And Baby Makes Two - Dyan Sheldon [65]
And that was me, walking through the dark on New Year’s Eve with my baby in my arms and about a trillion things in my mind all at once. All the lies Les had told me. All the half-truths. Even all the truths. Nothing was how I thought it was. And nothing was going to be how I thought it would be. I could see that now. I could see it really clearly. Like I should’ve seen it all along.
It was like I’d been sleeping for about a hundred years, and now I’d woken up. But it wasn’t the Prince’s kiss that woke me. It was the toe of his boot in my face.
Les had never really been interested in me. Not really interested. Not like I was in him. He probably had another girlfriend. Maybe more than one. That was why he was always so busy. I wondered who he really went to Greece with. Or maybe he went to Greece like he went to Norwich. Maybe he’d been in London all the time. All the time I was sitting in the house on my own. All the time I was in labour. All the time.
I made up our love. I made up our happiness. I made up our future and our present. But of all the things I made up maybe the worst thing was that I made up Les. He wasn’t independent. He wasn’t going to be a big success. He wasn’t even very nice really. He was just OK. He was an OK bloke with a boring job he pretended was important who still lived with his mum. For all I knew, she did pick out his clothes. Maybe he didn’t even have good dress sense.
I kept hearing Shanee say, You’re only young once… You’re only young once…
Yeah, I thought. And I’d thrown it away. I’d never done anything in my whole life that wasn’t a mistake.
I was only young once and now I was old. Five years from now, I’d still be exactly where I was. I’d be scrimping for this and saving for that. I’d be shopping in Kwik Save and charity shops. I wouldn’t go to art school like Shanee, or for weekends in the country with my friends. I’d never have my dream house or my dream family. Because that was all they were. Just dreams. My real house was the flat I’d lived in since I was little. My real family was Shinola.
We passed Shanee’s on the way up the road. You could hear the music all the way down at the corner. The music and the laughter and the shouting of teenagers who’d had a few drinks and were having a good time. And for a second I could actually see myself in there with them. Not like I was earlier in the evening, but like I should’ve been. Like who I used to be.
Shinola was crying by the time we got to the flat. I turned the telly on loud so I’d hear another voice and then I got Shinola ready for bed. I did it like I was a robot. Change nappy … heat bottle … put on pyjamas…
She took her bottle all right, but she didn’t want to be put in her cot. Because I’d been holding her so much.
“Tough titties,” I told her. And I slammed the bedroom door behind me.
I could still hear her in the living-room. I turned the telly up even louder and put on the stereo, but I couldn’t drown her out. Mrs Mugurdy started doing her dance on my ceiling. I didn’t want a fight with Mrs Mugurdy just then. I turned everything down and went back to the bedroom.
I had the hall light on, so I could see her even though the room was dark. I looked down on Shinola, wide-awake and screaming, but what I saw was Les’s mother, blocking the entrance to Number Seventy-one and smiling like I was a beggar or something.
She didn’t know about me even vaguely. It never occurred to her that I was Les’s girlfriend. It never occurred to her that I was holding her grandchild in my arms.
And that’s when I finally started to cry.
It was like some giant was shaking me, I was sobbing so much.
What did my life amount to? Bloody nothing, that’s what. I had a ratty old council flat that I’d end up dying in, and a baby named after a shoe polish. And it wasn’t even British shoe polish.
Shinola cried and I cried. I don’t know for how long. And all I wanted was