Little Bang, page 19
“Oh, she’s made that perfectly clear.”
Usually I don’t get involved when Sid moans about Lucille, but I’m not in the mood to be tactful right now. “You shouldn’t be so hard on her,” I say. “She does care. She even said she’d help with the baby.”
“When did she say that?”
I shrug awkwardly. “I just ran into her one day.”
“I wouldn’t trust Lucille to look after a goldfish, never mind a human being,” Sid says. “Which is why I have a goldfish.”
“Well, I don’t think we’re in a position to turn down any help.”
He kicks a can into the gutter. “We don’t need Lucille. You have me. We’re in this together, right?”
I just give the pram a shove, because it’s veering to the left.
We cut through the park. If this wasn’t such a crappy day we’d be laughing about this. Wheeling an empty pram through the park like we’re practising for Saturday afternoons in Teen Parentsville. Sid would be making it do wheelies and pointing out the ducks to an unborn Little Bang. Instead we trudge along, heads down.
But we must look like quite an accurate picture of Teen Parentsville, because an elderly man passing by looks us up and down, taking in my school uniform and Sid’s piercings, shakes his head at his wife and mutters, “Well, now I’ve seen everything.”
He picked the wrong day to annoy me. I stop, wheel around sharply and yell after him, “Everything? Really? EVERYTHING?!”
Sid tries to pull me away from the startled couple. “It’s not worth it. Leave it.”
“No! Who does he think he is?” The man is already retreating but I’m fuming. “Fuck you! Who the fuck do you think you are?!” I scream after him. The swearing feels good. It’s what I should’ve done in school today. It’s what Lucille would have done.
Everyone in the park is watching us now. For someone who’s refusing to go back to school in case she gets stared at, I really know how to draw attention.
“Calm down. This isn’t helping. And it’s not good for you,” Sid says.
“You’re one to talk!” I turn on him. “Wanting to go down to school and punch Finucane? How would that help?!”
“I wasn’t going to punch anyone! I’m just saying, screaming in the street isn’t exactly a good look either.”
“Oh, suddenly you care what people think of us?”
“No, but… What’s going on, Mel? This isn’t like you.”
“How would you know?” I snap and he looks stung. “You don’t get it! You just don’t get it! You keep saying, we’re in this together, we’re in this together, but there is no together, Sid. It’s different for you; it just is. You aren’t the one getting that look. Now I’ve seen it all. I weep for the future. Poor cow. From doctors and teachers and complete strangers in the street. And now random girls in your boyfriend’s fucking bedroom!”
I want to run off and leave him there, but you can’t run with a pram that veers to the left, so I just say, “Go home, Sid. I want to be by myself for a while.”
He doesn’t even argue. I push the pram viciously on through the park, and Sid just watches me go.
Sid
Walking away with the pram, she looked as small and lost as she was when we first found out she was pregnant. Whenever she seems scared I always try to be extra solid, extra dependable, extra confident, but it never seems to be enough. I’m never enough. It’s funny; everyone else seems surprised by how well I’m handling this. My mates are dead impressed that I’m not completely freaking out. Mrs Watson and I chat about childcare while we wait for Mel to come home from swimming. Mrs Edgar calls me a “worker”. Mr Watson hates me, but he did take my side against Nigel. Even Lucille said she’s impressed that I’ve stopped drinking. No one’s ever believed I could do anything before. Least of all me. But the person I most need to believe that isn’t buying it, and the more I try to convince her that I want to have this baby – that she can depend on me – the more scared she looks, and I’m starting to take it personally.
I walk home in a huff and stomp upstairs to my room where I find my guitar and lyrics scattered across the floor where I left them, like a bucket of cold water poured all over my righteous indignation. If I’m so solid and dependable and confident about the baby, why is my guitar still in my room, and why am I sneaking off to play gigs that won’t get me anywhere?
I won’t do the gig. I’ll call Gavin in the morning and cancel. No more hanging out with Cassie either. I chuck some food in Lennon’s bowl, pick up the guitar and put it away.
But an hour later, my head’s still buzzing with noise and the only ways I know of to drown it out are to drink or play. So I get the guitar out again and strum quietly as it gets dark, humming until the voices – Mel’s, Lucille’s, Finucane’s – fade away and there’s only mine left. The chords start to slot together, making shapes and patterns, and then the notes of a melody wind through them, tying them together, building something new; something on the edge of hearing that I can catch if I clear my mind.
It rises above all the heavy thoughts. It wants to be light, airy, far away from all this, so I put the capo right up on the twelfth fret to give it a high-pitched, jangling sound, bring in deeper notes for the chorus. The lyrics come last, attaching themselves to the tune like they’ve always been there. And they’re good.
Are they good? They might be good. I’m too tired to tell, but at one a.m., when I look at my crumpled page, I see that, among the scorings out, scribbles and mistakes, I’ve written a whole song.
CHAPTER 15
Mel
I haven’t seen Sid since the park, and I’m not going back to school next week, even though Mr Millar says they’re going to help me get through the exams. He emailed me a big list of stuff about PE and being safe in the corridors and outbreaks of contagious diseases and missing classes for hospital appointments, but I barely looked at it. I haven’t heard from Dr Sloane, but what could he say: I did warn you about Sid McKee, Mel?
Maybe it’s better if I don’t go back to school at all. What if I can’t keep up next year? I always thought I was smart but maybe I wasn’t smart; maybe I just had lots of time to study. I don’t want all those people who said oh, you’ve ruined your life proved right.
Becca sent a couple of texts and I just said what I said to Sid in the park, that I wanted to be alone for a bit.
But I don’t want to be alone. When I’m alone I think too much and my stomach churns and my chest tightens till it’s hard to breathe. It’s the same way I feel before exams but I can handle that because you know exams always end eventually. This won’t. Ever. I’m afraid to even sleep, because when I wake up it’ll hit me all over again. So I just lie there in the dark, trying to breathe.
Lucille said having a baby was like being trapped, and I’m starting to understand what she meant. It wasn’t about not being able to go out with your friends, or not being able to go to uni, or not having much money, or even being unhappy. It was about not having any choice. It was this. This claustrophobic little space with no exit. It was knowing you can never ever – no matter what – walk away. That you would never, even if there was an exit.
I think about Lucille a lot.
Lucille never says, it’s complicated. She never says, yeah, but … or, only if … or, it depends on…
And she knows all about breathing.
“Mel!” Lucille hurries over to me when I enter the yoga studio on Saturday morning. Her aerobics class are just leaving. “I heard what happened at school,” she says gently. “Are you OK?” I wonder if she’s seen the videos of me at my locker. Or read the comments. I’ve stopped looking at social media.
I shrug.
“Come in and we’ll do some poses. You look tense.”
I look like death. I haven’t even washed my hair since last week. She spreads out the mats and doesn’t say anything else, just leads me through Butterfly and Triangle and Mountain and Downward Dog and all she says is inhale … exhale … until my joints loosen and my chest opens and air begins to flow.
On an exhale, I finally manage to say, “I keep getting scared.”
We move into Warrior 2, side by side, talking to the mirror. “I keep thinking about what you said. About us being too young and having no money and Sid being … well, Sid.”
Lucille looks amused. I don’t know if it’s what I said or my wobbly attempt at Warrior 2.
“OK, you’re young and poor,” she says. “I was young and poor and I managed. Lots of people do. If I can do it, you can too.”
What? My mouth falls open and I stagger out of Warrior 2 and into Are You Fucking Kidding Me 6. I can’t believe she’s backtracking on this after everything. After her performance in my living room!
“What? It’s true,” she says, moving smoothly into Warrior 3. I follow her into a disgruntled version of the pose. “Actually, I think having Sid so young was the making of me. After his dad left, I felt like everyone was looking at me like, single mum in her twenties; her life’s over.” She glares at the mirror. “I was determined to prove the bastards wrong.”
“You sound like Sid,” I mutter, and she laughs.
“That’s what gave me the courage to go back to school. I graduated on the strength of caffeine and sheer bloody-mindedness. You can too.”
“I guess,” I mumble. Because how do I say, yeah, but I kind of wanted university to be more fun than that. It sounds so selfish.
She gets onto all fours on the mat and I try to follow her into Cat/Cow. But I feel too heavy to Cat. I feel weighed down and disappointed all of a sudden. I don’t know what I came here for, but it wasn’t this. I don’t want to do yoga poses any more; I want to curl up in a ball, and I want everything to go away.
I stretch into Cow, raising my head, inhaling deeply, but the new openness in my chest is a cavity, a vacuum, and the air rushes in too fast, like a wave you don’t see coming that knocks you off your feet, and then suddenly I’m choking and crying, confused and gasping, and Lucille is bending over me saying, “It’s OK, Mel. This happens. Happens all the time. Give it a minute. You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, love.”
But I’m not fine. I’m dying.
There’s a sharp pain in my stomach, my lungs are pumping like pistons and my limbs are shaking. There’s a weight on my chest, a hand around my throat. I’m certain that if I move something awful is going to happen. My heart will stop. My lungs will collapse. Is this a heart attack? Am I going into labour? My stomach spasms and a horrified part of me wonders if it’s the baby moving, but I don’t know. I don’t know which bits of me are mine and which aren’t any more.
Lucille is saying, inhale … exhale, but there’s nothing to inhale. Something’s choking me and I put a hand to my throat to pull my T-shirt away, and find the solar system necklace Leah gave me. I tug it and the chain snaps, but it doesn’t help. I still can’t breathe and my heart is exploding.
“Count them.” Lucille is still bent over me, saying in-
comprehensible things, quite calmly, like I’m not dying in front of her. “Count them with me.” After a moment I realize she’s showing me the necklace clutched in my hands.
“This is a panic attack, Mel,” she says. “You’re going to be fine; you just need to calm your mind. Focus on something small. Here, count these with me.” Her fingers run over the eight beads. The ring around Saturn, the large glassy surface of Jupiter, the tiny bead of Mercury. For a moment I just stare blindly at them. How can this possibly help? But their familiarity is comforting. I still can’t breathe, but I can count. I can even name them.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. My fingers tremble over each planet – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars – but I don’t let go – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. From the Sun to the edges of the solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars. I start silently mouthing the words. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Over and over until I can whisper them. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.” Like a nursery rhyme, rhythmic and singsong. “Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.” Until my brain stops shorting out. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.”
And the panic starts to recede
“Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”
And my breathing slows to the rhythm of the words.
“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.”
And my heart falls into step.
“Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”
And the panicky thoughts get pushed aside.
“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.”
Replaced by blank, black space.
“Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.”
“One for each breath,” Lucille says, and I slow my fingers on the necklace until my breathing follows their pace.
“Mercury.”
“Venus.”
“Earth.”
“Mars.”
“Jupiter.”
“Saturn.”
“Uranus.”
“Neptune.”
Until it’s over. Until whatever it was has passed.
I let go of the necklace, the planets spin away and Lucille wraps her arms around me and rocks me gently back and forth, saying, “There now. There now.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still sitting on the floor, sipping from Lucille’s water bottle and feeling shaky.
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Chest-opener poses,” Lucille says flatly, cross-legged beside me. “It’s amazing what gets pent up in the body. I’ve seen it over and over.”
“You should warn people,” I sniff, handing her back the bottle.
“It’s good for you. I mean, if you do it regularly, so it doesn’t build up so much.”
“Doesn’t feel good.”
“Doesn’t it?”
I guess I do feel a little lighter. Maybe I needed to let it out. But I didn’t need to be punched in the face with it.
She puts an arm round me and says gently, “I know you’re scared. But think of it this way, Mel. Have you ever done anything you weren’t good at? Sid says you’re top of everything at school. You’ll be a great mum.”
But that just makes me want to cry again. Why now? Why has she suddenly decided to be all supportive now? “Right, but … what if … what if…?” I toy with my fingernails. “I mean, what about—?”
“Mel?” Lucille moves round and ducks her head to my lowered one, fixing me with a stare. “What do you want me to say? You want me to tell you it’s OK to back out because you’re too young and Sid’s a nightmare?” She waves a hand airily. “Fine, it’s OK. Does that help?” She offers me the water bottle again. I shake my head.
“Look.” She draws her knees up, chews her lip, not looking at me. Then she says, “You can’t tell Sid this.”
Oh shit. It’s bad enough that I come here to talk to Lucille behind Sid’s back, now I have to keep secrets from him? But I nod at her.
“When I was twenty-three I went to the doctor and said I wanted to be sterilized. I didn’t want kids and I thought that was the responsible thing to do.”
“So what happened?”
“He said, you’re too young; it’s an irreversible decision; you might regret it. If I’d gone to him and said I wanted to get pregnant, do you think he would have said, you’re too young; it’s an irreversible decision; you might regret it? No, he bloody would not. Because everyone just assumes that every woman will want to have kids someday. I think even women assume that.” She makes a face.
“Having this baby is as irreversible as being sterilized, Mel. You have to know if you actually want to have kids or not. Ever. And if they thought I wasn’t old enough to make that decision at twenty-three, I don’t know why they think you’re old enough at sixteen.” She tuts in irritation at doctors everywhere. “Anyway, six months later, I was pregnant.”
“So why didn’t you…? Why did you have Sid?”
“Well, I was married. I had a flat and a job and it was just what you did. People talked about when you’d have a baby, not if. So I told myself it would be OK and I went ahead. I thought I didn’t have a good enough reason not to.”
She puts her chin on her knees and folds her arms tighter around her legs. “And like I said, I don’t regret Sid,” she says firmly. “Not for a minute. I just…” She shrugs. “I just wish it had felt like my decision. But it never did.”
She lifts her head and looks at me in the mirror. “So if you want someone to tell you it’s OK, you have a good enough reason to have an abortion, then fine, I’ll do that. But it won’t help, because there’ll always be someone else who says you don’t. You’re never going to get everyone to agree on this and you just have to accept that. All that matters is your decision. What you want.” She turns to look at me properly. “What do you want, Mel?”
Dr Sloane always says to get the right answer, you have to start with the right question. But I guess sometimes you overlook the right question because it seems too obvious.
The next class start to arrive and I stand and gather my things. When Lucille says she’ll cancel it if I want her to, I sniff and stand up straighter. “I’m fine. Please don’t tell Sid I said anything.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you should talk to him. Maybe—”
But I shake my head firmly.
“OK.” She looks unconvinced, but I trust her.
As I walk slowly down the leisure centre steps, the solar system clutched in my hand, I’m shaky and unravelled and drained. But I’m breathing. There’s a sharp clarity to the morning air, a freshness in the breeze, and finally, I can breathe.
CHAPTER 16
Sid
Lucille is hovering.
And Lucille is not a hoverer. She was never the kind of parent who watched over my shoulder while I did my homework, or knew all my mates, or searched my room for cigarettes (unless she was gasping). It was more likely I’d have to call round the numbers in her contacts to find her when I needed her for something.
But she has definitely been hovering today.
