here pronto.’
As usual, Imogen responds immediately. I hear her frantic footsteps scampering above. She starts to yell, ‘Where is my hairbrush? Have you seen my Flower Fairy pencil case? Who moved my reading book? I left it here last night.’ She takes school very seriously and can’t stand the idea of being late.
Lily is harder to impregnate with any sense of urgency. She has picked up some of the vocabulary that Liam and his friends use – luckily nothing terrible yet, but she often tells her older siblings to ‘chill’ and she is indeed the embodiment of this verb.
I drop the girls off at school with three minutes to spare before the bell is due to ring. I see this as a bonus but honestly, if they’re a few minutes late I don’t sweat it. I only make an effort with time-keeping because I know Imogen gets stressed and bossy otherwise. I’m aware that it’s our duty as parents to instil into our children a sense of responsibility and an awareness of the value of other people’s time, but really, would the world shudder if they missed the start of assembly?
I wasn’t always this relaxed. With Liam, I was a fascist about time-keeping. About that, and so much more. I liked him to finish everything on his plate, I was fanatical about him saying please and thank you and sending notes when he received gifts. Well, not notes as such, because I’m talking about a time before he could write. I got him to draw thank you pictures. His shoes always shone, his hair was combed, he had the absolutely correct kit and equipment. I didn’t want him to be judged and found lacking. It’s different when you’re a single mum, which I was with Liam. I met Ben when Liam was almost six. Being married to Ben gives me a confidence that allows me to believe I can be two minutes late for school drop-off and no one will tut or roll their eyes. I didn’t have the same luxury when Liam was small.
Suddenly I think about Abigail Curtiz’s email and I’m awash with conflicting emotions.
There are lots of things that are tough about being a single parent. The emotional, physical, and financial strain of being entirely responsible for absolutely everything – around the clock, a relentless twenty-four/seven – takes its toll. And the loneliness? The brutal, crushing, insistent loneliness? Well, that’s a horror. As is the bone-weary, mind-wiping, unremitting exhaustion. Sometimes my arms ached with holding him, or my back or legs. Sometimes, I was so tired I wasn’t sure where I was aching; I just felt pain. But there were moments of reprieve when I didn’t feel judged, or lonely, or responsible. There were moments of kindness. And those moments are unimaginably important and utterly unforgettable. They’re imprinted on my brain and heart. Every one of them.
Abigail Curtiz owns one such moment.
When I told Abi that I was pregnant she was, obviously, all wide eyes and concerned. Shocked. Yes, I admit she was bubbling a bit, with the drama of it all. That was not her fault – we were only nineteen and I didn’t know how to react appropriately, so how could I expect her to know? We were both a little giddy.
‘How far on are you?’ she asked.
‘I think about two months.’ I later discovered at that point I was officially ten weeks pregnant, because of the whole “calculate from the day you started your last period” thing, but that catch-all calculation never really washed with me because I knew the exact date I’d conceived. Wednesday, the first week of the first term, my second year at university. Stupidly, I’d had unprotected sex right slap-bang in the middle of my cycle. That – combined with my youth – meant that one transgression was enough. And even now, a lifetime on, I feel the need to say it wasn’t like I made a habit out of doing that sort of thing. In all my days, I’ve had irresponsible, unprotected sex precisely once.
‘Then there’s still time. You could abort,’ Abigail had said simply. She did not shy away from the word. We were young. The power, vulnerability and complexity of our sexuality was embryonic, but our feminist rights were forefront of our minds. My body, my choice, my right. A young, independent woman, I didn’t have to be saddled with the lifetime consequences of one night’s mistake. There had been a girl on my course who’d had a scare in the first year. I’d been verbose about her right to choose and I’d been clear that I thought she should terminate the pregnancy, rather than her education. The girl in question had agreed; so had Abi and pretty much everyone who knew of the matter. She hadn’t been pregnant, though. So. Well, you know, talk is cheap, isn’t it? She’s the chief financial officer of one of the biggest international Fast-Moving Consumer Goods corporations now. I saw her pop up on Facebook a couple of years ago. CFO of an FMCG. I Googled the acronyms. She accepted my friend request, which was nice of her, but she rarely posts. Too busy, I suppose. Anyway, I digress.
I remember looking Abi in the eye and saying, ‘No. No, I can’t abort.’
‘You’re going ahead with it?’ Her eyes were big and unblinking.
‘Yes.’ It was the only thing I was certain of. I already loved the baby. It had taken me by surprise but it was a fact.
‘And will you put it up for adoption or keep it?’
‘I’m keeping my baby.’ We both sort of had to suppress a shocked snigger at that, because it was impossible not to think of Madonna. That song came out when I was about five years old but it was iconic enough to be something that was sung in innocence throughout our childhoods. The tune hung, incongruously, in the air. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that the irony hit me: an anthem of my youth basically heralded the end to exactly that.
‘OK then,’ she said, ‘you’re keeping your baby.’
Abigail instantly accepted my decision to have my baby and that was a kindness. An unimaginably important and utterly unforgettable kindness.
She didn’t argue that there were easier ways, that I had choices, the way many of my other friends subsequently did. Nor did she suggest that I might be lucky and lose it, the way a guy in my tutorial later darkly muttered. I know he behaved like an arsehole because before I’d got pregnant, he’d once clumsily come on to me one night in the student bar. I was having none of it. I guess he had mixed feelings about me being knocked up, torn between, ‘Ha, serves the bitch, right’ and ‘So, she does put out. Why not with me?’ I tell you, there’s a lot of press about the wrath of a woman scorned, but men can be pretty vengeful, too. Anyway, back to Abi: she did not fume that I was being romantic and short-sighted, the way my very frustrated tutor did when I finally fessed up to her, and nor did she cry for a month, the way my mother did. Which was, you know, awful.
She made us both a cup of tea, even went back to her room to dig out a packet of Hobnobs, kept for special occasions only. I was on my third Hobnob (already eating for two) before she asked, ‘So who is the dad?’ Which was awkward.
‘I’d rather not say,’ I mumbled.
‘That ugly, is he?’ she commented with a smile. Again, I wanted to chortle; I knew it was inappropriate. I mean, I was pregnant! But at the same time, I was nineteen and Abi was funny. ‘I didn’t even know that you were having sex with anyone,’ she added.
‘I didn’t feel the need to put out a public announcement.’
Abigail then burst into peels of girlish, hysterical giggling. ‘The thing is, you’ve done exactly that.’
‘I suppose I have.’ I gave in to a full-on cackle. It was probably the hormones.
‘It’s like, soon you are going to be carrying a great big placard saying, I’m sexually active.’
‘And careless,’ I added. We couldn’t get our
