by Dyan Sheldon
Wrenching My Guts Out,
Wish You Were Here
I had an appointment at the clinic four days before I reckoned the baby would be born. I put on my cool maternity outfit, but the only shoes that were really comfortable were my trainers, which kind of ruined the effect. I put on my make-up and tied my hair back, which made me look older. Then I put some dance music in my Discman and practically skipped to the practice, I was that happy. Only a few more days and I wouldn’t be pregnant any more. I couldn’t wait. I felt like I’d been pregnant most of my life by now. It was hard to remember being able to sit at the table for more than five minutes before my back started aching. It was even harder to remember being able to have a cup of tea without feeling like somebody was pouring acid in my blood. But soon that would all be over and things would go back to normal. The best part was about to begin.
The doctor told me off for not going to the birthing classes.
“I thought you promised me you’d try and go.”
It was more a question than a statement.
“I know I did,” I said. It was incredible how many people sounded just like my mother. “And we were going to, really, but my boyfriend had to go to the States for a few months. For work. It was sudden.”
She peered at me over her glasses. “You could have gone on your own.”
I smiled, sort of shy and embarrassed. “I didn’t fancy going without him.” Which I didn’t.
“It’s not too late,” said the doctor. “There’s a class next week.”
By next week I shouldn’t need any classes. By then I’d be a mother.
Or maybe not.
The doctor said I’d got the date wrong.
“The baby seems small, Lana. Do you think you could have made a mistake?”
I said I supposed I could have.
“This is all new to me,” I joked.
She gave me a Queen Victoria smile. You know, like it hurt.
“Well, you’re doing very well,” she assured me. But the baby wouldn’t come until September. “Virgo,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”
I got a book on horoscopes out of the library on my way home, so I could see for myself whether Virgo was a good sign or not. I didn’t have much else to do. It was the summer holidays, wasn’t it? Shanee and her family had gone to her grandad’s in Ireland for a few weeks. Les was in Greece with his mates. Even Gerri and Amie were away.
Plus, I already had everything ready for the baby. It was laid out in my room. My nan bought me a cot, and Charley bought me a pushchair, and my sisters bought me a load of clothes, all in yellow or green, since they didn’t believe I was definitely having a boy. I’d decided against breast-feeding because I reckoned I was bound to want to leave him sometimes, so I could see my friends and go out with Les, stuff like that. Hilary had to be able to feed him then. So she bought me bottles, a sterilizer and a box of disposable nappies. She called it “the starter set”. I even had my bag packed for the hospital with some stuff for the baby and my pyjamas, dressing-gown, slippers and toiletries, like it said in one of my pamphlets.
I hadn’t picked his name yet, though. I had a book of boys’ names that I got in Smiths. I reckoned I’d have plenty of time after I’d had him and knew what he was like to read through it and find the perfect one.
My mother said the doctor could be wrong.
“Is this from all your years of making appointments for other people?” I asked. “Is that what makes you an expert?”
“Don’t get clever with me,” said my mother. “I have had three children of my own, you know. All I’m saying is you seemed sure about when you stopped bleeding. Maybe the baby is small. Some babies are.”
“And all I’m saying is what the doctor told me yesterday. That he won’t be born till September.”
“But how do you feel?” pushed Detective Spiggs.
How the hell did she think I felt? She was the one who’d had three children of her own. She must’ve remembered feeling like a hippo with the flu.
“I feel brilliant,” I told her. “Never felt better.”
“So you don’t mind if I spend the night at Charley’s? You’ll be all right on your own?”
That was her latest torture. She didn’t want to leave me because I was so close to my delivery date, in case I was early or something and needed her help. I needed her help like Armani needs Calvin Klein.
“Of course I’ll be all right.”
She hesitated for a couple of seconds. I could tell she was torn between doing what she thought was right – staying home to torment me – and doing what she wanted to do – going to Clapham to torment Charley. She’d never had trouble making this decision before, I can tell you that. She’d been leaving me on my own for as long as I could remember. I reckoned she didn’t want the guilt if I died in labour while she was living it up south of the river.
“Well,” she said at last. “You have the number if you do need me.”
“Burnt into my brain,” I said.
It turned out to be a long night.
After the Spiggs went off, I made myself a tin of soup and a toasted cheese sandwich and curled up on the couch to read about Virgo. I couldn’t really get comfortable because my back ached so much. No change there.
I concentrated hard on what the book had to say. It was pretty good news. Virgos are practical and down-to-earth. That sounded all right to me. Shanee was very practical and down-to-earth and I got on fine with her. Also, he’d be adaptable, which wasn’t a bad thing. I wondered if I should call him Virgil. Or maybe Vigil. I put them in my mind as definite possibilities.
I had a couple of spoonfuls of soup, but it started repeating almost as soon as I swallowed it. The cheese tasted off. My back was killing me.
I readjusted the pillows and put on a video I’d already seen. I just wanted to hear some human voices, I didn’t care what they were saying.
My stomach started to ache. I shuffled into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea.
It was hard to watch the film at all, because I was so uncomfortable and everything hurt so much.
I started thinking about Les.
He’d been gone four days, but I still hadn’t had a postcard. If I’d been Les, I’d’ve sent me one from the airport, you know sort of as a joke and sort of not as a joke. So I’d know that he missed melike I missed him. But guys aren’t the same as girls. It wouldn’t even occur to him. Guys live in the present, but girls live in the future. I’d read it in Cosmo.
I wondered what Les was doing right then. It was too late for swimming in the sea, but he might be in the pool. Or in the bar with his mates. The bar seemed more likely.
Maybe he was thinking of me.
He was sitting at the bar. I could practically see him. Usually Les drank lager, but because he was on holiday he had one of those fancy cocktails with three kinds of spirits, fruit juice, a cherry and a paper parasol stuck in the crushed ice. I’d always dreamed of sitting at a bar, sipping one of those. And Les knew it. He was thinking how much I’d like a drink like that. Since it was Greece, I reckoned there’d be little dishes of olives on the bar as well. And maybe crisps.
Les takes the postcard he bought in the village from his pocket. It’s a photograph of a Greek street, like the one Charlene sent me when she went to Greece with her husband. The houses are small and old and painted pink and blue and green. There’s a string of onions hanging outside one and a goat sleeping in the shade of a small tree.
Les borrows a pen from the barman and starts to write me a note on the back of the card.
Dear Lana, he writes. How are you and the baby? How’s the weather? It’s sunny here, but it might as well be raining. I miss you. You’d really like it here. The hotel’s well posh. Carpets and chandeliers, the works. There’s a hot tub and a jacuzzi and a whole room of arcade games. Plus, you’d love the food. And there’s a disco every night. I was thinking that we might come back here together some time. Like on our honeymoon or something. What do you
think?
I thought the baby was trying to tear his way out of my body, that’s what I thought.
A pain ripped through me that was so strong I screamed out loud.
“Jesus,” I said to no one.
I didn’t want to go to the next thought. The next thought was that something was wrong. Pain like that couldn’t be normal. I would’ve heard about it. Madonna would’ve said something. Or Hilary Spiggs. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.
Then the pain stopped. I reckoned that it was just some kind of glitch. You know, the baby got his feet caught in a corner or something like that.
I went back to imagining our honeymoon.
At the disco, Les and I had a spotlit dance to ourselves, because we were newly-weds. He was wearing a white suit, and I was wearing a silver slip dress and silver stilettos. Then, light-headed with love, Les stuck my shoes in his pockets and we linked arms and strolled up the beach beneath a fat, round moon the colour of Flora. Something happy was playing in the background. Maybe ABBA. I’d liked “Dancing Queen” since I saw Muriel’s Wedding.
Les was telling me how, when he’d been there before, he used to stand at the edge of the water every night and pretend he could see across it to London. He’d picture me in my black jeans and my sparkly silver top that he liked, going into McDonald’s with my shopping.
I screamed again.
It couldn’t be the baby kicking, unless he was already wearing boots. Maybe something was wrong. One of the women in the antenatal clinic knew someone whose baby choked to death on the umbilical cord while it was still in the womb. Would it feel like that if it was dying? Would it hurt me more than it hurt him?
I sipped my tea and tried to think what to do. I could phone my mother and see what she thought. But it was already after midnight. I didn’t want to wake her if it really wasn’t anything. I couldn’t ring the doctor. I’d only just seen her. She’d think I was being hysterical.
After a while, the pain was coming sort of regularly. Stab … rest … stab … rest … stab … rest…
I heaved myself off the sofa and shuffled across the room to get my preggers leaflets.
According to the Going Into Labour section, if what I was feeling were contractions, then I should be timing them. Stab … rest … stab … rest…
It would give me something to do besides wince and scream.
I focused on the clock on the video. It was one-thirty in the morning. I couldn’t ring Hilary at one-thirty in the morning. Not if it wasn’t an emergency.
And it didn’t seem to be an emergency. I mean, it hurt, but it didn’t hurt that much now I was getting used to it. Plus, I wasn’t bleeding or anything. Or only internally.
At two o’clock I gave up timing the contractions. I had no idea what I was timing for. Ten minutes apart? Five minutes apart? Three? Then what?
I tried to remember everything I’d ever heard anybody say about having a baby. I knew it was meant to hurt, but hurting was one thing and having your insides pushed out of you was another. I was sure I’d remember that. Mostly what I remembered was what Charlene told me about getting to the hospital and having a needle and not feeling anything more. That I did remember. I could see a woman with a big smile and sweat on her forehead, cradling a newborn infant in her arms. In this image, the newborn infant was not holding on to the woman’s intestines.
I tried to sleep, but it wasn’t any use. It was like trying to fall asleep during a police interrogation.
At two-thirty, I had to go to the loo.
Doubled over, I sort of crept out of the living-room. I was almost afraid to move in case I broke something. Or broke something else.
I was taking large, deep breaths, to ease the pain. I almost wished I’d gone to the birthing classes after all, partner or no partner. Then at least I’d know how far apart the contractions had to be before you should call the doctor.
I don’t know how I made it to the bathroom. But it didn’t matter much, because I didn’t make it very far into the bathroom.
I opened the door, but then I just stood there, holding on to the knob.
It was like someone was testing nuclear bombs underground, only I was the ground.
Wham! Something exploded inside me. I was so shocked that I didn’t respond until I realized there was water dripping down my legs.
And I knew straight away what was going to happen next. I was going to die there, all by myself, that was what was going to happen. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was pale and sweating and sopping wet. All I could think was, thank God Les isn’t here. I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. It was bad enough that the ambulance men who came to take me to the morgue would see me like this.
I burst into tears.
“Oh, my God!”
Even though I was dying a horrible death, I could see what was happening as if I was watching a film.
Les was standing in the doorway. He’d come back because he missed me. No, he’d come back because he had a feeling that I needed him. He’d left his friends sitting by the pool and got the first flight back to London. He was wearing a Greece T-shirt and a straw hat. He dropped the bag and rushed to take me in his arms. “It’s all right, darling…” he crooned. “I’m here now…”
But it wasn’t Les. It was my mother. She was standing behind me in a blue woolly hat with a face the colour of a dead fire.
“Lana! I had a feeling—”
“Don’t just stand there yammering at me!” I screamed. “Do something!”
And then I really started to cry.
Post-Partum Blues
I really loved being on the ward. It was painted pale yellow and the curtains had little bears all over them, so it was really cheerful. There were three other new mothers on the ward with me: Ellen, Anne and Sam, so there was lots going on all the time and lots of chat and laughter. It was almost like a party.
I told the others all about not knowing about the contractions and the doctor telling me I wasn’t due and my waters breaking and everything.
Unlike Hilary Spiggs, who’d wanted to know what planet I came from, they all sympathized. And then they told me their own horror stories. It was incredible anybody ever bothered to have a baby really.
Ellen had her second in John Lewis. She called him Lou.
“It was either that or Ladies’ Lingerie,” she said. “I didn’t think Ladies’ Lingerie would go down well when he went to school.” She laughed. “You have to be careful about names.”
I felt like I belonged to a club or something. Except for Anne and me, all the others had had babies before. Ellen had three.
“Really?” It was like doing your GCSEs. I couldn’t imagine going through it more than once. “You’ve already got three kids?”
“Boys,” said Ellen. She grinned. “We wanted a girl.”
“I’ve got two,” said Sam. “One of each.”
“I don’t think I’ll have any more,” I said.
The others all laughed.
“That’s what everybody says,” said Sam.
Sam was twenty-four. Next to me, she was the youngest.
She gave me a wink. “You’re just a beginner. I was about your age when I started. Trust me, you get used to it.”
“Wait till you’ve had as many as me,” said Ellen. “The only thing that scares me is where I’m going to put another one.”
Ellen and her husband had a two-bedroom house.
“My parents gave us the deposit as a wedding present,” said Ellen. “We’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive.”
Anne said, “That sounds like heaven to me. Me and Colin moved in with my mum when we got married, and we’re still there.”
“It’s awful living with your mother, isn’t it?” I said. I was feeling really happy now, lying there chatting with everyone like a real woman. Anne was right, I could hardly remember the pain. “Me and my boyfriend are going to get our own flat as soon as we can.”
“Lucky you,” said Anne. �
��The only way I’m likely to get away from my mum is if I kill her and they put me in prison.”
“Um… Solitary confinement…” said Ellen. “What wouldn’t I give…”
“We want something modern,” I said. “With a garden for the kids.” I’d only just thought of the garden, but I knew exactly what it looked like. It would have a pink Wendy house, just like the one I’d always wanted.
“We wanted a flat of our own,” said Anne. “But … well…” She made a face and shrugged. “You don’t always get what you want, do you?”
I started to say that you could get what you want as long as you didn’t give up, but they all shouted at once, “You get what you need!”
I didn’t know what they were on about, but I laughed along.
“It’s pretty much the same thing, though, isn’t it?” I asked when they’d finished shrieking.
Ellen winked. “Not always.”
It was like a scene from a movie: me and Hilary Spiggs, shoulder to elbow, staring down at the tiny infant in my arms. Her eyes were closed and she had her fists balled against her mouth. She had this wild punky hair and blotchy skin. There was something sort of froggy about her, but she was still really cute.
“Well, she doesn’t look like you,” said my mother. “She must take after her dad.”
This was a leading question. She thought that because I was weak and drowning in hormones I’d finally tell her who the father was. But of course I didn’t.
I said, “It’s incredible. She has little nails and everything.”
It really was incredible. I mean, I knew she’d have nails and eyebrows and stuff, but it was still pretty amazing that she did, when you saw them, and how tiny she was.
“What did you expect her to have?” asked my mother. “Claws and fangs?”
Leave it to Hilary Spiggs to ruin any good mood.
I sighed and ran a finger along one of the baby’s. It had little knuckles and lines and everything.
“You know what I mean. It’s like a magic trick.”
“The trick would be getting her to go back,” said cheery Nurse Hilary.
I rubbed the tiny knuckles. “I don’t want her to go back. I think she’s great.” Even though she wasn’t a boy.
