B002RI919Y EBOK

by Peters, Joe

  Chapter Thirteen

  My Baby

  Three months after I arrived at the squat, on 2 August 1989, Lisa broke the news to me that she thought she was pregnant.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked, too shocked to even be able to take the news in properly.

  ‘Because I’m getting fat,’ she said, pinching her stomach to show me.

  She said it totally casually, as if it was no big deal, but the news hit me like a sledgehammer. I had absolutely not seen it coming. How was it possible that I was going to be a dad? I was still only sixteen years old. Surely that sort of thing only happened to grown men? I knew virtually nothing about the facts of life. Maybe, I reasoned, she was just putting on a bit of weight because of all the drinking she did. We had never even discussed contraception, because I was so naïve I just assumed that girls took care of those sorts of things. She had never suggested we should use a condom or anything, so I had presumed she was on the pill or whatever it was girls did. It was easy to get condoms if you wanted–the authorities were always handing them out to people like us for free.

  Working out the dates, because she said she thought she was about three months gone (although I had no idea how she knew that), it seemed that it had happened almost as soon as we got together. For a fleeting second I even wondered if I could be sure that it was my kid, but that was not a thought I would ever have dared to voice out loud and I dismissed it as ridiculous almost as soon as I thought it. I trusted Lisa completely. I knew she was always honest with me, and everyone else had always told me that she never slept with anyone in the house till I turned up.

  The funny thing was she actually seemed pleased about the prospect of being a mother, which struck me as a bit odd. Did she really think either of us was ready to take on the responsibility of a baby? We couldn’t even support or look after ourselves properly.

  Once I had accepted that it was true and that I really was going to be a father, we worked out that the baby was due to arrive in the last week of January, and it soon became obvious that this was for real. Lisa started doing things like putting my hand on her stomach so that I could feel the baby kicking, just as millions of other proud young mums must have done before. She had me talking to it and singing to it–the whole bit. But actually I didn’t mind, because it brought the two of us even closer together and I was beginning to warm to the idea of having a kid of my own. Maybe it would be a son and I would be able to be as close to him as Dad had been with me. I pictured how I would take him everywhere with me, just as Dad took me, and how I would make sure he always knew I loved him more than anything, just as Dad had always let me know.

  Lisa continued happily drinking and smoking, which began to worry me, because I could imagine all that vodka and smoke going straight into the baby. I didn’t know anything about human biology at all, but I couldn’t believe it was a good idea to live as she did with a kid inside her. She was quite good-natured when I gave her lectures about it and she seemed to appreciate that I was only trying to be a good father and a good partner to her, and that I loved her completely; but it didn’t make her change her ways. I would do anything she asked of me and in return she did promise to try to cut down on the drink and cigarettes, but I guess she was pretty badly addicted and would never have been able to just give up completely.

  Although I didn’t care where I was or what the living conditions were like as long as I was with Lisa, I could see that the squat wasn’t the best place for anyone to bring up a baby and I began to worry about where we should go. Constantly fortified with vodka, Lisa would dismiss all my worries whenever I voiced them, assuring me something would turn up. The volunteers at the outreach centre were unhappy that she wasn’t getting any neonatal care at all. They started sending a midwife round to see us, as Lisa steadfastly refused to go to them.

  As she got bigger and nearer her due date, she started to talk about us leaving the area and getting away from the others to start a new life together as a little family.

  ‘Where do you want to go then?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to go back to where you were brought up?’

  ‘I don’t ever want to go back there,’ she said vehemently, ‘because of my father. You know how I feel about him.’

  I could understand that perfectly, since there was no way I would ever have wanted to go anywhere near any of my family ever again.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘What if we went somewhere completely different?’ she said, her eyes looking unfocused and far away. ‘Like abroad?’

  ‘I ain’t even got a passport,’ I pointed out. ‘I don’t know anything about any other country or any other languages. Do you?’

  ‘What about Cornwall then?’

  That didn’t seem such a mad idea. Although I had no idea where it was, I’d heard a lot of homeless people talking about Cornwall and saying what a nice place it was.

  ‘We could go to Penzance,’ she said. ‘Everyone goes there and apparently there is lots of support for homeless people.’

  When we mentioned this idea to the volunteers at the outreach centre they were surprisingly positive. Maybe they thought we stood a better chance of getting our lives together if we moved away from the squat with all its bad influences. Maybe they thought there was still a chance of saving us from ourselves and from the influence of people like Ben, Jock and Jake. There was one woman volunteer who kept telling me that I shouldn’t be in the squat at all.

  ‘You’re not like the others,’ she would say. ‘You shouldn’t be homeless. You could do something with your life, Joe. It’s not too late. It’s never too late.’

  Although I didn’t really understand what she meant, because I had nowhere else to go, her words stayed in my head and made me feel better about myself; they gave me a slither of hope that one day I would actually be able to make something of my life and that I wouldn’t end up living like the old tramps and alcoholics whom I ran into at the centre and whose company Jock seemed to enjoy so much. I don’t know if that woman ever realized how deeply her kind words affected me, because I doubt if I showed any real response at the time. She even offered to take me in herself if I wanted, but I couldn’t even think of being without Lisa and the lady wasn’t willing to take her in too. Even though to me Lisa was my soulmate, maybe that woman thought she was as much of a bad influence on me as Jock, Ben and Jake.

  Lisa and I enjoyed a nice Christmas in the house as a couple, even though she was getting really big and uncomfortable by then. As the due date came closer, I was increasingly excited at the thought of becoming a dad and inside my head it already felt as if there were three of us in our little family. Lisa had made Ben and Jock share a bit more of the money they were making from the things we stole for them, and despite our drink habits we had managed to save about £200 between us, which we had secreted under a loose floorboard beneath our mattress. We planned to leave for Penzance just before the baby arrived, so that the three of us could start our new life together in Cornwall.

  Early one morning, a few days before we planned to leave, Lisa woke me up.

  ‘I’ve got terrible pains, Joe,’ she said and I could see that she was serious. Her face was a horrible pale colour and she looked drawn and frightened. ‘I can’t feel the baby moving.’

  ‘Maybe it’s asleep,’ I said hopefully. ‘They don’t kick all the time, do they?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right, Joe.’ There was an edge of hysteria in her voice, which was unlike her.

  ‘We’ll go to the outreach centre,’ I said. ‘They’ll know what to do.’

  ‘I don’t think I can move. I’m in fucking agony. I think I might need to call an ambulance.’

  I knew that the others were really nervous about having anyone official coming to the squat, not wanting to draw the authorities’ attention to the fact that we were there or the fact that there was stolen property all over the place waiting to be sold. Once they were in through the door, we reasoned, they would probably be able to find
a way to get us out. I understood that the squat was too good a set-up for too many people for us to endanger it.

  ‘We’ll have to get outside the house before we call,’ I said, and she nodded grimly. If anyone knew the score it was Lisa.

  The moment I pulled back the sleeping bag to help her out we both saw the blood. It was everywhere.

  ‘What have you done to yourself?’ I shouted, panicking. Not understanding what was happening, I was frightened that I was about to lose her and the baby. ‘Have you cut yourself?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ She looked deathly pale and shocked. ‘It’s coming from inside me.’

  I held her up and helped her to pull on some warm clothes, but the blood just kept on flowing, soaking into everything as she gripped her stomach, snapping and snarling at me as the pains dug in. She was used to being the one who made the decisions and she didn’t like me telling her what to do. I didn’t take it personally; I could see this was serious and I just had to keep going in order to get help. The squat was only two streets away from the outreach centre, but it felt like a hundred miles as I tried to coax her to take one more step at a time. One minute she was crying out from the pain, the next she was shouting abuse at me as I encouraged her to keep going. Her trousers were soaked with blood.

  Passers-by kept asking if she was all right, but I couldn’t cope with any interference. I had to concentrate on her and the baby, and I just told everyone to fuck off and leave us alone. I couldn’t think what else to do and it seemed to me as if they were all trying to interfere and slow us down; I was afraid that I was in danger of losing Lisa and my baby, and in my panic these people seemed to be making the situation worse. I didn’t trust any of them. I didn’t know if this was what was meant to happen during a birth or if it was all going terribly wrong. I just wanted to find some familiar faces to help us. I wanted someone I trusted to tell me what I should do next, to stop Lisa’s pain and bring my child safely into the world.

  After what seemed like an age we reached the door of the centre. The moment the workers saw us they dialled for an ambulance and tried to calm both of us down while we waited for it for arrive. Lisa was wide eyed with fear and panting from the pain, while I was just shouting and cursing at everyone, unable to understand why everything seemed to be taking so long.

  When the ambulance got there, they lifted Lisa in on her own and wouldn’t let me follow. I didn’t know what they were doing to her as I paced around outside, but eventually they managed to calm her screams and one of the paramedics stuck her head out the back.

  ‘So,’ she said, looking at me, ‘who are you?’

  ‘I’m her partner.’

  ‘Right. Get in.’

  I scrambled in and sat down beside Lisa, who was lying stretched out on a bed. The ambulance started to move and I felt better knowing we were on our way to the hospital. They must have done something for her pain because she was quieter and not writhing around any more. The sirens were clearing the traffic to get us there quickly. We were no longer on our own; the grown-ups had come to our rescue. It felt as if we were quite important because our baby was being born and the whole world was having to get out of our way. From being a nightmare a few minutes before it now started to feel like an adventure. I wasn’t even seventeen yet and I was racing around town in an ambulance, about to become a proud father.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, lovey,’ the paramedic who was sitting with us told me.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t understand why she needed to say that. We were just having a baby, weren’t we? It was the most natural thing in the world, wasn’t it? She must have been able to see that I had no real grasp of what was going on. She probably had me down as being a bit simple.

  They drove us straight to the maternity section and the staff were at the doors, waiting to rush Lisa straight in. I was impressed by the way it was all working. Did all babies get this VIP treatment, I wondered? A nurse gently but firmly stopped me from following the trolley and I was ushered into a little waiting room, where a few other expectant or new fathers were sitting around, looking either proud or anxious. I felt much better now, though I was still nervous about how the birth was progressing and about the pain that I guessed Lisa was going through, wanting to be with her but assuming that this was the way things were done. I was just like these other young dads-to-be, I told myself as I settled down to wait as patiently as possible for news.

  I listened to the other fathers coming and going and talking about their babies and I became more and more excited about the idea of holding my own child in my arms in a few hours’ time, imagining how I was going to bond with it in the coming years. I was determined to be as good a father as my dad had been to me. My child was going to be someone I could love and who would love me, and I would be able to bring him or her up properly, not as I had been brought up after Dad was taken away from me. It might have had a bit of a bad start in life but I was going to do everything in my power to give my baby a good life from now on.

  ‘Mr Peters?’ A young doctor had come into the room and was looking for me.

  ‘Yes?’ I sprang eagerly to my feet.

  ‘Can we have a word? Would you come into the office?’

  Deep inside I felt a stirring of disquiet. The tone of the doctor’s voice wasn’t what I would expect from someone about to break the news that I was a proud father. I could see that the expressions on the faces of the other members of staff were all wrong, but I clung on to my dream as I followed him into the office, as if trying to will him into giving me good news. He shut the door behind me.

  ‘I’ve got some bad news,’ he said. ‘You need to sit down.’

  ‘Just tell me. Where’s Lisa? I want to see Lisa.’

  ‘All in good time, Joe. Please sit down.’

  ‘Just fucking tell me!’ I shouted, all my dreams draining away to be replaced by a terrible feeling of dread.

  ‘Your baby has died.’

  ‘How can it have died?’ I didn’t get it. ‘Is it out?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it isn’t out. We presume that the cord has got wrapped round its neck and strangled it.’

  Nothing he was saying made any sense to me. What cord was he talking about? How could a baby be strangled before it had even taken its first breath? Why was it still inside her? I didn’t get it. I just wanted to see Lisa. I wanted to understand what was happening. I wanted to comfort her, to make things right, to show the doctor that he had got it all wrong.

  He must have realized that I had no idea what he was talking about and he tried to explain what had happened, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe him. It wasn’t possible that my baby was dead before I had even met it. Eventually he gave up trying to make me understand and agreed to take me through to see Lisa. I followed him in a daze, unable to take in anything that was going on around me.

  When I got to her bedside I could see Lisa had been crying. There was still blood everywhere, but the doctors had gone, leaving a midwife holding her hand, trying to calm her. I just wanted to cuddle her and comfort her, but as soon as I bent over her, awkward and unsure what she would want from me, she punched me away.

  ‘Just get out!’ she screamed.

  ‘Why are you being like that?’ I couldn’t understand it. Why didn’t she want me to comfort her?

  ‘Just get out. Get him out.’

  The midwife gently led me away from the bed. I was even more confused now. I didn’t understand anything that was happening. It was as if the whole world had gone mad around me. She led me to a little room on my own and sat me down.

  ‘Stay here for a moment,’ she said, ‘while we try to calm Lisa down.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want to know what’s going on. She’s still got the baby in her. So it can’t be dead. What’s going on?’

  All the fear and distrust that had lived inside me through my childhood rose to the surface. It felt as if everyone was lying to me and trying to get rid of me, and I didn’t know what t
o do about it. A few minutes later a lady counsellor came in to talk to me. I think the doctor must have warned her that I was a bit backward for my age because she started to explain everything to me in very simple terms, as if she was talking to a child rather than a man. She explained that my baby was in Heaven, but that didn’t seem right because I knew it was still in Lisa’s womb. I concentrated as hard as I could on her words and as I began to understand what had happened my anger turned into an unbearable sadness and the tears began to flow. It dawned on me that I had lost my baby and I now understood that Lisa was still going to have to go through the process of giving birth. I kept asking to go and see her, but they told me she didn’t want anything to do with me at the moment. They tried to explain how she was feeling and that those feelings would pass eventually.

  It seemed to me that yet again God had decided to take something precious away from me. Just as He had taken away my father and then my childhood, now He had taken my baby and it felt as if I was losing Lisa as well. Why did I keep having to be punished? What had I done to make Him so angry with me?

  The counsellor had been talking to Lisa as well and told me she had explained to her that I was grieving too. Eventually Lisa said she was willing to see me and for a short time she seemed to soften her attitude towards me. Maybe they had given her some medication to calm her down. I felt better when I was with her, telling myself that whatever happened, at least we still had each other.

  Late that night they induced the birth and Lisa agreed to let me be in the delivery room with her so that I could go through the birth process too. The counsellor said that would be important for me. The pain of the contractions must have been terrible and all I could do was hold Lisa’s hand and try to think of something to say that might bring her some comfort. As the pain built up, she flew into a rage and screamed at me to get out of the room, saying it was all my fault, grabbing my hair as I leant forward and biting me. The counsellor was there too, trying to reason with her and put my point of view, saying that we needed to be together for the birth of our child, but I was beginning to think that maybe Lisa was right: maybe it was all my fault.