by Julie Shaw
Christine was aware of Nicky behind her now. And of a rustling sound. He stepped past her and went towards the tree, a brace of carrier bags in hand. ‘I’ll get them now,’ he said, stepping past Carol Sloper and gathering the presents into the bags.
Carol Sloper said nothing while he completed the task. Just looked on with what Christine belatedly recognised as sadness in her eyes. She felt a whump of remorse. She shouldn’t have yelled. It was a horrible job to have to do.
She shouldn’t have yelled. She’d just made everything so much worse for herself. ‘I’m sorting myself out, honest I am,’ she said. She wasn’t sure what else to say now.
Carol Sloper’s expression changed again.
‘Really?’ she asked, nodding towards the damning paraphernalia. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, Christine. I think you sometimes forget that.’
‘But I am. I want my baby back. So I am.’ She knew she sounded like a baby herself now.
Carol Sloper took the bags from Nicky in one hand and picked up her briefcase with the other.
‘D’you want a brew or something?’ Nicky asked.
Carol Sloper shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said, and in a way that made the rage rise again in Christine. Like she’d no more drink tea with her brother than fly.
‘So you never told me,’ she said. ‘About when I can see him.’
‘I didn’t say you could,’ Carol Sloper responded immediately, ‘because I don’t know if you can. Not with things like this.’ She let out another long sigh. ‘Christine, you know what? I am going to be honest with you. You want to know your rights – well, you certainly have a right to the truth. And the truth is that Joey’s welfare is my paramount concern. Yours too, of course. But you’re almost an adult. Joey, on the other hand, is just a baby. An innocent. And it’s my responsibility to do my very best to see he has a chance. A decent start. With decent people. Who will put his needs before their own. I’m not seeing that here. I’m really not.’
Her eyes bored into Christine’s. ‘So I will be straight with you. As things stand now, the most likely scenario is that I’ll be recommending Joey for adoption. And, as a mother, I hope you’ll understand why.’ The briefcase had a shoulder strap and she hitched it over hers now. ‘That’s where we are, Christine. I’m sorry.’
Chapter 18
All Christine could think was just how much her chest hurt. It was the pain that had woken her, and all she could seem to make sense of; a sharp twinge and a tenderness every time she inhaled.
She didn’t know where she was or why – and couldn’t seem to summon sufficient consciousness to even wonder. She just knew that her chest hurt, as if she’d been punched – though she couldn’t be sure, as she’d never been punched before. Or perhaps dragged along behind a car on her belly, at the end of a rope, like you sometimes saw in films. It hurt to breathe. That was all she knew. That it hurt to breathe.
‘What a silly, silly girl you’ve been.’ The voice startled her. It was a woman’s voice, close by, and it made her snap her eyes open. A blur of navy. Was she back in the maternity ward, with Joey? She clung to the idea that was forming in her mind. That she might have dreamt all the terrible things that had happened to her since she’d had him. That this was all part of some terrible trip.
But she had lost him. She hadn’t dreamed that, or conjured it via the crack pipe. That was true. The memory mushroomed inside her, and everything else with it, making her catch her breath. Making her chest hurt even more.
The voice resolved itself now as coming from a nurse. She was a tall woman. Skinny. With heavy black hair – far too black to be natural – that was whipped up into a spiral above her pale, powdered face. She had taken hold of Christine’s wrist and was checking her pulse.
‘You girls,’ the nurse said, and it wasn’t even as if she was talking to her. Not really. Just talking. ‘You girls.’
Christine didn’t respond, not at first – what was to be said, after all? But then the nurse caught her eye. ‘Welcome back,’ she said, before glancing down at the watch she had pinned to her uniform. She released Christine’s wrist to write a number on her chart.
Christine tried to think where she could be and how she’d got there. ‘Welcome back?’ she asked finally, wondering about the chest pain. ‘Where have I been?’
She hadn’t wanted to go out on New Year’s Eve. That was the main point. Couldn’t stand the thought of it – of being with people; of being looked at and whispered about and judged. Even if it was well-meaning, she couldn’t stand the thought of being the object of anyone’s attention. She just wanted to do some dope and curl up with the few scraps of bedding that still smelt of Joey. Find the oblivion she craved to get her through another night.
Carol Sloper haunted her. Haunted her by night, in terrifying but formless nightmares, and by day, in the replays her mind spooled over and over. She was done for. She was lost. There was nothing she could do now. There was no patching up the enormous rent in the fabric of her existence. From now on, every single day of her life would be a day when she would remember what she’d had and what she’d lost. She’d become a statistic. Another stupid girl, who’d no business getting herself pregnant. She’d become a headline about the perils of teenage pregnancy and young single mothers. She understood this with a clarity that surprised her. And something else. That there would be a couple somewhere – an older, wiser, more decent couple, for whom her loss would be the greatest gift imaginable. She understood that too. And she was powerless to stop them. Powerless even to hate them. Because they were going to give her Joey all the love in the world. And she was never going to see him again.
‘Well, you’re not staying here and that’s an end to it,’ Nicky had said. He’d become bossy since Carol Sloper had been. Terse and irritable. Snappy. And because there were no drugs in the flat and Nick had flatly refused to get any, she’d ended up – so, so much against her better judgement – pulling some clothes on, piling on some make-up, and trudging with him to the Listers, across the hard and uncompromising ice down in the streets, where she knew everything would be bloody awful.
Though, actually, for a while, it hadn’t been so bad. Once she’d knocked back sufficient vodka, everything meaningful began to blur, and for a couple of hours she lost herself in dancing. But there was always someone. She’d known, because there was always, always someone. In this case, some young mum she barely recognised from the mother and baby group, who expressed her condolences – drunkenly, but not that drunkenly, because she’d a baby to think about, which only served to make it even worse.
She’d not said very much. She hadn’t needed to. She was sorry. She was sad for them. She knew how she must be feeling. She put a hand on Christine’s forearm and patted it sympathetically. And then she’d said what she must have thought was just the very thing to say. That Christine was young. That perhaps fate had a different plan for her. That perhaps, as with so many things, it was all meant to be. That she must be strong. That in time she could have another baby.
During a period when Christine had felt so entirely out of control, she surprised herself with how calmly she took this. She didn’t rail or rant. She didn’t tell the girl she didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about, didn’t point out the obvious – that you couldn’t, ever, ever replace a child that way. Instead, she smiled politely through the haze of vodka, agreed that she must look to the future and then, as she watched the girl drift back to her partner, realised the solution to her pain was actually right there before her eyes. She didn’t actually need or want a future.
It was easy then. She let the bells chime on the pub telly, and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ get under way. Made a special point of kissing Nicky – if she left before doing that he’d come looking for her, wondering where she’d got to. Then she donned her coat and gloves, and slipped away into the mild, cloudy night, raindrops raking her face as she hurried home.
Like all half-formed plans born out of impetuosity, Christin
e’s could so easily have been derailed. And probably would have been, had she not been so determined. Had it not been for the diligence with which she searched the flat for pills, and Brian’s previously unexplored, and very well-stocked, bedroom cabinet.
The pills amassed, she poured water, a whole brimming, freezing pint of it, and took herself back to the room she’d shared with Joey, and whose absence, tonight as all nights, made the tears roll down her face. After that it was easy, and she soon got into a rhythm. Pill in, slurp, swallow – till they were gone.
And as she slipped away – drifting off more peacefully than she’d done in many days now – her only thought was that, though she’d inconvenience Nicky greatly by dying without warning him, at least he’d get his bed back.
‘Been?’ The nurse gave her what her mam would call an old-fashioned look. She hung the chart back at the end of Christine’s bed and popped her pen in a top pocket of her uniform. ‘Been away with the fairies, is what you’ve been, young lady.’ Then she smiled. ‘How are you feeling? A bit sore?’
Christine’s hand went automatically to her chest. She nodded.
‘You will be. You’ve had your stomach pumped. I’ll get some pain relief written up for you. And try to get some sleep. You’ve not had much of a night.’
‘Can’t I go home?’ Christine suddenly wanted this desperately. To go home. To see Nicky. To gather her thoughts. Re-acquaint herself with the person she’d been last night. Was she still that person now, in the light of day, sober?
She wasn’t sure yet.
The nurse shook her head. ‘Not yet, I’m afraid. You’ve to see the psychologist.’
‘The psychologist?’ Christine wasn’t even sure what a psychologist was. Were they like a psychiatrist? As if doing what she’d done had been the action of someone bonkers or deranged.
Which was ridiculous, under the circumstances. She’d never felt more sane. ‘How did I get here?’
‘How do you think?’ the nurse said. ‘Via a 999 call and an ambulance. And on a night when …’ She stopped and shook her head. She was trying hard, but Christine knew she was actually very cross. Impatient with her. Thinking her some silly teenager. Christine felt surprised by her clarity of thought. And by how much she wanted to explain to the nurse about Joey. How much she wanted to justify how little she valued her own life. But she found she couldn’t. Because she’d failed. Even at that, she had failed. ‘Well, as I say,’ said the nurse instead, ‘I’ll get you some painkillers organised. Try to sleep now.’
Christine watched the nurse walk briskly back down the ward, silent in her rubber-soled shoes. So this was how it felt, to try to die and fail. You woke up in hospital, having made yourself even more of a nuisance than you already were. Nicky. Where was Nicky? It must have been Nicky who’d found her. Where was he now? It wasn’t visiting. Was he out on a corridor somewhere, curled up on a bench?
She resolved to try and find him. It felt imperative that she do so, what with everything. So she pulled the blanket and sheet back and, ignoring the potential indignity of the stupid do-up-the-back nightgown she’d been put in, swung her legs down and placed her feet on the floor.
The lino was warm underfoot. Much warmer than she’d expected, and as she stood up, she was relieved to find she didn’t feel as bad as she’d expected to. The pain in her chest was actually less now she was standing, and her head felt surprisingly clear.
Perhaps she’d leave anyway. They couldn’t stop her. Not if Nicky was around somewhere. There’d have put her clothes somewhere, surely. Perhaps they were even in her locker. Perhaps that was best. While the nurse was busy elsewhere, she would pull the curtain round and get herself dressed.
She was just reaching to grab it when she saw her mam.
The ward was on a high floor – fifth or sixth perhaps? Maybe higher. And the wall of windows looked down onto the hospital forecourt. It was murky out still, the snow of weeks almost melted to nothing in a matter of days, dissolved by both the mildness of the air and the relentlessness of the rain.
But, even hidden under her spotted brolly, Christine would have recognised her. It was her mam. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. It was her mam, coming to the hospital to visit her. So perhaps Nicky wasn’t here. Perhaps Nicky had gone to see her.
Christine watched her mam all the way across the ambulance bays towards the hospital entrance. Hurrying along, legs encased in drainpipe jeans, tight denim jacket. Oversized handbag, full of God knew what – never anything remotely useful – till she disappeared out of sight underneath the window ledge.
‘What are you doing out of bed, young lady?’ Another voice. It was a different nurse, holding a small plastic pill cup.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was just … I was just looking out the window.’
The nurse poured water from the jug that sat on top of the locker. ‘Oh, there’s nothing to see out there,’ she said, placing the pill pot beside the drink. ‘Welcome to 1982, I don’t think. Nice weather for ducks. And that’s about all, pretty much. That’s the way, back into bed, lovey. How are you doing anyway?’ Unlike the other nurse, this one’s expression suggested she genuinely cared.
‘I’m okay,’ Christine said, folding the sheet back so it turned over neatly on top of the blanket. Her mam. It was her mam. Coming to visit her.
Christine had no idea how long she’d slept, only that the sky was beginning to darken when she was next shaken awake. She’d waited and waited. After half an hour she’d asked the same nurse, who said she didn’t know anything about any visitors. So she’d continued to wait and wait and wonder, again toying with the idea of tracking her clothes down and going in search of her mam instead. But in the end she’d decided she must stay where she was, because perhaps, just perhaps, they’d not let her mam in yet, because it was New Year’s Day, a bank holiday, and they were strict about visiting. Then the psychologist had come – a tiny woman, who asked her all sorts of stupid questions about her ‘mood’ (bloody wretched) – and once she’d gone, at some point she must have drifted back off to sleep.
But it wasn’t her mam before her now. It was Josie.
‘Where’s Mam gone?’ Christine asked her, once she’d properly come awake.
‘Mam? What, your mam? I’ve absolutely no idea, mate. How are you, more to the point?’
‘She didn’t come, then?’
Josie shook her head. She’d obviously been out the night before, because her hair had been done. It was all spiky and bushy. She had bags under her eyes. ‘Come? What, come here?’ she said.
‘I saw her. She came to visit me. Except she didn’t actually get here. You didn’t see her then?’
Josie shook her head a second time and perched on the edge of the bed. ‘No, I didn’t. Oh, Chris, I wish you’d said something. Told me. Christ, mate, I know you’re down, but what were you thinking?’
‘What about Nick, then? Maybe he was here and she went somewhere with him?’
Josie jerked her head back. ‘Nick’s down the pharmacy, picking up your prescription. The doctor’s coming round in a bit to discharge you. I’ve got some clean clothes for you …’ She nodded towards a carrier bag on the chair. ‘So we’d best get you dressed, hadn’t we? How are you feeling? Are you hurting anywhere? Not feeling dizzy? Oh, Chris …’ she said again, grabbing Christine’s cupped hands. ‘What were you thinking?’
Josie was knackered. No, more than that. She was bone-weary. Exhausted. Whatever moment of lunacy had gripped her and convinced her that going out with her mam and dad would be a good idea, it had been short lived. Even as she cavorted around the Bull along with the next of the clan, she knew she would pay for her pleasures. Thank God for Eddie’s parents, who’d had Paula sleep over. Because just the thought of having to deal with her mile-a-minute toddler made her feel weak at the knees, especially not now she was in hyper-drive after her chickenpox.
And it wasn’t just Josie who was paying for it big time. So was Eddie – even her sensibl
e, cast-iron-stomach Eddie, who’d spent half the morning chucking up like a teenager. Who’d been chucking up when she’d answered the door to find Nicky Parker standing on the front step.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen Nicky quite so distraught. Or, she thought – and it was a thought that couldn’t help but strike her – so articulate and sober. She’d invited him in and he’d explained all to her, breathlessly; how he’d finally noticed Christine’s absence, and had just had a feeling.
‘You know?’ he’d said. ‘Just that she’d gone and done something stupid.’ And his expression as he’d told her this had spoken volumes.
He’d run all the way back to the flat, he said, his heart in his mouth, and, sure enough, Christine was unconscious on the bed, so he’d run to the phone box, and called an ambulance, and then dashed back and sat with her – doing nothing, because nothing was what he’d been told he must do. As long as she was on her side, and breathing freely, he must wait. So he’d waited, and the paramedics had finally come, wasting no time at all before transferring her to a stretcher, and somehow managing to get her down all those flights of steps without dropping her, and they’d sent him back up to collect all the bottles and packets and blister packs, because it was important to know what she’d taken.
‘Fucking shed loads,’ he’d said, and Josie had thought he was about to burst into tears. ‘She meant it, Jose. She proper meant it. If I’d stayed in the Listers …’ He cleared his throat. Wiped his mouth. ‘And I’m not surprised, neither, what she’s been through. I tell you, if I thought it wouldn’t make everything worse, I’d punch that fucking social worker’s lights out.’ And then went on to explain how completely and apparently heartlessly Carol Sloper had removed every last vestige of hope his little sister had been hanging on to, and how completely it had destroyed her.
