Prologue

The cry builds. At first it is pitiful. A creak and a crackle. Tentative, tremulous, just testing how it will be received.

The doubt quickly flees. The whimper becomes a bleat, the catch hardening as the cry distils into a note of pure anguish. ‘Shh . . .’ her mother pleads, reaching into the cot and holding the baby at arm’s length. The sound buttresses the space between them. ‘It’s OK, baby. Mummy’s here now. Mummy’s going to make it OK.’

The child stares at her. Eleven weeks old; in the fierce grip of inconsolable colic; her eyes two beads that glower, incredulous and intense. Don’t be ridiculous, these eyes say. I am livid and I’m livid with you. Her face folds in on itself and her Babygro dampens as if the rage that is turning her body into a white-hot furnace is so intense it must escape.

‘Shh, shh. It’s OK,’ the mother repeats. She is suddenly wary. Sweat licks the child’s brow and her fontanelle pulses like some alien life form just beneath the surface of her skin. Evidence of her pumping heart, of the blood which courses through her veins and could burst through this translucent spot, as delicate as a bird’s egg, so fragile the mother daren’t touch it in case it ruptures. The beat continues, insistent, unrelenting. Like this baby’s uncontrollable rage.

The cry cranks up a gear and she draws the baby close. But the child writhes against her, fists balled, torso arching backwards in anger or pain.

‘It’s OK.’ Who is she trying to convince? Not this baby, who has been crying for the past eight weeks. And not herself because every time she thinks she’s found a fresh solution – a hoover sucking at the carpets; an untuned radio hissing white noise – the rules of this particularly cruel game shift and she has to think again.

‘Shh, shh.’ Her eyes well with self-pity and frustration and an exhaustion so entrenched she is sometimes knocked off balance. Please be quiet, just for a minute. Be quiet. Just SHUT UP! she wants to say.

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