First of the Last Chances

by Sophie Hannah

  (from New Pregnancy and Birth Book by Dr Miriam Stoppard)

  Ideally your floors should not be carpeted but tiled.

  A brightly coloured nursery will stimulate your child.

  Do not eat soft-boiled eggs, smoke crack, fellate infected men

  But tell your partner how you feel (see diagram, page ten).

  You’re bored and restless? Now is not the time to fly to China

  Or to let friends with litter trays blow air up your vagina.

  Make sure your fitness trainer is aware of your condition.

  Remember, you must check your teeth and call that electrician

  And every time you raise a glass or lift a fork, please think

  Is this the very best thing for your child to eat or drink?

  Once-a-month treats – a slice of cake – will not do any harm

  But don’t lick lambing ewes or stick syringes in your arm.

  Quite often pregnancies go wrong, and when they do, that’s sad.

  It sometimes happens if you’re stressed or pregnant by your dad

  But eat your folic acid and next time a thin blue line

  Appears, relax. Think positive. Most likely you’ll be fine.

  Try not to feel too daunted by this barrage of advice.

  It really doesn’t matter if you slip up once or twice –

  Eat the wrong cheese, go on the game. It’s not all doom and gloom:

  Never again will baby be as safe as in your womb.

  Now and Then

  ‘Now that I’m fifty-seven,’

  My mother used to say,

  ‘Why should I waste a minute?

  Why should I waste a day

  Doing the things I ought to

  Simply because I should?

  Now that I’m fifty-seven

  I’m done with that for good.’

  But now and then I’d catch her

  Trapped in some thankless chore

  Just as she might have been at

  Fifty-three or fifty-four

  And I would want to say to her

  (And have to bite my tongue)

  That if you mean to learn a skill

  It’s well worth starting young

  And so, to make sure I’m in time

  For fifty, I’ve begun

  To do exactly as I please

  Now that I’m thirty-one.

  Healing Powers

  My foot is blue and bloated.

  The swelling won’t go down.

  My limp is duly noted

  As I hobble through the town.

  I pass a Reiki master.

  Of course! I should have put

  The two together faster:

  Healing powers, my foot.

  I take my sore size seven

  And place it in his hands.

  It’s ten now. By eleven

  I’ll be sprinting to the sands.

  I ponder such remission.

  My tears, like magic, dry.

  Pure chance or superstition?

  Healing powers, my eye.

  My walking looks much better –

  I jump, I jog, I hike,

  Reluctant to upset a

  Reiki master whom I like

  But the pain is most dismaying

  And I must confess, I put

  New conviction in the saying:

  Healing powers, my foot.

  Homeopathy

  She told me negativity was bad.

  I said it wasn’t, not the kind I had.

  She told me that the people I resent

  will have their own accounts of each event.

  She said it wasn’t up to me to judge

  and that I should examine every grudge

  and ask myself if those I cannot stand

  are those who hold a mirror in each hand

  reflecting back to me the awful fact

  of who I am, unwelcome and exact.

  She said there was no need to feel a threat.

  I said suspicion was my safety net.

  I’d allow harmless men misunderstood

  if she’d allow the opposite of good.

  Of course, she said, malevolence exists.

  Respond with anger, though, and it persists

  whereas apply benevolence like balm

  and often you can soothe the rash of harm.

  I did not feel my interests would be served

  by spreading peace where it was not deserved.

  What about standards, justice, right and wrong?

  She said our meeting had gone on too long

  and that the remedy that she’d prescribed

  right from the start, if properly imbibed,

  erodes those thoughts that play a harmful role

  leaving what’s beneficial to the whole

  person (in this case, me). If this is true

  then since I did just what she told me to –

  taking my medicine, the right amount

  at the right time – surely she can’t discount

  the feelings that remain. She should concede

  that these must be exactly what I need

  and that my grudge, impassive and immense,

  is good for me, in a holistic sense.

  I proved my point like a triumphant kid.

  She laughed a lot. I gave her sixty quid.

  Your Turn Next

  You don’t know where he’s been.

  You only saw him in a magazine,

  don’t know what kind of life he’s had,

  whether he’s manic, violent, a fad.

  You don’t know where he went

  after the club, the sort of things he spent

  his pocket money on, the bit

  of trouble he was in. You don’t know shit.

  He is a scrap of text

  to you. He is the words it’s your turn next,

  deal of the week, the longed-for link

  between you and the thoughts you failed to think.

  You don’t know what he means –

  philanthropy or company or genes.

  Can he play tennis? How’s his serve?

  Are you what he will grow up to deserve?

  Seventeen years from now,

  after too many lagers and a row,

  I’ll turn up. Yes in your backyard.

  It’s your turn next, so take it. Take it hard.

  You misconstrue his tone.

  You cannot seem to reach him on the phone.

  He swore those plants were watercress.

  He is a stranger and you want him less,

  a psycho boy. A lout.

  You don’t remember, as you throw me out,

  that, give or take a wait and see,

  I’m only saying what you said to me.

  To a Certain Person

  If one day I should find myself in pain,

  In a predicament or in distress,

  There’s something you can do for me: refrain

  From digging out my number and address.

  Don’t send your sympathy or kind regards.

  Don’t send your cash (as if you ever would),

  Nor are your presents, telegrams and cards

  Evidence that you wish me all things good.

  You will profess to want to help. Then do –

  A burst of honesty might make me smile.

  Tell me that you believe I’m overdue

  This, if not even more severe a trial.

  Indulge yourself: applaud, rejoice, enthuse

  And maybe soon I’ll have some more bad news.

  0208

  Instead of telephoning every place

  that is connected in your mind to me

  and then concluding I am hard to trace

  when Jill at my recruitment agency,

  despite your cloth shoes and your honest face

  and all the charm with which you plead your case,

  explains the rule (quite proper, you agree)

  of client confidentiality,
/>   why not pursue some of those little scraps

  of paper where my number’s scrawled in pen?

  They can’t have travelled far, unless perhaps

  you’ve been to the North Pole and back again.

  Look in the pockets of your shirts, the gaps

  between your piles of books, shake out the maps

  stuffed in your glove compartment. Businessmen

  ask for a card; you’ve taken nine or ten.

  In many botched attempts to be discreet,

  you hide my number where it can’t be found

  even by you, which strikes me more as sweet

  than irritating. On the underground,

  at King’s Cross, Ealing Broadway, Warren Street,

  commuters shake it daily from their feet.

  The way you must have scattered it around

  defeats your object. One day it is bound

  to fall unbidden from a jacket sleeve

  not at a moment you or I would choose.

  Lies will be called for, harder to believe

  when the same number tumbles from your shoes.

  This doesn’t worry you. You’re so naïve,

  but all I know is, each time you retrieve

  the number you perpetually lose

  it is a minor triumph, front page news.

  You tell me I’m elusive, and your tone

  Is that of hunter after catching prey,

  sort of Aha, I’ve got you on the phone,

  I’ve tracked you down, you’ll never get away.

  Thank you for the initiative you’ve shown.

  Long may your absent-mindedness postpone

  and your continued scattiness delay

  the wind that carries novelties away.

  Leave

  Look at the street lights in the square

  That should project an orange sky,

  Then note the darkness everywhere.

  They do not work, and nor do I.

  This television, lost at sea,

  Emits an endless, wordless roar.

  It needs to be replaced. Like me,

  It is not working any more.

  The sunken car beside the road

  Whose hazards blink that extra mile

  Wants nothing more than to be towed.

  It won’t be working for a while.

  Neither will I. You mustn’t mind

  Or take offence if I suggest

  You learn the art of being kind

  To everything that needs a rest.

  Notice the fifteen forty-nine

  Never quite makes it out of sight.

  There is a problem with the line

  So it returns. I also might.

  Ante-Natal

  My husband doesn’t want to hold the plastic pelvis model.

  He tells the other husbands that it’s bound to be a doddle.

  He thinks the role of classes is to teach, not mollycoddle.

  He’ll go so far, but not an inch beyond.

  My husband is afraid of meeting women called Magenta,

  Of sharing wholesome snacks outside the Early Learning Centre,

  Of any exercise that’s an incontinence preventor.

  He’s friendly but determined not to bond.

  My husband listens to my fear, tells me to overcome it,

  Changes the subject to the Davos Economic Summit,

  Decides that if there’s pain he’ll simply ask the nurse to numb it.

  He says he doesn’t think it sounds that bad.

  My husband mocks the books with their advice about nutrition,

  He shocks the other couples in the coffee intermission

  By saying Ziggy Marley seems in pretty good condition

  Despite the smoking habits of his dad.

  My husband doesn’t care if I’m a leaner or a squatter,

  Says pregnancy is no excuse for reading Harry Potter.

  He isn’t keen on Stephanie or Amos or Carlotta.

  Leave it to him; he named our latest car.

  On Father’s Day my husband gets a card he’s not expecting.

  I say it’s from the baby, with a little redirecting.

  He doesn’t blame my hormones or insist that I’m projecting.

  He tells me he’s the father of a star.

  On Westminster Bridge

  I don’t believe the building of a bridge

  Should be an image that belongs to peace.

  Raised eyebrow or the river’s hardened ridge,

  It wouldn’t want hostilities to cease.

  Aloof, on tiptoes, it deserts each side

  For the high ground and, though it has to touch

  Land that real lives have made undignified,

  I don’t believe it likes that very much.

  It knows that every time we try to cross

  To a new place, old grudges bind our feet.

  It holds out little hope and feels no loss,

  Indifferent more than neutral, when we meet

  Halfway to transfer ownership of blame,

  Then both of us go back the way we came.

  Ballade of the Rift

  Two enemies at once I lost.

  It was a heavy price to pay.

  I thought that I could bear the cost

  Of an impromptu mercy day.

  Now I’m invited out to play

  And find I feel distinctly miffed

  With no fracas, no feud, no fray;

  I yearn to instigate a rift.

  Wildly and wantonly I tossed

  My horde of grievances away.

  Above my inner ice and frost

  I forged the sun’s most radiant ray,

  Now, with its heaps of UVA,

  Summer’s a burden, not a gift.

  I miss the grime, the grot, the grey.

  I yearn to instigate a rift.

  I rue the day I blithely glossed

  Over my foes’ misdeeds, while they

  Try not to boss where once they bossed,

  Promise to honour and obey.

  To look for peers among one’s prey

  Requires too great a mental shift,

  And as they wheedle, cringe and bray

  I yearn to instigate a rift.

  Preachers and shrinks and healers say

  Forgiveness gives the heart a lift –

  Good on them. Be that as it may

  I yearn to instigate a rift.

  Wedding Poem

  for Rachel and Ian

  Marriage’s rather grand accommodation

  Can make a budding love succeed or fail.

  We stumble in and ask for information

  Regarding all the properties for sale

  And marriage is the price-on-application

  Castle with grounds, moat, lake and nature trail.

  Some kid themselves and think they can afford it

  And when their love runs out it’s repossessed

  While others, who do better in love’s audit

  And whose allegiances deserve the best

  Because they are the best, those ones can lord it

  Over the squabbling and half-hearted rest.

  Today the castle has its rightful buyer,

  Its asking price, and it will not be trumped

  Because the bidding can’t go any higher;

  This is a love that will not be gazumped

  By any other applicant, hard-trier

  Or any living heart that ever thumped.

  Marriage is love’s new house. Love has invested

  Its savings wisely, bought the place outright.

  It has had several flats, and it has rested

  Its head in many a hotel and campsite.

  This is the best of all the homes it’s tested.

  This is where it will sleep now, every night.

  Royal Wedding Poem

  This poem was commissioned by the Daily Mail, to commemorate the marriage of Prince Edward and Sophie Rees-Jones. It was never printed.

 
I have attended weddings in the past

  Where I’m the only person in the room

  To harbour an intransigent and vast

  Landmass of spite towards the bride and groom.

  I have attended weddings with my coat

  Buttoned against the hot, ecstatic horde

  Throughout the service, wearing a remote

  Glaze to appear above it all and bored.

  At last, a marriage I can celebrate:

  No choruses of ‘Oh, you have to come!’,

  No one I liked once but have grown to hate

  But must make small-talk with to please my mum.

  Weddings involving nobody one knows –

  What a good plan. I’ll vote for more of those.

  GODISNOWHERE (Now Read Again)

  Sign outside a Bradford church

  Go, Di. Snow here.

  (as read by a woman called Diane who is contemplating booking a holiday somewhere hot)

  Go dis now her E.

  (as read by a concerned father who is hoping to persuade his teenage daughter to stop taking drugs by appealing to her in a more contemporary dialect)

  God is now? Here? Now? Read again.

  (as read by a philosopher who, on finding himself unable to settle the question of whether the concept of an almighty is a temporal or a spatial one, decides he needs to do more research)