The Girls from See Saw Lane

by Sandy Taylor

  Right at that minute I couldn’t have cared who I upset, least of all the baby. All the baby had to do was come out, and it was taking its bloody time doing that.

  It was a girl, but it could have been anything, it was all red and screwed up. It looked like Winston Churchill, all it needed was a cigar. I told that to the nurse, who looked like she could have happily throttled me in the bed. Like I cared.

  Now I’m supposed to bond with it (whatever that means).

  Mary Bennett (mother of the year)

  Aged eighteen.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mary didn’t have a little lamb, she had a little girl. Her mum came round to tell us the same evening the baby was born, December the 22nd. Mary’s mum was wearing her best coat and hat and she was all pale and shaky. She said she had come over all faint.

  ‘It must be something to do with being a grandmother,’ she said.

  Mum made her sit down in the best chair and she poured them both a schooner of sherry from the bottle that wasn’t supposed to be opened until Christmas Day. Mum asked me if I wanted some, but I shook my head. I didn’t like the taste. I appreciated being treated like one of the women though. I was grateful that I was included in their circle.

  ‘You see,’ Mary’s mum said, ‘it’s just not how I had it all worked out in my head. I thought it’d be one of those big boys making me a grandma first, not Mary.’ She shook her head. ‘Not our little Mary.’

  ‘What’s the baby like?’ Mum asked in an encouraging voice. ‘Does she have hair? Who does she look like?’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ said Mary’s mum. ‘Absolutely beautiful. And our Mary did ever so well. Screamed the place down, mind, but she did ever so well.’

  She glanced over at the door to check that Dad and Clark weren’t around.

  ‘Only six stitches!’ she said with some pride.

  ‘My!’ said Mum.

  Mary’s mum and my mum both nodded sagely. I was thinking: Stitches? Why would Mary need stitches? Had she fallen off the bed or something?

  ‘They’re ever so good in there,’ Mary’s mum said. ‘Brought Mary a lovely roast chicken dinner, boiled potatoes, sprouts, gravy. And bread and butter. She said she wasn’t hungry, but I told her she had to eat to bring the milk in.’

  ‘Why did she have to bring the milk in?’ I asked. ‘Don’t they have people to do that at the hospital?’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ Mum said, touching the front of her breasts with her fingers. I understood then. It made me feel a little queasy.

  ‘I said you’d go and see her tomorrow, Dottie,’ Mary’s mum said. ‘They only allow two people at a time during visiting hours. Ralph’s one, obviously, but Mary’s ever so keen to see you and show you the baby.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. But I didn't want to go. I didn't want to see the baby that Ralph and Mary had made.

  ‘Dottie…’ Mum was giving me an encouraging look.

  ‘That’ll be lovely.’

  * * *

  Next day, during our lunch hour, Sally helped me choose a card for Mary and Ralph. It had a picture of a stork carrying a baby wrapped in a pink blanket in its beak. The baby’s little arms and legs were waving out of the blanket and it said: ‘Congratulations on your Bundle of Joy’. Then we went to the florists and the girl made me up a little basket of pink- and cream-coloured flowers. Back at Woollies, we put together a whole big bag full of pick and mix sweets because we knew Mary would prefer those to chocolates.

  I caught the bus to the hospital straight from work and got there at 6 p.m. just as visiting time started. There was a queue standing in the dark outside the maternity ward, they wouldn’t let anyone in early, and as soon as the doors opened we trooped in. Ralph wasn’t there yet, he wouldn’t finish work until a lot later.

  The maternity ward was a longish ward with beds on either side. It was very clean and tidy with a tiny little Christmas tree at one end. The women were in the beds, propped up with pillows, and beside them were little see-through boxes on wheels. Babies were in those boxes. Mary and Ralph’s baby was in one of those boxes.

  I walked down the centre of the ward looking for Mary. My heels clicked on the shiny brown lino. Visitors dropped off on either side and there were kisses and whispers and cooing. Everybody was trying not to wake the babies.

  Mary was in the very end bed.

  I almost didn’t recognise her, because she wasn’t sitting up like the other women, she was lying on her side with her back to the ward. She was wearing a hospital gown and her hair was spread all over the pillow. I thought she must be sleeping, so I crept closer as quietly as I could. She had her back to the box beside her bed.

  I put the flowers and the sweets and the card on the table at the foot of the bed, then I looked into the box. Looking back up at me was the tiniest little baby, like a person in miniature. She had one eye open and the other closed and her fists were scrunched up by her cheeks. The open eye was dark and beady and her lips, tiny little lips, were moving, as if she were telling herself a private story. Every now and then the tip of her tongue tapped against her lips. She was tucked in by a pink blanket right up to her chin, and most of her head was hidden by a knitted bonnet, tied with a pink ribbon. The baby looked at me with her one open eye and I looked back and it was as if we understood one another. There was a bond between us. And at that moment I stopped resenting the baby, and I knew I could never again be sorry that Mary and Ralph did what they did, because if they hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been here. She was, quite simply, the loveliest thing I had ever seen.

  ‘Hello,’ I whispered. The baby tried to open her other eye but couldn’t get the co-ordination right. I smiled. ‘Hello,’ I said again. ‘I’m Dottie.’ The baby put one fist against her mouth and began to worry at it. I put my finger down to help her, and immediately her lips fastened around the tip of my finger and she sucked. I felt this tug in my stomach as she sucked, like she was telling me she needed me. It was amazing and I smiled down at her, and it was only then I noticed that Mary had turned over and was looking at me. I felt sort of guilty. I took my fingertip out of the baby’s mouth and turned back to my friend.

  ‘Oh, Mary!’ I said, and leaned down to hug her.

  ‘Careful,’ she said. ‘I hurt all over.’

  ‘Was it that bad?’

  She hitched herself up the bed. I could tell she was in pain.

  ‘It was like passing a block of flats,’ she said.

  I smiled and passed her the presents.

  She took a Black Jack out of the pick and mix, unwrapped the paper and put it into her mouth. She sucked the sweet and I stood beside her.

  ‘How long do you have to stay in hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten days,’ she said. ‘But that’s all right, I like it here. They do everything for you.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  Beside us, the baby made a little mewing noise, like a kitten. She was trying to put her fist in her mouth again.

  ‘Can I hold her?’ I asked.

  ‘If you want.’

  I leaned down and picked the baby up very carefully. She was tightly wrapped in her blanket and I held her like a parcel. She turned her face towards me and nuzzled into my chest.

  ‘Oh Mary,’ I said, ‘she’s lovely.’

  Mary rummaged in the bag of sweets and took out another Black Jack. She concentrated very hard on unwrapping it and not looking at the baby.

  ‘She’s so beautiful, Mary.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing,’ she said.

  * * *

  Later, when I told my Mum about Mary and how down she seemed and how uninterested she was in the baby, she told me not to worry.

  ‘It’s a very big thing, having a baby,’ she said. ‘Mary’s body is having to get used to not being pregnant, and her mind’s having to get used to the fact that she’s a mother. When you have your first baby it’s a shock to the system... all the responsibility and that. But she’ll get used to it. We all do in the end.
’

  ‘Was Rita a shock to your system?’ I asked.

  ‘She was.’

  ‘She’d be a shock to anyone’s system,’ said my brother. ‘It’s amazing you ever had another child.’

  Mum laughed.

  ‘Anyway’ – she squeezed my shoulder – ‘Mary’s lucky, she’s got you to help her. Just try to make her look on the bright side.’

  I nodded.

  Mum looked at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m so proud of you, Dottie Perks.’

  I smiled.

  ‘But listen, I know you’ll do your bit, but that baby is Mary and Ralph’s responsibility, not yours. Don’t you go letting it take over your life.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Mum. Then she said: ‘Hadn’t you ought to be getting ready?’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘To go and apologise to that nice young man of yours for standing him up last night!’

  I gave Mum a hug.

  ‘You’re right!’ I said and I ran upstairs to change.

  Mary’s Diary

  Dear Diary,

  Having a baby is the most natural thing in the world isn’t it?

  Millions of women have babies every day. It’s supposed to be the best thing that ever happens to you, the most fulfilling, the most bloody rewarding, and I’m trying, I’m really trying, but it isn’t like that for me.

  I do love Peggy, I really do, but I’m so tired. Sometimes I think I would give her to a passing stranger just to get a few hours’ sleep.

  Sometimes I dream about how my life could have been. I see a room on the top floor of a house. There is a little bed full of beautiful soft pillows and cotton sheets and a patchwork quilt. My room is in the eaves and there is a square window that looks out over Paris. In my dream I smell linseed oil and turpentine. My easel is under the window and stacks of finished canvases lean up against the wall. Then I wake up and I’m in this dingy flat on a dingy estate in Brighton. There is no colour here, the only smell is misery. My life has shrunk to these four walls.

  I’m not sure that Dottie likes me much anymore. I see her expression when she looks round the flat. I hear her tut when Peggy has a wet nappy. I hear her sigh when she picks up the dirty washing. I hear her and Ralph laughing together when I am in bed. I need her help but lately I just wish she wasn’t there.

  I don’t want to feel like this. She is my best friend and when I look back on my life I realise that she was the most important person in it. All of my most precious memories I have shared with Dottie. Sometimes between waking and sleeping I remember. Moments caught in time, like snapshots in my head. Those long summer days. Standing at the edge of the sea, screaming as we run into the water, clinging to each other as the freezing cold spray takes our breath away.

  Sometimes I want to go back, sometimes I want to start again.

  Tatty bye diary

  Mary Bennett

  Aged eighteen.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mary didn’t seem to take to motherhood. She didn’t seem very well and she certainly wasn’t enjoying her life. She hadn’t really picked up since Peggy was born. That’s what they called the baby, Peggy. I didn’t know what to think. It was like she had switched off. She was pleasant enough, but you got the feeling that when you spoke to her she was only half listening. She wasn’t interested in anything. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to reach her. I told her mum that I was worried about her and she said that Mary just needed to rest.

  ‘She’ll be right as rain once she’s rested,’ said Mary’s mum. ‘It’s not unusual, you know, for young mums to be exhausted.’

  She slept whenever she didn’t have to be awake. By the end of January, Mary’s tiredness was worrying everyone around her and eventually her mum took her to see the doctor.

  ‘I’m low on iron,’ said Mary the next time I went round. ‘He’s given me some tablets. He says it can happen when you’ve had a baby, so hopefully I’ll soon be better.’

  I wanted so much for Mary to get well and I really wanted the tablets to work. I wanted my friend back.

  Not long after, I went round to the flat to find Mary in floods of tears.

  ‘She won’t breastfeed,’ she sobbed. Peggy’s face was all red and sweaty, screwed up like a fist and she was screaming her head off.

  ‘Maybe she’s not hungry,’ I said.

  ‘Of course she’s hungry,’ shouted Mary. ‘She’s always bloody hungry.’

  I picked Peggy up and held her against my shoulder. I whispered to her as I walked around the rooms in the flat and gradually her crying eased off; she was still hiccupping and trying to catch her breath but she had stopped screaming.

  ‘Why don’t you have a lie down, Mary?’ I said.

  ‘I think I will,’ she said. ‘I just wish I wasn’t so tired all the time. Those tablets haven’t made any difference at all, except that now I’m bloody constipated.’

  ‘It’ll get better,’ I said, not really knowing if it would.

  Mary didn’t try to breastfeed Peggy again; she put her on the bottle. Sometimes, if I was there at the right time, I took a turn giving it to her. I loved it. I loved the way she stared up into my face as she sucked, the way her tiny lips locked onto the rubber teat, the look of utter contentment on her face as her tummy filled. She was intensely fascinating to me. I loved to hold her, and bathe her and walk around the flat, holding her to my shoulder. I could not understand how Mary could be so disinterested in this beautiful, amazing little creature with her tiny pink fingernails and her lovely, inquisitive eyes.

  I knew it was easier for me. I could come and go as I pleased. I wasn’t responsible for Peggy every second of every minute of every day. I could bathe her in the little plastic tub in front of the gas fire in the flat’s living room, pat her dry, powder her, put her into clean clothes, feed her and leave her. After I’d done all that, I could go down to the cafe to meet Steve and I could laugh and dance and sing and be free. It wasn’t me who was being woken three or four times a night by Peggy’s screaming. It wasn’t me who had to pace the floor with her, singing interminable lullabies, to stop her crying from disturbing the neighbours.

  I understood all that, but I still couldn’t understand how Mary could have disassociated herself so completely from her baby. I was only her mother’s best friend, but I still wanted every face Peggy saw to be a smiling face. I wanted to fill her days with flowers and toys and her evenings with lullabies and cuddles. I wanted her to always have a nice full tummy, and warm, clean clothes. Looking after the baby did not seem, to me, to be a chore. It was hard for me to keep my patience with Mary, who acted as if she didn’t care. But how could I judge her? I didn’t know what it felt like to be responsible for another little life.

  There were times when I caught myself thinking that Mary had only herself to blame for the position she was in. It wasn’t like her life was anywhere near as terrible as she made out. She had a nice home, a nice husband, a beautiful baby… I’d have swapped my life for hers any day – only I’d have made the most of it! After thinking these thoughts I felt disloyal, I felt like a bad friend and I was determined to help her all I could.

  ‘Look at her,’ I said to Mary. ‘Look at her little face! See how she’s trying to smile, you can see how hard she’s trying! She’s moving her arms up and down as if that will help her face! She’s so gorgeous.’

  I turned around and saw the distress on Mary’s face, and of course I couldn’t be angry. I swallowed my resentment, put the baby down on her blanket on the floor, and put my arms around Mary. She began to cry.

  ‘I didn’t want it to turn out like this,’ she said. ‘This isn’t how my life was supposed to be. I was supposed to be having the time of my life, wearing nice clothes, going to parties, having fun and instead I’m stuck here in this flat with a husband I hardly know and a baby that doesn’t like me.‘

  ‘Of course she likes you! You’re her mother!’

/>   ‘She doesn’t. I’m useless with her. I couldn’t even breastfeed her.’

  Mary cried and I sat and hugged her and kissed the top of her head and assured her that everything was going to be all right.

  We had that conversation, or one like it, over and over again.

  Nothing I said cheered Mary up, she refused to look on the bright side, she was adamant that Peggy didn’t like her, and I found the way she seemed to blame the baby very hard to deal with. I couldn’t tell Mary anything about my life without it prompting in her either tears of self-pity or the kind of comments that made me feel guilty about enjoying myself while she was imprisoned in her life. She resented me because I was free, she resented the baby because she thought Peggy hated her, and she resented Ralph for going off to work while she was stuck in the flat.

  My feelings towards Mary were so mixed up. It had never been like this, we had always been able to tell each other everything, but now I was hiding my thoughts from her, I was resenting her and that was wrong. I must try to help her more. I started going to the flat every night after work and only seeing Steve at weekends. The flat was a mess and it was beginning to smell bad because of all the dirty nappies left all over the place. I couldn’t understand why Mary had become like this, it just wasn‘t her, it wasn’t the Mary I knew. So I would go there every evening and clean up and play with Peggy. Mum said I was spending too much time there and that Peggy wasn’t my responsibility and I should let them get on with their lives, but she didn‘t know what it was like, she didn’t see the state of the place and she didn’t see that Mary wasn’t looking after Peggy properly. Mrs Pickles went in every day and helped Mary as much as she could but she had six boys and a husband to look after. She always put her coat on as soon as I got there so we didn’t really talk.

  I had been avoiding Ralph by leaving the flat early, but one evening I lost track of the time. Peggy had a cold and I couldn’t settle her and I was still there when Ralph came home. At first it was awkward, we didn’t know what to say to each other so we both busied ourselves with the baby. After that evening I started staying later so that I could see Ralph. I started looking forward to seeing him. Mary was nearly always in bed, so we’d sit and have a cup of coffee and we’d talk about ordinary things, like my work and his and we’d talk about Mary, about how she wasn’t coping, about the fact that she wasn’t bonding with the baby like she should be. We laughed about silly things just like we used to. These times became precious to me.