Etched on Me Page 17
“Only if you’re in on it, too,” I said, slinging an arm around her shoulder to hug her as the camera’s flash popped, bewildering and sharp.
• • •
The after-party came later that night, at a big house in Greenwich some of Team Six Percent were renting. We all put in money for drinks, but made the mistake of sending Immi out for them. She came back with “wine” (ish), cheapest plonkiest of the cheap plonk, so nasty we were all Jesus, Im, what off-license you get this from? But it was sweet and plentiful, and by the second jug we were all dancing in the living room like fools, and then suddenly I was sitting down, catching my breath with this adorable Irish guy I’d never seen before, one of the housemates’ (Moira’s?) cousins, only in town for the week. Scruffy sort of cute. Goateed and all that.
Just then someone put Coldplay on the stereo, which made me snort. “What?” dear scruffy boy, whose name was Declan, said to me. “You don’t like them?”
“Oh, come on,” I said, leaning back on the couch and taking a messy swig from a can of draft Guinness I’d managed to scare up from the fridge. “Every goddamn melody line of theirs sounds the same, like you could flipping meow it.”
He gave me a skeptical, amused grin, then tilted his head to listen. Wasn’t more than two seconds before he commenced snickering. “Holy fuck, you’re right.”
So we sat there and did the chorus for “In My Place” like plaintive kitties wanting to be let back in—“meow meow, meow meow meow meow, MEOW meow”—and soon my legs were draped over his knees, and I was going on about how I was a better guitarist than Chris Martin (not that that was saying much, but still, I was buzzed and full of bravura). Dec looking all impressed. “You play?” (To which Imogen, overhearing, shouted over: “She’s a woman of many talents, our Lesley.”)
He let his fingers play along my ankle. “Are you, now?”
I shifted a little closer. Like I was just doing a stretch. “Maybe,” I said, smiling.
By the time Moira switched the CD over to the Killers, I was settled backwards in his lap with my legs round his waist, having another fierce, giddy make-out: nibbled lower lip, licked-at ear, the works.
“Your friend . . . wasn’t . . . joking,” Declan gasped.
I slid a hand down to his hard-on. “Neither am I,” I said.
Once I’d slid off his knees and taken him by the hand and led him past the drinks table, though, I started to second-guess. Then, out the corner of my eye, I saw Immi give me a thumbs-up, and thought, Why the hell not? I was twenty-one. A university graduate. A survivor. Not a terrified child. Not a prim PTSD victim. Might as well let it go and celebrate.
In the corridor, we slammed against the wall, my hands mauling at his belt buckle, his hands twisting in my hair. For a second, I startled, but only at the sound of a toilet’s flush, followed by a creak and then footsteps.
“Jesus, you two, get a room already.”
Declan flipped the naysayer off, and I reached behind him for the nearest door handle. It opened into a closet, but I didn’t flinch. I was ready to reclaim that claustrophobic space, to turn it into a den of hot dirty awesome.
I dragged Declan inside. Slammed the door closed.
With one hand, he pushed aside a row full of wool coats and leather jackets; with the other, he pushed open the buttons on my blouse. My tongue worked its way into his mouth again as my fingers undid his belt in earnest. I heard him moan, felt his hand fly up to flip the light switch.
Bare bulb. Again: not a flinch.
Instead, I waved Dec’s belt above my head in a teasing, snakelike waggle.
“You’re insane,” he said, grinning. The accusation finally a compliment.
I grinned back. Dropped the belt to the floor. Flipped the light switch back down. Pressed him up against the wall.
“Aren’t you hot in that?” he muttered against my neck, pushing my long sleeves off my shoulders and down my arms.
I shrugged the shirt back up. “You asking me or telling me?” I said, laughing under my breath.
Unzip, untie, step out. Post-ceremony jeans and baggy shorts mingled at our ankles as, Declan’s hands on my hips, I jumped and grabbed the closet rail with both palms, hoisting myself up to knot my legs round his waist again. From out in the living room came the dim thrum-thump of a cranked-up bass as, haloed by Moira’s chenille scarf, I tipped my head back and—careless, drunk, delighted—came.
• • •
That summer I got a job working as a receptionist for a recording studio in Shoreditch. Nothing sexy, just phones and tea, but, coupled with DJ gigs and my final social services grant, it earned me the deposit on a tiny flat over by King’s Cross, with a kitchenette and (sigh) its own bath.
The day after I settled up the letting paperwork, Gloria dropped off me and Immi (who’d scored her own studio flat and tea-pouring job at a style mag the week before) at the IKEA in Croydon for a household smash-and-grab. Giddy at the prospect of picking out our own dish towels and draperies, we careened trolleys through the marketplace and tested every piece of furniture in the showroom.
“Would it be horrible,” Imogen said, sprawled out on a big round mattress dressed in satiny red linens, “if I spent my grant on this pimp bed?”
“Im, think about it,” I said, flopping down next to her. “It’d take up your whole flat. You’ll bring some guy in after a date and stumble over the edge and fall right onto . . .” I paused, recalling her university track record. “Wait. Never mind. That’s how all your dates go.”
She smacked me with a beaded pillow. “Which is more skanky than sneaking off into closets how?”
I rolled onto my stomach. Rested my chin on my arms. Glanced over towards the children’s area, with its fairyland bedrooms and toy bins and nightlights shaped like stars.
“Les, come on.” Immi shook my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to give you shit, I was just—”
I let my cheek slump against the slippery fabric of the duvet. Watched as a woman about Francesca’s age sprinted after a toddler along the laminate floor’s guide arrows, her hair flying loose from its ponytail, her backpack-style nappy bag bouncing on her weary shoulders.
“No,” I said softly. “It’s not that.”
Imogen’s eyes followed mine, then widened. “Fuck. You’re not pregnant, are you?”
I sat up slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“But you’re late.”
I nodded. “Couple days.”
“Eh, that’s flat-hunting stress,” Immi said cheerily, patting me on the shoulder with one hand as she gave the pimp bed a final smooth with the other.
• • •
For the rest of that afternoon, I figured Im was right, but come dinnertime back in Islington, the lazily rotating plates at Yo! Sushi convinced me otherwise. One look at the gaily colored platters of tuna and eel, one whiff of hairy prawn and salmon, and it was all I could do to keep myself from spewing onto the conveyor belt before sprinting to the ladies’.
“Steady on, there, volcano roll,” Imogen said, entering the loo with a perky door swing just as I leaned over the basin to retch.
“Very . . . funny,” I gasped, swiping at my mouth with the paper towels she handed me.
“So, umm, okay,” she said after about the fifth rip from the dispenser. “You fancy a bowl of stomach-calming miso, or a trip to the chemist’s?”
“Yes.”
An hour later, I found myself stationed yet again in a disabled stall, this time fighting the urge to drum a pissed-on plastic stick against my palm while listening to Immi’s heels click-pace outside.
“What’s it say?” she demanded.
“Same thing it said fifteen seconds ago,” I said.
“Which is what?”
“That you’re still a twatwaffle.”
“Jesus, Les. How you can even joke right now is beyond . . .” Quick pause (clock-checking on her phone’s screen, I knew), followed by a pound on the door. “All right. It’s been three minutes. Check.”
Mere icy-white, or was it . . . Was it?
Two. Blue. Crosshairs.
“Well?”
I leaned my head back. Closed my eyes.
“Come on, Les, spill. Good news, or—”
Muted but insistent smile, tugging at the corners of my mouth no matter how hard I told it—told myself—to stop.
“Yeah,” I said. “Oh, yeah.”
• • •
Now I’m not saying that desire wasn’t a surprise. Even before my dad got his hands on me, even before he made damn sure I felt like damaged goods, I never pictured myself as a mum-in-training. Never cooed at the snot-nosed sprogs in the checkstand queue, never jumped at the chance to mind the neighbors’ kids for pocket money growing up.
And later on, it wasn’t like all of a sudden, once I met Gloria and her family, or fell in love with Clare, or commenced work on my Emotion Mind with Dr. P., some giant lightbulb got turned on and illuminated all that yummy-mummy potential inside me, either. It came to me in soft shadows, occasional dapples: my momentary wonderment in the face of despair, kindled at the Nottingham train station by that baby’s drooly smile; the halting question I asked Gloria in the Moscow department store; the peaceful motion of rocking Sveta back and forth, lulling us both into stillness. Each of those small moments was a puff of air blowing a slammed-shut door back open, creating a crack into which, sideways, I could slip; into which, sideways, a pinhead-sized possibility could shimmy.
And once we were both standing inside that wide-open space together, my little crosshair good news and me? Sure, it was a shock, but also a deep, visceral satisfaction, a laughing, unexpected outcry of surprise: Oh hello, little lovely thing I didn’t know I wanted. Like realizing how famished you are only after you’ve eaten your fill, or how bone-cold you’ve been only after rubbing your hands before the fire.
I rubbed my hands before the fire (hand dryer in the Boots toilets, but never mind the details). I ate my fill (of miso soup and digestive biscuits, but still). I chuckled in dismissal of Imogen’s shrieks of disbelief (“Les, are you on crack? Tell me you’re not serious about doing this”). Skimmed my hand along the subtle bloat as I zipped back up, and adjusted my waistband, and thought: Yes, hello, my little lovely thing.
• • •
Thankfully, nobody else accused me of being on crack for signing up for motherhood. I was worried Gloria might give me a disappointed telling-off, but all she did was warn me that single parenting would kick my arse super hard. And Dr. P. of course gently advised me to cultivate as much support as I could, but it wasn’t like they were all “Nooo! You must not procreate!”
I thought about telling Declan, too, but decided against it for several reasons. First of all, I didn’t even know his contact details. Could have asked Moira, sure, but how awkward would that have been? Oh hi, cute boy whose surname and mobile number I’ve just learned months after we had sex in a closet. Remember me? Sorta? Well, guess what . . .
No. No flipping way. Besides, I wasn’t craving a Relationship with a capital R. Someday down the road, with the right person, sure, but for the time being I was all about doing it DIY, thanks.
And I took the whole pregnancy gig dead seriously. Stopped eating dodgy takeaway and started buying organic fruit. Got myself a big bottle of vitamins so loaded with iron I couldn’t shit for days. Cut back on my DJ bookings so I could get more sleep (which, dear God, did I ever need—who knew growing a creature the size of a sand grain could be so bloody exhausting?) and avoid the clubs’ smoke. Researched midwives and hospital birth units.
At my first appointment with the one I’d chosen, I sat on the edge of a plastic chair in the clinic, staring straight ahead, bracing myself for the required blood test, de rigueur long sleeve rolled up past my left elbow. Should have been terrified, but those first eight gestational weeks had made me bold and pragmatic: swallowing down nerves, emanating matter-of-fact calm. I was someone’s mother now; I would do what needed to be done.
My new midwife, Tasmin, tore the corner of an antiseptic packet. Swiped a cold, damp swab across my vein. “What happened here?” she asked, her voice guarded but curious as her gloved fingers probed the old ropy raised knot.
For a moment, I was tempted to lie, to make up a glib, reassuring story—about a childhood bicycle accident, perhaps, or a clumsy fall involving broken glass. Anything, really, to avoid the grotesque awkwardness of the truth.
I had just cleared my throat, rallying myself to put forth the bicycle explanation, when, in a moment of what can only be described after the fact as heartbreakingly good intent and maddeningly stubborn pride, I thought, Fuck that, I’m not ashamed. And so I made the bold declaration, equal parts laudable and idiotic, biggest mistake of my mistake-strewn life:
“I’m a recovered self-harmer.”
To her credit, Tasmin didn’t flinch or make a face or scoff that, like an alcoholic, I had no way of being fully recovered. Instead, she simply reached for my fresh chart and made a small notation. “How long has it been since your last incident?” she asked, crisply but not unkindly.
Much easier answer, that one.
“Three years, nine months, and three days,” I said, smiling.
Quick, perfunctory smile back. “Good on you,” she murmured, reaching for the needle. “Make a fist for me, please?”
My fingers curled up tight. Squeezed hard.
“Mmm. That vein’s not going to cooperate for us, I’m afraid.”
I unbuttoned my opposite sleeve’s cuff and pushed it up so that Tasmin could survey my alternate forearm, free of major souvenirs but still sporting several delicate, whitish lines.
“Well, we’ll make this one work,” she said, sighing a little.
Another swiping sting, another tight fist, followed by a pinprick. “You wouldn’t be opposed to a referral, would you?”
I turned my head away from the sight of the vial rapidly filling with my own blood. “Referral to where?”
“Just to social services for a needs assessment,” Tasmin said quickly, putting up her free hand. “To make certain you’ve all the support you’re entitled to, of course, not—”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll speak with them.”
Tasmin looked relieved and more than a little surprised, as if she wasn’t used to hormonal preggos acting so nonchalant about the prospect of being scrutinized. Couldn’t say I blamed her, given that her usual clientele was comprised of thirtysomething professional women, already wedded both to affluent husbands and their own bespoke birth plans. As for me, the scruffy exception whose arse social services had saved multiple times over? Least I could do was grant them a reassuring afternoon chat in return.
“Thank you,” Tasmin said, giving me another tight little smile as she capped the vial with a red lid. “These situations are so much less awkward when we’re straightforward with each other, don’t you think?”
I nodded. Felt my arm begin to throb as she pressed a piece of gauze to the wound, then secured it with a bandage. “You can let go the fist now, dear,” she said, all gentle suggestion, but my fingers wouldn’t unclench.
• • •
All that autumn, I strolled blissfully along the raised walkway on Upper Street, and sucked at nasty crystallized ginger while praying I wouldn’t get sick all over my work desk, and bought used copies of pregnancy books with bland drawings of dowdy, rotund women on the front. I marveled at the illustrations of my little sand grain as it grew, all the while wondering who the baby might look like (would it have Dec’s blue eyes, or my pixie face?). No matter what, I knew that it would be its own person, free from those old perverse legacies, and that healing thought thrilled me.
I kept expecting social services to ring, but heard nothing. Until the first week of November, when I came back from lunch to find the voicemail indicator on my phone blinking madly.
“Miss Holloway, your home visit is scheduled for this Saturday at noon. Please ring bac
k to confirm.”
For a moment I balked, contemplating a cheeky answer: Sorry, can’t make it, I’ve a long-awaited engagement involving Nigella Lawson, a kitchen floor, and a mixing bowl full of caramel sauce. But then I caught myself, brought myself back with that mantra-mix of pragmatism and transparency: Nothing to hide, plus I owe them one.
I picked up the phone. Dialed the office back. “Yes,” I said, when the receptionist on the other end answered, “Saturday at noon will be just fine.”
17
Soon as she heard I was letting a social worker up in my business, Imogen commenced calling me “daft and naïve,” but I didn’t pay her any mind. Her head had been full of nanny-state contempt ever since she’d shagged a Daily Mail intern, and besides, wasn’t any reason to get freaked out over a simple visit.
When the knock at the door came, I was hoovering my striped IKEA rug and singing Amy Winehouse. Nothing like bellowing “Tell your boyfriend, next time he around, to buy his own weed and don’t wear my shit down!” as a preassessment warm-up, is there?
The gods must have been smiling upon me (at least temporarily), though, because when I opened the door, who did I see on the landing but good old Francesca. Hugs and apologies (“Sorry to keep you hanging on for months; we’ve had a massive case backlog”) and mugs of tea and a cozy sit-down on my bed-slash-futon, so much relief and serendipity that my thick skull still didn’t get it—at least not until I asked her how she’d wound up transferring over to the adult mental health team.
“Lesley, I’m . . .” Francesca’s slender throat worked hard, gulping some words down, pushing others out. “I’m still in child protection.”
By reflex, my palm pressed to my bump, guarding it. I slid back on the bed, as far away from her as I could get, leaning into the stack of pillows I kept handy to prop up on when my heartburn drove me mad. “So you’re... you’re investigating me?”
“Of course not, Lesley.”