The Thing About Clare Read online

  ‘I should go and get someone. Dad? Or Mrs Connors? Or an ambulance?’

  ‘It’s too late for all that . . . I just need you . . . to get some towels. There’s going to be . . . a bit of a mess.’

  Miriam was still struggling to comprehend.

  ‘Mum. Are you having . . .?’

  ‘Yes, I’m having a bloody baby, now will you just do as I say. Please.’ She added, ‘It’s not far off now.’ And then she closed her eyes and began to pant.

  Her mother had just sworn. She never swore. Miriam seemed to be held by some invisible force to the floor. Her mother had just sworn and she was having a baby. The information would not allow itself to be processed. Surely she must have known what was coming? You couldn’t just be pregnant and not know, could you? She’d done it three times already, after all. There were signs to recognise, weren’t there, or women would be having surprise babies all over the place. And yet there was no denying that her mother appeared to be in labour, not that Miriam had much understanding of what that meant in practice.

  Her mother made a muffled screaming sound. She seemed to be biting down on something – a pair of her father’s socks? – and Miriam jerked herself into action.

  ‘Hold on, Mum. I’m going to go downstairs and boil the kettle and get some towels and then I’m going to go and find someone to help.’

  ‘No,’ came the anguished cry from her mother. ‘Stay here. The head . . .’

  Her mother seemed unable to speak any more. She was straining as if she were on the loo, and making this grunting sound through her clenched teeth. Miriam reluctantly looked to where she assumed the head would appear. There, between her mother’s splayed legs, was a bloodied crown of sticky blond hair. A baby. Her little brother or sister. And it was just there. She could reach out and touch it.

  Her mother stopped straining and the head withdrew a little, back into its warm cave.

  ‘It will be born with the next push,’ said her mother, sounding totally calm in this small hiatus.

  ‘What do I do, Mum?’

  ‘You catch it and then pass it to me and I’ll wrap it up in the sheets to keep it warm. There’s the cord and the afterbirth but we’ll worry . . .’

  Her mother’s words trailed off as the contraction built and the grunting noise began again. As her mother strained, Miriam could see the head re-emerging, followed by a tiny pair of shoulders and then the rest of the tiny little life slithered out. Miriam only just had chance to stick out her hands and catch him, for it was a boy. He was slippery, covered in a viscous bloody slime, the purple cord snaking out behind him.

  Quickly and without fear she handed him to her mother, who put him to her breast whilst pulling the striped flannel sheet up to cover his tiny body.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Now go and find Mrs Connors and your father.’

  Miriam stood, open-mouthed. She couldn’t leave now, not with her mother in disarray and her baby brother still attached to her. But she needed help. She didn’t feel qualified to help on her own.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll be fine now,’ her mother said. ‘But I’ll need some help with the next bit.’

  ‘There’s more?!’ asked Miriam. What else could there possibly be?

  ‘I have to deliver the afterbirth and I need someone to check that it’s all there. I’m not sure that you can do that.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Miriam efficiently, certain that she didn’t want any part of delivering anything. ‘You stay there. I’ll be right back.’

  But her mother was no longer listening. She was gazing into the eyes of her newborn son as he sucked contentedly.

  Miriam turned and raced down the stairs with gigantic strides, almost catapulting herself into the front door. She hurtled out into the street and was momentarily taken aback by the tables and flags where the cars should be. The street party was still carrying on as if nothing had happened and yet just yards away a miracle had just taken place. She scanned the crowd, searching for the familiar shape of Mrs Connors and found her not far away, decanting squash from a large plastic jug.

  ‘Mrs Connors!’ she shouted, but she could not make herself heard over the chatter and laughter. She pushed her way through the groups of women serving food to those seated until she was right next to her.

  ‘Mrs Connors!’ she said again, quieter this time but with such urgency in her voice that Mrs Connors immediately stopped pouring, the jug floating in mid-air over the cups.

  ‘What on earth is the matter, Miriam? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Something’s happened,’ said Miriam, being deliberately vague. She didn’t want all and sundry knowing before she found her father and Clare and Anna. ‘Mum needs some help. Could you come?’

  ‘Well, of course, dear. I’ll just finish this jug.’ She resumed her pouring.

  ‘No! Now,’ urged Miriam, and then, as an afterthought, ‘Please.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll come right now, although I can’t imagine what can possibly have happened to merit all this fuss.’

  There was no time to explain.

  ‘Mum’s at home. She’s upstairs,’ said Miriam. ‘Just let yourself in and go up. I need to go and find Dad.’

  At this Mrs Connors seemed to sense that something was indeed wrong and broke into as quick a walk as her frame would allow.

  ‘I think your dad’s gone to The Merry Widow with some of the chaps. I’m not sure the Double Diamond was to their taste,’ she couldn’t resist adding.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be back as quick as I can. If you see Clare or Anna could you tell them to go home?’ she shouted over her shoulder as she headed off in the direction of the pub.

  It was hard to see in the gloom of the tap room and Miriam’s eyes struggled to adjust. She heard her father before she saw him, sitting at a table between the dartboard and the billiards table holding court.

  ‘So he said, “Well, Frank, my boy, you should have opted for the lemon sole!”’ The men all burst into laughter, which her father was absorbing as if it were oxygen. Then he saw her and held his hand up to silence his audience. ‘Ah, Miriam,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’s not all over already, is it?’

  ‘You must go home, Dad. Now. Straight away. Something’s happened. To Mum. She needs you now.’

  Sensing her urgency, her father stood up at once.

  ‘Well, gents, it looks like there has been some minor domestic drama which requires my attention. I must bid you farewell.’

  He picked up his glass, drained the pint in one and followed Miriam.

  ‘What’s the emergency?’ he asked as they made their way back towards the house.

  Miriam looked at him and an enormous smile blossomed across her face.

  ‘You will never guess what!’ she began. ‘Mum’s had a baby!’

  Her father stopped stock-still, his brow furrowed, his lips parted, and then, as the significance of what Miriam had just told him sank in, he set off again at a run.

  ‘A baby?’ he said as they ran. ‘A bloody baby!’

  By the time they got back to the house, Clare and Anna were already there. Their mother was sitting up in bed, her hair brushed and with a clean nightdress on. The baby was wearing a pink knitted romper suit which flopped uselessly at the end of each tiny limb.

  ‘I thought you said it was a boy?’ her father said.

  ‘It is a boy,’ said her mother. ‘This is all that we had and I only kept this one because my mother knitted it for Miriam and I couldn’t bear to throw it out.’

  ‘Well,’ said her father, uncharacteristically momentarily lost for words. ‘This is a turn-up for the books.’

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ said Clare with a smirk.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ her father continued.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ said Clare. ‘I thought you’d know all about the birds and the bees.’

  ‘Clare!’ said her mother. ‘It is a bit of a surprise,’ she added.

  ‘Did you n
ot know, have no inkling at all?’ asked her father. Miriam, who had been wanting to ask the self-same question, looked at her mother enquiringly.

  ‘Honestly I had not a clue. I knew I was carrying a few extra pounds and I was feeling a bit tired and what have you. But when I stopped getting the curse, I just assumed it was the change. I am forty-seven, after all. And there was none of that terrible sickness that I had with you girls.’

  ‘They do say that about boys,’ chipped in Mrs Connors, who was busying herself with tidying up. ‘I never had a moment’s nausea when I was carrying our Malcolm.’

  ‘But a baby . . .’ said her father. ‘I can’t quite take it in.’

  ‘What shall we call him?’ asked Anna. ‘We can’t keep calling him Him.’

  ‘A name!’ said her mother. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I can’t think.’

  ‘I like Zowie,’ said Anna. ‘Like Zowie Bowie.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Anna,’ said Clare dismissively. ‘What about Duncan or Paul. Or Woody.’

  ‘Woody’s not a real name,’ said Miriam.

  ‘We could name him Robert after my father,’ said her father. Anna pulled a face.

  ‘I think I shall call him Sebastian,’ said her mother. ‘I’ve always loved that name. It’s so classy, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s a bit girly,’ began Clare, but Miriam mouthed at her to be quiet.

  ‘Yes,’ said her father. ‘Sebastian. Like in Twelfth Night.’

  ‘Like in Belle and Sebastian on the telly,’ said Anna. ‘Hello, Sebastian. I’m your big sister.’

  Sebastian turned his head in the direction of the sound, his eyes still half-closed from his journey along the birth canal. He had blond hair and red skin and he was very wrinkly. Miriam couldn’t help but think that he was really rather ugly. Her mother started yawning widely and Mrs Connors took control.

  ‘Right, you lot. It’s all been a bit of a shock, I know, but now your mum needs to get some sleep. Lord knows, it’ll be in short enough supply around here for a while. So can I suggest that we all go back to the party and she and your new baby brother . . . Sebastian?’ Her mother nodded. ‘Sebastian can get some sleep.’

  Mrs Connors ushered the girls from the room, leaving her father standing at the bedside shaking his head. As she sloped out, Miriam heard him speaking quietly to her mother.

  ‘Are you all right, Dorothy darling? I can’t believe you had to go through all that by yourself.’ Miriam saw him lean over to hug his wife and then the door closed behind her.

  ‘A baby!’ said Clare as they trooped down the stairs. ‘It’s disgusting. I can’t believe they still do it. Yuk!’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Miriam, and then to Clare, ‘I know. I can’t believe she didn’t know.’

  ‘Well, you heard what she said,’ replied Clare. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you’d cover up. And she looked as surprised as we did.’

  ‘I saw him being born,’ said Miriam quietly. ‘It was amazing. He just fell out all of a slither. It looked really painful for Mum. I’m not sure I want any children if that’s what it’s like.’

  ‘No danger of that! You have to do it first, you know, sis,’ said Clare snidely.

  Miriam smacked her on the arm.

  ‘Do what?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Miriam quickly, and again pulled a face at Clare.

  ‘I can’t wait to tell everyone,’ said Anna, and then, ‘We can tell people, can’t we? I mean, it’s not a secret or anything, is it?’

  ‘No,’ said Miriam. ‘I can’t think why it would be and everyone will know soon enough.’

  ‘Well, I’m definitely not keeping him a secret,’ said Clare. ‘Best bit of gossip that I’ve heard in ages.’

  The three of them stepped out through the front door and into the street. As they did so an enormous cheer went up.

  ‘Hip hip!’ shouted Mrs Connors, who must have raced down the stairs and out of the house to spread the news with a haste that Miriam would not have thought her capable of.

  ‘Hurrah!’ shouted the crowd.

  ‘A new baby!’ shouted someone. ‘And on Jubilee Day. That’s worth a toast. Let us raise our glasses to the new Baby Bliss. To Baby Bliss.’

  ‘Sebastian!’ said Anna proudly.

  ‘To Sebastian,’ said someone.

  ‘To Sebastian,’ the crowd echoed and then another cheer went up.

  Somewhere in the distance, Miriam thought she could hear a baby cry.

  V

  The first three weeks of life with Sebastian in the family passed in a blur. It was school exam season, and so Miriam had been trying to squeeze her O level revision in around the housework and cooking that she was having to do to help her mother. It wasn’t great, to be honest, and she was hoping that someone would write her a note for school explaining how impossible her life had suddenly become.

  Her mother did not seem to be adapting well. For the first two weeks she had stayed in bed with Sebastian. Her confinement – that’s what Mrs Connors had called it, although that suggested that her mother was trapped up there and Miriam could see no reason why she couldn’t just get up. She and her sisters had all tiptoed around, trying not to disturb mother and baby, but as Sebastian quickly seemed capable of making more noise than the rest of them put together, the tiptoeing had very soon fallen by the wayside.

  June stretched into July and her mother was still showing barely any inclination to retake her position as the de facto head of the household. She was at least now joining them in the kitchen for meals, with Sebastian in the old Silver Cross carrycot beside the table, but as soon as the plates were cleared her mother would push herself up from the table, gather up the cot and return to her bedroom. Miriam felt that she needed to raise the subject with her father, as things had to get back to normal.

  ‘Dad,’ she began one evening when she and her father were taking their turn at washing and drying the dishes.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied flatly. Gone were his verbal embellishments. He too seemed totally worn down by the situation.

  ‘Is Mum all right?’

  ‘I believe so,’ he said without looking up from the soap-suddy bowl.

  ‘It’s just that,’ began Miriam, ‘I mean, was she like this after we were born?’

  ‘Like what?’

  He wasn’t making this easy.

  ‘I mean, I know she’s tired and all that but she seems to have lost all her spark. Is that what happened when we were babies?’

  Her father took his time scrubbing at the edges of a pan that looked perfectly clean to Miriam before he spoke. She continued to dry the plates and waited.

  ‘I think the whole thing has come as a bit of a shock to your mother,’ he said eventually. ‘Well, to all of us. We thought we were finished with babies. Anna’s eleven. We were just moving forward into a new stage of life. Your mother was even talking about going back to work.’

  This was news to Miriam. It had never crossed her mind that her mother wouldn’t always just be at home waiting for them. It didn’t really affect her as she was still planning to go to London after Sixth Form, but the others would be here.

  ‘And with Sebastian being born as he was, you know, just out of the blue, your mum hasn’t had any time to get used to the new situation. I think she’s still adjusting. It’s been a shock.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ said Miriam, who still couldn’t get the sound of her mother’s groaning in pain out of her mind.

  ‘I think we just have to give her time,’ he continued. ‘And in due course she will get it all straight in her head and then we’ll get back to normal, I’m sure we will.’

  Miriam nodded although she was already struggling to remember what ‘normal’ looked like.

  ‘And in the meantime,’ he continued, ‘we just have to do everything we can to support her so that she doesn’t have anything to worry about.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miriam quietly.


  This was her moment. She needed to tell him now or she doubted whether she would find the courage again.

  ‘It’s just that . . .’

  Her father had finished the washing-up and was drying his hands.

  Miriam began again.

  ‘Do you remember, just before Sebastian was born and there was the street party and all that?’

  Her father was heading towards the door, evening paper under his arm.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said, but Miriam could tell that he wasn’t listening.

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ she said as he opened the door. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Miriam!’ her mother’s voice shouted down the stairs. ‘Could you bring me a bottle and a clean nappy?’

  Her father left the room. The moment had passed.

  ‘Yes, Mum. Just coming,’ shouted Miriam, but she didn’t move. She just stood there. She could feel the folded envelope pressing into her through her jeans pocket.

  Clare came in. ‘Mum’s shouting you,’ she said as she got a biscuit from the barrel on the windowsill.

  ‘I know. I heard her.’

  ‘She wants some milk and a nappy.’

  ‘I know. Can’t you get it?’

  ‘I’m just going to meet Richie. I haven’t got time.’

  ‘What happened to Stuart?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘Who, that loser? He’s history. Richie’s taking me to the flicks.’

  ‘Miriam!’ came the cry from upstairs again.

  ‘Coming, Mum,’ shouted Miriam.

  ‘It wouldn’t kill you to help,’ she hissed at Clare. ‘It shouldn’t be all down to me, you know. I’ve got a life too.’

  Clare just looked at her and laughed. ‘I’ll be back around ten thirty,’ she said, and left through the back door, letting it bang behind her.

  Wearily, Miriam put a pan of water on the stove to heat up and dropped a bottle of formula from the fridge into it. Then she pulled down the clothes-airer and whipped off the nappies and liners, folding them into two neat piles. She tested the temperature of the milk by splashing a few drops on the inside of her wrist and then carried the whole lot up the stairs to her mother’s room.