by Fiona Gibson
The front door opened slowly. Hannah stood on the front step, her face chalk white. “Mum,” she said quietly, “I want you to take me home.”
48
Hannah was silent in the car. She had nothing to say—at least, nothing that could possibly convey the disgust that saturated every cell in her body. She had plonked herself in the back, as if her mother were merely a cab driver and Hannah the passenger, with no blood tie to link them. “I’m sorry,” Jane said levelly, “that you had to find out like that. I was planning to tell you, when the time was right—”
“When would have been the right time?” Hannah glared at the back of her mother’s head.
“When we were alone,” Jane murmured. “Just the two of us. If you hadn’t snuck up your dad’s steps like that…”
“I didn’t sneak anywhere,” Hannah snapped. “I’d come to get some pens from my bag. Me and Dylan were working on…” She tailed off and stared gloomily through the grimy window. What did her mother care about the ideas she and Dylan were working on together? That he’d had an encouraging response from a proper publisher of graphic novels, and a request to see more of his work? None of that would mean a damn thing to someone who was more concerned with having sex—unprotected sex, and after all the cosy little talks her mother had given her—with men she hardly knew.
Of course, it had to be that Conor on the island. Conor who’d been so friendly and attentive with that hyperactive kid who’d rescued Zoë’s shoe. Conor who’d hung around her mother like a bad smell, inviting her to his cottage for dinner. Dinner! Hannah almost laughed at the hideous absurdity of it all. Charming, artsy-fartsy Conor who’d gone and done it with her mother while Hannah was having a full-scale asthma attack. The thought of middle-aged people having sex made her feel like vomiting right here all over the backseat. It was so wrong, so unnecessary, so…what was the word? Inappropriate. That was a word that adults were especially fond of using. The concept of old-people sex was no better than seeing cows doing it in a field.
“Well,” Jane said, her voice fraying a little now, “I wish it hadn’t happened like that. You overhearing, I mean. And I’m sorry.”
Hannah didn’t bother responding to that. Sorry, Han, there’ll soon be baby things strewn all over the house, as if it weren’t a shabby old pigsty already. Sorry—the entire house will stink of sick and nappies and be filled with relentless screaming. Sorry, did you say you were trying to revise for your exams? Babies can’t help crying, you know. And it’s only your GCSE coursework, after all.
God, it would be no better than living at Nippers with the interminable noise and all those kids with snot dangling out of their noses and horrible stinks coming from their bums. “What about him?” she asked bluntly.
“Who?”
“Him. The father. Conor.”
Jane paused.
“How…how’d you know it’s Conor?”
“I’m not stupid,” Hannah snapped. “It was obvious, unless of course there’ve been other men you haven’t mentioned…”
“Of course there haven’t!” Jane snapped.
Hannah glimpsed her mother’s moist eyes in the rearview mirror. “What about Dad?” she challenged. “I heard him, Mum. He said he’d help you bring up the baby and we could be—” her voice wobbled, and she batted at tears with her fingers “—a proper family again.”
“Han, sweetheart, I can’t—”
“Why not?” Hannah yelled. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing!”
“Then why—”
“Please,” her mother said, “let’s stop this. We’ll talk when we get home.”
Hannah gnawed at a fingernail. “So,” she muttered, “have you made up your mind?”
“About what?”
“Whether you’re having the baby.”
“Yes, of course I am.”
“Aren’t you even going discuss it with me?”
Jane signaled right onto Albemarle Road and pulled up abruptly in front of their house. “Hannah,” she said, swinging round to face her, “it’s not something we discuss, like why I need a computer or whether we should get a new TV.”
“Why not?” Something ragged caught in Hannah’s throat.
“Because…it’s not a thing.”
Hannah blinked at her, then flung the door open and marched toward the house. Already she felt stranded and stupid; she couldn’t storm upstairs to her room until her mum had unlocked the door, and right now she was showing no sign of getting out of the damn car. Hannah glowered at a cluster of old men playing boules in the park.
By the time Jane had let them in, and Hannah had flung herself, drained and exhausted, onto her bed, she’d become aware of the sensation of acting a part. It felt creaky, not unlike Ollie’s portrayal of the dentist. She rolled over and sat cross-legged on her bed, wondering what to do next. Glancing up at her shelf, the spine of a book caught her eye. The Glass Heart. Hannah would gather up all the kids’ books that had cluttered her room for too long, and dump them in her mum’s room for the baby. It was the least she could do.
No, she corrected herself, it was all she would do. Her mother had got herself into this, and all Hannah could do was insulate herself from the awfulness of it all. She kneeled up and pulled The Glass Heart from the shelf, flicking it open at a random page.
Broken things, she read, can be fixed so they’re as good or even better than before.
She stared at the delicate illustrations of princesses in pretty dresses. She had never been that sort of girl. Not pretty, despite the gargantuan efforts she’d made with Zoë’s tweezers and eye shadows and ceramic hair irons. Yet she could fix things. She wouldn’t let the minor matter of her mother’s unbearably embarrassing pregnancy ruin her life. Her dad had bought her this book, all those years ago. He hadn’t figured out that she didn’t like princess stories, hadn’t really known her at all. Yet he’d know what to do now. He’d look after her. He couldn’t cook, but neither could her mother so she’d be no worse off. She would live with him in that massive house.
Yes, Hannah thought, sliding The Glass Heart back into its space on the shelf, that’s precisely what she would do.
49
In the months while Jane grew rounder, Nancy had taken up knitting. Miniature sweaters had begun to arrive, with curious lumpy bits and smelling vaguely of sea. “There’s a problem, isn’t there?” Sally said, examining a stripey orange-and-purple hooded sweater with unnecessary toggles on the front.
Jane nodded. They were sitting on her back step in the cool evening sunshine. “I don’t think the baby will need a hooded sweater, even in December. Mum must’ve forgotten it’s warmer down here….”
“You know what I mean,” Sally chided her.
“Of course I do.” She set down her mug and watched a swollen bee drift around the garden. Although she suspected her mother had guessed, Jane was grateful that she hadn’t quizzed her about the baby’s father. Just a fling, she’d told her. And, yes, I’m old enough to know better.
“How can you visit your mum without seeing Conor?” Sally asked.
“She’s planning to come down,” Jane said firmly, “when the baby’s born.” Of course I can’t go there, she thought. On the island there’s nowhere to hide.
“How many weeks to go now?”
“About ten.”
“And Hannah hasn’t said if she’s coming home?”
Jane shook her head. “I thought she’d come back after a couple of weeks, get sick of living in her dad’s place…I thought she’d want to be here, with all her things around her….”
A crow landed on the studio roof and eyed them, brazenly. “You thought she’d want you,” Sally said gently.
“Yes.”
“It’s that Zoë girl,” Sally muttered. “I knew, right from the start, that she was a bad influence….”
“No, Sally, it’s not Zoë. It’s me.”
Jane watched the crow deposit a spectacular splat on the glass wall of her s
tudio, then fly away with a squawk. She was aware of frequent flutters inside, reminders of the baby who had pushed Hannah away. Yet she couldn’t help smiling, when it happened. It was living and growing, despite everything. “Well,” Sally said, “I think you should talk to her….”
“You think I haven’t tried? I’ve taken her out, phoned her, even written to her at Max’s.” She rested her hands on her swollen belly and added, “Sally, I’ve got to accept that there’s nothing else I can do.”
Sally squeezed her hand. “Oh, hon, I wish I could help….”
“It’s fine.” Jane said. “Really.” She didn’t add, as Sally left, that she’d give anything to have Hannah—the old Hannah—back with her now. The Hannah who loved to be held, and would bury herself in Jane’s lap during a scary episode of Doctor Who. She remembered now that, even when she’d started high school, Hannah would occasionally wake from a nightmare and hurtle into her room. Jane would half wake—the way she did now, with the baby’s movements—vaguely aware of her daughter snuggling against her.
These nights, she wanted to drive to Max’s, just to creep into Hannah’s room and see the dark lashes against her pale skin as she slept. Of course, she couldn’t do that. It was too late to make things right. And it was certainly too late to tell Conor—to turn his life with Lewis upside down.
This one she’d have to deal with alone.
Hannah had never noticed so many pregnant women before. Now it seemed as if they were everywhere: lumbering around parks and shops, touching their bellies, wearing vast, unflattering dresses or dungarees. They looked hot and often seemed breathless, as if the baby was pressing upward against their lungs. Her mother wasn’t like that. She’d been even more energetic than usual, and had worn normal clothes until a few weeks ago. Now it was T-shirts, cardis and stretchy skirts. Although it irked Hannah to admit it, pregnancy actually suited her mom. She had more color in her cheeks, her hair looked thick and glossy and she hadn’t gone fat all over like some of those women, who clogged up buses and tube carriages. Yet Hannah still preferred to meet her in the West End, minimizing any chance of being spotted by anyone from school. That would be a step too far.
There were babies, too, babies everywhere Hannah looked. She’d been aware that small people existed—after all, her mother used to look after them—but had never noticed so many around her. Today, as she sat alone on a park bench in the afternoon sunshine, a girl ground to a halt in front of her. She had the sort of frizz-attack hair that looked as if a powerful electrical current had zapped through it. Attached to the girl was one of those old-fashioned prams with a scruffy hood and huge chrome wheels. Inside the pram, judging by the frantic wailing, was a baby.
“It’s okay, darling,” the girl said, scooping the child from its pram and cradling it in her arms. “Mind if I sit here?” she asked, indicating the space beside Hannah.
“No, of course not,” Hannah said, wanting to spring up and escape the baby’s screams but sensing that she should stay put for at least a few polite moments.
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” the girl asked her child. Glancing at her, Hannah realized now that she wasn’t much older than herself. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Surely she hadn’t planned this—to be traipsing through the park with a battered old secondhand pram when she should be—well, doing other stuff.
The girl had lifted her top a few inches and positioned the baby on her breast. Although she couldn’t really see anything, Hannah averted her gaze. Would her mother feed the baby like this, she wondered? Yes, probably. She could imagine her being as earth-mothery as they come.
The baby had stopped crying and looked relaxed and floppy in his blue velvet romper suit. Hannah allowed herself a quick peek. His face was partially tucked under his mother’s top, his pink fingers loosely coiled. Such tiny hands. Last time she’d been to see her mum, she’d glimpsed miniature mittens that granny Nancy had sent from Scotland. They looked like dolls’ gloves. It was amazing, Hannah had thought, that this new person wouldn’t be much bigger than Biffa, that tatty old doll of hers.
“Good boy, let’s get the windy-pops up,” the girl murmured, positioning the baby over her shoulder. He burped loudly and, despite herself, Hannah burst out laughing.
“Does he always do that?” she asked, incredulous.
The girl nodded and smiled. “Yeah. Wouldn’t believe such a big noise could come out of such a small person, would you?”
“No. How old is he, anyway?”
“Three months.”
“What’s it like,” Hannah asked, unable to stop herself, “looking after a baby all the time?”
“Well, my mum helps,” the girl said, kissing the baby’s head and placing him back in the pram. “She’s brilliant with babies. And my boyfriend’s really good, he looks after him while I’m at school….”
School? thought Hannah. How can you be so happy about all of this when you’re still in school? Her own mother flicked into her mind: tall and elegant with her cute little bump, and cursing under her breath when she couldn’t fit the flat-pack cot together. How could she be capable of making beautiful windows, yet be unable to construct a simple cot?
A lump formed in Hannah’s throat, and she gulped it down. She’d never imagined she’d miss her mother so much. “God,” the girl said, checking her watch, “I’d better go. I was meant to meet my boyfriend in the park café five minutes ago.”
“Oh,” Hannah said, feeling faintly disappointed. There was something about the girl that she liked—her cheery manner, her easy way with the child. It made babies seem less scary somehow. After all, the child had been bawling just moments earlier, and she’d satisfied him with a feed. Maybe Hannah’s mum would let her feed the new baby with a bottle sometimes, or let her help in other ways. She thought of the stranger’s child’s tiny fingers, and wondered how her own brother or sister’s would feel, coiled around hers. “He’s a lovely baby,” she added, but the girl was already striding away toward the café.
Hannah didn’t know what made her get up and follow her. Curiosity, probably; she wondered what the boyfriend of this pretty, tired-looking girl might be like—if he’d look as young as she did. She reached the café and peered through the window. The girl was in the queue at the counter, with one hand on the pram’s handle and the other resting on the arm of the boy beside her. Hannah froze for a moment, telling herself that it couldn’t be him, that it just looked like him, and that her vision was misted by the steamy windows. Yet there was no mistaking this boy as he turned and smiled at the girl.
Ollie. A real father now. Before he could spot her staring in, Hannah hurried away.
50
“You shouldn’t be doing this, you know.”
Jane spun round in her studio and peered at the door. She had taken to leaving it open when she worked late. With a few weeks to go now, she craved the cool evening air. “Han?” she murmured.
Hannah stepped into the studio and eyed her mother. “I’m sure you shouldn’t. Work with lead, I mean. Couldn’t it get into your blood through your hands and poison the baby?”
Jane blinked at her, amazed by her daughter’s concern. “I wear gloves. Look.” She showed her hands, which were tightly encased in beige-colored latex.
“Very attractive.”
A smile tweaked Jane’s lips. “What are you doing here, Han? It’s gone midnight…”
“I thought about it—what you’re doing. Looked it up on Dylan’s computer. All this scary stuff about old, lead-based paint when you’re pregnant. I thought, what about Mum, getting that stuff all over her hands every day?”
“Thanks,” Jane said, “but I’ll be okay.”
“Maybe you should get a mask,” Hannah added, perching on the edge of Jane’s workbench. “You shouldn’t take any risks.” She paused. “I could help you. You could still do the designing and glass-cutting, but I’d do the lead-cutting and soldering and all that….”
“How could you?” Jane asked.
“Easy.
You showed me everything when I was a kid.”
“I mean time, Han. There’s your studying, your exams…you don’t even live here, remember?”
“I…I could stay here sometimes. Just when you need the help.”
Jane stepped forward and placed her hands on Hannah’s shoulders, conscious of the bump between them. “If you’re sure…”
“Shhh.” Hannah flinched.
“What?” Jane asked, letting her hands drop.
“I heard a noise. There’s something outside.”
Turning slowly, Jane peered through the glass wall to the garden. Something moved among the plants. “A fox,” she whispered. It emerged from the border and pottered across the overgrown lawn, sniffing the ground. Jane followed its movements across the garden to the back door of the house.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Hannah murmured.
Jane laughed, and the noise was enough to send the fox darting across the garden—just a blur now—and disappearing between the slats of the fence. “It wasn’t close enough to tell,” she said.
“No, Mum. The baby.” Hannah indicated the pinboard covered with fabric snippets and Quality Street wrappers and, almost lost among the muddle of color, the monochrome image of Jane’s twelve-week scan.
Jane looked from the scan picture to her daughter. One child who hadn’t yet come into the world. The other who might—just might—be on the verge of returning to her. “I don’t know,” she said. “They didn’t tell me. Anyway, I don’t want to know.”
“Thought of any names?” Hannah asked.
“No,” she said tentatively, “I thought you might be able to help me.”
Hannah frowned, as if trying to conjure up some suggestions. “Where will it sleep?”
“With me for the first few months. I think, though, that we’ll need a bigger place. The offer’s still there on Mum’s house—she wouldn’t even charge us rent—but I don’t think it would feel right, and it’s too far from school….”