Martin heard the scream as he walked down the stairs. It stopped him in his tracks. It was a sound of terror that made him shiver. He wanted to keep walking because no good would come of going to investigate. He wished the lift had been working and then he’d already have been outside and heading towards his car. Twelve flights he had trudged up to Mrs O’Connell’s flat and now he was halfway back down the stairs. Don’t stop, the voice in his head told him but still he didn’t move. He strained his ears but now there was only the occasional howl of wind buffeting the high-rise building.
Maybe it had just been the wind all along; he tried to convince himself, though he knew it had been a scream. He waited another couple of minutes, his ears attuned for any noise, but there was nothing. What could he have done anyway apart from phone the police? He put one foot on the next step and there was another scream. It was a girl’s voice and it was definitely coming from the sixth-floor.
He pushed open the door and then stood in the landing, surrounded by four, separately-numbered doors. Another scream told him it was No.1 and he knocked on the door, quietly at first but then louder when he got no reply. He tried the handle and the front door opened.
“Hello?” he shouted nervously into the hallway. “Is everything okay?”
No-one answered, and he ventured slowly into the house. His footsteps were almost deafeningly loud on the wooden floorboards as he walked up the hall. He pushed open the living room door and stepped inside. A girl was sitting on the floor underneath the window with her back against the wall. Martin could see Glasgow stretch out into the distance, rain pouring down from the pregnant clouds hovering over the city and drenching shoppers gripped by last-minute Christmas panic.
“Who are you?” she said in a tired voice.
“I heard you screaming… I was worried.”
The girl looked at her swollen stomach and then back up at Martin by way of explanation. He nodded to let her know he understood.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Martin.”
“Martin,” she said, nodding as she tried it out for sound. “Are you going to a party?”
“A party?”
“With the fancy dress costume?”
Martin glanced down and smiled.
“I’m a priest,” he said.
“A priest?”
Martin nodded, kneeling down beside her. She stared at him – at his collar – for a few moments.
“I quite like Jesus for a name,” she said. “You don’t get many Jesus’s about, do you?”
Martin thought of trying to explain why, but the girl moaned again and he automatically took her hand, which she squeezed until the tremor of pain subsided. Slowly, her breathing began to calm down as well, though she kept her eyes closed. She looked like a child herself, no more than sixteen or seventeen, he guessed. He couldn’t stop looking at her stomach. It was like a giant egg. There was a baby inside there, living and breathing and ready to push out into the world. He was tempted to touch it; maybe the baby would kick?
He wondered what that would feel like. Most times, he didn’t think about it but occasionally he would be curious, and envious of expectant parents; fathers feeling the movement of their child in the womb, and talking to the baby, or singing to it. His choice, of course, was something different, and it wasn’t a decision he ever regretted. Still…
“It’s so hard thinking of a name for a baby,” the girl said.
“What’s your name?” Martin asked.
“Barbara,” she said, making a face. “It’s an ugly girl’s name.”
“No, it’s not,” Martin laughed.
“It is. That was my gran’s name so I’m called after her. Why couldn’t she have been called something nice like Sarah or Imogen or Grace?”
“Those are nice names… but so is Barbara.”
Barbara made another face. “You’re only saying that because you’re a priest and you have to say nice things to people. That’s the rules, isn’t it?”
Martin shrugged, and started to speak just as Barbara moaned again, a longer and more painful sound than before. It was time to phone for an ambulance. He let go of her hand and stood up, his knees cracking as he did so, and Barbara’s eyes shot open.
“Don’t leave me,” she mumbled.
“I’m just going to call an ambulance,” Martin said, taking his phone out of his jacket pocket and showing it to her.
“I’m scared,” Barbara said, beginning to cry. “I don’t want to be on my own.”
Martin slowly knelt back down with a sigh, dialling 999 before holding her hand again.
“Don’t worry, I’m staying here,” he whispered to her before a voice began speaking into his ear and he told them the address.
* * * * *
The baby was born less than ten minutes after the paramedics arrived. They’d realised immediately that it was too late to take Barbara down to the ambulance, especially since the lift wasn’t working. Martin wanted to escape to the kitchen but Barbara wouldn’t let go of his hand, and so he continued kneeling at her side.
He noticed one of the paramedics glancing at him every now and then, and he knew she wanted to ask why a priest was here. There would be time enough later for an explanation. Part of him wanted to look away out the window and into the clouds, but he didn’t. His eyes remained focused on Barbara’s face, ready to give her a nod of reassurance whenever her own eyes searched for him.
When the baby came, he felt like his hand was going to be crushed. There was a moment when it seemed like the whole room was silent and then a baby’s cry, small and weak but very much alive filled the room and Martin took a deep breath as a wave of emotion washed over him. This time it was him who squeezed Barbara’s hand.
* * * * *
“Have you got a name yet?” one of the paramedic’s asked Barbara. Her colleague had gone back down to the ambulance for the stretcher they’d need to carry Barbara out the building. It was going to be a difficult task. The baby, cleaned and wrapped in a blanket, was lying on Barbara’s chest.
“Well, if it had been a boy I was going to call him Macbeth,” Barbara said.
“Oh, that’s… unusual,” the woman said.
“But I don’t really have a name for a girl.”
“What about Eve?” Martin said. It was no more than a whisper and Barbara and the woman both looked round at him.
“What did you say?” the woman said.
“Why don’t you call her Eve?”
“That’s nice,” said the paramedic.
“Eve?” said Barbara. “Why would I call her Eve?”
“Because it’s Christmas Eve,” the paramedic said.
Barbara laughed. “I know that,” she said. “I was only kidding.”
Martin smiled.
“Eve’s nice,” Barbara said. “I like that. Christmas Eve.”
“Hello, Christmas Eve,” the paramedic said, leaning over and planting a gentle kiss on the baby’s head.
“But I don’t think I’ll call her that,” said Barbara. “I’m going to call her Martina.”
She looked up and smiled at Martin, who wanted to say thank-you but could only blink furiously as tears spilled down his cheeks.
You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or tweet me @PaulTheHunted
