Sleeping Dogs Lie

Emma

Mike caught up with the crying woman as she stood trying to unlock her car door with shaking hands. Alice was shaking so hard that she couldn't get the key in the lock. Mike cautiously stepped up beside her and put one warm hand over hers to steady them. Alice turned and in a moment she was in his arms, sobbing into his shoulder. He held her while her body shook and the tears fell.

They were alone in the field. Only Alice's car remained, apart from the old caravan and the beaten pickup truck. Their breath gently steamed the air around them as cold rain fell from the black sky. It could only have been a couple of minutes before the Professor came into view. He stalked straight towards Alice and Mike, head down not caring about the mud and puddles as he splashed through them, until he stood before the couple.

"I'll drive," was all the Professor said and he took the car keys from Alice's unresisting hand.

The Professor unlocked the car, letting Mike open one of the back doors and gently help Alice inside before he ran around the car and got in beside her. The Professor stayed silent as he got in, started the car, put it into gear and navigated it out of the field and onto the road. Mike put an arm around Alice and watched over his shoulder as the old farm cottage disappeared from view.

They all sat in an uncomfortable silence. The Professor not speaking, Alice no longer crying but her head hung down, she gave an occasional sniff. Mike did not know what to say and so he said nothing. He just sat there, leaning close, with an arm around her shoulders. After a while, Alice took her hand bag from the floor in front of her, pulled a tissue from inside, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She threw the balled up paper back inside her bag and then took a slightly crumpled packet of cigarettes out. With unsteady hands she opened the packet and took out a single cigarette and a lighter. She put the cigarette between her lips and lit it, drawing deep until the end of the cigarette glowed. Alice held it for a moment and then exhaled a long stream of blue smoke that rolled forwards, towards the back of the Professor's head. She looked around at Mike.

"Sorry, I've been trying to quit," Alice said with a tremulous voice.

She transferred the cigarette to her other hand and opened her window a little. The car's slipstream drew the smoke out through the narrow gap at the top, away and into the night. Mike gave her an encouraging smile to let her know he understood.

"I was eighteen," she said. "It was the summer holidays, a while after I got my A-level results. Everything was going great. I had a place at a good University, Mum and Dad were really proud. I was getting ready to leave home, you know, get some real independence."

She paused and drew heavily on her cigarette again.

"My last couple of periods had been a bit short, a bit spotty. I wasn't really worried. I thought it was probably just the excitement of finishing school and moving away. Mum made me go to the doctor, just to be sure there wasn't anything to worry about. My Mum's always been like that, a bit over-protective, a bit pushy. I had to give a urine sample. God, and I thought that was embarrassing, I couldn't believe it when the doctor told me I was pregnant."

Alice put the cigarette to her lips again, inhaled and blew the smoke towards the slit at the top of the window. She kept her head turned away like that, looking out into the night and into the past.

"It was a boy from my English Lit course. No one special, just a friend really. We'd kind of got together at a party after the exams. All that teenage excitement and hormones, I guess. I thought we'd been safe but we were both pretty drunk. Mum went ballistic, before I even knew what was happening she was on the phone, trying to arrange an abortion."

Alice flicked the ash from her cigarette through the narrow gap in the window.

"I hadn't even thought about it, you know. I think I was still in shock from finding out but when I heard my mum on the phone to the clinic, that's when I knew I didn't want get rid of it. I also found out what my mother's really like too. It was constant, the pressure, the nagging, the pleading. I thought I could take a year off to have the baby and go to University later. I told her there were plenty of girls that did it. She told me that there were plenty more that didn't or dropped out. She was relentless, constantly telling me how my life was ruined, that it was effectively over, that all my plans for the future, for a career, were gone but I didn't care about that anymore. All I wanted was what was growing inside of me. I would sit in my room, reading Jane Austin and daydreaming about the baby; Emma, if it was a girl, or George, if it was a boy. Stupid, I know." Alice smiled then at that memory. Mike saw it in her reflection in the window.

"Something was flagged up in the standard screening tests, so I had to go for another test, an amniocentesis. I was so worried, worried about the test, worried that the big needle would somehow hurt the baby. The first thing they told me was that the baby was a girl and the second thing they told me was she had Down's syndrome. I was crushed, devastated, but my mother was glad, she was pleased. She took control, just took over and I was so frightened and so scared that I let her. She arranged it all; the termination, the trip to the hospital. I sat there and signed the forms when they were put in front of me. It only took a day, in and out and back home again. I felt so empty but my mum, she was happy again, happy that my life was back on track. I thought about giving it up, university and all that, but it was the only way to get out. Once I left, I never went back home again to stay. I wouldn't go back at all if it weren't for Dad."

The cigarette in Alice's hand was halfway gone and now and it began to tremble again, making the smoke from the tip wave into the air. In her reflection in the window, Mike saw tears sliding down her face again.

"I think about her, my baby, my Emma, from time to time. Not so much these last couple of years, but I always wondered what my life would have been like if I had kept her."

Alice sobbed, the sound was wretched. She turned to Mike, her expression raw with pain, the tears streaming down.

"All this time, she's been with me. She's been watching me and wondering why I didn't want her." Alice crumpled then, burying her face in her hands.

"I'm so sorry," she wailed from behind them.

The end of her cigarette was forgotten between her fingers. Mike took it and pushed it out of the gap at the top of the window before holding her in his arms again.

"There are no ghosts," said the Professor from the driving seat.

"He heard her," Alice choked out between sobs.

"There are no ghosts, no spirits, no shades. That man does not speak for the dead," said the Professor.

"How did he know then?" Alice snapped. She pushed Mike's arms away, her hair flying, her face red with anger and sorrow. "I've never told anyone about Emma, I never told my parents her name."

After a moment, the professor looked back over his shoulder. He couldn't turn far enough to look at Alice so he stared into Mike's eyes instead.

"Because he read our minds."