Authors: Calvin Wade
ARTHUR MOYES – April 1992
I’d heard rumours about Jason’s parents from Nicky. Unpleasant rumours. Admittedly, I didn’t take much notice. When I was a teenager, if my actions had resulted in a sixteen year old girl becoming pregnant, I am sure my mother would have called that sixteen year old girl more than a few unpleasant names. I imagined with an unplanned pregnancy, that it was natural for a ‘blame game’ to be played out, I understood that. I blamed Jason McLaren for taking advantage of my daughter, Mr.& Mrs.McLaren no doubt blamed Nicky for enticing him. We protect our own, that’s human nature and when we fail to protect our own, we look for a scapegoat. Irrespective of where the blame should be distributed, I thought we all needed to act like adults, so I suggested to Nicky that we should invite Jason and his parents around to discuss how things should move forward. Nicky wasn’t enamoured by this idea, but when prompted could not come up with an alternative solution herself, so eventually reluctantly agreed.
So, at five thirty, one Saturday afternoon, Jason and his parents, Derrick and Margery were sat on my settee in the lounge, looking pained and uncomfortable, whilst Nicky and I sat on the two chairs, trying at the very least to be amiable hosts. The McLaren’s visit had been arranged for late in the afternoon, so Derrick could pay his fortnightly visit to the inappropriately named Victory Park, home of Chorley Football Club. They had lost again which may have contributed to his unfriendly mood. I hoped tea and biscuits may brighten his spirits a little. A teapot and five china cups and saucers were on the coffee table in front of them, with a selection of Club biscuits on a large china plate. I asked Nicky to do the honours and once everyone had a biscuit and a drink and the initial pleasantries were out the way, it was time to deal with the matter in utero.
“Right then, you obviously all know why I invited you around this afternoon, I wanted to discuss....”
“...the unfortunate mess our children have made,” Mrs.McLaren interjected abruptly.
I had no intention of referring to the matter as an ‘unfortunate mess’. I was about to refer to it as ‘my daughter’s pregnancy’. I hadn’t taken to Mrs.McLaren’s appearance, she wore rather too much make-up and jewellery, and in my mind, no part of a lady’s breasts should be on display to all eyes, irrespective of how ample those breasts may be. This is particularly true when a lady is beyond a certain age, which Mrs.McLaren certainly was. I wish her son had made a mess, but unfortunately the boy had been rather accurate.
“Mrs.McLaren...”
“Please, call me Margery.”
“Mrs.McLaren,” I continued, ignoring the request to address her in an informal manner, “I agree our children have created a situation that has put us all in an unfortunate position, but what they have also done is create a child, now what...”
“Not yet, they haven’t,” Mr.McLaren pointed out, his enormous beer gut made me think back a few years to the Saturday afternoon wrestling on ‘World of Sport’.
“I beg your pardon.”
“They haven’t created a child as yet, Arthur. At this stage all they’ve created is a cluster of cells.”
“A baby, Mr.McLaren, they have created a baby.”
“Arthur,” Mrs.McLaren joined in, “at this stage, I have to agree with my husband. It is not a child or a baby or anything right now. The thing inside your daughter is just a tiny, tiny collection of cells, smaller than a pea. Now, don’t get me wrong, if we don’t act quickly this thing will become a baby, we know that, don’t we Derrick, but that’s why we are here, isn’t it, to act quickly.”
It was at this very point, with Mrs.McLaren referring to my grandchild as a ‘thing’, that I came to the conclusion that Nicky’s unpleasant rumours were not rumours at all, they were facts. Mr.&Mrs.McLaren, to put it mildly, were not nice people. Not nice at all. I was very tempted to sarcastically congratulate them on their understanding of biology, but I bit my lip.
“The reason I invited you both here, along with your son, Mrs.McLaren, was to discuss what is best for Nicky and her baby.”
“And we’re guessing, Arthur, given it takes two to tango, that you are looking for us to stump up half the money for the abortion,” Mr.McLaren didn’t even have the decency to swallow his mouthful of Club Fruit before saying this. I think he may even have inadvertently spat out a raisin. Nicky re-adjusted her bottom on her chair, both his eating habits and his views on her pregnancy were obviously making her feel uncomfortable.
“Who mentioned an abortion?” I queried.
“I wasn’t being funny, Arthur,” Mr.McLaren went on, “we’re happy to pay half. We understand it’s as much Jason’s fault as it is Nicky’s.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mrs.McLaren argued, “we didn’t say it was as much Jason’s fault, did we Derrick? When we discussed it, what we said was that Jason was partly to blame. Not equally to blame. Partly to blame. Nevertheless, Derrick is right, we are more than happy to give you half.”
Nicky, who until this point had hardly said a word, was not prepared to accept the lion’s share of Mr & Mrs.McLaren’s blame.
“What do you mean, Margery?”
“Nicky, love, I was once a girl of your age. I was an attractive girl, like you. Now us girls know what boys are like, don’t we? They are only after one thing. It’s in their design to want to screw whatever they can get their hands on, but it’s up to us girls to be smart, isn’t it? It’s up to us girls not to let them have their way or, if we do, to be clever about when in the month we let things happen. I was always very good at that.”
Nicky was too polite to be argumentative or rude to Mrs.McLaren.
“I thought it was a safe time. My periods are irregular.”
Mrs.McLaren smiled smugly.
“Well, you see that illustrates my point perfectly, doesn’t it? You knew your periods were irregular. Did Jason know? Of course he didn’t, he’s a boy. So, knowing your periods were irregular, a sensible girl would have made sure she was on the pill or made sure her boyfriend was wearing protection. This is why, Nicky, that it is partly Jason’s fault, but not equally his fault.”
Mrs.McLaren was almost Thatcherite in her delivery.
“Margery, Jason was wearing a condom.” Nicky stated firmly.
“He was?”
“Yes, it came off.”
Mrs.McLaren immediately became flustered. She began playing with her pearl necklace.
“Well, you should have made him stop!”
“He didn’t tell me it had come off until after he had finished. I was worried, we both were, but I did think we would be OK because of the timing. Obviously, I was wrong. I don’t just jump into bed with people you know, Margery. I love Jason. Love him very much.”
With Mrs.McLaren a little lost for words after hearing about her son’s condom fiasco, Mr.McLaren took up the baton. Thankfully, he had now eaten his Club Fruit, as well as a couple of Club Oranges.
“Look Nicky, you and our Jason may think you are grown up, because you’re at an age when you start doing grown up things, drinking and smoking and the likes, but really you’re still kids yourselves. You’re both only sixteen years old. Not legally old enough to drink or smoke but according to law, somehow considered old enough to have sex. You and our Jason have made a mistake and to be honest, I don’t really give two hoots about whose mistake it was, we just need to act now, to stop a silly little mistake by two kids becoming a major mistake with lifelong consequences.”
“Who mentioned an abortion?” I asked again.
“Arthur, it’s common sense!” Mr.McLaren spoke with real assertiveness, it could have almost been mistaken for a bullying tone.
“They’re kids!” he continued, “They don’t want to be changing nappies and pushing prams at their age. They are barely out of nappies themselves. They’re bright kids, Arthur, they have their whole future ahead of them. They don’t want to ruin it all by having a child.”
“Have you asked them?”
“I’ve asked Jason.”
“Have you asked Nicky?”
“Arthur, I don’t need to ask her. Even if she thinks she can handle it all, the truth of the matter, when it comes down to it, will be that she can’t. If Nicky has this thing, she will always regret it. Her future will be ruined. An abortion is best for them both.”
The reference to ‘this thing’ again, only served to antagonise me further.
“And for the baby? It’s best for the bay, is it, if it is pulled out of Nicky’s womb and murdered?”
Mrs. McLaren was back in the game.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Arthur” she said haughtily, “it’s a cluster of cells, not a full term baby.”
“There is a baby alive inside my daughter.”
“Are you trying to brainwash the child into going through with this?” Mrs.McLaren asked.
“I am doing nothing of the sort, Mrs.McLaren. Ultimately, the decision lies with Nicky. Not you or I, just Nicky.”
“And Jason” Mr.McLaren added.
“No,” I pointed out, “just Nicky.”
Nicky didn’t agree.
“Dad, it isn’t just down to me. It is down to Jason too. We love each other. We won’t be forced into having the baby by you and we won’t be forced into having an abortion by Margery and Derrick. We will do what’s right for us and our baby, Dad.”
As Nicky uttered the words, ‘our baby’, I looked across at Mr.McLaren and I swear to God that I saw him flinch. Flinch at the mere mention of the word ‘baby’. Nicky would not allow me to brainwash her, nor would I have ever tried to, but that lad, who barely managed ‘Hello’, ‘Thank you’ and later ‘Goodbye’ throughout the course of their visit, had been brainwashed in good style by Mr.&Mrs.McLaren. Jason wanted to kill his own offspring, I was sure of it and somehow, I knew, I had to work out a way to stop him.
NICKY – June 1992
I was thirteen weeks pregnant, just coming out of the constant nausea stage. For a couple of months, if Dad and I ventured out anywhere in the car, half the time I would make him pull over so I could throw up. That nauseous stage was starting to ease, but my physical imbalance was now being replaced by a mental one. Jason and I had created an awful mess by conceiving a child, but the solution my father wanted and the solution Jason’s parents wanted were diametrically opposite. Dad wanted me to have the baby, he pretended he would support me either way, but abortion did not sit well with his religious beliefs. The McLarens though, were certain abortion was the best way to move on.
My Dad, God love him, wanted to find a way of persuading Jason that having a child at sixteen years old was a marvellous idea! Dad had arranged a meeting with the McLaren family at our house, which passed with Dad concluding Jason’s parents were dead against the idea of a grandchild. He also concluded that Jason was only marginally opposed to becoming a Dad and was more open to a change of heart. Dad latched on to this and wanted Jason to come to our house more often. Admittedly, I was open to this idea too, I was becoming increasingly sure that I wanted to keep the baby and it was easier having Jason around at our house, where Dad would treat him like an old friend, than me going to Jason’s, where his Mum and Dad would treat me like a scarlet woman. Bread was one of the most popular sitcoms of that era and I remember saying to Jason that his Mum and Dad treated me like ‘Lilo Lill’. Mrs.McLaren never uttered the immortal words, ‘she is a tart’ to my face, but I am sure it was uttered many times behind my back!
One evening, Jason was around at ours for tea and the three of us were sat around our kitchen table. Dad had treated us to a Viennetta, which at the time, was really pushing the boat out. Each time Jason visited, Dad would drop little nuggets of wisdom into the conversation to work on Jason’s mindset. This particular evening, he was in great form.
“What are we wat
ching on TV tonight then?” Dad asked.
With only having one television, we tended to put it to a vote.
“I’m not bothered,” Jason replied, “I’ll watch anything.”
“The Bill?” Dad suggested.
“No, I hate The Bill,” I moaned.
“Well, get the Radio Times then Nicky and see what’s on BBC or get Ceefax up.”
“I’ll get the Radio Times. Please may I leave the table?”
“Of course.”
Dad had always taught me to ask whether I could leave the table. As far as I remember, it was commonplace for children to ask their parents back in the eighties. I doubt it is commonplace now. Most families don’t even eat at a table together. I left the table and went to look for the Radio Times in the magazine rack in the lounge. I deliberately left the doors open so that I could still hear the conversation. I didn’t trust Dad around Jason.
“Do you ever watch documentaries, Jason?”
“Sometimes.”
“What types?”
“I dunno...sports ones mainly.”
“So you didn’t see the one on slavery, on BBC2, the other night?”
“No.”
Now I have to say, at this point, that I subsequently checked old editions of the Radio Times and I don’t believe there was a programme on about slavery that week or
the week before. Dad, the manipulative sod, was just directing the conversation down a route that formed part of his pregnancy plan!
“It was excellent, Jason. Do you know much about slavery in America?”
“I know white people had black slaves and the American Civil War had something to do with that, but not much else, no.”
“You should read up on it then. It’s fascinating stuff. Fascinating but disgraceful that one set of human beings could treat another set of human beings like that, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“You should really read up on it, Jason. In the 1850s, there was a very famous case, where the US Supreme Court voted, by a huge majority, seven to two I think, that black people should not be considered to be
legal people in their own right. They were just the property of their owner.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“What that meant was, that if you, as a white man, owned a black man or a black woman, you could sell them or even kill them and that was permissible within the boundaries of American law. A whole group of living people had no rights just because of the colour of their skin. Awful that, isn’t it?”
“Terrible.”
“More recently in America, have you heard about the Roe versus Wade case in the 1970s?”
“No.”
I had heard of Roe versus Wade, we’d been taught about it in American History. Jason wasn’t studying History for GCSE so he would not have known. I knew it was to do with American abortion law. The crafty sod was bringing up my pregnancy again!
“Dad, stop it!” I shouted through. I was on my hands and knees looking for the Radio Times otherwise I’d have gone back into the kitchen and given him a telling off face to face.
“Stop what, love?”
“I know what you’re doing, Dad. Roe versus Wade was about unborn babies not being treated as le
gal entities in their own right. They were classed as the property of their mother, at least until they could survive on their own in the final trimester. I know exactly what you’re doing, Dad!”
“What?”
“You were about to ask Jason if it was wrong to discriminate against black people in the nineteenth century because of their skin, is it not wrong in the twentieth century to discriminate against unborn babies, just because they are not yet old enough to make decisions for themselves?”
Jason told me Dad’s face broke out into a wide grin.
“She’s smart your girlfriend, isn’t she?”
“Very.”
“The point is, Jason....”
“Dad,” I warned, “Jason doesn’t want to hear the point.”
“No, go on Mr.Moyes, make your point.”
“As a Christian, I just think it was totally wrong for white people to have the legal power to kill black people a century or so ago, but it is also wrong for parents to be given the legal right to kill their healthy children now. Whether you are a religious person or a scientific person, you have to agree, once the sperm and the egg come
together, a fertilised cell called the zygote is created and from that moment forward, a new individual is formed. Do you think it should be legal to kill that individual? I don’t.”
One of the grievances that Mr.&Mrs.McLaren had with my pregnancy was that Jason may not get the opportunity to fully utilise his talents. He was, and still is, a clever lad. I didn’t doubt his ability, even at sixteen, to come back with a measured response. He did not let me down.
“Mr.Moyes, I am not a Christian. I am not religious at all. Personally, I think religions were for semi-intelligent people two thousand years ago, who were trying to discover the meaning of life. Science has subsequently taught us a lot of what’s within the pages of the Bible cannot possibly be true.”
“Like what?”
“Jesus healed many men possessed with demons.”
“That’s just historical interpretation, Jason. The people could have been mentally or physically ill.”
“Mr.Moyes, the point is, I prefer science to blind faith. Going back to what I was saying...”
“That’s the problem with kids these nowadays, you don’t have faith in anything. Not in God, not in yourselves, not in anything.”
“Dad, let Jason speak,” I shouted through again, before picking myself up off the floor and returning to the kitchen clutching the Radio Times.
“The thing is, Mr.Moyes, despite not being religious, I do value life. I really wish Nicky wasn’t pregnant at this stage in our lives, but now that she is, I understand that there is a living child inside her body, not just a collection of cells as my Mum and Dad made out, our living child. It would be easier for me if Nicky did not have the
baby, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want her to have it. I am more than happy to support Nicky in any way I can if she has the baby, but if she decides not to have it, Mr.Moyes, I am not going to be telling her that she killed our child either.”
“Neither am I.”
“Good, you can stop dropping hints now then!”
“Jason, I have no idea what you are talking about! Come on Nicky, love, Jason and I want to know what’s on BBC!”
I went over to Jason and squeezed his hand to acknowledge I appreciated everything he had just said, before opening up the Radio Times on the kitchen table.
“There’s a documentary on BBC1 about someone with Tourettes syndrome, whatever that is and on BBC2, there’s ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’.”
“Don’t fancy either of them,” Dad moaned.
“Dad, look, you watch ‘The Bill’ and we’ll go and listen to some records in my room.”
Gone where the days that taking Jason up to my room would create concerns about sex and its consequences.
“OK, thanks love.”
Jason stood up from the table.
“Thanks for tea, Mr.Moyes. Nicky and I will come down and do the dishes later.”
“No problem, Jason. Call me, Arthur. You’ve made an old man very happy today, Jason.”
“Get away with you, Dad! You’re not that old!”
“Old enough to be a grandfather, love! I’m old enough to be a grandfather!”