Authors: Araminta Hall
Mavis drew back at this. ‘What d’you mean?’
She heard her voice, high-pitched and catchy. ‘I’ve spent all my life wondering who my father is. You know that. It’s crap. It’s probably why I didn’t notice you were pregnant. I can’t … I can’t …’ Dot clutched at Mavis’s sheets to stop herself from falling. ‘I feel like I can’t move on without knowing who he is. It feels like I’m only half here sometimes.’
Mavis reached out to her with her one free arm. ‘Oh my God, Dot, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.’
The world was returning slowly to its usual focus. ‘It’s OK. But you have to tell Clive.’
Mavis nodded, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Why don’t you ask your mum?’
The door opened and the nurse from before came bustling in, followed by Mavis’s mum.
‘We’re going to move you to the ward now,’ she said. ‘How’s the feeding going?’
‘It hurts,’ said Mavis, ‘but well, I think.’
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Dot?’ Sandra Loveridge was saying, pride beaming out of her face as if she was a sun. ‘And Mavis was so good, so calm. Has she told you?’ Dot nodded, not trusting herself to speak. ‘It’s so sweet of you to have come so early,’ she said. ‘Did you get the bus? Gerry could always drive you home. He’s got to pick up some clothes for Mavis.’
‘Oh no, thanks, Sandra. My mum drove me actually.’
‘Your mother?’ Sandra stopped fussing over the baby at this and her face softened. ‘How is she, your mother?’
The day was weird enough to allow this question. ‘She’s, um, she’s fine, thanks.’
Sandra smiled. ‘Give her my love, will you? Say thank you to her for driving you over.’
Dot looked at Mavis to see if she’d heard any of this, but she was being helped into a wheelchair, her hospital gown flowing open, her body looking as if it had been in a war. ‘I’d better go.’ Dot raised her voice. ‘Bye, Mave, I’ll come again tomorrow.’
‘Oh, she’ll be home by tomorrow.’ The nurse smiled. ‘Later today most likely.’
‘Really?’
The nurse laughed at this. ‘She’s only given birth. Women do it all the time.’
Dot watched them leave, Mavis holding her daughter and waving from the chair, Sandra tripping along beside them, laughing with the nurse – or midwife, as Dot suddenly remembered they were called. She walked back the way she had come, down the sterile corridors, with everything changed.
Dot arrived in the car park to see her mother leaning against their car with a Styrofoam cup in her hand. She was talking to a man who had his back to Dot and for a second she didn’t recognise him and wondered who her mother might know here that could make those pink spots bloom on her cheeks and the rash blossom down her neck. The man ran his fingers through his hair and suddenly Dot realised it was Mr Loveridge. Realised that Gerry was talking animatedly to her mother. Dot stopped, looking for somewhere to hide, but even the thought tired her out, made her feel she’d had enough. Gerry turned to go; he put his hand gently on her mother’s arm and they smiled at each other. He strode off towards his car, but then he saw Dot and changed direction so that within minutes he was standing in front of her.
‘What were you saying to my mum?’
Gerry looked even more haggard in the bright sunlight. ‘Nothing. She was getting a coffee when I came downstairs. I was telling her about the birth.’
‘OK.’ Dot turned to go, but Gerry caught at her arm. She could feel her mother watching them from their car. ‘Did Mavis tell you who the father is?’
Dot shook herself free from his grip and looked him in the eyes. ‘Yes. But I have no intention of telling you.’
Gerry threw his hands up at this and they slapped down again surprisingly loudly on his thighs. ‘For God’s sake, Dot, this isn’t a game. He’s got to pay.’
Dot felt as angry as she ever had. ‘What, like you?’
‘What?’
‘Mavis will tell you the name of Rose’s father when she’s ready. But you’ll probably get away with sleeping with me.’
‘What, but I thought … I mean … I thought you wanted to.’
Dot laughed at this and for the first time she felt the power of sex. ‘I only slept with you because I thought you were my father.’ Of course she’d said the wrong words again. ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. But are you my dad?’
‘You don’t know who your dad is?’ His face softened and his jaw slackened. This day was turning out surprisingly for everyone.
‘No.’
‘Alice has never told you?’
‘Oh God, it’s
not
you, is it?’ Dot heard the pitch returning to her voice.
‘No! Shit, do you think I’d have slept with you if I’d thought there was the remotest possibility?’
Dot wondered what her mother was thinking at this moment as she watched their exchange. ‘How can you be sure?’
He almost shouted now. ‘Because I’ve never slept with your mother.’
The power had gone now, evaporated like steam, and Dot felt young and foolish. ‘Do you know who my dad was?’
Gerry nodded at this. ‘Go home and talk to your mum, Dot.’
Dot turned to go but Gerry stopped her with his hand. ‘Christ, Dot, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise … I mean, what we did …’
‘It’s OK, I’m not planning on saying anything, unless you hassle Mave.’
He shrugged. ‘Still …’ He rubbed his fingers hard against his temples. ‘Shit, I’ve got to get Mavis her stuff.’
Dot walked away, aware that both her mother and Gerry were now watching her. She got into the car. She couldn’t believe it was only nine. It felt as though she’d lived a whole life since she’d woken up.
‘What was that about?’ Alice asked immediately.
‘He wants to know who the father is.’
‘Do you know?’
‘Yeah, but I’m not telling him.’
‘And you said that?’
Dot nodded, wondering how they were saying these words. ‘He’s a wanker.’
Alice started the car. ‘Yes. He probably is.’
‘Sandra asked me to say hi to you. She said thanks for driving me over.’
‘Really?’
Dot let her head roll so that she could see her mother, smiling at the news. She was no closer to knowing what had happened. ‘Mavis said she was amazing, drove her to the hospital and everything.’
‘Good,’ said Alice and the word was undeniably heartfelt.
They were on the open road now with fields whipping past as if they didn’t really exist. Dot thought America might be nice.
‘I know I’m not the best mother, Dot. But you do feel able to tell me things, don’t you? I mean, you wouldn’t go through something like that alone, would you?’
The question seemed absurd. They never said anything to each other and yet Dot realised she probably would tell her mother if she got pregnant. She might even tell her grandmother. Something important stretched between them, like a spider’s web. Ask her! Dot screamed at herself. Do it now, do it now! But the moments sped past as quickly as the fields. They left the past behind and sped into the future, always, always avoiding the present.
‘What’s she like?’ asked Alice. ‘The baby.’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘Has she got a name yet?’
‘Rose. Rose Dorothy.’
‘Oh Dot, that’s lovely.’
Dot rubbed her finger into the worn material of her jeans, soft and giving.
‘Things will get back to normal now,’ her mother was saying.
‘Don’t be silly, Mum. Everything will change.’
Alice looked over at this, her expression earnest. ‘Well yes, babies do change things. But normally for the better. I meant you’ll get the old Mavis back.’
‘Did I change things for the better for you?’ asked Dot, the effort of speech filling her up.
Her mother laughed. ‘Of course you did. What a question.’
‘But you were only a couple of years older than Mavis is now when you had me. I must have been a mistake.’
They were on the outskirts of Druith now. ‘You weren’t a mistake, Dot, more a happy accident and I never regretted it for a single second. You must know that.’
‘Yes, but it must have been hard bringing me up alone.’
‘It was hard.’ Her mother’s voice was shaking and Dot could hear how carefully she was choosing her words, as if she was stepping over ice. ‘But I wasn’t alone, Clarice was around and so were you. So are you.’
It is always impossible to imagine life without ourselves in it and Dot failed to do so at that moment. But she could hear the love in her mother’s voice and she felt a sense of – what? – gratitude, luck, good fortune? They were unfamiliar words to apply to herself.
Her mother turned the car into their drive and they both saw Clarice standing looking out of the dining room window, concern wrinkling her features, a smile only appearing as she saw them both in the car.
Considering how prepared Tony was for the birth, he still felt like he made a fool of himself when it came to it. When Alice woke him with the news that her waters had broken in the depth of a night which would never reach complete darkness, he sat up and said, ‘Hang on, I’ll get my spanner.’ He had no idea what he’d been thinking; he wouldn’t be able to fix a leak even if he had a spanner.
She looked young and scared, standing over him, her stomach so absurdly huge in front of her that it seemed impossible a baby could emerge without ripping her in two. He’d made her pack a bag a week before, just as Miriam Stoppard advised, and he was pleased at his forethought, telling her now to get dressed, he’d go and start the car. Except his limbs didn’t appear to be connected to his brain any more and simple tasks like turning his trousers the right way took what felt like hours. In the end, though, it was lucky that he hadn’t gone on ahead because she needed to lean on him while they went down the stairs, walking as gingerly as if they were on the side of a mountain.
‘Should we leave a note for your mum?’ Tony asked when they reached the front door, but Alice shook her head and gripped his shoulder more tightly.
The car was surprisingly cold, but Alice was sweating, her hands white as she held on to the sides of her seat. Tony tried to put the seatbelt across her but she pushed him away as if she was burnt and he knew better than to argue.
Cartertown General seemed too far; he could see the route in his mind and knew all the twists and turns of the road, but still willed some of them to have disappeared overnight so they could get there quicker. Alice moaned next to him.
‘How far apart are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
Tony felt a surge of irritation with his wife for not reading one word of all the books on childbirth he’d bought and put on her bedside table; he’d even marked some passages with pieces of paper. He wondered if she really knew what a contraction was.
‘Well, when did they start?’
‘About an hour before I woke you.’
‘You know what’s happening, right?’
‘Yes. No. Not exactly.’
‘Your cervix is opening to let the baby out. You have to get to ten centimetres before the baby can be born. So it’s nothing to worry about, the pain.’
Alice didn’t reply and Tony wondered if he had overstepped the mark, but it was hard to tell with Alice, she might simply not be interested. The next time she sucked in her breath was at least ten minutes, maybe twelve, by Tony’s reckoning. They probably shouldn’t be going to the hospital yet, but he couldn’t bear the thought of putting her through the journey when they were only five minutes apart.
The hospital was bright and busy, a little oasis in the darkness of his worry. Tony held Alice’s bag and handed over her notes and answered all the questions the midwives put to her. They were finally shown into a room which held six beds, two with curtains drawn around them and the rest empty.
‘Settle yourself in,’ the midwife said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute to give you an exam.’ She drew the curtains neatly round the bed as she left, flicking them into shape.
Alice looked at Tony, desperate and lost. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you need to get your nightie back on and lie on the bed. She’s going to want to see how many centimetres you are. You know, like we learnt in the antenatal classes.’ He wasn’t sure that Alice had absorbed any information in the classes he’d dutifully made her attend, even though he’d rather have spent time licking paint off a wall. Towards the end Tony had begun to wonder if the jolly woman was trying to frighten them all, if she enjoyed belabouring them with the inevitability of their reality. At least Alice hadn’t wanted to swap numbers with the other smiling couples at the end and, for that at least, he’d felt grateful.
The midwife came back, snapping menacing-looking rubber gloves over her hands. She was reading the notes in her hand. ‘So, you’re Alice and Tony Marks, right? And you’re term plus eleven. Your pregnancy looks like it’s been perfectly normal. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Tony. ‘Her contractions are about ten minutes apart.’
‘OK. Well, my name’s Sally. Now, Alice, could you lie on your back and let your legs drop open. I need to feel how many centimetres you are and then we’ll go from there.’
Tony worried that Alice might cry; she seemed too delicate to endure any of this and he held on to her hand, making her look only at him as Sally rooted around in her body as if she was looking for something at the bottom of a bag. Sally’s face gave nothing away and with every passing second Tony worried that she’d found something wrong, that any moment an alarm would sound and Alice would be whisked away from him to a doctor with a sharp knife.
Sally stood up, snapping the rubber gloves in the other direction. ‘You’re between two and three,’ she said, dropping the gloves into a bin.
Tony was distracted by the thought of what happened to the gloves. Were they really thrown away after such a short life and if so how many pairs of gloves did that mean the hospital needed – all hospitals needed? He imagined the world drowning in rubber gloves smeared with women’s insides.
‘If you can I’d go for a walk, get something to eat,’ the midwife continued. ‘You’re in the early stages; I wouldn’t have thought your baby will be born in the next ten or so hours.’
She left after that and Tony realised Alice was crying. ‘Ten hours?’ she repeated. ‘I can’t do this for ten hours. What does she mean walk about?’
Tony thought it might be a blessing that Alice was clueless. ‘Some people think you have to move around to make the labour quicker, it’s in Miriam Stoppard’s
New Pregnancy and Birth
. And you need to eat to keep up your strength.’ Alice whimpered but Tony pulled her up, linking his arm to hers and taking her into the corridor where they took small jagged steps to nowhere. Every so often Alice stopped and leant into the wall, biting her lip and moaning softly, her eyes scrunched shut.