We didn’t see each other for a long time after that. After a month or two, I heard that he’d started dating one of my friends. I was hurt. Not because I wanted him for myself, but because he seemed to be carrying on with his life as if nothing had happened. As if he didn’t have a child coming into the world, one who would need his love and care and protection. As if the tiny baby I already loved so fiercely didn’t exist. I was also hurt because I seemed to be the last to know. Everybody else had known for ages and had hidden it from me, maybe to keep me from getting upset. I felt very alone when I found out, as if I’d been left behind while everyone else moved on, relieved that I wasn’t their problem anymore.
David dating his new girlfriend really threw me. It came at a time that I’d just begun to find my feet again. As the second trimester approached, my body and my mind began to return to normal and I was becoming less unpredictably emotional. I was now looking to the future and I could see it wouldn’t be so bad. But faced with a new emotional upheaval, I lost myself for a little while, there. The strain of not fitting in with anybody anymore overtook me. I might have been depressed, actually. I’d be fine at home, but as soon as I walked onto the school grounds, I’d turn morose, bitchy or tearful. Sometimes all at once.
I remember having a photo taken on the night of the Grade Nine dance. I must have been about twelve weeks then. We were all dressed up, the girls in beautiful dresses and the boys in suits. It was a big night for most of us, and I’d been looking forward to it for a long time. But it was terrible. The difference between me and them had never been clearer. I wandered around alone most of the time, biting the head off anyone who dared speak to me. I shouldn’t have gone at all. I should have stayed at home and repacked my baby clothes instead spthes in. That always made me feel better.
When I saw the photo later, I was shocked. All the others looked so happy, so full of enthusiasm and promise. I just looked miserable, like a girl who had nothing good in her life, one who couldn’t see anything good in the future, either.
I didn’t want to be that person. After the dance, I tried hard to be positive at school. I tried not to take offence at people’s unthinking, insensitive comments. I tried to tell myself it was almost over – just a couple of months, then I’d be free. I’d be able to leave all that behind and get on with my real life.
I first felt my baby kick as I wrote my final Science exam. I sat in the exam room trying to remember the difference between a pipette and a burette, when I felt a funny little butterfly-twinge kind of flutter in my stomach. I dropped my pencil.
Could it be? Nah – surely not. Is that how it’s supposed to feel? I don’t know… but that felt strange. I sat still for ages, hoping it would come again, and just as I’d decided it was my gristly Cornish pasty coming back to haunt me, I felt it again.
This time, there was no mistaking it. My little baby was kicking. He was kicking!
The happiness I felt – well, you can’t really describe it. Feeling that kick meant so many things. It meant he was healthy and on schedule. It meant this was all real. And I think he was telling me to hold on. He wanted me to know this horrible school ordeal was almost over, and then we’d be together.
I couldn’t concentrate properly on the exam after that, but I did okay. I now had a little angel looking out for me. My job was to look after him, and that meant not giving in to despondency or loneliness.
I was ready.
***
The end of that school year was one of the happiest days of my life. I walked out of the gates on the last day and never looked back, not even once. I didn’t see much of my friends over summer, but that was okay. I was just happy to be home with my family, preparing my study routine, finding my way around my new life and making a place in the world for my baby. I suspect I may have been all glowy. Fat, but glowy. Unable to get up out of armchairs on my own, but quite radiant.
I spent hours packing and rearranging baby clothes, trying to imagine the person who’d soon be wearing them. I couldn’t picture what he would look like and my image of him changed every day. Sometimes I thought he was a girl, sometimes I was convinced he was a boy, sometimes with blonde hair, sometimes brown. I dreamed of him too, but I could never see his face properly. The only thing I was sure of was that his eyes would be blue. And they were. If it was a boy, his name would be Ethan. If it was a girl, it would be Britney. Yes, yes, may the God of Ridiculous, Skanky Names strike me down where I stand. Ethan is acceptable, but dear Lord, I confess there will never be any excuse for Britney. In my defence, Britney Spears had not yet been invented – at least there’s that.
Most of my baby things were second-hand, given to me by friends of aunts and aunts of friends, some of whom I’d never even met. I was surprised by how many people were willing to help, I suspect because they felt sorry for me. That bugged me, because I certainly didn’t feel I needed to be pitied. However, since beggars cannot be choosers, if there was free stuff in it for me, I’d make the effort to look a little tragic. A single, silent tear, a bravely quivering lip, a well-timed shoulder-heaving sigh here and there… People like that sort of thing. It’s expected. Just joking!
Really – I was grateful for all the help and care I received from friends, family and perfect strangers. I didn’t mind second-hand. People had shared with me out of love and generosity (and maybe a little smug superiority at times, but I can’t prove it), so what did it matter if some things were a bit old or faded?
The second-hand cot was all set up and awaiting its little passenger. I was so proud of all this paraphernalia. Other moms will understand. It made everything seem more real somehow, even though I still struggled to get my head around the idea sometimes. I’d be getting dressed or shopping or having a shower and suddenly it would hit me that a real little person was in there, a real little person getting ready to come out, to meet the world and check out what kind of mother he’d been saddled with.
I had moments of terror, times when I was paralysed by the thought that there had been a terrible mistake. Whatever gave me the idea that I could be trusted with the life of another human being? Clearly, when they sent this poor child to be looked after by me, somebody up there wasn’t doing their job – I couldn’t even put a nappy on straight, though I’d been practising on dolls for months. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I’d read all the books, but I still didn’t believe I’d be able to figure any of it out once it all became real. I knew, just bloody knew, that I’d be the only mother in the history of the world who’d never figure out which end of the baby was up. Sooner or later, the administrative error would be noticed and corrected, and somebody in authority would swoop down and whisk my poor child off to his proper parents, saving him from a lifetime of saggy nappies and parental idiocy.
I had many such What-The-Hell-Was-I-Thinking moments, but I found obsessive-compulsive reorganising of baby toiletries most beneficial and calming. I’m convinced they put some kind of mood-altering substanceg ong subs in Elizabeth Anne’s baby shampoo – it always made me feel better, no matter how low I was. I know I can’t be the only mother-to-be to sniff enough of it to pass out.
I craved smells rather than food. Besides my Elizabeth Anne’s snorting habit, I also developed a thing for the nostril-melting aroma of subway disinfectant. Hey, some women like pickles and ice-cream – I liked Jeyes Fluid. Nothing wrong with that, is there?
Besides the second-hand goodies, I did have a brand new pram – my pride and joy. My granny bought it. She’d bought the prams for most of her grandchildren, and now she did the same for her first great-grandchild. To be included in her personal little tradition made me happy – I felt like we belonged, my baby and I.
Shopping for the Right Pram is a time-consuming business, but after hours of searching, we eventually found just the thing. I spotted it in a tiny baby shop and I wanted it immediately. It may just as well have drifted down to me on a radiant, gossamer cloud to the glorious accompaniment of angel song. Oh, it was beautiful.
It was a dark-green Posh Baby pram with splashes of cerise pink and buttery yellow. Very nineties. Of course, these days Posh Baby is not so posh anymore – it doesn’t sound nearly Italian enough, and, not being tastefully understated in khaki or navy blue, completely fails in the modern elegance department. But back then, I loved my Poshie. I took it home, then marvelled at it every day. Some things are just special, inanimate or not. I imagined the walks we’d take together along the beach (baby and I, obviously – not just Posh and I, okay? That would have been weird.), visits to the park, playdates with babies as yet unmet. I pictured mothers’ coffee mornings, feeding the ducks, even taking baby to visit my old friends. In my mind’s eye, I could see them fussing over this little novelty, impressed by my maturity, maybe somewhat jealous of my happiness and purpose.
A bit ambitious, probably. Considering that I hardly saw my friends once I’d left school, it was silly to think they’d have time for me and my baby-restricted lifestyle in their busy teenage social calendars. But I was a little stung by how easily they seemed to forget me, as if we hadn’t been friends since primary school. You can’t have everything, I suppose. I had other things on my mind and most of the time it didn’t bother me terribly. I knew it was better that way. I was happy, but occasionally I caught a glimpse of my old life and it was strange that there was no room for me anymore.
Just how far we’d drifted apart became painfully apparent one January afternoon, when I decided to meet my friends at the school gates, just to say hi. I was nearly seven months pregnant then and way past the stage of trying to hide it. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed by my belly – by now it was just part of me, and I was often surprised when I spotted people staring. It always took a couple of seconds to realise what the hell they were gawking at. Ah yes, that would be me.
At the school gate, lots of people came up to say hello. Most were friendly, a few were not. It was nice to see my friends, but af loends, bter the initial hugs hello and some tentative belly-rubbing, we stood around awkwardly, fresh out of anything to say to each other. We waited for a polite interval to elapse before we said our goodbyes and then bolted, all of us relieved. I realised I didn’t want to hang around there any longer. I thought I’d be sad that it was so uncomfortable, but I actually wasn’t. I think I needed to prove to myself that I was okay without them.
That I did, with a little help from a friend. At least, I thought she was a friend. Earlier on in my pregnancy, Cathy was the one who’d chirped so gleefully that I was lucky I didn’t have to do PE anymore, since I had “an illegitimate reason”. Yeah, I know, I should have smacked her. I was so dumb I thought we were laughing together. We were most assuredly not laughing together – not even close. She was having a go at me and I was too stupid to realise it. I shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened next. But I was. Of course I was.
After saying goodbye to my other friends, I walked with her to the car, thinking I’d say hi to her mother. But as we approached the parking area, she started acting nervous, eyes darting back and forth – I thought she was scared of muggers or Nigerian drug dealers or something. Turns out she was just embarrassed to be seen with me.
I spotted her mother’s car and was about to wave, when she squealed, “Quick, out the way before she sees you!” With that, she unceremoniously shoved me behind an oleander bush. Centre of gravity not being what it was, I stumbled and almost fell head first into the traffic. What a barrel of laughs.
I was more shocked than angry at first. Once I’d regained my balance (which took a while), I marched off in a huff and never spoke to her again. I just don’t understand why some people have to be so damn nasty. And I couldn’t believe that a person who’d once called herself my friend would rather have me chewing mouths full of poisonous plant while being driven over by a school bus, than have her mother realise I wasn’t a virgin. I couldn’t fathom what was so bad about me. I was still me, still the same, nice person I’d always been. I just had a really big stomach – visible proof that I’d once had sex. And what did that say about me? As far as I was concerned, all it said was that I’d once had sex. Juicy bit of info, to be sure, but how much did it really matter? It said nothing about how I’m kind to animals and beggars, how much I love my family, how determined I was to be a good mother and make my child proud. Nothing about the person in my head. I just don’t get it.
I mean, how many other girls were bonking anything that moved, merrily and with reckless abandon, but just never got pregnant? Lots. Lots and lots of girls. And boys. The only difference was the lack of tangible evidence (if you didn’t count the stray condom wrappers, often dishevelled clothing and ominous silences from bedrooms – all quite easy to detect if parents didn’t have their heads so far up their butts). So parents could tell themselves this wasn’t true, their children had been brought up better than to screw around and get pregnant. They could paddle around in the muddy waters of Denial, blissfully unaware that their offspring were banging one another like wanton rabbits, but that they had been lucky. So fa unlucky. r. They hadn’t yet spotted the Man-Eating Crocodile of Tragic Teenage Pregnancy floating silently, only its nostrils visible above the water, nor the Raging Hippo of Random Oozy Sexually Transmitted Diseases lurking there in the reeds.
It’s all great fun until someone loses a leg.
***
Picture this. The place: Maintenance Office at local Magistrate’s Court – a nightmare in dusty green-flecked lino and sound-proofed walls. The place existed in a time warp – a pristine example of early-eighties apartheid government institutional crapness.
The players: me, my giant belly (it was around the same time as the Oleander Bush Incident, so I was about seven months pregnant) and my grim-faced parents, David and his even more grim-faced mother, and lastly, an efficient, youngish, curly-haired social worker type.
We were here on a mission of grave consequence – to discuss David’s financial contribution. Maintenance.
If I’d thought the daggers were bad the night we all met… well, I was wrong. There was so much sharp-edged weaponry flying across that room I’m surprised anybody was left standing.
Waiting for our appointment was torture. We all had to sit together on these horrific, wobbly, wooden benches flanking the walls of the passage. Side by side we sat, staring at the walls, at the scuffed, sticky tiles. Staring at anything rather than each other. Somehow, since David and I had broken up, relations between our families had gone from tactful, UN-style civility to full-on, Level One terror alert. I don’t know how it happened, actually. I don’t think David and I even spoke that day, except to say hello. It was all terribly awkward. I wished I could have been anywhere else at all – undergoing anaesthetic-free root canal treatment at the hands of a drunk, Parkinson’s Disease-suffering dentist, for instance. Would have been a treat compared with this agony of bristling, embarrassed silence. The air crackled with dirty looks and bad vibes. As I watched, a fat fly buzzed slowly past us, straight into no-man’s land, where it was struck with the force of five people’s barely contained hostility. Death was instantaneous. The fly didn’t suffer. He just stopped buzzing in mid-air and plopped onto the lino. All that was surprising was that he didn’t burst into flame.
We were eventually called in, and after some uncomfortable musical chairs (You sit… No, really. I insist, you sit down – Somebody, somewhere, must know why there’s always one bum more than chair), we got started. I was surprised when the maintenance lady spoke directly to me, and not to my parents.
“Right, so Tracy, what expenses do you expect to have? What do you need to buy for baby?” she asked. She’d done this before and was treating me no different to any of the other mothers she saw every day.
I was nervous. Didn’t have a clue what to say. “Um… well, I already have most of the big things like a pram and cot and stuff…” I mumbled and stuttered, my cheeks burned – I’ve never been good at being the centre of attention. To be honest, I’d tho
ught she would just give David a number and that would be it.
“Okay, well, what you should do is get a list together, and then we can work from there…” I nodded earnestly, trying not to look like the complete ignoramus that I was.
“Hang on…” David’s mother had something to say. All eyes swivelled to her, David’s face all thunder. He knew what was coming.
“How do we know it’s even his child? We don’t know that for sure”, she said.
Oh my Gawd! Bloody gobsmacked, I was. My flabbers were utterly gasted. Was this woman serious? Why had she never brought this up before? Did she really think I’d been sleeping around? Or was she just trying to find a way out of the money issue?
David snorted in disgust and shook his head. He mumbled something about “being ridiculous”. They’d been through this before, I was sure.
My father may have jumped up and said something like “Now see here lady…”
I just sat there, my mouth hanging open, my cheeks threatening to spontaneously combust. I wanted to cry. I wanted to smack her. But no, I just sat. Maintenance Lady quickly tried to bring some calm and rationality to the situation, to defuse the coming apocalypse before things got too heated and she missed her tea break. I swear, I saw her look at the clock.
“Now, I really don’t think that’s an issue. I mean, we’re talking about a fourteen-year-old girl here,” she said in a reasonable tone of voice. I could have kissed her – I forgave the indiscreet clockwatching, she was, of course, legally entitled to her tea break and I wouldn’t dream of keeping her from it. Suddenly she was my new best friend. She turned to me.
“Tracy, is it David’s child? Are you sure about that?” I guess she had to ask.
“Yes, I’m sure. Of course I’m sure.”
She seemed to accept that and no more was said about it. David’s mother wasn’t happy. She didn’t believe me – okay, not entirely accurate. She didn’t want to believe me, but yes, she knew. Just like David knew, and had tried to convince her. That meant something to me. He didn’t have to speak up against his mother that day. He coed t day. uld have kept quiet and forced me into a paternity test and more complications. But he didn’t. I should remember that more often. It should count for something.
The Girl Who Couldn't Say No: Memoir of a teenage mom Page 7