And Baby Makes Two (18 page)

I was really careful, of course. The last thing I needed was to get me and Shinola arrested. Hilary Spiggs would throw a major fit if her granddaughter ended up behind bars. She probably wouldn’t be too happy about me being behind bars, either. A disadvantage of being sixteen that I hadn’t thought of before was that now they
could
put me in prison.

Shinola and I went to the shops we always went to. Everybody knew us ’cause I always chatted to the people on the tills about Shinola and the weather and stuff like that. It was the only adult conversation I had, not counting Les and the occasional phone call from Shanee or a close female relative. I reckoned they wouldn’t be watching me because they
knew
me. They’d just think, oh there’s that girl and her adorable baby, and never even suspect. Plus, I always bought something. That way, if I did get caught, they’d believe me if I said it was a mistake. “Oh, my God!” I’d cry. “I forgot all about
that
. It was caught in the baby’s blankets.” And we never went to the same shop twice in a row. We spread ourselves around.

I had almost everything in less than a week. Chocolates for my nan and Charlene’s kids, aftershave for each of the men, bath oils for my sisters and the Spiggs, and a stuffed toy for Shinola.

There was only one present I needed that couldn’t be had in a supermarket. And that, of course, was Les’s. I would’ve waited till after Christmas Day, to see if someone gave me some money, but Les was going to Norwich to visit his mum on Christmas Eve, so I couldn’t put it off.

What I wanted to get Les was a gold I.D. bracelet that I saw in the Argos catalogue. I was going to have his initials engraved on the front and
Love, Lana
on the back. Only now I couldn’t even afford the one in the pawnshop with someone else’s initials on it.

My second choice was a pair of Tazmanian Devil socks I’d seen on Oxford Street. Les loved Taz. He even had a Taz air freshener in his car. It wasn’t a
great
present, but I reckoned it was a thoughtful one.

It took me a while to work up my courage for this. Shop assistants on Oxford Street were programmed to look out for shoplifters, and you could never completely get out of their view or away from the cameras. Plus, I couldn’t afford to buy
anything
, not unless they had some socks on sale for fifty pence.

I filled a couple of old Body Shop and Miss Selfridge carrier bags with stuff of mine, you know, so they’d
think
I really was shopping, but I was counting on Shinola. She was the one who would have to create the distraction.

For once Shinola did what I wanted her to do. The second we walked into the shop she started howling. I leaned over her buggy to comfort her, but she wasn’t having any of it. There were a couple of other customers and two salesgirls in the shop, and they all gave me sympathetic smiles. I tried rocking the buggy, but the shop was so small that I couldn’t help bumping into things. I kept apologizing and trying to calm her down. I became frazzled and distressed. I lifted her out, blankets and all.

“Please, love…” I begged loudly. “We have to find something for your dad.”

Everybody else became frazzled and distressed, too. One of my fellow shoppers fled and the other grabbed a pair of boxers and a scarf and raced to the till. I slipped the socks into Shinola’s quilt and stuck her back in her buggy.

Still projecting, the way they taught us to in drama, I said, “We’ll have to go if you’re going to carry on like this. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

And that was that: a piece of cake. Chocolate with cherries on top.

I turned the buggy round and started towards the door.

“I’ll be back,” I promised the salesgirls.

They smiled and waved and called back “Bye” and “See you later.”

But just as I got to the door my luck changed.

A group of girls, weighed down with about a dozen carrier bags each, charged in. They were giggling insanely over something. I was about to push past them when I realized who they were.

I was astonished. That’s the only word for it: astonished. I mean, how many shops are there in London? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Tens of thousands of shops and twenty-four hours in a day, and at exactly the same time as
me
, Shanee, Gerri and Amie are overcome by an irresistible desire to buy socks on Oxford Street. There must be a God; this sort of thing couldn’t happen without planning.

“Lana!”

“Lana!”

“Lana!”

Shinola, taking her cue from God, went as quiet as a flower. The little treasure. I could’ve thrown her through the window.

“Shanee! Gerri! Amie!” I shrieked back. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Christmas shopping,” said Shanee.

“This is the last stop,” said Amie. “I’m shopped out.”

Gerri laughed. “You’re never shopped out till you’re dead.”

“What about you?” asked Shanee. She gave me a smile. “Looking for something for Dad?”

I smiled back. “Yeah, only Shinola’s been fussing, so I’m taking her home.”

Amie made a face at Shinola, who, leaving my script completely, smiled back and gurgled.

“She seems all right now,” said Gerri.

“We won’t be long,” said Shanee. “Why don’t you wait and we can all go home together?”

It was like robbing a bank and then staying to chat to one of the cashiers.

I nodded at Shinola. “This good mood is just temporary, believe me. You don’t want to go home with us, it’s a traumatic experience.”

“We’ll take our chances.” Shanee suddenly dropped down and stroked Shinola’s cheek. “You’re not going to make a scene on the bus, are you, sweetie?”

“I’ll just be a second,” said Gerri. “I know exactly what I want.”

Amie started looking at the boxers, but Shanee kept talking to Shinola. She undid one of the snaps on her jacket. She picked up the toy Shinola had with her and shook it in front of her face. She said, “I think she wants a cuddle.” She undid the seatbelt and lifted Shinola into the air.

It happened so fast that I couldn’t stop her. One minute Shanee was squatting by the buggy, and the next she was standing on her feet with Shinola in her arms.

The Tazmanian Devil socks fell to the floor.

“What’s that?” said Shanee.

“What’s that?” said the cashiers.

It was lucky I was born to be an actress as well as a mother.

“Oh, my God!” I slapped my hand across my mouth in stunned surprise. “I forgot all about them! Shinola was crying so much – I must’ve dropped them in her blanket when I was trying to quiet her.”

The salesgirls laughed.

“It’s all right,” said the oldest. “You definitely had your hands full.”

Shanee was still talking to Shinola.

“Is this what you’re giving your dad for Christmas? He’s going to love these!”

“Do you want to bring them over to the till?” said the salesgirl.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Tell her right off that I’d changed my mind? Or act like I was going to buy them and then pretend that I’d lost my money?

“You still want them, don’t you?” she pushed.

I could feel everybody looking at me.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Of course I want them.”

Amie sidled up next to me. “What’s going on?” She gave me a wink. “What’ve you been doing, Lana? Thieving again?”

It was a joke. I knew it was a joke. And everyone else knew it was a joke, too. Only nobody actually laughed.

Shanee thrust the socks at me. Her fingers closed around my hand and squeezed hard.

“Here you go.” She bent down and put Shinola back in her chair. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

I could feel something that wasn’t socks against my palm. I glanced down. There was a twenty-pound note pressed against them.

“It’s lucky you found them,” I said to Shanee.

Shanee nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I reckon it is.”

Usually the thought of spending an entire day with all my family appealed to me about as much as spending an entire day in a maths class. But I was on my own so much that I was almost looking forward to Christmas. At least it’d be warm – Charlene’s heating wasn’t on a meter, and even if it was she would always have enough money to recharge the key. And there’d be lots of food. And presents. And it was something to wear our new dresses for.

Shinola’s velvet dress was green and mine was red. They both had lacy white collars and cuffs. I even dug out the jewellery kit Hilary gave me one Christmas. I could never be bothered to give it a go, but it was actually pretty good. It had tools, wire, thread, some chains and an assortment of beads. The chains were cheap, but they looked all right from a distance. I shortened one of the gold ones to fit Shinola and I hung a tiny teddy and a star from it. I put the charm Les gave me for Christmas (a teapot this time) on my gold bracelet. So me and Shinola had one image. If we didn’t look like mother and daughter, we did look like elves.

As soon as I walked through the door, Charlene scooped Shinola out of my arms.

“The guest of honour has arrived!” she shouted.

My nan came out of the kitchen like a thief leaving a robbery.

“Give her to me!” she ordered and snatched her away from Charlene before Charlene could argue.

I didn’t have to think about Shinola for the rest of the day. Everyone wanted to hold her and play with her. The kids wanted to feed her. Nan even wanted to change her. You’d think I’d brought the baby Jesus instead of Shinola Spiggs.

There was food all over the place. Crisps and chocolates. Nuts and pretzels. Biscuits and chunks of cheese and olives. My stomach wasn’t growling, it was echoing. I chose a seat where I could reach the nuts and the cheese.

“Here you go,” said Justin.

I looked up to find he was handing me a glass of champagne. I didn’t mean to look at Hilary, but it was sort of an automatic response.

“Well, you’ll want to join in the toast, won’t you?” said my mother.

“OK, now that everybody’s here, it’s music time!” cried Dara, and she raced to the stereo before anyone could beat her to it. “Then we can open our presents.”

“Oh, please,” we all begged. “Not Phil Spector.”

“It isn’t Christmas without the Ronnettes,” said Dara.

“That calls for another round,” said Mick.

Everybody laughed and held out their glasses. Including me.

Everybody made a big deal of the presents from me and Shinola, even though they weren’t much. It was lucky I’d got an extra aftershave for Charley, just in case, since they hadn’t split up this year. The Spiggs always told everybody how I gave her a tin opener for her birthday when I was seven, but even she acted like we’d given her a dream trip to Hawaii this year.

“Why, this is lovely, Lana.” She actually sounded
sincere
. “Thank you… They’re my favourite.”

Shinola got a ton of clothes. Most of it was at least six months too big. So she’d have something to grow into. It was kind of scary that the Spiggs, my nan and my sisters all thought the same like that. She also got a ton of toys. All the stuff from Hilary and Charley and Charlene and Dara was educational. My nan gave her a teddy that was nearly as big as I was.

“Where’s it supposed to sleep?” I asked. “In
my
bed?”

“It isn’t easy to be called Mum,” said my nan.

And, except for the quilt Nan made me, all the stuff for me was pretty much for Shinola, too. Charlene and Justin gave me a mobile phone with twenty quid prepaid on it, so I could walk around the flat and talk on the phone at the same time.

“In case there’s some emergency,” said Justin. “You should have a phone nearby at all times.”

“We didn’t even have a phone when I was a girl,” said Nan. “And my mother had seven of us.”

Dara and Mick gave me a subscription to some mother and child magazine and a gift certificate for Mothercare in case there was stuff I needed for Shinola.

“But this is for a hundred pounds!” I knew Mick made a lot of money doing something in the City – and Dara made a lot of money doing something all over the world – but a hundred pounds! They’d never’ve given me that much to spend on myself.

“Babies grow fast,” said Dara. “They always need something.”

Charlene’s kids, Drew and Courtney, gave me a set of
Sesame Street
videos.

“Wow,” I said. “Just what I always wanted.”

“Try this then, why don’t you?” said my mother. She handed me a long white envelope with a red bow stuck on it.

I took it without much enthusiasm. You can’t fit much in an envelope.

“What is it?”

“That’s the idea of opening it,” said my mother.

Nobody spoke while I opened the envelope. Even Shinola was quiet.

I removed the papers folded inside.

“It’s the lease.” I looked up at Hilary. “The lease to the flat.”

The Spiggs smiled. “That’s right.”

I looked back at the lease. It couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. I looked back at the Spiggs. Could it?

“I’ve asked your mother to make an honest man of me,” said Charley. He put his arm around my mother.

Hilary patted his knee. “And since it seems a shame to waste two houses on us, I’ve said yes.”

“You’re getting
married
?”

What irony! My mother was getting married before
me.

“Not for a while,” said my mother. “But I’ll be moving in officially right away. Permanently.” She smiled. “Now that you’re grown up.”

“Isn’t that great?” said my nan. “Now you don’t have to wait on a council list for the next ten years. You’re entitled to your mother’s flat. It’s in the lease.”

Hilary laughed. “Well, say
something
, Lana. Aren’t you pleased?”

I just kept staring at the lease like it was Dorothy’s ruby shoes.

“Of course I’m pleased.”

I was beyond pleased. About a dozen songs were playing in my head at once. After all my disappointments, everything was going to turn out exactly as I’d planned.

The rest of them all started talking at once. Mick was trying to work out exactly how much money I’d have with my Income Support and my Child Benefit and my Housing Benefit, banging on about making a budget for me. He said it was an important lesson in economics. Nan was going on about how I’d be able to go back to school once Shinola was older, and maybe even get a part-time job. Justin didn’t think I’d have to wait that long. He thought the government had special programmes for girls in my position with crèches and stuff. Dara reminded me how she paid for her degree in business studies by cleaning houses. Charlene said I should find other young mothers in my area and form a baby-minding club where we each took a turn so the others could have a few hours off. “It’s important you have some time for yourself,” said Charlene.