Mummyfesto, The

by Green, Linda

  Sam had pointed out that I didn’t actually need to go incognito because (a) I wasn’t famous and (b) no one outside my immediate family and friends knew what we were about to do. But I still couldn’t help feeling that it was somehow traitorous. I was obviously on a mailing list as a Labour Party voter; they’d been good enough to invite me to their pre-election shindig and yet I hadn’t had the decency to inform them that I was about to announce my intention to stand against them in the constituency.

  In the end I opted to wear a hat. I wasn’t sure what it was about sporting a red beret that somehow rendered me invisible, but it was the best I could come up with.

  I parked in King Street. It was still the only car park in Halifax I knew my way to despite having lived there for most of my life. Paul often joked that instead of having a girl in every port I had a car park space in every town and city. It just didn’t make sense to me, having found a route I knew into somewhere, to go to the bother of getting lost again by trying a different way.

  There was a sign in the foyer of the central library saying ‘Labour Party meeting’ and an arrow pointing down the stairs. It was as near as I was going to get to an underground political gathering. I stepped quietly down the stairs, half expecting a Labour Party henchman to jump out and bar my way at any point. As I got to the bottom of the stairs I realised that any attempt to disguise myself short of hiring a Mrs Doubtfire fancy-dress outfit would have been futile. There appeared to be no one in the queue in front of me under sixty. Perhaps that was what you got if you held a public meeting at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Anyone under thirty was hungover and still in bed, those in their thirties and forties were busy ferrying children to Baby Ballet or Soccer Tots and those in their fifties were presumably enjoying the novelty of not having to get up to ferry their children somewhere because they were now teenagers and consequently still in bed. It was only the sixty-plus age group it seemed, for whom an invitation to a political meeting on a Saturday morning had proved irresistible. And me – who it must now be obvious to everyone had an ulterior reason for being there.

  The elderly lady in front of me, who was sporting a red mac and one of those clear plastic rain-hats, which she’d either forgotten to take off or considered to be a fashion statement, turned around and fixed me with a stare.

  ‘Are you one of them?’ she asked.

  ‘Er, one of them what?’

  ‘One of them who’s come up from London.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I’m not with Labour Party.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, obviously disappointed, ‘I were hoping to meet someone from London. Do you think Mr Miliband will be here?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘I expect he’s a bit busy at moment.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I liked his brother better anyway.’

  The doors of the meeting room opened. A young man with short gelled hair and wearing a slick suit poked his head out. I saw the look of disappointment on his face as he surveyed what looked more like a bus-stop queue than the attendees of a top-flight political meeting. And I watched him recompose his features into something more favourable as he moved effortlessly into smooth PR mode.

  ‘Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for coming,’ he said. ‘Please do come in. We’d appreciate it if you could leave your contact details on our list so that we can keep in touch with you during the election campaign.’

  We shuffled forward. The rain-hat woman smiled up at the young man when she got to him.

  ‘Are you from London?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Wakefield actually.’ She sighed and made her way into the room.

  The first thing I noticed when I looked down at the contact details list was that the people in front of me had left postal addresses. Email addresses and mobile numbers were conspicuous by their absence.

  ‘Not exactly at the cutting edge of new technology are we?’ I said to the young man. He smiled awkwardly, but said nothing. I suspected he was beginning to wish they hadn’t bothered.

  We took our seats. Judging from the number of empty ones, they’d been hoping for a bigger turnout. At least no one had put on ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.

  The PR man stood at the front of the room and waxed lyrical about how people like us were what the Labour Party was all about. I resisted the temptation to ask him if he meant clapped-out and having seen better days. Then, with something approaching a fanfare, he introduced the special guest speakers, shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the prospective Labour Party candidate for Halifax (the current Labour MP was standing down at the next election), a man who, rather incongruously, was called Jack Daniels. I thought they missed a trick by not playing ‘Whiskey in My Jar’ as he made his entrance wearing one of those shiny suits that ought never to be let out of a wardrobe, except to be given to a charity shop.

  Yvette Cooper, on the other hand, was smart and businesslike. I’d always thought she was attractive on TV, but she was actually even more attractive in the flesh. But what most impressed me was that despite everything she managed to look as if she was actually pleased to be there.

  The PR man did a little spiel about them both. He tried to sell Jack Daniels as a Yorkshireman, but he was actually from Harrogate, which didn’t really count as it was posh Yorkshire as far as Halifax was concerned. I made a mental note to play the ‘born and bred in Halifax’ card on my election leaflet.

  Finally, Yvette Cooper got to her feet. ‘Thank you so much for coming here today,’ she said. ‘This is part of a series of events we’re holding across the country to meet with our supporters in order that we can take on board your concerns and priorities as we go into the election campaign.’

  ‘I don’t know what she sees in that Balls fellow,’ said the rain-hat lady, turning around from her seat in the second row and speaking in a voice which was a little too loud for comfort. ‘Pretty little thing like that could have done much better for herself.’

  ‘So this is where we throw it open to you,’ Yvette Cooper continued. ‘What are your priorities and what are the big issues you’d like to see us talking about during the election campaign?’

  An elderly lady with a Tesco shopping bag sitting in the front row stood up. ‘Me husband’s got arthritis,’ she said. ‘And can I get a jacket for him with buttons big enough for him to do up by himself? I think government should force clothing manufacturers to do summat about it.’ She sat down, having said her piece. Yvette Cooper nodded sympathetically and made a note of something. Things, it seemed, could indeed only get better.

  I popped the painkillers into my mouth, took a big gulp of water and swallowed. There was something odd about taking painkillers for a pain that was yet to come. It made you feel a bit like a junkie. I could hear the voice in my head saying, ‘if you know this is coming, why don’t you avoid it, instead of chucking pills down your throat?’

  The answer of course was that some pain couldn’t be avoided. Some pain was necessary. I wished I was one of those women who had a particularly high pain threshold. The sort who went through labour without drugs because they thought nice thoughts about a wooded valley with a stream running through it. I’d screamed the bloody maternity unit down, if I remembered rightly. And yet here I was, desperate to go through it all again.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ asked Paul as we got into the car. It was a stupid question, but the expression on his face prevented me from saying so.

  ‘Ask me again in a couple of hours,’ I said with as big a smile as I could muster. He nodded. I thought he was going to say something, but if he had been he stopped himself. We talked about stuff and nonsense on the way to the hospital. Anything apart from what was about to happen and what the outcome might be. What I really wanted was an answer. A reason why. On that level I didn’t mind having the dye injected. If you could see something on the screen, a barrier of some kind, then at least you had an idea of what you were up against.

  We took our seats in the waiting room. I was starting
to feel like a regular now. Almost expected to see my name on the back of the chair. I thumbed through a magazine. I couldn’t even have told you which one it was. My hands were turning the pages, but my eyes were not really seeing.

  ‘Mrs Crabtree?’ The nurse was smiling at me. It was time to go. Time to get my answer.

  It was weird, watching on screen as they squirted the blue dye into me. Like watching a dry river bed filling up inside you. I waited for it to come up against a dam. It didn’t though. It kept on flowing. Right out into the sea. I looked up at the consultant, unsure whether I’d seen what I thought I’d seen.

  He nodded. ‘Your Fallopian tubes are clear,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean clear?’ I asked.

  ‘Look, here,’ he said, pointing to the screen. ‘You can see where the dye has run through into your cervix. There are no blockages. Nothing to prevent your eggs from reaching your womb.’

  I looked at Paul. He didn’t seem to know whether it was good news or not. I turned back to the consultant.

  ‘So what happens now? Is there another test?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’ve excluded all the possible medical problems. I’m afraid in these situations the diagnosis, as such, is that of unexplained infertility.’

  I stared at him. How could that be a diagnosis? Anything that had the word ‘unexplained’ in it couldn’t be final in any way. Scientists didn’t produce research papers saying they hadn’t discovered anything but couldn’t be bothered to go on looking.

  ‘But you can’t just stop there,’ I said. ‘There must be something else you can do.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Crabtree. We really have exhausted every avenue.’

  ‘So what are we supposed to do now?’ I asked.

  ‘Some couples find it actually takes the pressure off. Occasionally they even get pregnant straightaway afterwards. The mysteries of the female reproductive system never cease to amaze us.’

  ‘Can’t we be referred for IVF?’

  ‘Jackie.’ The tone in Paul’s voice took me by surprise.

  ‘I have to ask, don’t I?’

  ‘Look,’ said the consultant. ‘Why don’t you take some time to think about things? Now’s not the best time to be making decisions.’

  ‘I’m not making decisions,’ I said. ‘I’m simply asking for information. Might IVF work for us?’

  ‘For someone of your age,’ he said, ‘we’re only talking about a 2 per cent success rate per cycle and you would have to pay for that yourselves, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well a 2 per cent chance is still 2 per cent better than nothing.’

  ‘As I said, take some time to think things over,’ repeated the consultant. ‘There’s a leaflet here with all the information you need.’ He handed it to Paul, as if he somehow thought it wasn’t safe to give to me, that I wasn’t in the right mental state to handle it.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Paul, standing up. The consultant stood too and shook his hand. They both turned to look at me. I got up reluctantly and headed for the door, my head bowed so he couldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

  ‘I know you’re upset,’ said Paul, as we got in the car, ‘but there were no need to be rude to him.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect? The guy’s just told me he’s given up on us.’

  ‘He didn’t say that.’

  ‘Maybe we should think about going private. I bet they’d be able to offer another test. There has to be a reason.’

  Paul rested his forehead on the steering wheel. ‘There doesn’t, love,’ he said. ‘Sometimes life’s like that. Things just aren’t meant to be.’

  I turned to look at him, a frown creasing my forehead. ‘What do you mean, not meant to be?’ I was aware that my voice had risen an octave.

  Paul sighed and turned to me. ‘Maybe we should start trying to get our heads around the idea that it just might not happen.’

  ‘You’ve given up too, haven’t you?’

  ‘It’s not a case of giving up. I just don’t like to see you putting yourself through this. It were bad enough what happened today, let alone having them pumping you full of drugs for IVF.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the only way, that’s what I’ve got to do.’

  Paul reached out for my hand. ‘You haven’t got to do anything. We can simply decide to leave it there and let nature take its course.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, pulling my hand away, ‘I’m not sure you want another baby.’

  ‘You know I do, but not at any cost. And I certainly don’t want it if it means you being stressed up to your eyeballs like this and we become so obsessed with it that we stop enjoying what we’ve got.’

  ‘Who said I were obsessed with it?’

  Paul sighed and turned to look out of the driver’s window. ‘Look at what it’s doing to us,’ he said. ‘I could understand it if we didn’t have Alice, but at end of day, we’ve got a daughter. Some people never have that. Sometimes I think we’ve forgotten how lucky we are.’

  I looked down at my shaking hands and waited until the lump in my throat cleared. ‘I’m doing this for Alice,’ I said.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Maybe you’re more bothered about it than she is.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Because I think it might be true,’ he said, turning back to face me. I fiddled with my wedding ring, unable to speak and determined not to cry in the middle of a car park. Paul reached out again for my hand.

  ‘Alice loves you because you’re a brilliant mum. The last thing she needs is you putting yourself through hell to try to give her something that just isn’t as important as you being happy and well.’

  I squeezed his hand. He was saying this for all the right reasons, I knew that. But it still didn’t make it any easier to hear.

  ‘I mean it’s not as if you haven’t got enough on your plate,’ he went on, ‘what with your mum and now this election business.’

  ‘You don’t think I should stand, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I just think you’ve taken on too much. It’s like you’re trying to be superwoman or summat.’

  ‘I’m just trying to make things better,’ I said. ‘For everyone.’

  ‘It don’t feel better at moment,’ he said. ‘Not from where I’m sitting.’

  ‘Well I can’t back out now,’ I said. ‘The others are relying on me.’

  Paul stared straight ahead out of the windscreen. He didn’t say anything, but I knew exactly what he was thinking. I could pretty much have written the thought bubble above his head.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I know this is going to be tough on you and please don’t think I take you for granted because I don’t, but this is something I really want to do. All those motions we put forward to NUT conference, all those petitions we sign about this, that and the other, at end of day, we’re pissing in the wind, aren’t we?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘But this,’ I went on, waving my arms around as if I were talking about the hospital car park, which I wasn’t, ‘this Lollipop Party thing is something which really could make a difference. I feel like we could change the world and I haven’t felt like that since I were a student. I like it and I don’t want to stop now.’

  ‘I don’t want you to stop either,’ said Paul, ‘but I do want you to think about consequences.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m saying I want you to realise how difficult this is going to be for you and our family. Summat has to go. You’ve got too much on and I’m not going to stand by and watch you run yourself into ground. If you’re determined to go ahead with Lollipop Party thing then we should wait until after election before we make any decision on IVF. It makes sense not to rush into it. It’ll give us time to think about it properly.’

  ‘I’m not going to change my mind, you know.’

  ‘Fine. Let’s just give ourselves a bit of a breather.’

  ‘I stil
l want to go on trying.’

  Paul sighed. I knew what he was thinking. That there was no point. That I was in denial. Maybe I was, but the alternative was far too scary to contemplate.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well I’m hardly going to complain about that, am I?’ He turned to smile at me. I managed one back. ‘Now, can we go home, please,’ he said, ‘before I have to put another couple of quid in parking machine.’

  ‘In the mummyfesto,’ I said, ‘all hospital car parks are going to be free.’

  Paul smiled and shook his head. ‘I should bloody hope so,’ he said.

  12

  ANNA

  There was something about sitting outside the Head’s office that always made you regress to your schooldays. Although it had to be said that in my case it wasn’t that it brought back memories of getting into trouble – the only time I could remember being sent to the Headmaster was for good work and behaviour in primary school. He gave me a set of two crayons as a reward – a gold and a green one. At the time I’d been delighted and had passed them around for my friends to admire. I couldn’t help but think how unimpressed kids would be with them today.

  I wished I wasn’t on my own. I knew all too well how good Mr Freeman was at belittling people and brushing off their grievances, both from my own experience and from Jackie. David hadn’t been able to get the time off work. He had seemed genuinely upset when I’d told him about the latest bullying incidents. But that hadn’t seemed to translate into a determination to get something done about it. Maybe I should have taken it as a compliment: that he trusted me to be able to sort it out myself. But for some reason it didn’t feel like a compliment. It felt like a dereliction of his duties.

  The school secretary came out of her office on the other side of the corridor, bringing the whiff of hairspray with her.

  ‘Mr Freeman is ready for you now,’ she said. I nodded. They annoyed me, men who were too high up the scale to be able to open their own office door.

  I knocked and entered as commanded. Freeman stood up and offered his hand.