Why Mummy Swears

by Gill Sims

  ‘Well, you did? Come on, Sarah, remember to breathe,’ I said helpfully, as the contraction passed and Sarah thankfully let go of my hand. I wondered if it would be unsupportive if I didn’t let her hold it again, as that had been really very painful. She has quite a grip – probably something to do with being captain of the tennis team at school. It rather makes one feel for Piers, though.

  ‘AARRRRGHHHHHH!’ wailed Sarah. ‘Shut up about fucking breathing. Did breathing help when you were giving birth?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s just what people say, when you’re in labour. Like you’d forget to breathe! I do vaguely remember shouting that at a midwife, actually, yelling that I was fucking breathing, that I was hardly going to start holding my bastarding breath just to spite her, was I? She wasn’t very impressed, as I recall, but then again I was smacked off my tits on all the drugs, so what do I know? Maybe people do forget to breathe. Maybe all the panting does help. It all gets a bit hazy afterwards, you sort of forget what happens, apparently it’s nature’s way –’

  ‘Oh God, stop wittering, Ellen, I’M HAVING ANOTHER ONE AND DON’T FUCKING TELL ME TO BREATHE. I WANT THE DRUGS! I WANT ALL THE DRUGS LIKE YOU HAD, IT’S NOT FAIR!!’

  It occurred to me that Sarah’s contractions seemed to be quite close together. I was trying to remember how far apart contractions should be before things start getting serious when Mum came back in, followed by Geoffrey. She did not look terribly happy.

  ‘Piers isn’t answering his phone,’ she said anxiously.

  ‘OH GOD, HE IS DEAD IN A SNOWDRIFT!’ wept Sarah. ‘ARRRGHHHHH! AND I’M HAVING ANOTHER CONTRACTION!!’

  ‘Darling, must you make that ghastly noise?’ enquired Geoffrey disapprovingly.

  ‘Ellen, why is she still on the sofa? I told you to get her off the sofa!’ complained Mum.

  ‘AAAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHH! I DON’T WANT TO BE A WIDOW, BRINGING UP MY ORPHAN CHILD ALONE!’ panted Sarah.

  ‘Snow will have affected the signal, probably,’ said Geoffrey knowingly.

  ‘Did you call the ambulance, Mum?’ I said.

  ‘Not yet, I was trying to get Piers!’ said Mum indignantly.

  ‘MUM, CALL THE AMBULANCE NOW. IT’S A BIT MORE IMPORTANT THAN PIERS!’

  Mum wandered off again.

  Jane chose that point to appear, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Simon since lunch.

  ‘Is Aunty Sarah farting the baby out again?’ said Jane with great interest. ‘Can I stay and watch? We didn’t do farting the baby out when we watched the DVD at school, only the hairy vagina way.’

  I made a mental note to have an Important Conversation with Jane about the gaps in her sex education.

  ‘Maybe you could go and find Daddy for me, darling?’ I suggested, as Jane huffed out, muttering that it wasn’t fair, she was never allowed to do anything good.

  ‘ANOTHER ONE! ANOTHER ONE! WHERE’S THE AMBULANCE? OH FUCK, OH FUCK, I THINK I NEED TO PUSH!’ screeched Sarah, who was now prone on Mum’s precious sofa, with her legs akimbo.

  ‘You can’t possibly need to push yet, Sarah!’ I said in a panic. ‘You’ve hardly been in labour for any time at all! Oh God, just DON’T PUSH!’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need for such language, young lady!’ said Geoffrey reprovingly to Sarah, who was still swearing like a trooper.

  ‘GO FUCK YOURSELF, DADDY!’ shouted Sarah. ‘YOU PUSH A WATERMELON OUT YOUR FUCKING ARSEHOLE, AND THEN YOU CAN TELL ME THERE’S NO NEED FOR LANGUAGE LIKE THAT!’

  Mum skidded back into the room in a panic. ‘They don’t know how long it will take to get an ambulance here as they’re all out or are stuck in the snow. They’ve some 4x4s with paramedics but they’re all at emergencies and they say that this isn’t classified as an emergency yet. They want to know how far apart her contractions are.’

  Fuck. Timing the contractions. I knew there was something I should have been doing.

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’ wailed Mum into the phone. ‘Oh GOD, Ellen, you talk to them!’ and she thrust the phone at me.

  ‘Right,’ said the nice ambulance lady soothingly. ‘So can I just check – first baby? And she’s thirty-nine. And no previous complications, blood pressure all been all right, etc.? And the baby is just a few days early?’

  I babbled hopelessly that I thought so, as far as I knew, and she had wanted a home birth anyway, so I assumed there were no problems with the pregnancy.

  ‘OK, do you think you could bring her in yourself?’

  ‘Me?’ I said, slightly dumbstruck.

  ‘At the moment, if you were able to bring her in, that would be the quickest way to get her to hospital. Right now, with the weather conditions, I can’t say for sure how long it’s going to take to get an ambulance out to you. Do you have a 4x4?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘Right, then the best thing is probably to pop off to the hospital yourselves and get her checked over. If things start moving faster while you’re on your way, ring us back and we’ll reassess.’

  I hung up the phone, and whimpered.

  Mum was peering out the window. ‘The snow’s getting worse,’ she said, ‘and her contractions are very close together. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?’

  ‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE, I AM HAVING A BAAAAYBEEEEE!’ screamed Sarah.

  I took a deep breath and shouted, ‘WILL EVERYBODY JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN!’

  ‘Is Aunty Sarah going to get her hairy vagina out?’ said a fascinated Peter, having sneaked in without me noticing.

  ‘No! Get out! GO AND FIND YOUR FATHER!’ I shrieked. ‘And Mum, go and ring the hospital and tell them we’re bringing Sarah in now.’

  Simon wandered in, followed by Mum, who was wittering away to someone on the phone and interjected to say, ‘I didn’t know what hospital to ring, so I rang our health centre, but there was no answer, so I rang Julie Carmichael, who used to be the receptionist before she retired, and Julie says how many centimetres might she be dilated, before she can say whether it’s time to go to hospital.’

  ‘WHAT?’ I said in disbelief.

  ‘How many centimetres dilated?’ repeated Mum.

  ‘Tell Julie Carmichael to FUCK OFF!’ I yelled. ‘It’s nothing to do with her. Just ring the nearest hospital with a FUCKING MATERNITY UNIT!’

  ‘But I don’t know where has a maternity unit, darling. Why on earth would I? No, Julie, I’m still here. They don’t know how many centimetres she’s dilated. I know. Oh, absolutely.’

  ‘Shall I google it, Mummy?’ said Jane, who had sneaked back in.

  ‘Yes, Jane, that would be very helpful,’ I said. Finally, someone with a bit of common sense.

  ‘Are you fit to drive?’ I asked Simon.

  ‘Me? Fuck no, I’ve been on the red since lunch!’ he replied jovially, waving his glass at me to demonstrate his point.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ I said despairingly, looking round at Mum, who was still on the phone, wittering to Julie Carmichael about cat towels and the Summer Palace sofa cushions, Geoffrey hurrumphing disapprovingly about everyone making such a scene, and a thoroughly pissed-up Simon. Peter and Jane were peering hopefully round the drawing-room door, and Sarah was still panting about pushing.

  ‘Right,’ said Jane cheerfully. ‘I’ve found the nearest maternity unit, Mummy, and the hospital has an A&E too. I’ve put the directions into your phone for you.’

  ‘Jane, I love you!’ I said, profoundly grateful that at least one person was able to keep their head in an emergency.

  ‘OK,’ I said, hoping I sounded more confident that I felt. ‘Mum, get OFF the phone, you’ll need to quickly make a hospital bag for her. Get some clean jammies, any pads you might have, Tena Ladies will do –’

  ‘I do not wear Tena Ladies,’ interrupted Mum with indignation.

  ‘Whatever! Just get some jammies then, and some blankets and towels – NOT the fucking cat towels – and anything else that might look useful. Oh, and your gravy jug.’

 
; ‘My gravy jug,’ said Mum in confusion. ‘What does she need my gravy jug for?’

  ‘For pouring water over down there for when she has a wee afterwards!’ I explained. ‘It makes it much less painful!’

  ‘But it’s from Lakeland!’ wailed Mum, while Geoffrey went so puce I did fear he might actually be having a heart attack. ‘Can’t she use something else? Maybe the little watering can I use for the house plants?’

  ‘JUST GET THE GRAVY JUG!’ I barked, fearing we did not have time to discuss the subject. ‘Simon, you will have to come with me.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’ complained Simon.

  ‘In case she gives birth on the way. Someone will need to, I dunno, catch the baby, while I’m driving. And believe it or not, out of the LIMITED choices currently available, you are probably the best person to do that!’

  I did consider taking Jane with me instead of Simon, as I suspected she might be more use, but I also feared that having to deliver a baby at the tender age of eleven might scar her for life. Simon had already (somewhat unwillingly) witnessed the Miracle of Childbirth via my own fanny, and therefore the damage was done with regard to him.

  Eventually, amid much huffing and puffing and screaming and wailing (actually that was just Mum about her gravy jug), we got poor Sarah loaded into the back of my car, sprawled inelegantly among the dog hair and discarded McDonald’s wrappers and crisps packets. Simon was unceremoniously shoved in the back too, where he cowered pitifully in the furthest possible corner from Sarah, and we set off, Sarah wailing periodically that she really thought she might have to push now, and Simon and me bellowing back, ‘DO NOT PUSH! WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT PUSH!’ as I drove hell for leather down snowy lanes, shouting abuse at the Google Maps lady, who was being particularly sanctimonious.

  Thankfully, Sarah managed to not give birth in the car, though it is very distracting trying to drive with someone screaming blue murder in your ear all the way, but fortunately this is a talent I mastered many years ago due to Peter and Jane also liking to screech like demented banshees during any journey, and we arrived at the hospital. I came to an impressive though extremely illegal Dukes of Hazzard-style stop in an ambulance bay and hastily unloaded Sarah and Simon, before parking somewhere less clampable.

  Fortunately, the car park wasn’t busy, so I was able to abandon the car and tear back into the hospital while Sarah and Simon were still at reception trying to explain what was going on – or rather, Sarah was clutching her stomach and sobbing something about her orphan child was coming, while Simon looked frightened and gestured vaguely in Sarah’s direction while mumbling something about ‘babies’.

  ‘And are you her partner?’ enquired the confused midwife on the desk.

  ‘No!’ said Simon vehemently.

  ‘Oh. So … are you the partner?’ she asked me.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘It’s OK. We don’t judge. We see lots of modern relationships here,’ said the midwife kindly.

  ‘No, I mean, it’s not that I have a problem with same-sex relationships,’ I gabbled. ‘But she’s my stepsister. And he’s my husband. You see?’

  ‘Mmmm,’ said the midwife, looking rather more judgemental. ‘Yes, that is a little more unusual. But like I said, we’re not here to judge.’

  ‘It’s not his baby either! We just brought her in because her husband had to go and buy milk because my mother is a batshit-mental dairy Nazi, and so someone had to drive her here, and maybe we could just stop talking now and you know, get the baby out?’

  ‘We don’t condone the use of terms like “batshit-mental”, actually,’ said the midwife primly.

  ‘Well, you haven’t met my fucking mother!’ I hissed, as Sarah gave another dramatic groan and heave, and the midwife remembered what she was actually supposed to be doing.

  Ten minutes later, Sarah was in the labour suite with a lovely midwife, who announced that she was nine centimetres dilated and the baby would be crowning shortly. I had attempted to leave once Sarah was handed over to the midwives, but she had clutched at me anxiously and begged me to stay with her, and since all the midwives were looking at me, and given that she was on her own and having her first baby, it would have been churlish to say, ‘But Sarah, we’ve never exactly got on before today. Why would I want to watch you push a baby out?’ So there wasn’t much else I could do apart from say, ‘Of course I will stay. No problem!’

  There was a small unfortunateness when the nice midwife asked if Mummy would like some gas and air, and I shouted, ‘Oh God, yes PLEASE! I love gas and air. It is exactly like being pissed, and today has been very stressful, so that would be fabulous!’ The midwife frostily informed me that she had been referring to Sarah as being the one in need of pain relief and not me.

  Much pushing and groaning and swearing ensued, which led me to look much more kindly on Simon’s preferred delivery-room position of cowering in a corner, as I did pretty much the same once it had been established that no one was going to let me have a go on the gas and air, and after what seemed like an eternity, but according to the clock was only about twenty minutes, Sarah popped out a bouncing baby girl, without the need for an episiotomy, so all that coconut oil was not in vain at least.

  ‘Would you like to cut the cord?’ the midwife asked me brightly. I recoiled further into my corner. I had no wish at all to go Down There. Blurry though my own memories of giving birth are, I do recall Simon reacting with similar horror when the midwife asked him if he wanted to cut the cord when Jane was born. Rather alarmingly, she had then asked me if I wanted to cut the cord myself. Apparently replying ‘I’s totally off my own face on the luffly druggies jus’ now. I think sharp things iss bad idea!’ was not good form, and I felt quite judged.

  Sarah was sitting up and cuddling the baby, with that slightly stunned but glowing look that some women seem to get after giving birth (not me, I looked sweaty and knackered, but I did manage the stunned part at least), and I had been summonsed from my corner to inspect the new arrival, who I pronounced to be ‘gorgeous’ (she wasn’t – she looked like an angry prune, much like all newborns, but you are not allowed to say that), and I was eying up Sarah’s tea and toast, as she didn’t seem very interested in them, when Piers finally burst into the room, having been delayed by going round three supermarkets to get organic skimmed milk for Mum, and then when Mum finally got hold of him, having to go the long way round due to an Audi skidding and blocking the road.

  ‘Oh!’ said the midwife, who was still slightly confused by the family set-up. ‘Is this one the daddy?’

  Piers only had eyes for Sarah and his baby, though.

  ‘Yes!’ I said with relief, glad at not having to launch into more complex explanations. But as I attempted to sidle out of the room, Sarah, still glowing (annoyingly), turned to Piers and said, ‘Darling, Ellen was simply marvellous! I don’t know what I’d have done without her! Do you think we could let her choose the name?’

  What? What the fuck? No! Don’t make me name your baby! Names are very subjective. Simon and I almost got divorced over choosing our own babies’ names, and I couldn’t possibly name someone else’s child. I had had a hankering for an Isolde, which Simon had dismissed as being pretentiously wanky and not mysteriously romantic, as I insisted, but then again, one of his suggestions had been Deirdra, which I had coldly informed him may well be a classic name from Irish mythology, but would nonetheless only remind me of Deirdre Barlow for the duration of the baby’s life, so NO! So this could be my opportunity for an Isolde! I thought for a moment, before nobly saying, ‘Oh, thank you, Sarah, I’m terribly flattered, but I couldn’t possibly accept. You choose the name yourself!’

  ‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘what if we call her Ellen, for her middle name?’

  I thought that was rather nice, actually, and I warmed somewhat towards Sarah.

  ‘Really, if you’re sure, that would be lovely!’ I said, slightly tearfully. ‘But don’t make any hasty decisions. Think about it.’ (They’d better no
t change their minds, though.)

  I reflected, as I finally left the delivery room, that it was just as well the baby had been a girl, as I would have been royally pissed off if it had been a boy and they had called it after Simon for its middle name, as he had been literally no help whatsoever in the entire drama.

  Mum and Geoffrey were waiting anxiously when we got home.

  ‘Well?’ quavered Mum.

  ‘A little girl!’ I beamed. ‘Eight pounds, three ounces! Name to be confirmed, though there is a good chance she will be named after ME for her middle name, and mother and baby are doing well. Piers is there with her now.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mum impatiently. ‘You rang and told me that already. But what about my good Lakeland Plastics gravy jug?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, she did use the gravy jug when she went for a wee. I’m sorry.’

  Mum gave a wail of anguish. What price a new step-granddaughter when her Aubusson rug and her gravy jug had both been sullied on the same day?

  ‘FML!’ I said. ‘I need a drink!’

  Astonishingly, Geoffrey was extremely nice to me and thanked me for my part in the proceedings. I felt very noble and heroic, and also extremely smug about how annoyed Jessica would be when she found out that I’d saved the day and was now regarded by the family as a heroine on a par with Grace Darling. Ha!

  Friday, 30 December

  I popped into the office today because it is fucking impossible to get anything done at home with Simon and the kids there, wandering about wittering. It also means I can conserve that precious annual leave for fun things like fucking school concerts – deep joy. Actually, I wish I had come in much sooner. It was bliss. I was the only one there, and the peace was amazing. It’s astonishing as well how much you can get done when there is nobody ringing you or emailing you, or just stopping by your desk to ask if you want a cup of tea and lingering to chat for a minute. This only serves to confirm my conviction that the world would be a much better place if only there were no Other People.

  Of course, the downside to being there by myself was that empty office buildings can feel quite eerie, and I started worrying that maybe a serial killer or psychopath was stalking the corridors, à la The Shining, and then I was too scared to go to the toilet, because if I was murdered, I certainly didn’t want my bloody lifeless corpse to be found on the pan with my knickers round my ankles (especially since they weren’t very glamorous knickers to get murdered in). So you know, swings and roundabouts …