by Lucy Hay
“What’s the matter?” Mum said, suspiciously.
“Nothing.” I said quickly, cursing my moment of weakness. Mum had almost supernatural powers of deduction anyway, without giving her the green light something was wrong!
“Hmmmmmm,” Mum said in that way of hers that means, “I don’t believe a word you say, Missy.” On the other end of the line, I heard the front door slam. “Sal!” Mum was still saying at the end of the line, forgetting she was shouting down the phone right in my ear: “Where the hell have you been?”
Back at home, Sal muttered something belligerent and barely audible. Regardless, Mum wasn’t listening. “Well, stay here and watch the twins, will you?” She said to Sal, then her attention was back to me. “I’m coming to get you.”
“No, there’s no need.” I said panic-struck. “I’m just tired.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lizzie.” Mum declared.
There was no way of getting out of this one, I realised. And did I want to? As harsh as Mum’s reaction might be, I needed someone’s help – and she was my mother after all.
“Fine.” I said testily, still resenting her bulldozer ways. “I’ll come home on the bus right now.”
“You do that.” Mum said, ringing off.
A sense of dread pervaded my every move as I made for the bus. I felt as if I was walking through toffee, the girl condemned. As the vehicle rattled and rolled through the country lanes back to Linwood, I told Mum my news a million times in my head. What was best: “I’m pregnant” or “I’m having a baby”? Which was the least likely to antagonise her? I could see her in my mind’s eye her saying a thousand different words, but all of them accusatory. Why were Mike and I not careful? How could we be so stupid! What were we going to do?
As the bus stopped briefly in Linwood by the old closed down pub, I groaned: Mum had sent Amanda to meet me. Dressed in her uniform of pink tracksuit, denim jacket and white high tops, Amanda’s make up was perfect, not a blonde hair out of place. My sister seemed to believe even in the middle of nowhere a model scout could spot her. Amanda sat in the broken bus shelter, smoking one of her not-so-secret cigarettes. I knew her jacket pockets would be full to bursting with packets of gum; she must have thought Mum was born yesterday. Like so many smokers, Mum despised her own habit and was always at pains to prevent us all from starting, even though she didn’t have the willpower to stop herself. And with Sal, Hannah and I, Mum’s endless lectures had worked. Even if we had been able to stand the smell (after nearly eighteen years of it, I certainly couldn’t), there was no way we were going to voluntarily sign up for more hassle than we needed to. Amanda was Amanda though; she just didn’t give a damn what anyone said, especially Mum. It was like she could tune her out. I wondered how she managed it.
“What’ve you done?” Amanda drawled, popping some gum in her mouth as I got off the bus.
“None of your business.” I retorted.
Amanda shrugged; she didn’t care. “Mum will tell me, anyway.” She said.
We walked in silence across the fields to our house and as our house at the bottom of the valley swam into view, I felt my heart plummet even further in my chest. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to allow my mother to come and fetch me? We could have gone a café or something. There, she would have been forced to listen, because there was one thing Mum hated more than anything else: a scene in public. Always, it was “Don’t cause a scene” or, “Don’t you dare, people are looking!” All of us had enacted a small revenge on Mum at some point in public as a result: eight year old Amanda had sung an expletive-ridden rap song Christmas-carol style, in perfect soprano, whilst bored at a school play. A four year Sal had screamed, “She’s trying to kill me!” as Mum dragged her out of a toy shop. Even do-gooding Hannah had yelled as an under five, “Look Mummy, look! A really fat lady!” as a morbidly obese woman had attempted to board the bus we were all on once. Throughout all of these shenanigans I had seen my mother’s drawstring mouth become even tighter and her face age ten years in a single moment. I could have had a sensible, adult discussion with Mum on neutral ground with her as my captive audience. But home was Mum’s domain. Worse still, I had left her stewing there for forty minutes over what I could possibly be hiding? I was an idiot!
No music was playing as I walked through the front door. That was a bad sign. Mum told me once she only ever turned the radio off when she had “too many thoughts rolling around in her head”. She didn’t like daytime television, so instead there was silence. And cigarette smoke; lots of it. Mum usually made some attempt to smoke outside, hovering on the doorstep of the open back door to the patio, even first thing in the morning in the middle of winter. But not today. The back door was closed and a smoky fug enveloped the room, making my nostrils twitch. Mum was seated in what we girls called her “interrogation mode”: at the table, two packets of Marlboro Red and a lighter at her elbow, countless butts overflowing in the ashtray.
“Go to your room, Amanda.” Mum said, barely looking at her, her gaze fixed on me. Without a word, Amanda shrugged and complied, shooting me a “Good luck!” expression on her way past. No doubt Sal, Hannah and the twins were already in theirs, straining to hear the battle beyond through the cottage’s ultra-thick old walls. Mum pushed a chair out from under the table with her foot and indicated for me to take it. It was not an option to refuse.
“Sit down.” She said.
I could sense the fury in Mum just waiting to unleash itself and for a moment, I really hated her. Had I not been good enough over my near-eighteen years to be given the benefit of the doubt? Had I really been that difficult a daughter? Not for the first time, resentment reared its ugly head as I regarded her. So before she could start on me, I stated baldly and unapologetically: “I’m pregnant.”
I had expected an immediate eruption from Mum. What I got was more akin to deflation, as if someone had abruptly let the air out of her. Whatever she had been thinking during the time it had taken me to get home, it was clear she had not been expecting this. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She took a cigarette out of its packet, but crucially, didn’t light it. The one thing she hated more than the idea of us girls smoking, was smoking whilst or around pregnant women. The only times fresh air circulated our house, unbidden, was when Mum was pregnant. Literally the moment she gave birth however, she was out on the hospital steps having a crafty fag before my father could stop her.
“And Mike’s the father?” She said quietly.
“Of course he is,” I snapped.
“Don’t take that tone with me, lady.” Mum replied automatically. An uncomfortable silence. Mum turned the unlit cigarette around in her fingers, over and over. “When?” She said at last.
“What?” But I knew what she meant. When had this happened, how pregnant was I. I sighed, “I don’t know – two, two and a half weeks ago?”
“Okay.” Mum said, which I thought was strange. How could this be okay? But I said nothing, waiting for her to go on. Mum flicked her Zippo a couple of times and then continued, “… Okay. We can figure this out.”
My heart leapt in my chest at last. She was going to help me. But what did that mean? Even I was unsure what I wanted to do.
“Does Mike know?” Mum said.
“No.” I said.
“Do you want him involved?” Mum demanded.
I hesitated. A part of me inexplicably never wanted to see Mike again, just because it would be simpler that way. Mike had been my boyfriend less than a year, but there was a lot I didn’t like about him and I knew he felt the same way about me. We were parallel opposites, brought together only by the need to have someone hanging off one’s arm at college. Ours was strictly social, no great meeting of minds. Something inside me told me we were not destined to be together and my pregnancy should not keep us together or bind us in time, whatever the outcome. Yet somehow it just seemed wrong to exclude him.
“Yes.” I said finally.
“Okay.” Mum said again, as if getting various thi
ngs straight in her own head, her gaze off in the distance. “Well, I can call the university for you.”
I didn’t understand what she meant at first. Then it dawned on me: Mum was assuming I would have the baby and stay at home. But did I want to? I thought of the other solution: abortion. Just the word made me shudder. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I could feel university falling from my reach, but a small part of me didn’t seem to care. I was surprised: it had been everything to me as little as a few short hours ago. Yet despite this realisation, a part of me burned with a secret anger at Mum for having made the supposition, rather than actually asking me.
“What if I don’t want the baby?” I said coldly.
Mum stopped flicking the Zippo lid, looked me right in the eye. “Don’t you?”
I hesitated. Was I really going to tell my mother I wanted rid of the life inside me, out of sheer willfulness? It seemed foolish, especially when my gut instinct was telling me to hang fire. Ironically, another of my mother’s many catchphrases came back to haunt me right that at that moment, “when in doubt, do without.” But what did that mean: do without making the decision to have an abortion? Or do without the baby? I was confused.
“I don’t know.” I admitted.
Mum’s expression seemed to soften at last and she abandoned the lighter, reaching out across the table, squeezing my hand in her bony one. “I know, darling. It’s scary. I remember it well.” She said quietly.
Of course. Mum had not been much older than I was now when she had me. If anyone knew how to get me through this, Mum did. Though I had always strived to be independent since infancy, rejecting my mother’s warnings and comfort throughout my childhood, I needed her to show me the way now.
Didn’t I?
“It’s all logistics,” Mum was saying, “If you get it right, you can have everything you always wanted, including a little baby. It’s a win-win.”
I was dubious. “But university…” I began. I could see it getting further and further away and if I didn’t make some attempt to snatch it back, wouldn’t I regret it? Mum had always told us, “If you have no money, education is your only hope.” All of us had worked hard at school – okay, all of us except Amanda – but the rest of us had taken Mum at her word! And now she was telling me I should wait? It didn’t make sense.
“Just wait a bit,” Mum said, “There’s no reason you can’t go when the baby starts school.”
“But that’s five years away nearly!” I wailed, a sudden panic washing over me. I felt paralysed. Something unfathomable in me wanted to keep the baby, yet I felt terrified at the prospect of being in limbo while I waited for it to grow up so I could start my life. I felt sure I would wither away and die in the meantime.
“Darling,” Mum said with a smile, “those five years will fly by.”
She seemed so sure. So I found myself telling my sisters my news not even an hour later. As I had predicted, Sal curled her upper lip at me, before returning to her room. But I needn’t have worried about Amanda, who merely shrugged and said, “You got any cravings yet, then?” The ever-effusive Hannah whooped, “I’m going to be an Aunty!” and flung her arms around me. The twins piled on top of us too, laughing and for a moment I forgot my own fears and let myself be swept along with it. A baby in the house. It couldn’t be so bad, could it? Perhaps it really was as simple as Mum said: so what if most people went to university, then had a career, then a baby? I was intelligent, I was hard working. I could bump baby to the top of the list and have the other two later. Having a child did not mean my ambitions and hopes for the future would simply dissipate.
Of course, Dad needed to be told. Mum called him over and he turned up all smiles. It was unusual for Mum to initiate contact, he must have thought he was onto a promise. Knowing him too well, Mum broke the news herself. I was consigned to the bedroom I shared with Amanda. We listened as best we could as we heard my father’s raised voice, a chair go over, just about catching “This is your fault…” and my mother’s profane, incredulous reply. I could just imagine the hurricane downstairs, the vitriol my mother saved just for my Dad: irresponsible. Loser. Weak.
About an hour into the ruckus, Hannah and the twins appeared, all sniffles, trying to be brave. Amanda fetched out her box of treats. She worked a few hours a week in a nail salon as part of her beauty course and like all us Carmichael girls, had a sweet tooth. She’d take the remaining wages she didn’t spend on beauty products to the penny sweet shop in the arcade, saving them all from prying eyes and fingers in a red and white spotted box under the bed. Because she shared a room with me, it had a little padlock on it and the key hung around a chain on her wrist.
“Can’t be too careful, greedy cows in this house grazin’.” She’d say. But today she shared with all of us and it was only Sal who wasn’t present. She’d stopped by at the landing when she’d heard us talking, but when offered the treasured red and white spotted box, Sal had just turned up her nose and walked out, muttering something about us all getting diabetes. “Bitch.” Amanda had called after her, but I’d felt sorry for Sal at that moment. She just wasn’t able to let her guard down, ever; not even with her own family.
A couple of hours later and my name was called from downstairs by my mother. I appeared at the top of the stairs, hesitant, expecting to see my father’s angry face peering up. Yet there was no one, so I crept down, towards the living room. Both my parents stood in the middle of the room. My father’s face was flushed red, my mother’s hair practically standing on end from the stress of the argument. But both were making an attempt to dampen down their real feelings and control their fury with each other, just for me, just for that moment.
“Your father has something to say to you.” My mother said pointedly.
I looked to Dad, expectant. After hearing the commotion downstairs, I wasn’t sure I could believe he would not go off on one at me. And he certainly looked as if he wanted to. But perhaps my mother had shamed him into it, for the many moments of our lives he had missed (or perhaps he had finally realised himself), because instead he simply said: “It’ll all be alright, princess.” We hugged and I let myself believe his and Mum’s words. They were on my side. Everything would be okay now.
Phone calls were made and it wasn’t long before Mike and his own father Francis were seated awkwardly in our front room. Francis was an elderly man; too old to have kept the interest of his much younger wife. Mike’s mother Maria had left home abruptly when Mike was just five years old, arriving from time to time to pick him up and spirit him away with a succession of uncles. A few weeks here; a few months there, but always she would drop him off again eventually with Francis. The excuse was always same, “I just need to sort myself out” and Maria would be all kisses and cuddles, promising her little boy she would return for him. When Mike was ten, Maria came back after a particularly long absence, this time with a new brother for him: James. Far from solidifying the family unit as she had hoped – she was married now, she told Mike on a trip to MacDonald’s – Mike out-and-out rejected her, James and whoever the new husband was, telling her he never wanted to see any of them again. Of course he did (Francis was far too old-school to allow his son to live in the same town as his mother and not see her), but Mike never lived with Maria again, nor James or his stepfather.
A part of me had wanted to cry when Mike had told me that story. It had been a rare moment of intimacy for him. Usually Mike had his guard up like Sal; sure people were coming in at him from either side, just itching to have a go. The hurt on his features was so tangible, he had looked like a little boy in that moment, despite the lip ring and the tattoo on his neck that had nearly given his father a heart attack. I had hated his mother in those moments, but also Mike’s father for allowing it to continue. Mike had needed someone to step in for him, fight his corner, yet Francis had allowed a ten year old boy to make that huge decision! And it was one Mike said he tortured himself over, every day. Should he have forgiven his mother? Was choosing Francis the rig
ht thing? Had he been wrong in not getting to know his own brother? Mike’s life had meant fleeting moments of James’ birthday parties, snatched dinners after school, the odd weekend outing. During these times, the stepfather would affect his jolly laugh and Maria would look adoringly at both her boys, yet Mike would always feel sure she must love James more and he was the outsider. So Mike stalked his way through life angrily, his shoulders hunched, his fists clenched. He was unable to believe anyone could offer anything for its own sake, without an ulterior motive. Though he had let me into his life, I was someone to hang out with, not a real person in my own right; I knew that. Sometimes I caught him looking at me, as if he couldn’t believe I was with him and he was the luckiest lad in the world. But most of the time he reserved the same lack of regard for me as one would a toothbrush, mug or flannel: handy to have, but ultimately disposable.
Now he had been summoned to my parents’ home, with his father, for the ultimate awkward situation in any young lad’s life: what were his intentions towards me and the baby I was carrying? I saw anger and humiliation in Mike’s eyes and most of it was directed at me. You stupid bitch, his eyes said. Hurt and confusion blossomed inside me. I could not have done this on my own! I could accept only half of the blame. I had not forced him to drink all those beers, nor chase them with whiskey, with Ben and the rest of his cronies in The Foc’s’le those few short weeks ago. I had been there as Mike threw up in the pub toilets. I’d stood by and watched and not interfered as Mike had attempted to win the money back he’d lost in the earlier pool game to Ben’s mate Drew. Drew was a new guy we hadn’t seen before, who was keen on confrontation. He had spent the whole night baiting Mike. And Mike couldn’t back down, throwing good money after bad, the argument brewing throughout, ready to erupt and end the night prematurely. I had sunk vodka after vodka waiting for Mike, then run after him when the inevitable fight had broken out that had him ejected from the premises, even though I had secretly thought the whole argument was Mike’s fault. I had been the good girlfriend! And later I had consoled him like good girlfriends do, forgetting only the condoms in his wallet pocket and the notion of “safe sex”, in my own drunken state. But then, so had he.