never know about this though. This would be her little secret.
She wouldn’t do it again, she told herself. She would knock this on the head straight away. If her husband ever found out about Charlie she would be in big trouble and he would probably kill him. She had seen him do things that had shocked and repulsed her, his assurances that they were unusual instances rang less and less true each time. She pushed thoughts of her husband aside and dragged Charlie towards the sofa, sitting down while he climbed on top. The way his hands grabbed at her, the way he pushed her back and moved her legs so he could climb between them, it was all different.
Charlie was frantic now, her nails dug into his back and he buried his mouth in her neck as he moved faster. She had never been with another man before and she was surprised at how good it felt. They crashed together until finally he let out a groan. Almost simultaneously, the baby started crying. Charlie collapsed onto her and they both laughed. For her it was a nervous laugh, it was the acknowledgment that they were back in the present and they had done something unforgivable. After a minute or two, Charlie climbed off her and pulled his trousers on properly, surveying the floor for his shirt. She could tell he was shocked; he hadn’t come over here with this in mind. Now it had happened there was no reversing it.
‘That’s yours,’ she said.
‘Excuse me?’ he answered, his face flushed, the full weight of his guilt now evident.
‘That’s not Jamie’s cry.’
‘Oh … OK.’ Grateful, she assumed, for the distraction, he pulled his boots on and rushed upstairs. She took the opportunity to search for her own clothes, buttoning her chiffon dress up quickly.
‘Martina! Oh, my God, Martina!’ Charlie’s voice rang out over his baby’s cries.
‘What?’ She ran up the stairs and into the baby’s room. Charlie was holding his child, staring into the cot in horror. The look on his face told her everything she needed to know. Before she even looked inside, she was holding her breath. Jamie, her little boy, the child she and her husband had so desperately wanted, was blue. Her heart stopped.
‘What do I do?’
Charlie handed her his own son and took Jamie out of the cot, rushing to the bathroom. ‘Call an ambulance,’ he shouted. She ran upstairs with the phone in time to see Charlie run warm water into the bath. He lay Jamie in the tub and scooped warm water over him until he warmed up, then pulled his little body out of the bath and wrapped a towel around him, massaging his chest. Within moments, Jamie was crying again. It wasn’t his usual cry though. It was a soft, tentative cry. She felt so helpless.
It wasn’t long before they heard the sirens; nothing got the ambulance moving faster than a baby in distress and not even snow could stop them, there were chains on the tyres. Charlie was covered in water and Martina just stood there helplessly, watching as two paramedics wrapped her child in blankets and hurried him out to the ambulance.
‘Is he OK? Is my baby OK?’ she said frantically.
‘We need to get him assessed properly, it depends how long he was without oxygen. There may be permanent brain damage, but it’s impossible to know at this point.’ One of the paramedics made eye contact with her, the other wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Charlie grabbed his son and followed as Martina hastily did the rest of her dress buttons up and grabbed her coat. That’s when she saw her husband’s car, pulling into the drive just as the paramedics got in the back of the ambulance. One of them offered her a hand to bring her inside too. She saw her husband get out of the car and approach them, saw his confused gaze as his eyes wandered over her dress. She looked down and saw she had buttoned it wrong – he then looked at Charlie, his trousers hanging from his hips, shirt half untucked, no ambiguity about what had been going on.
‘Martina? What the fuck is going on?’
‘I’m so sorry, it’s Jamie, he stopped breathing!’
‘Are you coming with us, ma’am? We really need to get going. He was without oxygen for at least a couple of minutes, he needs to see one of the doctors ASAP,’ the paramedic’s voice was urgent. Martina saw panic flood her husband’s face.
‘No, I’ll come,’ he said, stepping in front of Martina as though she wasn’t even there.
‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for this to happen!’ she cried, tears streaming down her face, knowing full well that he knew what she had done.
‘Mate …’ Charlie looked at his feet.
‘I’ll deal with both of you later!’ He clambered up into the ambulance and pulled the door shut.
Martina watched as the ambulance pulled away. Just at that moment Charlie’s son started to cry, a normal cry, a baby out in the snow cry. She couldn’t look at him. She ran back inside, slamming the door. She couldn’t let Charlie back in the house, not now.
The phone rang and Martina answered. It was her husband.
‘Is he OK?’
‘I want you out of the house by the time we get home. I never want to see your face again.’
‘But … it was an accident.’
‘I know what happened. I know what you did. It was obvious from the state of you both.’
‘I was lonely. I know it’s no excuse but since Jamie was born you have made me feel worthless. I just wanted to feel special for one night. I didn’t mean for that to happen, you must know I didn’t!’
‘And that makes it OK?’
‘No, of course it doesn’t.’
‘He’s in intensive care at the moment. I want you to know if he doesn’t pull through, your life won’t be worth living.’
‘Please …’
‘Both of you will wish you were dead.’ He put the phone down.
She knew that he wasn’t one to make idle threats, she had seen him do things that other women would have run a mile from. She knew a dark side of him that most people didn’t see. It had excited her at the beginning; the way some people would look when he walked into a pub or a club, the way people backed away from him and feared him. The time he had shoved a broken bottle into the face of a man in the street who was rude to Martina had been the moment she knew he was the one. No one had ever defended her like that before. He wouldn’t let this go.
She grabbed her Valium from the bathroom cabinet and a bottle of gin from the kitchen. She couldn’t live without her son, she couldn’t live knowing she hadn’t been there when he needed her the most, knowing that while her son lay almost lifeless in the room upstairs she was having a meaningless encounter with a man she wasn’t even particularly attracted to. Her husband had made it clear that she wouldn’t be a part of Jamie’s life anymore and so she took the pills one by one with a swig of gin. She was already fairly drunk from the wine at dinner, and it was an easy decision to make; barely a decision at all. She drifted away on her terms, wanting her husband to feel the pain of her loss. She wanted him to feel bad for speaking to her that way, she wanted him to feel as though he should have come home in time to wake her. She wanted him to feel like this was his fault. This time, she would have the last word.
