by Lucy Hay
Despite the unspoken blame game between Mike and I, the supposedly real grown ups droned on about responsibility and plans and contingency measures. Old and pale, Francis looked impossibly frail, his skin and white hair turned yellow with nicotine like the pages of an old book. I knew peripherally Francis could only be in his early seventies – Mike had mentioned it once – which made him barely older than my own grandfather on my mother’s side, whom the twins still called GanGan. GanGan was seventy one years old and strong as an ox, in comparison to Francis who looked as if a puff of wind would blow him over. GanGan lived a life on the move with the army, then as a landscape gardener. He chased after work and like my own father, turned up randomly, sometimes staying a few days, other times a few months. My grandmother had died from breast cancer when my mother was just twelve. GanGan and my mother were the last of their kind and wasn’t difficult to see why my mother had chosen a man like my father: he was the only type of man she had ever known. So if Francis was too elderly to have kept Mike’s mother’s interest, he was far too old to have a son as young as Mike. Listening to the old man, my heart lurched. Word after word, his out-of-date ideas and concepts poured out of him: we needed to think about what others would say. I should be kept in the house for my “confinement”. After the birth, Mike and I should get married.
“I don’t think anyone’s getting married,” my mother cut in, with cold authority. Then her eyes darted to me and then resentfully, towards Mike, “Unless of course the kids want to?”
Kids. So typical of her to describe us like that, I thought. Though she did have a point: I didn’t feel old enough to get married. But then I didn’t exactly feel old enough to have a child, either. So I found myself shaking my head enthusiastically: no, I did not want to get married. I saw Mike was making the same gesture and actually felt relief. The meeting came to an abrupt, business-like conclusion about an hour later, with my father and Francis actually shaking hands whilst my mother, Mike and I watched incredulously. It was decided: Mike would continue with university as planned and complete his first year. I would stay at home with my parents and have the baby. Mike would visit when possible. The following summer, we would look at our options again. I had hoped to be able to speak to Mike on my own – this was our business after all, no one else’s! – but was thwarted when Francis spirited him away in his little Metro.
I followed them out to the car like a lost sheep. “Call me…?” I said.
Mike shrugged and said simply, “… Yeah.” I watched them both leave, feeling simultaneously lost and relieved, not understanding either.
“Thank God that’s over.” Mum declared as I trudged back inside. She poured herself a large gin, even though it was barely five in the evening.
“Funny bloke, that Francis.” My father mused.
“You’d think he’d never met a child born out of wedlock before.” Mum said.
I bristled at the inference. I was only too aware of my parents’ lack of marriage and for some reason, it had always bothered me. I was never concerned with the tag “illegitimate”, which I felt was hopelessly out of date. Besides, it was not an accusation that had ever been levied at me or my sisters. There were plenty of other people at school whose parents were not married, too. But there were no wedding photographs of my parents when they were young, standing on church or register office steps, their faces hopeful for the future. There were no celebrations of milestones achieved in the relationship. Instead they trudged onwards grimly, together only sometimes. My mother wore a ring on her engagement finger: the only thing my Dad had ever given her besides us girls, she’d say when she had had one too many. Mum always answered to “Carmichael” too, even though technically her surname was still Dale, the same as GanGan’s. Perhaps it was because I felt my father’s rejection of marriage to my mother was ultimately a rejection of us, which was in turn backed up by his long absences from our lives. I wondered now if history was repeating itself and I was destined to have the same kind of relationship with Mike for the next twenty years: together and yet not? I shuddered at the thought.
My mother called the university as promised and before I knew it, I was out of the running. A few days later, they wrote to me: did I want to defer my place? I had no idea. Perhaps I wouldn’t even want to do that course anymore once the baby got here? Maybe I would want to do something else. Or perhaps I wouldn’t even want to go to university! Mum’s words came back to me a second time, “When in doubt, do without.” With a heavy heart, I ticked “no” on the reply slip and returned it in the enclosed SAE.
Just three weeks after news of my pregnancy broke, there had been only two more fleeting meetings between Mike and I, before he needed to leave for uni. We tried to be as “normal” as possible, pretending our thoughts in that initial meeting had never happened. All of a sudden, we were at the train station saying goodbye. Things were strained between us and I wondered if it was the moment I would look back on as losing him forever, even though he handed me a card with I LOVE YOU printed on the front. Inside, was merely scrawled, “Forever, Mike x”, but I couldn’t believe the spidery handwriting any more than my own heart. Could he? I wondered how long we would limp on, then pushed the unwanted thought to the bottom of my brain and concentrated on the positive instead.
We could make it. We had to. We were having a baby.
Before long I was throwing up every day like clockwork between the hours of seven and eight am, causing the other girls to whinge I was hogging the cottage’s only bathroom. Even Hannah and the twins’ initial enthusiasm about my pregnancy was forgotten as they found the toilet occupied at the exact time they needed to use it before going to school. But Mum held my hair back and batted their complaints away. She even took to waking them early, but even that didn’t diffuse the situation, for Hannah in particular was not a morning person. She would sit at the kitchen table in pyjamas, legs crossed, a face like thunder, eating dry cornflakes out the box and sulking. True to form, Sal was amused by the state I found myself in, smiling and tutting in mock sympathy at the grey pallor of my face, delighted at the prospect that I would soon be larger than her.
Snatched phone calls, wall posts on Facebook and text messages kept mine and Mike’s relationship alive, as did his neverending flow of cards through the post. I was touched as each one arrived, my name and address always enveloped by a wonky heart he’d drawn in biro, a SWALK on the back. Yet a selection of thoughtfully chosen stationery could not a relationship make. Despite this, I told myself that army families could survive a spouse’s absences of up to a year, or that Asian couples sometimes found themselves thrown together in arranged marriages, with little in common other than their parents’ business connections. Yet they still made it work! In comparison, Mike and I had the biggest connection anyone could ever have: a child. We had as good a chance as anyone… Didn’t we?
My twelve week scan soon came however and Mike was nowhere to be seen, for he had first year exams. Mum accompanied me instead and she cried as she regarded the blurry blob on screen. For a moment I thought she was sad or ashamed, but moments later she was enveloping me in her bony embrace and telling me how proud she was of me. A little non-plussed by the sight of my baby on screen, hardly able to relate to the image, I accepted her words gladly, sure the same sense of love and belonging my mother had for us would come to me later.
More time passed and Mike became just a voice at the end of the phone, as my parents took it upon themselves to be there for me, instead. My usually small frame expanded rapidly. I was carrying the baby high and felt bent over backwards by the weight of the pregnancy. The twenty week scan rolled around and it was confirmed I was carrying a boy. My Dad beamed from ear to ear, telling everyone he knew the first Carmichael boy was on his way. My sisters all cooed over the scan pictures and Hannah even tried crocheting a blue cardigan for the baby, though all she managed in the end was a wonky over-sized square, which she wrapped up for me anyway. I watched them all get excited and wondered when I would.
All I felt was despair, clutching at my insides as I contemplated the future. What would become of me and Mike? What would become of this child? What would become of me?
Then Mike was there for an extended visit over the Easter Holidays and Mum insisted Amanda move in with the twins in their bedroom for the duration, much to my sisters’ chagrin. The baby’s birth was imminent and I felt the size of a house. This did not seem to dampen Mike’s ardour for me, as if he was stamping his claim back on me, after losing out to my family for so long. And even though sex was the last thing on my mind, I felt grateful Mike did not find me disgustingly unattractive, nor see the “whale” Sal did, which she cruelly muttered under her breath whenever Mum was out of earshot. But Mike’s desire for authority on what he could not control did not end there, as he began to badger me about the child’s name.
“I think… Dylan.” He said one evening.
Irritation coursed through me: yet again, someone was deciding things for me! We were out on the patio and it was a pleasant and unusually warm April evening. Mum had told the others to give us some space and had warned them to stay off the patio on pain of death. Even so, Hannah could be seen watching us from her upstairs bedroom window, her face pressed against the glass in what she thought was a comical pose.
“I don’t like it.” I said out of sheer badness, even though I knew full well I had circled that particular name in the book Mum had given me.
“Okay,” Mike said measuredly, “What about Jonathan?”
“Boring.” I declared and meant it, this time.
“You’re choosing his name, then.” He said, deadpan. It was not a question.
“I’m carrying him. I have to give birth.” I said testily. “Think of it like my reward. It’s only fair.”
A shadow passed between us at that moment and the balance of power shifted to Mike as he regarded me, grinding his teeth together. “The baby should have my surname, then.” He said.
I had never considered the idea before that moment. I had figured the child would be a Carmichael. Same as me, same as my sisters. Mike had not revealed whether he would ever support me or the baby financially, never mind commit to us or even live with us. As far as I was concerned, now was not the time for stakes to be claimed in the name of machismo. So intent on trying to regain control of my own life from him or my mother, I was incapable of seeing his point of view.
“No.” I spluttered.
“It’s only fair.” Mike echoed.
“We’re not married, though.” I said, bewildered.
“So?” Mike said, infuriatingly. How many times had I listened to him give that ridiculously childish retort to his own father?
“The baby’s having my surname.” I asserted.
The shadow that had passed between us the previous moment now seemed to leap out of Mike, enveloping us both. A bitter argument ensued and Mike kicked one of the patio chairs over. It fell onto the concrete with a metallic clatter that brought my Mother running. Not seeing her in the kitchen doorway, Mike grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him, his thumb and forefinger dug in my flesh, painful as I tried to struggle out of his grasp as he repeated his demand: the baby would have his surname.
“What do you think you’re doing?” My mother’s voice was low and dangerous.
But Mike did not know my mother and merely let go of my arm. “Just a minor disagreement.” He said obliviously.
My mother smiled, but I knew what was coming next. I had seen that smile dozens of times before. It had no humour attached to it whatsoever. If sharks were able to smile, they would look just like her.
“You’re a bully, Michael.” My mother declared.
The colour drained from Mike’s face as I felt mine flush red. I was handling this! She couldn’t interfere, not again. But though I opened my mouth to speak, no sound came out. Mike just stood there, awkward, his face puzzled: he literally had no idea what my mother was talking about.
“Look, I don’t know what you thought you saw…?” Mike said.
“Silly boy,” My mother interrupted. “I had your number the first time I met you. You’re worse than a spoilt five year old.”
“Mum…” I began. But a look from her silenced me and rage burned inside me. Mike was my boyfriend. I didn’t need her protection. I’m a big girl now!
My father appeared from the kitchen, ignorant as usual to the atmosphere. My mother turned to him, whilst keeping her iron gaze on Mike. “Dan, do us a favour and take Michael home to his father’s, will you? Keys are on the hook.” She said.
“I thought Mike was staying until…” Dad started, then stopped as he clocked Mum’s dark expression. He was finally catching up. “… Of course.”
I watched Mike slam his stuff into bags, barely able to look at me, not saying a word, despite my garbled protestations that we should go downstairs and try and talk it through with my parents. I felt a kind of guilt, yet wasn’t sure why. Mike had manhandled me, I hadn’t asked for it. But I hadn’t asked for Mum to step in either! I was pulled both ways: on one side, a matriarch too sure of herself to ever ask what I wanted or needed. On the other, an immature teenage boy who believed a test of love was whether I defied that matriarch for him. Yet this didn’t have to be about sides. Why couldn’t everyone just meet me in the middle?!
So Mike stalked off with my father to the car, my mother insisting I stay back with her. “I know you don’t understand now,” she said, “But I would be a bad mother if I let him do that.”
“And you thought I would just let him?” I wanted to retort, though my voice betrayed me once again, drying up in my mouth. What would I have said or done, had my mother not put her foot down? I knew what Mike had done was wrong. I wasn’t a small child who needed to be told how men should treat women. He had hurt me for daring to oppose him! But instead of trusting me to make that call, my mother had rushed in as the self-appointed cavalry, just like she always did. She had taken my power away from me when I needed to make a stand. Perhaps I would have sent Mike back to his father’s myself, even? Now we would never know.
A couple more weeks passed and Mike’s texts and phone calls dwindled away to nothing under the weight of my mother’s disapproval. She told my sisters what had happened and it was taken as read I would never see Mike again. If I did, Sal and Amanda advised me, I was weak and pathetic, even if I just heard out his apology. Never mind the fact Sal had never been kissed and the sum total of Amanda’s experience involved a few drunken bunk-ups behind the youth centre in town with Billy Thompson, an apprentice car mechanic from my year at college. Though I had little sympathy for Mike himself, I wondered how much my baby’s future was being shaped against my will. I deserved to be able to make my own decisions for my own life and my own child, without the pressure of my family, however well meaning.
About a week after the baby’s due date, I woke in the middle of the night to red hot pain and a large damp patch on the sheets. It lasted just a few moments, but took my breath away. I couldn’t even cry out. I knew immediately it was labour. I had been frightened before that moment, but now a dreadful sense of inevitability set in: there was no turning back now. I had to go through this. Despite the sense of trepidation, a part of me felt excitement. I would meet my baby at last! It was only then the panic set in: he still didn’t have a name! What was I going to call him?
Amanda woke groggily to find me repacking my case for the hospital, checking and re-checking the babygros, nappies and other equipment in there. Immediately she sat up, as if on a spring: “Are you in labour?” She said excitedly.
I nodded and she ran out of the bedroom, yelling. Before long my sisters were crowded around me, my sleepy-eyed mother putting clothes on over her pyjamas. My Dad had been staying for the last few days “just in case” and I was grateful for it now: Hannah and the twins looked more scared than me, their eyes wide. Even Sal and Amanda seemed sympathetic and suddenly I sensed there was something momentous at work here: I was about to become a mother. A new life was on
the way. Whilst I had known this all along, I had not felt it before.
Contractions started to come in earnest in the car and I discovered there is nothing more painful in the world than traversing a roundabout when in labour. Mum kept saying stupid things like “Breathe!” and I shouted a few swear words at her I could never have got away with at any other time. When contractions were just four minutes apart, Mum was convinced I’d have the child in the car, but once we got to the hospital a midwife confirmed I was only a few centimetres dilated. I felt crushed by the lack of progress. I had felt sure I would deliver in just a few hours. Instead the labour was long and gruelling. About ten hours in, I was asking for all the drugs available, despite having written in my birth plan I’d wanted only gas and air.
“You’re doing really well,” Mum said and again, I was struck by the fact it was a ridiculous thing to say. I was only doing what I had to! But the sheer effort stopped me from yelling at her this time. It was as if a more primeval “me” had replaced the more civilised side of my persona. I could only concentrate on delivering this baby.
Finally, over twenty hours after my waters first broke, I delivered a healthy little boy. He was smaller than I expected, even though the midwife said he was a good size, “A little bruiser” she said, with a strong Scottish accent. The baby had huge eyes and even the same mole on his chin as Mike. When I first saw him, I couldn’t stop crying and Mum burst into tears as well. The midwife regarded us both proudly and took a picture on the disposable camera Mum had remembered to slip into her handbag.