Megan 3 (2 page)

They both gave me presents for Jack. Claire’s was a photo album with BABY in furry writing on the front, and Josie’s was a plastic duck on wheels which pushed along with a loud
quack-quack-quack
.

They sat down on the bed while I showed the presents to Jack. Josie had him on her knee and was jogging him up and down enough to make him sick. He sat there, startled, staring at her while she jiggled and made kissing noises.

‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous! Megan, you’re so lucky!’ she cooed. ‘It’s so cool to have a baby. Wish I had one!’

I didn’t bother to say anything to such a blatant lie. If anyone wanted a baby that badly then they knew how to get one. They’d seen me, though. They’d seen boys shouting after me at school and seen me pushed away with Auntie Lorna in Cheshire to live for most
of my pregnancy. They’d seen – and were still seeing – me miss out on parties and discos and boyfriends and holidays and about a million other things. Lucky? I didn’t think so.

Lorna – I didn’t call her Auntie any more – was sitting on the arm of the sofa, looking nervously along the hall towards the front door. The party was well under way. Mark had just arrived and at the end of the hall I could see Ellie, giggling and messing around with him, first of all pretending to shut the front door on him and then letting him through.

I wondered how Lorna felt. I couldn’t imagine. For a start I couldn’t think what it would be like to have Jack grown-up, as old as I was, a real person. And then neither could I think what it would be like if I’d given him up for adoption – even though when he was born I thought I might have to do that.

Jack, who was sitting on Claire’s lap now, suddenly flung himself back and gave a tired-sounding cry, and I turned automatically to take him from her. I’d been desperately hoping that he wouldn’t be fidgety and grizzly for the party, or insist on having his bye-byes to hold, be sick over anyone or scream at the top of
his voice if I had to stop him from doing something. I wanted him to play Perfect Baby so that everyone would think how well I was managing. I never wanted anyone to feel sorry for me.

Jack suddenly saw Mark and cheered up. Just that week he’d started to point, and he did it now, giving excited squeals as he pointed down the hall.

As Mark came into the room with Ellie practically hanging off the hem of his jumper, Lorna gave him a quick, bright smile. She stood up and hugged him and he more or less hugged her back, but briefly and stiffly, letting go of her well before she let go of him.

‘Where’s that birthday boy, then!’ he said, and Jack gave an excited shriek as Mark advanced towards him, arms outstretched. I sat Jack down on the floor and Mark crawled round him, being a tiger. That was what Jack was missing, I thought: someone being a tiger. He didn’t even have a grandad around – my dad lived in Australia with his second family.

Mum came in from the kitchen. She said hello to Mark and frowned at Ellie, shaking her head slightly to try and stop her hanging round his neck. ‘Now, what time shall we have tea?’ she asked. As I opened my mouth to reply she added, ‘As soon as possible, I should say. Before Jack gets irritable.’

‘Tired,’ I substituted.

That was another thing. It was all right if I thought he was grizzly and tiresome, but let Mum or anyone else try and infer it and I got furious. No one was allowed to criticise him but me – and then I only did it to myself.

Claire and Josie looked towards Mark and I could see them both adjusting themselves slightly, getting smilier, putting themselves at a better angle, tossing back their hair. Yeah, he was a good-looking guy all right.

‘What did Luke send you?’ Josie asked me.

‘Have you heard much from him lately?’ Claire added.

‘I had a letter with his present,’ I said. I picked up the horrible troll thing. ‘This is it.’

They both pulled faces. ‘I would have thought he’d have sent something nicer than that,’ Josie said.

‘Just shows,’ Claire added.

Josie glanced at me. ‘What time d’you think this will be over?’ she asked. ‘The party, I mean. Because Claire and I thought we’d go down to
California’s
later.’

I stared at her. I didn’t really want her here in the first place but – bloody cheek! – she was talking about
going already. ‘Don’t you have to be eighteen to get in there?’ I asked. I’d heard about
California’s
: it was a trendy wine bar place, all frosted glass and pale wood, with guest DJs mixing.

Claire shook her head. ‘We went last Saturday,’ she said. ‘As long as you get there before the bouncers arrive and don’t make it obvious that you’re drinking, it’s OK.’ She turned to Josie. ‘But we’re not going for ages yet, are we?’

‘I was just asking,’ Josie said.

I shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Don’t know what time it’ll finish. Whenever. You don’t have to stay any longer than you want to.’ You can sod off now if you like, I thought.

‘It’s not that,’ Claire said quickly. ‘If you don’t get in there early the bouncers will be there and they’ll want ID.’ She looked across at Mum. ‘Why don’t you come with us. Your mum’ll babysit, won’t she?’

I shook my head. ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’d better stay here tonight.’ I could go out – I did sometimes, but not very often. Mum had this thing about me being responsible for Jack. There was a particular line of nagging which began, ‘He’s your baby. You wanted him and you’ve got to look after him.’ This then progressed to, ‘I’ve done all the looking after babies that
I’m going to do. Don’t forget I was left with you and your sister to bring up single-handed.’ And always finished up with, ‘You’ve made your bed and you’ll have to lie in it.’

‘Anyway, I couldn’t really go out on Jack’s birthday,’ I said to Claire now.

Josie smiled over at Mark and brushed a speck off her silk top. It was really expensive, I could see that from the cut of it and from the little designer logo. She stroked her bracelet tattoo, as if to draw attention to that and to her slim brown arms. I hoped and prayed Mark wouldn’t fancy her – either of them, actually, but especially her.

‘Megan!’ Mum called from the kitchen. ‘Can you give me a hand, please?’ She was speaking in her posh voice but it had risen to dangerously high levels.

‘Cut the crusts off those sandwiches!’ she snapped when I got in there. ‘Then stick that big blue candle on the birthday cake and find some serviettes in one of the drawers and put them out.’ She sighed impatiently. ‘I thought my days of children’s birthday parties were over and done with but now I find I’ve got to do them all over again. See if that jelly’s set, will you?’

‘I didn’t ask you to do a party. And no one will want jelly!’

‘This is a baby’s birthday party, Megan. People will expect jelly. You’ve got to do these things properly.’

That was it, you see. She always knew best. She was my mother and no matter that I was a mum myself now, she knew how to do things: feed babies, wind babies, change babies, talk to babies, buy things for babies, put babies to bed, get babies up, teach babies to speak/wave/sit/stand/walk. She knew everything and I didn’t. This was all the more annoying because it was true.

As I searched for serviettes I heard a familiar whimper which turned almost immediately into a cry. Jack had become really clingy lately – that was another reason it was difficult to go out and leave him. He was OK while I was in the room, but immediately I disappeared he’d start.

I abandoned the search for the serviettes, stuck the candle on the cake and went towards the door. ‘Don’t just disappear – I want some help in here with this tea,’ Mum said. ‘I’ve told you before, you shouldn’t go to him straightaway. If you do that he’ll expect you to return and amuse him every time he cries.’

‘I don’t want him upset at his own birthday party!’ I said.

‘And I don’t want to have to cope with all this on
my own – at my age I should be putting my feet up a bit, not running round after babies. Put the kettle on, get me a new packet of teabags out of the cupboard in the hall – and then find a small jug to put that cream in, will you?’

Yes, oh slave mistress, I thought.

‘And don’t go back to that baby for at least five minutes. You’ll spoil him the way you’re going on, you mark my words.’

No, in the circumstances, I wouldn’t ask Mum if I could go out…

It was just as everyone was leaving that the phone call came. Lorna had gone earlier to get her train back home, and about six o’clock Mark said he had to go and do something in the office of the newspaper where he was a photographer. By sheer coincidence, Claire and Josie decided they wanted to leave then, too: I thought they’d probably walk up to the bus stop with him and then drop a big hint about going on to the wine bar, hoping that he might say he’d join them later.

Ellie went to answer the phone, called out that it was for Mum and then came to join me in the kitchen. Jack was in his baby chair chomping on his
dummy and I was warming a jar of baby food in the microwave. His T-shirt was rainbow-coloured with the remnants of pink jelly, chocolate cake, iced buns and yellow egg mayonnaise but I wasn’t sure if he’d eaten anything substantial enough to get him through the night. He only had a bottle of milk at night now and Mum always kept on about him getting enough vitamins and minerals and things.

‘Who was that?’ I asked Ellie, because Mum didn’t exactly have a load of people ringing her, especially on a Saturday night.

‘Dunno,’ Ellie said. ‘A man.’

We looked at each other, mystified.

‘Must be someone selling something – double glazing,’ I said.

‘No, he asked for her by name. He said, “Can I speak to Christine?”’

‘I hope he said, “Can I speak to Christine,
please
.”’ This was one of Mum’s little rules. We both giggled and then I said, ‘Perhaps she’s got a boyfriend.’

‘As if!’

I tipped Jack’s food into a bowl, whipped out his dummy and put a spoonful of creamed chicken into his mouth. Because he wasn’t really hungry he opened his mouth wide and the mixture ran
out and straight down his plastic bib.

‘She must have had someone since Dad, though,’ I said. I put another mouthful in and this time a lot of it stayed there. Jack made chewing movements with his mouth. He couldn’t actually chew anything properly because he didn’t have back teeth, but he was trying.

Ellie shrugged. ‘I can’t remember anyone.’

‘In twelve years, though!’ I lowered my voice. ‘I mean, she’s not that bad.’

Jack stopped chewing, opened his mouth wide and removed something – a piece of potato. He looked at this and squished it between his fingers before rubbing it on his cheek.

Ellie shook her head. ‘No, I just can’t see her with a boyfriend. She’s too… too something. Too grownup. Too much of a mum.’

I pulled a face. I didn’t
think
I was… but maybe
I
was too much of a mum as well. Maybe I’d never have a boyfriend again in my life.

I finished feeding Jack and was wearily wondering if I could possibly get away without giving him a bath that night, when Mum came back into the kitchen. She didn’t look at either of us, just went straight to the sink and started washing up. Ellie and I rolled our eyes at each other and after a moment Mum said,
‘What’re you two looking at me like that for?’

‘We just wondered who was on the phone,’ I said.

‘Nothing to do with you,’ she said sharply.

‘I was only asking!’

‘We thought you’d got a boyfriend!’ Ellie said, and burst out laughing.

‘Oh, you did, did you?’ Mum said. That was all she said, but it was the way she said it.

Ellie and I made incredulous faces at each other. ‘I’m just going to give Jack a once-over with a flannel and put him to bed,’ I said. ‘He’s really tired.’

Mum turned. ‘You’re not putting that baby to bed without a bath!’

‘I’m really whacked,’ I said. ‘It won’t hurt. I’ll bath him in the morning.’

‘He’s
filthy
!’ Mum said. ‘And not only that, a bath will relax him.’

‘It won’t relax me, though.’

‘We’re not concerned with you, we’re concerned with the baby. He should come first… it’s what’s best for him that’s important.’ She gathered strength. ‘A baby isn’t something you can pick up and put down when you want to, you know. A baby is for life.’

‘I thought that was a puppy,’ I said. But I went to run the bath. It was easier.

‘Of course, in my days, girls didn’t have babies before they were married,’ the taxi driver said.

‘Is that right?’ I asked politely. Big deal, I thought.

‘Or if they
did
have them, they had them adopted.’

I glowered at the back of his fat neck. It was a few weeks after Jack’s birthday party and I was in the back of a taxi on my way to Poppies – the educational unit-with-a-nursery where I was taking my A Levels. All last term I’d had the same, nice, younger driver who’d made jokes with me and taken an interest in Jack. That morning, though, the first day of a new term, a different, older man had turned up to collect me.

‘All these taxis going backwards and forwards must be costing the authorities a packet. How many girls are there in that place you go to?’

‘Depends,’ I said. ‘Eight or nine. Sometimes more.’

‘And they all have taxis twice a day?’

I said yes and he went on, ‘I might be talking myself out of a job, but I can’t see why you girls can’t
get there and back under your own steam.’

I didn’t say anything. Next to me on the seat sat Jack, in his new little carry seat I’d bought with some money my dad had sent me for his birthday, and on the floor in front of us was a big rucksack full of the things he needed to get through the day: nappies, food, changes of clothes, piece of blanket, feeding cup, changing mat and washing stuff. Alongside the rucksack was a big bag of books for the exam subjects I was taking. Imagine taking all that lot on three buses…

‘It must cost the government thousands having you lot driven around,’ he continued.

I pretended to be busy with Jack.

‘I suppose you’ve got a nice flat, have you?’ he went on after a moment.