Palma handed over her phial of urine to the midwife who thanked her with a cheery, ‘Ta love’ and screwed off the top to test it. ‘That’s fine,’ she said at the sink and returned bringing a fresh phial for Palma to use next time.
‘So, how have you been?’
‘Good,’ nodded Palma. ‘But I still don’t seem to be growing. Everyone I meet is saying how small I am.’
‘Some people don’t show much all the way through, all women are different, but we’ll have a proper look at you in a minute. Let’s do your blood pressure first.’
That was fine too. The midwife told Palma to lie down on the bed in the corner and pull up her T-shirt. The midwife checked her notes. Then she took out her tape measure, wrote down her findings, felt Palma’s stomach and asked if Palma had felt the baby moving yet.
‘I think so. Just a little bit, at night when I’m quiet.’
‘That’s the way. Soon as you’re ready for rest, they’re ready for play. Get used to that,’ said the midwife. ‘Both when they’re in and out of you.’
The baby was the size of an avocado now. She could close her fist and suck her thumb and yawn, according to Palma’s book, but she didn’t look big enough to have anything even that size inside her.
The midwife pulled out a small machine from a drawer. ‘Let me see if I can hear the baby’s heartbeat,’ she said. She moved the transducer around Palma’s stomach and a racing thump filled the air.
‘There we go,’ said the midwife.
‘Oh, thank God,’ said Palma and laughed with relief.
‘I think, to be on the safe side, we’ll bring your next scan forwards so we can check everything’s okay.’
‘The last scan was fine though, wasn’t it?’ Palma asked.
‘It was, but there’s things on the twenty-week scan that wouldn’t show up on the twelve-week one,’ said the midwife. ‘The anomaly scan picks up a lot more detail that can’t be seen until the baby is at least eighteen weeks old.’
‘Should I be concerned?’ Palma asked.
‘Never worry until you have to has always been my motto,’ said the midwife.
Chapter 42
‘Look at our baby,’ yelled Jacques as Vita the sonographer twisted the screen around. ‘I can’t believe it. Look how he’s grown.’
‘Do we still want to know what sex it is?’ Eve checked with him.
‘Yes, let’s ask, Eve. I want to know.’
‘So do I.’
‘Sure?’ asked Vita, waiting for them to confirm. ‘Okay . . . it’s a boy.’
‘A son.’ The word felt beautiful and sweet in Eve’s mouth. She didn’t mind if it was a girl or a boy, but now she knew it was the latter, she was as delighted as if it had been her first choice. She had a vision of Jacques carrying him on his wide, high shoulders and travelling on the wayward Winterworld train, trying not to fall off. A son. Now she could buy blue things and decorate the nursery. Sod the PC brigade, it was going to be full of planes, trains and automobiles.
‘Everything okay?’ asked Eve.
‘It all looks grand to me,’ said Vita. ‘I am very thorough.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jacques, grabbing Vita’s hand and shaking it as if she had built the baby herself and was receiving a quality control award for it.
‘My pleasure,’ said Vita, chuckling. She handed Jacques the scan photographs and then swiped the gel from Eve’s stomach.
Jacques waited outside the toilet, thankfully only a few strides from the sonographer’s room.
‘Nice wee?’ he asked as his wife emerged.
‘The best,’ said Eve. ‘I think if I ever feel depressed in future, I’m going to fill up my bladder until it nearly bursts and then enjoy the sensation of letting it go. It’s euphoric.’
‘I don’t want to go straight back to work, let’s go and have a nice coffee somewhere. And cake.’ Jacques’ face lit up with boyish glee at his own suggestion.
‘I’m good with that,’ said Eve. ‘I might as well enjoy being fat.’
‘We can talk about names now we know. What do you think about Jacques Junior?’
‘Top of the list,’ Eve nodded.
‘Really? I thought you’d laugh me out of town.’
‘I love the name Jacques,’ said Eve. ‘And if he turns out to be half the man his father is, I’ll be happy with that.’
Jacques crooked his arm for her to take.
‘A son,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to meet him.’
Neither can I, thought Eve. She couldn’t get her head around the fact that she was carrying something that could hear her heart beat from the inside. It was both scary and wonderful. If they’d waited for the ‘right time’ they might never have found it. Thank goodness, it had found them instead.
*
Someone knocked on Palma’s door that evening – a chirpy ‘Tommy knock’, even though he was training and she wasn’t expecting him. He didn’t come straight in as usual which made her wonder if he was carrying a big bunch of flowers and his hands were too full to open the door. He’d bought her a lot of flowers since they’d been a couple. She’d laughed once that her little house looked like the waiting room in the crematorium.
She pulled the door open and her glad expression dulled because it wasn’t Tommy, it was Nicole standing there with her yellowing smile and long lank hair.
‘Hello, pal,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling in to see you.’ She took a step forward but Palma didn’t move aside to let her in, leading Nicole to shuffle awkwardly back again.
‘I’m expecting someone, Nicole,’ said Palma, overriding her naturally polite inclination to invite her in.
‘I just thought I’d say hello. I caught the bus up. Bit chilly today, innit.’
It wasn’t chilly. It was a lovely summer evening. The first day of August – Yorkshire Day – and the sun had shone on them all day. Cool to someone who had screwed up their system with drugs maybe.
‘Nicole, I don’t have any money to lend you,’ said Palma. She was under no illusion why Nicole would have caught a bus up here. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Our Jaz came to the cracker place for a job. She recognised you. She didn’t want to say who she was in case you felt obliged. She should have though, because she didn’t get it.’ She chuckled and Palma saw that she’d lost a tooth, second from the front. She’d have none left in five years. ‘Mind you, she says she was nearly sick on all the crackers.’
The hungover girl. Palma had thought she recognised her. Nicole’s younger half-sister.
‘She goes out with a lad who lives round here. She’s seen you in the Chinese around the corner.’
It was that easy to find someone with a morsel of fortunate timing, thought Palma. ‘I don’t want to trouble you,’ said Nicole. ‘I’m in a bit of shit, Palma.’ And she wiped at her eyes which were spilling out real tears; but then again, knowing Nicole, she’d probably put an onion up her sleeve. Despite her strongest reservations and everything that looked out for Palma screaming at her, ‘DO NOT LET HER OVER YOUR THRESHOLD’, Palma moved aside and said, ‘You’d better come in.’
‘Ta.’ Meekly, Nicole stepped inside the tiny lounge. She brightened immediately.
‘Oh, this is nice. Much nicer than Beckett Street. How much do you pay for all this?’
She sat down on Palma’s couch and gazed in wonder around her, much the same as Palma had gazed in wonder at Tommy’s house when she’d first walked in there, except she hadn’t been casing the joint for stuff to nick. ‘Is this the same furniture you had before? It seems more comfortable in here. Is it expensive living here?’ The same question, reworded.
‘So what’s up?’ asked Palma, avoiding answering her.
‘I’m pregnant,’ said Nicole. She gave a watery smile. ‘You don’t need to ask whose it is.’
Palma closed her eyes and shook her head. Clint had at least six kids that she knew of and he took responsibility for none. Which was lucky for them really.
‘Are you joking?’ said Palma.
‘Why? You’ve not done so bad,’ returned Nicole.
Palma laughed; she couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m not having a baby to get benefits. I’m having a baby to love and bring up decent. I’m working to provide for us. I won’t just sit on my arse and expect everyone to pay for it. It’s not like having a pet, Nicole.’ Was she really having to explain this to a woman who was twenty-three?
‘But you didn’t get pregnant to do all that. You got pregnant to sell it and get some money,’ said Nicole, ‘so don’t give me that holier-than-thou shit.’
Palma opened up her mouth to counter that but it was the truth. Coming from Nicole’s mouth, what she had done sounded awful, heartless. No soft flesh on those hard bones of words.
‘I’ll be doing my best by this baby, Nicole. It’ll be hard work but I’m not going to be the same sort of mother that mine was. And what the hell are you doing sleeping with Clint O’Gowan?’
Nicole shrugged. ‘Dunno really.’
‘Are you using?’
Nicole shrugged again. ‘You can’t just stop like that.’
Palma almost fell down onto the armchair. ‘You need some proper help, Nicole.’
‘I know,’ said Nicole, with a weary sigh. ‘That’s why I came here. I’ve been reading up on it. I need some vegetables and fruit but I’m skint.’
She needed to read up to find out she should be eating well during pregnancy? That poor, poor little baby. If there even was a baby. Nicole had a capricious relationship with the truth.
‘Clint doesn’t know where you are, but he’s been asking around. Says he wants to talk to you sooner rather than later.’
Palma’s skull prickled. ‘What for?’
‘Dunno. I doubt he’ll come to Dodley though. He was a bit pissed off that he couldn’t ring you. So was I if I’m honest.’ She feigned hurt, but Palma wasn’t taken in. Nicole wasn’t that naïve that she didn’t know their friendship was long gone. All that existed of it were a few tenuous threads of nostalgia that gave Nicole a way in when she wanted a favour.
‘Why wouldn’t he come to Dodley?’ asked Palma.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, Palma, but the Webbs are after him, so he said if I saw you to ask if you’ll ring him.’
The Webbs were another of the ‘families’ in the area and they made the O’Gowans look like the Brady Bunch. There were a few notorious criminal clans in this part of Yorkshire: the Bellfields who were pretty low key these days, but in their heyday were brutal; the Clamps and the Crookes who were mainly rough and skanky rather than dangerous; the O’Gowans who laughably aspired to be the Webbs, but didn’t have the brains to even spell their name – and then the Webbs themselves. They’d risen out of the gutter, loved tailor-made suits and glittery events where they could flash their cash. They had nice houses, classy cars and ‘respectable’ businesses around Maltstone and Higher Hoppleton. They kept their hands clean and paid heavy, nasty people good money to do their dirty work for them. Clint would have been an idiot to cross them, but then he was an idiot. Palma really didn’t want to know the details, but she did take a gram of comfort knowing that Dodley was a no-go zone for him.
‘You’ve changed your hair. Looks nice. Sophisticated,’ Nicole went on. ‘I won’t tell him, if you help me. I need a hundred quid. To sort myself out,’ she said.
‘I haven’t got a hundred quid, Nicole,’ said Palma. ‘I’ve got things to buy for my baby.’
‘A hundred quid and I’ll go,’ said Nicole. ‘I promise. You won’t have to see me again. I don’t think you want to, do you?’ Her expression was set as she looked at her one-time best friend.
‘We’ve chosen different paths, Nicole,’ said Palma. ‘I’ve left Ketherwood. I don’t want it following me here. I don’t even want to hear the name Clint O’Gowan again.’
Nicole sniffed. ‘You always did think you were better than the rest of us.’
Palma wasn’t having that. ‘What, because I didn’t do drugs? Because I didn’t want to shoplift? Because I looked after my stuff? Because I wanted to work and better myself?’
‘Some of us haven’t got a choice,’ spat Nicole.
‘Of course you have,’ countered Palma, with force. ‘My home life was worse than yours. I didn’t say to myself, “Well, I was born in Ketherwood and so I have to live like the worst of them do for the rest of my life.” I wanted more for myself than I had, not less, so yes, of course you’ve got a choice, every bit as much as me.’
‘Nobody paid me to carry a kid for ’em though,’ Nicole sniped.
‘If I hadn’t done it this way, I’d have done it another. It wasn’t how I wanted it to happen, but yes – I took the shortcut whilst it was on offer.’
How had that beautiful girl turned into this, thought Palma. She’d been stunning and funny and clever once. There must be a vestige of the old her that still existed in that scruffy, venal shell and Palma appealed to it. ‘Nicole, please tell me that you’ve got more ambition in you than just to be a single mum opening your legs every time Clint O’Gowan clicks his fingers. Can’t you remember being at school and teachers telling you that you could really make something of yourself? Can’t you remember wanting to open up your own beauty salon or be a WAG?’ She’d been pretty enough to accomplish it too.
Nicole looked suitably sheepish for all of thirty seconds before she asked, ‘So, are you going to let me have it? I need stuff. Vegetables and things. For the baby.’
She was trying to manipulate her, hoping to appeal to her as one caring mum-to-be to another. She probably wasn’t pregnant at all and if she was, Palma didn’t think the baby had much chance of surviving her selfishness. She couldn’t get involved. She wouldn’t be dragged back down the sink.
‘Look, I’m not daft,’ Nicole went on. ‘You don’t want to see me again, I get that. When I walk out of the door, I won’t come back here. I promise. And I won’t tell Clint where you are.’
‘And if I don’t help, you will, is that what you’re saying?’
Nicole’s shoulders jerked. ‘I need . . . things.’
‘Wait there,’ said Palma with a huff. She went into the kitchen and took a soup can out of the cupboard. She’d used the contents and washed it out and it had a hundred and twenty-four pounds in it for emergencies. This could be classed as such. She did it quickly, so that Nicole didn’t have the chance to slip anything into her bag whilst her own back was turned because she couldn’t help herself.
She held out five twenty-pound notes to Nicole.
Nicole’s hand came out slowly, almost in wonder that she’d asked and it had been given.
‘Thanks, Palma. I mean it. And I’m sorry. I feel ashamed.’
‘I hope you do, Nicole. Because that shame might make you reach for better things. Please think about what I’ve said. Get some help.’
‘Have you any change for the bus back? They won’t take a twenty.’
It was laughable, but then again it wasn’t. None of her words had hit home. Nicole lived in the here and now; the future extended only as far as her next fix. Palma went back into the kitchen and scooped all the change out of the coin part of her purse. ‘That’s all I’ve got,’ she said.
‘I hope it goes all right with you and your baby,’ said Nicole at the door. ‘I won’t trouble you again.’ She was gone within a minute of the coins touching her open hand.
Palma felt like crying. She’d been blackmailed, just as she had blackmailed Christian. Not for as much money but the resentment of being dangled on the end of someone else’s string ran as deep. As ye sow shall ye reap. She couldn’t argue with karma when she’d hoped and prayed it existed, even if she had fallen foul of it now.
On Monday, the Daily Trumpet unfortunately reported that Arthur Shafton, who died last month aged 97, was once a famous Sinitta tribute act on the variety club circuit. We would l
ike to point out that Mr Shafton was in fact a Sinatra impersonator. We apologise unreservedly to the family for any distress caused and have made a contribution to a charity of their choosing.
Chapter 43
The next night, at the fourth Christmas Pudding Club meeting, they were discussing drugs – if that wasn’t ironic, thought Palma.
There were a few more loose dresses around today because the ladies of the Christmas Pudding Club were a little more rotund than they were when they’d last met; with one exception. Palma was wearing one of the two pinafores she’d bought, even though it was very baggy, but she wanted to stop anyone marvelling at her flat stomach. She was starting to worry about it now and wished her scan date would hurry up and arrive in the post.
‘You’ll be starting to consider your birth plans very soon,’ said Chloe. ‘All I will say is to keep an open mind, because what you think you want might be something very different to what you will want on the day, when you’re trying to squeeze out what feels like a Nissan Micra. Hands up anyone who doesn’t want any pain relief at all.’ No one did.
‘Well, there’s a first,’ said Sharon, sharing Chloe’s surprised laughter.
‘I want all the drugs they can give me,’ said Fil.
‘And me,’ said Di.
‘I might have a water birth,’ said Cheryl. ‘Especially after we went to that aqua aerobics class last week. I thought it might be nice and relaxing.’
‘I had a water birth,’ said Sharon. ‘And I would highly recommend it. We have two in the labour suite so it’s first come, first served and I was lucky because it was free when I wanted it.’
The Mother of All Christmases Page 23