Motherlove

by Thorne Moore

  But it was pointless wondering, because Gillian hadn’t put her foot down. So she didn’t go to grammar school and become a teacher, which is what grammar school girls did. She went to Houghton Road Secondary Modern, and she passed her O levels in English and Maths and she took her commerce, shorthand and typing courses, and she got a secretarial job with the Gas Board, which was the acme of career success on Marley Farm Estate. A nice office job to see her through until she settled down to the proper business of a woman’s life, getting married and having babies.

  She did it all. She qualified, she worked, at twenty-one she married Terry, a nice undemanding lad with a decent job at the car plant, and she prepared to embark on motherhood.

  And the needle stuck.

  Why? How could life be so spiteful? It was all she’d ever asked. For a year after her marriage she’d stayed on the pill, while they worked on putting a bit aside, sorting themselves out, thinking about a proper home, instead of the rented flat over the florist’s shop. Then they’d decided that now was as good a time as ever, and she’d come off the pill and waited for nature to take its course.

  When nothing happened there was no great panic during the first year or even, really, during the second. Just a little uneasiness as time passed, as she lay awake in the early mornings, listening to Terry’s snores and trying to detect the faint flutter of nausea.

  In their third year of trying, she was determined. There must be something simple they were doing wrong. She borrowed manuals, wrote to advice columns in magazines, she insisted on new daring positions which left Terry struggling between titillation and embarrassment. She kept thermometers in the bathroom and demanded performance by the calendar clock, her husband grumbling.

  And still nothing. In the fourth year she consulted a doctor, although it took another year before she could persuade Terry to go too. Fertility treatment. Poking and prying, living like a lab rat, and more humiliations than she had ever believed she could endure, and still nothing. Their savings dwindled and Terry was sympathetic and irritated in turns. He wanted a child, she knew. He didn’t long to change nappies and attend parent’s evenings, but he liked the idea that he might pass on the mysteries of the internal combustion engine to another generation.

  But Gillian wanted a child in a different way. It grew and grew within her like a cancer, devouring body and mind, until it seemed the only thing she had ever wanted. Her only purpose was to carry a child, to protect and nurture it and watch it grow into some fabulous bird of paradise that would finally spread its wings and fly. Little by little, her sense of failure passed through worry, frustration and anger into aching, all-consuming despair.

  Despite that letter of approval, if a baby wasn’t available in the next few months, that door would close on her forever, and there would be nothing left except to die.

  ‘You have no idea what they cost,’ said Pam.

  ‘And do you?’

  Pam wasn’t accustomed to being attacked. ‘A lot! Ask Dave.’

  Joan nodded. ‘Eat you out of house and home. Want, want, want, that was all I ever got from you lot.’

  ‘Yeah, and want was all we ever got from you,’ said Sandra.

  ‘Worked my fucking arse off for you, I did. Not that I ever got a word of thanks. Where would you all have been without me, answer me that.’

  ‘In care and in bloody clover probably.’

  Gillian put her tea down and left them to it. The washing was flapping out on the line, dry enough by now. Best to get it in before the skies opened.

  Her mother and her sisters were terrible parents. What if it were inherited? All those months Gillian had spent trying to convince the powers that be that she would make a perfect mother. But what if she too were a failure, damned by the warped Summers genes? Should she withdraw? Warn the agency, for the sake of all children, to keep clear of her family?

  For one bleak moment, she imagined it. ‘Claire, it’s wrong. This family isn’t fit to have a child.’

  ‘No!’ She shouted it loud, though her denial was muffled by the flapping sheets. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t that noble. And she wasn’t Joan or Sandra or Pam. She was Gillian Wendle, a woman who wanted nothing but to be a mother. A good mother, if only they would give her a child.

  ‘Crazy cow,’ she heard Sandra laugh, back in the house. ‘Who the hell wants a bloody baby?’

  iii

  Lindy

  ‘Get that fat lump out of here, can’t you.’ Gary scowled at her. ‘Got people coming. Don’t want a great fat cow pushing herself in their faces.’ He groped in the cupboard for a fresh packet of cigarettes. ‘Look at that. Baked beans. Baby crap. Go get us some proper food. A pizza or something.’

  ‘Yes, Gary, all right.’ Lindy pulled her coat on without being asked twice.

  Slumped at the table, Gary assessed her from head to foot. She wasn’t really a great fat cow. Too skinny by nature. If she walked right and let the big coat hang, you wouldn’t even notice the bump. ‘Watch yourself. Don’t want the whole world knowing that thing’s on its way. When is it due, anyway?’

  She chewed her lip, like she was struggling to calculate. Dozy cow. ‘I dunno. A couple more weeks, I think.’

  ‘Okay. Just keep your head down. Couple of weeks, then we get rid of it, right?’

  She looked at him, pleading. ‘It’s your baby, Gary.’

  ‘Like fuck it is.’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Well I don’t give a fuck, see. You stay with me – it goes. Got that, girl?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So don’t go telling no one.’

  ‘What about a doctor or something?’

  ‘You don’t need a doctor. It’s natural, dropping a baby. Dogs and cats, they just do it, don’t they? Just do it and no one need know. Now clear out. And bring back some beer.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Lindy knew she had to be out of the house while Gary did business, so there was no point in hurrying. No point in just trotting along to the local Spar and lifting a few cans and packets. Besides, she’d done it so many times now that Mr Patel was on the lookout for her. It would be better to go into town, the big department stores and the bustling shopping centre where no one would pay her any attention. She was a professional. She knew what to do.

  Rain began to spot the pavement, gathering for a downpour. The voluminous coat was twice as heavy when it got soaked, and it took forever to dry in the damp flat. She was glad that she could slip into the shopping centre, where there was no rain or wind or sky. Always the same light, the same heat. Keep the customers focussed on the big glass windows. Boots, Debenhams, River Island, Next. It wasn’t such a great place for food though. The Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Donut parlour were no use to her, unless she fancied trying to lift a couple of dozen sugar sachets. She could imagine how Gary would react to that.

  She paused a moment, inhaling the smell of fried chicken. Not a good idea. It made her feel hungry, and she couldn’t afford it. Forget it. There was a little Tesco’s at the far end. That would do. Busy aisles and easily diverted check-out girls.

  It would be tricky because she didn’t have enough money to buy anything as cover. She’d had more cash, to be honest, when Gary was still inside. She’d been desperate for him to come back, to be her man, to take care of her, but now he never gave her any money, and he took her benefit, spent it all on fags. Still, she had him.

  She plodded on. Wafted along by gentle skating muzak. People could skate here, the floor was that polished. Lindy had seen it being done. Working here for Greg, coming in through one of the unnoticed back doors beneath the multi-storey car park, in the dead of night, to join the cleaning crew, she had seen the polishers at work. No dirt and litter in the sanitised shopping centre.

  She needed to sit down. It had been a long walk from Nelson Road, and she was feeling odd. Light-headed. Her back was breaking and her legs ached. She sat down on the island seats that were designed to be not too comfortable so the shoppers
would be up and shopping again. Kept her coat clasped around her. A fat old woman sat down beside her, muttering at her disapprovingly for not being fat and old. Lindy wanted to give her lip. Wasn’t her fault she was young. But she couldn’t afford to get into a swearing match, because she had to keep her head down, Gary said, until the baby was born and they could dump it.

  So after a minute she trailed on, leaving the fat old woman to spread herself. No rush to go round Tesco’s. Try her hand somewhere else first. Didn’t matter where. He could sell anything she nicked. Videos and records were good; there was HMV round the corner. Or here. Baby Garden, with its bright bubbly displays. Loads of stuff just asking for it. It didn’t matter what.

  Not many fat old women in here. Mums with buggies or dragging toddlers, or mums-to-be in frilly maternity dresses, edging their bulges round the displays. Baby clothes, soft and pastel and bright. Jackets and playsuits and tiny little bootees. Cots and quilts and changing mats and bottles and dummies and teddy bears and cloth books, and women thumbing through them all like this was expected, like this was what a baby had to have.

  Just as well she and Gary weren’t going to keep her baby, because she didn’t have nothing for it. She stood watching a woman choosing between two tiny jumpsuits, one striped, one with stars. What would Lindy do? Wrap hers in newspaper? Gary was right, it was a joke, her keeping it. Stupid.

  These women paid good money for this stuff. It must be worth nicking. Lindy picked up a gift set. Plastic mug and bowl, two plates, knife, fork and spoon, all with dancing bears, in rigid plastic wrapping. She’d take this. And that tiny quilted coat with the fluffy hood. Must be worth a bit.

  The manager was looking her way. Suspicious. She could play it canny, put down the gift set and the coat and pick up something else, those cloth alphabet bricks maybe, keep mooching, choosing, edging out of sight until the manager’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Then again, sometimes it worked just as well to play all innocent. Chin up, guileless, ‘Course I’ve paid, do I look like I’m shoplifting?’ That’s what she’d do now. She slipped the gift set and clothes inside her coat and walked boldly for the door.

  She heard the hasty ‘Oi!’ of the store manager, barely a second before a man’s hand closed on her arm.

  ‘Excuse me, madam, I believe you have items there that you have not purchased.’ Polite preliminaries by rote. She looked up into his eyes and knew his courtesy had already run its course. No more of that ‘excuse me’ stuff for the likes of her. Big and burly, thick red neck, he was grinning with contempt, grabbing at the plastic packaging peeping from her coat. She fought him off, but he was stronger, dragging her back into the store.

  ‘Geroff me!’

  ‘Shoplifting. You’re not going anywhere, my girl.’

  ‘I ain’t nicked nuffing.’

  ‘What’s this then?’ Treating her like a rag doll, he pulled out the quilted coat.

  ‘They’re mine. I got them weeks ago.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ He held them up to show the Baby Garden labels.

  ‘Can we take this through to the office, please, Mr. Gilbert.’ The manager joined them, nervous more than triumphant. She had spotted the probable shoplifting, but now they had an actual situation, a girl caught, an over-zealous security guard wanting to demonstrate his he-man qualities, she was just desperate to keep any unpleasantness from sullying her store. Customers were watching, uncomfortable and embarrassed, or tutting indignation.

  The guard frogmarched Lindy through the store. ‘Okay, don’t you go making a fuss. Caught red-handed.’

  The manager patted his arm, speaking softly to show him that shouting wasn’t a good idea. ‘Just come through to the office, please, and we’ll wait for the police there.’

  ‘Stop pushing me! You’re hurting me!’ It was true. Lindy was hurting. ‘I’m pregnant!’

  ‘Ha ha, I doubt that,’ said the guard with a lewd laugh. ‘I know how these girls operate. Bit of padding in the right place. She’s no more pregnant than I am. You see.’ He thrust Lindy at the manager, who raised her hands to ward her off.

  ‘I am, see!’ Lindy flung her coat open. A pair of gloves, still with its Debenhams label, flopped out of one of the inner pockets, but her bump was evident. Painfully real on her thin frame.

  ‘Then you should be thinking about your baby,’ said a woman, prim cow. ‘What sort of example are you going to set? Not fit to be a mother.’

  ‘I just want stuff for my baby!’ said Lindy hotly. Facing the hostility of the world was normal. She was born to be bruised and to fight back if she had to. ‘I want stuff just like you and I ain’t got no money, so there.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sorry,’ said the manager, ushering her on. ‘I’m very sorry.’ She sounded as if, left to her own devices, she would mean it. ‘But that can’t excuse shoplifting. We have a very strict prosecution policy; there’s nothing I can do about it. You’ll just have to tell your story to the police, when they get here.’ She was breathing deeply. Why weren’t the police here already, to relieve her of this embarrassment?

  In the meantime, she needed Lindy out of sight, and Lindy knew it. The manager didn’t want a pregnant woman kicking and screaming and making a scene.

  ‘I ain’t going no-where. Don’t push me!’ She could play hurt easily, because she was hurting. ‘You shouldn’t shove a pregnant woman.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Another customer stepped forward, looking anxiously at Lindy, then down at the floor. ‘I think she’s a wee bit wet.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said the manager, wincing in disgust.

  ‘I think, maybe, her waters have broken,’ said the customer.

  Lindy watched the manager’s jaw drop. ‘Oh, Christ.’

  All different then. Suddenly, she wasn’t a sneaky little shoplifter. She was a helpless little mum-to-be, in need of urgent attention.

  ‘Poor thing, she’s only a child herself.’

  ‘Are you with anyone, dear? Is there someone we can get for you?’

  ‘Is there a doctor in the centre?’

  ‘Hadn’t you better call for an ambulance? She should be in hospital.’

  ‘Ambulance.’ The manager was hovering, hapless. ‘Oh God, yes. Of course, I’ll phone.’

  ‘Here you are.’ An assistant brought a chair. ‘You sit down, dear. Someone will be along soon.’

  ‘Best get the weight off your feet, eh?’ It was the security guard, who told her he had a daughter who had just given birth. Funny what this business did to people, however threatening they had been before.

  Everyone except Gary. He’d warned her to keep her head down.

  There was nothing she could do about that now. They’d sent for an ambulance, and she was glad, because the pain wasn’t easy like dogs and cats, whatever Gary said. It was real and Lindy was frightened. Terrified. This was all wrong and upside down and Gary would be mad, but what could she do?

  Ambulance men appeared at the door of the shop, and a dozen eager shoppers directed them to Lindy.

  ‘All right, love? Nothing to worry about. We’ll have you in hospital in no time.’

  The manager was on the phone, talking to head office, taking orders. A woman shoplifting was one thing. A woman giving birth was another. The Baby Garden chain had fourteen shops and the owners wanted their share of the Mothercare market. Right handling, right publicity, who knew how this could work out? The manager put the phone down, still nodding agreement, and raised a hand to the ambulance men, telling them she was going to attend to them as soon as she’d spoken with her assistants.

  ‘So what’s your name then?’ asked one of the ambulance men, squatting down by Lindy.

  ‘Lindy. Lindy Crowe.’

  ‘All right then, Lindy. So how often are the pains coming?’

  She looked at him helplessly. How often?

  ‘I think she’s got a while to go yet,’ confided one of the spectators, who saw herself as an expert. ‘But you can never tell, can you.’

  ‘Well, we’l
l get you into hospital and the docs can have a good look at you, eh?’

  How could she argue with them? She couldn’t run away. As she was escorted out, the manager and her assistants stood at the door, like the three kings at the manger. Offering carrier bags bulging with Pampers, bonnets, bootees and babygros.

  ‘Got to give Baby something to be getting on with,’ said the manager, trying a tentative smile. ‘Baby Garden believes that every child deserves a decent start in life.’

  Lindy clutched the bags. She felt the softness of wool and towelling. She didn’t know how to respond. She’d come to steal, hadn’t she? And they had given her all this. So she’d got away with it. Was that how Gary would see it?

  She didn’t want to think about Gary. This was stuff for her baby, just like a proper mum would have. And she was going into hospital, just like mums did.

  Lyford and Stapledon General. She had been here once before. One of Gary’s friends had been in with an overdose last year, and she’d come to see him, because Gary wanted to make sure Pete wasn’t saying nothing about where he’d got the stuff. She hadn’t liked it then, too official, too full of people in uniform. Too many horrible smells, too much sickness and death. Pete was out of his head and she’d never liked him anyway.

  It was different now. People were fussing round her, being nice to her. Nice but firm. When she’d been in care, firm sent her running. But now it was a relief. Nothing she could do, whatever Gary wanted.

  ‘Now then, dear, let’s have your details,’ said the nurse who seemed to have taken charge of her. ‘What’s your name?’