Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (ready to read books .txt) 📕

me, the spoon, the crumpled heap of a napkin; they appeared larger all of a sudden as though I had been able to magnify them. I couldn’t stop the same thought thundering through my mind: that I knew everything about Thomas, that we didn’t keep secrets.

I remembered with sharp clarity our first visit to Santa when Thomas told me about Cecelia, the sister whom Santa had lost. He’d paused for the briefest moment after he’d told me. In that space, in that breath, lived the memory of his brother who was taken.

‘It’s probably that he wants to forget because it hurts too much,’ Santa spoke very quietly. ‘Sean was extracted when Thomas was seven. I’m not sure how clear his memories are of him. Not like mine, of course. I remember Thomas rubbing his cheek on my bump, talking away to his brother in a secret language of his own making. He loved him – well before he was born.’

‘And you didn’t get any IPSs when Thomas was little?’

‘Things were a bit different then. I received one or two. You’re the same kind of age as Thomas, aren’t you?’

‘A few years younger.’

‘Well OSIP operated in a different way then. It really was seen to be for the good of the child. I mean, of course it still is. The threat of extraction was there but I don’t remember them happening like they do now. It seems much more militant than it was.’

Santa puts the small bowls that she was holding back on to the table. ‘That said, there was still the threat of them hanging in the air. But OSIP agents were more understanding. You didn’t have to be superhuman. I do feel for your sister, and all of you, in your generation. It’s so much harder now than it was.’

She traced a finger around the rim of one of the bowls as though it were wet clay and she would be able to mould it into a different shape. There was the very slight sound of the china ringing in the air. But then Santa brought her hand to her face as if she were about to wipe away a tear, although her eyes were quite dry, her voice steady.

‘But by the time Sean came along, things were beginning to change. The number of IPSs decreased a little and there were many more reasons why you could get one. There were more and more reports on child development and the higher standards needed to help babies to progress. The effects of the infertility were really starting to hit us. Every child that was born was so precious. That’s still true.’

Santa pursed her lips as though to stop something else from spilling out. Her lipstick was an orange red that day; it looked even brighter with her lips clamped together.

Thomas walked back in then, fresh-smelling from the outside.

‘What?’ he said when he saw our faces. ‘What have you been talking about?’ He looked over at Santa, his eyebrows raised.

‘It’s nothing,’ I told him and then when the crease that had grown in his forehead did not leave his face, I reassured him further still.

‘Nothing we need to worry about.’

NOW

She lowers her eyes, away from my stare.

‘Just tell me the truth,’ I say. I have to shift Mimi on to my other shoulder. I hug her closely to me. I am cold in my vomit-sodden coat and worry that Mimi must be too in the towel she’s in. Mimi complains from the movement, gives a tiny whimper that tells me she’s in pain. ‘Please – just tell me. I knew there was something that you were keeping from me. I thought it was easier to ignore it but then you changed, you turned into someone else, you weren’t there…’

‘I never meant to hurt you.’ There’s a flash of my sister. ‘When Dad died – I mean it happened so suddenly – do you remember it was the very same day that we received our first IPS?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘Looking back… if he hadn’t had the heart attack then, there would have been no chance that I could have done what I did.’ Evie swallowed hard. ‘I learnt something… from Dad’s papers. Something he would never have told us to our faces.’

‘What? What did you learn?’ I try to be clear, to sound strong, but my voice wavers; tears threaten to strangle me.

‘I can’t tell you. I promised I would never tell anyone. Or they’ll take him again. They’ll take him.’

Through the glass of the car door, Jakob is watching our faces. His eyes run from one to the other, back and forth. It’s strange to see him grown up – he’s both so familiar and strange to me. There’s a touch of the baby’s face that was so familiar and dear to me but it’s transformed into something entirely new. It reminds me of watching one of Thomas’s portraits grow from a few single lines, the suggestion of a curve, to a canvas full of brush strokes that make up a face.

I try not to lose myself reflecting on all that I have missed. I have lost a nephew, a child who I loved and tended as a baby, who now looks at me with no recognition.

I tighten my grip on Mimi. ‘All this time you’ve been pretending about all the good that OSIP do.’

There’s the sound of knocking. Jakob’s pressed his face to the window of the car and is staring out at us. He is worried, concerned. He doesn’t like that I’m crying. Evie tells him to wait with exaggerated lips so he can understand through the thick glass, that everything’s okay.

‘Did Seb know – what it was you learnt?’ I continue. She turns back to me.

‘No one knows.’

My head swims. Mimi moves against me, in the tell-tale way that means that she will be sick again. I lower her down and run my hand over her back.

‘This is pointless. You’re not going to tell me,