MESSAGES FROM GHOSTS

I needed him to hold me and tell me he loved me. I rang him again and again, this time not letting the embarrassment get to me. I was at my sister’s when I finally got hold of him. He wouldn’t let me come over. He whispered urgently “the police are here, they arrested a dealer and found my name in his phone, they are asking me questions”. “I’ll come over later”. “No!” Pregnant: I took my sister’s one remaining pregnancy test. She didn’t have the box for it so I checked in Boots on the way home, trying to memorise which symbol meant what. Trying to have a pee when you’ve got to do a test is nigh on impossible. Waiting to need a pee takes forever when you’ve a pregnancy test sitting in your bag. I sat in the toilet staring at the stick. It showed the line. I couldn’t remember what that line meant. I sat in my bedroom starting at the line on the stick all night. At 7.00a.m. the next morning I showered, dressed and left the house. I got to Boots in Victoria and went straight to the pregnancy tests. The line meant it was positive. I was pregnant. I was alone in Boots in Victoria, booted and suited for work, and pregnant. Pregnant Conversations: Booted and suited for my first day in my new job at the PR Agency. The day passed in a blur. On the outside I smiled and made polite small talk, I asked clever questions and made suggestions. I found stationery for my desk and introduced myself to new people in the kitchen. I did the tour, wearing that glassy smile and feeling hugely out of place. I was not and will never be a PR person, I started to wonder how and why I had ended up in this place. All the while inside I was endlessly repeating ‘I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant’. At lunchtime, after the organised meal with the team, I made my excuses and ran across the road to the phone box to ring him. He made it very clear that he didn’t want to see me that night, he’d been given a creative brief that he had to work on, this was the “one”, the one that he and his creative partner would crack, the one that would get them on a big campaign, get them noticed by the senior creative directors, get them in front of clients, get them on proper accounts. Every week the Seniors threw out the “one”. Every week junior creative teams worked all day, all night and then all day, to crack the brief. To get their break, to make their name, to walk straight into £30K pa jobs… I didn’t give him any choice. Normally he’d tell me to fuck off to Hades. This time he listened. “Come over at 7.30, I’ll get out for a pint and something to eat”. I rang my sister to tell her the news. I had no answers for her questions, I didn’t want to speak to her about it, I couldn’t. I had to keep a lid on it all, if one thing came out, then everything else might tumble out as well. My sister didn’t want to ask me questions. Questions! There is only one question and neither of us wanted to say it. I finished work early that day, and wandered around Oxford Street and Soho for 2 hours, freezing cold, unable to stay still, unable to sit alone. Walking the final distance to Charlotte Street, I felt trapped by my own body. Nothing mattered, nothing else would ever be the same again. My whole life would be affected by the next hour. I dragged myself the final distance to his office. The Security Guard waved me through and I found him in his office. He looked genuinely shocked to see me there and fussed me out of his office as quickly as possible. We went to the pub. There was a good half an hour of small talk and chitchat all the way from his office, as we walked to the pub, while we waited for our drinks and found somewhere to sit. “So…?” I couldn’t look at him. I had managed to spend the day being bright and friendly whilst inside imagining this moment again and again. And now I didn’t know what to say at all. I hid my face in my hands and took a deep breath, held it for a count of 5 and released it. With that breath I released everything else… “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant and it’s yours. But you don’t have to worry. It’s me that’s pregnant. I’ll sort it out. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want your money. You just had to know, that’s all”. I looked up and pointed at the door “there’s the door, you can go”. I started to push back my chair, panic rising and the walls closing in. He grabbed my hands and pulled me back down. He tried to put his arms around me but I pushed him back in fear. We stared at each other, from within this tight circle of arms: him holding on to me, me pulling back. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here”. I started gibbering about how I had been feeling so poorly and I hadn’t been sure what was happening to me, and I had wanted to see him yesterday, to do the test with him and that everything about me just hurt and ached. A fresh round of drinks were bought. The conversation continued, about the pregnancy, about that night, about how I felt there and then. “So, what are you going to do?” There, he’d said it. He’d come out with it. The words. The Question. The burning issue. So what was I going to do? I had known right from the moment I found out. I knew what I was going to do. I had no choice. I had no home – I slept in a friend’s attic, I had no money, I took copious amounts of drugs – I was an addict. I smoked, I drank, my body was too thin and ill-nourished, I couldn’t physically mentally or emotionally support a baby. Rationally I knew exactly what I had to do. Rationale is a wonderful thing isn’t it. There was only love and sex and drugs in our relationship, it was not committed in anyway. Deep down I knew he was seeing other people as well as me, however I chose to ignore it, I chose to pretend I was ‘cool’ and a grown-up about these things. I adopted the smug ‘I know what my boyfriend is like’ position. I knew we only partied together. We had very little conversation with each other, apart from about sex, about drugs or about friends doing drugs and having sex. We didn’t talk about stuff. We rarely dated as in spending the day going on walks or to museums. We loafed about watching TV together, or sitting in pubs or dancing in clubs. We went to the cinema together because it filled in the blanks in conversation. Or I was dragged off to a rugby match or go-cart racing… But I loved him. And I wanted to be with him. And I also loved this baby. It was my baby. Mine and his. It was a beautiful creation. It was a terrible thing I had decided. Rationale is a wonderful thing, isn’t it. I looked down so I couldn’t see his expression. I chose not to see his face when I spoke. “I don’t have any choice. There is only one thing I can do. But I am prepared to discuss it, you have a say and a right too”. There was a silence. I continued to look down, staring desperately at the table, struggling to contain myself, desperate not to lose control. He kissed the top of my head. I cried quietly. We left the bar and went back to his. He made love to me very slowly that night, I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t want anything inside of me. I felt it was wrong. That was where my baby was. The Clinic I rang the clinic the next day. They could see me that night. He couldn’t get away from work, he had caused problems within his team for leaving the night before, he couldn’t push it for another night. Not even an hour. I faced the decision of going alone or leaving it another day or two. All the time I left it, the baby was growing bigger and bigger. I went alone. I nearly didn’t go in. I walked past several times, checking the door, checking the area. I was terrified I would be attacked, that I would have to fight through crowds of angry women screaming abuse at me, begging me to reconsider, pushing pamphlets into my hands. I rang the bell and announced myself. Up a staircase to a small dirty white room. There was an air of shame hanging there, we all had one purpose, whatever our reasons. I filled out the forms and then sat quietly looking down at my lap, in a small waiting room with 3 or 4 other women. An Indian man and woman came in, the woman carrying a small child. The man did all the talking. The other women sitting waiting, all of us alone, shifted uncomfortably as one, trying not to listen to the conversation. I looked around, still avoiding eyes, drinking in the detail, wondering why these women were here, what were their stories, why are they alone, why am I alone, do we all end up here alone? I was with the Doctor. She wore a floral skirt and asked me lots of difficult questions about what contraception I had been using. It felt like an interrogation: ‘didn’t I use a condom’, ‘why didn’t I take the pill as well’, ‘how long have you been with your partner’. I was lost and couldn’t speak for long. Hadn’t the walk here been punishment enough? No, nothing could be enough punishment for what I was doing, not really. I was sent off to see another Doctor to have a scan. I laid on the table with my top pulled up and my trousers undone while he quickly scanned my belly. “About 10 weeks” he said. I had been looking the other way, ignoring the screen but at his words I turned to see. I saw nothing I could recognise but I saw my baby in my womb. I saw that much. I wanted to ask him for the picture, the scan. I wanted proof of this life, that he existed. I wanted him to matter, however short his life was. I didn’t dare speak, I was dumb with fear that he would laugh at my request. The Doctor told me I needed a blood test. I panicked and started to cry “I don’t like blood tests, I can’t have one, I’m not ready, I can’t just have one”. Obviously tired of us all, he told me it didn’t matter. Back with the original Doctor, I signed forms and was given information about how to pay. I was asked to choose what form of termination I wanted, and to which clinic I wanted to go. I was too early for my termination, I had to wait 2 weeks. And then the clinic I wanted to go to was full on the day, I was booked in on the first available Sunday, in 3 weeks time. And I was outside again. Holding my leaflets and standing on a street corner in Soho. An old woman looked at me from across the street, staring at me. I turned on my heel and fled. 3 Weeks Everyday was a battle with myself. My hand automatically finding my belly and covering it, protecting it. I talked to my baby, inside of me. I couldn’t help it. We were attached, it could hear me and I could feel it. I didn’t falter once. I couldn’t. I had to keep going. I wasn’t myself but then I had no right to be myself. I plodded on, never crying, lying in bed staring at the walls, lying in his arms, staring at his chest. Lost within my own thoughts but they were no longer my own thoughts, I wasn’t alone inside my body. I told one person, once. A taxi driver who picked me up late one night. He was excited about his wife having another baby. I hear a voice announcing that I was 12 weeks gone. It was me, I said it, I even said “12 weeks gone” in the way the Grandmother’s announce it. We had a conversation, a lovely conversation, a wonderful conversation that celebrated my little baby and it’s life. When he dropped me off, he refused to charge me my fare, he drove off waving, happy. Not knowing the truth about me. I had decided that it was a boy. I talked to it as a boy. One night I asked him if he knew what was happening. He looked at me in that male way… “What do you mean?” “Do you know what I’m doing, what’s happening to me”. “Yes”. “Do you know what’s growing inside of me?” “Yes”. “What do you feel?” “Sad and angry, for you, for me, for us.” Neither of us ever discussed it further. He protected me, he didn’t disappear, he stayed with me, I stayed with him… My sister-in-law was heavily pregnant. For the 3 weeks I refused to speak to my family, unable to cope with my Mother’s excitement and the constant updates. I became, as well as a bad person, a bad daughter. My sister was reduced to lying about me. When I did manage a conversation, it was nasty, I couldn’t help myself, it was all I could manage. The weekend arrived. It was Friday night and for some reason I was in the old work pub, the pub where he and I had first met, there for someone’s. People were teasing me, saying that he wouldn’t arrive, I knocked a drink over someone’s coat, I was sweating and feeling sick and then suddenly… …and then suddenly he arrived. He walked through the pub straight over to me and just held me. I felt overwhelmingly safe but at the same time, his very presence meant that the weekend had started. I don’t recall why, but I was at home by myself early Saturday evening waiting for him to call and let me know to come over. The phone rang and I grabbed it straightaway, expecting to hear him. It was my Mother. My sister-in-law had gone into labour. He rang next to hear me crying hysterically. I couldn’t even afford a cab to his house, I took the tube, rattling down tunnels alone and unfeeling, my hand still curled across my belly. We both pretended to watch television that night, neither of us taking anything in. Both sitting in silence. I wasn’t allowed to eat. This time I was being forced to starve myself to hurt, to kill something other than myself. I wanted to eat, I wanted to fill my face, I wanted to eat until it hurt, I wanted to eat everything. He self-consciously had a sandwich. Sunday Morning: I didn’t sleep. He held me tight all night, ignoring my attempts to roll away, pulling me back into his chest, stroking my hair. He slept, I think. He always slept. I laid there, watching the yellow light crawl through the windows, watching the day start, knowing that it was my last few hours with my baby. My hand feeling my little curved belly, pressing down on the flesh to feel a little hard place deep inside, I wanted that baby to feel my touch. It’s Mother’s touch. Every movement I made felt heavier, because every movement was taking me closer to the moment. I stood in the shower as long as possible, lost in the water, feeling it run down my face where the tears I hadn’t cried should fall. Not wanting to leave the protection of the warm water that surrounded me, like a foetus in a womb… My sister picked us up and we all drove in silence, me in the back hunched over, praying for road works or a breakdown, anything to hold us up, delay us. Suddenly we were parked outside an innocuous looking large house in Ealing, the car door was opened for me and… …and I couldn’t move, the world span around me at a wicked pace and I could hear him talking to me, leaning in to me, taking my hand. I put my head down between my knees, hyperventilating, pushing away the hands, holding myself in and together. They walked me to the front door and into reception but their fussing was making me wobble and I sent them home. I had to go on alone, I couldn’t carry anyone else with me, I couldn’t cope with anything outside of me and the baby. More forms, more nurses, a hurried and eventful blood test and a final quick consultation and I was in a bed, wearing my own knickers and a paper gown. I stared at Hollyoaks for some time, no clock and no watch to tell me the time, waiting for the knock on the door. And then a hand held mine, a voice said ‘it’s time’ and I was out in the hall and walking towards the theatre, down a pale blue carpeted hall, my hand trailing along the dado rail, holding another hand tightly, not knowing whose hand it was, not caring, just needing the touch. The operation theatre is in front of me, do they make you walk deliberately? Do they make you open that door deliberately, is this their way of making sure it’s all your decision? But I’m too scared to speak, my mouth is dry, I couldn’t speak anyway. I just hold that hand and follow instructions, feeling like a stupid little girl who has caused everyone a lot of trouble, I’m waiting to be smacked, I’m waiting for the surgeon to sit me down and tell me off, I’m waiting for the hand in mine to be snatched away. I’m waiting for the kindness to stop because what I am doing is not kind, and should not be supported. Inside the room I’m led to the table and told to climb up, everyone is in place, anaesthetist by my head, a nurse standing slightly back next to a covered tray of equipment, the Doctor standing by the end of the table. I can’t speak a word in that room, the doctor greeted me, the anaesthetist injected me and throughout I lie there dumbly silent, impotent but pregnant as the anaesthetic takes a hold of me, slowly washing over my body, I’m struggling to speak to my baby as it takes a hold. The last thing I feel before I lose consciousness is hands on my ankles. The last thing I see is the stirrups being pulled into place. Afterwards: I’m being pushed down the corridor, back to my room, in a wheelchair, a nurse walking alongside me, holding my hand. I’m in my room and they are patting the bed. I climb into the bed and they slip away from me. I’m in the toilet looking down, inside my pants is a thick white pad slightly smeared with blood. I want someone to come in and tell me that there had been a huge mistake, that I had been wrong, that I had made a mistake, and the test was faulty, and the scan was wrong, I hadn’t been pregnant. I wanted the doctor to come and shout at me for wasting precious doctor’s time and resources. I want to burst out the door shouting with joy at my mistake. But instead I sit there alone, feeling my empty belly. The walls coming closer and closer, moving across the room, the ceiling coming down towards me. A Nurse comes in and the walls jump back, the ceiling breaths out and there’s a cup of tea next to me. The Nurse fusses over me a bit, loudly and deliberately, clicking on the tv, letting normal life flood back into my life. Once alone again, the walls start to crawl towards me again, the ceiling reaching down towards me. I slid out of bed and start to dress furiously, ripping off the paper gown, pulling on my jeans. As I leave my room the Nurse darts forward, trying to pull me back to my room, another girl is being led to the theatre. I watch her slow walk, her leaning on her Nurse, I see her, I see me, I see us all. The Nurse is silently trying to push me back into my room but I am rooted watching her painful progress. And she is gone through the door and I can’t stay still any longer, the Nurse is trotting behind me, quietly speaking but I can’t hear her. Downstairs, faced by doors, I burst back through reception startling the people sitting there…and through the main door outside, through the gate and out of the grounds. The fresh air hits me in the face, shocking me. And then it starts, heaving and retching, on my knees in full sight of everyone, rocking back and forth, bringing up bile, holding my stomach, unable to see, unable to breath through my sick. The Nurse kneeling beside me, trying to pull me up, trying to get me back to the door, another Nurse at the door holding it open. I’m in the hall, being sick all over the carpet, girls in the waiting room staring at me petrified, Nurses shoving tissues in front of my face, pulling my hair back from my face, arms around me, holding me. They tried to get me back in my room but I wouldn’t go. They made me sit behind reception, the receptionist fussing about me. I skulked down low, holding my bucket, watching a cleaner washing down the carpet. I stank of sick, my jeans, my top, my hair. And he was there to pick me up. He looked at me sitting behind the receptionist, holding a bucket. Confused. Had I done it? Had I walked? What had happened? The receptionist quietly told him and gave him some instructions for caring for me. We walked back to my sister’s car silently, I climbed in the back, stopping to look at my sister, letting her know that it was OK, but it was done. I was left alone in his bed. He hid downstairs, not knowing how to deal with me. Then, and only then, finally I started to cry, pushing my face into my pillow, punching myself, pinching myself, biting my lip, hunched over in agony with cramps, kneeling on the bed, faced pushed down in the pillow, ripping the clothes off my body, sweating and shivering, angry and scared. Alone. Wishing he would come up and find me, unable to call him, unable to break outside of my own hell, needing to be held so much. Later, I rang my Mother. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had. My sister had avoided my question, she didn’t want to tell me. It was an impossible situation, but the whole delicate thread that holds me to my parents was stretched to breaking point, I practically hung up on them the night before when they rang to tell me that my sister-in-law was in labour, I couldn’t push it any further, nothing else was acceptable for them, I had to ring. I rang home. My parents were packing in preparation to drive north to see their latest Grand-daughter. They were excited, they had stories to tell, of the labour, of my brother, of my sister-in-law, of my nieces. Of their part in the labour, of calls to various family members, of waiting up all night for news, hearing their son’s voice crack with pride when he announced to them that they had a new Grand-daughter. I listened dumbly. They asked me what I had been doing that day, why hadn’t they been able to get hold of me? What do you say? “Well Mother, I was in a Clinic is West London having an abortion, killing your unborn Grandchild. I imagine it was a boy, I felt it was a boy. Yes, yes, the boyfriend. Well yes, normally we use condoms, but we were high on a cocktail of drugs. Hmmm, yes, I expect I should have an AIDS test, true. Good point. Yes, operation went well considering, thanks for asking”. No. I muttered something about having to work and Mother tutted, saying I work too hard and that I have to book time off to go and see the new baby as soon as possible. Every programme on that night featured a baby. The next day, and the next and the next: I went drinking. I met the Lesbian in town and we went to the pub at 11 that morning and started drinking.