by Julia Green
They sat together on the bench. Both babies slept peacefully.
Colleen squeezed Mia’s arm. ‘Poor you. But you’ve got to remember there’s lots of different ways of being a mother.’
Mia sighed.
She was remembering again the letter Mum had sent her last year, when she thought Mia was going to have an abortion. It would be for the best, she’d said. Mia could get her exams and then she could really spread her wings and fly.
But Mia had chosen to keep the baby. Mum’s words had filled her with rage. She hadn’t understood what Mum had meant at the time. It was becoming clearer to her now.
‘Mum didn’t want me to have the baby,’ Mia said.
Colleen looked utterly shocked. It would be unimaginable for her own mother to think something like that.
‘I think she wishes she hadn’t had us, really.’
‘No, don’t say that. Stop it, Mia. You’re getting yourself in a right state. Just enjoy being here now. Make the most of it. It all changes so fast. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.’
Everything will be all right. Mia used to say that. Drifting along, just expecting everything to sort itself out. But it didn’t seem enough any more. It seemed that everyone else’s life was changing, moving on. And she was stuck.
They sat for a while in silence, soaking up the sun.
Mia eventually stood up. ‘I’m too hot. And thirsty. And I’m really tired today. I’m going back.’
‘OK. I’ll stay here a bit longer.’
‘Do you want to come over? Wednesday?’
‘I’ve got to go to the clinic Wednesday, get Zak weighed. Vicky said.’
‘Thursday, then? Friday?’
‘Friday. I’ll come to your house, shall I?’
Mia leaned down, hugged Colleen briefly. ‘Thanks.’
She couldn’t bear to think Colleen would be leaving so soon. Just when she’d found her.
Thursday. Mia had forgotten that it was the last GCSE exam that morning. Maths Paper Two. The Whitecross crowd were all at the bus station, waiting for the bus home.
Becky waved enthusiastically. ‘Mia! What are you doing here? Ah, look at Kai! Doesn’t he look sweet! I like his stars and fishes!’ She gave them a little twirl. ‘Shall I help you with the buggy?’
Liam and Matt and Will stood back slightly. Will had gone bright red. Becky held the sleepy baby while Mia folded up the buggy. It was easy now she’d done it so often.
‘We’re off down the beach for a celebration,’ Becky said. ‘You can come, too! Brilliant! Tasha’s coming in a minute – she’s gone to the supermarket to get stuff.’
It used to be her, getting the drink. Only she’d got caught too often – underage.
Mia glanced at Will. He was watching her; he nodded slightly.
Why shouldn’t she join in? They were her friends, too.
Tasha staggered over to the bus stop with clinking carrier bags in both hands.
‘Mia!’ She put down the bags, hugged her. ‘I didn’t know you were coming!’
‘It’s only by chance,’ Mia said. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have known. Like Saturday.’
Tasha pulled a face. ‘Sorry. It was just a spur of the moment thing, you know? We’ve really finished! Do you realize, everybody? We’re free!’ Tasha gave a squawk of delight.
Becky clucked at Kai. ‘He’s really looking at everyone now, isn’t he? Taking it all in.’
On the bus, the three girls took it in turns to hold him. Will, Matt and Liam sat together at the back. Will stumbled forwards as they approached their stop and lifted the buggy out of the luggage compartment.
‘I’ll take this,’ he muttered.
He fumbled with the catches, trying to put it up on the pavement. Matt and Liam laughed.
‘You try, then, if you think it’s so funny,’ Will said.
‘Give it here. I’ll do it,’ Mia said.
‘Why don’t we carry Kai,’ Tasha said, ‘and put all the bottles and food and stuff in the buggy?’
‘Brilliant. Let me hold Kai.’ Becky took him from Tasha.
Mia watched anxiously from behind as Becky crossed the main road with her baby. His little face peeped back at her over Becky’s shoulder.
‘All right?’ Matt asked Mia.
She nodded.
It got easier once they’d all had a few drinks. It was almost like old times, back being part of the crowd. But she couldn’t drink as much as the rest of them. The alcohol would get in her milk, she knew, and she couldn’t do that to Kai. It would be like poisoning him. The conversation started to seem less funny. Too much talk about school, and results, and next September. A levels. Holiday jobs. And there was no way she was going to breastfeed Kai in front of Liam and Matt, so she had to leave the beach before all the others.
Becky went with her as far as the footpath.
‘You OK? You seem a bit down? Quieter than usual.’
‘I’m just not pissed like the rest of you.’
‘Will you be all right by yourself?’
‘Of course. I’m used to it.’
Sarcasm was wasted on Becky.
‘See you soon, then! Bye!’
Becky ran back to rejoin the others and Mia went on alone.
The house seemed even quieter and more lonely than usual. She put the telly on while she fed Kai in the sitting room. Load of rubbish, daytime telly. Kai seemed restless, he didn’t want to sleep. He arched his back and cried angrily each time she tried to lay him down in the basket. She wandered round the garden with him over her arm, like she’d seen other mothers do. It felt oppressively hot; clouds were beginning to build up. There were too many flies, tiny biting ones. She went back inside, drifted about the house, showing Kai things as if she were Colleen.
‘This is the clock. See. And here’s a photograph of your aunties, Laura and Kate, who are off having a wonderful time at university, and travelling, and don’t care about us one little bit. And here’s a photo of your granny.’
Kai squirmed in her arms. She’d been standing still too long, examining the photograph. It was one of Mum when she was much younger, holding Laura as a baby. Mia pored over her face, trying to read the expression. She didn’t look elated, or beatific, or brimful of joy, like mothers were supposed to look. She looked tired, and strained, and distant, as if she wasn’t quite there. She looked like Mia.
Mia’s mobile phone rang. She picked it up, heard giggling.
‘Becky?’
‘Hi, Mia!’ Giggle. ‘Just checking you’re OK!’ Giggle.
‘Oh, Becks! You’re completely pissed.’
‘And we want you to know – that we think Kai’s gorgeous and just like Will – and you’re very lucky – and Will’s playing at the pub on Friday and we’re all going, and we want you to –’
‘Stop it, Becky.’ Mia’s throat ached with suppressed sobs. ‘Call me when you’ve sobered up.’
She turned off her phone.
Mia lay on her bed, Kai wide awake at her side. The cat was stretched out on the duvet, shedding ginger hairs everywhere, but she let him stay. She picked up the paperback from the bedside cabinet and tried reading a bit more of the first chapter. It was about three girls sliding down sand dunes, and the writing was beautiful, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words. She kept thinking about Laura in Bristol, and Kate, somewhere in Turkey now, and Becky and everyone making plans for the summer and next year.
That letter from Mum: You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.
She leaned out of bed and rummaged through the piles of dusty papers in the cabinet, hunting for it. Instead, she came across the old notebook she used to write in last year, when she was pregnant.
She lay back on the bed, notebook open on the pillow, and started to read.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was strange, reading her own handwriting. To begin with, it didn’t seem like it was her at all. But step by step, it took her back.
October 14th. Week ten, and already it’
s decided whether it’s a boy or a girl. Little Bean, growing inside me. She (I think it must be a girl, because I can only imagine someone like me, though very tiny, 4.5 cm to be exact) has fingers and toes already, too. I haven’t told Will about what happened at the hospital. I’ll have to tell him. He’s a right to know. He’ll be a father, and nothing can change that.
The usual blackbird was in the top of the tree. She watched it through the open window. A male bird, glossy and black. The female, with its drab brown, raggedy feathers, was scurrying about the lawn, pecking amongst the leaves, searching out food for the fledglings in the nest.
She turned another page in the notebook. She’d written in it after she’d got back home, and her mum had come down to Whitecross and told her all about what it had been like for her, having young children, being pregnant. Why she’d left, when Mia was so little… she said maybe it was a healing thing for me, having this baby. And that I could be a much better mother than she had been. I bloody hope so.
Beside her, Kai kicked and smiled and held out his hand to the strip of sunlight shining on to the edge of the bed. Above them both, the silver stars circled gently in the warm air currents.
Sunday. Went down to the sea really early, before anyone was up. Snow everywhere still, even on the beach. I’ve never seen that before.
The sky was a pale, delicate blue. Baby Blue. And a thin sliver of moon floated just above the horizon. Today I’m full of hope and excitement about the baby. I know we’re going to be all right, Little Bean and me. I’m really going to try.
Mia turned over the next page in the notebook. No more entries; she’d not written another word. But a small white feather drifted out from between the pages. She must have stuck it in there, between the blank pages, for safe keeping.
She picked it up carefully. It was still soft. She brushed it against her cheek.
Soft as a newborn baby’s downy head.
Mia looked at Kai, snuggled beside her on the bed. The fluff of his dark hair. Her hair, but sorter, finer. She stroked it smooth and he turned towards her. He could do that now, turn his head where he wanted it. Each day there were new things. Small things that no one but a mother would notice. Small, important things.
She watched him for a long time.
Mia rummaged in the bedside cabinet again, searching for a pen. She found her old pencil case from school, still smelling of dusty classrooms, and pencil sharpenings, and spearmint gum. She chose a black pen, extra fine, smoothed the clean notebook page open, and began to write.
June 29th. He’s lying beside me now. He. Because Little Bean turns out to be Kai. Today he’s wearing his turquoise Babygro from Becky and a blue cardigan with yellow fish buttons – Will’s mum knitted it for him. His dark hair’s all fine and wispy. There’s a patch at the back where it’s almost worn away, but it’ll grow back again, Vicky says. His eyes are a deep blue, like Will’s. Celtic colouring, Dad says, like his name. Kai’s changed so much in just seven weeks. Gradually, he’s opening out. Like a flower that starts off as a tight bud. He lies on his back and he can turn his head now, and he reaches out with his hand. Opens the fingers like a starfish. Or shuts them tight, clamped round my finger, a limpet.
Her hand began to ache from gripping the pen so tightly. The writing was messy, but it flowed out of her. Now she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
He is completely beautiful and perfect, and when I look at him sometimes I can’t believe that he came from me. Because he is so much himself. And there’s this feeling inside me I can’t describe. Sometimes it feels as if I’ll burst with it. Warm, and quivering, and alive. I think it’s love. I see it on Colleen’s face when she’s looking at Isaac and she can’t stop smiling. It sounds corny, talking about love like that. But it isn’t. It’s the most amazing thing. I didn’t know that I could feel like this.
As she wrote, she felt the magic, the miracle of the baby somehow being restored. It was as if she were coming back into herself, remembering something so important about why she’d chosen to keep him in the first place, even before she really knew who he was.
The wind outside in the garden had got up. It rattled the window, blew gusts that jangled and twisted the strings of stars dangling from the dark blue ceiling. The first splatter of rain struck the window.
She lay and listened to it drumming on the glass, the softer sounds of rain on leaves. The cat curled itself round more tightly next to her feet. Kai still lay with his eyes open, watching the movement of the leaves of the ash tree. She stroked his cheek for a while and soon his eyes began to close. He flickered them open again, once, twice, three times, as if he were checking she was still there, before he let himself fall completely asleep.
Mia felt a deep peace spreading through her tired body. She didn’t sleep; she stayed watching over her sleeping child, taking in all over again the miracle of him.
Dad’s key in the lock. She’d forgotten she was supposed to be cooking supper tonight. Mia slipped out from beside Kai, wedged him safely on the middle of the bed with pillows, lifted the cat and took him with her downstairs.
‘Hello, Dad. You’re late.’
‘Sorry, love. Everything OK?’
‘What are those?’
Dad dumped a pile of glossy magazines on the kitchen table. He flushed. ‘Holiday brochures.’
‘Oh? And?’
‘We thought of taking a week or two away.’
‘We?’
‘Julie and I.’
Mia leafed through the brochures. The Magic of Italy. Romantic Greece. Hidden Spain.
‘I should have said something before, I know.’ Dad was flustered. ‘But I thought I’d wait till it was more definite. Sorry.’
‘It’s OK, Dad. I don’t mind.’
‘You don’t? Blimey. “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ”! Bob Dylan,’ he added, ‘in case you didn’t know.’
‘Well, just a bit before my time, Dad.’ She smiled. ‘And Julie’s, for that matter.’
‘You’re in a good mood. What’s happened?’
‘Don’t know. Just feeling better, somehow.’
‘Good.’ Dad kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re doing a great job, you know? As a mum, I mean. I know it’s not easy. But he’s the best, that baby of yours. My grandson!’ He wrinkled up his nose. ‘Only that makes me sound so old.’
‘Well, you are.’
‘Thanks, Mia.’
‘Any time, Dad.’
He smiled. He looked tired. ‘Supper nearly ready?’
‘Sorry. I forgot. I haven’t even started it. I’ll do something quick.’
‘I’ll have a drink, then, and a bath. Where is Kai?’
‘Sleeping. Just gone off.’
Mia put on a saucepan for pasta and started chopping up onions and garlic. People said you shouldn’t eat spicy stuff if you were breastfeeding, but Kai didn’t seem to mind. He was growing and putting on weight exactly as he should. She wondered briefly how Colleen had got on at the clinic with Zak. She’d find out tomorrow. She hoped it wouldn’t be bad news, nothing serious. He hardly seemed to be growing at all. Poor Colleen. No wonder she wanted her mum.
From upstairs came the sound of Dad singing loudly in his bath. ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. On to his complete Bob Dylan repertoire now. She hoped he wouldn’t wake Kai. But it was nice to hear him singing, sounding happy. The whole atmosphere in the house had lifted.
Mia coiled spaghetti into the boiling water. ‘Nine minutes!’ she yelled upstairs.
It was because of her that it had changed, wasn’t it? Something had shifted.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mia woke in the night to hear thunder. It rumbled in the distance, rolled closer. She found herself counting the spaces between the lightning and the sound, like she used to as a little girl. Kai stirred in his basket but did not wake up. The lightning illuminated the whole room, cast strange shadows. But she wasn’t frightened, not like she used to be.
She’d had this recurring dream, as a child, ab
out Dad being struck by lightning and turning to stone. In the dream, she found his body stretched out in the garden, a stone effigy like you see in old cathedrals, hands together as if in prayer. She supposed that was what she’d dreaded throughout her childhood: that something would happen to him, too, and she’d be left totally alone. That was how important he was. He’d been there when mum had left, and he still was, in his own way, even though it was all changing now. Children need fathers. That was what Becky had said, and it was true. It was true for her, wasn’t it? And so it must be true for Kai, too.
Mia lay in the dark, thinking about Will. Colleen had been right when she said he wasn’t ready yet, but he still might be. She’d have to take it one step at a time. Build up their friendship again. Perhaps she’d try and go to see him play with his band at the pub with Becky and the others. Dad might babysit Kai for an hour. Or Becky’s mum.
She could take an interest in his music, like she used to. Perhaps she could get Colleen to teach her how to play something. That violin, snug in its beautiful velvet-lined case. Or something a bit easier to begin with, like the piano. May be she could learn to sing.
Colleen would be over in the morning. Mia thought again about little Isaac not growing properly. Maybe it was simply because Colleen wasn’t really happy, wasn’t thriving, away from her mum and her people. Maybe she did need to go and live with her mother for the summer. But even if she did, she still might be persuaded to come back and stay with Mia for two weeks while Dad and Julie went away. And then – Mia was getting quite carried away now – when he saw how well she and Colleen got on, and how responsible she was getting now, Dad might agree that it would be a very good idea for Mia and Colleen and the babies to get a flat together in the autumn. Not a flat, Mia corrected herself. It would have to be a house, with a garden and a tree. Colleen couldn’t thrive without a garden, and the babies needed one, too.
It was a good plan, wasn’t it? A start, at least. She would talk to Colleen about it in the morning.
Colleen could go and visit her mum whenever she needed to. Mia might even visit hers in Bristol. And the house in Whitecross would still be here, for her to come back to. Even if Julie was there, too. Becky and Tasha would still be around. They’d babysit, sometimes. And all the mothers – Becky’s, and Will’s even.