Marian heated some soup and tried to get the baby to take more of the boiled milk.
“You two need to see a doctor! When did you have her?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you cut the cord Sarah?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get into my garden?”
“I don’t know I DON’T KNOW. STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!”
It was the loudest that Sarah had spoken. The baby opened her eyes for just a second at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Have some soup.”
Sarah almost subconsciously, dipped bread into the soup and began to eat. Marian continued to feed the baby who seemed more eager to drink.
Sarah finished the soup and fell asleep at the kitchen table.
“What do I do now?” Marian had no one she could call. There was nobody left.
“They need to go to the hospital.”
She thought about it for a minute but she couldn’t take the chance. There was no way she’d get beyond hospital reception without someone recognising her. If she rang for an ambulance she knew that half a dozen journalists and photographers would be in her garden before it arrived. Marian looked up at the mantelpiece above the fire to a picture of two little girls. It was the only thing left in the lounge-end of the room, apart from the sofa.
“Why is there nothing in your house?”
“Sorry?”
Sarah was awake again. “Why is there nothing in your house?”
“I’m moving out. Tomorrow actually, so we need to decide what to do with you and…. Have you thought of a name for her?”
Still wrapped in the teatowels the baby slept, totally unaware of her bizarre start in life.
“I don’t want to call her anything. I don’t want her.”
“Sarah when I found you she was your first concern. You didn’t ask me to help you, you asked me to help her. You must feel something for her.”
Sarah lifted her head. If she’d had energy she’d have wept, but there was nothing. “Can I lie on your sofa please?”
Marian nodded.
Sarah walked over to the sofa and sat down. She looked up at the photo. “Who are they?”
“It doesn’t matter who they are!” Marian snapped.
“I’m leaving this house tomorrow and you’re going to have to leave. Do you know what you’re going to do? Have you family I can call?”
“No.”
“Friends then? Or will I see if I can get you into a shelter? You can’t go back to sleeping rough. You’ll never survive it and neither will she.”
They both looked at the baby; Sarah curled up in a ball on the sofa.
Marian put her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes tightly shut hoping for inspiration to come.
“Are they your kids in that picture?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
Marian felt a sharp pain somewhere deep inside.
“I don’t know. The Middle East somewhere I think. Listen it’s you and your daughter that we need to talk about.”
“Is that where you’re going? To the Middle East to see them?”
“No.”
“Where are you going?”
“Sarah it doesn’t matter where I’m going. Where are YOU going to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t stay here.”
Sarah rolled up in a ball again and started to rock gently, within minutes she was asleep.