Bad Blood. Julie Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ it really was doubtful whether Josie would be able to get word to her in time. She’d left only an hour back for bingo, leaving the girls to their own devices. Down the Mecca on Little Horton Lane with her cronies, same as always, all trying to win the big one; the jackpot that might change their lives.

      They never did, of course. They spent as much on cheap lager as they did on the bingo, and on the slot machines that hardly ever paid out. And they’d stay there, through the afternoon and on into the evening, topping up on lager till they left to go down the pub. No, there was little hope of her mam coming to help her, even if she was struck by a sudden rush of love and maternal feeling.

      Which was also doubtful, even before she saw the baby. Christine was under no illusions on that score, and never had been. She knew intuitively that whoever had turned out to be the father, her mother just wouldn’t want to know. It was exasperating sometimes, how people didn’t get it. How they kept saying, ‘She doesn’t mean it. She’ll come round, just you wait and see.’ How they imagined that when it came to it her mam would become somehow different – how she’d suddenly realise how much she’d be missing. How, when it came to it, she’d be so excited to be a granny.

      Christine had long since given up trying to enlighten anyone about this. Not Josie’s mam, June. Not Mr Weston, who she worked for in the café down on John Street. And though Josie knew better – one of the very few people that did – she still didn’t quite get how bad it was, not really. She still hung on to the idea that there was this unbreakable maternal bond; just that it was very deeply buried. But there wasn’t. There really wasn’t. But no one wanted to hear that. So Christine didn’t bother enlightening Josie further either. Her mam cared about two people, and that was pretty much it. Herself and her bastard of an on-off boyfriend, Rasta Mo.

      At the moment, that was. That was all subject to change now. What hadn’t changed so far was how her mam dealt with the pregnancy. First she’d been furious, then resigned, then just irritable and resentful. Especially in the last weeks, when Christine had had to give up her waitressing at the café. With the extra money no longer coming in, Christine’s mum had all but washed her hands of her – at least (as she’d been fond of remarking, over and over) till she got off her fat backside and sorted out her dole. ‘You made your own frigging bed and you’re just going to have to lie on it, girl,’ she’d told her. And she’d know all about that. Because she’d had to do exactly that herself. Not just when she had Christine, but also when she’d given birth to her older brother Nicky – neither of them knew who their dads were, and never would.

      And it hadn’t helped that Christine had stuck so resolutely to her guns. Because, like her mam before her, she hadn’t told anyone who the father was, either. Hadn’t and, in fact, couldn’t, even though there wasn’t a shred of doubt. Though, in the vain hope that things might not turn out as badly as she expected, she’d not rushed to contradict her mam when she’d reached her own conclusions; deciding that it was probably Paddy Sweeney’s – the lad Christine had been seeing briefly before she’d left school. ‘That bloody half-wit,’ her mam had said. ‘Trust you to pick that no-hoper. There’ll be no hope of any support there – not from that bloody family.’

      If only she knew, Christine thought. Because it was so much worse than that.

      The monitor finally in place, and a second excruciating examination completed, Sister Rawson swept from the room, leaving Christine alone, with a bright-toned but ominous ‘I’m just going to fetch the doctor!’

      Then silence. Well, bar the beep of the monitor stand beside her, and the constant lub-dub, lub-dub from the microphone on her belly. Christine tried hard to focus on the baby’s racing heartbeat. To lose herself in the strange, urgent sound the machine made; such an odd sound, she’d thought, when she’d first been able to hear it. Almost as if it was coming from under water. Which, of course, it sort of was. But it was hard to concentrate – soon impossible. Would the agony never stop? There seemed no break now from the pain; it was as if her body was no longer hers. It had become uncontrollable, unpredictable, an unstoppable alien force.

      This was it, she knew. There was nothing going to stop her baby coming. And as the urge to expel it became ever more urgent, Christine realised quite how hard she had tried not to believe it. That the day would really come. And now it had. And now they’d know.

      ‘I can’t push any more!’ Christine sobbed as someone mopped her clammy forehead. ‘I can’t!’

      Time had passed. She had no idea how much time, but she had a definite sense of having lost some. A vague memory of an injection, of a mask placed on her face, of sucking up gas, and the unrelenting, dreadful, searing pain. It felt different now, somehow; more a terrible burning – like she was about to be split in two. As if whatever was inside her was now fighting to get outside of her – hacking at her insides with a knife.

      She felt sick, and cast about her, terrified she’d throw up all over herself. A bowl appeared, as if from nowhere, but, though she retched several times, nothing came.

      There was still no sign of her mam, either, which, though entirely expected, made her tearful all over again. And she really, really, really didn’t want to break down and cry, because she didn’t want to be treated like a kid. If she wasn’t being already, which turned her tears to anger. That people made assumptions about young girls like her.

      Did this midwife? She looked between her knees, at the indistinct navy blue bulk of Sister Rawson, who was standing at the end of the table, bending forward, her bosom huge.

      ‘Course you can push, girl!’ Sister Rawson answered. Her tone was different now – sharp and snappy. ‘You and a million other girls before you, my love. Natural as breathing, is giving birth … what a woman’s body was made for. Now, come on, love. I need you to push!’

      There were others in the room, too. A man in white. The doctor? And another nurse, a younger one, bearing a small trolley. The plastic mask replaced the kidney bowl. ‘Come on, love, suck on this,’ a gentle voice said. ‘Suck on this, then a big old push. Listen to Sister, okay. Listen to Sister.’

      ‘That’s the way, love.’ Sister Rawson’s voice again. ‘Hold it tightly. Deep and slow now.’ She kept glancing at the monitor, across which a jagged line travelled left to right. ‘That’s the way,’ she said. Something glinted in her hand. What?

      Panicked now, Christine strained to see but couldn’t. She well remembered what Josie had said about what might happen if she didn’t push hard enough; if she couldn’t get the baby out by herself. That was what had happened to Josie. She was too tiny. Much too tiny, so they’d used things called forceps. Enormous forceps, forced inside her, bigger than the baby’s entire head …

      ‘Christine! It’s going to peak now! Christine, look at me! Baby’s coming. Baby needs to come, now. Do you understand me, Christine? So this time you have to push. As hard and as long and as strong as you can. That’s the way, lovey. Coming now. I can just see the head now.’ Her voice grew hard then. ‘But Christine, I mean it. You have to try. You have to give it everything you’ve got left, okay. Everything. You have to PUSH!’

      It had been a pair of scissors, that was all. Not forceps, just scissors. Just to help. And they had helped, and she had pushed, and it had finally worked. The baby had been expelled from her so fast it was if it was entirely outside her control. Expelled and scooped up, and hung momentarily by its ankles, the face puckering, the mouth contorting, and then that single plaintive cry. And there it was – there he was. Her perfect child.

      ‘It’s a boy!’ someone had said. ‘You have a son! You СКАЧАТЬ