I say it can’t. Cos you and me, used a condom.
And I didn’t with him.
Kev says but you never. You never let me do it without.
But you did, with some random guy.
Fuck’s sake Eff, why?
And I tell the truth:
Cos I wanted him so much.
I keep my eyes tight till I hear the door slam.
And when I open them,
In a mess on the floor
Is all Kev’s money.
8
Leanne sticks a drink in my hand.
Come on, get that down you. You need it.
I feel my gut start to quiver,
From the cold of the glass
But I take a sip.
The lovely burn on the lips that smooths out
On the tongue, down the throat
And then hits my belly
And something in my belly isn’t pleased with me.
You see, says Leanne.
You want a drink.
It’s just the fucking baby that doesn’t.
And who’s in charge?
And Christ, it’s not even like you’re keeping the thing –
– are you?
Course I’m fucking not.
I take another sip.
The thing in my belly tries to kick the booze back up my throat but
I hold it down.
Good girl, says Leanne.
That’s my Effie
And she pours me another.
I put it away in one go
Cos this is my body, and I’m the fucking boss.
Another glass, a proper drink this time
Three, four fingers
I sink it, and the kick back from my belly
Is getting weaker
Let’s finish the fucking bottle, shall we? Leanne says
I say – fucking go for it love.
She fills my glass to the top.
And I raise it up.
And out the window I see this
Mangy old tabby cat.
See her all the time, she wanders up and down our street.
And I remember, when we were kids
Some of the boys found a kitten, wild
The trees by the park. Too small to even have her eyes open.
They caught her
Shut her in box.
Starved her.
Till in the end she’d take anything.
They gave her antifreeze.
This tiny thing.
I remember her, staggering about
Mewling and puking everywhere
Sick then spit then nothing
Then blood.
I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it.
I want it gone
But still
A tiny thing.
– I say
No.
No.
I’ll drink, when it’s gone
Alright?
She goes but if you’re getting rid what’s the point –
I say – I drink, when it’s gone,
And that’s the way it is.
And if you don’t like it you can fuck yourself, bitch.
Leanne goes alright you mardy cow, strops off.
My head’s in a mess now
Cos I’ve not touched anything in weeks so I lie down.
I wake up. And there is music and voices and
Moody boys in tracky bottoms and vests all over the place
I nod round and they nod back.
I stagger into the lounge, Leanne bounces up says
Sorry Eff, got bored, got people round like but look –
I made you flapjacks!
I’m like – you fucking what?
Flapjacks. It’s oats, like from porridge,
And syrup. Like from a tin, of syrup.
I have known Leanne all my life, and she has never given any hint
She even knows what an oven is,
So this is massive.
This is like a big sorry for being a bitch about the drink.
I take a bite, and it’s
Chewy, sticky, sweet.
You like that, she says?
I have another, and another again
Right, steady on, she goes.
And I sit watch the telly a bit,
Show about trucks lost on the ice then
My mouth’s dry so I stand to get a drink
– and my head swims.
Leanne looks at me.
She’s sort of… giggling.
I say, Leanne,
What have you done to me?
She says,
Effie you are stressed to fuck.
You have got a stressy baby
And it is stressing you right out love.
Are you gonna be like this the whole time
Till they whip it out?
I say, Leanne, what the fuck have you done?
She goes it was just weed, alright?
It relaxes you.
It relaxes the baby.
I say –
– you have given my baby drugs?
She says it’s natural you silly cow
It can’t do no harm –
Next thing Leanne’s flat on the floor
Her lip dripping blood down her chin.
She says, Effie I love you like a sister but you are pushing it now
I look round the place.
Fuckin bottles, fuckin cans, fuckin ash trays.
Fuckin boys swilling their drinks, bobbing their heads to the music,
Looking sulky as fuck, and shit, shit,
Anywhere there’s space to cram something, there is something: and it’s shit.
I can’t be here.
I stamp down the stairs.
She’s saying Eff you silly bitch, come back –
I let the door slam.
– Eff! –
I hit the street.
– Eff! –
All the windows up and down are dark,
Maybe the flicker of flatscreens.
Just our flat is light and loud.
Effie!
And I walk away from it.
I got no job. No boyfriend. Nowhere to live.
I am all alone. And I am going to have
A baby.
9
Cos it’s called morning sickness, I thought
It was a sickness that happened, in the morning?
Not a sickness that starts in the morning and then just
Carries its merry way on through midday afternoon evening and night.
So that’s a thing I learn, early on.
Health visitor says walking or swimming might help, so
Every day I walk to the pool. And the swimming does help.
Until they close the pool down. Then every day I just walk for ages
Through the rain, so I still end up tired and wet
But it’s not really the same.
At twenty weeks I learn I’m having a girl
And she’s coming along nicely, so far as the nurse can tell
And then the other thing I learn is
That I’m not alone.
Nan helps me get a place, just a room in a house on Ordell Street?
But mine, and she gets me what she can to make it nice.
She tells me she had a bit saved. But that’s a lie.
I go into the Co-op one night there she is,
Back behind the tills like when I was little.
I tell her, you’re too old to be working,
She says – call me too old for anything again and I’ll tan your hide, girl.
Kev keeps trying to give me the money from his Xbox.
I won’t take it so in the end he just buys a buggy,
From the cancer shop. Course it’s too big to get in my bedroom door,
And it basically falls apart when you tried to fold it, but still
The thought’s the thing. They say.
And then
I’m going through piles
of clothes, one of the charity shops Clifton Street
And there is pain, in my belly.
No big thing there’s pain often enough
With little miss doing her baby boogie on top of my internal bits
But this pain.
Is not a kick.
It’s a cramp.
And this is week twenty-nine.
Too early for all of that.
I phone just to hear them tell me don’t be so daft but
They say
Come in, just in case.
I haul myself down to Habershon Street.
And then half an hour bumping around the bus, and then
What seems like even longer to limp
From the bus stop to maternity, but –
They say, there’s a test.
If it’s negative then we’re ninety-nine per cent sure
It’s not early labour ’kay love?
I say it can’t be, she can’t come yet
Nurse says, let’s not get worked up now okay let’s just do the test, yeah?
I piss into a tube, lie back on the bed.
Out the window I can see, snow. It’s snowing.
The test comes back.
Comes back negative.
It’s not labour.
Nurse says, okay so now we know
You’re doing fine, baby’s doing fine
But you won’t be meeting her tonight.
It’s just a matter of finding
The right kind of pain relief, to get you through these cramps.
She moves me off maternity, wheels me, two different lifts to a floor
That looks like it’s closed.
Dark. Quiet. No one about.
Nurse switches on a light, says
Doctor’ll be round, he’ll give you something make you comfy
And then the nurse – goes.
Leaves me there.
On my own.
And not alone.
And me and my little girl wait
For the pain, that comes in waves
Every half an hour the nurse comes back again says
Doctor’ll be along, just a sec
And in the end he is.
He gives me something called pethedine.
And five minutes later I feel better.
But five minutes after that the pain comes again.
I try to walk but my legs won’t.
I sort of crawl, arse in the air,
Lights flickering on around me,
Make it to the lifts, press the button – nothing
Press the button – nothing
Press the button – fuck
Down to maternity, buzz at the door.
No one comes.
No one comes.
No one comes.
Through the window. I see a girl. Tiny blonde girl, belly so big
It looks like someone’s glued her to a hot air balloon
She waddles up to the door, lets me through.
Midwife turns up, says what are you doing
Out of your bed, and I
S C R E A M
Midwife says alright let’s just do that test again shall we?
Me and little blonde girl waddle back and fore across the waiting room
Little blonde girl’s name is Gemma.
She’s got two of them in there. She’s bricking it. Says she is never doing this again.
Ben even comes near me I’ll bloody stitch myself up.
Ben her partner, not husband, floppy hair, tidy suit, his hand
Swooping down to perch on her shoulder.
The pain comes and Gemma grabs my hand
And I squeeze
And squeeze
And squeeze
And the midwife says
Actually it turns out the test is positive now.
I say –
Sorry what?
She says the test was negative, it’s come back positive now so
Yeah your baby’s coming tonight.
I say what?
We’ll give you a steroid shot now, help baby’s lungs get ready
Because
Your baby’s coming very early. You understand that,
Don’t you Effie?
Gemma grabs my hand,
Says we’ll get through this alright?
Now, did you make a birth plan?
And I barely know the girl but her hand clamped on mine it feels like
We’re fucking sisters and then
The midwife comes in says,
Okay. So.
We’ve not got a bed in special care,
So we’re going to have to transfer you.
I say – I don’t know what the fuck that means.
Ben swans in says, yeah, special care, it’s where they look after
Babies that are premature? They do fantastic work, so dedicated.
So, says the midwife, we’re going to need you to get ready and
An ambulance will take you to Abergavenny –
I’m like, where the fuck’s that?
She says, just a little drive from here,
Ben says, more like an hour and a half,
Midwife says, I think you’ll find an ambulance can do it in forty.
And I’ll be in the ambulance with you, all the way,
To take care of baby –
And Gemma stops her.
Gemma says to the midwife – you’re going?
But who’s going to look after me?
Ben says to the midwife can I have a word with you in private please?
And Ben and the midwife go out and
I can hear Ben not shouting but speaking very loud about
The risks of twin births and there’s a lot of talk about
Getting some boss doctor on the phone but he’s not,
On the phone,
And Gemma goes quiet, and
Lets go my hand and
Walks out and
The midwife comes in.
There’s very little chance of you delivering
In the next hour, so
You won’t be needing a midwife to accompany you
In any case the paramedics
Are fully trained, so –
And I know I should argue.
I know I should.
But then the pain. I can’t speak.
And there is no one to speak for me, so…
I’m on a trolley.
Blankets tucked tight over my arms.
They wheel me, down and out,
Flakes of white drift down,
Touch down on the blanket,
Sit with me for just a second, so pretty
Then they’re gone, soaking
The grey of the blanket to black.
Snow, little girl.
Snow on the day you are born.
Paramedic in the back with me, says,
Careful love, she’ll be busting out to have a look
And we want her staying in there as long as she can.
The ambulance sets off, sirens and lights
See baby girl? Clearing the way for us to get to a place
Where they’re gonna take such special care of you –
And we go speeding down the motorway,
Paramedic whistling, winking at me
As we rattle and roll round the back of the ambulance,
Then we turn off, onto a littler road and
Swinging round loads of roundabouts and
There’s some chat, between the guy in the back with me
And the driver. I say what’s going on?
He says nothing, lovely, just
Snow’s a bit heavier
Cos we’re getting up into the mountains
Just having to go
A bit more carefully, is all –
– but you can tell
You can tell
There’s something he’s not –
And we’re going slower and slower
And I say Christ mate I could walk fa
ster than this
And he smiles says, yeah we might have to
And then –
The whole fucking ambulance
Slides
Drifts sideways like nothing with wheels should
And we tip, and totter
We’ve come off the fucking road.
There’s chat on the radio and no seriously it’s fine cos
They know we’re a priority and they know where we are
And the hospital is just the other side of the mountain,
It’ll just be a few more minutes and then –
But you have to stay put little girl.
Just a little while longer and then –
But she is my daughter, is the thing.
Does what she wants when she wants and doesn’t give a toss.
And right now,
She wants to meet her mum.
She wants to see the snow and the stars.
So she comes.
She comes.
And it hurts.
It hurts so much.
Cos as she’s trying to get out
I’m trying to hold her in.
And the driver’s back with us too she says
You’re just gonna have to push
You’re just gonna have to let her
And
I hear her cry
I hear my baby girl cry –
– and then I hear her stop
And they take her
The two of them
Bent over this tiny scrap
They’ve got a mask over her face
They’re pounding on her chest
They’re pulling needles out of plastic
Trying to stick ’em in her
But she’s too small
She’s too small
They’re shouting at each other.
Shouting numbers and names of drugs
They’re doing Christ knows what, I don’t know –
I do know.
They’re fighting.
They’re fighting with everything they got
To keep her with me.
And they fight
And they fight
They fight for so long.
And then
They stop.
10
I go to hell.
I don’t know how long I go there for but, in the end
Kev comes and rescues me.
This is how he does it.
I wake up, I’m on the floor, my room
In Ordell Street. Taste of sick stale booze in my throat.
Don’t know why I’m awake. Why I’m there. Why I’m breathing. Then
Kev’s peering down at me. He pulls me
Up through the floor, says –
You know what we can do?
And I know what we can do.
Nothing.
Kev says:
We can make
The fuckers
Pay.
11
We get outselves a lawyer.
He is no win, no fee and he says that