by Lucy Hay
Oh God, Sal and Amanda. Their faces swam up in my mind and I felt a sense of dread pierce my heart. What were they going to say? Just three years between us eldest Carmichael girls, yet it might as well be three million. It was always one rule for Sal and Amanda, another for the rest of us. I could never quite work out if those two were Mum’s favourites or if she’d realised that by giving them a wide berth, her life became easier? Sal was fifteen now, ploughing through her GCSEs, but you’d think no girl had ever done exams before. Always, “be quiet, Sal’s studying”; “don’t disturb your sister”; “Sal works very hard.” Sal The Genius. I didn’t remember Mum ever sounding the fanfare for my exams, but then I was doing “creative arts”. Nothing was ever said against them and I was always praised for my efforts, but it was clear there were inverted commas involved: Yes, Lizzie is a good girl but she’s only doing the “creative arts”. And as for Amanda… She did nothing at all, yet somehow managed to opt out of the blame for anything! She limped her way through a handful of GCSEs without even trying. She was now coasting her way through a beauty course at college, but “you know what Amanda’s like.” Yes, not a care in the world because no one puts anything on her. Ever. Why can’t that be me?
Back in the toilets, the acrid stench of urine, stagnant water and old air freshener came rushing in: my time was up. I had to go and face everyone sometime. Resolute, I stood up, grabbing my bag. I undid the lock and walked out of the cubicle towards the sinks. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to throw the tester in the overflowing bin with all the manky hand towels. Instead I undid my college bag and slipped it inside. I looked in the mirror and saw for the first time how puffy and red my eyes were. I’d been crying and hadn’t even known. My eyeshadow had smeared on the left hand side of my cheek where I’d carelessly wiped it. I grab another rough hand towel and wet it, rubbing as hard as I can. The sparkles stayed, but the worst of the smear was gone. It would do. Looking at the aluminium mirror, my face was little more than a blur. I had to peer right in to make out my features, but when I did, I was struck by how young I looked, then realised I was. Just one short week away from eighteen, days away from my A level results. The eve of my adult life, yet here I was: Baby Mama.
How could this have happened? I wasn’t a stupid girl. I knew sex could mean babies, but it was an issue I had never felt I would need to deal with. I had been sure the kind of girls who had babies young were the ones you saw on chat shows, rowing with their equally young partners about the baby’s paternity. They were the type of girls with too much make up and a ton of gold-plated jewellery and sweat pants. There would be a cigarette hanging from their lips, ash falling on the pram as they wheeled it past windows with displays of goods they could never afford. Weren’t they? Suddenly I realised: no. The “type” was anyone who had sex – male or female, age irrelevant – and included me. Why wouldn’t it?
A strange sort of calm settled over me. I couldn’t put this off any longer. I had to do something. I had to go home, tell my parents, tell Mike, even my sisters. Perhaps the eleven year old Shona was right? Perhaps this was one of those moments I couldn’t change. Perhaps this had always been part of my plan. Whether that meant pre-destined or part of the unconscious choices I had made, it didn’t actually matter: it would be there, no matter what I chose to do.
But what next?
SAL
My mobile rang.
The noise pierced the silence inside the toilets and I was filled with a sense of urgency. I simply to answer. A lot of the time I let my phone go to voicemail. I never had any credit, so it formed the perfect excuse, especially when explaining to Mum why I hadn’t come back on time or not done what she’d asked: “Sorry, I didn’t get your message.” Yet now I felt totally unable to let the phone ring. I normally kept my phone in my pocket, but not today. It was at the bottom of my bag. Of course.
I scrabbled about in vain, then chucked the bag on the counter next to the sinks. The light of the LCD reflected off a pencil tin, a book, yet still I was unable to locate it. Then, just as my hand touched the plastic case of the completely non-state of the art phone, it did the inevitable and stopped ringing. I uttered a curse under my breath, grabbing it up anyway, looking at the screen. “MISSED CALL – SAL”. Confusion swirled through my head. What was Sal calling me for? She never called or texted me! She went out of her way to not even speak to me, unless it was to insult me. Whether it was the fact I apparently looked like a tart in a new dress I had saved for, the B that “could have been an A” or just the usual idea I was a complete loser, Sal had all manners of ways of making me feel like crap day in, day out.
But the phone rang in my hand again and there was Sal’s name, flashing. I hesitated. As desperate as I was for some human contact, I was not sure I wanted that first voice to be Sal’s. I could already imagine the curl of her sneering upper lip, the look of contempt on her face as she contemplated me: her big sister, the idiot who got herself knocked up. Inside me, despair turned to anger. Shouldn’t Sal have been looking up to me all these years, instead of seeking to put me down every chance she got… Wasn’t that how little sisters were supposed to work? Why couldn’t I have a normal life! After three or four more rings, I bit the bullet and pressed the green button, pressing the phone to my ear at last.
“Hello.” I said listlessly.
“Finally!” Sal said. “Forgotten how to answer a phone, have you?”
And there was good old familiar Sal, grating on everybody, just by being herself. “I was busy.” I said measuredly, gritting my teeth.
“Join the club.” Sal said, competing with me as always. “I need some note cards for my revision.”
“So?” I said pathetically, knowing full well what she was asking.
“Mum said you would still probably be in town.” Sal replied. Her secret weapon: Mum said, Mum said… Whatever Sal wanted: whether it was note cards for her revision, to say whatever she liked or to eat dinner in her room while the rest of us had to sit at the table, Sal could somehow magically rely on Mum to back her up, even indirectly.
“I don’t have any money.” I said meanly, even though I could feel the clank of loose change in my jacket pocket. I need it for the bus, I justified to myself.
“Are you alright?” Sal said suddenly.
I almost gasped, I was that surprised. I honestly couldn’t remember a time Sal had asked me that question. Always, if I ever felt ill? I was a hypochondriac. If I ever felt sad? I was an idiot. Sal believed all creative people liked to be miserable for the sake of their art, making us all by virtue a bunch of losers. She had exhibited no interest in my work or my subsequent university choice on the same basis. Whenever I tried to talk about my excitement about going, she cut the conversation dead. As far as she was concerned, I would be messing about for three years. So perhaps it was that sense of shock at her actually seeming to care for once, that prompted me to blurt out:
“I’m pregnant.”
There was silence on the other end of the line and for one terrible moment I thought she’d gone to get Mum. My breath caught in my throat and I felt sick. I didn’t want it to come out like this, not over the phone. Why had I just done that? “Are you still there?” I said, with trepidation.
“I’m thinking.” Sal replied tersely.
“What’s there to think about?” My voice cracked; not for the first time that morning, I found myself on the brink of hysteria. “It’s not you it’s happening to, it’s me!” As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. I’d raised my voice. This would give Sal carte blanche to say what she liked, which meant she was sure to rain down the pain in her usual devastating style.
But for once, Sal didn’t. “Where are you?” She said.
“In the marketplace.” I gulped.
“I’m going to get the bus now.” Sal said. “I’ll meet you there, I’ll be as quick as I can.”
And with that, she rang off.
I stood there, staring at the handset. Had that just happened?
Had my little sister – the one who was always at great pains to tell me how much she hated me – just said she was going to lend me her support? Was she really on her way? For the first time that day, a kind of hope pierced my heart. Perhaps I had been wrong all these years… Maybe Sal loved me after all.
I wandered out of the toilets at last and as I predicted, real life hit me full on. The sun was high in the sky, it must have been early afternoon, peak time at Winby market. The hustle and bustle seemed larger than usual, faces looming in on me; the shouts of the traders mingled with the haggling of the customers. The waft of raw meat from the butcher’s stall, fillets packed in ice at the fishmonger’s. Two pitches full of brightly-coloured hippy clothes and bags. An old woman touted for business from her trestle table full of junk: flowerpots, tarnished silver jewellery, old books that smelt mouldy. A Mum timidly pushed her homemade wares: jam, cards and other trinkets, a small child sitting contentedly next to her in his pushchair. I stopped next to the Mum’s stall to look at the child. A little boy of perhaps two years old, he was shaded from the sun, sucking his thumb and clutching a ragged teddy. This boy had been on the market his whole life. He had a little lunch box with robots on and a collection of books and jigsaw puzzles in the tray underneath his pushchair. From the handle bars a nappy bag hung, no doubt filled with whatever else he needed. In-between serving customers, his Mum would give him her attention: squeezing his cheeks, stroking his arm or talking to him. The child would respond with a huge smile, meant just for her.
Watching the two of them together, the turmoil in my mind stopped racing for a few minutes. That Mum had to be just like me: she was creative, but she hadn’t let having a baby stop her. She had followed her dream, making her cards and jam and trinkets and taken baby too. Why couldn’t I do the same? Perhaps I could follow the same path as the Mum in the market. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I could go to university anyway and take my baby with me? Seeing the scene before me made the burgeoning hope inside my heart over Sal grow into something more: I could, surely?
Then Sal arrived. In that astute way of hers, she took one look at me and where my gaze was heading, towards the child. “Not here.” She said.
We walked through the marketplace in silence towards the park: to the broken, graffittied bandstand where the teens congregated every night to drink cider. Back with urban deprivation, seeing the cracked glass in the panes, the vulgarities scrawled in black pen, I felt my optimism for the future dissipate quickly. Even the sight of children beyond the bandstand on the play equipment did little to lift my spirits, for they were there with their own young mothers in sweat pants and bling, the supposed “type” I had always been certain I would never be.
Finally, Sal opened her mouth. “You can’t have it.” She said.
A dreadful sinking feeling heaped itself on me. I could see the truth of Sal’s words. They had been in the back of my mind the whole time, struggling to be heard as I tried to tell myself an alternative route was possible. I was barely eighteen. I had no money and no prospect of making any. Babies were expensive; this child would have nothing. Mike would not want to know, I felt sure of that, deep down. My own family could not support me, for they had no money either. It would be unfair on me, unfair on the child and unfair on my family to follow this through.
Yet still the rebellious heart of my relationship with Sal tried to beat and I attempted to disagree: “I’d manage.” I said.
“On what?” Sal said plaintively.
The question hung in the air like the young mothers’ cigarette smoke. I knew what she was really asking. I knew there was help state available for girls in my position and so did Sal. Our mother had had to utilise the system more than once, especially when our Dad was out of work or on one of his jaunts. Life had been an uphill struggle for her, raising us. But money was available if I could swallow my pride and fill in the forms and live with less, whilst fielding the neverending questions and demands of Social Services. So the real question Sal was asking was, “Did I want the same life as our mother’s?” though neither of us had the guts to say it aloud.
“You’re going to university next month.” Sal said.
“I’d manage.” I repeated, doggedly.
“Everyone would talk about you,” Sal continued, determined. “You’d have no friends, no boyfriends. You’d just be the “pregnant one”. Then for the next two years you’d have a crying baby and studies to do, you’d be all alone.”
“I don’t care.” I whispered.
“You’d have no money and there’s no guarantee when you get out of university you’ll even end up in a job related to your degree. You’ll have loads of debt, but you won’t even be able to pick and choose jobs to get by because you’ll need a babysitter. Bar work will be out, no childminders or nurseries work past six o’ clock. You wouldn’t be able to do weekends…”
“I don’t have to go to university.” I said.
“… You want to go to university.” Sal countered.
There was no real arguing with that. I had been dreaming of going to London for months, years even. Away from the rural backwater where we lived, I really felt my dreams could come true. I had seen the studios at my university, the potter’s wheels, the resources on offer and I wanted them. Desperately. But:
“There are other ways.” I found myself saying, “Maybe I could go later, when the kid’s at school. There was a child on the market, with his Mum, they’re doing fine!”
Then Sal delivered her most devastating blow. “She probably has a husband at home, earning the big bucks.” Sal pointed out. “It’s probably just a hobby to her.”
Pain and disappointment coursed through me. I knew Sal was probably right. But still I couldn’t accept my sister’s words. “I could manage.” I said. Again.
And that was it: compassionate Sal was gone and judgemental Sal returned, eyes blazing. Perhaps from her point of view she felt I was dismissing her good advice, saying it was not good enough. But Sal, despite her large IQ, was still only fifteen. She could not truly understand what I was going through, without having faced the same herself. “So ruin your life.” She declared.
Stung, I watched Sal stalk off, away from the bandstand. I wanted to call her back, but didn’t. Pride would not allow me to back down and resentment flowed through my veins: who did Sal think she was? She’s just a kid. Then with a jolt and a lurching of my stomach, I realised: So am I.
I couldn’t go home right away. Riding on the same bus as Sal, in silence, was just unpalatable. So I wandered blindly back into town, bypassing the market and onto its broken-down old high street. When I had been a small child, I had seen only the sea stretching out bright beyond Winby: the pebbled beach, the donkeys tethered to the promenade railings. On the lampposts of the sea front, coloured bunting was tied and lights flashed and bells rang in the arcades. I had thought I was the luckiest little girl in the world. Living near the seaside was a dream to so many, yet I was living it.
But now, sea gulls soared up from Winby’s old promenade and its ancient neon arcades. They hovered above the faded posters, broken windows, hastily scrawled graffiti. On the seafront, next to the sea wall and the steps up from the beach, The Grange, an old hotel that had once played host to the rich and famous, stood empty, boarded up and sad. When Queen Victoria had been on the throne, Winby had been a luxurious resort; it had been a jewel of the north coast. Now it was decayed and sad, forgotten as Brits went abroad instead on cheap package deals. Undervalued by its locals, most were able only to work during the summer months as its few B&Bs, hotels and family attractions closed down in winter. Everywhere I looked suddenly, I could see the poverty for what it was and I was struck by the knowledge it would never change. Because that was the dichotomy: despite the deprivation, house prices were high as city dwellers descended at weekends and summer holidays, believing all was rosy here, for they never saw the metal shutters go up come winter, or the dead streets of the subsequent ghost town. For every rich family like Shona’s,
tucked away from the “real” Winby on prestigious huge red brick and sandstone estates, there were ten more families like mine, scraping by at best. We were not living our lives at all, but some marketer’s stereotypical dream of seaside living; one only those with money could buy into. The rest were left with the scraps.
I had to get out.
But Sal’s words kept rolling around and around in my head: “You’ll be the pregnant one… You’d be all alone.” I knew I couldn’t leave and take the baby with me. But I couldn’t stay and raise a child in a place like this. I had seen too many people’s potential go to waste here: struggling to get by, never finding enough work, always doing without. The sadness in the women’s eyes, the frustration in the men’s, the unspoken resentment that bubbled under, always, in this place. There was only one answer: Sal was right. I couldn’t have this baby.
Hot tears pricked my eyelids as I stared vacantly into shop windows, looking at my haunted reflection, rather than the goods beyond the glass. I never wanted this! I never wanted to be “that” girl. I remembered a girl called Vanessa in Year Nine at school. One day, halfway through the academic year, she had just disappeared. The rumour machine was of course in full swing before break time, but shreds of truth got through. Vanessa got pregnant by Shane Dawkins, that eighteen year old loser who hung around the school gates, hoping to turn the heads of impressionable thirteen year olds. And turn them he did: with his cigarettes and booze, he must have seemed sophisticated and cool, instead of the paedo he really was. A succession of little girls were used and discarded by him and Vanessa was just one of many. She had gone to him and told him she was pregnant, but he and his crew had just laughed at her, Shona had reported with wide eyes. So Vanessa had gone home and taken twenty five paracetemol and washed them down with half a bottle of vodka. They’d found her just in time, but the baby had died. Vanessa came back at the beginning of year ten, smaller somehow and quieter than she’d ever been before. I found myself feeling sorry for her, but there was a part of me of me that had judged her. How could she have been so stupid? Not just stupid enough to go with a creep like Shane either, but to get pregnant! What an idiot. But now I was pregnant, only I was much older than Vanessa and I hadn’t been taken advantage of. As the eldest child of such a large family, I had seen so many babies brought into the house. I even remembered Sal vaguely, wrapped up in the blue shawl my Nan had made for my Dad when he was just a baby. I recalled the exhausted, elated expression on my mother’s face each time, the proud puffed-up chest of my father. Each time he’d “toast the little lady” and our house would be filled with his many associates, all of them dodgy, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, leaning over the second hand crib and congratulating him on producing yet another girl.