The Decision: Lizzie's Story (12 page)

“Lizzie!” Dad turned and noticed me at last and abandoned the broom, letting it fall where he stood. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” He said, all smiles. I hadn’t planned to say anything. I’d just wanted to see a familiar, friendly face and avoid the interrogation I knew was waiting for me back home. And in the event, I said nothing at all, but burst into tears. Dad nearly fell over the broom as he rushed over to hug me, cooing at me like I was four years old. This would have normally irritated me, but I was glad to accept the comfort after Mike’s non-reaction earlier. We stood there for a good while saying nothing and I felt my tears sink into his chef’s jacket, smelling of old bacon and that horrible aftershave my Dad insisted on buying off the market.

“Going back to the flat.” Dad barked at Pablo on our way past reception.

Pablo was awake now, working his way through a trillion invoices, all stamped OVERDUE. “Oh no you don’t mister!” He shrieked. He called everyone “mister” or “missus”; Pablo didn’t seem able to retain anyone’s name or surname. This worked as a system until a friend from college, Dusty, had started at the Belle View. With his or her long hair, pierced ears and frighteningly good eye make up, there were many who couldn’t decide if Dusty was a girl or not. Including Pablo: Dusty got called both “mister” and “missus”, dependant on the day. Dusty never corrected Pablo, either.

“Family emergency.” Dad declared.

“Not off ‘til six!” Pablo said.

“Stick it up your arse.” Dad replied, ushering me out. Despite my despair at my situation, I could not help a tiny smile. I was used to Dad automatically folding whenever Mum went on the rampage. I hadn’t seen this side of him before. Impotent, Pablo watched Dad leave.

The Belle View’s staff accommodation was directly behind the hotel itself: once it had been a large garage, but was now divided into six flats on two levels. Pablo and his wife Marta occupied the most plush one at the front on the ground floor, with Marta’s daughter Flo in the second nicest with her sons Harvey and Oliver. They shared the small patch of garden between the flats and the hotel. The remaining four were tiny little studio flats crammed next to one another on the second floor. Being the kitchen porter and bottom of the pecking order after even the chambermaid, Dad had the smallest. This didn’t seem to bother him though. Inside, the studio flat was as small as it looked. There were no framed pictures on the walls, just a collection of pictures on a pinboard over the futon: me, the others, my Mum, a dog my father had
had as a boy. There was no one else: no friends, no busty pin ups, not even my Dad’s own long deceased parents. My Dad was every inch the only child, meandering through life more or less alone because he simply didn’t see the need for anyone else to accompany him. It was as if he’d picked my mother up by accident along the way, sired the rest of us, but continued ever forwards, yet paradoxically stayed in the same place. How was that even possible?

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Dad said and then in the same breath: “Probably not. First thing your mother always went off, how I always knew.”

“Are you ashamed of me?” I said suddenly.

Dad’s eyes grew as wide as Mike’s for a moment and I was sure he was about to say “yes”. But: “No!” He insisted. “Of course not. These things happen.” He said brusquely. He sat down in a beanbag chair, started rolling a massive joint, then thought better of it and abandoned the papers and baccy in the ashtray.

“I don’t know what to do.” I admitted.

My Dad smiled. “You know, it wasn’t that long ago I had this conversation with your mother. About you.”

“Do you regret it?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“No. How could I?” Dad said plainly. I could see in his eyes he was telling the truth. My Dad was many things – irresponsible being just one – but he was no liar. “What does Mike say?”

“Nothing.” I said, unable to contain my bitterness.

Dad pursed his lips rather like Mum would. “Little scrote.” He confirmed. “Never liked him.”

I looked at Dad in surprise. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Dad shrugged. “What good would that have done? The more we’d have hated him, the more you would’ve liked him. I was a teen myself once, you know.”

“I haven’t told Mum yet.” I confessed.

“But you will.” Dad said, unconcerned. And I knew he was right. I couldn’t allow a complicated decision like this to come around and not involve her.

“She’ll want me to keep the baby.” I said morosely.

“She’ll want you to do what’s best for you.” Dad asserted.

“I wish…” I started.

But Dad shushed me. “Don’t wish your life away. Things happen. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes unexpected. We just have to do what we can and deal with them.” I wondered where this philosophical side of my Dad had come from. For so many years, I had supposed he thought of so little but getting stoned, having a laugh and winding my Mum up by being so flaky. Suddenly Dad was earnest, leaning forward, grabbing my hand. “I know I’ve not been the best Dad, love. I’ve been crap, actually. But whatever you decide – and I mean whatever – I’m behind you one hundred per cent. You got that?”

Mute, I nodded. Dad grinned.

“That’s my girl.” He said. “How about you stay here tonight, I’ll ring your Mum. We’ll get a Chinese takeaway and we’ll both go tell her in the morning… Then we can help you figure out what you want to do. Yeah?”

So as promised Dad and I ordered the takeaway and ate it, watching comedy box sets. For a few hours I was released from my dilemma on how to deal with the pregnancy. For the first time in years I remembered what I liked and admired about my father: his acerbic wit, his unrelenting skill in quoting movies he hadn’t seen for years and his ability to burp on demand, the voracious kind that would take most
people at least a litre bottle of cola to achieve. We had drifted away from each other in the years following the twins’ birth, plus Dad’s subsequent departure from the homestead had served to underline it. I had felt angry with him for not taking responsibility for us and even been angry with Mum for allowing it to continue. I had been angry at Sal’s constant mickey taking of the situation; of Hannah’s constant adulation of Dad no matter what he (didn’t) do and even of Amanda’s carefree lack of regard at the whole situation. It had felt sometimes like I was the only sane one in the entire situation, yet just like everyone else I was completely at a loss on how to deal with my feelings. So the deeper my confusion grew, the more angry I became. Yet with no outlet to speak of – Dad was hardly ever there and Mum was always meeting herself coming backwards –my anger turned inwards on itself and festered. But for the first time in ages, that unspoken vitriol cleared from my mind and I was able to enjoy the moment for what it was, without the trepidation of the following morning.

Looking back, I suppose I thought the ache in my guts that day had been worry and its ludicrously named “butterflies”; or maybe I thought it was eating the greasy Chinese takeaway on an empty stomach in the evening. But that night I woke on the futon with my knees up against my chest as pain erupted suddenly in my belly. It was so sharp, for a moment it took my breath away. Just as swiftly that terrible, spiking pain went and I was able to sit up gingerly. Black spots sprang up in my vision and nausea hit me, the back of my throat flooding with sour saliva.
What was wrong with me?

Dad was asleep in the beanbag chair, his head thrown back like a child, mouth open and catching flies. With difficulty I got up and lurched past him towards the tiny bathroom, locking the door behind me. I leant against the door, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, but taking in only the stale air from the windowless cubicle.
Again, that terrible pain gripped me but this time it was worse. It made me double over, taking my breath away, preventing me from crying out, so only an animalistic whimper made its way out of me. Those spots in my vision seemed to grow suddenly and I wondered for a nanosecond if I would black out, but the pain rushed in again with a vengeance and this time I uttered a single, low guttural howl.

“Lizzie?” My Dad was awake and pounding on the door. “Lizzie!”

Woozy I sat on the toilet. I didn’t have enough wherewithal to answer. I knew what was happening and moments later I confirmed it as I peeled off the over-sized pyjama bottoms my Dad had given me. Blood. It was pouring out of me, pooling on the lino of the bathroom floor. Horror-struck, I made one single observation before Dad broke the door down. It was not like menstrual blood, typically dark crimson in colour. This was bright red, like if you cut your own hand or arm with a knife when slicing bread. Life blood.

“Oh God, Lizzie. Lizzie!” There was a crash as the door yielded and Dad was in the room. I was only peripherally aware of him and the fact I didn’t even have anything on my bottom half, yet for some reason I didn’t even care; normally I would be mortified. But in the here and now, all I could concentrate on was the blackness that threatened to invade me: I knew I had to keep it away or I would be lost. I tried to stand, but my knees buckled. Dad grabbed me and wrapped me in a towel, running out on to the flat balcony with me in his arms like a small child. He was shouting, pleading, but his voice seemed so far away. There were more shouts and slammed doors and Flo’s husband Jonno was out on the balcony, yelling for Pablo who came running in a dressing gown and slippers, holding keys to one of the hotel vans. Dad grabbed them and shoved me in the passenger’s seat, turning the key in the ignition, all the time saying to me, “You’ll be okay, baby. You’ll be okay.” And I wondered
why he would say that because it was obvious I was losing the baby, but I realised he was talking to me.

Then I passed out.

Ectopic pregnancy
, they said: where a fertilised egg tries to develop outside the womb, in the fallopian tube. They’d had to take my tube as well. They told me later I’d been very lucky, but I didn’t feel lucky. It was unusual in someone in my age, they said, but not unheard of.
Just my luck, typical me
. In the hospital I regarded the small scar next to my bellybutton and was reminded of my mother’s cat when she was spayed. She had had a similar scar, made obvious where they had shaved her fur away. No fur to grow back and hide mine, either. I wondered what it would do to my chances of having a baby when I wanted one and then marvelled at the turnaround of my mind in less than twenty four hours.

I was only in hospital a short time, but there were visitors. All the family crowded around my bed. The devastated, put-a-brave-face-on-it smile of my mother; the wide eyes of my sisters and the sympathetic glances of my Dad, the only one who really knew what had happened or my doubts about the pregnancy in the first place. There was a part of me that felt relieved the situation had been taken out of my hands: I had been too young to deal with such a huge decision, especially after the shock of Mike washing his hands of me. But curiously, at the same time, I felt horribly cheated. It had been my choice to make, yet before I could decide, it had been snatched from my hands.

Just before I was due to leave, Mike arrived at the hospital. My parents and sisters gave us a wide berth so we could talk as they waited for my discharge papers. Mike brought a large bouquet with him, probably bigger than he could afford. I wondered fleetingly if he had taken Francis’ credit card again, but accepted the
blooms with a murmured “thank you.” Mike was awkward and embarrassed, making veiled enquiries about how I was and whether I was “okay now”? I wondered whether he would bring up the pregnancy and its abrupt end, but ten minutes into the clumsy exchange it was clear he was not going to. Like before, he was going to skirt around the subject, sweep it aside and hope for the best.

“I could have died, you know.” I said.

Mike averted his gaze from mine, as if he couldn’t handle what I was saying. But what was new? He stared at the floor, tapping it with his foot like a child caught out. “I know.” He muttered.

“I don’t think you do.” I said coldly. “I don’t think you care.”

“How can you say that?” He wailed for the second time in just a few days.

“I don’t think you’re a bad person, not really.” I said. “Just selfish. Bet you, your first thought was, “thank God for that”?”

“No… no.” He replied unconvincingly. “I was worried about you.”

“I wish I could believe that.” I said.

“We can still go to the same university.” He pleaded. “We can live together, if you like?”

I was genuinely shocked. “If I liked”? It had not occurred to me Mike would think we could find our way back after this, or even after his non-reaction in the café. As far as I was concerned, that was the test of our relationship: could we pull together when we needed to? But he had made it clear he had no concern for me or us when faced with a situation he did not expect. Yet days later here he was, saying everything could be “normal” again … As long as I made the decision again! But I knew I would never feel the same way about him; if I even had, in the first place. The miscarriage
was simply too huge an event, a cut-off point between us, a brick wall that could never be breached. Our relationship was as dead as the short-lived pregnancy.

“Goodbye, Mike.” I said.

So Mike had gone on his way again, his face a picture of bewilderment. He had no clue or comprehension of what had happened, what he’d done wrong or why I was rejecting him. I felt sorry for him. Could he really have so little idea? My mother appeared around the curtain the moment he was gone, all breezy smiles, packing my bag for me, trying to distract me. When she came to the flowers, she regarded them grimly. “What do you want me to do with these?” She enquired.

My first instinct was to throw them away. But on the same ward was an older lady. She was perhaps in her late fifties, though her hair was thinning like an old man’s and she seemed much older. She sat at the ward window all day in a large green chair. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, though both her legs bandaged from ankle to knee, her feet in incongruously gaudy fluffy pink slippers. I’d attempted to engage her in conversation once as I’d shuffled back from the toilet, but she’d merely glanced at me, a little irritated, before staring back again at the gargoyles that occupied the eaves of the building opposite. The only time she ever seemed to move was to get into bed at night. She had not had one single visitor in all the hours I had occupied the same space as her. I felt sorry for her. I picked up the flowers and approached the woman, who as usual had taken up her spot in the green chair next to the window. I held the flowers out to her, but she didn’t appear to notice me. So I moved forwards, closer and said, “Would you like these…?”