Being at home after the hospital was worse than going back to school after the summer holidays; a big disappointment. The Spiggs gave me a couple of days to recover, but after that she made it pretty clear that she expected me to do everything myself.
“I’m not your private nurse, Lana,” she informed me. “The party’s over. Time to join the real world.”
I had no one to talk to like I did on the ward. I couldn’t talk to her and all my friends were still away. There was no one else around except Mrs Mugurdy. For the first time in my life I was relieved when August finally staggered to an end.
Shanee came over as soon as she got back from Ireland. She brought Shinola some socks, a T-shirt that said “I’m a Full-time Job”, and a rubber ducky. She didn’t bring anything for me.
“So how’s it going?” asked Shanee.
She was standing behind me, watching me change Shinola.
I dodged a small foot that was trying to put out my front teeth.
“It’s brilliant,” I said. “It really is what life is all about.” I pulled Shinola’s fist off the nappy tape and sealed her up. “I can’t believe there was ever a time when I didn’t have her.” Which was true in more ways than one; I could hardly go to the toilet without taking her with me.
Shinola went red and rigid at the same time.
“Maybe you did it up too tight,” Shanee suggested.
Since it was the first time I’d seen her since Shinola was born, I didn’t snap at her the way I would have snapped at Hilary Spiggs.
“It’s not too tight,” I said, watching the greeny-brown mess that was baby diarrhoea creep out on to her thighs. “She’s got the splatters.”
Shanee told me all about her holiday while I put another nappy on Shinola. I was too busy clucking and cooing over Shinola to really listen.
Shanee followed me into the kitchen when I went to feed Shinola.
She was still banging on about her holiday and some boy she met who took her for a ride on his motorcycle.
“Wow,” I said, juggling Shinola and clucking and cooing. “That sounds cool.”
“So,” said Shanee. “How’s Les?”
I couldn’t tell her I hadn’t seen Les yet – or even talked to him. I didn’t want her to start telling me she told me so or feeling sorry for me.
I swung Shinola so Shanee could get a full view of her. “You should’ve seen her when she was just born,” I said. “She looked like a frog.”
“She still looks a bit like a frog,” said Shanee.
When Gerri rang I told her that motherhood was brilliant, too.
“You’ve got to come over and see her,” I said. “She’s amazing.”
Gerri started going on about some boy she’d met at some party.
“It’s incredible how fast they grow,” I said. “I swear she changes every day.”
“I thought it was you who did the changing,” said Gerri.
Amie wanted to know about my figure. “Are you doing exercises?” she asked. “Is your stomach still floppy?”
“Wait till you see her,” I said. “Yesterday she smiled at me. I know everybody says it’s just gas, but she really smiled.”
“So what else have you been doing?” asked Amie.
“I’ve got to go, Amie. Shinola’s crying.”
“I’m back,” said Les. “I’m sorry I didn’t ring sooner. I’ve been busy.”
I was so relieved he’d phoned when the Spiggs wasn’t home that I didn’t even mind that it had taken him a week to get round to it.
“Me, too,” I said.
Les laughed. “What have you been doing, shopping?”
I laughed, too. “No,” I said. “I had the baby. Our baby.”
Les said, “What?”
“The baby,” I repeated. “I had it. That’s what happens after you’ve been pregnant for nine months,” I explained. “You give birth.”
“Geez,” said Les.
“It’s a girl,” I said, since he didn’t ask. “I called her Shinola.”
“Shinola?”
“Yeah. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, it’s nice.” Les cleared his throat. “What is it, African or something?”
I said I didn’t think so. I said it meant sunny morning in Indian or something like that.
“That’s great,” said Les. “That’s really great.” I could hear his voice change gear. “I’ll ring you later, Lana. I’ve got to go.”
Since I was always tired, I fell asleep at every chance I got, usually in front of the telly. And since Les still hadn’t come round, I dreamt about him a lot.
I was dreaming that Les took me and Shinola to Disneyland Paris.
When Charley took me and Hilary to Disney World we stayed with his sister who lives in Florida, but Les got us a room in one of the hotels at the park. Our room was pink and had a white canopy bed and a crystal chandelier. It was the Cinderella suite. Les had booked it specially. There was a little room off the main bedroom for Shinola. It had one of those cradles that rock back and forth like you see in fairy stories, all white net and ruffles and little pink bows.
Shinola was sleeping in her little room and Les and I were getting ready for supper. There was a maid who’d look after Shinola while we went downstairs to eat so we didn’t have to stay in our room. After dinner we were going to the disco.
The hotel radio station was playing songs from great Disney classics while I got into my party gear. “Someday My Prince Will Come” was on.
I zipped up my dress. It was a red dress with a tight bodice and spaghetti straps and a slightly flared skirt. I had red heels to match. I sat down at the white and gold dressing-table to put on my make-up. It was just like the dressing-table I’d always wanted (but she would never let me have), with lights around the mirror. Les came up behind me. He started nuzzling my neck and telling me how gorgeous I looked. I pretended I didn’t want him messing up my hair and stuff, but really I couldn’t have cared less.
“Lana…” whispered Les. “Lana … Lana … Lana…”
He was being too rough. I pushed him off.
“Lana … Lana … Lana…”
“Not now.” I pushed him off again. “I have to get ready.”
“Lana … Lana … Lana…” He wasn’t nuzzling me any more. He was shaking me hard.
I pulled away from him. “Get dressed,” I said. “You’ve got to get dressed, too.”
“Not at three in the morning,” said Les.
I opened my eyes. I’d fallen asleep in front of the telly again. But even though I was still half-asleep and blinded I knew it wasn’t Les’s come-to-bed eyes that were staring down at me. I shut my own tight.
“Lana, wake up.”
I risked another look. Hilary was standing over me with no make-up on and her hair in curlers like some monster of the night. I wanted to hit her.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? Can’t you hear Shinola? She’s been crying for ten minutes.”
Then why didn’t she look after her, for God’s sake? I pulled a cushion over my head. “So give her a bottle.”
She threw the cushion on to the floor. “I’m not her mother. She needs you, Lana. Now.”
There was nothing for it, she was going to get me up if she had to drag me off the couch. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.
“I can’t have my sleep disturbed like this every night,” she complained. “I’ve got to go to work.”
She’d taken a week off after I got home from hospital, to look after me and Shinola, and that was hell. But this was worse. Before she complained all the time, but at least she got up with Shinola in the night once in a while and made a few bottles. Now all she did was complain.
“All right … all right…” I got to my feet and staggered into the kitchen.
“Pick Shinola up before you heat the bottle,” she nagged. “She’s upset. She needs to be comforted.”
“I’ll comfort her once I’ve done this,” I said, though at that moment I’d sooner have stuffed her down the loo. “I’ve only got two hands.”
There were three bottles ready in the fridge, thank God. I wasn’t up to any major preparation. Not with the Curse of Kilburn shrieking at me.
“Heat the water first,” ordered my mother. “You don’t want it hot, you just want it warmed.”
I put a bottle in a cold pan of water and turned on the burner. “I know how hot to make it,” I informed her. “I have done this before.”
She didn’t say anything. I glanced over my shoulder to see why. You know, to see if she was putting a curse on me or something and couldn’t be bothered to answer. She was gone.
Though not for long.
She came back before I had time to miss her, Shinola squirming in her arms.
“Look at her!” she said accusingly. “She’s almost blue.”
She was closer to purple than blue, if you asked me.
“And that’s my fault?” I screamed back. “Even though I didn’t hear her?”
Some things never changed. I still got blamed for everything, but now she had more things to blame me for.
“You should’ve heard her,” snarled my mother. “Either you bring her cot into the living-room, or you take the telly into your room.”
But when she talked to Shinola she was as sweet as pie. “There … there…” she crooned. “Your bottle will be ready in a minute. There … there … there…”
I took Shinola out of her arms. “She’ll puke if you keep jiggling her like that.”
“No, she won’t,” said my mother. “She has nothing in her to puke.”
It was another week before Les could come over – because of work and having to catch up after his holiday and everything. He had a surprise for me. “I can’t wait to see your face when you see it,” said Les.
It’d been so long since anyone had given me anything that wasn’t really for Shinola that I instantly forgave him for not coming round sooner.
I spent the whole day getting ready.
Les was a very neat person. I didn’t want him to think that motherhood had made me sloppy, so I tidied the flat up first. It took ages because every time I’d get stuck into the washing-up or something, Shinola would start screaming.
Then I gave her a bath and changed her so she wouldn’t smell like something that’d gone off. As soon as I snapped the last snap on her rompers, she did the biggest dump anyone smaller than an elephant could possibly do. I had to start all over again.
I hadn’t even finished doing my make-up when the doorbell rang.
Shinola was whingeing, of course, so I scooped her up and raced to the door.
Les looked surprised. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
I smiled down at her. “Say hello to your father.” I waved her little hand at him. It was wet with drool.
Les had half a smile on his face. Not a small smile, but half a smile, as if only one half of his mouth could actually move. He kind of shuffled from one foot to the other, his eyes on Shinola. I’d been hoping he’d be choked with emotion the first time he saw her, but he wasn’t, unless the emotion was nervousness.
“She’s sweet,” said Les. “She looks like you.”
I pretended to study Shinola’s face as though I’d never looked at it before, when really it was just about all I did look at any more.
“You think so? I think she’s got your nose.”
Les laughed. “She hasn’t got anybody’s nose. She’s got her own.”
He stood there, nodding and grinning, his eyes on Shinola as if he thought she was a letter-bomb.
“So,” I said. “Do you want some tea? Tell me all about your holiday.”
Les threw himself on to the sofa beside a box of disposable nappies. The sofa honked. Startled, he reached behind him and removed a blue rubber duck.
“I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when she can walk,” I said. “Her stuff gets everywhere as it is.”
Les’s nose twitched. “She hasn’t done something, has she? It smells funny in here.”
“Of course not.” There was no way I was going to start changing nappies then. It was the first time we’d been together in weeks. I wanted Les to think of me as his sex goddess, not the girl with the poo-smeared cotton ball in her hand. “Why don’t I put the kettle on while you tell me about your holiday?”
Les leaned back with a sigh. “Don’t let me bang on too long,” he said. “I’m becoming a bit of a Greece bore.” He laughed. “You’re lucky I forgot my snaps.”
Shinola’d only been whimpering, you know, so we wouldn’t forget she was there. But as soon as Les started to talk about his holiday, she started to cry for real.
“Shhh, shhh…” I whispered. “Daddy’s trying to tell us something.”
“It was the most brilliant time I’ve ever had,” Les was saying. He raised his voice to be heard over Shinola. “I went swimming every day. And I went fishing a couple of times and even scuba-diving. I really—”
I turned from the sink, holding the baby with one hand and the kettle with the other. “What?” I shouted. “Swimming, fishing and what?”
“Scuba-diving!” roared Les. “I really liked the scuba-diving. But it’s not as easy as you think.”
I’d never thought about scuba-diving at all and I wasn’t about to start just then. Les yammered on about scuba-diving and all the things you have to learn so you don’t kill yourself or anything, but there was no way I could really hear him. Not with trying to get the tea things out and Shinola shrieking in my ear. I didn’t want to interrupt him every three words to say “What?” Plus, I didn’t really care. He might as well have been talking about star surfing, it seemed so foreign and far away.
I came back into the living-room while he was going on about the fishing. He hadn’t caught anything.
“What a shame,” I said. “Still, you got a good tan.”
Les beamed. “And no sunburn. Usually I burn badly, but this time my nose didn’t even peel.”
I moved the nappies and put Shinola on the sofa beside him to bond. She’d settled down a bit once the tea was made, but as soon as she hit the couch she started up again.
Les jumped to his feet. “Christ!” He slapped his forehead. “Your surprise! How could I forget?”
It was a T-shirt that said “Winner of the Wet T-shirt Competition, Sunnytime Holidays” and then something in what I reckoned must be Greek. At least it was Greek to me.
“Try it on,” shouted Les.
“But the tea—”
He winked. “The tea can wait.” He winked again. “You have to wear it without a bra.”
I had to go in the kitchen to take my bra off because people could see into the living-room from the street. Les came after me.
I stuck out my chest. “How does it look?”
Les grinned. “It looks better when it’s wet, but it looks pretty good.”
I looked down. “They’re not so big any more.”
“They’re big enough for me,” said Les.
The way he said it made me feel all tingly.
Les took a step towards me.
I took a step towards him.
Our lips touched.
Shinola really started to scream.
Les jumped back as though my mouth was hot.
“Christ,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going. I can’t be late. Not after being on holiday.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. “But we haven’t had our tea! You must have time for tea.”
Les shook his head. “I really have to go.” He touched my breast. “And anyway, it’s really hard to concentrate with her screaming like that.”
I followed him to the front door.
“When am I going to see you again?”
“Soon. I’ll drop by.”
“Maybe we could have lunch one day.”
“Yeah,” said Les. “That’d be great. I’ll ring you, OK?”
I said, “OK.”
Shinola shrieked. If she was a car alarm someone would’ve smashed the windscreen by now.
Shinola was still screaming when the doctor’s receptionist from hell came home.
“What on earth have you been doing to this baby?” she demanded.
She grabbed her out of my arms. As per usual, she was all sweet and soft and coocoocoo with Shinola. But not with me.
“What were you doing to let her get in this state?” she demanded. She looked me up and down. “Putting on make-up?”
She said it like it was a crime or something.
“No,” I said. “I put it on before. Anyway, the book says it’s all right to let her cry.”
She rocked Shinola back and forth in her arms.
“Maybe you should get another book,” said my mother.
I was beginning to think they’d forgotten about me, but Shanee, Gerri and Amie finally found some time in their busy lives to pay me a visit.
I was really warming to my story. I’d had all the other mothers in the maternity ward and the nurses and everyone to tell about my experience, but this was the first time I’d told the story of Shinola’s birth to any of my friends. It was having a powerful effect.
“Oh, my God…” screeched Gerri. “Weren’t you terrified?”
“I can’t believe I wasn’t here when you needed me,” said Shanee. “Poor Lana.”
Amie held up her hands. “Please,” she begged, “I’ve heard enough. I’m never having children unless I can have a Caesarean.”
“That hurts too,” said Shanee.
“It can’t be as bad as what Lana went through,” said Amie. She shuddered. “I can’t even think of it without feeling sick.”
I laughed. I was enjoying myself. I felt really grown up, telling them all about giving birth and stuff. At last I knew something none of them knew.
“It wasn’t all that bad, really,” I said. “I mean, you know you’re not dying or anything. And, besides, you forget about it as soon as you see your baby.”
“Speaking of your baby, when do we see her?” asked Gerri.
I glanced at the clock. Babies are meant to follow a routine – sleep, eat, get changed, go back to sleep – but Shinola liked to leave out as much of the sleep bit as she could. She usually finally passed out round about the time she should’ve been waking up again.
“I put her to bed just before you came. She won’t be up for at least an hour.”
“We don’t have that long,” said Shanee. “I’ve got to get back to mind the brats.”
“Can’t we just take a peek?” asked Gerri.
I’d’ve preferred to have time to dress Shinola up in one of her cute little dresses, you know, so she looked less froggy. On the other hand, I did want to show her off.
“All right,” I said. “But you have to be quiet.”
We tiptoed into the bedroom and all stood round Shinola’s cot. She looked really sweet in her yellow sleep bag.
“What’s wrong with her skin?” asked Gerri.
“Nothing,” I whispered. “All babies look like that.”
“Do they all have hair like that, too?” asked Amie. “And flaky eyebrows?”
“For God’s sake!” I hissed at her. “She’s only just been born. Give her a chance.”
“So does she look like Les?” asked Amie.
“I think she looks like Lana,” said Shanee.
“She looks like Les,” I assured them. “Except she’s not so tall.”
“What did he say when he saw her?” asked Gerri.
It was always Gerri with the big mouth.
“He was delirious.” Which I was sure he would be. Eventually. “He came over as soon as he got back from Manchester.”
I didn’t want them thinking Les wasn’t so interested in me, so I’d told them he’d been sent up to Manchester with his job. It sounded better than him going on holiday to Greece.
“Where was your mum?” asked Gerri. “Don’t tell me they’ve finally met!”
I gave her a look. “Not likely. She still doesn’t know about him.” I gave her another look. “And she’s not going to. Not yet.”
“That’s going to make conjugal visits a little dodgy, isn’t it?” asked Gerri.
“Come on.” I grabbed hold of her and Amie and tugged. “Let’s go back to the living-room. We’re going to wake her up.”
They’d all been oohing and aahing right over the cot, and we’d had a whole conversation right over her head, but it was the really soft shutting of the bedroom door that woke her. Click went the door and the next sound was Shinola Spiggs going off like a car alarm.
“Geez,” said Gerri. “Is there a pin in her or something?”
I rolled my eyes. “Pampers don’t have pins. She must’ve heard the door and it woke her up.”
“Does she always scream like that?” asked Amie.
“Do you want me to get her?” asked Shanee.
“She’ll be all right. I’ll put on some music, it’ll help her sleep.”
I put on an Oasis CD and made us all some tea.
Gerri started telling me about her new boyfriend. He was a bicycle courier and had a terrific body. Plus, he was gorgeous. Plus, he made good money.
Shinola kept crying, but the Gallaghers’ whining was pretty good at blocking her out. You could only just hear her under the music. Shanee glanced towards the hallway a few times, but I pretended I thought Shinola had gone back to sleep and Shanee didn’t say anything.
I started really enjoying myself again. Only now I didn’t feel grown up, like when I talked about having Shinola. I just felt like me.
Amie had a part-time job in one of the pizza places on the high street. The boss was a miserable old git, but the tips weren’t bad.
Shinola kept crying.
Shanee stood up suddenly. “I think we’d better get going.” She looked towards the hall.
“You don’t have to go so soon,” I said. I grabbed the pot from the table. “Why don’t I make us all more tea?”
Gerri and Amie both looked at Shanee.
“I’ve got stuff to do, too,” said Gerri.
Amie winked. “And I’m expecting an important call.”
That meant a boy.
I had to stop myself from shoving her back in her seat. “He’ll call back,” I insisted. “Just have another cup of tea.”
“Next time,” said Gerri.
Amie nodded. “Yeah, next time, Lana.”
“Why don’t you go and get the baby,” said Shanee. “We can let ourselves out.”
I watched the three of them leave the house from the front window. They didn’t even look back to wave goodbye. They were laughing and talking as though they couldn’t hear Shinola from the road. I knew that they could from the times that I’d left her to ring Les from the phone box so Hilary wouldn’t see the number on the phone bill. You could hear her from the high street.
I watched them all go off towards Shanee’s and I wondered if there would ever be a next time. And then, instead of going to Shinola, I burst into tears myself.