And Baby Makes Two (20 page)

It wasn’t a Norwich number at all. It was a London number.

Les must be at home. He’d phoned me as soon as he got back. He did want to spend New Year’s Eve with me. It was his surprise. Me and Shinola still had our coats on. I didn’t think twice about it. Thank God my nan’d given me a tenner for Christmas. I just turned right round and went back outside and got a taxi.

I know exactly what I was expecting. I was expecting Les in his yellow shirt with a happy grin on his face and a bottle of champagne.

“I was just about to ring you again,” he’d say when he opened the door. “I reckoned you must be putting the baby to sleep.”

A woman answered the door. She was about Hilary’s age, but her hair was grey. I got this really bad feeling when I saw her. The time me and Hilary got robbed, a coldness came over me the second I stepped through the door. Because there was a cassette on the floor, and I knew it shouldn’t be there. That was how I was feeling now. This woman shouldn’t be here.

“Yes?” She looked from me to Shinola and back again. “Can I help you?”

“Oh,” I said. She was wearing an apron and slippers. It had to be the wrong house. I told the driver Number Seventy-one, but he must’ve misheard me. And I didn’t think to check. “I-I’m sorry to bother you… I was looking for Les. Les Craft? He lives on this road.”

She smiled very slightly. It was a familiar smile. I could feel myself really start to panic. Trillions of thoughts were shooting through my brain.

“Yes? You’re looking for Les?”

No, shrieked one of the voices in my head. Les is looking for me!

“Do you know him?” Maybe she was the mother of one of his flatmates. Or he helped carry her shopping in sometimes. “If you could just point out his house…”

That made her laugh. “I think you could say I know him. I’m Les’s mother. And
this
is his house.” Her eyes moved from me to Shinola. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Oh…” It was like I had this tower of cards built up inside of me and someone had taken out one of the cards at the bottom. Everything was collapsing at once. I could feel it. I could even see it. I tried to stop it. “
You’re
Les’s mum?” I forced myself to smile. “Les didn’t say you were coming down to London.”

She gave me a puzzled look. “But I
live
in London. Here. I’ve lived in this house for thirty years.”

Crash
went why Les never gave me his home phone number.
Crash
went why his mobile was never on.
Crash
went why I could never go to his.
Crash
went the flu Les had last year.
Crash
went why he couldn’t spend any of Christmas with me.
Crashcrashcrash
. But I still tried to stop it.

“But you can’t,” I blurted out. “Les – I mean, I thought you lived in Norwich.”

“Norwich?” She smiled like she thought I must be on drugs. “My sister lives in Norwich, but I live here. With Les.” She pushed the door forward just a bit. “How do you know Les?” She gave me and Shinola another once-over. “You
are
a friend of his?”

I was standing on her doorstep with a baby in my arms on New Year’s Eve. What did she think I was, a Girl Guide? But I couldn’t say anything like that. I knew that once I started, I’d never stop. And the crashing cards would never stop either.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course I am.” I bounced Shinola gently in my arms. “A very good friend.”

Her smile was polite at first, but now it was just kind of there.

“A very good friend who doesn’t know that he lives with his mother?”

“Well, I—” No wonder the kitchen was so tidy. No wonder I never saw any room but Les’s. I made my voice not shake. “Is Les at home?”

She held the door steady. “I’m afraid you just missed him.” She sounded anything but sorry.

“Well, will he be back soon?”

She shook her head. “It’s New Year’s Eve.” In case I’d missed that. “He’s gone to a party.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “So there’s no point in waiting.”

“No,” said Mrs Craft. “No, there’s no point in waiting. I believe he’s spending the night at a friend’s.”

I didn’t cry while I was talking to Les’s mother, and I didn’t cry after she went back inside and turned off the outside light either. I just stood there, staring at the door. It was a wooden door, painted white. It had a brass letterbox and four tiny windows of coloured glass. I stood there until the shock wore off enough for me to feel the cold. Then I turned round and headed home.

There was nothing inside me except this big hole. This big, cold hole. It made me numb from the inside out. I remember looking up at the sky to see if there were any stars, but Dollis Hill wasn’t like the hospital ward with its shiny silver stars. The sky was browny pink and blank, as if we were underground.

I don’t remember the walk home. Maybe Shinola was awake, and maybe she was sleeping. Maybe we walked on the main road, and maybe we stayed on the side streets. I do remember the Christmas decorations and faraway laughter.

I wasn’t scared. There were lots of drunks out, and probably lots of muggers, too, but I couldn’t give a used tampon. So what if someone attacked me? What could they do? Beat me up? Kill me? Big deal.

Anyway, I was really sure God wouldn’t let anyone rape or murder me. It was too easy. My life was punishment enough.

I was in one of those films I didn’t like to watch. The sort of film that Charley liked. He thought they were realistic. “Sit down and watch this with us,” he’d say. “This is about real life.” But they weren’t realistic, they were depressing. They never had happy endings, and most of the time somebody died, or might as well have. Even if they were in colour I always felt like they were in black and white.

And that was me, walking through the dark on New Year’s Eve with my baby in my arms and about a trillion things in my mind all at once. All the lies Les had told me. All the half-truths. Even all the truths. Nothing was how I thought it was. And nothing was going to be how I thought it would be. I could see that now. I could see it really clearly. Like I should’ve seen it all along.

It was like I’d been sleeping for about a hundred years, and now I’d woken up. But it wasn’t the Prince’s kiss that woke me. It was the toe of his boot in my face.

Les had never really been interested in me. Not
really
interested. Not like I was in him. He probably had another girlfriend. Maybe more than one. That was why he was always so busy. I wondered who he really went to Greece with. Or maybe he went to Greece like he went to Norwich. Maybe he’d been in London all the time. All the time I was sitting in the house on my own. All the time I was in labour. All the time.

I made up our love. I made up our happiness. I made up our future and our present. But of all the things I made up maybe the worst thing was that I made up Les. He wasn’t independent. He wasn’t going to be a big success. He wasn’t even very nice really. He was just OK. He was an OK bloke with a boring job he pretended was important who still lived with his mum. For all I knew, she
did
pick out his clothes. Maybe he didn’t even have good dress sense.

I kept hearing Shanee say,
You’re only young once… You’re only young once…

Yeah, I thought. And I’d thrown it away. I’d never done anything in my whole life that wasn’t a mistake.

I was only young once and now I was old. Five years from now, I’d still be exactly where I was. I’d be scrimping for this and saving for that. I’d be shopping in Kwik Save and charity shops. I wouldn’t go to art school like Shanee, or for weekends in the country with my friends. I’d never have my dream house or my dream family. Because that was all they were. Just dreams. My real house was the flat I’d lived in since I was little. My real family was Shinola.

We passed Shanee’s on the way up the road. You could hear the music all the way down at the corner. The music and the laughter and the shouting of teenagers who’d had a few drinks and were having a good time. And for a second I could actually see myself in there with them. Not like I was earlier in the evening, but like I should’ve been. Like who I used to be.

Shinola was crying by the time we got to the flat. I turned the telly on loud so I’d hear another voice and then I got Shinola ready for bed. I did it like I was a robot. Change nappy … heat bottle … put on pyjamas…

She took her bottle all right, but she didn’t want to be put in her cot. Because I’d been holding her so much.

“Tough titties,” I told her. And I slammed the bedroom door behind me.

I could still hear her in the living-room. I turned the telly up even louder and put on the stereo, but I couldn’t drown her out. Mrs Mugurdy started doing her dance on my ceiling. I didn’t want a fight with Mrs Mugurdy just then. I turned everything down and went back to the bedroom.

I had the hall light on, so I could see her even though the room was dark. I looked down on Shinola, wide-awake and screaming, but what I saw was Les’s mother, blocking the entrance to Number Seventy-one and smiling like I was a beggar or something.

She didn’t know about me even vaguely. It never occurred to her that I was Les’s girlfriend. It never occurred to her that I was holding her grandchild in my arms.

And that’s when I finally started to cry.

It was like some giant was shaking me, I was sobbing so much.

What did my life amount to? Bloody nothing, that’s what. I had a ratty old council flat that I’d end up dying in, and a baby named after a shoe polish. And it wasn’t even British shoe polish.

Shinola cried and I cried. I don’t know for how long. And all I wanted was to go back. To go back a year and be Lana Spiggs again, not Shinola Spiggs’ mum. That’s all I wanted. I just wanted to be where I used to be, with a future.

I stopped crying, but Shinola didn’t.

I wished she would go away. Just disappear. Then everything could go back to the way it was. I’d go back to do my GCSEs and go to parties and maybe even go to drama school. Shanee could move in with me and share the flat. We’d be like
Friends
. Mrs Mugurdy might die and a couple of guys get her flat. Then we’d really be like
Friends
.

Shinola kept shrieking.

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut bloody up!”

But she wouldn’t, would she?

“Just go away!” I begged. “Just go away!”

Suddenly I saw how easy it would be to wipe the last year right out of my life. Just put the pillow over her head for a couple of minutes. That was all. Just hold it there.

It wasn’t really like I was thinking it, it was like I was dreaming it.

I watched myself pick up the quilt Nan had made her and throw it over Shinola. I watched myself pick up the pillow and put it over her head.

The New Year’s chimes started ringing on the telly. Outside I could hear fireworks and people shouting. I pressed down.

One … two … three … four … five…

One tiny fist poked out from under the quilt and the pillow. It waved in the air.

And I could see her holding on to my hair, the way she always did. She wasn’t covered up in the cot, she was in my arms, pulling my hair so much it hurt. I don’t know, it just got to me, that’s all. It was Shinola’s hand, and there was always gunge between the fingers. I remembered counting them in the hospital.

Six … seven … eight … nine…

I could never go back. Unless I got amnesia, I was never going to be the way I was. If I’d wanted to get rid of Shinola, I should’ve done it before she was born.

Ten … eleven…

If I wasn’t going to go back, then I might as well go forward. I couldn’t see that I had much choice.

I threw the pillow and quilt across the room. Shinola was purple and gasping. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there hugging her.

Twelve…

I hadn’t heard the phone ring but I heard the answering machine pick up.

“Happy New Year, Lana and Shinola!” shouted Hilary and Charley. “Happy New Year!”

Shinola coughed and all this baby snot blew across the front of my dress.

“Well, I guess it’s just you and me,” I told Shinola.

Shinola’s fingers twisted themselves around my hair.

I winced in pain.

“Happy New Year to you, Shinola Spiggs,” I said. “Happy New Year to us.”