‘Picture yourselves in five years time.’ The counsellor had smiled lightly. ‘Think of three words to describe your marriage as it might be then.’
Adam huffed and puffed and eventually came up with stable, loving and safe. ‘Faithful,’ Kay said crisply, ‘settled, friendly.’ It was the best she could do and even those modest aims seemed completely unattainable to her.
Adam had promised her he would never stray again and begged her to believe him.
‘I can’t,’ she said simply. ‘I tried before and look where it got me. You want my trust. You can’t have it. There isn’t any.’
He sighed as though she was being obtuse or unreasonable.
The marriage became a convenient arrangement for raising the children. Julie had the baby, a girl, and Adam arranged to pay maintenance. He never saw his daughter. Theresa and the others knew nothing about their half-sister.
Once the twins started college Kay planned to take up training in information technology. Her independence was just around the corner. She was determined to build a new life for herself. And when she was sure of her footing she would leave Adam.
Theresa
‘You may turn over your papers now.’
The last exam. Her eyes skimmed the paper, snatching at the key words of the four questions to see if her revision had covered all the items. Yes, more or less. The world-trade one would be the hardest, she’d have to waffle a bit, but the rest were items she’d gone over and over till she was sick to death of them. Three hours and it would be done. Freedom.
She began to write, her mind working more quickly than her fingers could. She finished fifteen minutes ahead of time and tried to read over her work, but by then she was exhausted, concentration spent, unable to think straight anymore.
She capped her pen, closed her eyes and sat back in her chair. Summer beckoned. Two weeks family holiday on the Costa Brava and then university. If she got her grades. Surely she would. She had worked so hard. The teachers thought she’d sail through. She needed a B and two Cs for Exeter, the course in geology.
‘Couldn’t you have found somewhere further away?’ Her father had joked and her mother had gone all soppy and said, ‘I can’t imagine you not being here. Oh, I know it’ll be wonderful for you and everything, but I keep thinking how did you grow up so quickly?’
‘It’s only three years, Mum. I’ll probably be dying to get back to Manchester by the end of it.’
‘I doubt it,’ her mother snorted.
Theresa tried not to think too much about the actual move. It was exciting but a bit scary too. She was going into student halls of residence for her first year. After that she could move out to a place of her own, or get somewhere with friends. It would be brilliant. Her own place, own key. She’d had a silver key on her eighteenth-birthday cake. Key of the door. It used to be twenty-one but now you were grown up at eighteen. They still kept to twenty-one at the Bingo place. She’d been with her mum once. To the Mecca. A fundraiser for the Catholic Rescue Society. Most of the people knew all the lines and they’d shout them out with the caller, and when there was a saucy reference the whole place would make a big ‘w-h-o-o-o’ sound. Theresa and her mum nearly wet themselves at some of the quips, and the characters.
The night before her eighteenth birthday she’d been helping her mum make vol-au-vents and her mum had spoken in that halting tone that Theresa knew as her important voice.
‘Now, you’re eighteen, if you ever want to trace your family, we wouldn’t mind, Daddy and I. We’d understand.’
‘I don’t,’ Theresa said, faintly embarrassed. ‘I don’t see any point.’
‘It’s just that we wouldn’t want any of you to feel . . . well, that you couldn’t find your natural parents, that we’d be upset. If it mattered to you, if it does in the future, then we’d be behind you.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ she said gracelessly and changed the subject. She hadn’t wanted to before, why should she feel any different now?
‘Stop writing now,’ Mrs Evans called out. ‘Pens down. Please remain at your desks while papers are collected.’
Outside in the glaring sunshine, Theresa joined her friends, swapping anecdotes from the exam. They wandered to the sixth-form common room and made coffee to go with their cigarettes.
‘Voila!’ Letty produced a bottle of martini and plastic cups. ‘A little light refreshment.’
Oh, yes please! It was the last exam. It was all over. Theresa took a big swig. Someone put Stevie Wonder on full blast. ‘Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing.’ Theresa finished her cigarette, drained her martini and felt a bubble of elation rise inside her.
‘C’mon.’ She pulled Letty to her feet and began to dance. Life starts here.
Kay
She had known she’d cry. She had worn waterproof mascara and had two neatly pressed handkerchiefs in her handbag. She held it in as much as she could, clenching her stomach and pressing her lips tight. But when they had made their vows she had felt her eyes fill and had to dab and sniff and hold on tight.
She and Adam had been so happy those first few years and then bang! Like hitting a brick wall at sixty miles an hour. The years since had been little more than a sham, a foundation for the children. Please, God, let it be better for them.
She glanced across at Craig’s family. His parents seemed nice. They’d only met two days before. The Murrays had travelled down from Aberdeen and were staying at the Midland in town. Craig she knew better, he’d visited several times in the three years that he and Theresa had been going out. He had a dry sense of humour which caught her unawares many times. He wasn’t good-looking, not in the conventional sense, his chin too narrow, nose too big, hair a mass of wiry brown curls, but he had a lovely manner and he plainly adored Theresa. Anyone could see that.
The two had met as postgraduate students at St Andrew’s. He was in archaeology – tombs and bones, he declared in sonorous tones – and Theresa was a geology student. Craig had made various puns about rocks and hard places when he asked her out.
Kay watched as Theresa raised her veil and Craig leant forward to kiss his new bride, and she felt the swell of emotion playing havoc with her insides. Who had decided that joy should make us weep? Adam squeezed her hand and she turned to smile at him, blinking hard.
The organ struck up and people prepared to follow the couple out of the church. She gestured to Dominic and the twins to get ready. She felt drained. There would be photographs now, then the reception, then a dance going on late into the evening. Hours before she could slip her shoes off and her girdle and lie down, and already she could feel a headache starting. Just tension. It was supposed to be a happy day but she felt silly and emotional and off-kilter. To do with her little girl being all grown up and married she supposed. Mrs Craig Murray. Theresa Murray. Tess, Craig called her, a nickname of his own which Theresa accepted without any qualms. Even though Theresa had left home six years ago for university, marriage put the seal on it. And they’d be so far away. Exeter had been bad enough but Craig had taken a post in Boston. Only for three years, Theresa had reassured her, we’ll be back then. But Kay wondered. They were always saying it was hard to find posts in the UK. You read about the brain drain in the papers. She would miss her. And if they had children . . .
‘C’mon, Mum!’ Theresa yelled. She’d had her hair dressed long, always conscious of her ear, and found a broad lace hairband to frame her face and cover her ears. They had set her hair in ringlets and woven silk flowers through them to match her dress of ivory silk. Kay thought she looked like someone from a medieval painting.
The mother of the bride hurried to her place in the group. She had been going to weight-watchers for six months in anticipation of this day, she’d lost eight pounds, that was all, eight rotten pounds after weeks of Ryvita and cottage cheese. The outfit she had bought – a light, grey jersey sleeveless dress and jacket – was her usual size, but it was the best quality, cut well so it looked simple and elegant. She had dyed her hair a rich brown and covered up the sprinkling of grey hairs she had. You couldn’t see much of it beneath her large, grey hat, but she’d take that off once they had done the photographs.
‘Now, everyone, say Manchester!’ the photographer said. They all obliged.
‘What about Aberdeen?’ Craig called out.
‘Go on then,’ the photographer said, ‘after three.’
She would miss her. It was so hard letting them go.
Theresa
The university in Boston ensured that all staff had adequate healthcare plans and when Theresa became pregnant there was no problem in covering the costs of antenatal care.
Her mother had been practically delirious when she’d received the news. Had rung them and then written, burbling with excitement. A few days ago a parcel had arrived: new baby clothes. She’d sent babygrows, vests, mittens and bootees – yellow and white. There was a second parcel with a note attached: Theresa – these were what you had when you came to us, I’ve been keeping them for you, love Mum. She unwrapped it and found a shawl, silk-and-wool, with a delicate scalloped design, and a little hand-knitted coat in lemon. When you came to us. Someone had dressed her in these, got her ready for her new family. She wondered who. And who had provided the clothes? Had her real mother knitted the coat? She felt a little uneasy thinking about it. It didn’t matter really. The shawl was lovely and she would use it for her own baby.
‘She never had this,’ Theresa remarked to Craig one night as they lay in bed, his hand on her belly feeling the baby wriggling inside. The sheets pulled back so they could see the movements too.
‘She had you though. And Dominic and Martin and Michael.’
‘But it’s different.’
‘Yes?’ He waited.
‘It’s not a straight swap, is it? Having a child of your own or adopting one. They were probably encouraged to think of it like that when there were loads of us up for grabs.’
He looked at her, narrowed his eyes at the unexpected sting in her words.
‘But you don’t get your baby,’ she continued, ‘you don't go through all this feeling it grow and then having it and knowing it already, knowing it came from you. Ow!’ She gasped as the lump stretched the skin on the left of her belly. ‘It must still hurt. Being infertile. Even if you get a family through adoption. Mum’s never given birth, I can’t share all that with her.’
He drummed his fingers on the rounded lump still visible and it twisted away in response. She gave a little laugh. ‘What about your mum, did she ever tell you what her labours were like?’
‘Good God, woman –’ he flared his nostrils and raised his eyebrows – ‘are ye mad? Dates and times and birth weight and that was quite enough biological detail as far as my parents were concerned.’
‘They’re not that bad.’
‘They are. Not quite under the gooseberry bush maybe, but pretty damn near. D’you think the wee one can hear us?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I can sing it a wee lullaby, teach it a little of its sacred Scottish ancestry.’ He rubbed his hand over the dome, put his mouth just below her navel and sang: ‘Ally-bally, ally-bally bee, sitting on his Mammy’s knee, waiting for his wee bobbie, to buy some Coulter’s candy . . . ’
She giggled. ‘It tickles.’ She pushed his head. He grunted and kissed her belly. He continued to stroke at it in circles, making the sweeps a little wider each time.
She made a small sound in her throat. He knew exactly what it meant. He slid his hand down the slope of her belly, over the bush of pubic hair and slowly, slowly in amongst it. She arched her back slightly and twisted, offering him a nipple. He licked it and felt the reaction where his fingers lay.
As they made love she thought of the baby, conceived this way and soon to be born as a result. The whole thing seemed prosaic and precious and preposterous at the same time.
She felt sweaty and couldn’t stop trembling. She was relieved though. They hadn’t done a C-section on her. The rates in some of the hospitals were frightening. A testimony to the medicalisation of childbirth and to the triumph of technology over necessity. Plus there was the risk of people suing each other all the time. She’d heard things were more relaxed in parts of the UK. You could have home births and domino schemes where you just went in for the actual delivery and home as soon as you liked.
She had tentatively enquired about a home birth in Boston and the obstetrician had looked at her as though she had suggested stuffing and roasting her child at birth. So she had concentrated on stressing her desire for a normal delivery, even if that meant a long labour. Thank God the baby had been presenting in the right position and she had deliberately delayed going into the hospital until the contractions were well established. By the time she allowed Craig to get her into the car the pains were so intense that she was unable to sit down and had to travel in the back with her bum in the air.