BORN ON A MONDAY. A Short Story.

I have to write to you, knowing that you are dead, knowing that you were born so perfect. I just needed someone to fill my arms and you were no longer there.

There was such joy when I was first pregnant. Russell and I were so happy. We’d been together for two years and now there was the prospect of your arrival. I remember so well buying the things for your room and the hours spent just thinking of names. I must have been so boring. All I could talk about was every move I felt you make inside me, how big I was getting and the results of the scans. Who needed a lottery win? I was going to be blessed with you – Little human miracle with your own set of finger prints, unique voice and looks and all. Our families were so thrilled. Our parents teased us about being too young to be grand parents and my sister about being too young to be a maiden-aunt.

I never wanted a career. Never even wanted to marry until Russell swept me off my feet. It was pure eye-to-eye electrifying contact across a rather empty room. My car had broken down and I came back into the building to see if I could beg a lift from someone who could get me to a garage. Russell had come down from Admin to speak to someone who had already left for home. After a few dates, meals and a holiday in France we moved in together. After I got pregnant with you we married. I tell myself sometimes that things went wrong simply because we did not do things the right way round – That God is punishing me – But no. Then I tell myself that, as is believed in some cultures, you had already attained the final stages of perfection and it was therefore unnecessary for you to live another life. I admit I don’t know why you were taken and not allowed to draw even one single breath of this planet’s precious yet polluted air. I just don’t know why you were still-born. How bleak it sounds when the phrase comes out that way. If you say: “Born still” it implies peace and serenity not chaos and devastation, death and destruction as was the case with you.

I’d got you here, you having completed the journey and the marvellous formation of your perfect body and mind. Afterwards I felt as if I’d walked miles through the desert and just as I got to someone holding out a much needed glass of water, I sneezed as I reached for it, dropped the glass, watched its contents drain away into the sand and came away empty and thirsty.

While I was carrying you I’d heard this news bulleting which angered me. A woman described by Social Services as: “Personally inadequate” had left her child – Yes left it – On its own for days. Half-starved and struggling against the odds, her child survived. There it was having been given the most abominable of starts in life clinging to life like a limpet to a rock and living, there you were letting go of life and dead. She’d had a string of unsuitable boyfriends who were much the same as she and I was in a stable relationship with someone whom I thought was much the same as me. The contrast couldn’t have been more striking and the unfairness of life couldn’t have been more apparent. That is when the idea came to me. “Suppose I had a child like hers to love. A child who may have had an equally appalling start to replace you who couldn’t even get off the starting blocks”. Russell kept telling me to pull myself together but how could I when circumstances had pulled me apart? I never heard or saw him cry. There again though I never heard or saw much else. Most of the time I was too drunk. He was hardly ever home nowadays anyway.

The pretty little blond and blue-eyed girl was in Tesco’s car park in her buggy. I’d just come out with my shopping which included all my alcohol. She was the age you would have been had you lived, looked like you and was wearing the same coloured clothes we had bought for you. Before I could stop myself I had her in my arms,was running with her to the car, getting my fingers jammed in the buggy as I hastily folded it and put it into the car. I drove off at brake-neck speed and never gave a thought as to how I’d explain her presence to Russell or about the TV. news reports which would carry her and my images as we left and worst of all not thinking or caring about the anguish of her mother whose baby had been taken goodness knows where by goodness knows who. All that counted was that my arms were full and the deep unspeakable ache in my heart was eased. She was going to save me and be the one to return me to sobriety. I never touched a drop while I had her. I never hurt her but only wanted to love her, to look after her and to have her.





When Russell came in I explained her presence by saying she was Debbie, Janet’s baby – Janet – Who I thought was my friend from antenatal classes. Janet who had bobbed behind her settee when I went round because I needed so much to talk. Janet who hadn’t been near since our loss because she didn’t want either to catch the bad luck or to upset me. Janet whose baby could also have filled my arms while we talked. Of course he didn’t fall for it especially when he saw the news reports and realised that instead of Debbie in our house there was this unknown little stranger whom I’d callously abducted without thought of anyone else’s needs bar my own. He took her to the police at once and so I suffered a double loss. Of course he lost you too but it was I who carried you, I who felt your every move inside me and me who gave you birth and death in one split second of fleeting yet eternal time. How could he ever know what it feels like to be me? I used to be glib and smug towards those unable to have children saying that they should remember that not everything is meant for everybody and I used to despise child abductors and think them wicked people who did their evil deeds with only malice and harm as their motivating forces. Needless to say I have a different view now.

Russell has left me and who can blame him? He said I’d brought embarrassment and shame, more pain and humiliation to us both. Naturally and rightly everyone’s sympathy is with the deprived mother who has had her baby stolen but I just wish sometimes that a little could be spared for me and that just sometimes too it could be recognised that I couldn’t help it and the overwhelming need to love and to hold and to have and to care for the child I’d not got either now had tipped the balance of my mind and blotted out reason and all else. Who is going to stand up once for me?

I have been remanded for psychiatric reports and told my defence should indeed be that I did what I did while the balance of my mind was disturbed. I can neither condone nor excuse my actions. I feel so worthless, so empty, and so alone.

I wish I could stop thinking of who you would have grown into. I wish I could stop seeing your lovely little face every time I close my eyes and I wish people had not kept saying: “Go on Pam! Have another”! As if they were talking about some drink obtained bought at a bar in a cheap jack pub. An every-day thing so easily replaced and replaceable.

I must go now Alice. Perhaps you now have all the answers to all the big questions mankind has asked since we could talk. Perhaps you are there waiting for me to come and be with you. Whatever happens to me, whether I have more children one day or remain as desperately alone as I am now, I will always love you – You who will always occupy your own special unique and private part of my heart? God bless you Alice, wherever you may be. Love from your mother Pam.