‘Well, it is kind of a special occasion – it’s Christmas Eve. And, anyway, it tasted rotten so we had to mix it with Sprite.’
‘SPRITE!’ her father exploded.
‘Jeez, Dad, chill. You’ve got ten zillion more bottles down there.’
‘Not of the Château d’Yquem 1938 I don’t.’
Laura stood up. ‘I’m very sorry. We’ll replace it for you.’
‘It costs a bloody fortune!’ he roared.
‘What?’ Chloë and Laura were horrified.
‘But it tasted awful, Dad, honestly. It must have gone off or something.’
Chloë’s dad leaned in so that his face was close to his daughter’s. ‘It had not “gone off ”. You and your brainless friends have just drunk one of the finest wines in my cellar and you destroyed it by mixing it with LEMONADE. If I ever see you near my wine again you’ll be grounded for life. I’m going to bed now before I say something I regret. Tidy up and remove the bottles from my sight.’ To Laura, he added, ‘It’s time you went home, young lady. You shouldn’t be out this late and you certainly shouldn’t be drinking. Have you no consideration for that child? Go home.’
‘Dad!’ Chloë glared at her father and walked Laura to the door. ‘Don’t mind Dad. He’s just obsessed with his stupid wines.’
‘It’s cool, don’t worry. Merry Christmas.’ Laura hugged her friend and walked down the driveway, pulling her coat round her. She shivered, but it wasn’t because she was cold. She saw white, but it wasn’t because it had snowed: it was because of the way Mr Jackson-Black had looked at her – as if she was trash, a loser, a nobody, a has-been.
3.
Anna
Christmas Eve 1992
Anna reached up to hang the fat Santa they had got in Las Vegas on the tree. Barry had thought she was mad buying a Christmas decoration in the scorching heat but she liked to collect them from all her travels. That Vegas holiday had been a good one. It was before they had started trying for a baby, before everything had got complicated and stressful and tense between them.
Vegas had been fun and carefree. They had gone to shows, eaten in fantastic restaurants, gambled at the blackjack tables until the sun came up and then slept all day in their oversized room. Everything in Vegas had been super-size. They had gambled too much, eaten too much, drunk too much, and had lots of passionate sex. It had been wonderful.
But then they had decided to try for a baby and everything had changed. As the months had turned into years, Anna had become more and more obsessed with being a mother. She’d read every book she could find. She’d stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine; she’d cut down on her sugar intake; she’d taken awful Chinese herbs that made her feel sick. Sex had become robotic, functional and, finally, loveless. She knew Barry was at the end of his tether. He was sick of the whole baby trail. After the last miscarriage he had begged her to stop. He’d said they could just have a life without children: her obsession with getting pregnant had turned her into a person he no longer recognized. They never had fun any more. Everything was so serious and sad and depressing. He wanted to live a little, to stop being ruled by her monthly cycle. He’d said he was feeling worn out and ground down. He wanted to turn back the clock to before they had started trying to have a baby.
But she couldn’t do that. She wanted to be a mother. She yearned for a baby. She ached to have her own child. It was all she could think about. Every second of every day was taken up with how, why, when … She hardly went out because she couldn’t bear to listen to their friends chattering about their babies and moaning about their sleepless nights. She’d wanted to scream, ‘I have sleepless nights, crying for the baby I don’t have and for the babies I’ve lost. You’re lucky to be up with your babies. You should be thanking God, not complaining.’ She’d known it was irrational, they meant no harm, that they were exhausted, struggling with newborns and toddlers, but she still couldn’t stand listening to it. She had preferred to stay in and read books or watch movies. It took her away from herself for a few blissful hours. It briefly silenced the noise in her head and gave her a little relief.
But Barry had wanted to go out. He’d wanted to get drunk and talk about football, cars and politics with his mates. He’d wanted to get away from their house, from their situation and, she feared, from her. When they were out together and someone mentioned babies, Barry would check to see if she was OK. But when he was alone she’d known he could forget about infertility and immerse himself in the lively banter he so enjoyed with his friends. In the last year they had barely gone out together at all. When they did go out, they usually went to the cinema. They didn’t need to talk there. They didn’t need to fill the silence. In the dark cinema they could pretend everything was normal, ignore the cracks and the rot that had seeped into their marriage.
When Anna’s mother had got sick and died, Barry had thought it would push her over the edge, finish her off. But it hadn’t. In a really strange and surprising way it had helped. For four months she had stopped thinking about babies all the time and focused on her mother. She had gone to see her straight after school every day, and when she was too sick to manage, Anna had moved in with her. She had loved those few weeks she had spent in her old home. She and her mother had always been close and the time they had had together in those last months was precious. Her mum had told her not to worry so much, that a baby would come to her. She had told her that she knew Anna was destined to have a child of her own. She had to put her trust in God. She also warned her not to neglect Barry because she could see that he was suffering too, that he was heartbroken about the miscarriages, but men reacted to grief differently.
Anna and her mum had talked about everything. They had looked over old photo albums, laughed a lot and cried a lot. It had been very cleansing and cathartic. Anna had got out a lot of her sadness and pent-up emotion. Instead of pretending she was strong, she had allowed herself to fall apart, and her mother had encouraged it. When she had died, although part of Anna was devastated, another part was glad. The last few weeks had been awful for her mother and she was happy that her suffering was over. She also knew how lucky she was to have had such an incredible mother in her life for thirty-eight years. They had said all the things they wanted to say to each other; they had loved and been loved. She believed with all her heart that her mother would send her a baby. God had taken her mum so now He owed her a baby. She knew her mother wouldn’t let her down. She’d make it happen.
Three months after she had died, just when Anna was beginning to panic, she had found out she was pregnant. And she had known that this baby was a keeper. All her nerves were gone. This baby made her feel close to her mother, as if she was still with her. This child kept her warm inside. This life would replace the one that was lost.
Anna put on some Christmas music and looked out of the window. She couldn’t wait for Barry to come home so she could tell him about the Christmas play. She wanted to make him laugh again, like she used to. They had never been able to return to their Vegas days, but since she’d got pregnant this time, things had been better between them. This was going to be a great Christmas.
She giggled to herself as she thought about the children’s play and the mayhem in Bethlehem …
The nativity play was one of Anna’s favourite tasks with the class. She knew that, with schools becoming multicultural, it would soon be a thing of the past so she was cherishing the few years she had left with her mini Marys and Josephs.
As usual, all the girls wanted to be Mary and all the boys wanted to be Joseph. Anna reminded them that there were lots of other important roles – like the narrator and the innkeeper and the donkey and the three wise men and the shepherds and the angels. Then all the girls decided they wanted to be angels and the boys wanted to be the donkey. Everybody had a part. Kylie was Mary, and Francie a shepherd – he didn’t want a speaking part because of his stutter. Jason was the angel Gabriel, and Ryan had begged to be the donkey. Anna had thought this was a good idea as it
was a physical role that should keep him out of trouble.
On the night of the concert, after weeks of preparation, Kylie refused to get up on the donkey.
‘Why not?’ Anna asked.
‘I don’t want to say.’
‘Come on, Kylie, you can say it.’
‘I’m just not riding him.’
‘Are you afraid of falling off?’ Anna asked.
‘No. It’s because Mary is the Mother of God and there’s no way she’d be riding around on a donkey that smells dirty.’
‘OK, that’s enough,’ Anna said. ‘Just get up now.’
Ryan stood up, hands on hips. ‘Well, I’m not letting you get up on me anyway, Kylie, because I don’t want your smelly knickers on my back.’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ Anna said firmly. ‘We’re going to use this blanket as a saddle. Now, I want you all to be nice to each other and no more cross words.’ She placed the blanket on Ryan’s back.
She peeped out from behind the makeshift curtain to see if the parents were all settled in their seats. She was relieved to see that each child had a family representative in the audience, whether it was a parent, grandmother, older sister or brother. Even Ryan had someone: his sixteen-year-old sister had come to support him. Anna was thrilled. Kylie’s mum looked a bit unsteady, but the granny was there too, so hopefully she’d keep her in check. Jason’s dad was in the back row beside Francie’s mother, who was wearing dark glasses that didn’t hide her black eye.
‘OK, everyone, are you ready? We’re going to start now.’ Anna smiled down at her little class. She had made the costumes with the children. The angels were wearing white shirts and had halos made of tinsel. The shepherds wore the traditional tea-towels on their heads. Mary had a blue dress and a matching tea-towel, and the kings had crowns made of cardboard and gold paper.
‘Right, narrator, off you go.’ Anna gently nudged Karen on to the stage.
The little girl went bright red. ‘A very long time ago, like ages and ages ago, in a place called Naz– Naz– …’
‘Nazareth,’ Anna prompted.
‘Oh, yeah, Nazareth, there was a girl called Mary and she was gorgeous-looking and everyone fancied her. And she was a lovely girl, not a slut at all, and she never took drugs or anything like that. No way. Anyways, one day she was having a cup of tea and the angel Gabriel came to see her.’
Jason strutted on to the stage and stood in front of Kylie, who was pretending to drink a cup of tea. ‘Howrya, Mary?’
‘Grand, thanks. Howzit going?’ Mary said.
‘Are you not surprised to see me?’
‘Oh, Jesus, yeah, sorry, I forgot.’ Kylie’s hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Sorry, Mrs Roberts, I didn’t mean to curse.’
The parents roared laughing.
‘It’s OK,’ Anna said, from the side of the stage. ‘Go on.’
‘You’re all right, Mary,’ the angel Gabriel said. ‘So, anyways, I came to tell you brilliant news. You’re going to have a baby and his name is Jesus.’
‘But I’m not married!’ Kylie said.
‘Neither was your mother,’ one of the women shouted up at Kylie.
‘Shut up, you witch,’ Kylie’s granny hissed. ‘Leave the poor child alone. Go on, Kylie, you’re doing great.’
The angel Gabriel reassured her: ‘Don’t worry about it because this is God’s child and you’re going to get married to a different fella called Joseph. He won’t mind that the baby’s daddy is actually God.’
‘He’s a bigger man than me.’ Jason’s dad laughed.
‘Shut up, Da,’ Jason scolded. ‘I’ll forget me lines.’
‘Is this Joseph fella good-looking? Does he have money?’
Jason looked confused: this was not part of the script. ‘Eh, yeah, he’s OK, like, and I think his da owns a chipper so you’d get free chips and nuggets.’
‘OK, then. I’ll do what God says.’ Mary and Gabriel walked off stage.
The narrator then said, ‘Loads of soldiers came and turfed Mary and Joseph out of their house and they had to go on a donkey for, like, ages, and Mary was huge and fat and knackered.’
Joseph and Mary appeared on stage. Mary was on the donkey, and was looking a bit unsteady. The donkey was busy trying to find his sister in the crowd.
‘Howrya, Siobhan,’ Ryan shouted, when he saw her. She waved at him. He waved back and Mary fell off.
‘For God’s sake, Ryan, will you stay still?’ Mary shouted at her donkey. Then, to Joseph, she said, ‘I’m very tired, Joseph. I think we need to stay in a hotel. This donkey is crap – you should get rid of it.’
‘Piss off,’ the donkey snapped.
‘Stop that,’ Anna scolded from the side.
‘OK. I’ll go and see if there’s any room.’ Joseph knocked on a cardboard door. ‘Hello – any chance of a room with a flat-screen TV and some cheese and onion crisps?’
The innkeeper snorted. ‘You must be joking. There’s no room here for the likes of you. Look at the state of you, all dirty and smelly. No way.’
‘Come on, please! Me wife is about to have a baby,’ Joseph begged.
‘OK, you can stay in me shed.’
As Mary was shuffling towards the lump of straw that was the manger, she looked into the audience to see her mother fast asleep.
‘WAKE UP, MA! I HAVEN’T HAD THE BABY YET!’ she shouted.
‘She’s pissed, love,’ the woman behind her mother said.
Kylie looked crestfallen.
‘It’s all right, Kylie, I’m recording it. She can watch it tomorrow.’ Her granny waved her camera in the air.
The Virgin Mary stormed over to the hay and plonked herself down. The cushion that was her pregnant stomach fell out of her skirt.
‘You just went into early labour,’ a man shouted. Everyone laughed.
Kylie stuffed the cushion back up.
The narrator came back on. ‘So, anyways, some shepherds and some kings then followed the shining star and came to see Mary and the baby and give them loads of presents, a bit like Santa. I’m getting a bike from Santa for Christmas, amn’t I, Mam?’
‘Yes, love,’ her mother answered.
‘Deadly. And I’m getting a Barbie.’
‘Get on with the play, Karen. I’m startin’ me shift in Tesco’s in fifteen minutes,’ her mother urged.
‘So then the baby was born.’ The narrator summed it all up.
The Virgin Mary, who was lying on her back, legs akimbo, began to scream. ‘Oh, Jaysus, get the baby out! I’m in agony! Give me some drugs for the pain. Pull it out, Joseph – come on, will you?’
‘Push, Mary, push,’ Joseph said, getting into it.
‘It’s coming. Oh, God, here it comes, oh, the pain of it.’ Mary let out an ear-shattering scream, and Joseph pulled the plastic doll from under the hay and waved it about proudly by one leg.
The audience clapped, cheered and whooped.
In the excitement, Joseph threw the baby up in the air and then dropped it.
‘You’ve killed him!’ Mary roared. ‘You’ve dropped me baby on his head, you gobshite!’
Joseph picked the doll up and shook it. ‘No, it’s OK. He’s grand. Just a bump.’
‘Well, I’m not leaving him on his own with you again. You’re a crap dad.’
Joseph shook the doll in Mary’s face. ‘Fine, it’s not even my kid. God’s the dad, so why don’t you get him to look after the baby?’ With that, he stormed off the stage.
Anna stopped him. ‘You have to go back, it’s the last bit of the play.’
‘I’m not going. Kylie’s a pain. She said I tried to kill Jesus and I didn’t. It was an accident.’
‘I know, pet, and you’re very good with the baby. Now go on back and finish the play, there’s a good boy.’
Joseph stomped back on to the stage, followed by the shepherds, angels and wise men. They all sang a tuneless but very enthusiastic rendition of ‘Away In A Manger’ and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house … except for
Kylie’s mother’s: she was still snoring.
Anna saw Barry’s car pull into the driveway. She waved at him and hurried out to open the door. She was so full of joy she thought she might burst. This year, Santa Claus had given her the best present ever. She was finally getting the gift of motherhood.
4.
Laura
January 1993
‘Give me drugs, you stupid cow!’
The midwife gritted her teeth. ‘You need to push. The baby’s crowning. The sooner you push, the quicker this will all be over.’
‘I hate you and I hate this baby,’ Laura screamed.
‘Stop making a show of yourself,’ Joan hissed in her ear.
‘I’m in agony, Mum. Everything is orange – bright orange. Give me something – painkillers, vodka, anything.’
‘It was too much vodka that got you into this mess,’ Joan snapped.
‘Come on now, Laura, a big push,’ the midwife encouraged her.
Laura closed her eyes, let out an almighty roar and pushed the baby into the world. ‘Is it out? Please, God, tell me it’s out,’ she wailed.
‘It’s all over now,’ the midwife assured her. ‘You have a beautiful … little girl.’
Laura looked up and saw a wriggly, bloody thing coming towards her. She could see green, dark, murky green, as panic enveloped her.
‘Would you like to hold your daughter?’ the midwife asked.
‘Get her away from me.’ Laura shut her eyes. ‘She’s ruined my bloody life.’ She began to sob into the pillow.
Joan leaned over and took her tiny granddaughter into her arms. The baby opened her eyes and sighed. Joan kissed her and began to cry softly as she held her close.
An hour later, Laura was sitting up in bed feeling much better. They had given her tea and toast, and when no one was looking she had laced the tea with vodka. She desperately wanted a cigarette, but knew her mother would freak if she smoked in front of the baby. Joan was into aerobics and healthy living, which was so boring.
The baby had been washed and wrapped in a nice clean pink blanket and was tucked up in a cot beside Laura, sleeping peacefully. Laura leaned back into her pillows and took another slug of her tea. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
This Child of Mine Page 3