He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Um excuse me. Don’t tell me what I can’t handle,’ he said.
‘Okay, I feel
I’ve
been through too much – to handle it,’ I corrected myself. ‘Too much water under the bridge. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.’
He sighed, ruefully, and looked at me for rather a long time. Then he took my hand and kissed it. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, quietly, as if he’d needed that time to square everything in his head. ‘It’s okay, I understand.’
We lay there for a while, then Joe spoke suddenly into the half-light: ‘I don’t want to be a weekend dad, that’s all I’ll say,’ he said, as if he was telepathic, as if he could read my thoughts exactly:
So what the hell do we do now?
‘I don’t want to be the kind of dad who just takes him or her swimming and to Pizza Hut. I want to be there for the hard bits, too; the interesting, tricky bits. I want to deal with the potty training and when they’re naughty and the homework and the teaching him or her about life, you know?’
‘Worry not,’ I said, ‘I’m sure that can be arranged. You’re going to be great at that, Joe,’ I added, feeling a new surge of optimism. ‘Really great.’
‘I want to be useful.’
‘Joe,’ I said, ‘you already are.’
I turned on my side, so I was facing him. I was inches from his mouth and I wondered if I should just kiss him, because part of me wanted nothing more; and the other part of me was telling myself,
No
: it’d been a wonderful but emotional day but I shouldn’t try to run before I walked. If I was patient, maybe I’d be able to just go with it. Maybe we’d have a chance?
‘Do you know what I’m dreading?’ I asked. ‘Bloody antenatal classes. I saw one advertised today in the hospital – it was called Bump Club.’
‘
Bum
Club? Sounds a bit suspect.’
I laughed. That was just
so
Joe. ‘No, you idiot.
Bump
Club.’
‘Oh,’ said Joe, ‘still sounds suspect.’ I loved how I didn’t have to explain why I didn’t want to go to any antenatal class. Then he said, ‘Well, I’ve got an idea. How about, if you don’t want to go to antenatal classes and have me massage your coccyx or whatever it is they get you to do, and I want to be useful … how about we create a kind of
Alternative
Antenatal Class? A list of stuff you can do to prepare for the baby and keep your mind occupied that’s not preparing your nipples, or doing pelvic workouts …’
I was laughing into the pillow, with despair more than anything else, and because I knew he wasn’t even trying to make me laugh; he probably did think they did these sorts of things at antenatal class. Joe could easily get the wrong end of the stick like that – run with an idea and that would be it.
‘What like, a programme of tasks?’ I said.
‘Yes, exactly,’ said Joe. ‘Just so you have something to focus on, to fill that head of yours –’ he tapped my forehead – ‘with actual useful, practical things, rather than incessant worrying about stuff you can’t control.’
He still knows me
, I thought.
He still knows me really well
.
‘Because you can’t control it, Robbie, you know?’ he said seriously. ‘And I can’t, nobody can make you a hundred-per-cent promise that it won’t happen again. But I want you to know that I’m here, whatever, and that I
believe
it, won’t happen again. And I want you to believe it, too – that’s all I ask.’
I smiled, thinly. ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.
‘Good. So since it’s my Alternative Antenatal Class—’ he continued.
‘Oh, it’s yours now, is it?’
‘We can just call it AA. Keep it simple. The Twelve Step AA. Nobody need know what it stands for.’
‘Right, so they’ll just think I’m like a pregnant alcoholic? Which is nice, which is classy.’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Joe, sitting up. ‘You in?’ I rattled around in my bedside table for some paper and a pen.
‘Yeah, I’m in.’ I smiled. Joe still had the ability to make me feel better.
And so we sat up in bed, like an old married couple, trying to come up with twelve points – just so it fitted in with the Twelve Step AA theme, really, not because there really were twelve to speak of. Some of them were there just to amuse us, like ‘massage nipples daily’ and ‘knit range of unisex matinee coats’, but most were practical, or just stuff that was worrying me, taking up emotional energy where I needed it all for the job in hand, stuff I’d been putting off for ages:
We lay back again afterwards, the day’s setting sun throwing a warm and very pleasant blanket around our legs. I was so tired, so relaxed, so content (I couldn’t actually recall the last time I had felt content), I could easily have fallen asleep there, if I hadn’t been next to Joe: he’s one of those people who’s very difficult to share a tent or a bed with because, when everyone else understands that point where you stop talking and go to sleep, he keeps talking.
I shut my eyes, just as he took a breath.
‘So, Robbie …’
‘Mmm.’
‘I was thinking …’ He turned his head. ‘Are you asleep?’
‘This is very pleasant, actually, Joe. I was thinking of having a little nap.’ I patted his thigh, sleepily. ‘Maybe you should have one, too.’
‘Okay,’ he said. He cleared his throat and wriggled for a bit longer, put one arm behind his head and an arm by his side. I could feel the edge of his little finger touching my thigh, the warmth emanating from it, like, if I were to look down there, there would be a spotlight. We lay there, still, listening to the soothing coo of a wood pigeon outside, the sigh of far-off traffic. I was thinking how lovely it would be just for him to fall asleep here for the night. Nothing else. Just for there to be Joe when I woke up, so we could hang out and I could make him one of my Kingy Breakfast Specials, make some Twits TV.
‘Robyn?’ he said again.
I sighed. ‘What? You always used to do that, you
still
do that, just go on and on. Never let me just go to sleep, have any peace.
Jesus
…’ I pretended to punch my pillow and weep for comic effect. ‘I just want to go to sleep!’
He thumped my leg. ‘Stop saying I always did this and I always did that,’ he said, laughing and yet irritated, I could tell. ‘I have grown up a little bit in sixteen years, you know. I’m a
man
now,’ he added in a stupid low voice, then, in this voice filled with wonder, said, ‘I’m going to be a
dad
.’
‘Well shut up then.’ I teased.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m shutting up
now
.’
We must have fallen asleep, because I woke up to find it was dark and Joe was in silhouette, sitting up on the bed, his back to me.
‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘Going,’ he whispered.
He stood up, straightened his T-shirt and rubbed his face. When he glanced down at me, his eyes were still unfocused, his face crumpled with sleep. It took all my resolve in that moment not to pull him back onto the bed.
‘You don’t have to,’ I said.
He was patting his pocket for his wallet and keys but stopped. ‘I do,’ he said.
I got up to say goodbye to him at the door. It was 9.25 p.m. and the stairwell outside my flat was dark, save for two sidelights that automatically come on when they sense someone.
‘So you are disappearing into the London night?’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s what I do, you see,’ he whispered, leaning in. ‘I lure exes to funerals, sow my seed, turn up unannounced at their scans, just to check the seed is sown and my work here is done, then I disappear into the London night, leaving them wanting more. It’s my MO.’
He drew back, clicking his tongue, smoothly. He could still act.
‘It’s flawless,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it just?’
‘And your hair is sticking up,’ I whispered. It was casting a great big horn-shaped shadow on the wall behind him. ‘It looks like you’ve got a huge rhino horn on your head.’
He inhaled through his nose, as if to say something important and intelligent but actually said, ‘I’m going to resist the urge to make jokes about horniness. And I’m going to go …’
‘You really can stay on the sofa,’ I said. ‘I’m worried, it’s late. I’m worried you’re not going to be back in Manchester till like one a.m. What if you fall asleep and end up in Carlisle?’ It was cold now and I was shivering.
‘Check
you
out,’ he said. ‘You get a bun in the oven and you can’t resist me, hormones all over the place.’
‘
Joe
.’ I tutted, but he had a point. I was confusing him, giving out mixed messages. No, it wasn’t fair. ‘Yes, you’re right, you have to go.’
‘I am going,’ he said, but he was manhandling me by the shoulders and pushing me back inside. ‘And I’m joking about the not being able to resist me bit. Well, sort of.’
‘Go. It’s freezing,’ I said.
‘Okay. Bye …’ he said.
‘Bye,’ I said.
Then he kissed me on the cheek, once, and he left. I could hear him whistling, going two at a time down the steps. I stood, the door open for a few minutes, then I went back inside, and I pulled out the box of letters and I went down to the bottom of the pile, to find the first one I ever wrote.
Kilterdale
12 October 1997
Dear Lily
Hello. You don’t know me yet but I am your mum. You are sixteen weeks old, but I have only known about you for three. Right now, I am sitting on my bed, writing this, listening to ‘Bron-Yr-Aur’ by Led Zeppelin. It is so beautiful. One day, I want to walk down the aisle with your father to this song.
Since telling Dad and Dad’s girlfriend, Denise, about you, three days ago, this is where I have mainly been. I’m banned from seeing Joe at the moment, which is ridiculous; because your dad (who is seventeen, lest we not forget) is dealing with this situation far better than my own father at the moment, who CANNOT COPE!! I’m angry with him, but I feel guilty, too. He loses his wife, and now, his middle daughter – the one supposed to be the ‘strong’ one – gets pregnant at sixteen. I hate the fact this has happened, but I realize that this, and how you came to be, has nothing to do with YOU, this little life growing inside of me. And that’s why it helps me to write to you, because you’re separate to everything, so I can tell you everything. I’m going to imagine that you live in a place where nothing bad happens and life is wonderful. And I’m going to do my best to write only lovely stuff: to tell you about what your grandma was like, how great she was, how great your dad is.
I’ve seen you on a scan, and since that scan, a week ago, I’ve kept the little picture in my wallet. I often get it out to remind myself that you are real, and that you are mine and that, whatever happens, you are half me. Your father has been amazing. I don’t care what they say about teenage dads, he’s been absolutely amazing – especially at school, because some people have been pretty nasty. Still, at least I’ve stopped being sick now. They say that if you’re sick a lot, you’re probably having a girl, and I really hope you’re a girl, because I want to call you Lily after my mum. She is part of you, after all.
There’s a promenade again; the sea, but this time it’s dark and it’s late and there are lights; illuminations. Blackpool Illuminations, perhaps? But they’re grander, much brighter than I remember them; strings and strings of them, hung up like necklaces made of the brightest jewels and all in different shapes: flowers and stars and dancers and sea creatures. Mum is here, of course – she’s next to me, but this time we are travelling fast, rolling along this prom in some sort of contraption. It’s red and yellow metal with a canopy over our heads, and it’s being driven by a girl with a swishy, golden ponytail.
We’re moving quite fast now, through this lit-up night-world, Mum and I, the breeze pushing the hair from our faces, our thighs jostling when we go over bumps. The air smells of candy-floss and home, salty, briny and slightly fetid – that North Sea pungent smell – and, if we look to our right, the lights from the illuminations are playing on the water: smudged, muted discs of colour, like Smarties with the coating sucked off, changing formation like far-off dancers. I am mesmerized by these lights. I let them burn the backs of my retinas with their warmth. I turn back to Mum, to say something, to tell her how beautiful they are, how I’m having the night of my life! But when I turn back, she’s fading from view and I’m saying, ‘Mum, Mum, don’t go!’ But she’s gone. Vanished. And then I am travelling all alone and the air has grown cold.
I am woken up by the sound of my breath being expelled from me, as if coming back from the dead – it’s always the same with these dreams; then there’s the ringing in my ears like I’ve just stepped from a nightclub or circus, from the kaleidoscope brightness of the world with my mother in, to the dark, cool quiet of my room.
I put a hand to my belly and could be sixteen again, doing the same thing, lying bewildered in my childhood bed and wanting my mum. I miss her all over again and ten-fold. Damn these dreams, they always make me cry.