Postpartum
By Cecil Armstrong
They came for me early in the morning and knocked on the front door as I was feeding Oliver. He would not latch on, so I laid him down in his cot and tucked his bedclothes snug around him. He did not cry. He was a good baby now that the Devil had left him. My breasts ached. I went downstairs and sat at the dining room table to express milk for when Oliver would be hungry again. I could hear the Devil singing on the radio, and he was angry that I had cast him out. It was light outside, and the Sun reached through the kitchen window.
The house was clean and spotless and smelt of lemon and lavender. They were banging on the front door and calling my name and asking me to let them in. The wooden table was polished, and the chairs were very shiny. God had spoken to me last night, “Clara, you have the Power, you have the Strength, Clara, you do not need to eat or sleep or take medicine, you must Clean, Clean, Clean; a Clean house keeps the Devil away.” I stood up and placed the fresh bottle of milk in the refrigerator with the others. I put the chain on the front door and waited for them to leave, but they kept hammering and yelling, and I was worried that they would wake Oliver. The Devil was still singing on the radio, and I could hear him laughing.
I barricaded the front door with the wooden table and the shiny chairs and bright orange cushions from the lounge sofa. Then they broke the chain and thrust open the door and pushed through. There were so many of them. The health visitor with the fat face and the false smile was there with several others in uniform, and I saw my mother amongst them.
“You must not trust them,” I said to my mother. “They will trick you if you are not Strong. You must help me keep them away from Oliver. He needs his sleep so he can be well again. He’s so tired from when the Devil had him.”
“Is that blood on your dress, Clara?” my mother asked.
“It’s quite all right,” I said. “It’s not mine; it’s just from where I had to cut the Devil out.”
THE END