The Bad Mother's Handbook (20 page)

*

I
WAS SITTING IN
a council office overlooking the Town
Hall Square, sulking. Across the desk sat Mrs Joyce Fitton,
my social worker; I’d already written her off as a waste of
time.

‘What have you found out?’ I’d asked as soon as I’d sat
down.

‘Nothing yet. That’s not why you’re here. This is a
counselling session. So we can be sure of where you want
to go.’ Mrs Fitton wore glasses on a chain and had a big
motherly bust. She talked slowly and kept stopping to
smile. I wanted to smack her.

‘This place could do with a good clean. Those Venetian
blinds are thick with dust,’ I said rudely. I was so disappointed.

‘I can see you’re very angry, Karen. With your birth
parents?’

No, with you, you daft old bat. I took a deep breath.

‘I just can’t cope with all these delays. I thought today
you’d have some information for me.’ I thought today you’d
have found my mother and solved my life for me. I imagined
you handing over a big thick file containing photos of
my real mum, a résumé of her life so far (including the
empty hole I left in it), pictures of her lovely house (polished
wood floor, French windows, field with ponies at
the bottom of the garden) and a beautifully written letter
on Basildon Bond saying how much she wanted to see me.

‘You need to have a clear idea of what you hope to get
out of any contact you might make. And be sure you can
handle the possibility of rejection and disappointment.’

‘Oh, I’m good on those.’ God, I sounded bitter.

Mrs Fitton took her glasses off and gave me a long look.

‘Of course we may decide, after careful discussion, that
you don’t in fact want to find your birth parents,’ she said.
‘Some of these situations are potentially quite damaging,
you know. I would say,’ she put her glasses back on and
began to sort pieces of paper on the desk, ‘that unless you
have the right, ahm, approach, you’re laying yourself open
to a lot of harm. Not that I want to be negative.’

I took the hint.

‘Yes, absolutely. You’re just doing your job. So, do you
think you can find her?’

‘I think there’s a very good chance, yes. And your
father, if you want.’

‘To be honest, I haven’t really thought that much about
him. It’s my mum I feel drawn to.’

She smiled again. ‘That’s usually the case, Karen. Even
with men. There’s something very special about the person
who carried you for nine months, then went through
labour for you. Most people assume there’s going to be a
special bond.’

‘Isn’t there always?’

‘Usually. Now, have you discussed this issue with other
members of your family?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘And what have their reactions been?’

‘Everyone’s totally behind me. I have a very close
relationship with my adopted mother, we can talk about
anything.’ So long as it’s bollocks. ‘And my daughter and
I are more like friends, sisters, sort of thing.’

‘So you anticipate them welcoming your birth mother
into their circle?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’ I won’t let them anywhere near her.

Mrs Fitton wrote some notes in a small hand.

‘And what do you expect to get out of finding your
birth mother, Karen?’

Ah ha, I’d been expecting this question somewhere
along the line, and I was ready.

‘I just want to ask her about her experiences, tell her
about mine. Talk to her as one woman to another. I’m not
trying to, ha ha, replace my own mum, God forbid. I’m
not looking to her to solve my problems or anything mad
like that.’ I rolled my eyes. Crazy idea.

‘Have you got problems at the moment, then?’

Damn and blast.

‘No, nothing to speak of, you know. Only ordinary,
everyday, little problems, like everybody has. The washing
machine breaking down, the bin men not coming, that sort
of thing.’

She nodded sympathetically. ‘Someone keeps taking
our wheeliebin, would you credit it? We’ve had to paint
our number on the side.’

I tutted.

‘Well, you sound as if you’ve given this whole business
a lot of thought.’

‘Oh, yes.’ That bit was true, at any rate.

‘Are you happy then if I go ahead and contact the
mother and baby home on your birth certificate?’

‘They’ve closed down.’ It slipped out. ‘I, I tried there
first, phoning, but it’s a business school now.’

She didn’t even blink. ‘Yes, they relocated. We’ve dealt
with them before. They should have all your records. Then
we can make another appointment and go over the papers,
and see where we go from there. Maybe think about your
dad too.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Couple of weeks, not long.’ She smiled once more.
‘You seem like a level-headed young woman, Karen. I’m
sure you’ll cope with whatever we turn up.’

Level-headed? Didn’t these people take psychology
exams? Gullible old trout. Still, I wasn’t going to own up
to being a bag of neuroses. I watched her fill in a Post-it
note and stick it onto her computer, next to a small orange
gonk with goggle eyes. Fancy getting to that age and still
believing the best of people. Bloody odd.

We shook hands and as I was going out I said, ‘I’m
sorry I was so rude about your blinds.’

Mrs Fitton smiled.

‘We get a lot worse than that here, believe you me,’ she
said.

*

I’d have liked
Nan to go with me to the hospital only
she wasn’t fit. I could just imagine the consultation with
the midwife: ‘So, Charlotte, how many weeks pregnant
are you?’

Nan: ‘Do
you
believe they’ve sent a man to the moon?
Load o’ rubbish.’

I’d have liked to take Daniel, but it was too much
of an imposition. The potential for embarrassment was
colossal (‘No, this isn’t actually the father, he’s only come
along to hold my urine sample’) and besides, he had a
Maths exam that day.

I suppose I could have taken Mum, if she wasn’t still
a quivering mass of rage. We nearly came to blows last
week when she gatecrashed my doctor’s appointment.

‘Folic acid? Never mind bloody vitamin pills, tell her
what a stupid girl she’s been. Tell her, Doctor. Did you
know she was supposed to be going to university?’

Fortunately Mum’s fairly scared of health professionals
so when he told her to shut up, she did. In fact
she hasn’t spoken to me since.

The midwife
I saw at the hospital was really nice. Dead
young, not much older than me I think, and that helped.
The first thing I asked her was: ‘How can you have a
period and still be pregnant?’

She sketched me a little womb on a notepad and a
little egg implanting itself.

‘As the egg burrows in it sometimes breaks a few
blood vessels. That’ll be what you had. Not much blood,
just spotting, is that right?’

I nodded glumly. The things grown women keep
quiet!

‘I bet you didn’t know whether you were coming or
going,’ she smiled. I think she must have guessed, looking
at my birth date and the absence of a partner, but she
didn’t say anything at first. It came out when she was
strapping the black Velcro sleeve round my arm to take
my blood pressure.

‘My mum’s on the way,’ I lied. ‘She must have been
held up.’

‘And your partner?’

The sleeve tightened and the blood pulsed in my
fingers.

‘Is a grade-A bastard. He’s history.’

There was a hiss as the air seeped out and the sleeve
went slack.

‘I see. We do get a few of those.’ She unstrapped
me briskly. ‘Do we know anything about this bastard’s
health? His blood group, any serious illnesses in the
family, that kind of thing? I only ask because of this form
we have to fill in.’

‘Nope.’

‘OK, then, not to worry.’

Like I said, she was really nice.

After she’d filled in pages and pages on my diet and
progress, we listened to the baby’s heartbeat,
pyow-pyow-pyow-pyow
through a special microphone. Then it was
time to go and drink a pint of water and wait for the scan.

The scan. Night after night I’d had that scan, and
always there was something wrong. The baby had no
head, or it looked like an octopus, or it was too small—

Outside in the waiting room were a whole lot of
bloated women. Some of them were reading magazines,
some were trying to amuse hyperactive toddlers; nearly
all of them were with someone. I sat down near a lone
black lady with a football-up-the-jumper type profile
and tried to catch her eye. She smiled when she noticed
me, that secret club smile pregnant women pass round
between themselves.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ I said.

‘About half an hour.’

‘How far are you on?’

‘Thirty-seven weeks. The baby’s turned the wrong
way round, they’re going to see if they can persuade him
to do a somersault. Otherwise I might have to have—’

She broke off as a tall man in a suit came and sat
down next to her. He put a hot drink down on the table,
kissed her cheek, then reached over and patted her
stomach. I edged away, feeling miserable. It was important
not to think about the nightmares.

I rooted in my bag for the funky little paperback I’d
been given by the doctor;
Emma’s Diary
, a week-by-week
guide to pregnancy. I wanted to see what it said about
birth defects. As I pulled the book out a scrap of paper
fluttered down onto the tiles. I got down on my hands and
knees to pick it up, and recognized Nan’s swirly writing.

Don’t think you’re of little importance
You’re somebody, somebody fine
However you tumble, and get up and stumble
You’re part of a vision Divine

A vision Divine. My eyes blurred with tears and I
scrambled back onto my seat. Oh, Nan.

Forty minutes later, just as my bladder had passed
from painful to critical, a little grey-haired nurse called me
into a dim room, hoisted me onto a table, and pulled my
shirt up and my leggings down to my pubic bone. I stared
down at the slightly flattened bump as she squirted cold
gel on my skin and then stood back for the doctor to get
in there with his probe thing.

‘Look at the screen,’ whispered the nurse, beaming.

And there, in flickering white profile, was a head and
an arm.

‘It’s sucking its thumb,’ she said.

My God. So there was a baby in there after all. It was
all true. The foetus squirmed about as the doctor pressed
hard into my flesh for what seemed like ages.

‘Don’t hurt it!’ I called out in alarm.

‘It’s fine,’ he murmured and carried on methodically,
taking down measurements every time the machine went
beep
. ‘Sorry, when was the date of your last period?’

‘I told the midwife, I don’t know.’ Who keeps track of
these things?

He moved the probe around and two waving legs
came into view. ‘And you haven’t had a dating scan . . .
Well . . .’

The image froze.

‘What’s the matter?’ I felt panic rise. Next to my hip
the machine made a sinister whirring noise.

The nurse leaned over. ‘It’s OK, he’s just taking a nice
picture for your notes. You can take a copy home if you
want.’

‘Is there something wrong, though? Is my baby all
right?’

The doctor flicked a switch and the screen froze again,
then the overhead lights came on. ‘You’re fine, your baby’s
fine. I’d say you were about – ’ he glanced over at my
notes – ‘about twenty-six weeks. So I’m going to put your
due date down as the sixteenth of October.’

‘Oh my God, that’s my Nan’s birthday!’

The nurse grinned and helped me up off the table, but
the doctor was busy writing on my file.

‘Can I ask a question?’

‘Sure,’ he said without turning round.

‘Can you tell whether it’s a boy or a girl? I’d really like
to know. For the names and stuff.’

He glanced over his shoulder at me.

‘It’s not hospital policy to disclose the sex,’ he said
briefly, and turned back again. I wondered how he could
be so unmoved by the miracle he’d just revealed.

‘You’ll have to knit lots of lovely white things,’
twittered the nurse, squeezing my arm. I’d have liked her
as a mother, I decided. ‘Now, I’ll bet you’re desperate for
a pee. I’ll show you where the toilet is.’

And then I was on the bus going home, the grainy
flimsy photo clutched in my hands. There was another
universe-upside-down moment, when for the duration of
that ride I and my baby were at the centre of creation,
and the feeling that we two were all evolution had been
working towards for millions of years overwhelmed me.
Nobody on the 416 seemed to notice my fantastic revelation,
but that’s the way the world works, isn’t it? We miss
amazing things every day, right under our noses. Maybe
it’s for the best. If we went round being amazed all the
time we’d never get anything done.

I bounced into the house and went in search of
Nan, but there was only Mrs Crowther from Crossroads
reading last night’s
Bolton Evening News
. ‘She’s having a
nap in her room,’ she told me. ‘At long last. She’s been up
and down like I don’t know what. Something’s mitherin’
her.’

I shrugged and went to find something to eat. In the
kitchen I smoothed out the little picture again and drank
in the detail. Just its top half, the face in profile, a big
forehead. I wondered who it looked like and a pang of
memory, Paul’s shining face and floppy hair, skewered me
where I stood. Would he not like, would he not want to
see . . . ? But that was not Paul I remembered, not the real
Paul, who was scum. This baby didn’t need a fantasy
father.

I wanted to phone Daniel, but a glance at my watch
told me he’d still be doing his sums so I made a giant
cheese sandwich and went upstairs to do some more
thinking.

When I opened the door and saw what was on the bed
I couldn’t believe my eyes.

*

O
NE OF THE THINGS
that’s bothering me most about this
baby business is that it means I’m on my way to being old.
Thirty-four, it’s no age is it? You see TV presenters older
than me (occasionally). I want to throw out my jumpers
and leggings and start again, wear spaghetti straps and
combat trousers and little butterfly clips in my hair. Would
I really look like mutton? How
can
I be a grandma? Yet
once this baby’s born I’ll feel as if I’ve started down the
slippery slope which ends with Werther’s Originals,
The
People’s Friend
and Death. I didn’t think I was even middle-aged
really, but look, here I am, Grannie Karen. So even
less chance of finding a man. I mean, it’s not exactly an
alluring chat-up gambit: Why don’t you come back and
see my grandchild? I bet Charlotte never thought of that,
did she. How did I ever manage to produce such a selfish
daughter?