The Poison Thread Read online

  Pa threw the bloody knife across the room and placed a hand either side of the baby’s head. It was slippery with gore. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. A series of images flashed before my eyes: blood trickling over Pa’s wedding ring; skin yielding; shapes slithering and rushing. Before I knew it, Pa was dashing past me with a grisly bundle in his arms shouting, ‘Now, Ruth! Now!’

  How I managed to move forward and touch her I’ll never know. Her stench, hot blood lubricating my hands.

  Don’t look, I told myself. Do not see.

  There was so much fluid. My fingers struggled to grip Ma’s slick skin and pinch it together. I took a breath. Pierced flesh with my needle.

  It was thick and unyielding, ten times worse than cording. The thread felt horribly weighted as I dragged it through her.

  Do not see.

  Rather than tidying her, my stitches puckered the torn skin, made it angry.

  When something else hot and damp began to emerge, I knew it must be the afterbirth Pa spoke of.

  I didn’t see. I willed myself blind, brought down the shutters. My hands moved mechanically, as they’d done over the silk gloves. Blind, blind. Behind me Pa moved frantically, rubbing at something.

  The needle was strong, the needle got through. It powered through skin, through that horrifying friction.

  A harsh cry jerked me from my work. Objects bounded back into focus: my hands, red and shining; Ma criss-crossed with stitches, her skin fierce and raw but joined together. I’d done the impossible.

  Pa stood opposite, tears running down his face. ‘She’s alive! She wasn’t breathing but I managed to—’

  The baby squalled again and cut him off.

  She. A girl. I craned my neck for a better look.

  My sister was a scrunched, red hunk like meat. Mucus coated her cheeks. She blinked her glazed eyes at me and opened her mouth in a wail.

  I didn’t hate her now. I didn’t hate her a bit.

  9

  Ruth

  It wasn’t the banshee wail of my nightmares. Instead, a whimpering snuffle awoke me and sent me tottering, bleary-eyed, across the room towards the crib.

  Although Ma had said I wouldn’t need to do anything for the baby, she was indisposed from loss of blood. She slept deeply through the long, sagging nights. Lucky her! I had the crib in my room and was up every four hours or so, trying to fill a wet, dribbling mouth with spoons full of pap. And even when I wasn’t mushing brown bread with water to feed her, my ears detected the baby’s every sound, her every breath. When rest came, it was as thin as a reed and easily snapped.

  In the grey light of dawn, I bent over the crib and blinked down at the little girl Pa had named Naomi. She’d emerged from the womb completely bald. Her head looked wrong, cold. I placed my palm over her scalp and she snuggled against it. She didn’t want food, only company.

  It gave me an odd sensation in my chest to see her lying there. Her face was my face. Her features were smaller, of course, but she had the same nose, the same blunt chin. Pity came in a deluge and I lifted her from the crib to clamp against my chest. Hadn’t I always wanted someone to understand me and love me for what I truly was? Maybe Naomi was that person. My ally, at long last.

  ‘You need a cap,’ I told her. ‘Come on.’

  Even at that hour, Pa was in his studio. I heard glass chink and knew that, somehow, he’d got hold of more whisky. It helped him to paint, he said, but I knew why he really drank. It was the same reason I woke, night after night, covered in sweat.

  Ma’s stitches were obvious, yet there were other wounds inflicted that evening – wounds no eye could see. Mine cut deep.

  Be blind. Those were the words I repeated while I stitched Ma up, and at the time I thought they’d worked. But part of me had seen, part of me retained every detail.

  I clutched the baby tighter and descended the stairs.

  ‘No lace or white-work, I’m afraid,’ I whispered to her. ‘Just a simple cap.’

  Even that felt beyond my ability.

  I settled Naomi on her back, in the seat of the comfortable chair, and took Ma’s usual place by the window. All the material looked dishwater grey. I dug through it, trying to find the lawn-cotton shapes I’d cut for a cap days before. I’d left them unsewn, expecting the baby to come later. I’d thought, as people always do, that I had time.

  ‘Here we are. This won’t take long.’

  Naomi turned her head to the side and watched me with her wide, dark gaze. The whites of her eyes shone through the dawn light.

  I settled down and began to sew. In and out, in and out. White thread. White lawn. Up and down, the needle dipping. White against white.

  Red.

  I blinked. A trick of the poor light. There was nothing red on the fabric.

  Naomi whimpered.

  I shook myself and tried again.

  In and out. I managed another three stitches before my hand began to quake. Blood, so much blood.

  The motion of sewing awoke something terrible. It came back to me in vivid flashes I couldn’t control: Ma, screaming; flesh, squelching.

  In and out. All I could think of was blood. Yet my hands moved with a language they knew instinctively.

  Naomi started to cry.

  * * *

  I’d lied to my sister. It took me a great deal of time to make her plain cap. My mind was a loose seam, threatening to unravel. For long moments I was forced to put the work down and stare, fixedly, at the stitches until they resumed their proper shape.

  At blessed intervals, the wash of red that filled my vision receded. I thought of Pa’s gun; imagined pressing the cool metal to my temple, what a relief it would feel.

  It was during one of these reveries that I heard movement on the stairs. My nerves jolted into life; I turned and saw Ma, stumbling round the newel post. She was a wreck. Sunken cheeks and lips like flaking pastry.

  ‘Why are you up and about?’ I whispered. ‘You should be resting.’

  ‘Ruth, I need your help.’ Her voice was so low, it might have emerged from the crypt.

  ‘What is it, Ma? Are you ill?’

  ‘No, I’m behind on the Metyard work. Hopelessly behind.’ She shivered in her nightgown.

  ‘How can you think of work?’ I slid a look at Naomi, checking that our voices hadn’t disturbed her. She slept on, clutching the blanket I’d made against her downy cheek and crushing its corner between her lips. ‘Look at you, Ma. You’re barely fit to stand.’

  Her body must’ve heard the truth in my words, for it sagged against the banisters. All the same, she shook her head. ‘I’ll be fit for even less if we can’t afford bread and coal. I must work.’

  Making a final knot, I snipped off my thread and held up Naomi’s cap. The shape of my fingers showed through the thin material.

  ‘Will you help me, Ruth? Please? I hate to ask, I know it will be a hard stint. But I’ll never make the orders on time, not even working through the night.’

  In the days before Naomi’s birth, I’d yearned to tackle the Metyard work. Now the prospect sounded as daunting as riding a horse. All those hours, all those horrific flashes of red, just to make this flimsy cap in my hands. How would I cope with helping Ma?

  Instead of answering, I crept over to Naomi’s side and raised her soft skull. Her eyelids flickered as I smoothed the cap on.

  ‘There. Much better.’

  The moment I tied the ribbon beneath her chin, Naomi’s eyes burst open. They met mine, wide with shock.

  It took me in a wave: slaughterhouse red, rust and salt; the perfume of blood. The images were back, the smell was back. I choked on acid in my throat.

  ‘Ruth? Are you going to help?’

  ‘In a moment, in a moment!’ I snapped.

  Barely able to see through the visions, I pulled Naomi to my chest. Her feebl
e heart beat back against mine. Somehow it seemed if I could just hold on to her warmth, just listen to her whistling breath, I might make it through.

  ‘What are you doing? Ruth? Come back!’

  I dashed up the stairs, holding Naomi tight, and went into our room.

  Gradually, the nightmare passed and my sight returned. I found myself sat on the edge of the bed with Naomi sprawled on my lap. She was still staring at me, wide-eyed.

  What a fate for that poor child! An ill-favoured face, a house of want, a father distracted. She didn’t even have a proper mother; only a sort of half-nurse cobbled together from Ma and me. I extracted the blanket from her grip. How plain it looked. Drab, workaday, not good enough for her. I needed to fix that.

  Tucking Naomi into the crib, I covered her with my old shawl instead.

  Ma was waiting for me downstairs. Could I really work at her side? Being near her might bring the flashes of panic hurtling back. How would I endure it? Where would I find the strength? I could think of only one place.

  Shaking with anticipation, I took the bundle out from beneath my bed and unwrapped its folds of calico. There, protected and untouched, lay my creation: brown jean patched with duck cotton, peach sateen and buff, firm-woven twill. I’d flossed the cording channels with a plum colour. Here and there, its hue was echoed in smears of blood from my overworked fingers.

  It wasn’t an elegant garment. Mrs Metyard would have snorted at it. Even now, in the first flush of my pride, I saw its flaws. The body was too short, I hadn’t allowed for the shrinkage of the material when the boning cords were added. But I had done it.

  I fastened the corset over my shift, felt the cording push my body into a new shape. My gown went over the top. Only I knew it was there now, holding me close. My talisman, my secret.

  I found Ma by the window, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand. She blinked in rapid succession before picking up her needle. She couldn’t thread it. I watched her try twice, three times. On every attempt the cotton shot wide of the eye.

  ‘I’ll do that for you.’ I took it from her, licked the thread and pushed it through in one go.

  ‘Thank you.’ Ma tried to laugh it off. ‘I have fallen out of practice in such a short time!’

  I sat down in the comfortable chair, strangely erect in posture. Without a corset I’d slumped over like a slattern, but now I felt different, poised. My chair was near the back of the room and put a fair distance between me and Ma. That would help me to concentrate. I didn’t really need the window for light. Spring light, such as it was in the town, didn’t help much. Ma once told me that spring in the countryside was clear and sweet, but to me spring was the fetid stench that wafted from the warming river, and the glare that bounced off wet cobbles.

  ‘Can you start on the quilted petticoat?’ Ma said. ‘That’s the most pressing.’

  Taking a deep breath, I began to sew.

  Perhaps it was the comfort of my corset, or the urgency of the work, but I didn’t suffer as much this time. The flashes of red, of skin, were shorter and further apart. I paced myself, ignoring Ma, ignoring everything.

  For a while, there was escape.

  Shortly before dusk, Ma stood and lit a tallow candle. She said nothing but I saw her brows flex, troubled. She didn’t usually resort to candles until well after dark.

  While she trimmed the wick, I took the opportunity to snatch some silver thread for Naomi’s blanket. My embellishment could only be small – Ma mustn’t spot it in the crib and realise I’d taken Mrs Metyard’s things.

  With my best stab stitch, I worked a tiny silver angel in the bottom right corner. It caught the candlelight with the faintest shimmer. I smiled to myself.

  ‘It’s no good.’ Ma slammed down her work and made me jump. ‘It’s too dark. Don’t you find it too dark, Ruth?’

  I glanced around the room. Sepia light radiated from the candle. Outside, the sun trembled on the edge of the horizon. ‘It is . . . a little dark, I suppose.’

  ‘I can’t see my stitches. I can barely see at all.’

  ‘Why don’t we go upstairs? Pa’s oil lamp will be brighter.’

  She hesitated. I waited, my needle poised, curious to see what she’d do.

  ‘The paint will ruin the clothes.’

  ‘Not if we sit at the back, and lay a blanket over the floorboards.’

  ‘I think we will have to,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll never get the orders done otherwise. I’m sure Pa won’t mind.’

  We gathered up our work baskets and I blew out the tallow candle, leaving its smoke lingering behind us. Usually I’d trail Ma up the stairs, but she bumped and shambled, forcing me to go first.

  There was something uncanny about the way she moved – like a creature risen from the grave. Deciding not to wait for her, I tripped up to the landing and entered the studio.

  I hadn’t been there since before Naomi’s birth. The room wore an air of dejection. New stains splashed the walls. The stack of canvases had grown and tottered to the side. I noticed a broken pen left to drip upon the desk, and beside it—

  The penknife. The very penknife. I saw it flash, heard it slice.

  What sort of man was Pa? Trimming goose-quill with the blade he’d used to . . . My legs gave way.

  ‘Whoa there!’ Pa gripped my shoulders. I managed to keep my feet, but Pa’s hold wasn’t entirely steady. Alcohol fumes rose from him like spirits at a séance. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘The knife,’ I whispered.

  He looked over to the desk. His hair was wilder than usual. ‘I’m just . . . writing a letter.’ His voice was strained. Something that lay on that desk disturbed him, although it didn’t appear to be the knife.

  ‘Take it away, please, Pa.’

  Checking I was firm on my feet, he staggered over to the desk and placed the knife, pen, and a bundle of paper in the pocket of his leather apron. His fingers shook.

  Ma crept into the studio behind us. ‘James? Pardon us, love. I wondered if we might work by the light of your lamp? I cannot stitch downstairs. It grows very dark.’

  He regarded her blankly. He could see, as well as I, that it was hardly dark enough to light candles and lamps yet. ‘Well . . . yes. Yes, I suppose. But make sure you don’t touch anything.’

  Ma gripped at the doorjamb. ‘No, of course not. We will just spread a sheet in the corner. Forgive me, I don’t mean to intrude upon your work but—’

  ‘It is no intrusion,’ he said, too quickly. ‘I have done for the evening. I will . . . I’ll go and sit with Naomi.’

  So eager was he to get away that he pushed past Ma. His footsteps sounded on the landing, but didn’t cross to my room where Naomi slept. Instead, they trod down the stairs, to the kitchen, and there was another clink of glass.

  ‘How is it we can still afford whisky?’ I asked.

  Ma’s expression became guarded. ‘I believe he has switched to gin.’

  I carefully laid the blanket myself, making sure all the paint and canvases were safely out of reach. Ma sat in Pa’s chair, while I took the floor. We worked without speaking much. Ma needed to concentrate on her backstitch; I on my breathing.

  In and out. In and out. Each exhalation pushed my ribs against the corset. I breathed deeper on purpose, feeling comfortably encased. Even when the dreaded flashes came it was there, anchoring me.

  Dawn had seeped through the skylight before I looked up again. My hands and feet were numb and I had a pain in my side. Awkwardly, I twisted on to my knees. Ma still sat by the lamp. Its flame didn’t reflect in her eyes. They appeared dull, more solid than liquid.

  ‘Are you done, Ma?’

  ‘Almost.’

  It was a lie. Her pile of folded, finished work was much thinner than mine. I saw her stitches, skewed and clumsy. ‘I could take another—’

  ‘You get on to bed.’


  When I stood, fatigue hit me. All at once I felt the exhaustion of my nights making the corset, my disturbed dreams and my hours rocking Naomi to sleep. Half-drunk with weariness, I picked up Naomi’s blanket and blundered back to my room.

  Rubies glimmered in the ashes of my fire. By their red glow I saw Pa stooped over the crib, a glass bottle in one hand. Gin, not milk.

  It galled me to see him there, breathing liquor over the baby. Part of me still hated him for what he’d made me do to Ma, and his behaviour during her indisposition had hardly redeemed him. Who fetched the milk now, ran out for hot pies, burnt their arms and blistered their hands trying to do the laundry alone? Not Pa.

  ‘Does she smell? Does her clout need changing?’

  He leapt at my voice. I meant for that to happen.

  ‘No. She’s been good as gold all night. Hasn’t woken at all.’

  That was odd. I’d expected to hear Naomi screaming out for Ma’s milk while we worked, if not the bread pap. But she slept so deeply, it felt cruel to disturb her. Instead, I arranged the blanket over her little body. Pa caught sight of the angel I’d embroidered and smiled. At least, I think he meant to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

  ‘She is an angel, isn’t she? And I’ve failed her. Utterly failed her.’

  Looking back, I wish I’d said a kind word. Contradicted him. But I was tired and peeved. I wanted him gone.

  ‘Do you remember how hard I worked to revive her, Ruth? We both thought she was dead, but I rubbed her and slapped her and forced her back to life.’ He took a swig from the bottle. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve left her be.’

  I didn’t remember him reviving Naomi, I was too busy floundering in my own mother’s blood. ‘You’re drunk,’ I snapped. ‘Stop saying shameful things and leave the baby to sleep.’

  He turned to face me. The movement sent him giddy and he grabbed the crib with one hand. I expected to see anger in his eyes – I’d never chided him before – yet they gazed right through me, to some hidden hell only Pa could see.

  ‘It’s a copy,’ he said.