The Decision: Lizzie's Story (4 page)

Yet despite her standoffish and sometimes cold ways, she was a good mother. Her first thought in the morning was us girls, plus her last one at night. She was up every morning at the crack of dawn preparing packed lunches and dinner was always ready every evening, whether we wanted to eat it or not. There was no faddy eating in the Carmichael house: you got what you were given and you ate it, or you were in for one of Mum’s other catchphrases, “There are starving children in Africa, you know!” Despite her lack of money, Mum searched high and low all year round for the best inexpensive presents for birthdays and Christmas, without resorting to things that had fallen off the back of the lorry.

“We’re down, but not out,” she’d assert and us girls would mouth this behind her back and laugh and not really know what she meant. On Christmas day itself, there was always a turkey on the table, sprouts and roasties and crackers. When one of us came home crying from school, she’d let us go to our rooms first before knocking tentatively on the door and asking what the problem was. If we didn’t want to talk, Mum wouldn’t make us but instead just sit there on the end of the bed and wait. If we still didn’t want to talk, she’d go back to the kitchen and make us a chocolate spread sandwich (usually only allowed at weekends) and deliver it to our rooms without a word, just a pat on the shoulder and that half-smile of hers.

Yet I couldn’t bear the thought of returning home, not yet. I couldn’t stand before my mother and tell her I was pregnant and that I wanted rid of it. Mum had been just nineteen years old when she had me, just a year older than I was now. She had scrimped and saved and sacrificed for me and my sisters, with and without Dad’s help over the years. She was the one true constant in my life and without her, I would be nothing, quite literally. If I told her I wanted rid, surely it would be like me rejecting everything she had ever done for me, including giving birth to me? I couldn’t tell her I wanted an abortion.

Abortion. I had been avoiding that word. “Can’t have this baby” or “getting rid of it” were poor substitutes. Mrs Jenkin-No-S would have had me look up “abortion” in a dictionary no doubt, like she did so many others: “To truly know a word is to be able to define a word!” she would bark. I scrabbled in my bag again, drew out the well-thumbed dictionary I always carried around with me. A pang lanced through my chest as I read the message in the front of the book from my mother: “To Lizzie at Christmas, my little wordsmith”, followed by a selection of
kisses. I sighed and turned the pages through the “As” and there it was,
“Abort, verb: to terminate before completion; to cease development or die, ie. “to abort a foetus”.”

A foetus. A baby. Oh God.

But I still had to find out more. Having the facts wouldn’t make me less able to do what I needed to do. I didn’t want to be “the pregnant one”. I didn’t want to bring up this baby all alone, with no money, no prospect of making any or stay in this town a moment longer than I had to. I wanted the future I was meant to have, not the one that was being rewritten for me right now, by chance.
And that didn’t make me a bad person!

I walked to the doctor’s surgery. I had made my decision. I needed to find out how to implement it. I took a deep breath and pushed the door inwards…

“…Lizzie!” There was a flash of royal blue and the smell of too much face powder and Mrs. Darby descended on me, pecking my cheek in that bird-like way of hers. Probably three hundred years old, Mrs. Darby always carried a voluminous shopping bag with her and an umbrella, even on the sunniest of days. She also lived across one of the two fields from my house. From time to time Mrs. Darby would drop by unannounced and my mother would always entertain her, pouring tea for the Old Gossip and nodding, eyes glazed over.

“Ill are you, dear?” Mrs Darby tutted, her expression teeming with fake sympathy. Really, the old bag wanted to know why I was there.

“Just picking up a prescription for my Mum.” I said quickly, surprised at how the lie tripped off my tongue so easily. For a moment, my heart lurched: Mrs. Darby couldn’t know the pharmacist in town collected them… could she? But then, there was very little Mrs. Darby didn’t know, it seemed. Winby was a very small town and our own village Linwood beyond it, even smaller.

Yet the lie slipped by Mrs. Darby unnoticed, for she simply patted my arm and said, “Send her my love, won’t you.” And with that, she waddled through the double doors of the surgery. I breathed a sigh of relief, checked the rest of the waiting room – no one I knew, or more importantly, knew my Mum – and approached the counter.

“I need an appointment.” I said nervously.

“When?” The bored-looking receptionist was barely out of her teens. I thought I recognised her from somewhere. Perhaps someone from college’s sister? She wore too much make up, her hair scraped back in a vicious-looking ponytail. Three of her long painted nails on her left hand were missing, just gluey stubs underneath. The wonky clacking on the keyboard set my teeth on edge.

“Today?” I said hopefully.

The receptionist looked at me as if I was insane. “We’re booking for next week.” She drawled.

I felt a surge of panic rise in my chest. “I really need an appointment today.”

The receptionist merely went back to her screen and tapped a few buttons. Long enough to get my hopes up, until: “Nah. We got nothing.” She declared.

I felt those familiar tears well up. “Please.” I said quietly.

“Sorry.” Said the receptionist, clearly not sorry at all.

In a blur, I turned and as a door opened, I was faced with someone else I knew. It was just a girl from college, someone I only knew to say hello to in the corridor. She had A Level Art with me and always sat at the back, texting.

“Lizzie.” She said pleasantly, “I heard you got into the university you wanted. Well done.”

I couldn’t remember the girl’s name. I knew it began with “L”. Laura, maybe? “Thanks.” I stuttered. “Did you?”

“No.” The girl said flatly. “I don’t think my portfolio was good enough, didn’t get in anywhere.”

“That’s a shame.” I said, hardly able to believe these words were forming in my mouth.
I had things to deal with!

The girl shrugged. “I’ll try again next year.” She said, optimism painted across her face. I envied her for that. To her, anything seemed possible, when all I had and ever wanted was about to be snatched away from me.

“I have to go.” I mumbled. As I began to turn, the girl caught my arm.

“Are you okay?” she said.

I wanted to say, “Yes, fine,” and breeze away, so she – whoever she was – would never know. I didn’t want to tell a stranger my business. I had barely exchanged twenty words with her in the past. She was just someone I saw and nodded at, no big deal. Yet I was unable to look her in the eye or say anything without my lip quivering, as if she could see into my very soul.

“Come for a coffee with me?” The girl said.

“I don’t have any money for coffee.” I said morosely.

“Doesn’t matter.” She replied. So I found myself in a backstreet cafe with her, staring at dishwater brown coffee in a chipped mug, telling her everything that had happened that morning. “Your sister sounds like a bitch.” The girl said.

“No, she’s not.” I said immediately, almost surprised at my defence of Sal. I probably would have merely agreed twenty four hours ago. But twenty four hours ago my revision-obsessed sister had not dropped everything and come to me when I needed her. And now thanks to me, perhaps she never would again.

“Are you going to wait the week?” The girl enquired, “For the doctor’s appointment?”

“I guess I’ll have to.” I said. The thought made me feel like curling up and dying. How could I live with this for another seven days? Would I lose my nerve? Would I end up having this baby, simply by default?

“No, you don’t have to.” The girl set her bag on the tabletop and searched through it, drawing out her wallet. On it, her name, embroidered: NIKKI. I almost laughed. That wasn’t even vaguely close to Laura. From her wallet, she drew out a bright pink business card and presented it to me. On it, the name of a youth contraception service in a funky font; cartoon eggs and sperm denoted it was serious, yet still “for young people” in a pseudo-comforting manner. “These guys will help you.” Nikki said.

After Nikki had gone, I wandered the streets of Winby looking for the service. I found it, a single door sandwiched between an arcade and a boarded-up ironmonger’s. There was no bright pink paint or funky font here, just a faded name on a buzzer, scrawled in biro. I could never have found it alone; I never knew it was there. I thanked Nikki again, this time in my head. I pressed the button and waited.

“Yes?” A high pitched female voice trilled.

“I need to see someone,” I said, praying she would not ask the inevitable next question, “What for?” Could I really reply, “an abortion”, down this buzzer?

Yet to my relief, the buzzer merely sounded and the door unlocked. I traipsed across the threshold. The hallway was every bit as filthy as that student house my father had lived in, its walls marked, acres of post on the telephone table. A young woman with badly-dyed hair and wearing a hoodie and jeans appeared on the carpet-less stairs and smiled in what she imagined was a reassuring manner.

“Hi, I’m Helen.” She said, “Come on up.”

We ascended the rickety, creaking stairs towards a small white door with a leaded window at the top. Helen opened it and ushered me inside: I had been expecting another filthy, depressing room with scarred white walls, but instead I was faced with leather sofas, a coffee machine, fluffy rugs, as if it was a million miles away from the rest of the building. The walls were a light pink and there were posters in glass frames, all on the subject of contraception: SAFE SEX IS SMART SEX emblazoned on one, but a little too late for the likes of me.

“So, what can I do for you…?” Helen said.

“My name’s Elizabeth.” I said, my mouth dry. Too late, I wondered if I should have given a fake name. But she wouldn’t be able to tell my parents I was there. Would she?

“Elizabeth.” Helen noted my name down on a clipboard and merely waited patiently, that fake “don’t-worry-everything-will-be-fine” smile etched on her face.

“I’m pregnant.” I said and before she could say anything, or before I could talk myself out of it, I quickly followed up with, “Iwantanabortion.”

Saying the words aloud for the first time, I felt myself wince and I half expected her to, as well. Instead, Helen’s face betrayed nothing: she simply noted something down on that clipboard.

“I see,” she said. “Have you discussed this with your boyfriend?”

I could see Mike’s face in my mind’s eye. The blank expression that always maddened me. His neverending well of self belief that he was right and everyone else was wrong, especially me. I could hear the tremulous teenage defiance in his voice that always made me cringe as he argued with his father. He was not old enough to take this on board, despite the fact he was older than me; I knew that. And even if he wanted the baby, I didn’t. It was my body and my decision.

“Yes.” I lied.

“And what about your family, Elizabeth?” Helen continued.

Mute, I nodded. I had told Sal, hadn’t I? That much was true at least. My stomach turned itself in knots, I hated all these lies. But it was the only way.

Half an hour later and I had a yet another pink card in my hand, an appointment for the next day at the general hospital noted on it. I stared at it on the bus all the way home. Helen had explained all the options to me. There were two kinds of abortion, medical and surgical. The former was for early pregnancy like mine and involved taking just two pills, a bit like the morning after pill. The baby would be flushed out: gone, just like that. It seemed so easy. Too easy? But then, why should it be hard … As punishment? I had done nothing wrong. I had been caught out, like thousands of other young people. It was my right to do something about it, if I wanted to. And I did.

I skulked into the house just before dinner, sure Sal must have told Mum by now. Yet everyone was grouped around the table, chatting and laughing, as if nothing had happened that day. For them, nothing had. I felt on the outside of it all, watching myself and the rest of them, as Mum heaped spaghetti and sauce on my plate and pushed it in front of me.

“Good day?” Mum said pointedly.

I knew what she really meant: “Where have you been?” But I just smiled and said, “I was at Shona’s.” Sal met my gaze and there was that sneer again on her top lip:
Liar
. Soon after dinner Sal retired to her room, not coming out for the rest of the evening as usual.

The next morning I kissed my mother goodbye, everything I needed packed inside my college bag, a few toiletries, a toothbrush, even a nightie “just in case”. I
had perched a few books on the top of it all, should Mum think to look inside. She never had before, but my paranoia knew no bounds. I felt sure she could see directly into my heart and see what I was going to do that day. Yet Mum had barely looked up from her morning cup of tea and first cigarette. She just smiled and said, “See you tomorrow.” I’d told them all I was going to Shona’s for the night, which in part was true: I would be going to hers after I had gone to the hospital. I couldn’t face going straight home after the abortion, my face would give me away for sure. I’d already called and arranged my alibi with a dubious Shona the night before.

“If they call for any reason during the day, tell them I’m in the shower or something.” I’d said to my friend, “Then let me know and if I can, I’ll call them back from my mobile.”

“So, what
are
you doing?” Shona had enquired.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow night.” I said.

In truth, I wasn’t too sure what I was doing. Though Helen had gone to great pains to explain what would happen, her words had seemed impossibly far away, the white noise of my thoughts interrupting them. I had seen only her lips moving. I had looked at the posters and the leaflets she had shown me, nodded where I was supposed to and repeated what she had asked me to, but I had been on autopilot. Just one thing had been going through my mind the whole time:
I want this over.
Now, in a few short hours, it would be.