They’d stretched out on Paddy’s bed that last night before the trial, both looking up at the ceiling, Paddy drawing on a cigarette, defiant to the last, in the face of his mother’s fury when she came into his bedroom the following morning and could smell he’d been smoking in there.
‘Why should I care?’ he’d said, flicking ash into the ashtray which was nestled among his chest hairs. ‘I’ll be out of here, won’t I? And they’ll fucking disown me anyway.’ They since had, pretty much. ‘So it’s you and me, kiddo,’ he’d told her tenderly. ‘You and me against the world.’
They were words that she’d clung to while she’d cried into her pillow every night since. Him, her and their baby, against the world.
And he’d explained everything to her, carefully, as if to a child. That, once he’d arrived in the nick, he had to apply to the governor for something called a VO, which apparently stood for visiting order. That he’d be allowed two a month (unlike Gurdy, who’d needed to ask, Paddy knew exactly how prison worked), and that since his ‘lousy fucking parents’ obviously wouldn’t want one, he’d request both for her, which meant she could go and visit him once a fortnight. ‘Keep an eye on what you’re up to,’ he’d said then, teasing her, running a proprietorial hand over her naked breasts. ‘Make sure you’re not getting up to anything you shouldn’t be.’
And Vicky had laughed then – as if – feeling secure in his embrace, all thoughts of him snogging the likes of bloody Lacey, or any other random slapper, spirited away. So she’d sought to reassure him – both in word and, for another languid hour, in deed.
And when it could no longer be in any doubt that she was carrying his baby, she had felt a welling of something approaching joy. No, it wasn’t the best timing. Yes, she was obviously far too young. No, she wasn’t sure how he’d react – he had a lot on his plate, didn’t he? And, yes – yes, of course she was scared. But she was carrying Paddy’s child. Which meant she was carrying a part of him inside her. Which, since he had been taken from her, felt exactly as it should be.
Or would seem so, once the small matter of her telling him about the baby had been dealt with. She’d pretty much decided now that she wouldn’t. Had decided that almost as soon as she’d spoken to Leanne, in fact. After all, she should wait till it was properly confirmed, shouldn’t she? By the blood test she was going to get down the doctors this coming week. Though, in reality, she knew she was simply looking for reasons to put it off, because it was such a momentous thing she had to do. She rehearsed it constantly in her head – how she’d broach it, the way she’d look, the exact words she’d say to him. But every time, she stalled at the next bit of the conversation, because she simply had no idea how he’d react. Having a child together wasn’t something they’d discussed, ever. Not even in jest. Not like Lucy had with Jimmy, who apparently talked about such things all the time. Well, so Lucy said. She only had her word for it.
But her and Paddy, never. So it was uncharted territory. He might be in raptures or he might go apoplectic – even if (and she told herself this constantly, to reassure herself) he would, without question, come round in the end.
And strangely, so strangely, the one other person she had told had reacted in a totally unexpected way. She’d expected Lucy (who she’d rushed to tell, feeling guilty she’d told Leanne first) to rail at her, fume at her, drag all sorts of Paddy-avoidance promises from her. Yet she hadn’t. She’d gone misty-eyed. Lucy! It had been surreal. Her friend had even cried with her, seemingly overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. It was like being braced for a whack by her mam and not getting it – all her emotional muscles had been stiff with disbelief.
‘Of course you must keep it,’ Lucy had told her. ‘It’s your child. Doesn’t matter that it’s his’ – this word being hissed, so no change of heart there – ‘it’s your child. How could you possibly even consider getting rid of it? Be rid of him, yes, but, never, never, your baby. How’d you know this isn’t your one shot at being a mum? How could you know?’
And when Vicky had pointed out that she’d never once considered getting rid of it, even if her mam kicked her out on the street, that had been when Lucy had spilled all those tears. ‘And I’ll support you, you know that, don’t you?’ she’d promised. ‘Sod your mam – I’ll support you. Money. Time. Anything you need. Blood sisters, remember? I’ll help you look after it. Her … him.’ She’d wiped her tears away then. ‘I wonder what you’ll be having?’ her eyes all shiny.
And they’d hugged and they’d hugged and it had all been so lovely (not to mention reassuring) but still all so weird.
Vicky gazed out of the bus window now, trying to breathe through the constant waves of nausea, seeing the leaves turning on the trees and the fields and hedgerows slowly greying – almost as if to match the city looming darkly ahead. And she was struck by the thought that by the time Paddy was returned to her, the winter would have come and gone and it would once again be spring. And she’d have had her baby. There was absolutely no doubt about that now. There couldn’t be. Nine months minimum, the solicitor had said. And the baby due in about seven. The baby Paddy didn’t even know existed.
She’d written daily. Long letters. Since the day he’d been taken. Long chatty letters, full of day-to-day minutiae and, because she was mindful that her letters would be read by other people, only very lightly sprinkled with coy references to sex. In return, despite him having all the time in the world, she was in possession of just the one reply. Which had at first upset her, it being full of self-pity and recriminations, and the sort of ‘me, me, me, me’ stuff Lucy was constantly pointing out to her. And very little, bar a crude ‘I hope you’re keeping it warm for me’, in the way of wondering how she was getting on.
But when Vicky read to the end she understood things a little better. Paper and stamps both cost money (a prison reality she’d never thought about) and why would he need to be the one writing the letters to her anyway? He was stuck in a prison, with nothing to tell her, so why waste money on paper when he could at least buy a few cigs – anything to help him get through the endless grey days. And Paddy’d never been much of a one for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Why would that suddenly change? And would she want it to? She’d never been one for wet lads, after all.
No, her letters to him were the things that most mattered. And now, in a matter of less than half an hour, she’d be seeing him in the flesh, the thought of which gave her butterflies. And made her heart leap, as if anxious to get there quicker.
HMP Armley looked like a castle, Vicky thought. Not a fairy-tale castle – it could never be that – but with its towering stone walls, its giant doors and its turrets, the sort of castle you’d see in a film about the olden days – you could almost imagine it being stormed by knights on horseback.
As it was, it was being stormed – albeit quietly and politely – by a small army of visitors, mainly women and children, some with babies hooked around their hips, many done up to the nines for their men. (Keeping it warm? The phrase couldn’t help but return to her.) But most of them wore the same sombre, almost defeated expressions of people who had to be somewhere they didn’t want to be.
Joining the queue for entry, and clutching her vital piece of paper, Vicky wondered at the way the next few months were going to go. The curious business of her being ordered here once a fortnight (it was a visiting ‘order’ after all) in much the same way that Leanne had told her she’d be summoned to the baby clinic to check on her and the baby’s progress.
‘First time?’
Having been silent for so long now, and still trying to take everything in, Vicky
