Craving by Clair Wright

It was the craving that gave it away. I had already felt myself swelling like a fat bud.

He thought I was ill. “Why are you so pale and tired?” he asked. I lay on the sofa, too queasy to face mash, and gravy, and gristly meat. 

I stroked my belly and watched his eyes grow wide and his mouth grow smug.

The woman next door loved her garden. She grew carrots and courgettes, peas and parsnips. I watched her labour, digging and turning.  Every day she trod the paths around the plot. She sprinkled with water. She tucked mulch around their tender stalks. As they grew unruly she trimmed and trained, tied and tethered.  When the sun set, she seemed to whisper secret words of nourishment into the soil.

It was the lush leaves that caught my eye, the spinach and rocket, the kale and cabbage.  I longed for their peppery newness. Nothing else would do. 

“Jump over the wall,” I said to him. “Jump over the wall and bring me some greens. She’ll never miss it, the strange old stick. She has more than she can eat, anyhow.”

He didn’t want to go. “We have food to eat here in the house!” he said.  “Why do I have to steal from her garden?” 

“The baby wants it!” I said, and I knew he couldn’t refuse. 

I watched from the window as he sprang over the wall.  He grabbed bunches of this and that, between glances towards her door. Then he slipped back over, clutching his haul.

I hugged him, buried my face in his neck, breathed in the smell of soil and sap.

I stuffed spinach my mouth full of spinach and crunched through cucumbers.

“The baby needs meat, too!” he said. He waved a chop under my nose.

I retched and heaved and pushed it away.

Soon I was back at the window, thirsting for ripening tomatoes and creamy cauliflowers.  I begged and pleaded till he relented.

“Take a basket this time,” I said, as I pushed him out of the door. 

The baby squirmed with excitement as I watched him scramble over the wall. He scuttled around the plot between its neat rows. He plucked a cabbage here, a handful of chives and a fistful of chard there.

I saw her coming before he did, stomping along the path, heavy in her wooden shoes. I shouted a warning, banged my palms against the glass, but he didn’t hear me.

Jab! She poked him hard in the back with her stick. He jerked upright, and dropped a bunch of beetroot.

His face was grey like cold porridge, as she shrieked and poked at him. Her sharp black eyes were bright as a hungry crow.

He shrank in the chilly blast of her rage.  He held out the basket but she pushed it away.  She pointed towards my window, towards me and my swelling belly and I knew what she wanted. An exchange – her crop for mine.

I banged on the window all the harder. I screamed.  I shook my head and shook my fist. 

He picked up the basket and slithered back over the wall.

“Did you promise her our baby?” I asked. 

“She won’t do it,” he said. “It will be alright. You’ll see. Look, I brought you radishes.”

But he was wrong. On the first day, she came. She plucked my daughter from my breast like a ripe round plum. I cried out, bleeding milk, but she had no pity. She dropped my daughter into her basket and carried her away. 

I would not let him near me. He smelt of decay, of wormwood and rue. “We will have another child,” he said, but I turned my back on him.

I watched through the window for glimpses of her, but they had gone. The garden ran to seed. Lettuce grew into quivering spires, and tomatoes dropped onto the soil like burst hearts.

At night I dreamed of a windowless tower. I rubbed my fingers raw tearing at the stone walls. I called for my daughter but I didn’t know her name.

So this time it was me who clambered over the crumbling wall. I wandered the narrow paths where rebellious brambles encroached. I cut the trailing stems of beans and pumpkins, and the whippy new growth from the apple trees. 

I tethered and tied, I twisted and wove. I watered with my tears and warmed with my love, and she grew. Her fingers were curled new leaves. Her eyes were bright blue berries.  She lifted her face to the sun and danced in the soft breeze. At night I whispered to her the tale of her stolen sister and the stone tower. 

He watched me from the window, his palms pressed to the glass. He would not come into the garden. We stayed there, she and I, while the pumpkin vines tangled over the paths and the brambles entwined the apple trees.