible. In a child’s world, nothing bad ever happens, does it? When kids play at grown-ups, there are no furious arguments, no messy divorces, nobody coming home drunk at three in the morning and talking with their fists.
Nobody dies, and everybody gets to live forever.
Being here now, sitting quietly with Ben, everything seems to come flooding back.
I remember. I remember how he tried to speak.
But I was talking about families, wasn’t I?
Mark.
Well, what else can I tell you? Technically, he did not take me away from all of this, but he did stop me from coming back so soon. I had already made my escape, studying hard at school, getting good grades, earning a place at college. I liked that life. More fun and games really, more chances to dress up and play at being adults. I felt like an impostor most of the time. Like someone at a fancy-dress party, wearing a cheap rented costume that allowed them to be another person for the night. Someone new.
Someone vibrant. Vivacious and alive.
The details of our romance would bore you. We met, and in the long run, it just seemed easier to be with him than without. I guess I just wasn’t particularly good at being on my own. At being me. Mark was so strong, so sure of himself and our direction in life, that it was almost a relief to sit back and let somebody else take control and make all the important decisions. We both graduated and were married within a year. We stayed in the city. Mark was good at his job. So good, in fact, that after a couple of years he insisted I give up my position at the library where I was working. We certainly didn’t need the income anymore, and he was trying desperately to have a baby.
Sorry, excuse me. We were trying desperately.
He wasn’t my first, though. He thought he was, and I promised him he was, but he wasn’t. There were others. Like what happened over there in the children’s play park. I was fifteen. A Saturday night. It was summer, so it was still just light enough to see. I was lying down on the tarmac underneath the climbing frame, flowery skirt hitched up around my waist. The boy’s name was Malcolm Duffy. He was two years older than me and wore a leather jacket. He stank of cigarettes, beer, and body odor, had awful, greasy skin and a pencil moustache that looked like he had drawn it on with a biro. He still had braces, so it felt funny when he forced his mouth against mine, his tongue burrowing into my face like a huge, probing worm. I didn’t mind, though, I liked it that he wanted me so badly. It made me feel powerful.
I screamed when he came.
Not because of the sex. But because of what I saw. Over his shoulder, up above me, swinging in the breeze like a limp rag doll, open eyes bloodshot and bulging.
The spastic boy who had hanged himself.
His lips seemed to move. His swollen, purple lips writhing as if he were trying to talk.
Malcolm jammed his fingers into my mouth, hissed at me to shut up. Probably thought that I had changed my mind, would run off crying to my friends and then tell the whole wide world that he was a dirty rapist, a filthy pervert. After all, I was not, as people say, of age.
I remember closing my eyes, terrified. A tidal wave of utter panic, the paralyzing sensation of suffocation, fighting, struggling for a lungful of air. And then I was biting, snapping, chewing down hard on his knuckle, tasting the salt of his blood on my tongue as my teeth broke through his skin.
He released his grip and when I looked up again, the boy had vanished.
I didn’t tell Malcolm what I had seen as he rolled off me. He wanted to talk, begged to, pleaded with me, but all I did was slap his ugly, sweaty face. I crawled to my feet and staggered away, hiding amongst the shadows. Used my handkerchief to wipe away the tears and the sticky gunk that was dribbling down my thighs.
I kept it to myself for such a long time. I didn’t tell a single one of my friends. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mark.
Especially Mark.
After trying and trying for what seemed like an eternity, we eventually conceived. Mark was ecstatic. I was happy for him. I wasn’t really sure what my own feelings were regarding the situation. Not at first. Even as I began to show, could feel the life-force that would eventually grow to become Ben squirming and kicking inside of me, everything seemed so removed. Hazy and dreamlike. As if I was a character in someone else’s story.
Like the stories that surround this place.
They seem to have them everywhere, don’t they? Local legends, passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. We may not remember who it was that told us the tale, but the gory details always seem to remain with us. So vivid. So real.
Like the priest who threw himself off the church tower, just there, over in the far corner.
An upstanding member of the community. A shining example of the strength and conviction of absolute faith. A well-respected man of the cloth. But we all have secrets, don’t we? Apparently, he harbored an unhealthy longing for one particularly young, fresh-faced member of the church choir.
Well, every man has their weakness.
It was said that he climbed to the summit of the ancient, crumbling building during a violent storm, leaning over the edge of the parapets, screaming and blaspheming at the top of his voice. Demanding to know why he had been cursed with such evil desires. Maybe he went unheard as the thunder and lightning drowned out his desperate pleas. Or perhaps his God just simply chose to remain silent, refusing to provide an adequate answer to his question.
Either way, forsaken, he flung himself over the side.
And even though the sheer drop shattered his bones, breaking his legs and his arms, twisting his body and filling it with splinters, it was not enough to kill him.
No. It took him all night to die.
They found his remains over five hundred yards away from where he must have fallen. He had crawled across the ground like an insect, clawing up the damp mud and turf with his fingers, dragging his broken frame through the night. Maybe looking for help. For salvation.
Who knows what went through his mind during those final hours? Who knows what suffering he must have endured? The pain and madness he faced at the end? A just and deserved punishment, perhaps.
It didn’t take long for the rumors to start, spreading and growing like a dark, black cancer. If one was to stand alone, or so the story went, close your eyes, then open them at the stroke of midnight, then the crippled apparition of the priest would appear, crawling and slithering through the grass towards you like the diseased, evil serpent he really was, his soft, oily voice whispering over and over again for forgiveness.
Oh yes, we all knew the stories.
And then.
And then Ben arrived and for a while, a brief, wonderful time, everything was simply perfect.
Any doubts I may have had melted away when I held him in my arms. He was my boy. My beautiful baby boy. And I loved him. For the first six months, Mark and I seemed to be closer than ever. I felt as if I had finally found my true self, my role, my place in this world. Being a mother filled me with such joy, a pure and untainted happiness. I awoke each morning eager to start the day and share it with my son. My sun.
Then, gradually, things changed. The world seemed to darken, heavy, black clouds rolling across the sky, casting long shadows over our lives. Mark was working all the time. Late night meetings at the office, weekend conferences away. We needed the money he would try to explain to me. But I needed him. Ben was having trouble sleeping. All through the night and into the day, he would cry and cry and no amount of soothing or soft words would bring him peace. I was so worn out, so exhausted. At my wits end.
I began to suspect that Mark was having an affair. Became convinced of it, in fact. I started snooping around, checking his wallet for damning evidence, going through the numbers on his phone, turning up with Ben at his office to check that he was really there. During one screaming argument, I finally came out with it. Accused him. He broke down in tears. How could I, he sobbed, how could I say such terrible things about him?
I was wrong, of course. He really was always working.
I was just…I was just so tired.
Tired…all…the…fucking…time.
I tried to get Ben to sleep. Read him story after story, endless fairy tales from children’s books, a thousand Once Upon a Time’s, a million Happy Ever Afters’. None of them worked. I talked and talked and rambled on, making things up, the words spilling out from me like water over the edge of an overflowing glass, held for too long under a scalding hot tap, until finally I found myself telling him about this place.
The stories of my childhood. The legends of my youth.
It was amazing how quickly it all came flooding back.
Everybody knew the tale of the Choking Boy. We used to share it with each other as we hung upside down from the rusty, iron bars, swinging and screeching like caged monkeys in a zoo.
A local child. Simple. Retarded. Although heaven forbid if you tried to get away with using any of those terms nowadays. I don’t think anyone even knew his real name. It didn’t matter, though. It was the story that was important.
An accident, apparently. A knotted Christmas scarf, tied around his neck just a little too tight. It tangled and caught on the climbing frame as he was playing. He slipped off a rung and fell and that was that. Choked to death, hanging there like a puppet, twitching feet only a few inches away from the floor. The parents were too busy chatting. Nobody noticed at first. The other children didn’t help him. Just all stood there, hands over their mouths, giggling quietly. They thought it was all just a game.
And as I told Ben this story, a tiny smile seemed to flicker across his face as he finally drifted off to sleep. And I, thank God, could finally get some rest as well.
So, you see, I really had no choice. To save my sanity, I had to tell him everything. About the Choking Boy and the Crawling Priest, about Malcolm Duffy, and so much more. Every time it worked, every time he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
Until, one day, he never woke up.
People just die. It’s a fact of life. The elderly, the young. The doctors called it cot death, but that’s no real explanation. Sometimes people, even tiny, innocent little babies, reach a point when their time on this earth is over.
How was I to know that Mark had been standing behind me in the doorway, silently watching, listening, spying on me as I told Ben his bedtime stories?
I always thought I had been so careful.
He said I was the one who was responsible. That it was me who had poisoned our baby, filling him up with darkness and disease and death. As if such a thing was possible! Such horrible things he said, such nasty, vile words. He threw me out of the house. Told me to never come back. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. But I do miss him. I miss him very much.
But not as much as I missed my little darling. My little sweetheart. My little man!
I am not a stupid woman. I know deep in my heart that nothing can bring him back as he was. But there are other ways to be together. Other ways to achieve immortality. To live forever.
To become the stuff of legend.
Of this, I am sure.
The other night, I drove to his grave with his pushchair and a shovel in the backseat of my car. It was hard work, and it took a lot of sweat and tears, but I got him back and it felt so good to hold him in my arms once again.
You see, I know what it is I must do. How to ensure that Ben and I will be together forever. How we will live on in memories and stories, just like the stories Ben loved so much.
So, as we sit together on this park bench, waiting for the sun to rise, I take a long, slow sip from the bottle of gin that I have in my handbag, using it to swallow down another couple of sleeping tablets. Already I am feeling a little drowsy, but that’s okay because I have wanted to go back to sleep for such a long time now.
And as I look around upon this beautiful place, I can easily make out the shape of a small boy swinging back and forth, and I can see and hear a dark man as he crawls nearer towards me, and I don’t feel afraid. I don’t feel afraid.
Because when the very first child discovers me here in the morning, so shall my real story begin. To be told over, again and again and again.
And my identity shall be long forgotten, as who I am and what I was becomes nothing, meaningless, just shifting dust blown away by the breeze.
But the children, all the children, the sons and the daughters, they will know me, and they shall whisper about me in hushed, quiet voices.
And they shall call me by my true name.
The Dead Baby Lady.
