Porky (6 page)

Mum had given him a list for Woolies. We drove there that afternoon. I followed Dad down the aisles. He kept pausing with his piece of paper and rubbing his nose. I usually loved shopping with him, and today should have been the best day of all. Soon he gave up and I took over the list, collecting the terry nappies and the bags of cotton wool. I felt light-headed and queasy, both at the same time; I couldn't catch up with what we were doing. How soon before I had a baby too? I found a packet of bootees: cream knitted ones. ‘Birth – 6 months', said the label. It was six whole days since that thing had happened in the armchair. He hadn't said a word about it; all I knew was that later he'd sat in my bedroom.

Today, since he'd woken up he'd been more silent than ever, and his eyes were rimmed pink. I dreaded him saying something, of course; I felt sick at the possibility. But there we were, choosing baby clothes together. I should be thinking about my baby brother, not myself. Was Dad ever going to tell me the truth? I must be too young to have a baby, with my flat chest. I would have to ask a stranger.

I inspected the check-out lady . . . Someone like her, who I might not see again. But I couldn't just blurt it out while she pinged the till, could I? And with him there.

On the way back he put his hand on my knee.

‘Sorry, Podge. Not quite myself today.'

Silently I pleaded with him not to explain why, and it worked. He didn't.

Mum's bandages made it all more confusing. I'd noticed them, of course, but I pretended not to see. I thought I knew how babies were born, but there she was, trussed up half-way to her collar bone. She'd buttoned up her nightie but you could see gaps when she moved. There was woolly bandage in there, wrapped round and round and fastened with safety pins. I made sure on my second visit. Was this part of the Complications? I must have got it wrong, this baby business. I'd thought you had to have bosoms, but now she'd bandaged hers flat. They looked as flat as mine. So did that mean I could have one too?

That visit I had to go to the toilet. I was just washing my hands when a nurse came through the door. She stood beside me, filling a vase with water. If she hadn't smiled at me, and if we weren't alone, I would never have dared.

I just turned to her, calm as calm, and asked, ‘Do you know why my Mum's wearing bandages?'

‘What – here?' She indicated her chest. I nodded. My courage was draining away now.

‘It's Mrs Mercer, isn't it?' she said.

I nodded again.

‘They're to help stop lactation. You see, she doesn't want to feed baby herself. Some of our mums don't.' She paused, smiling kindly. ‘That answered it?'

I nodded, of course. She went away. I stood there, rigid. There was a roaring in my ears.

Acting as if nothing had happened, I made my way back to her bedside. Dad was standing, jiggling the baby. Mewling hiccups came from the bundle. No wonder the little thing was crying.

I said quickly, ‘Can we take him home now?'

Dad stopped. ‘Eh?'

‘Can we bring him home?'

Dad burst out laughing. Even my Mum smiled. There were some other babies crying, I could hear them now. They must be the other ones who weren't going to be fed.

‘I'll feed him.' I looked desperately from Mum to Dad. ‘I promise.'

‘You're an odd little thing.' My Dad smiled. ‘Aren't you just?'

‘He's staying here with me,' said Mum. ‘It's the rules.'

‘Go on, give him a cuddle.' Dad passed him to me. The bundle felt so light – I knew it would, he must be getting thinner by the minute. I touched his mouth with my little finger. He opened his mouth and my finger slid in.

‘That washed?' demanded Mum.

‘In the toilets.' His gums gripped me. He was sucking so hard I had to stop it showing on my face. I felt a sharp ridge where his teeth would be, if he lived to grow any.

‘Greedy little bugger, isn't he?' said Dad, with a stupid grin.

Back home, I helped with the preparations because Dad was so excited. We tucked sheets and blankets into the pram. In my alarm, I'd forgotten about my own baby. My brother had been called Edward; Teddy for short. Why did they bother to think up a name?

Because Dad seemed so expectant and cheerful, I didn't feel as cautious in his company as I had done recently, which I suppose was one good aspect. He patted my bottom in his breezy way, like the old Dad did, and promised that they'd be home in a couple of days, so little Podge mustn't look so worried. By now I'd seen Teddy suck at a small hospital bottle, but I knew that would stop when he came home and then it was up to me. He would be my responsibility; would I be feeding him in secret?

One night, when Rinty was howling outside, I went to sleep and dreamed that all our sheds were crammed with babies. There were rows of them in the caravan too, lying bare in the straw, like piglets. The caravan had grown as big as a warehouse. They were all crying, they wouldn't stop, and I was trying to feed them from the bucket, trying to cram in the food with my fingers, but why would they be eating apple peelings and why wouldn't they stop crying? I knew it was hopeless, and I knew that my own baby, and Nancy's and Debbie's, were amongst the others but I couldn't find out which ones they were.

Teddy and Mum came home at last. Dad had bought some tulips from the lady at the lay-by, and put them in a vase on the telly, all by himself.

‘For our boy,' he said, wiping his wet hands on his trousers. Then he saw my expression and pulled a mournful face. ‘Give us a hug.' He had been celebrating again. ‘Dad loves you too . . .'

He pressed me against him. We stayed like that. For a moment everything fell from me, all my worries, and I thought: Dad will make it all right. I clutched him round his chest and smelt the warm wool. I'd been so silly; this was how we should be, me pressed against his belt buckle and him stroking my hair. How could I have felt unsafe? He was here, he was mine, I loved him.

He took away his arms and I stayed there, clinging. ‘Look, no hands!' he cried to the furniture. Then he enfolded me again. At that moment I felt exactly right: I felt exactly ten years old. He lifted me up in the air.

‘Phew!' he said, and put me down.

Soon they'd be home, and then, perhaps, everything would stay being all right. We'd be a proper family at last.

I was feeding Teddy when the lady arrived. I heard the car stop outside, and Rinty barking. Teddy was gulping down his milk, his eyes fixed on me. Mum was in the bathroom, pulling out her curlers; the door was shut but I could feel the curlers fall one by one into the sink. I carried Teddy to the back porch.

‘Who's the little mum, then?' she said, smiling. ‘Taking lessons already?'

She was the health visitor. We'd been expecting her, but she was early. There was a pleasant look on her face as she glanced around the lounge. I hoped she was noticing Dad's tulips.

‘My Mum'll be out in a minute,' I said.

‘May I sit down? – No, no, you've got little Edward.' She removed a plate from the settee and sat down, her handbag in her lap. She had a bigger case, too, which she put on the floor.

‘Do you want to look at him?' Holding Teddy carefully, I passed him to her. ‘I haven't burped him yet.'

She held him against her shoulder and rubbed his back. ‘We're a bonny big boy, aren't we?'

‘Is he?'

‘Don't you think so?'

‘I don't know.'

‘We put on lots of lovely ounces in hospital. Didn't we, Eddie?'

Teddy burped, and we both laughed. I stopped laughing, to hear if anyone was coming, and then I said quickly, ‘Do some mothers not want to feed their babies?'

‘They prefer not to.'

‘Why not?'

‘They choose not to, dear – especially if they want to get back to work, which I understand your mother does.'

‘But what happens to their babies?'

I heard the handle turn on the bathroom door.

‘Oh, this powdered stuff's marvellous now. Dear me, don't look so worried.'

Mum came in then, her hair stiffly curled. While she was telling the lady how her complications were getting on, and while the lady took out a metal thing and weighed Teddy, I had a think.

I'd got it confused, I was realizing that. This lady just made it official. After all, these past three days, since they'd been home, my Mum was often mixing Teddy's bottle herself. She'd fed him, sitting on the kitchen chair and looking quite normal. Comfortable was not a word you'd use to describe my Mum; she wasn't a cosy person. But she didn't look as if she was forced to do it, or that she'd suddenly stop tomorrow.

It was all my fault. I'd mistrusted my Mum. I shouldn't do that, it was wicked. Just because she wasn't interested in me, that didn't mean she was going to lose interest in Teddy and let him shrivel up.

I did another stupid thing. While they were away in Mum's bedroom, putting Teddy in his crib, I hurried over to Dad's tulips. This lady, she'd made me see them for the first time; he'd stuck them in all lopsided, still with the rubber band around the stalks. But their petals were already curling back like pink tongues; when I moved them the petals fell off, all of them, silently, and lay on the top of the TV. Green rods were left, with knobs on. Blushing with shame, I picked up the vase, with its bendy stalks, and hid it behind the chair.

I brushed away the petals just in time. They came back into the lounge; Mum was still telling the lady about her aches and pains and I slipped out of the front veranda. When the lady was opening her car door, and Mum had gone back inside, I was sauntering round to the yard quite casually.

‘Goodbye, Heather.' She stopped, her hand on the handle. She was dark and hairy; there was a blotch on her cheek with a tuft growing from it. I trusted her.

‘How old are people before they can have babies?'

She raised her thick eyebrows and smiled. ‘Someone's in a hurry, aren't they? There's plenty of time for that, I can promise you, dear.'

‘But how soon?'

She paused, half-frowning. My face was burning; but she was my only chance.

‘You love your little brother, don't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Yes, I could see that. But they don't stay babies for ever. It's easy when they're tiny . . . like dolls. My dear, I've seen it so very often.'

‘What have you seen?'

She had put down her case. She shrugged, her eyebrows raised. ‘You see, Heather, it's so easy to have a baby.'

‘Is it?' My heart stopped.

‘It's such an easy way out.' She gestured around our yard. ‘But that needn't be the only escape.'

I didn't understand this; I waited.

‘But times have changed,' she went on. ‘Thank goodness.'

‘What's happened?'

‘It's different nowadays, for girls . . . Heather, dear, I hope you'll find that out . . . I'm talking about opportunities – do you understand? Opportunities for, well, expanding your life . . .'

‘But when can you start one?' I went on, desperately. ‘When you're little? When you're, say . . . well . . . ten or eleven?'

She stared.
‘Ten?'
She was frowning now. ‘Someone's been telling you stories?' She glanced at the porch. ‘Your parents?'

‘No!'

‘I know your father enjoys a joke.'

‘No! Don't tell Dad!'

‘My dear . . .' She put a hand on my arm. ‘Nobody can possibly have a baby when they're ten. Or, indeed, eleven.'

‘But what if you love someone?'

‘Love?'

‘If you really love them? What then?'

‘Heather, you can't.'

‘You can't love them? Can't you?'

‘You can't have a baby.' She smiled. ‘Understood?'

I nodded. I was afraid she was going to look at her watch, and she did.

When she'd driven away I went into the caravan. I wanted Kanga but I didn't dare fetch her from my room.

I met other people later, when there was much more to tell. Scores of them. Some, I'm sure, were the understanding type . . . You never know, they might have been able to help. But I never dared talk to them like I talked to that lady.

BY JUNE MUM
was back at work in Terminal Two. That's at the airport. I was back at school. So clattery-bright, my school, after those weeks at home. Every term-time I was startled by the voices and the laughter.

Teddy was sent to Oonagh's in West Drayton. I went to school on the bus; Dad picked me up at 3.30 and then we collected Teddy and came home. School had just been playing; I felt I was starting my proper job when I was home with Teddy, changing his nappy and then wrapping him up for his walk. I tied his bootees and swaddled him up in his shawl. The afternoons were long and sunny; looking back on it, he was lucky not to suffocate. I liked him close to me, so I didn't want the pram. I held him tightly in my arms; we'd walk over to the railway carriage and I'd show him the eggs. I talked to Teddy all the time; I'd never known I had so much to say. He kept his passionate blue eyes fixed on my face.

I showed him the piglets, galloping round the field with their stiff legs and their flapping ears. He knew my secret names for them, of course. In his bonnet he looked like a piglet himself. I just stood with him, for hours, watching his teeny fingers fiddling with his shawl. I felt weak from loving him.

Dad loved him too, though I got nervous when he whooped the bundle up in the air. I thought he'd toss Teddy up like a beach ball. Dad laughed at me then, and Teddy made chortling noises too. But when Teddy cried I had to spring into action, because Dad panicked.

‘Shut up!' he'd shout. ‘Shut up bawling!'

I remembered Mum's bruises. Dad had such a quick temper; I could never trust him that way . . . Not quite.