The Yorkshire Pudding Club (32 page)

Elizabeth got to the top of the staircase, and then every brake in her body slammed on hard.

‘What are you doing?’
asked some deep-buried part of her that was tired of running away from all she most wanted to run
to
. She could feel his pain heavy in the air; it mingled with her own and she knew this must stop, one way or another. There could be no more loose ends, no more not-knowing.

But would he still want me if he knew? she thought. How is this fair on him?

‘How fair is it if he doesn’t know?’
argued a clearer, stronger voice.

She owed him the truth but she was so frightened of seeing disgust for her in his eyes, she knew she would crumble to dust if he turned his back on her. But she did not want to,
could not, would not
, hurt this man any more. Whatever telling the truth of it all might do to her.

John stared out of the window at the peaceful scene of the countryside whilst the inside of him screamed with raw pain and confusion and wanted to close down and
go to sleep for ever.
‘What now?’
his whole being seemed to cry, because he didn’t know where he would go from here or what he would do. He felt destroyed, numb, and not sure he could ever recover from losing her again. Not only her, because there had been the baby, too–a life he had watched grow within her and he had bonded with it as surely as if he was the bairn’s own blood. Then he heard the echo of slow footsteps. He lifted his head and looked at her as if she was a phantom that his mind had tricked him into seeing.

‘About the baby,’ she said, struggling with the words. ‘I want to tell you how it came about.’

‘I don’t need to know, I don’t care about that, Elizabeth. It doesn’t matter how—’He started to come forward but she held her hand up and stopped his passage.

‘Please, John. I don’t want to have any secrets from you…I need you to hear this now.’

She took the deepest breath her lungs would allow her to, then she told him.

She had not wanted to go to the damned stupid party in the first place, but Dean had insisted it would be a right laugh. It was in a mate of a mate of a mate’s huge shabby house, but there would be loads of beer and food and lots of people he knew were going. So he said.

‘What would you do instead–sit in and be miserable and bring New Year in on your own with your cat?’ he had scoffed. He had gone on and on so much that in the end she had said yes to shut him up. He told her he was just meeting the lads first in their local for one–one pint, he emphasized–so she had to get a taxi and meet him there.

When she got to the house, she found it was full of students and loud music, and some seedy older blokes in even louder shirts trying to cop off with the young scantily clad female gyrators. She was so cross at herself for agreeing to come when she could have been at home in the warmth and the quiet–and yes, bringing in New Year by herself with a cat. She had tried to ring Dean but she could hardly hear what he was saying because of the loud noise of the pub music in the background, although she got the feeling he had heard more than he was letting on. He would be on his way in five minutes, he said, and she was to stay
there. She had come off the phone knowing he was lying and tried to ring a return taxi only to find there was a two-hour wait. She booked one anyway, then went inside and got a drink from a sticky table, and out of anger drank it too fast, and it went straight to her head because she hadn’t had any tea.

She had another as well before the tall, fair-haired bloke came up and started talking to her. He had seemed nice, friendly–mature, despite being so young, and as much out of sorts as she was. He said he was waiting for a friend who hadn’t turned up yet, and he was going to give it another half an hour and then he was leaving.

‘You’ll be lucky,’ she said. ‘There’s a two-hour wait for taxis. Have you far to go?’

‘Miles,’ he said, and groaned and went to get himself a consolatory lager. Then he came back to her and she found it was better talking to him than standing there fuming by herself, plus it would help the time pass more quickly. He was doing History at some university down south, he said, although she could hardly hear him for the music. Then he laughed that she was far too lovely to be waiting around for a man and Elizabeth had pretended to be flattered. He was attractive, she remembered thinking, but it was very dark and she didn’t get a proper look at his face.

When she went up to the loo, he was waiting outside for her when she emerged. He had found a quieter place where they could sit and talk if she wanted, he said; kill the time until her taxi came, away from all that banging noise and booze and drugs. He didn’t do drugs, he said, they were for idiots. He led her to a little bedroom at the end of the upstairs corridor and jammed a chair up against the door so they
wouldn’t be disturbed by anyone. It was nice just to sit down and kick off those stupid high heels she had put on, because her feet were killing her. Plus she had felt like someone’s granny in a dress amongst all those skimpy bra-tops and mini-skirts. He had brought her a drink up, although he had been a bit heavy-handed on the vodka, she noted.

They had just been talking, then it progressed seamlessly to flirting, then he had leaned over and kissed her. He’d been very gentle, and stupidly she had let him, not wanting to insult him by shoving him off. Then he eased her back on the bed and began touching her, and by then he had taken her polite small resistance as a green light. It was then she started to try and push him off. It wasn’t right, plus this student was less than half her age, for God’s sake. He was aroused though, and knew she wasn’t serious when she starting saying no because she wasn’t exactly beating him off with a stick. His drink-filled thought processes reasoned that she probably felt guilty for complying and so preferred to be overpowered a little. Some older women said ‘no’ when they meant ‘yes’–to override their embarrassment at being with a young fit bloke.

He was strong and pinned her down with his long limbs and she couldn’t move, could hardly breathe, and she yelped when he unzipped himself and entered her. He was proudly well-endowed and rock hard, and he knew that was every woman’s fantasy and pushed harder and harder, pounding into her, encouraged by her cries. Then he caught sight of her frightened face by the half-light of the streetlamp shining through the curtains and he knew immediately that he had got it terribly wrong. He threw himself backwards away from her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sobering up in a flash. ‘God, I’m sorry. I thought you wanted it.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ said Elizabeth. She hurt, inside and out.

He was pacing up and down, his voice shaking as much as his body, and he started sobbing.

‘Please don’t get the police. I truly didn’t mean to hurt you…I really thought you wanted me. I’m clean–I don’t have any diseases or anything…Oh God, I’m so sorry.’

He tried to help her adjust her clothing but she thrashed out at him, hands clawed, nails bared like a feral cat, and he backed off to show her that he meant her no harm.

‘Please, I…I’m sorry…I got it so wrong. I’m not a…’ The unsaid word frightened him and he tore the chair away from the door and ran from it in a blind panic.

She sat there until her mobile rang. It was Dean telling her that he’d be there in half an hour, although the jolly backdrop told her it was a lie. He had been caught up in a round, he explained. She switched him off mid-flow, wiped her face and straightened her clothes. Then she stiffened her back, went down the stairs, out of the front door and, with her shoes in her hand, Elizabeth walked the three miles home.

John stared at her unblinkingly and she didn’t know what that look was in his eyes–disgust…pity? She couldn’t tell, for the part of her brain that deciphered body language had closed off in a panic to protect her.

‘You should have gone to the police,’ he said quietly, his voice croaky.

‘I did go the next day,’ she said, ‘but what could I say? I got drunk with a stranger and then went into a bedroom with him of my own free will? Me at thirty-eight and him at nineteen or whatever?’

She had walked into the police station and waited in the queue. There were two receptionists there, a nice friendly one dealing with an old lady, and a snotty one who had Receptionist’s Syndrome, which gave some people behind a front desk the illusion that they ruled the world and that everyone else was scum under their feet. Maybe if the other receptionist had been free, things might have been different, but she got the pinched-face one who looked at Elizabeth in a way that suggested if she was here to report something that had happened to her, she probably had only herself to blame for it.

‘Can I help you?’ she said.

She had hard, unpitying eyes, and just as Elizabeth’s mouth opened, she saw Sergeant Wayne Sheffield come out of an office behind the glass partition looking for something. He’d thickened out and lost half his hair, but his lips were still as thin, his eyes small, piggy and set closer together than had always seemed right. She stumbled backwards before he caught sight of her and crashed out of the door into the street.

The receptionist sighed disparagingly and called, ‘Next!’

Outside, Elizabeth calmed herself and thought about going back in and trying again. Then she pictured Wayne Sheffield being the one to rake over her details, whilst knowing her history, remembering their sordid encounter all those years ago; the words ‘leopards’ and ‘spots’ playing in his brain, because even though her wild days were long behind her, she would always be that same slag to him. Then if her case did stumble to court, all those past mistakes she had made would lift themselves out of their shallow graves and present themselves to the prosecuting counsel to colour exactly what sort of person she was, to stop a young man’s life from being ruined. She couldn’t ever let her past come back. She didn’t want her baby tainted by it.

‘I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want anyone to know how the baby was made. I didn’t want him growing up and finding out that’s how his little life started off,’ she said. ‘And what I am.’

‘And you think I wouldn’t love the baby because of that?’ said John, his face a mask of hurt and anger.

‘I’m not sure even
I
can love it!’ cried Elizabeth,
dropping her head in shame. Her greatest fear was out and it hung in the air like poisonous gas.

A distressed and desperate whimper escaped her and she reached out for John. He came forward and pressed her into his chest, closed his great long arms around her and sighed from his core at the feel of her against him. Not love her baby? he thought, and smiled with great tenderness. She didn’t know herself at all and that was such a shame, because she was such a beautiful person to know. Crazy, damaged, mixed-up kid that she was, but he had learned the hard way that his heart was made only for her.

‘Elizabeth Collier, if only you could see what I see now. Don’t tell me you can’t love your bairn, and don’t tell me I can’t.’

She nestled into him, glorying in the wonderful sensations of his touch and his smell. Together, the essences of John Silkstone swirled inside her, easily knocking down those strongholds of resistance that had stood against him for too long. She wanted to let go of everything but him, she wanted to stay against his heartbeat for ever. She lifted her face to him, her feelings for him clear in her great, long-lashed grey eyes. He did not expect to hear the actual words, but she said them aloud–not to herself, not in a letter, but at last aloud to him.

‘I love you, John Silkstone.’

And he said back, ‘I love you, Elizabeth Collier, always have and always will.’

His head lowered by minute degrees, scared that this was some dreadful illusion that would evaporate
when his lips touched hers. And when they finally made contact, his kiss was delicate and sweet, although he struggled against himself not to crush her to bits in his arms. He held her face gently in his great big builder’s hands and looked at those dear, darling features and smiled. However long it took to let him love her properly he would wait. She was finally his and he would never lose her again.

Elizabeth ignored her mobile the first four times, but when it rang the fifth time it seemed louder, more insistent and demanded she take notice of it. Elizabeth took it out of her bag and saw that it was Helen phoning.

‘John, I’m sorry, let me answer this–it’s Hels,’ she said.

‘Answer it then,’ said John. She could answer a million phone calls now that he had heard the words he’d wanted to hear from her for nearly fifteen years.

‘Elizabeth, please come to the hospital, I’m in labour!’

‘But you’re too early!’

‘Try telling my
dauuuuuuoooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…ghter
that.
Aaarrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
’

‘Barnsley General? Or are you in that posh private one in Wakey?’

‘No time…I’m in Barnsley General…I’ve rung Janey. Please hurry, I need you.’

‘I’m on my way!’

Janey was already at the hospital when they arrived.

‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you for months,’ she said, and then she noticed John behind. The couple looked like they’d been dragged through an emotional hedge backwards. ‘Oh aye? And what the chuff is going on with you two, pray?’

‘Tell you later,’ said Elizabeth, waving goodbye to John, who waved back and blew a kiss at her.

‘Just a friend, my eye!’

‘Not any more.’

‘Boy, I can’t wait to hear this one!’

‘Later. Right, where do we go?’

They followed a series of directions to find Helen in a very big designer T-shirt with a teddy bear motif, sitting up in a bed with the gas and air mask clamped over her mouth.

‘What happened?’ said Elizabeth, giving her a tentative hug.

‘My waters broke. Then these pains came from nowhere.’

‘If you’d been in Asda when your waters broke you’d have got all your shopping free,’ said Janey.

‘Wheel me back there then,’ said Helen. ‘I’ll try and hang on whilst you fill up a trolley with alcohol.’

‘And chocolates–let’s not forget those!’ said Janey. ‘Oh, and some Marmite. I’ve run out.’

‘And my olives.’

‘Oh hell!’

‘Where’s your TENS machine?’ asked Elizabeth, snapping off the humour.

‘There,’ said Helen, pointing to some tangled wires on the floor in the corner, where she had flung it. ‘Useless thing!’ Then she bent over double.

‘So, what’s it feel like to be in labour then?’ asked Elizabeth, when Helen had straightened out again.

‘Think of a wave of period pain then fourteen-milliontiply it…NNNNNNNYYYYYRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!’

‘Jesus Christ, can’t you get something stronger if it’s that bad?’ said Elizabeth, suddenly worried.

‘It
is
that bad. Do you think I’m putting this on?’

‘Aye, I do, you bloody drama queen!’

‘Just you wait until it’s your turn, Janey Hobson! I’m waiting for the midwife; she’s just popped next door with the anaesthetist and another lady.’

Elizabeth bobbed her head out of the door in the hope of hurrying her up, only to find Marc with a ‘c’ being wheeled in a chair down the corridor by a porter. He appeared to be holding his eye. She came back in, trying not to giggle.

‘Oy, guess what? I think the woman next door might be Pam and my guess is she’s just splattered Marc with a “c” with an “r” and an “h”!’

‘Eh?’

‘Right hook.’

Helen half-laughed, half-cried. ‘Bloody, sodding hell,’ she then said, creasing over again.

‘Do you know, I think that’s the most you’ve sworn ever,’ said Janey. ‘Just because you’ve got knockers now doesn’t mean you have to turn into Elizabeth.’

‘Can we get you anything?’ said Elizabeth, more sympathetically.

‘Yes, unpregnant! I thought contractions were supposed to build up gradually.’

‘Not always,’ said the midwife, suddenly appearing at the door. ‘You must be one of the lucky ones. I’m Sandra, now let’s have another look at you, lovey.’

Without further prompting, Helen put her ankles together and dropped open her knees for the midwife. At this stage, she would have opened them to anyone who looked remotely like they worked in a hospital, as all thoughts of holding onto her dignity had gone with the first contraction. She did not care if she poohed over the entire floor in the process either. She just wanted this baby out.

‘Over five centimetres dilated,’ said Sandra. ‘You’re doing very well.’

‘Can I have something else for the pain, please?’ said Helen like a breathless desperate small child, hoping St Mandy was not around to hear and damn her to hell for all eternity.

‘The anaesthetist is quite busy at the moment with a queue of ladies requesting epidurals. How about some pethidine to tide you over?’

‘Oh yes, please!’

‘Would you like a half shot to start off with?’

‘No, a nice big fat one!’ said Helen, as pleased as if she had just been offered a giant walnut whip. ‘Please, please make it now!’

Elizabeth sank to the chair; she was feeling a bit shaky through hunger.

‘Why don’t you two go and get a cup of coffee and a sandwich whilst I get on with her obs and giving her some medication,’ said the midwife. ‘It might be the last chance you get.’

She’s as calm as a lake of milk, thought Elizabeth. She does this day in, day out. Sandra managed to combine an air of authority with gentleness and consideration, not at all like Mandy would have been; she would probably have spontaneously combusted when Helen asked for some drugs.

‘Come on,’ said Janey, battleaxe-style, and linked her short friend’s arm. ‘Be seeing you, we’re off for a bacon butty,’ she threw back at Helen.

‘I hate
youuuuuuuuuuuoooowww
,’ said Helen.
‘Owwwowwowwwwowww!’

‘God, it’s Kate Bush,’ said Janey. ‘Do “Wuthering Heights” next, that’s my favourite.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, it
hurtsssssssssssss
!’

It was too surreal for words, with Helen in agony and them laughing and joking. It wasn’t at all as Elizabeth had expected it to be. Where was the panic and fear? Where was the feeling that the Grim Reaper was lurking at their shoulders? Janey led the way down the corridor towards the hospital coffee-shop.

‘Think she’ll be okay if we leave her?’ said Elizabeth, feeling horribly guilty.

‘Could be a long tiring night for all of us,’ said Janey. ‘It’s like the midwife said, it won’t do us any harm to have something before the best of the fun starts. I’d just sat down to have my tea myself. I only managed a mouthful of carrot when the phone went, then I rang you about twelve million times just to get fobbed off with your voicemail because you were with Bob the Builder,’ she added pointedly. ‘So are you going to tell me why you were too busy to answer?’

‘John’s built me a house,’ said Elizabeth, when they sat down at the table with two crispy bacon sandwiches and a big pot of mixed berry tea.

‘A house?’

‘A house.’

‘What?’

‘He took me to see a house he’d built. It was just like one I drew when we were mucking about years ago.’

‘Never!’

‘He wants me and he wants to be the bairn’s dad.’

‘And you of course said, “No, John,” and ran off.’

‘Yes.’

‘I could clout you, you stupid, stupid—’

‘Then I turned back and said, “Yes”.’

A chorus of angels appeared from somewhere behind Janey and started singing ‘Hallelujah’ in her ear-hole.

‘Well, thank the Lord!’ said Janey with the biggest sigh of relief she had ever mustered. ‘Only fifteen years
late as well. At least that proves you do have a brain, I was beginning to wonder.’

‘Maybe it wouldn’t have worked before; maybe this is our time now.’

‘That is Mills & Boon bollocks language, Elizabeth, but I forgive you in your loved-up circumstances,’ said Janey, tipping a congratulatory mug of tea in her friend’s direction, then she put the mug down, almost leaped over the table and gave Elizabeth a hug that nearly squeezed her baby out there and then.

When Janey nipped off to the loo, Elizabeth returned John’s text enquiring how things were going. He had gone over to Rhymer Street to feed Cleef. Big John Silkstone.
Her John Silkstone.
She felt warm and runny inside to think of him that way. She didn’t know what was so special about her for him, but she was not going to turn his love away again. Not ever.

When they got back to Helen, she was standing up, rotating an imaginary hula-hoop around on her hips and Walkman singing to Beautiful South. She looked happily spaced.

‘She’s taken to the pethidine very well,’ said Sandra with a proud smile.

‘She’s off her face!’ said Elizabeth.

‘
Don’t marry her, have me…Salvete
, girls, you’re back!’ hailed Helen, Roman-style. She hadn’t looked as slaughtered as this since Whitby, 1983, after the Black Russians had reacted with her hay-fever tablets. She was having a contraction but it felt like it was happening to someone else a few miles away–a twin
sister in Australia, perhaps. She was actually having her baby now, a beautiful baby girl. She was going to be cuddling her soon.
Ooooh, that quite hurt.
She was going to call her Daisy Buttercup Bluebell Dahlia Tulip Marigold Dandelion. Then she was going to marry Teddy Sanderson.
When were you supposed to do that breathing thing?

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

‘Come on, Shirley Bassey,’ said the midwife after a while and dragged her over to the bed. Then she checked her internally again.

‘You’re dilating nice and quick,’ said the midwife, ‘but as you are a bit early, I’ll get the registrar to come down when you’re a little nearer.’

‘How are you feeling now?’ said Elizabeth. ‘Scared?’

‘Yes,’ said Helen, smiling widely. ‘This is it, girls.’

She didn’t look scared; she looked sweaty, damp, tired and beautiful but she didn’t look scared, thought Elizabeth.

‘How’s the pethidine doing?’ said Janey.

‘Nice to know you’re using me as a guinea pig!’ said Helen, thinking, Janey has a purple face. ‘Oh my, it’s strong stuff all right.’

‘Elizabeth’s got it together with John at last,’ said Janey.

‘Hell, it is strong stuff,’ slurred Helen.

‘No–straight up!’ said Janey.

‘I didn’t dream that last bit?’ Helen asked.

‘What, about me and John?’ said Elizabeth. ‘No, you’re not dreaming’

‘Thank God for that!’ said Helen. ‘We thought you were going to be a complete idiot all your life.’

‘Cheers!’

They sat for a while as Helen got on with puffing and breathing.

‘Who’d have thought when we sat on that Chalk Man’s bits what we were starting off?’ said Janey eventually.

‘Sorry, guys,’ said Helen, just before another contraction crested.

‘Yes, I hope that one bloody hurt,’ said Janey. ‘It’s all
your
fault. In fact, we should sue you. Know a good solicitor?’

They all laughed, then when the next contraction came, things turned a bit serious. They all fell calm and quiet, holding their friend’s hands, dabbing her forehead with the cloth, bringing the cup of water to her lips to let her have a sip before she dried into sand. She could murder a cup of tea, she said, and a square of the fruit and nut that was in her maternity bag. When she got home, she would write to the Pope and ask for Carol to be canonized for suggesting that alone.

‘I think the peth’s wearing off because my contractions are like tidal waves, if you want an update,’ said Helen after a while, although she did not know how long that while was because time seemed all distorted. She was starting to reconcile the pain with her own body now. It was not where she thought it would be situated and was actually concentrated mainly in her back. She just felt as if she wanted to go to the loo and do a big pooh.

Sandra gave her another examination.

‘She’s ready,’ she said. ‘Right, Helen, the registrar is on his way but everything’s looking fine so no need to worry. I’ll want you to start pushing in a minute.’

‘More pethidine, please,’ said Helen, who was starting to look very weary.

‘Not now, darling,’ said Sandra. ‘Come on, girls, hold her hands and watch out for those nails sticking in.’

‘Oy, you flaming eagle!’ said Janey, as Helen drew blood on a contraction.

Elizabeth smiled. This was scary but lovely too. This was what women all over the world did and every one of them with a different story to tell. She wasn’t expecting her turn to be a picnic but she suddenly knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was
not
going to die in childbirth but would be around to dine out with the other two for years on their birth stories, scoffing cream cakes and drinking big pots of tea. This was life in all its bloody, base, wonderful crudity, and out of all this blood and guts and pain-induced profanities would come a fresh, new, precious, beautiful, pure baby. A new start.

‘Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllssssssssssssss!’

‘I never thought anyone could swear more than you,’ said Janey to Elizabeth, who stuck up a digital V at her.

The registrar came in–a tall, slim black man in a beautiful pink shirt. Janey’s pupils dilated with pleasure.

‘Wish he was fiddling about with me,’ she whispered to the others.

‘Shut up, you sex-mad tart!’ said Elizabeth.

‘Can I push now?’ Helen begged.

‘Yes, you can push, sweetheart,’ said the midwife.

Helen let her body do what it wanted to–push down. She felt like she was going to split in two.

‘Nnnnnnnnnyyyyyyayaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!’

‘She’s crowning,’ said Sandra to the registrar.

‘Good girl,’ said the registrar. ‘Another push, Helen.’

Helen let go of her friends’ hands and gripped the bedhead behind her instead. Elizabeth moved down to watch the birth; Janey followed her lead. The baby’s head was coming out and it had lots of fair hair, darkened and plastered to its head with the greasy vernix. They could see her creased up little Winston Churchill face.

‘Shoulders now, sweetheart, this is the hardest bit. Push now!’

Helen pushed weakly; it was all she had left.

‘I can’t,’ she said with a cry.

‘Yes, you can,’ said Elizabeth.

‘I can’t,’ said Helen, starting to sob.

‘Well, if you can’t be bothered, I don’t see why I should,’ said Sandra, winking conspiratorially at Elizabeth.

‘Come on, you lazy cow,’ said Janey, joining in on the game, trying to whip up some adrenaline in her friend to get the baby out.

‘AAAARRGGGGGHHHHH!’ said Helen, pushing down as hard as she could just to show them all, but it wasn’t enough by a long way.

‘Again!’ said Janey.

‘Come on, my darling girl, push!’

Dad?

She knew it was the last of the pethidine fooling her, but there he was, large as life, in his grey suit, his little half-moon specs, his snow-white handkerchief poking out of his top pocket and his yellow tie with the Windsor knot, and he was smiling down at her. She could even smell his cologne, then she blinked and he had gone.