Chapter Fifty
December 2003
I'm in the kitchen making toast. I open the drawer to get a knife to spread the margarine. The sharp knives are nestling in the tray. An urge comes over me to grab one and carve an X over my stomach, to cross that baby out.
I can't. I'm a mother. Even if I don't keep this baby I'm still a mother. I have to act like one. I have to be sensible. I can't just do whatever I want.
When I was fifteen I had a fantasy that I was the singer in an insanely popular alternative band. Every man was in love with me of course. The fantasy constantly altered but one strand included a storyline where I got pregnant at twenty three. It made a dramatic plot but then I couldn't make a baby fit in with the rest of the story so I imagined it being taken from me at birth because the scars on my arm made everyone think I was unfit to be a mother.
It's easy to imagine traumatic situations when you think they'll never happen to you.
Now I really am pregnant at twenty three but no one cares about the scars. No one is taking the decision out of my hands.
Did I make this happen by imagining this scenario all those years ago? Was it my premonition when I saw Steve? He will be the father of my child.
It seems like I really can predict the future.
Steve was right when he called me a witch.
Social Services ask me about the father of my baby.
'He doesn't want it,' I say.
They say they have to try to make contact with him. They want his contact details.
'He's in New Zealand right now. I don't know when he'll be back in England.'
The social worker asks me to give him her email address so he can contact her and discuss things.
He won't want to, I know.
He'll be angry with me for trying to get him involved in this.
I send him the email address anyway. I tell him they're legally obliged to at least try to contact him, but it's up to him.
He asks me not to tell them his name. No one at home knows, he says
At home. Does that mean he's told people in Australia and New Zealand? People from the hostel in Perth?
What do they think of me? Sensible for not wanting Steve's baby, or a stupid irresponsible idiot for getting myself and Steve into that situation in the first place?
Has he told Sam who he's travelling with in New Zealand? Does he think Steve's awful for letting me go through this alone, or does he feel sorry for him for having such a stupid girlfriend? It must be the latter, or why would he be travelling with him?
Steve says Sam's mum has sent him two Christmas puddings. He has plans to keep them for Christmas Day but Steve is plotting to steal them.
I say Sam must be very strange if he thinks he can keep two Christmas puddings out of his evil grasp.
The song Mad World from Donnie Darko is playing everywhere. It's tone of despair matches my mood. I want there to be 'no tomorrow.'
The midwife phones. She's heard I want the baby adopted. She wants me to see her as soon as possible.
'Is this your decision?' she asks.
I nod. It's Steve's decision really, but I don't have a choice.
She asks if I've prepared for the baby. Even if I don't keep it, I still need nappies, still need to clothe it in the hospital.
I shake my head.
'You need to deal with this properly,' she says. 'You won't forget you've had a baby. Your body won't forget.'
There must be a way to forget. There must be a way to move on.
How else would I be able to keep on living after this?
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