And Baby Makes Two (17 page)

“Almost never,” said Shanee. “But the point is, that gives you plenty of time to sort out a baby-sitter.” She looked so chuffed you’d think she’d won the lottery. “Derek’s even giving me money for food. Isn’t that excellent?”

“For God’s sake, it’s only November, Shanee. I can’t think that far ahead.” I was barely able to think about tomorrow, I was always so worn out by today.

Shinola’s fist swung out to knock my mug off the table and spill weak but scalding tea over both of us, but I managed to grab her just before she made contact.

“Me and Shinola live one day at a time.”

If you could call it living.

Shanee’s eyes sort of darted around the room. I could tell that she didn’t call it living either, but all she said was, “Well, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the holiday season has already begun.” She grinned. “Party, party, party… Be there or be square…”

“I don’t know…”

Even though I hadn’t thought about it, I knew I wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with Les. He had a green linen suit he bought in the sales that he wore for special occasions. I hadn’t seen it, but he’d told me all about it. I reckoned I’d get something blue to complement it. Les wouldn’t want to hang out in a council flat with a bunch of teenagers, but maybe we could drop by for half an hour. So everyone could get a good look at him and eat their hearts out. It didn’t matter any more if he found out I was younger than he thought. He was going to find out when we went for our marriage licence anyway, wasn’t he?

“I’ll have to check with Les. He may have other plans.”

Shanee scraped some dried formula from the table with a long purple nail. I’d had to cut all my own nails short so I didn’t stab Shinola.

“I thought Les went to his mother’s for Christmas,” said Shanee. “In Norfolk.”

“Norwich,” I corrected. “But that was last year. This year he may not go.”

He hadn’t actually said he wouldn’t, but I couldn’t believe he’d want to miss his daughter’s first Christmas. Not even if his mother did make the best fruit-cake in Britain.

“Whatever,” said Shanee. “Let me know.”

Now that she’d brought it up, Christmas was stuck in my mind. I had this flash of me and Shinola in identical outfits, sitting around the tree with Les. I could always get a fruit-cake from Marks and Sparks.

“What do you think about me and Shinola dressing alike for Christmas?” I dug my spoon in the sugar and lifted it towards my mug. “I saw this picture in one of the Sundays and the mother and daughter both had the same velvet and lace dresses.”

Shinola squirmed and the sugar went flying.

“I think oilskin might be better,” said Shanee. “Or plastic. Something that’s easy to clean.” She sipped her tea. Carefully. “So…” She smiled encouragingly. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Everything’s brilliant. It’s bliss having the old cow out of the house. Every day’s a holiday.” I smiled to prove how happy I was. “How about you?”

“Great.” Shanee’s head bobbed up and down. “School’s a lot of work, but I’m enjoying it and it’s going well. And now that Lucy’s got Derek I’ve got more time for myself. That’s why I can take this job.”

“That’s brilliant.”

It was also ironic. It used to be Shanee who could never do anything because she was stuck in the flat helping her mum and I was the one who was always on the go. Now Shanee had
more
time and I had none. Not even just
less
but none. I was still holding Shinola’s soppy little fist, but I must’ve squeezed it too hard or something because she started howling.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Shanee. “If you and Les want to go somewhere nice, there’s this really cool restaurant down near Leicester Square. You’d really like it. They’ve got parrots and everything.”

There’d definitely been a lot of changes in Shanee’s life in the last couple of months. The only place she’d ever been at Leicester Square before was the tube.

“Shh…” I hissed at Shinola. “It’s not time for your bottle. Let me and Shanee talk.”

Shanee, who grew up in a house where quiet was when only three people were shouting, kept on talking.

“It was Edna Husser’s birthday,” she informed me. “She took ten of us there for supper.”

I didn’t know who Edna Husser was. She must be new. But I wasn’t all that interested just then. As per usual, Shinola’d decided to give it her all. I’d’ve squeezed her again if it wouldn’t’ve made it worse.

“And then we went to that virtual reality thing.”

“Shinola,” I begged. “Please… Why don’t you give Shanee a big smile? Show her what a good baby you can be…”

They call it projectile vomiting for a reason.

Shanee wiped it off her hand with a bib that was so dirty you couldn’t tell if it was decorated with rabbits or bears.

“I’d better get going.” She pushed back her chair. “I’ve got a ton of homework. I’ll give you a ring later on, all right? After Shinola’s asleep.”

She’d be lucky.

Shanee never rang. For days after her last visit I rushed to the phone every time it rang, but it was never Shanee. Sometimes it was my nan or Charlene, and a couple of times it was Dara on her mobile, ringing on her way to a meeting or a business dinner, but most of the time it was the same person. The last person on earth I had anything to say to. Hilary Let-me-run-your-life Spiggs.

“So how are you doing?”

“About the same as I was doing when you rang last time. Just blooming fine.”

“How’s the housekeeping money holding out?”

This was something Hilary asked every time she phoned, as if she was programmed, and it was also a trick question. If I told her the truth – that if it wasn’t for my Child Benefit and the fifty quid my nan sent me in case I wanted to buy myself a treat, and the fifty quid Dara sent me so I’d have some extra money for Christmas, and the twenty-five quid Charlene sent me for Shinola, I’d have about fifty pence to my name – she’d’ve done her impersonation of Hurricane Mitch.

“Just great,” I assured her. “Everything’s brilliant. I should get my first giro soon.”

“And how’s Shinola?”

“She’s brilliant, too.”

I could hear her sigh.

“Charley’s doing a job up in Camden,” my mother went on. “We were thinking he could pick you two up on his way home one night and you could come down for supper. You could spend the night if you wanted, or he could run you home afterwards.”

This was another irony. When we lived together she was always shouting at me, and now that she didn’t live with me she was always trying to get me to go down for a visit. I reckoned she just wanted to check up on me. You know, make sure I hadn’t been beating the baby or taking drugs or something.

“We’d love to,” I lied. “But I’m pretty busy this week.”

“Next week then.”

“I’ll have to see how things go.”

There were a few seconds of silence that I took to be defeat. But it wasn’t. It was her regrouping.

Hilary Spiggs cleared her throat. “Mrs Mugurdy says she’s seen your boyfriend a couple of times.”

It was just as well I didn’t go out much. Mrs Mugurdy probably had a key so she could go through the flat when I wasn’t in to make sure I wasn’t trashing the place.

“Mrs Mugurdy should mind her own business,
too
,” I told her.

“She said he seems very nice,” said my mother.

I couldn’t believe it. Maybe she missed me – or maybe just missed the flat – but she was ready to make peace. This was her way of giving up. Mrs Mugurdy obviously reported back that Les not only didn’t have face piercings or a motorcycle, but that he had a nice car and dressed well and was very polite. Hilary Spiggs was relieved.

But I wasn’t going to fall into her trap and say anything more about Les. I knew her. If I said he was nice, within five minutes she’d have his name, address, and NHS number.

I said, “Um…”

“I hope he’s contributing,” said my mother.

I didn’t say anything.

“Well?” she persisted. “Is he contributing?”

If I said yes, I wouldn’t be able to come up with some unexpected expense to get some more money out of her. If I said no, she might forget how nice Mrs Mugurdy said he was and lie in wait to confront him herself.

“Of course he is,” I assured her. “He’s not a wanker.”

“That I already know,” said my mother.

Nothing to do and
Nowhere to do it

I was feeling kind of down by December.

All of a sudden, everybody was
really
busy. Now that he was a manager on a distant planet, Les had even less free time than he’d had before. Shanee’d started going out with the guy from the shop, so she didn’t have a minute. Charlene never had any time, and now she had less because she was organizing the school’s Christmas fair. Dara was in New York. My nan usually rang every day or two, but Christmas is a big time for quilters and she hadn’t rung for a week. Even Hilary was too busy to check up on me much. It made me feel really lonely, with only Shinola to talk to day after day. And only Shinola things to do.

Plus, things weren’t going exactly right.

My giro still hadn’t come through, and I’d had a letter from the council, reminding Mrs Spiggs that the rent was overdue. I barely had enough left to cover it. I splurged on our velvet dresses for Christmas, but I reckoned they were worth it because we’d wear them for Les. Aside from them, though, I didn’t know where the money went, but it went there faster than Concorde. And it wasn’t like I was living it up or anything. I’d been existing on Kwik Save No Frills beans and Kwik Save No Frills bread for weeks. I hadn’t had any Coke for a month. To economize.

I was still trying to work out how to pay the phone bill when the nurse at the well-baby clinic shouted at me because of Shinola’s nappy rash. She said it was practically terminal. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain that the reason Shinola’s bottom looked like pizza was because I was so broke and had to save on nappies. She piled on the guilt.

“You young mothers seem to think babies are dolls,” she snarled. “But if you break a leg off her you’re not going to be able to glue it back on.”

The day after that, I saw the housing officer. He had a face that looked like it never smiled. He said I wasn’t exactly homeless or desperate, was I? He said I had less points than a bowl of jelly and he put me on the bottom of the list. He said to let him know if my circumstances changed.

“You mean, ring you if I die?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

After I saw the housing officer, I went home and cried. I just sat on the sofa with my jacket on and Shinola gumming my finger and wept. I really wished Shanee would come over like she used to, and we’d get a couple of bags of crisps and some chips and a few videos and sit up half the night just talking. But the thought of videos made me cry even more. For a few minutes I felt really angry. So angry I took Shinola’s giraffe from where it was poking into my bum and hurled it at the telly.

But I didn’t exactly know who I was angry with. It wasn’t Shanee. And it definitely wasn’t Les. I mean, it wasn’t Les’s fault that he was so good at his job he’d been made the youngest manager in the nation, maybe even in the world. It wasn’t his fault that he got transferred to Finsbury Park. It wasn’t his fault that Hilary didn’t leave me enough money to live on. I could hear the Spiggs say, “But it is his fault you got pregnant,” and then I knew who I was angry with.

I could see now that Hilary had planned the whole thing. She knew what having a baby was like. How hard it was to look after one on your own with no one to ever help you out or mind her for a few hours. She knew how much it cost. She knew my friends were all going to be tied up with school and have no time for me. She
wanted
everything to fall apart. She was waiting for me to beg her to come back. She was waiting for me to say that she’d been right and I’d been wrong. But I wasn’t going to. I was going to pull myself together and go on. I’d had a couple of temporary setbacks, that was all. Minor, temporary setbacks. The only thing that could really ruin my plans was if me and Les broke up. And that was never going to happen.

But not having any money was a problem. I had nine people to buy Christmas presents for, not counting Les and Shinola. I didn’t want to make Hilary think I wasn’t coping by turning up with nothing.

I took another Rolo from the packet. I was meant to be eating them slowly because they were a treat. Sort of like a gift from God. I’d gone to the newsagents for a box of matches because the pilot light wasn’t working on the stove. I couldn’t be bothered putting Shinola in her buggy, so I just carried her to the shop in my arms. The shop was busy and, as per usual, Shinola was whingeing. I was trying to shut her up while we waited in the queue by showing her the sweets on the counter.

I shook a box of Maltesers. “Look,” I said. “What’s that, Shinola?”

Shinola didn’t like the Maltesers.

I picked up a packet of Smarties and shook that.

She didn’t like them either.

I’d just picked up the Rolos when an old lady came out from the back of the shop and asked who was next.

The woman behind me gave me a shove. “That’s you.”

“A box of matches, please,” I said, and I shoved my hand in my pocket for the money.

It wasn’t until we were outside that I realized that at the same time as I’d gone for the change, I’d stuck the Rolos between me and Shinola.

I was looking at them now the way I’d looked at them then. With wonder.

Then I’d been wondering if I should take them back.

Now I was wondering if I could do it again.

It didn’t take me long to work out that I could do it again. And again. And again.

It was a hell of a lot easier than taking a bottle from a hungry baby, I’ll tell you that. Especially if you have a baby to help you.

It took me about three minutes to work out that supermarkets were the easiest places to nick things from. And because it was Christmas there was more to nick than tins of soup. Hilary moaned and groaned every year when they changed all the aisles round to fit the stuff for Christmas in. “Where the hell have they put the eggs?” she’d shriek. “Why can’t they leave things where they were?” But the extra aisles of gifts and chocolates were the answer to my prayers. It was convenient, one-stop shopping as far as I was concerned.