Grounded

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  No.

  She suddenly stretches out the remote with her left hand and the TV dings off. Not just the sound but everything. Mum never turns the TV off.

  ‘I had some visitors last night,’ she says. She turns and stabs her cigarette at me. ‘When were you going to tell me? That’s a nice thing to find out from somebody else. How do you think I felt, sitting here like a bloody eejit without a clue what was going on?’

  ‘Whoa!’ I say, as if she’s a runaway horse. ‘I don’t even know what you’re on about.’

  ‘You know rightly! You and that wee tramp.’

  ‘Don’t call Seaneen a tramp!’ I plonk myself down on the arm of the sofa. My hangover twists at me again.

  ‘Why couldn’t you tell me?’ Her mouth has that flubbery look that means she’s going to cry.

  I look down at my arm and scratch at a small scab I don’t remember getting. ‘Mum. Calm down.’

  ‘Calm down? I’d Mairéad and Gary Brogan round here till all hours calling you everything. And I didn’t even know.’

  ‘I didn’t even know!’ I make myself look at her. Mum, smoking herself hoarse; me, drinking myself sick. What’s the difference? And I wonder what my dad was like, if he’d have reacted any better. Except he crashed a stolen car and died at twenty-two so odds are he wouldn’t have. And he was already a father by then.

  ‘You know what, Declan,’ Mum says, bending forward to stub out her fag. ‘It’s not even the fact that you got her pregnant. It’s the fact that you never told me.’ Her hand hovers over the packet but then returns to her lap. She twists it round the other one.

  ‘I only found out last night. I didn’t get time to –’

  ‘Did you tell Colette?’

  I hesitate. ‘Only cause I was there. And’ – I shrug – ‘well, she got pregnant too. Like, by mistake.’

  Mum purses her lips, and changes the subject away from Colette. ‘You young fellas,’ she says, ‘you think it’s nothing. But you won’t get away with it, not these days. You might think you can piss off to Germany but they’ll be after you. Stacey gets it off two different fellas, you know. Child support.’

  For a moment I imagine going to Germany and sending Seaneen money every week. I could do that. I don’t care about money, apart from saving for a horse. And Seaneen’d maybe meet some nice fella that didn’t care that she had a baby by somebody else. Sure it happens all the time. Look how many boyfriends Mum’s had.

  Yeah, exactly. Sitting outside on the wall because Mummy’s busy, love, waiting for it to feel safe to go home.

  And the thought of Seaneen with somebody else …

  ‘I’m not going to Germany,’ I mutter.

  She takes the last cigarette out of the packet. ‘Well,’ she says, lighting up. ‘That’s something I suppose.’ She suddenly gets all cosy. ‘Och, you and Seaneen – sure youse were bound to end up together. And she’s a great wee girl.’

  ‘A minute ago she was a wee tramp.’

  ‘Och, I didn’t mean it. Oh God, I’m going to be a granny and I’m not even forty!’

  ‘Don’t.’

  She goes on as if I haven’t spoken. ‘You’ll need to put your names down for a flat round here. That wee girl’ll need to be close to her family. There’ll be a waiting list. But sure there’s no rush. You could even move in here,’ she says. ‘That’s what me and your dad did – moved in with your gran.’ She smiles and brushes ash off her dressing gown as if she’s about to leap up and start painting the nursery.

  ‘Mum – stop it.’ I rub my eyes. Every word about flats and waiting lists and Seaneen’s family is twisting the hangover deeper in my guts. ‘I haven’t even talked to Seaneen yet. Stop acting like anything’s been decided.’

  Her mood shifts again. ‘Oh aye – I hear you ran out on her last night.’ She sniffs. ‘Mairéad says you were out of there like a bat out of hell.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum!’ I shout. ‘I panicked, OK? I go round there to tell Seaneen I’m leaving the country. And she tells me she’s up the bloody duff! How am I meant to react?’ My head throbs, and again I have that awful feeling that I could cry. Christ, I need to get a hold of myself. But the thought of going round to the Brogans’ now – I can’t help a groan escaping. ‘Mum – don’t ever tell Seaneen about Germany. There’s no point now.’

  Mum smiles for the first time. ‘Och, son, you’ve had your fun,’ she says. ‘You’ll just have to pay for it.’ Then she says, ‘Could youse not have been more careful, though? I never fell for you until I had this ring on my finger.’ She wiggles her wedding ring. ‘Were you not using something?’

  ‘Mu-um!’ I’ve plumbed the depths of mortification already this weekend, but even puking over Colette’s kitchen floor doesn’t come close to discussing my sex life with my mum. ‘I’m not stupid. We were careful – just not enough.’

  I suppose I would have liked Seaneen to go on the pill. We were both virgins when we started having sex so there was no need to worry about catching anything without a condom. But we only saw each other at weekends, and she said she wasn’t going to mess her body up with hormones for no reason, and it was going on the pill that made her mate Bronagh get so fat. So we stuck to condoms – only we had the odd slip.

  I rub my hand over my face. Mum’s smoke is pricking at my eyes and catching my throat. And she wants us to live here with a baby.

  ‘OK,’ I say, and my voice is as thick as the smoke. ‘I’m going round there now.’

  4.

  There’s no red Proton at Seaneen’s kerb. Let them all be out, I pray. Gary and Mairéad anyway.

  Seaneen answers the door. As soon as I see her I blurt out, ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s mine. I should never have –’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry I hit you. I think.’ She frowns, screwing up her eyes in the sunlight. Her hair’s pulled back into a high curly ponytail, leaving her face looking white and exposed. I glance at her belly. It looks the same as usual, though she’s wearing a long T-shirty dress thing over her jeans so it’s hard to tell.

  ‘Seaneen, can we go somewhere – and talk?’

  ‘I have the twins,’ she says. ‘Mum and Dad are at Tesco’s.’

  ‘Ah, come on, a walk or something. It’s a lovely day.’

  ‘Declan, stop talking about the weather. Did you not hear me? I said I have to mind the twins.’ The atmosphere of the house creeps out to me. Not smokey like my house, but frying and children and air freshener.

  ‘Well, sure they can come. We can go to the park. Come on, Seaneen. It’s too hot to stay in.’

  ‘They’re watching CBeebies.’

  ‘They’ll be better in the park.’ They can go on the swings and we can ignore them.

  She sighs and leans against the doorpost, one hand on her hip. ‘I don’t want them overhearing anything. They’re four going on forty.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’

  Saoirse – or Tiarna, they look the same – hears the row and comes grumbling out. She hangs around Seaneen’s waist and looks at me with suspicious green eyes. ‘Are we going to the park?’

  ‘No, Tiarna, we –’

  ‘Ah, we are! C’mon, Saoirse!’ And she goes running off to get her twin.

  I look at Seaneen and shrug.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ she says. ‘I’ve hardly been out all week.’

  Walking along the street with two wee kids is so annoying. They stop and look at everything – a whitening dog poo, a McDonald’s wrapper, a cat under a car with its paws tucked in. They walk too slowly or dash ahead without looking. ‘Are we going to the shop?’ one of them asks. ‘I want a lolly!’ cries the other.

  ‘Shut up. We’re going to the park.’ Seaneen turns to me. ‘You got any money?’

  ‘Nope.’ I don’t tell her I drank it.

  Where Seaneen’s street joins Tirconnell Parade one of the twins grabs Seaneen’s arm and shrieks, ‘Can we go and call for Courtney and Madison?’ The other one starts legging it without waiting for an answer.

  ‘It’
s your woman who moved into Gran’s house,’ Seaneen explains in a tired voice. ‘That’s her two wee ones.’

  ‘I’m not taking the whole street to the park. And if they’re anything like their brother –’

  ‘You were the one wanted to come out.’ But she calls after the twins, ‘Not now. You can call for them on the way home if you’re good.’

  When we get to the main road, the twins stop messing about and, without being told to, take up position one each side of Seaneen, holding her hands. ‘Good girls,’ she says. She’s still not saying much to me. A silver jeep slows beside us and Seaneen grips the twins harder. ‘Bloody Emmet McCann,’ she says as it roars away. ‘It’s people like him give this place a bad name.’

  ‘He’s a dwug dealer,’ one of the twins says in a know-all voice.

  ‘Don’t say bloody, Seaneen,’ says the other one.

  We walk the same route I walked last night with Cian. Even though it’s warm and sunny, the park’s pretty empty, just a few wee lads climbing up the slidey bit of the slide and two grandas sitting on a bench.

  The twins break free and run for the swings, curls flying, and clamber up, clutching the chains in their pudgy hands. They’re too small to swing themselves so we’re lumbered with one each. I soon realise Seaneen was right: we won’t get much talking done. In a way it’s a relief because I don’t know what to say, and if it’s anything like the talk Mum just had with me I’m in no rush for it, but in another it’s annoying to have got myself all psyched up for nothing.

  But there’s something I need to say and it doesn’t matter if the twins hear. They’re shrieking and laughing and calling out to each other anyway and my one’s going higher than the other one because I can push far harder than Seaneen.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘I won’t just leave you.’

  Seaneen nods. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I never thought you would.’

  ‘Some people do. Natalie Doyle’s one did.’

  ‘Declan, Natalie shagged half of Ibiza. All she knows about whose that brat is is that it’s not Kevin’s.’

  ‘Well, I just thought I’d say. Your mum seemed to think I was going to do a runner.’

  ‘You did last night.’ She squints at me through the sunlight.

  I open my mouth to remind her she hit me, then close it again. ‘I had to get my head round it.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Higher, Seaneen!’ Her twin kicks her fat legs up and down. ‘Look, Tiarna’s way more higher’n me. That’s not fair.’

  ‘Swop.’ I step aside and take over Saoirse’s swing and Tiarna starts wailing.

  ‘Shut up squealing,’ I say, ‘or we won’t push you at all.’

  ‘Have you got your head round it?’ Seaneen asks again. She seems to be able to concentrate through the yelling and whingeing.

  ‘Jesus, Seaneen, no. Not yet. I mean – it’s a shock.’ I look at her, pushing, smiling, not as pale now we’re out in the air. ‘Nobody wants this to happen.’

  ‘Not want to. Not yet. But it’s not the end of the world, is it? It’s not as if it was a one-night stand like Natalie.’ She steps away from the swing and takes my hand. ‘Like, we’re together over two years, Declan. You must have thought about it.’

  I pull my hand away. ‘Of course I never thought about it.’ I grab the chains of the swing and pull it back further than I have before. When I let it go it swoops way higher than the other one and Saoirse screams, ‘Not that high! Let me down! I’m going to fall. Seane-e-e-en! Tell him.’ And she starts blubbing.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done.’

  I let the swing go and leave them to it. I go over and sit on the wee bench. The paint’s hot against the back of my T-shirt. I close my eyes and feel the hangover nag me again. Why did I tell her I wasn’t going to leave her? I can’t do this. What if our kid – ah Jesus, our kid, how can that be possible? – turns out to be a brat like these?

  I rub my hands over my face and try to block out the screeches and the wails. Then I feel someone sitting down beside me. I open my eyes. It’s Seaneen. The brats are at the slide. One of them turns round and beckons Seaneen.

  ‘Seane-e-e-en! Come here and catch us. Tiarna won’t go on her own.’

  ‘You’re big girls now!’ she shouts back. ‘You don’t need me to catch you. Away and play.’ She settles herself against the back of the bench with a sigh. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘They’re a bit full on.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not used to …’ I don’t finish the sentence.

  Seaneen puts her hand on my leg. Her hand’s warm. ‘Look,’ she says. ‘I know I’ve had longer to get used to it. But it’ll be OK. We’ll get our own wee flat. And it’s not like I’m a kid. By the time it’s born I’ll be nearly nineteen and a half.’

  By the time it’s born.

  ‘So when’s it …?’

  ‘January. Ah, Declan, wouldn’t it be lovely if it was born on New Year’s Day?’

  ‘So when did we …’

  She raises her voice. ‘Saoirse! Tiarna! Stay over there and play nice or I won’t let you call for Courtney and Madison. Um … well, I was working it out. Must have been at Easter.’

  I spent a lot of time with Seaneen at Easter. She was upset because her granny was dying. One night she came round late and nobody was in, and I didn’t have anything and we thought it would be OK.

  A blob of pink chewing gum slimes in the sun.

  ‘Must have been then,’ Seaneen says. ‘Cause there was that time – and the dates add up.’

  I nod. Can’t speak.

  Seaneen’s hand creeps along the bench and her fingers search for mine, less sure than usual. But after a tiny hesitation I close mine round them because what else is there?

  5.

  I cycle into the yard on Sunday morning in a determined mood. While I’m here I’m going to concentrate on horses and work and not think about anything else.

  ‘Didn’t expect you back so soon,’ Cam says, humping Kizzy’s saddle higher on her arm and keeping her distance. ‘Are you sure you should be here? I don’t want to catch anything.’

  ‘You won’t.’ I jump off and wheel the bike towards the barn where the ponies are waiting to be tacked up.

  ‘Well, there’s plenty to do. Missed you yesterday.’ She gives me a sudden half-smile. ‘I did wonder – the way things are – if I could manage without somebody when you go. With Jim doing the odd shift.’

  ‘What do you mean, the way things are?’ I say, because she’s leaning against the barn door like she wants to chat, and I can’t risk saying, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going; I’m going to be a dad instead.’

  ‘Well, you may not have noticed, Declan, but there’s an annoying little thing called a recession going on?’

  I shrug. ‘How does that affect you?’

  ‘Horses are a luxury,’ Cam says. ‘First thing to go when times get hard. Remember Libby?’

  Libby’s owners didn’t pay their livery for months. Owed Cam hundreds. Disappeared and changed their phone numbers so she couldn’t get hold of them. In the end, under the terms of the livery contract, Cam sent Libby to the sales to try to recoup the money.

  ‘That was only one horse.’

  ‘Oh come on, Declan, you must have noticed things have got a bit quiet round here.’

  ‘I like them quiet.’ I look round the barn. Flight’s stable – empty. Only three ponies in for the ten o’clock ride. And there’s been no new pupils for ages.

  Cam shakes her head. ‘You say that because you’re an antisocial sod,’ she said. ‘You’re not trying to make a living out of it. But look – Flight’s gone; Hilary and Jennifer have both moved their horses somewhere cheaper. Lara keeps threatening to go somewhere more competitive.’ She imitates Lara’s whiney voice perfectly. Neither of us mentions Nigel and Lorna, bible-bashing bigots who took their three horses away when Pippa moved in and they copped on to what they called Cam’s lifestyle.

  ‘Let her,’ I say. ‘Good riddance.’

  ‘
Yes, but it’d be good riddance to her money too. Oh, it’s fine,’ she says, as I frown, ‘I’m not destitute yet. I can sell Spirit if I have to.’

  Tell her! Tell her you’re not going anywhere.

  But I can’t. The pregnancy’s stalking me everywhere – waking and sleeping. There has to be one place where it can’t find me. So all I say is, ‘Well, what do you want me to do for the horses we still have?’

  ‘You can catch Joy up from the bottom field.’

  I groan. The bottom field’s miles away. But it’s only a pretend groan and Cam grins. ‘Might as well get my money’s worth out of you while I can. She can stand in for a bit; she’s far too fat. Then you can ride her round the farm trail later.’

  ‘Why can’t Fiona ride her own horse?’

  ‘She’s pregnant again.’

  So it can stalk me here after all.

  I sling Joy’s purple headcollar over my shoulder and head down the steep lane between the paddocks. The bottom field’s for the horses that don’t get used much – the three wee Welsh ponies, who are due to be broken in the spring; Sally’s Nudge, who’s retired because she’s lame; tiny freckly Sweep, Cam’s first pony; and Joy.

  Joy’s not keen on being caught and leaving her nice warm sunny spot where she’s swishing her tail and munching clover. The other horses follow us and crowd round the gate, noseying and barging, not wanting to let Joy go. I have to fire a few clods of dried-up mud at their arses to get rid of them.

  Joy glumps along beside me, putting her ears back at Spirit on the way past the paddock he shares with Willow. Her belly swings as she walks into her cool stable beside the empty one that used to be Flight’s. ‘Lazy mare,’ I say, scratching her neck. ‘You’ve got it too easy.’ She goggles over the partition at the empty box and neighs. I pat her and leave her.

  For a Sunday morning it is pretty quiet and I realise Cam’s right. Because I don’t have to bother much with the pupils – Cam told me years ago I was great with horses and crap with people – I’ve never really noticed it. I get caught up on the stuff that didn’t get done yesterday. Sitting on the wall in the sun, half-hearing Cam’s firm, encouraging voice from the sandschool (‘Relax … let the jump come to you … lean forward … forward … good! Give her a pat.’) I rub saddle soap into Spirit’s bridle and lean back in the sun. This isn’t bad, I tell myself. It’s a job. There’s plenty hanging around the streets at home with sod all to do, and sod all money either.