Friday reading

Deb has surprising news for Lucy and begins adjusting to the arrival of a new person in her life.

Whew! Wow! Woohoo! You’re not going to believe this but she’s landed – she arrived a week early but none the worse for that. Or so they assured me, the midwife, the nurses, the doctor and most of all, the other women in the labour ward. It’s amazing how these people suddenly congregate around you and the baby, pitching in with their experience and reassurance and advice.

 She’s really beautiful, very sweet and not too petite. It took us a while to choose a name. I mean yes we had a list but when we saw her none of the names on it fit. All the goddesses and strong heroines went out the window and in flew Pearl. Maybe it was the sheen of her fingernails or the lustre in the tiny shell of her ear, or her pale blue eyes that seem to know us thoroughly (don’t worry I do understand that she doesn’t really see us yet but there’s some kind of recognition there for sure). Whatever it was the name was just there, as if she had conjured it herself.

  Oh, there’s no word to describe the scent on her fontanel. If there was I might have chosen that to preserve the memory of its sweet, rich cleanness, a pure scent. I’m sure you know what I mean. You must have noticed it in your two lads although now Rose says they’re charging around the place in pursuit of mischief, cute but exhausting. I can’t wait for Pearl to meet her cousins. I know they will love her. We will get over to see you very soon, when I get my breath back after Pearl’s rather hasty arrival.

It’s early morning and she’s still sleeping, thank goodness. At every rustle or murmur from the cradle beside me I start and glance over, still adjusting to her presence in my life, to her absolute dependence on me, us. Marvelling too. The road outside is quiet, the streetlamps have just shut down with a soft bang which I never heard before Pearl’s arrival. It’s funny to realise all the things that go on when we are asleep or not looking, not listening. I feel that I will be relearning the world through her. That’s an exciting thought, when I have time to think it.

Photo by Colin Kolink on Unsplash

I’m thinking about Mam a lot these days. Natural I suppose. And yes I’m sorry she isn’t here to see Pearl. You must have felt the same when Ruadhan and Donnchadh were born. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d go for Irish names. But they’re nice. Rua and Donn – definitely not Donny, so says Rose. It’s hard to imagine Mam as a grandma although she probably would have loved the role, and having new eyes to gaze at her in admiration. I know that sounds hard-hearted but being a mother doesn’t change my basic nature. I’m not all moony and milky and expansive. It’s just not my way.

There are days and this is not one of them when to be honest I find it a struggle to mind Pearl, to give her that absolute attention and care she needs and deserves. On those days I feel I should never have had her that I’m not fit to be a mother, not after the way I lived, not after the way I treated Mam. Then the guilt overwhelms me like a deluge and I’m gasping and groping around for a lifebelt. Rose is wonderful but she does have to go out to work. Sometimes, when I have the energy I take Pearl out in her buggy and we go to meet Rose for lunch, in the park if it’s nice, otherwise in a sandwich bar near her office.

Ok, so I was interrupted there – feeding time. Looking back over this page I see I didn’t finish what I wanted to say about Mam or about not-Mam. Like I say there are days I feel guilt but there are also days when I still feel the heat of anger. I’ve tried everything to drive it away, even rebirthing but it comes back at unexpected moments, more so since Pearl’s birth. It’s as if on that day she told me the truth about my father, my vision has been clouded, like when a drop of blood lands in water and holds its shape for a moment then blooms and swirls and what was clear is suddenly red.

 Denis was a good man, and I accepted him as my father, the way when you’re a child you take everything around you for granted. Looking back however, through that reddened filter, I could see how Mam set me apart from him and from you. It was in the way she’d say things like, we’re birds of a feather, girl, you and me. Or she’d comment on something I’d said or done and say that’s exactly like what I would do or say. Another time, she’d bring me over to the small round mirror in the kitchen and say, look at us, we’re the living spit, we could be sisters.

I even came home one day to find her wearing my clothes. What do you think? She cooed and twirled herself around. Maybe I’ll go to the disco with you on Saturday night. I just stood there gaping at her.

 What are you doing Mam? I shouted. They’re my clothes. For a minute I wondered was she pissed.

 I know, she laughed, But look, they fit me perfectly.

 No they don’t, I said. You look stupid. I left the room and pounded up the stairs.  

 Ah you’re no fun, she called after me. You’ve a mean streak, like your father.

 At the time I assumed she meant Denis but I didn’t think of him as mean. Quiet and cautious, yes but mean, no.    

 As for Jim, my real father, he’s a different type altogether.

Ooops, another feeding break. Pearl’s going to be a chunky lady very soon. So where was I? Oh yes the business of my father. I never did manage to call him dad. (And for the record Pearl will know her father and everything about him, really he’s her godfather, as well as being her uncle, although we’re not going for a church christening. We’ll have a naming ceremony instead. You and all the lads will be invited.)

Finding Jim took a while. First I had to get out of the so-called Guiding Light Mission. (The light may be snuffed out soon but I can’t say too much about it yet.) Life – existence, endurance – there had got worse under Pilar’s regime. We couldn’t believe that we were wishing Heather would come back but as far as we knew then she had been shipped out to some gulag, never to be seen again. It took another few weeks before Rose wrote again. In the meantime I went on with my round of chores with all the appearance of a dutiful handmaiden.

On delivery days I rushed out to Colley’s truck but before I could ask if he had anything for me he would shake his head slowly and sadly. When he went away for a fortnight’s holiday with Mrs. Colley and all the little Colleys (four kids under eight, steps and stairs, he laughed, but I’ve told her not to get up the duff again!) I thought I would go crazy, imagining my letter from Rose lying on the floor in his hall, and Rose at home waiting for my reply.

  One Sunday morning a weird thing happened. The prayer meeting was over and all the ‘visitors’ had gone into the side room to have their tea and biscuits, and chat. Myself and another girl were on tidy-up duty in the meeting room. We were stacking up the chairs before sweeping the room and returning the prayer books to their shelf, when the kind man I had seen at the board meeting came in. I turned around to see him standing near me.

Whatever way the sun was slanting through the window it lit up his face and with a bolt of recognition my heart rose and I smiled broadly at him, my eyes meeting his. He smiled at me, under his gingery moustache, the white hair on his head bright as a halo. My mouth opened to say Dad, certain for one suspended moment, without any rational thought process, that he was my real father. Yes, he had recognised me, and knew that I was looking for him, he had come to take me away.

He hesitated, raised his right hand and said, Forgot my hat.

Oh, said I, jaw dropping open to catch flies.

He was about to move away when, with his hand and the hat half-way to his head, he leaned forward and asked Do they treat you well here?

  Yes, yes, I answered in a rush. I glanced around for my handmaidenly sister but she had vanished. That is, I continued, preparing to let him have the truth until my tongue went numb and I flinched inside at the retribution that would be exacted from us by Jonah and Pilar. Everything is fine, was all I managed to say, and clamped my mouth shut.

  I’m glad to hear it, the man said. Good day. He bowed courteously before placing the hat on his head and setting it at a tilt.

  I watched him walk away and out of the meeting hall. As soon as he was gone I sank down on to one of the few chairs left in a row and leaned back trembling from head to foot, not with weeping or even disappointment but with the nervous withdrawal from the energy pent-up in the mad delusion that this man was my father. Would it be the same when I went back out in the world again? Would I keep spotting my father in this face, that stride, this gesture or fancy that I recognised the sound of a certain laugh?

  You’d better ’op to’t, my companion hissed when she saw me slacking. Peeelar’s on the way across from the tea room.

  I sprang up twisting my head from side to side, trying to reorientate myself, and picked up the chair I had been sitting on.  

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