by Jo Brand
Martha felt that now would be a good time to express some of the feelings she’d been suppressing for years, under the guise of the Just Given Birth Hormone coursing through her body and making her uncontrollably honest. She could visualise Pat explaining this to her father as he fumed in the car on the way home. This was one encounter she wasn’t going to lose out on, and perhaps the fact that her best friends were there to witness it wasn’t such a bad thing. She motioned to people to sit on the few weedy chairs that were around and marvelled at the fact that somehow she had ended up in a private room. She wasn’t sure why; it could have been her threats to the midwife that went on after the baby was born — threats which are supposed to stop once labour is ended but in Martha’s case became louder in volume and more unpleasant.
‘So what are you going to call it?’ sneered her father and it was the sneering that was responsible for Martha’s reply.
‘Jesus,’ she said.
Rev Brian looked aghast and Pat looked equally shocked by proxy. There was some giggling too. Greasy Ted threw his head back and roared with laughter and Sarah just continued to look pissed off and stare at the floor.
‘That is sacrilege!’ bellowed Rev Brian. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think about it, and after that time if you persist with this pathetic idea I will never speak to you or see you again.’
He exited with as much melodrama as he could muster, with Pat in tow talking all the time in a low voice and trying to calm him down, not realising that over the years it never failed to wind him up even more.
Two down and a mere five to go, thought Martha and decided to apply her truth-telling hormonality to the others in the room. ‘Ted, why are you here?’ she said. Ted appeared from behind a big bunch of flowers. From such beauty, ugliness comes shining through, thought Martha and wondered if that was a famous quote or just her own effort.
‘Well, as your employer,’ said Ted, ‘I happened to phone Sarah and ask her how you were getting on and she’d just heard from Flower about the baby so I thought I’d better pop down and see how you were and give you congratulations.’ He sounded stilted, less funny and less relaxed in this setting.
‘Just as well you did,’ said Martha, ‘because it’s your baby.’
There was a look of such tragic proportions on Ted’s face that she thought he might hit her. Instead he said, ‘You fucking cow, Martha,’ threw the flowers on the floor and walked out of the room. Martha noted that she felt really upset, but how could she tell if it was genuine?
‘You idiot,’ said Flower. ‘What did you do that for?’
Martha felt slightly ashamed so she went on the offensive. ‘Oh, mind your own business, you flaky hippy and leave me in peace — and take him with you.’ She pointed to Charlie.
Flower was knackered and grumpy, and didn’t need a second invitation. She grabbed Charlie by the hand and almost lifted him off the ground they left so fast. Martha felt like a spectator at her own funeral.
Just then, Martha’s mobile phone rang. She picked it up, looked at the caller display, pressed the answer button and just said, ‘Fuck off.’ Then she turned back to the remnants of the baby-welcoming party, Sarah with her black eye and Billy shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot.
Martha sighed, then opened her mouth and said to Sarah, ‘Another black eye, I see. No need to wonder where that came from. Well, if him hitting you won’t make you leave him, perhaps this will …‘ She didn’t finish the sentence because a stinging slap caught her on the side of the face.
It was Billy.
‘You’re hysterical,’ he said. ‘We’ll come back when you’re feeling better. Come on, Sarah.’ He led her from the room.
‘That went well,’ said stern midwife, coming out of the ensuite toilet.
‘Just get me my morphine,’ shouted Martha, who believed if a Class A drug was written up for you legally, you might as well take full advantage of it.
Martha pondered the enormity of what she had done while Jesus slept. She only had to hold out twenty-four hours and her father would never speak to her again. Oh, what bliss. She didn’t know what to do about Ted, about whom she felt rather regretful, and as for her outburst to Flower — that was completely ridiculous: she had no axe to grind there at all. And Flower had been a tower of strength. Poor Sarah, her intervention couldn’t have been more textbook stupid.
I must sort everything out when I leave here, thought Martha, suddenly grateful for a few moments’ peace. Little did she realise that with a baby in tow, finding the time to sort things out was about as likely as her father reappearing at the door and saying, ‘Fuck it, love, why not have another one and call it God?’
There was a knock on the door. Oh Christ, who is it now? thought Martha. ‘Yes?’ she shouted grumpily.
Junior opened the door and slunk into the room. He had a hunted look about him and the reason for this was revealed soon enough when he was followed in by his mum and two policemen. Jesus, in a worryingly anti-authority response to their arrival, woke up and started to cry very loudly.
‘Will you explain to them, Martha,’ said Junior. ‘They don’t believe my story about the BMW.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Martha, looking blankly at him, ‘I don’t know who you are.’
A smile spread over the face of the younger copper.
‘Only kidding,’ said Martha and turned to Junior’s mum. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, Mrs Shakespeare,’ she said. ‘I know I shouldn’t be encouraging him into bad habits … it was an emergency.’
‘So I see,’ said Junior’s mum, picking up Jesus and asking, ‘What’s he called?’
‘Haven’t decided yet,’ said Martha, wondering for the first of many times whether she could go through with the Jesus thing, especially given there were so many fundamentalist churches in her area. Jesus quietened down as soon as Mrs Shakespeare picked him up and Martha felt rather jealous.
‘Oh, he’s absolutely gorgeous,’ she said. ‘His daddy must be really pleased.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Martha.
The older policeman coughed in an attention-seeking sort of way.
‘Yes, finish your business,’ said Martha, ‘and then please get out of my room.’
‘Can I ask you a couple of questions, madam?’ he said.
‘Look,’ said Martha, ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened.
I was about to have a baby and I didn’t want to go to hospital on the bus. Call me a snob if you want, I had no money for a cab and so Junior very helpfully got a car for us to get there quickly and safely. I’m sorry he stole it.’
Junior nodded solemnly.
‘Well, I suppose that puts a marginally different complexion on things,’ said the senior policeman, looking like he had enjoyed saying ‘marginally’. His colleague nodded.
‘We’ll be in touch, son,’ said the older one.
They left leaving an awkward Junior and his mum by the bed looking around as if they had never seen a hospital room before. Junior’s mum suddenly stirred.
‘We’d better go too,’ she said. She turned to Martha. ‘Look, girl,’ she said, ‘is the father around?’
‘I’m not really sure,’ said Martha. ‘I should have a better idea by the end of the week.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Shakespeare, ‘if you need any advice on coping with the little lad, let me know, or I’ll babysit or whatever.’
‘Thank you,’ said Martha. ‘I’d be grateful of that sometime, I’m sure.’
Suddenly she was alone.
‘But I’m not alone, though,’ she said out loud. ‘No, you’re not alone,’ said stern midwife, coming into the room with some tablets for her.
‘You’re right, Jesus is with me,’ said Martha, evoking a rather strange look from stern midwife. If she did plump for ‘Jesus’, Martha could tell there were going to be many moments like this when people would think she was a Christian of the over-committed variety. As for poor Jesus himself, how would he cope in the playground? Would he be bulli
ed, laughed at, maybe worshipped — who could tell?
Martha could still extricate herself from the ‘Jesus’ commitment. Only a small roomful of people had heard her pronouncement and she would lose no face by saying she’d decided to change the name of her baby to Wilson or Brad or one of those fashionable surname-type names that every poor little bastard in South London had been saddled with. Why not Harris? Harris Harris, there was a name to contend with.
She was pondering this question when Jesus/Harris began to cry and stern midwife suggested she feed him as Martha was too knocked off to come up with that obvious solution to his distress. Up until this point her attempts at breast-feeding had been singularly unsuccessful but it now felt like things were reaching a crisis point and Jesus’s cries rang louder and louder round the room, giving rise to awful dark fantasies in Martha’s mind that she wouldn’t be able to feed him and the poor little guy would just fade away to nothing.
‘I killed Jesus,’ she said to herself.
Stern midwife, who was in the process of trying to attach the baby’s mouth to Martha’s nipple in that matter-of-fact way nurses have, which is reminiscent of an irritated plumber trying to force a bit of washing machine to fit another bit, wondered whether she should call the duty psychiatrist to come and examine Martha, who could be suffering from post-natal psychosis. She thought perhaps to be on the safe side she would.
Martha was beginning to realise she had already claimed the name in her own mind for her little boy and whatever the emotional cost, ridicule or threat he might have to suffer in the future, she would stick with ‘Jesus’. Besides, if it all got too much, they could move to South America where there were hundreds of Jesuses running around.
At this point, Flower put her head round the door. ‘Do I still have to piss off?’ she said.
‘Oh I’m sorry,’ said Martha, having a brief respite from the raging torrent of hormones that was turning her from the person she thought she knew into a labile, over-concerned, huge squirting machine of vicious maternity.
Flower looked relieved. ‘I think I got off lightly in the Martha Attack Line-Up,’ she said. ‘How do you think your poor parents are?’
‘I don’t care,’ said Martha. ‘It’s me and Jesus against the world,’ adding, ‘Yes, I know I sound like a fucking fundamentalist Christian.’
Stern midwife was still there and both Martha and Flower were desperately trying to ignore her but Martha’s pain and irritation levels were so high that she slapped stern midwife away from her breast as if she was a particularly big horsefly.
‘Ow!’ said stem midwife and then smiled in a scary, nursing fashion, saying, ‘Aah, you young mothers are all the same.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ said Martha.
The baby finally slept, seemingly satisfied and Martha wondered if she would require surgery to put her nipples back on.
‘Did you notice Sarah?’ said Flower. ‘I know in the middle of all this gory glory that we shouldn’t be taking on anything, but the state of the poor girl … Let’s sort this bastard Billy out once and for all.’
Martha was surprised by Flower’s fierceness and her resolve because she herself, having been prodded, poked and opened up to allow a rather larger-than-life new human to pass through, felt that the last thing she wanted to do was sort anything out.
‘Look, Flower,’ she said pathetically, ‘I’ve got a new baby, I’ve alienated my parents, I’ve not even let my sister get as far as the ward before I got rid of her, Christ knows when Ted is ever going to reappear and talk to me, and now you want us to do something drastic to Billy.’
‘Not us,’ said Flower. ‘I’m quite prepared to take responsibility for it if you support me and we can talk about it.’
‘Well, what are you going to do?’ said Martha.
‘I’m going to get a gun,’ said Flower.
Martha laughed uproariously. Flower didn’t. ‘Oh come on, mate, a water pistol maybe or a staple gun to nail his bollocks to the carpet, but a real gun?’
‘A fake gun wouldn’t work,’ said Flower.
‘Wouldn’t work killing him, do you mean?’ said Martha, horrified.
‘No,’ said Flower, equally horrified. ‘No, wouldn’t work when I threaten him with it and tell him to lay off Sarah once and for all.’
‘He’ll laugh in your face,’ said Martha. ‘He’ll assume it’s a fake and he’ll piss himself.’
‘I don’t think he will,’ said Flower, ‘because I will know it’s real so I’ll scare the shit out of him.’
‘And where are you going to get a gun? I know it’s rough round our way, but they don’t sell them in the Mini-Mart, you know’
‘Dick Knob’s going to get it for me,’ said Flower. ‘In fact, I’ll go with him and get it. Might work out into a good routine.’
‘Oh what, the I Went Up The East End And Bought A Gun Illegally To Threaten Someone routine … might be a slight giveaway.’ said Martha. ‘And by the way, when are you seeing Mr Knob?’
‘I’m working with him tonight in West London,’ said Flower.
‘Don’t,’ pleaded Martha, suddenly overcome by misgivings.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Flower. ‘What you don’t realise is it’s better that I have it than if they sell it to some fourteen-year-old car thief.’
‘Like Junior, you mean?’ said Martha.
Flower looked at her watch. ‘Jesus, I’d better go,’ she said, then she remembered the baby and added, ‘Oh sorry. ‘‘Don’t worry,’ said Martha. ‘I realise what I’m taking on if I give my son a name that incorporates so many scary concepts and even a swearword. Maybe I should just call him “Fuck”. What do you think? ,,Fuck Harris”. Does it suit him?’
‘No,’ said Flower, ‘stick with Jesus, it’s growing on me. Look, I’ve got to rush now or I won’t have time to get home and rub some stuff into poor Charlie’s back before I go to the gig.’
Flower passed Mr Cancer and the tubercular gang on her way out and disliked herself intensely for wishing she had a gun now to put this pasty bastard out of his misery too. Who would miss him? she wondered. Did he have someone who loved him somewhere? Was there a woman who was that disturbed? She decided there must be, considering women write to serial-killers and want to marry them. In fact, Martha’s liaison with Billy was a very minor version of that. Flower decided she must keep an eye on Martha and hope that she didn’t start corresponding with a convicted killer.
Mr Cancer had no idea of the amount of hate that was surging through Flower’s veins as he called, ‘Hello, beaky,’ to her disappearing back.
She turned and not being able to help herself said Martha’s line, ‘Well, at least I haven’t got cancer.’ She didn’t wait for the consequence and headed straight off down the road not realising that Mr Cancer just wanted to be loved like everyone else and a big fat tear rolled down his cheek.
Charlie was a bit miserable as well when she got home. He had been wondering to himself why he couldn’t just have a girlfriend who had normal friends instead of Martha and Sarah both of whom, in Charlie’s opinion, were too high maintenance.
Flower wondered if she should tell Charlie she was going to go ahead and ask Dick Knob to get her a gun. They had discussed the whole thing generally and for a couple of hippies found they were pretty right-wing in their attitudes towards the state of the streets of London, crime and how it should be dealt with. Charlie had noticed, though, that Flower was becoming increasingly combative and leaving him behind in the hang ‘em and flog ‘em department. He had thought of arming his girlfriend with some sort of weapon to protect herself with when she was out alone, but to be quite honest a gun had never occurred to him and had Flower told him, he would have been very patronisingly negative about it.
Flower was nervous. She had been booked for that night’s show, rather than been given a five-minute guest spot. The venue was a university in West London which was having a ball to celebrate its 50th anniversary and had decided to throw a few comedi
ans to the students at the end of the evening as gladiators weren’t allowed any more. Therefore, the gig didn’t start until eleven and Flower’s stomach kept telling her that they would all be very pissed and probably quite abusive. On the bill with her were Dick Knob and Muff Diva, an innocent hippy filling in a filth sandwich, she thought to herself. However, she liked Muff — real name Alison Hughes — and even though Dick Knob came out with nauseating stuff for some reason it didn’t bother her.
Dick Knob picked Flower up at the corner of her road in a black car that looked American (‘it’s paid for itself in twat’) and they drove up through the centre of town where a flat just behind Paddington regurgitated Muff Diva, looking decidedly queasy. ‘Food poisoning or up the flicking duff,’ being her assessment of the situation.
They headed for the A40 and after an hour or so stuck in traffic reached the hallowed portals of what looked more like a science-fiction film set than a university. Here they met a slightly pissed union representative called Dan who was going to compère the show.
The dressing-rooms were at the back of the stage and were positioned near the toilets so the full aural effect of the alcohol-sodden students could be assessed by all three. Dan said they would start in about half an hour and managed to procure them three warm bottles of lager, a packet of crisps and a plate of sandwiches that looked as if someone had already tried them.
Some sort of dancing and screaming was going on and Flower felt her sandwich hit the pit of her stomach and begin to make its way up again. ‘Butterflies’ was not a good way to describe the process within her entrails, more like the iron grip of fear which simultaneously had stimulated her bladder and loosened her bowels and threatened a total system shutdown.
At this point, before a really awful gig, Flower always tried to imagine the worst that could happen to try and calm herself down. A person jumping onto the stage and killing her never entered into it, however; it was always the fantasy of a killer heckle that made the audience cheer for minutes on end and led Flower to sadly slash her wrists in the pissy, makeshift dressing-room, that gripped her imagination.