Free The Baby by Lisa Drakeford

… Jonty, I mean? Have you told him he’s the father?’
    Nicola blows her nose.
    Her turn to bite at a nail. She thinks about the question. Attempts to remember the phone call that she’d made and tried to blank from her memory for weeks now.

    Hospital had been difficult. She was sick of seeing people come and go with newborn babies which had been planned for and celebrated. Where the parents cooed and gushed over the tiny forms swaddled in brightly coloured blankets. Nicola had to make do with the faded threadbare efforts which the hospital supplied. She was sick of grandparents, siblings, dads and friends of these tiny creatures who had visited theward, laden with flowers and silver balloons. Nicola had no one. Nobody visited Eliza. No one had expected her and no one welcomed her into the world. Except perhaps the stream of visitors from the authorities who asked a long list of frightening questions and hardly ever looked at the baby.
    That’s not quite true. Ben came twice. Nicola could have kissed him there and then when the first thing he did was reach out to Eliza, let her pearl fingers clutch on to his little finger with her strong grip. He brought her a small purple donkey, which he placed in the corner of the Perspex cot.
    Two of the mothers in the ward smiled indulgently at him; they nodded their approval and asked over the heads of their brightly-coloured-blanketed babies if he was the dad. That made him laugh.
    The only other visitor who didn’t have a badge to state their employment was Nicola’s mother. And a tower of strength she was not.
    In fact, it took ages for Nicola’s mum to drag herself away from the ward doorway. She stood with her arms folded and her lips tight and thin. Just a line where a smile should have been. A thin, straight, grey line which spoke volumes. Without glancing in the baby’s direction she jabbed with her words.
    â€˜What the hell are we expected to do now?’
    Without laying eyes on Eliza, ‘And where’s the bloody father?’
    She continued, jabbing with her finger into the silent air of the listening ward. ‘I’ll tell you where he is. He’s off scot-bloody-free. That’s where he is.’
    Nicola had looked around, embarrassed at the faces of all the other new mums.
    And she pushed all thoughts of Jonty Newman to one side.
    But, drained and tearful, she’d eventually plucked up the courage to phone him.
    She could hardly manage the words.
    It was late at night and she didn’t want to disturb the other women in the ward, or their babies. So she spoke softly once he answered after the eighth ring. Her hands shook.
    Despite everything – despite their kisses; despite their links with Olivia; despite their knowledge of each other’s bodies and scents – they hadn’t really spoken very much.
    â€˜What do you want?’ he answered.
    Silence as she caught her breath. ‘She’s yours, Jonty.’
    A full ten seconds of pounding silence. She wondered if he was still there.
    And then four chilling words that stabbed at Nicola under her sheet in the warmth of the maternity ward. ‘You are a slag.’
    He’d hung up then. And the words rang in her ears for the rest of the night.
    She was never going to contact him again. Whatever happened, she knew she was on her own.

    Nicola looks at her friend’s face. Her paleness, her deep eyes, the hair which she’s pushed back behind her ears.
    She nods. ‘Yeah, I told him.’ She clears her throat. ‘He wasn’t very impressed.’
    Olivia pulls the sides of her mouth down and nods. Inhales. ‘Well, Nic, I reckon you might just have done me a favour. If nothing else you made me see the light.’ She draws her knees up and holds Nicola’s eyes. ‘Tell me, how are you doing for money?’
    Nicola balls the tissue in her hand. ‘Oh, you know, I’ve had to fill in about fifty million forms for