Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

no point, it would only have made things worse. She already knew, I could sense it. And so I told her exactly what we were doing. That we did use breast milk but that we also use top-ups of formula to keep his weight up.’

Evie took a breath, almost a gasp, as though by talking so much she had forgotten to inhale. It caught in her throat, the air sounded strangled, but it didn’t stop her from continuing her story.

‘Then she said… she said that because we’d used formula milk without the proper authorisation that she would have to issue us an IPS immediately.’

‘You have to get authorisation for using formula milk?’

‘Yes,’ Evie said, not quite meeting my eye. ‘They’re so pro-breastfeeding. You can get an IPS straightaway if you apply to use it. That’s why I got it from somewhere else, not through the official channels. I thought that if I could just… well, it doesn’t matter any more. She asked us where we’d got the formula from and I had to make something up about being given a bag by a mum at a playgroup who had been authorised but didn’t need it any more. She asked me for her name but I said I’d never seen her again. And then she told us that we couldn’t contest the IPS because it fell into some kind of grade or something. I stopped listening after that. I was just looking at Jakey. I just stared and stared at his face so hard and so I couldn’t see anything other than that. Just his tiny nose. His eyelids. His cheeks. She said something like, “Did I understand?” no, it was “Did I comprehend what I had done?” She filled out the paperwork and then she left. Just left me with this crumpled piece of paper and was gone.’ Evie rummaged in Jakob’s bag for a flimsy onion-skin-thin piece of paper. I recognised the navy letters of OSIP at the letterhead, the logo of cartoon-like circles that were placed together to look like a family of three. The rest of the paper was covered in neat handwriting; small, even print that reminded me of a child’s.

‘How many is it now?’ I asked. ‘How many would you have to get before—’

‘Seven. So we have six left. And we have just over ten months until he’s one.’ Children were never immune to extraction but statistically it was a lot less likely to happen after a baby reached their first birthday, and they reset with every year. If you could make it through the first twelve months without receiving too many IPSs then it normally meant your child would not be extracted. It had been drilled into us that though families were still monitored, if OSIP standards are upheld in that first, crucial part of a child’s life then it was an strong indicator that they would be maintained from there on.

‘It’s not going to happen, Evie,’ I said. ‘There’s no way. You’re doing everything right, you’re working so hard.’

‘Whatever I’m doing, it’s not really working, though, is it? And we’ll have to stop giving formula top-ups for now. What if his weight drops? That’ll surely bring them knocking again. But more importantly than that, I don’t want to go back to him going down percentiles again. It’s not healthy, it’s not good for him. I’d rather he was taken away from us, happy and healthy, than keeping him with us by making sure that he’s not thriving.’

‘But it’s important that you were prioritising that, surely? I mean over Jakob being malnourished.’

‘Not the way they see it,’ Evie said miserably. ‘She said something about me not giving breastfeeding a chance. We could apply for authorisation to use formula of course but that will mean another IPS straightaway.’

‘Where did you get it from? The formula you were using?’

‘Oh, someone told me about a place to get it,’ Evie said vaguely. She winced as though she didn’t want to remember it and so I didn’t press her. She hugged her arms around herself. ‘Maybe… maybe I haven’t been trying hard enough with breastfeeding…’

‘That’s completely mad.’ I’d seen the way that Evie had been struggling. She’d told me that on the first few nights, Jakob had screamed and screamed and every time she’d tried to latch him on to her breast, he’d reared away from her and screamed even harder.

‘Kit, you can’t say that. And what choice do we have but to follow their rules?’

NOW

Before any of this happened, I would never even have considered breaking a travelling-with-a-child regulation but now I bundle Mimi into the back of the car. I lie her across the seats and tuck my coat around her as best I can and so she’s as hidden as she can be. I loop the seatbelt around her and double-check it’s correctly latched but it’s a poor substitute for a car seat.

I drive away as slowly as I dare without arousing suspicion. I glance at Mimi’s lolling, sleeping face in the mirror. She won’t wake for a while, it seems; I have a little time to get her out of sight.

There had been an idle thought in my mind that I might try to find the boat myself – that I would insist that they take Mimi and me together – but I don’t know where the boat is and I have no way of contacting anyone who would tell me.

I can’t go to a hotel. I think of the bag tightly wadded with cash that, in my rush to leave, I left behind. We’ll be too easily found if we go to Santa’s. I want to get to Thomas but I can’t be sure where he is now and I have no way of contacting him.

What I need is money and plenty of it. I need someone to give me money.

There’s only one place we can go to – it’s not perfect but it’s somewhere.

And somewhere will do.