Ipswich
10th August: The night of the murder
Caroline
It’s been ten minutes and she won’t stop crying. I am pacing around the flat, cursing its size. She’s kicked off her little pink socks in frustration, so her bare feet are flailing unhappily in the air, despite me trying to hold her tightly to my chest, calm her down with my proximity. It’s not working.
I’ve tried giving her the pink dummy Jenny brought with her (why is everything you buy your daughter pink, Jenny?) but she keeps spitting it out, and now I’m worried it’s dirty because it’s landed on the floor so many times, and my floors aren’t exactly that clean. It’s been a while since I had the hoover out, put it that way. I pick it up and stick it in the cot, so that at least it’s on the clean sheets.
‘Don’t cry, Eve, please don’t cry,’ I say to her, but still she wails, and all the time she’s becoming hotter and hotter. I can feel the pressure beginning to build up inside my head, forming a tight band of tension across my forehead and the back of my skull. What’s the matter with me? Why can’t I do this? I bet she doesn’t normally cry like this; I think of Rick and Jenny in their lovely house and somehow cannot picture them in this situation. It’s me, I think to myself, it’s always me, I always get it wrong.
In desperation, I pick up my phone, but I don’t know who to call, and all I see is that nasty message again. It’s upset me, unsettled me; that’s why I had the wine and that’s why I can’t sort this out and stop Eve crying. It’s all her fault, it’s Siobhan Dillon’s fault. Because it must be her sending me the messages. It must be. I think about calling the number, hover my finger over the button, but something stops me. I don’t know what I’d say, I don’t know how to deal with a confrontation. I don’t want them to know they’ve got to me.
Going over to the balcony, I open the door and feel a moment of relief as the cooler air hits me. The sky looks beautiful, streaked with pink and gold, and I try to distract Eve with the colours, holding her up to the window and pointing, twisting her little body around so that she can see. The glass obscures part of her view and despite what Jenny said, I step outside with her in my arms, onto the balcony so that she can see the sky properly, the wide expanse of it stretching above our heads. She won’t come to any harm – it’s not as if I’m going to hurl her over the edge.
A bird flits past, soaring above us towards the waterfront, and I feel a pang of ridiculous jealousy at its freedom. Eve continues to scream and below me I hear the sound of a door slamming, the hiss of a ‘for God’s sake!’ It’s the neighbours downstairs; I don’t know them, nobody ever talks to each other in this block of flats, but I’ve seen them around – they’re a young couple, younger than me, probably in their mid-twenties. Childless, by the looks of it. People who can’t handle the sound of a baby crying.
I stand outside for a few more minutes, jogging Eve up and down a bit on my hip. I feel out of my depth, hopelessly inexperienced. Don’t they say you should jiggle babies to get them to stop crying? Something about the movement that helps? I wish I could take her for a walk but I don’t want Jenny to come back and find us gone; she must be almost on the way back now.
Going back inside, I try putting Eve back down in the cot, but it only makes the crying worse. Her face is bright red and her mouth, previously a pretty pink pout, is now a gaping scarlet hole, and the sight of it frightens me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.